1. #50481
    Quote Originally Posted by Isilrien View Post
    Your perspective was interesting as it was not the same as mine as a healer at all. With a few exceptions, the tanks I've had seem to wear paper armor and do not know what defensive cooldowns are. Granted, I'm only level 54 and you may be talking about dungeons above level 50.
    We're having an influx of new players right now who probably aren't getting their Ironworks set as soon as they hit level 50. Most veteran players hit level 50 and immediately equip the set (can be bought in Mor Dhona with Tomestones, the currency that drops from all duties if you play a job level 50 or above, and is near BIS gear for level 50). With the latest tomestone gear for your level bracket, dungeons are trivial. If you're just using drops you get from dungeons or quests as you go then yeah the stat difference will be tremendous and you will die fast.

  2. #50482
    Brewmaster Isilrien's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Val the Moofia Boss View Post
    We're having an influx of new players right now who probably aren't getting their Ironworks set as soon as they hit level 50. Most veteran players hit level 50 and immediately equip the set (can be bought in Mor Dhona with Tomestones, the currency that drops from all duties if you play a job level 50 or above, and is near BIS gear for level 50). With the latest tomestone gear for your level bracket, dungeons are trivial. If you're just using drops you get from dungeons or quests as you go then yeah the stat difference will be tremendous and you will die fast.
    Ok, that is similar to what Tojara was saying: when people have tomestone gear, dungeons and full parties are easy. When they are only wearing MSQ or dungeon gear, they die quickly (which is what I'm experiencing as a WHM healer with most dungeons and full parties up to and including level 50). I suspect that some if not many tanks also do not know how to use defensive cooldowns on trash and this is why they drop like a rock and I don't have time to do anything but spam heals.

  3. #50483
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    Even light parties should be okay if you farm out some of the gear. I pretty much always had a full set going into each expansion (I stopped four years ago right before the end of HW), and basically farmed out a full set of gear for each 50/60/70 bracket when I jumped back in a month ago. It doesn't take that much time and I wanted it in the event that I try other classes that share that role type, and due to how FF gearing works (especially for older content), it's pretty fast.

    Pretty much my entire 50-80 experience was in full tomestone gear, jumping into random pugs. Basically every pull I did was 2-4 packs deep and never really had much trouble with it as I approached it just like I would in WoW. Unlike WoW you actually have way more defensive CDs, so cycling them means it's pretty hard to die (except for some dungeons). Trash isn't necessarily hard, but if you don't rotate defensive abilities and you want to pull big, you will probably die. Keep in mind some of this is based on the healer in your group too, as my friend who I was helping level let me die in a low level ShB dungeon because I pulled way too much and she just couldn't keep up (barely met min iLvL requirement to enter). So temper your expectations some. I'd maybe merge two packs at the start of a dungeon and if your health is never in danger just go balls out for the rest of the dungeon.

    But yeah, if you're playing with tanks who drop like flies its more than likely they aren't using defensive CDs. All of them have numerous 60-120 second CDs and last an enormous amount of time. Truth be told while the trash in dungeons is whatever, it's pretty much what you "need" to use your defensive CDs on if you want to finish the dungeon faster. Bosses are the coolest part of the dungeon for sure, but if you do the mechanics correctly you never really have to pop a single defensive CD typically (even though you should, cause why not?). Bosses are only dangerous if you fuck up and you have several stacks of vulnerability, which I think is a pretty good mechanic overall for letting people know they goofed.

    I'm ignorant of healer AoE damage, but I'm going to assume that it's pretty much non-existent in this game. I know they can do ST damage, which is great on bosses, but if you want to go fast in dungeons the best way to accomplish that is to pull as much as you can so your healer only has time to heal.

  4. #50484
    Quote Originally Posted by Isilrien View Post
    Ok, that is similar to what Tojara was saying: when people have tomestone gear, dungeons and full parties are easy. When they are only wearing MSQ or dungeon gear, they die quickly (which is what I'm experiencing as a WHM healer with most dungeons and full parties up to and including level 50). I suspect that some if not many tanks also do not know how to use defensive cooldowns on trash and this is why they drop like a rock and I don't have time to do anything but spam heals.
    I'm leveling WHM these days as well, and I had similar issues in some instances. The very early ones (up to roughly 35) were ok, because nothing really takes damage. The only annoying thing there is tanks that just continue moving and pulling more, while still taking lots of hits and damage - not considering that there are no instant heals available to WHM at that point. I preferred scholar in this level range, as the pet always healed a LOT on these lower levels. It gets better when you get the hot on WHM, but some tanks don't seem to get the aggro over it when pulling. I had a wipe yesterday in the 44 instance (don't remember the name), because the tank pulled an entire room with 4-5 packs, and I had 5+ mobs on me after the pull. It took him around 10 seconds to get a few of them off of me, but then he died while I was trying to keep alive myself.

    And gear makes a huge difference not only on the tank, but also on yourself as the healer. My second wipe on the WHM was in the 41 instance in an actually really good party. The tank also took around 4-5 packs each time, shuffled CDs great, and the dds did good damage. The issue was again, that once I didn't have sprint ready and lost range for a few seconds (as there's no instant heal and I had to cast one while he was moving on). The tank was super low, and even with hot and spamming the largest heal with the haste buff I couldn't top him up. That wipe was on me - a bit better gear, and the heals would have been enough to keep him alive. I actually got a weapon on that run, and the heal went from roughly 700/cast to 950/cast.

    [e]
    Quote Originally Posted by Tojara View Post
    I'm ignorant of healer AoE damage, but I'm going to assume that it's pretty much non-existent in this game. I know they can do ST damage, which is great on bosses, but if you want to go fast in dungeons the best way to accomplish that is to pull as much as you can so your healer only has time to heal.
    It depends a bit on the level range. E.g. on scholar, you don't do any aoe till around 45 (would have to lie about the exact level, it was quite some time ago that I reached it). After that, it's great, but a bit annoying to pull off, because it's a very small range around you. However, as other classes get more in their toolkit for aoe damage, it falls off a bit as you level up, because you don't really get anything in addition to that one aoe spell. Maybe there's more later on. Imo in ST the difference between dd and healer seems to be larger than in aoe, at least around 45-60. Of course, as you mention, this always depends on how much time you have to spend healing, and how much time you can spend doing damage. It depends a lot on the tank, and the instance, and your own gear as well.
    Last edited by Frostfred; 2021-09-11 at 01:42 PM.

  5. #50485
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    I suppose it depends how many oGCD instant heals the healers actually have as well. Generally I'll dump two AoE GCDs into a pack before running to the next one, to where I'll stop for a few seconds before jumping to a third or potentially more. The logic here is that it just gives healers several seconds to top me off before jumping to another, as I'd rather not die.

    Pulling is a bit different in this game as opposed to WoW. Threat isn't really a factor in FF as long as the tank is actually hitting things and most mobs literally only hit the primary target (in WoW there are loads of casts that hit random targets, and also a million more range mobs). However the game doesn't have roots, snares or mass CC to prevent things from getting to you either. Rounding things up in WoW usually results in people doing basically nothing, while the tank finds a place to LoS however many packs they pulled. You can kind of LoS a bit in FF I guess, but generally it's pull and dump a couple GCDs (while healer catches up) and then proceed to the next pack.

  6. #50486
    Speaking of tanks and trash pulls, is starting with a ranged attack standard or just a bad habit I'm seeing in early dungeons? I tried out tanking yesterday and between throwing Tomahawk and doing Overpower I really feel that 2.5s GCD. I kept thinking it would be better to not waste a GCD and just run in and Overpower.

    Also, what's the recommended amount of mobs to use Rampart? It seems like a waste on 3 or less, but I'm coming from WoW mentality where I'm used to saving CDs for special circumstances and not to just use on cooldown.
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  7. #50487
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    Unless you're doing savage content you might as well just use things on CD.

    On my DRK I save MP for the blackest night because it doesn't take away from your damage anyways, and use it basically on CD. I'm pretty geared so I only do that if I pull more than 1 pack because there's a pretty high chance if I pull just one pack that the mob pack won't take away 25% of my health in 7 seconds (should give people a pretty good idea of how much damage trash packs can do). Some of that depends on trash cause some does hit harder than others, and while I'm not sure what default auto attacks are in FF, you can waste use of defensives if you happen to pop one during a long wind up ground attack that bosses/trash can use.

    A big thing you have to get use to which is probably the most frustrating thing about the game is the inherent delay on AoE cones and popping defensives in the game. It's either designed this way on purpose and not a huge deal once you realize what you're dealing with, but coming from something like WoW is a hard adjustment. In WoW you can leave cones at the very last micro second, or pop defensives at the last micro second and not get hit. Raid leading over the years and hearing people saying they got "clipped" is the most frustrating excuse in the world because they were just fucking slow. In FF if you try to game pressing defensives in that fashion you will always get hit for the full amount, and the same goes for AoE cones, even if you visibly have left them in the last 0.5 second. I realize this might be a 'get good' statement from some people, and of course you can just change your habits (which is what you have to do), but it still feels awful.

    From all of the things I've done as a tank you can literally just use defensives whenever though. The attack speed slow, reprisal and rampart are all things you can cycle in, while additionally using your class based mitigation as well. There's not much reason to have it sitting on CD, and contrary to popular belief it's how you're suppose to pull trash in WoW anyways by cycling defensive CDs. It allows healers to DPS and/or allows you to pull bigger anyway. If you're looking at it from a boss perspective (unless we're talking savage content), if you're appropriately geared and don't have vulnerability stacks you don't really have to use defensives at all for the majority of dungeon bosses, trials or raid encounters. Should you? Of course, especially for all the reasons listed prior.

    There's no doubt when you're actually doing hard content or trying to speed through dungeons that spreading out CDs and using them intelligently is pretty important. I think the notion of using defensive CDs so that healers can top other people off (if they made mistakes), or to just DPS is lost on a lot of people (in both WoW and FF). No reason to sit on defensives, and I'd argue that 90% of the time just rotating between them all without thinking will make your experience for both you and the people you play with easier anyways. Lots of tanks (and healers/DPS) will just sit on defensive CDS (or just be unaware they exist, especially for DPS) and just save them for "oh shit" moments, going an entire raid, dungeon, etc without ever popping them once. You can take avoidable damage a lot of the time if you actually pop defensive CDs as a DPS, the caveat here being that you know it won't be needed and you can survive upcoming attacks.

    The GCD is long enough that most ranged attacks are pretty worthless to use. The potency is really low, and unless you're prevented from physically attacking for a long period of time, they aren't all that useful to press. Most jobs when taken off a boss for a few seconds are in the middle of a combo, which both makes the next attack hit more and generally generate some sort of resource. I'm no math wizard, but I'd assume that the difference of sneaking in some ranged attacks from a damage perspective is either a DPS loss, or barely positive in most situations.

  8. #50488
    Mechagnome
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    After 202 hours of playing it and making it well in the story of Stormblood, I Quit, Like the story had so much filter at that point and complete static, Didn't enjoy my class anymore. Didn't enjoy being force to run group content to process and maybe it is better just watch the story on YouTube, like noting really change it's the same for everyone no matter what you do, maybe one line or 2 are different but everything else is the same.... lucky I got the game on sale!

  9. #50489
    Quote Originally Posted by |Dexter| View Post
    like noting really change it's the same for everyone no matter what you do, maybe one line or 2 are different but everything else is the same
    There's lots of character developement in SHB. You should finish that atleast. The story is really good in that one. Also, for the dungeons in SHB you don't need to run it with players anymore.

  10. #50490
    Quote Originally Posted by Xilurm View Post
    Also, for the dungeons in SHB you don't need to run it with players anymore.
    You'll still need to do 8 player trials.

  11. #50491
    I must admit I enjoyed heavensward story a lot more than stormblood. In stormblood the plot armor of two antagonists got waaaaaaaaaaay to thick. Also some cutscenes had way too much emotions attached to them to the point it became cringe AF.

    That said, still 1000x better than anything wow had.

    I've made the comparison once:
    If we put XIV story at ~ level of Tolkiens LOTR, wow story would be a dishwasher manual.


    Disclaimer for mmoc: The IF is there, which means if you think xiv story is way worse than lotr, wow story be a clothes tag.
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  12. #50492
    Over 9000! Poppincaps's Avatar
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    I think I'm in the minority who actually preferred Stormblood to Heavensward. I like them both quite a bit and actually I'm currently doing all the side quests in the game and I think the side quests do a good job of addressing the tensions between the people of Ishgard that the MSQ wasn't able to do. However, Stormblood feels like a much more personal story that delves deeper into it's characters, whereas Heavensward feels like an epic classic fantasy adventure.

    I don't really like Xenos at all and I'm concerned that he'll bring Endwalker down for me, but I really liked Yotsuyu and Fordola as antagonists.

    Shadowbringers is really on a whole different level though. I really think it's one of the best stories in fiction. Everything from the 70-80 MSQ up to 5.3 is incredible.

  13. #50493
    Quote Originally Posted by |Dexter| View Post
    After 202 hours of playing it and making it well in the story of Stormblood, I Quit, Like the story had so much filter at that point and complete static, Didn't enjoy my class anymore. Didn't enjoy being force to run group content to process and maybe it is better just watch the story on YouTube, like noting really change it's the same for everyone no matter what you do, maybe one line or 2 are different but everything else is the same.... lucky I got the game on sale!
    Honestly I think the problem is us. I am enjoying the storylines in FFXIV very much. That said there are bits that get boring. During these times I take a break for a few days or a week and play something else. You have to HAVE TO, have a backup for your downtime. You can't put all your energy into any one game for all your enjoyment because that's too much for any one game to live up to nowadays. Years ago it was different because there was little else to compare to so it was all good. Now there are so many other options our minds tend to wander easily.
    I use the comparison of steak and lobster. I love to eat a juicy steak and succulent lobster tails. But if you gave them to me to eat every day I would quickly loose my taste for them. I think the best way to enjoy something you love is to savor it in bite size portions with breaks of other things in between to mix things up.
    That said, the way SQuare dose the storytelling with FFXIV is a little different than what you might be used to with other game companies who front-load everything.
    FFXIV likes to beat around the bush sometimes. Introducing characters and quests that have seemingly nothing to do with anything only to tie them in late. This pays off if you stick around long enough but if you don't then it can be a trudge to get through.
    So my advice to you or anyone would be to have patience, give it time to unfold and when it becomes too much to bear then take a break and come back late. As myself and many many others have said, it dose pay off eventually if not always in a clear and concise manner.

  14. #50494
    I think FFXIV has been more enjoyable going 'backwards', so to speak. First of all, I've seen so many people overthink ShB and, being an overthinker myself, if I'd gotten there through progression from ARR I may have done the same instead of going in without any expectations and enjoying it as a stand alone story. There have also been several story elements that without knowledge of future developments would've fallen flat or been confusing to me, instead I was able to appreciate them for what they become later.

    My only issue is the filler and unfortunately that's 1) part of being an MMO and 2) not skippable since it's tied to the MSQ. It reminds me of 'slice of life' episodes, which I have always hated in series. You're on the edge of your seat wanting to find out what happens next in the main narrative only to have a week where the focus is on a day in the life of a side character who's not even part of it. Except while I can choose to not tune in for a week in regards to FFXIV I will have to play through that episode whether I like it or not, taking a break won't change that.
    "We must now recognize that the greatest threat of freedom for us all is if we go back to eating ourselves out from within." - John Anderson

  15. #50495
    Quote Originally Posted by |Dexter| View Post
    maybe one line or 2 are different but everything else is the same.... lucky I got the game on sale!
    Ahh, yes, I forgot about every other video game out there that doesn't have the exact same problem (including WoW) when you're playing through it. No matter what you do, everything winds up being the same!

    It's a good thing that problem is unique to XIV, and you can avoid playing it to not run into that!

  16. #50496
    I am Murloc!
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    There's still loads of filler in ShB to be honest, and I equate both HW and ShB to be about the same from a story side. The thing they both have going for them is that the stories aren't all over the place (despite expanding on the story in some key areas). SB is all over the place, and despite me paying attention to the MSQ in all of the entries it never really 'vibed' with me at all. Most of the Ala Mhigo side of the game was a huge meh to me, even though I like characters like Rauhban and to some extent Lyse as well. The Doman side was done much better. Fordola, the Emperor and Zenos (especially Zenos) are all characters I really just didn't care for in the slightest.

    If there's voice acting in a quest it's usually pretty important, whereas anything that's done purely by text you have to see what's transpiring before deciding to loosely skim through it. That's generally how I approached the story.

    A lot of the side quest stuff is sort of optional, except most of the trials and the main raid series for an expansion. Both the SB and ShB main raid series (along with *most* of the trials) were really good. A lot of them tie directly into the story or add quite a bit of depth to the main characters to make them entirely worth it. So I'd suggest at least doing those if you're working your way through the game from scratch.

    While dungeons are a pretty meh part of the game to me (some of the boss encounters are cool), I think the worst part of the game by far is the Alliance raids. The ShB one especially seemed to have little or nothing to do with FF at all, all the while taking the worst parts of WoW LFR and putting them into a 45-60 minute easy "raid" that you have to endure. To sum them up, it's basically ~6 encounters, 3 of which being bosses that take a long ass time to kill. You can absolutely get killed if you fuck up mechanics, but given that there's 24 people, the chance that you actually wipe is incredibly low. Aside from having little relevance to the story (the ARR one is fine, and doesn't take nearly as long), you're also met with a good portion of the raid leeching in corners of the room making it take way longer than it ever should.

    But yeah, Alliance raids really suck. I get that some people will just never be good at games or fuck up constantly, and that's okay. I'd much prefer to see people trying and dying over and over again, even if it's annoying. But purposely leeching annoys the hell out of me and there's numerous people who do this sort of thing in the 24 man raids. Unfortunately there's a huge stigma to calling people out in this game even if it's super justified and people just won't even bother.

  17. #50497
    Over 9000! Poppincaps's Avatar
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    Yeah gotta be honest Alliance Raids seem kinda out of place for me. Raids and Trials have Savage and Extreme modes to go through, but with Alliance Raids you clear them day one and that's it. It makes the odd numbered patches feel pretty skippable honestly.

  18. #50498
    Quote Originally Posted by Poppincaps View Post
    Yeah gotta be honest Alliance Raids seem kinda out of place for me. Raids and Trials have Savage and Extreme modes to go through, but with Alliance Raids you clear them day one and that's it. It makes the odd numbered patches feel pretty skippable honestly.
    Yeah Alliance Raids are pretty much just a single wing of a WoW raid on LFR difficulty, and completely linear.

  19. #50499
    Quote Originally Posted by Val the Moofia Boss View Post
    Yeah Alliance Raids are pretty much just a single wing of a WoW raid on LFR difficulty, and completely linear.
    *cough* Orbone monastery *cough* XD

    people go in there and wipe for days even if they do manage to clear it eventualy
    someone else might have gotten it wrong.

  20. #50500
    Quote Originally Posted by Mordin Solus View Post
    *cough* Orbone monastery *cough* XD

    people go in there and wipe for days even if they do manage to clear it eventualy
    Yeah... i think Val is underselling them.

    I would say the crystal tower first two wings are like LFR, but starting at world of Darkness you will need people who know what they are doing. Ivalice and Nier are legit tough though. You will die a lot. Many mechanics one-shot, which is not the case on WoW LFR.

    I do believe they have a loot lockout when they come out. They do award some of the best gear and they are really well done. The Nier raids were especially impressive.

    Thinking about it, it's not uncommon to wipe on labyrinth of the ancients final boss cause new peeps don't run to the platforms.
    Last edited by Swnem; 2021-09-13 at 09:44 AM.

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