[Megathread] Final Fantasy XIV

[threads]

6/12 ixion horns

[Graeham]

Well, I managed to get my weekly loot from Omega's final boss at least.

The second boss, too. Though now I can't queue for the first or third due to these horrid DDoS attacks.

[Deleted]

Got Red mage to 70, first thing i do?
Glamour the 310 set pieces i already purchased!

(basically a set i used for black mage/summoner back when pharos hard released but what gives)

[Kazgrel]

Yup a fairly recent but definitely cool addition. No longer do I need to ask aryalas when melding combat gear. ;D

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I think the only thing that makes Shinryu difficult is that he has A LOT of different mechanics and newer people might not recognize them from former primals.
Personally I found Susano to be quite stressful as a healer. If you get 2 inexperienced ones in there, I can imagine him being as mean as Shinryu.

Lak seems like a gimmick fight solely put in to get people acquainted with the extra action button.

Susano is very stressful if you get stuck with a shit-tastic cohealer. I've had to go through that twice (as dps)...one instance was when helping a FC friend get their clear for the story. Had a WHM who had no idea what mechanics were (would stand at the ass end of the arena after receiving the punt back into stack arrow combo).

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God I miss Wrath sometimes. My brother and I, Ret and Fury, both wielding Shadowmourne in full H25 ICC BiS gear just steamrolling in BGs. Good times.

Your comment however brings up a good point. Difficulty Pacing. I think that FF14 is ABYSMAL with this. You can't have fights A1S/A2S then A3S. That's why it broke so many statics. You can't have fights like Susano and Lakshmi HM and then Shinryu. It's not that Shinryu is hard (it's not, it's fine), it's just that you condition the community that its ok to play with your eyes closed and breath through your ears and you'll get your trophy, then turn around and shove a fight in their face that doesn't fit that mold and suddenly the world is crashing.

I'm actually ok with an expansion difficulty pacing shortcoming, moreso than a storyline/patch one though so the whole WOTLK -> CATA didn't affect me as much. Granted neither did Shinryu, but man fuck Pepsiman.

Good news! Pepsi is back on the menu for Stormblood:



At least this time you can get 100 friends together to beat the living (liquid) shit out of him.

[dope_danny]

FINALLY! WIND UP EDDA DROPPED FROM A SACK FOR ME!

God only knows how many runs that took.

[Kazgrel]

FINALLY! WIND UP EDDA DROPPED FROM A SACK FOR ME!

God only knows how many runs that took.

O.o

I presume that's a first for you? Because I can't count the number of those things I either gave to FC folks or simply tossed (because it sold for all of 1k gil on the Balmung MB).

RNG, ever the fickle creature.

[Aruhen]

FINALLY! WIND UP EDDA DROPPED FROM A SACK FOR ME!

God only knows how many runs that took.

Wait why didn't you just buy it on the MB? On my server it sells for 100G on there rofl.

[Eleccybubb]

Meanwhile Gobbieboom keep throwing Fire Materia 6 at me.

Luckily the advice from @Kazela paid off and I'm slowly swimming in clusters that I'll use on Omega or Creation gear.

If Creation is 330 I'll save it for that.

[Faroth]

And for making me rage when I get them on transmute

Better question.... who is buying them on the market place? I've seen them selling higher than other stat materia at times

[Advent]

I know I'm late to the party regarding the tank discussion but I'd like to throw my hat in here. I dislike tanking precisely because of the severe granularity of player performance. At the same time, it's very 2 dimensional and lacks flair for every class. What I'd like to see an MMO do is successfully blend action combat with the holy trinity and good, challenging PvE content that isn't just one gimmick after another. What I mean by "gimmick" in this case, I'll put forth an example. Wildstar was known to have some of the most difficult instanced PvE content around. But their gimmick was telegraphs everywhere. It got to a point where I didn't even know what boss I was doing because I wasn't fighting a boss, I was playing twister on steroids. They never gave me a chance to appreciate their design.

So, one of my favorite boss encounters in WoW was the Sha of Fear back in MoP. Not because it was an amazing encounter, but because it utilized a very specific mechanic that I'd been wanting to see tanks be able to do for years. Essentially, they stood between the boss and the raid on a circle of light. So long as they stood there, his Breath of Fear would shear off to the sides of the tank instead of blasting the raid. That's the kind of mechanical ingenuity I want to see for tanks. If I can intercept attacks and mechanics for members of my party when not tanking the boss, or reflect a beam from an add onto the boss using geometry and angles I'd be all over tanking. Because then it's not a matter of "Maintain Threat, Press Cooldown every X seconds", it starts to become a support class like I think they should be.

[dope_danny]

Wait why didn't you just buy it on the MB? On my server it sells for 100G on there rofl.

On my server thats still at least a million and i'm not spending a million on any minion. Thats a lotta crafting mats.

[Kazgrel]

Meanwhile Gobbieboom keep throwing Fire Materia 6 at me.

Luckily the advice from @Kazela paid off and I'm slowly swimming in clusters that I'll use on Omega or Creation gear.

If Creation is 330 I'll save it for that.

If you're gonna hop into Savage on week 1, I'd go ahead and meld out any ilvl 320 stuff to help out; otherwise, what you'll be doing is fine (and yeah, it's highly likely Creation tomestone gear will be 330).

[Deleted]

Are there any statics or people looking for a static on Omega, that can make use of 2 SAMs and a Paladin?
I'm looking for a group that could tackle some end game stuff that is difficult (and I'm not talking about Susano/Lakshmi)

We are currently in a group but honestly, the 2 other DPS do so little dmg (BLM 2,6-3k, RDM 3-3,5k) that this would end up as us carrying them.
If you are interested, we both do 4k-4,4k dps (without food/potions) during Omega/Lakshmi/Susano and the Tank knows how to press CDs - we are looking for a group or people somewhere near that "skill"-range (which is "I know the theory, but I fuck up sometimes - deal with it" if you've played WoW, you should put us in the "good Heroic Raider that can/could put in the effort to do some mythic bosses too" category).

We don't want to try things as hard and fast as possible, but we also don't want to do "all the work".... we also don't want to tell our BLM and RDM that they "suck", because they are nice people, they would probably understand the problem - maybe - but I'm sure they'll end up feeling miserable either way.

[Melsiren]

I know I'm late to the party regarding the tank discussion but I'd like to throw my hat in here. I dislike tanking precisely because of the severe granularity of player performance. At the same time, it's very 2 dimensional and lacks flair for every class. What I'd like to see an MMO do is successfully blend action combat with the holy trinity and good, challenging PvE content that isn't just one gimmick after another. What I mean by "gimmick" in this case, I'll put forth an example. Wildstar was known to have some of the most difficult instanced PvE content around. But their gimmick was telegraphs everywhere. It got to a point where I didn't even know what boss I was doing because I wasn't fighting a boss, I was playing twister on steroids. They never gave me a chance to appreciate their design.

So, one of my favorite boss encounters in WoW was the Sha of Fear back in MoP. Not because it was an amazing encounter, but because it utilized a very specific mechanic that I'd been wanting to see tanks be able to do for years. Essentially, they stood between the boss and the raid on a circle of light. So long as they stood there, his Breath of Fear would shear off to the sides of the tank instead of blasting the raid. That's the kind of mechanical ingenuity I want to see for tanks. If I can intercept attacks and mechanics for members of my party when not tanking the boss, or reflect a beam from an add onto the boss using geometry and angles I'd be all over tanking. Because then it's not a matter of "Maintain Threat, Press Cooldown every X seconds", it starts to become a support class like I think they should be.

Interesting you mention MoP, and in specific the first tier of MoP. One of my favorite encounters to tank was Will, because I loved the dodge mechanic from the bosses and pay off of hitting them with that extra action button because you dodged all of them. (Assuming you did it the way Blizzard wanted you to and did not scumbag it for that sweet vengeance numbers.. mmmm.... vengeance.) I'm not opposed to that style of tanking at all, though I do like it when I can constantly improve on something with tanking. The only issue with the dodge tank philosophy that I have is the fact it has a hard cap on how good you can do your job. You don't get hit you can't improve past that, that's why I like the DPS centered tank model... though combining both, would be pretty awesome.

I used Will as an example because when you were rewarded for dodging the swipes and the stomps. It felt good when you dodged them all and got to hit that button to punch the boss in it's stupid Mogu dick for half a million damage. And while as I mentioned before it was shadowed by Vengeance cheesing the concept of rewarding the player is what I liked about the fight.

Honestly anything that is not just PM (Passive mitigation.) I can dig, though the higher skill cap that the system allows the more I dig it.

[Deleted]

I think Tera has some of the best tanking ever done in an MMO... at least from the little experience I have, which is like... 1 month worth of some hours / day.

You can actively dodge "auto attacks" and boss skills with invincibility frames and dodge rolls (Warrior) or raise your shield to block the important attacks (paladin).
That's how tanking should be done imho.
Passive Block/parry etc. like in FFXIV is so boring, that's just stats, not gameplay.
A Samurai/Blackmage in Paladin gear could do the same thing.

[Melsiren]

I think Tera has some of the best tanking ever done in an MMO... at least from the little experience I have, which is like... 1 month worth of some hours / day.

You can actively dodge "auto attacks" and boss skills with invincibility frames and dodge rolls (Warrior) or raise your shield to block the important attacks (paladin).
That's how tanking should be done imho.
Passive Block/parry etc. like in FFXIV is so boring, that's just stats, not gameplay.
A Samurai/Blackmage in Paladin gear could do the same thing.

Overall I agree with you. The only Parry and Block CDs I find fun is Passage of Arms and Raw intuition. But as a passive stats? they can burn in hell with hit ratings.

Though the only reason I like Passage of Arms, is because it reminds me of Hold the Line from Warhammer Age of Reckoning. The only MMO I ever played where you could make a shield wall in PVP and hold the line at a castle gate while your ranged fighters pelted the other team as they attempted to break your spartan shield wall.

[Advent]

Interesting you mention MoP, and in specific the first tier of MoP. One of my favorite encounters to tank was Will, because I loved the dodge mechanic from the bosses and pay off of hitting them with that extra action button because you dodged all of them. (Assuming you did it the way Blizzard wanted you to and did not scumbag it for that sweet vengeance numbers.. mmmm.... vengeance.) I'm not opposed to that style of tanking at all, though I do like it when I can constantly improve on something with tanking. The only issue with the dodge tank philosophy that I have is the fact it has a hard cap on how good you can do your job. You don't get hit you can't improve past that, that's why I like the DPS centered tank model... though combining both, would be pretty awesome.

I used Will as an example because when you were rewarded for dodging the swipes and the stomps. It felt good when you dodged them all and got to hit that button to punch the boss in it's stupid Mogu dick for half a million damage. And while as I mentioned before it was shadowed by Vengeance cheesing the concept of rewarding the player is what I liked about the fight.

Honestly anything that is not just PM (Passive mitigation.) I can dig, though the higher skill cap that the system allows the more I dig it.

I had several other ideas beyond "Just dodge", for tanks. I'd take a little of the gameplay from dark souls with parry/riposte as a mechanic. Not every attack would be parry-able, but those that you did would have a different riposte "effect", so to speak. What if, after a successfully timed parry, you could riposte using a specific skill. Using that skill would reduce its cooldown or make its effect stronger depending on the attack you parried from the boss. It would add decision making to the skill of knowing what to parry and when. Using the model for paladin tanks in say, WoW, you could stack shields on yourself. The idea here is, tanks having intimate knowledge of boss mechanics would be pushed to the forefront rather than being an afterthought.

Ultimately I would untie tanks from needing healers outside of specific tank "busters" like FFXIV. Most of them would focus on the raid and people doing specific jobs during an encounter. These are all early thoughts and are easier to visualize than to put to text right now.

[zito]

Well got red mage to 70 guess white mage is next and then blue mage. OH WAIT

Anyway I get a stacking exp bonus for every 70 I have right?

[Faroth]

DPS centered tank model + untied from needing healers = every non-tank is essentially irrelevant. DPS-centered tank models alone can become "what's the purpose of bringing a DPS" if you've got high damage dealing + defensive cool down tanks.

Or you get Guild Wars 2.

There's a balance to keep in mind when designing your ideal class design. You can't tunnel vision. Designing a tank has to be mindful of how you design 13 other classes at the same time.

[Kazgrel]

I think Tera has some of the best tanking ever done in an MMO... at least from the little experience I have, which is like... 1 month worth of some hours / day.

You can actively dodge "auto attacks" and boss skills with invincibility frames and dodge rolls (Warrior) or raise your shield to block the important attacks (paladin).
That's how tanking should be done imho.
Passive Block/parry etc. like in FFXIV is so boring, that's just stats, not gameplay.
A Samurai/Blackmage in Paladin gear could do the same thing.

Having not played Tera, that sounds very much like Guild Wars 2's combat in a nutshell, where you're afforded invincibility frames via dodge rolls and other evasion abilities. Not everyone's cup of tea, though (although I enjoyed many hours of GW2 play, and were I to grow bored/burned out of FF14, it's the MMO I would go (back) to next).