Nogamara

Apparently there wasn’t enough to post about. I’ve been playing a lot of FFXIV but without lofty goals. After finishing the MSQ and people usually asking for a DPS to come join I leveled Bard to 90, but apparently I didn’t go fast enough because they had reached 90 by the time I had caught up. Not a problem though, I would’ve done this anyway pretty soon – and I even finished the Role Quest. White Mage is also nearly 85 and right now I’m slowly grinding Tomestones for 570 gear. I’ve hardly touched the other jobs, just bringing the three melee to 50 after I had finished the Endwalker MSQ, that only took a few hours combined.

For some reason I had misunderstood my FC (and the others in the soon-to-be raid group) and I kinda missed that the normal raid launched last night and I could’ve been working on iLvl 565 to be able to join it on normal mode. Yeah, it was in the patch notes but I guess I misunderstood our schedule and was still waiting for people to speak up and catch up. Now they’ve surpassed me, but I guess I still can get some stuff done over the holidays.

Endwalker? It’s great, I actually liked it a lot more than Shadowbringers, especially the leveling dungeons.

While I wasn’t a huge fan of the Warrior gear, I kinda like the Bard one.

Apparently I was too busy playing so I didn’t write anything.

Back on Friday I actually managed to log in very late and do some stuff. And then there was the weekend and 2 days of vacation time and last night I dinged 90 on Warrior.

I had planned to leisurely finish the MSQ today, so I got into the queue about an hour before work was supposed to end, it jumped from 1150ish to 1250ish, then I got in and played for like 4h, then I got booted in the second to last dungeon (duty, not the final trial) after wiping on the first boss 2-3 times, getting a replacement healer at 13%. When I managed to get in again the queue was at 5000, so I logged out for the night. Too bad!

Impressions? It’s been pretty cool but I guess I’m not a huge fan of playing for speed. I was #2 in our guild to reach 90 and maybe I’ll be #2 for the MSQ, but it only happened because of the 4 days I had time. I didn’t skip reading a single quest or cut scene and I tanked all duties, so no dungeon finder queue. Time well spent, but in no particular need to rush to max level in a game soon. But it was fun, but parts of it were very weird. Pretty cool to have it without spoilers, I like this so much more than in WoW.

Also I totally forgot to take note how many hours it took and I absolutely did idle a few hours somewhere, dutifully moving every 5-10min because of the fear of not being able to log in again. Showers, cooking, food, everything timed in 10 minute bursts. I’ll be glad if that is over.

Probably not happening.

Due to work and some errands I forgot to switch on my PC in my lunch break and start patching, so this is how it looked at 7 pm my time:

And now, nearly an hour later:

So even though I technically could still start playing at midnight, the queue will probably still be there.
I’m keeping an eye on this but I don’t have high hopes.

Of course it’s my own fault to a degree, but for WoW… I’m pretty sure I could download the expansion with 5-6 MB/s or whatever my connection is able to stomach. Guess there’s some potential to improve for Square Enix. (I have a 100 mbit/s line from Germany’s biggest ISP).

So today is the day of the Endwalker prepatch, which means Shadowbringers is officially over.

It was a weird beginning for me, starting FFXIV in February 2019, staying for half a year, preordering Shadowbringers, then stopping to play at Level 68, so close to the Shadowbringers content that everyone had lauded so much. Not by that time, but the hype was real already. But the MSQ had gotten to me and around fall I simply stopped playing, to return only in summer 2021, basically 2 years later when everyone was already finished with the expansion.

I had managed to finish Stormblood in my 14 day free welcome back trial, then needed around two weeks to get through the Shadowbringers MSQ and to reach Level 80 on the first job and here we are now, 3 and a half months after I started, with 6 jobs at 80.

I think I did a pretty job catching up (and not wasting EXP as they’ll round down everything to just the current level), compared to when I resubbed:

Sure, the optimum outcome would’ve been getting a few more to 80, the 3 melee jobs to 50, and the casters to 60 – but I’m not complaining. I deliberately didn’t powerlevel and stopped when I didn’t felt like it, I’m happy with the outcome.

And so I just desynthesized all my belts, spent all my irregular Tomestones from the event, paid for a 2nd retainer which I can only create on Friday because I want a Bunny Boy and semi-cleaned up my bags. But it’s just too much stuff with leveling gear for all the jobs, so I guess another retainer isn’t the worst choice. Funny how I said I’ll cancel my first paid retainer once I sold all my mats, and then I bought all the Poetics gear for all jobs at 50, 60, and 70.

Anyway, this will be my first expansion launch in FFXIV, and I’m looking forward. I have no big plans, WoW is cancelled, and I even got a few vacation days left that I had to spend anyway. Not on Friday, but early next week.

A few weekend plans got cancelled (not that there’s exactly a lot to plan outside) and so I finally? managed to finish all my Disciple of the Hand quest lines – but I think I started early this week already. Eight times from the Level 53 quest all the way to the end at 70. I think the steps are 53, 55, 58, 60, 60, 63, 65, 68, 70. Some of them are easier than others, some are downright annoying to go from here to there and back again. And again, and again.

They really made them better in Stormblood. In general less travel and especially getting the mats handed to you and not having to buy everything from the market board as with the Heavensward quests. The quest chains are still long enough even without the shopping. Most were really fun.

The only thing left to do for me now are the Stormblood Disciple of the Land quests, all three chains – so I have no idea how much work they will be, but I plan to finish those up before Endwalker launches.

Also nearly two weeks since I posted a general update:

Machinist and Paladin are 80, Dark Knight is 65, Astrologian is close to 60 – and my current goal is to get the melee jobs to 40.

So, Endwalker got delayed for two weeks and I’m not really fussed I guess. Still so much to do and unlike other people I’m not eagerly awaiting the grind, but happily chugging along with my lowbie jobs.

Not that I am glad that it’s delayed, but I’m having fun as it is now, I did make some sort of progress though:

Machinist is really close to 80, Paladin has passed 70, the melee jobs are at 35 and the two big ones – both healers at 50 and all magic DPS at 50.

So Machinist should be no problem, Paladin is doable, and the rest I don’t really care that much – but with duty roulettes and other things, Astrologian might get some more levels.

Oh, and Blue Mage is kinda fun. We did some level-synced dungeons with tank + 2 Blue Mages to grab spells and it’s weird and overpowered and lots of fun.