[Megathread] Final Fantasy XIV

[Kazgrel]

You'd be surprised. Because of how powerful heals are and how infrequent mechanics occur, most vuln stacks are irrelevant. Take E6S for example, the common static strat for soccer is to just eat the vuln stack and keep uptime. Pugs are slowly switching to it as well. There's no real incoming damage afterwards so the vuln stack is trivial. I can't think of any other examples off the top of my head, but I do very much so remember doing it in the past. This is during prog, not even farm. It becomes even more common during farm.

Hades EX is like that; for the falling pancakes people just stack mid and eat 2 vulns.

Our crew adopted that strat for E6S and it's hilarious how much easier it is to do that vs. look for the safe spot and call it out quick enough for people to move.

[Granyala]

Hades EX is like that; for the falling pancakes people just stack mid and eat 2 vulns.

Easily done in that encounter because there is close to no incoming damage after that.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

The hypocritical message of Shadowbringers

Spoilers for 5.0

Spoiler: 

In the story of Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers, the main antagonist, Emet-Selch, is one of the last survivors of your usual JRPG ancient precursor civilization. Due to a calamity, almost the entire previous ancient civilization was wiped out, and the world irreparably damaged. To undo the damage and create world in which life can prosper once again, most of the people of the ancient civilization sacrificed themselves to stop and undo the destruction wrought by the calamity. For obvious reasons, the antagonist, Emet-Selch, feels deep trauma from having lost his friends, his family, nearly his entire people, and wants to bring them back. In Shadowbringers, Emet-Selch is trying to resurrect his dead people by creating another calamity that will sacrifice the lives the current civilization, the humanity that arose in the wake of the calamity thanks to the sacrifice of the ancients. (Also, BTW, Emet-Selch has no proof that this plan will actually work: he's going to kill billions of people - and has been killing billions of people - on the HOPE that this will all work out in the end).

Also, the game goes out of its way to point out that the ancient precursor civilization was "objectively" better than modern humanity. Ancient humanity was blessed with gifts and abilities modern humanity does not have, and the people of the ancient civilization were so selfless and goodhearted, it'd be ridiculous to imagine humanity today being like them. Emet-Selch to the protagonist: "Do you seriously expect half of your mankind to sacrifice themselves for the other? Ofcourse they would not!". Thus, Emet argues that the old mankind is more worthy of the sacrifices of the new mankind than the new mankind is worthy of the sacrifices of the old mankind.

So, TL;DR: Emet-Selch has a tragic backstory, wants to resurrect his people. The method in which he would try to resurrect his people involves the arbitray mass murder of modern life (by sacrificing them to bring back the old). Also, by his standards, the old mankind is "objectively" better than the new mankind, and thus we should erase modern life to bring back the old.


In the same story, we have a heroic character, G'raha Tia, born as apart of modern day humanity. Earlier in FFXIV, G'raha Tia kinda sacrificed himself and went into stasis to preserve mankind from other existential threats I won't get into here. G'raha Tia wakes up in the future, several hundreds years after the story of Shadowbringers takes place. In the future, he finds out that Emet-Selch succeeded in his plan in Shadowbringers, and killed off a huge swath of the modern day humanity. Pretty much every character we met in FFXIV died in this calamity, including the protagonists. In the wake of this new calamity, another form of "humanity" arose. "the rule of law gave way to the rule of might, creating a world of ceaseless war". So basically, the FFXIV world went from something we IRL would consider to be "normal" to what we typically envision as post-nuclear apoclaypse anarchic wasteland. The new state of the world, the "new mankind", is objectively worse than what had come before.

Horrified by this new world, G'raha Tia sets out to try to bring back the old mankind, the world - the mankind - of the current FFXIV story. G'raha Tia travels back in time, back to the current FFXIV story, to change the timeline by stopping Emet-Selch from sacrificing the current humanity. If G'raha Tia suceeds, the so called "bad future" will be undone, and the current humanity will continue on as usual. (BTW: when G'raha Tia began planning to go back in time, went back in time, and began trying to change the timeline, he had no proof that this plan would actually work at all. He even half suspected that he'd create a time paradox and accomplish nothing. He went through a herculean amount of effort on the HOPE that this would all work out in the end).

So, TL;DR: G'raha Tia has a tragic backstory, wants to resurrect his people. The method in which he would try to resurrect his people involves the arbitray mass murder of modern life (by changing the timeline so that the people of the Age of Might would never be born, effectively killing them). Also, by his standards, the old mankind is "objectively" better than the new mankind, and thus we should erase modern life to bring back the old.

Wait a minute... I smell something fishy here. Emet-Selch and G'raha Tia have the exact same backstory! They both survived an apoclaypse in which their humanity perished, witnessed a new, horrifyingly "inferior" successor mankind arise, and then set out to erase the new mankind to bring back the prior mankind. Why then, is Emet-Selch depicted as the villain, while G'raha Tia is depicted as the hero? If G'raha Tia is to be praised for his actions - trying to create an objectively better world - then shouldn't Emet-Selch be as well? Or, if Emet-Selch is supposed to be evil for trying to wipe people out to bring back the dead, then shouldn't G'raha Tia be depicted as evil for trying to do the same?

Ofcourse, the writers don't seem interested in dealing with this issue. At the end of Shadowbringers, the heroes kill Emet-Selch, and the current mankind is saved... except G'raha Tia is still around, so it seems no time paradox has occured. Maybe... the old timeline - the humanity of the Age of Might - is still alive? Keyword: Maybe. Remember, G'raha Tia had absolutely no idea this would work out, and had every reason to believe that either 1. the timeline wouldn't have been changed at all or 2. he succeeded changing history, preventing the Age of Might from happening and erasing all of those people in it (except him in the new future... time travel logic doesn't hold up so just go with G'raha Tia being the exception). Perhaps the writers expected us to sympathize with G'raha Tia over Emet-Selch because the mankind G'raha Tia intends to wipe an entire world out for is OUR MANKIND, the people we know from the current FFXIV story? Ah, so it's okay for us to wipe out entire civilizations as long as it's not the protagonist's civilization? That... makes us no better than Emet-Selch.

Oh don't get me wrong. Shadowbringers is a heartbreaking, yet inspirational story. However, the more I've thought about it, the more I go - EXCUSE ME?!?!? Though, I gotta give the writer's props: at least their contradictory message isn't anywhere near as overt as that of Ao no Kiseki's (oh boy... spoilers for that game, obviously)

[dope_danny]

The hypocritical message of Shadowbringers

Spoilers for 5.0

Spoiler: 

In the story of Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers, the main antagonist, Emet-Selch, is one of the last survivors of your usual JRPG ancient precursor civilization. Due to a calamity, almost the entire previous ancient civilization was wiped out, and the world irreparably damaged. To undo the damage and create world in which life can prosper once again, most of the people of the ancient civilization sacrificed themselves to stop and undo the destruction wrought by the calamity. For obvious reasons, the antagonist, Emet-Selch, feels deep trauma from having lost his friends, his family, nearly his entire people, and wants to bring them back. In Shadowbringers, Emet-Selch is trying to resurrect his dead people by creating another calamity that will sacrifice the lives the current civilization, the humanity that arose in the wake of the calamity thanks to the sacrifice of the ancients. (Also, BTW, Emet-Selch has no proof that this plan will actually work: he's going to kill billions of people - and has been killing billions of people - on the HOPE that this will all work out in the end).

Also, the game goes out of its way to point out that the ancient precursor civilization was "objectively" better than modern humanity. Ancient humanity was blessed with gifts and abilities modern humanity does not have, and the people of the ancient civilization were so selfless and goodhearted, it'd be ridiculous to imagine humanity today being like them. Emet-Selch to the protagonist: "Do you seriously expect half of your mankind to sacrifice themselves for the other? Ofcourse they would not!". Thus, Emet argues that the old mankind is more worthy of the sacrifices of the new mankind than the new mankind is worthy of the sacrifices of the old mankind.

So, TL;DR: Emet-Selch has a tragic backstory, wants to resurrect his people. The method in which he would try to resurrect his people involves the arbitray mass murder of modern life (by sacrificing them to bring back the old). Also, by his standards, the old mankind is "objectively" better than the new mankind, and thus we should erase modern life to bring back the old.


In the same story, we have a heroic character, G'raha Tia, born as apart of modern day humanity. Earlier in FFXIV, G'raha Tia kinda sacrificed himself and went into stasis to preserve mankind from other existential threats I won't get into here. G'raha Tia wakes up in the future, several hundreds years after the story of Shadowbringers takes place. In the future, he finds out that Emet-Selch succeeded in his plan in Shadowbringers, and killed off a huge swath of the modern day humanity. Pretty much every character we met in FFXIV died in this calamity, including the protagonists. In the wake of this new calamity, another form of "humanity" arose. "the rule of law gave way to the rule of might, creating a world of ceaseless war". So basically, the FFXIV world went from something we IRL would consider to be "normal" to what we typically envision as post-nuclear apoclaypse anarchic wasteland. The new state of the world, the "new mankind", is objectively worse than what had come before.

Horrified by this new world, G'raha Tia sets out to try to bring back the old mankind, the world - the mankind - of the current FFXIV story. G'raha Tia travels back in time, back to the current FFXIV story, to change the timeline by stopping Emet-Selch from sacrificing the current humanity. If G'raha Tia suceeds, the so called "bad future" will be undone, and the current humanity will continue on as usual. (BTW: when G'raha Tia began planning to go back in time, went back in time, and began trying to change the timeline, he had no proof that this plan would actually work at all. He even half suspected that he'd create a time paradox and accomplish nothing. He went through a herculean amount of effort on the HOPE that this would all work out in the end).

So, TL;DR: G'raha Tia has a tragic backstory, wants to resurrect his people. The method in which he would try to resurrect his people involves the arbitray mass murder of modern life (by changing the timeline so that the people of the Age of Might would never be born, effectively killing them). Also, by his standards, the old mankind is "objectively" better than the new mankind, and thus we should erase modern life to bring back the old.

Wait a minute... I smell something fishy here. Emet-Selch and G'raha Tia have the exact same backstory! They both survived an apoclaypse in which their humanity perished, witnessed a new, horrifyingly "inferior" successor mankind arise, and then set out to erase the new mankind to bring back the prior mankind. Why then, is Emet-Selch depicted as the villain, while G'raha Tia is depicted as the hero? If G'raha Tia is to be praised for his actions - trying to create an objectively better world - then shouldn't Emet-Selch be as well? Or, if Emet-Selch is supposed to be evil for trying to wipe people out to bring back the dead, then shouldn't G'raha Tia be depicted as evil for trying to do the same?

Ofcourse, the writers don't seem interested in dealing with this issue. At the end of Shadowbringers, the heroes kill Emet-Selch, and the current mankind is saved... except G'raha Tia is still around, so it seems no time paradox has occured. Maybe... the old timeline - the humanity of the Age of Might - is still alive? Keyword: Maybe. Remember, G'raha Tia had absolutely no idea this would work out, and had every reason to believe that either 1. the timeline wouldn't have been changed at all or 2. he succeeded changing history, preventing the Age of Might from happening and erasing all of those people in it (except him in the new future... time travel logic doesn't hold up so just go with G'raha Tia being the exception). Perhaps the writers expected us to sympathize with G'raha Tia over Emet-Selch because the mankind G'raha Tia intends to wipe an entire world out for is OUR MANKIND, the people we know from the current FFXIV story? Ah, so it's okay for us to wipe out entire civilizations as long as it's not the protagonist's civilization? That... makes us no better than Emet-Selch.

Oh don't get me wrong. Shadowbringers is a heartbreaking, yet inspirational story. However, the more I've thought about it, the more I go - EXCUSE ME?!?!? Though, I gotta give the writer's props: at least their contradictory message isn't anywhere near as overt as that of Ao no Kiseki's (oh boy... spoilers for that game, obviously)

I think thats kind of the point. Its meant to be hypocritical and that puts us the player character and emet slech on equal footing. We are both doing the same shit for our own people and neither can back down. We completely understand the other but the only difference is to save whats still around rather than accept its already gone which has us stuck in the middle between the other two.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

I think thats kind of the point. Its meant to be hypocritical and that puts us the player character and emet slech on equal footing. We are both doing the same shit for our own people and neither can back down. We completely understand the other but the only difference is to save whats still around rather than accept its already gone which has us stuck in the middle between the other two.

Hm... could make for an interesting scene if Elidibus found out about the Exarch. Not sure if the writers could justify it, though, as Elidibus seems pragmatic enough that the moment he found out, he'd just teleport away and use his immortality to begin working on that plan, out of reach of the protagonists. I'm worried that they're just going to skim over the implications of the alternate timeline, though, and just save it for a throwaway "dark future" raid where you just fight cool bosses for the sake of it, rather than actually exploring any of this.

- - - Updated - - -

Also interesting is how the Ironworks, a small rag tag bunch (from what we've seen, pre calamity it was a very small company, just Cid, Biggs, Wedge, Jessie, and a handful of technicians. Post calamity, there wouldn't be any engineering schools and the Ironworks would only find a handful of people idealistic enough to join their cause, what with it being as hard as it is to survive the post apocalypse with everybody starving and killing each other for resources) managed to accomplish in a few hundred years what the Ascians have been struggling to accomplish over tens of thousands. Even more interesting, is the method with which it was done: the Ironworks succeeded by building a machine, a machine built by the contributions of many people working together, whereas the Ascian's method is to manipulate people into killing each other and sacrificing the rest as an energy source. I guess the moral of the story is: the power of friendship can accomplish anything? Well, it's a JRPG/anime. Ofcourse that's going to be a theme.

[Aezrin]

We don't have any proof Emet-Selch was even telling the truth. We don't even have proof if *he* knew if he was even telling the truth or not. The only truth about Emet-Selch we know for certain is he was tempered. A simple detail that makes all his motivation and "history" dubiously suspect.

[Hyral]

The hypocritical message of Shadowbringers

Spoilers for 5.0 I guess.

I don't think the writers are being hypocrites, the parallels are clear and there by design. If some people are treating you like a hero is the people who have a vested interest in your success, as it generally means they won't die. The people who treat you like a villain are those who have an interest in your failure to further their own plans. There's no narrator implying yours is the absolute truth and if anything the rest of the party shows their doubts over what's happening as they learn more about the ascians and make their way through Amaurot. The last conversation you have as a group is for them to reaffirm their convictions despite that lingering doubt, and in the last interactions with Emet they even agree, maybe humanity isn't as selfless as the Ascians once were but it is still their lives and they won't give up on them.

Emet in the end summarizes how the conflict will be perceived by the future: "The victor shall write the tale, and the vanquished become its villain." That wasn't just an edgy line thrown there by the writers to make him seem cool, no, after all the dialog that precedes it it accentuates how after both sides have made their arguments the only way to decide who will be considered good is who wins because they both have merit, Emet confirms it in his last words. The writers never mean for you to think things are just black and white.

However I have to disagree that just because there's parallels between their actions it means G'raha and Emet are exactly the same. For starters G'raha is not committing genocide on a global scale, he's preventing it. The future G'raha comes from becomes that way because Emet destroys the First and inflicts a Calamity upon the Source. Humanity didn't get together and decided to cause a Calamity on themselves. On the other hand the ascians did get together and decided to summon Zodiark and then Hydaelyn. G'raha is fixing a problem that was cast upon humanity by someone else, while the ascians' wound is self inflicted even if they didn't mean it to be that way.

- - - Updated - - -

the Ironworks succeeded by building a machine, a machine built by the contributions of many people working together, whereas the Ascian's method is to manipulate people into killing each other and sacrificing the rest as an energy source. I guess the moral of the story is: the power of friendship can accomplish anything? Well, it's a JRPG/anime. Ofcourse that's going to be a theme.

Well also the ascians are immortal beings. Interacting with them through Amaurot they seemed to approach issues very differently and almost entirely rely on creation magic until they got hit by the End of the Days, which they tried to fix also with creation magic. Mortals have limited lifespans and have to make do with a lot of nonsense to achieve their goals instead of spending and eternity just making things real with thoughts and magic. Then you add that the ascians are tempered so that could be messing with their normal thought process and it makes sense humanity might be more craftier after generations of research put together.

[Faroth]

They've toyed with the "two sides to a situation" a few times now. While they didn't delve into it story wise in Stormblood, Revelutions has the lyrics:

Soft is the breeze that can set a petal free
And yet 'tis the storm that doth see the petal soar
High o'er the trees in the throes of Liberty
'Til unstirring skies consign her to memory

One kingdom's fall is another kingdom's freedom
One sovereign's war is another sovereign's peace
One mother's pride is another mother's sorrow
Their tears both soak the land that they love

As for Shadowbringers,

Spoiler: 

A friend of mine pointed out that the music that plays in Crystarium after finishing the 5.0 MSQ, Tomorrow and Tomorrow.... is about Emet Selch, the weight he carried, and all he truly wanted in the end.

For whom weeps the storm
Her tears on our skin
The days of our years gone
Our souls soaked in sin
These memories ache with the weight of tomorrow


Basically about the plight of the Ascians losing everything, their time passed as their world destroyed and those memories weigh on them, and Emet-Selch, as they carry on into each new day basically for eternity. Even souls soaked in sin suggests the stain of the deaths they've viewed as necessary.

Who fights?
Who flies?
Who falls?


Fairly straightforward... who lives and dies through time.

Stand tall my friend
May all of the dark lost inside you find light again
In time tumbling turning we seek amends
Eternal winds to the land descend
Our journey will never end

This seems from the WoL to Emet-Selch. Emet is the one being told to stand tall, hoping the light can be found inside him. "Our journey will never end" referring to the WoL carrying Emet-Selch with him in memory.

From those who've fallen to those who rise
A prayer to keep us ever by your side
An undying promise that we just might
Carry on
In a song

Pray don't forget us
Your bygone kin
With one world's end
Does a new begin
And should our souls scatter
Unto the wind
Still we shall live on

Again, for those who've fallen (Emet-Selch) to those who rise (Warrior of Light), a prayer to keep us (the Ascians) by your side ("remember us"), and the "undying promise that we just might carry on in a song" is again the plea to remember them. To remember that they lived rather than be forgotten to the sands of time. That's further with the "pray don't forget us your bygone kin" as the WoL is one of them as well. One world's end, the Sundering, caused the beginning of the new world and that's the world the WoL fights for. And even if the Ascians are defeated, they'll live on so long as they're remembered.

It strikes me as accepting mortality and not being forgotten by those who live on, which Emet-Selch seems to accept in the very end with those "remember us" lines.

Then the lyric refrain is slightly changed for the final verse:

Stand tall my friend
May all of the dark deep inside you find light again
This time tumbling turning we make amends
The eternal winds throughout the land ascend
Here to lift us that we won't end

It's still wishing for the dark deep within Emet to find light again, but now it says "we make amends" rather than seeking amends and the eternal winds ascend, lifting them up, rather than descending on the lands "that we won't end" as if making that promise that the Ascians and their plight and history won't be forgotten.


For that matter, I feel like "Shadowbringers" has a lot of insight to the themes of the story.

One brings shadow, one brings light
Two-toned echoes tumbling through time
Threescore wasted, ten cast aside
Four-fold knowing, no end in sight
One brings shadow, one brings light
One dark future no one survives
On their shadows, away we fly

"One dark future no one survives" is what G'raha is trying to prevent. It's not that a new humanity arose, it's that what's left after the calamity is an unsustainable future that's doomed to collapse, leaving nothing in the end. At least from what they're able to see. Arguably, the Ascians in that future just see it as one genocide of many still to come to obliterate all life and (theoretically) revive their race. But that's kind of the real rub... there's nothing to really indicate that a complete rejoining to the Source would restore the Ascians either. Maybe the dozen of them who weren't sundered would be, but that's an argument for the eradication of the countless many for the needs of the minute few.

There's a lot more in the song's lyrics about the conflict and the opposing views and what is ultimately being fought to prevent in the future G'raha has returned from. I'd even say there's a little bit of a hint, in hindsight, of the WoL and Emet-Selch being more "one and the same" than it first seemed.

[Granyala]

But that's kind of the real rub... there's nothing to really indicate that a complete rejoining to the Source would restore the Ascians either. Maybe the dozen of them who weren't sundered would be, but that's an argument for the eradication of the countless many for the needs of the minute few.

Ascians use creation magic.
Right now, as far as I gather, their ability to use it is severely limited, because they are cut off from the source due to the splintering of worlds.

If all worlds were rejoined, they'd regain their full power and could just re-create their civilization ... for real, instead of an echo.

- - - Updated - - -

Also interesting is how the Ironworks, a small rag tag bunch (from what we've seen, pre calamity it was a very small company, just Cid, Biggs, Wedge, Jessie, and a handful of technicians. Post calamity, there wouldn't be any engineering schools and the Ironworks would only find a handful of people idealistic enough to join their cause, what with it being as hard as it is to survive the post apocalypse with everybody starving and killing each other for resources) managed to accomplish in a few hundred years what the Ascians have been struggling to accomplish over tens of thousands.

They only managed that because they had access to Alexander and Omega. We still don't know they came from.

Also, keep in mind, that humans thought processes are radically different from the Ascians. We face "unsolvable" problems pretty much every day and are forced to be creative.
The Ascians had the luxury of "fixing" everything with their uber powerful creation magic for what seems to be a small eternity. You see that their society was driven by conformity. Expression of unique Ideas wasn't exactly encouraged, so their ability to think "out of the box" was probably quite limited.

[Faroth]

Ascians use creation magic.
Right now, as far as I gather, their ability to use it is severely limited, because they are cut off from the source due to the splintering of worlds.

If all worlds were rejoined, they'd regain their full power and could just re-create their civilization ... for real, instead of an echo.

Also true....in their theory.

Again, it's arguably a hypothesis they're working from and just expecting it will ultimately work.

Whether or not Ascians could creation magic Ascians and still be as they were, who knows. Wasn't their creation having a soul an unforeseen and unexpected thing in the case of the Phoenix they created?

[Hyral]

If all worlds were rejoined, they'd regain their full power and could just re-create their civilization ... for real, instead of an echo.

Is that how things work though... Creation magic is a great tool for manifesting thoughts and even feelings but we've never seen it used to do more than just create things. It is creation magic after all, not just all purpose magic. The ascians might use it to re-create their civilization as they remember it but does it mean it is really them or just perfect copies? I'm focusing on the soul of an individual when I ask that.

We don't know how ascian souls work except that for some reason they are able to linger in the plane between the material and the aetherial sea until they can manifest in a material form again, unless their souls are contained in auracite and also destroyed. I wonder if what Zodiark did is irreversible. If when he consumed the sacrifices he fed on their souls and not just their material forms. It might be impossible to bring back the ascians who died to Zodiark though the ones who got shattered by the sundering might come back after the rejoining is complete.

I think the guy you are talking to is right. The ascians might just be working under assumptions born from their tempering than any real logic. I guess only they would know.

[Wrecktangle]

So sidebar, was doing my weekly clear with pugs on e6s as I hate to do, but this time, it wasn't hate... Our healers, somehow kept everyone topped off while sustaining a combined 20k dps. Our healers. 99th and 95th percentile on damage respectively.

We had Garuda to 50% before Ifrit came out. Conflag was 19% or something stupid.

I only managed a 40th percentile because:
1) I'm stupid low ilvl.
2) The other tank got clipped like an idiot, so I had to use HG to save us from a wipe on the tankbuster rip uptime.
3) I suck.

Working on E7S Enrage right now. Honestly, one of the best designed tankbuster mechanics I've seen in a long time. It's a great step forward to being less scripted and more random and needing adaption on the fly. I actually have enjoyed this tier decently so far, despite pugs being incredibly painful.

Also please - if the party says clear, or last phase progression it does NOT mean P1 or add learning phase in E7S people >.<

PF parties out here be lying big time. I now have to actually look at logs to see how many times someone has killed a boss before taking them in, because trap carries keep sneaking into my parties and are either deliberately acting like they've never cleared, or they were hard carried. Shouldn't need to spend 2 hours worth of wipes re-progging a SCRIPTED fight we've already all progged and cleared.

[Wrecktangle]

Eh, it's like any other social approval process. People pad their resumes for the same reason.

People expect the world so applicants steadily engage in an arms race to see who can present themselves as being the most awesome while still being believable.

If anyone were truly honest, they'd never get into any group. Even in the first week, you're expected to give that air of experience somehow.

While true,

I always present myself as the correct level of experience. A great example being E5S. As a tank there are 2 different responsibilities. MT and OT. I don't clear it until I know both roles well. I get people joining my party and he's like you need to do the duty action and the add, I don't know how. I'm like then go back to a fucking learning party. You only know half your responsibilities.

I also regularly host learning parties. In these parties I expect you to know up to that point. I will gladly teach anything after or we'll learn it together, but I don't hesitate to replace people if they lied. I had to do it just the other day with our Ramuh party. I flat out told the one healer, "Zoe, with all due respect this was a chain lightning learning party and you have not indicated that you know the fight to that point. I have to replace you, best of luck!"

They alt-f4'd and I felt bad because they were clearly upset, but in 5 pulls we didn't make it past Fury's 14 once, they died every single pull or caused a wipe every single pull. What they did was disrespectful to the others trying to learn.

[dope_danny]

Is that how things work though... Creation magic is a great tool for manifesting thoughts and even feelings but we've never seen it used to do more than just create things. It is creation magic after all, not just all purpose magic. The ascians might use it to re-create their civilization as they remember it but does it mean it is really them or just perfect copies? I'm focusing on the soul of an individual when I ask that.

We don't know how ascian souls work except that for some reason they are able to linger in the plane between the material and the aetherial sea until they can manifest in a material form again, unless their souls are contained in auracite and also destroyed. I wonder if what Zodiark did is irreversible. If when he consumed the sacrifices he fed on their souls and not just their material forms. It might be impossible to bring back the ascians who died to Zodiark though the ones who got shattered by the sundering might come back after the rejoining is complete.

I think the guy you are talking to is right. The ascians might just be working under assumptions born from their tempering than any real logic. I guess only they would know.

Technically they want to rejoin the worlds which doesn't turn it back into that world it just rejoins everything that was split. They then want to kill everyone on our world -which is what Black Rose was meant to do but that plan leaked early- and use that to summon a rejoined Zodiark to undo the deaths of every one from their world using us as the fuel rather than natural life as they originally planned. I just assumed At least a portion of our worlds population must be reincarnated Ancients like the WoL is so thats a reason why they need us all gone otherwise those people can't be remade by Zodiark

[Nasuuna]

So sidebar, was doing my weekly clear with pugs on e6s as I hate to do, but this time, it wasn't hate... Our healers, somehow kept everyone topped off while sustaining a combined 20k dps. Our healers. 99th and 95th percentile on damage respectively.

We had Garuda to 50% before Ifrit came out. Conflag was 19% or something stupid.

I only managed a 40th percentile because:
1) I'm stupid low ilvl.
2) The other tank got clipped like an idiot, so I had to use HG to save us from a wipe on the tankbuster rip uptime.
3) I suck.

Working on E7S Enrage right now. Honestly, one of the best designed tankbuster mechanics I've seen in a long time. It's a great step forward to being less scripted and more random and needing adaption on the fly. I actually have enjoyed this tier decently so far, despite pugs being incredibly painful.

Also please - if the party says clear, or last phase progression it does NOT mean P1 or add learning phase in E7S people >.<

PF parties out here be lying big time. I now have to actually look at logs to see how many times someone has killed a boss before taking them in, because trap carries keep sneaking into my parties and are either deliberately acting like they've never cleared, or they were hard carried. Shouldn't need to spend 2 hours worth of wipes re-progging a SCRIPTED fight we've already all progged and cleared.

I've only seen post add phase twice for e7, it is sooooo damn easy.

e6 and e5 are way harder

Shiva definitely deserves her Mini-Ultimate nickname tho.

[Hyral]

Technically they want to rejoin the worlds which doesn't turn it back into that world it just rejoins everything that was split. They then want to kill everyone on our world -which is what Black Rose was meant to do but that plan leaked early- and use that to summon a rejoined Zodiark to undo the deaths of every one from their world using us as the fuel rather than natural life as they originally planned. I just assumed At least a portion of our worlds population must be reincarnated Ancients like the WoL is so thats a reason why they need us all gone otherwise those people can't be remade by Zodiark

I'm with you for most of it but I was under the impression that after rejoining all worlds the souls that are still alive right now who were sundered ascians would become complete beings again and that then they would sacrifice all the newborn life that bloomed after the sundering to awaken the rejoined Zodiark. I'm not saying you are wrong though, everything you said is possible given what we know of them and their plan, but I interpreted it differently. Man, ascians and their plans are so shady.

As for Black Rose, I don't think that's what it was meant to do. There's still six worlds left to rejoin. Wouldn't killing everyone in the Source before that defeat the point? Who would they sacrifice then?

[dope_danny]

I'm with you for most of it but I was under the impression that after rejoining all worlds the souls that are still alive right now who were sundered ascians would become complete beings again and that then they would sacrifice all the newborn life that bloomed after the sundering to awaken the rejoined Zodiark. I'm not saying you are wrong though, everything you said is possible given what we know of them and their plan, but I interpreted it differently. Man, ascians and their plans are so shady.

As for Black Rose, I don't think that's what it was meant to do. There's still six worlds left to rejoin. Wouldn't killing everyone in the Source before that defeat the point? Who would they sacrifice then?

I could be wrong since Stormblood was a hot minute ago but i always got the impression Solus wanted it sat on as a nuke button when the aether was ready, Gaius found out and shut down the project -or the ascians simply came to the conclusion it was actually detrimental rather than beneficial and gently pushed Gais into finding out about it- and trying and failing to destroy all samples, we accidentally found samples questing in SB and the Emperor/Zenos were behind its production being restarted and it accidentally leaking lead to the bad end future thats been averted since it being leaked and norvrant rejoining caused aether in the world to strangulate which is kind of antithetical to the plan to resummon Zodiark. Which is probably why the ascians who are clearly still messing with Garlemalde via Zenos have done nothing to stop Gaius and Estinien.

[RohanV]

The hypocritical message of Shadowbringers

Interesting argument. I think we treat "ceasing to exist" differently than "never existing". Probably because the first is a real thing, while the second is hypothetical.

For example, I think if the plot had been about Emet-Selch time-travelling back to prevent the creation of Hydalyn (or possibly preventing the calamity entirely), we would not see his actions as morally wrong. Oh, we'd probably still oppose him, because we like the world as it is. But we would not be repulsed at his actions.

[Merie]

The hypocritical message of Shadowbringers

Spoilers for 5.0

Spoiler: 

In the story of Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers, the main antagonist, Emet-Selch, is one of the last survivors of your usual JRPG ancient precursor civilization. Due to a calamity, almost the entire previous ancient civilization was wiped out, and the world irreparably damaged. To undo the damage and create world in which life can prosper once again, most of the people of the ancient civilization sacrificed themselves to stop and undo the destruction wrought by the calamity. For obvious reasons, the antagonist, Emet-Selch, feels deep trauma from having lost his friends, his family, nearly his entire people, and wants to bring them back. In Shadowbringers, Emet-Selch is trying to resurrect his dead people by creating another calamity that will sacrifice the lives the current civilization, the humanity that arose in the wake of the calamity thanks to the sacrifice of the ancients. (Also, BTW, Emet-Selch has no proof that this plan will actually work: he's going to kill billions of people - and has been killing billions of people - on the HOPE that this will all work out in the end).

Also, the game goes out of its way to point out that the ancient precursor civilization was "objectively" better than modern humanity. Ancient humanity was blessed with gifts and abilities modern humanity does not have, and the people of the ancient civilization were so selfless and goodhearted, it'd be ridiculous to imagine humanity today being like them. Emet-Selch to the protagonist: "Do you seriously expect half of your mankind to sacrifice themselves for the other? Ofcourse they would not!". Thus, Emet argues that the old mankind is more worthy of the sacrifices of the new mankind than the new mankind is worthy of the sacrifices of the old mankind.

So, TL;DR: Emet-Selch has a tragic backstory, wants to resurrect his people. The method in which he would try to resurrect his people involves the arbitray mass murder of modern life (by sacrificing them to bring back the old). Also, by his standards, the old mankind is "objectively" better than the new mankind, and thus we should erase modern life to bring back the old.


In the same story, we have a heroic character, G'raha Tia, born as apart of modern day humanity. Earlier in FFXIV, G'raha Tia kinda sacrificed himself and went into stasis to preserve mankind from other existential threats I won't get into here. G'raha Tia wakes up in the future, several hundreds years after the story of Shadowbringers takes place. In the future, he finds out that Emet-Selch succeeded in his plan in Shadowbringers, and killed off a huge swath of the modern day humanity. Pretty much every character we met in FFXIV died in this calamity, including the protagonists. In the wake of this new calamity, another form of "humanity" arose. "the rule of law gave way to the rule of might, creating a world of ceaseless war". So basically, the FFXIV world went from something we IRL would consider to be "normal" to what we typically envision as post-nuclear apoclaypse anarchic wasteland. The new state of the world, the "new mankind", is objectively worse than what had come before.

Horrified by this new world, G'raha Tia sets out to try to bring back the old mankind, the world - the mankind - of the current FFXIV story. G'raha Tia travels back in time, back to the current FFXIV story, to change the timeline by stopping Emet-Selch from sacrificing the current humanity. If G'raha Tia suceeds, the so called "bad future" will be undone, and the current humanity will continue on as usual. (BTW: when G'raha Tia began planning to go back in time, went back in time, and began trying to change the timeline, he had no proof that this plan would actually work at all. He even half suspected that he'd create a time paradox and accomplish nothing. He went through a herculean amount of effort on the HOPE that this would all work out in the end).

So, TL;DR: G'raha Tia has a tragic backstory, wants to resurrect his people. The method in which he would try to resurrect his people involves the arbitray mass murder of modern life (by changing the timeline so that the people of the Age of Might would never be born, effectively killing them). Also, by his standards, the old mankind is "objectively" better than the new mankind, and thus we should erase modern life to bring back the old.

Wait a minute... I smell something fishy here. Emet-Selch and G'raha Tia have the exact same backstory! They both survived an apoclaypse in which their humanity perished, witnessed a new, horrifyingly "inferior" successor mankind arise, and then set out to erase the new mankind to bring back the prior mankind. Why then, is Emet-Selch depicted as the villain, while G'raha Tia is depicted as the hero? If G'raha Tia is to be praised for his actions - trying to create an objectively better world - then shouldn't Emet-Selch be as well? Or, if Emet-Selch is supposed to be evil for trying to wipe people out to bring back the dead, then shouldn't G'raha Tia be depicted as evil for trying to do the same?

Ofcourse, the writers don't seem interested in dealing with this issue. At the end of Shadowbringers, the heroes kill Emet-Selch, and the current mankind is saved... except G'raha Tia is still around, so it seems no time paradox has occured. Maybe... the old timeline - the humanity of the Age of Might - is still alive? Keyword: Maybe. Remember, G'raha Tia had absolutely no idea this would work out, and had every reason to believe that either 1. the timeline wouldn't have been changed at all or 2. he succeeded changing history, preventing the Age of Might from happening and erasing all of those people in it (except him in the new future... time travel logic doesn't hold up so just go with G'raha Tia being the exception). Perhaps the writers expected us to sympathize with G'raha Tia over Emet-Selch because the mankind G'raha Tia intends to wipe an entire world out for is OUR MANKIND, the people we know from the current FFXIV story? Ah, so it's okay for us to wipe out entire civilizations as long as it's not the protagonist's civilization? That... makes us no better than Emet-Selch.

Oh don't get me wrong. Shadowbringers is a heartbreaking, yet inspirational story. However, the more I've thought about it, the more I go - EXCUSE ME?!?!? Though, I gotta give the writer's props: at least their contradictory message isn't anywhere near as overt as that of Ao no Kiseki's (oh boy... spoilers for that game, obviously)

Except there is no future for the new life sprung from the timeline in which emet selch succeeded. That doomed timeline is assured to see the Ascians rejoin all elements to the source, thus eliminating any and all. They were doomed regardless as for whether or not Gratia succeeded.

[The Casualty]

I've only seen post add phase twice for e7, it is sooooo damn easy.

e6 and e5 are way harder

Shiva definitely deserves her Mini-Ultimate nickname tho.

Agreed about E7. Its all about understanding the color/portals, and it took me the first week to really understand it. The latter half of the fight with the black/white + portals seems ultra complicated until you realize that based on the color of the North-most portal on the West side of the arena dictates whether you are alternating portals each time, or staying in your same spot.

Shiva sorta reminds me of God Kefka as far as complexity of mechanics. Our major hang up was understanding and actually executing the bowtie strategy of the first Light's Rampant. Shiva has been a much harder fight than Titan, which is great - the only thing I'm not a huge fan of is the massive amounts of downtime in the middle during the phase transition after adds.