[Megathread] Final Fantasy XIV

[KrayZ33]

hehe - you might be surprised Week 1 pugs are some of the best players I've played with in Savage. better than my static, but we also have a pretty solid static this time, except I have a new co-tank, but he's also 95%+ so this should be a good tier for us.

I'm too much of an introvert to look for random players all the time.
I've always been playing with friends but we never got a full group and the 7th and 8th player has always been missing and it always takes so long to fill the slots and most of them are not willing to wipe either or are just on a different progress level, so it always feels like a full reset every week.

I hate that.

[Gutler]

Hmmm gotta say the monk changes look pretty nice.

[Rogalicus]

Hmmm gotta say the monk changes look pretty nice.

As someone who wanted to play monk, but steered away from it due to design, I don't see any significant changes. Baseline GCD is 2 seconds now and main combos had their potency buffed, but nothing really changed. Am I missing something?

[KrayZ33]

As someone who wanted to play monk, but steered away from it due to design, I don't see any significant changes. Baseline GCD is 2 seconds now and main combos had their potency buffed, but nothing really changed. Am I missing something?

What was the design reason that made you shy away from playing monk (or do you mean style?).

I think that not having to maintain greased lightning stacks anymore is pretty big. Even if it happens naturally.
But I never really played monk, but it seems to be a lot "easier" now? At least that's the impression I get (from a true non-monk player's point of view who has no idea about how the job plays out post Vanilla) when I read these patchnotes. Some RNG elements have been reduced too?

I'm actually pretty interested in trying it out now, since I'm playing SAM and they share gear anyway.
(Eden gear is shared, right? Only currency gear is not? God it's been so long)

[dope_danny]

Seeing friends drop Shadowlands the day the raid comes out because of a XIV patch is a total mirror world scenario to a few years ago. The fact that i know they are all FF8 marks explains it though, a crumb, a drip of man with a machine gun please milord.

[Rogalicus]

What was the design reason that made you shy away from playing monk (or do you mean style?).

I think that not having to maintain greased lightning stacks anymore is pretty big. Even if it happens naturally.
But I never really played monk, but it seems to be a lot "easier" now? At least that's the impression I get (from a true non-monk player's point of view who has no idea about how the job plays out post Vanilla) when I read these patchnotes. Some RNG elements have been reduced too?

Maintenance buffs annoy me much less than heavy reliance of positionals and strange design of the rest of the class.

[Katchii]

Maintenance buffs annoy me much less than heavy reliance of positionals and strange design of the rest of the class.

Is there a DPS class in FFXIV that doesn't have some kind of maintenance buff/debuffs/DoTs? Aside from Red Mage?

Just curious, but what classes do you play?

With that said, Greased Lightning as a "maintenance buff" is gone which was the biggest thing the player had to watch out for really. Yes the baseline GCD is 2 seconds but now Greased Lightning is a trait you earn as you level, which means at max level the "baseline" GCD is less than 2 seconds.

- - - Updated - - -

I'm actually pretty interested in trying it out now, since I'm playing SAM and they share gear anyway.
(Eden gear is shared, right? Only currency gear is not? God it's been so long)

Most gear is shared across at least 2 classes, with the exceptions being Dragoon and Ninja.

Fending is for all tanks
Healing is for all Healers
Aiming is for Ranged Physical DPS
Casting is for Ranged Magic DPS
Striking is for Monks and Samurai
Maiming is for Dragoon
Scouting is for Ninja

[Rogalicus]

Is there a DPS class in FFXIV that doesn't have some kind of maintenance buff/debuffs/DoTs? Aside from Red Mage?

Just curious, but what classes do you play?

With that said, Greased Lightning as a "maintenance buff" is gone which was the biggest thing the player had to watch out for really. Yes the baseline GCD is 2 seconds but now Greased Lightning is a trait you earn as you level, which means at max level the "baseline" GCD is less than 2 seconds.

Currently nothing, I've tried every class, but was bored of every single one eventually. That's why I was looking forward to revamp, but eh, probably shouldn't bother until they announce something for 6.0.

2 seconds I've mentioned are with the last tier of the trait (-20%), so I'm not sure why you say GCD is less than 2 seconds. Unless you mean that everyone has at least some skill speed on their gear.

[Katchii]

Currently nothing, I've tried every class, but was bored of every single one eventually. That's why I was looking forward to revamp, but eh, probably shouldn't bother until they announce something for 6.0.

2 seconds I've mentioned are with the last tier of the trait (-20%), so I'm not sure why you say GCD is less than 2 seconds. Unless you mean that everyone has at least some skill speed on their gear.

Sorry, my bad. Was a brain fart. I was thinking 2.0 GCD was the base GCD for everyone, when it's actually 2.5. Was trying to do work and respond here at the same time when I haven't completely woken up.

[Merie]

God they're really going all in on having the shallowest villains possible. It couldn't just be one of them either, but both. You really get the sense that they're scraping the bottom of the barrel now that the excellent ShB writer is gone.

[Hyral]

5.4 MSQ

Spoiler: 

Yeah I was kind of disappointed with Fandaniel when he said his piece, but then again why not? I like fleshed out villains sure but it's not like shallow characters, or hell even shallow real living people that actually do believe the same nihilistic drivel he does, don't exist. And those people can be extremely dangerous. I'm happy we've had pretty good villains all these years but I'm also willing to go for a round with seemingly dull ones for a while and see what they can do with them. Interesting things can still happen. The Ascians had a goal, purpose, and a method. All that's out of the window now. What can you expect from someone who believes in nothing? There's no telling. I'll try to be optimistic for once. I'm sure I'll regret it.

[Granyala]

Hmm.. did the Eden questline today. Have to say, while I appreciate the story around it, I found the last boss to be pretty "meh".

[Val the Moofia Boss]

I am going to finish the Eden storyline first, as I want to completely wrap up everything on Norvrandt before turning my attention back to the central conflict on the Source.

I think I will do the weapon storyline after the MSQ.



5.4 Eden E9 through E12

Spoiler: 

I keep thinking that the Empty is made of salt or snow, rather than light-aspected mattered. Reminds me too much of North Ambria.

High Treason is so hype, love whenever it plays when we are about to set forth.

When I first zoned into E9, the first few seconds of the song sounded like a FFXI track.

You know, now that I think about it, why are we so casual about summoning a new, sentient being into existence, and then slaughtering it for energy?




Um... hello there? The pre-release speculation said that you were Mitron, and the sigil matches. So um... how did you get stuck inside? Did you go to the Source 100 years ago to rewire Eden to cause the Flood of Light, and then got trapped inside?

Okay, wait. The 13th collapsed into a Void of Darkness thousands of years ago. We know this because that's where the voidsent came from, and the Mhachi civilization were summoning Voidesent during the 5th Astral Era. So if the collapse of the 13th sent out a shockwave that unbalanced the First to Light, and the Ascians only went to the First 100 yeas ago to try to cause a Flood of Light... then that means the Ascians KNEW that the First was unbalanced and primed for a rejoining, and yet didn't do anything about it for thousands of years! What on earth were they doing during all of that time?

I wonder if we tell Mitron that the three unsundered are dead, he will renounce his service to Zodiark? Well I guess it doesn't matter since he's tempered (wait, how does tempering work on the sundered? Emet said that he had to uplift fragments of the sundered... so does that mean those fragments are not going around serving Zodiark until Emet shows up to give them their soul crystal? So the tempering was broken and only the three unsundered were tempered) so he's going to keep being evil anyway.

Emet-Selch's asshole counter continues to increase! (Let's see... comitting mass genocide on an untold scale, speaking ill of his dead comrade Lahabrea, and now abandoning another comrade of his to a horrible state of undeath for a century).

Well, Mitron is far and away the most cordial Ascian we've met so far. I hope he lives and renounces Zodiark.

The Shadowkeeper being a wolf with multiple mouths looks cool and monstrous.

That was a good scene. I think that is quite possibly the one and only scene in FFXIV where we saw two Ascians who were nice to each other. Lahabrea, Emet-Selch, and Eldibus was shitting on each other.

Um... young Ran'jit? Thancred/Ran'jit? Than'jit?




He looks like Rean from Hajimari no Kiseki. Heck it's even a very similar situation in the story too.

Eden's Promise, the E12 boss, looks like Bhunivelze from FFXIII-3 Lightning Returns.

NOOOOOOO we died on the third phase in the last fight and we have to do it all over again!

At one point, the chorus in the E12 boss song sounds EXACTLY like the chorus in the FFXVI trailer. More evidence that Soken is composing for FF16 then.

Well, that was some Kingdom Hearts stuff, but it was fun. E9S seems like it will be fun. E12 will require a lot of memorization and will be difficult. I wonder if there are any new forms on savage, like on E8S.



5.4 MSQ

Spoiler: 

I thought Lyse was a meh character, but it is nice to see an old face again.

Lol G'raha Tia hasn't met most of the cast yet (nation leaders, the Ishgard cast, the Stormblood cast, etc). This will be interesting...

I decided to go with Alisae (I'm not sure if I can actually see the meeting or if it was the illusion of choice).

Lemme guess; Tataru bought the Scions an airship?

Oh wow, this is a brand new airship design. Well at least it wasn't a reuse of the same Enterprise and Excelsior models again. So I guess that means the Eorzean Alliance now has 3 different models of airship 4 if you include the single seater airships Cid made for us in HW, but those never showed up again.

... "Bonanza"? Way to break the Star Trek theme naming. Should've been "Defiant".

Wait, the Bonanza carries Manacutters? Where? I don't see any, and there is hardly enough room inside the hull of the ship to carry more than one.

Why didn't they give us the name of the Bonaza's pilot?

It saddens me that I can't fly the Scions around in my flying car.

Excuse me, I know that Tataru was an excellent account. And a good tailor. And a good chef. But now she is revealed to be a master engineer like Cid, who can craft build cutting edge, state of the art airships like Cid? That beggars belief.

I thought that was Fandaniel talking to me. I completely forgot that G'raha Tia was like that in the first Crystal Tower quest, a character trait that never appeared again... until now.




LOL "Password"




The node has the best lines.




So if Umbral Light = stagnation is the other half of the problem with tempering, than we need to induce Astral Dark = activity to counterbalance it. Since Earth is Umbral Light = stagnation, and opposite of Wind, which is Astral Dark = activity, you would need to induce the Wind elemental to counterbalance someone who was tempered by an Earth aspected Eikon, yes?

I bet Emet-Selch (pretending to be Xande or Amon) was the one who squashed Owen's research. His bastard count continues to increase.

Nero sounds so much like an arrogant snob when voiced.

Huh, is Mikoto mentioned if you hadn't done the Ivalice and Bozja storylines?

LOL Alphinaud ratting out Y'shtola

how many millions of books are in this library?

I like the dungeon, but I absolutely hate the mid boss battle music (the remix of the Shadowbringers end dungeon boss theme).

The second boss was cute.

Awww Y'shtola made it.

... And no new end boss music, like in the Heavensward patches? Really the Shadowbringers boss tracks are completely inappropriate.




Ugh, guys. G'raha Tia has his Sharlayan PHD tatooed on his neck in plain sight for all to see. Everyone knows that the Scions are the only Sharlayan scholars operating in Eorzea. It's a dead giveaway!

Interesting to hear how "Bozja" is pronounced as "Bozia". So the "j" is silent?

Judging by the demeanor of the Bloody Executioners, they are martialists. They LIVE for combat and earning spoils through combat. Trade would be more profitable in the long run, but unexciting for martialists. They need people to fight against. Here's the thing: if they had lived in our world, there would be plenty of organizations and nations for themselves to privateer for, but apparently on the Source, Aldenard is the only continent that matters, and everyone is at peace with each other so no one is hiring privateers. The setting has been constructed in such a way that professional mercenary work is useless, which is rather unfortunate.

Uh, Merlwyb? You REALLY don't want to accept to duel RIGHT HERE on the enemy's ship where you are vastly outnumbered by an extremely rowdy crew. Why not pick a place where there will be more witnesses on your side?

I hope Sicard lives. Unfortunately, Merylwyb has plot armor, so he's screwed.

Cool shot.

This is dumb. Sicard and the crew aren't going to just go "welp, we renounce our martialist ways and seek to become reformed traders!". Really, Sicard should form his own mercenary company/get his own ship and a large percentage of the crew should follow him. But no, they're all going to drop their way of life and reform because... *sigh*

Is it me, or was the dialogue - and the voice acting - rather cringeworthy? It had been pretty good up until this point.

See, here's the problem with the "Limsa took Kobold lands" thing. We never get to SEE this ingame. The one and only Kobold settlement in the entire game is the one in Outer La Noscea. We don't get to see evidence of any other Kobold settlements, not even ruins in territory that the Lominsans took. We also don't get to see any actual conquest of Kobold lands in the game, or Kobolds striking into Lominsan territory. It's poorly presented ingame.




Oh, is she going to die here to redeem Limsa?

... No. I guess I expected too much. The plot armor is thick indeed.

The scene would be impactful if we could actually SEE the Kobold priest's face, but he has a helmet on that obstructs the eyes. Well, I guess it wouldn't matter that much because they're using old 2010 Kobold models and they probably weren't created with close ups in cutscenes with facial expressions in mind, but still.

"Priest! Put an end to the summonings and make peace with Limsa!" um... those are hollow words. Limsa has apparently been making peace with the Kobolds and then breaking that peace dozens of times. From the perspective of the Kobolds, there is absolutely no reason to believe that this time will be different. Now, I'm not a believer in reparations, BUT! Merlwyb's attempt at patching up bad blood would be more believable if she backed it up with actions. How about "we will help you rebuild your ruined villages (that were never shown ingame)? That'd back up her talk. Even Aymeric at least commissioned a mural, which didn't benefit the dragons in any way, but at least it was SOMETHING.

Okay, Merlwybd promising to execute treaty breakers actually MEANS something, as we've seen how she runs Limsa. And a trade pact sounds does sound appetizing.




Okay that WOULD be substantial... if not for the fact that if she dies, it is questionable who her successor would be, and it is unlikely that would be good for the Kobolds.




Would be interesting if he did it, but we all know he won't.

... I expected her to live and I was still disappointed.

Lol Fandaniel is just casually flying overhead.

Goodness gracious he's omnicidal

... "Telophoroi"?

So... where did Lunar Bahamut come from? Was he summoned? Where on earth did Zenos and Fandaniel get enough aether to make that thing so ludicrously powerful? Also, shouldn't we ask Hraesvelgr for help here?

Wait a moment... Lunar Bahamut... Zodiark's essence is on the moon... so did Zodiark summon it? I thought that Zodiark was inactive and couldn't do anything until he was revived after the 14 rejoinings? Or do dragons like that just live on the moon, and Fandaniel called it to come down to the planet and follow him around? It doesn't seem to be a Garlean engineered/grown monstrosity like the Weapons.




It's little things in the writing like this that make me smile.




What about on other continents, like the New World and Meracydia? It often feels like Aldenard is the only continent in existence in this world.

Has Zenos seriously been sitting in a chair doing nothing for THREE PATCHES!?!?

I love the Fandaniel scenes.




Awwww. I was sorta hoping to have another epic samurai duel. I wonder what his new weapon will be... but I guess it's more likely he's going to transform into a monster or possess a primal or something.

I liked returning to Limsa and getting a look into their politics again, but I thought that the resolution to the story was dumb.



5.4 Emerald Weapon

Spoiler: 

How many years has it been since 2.0? Why haven't the imperial installations within Eorzea been taken out by now? The Eorzean Alliance should easily be able to deal with them. Again, how are the imperial holdouts able to maintain their supply lines?

Lol my character droops their head in disappointment upon Cid saying that the G-Warrior is still being repaired. I guess we won't get to use it again until 5.5.

Well, I'm guessing the oversoul is going to be either Gaius or Varis. When Ruby Weapon first came out, I was hoping that the next few Oversouls would show off renowned ancient Garlean warriors, maybe give us more backstory to Garlemald. But then they said that the oversouls were just of modern age warriors with magitek armors, and we haven't heard of any great offscreen Garlean warriors who exist to make Garlemald feel bigger, so that means the possibilities were very small and it was guaranteed to be people we had seen before. Gaius and Varis were pretty much the only great Garleans warriors left.

No please don't oversoul Rex.

That is sad.

I wonder if for the next weapon, we will be able to save the pilot, or if they will oversoul into Varis.




Um... Sapphire Weapon was so strong I had to use the G-Warrior to even beat it. I was thinking that for the weapon after that, I would have to use G-Warrior in the first phase to weaken it, and then do an 8-man trial to finish it off. But apparently we can just 8-man trial weapons that stronger than what the G-warrior was required for? That doesn't make any sense Cid.




I don't understand. Why would the Garleans RETURN after the Eorzean Alliance captures their fortress? They are certainly in no position to be capturing fortresses deep within Eorzea right now, far away from their frontlines.




... Really Gaius? The overwhelming vast majority of Garleans in this game are total monsters. Even you were one too in 2.0!




Just realizing that now, eh?




That is extremely ignorant of Garlemald's situation.

... Huh. So maybe in 5.5, Alfonse will get into the pilot seat of the Diamond Weapon, and right as we are about to fight him... we turns around and joins us. Which means that the final boss might be Valens? What kind of weapon will he pilot, then? Jade Weapon? Omega Weapon?

Holy shit he's being branded




Holy shit




Um...




That is very sad.

Holy shit




I think Valens has entered the running with Weissman, The Jade Rook, and the Prince Asshole from Trails as the most heinously evil game villains I've ever seen.

I liked the quest where you help out this woman in Terncliff try to pick up the pieces by getting the names of the conscripts who never returned.


https://i.imgur.com/SsDz0Qw.png

Oh, is that Rhitahtyn?

Well, the best part of the weapon storyline continues to be what little see of Terncliff and the aftermath of the Garlemald occupation (seriously, why isn't there more of this?) and the tragic story of the kids. The worst part of the story continues to be Gaius. Biggest missed opportunity continues to be oversoul, as rather than giving us a glimpse into other renowned Garlean heroes, we instead just get guys we already saw. Can't wait for the conclusion in 5.5.

- - - Updated - - -

It took me about 8 and a half hours to complete all of the new 5.4 content.

- - - Updated - - -

5.4 MSQ

Spoiler: 

Yeah I was kind of disappointed with Fandaniel when he said his piece, but then again why not? I like fleshed out villains sure but it's not like shallow characters, or hell even shallow real living people that actually do believe the same nihilistic drivel he does, don't exist. And those people can be extremely dangerous. I'm happy we've had pretty good villains all these years but I'm also willing to go for a round with seemingly dull ones for a while and see what they can do with them. Interesting things can still happen. The Ascians had a goal, purpose, and a method. All that's out of the window now. What can you expect from someone who believes in nothing? There's no telling. I'll try to be optimistic for once. I'm sure I'll regret it.

I find Fandaniel to be pretty entertaining when he's being over the top and bombastic.

Realistically no human being is going to want to destroy the world for the sake of being omnicidal, but they did say in 5.3 that one of the Convocation members got corrupted/twisted during the summoning of Zodiark, probably by the Sound, so I can forgive him being omnicidal.

[KrayZ33]

Did the Raid and Primal - both are looking good.
Except for E12. That thing is going to be a garbage encounter where you will stop playing due to cutscene spam.
I hope that it's going to be vastly different.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Did the Raid and Primal - both are looking good.
Except for E12. That thing is going to be a garbage encounter where you will stop playing due to cutscene spam.
I hope that it's going to be vastly different.

The extreme version of the 5.3 trial omits the cutscene half way through the fight, so the middle phase for E12S might be different.

[dope_danny]

Man don't forget theres a new NieR quest too and i haven't seen anyone talking about. Which is a shame because its one of the more interesting plot points so far and Drakengard fans are going to freak the fuck out.

Anogg died a long time ago and we have been dealing with a fascimile made by a seed of destruction speaking watcher talk

Which for a Drakenier fan is a real "I'm sorry, WHAT?" moment.

[leviathonlx]

Seeing friends drop Shadowlands the day the raid comes out because of a XIV patch is a total mirror world scenario to a few years ago. The fact that i know they are all FF8 marks explains it though, a crumb, a drip of man with a machine gun please milord.

Not sure how they'd have 'dropped' Shadowlands when it was in maintenance until an hour and a half ago. I mean the FF14 content will be cleared/finished in 2 days anyway.

[Granyala]

Okay, wait. The 13th collapsed into a Void of Darkness thousands of years ago. We know this because that's where the voidsent came from, and the Mhachi civilization were summoning Voidesent during the 5th Astral Era. So if the collapse of the 13th sent out a shockwave that unbalanced the First to Light, and the Ascians only went to the First 100 yeas ago to try to cause a Flood of Light... then that means the Ascians KNEW that the First was unbalanced and primed for a rejoining, and yet didn't do anything about it for thousands of years! What on earth were they doing during all of that time

You are assuming a linear time flow between the shards. I don't think it works that way. Also, keep in mind Ascians don't care about time as we do.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

You are assuming a linear time flow between the shards. I don't think it works that way. Also, keep in mind Ascians don't care about time as we do.

I feel that the "time between shards fluctuates" thing was rather flimsy, but I get why they did it, since ShB hadn't been conceived of when the WoD arc for HW was being written, and then when it came time to write ShB they wanted to reuse the WoD story in HW as the backstory for the expansion, which means that they had to come up with some sort of timeskip.

[Granyala]

Yeah I agree on that one. It was basically their only way out in order to get some form of consistency.

Still, I can live with it.