Final Fantasy XIV

So, my 14 days of FFXIV have come to an end and apparently I miscalculated or missed the starting day because today I can’t login anymore, I thought I still had today 🙁

Anyway, I do plan to subscribe soon[tm], but probably not this weekend, which is a bit of a shame, but I’ll probably use the time to get my TBC Classic Druid to 70, and come back in a week or so.

I am quite happy with all the things I managed to get done in these 14 days, despite flailing wildly at the start and not really knowing what to do, so thanks to the people in Discord and the Novice Network on Omega. It’s fascinating to see the exact names as mentors as 2 years ago, when I started playing. Too bad I didn’t notice when I got booted from my Returner status, I had wanted to say thanks.

In my case I think the free “come back and remember how awesome this game is” has definitely worked, I don’t see any reason not to resubscribe in August.

So, what did I achieve?

Story progess: First of all, I made it to Shadowbringers content. I finished the Stormblood MSQ and then all the Post-Stormblood quests, and then I even did the starting quests in the new city, although I already forgot the name. Did not manage to continue the Hildibrand questline, but finished the Make It Rain seasonal/limited time thing.

Level progress: If only I’d written this down, but I think I did:

• Bard 68 -> 72
• White Mage 65 -> 70
• Warrior 65 -> 66
• Paladin & Dark Knight 50 -> 52
• Machinist 33 -> 52
• Dancer 60 -> 63
• –
• Most Disciple of the Hand Jobs 50-52 -> 55-62

First I pushed Bard with Stormblood MSQ, and side quests. Then once I had seen the MSQ roulette dungeons again I healed them, then I also tanked them. In the end I was tanking “Leveling” and “Level 50/..” dungeons and queued for Trials as Dancer.

I think my next “goals” are: Shadowbringers MSQ on Bard, to get to 80, more tanking and getting all to 60 to be able to throw away some gear. Catch up Machinist to Dancer and continue to ignore melee 😛

I really still love the Bard and plan to keep it as my main job, although the opening rotation is a bit nuts. Dancer is also really fun, but a bit lacking. Machinist started really boring at 30, but now at 50 it’s a lot better. Although the gauge mechanic is a bit weird in a dungeon, you kinda struggle to get your resources to full before the first boss because you’re usually only AoEing, which doesn’t build them.

Gear progress: I did a lot of duty roulette, MSQ and Level 50 most days, Leveling and Trial on many days. I have a full (minus 1-2 parts where I had 385, rings/earrings) Level 70 iLvl 400 set for Bard, White Mage, and Warrior now.

Currently the day doesn’t seem to have enough hours for all my plans.

First of all there’s TBC Classic, while we’ve started a summer break on our group for now due to people going on vacation, there’s still the Druid/Hunter duo. I got to 68 on the weekend and learned flying, but I’m not really motivated atm as I don’t have any real goals at 70.

Trying to get the dailies done in Retail on my main, that’s 15-30 minutes, and I’m probably not gonna be able to squeeze an M+ in this week, maybe after the raid tomorrow. In any case I’m happy I’m not raiding 3 days per week anymore. 4h + a few minutes before is really nice.

Then there’s the war in EVE which seems to be pumped up again as of the weekend, at least there should be stuff happening in a few days.

But mostly my time is spent in FFXIV atm, although it warned me today that I had only 5 of my 14 days left, but I’ve been a busy bee. Daily MSQ roulette has yielded me the Level 70 Healer set already (after the ranged DPS one), Warrior is nearly 67, Machinist is 51, Dancer is nearly 63, and I got White Mage to 69 today and started handing in crafted mats to the Grand Company again, trading Gil for XP if the stuff is available for cheap. Also I did the intro quest for Gunbreaker but I’m not sure I like the playstyle. I think I’ll stick to Warrior and try to level Paladin and Dark Knight. And I slowly continued on the Level 70 post-Stormblood MSQ.

When I started to play 2 years ago, the release of Shadowbringers was imminent and I didn’t manage to get to 70 before it launched. This time Endwalker is imminent, so I really want to be there at launch, but that means I need to catch up quite a bit. I hope the autumn is long enough that I can do that.

So FFXIV will end in a few days, then I need to decide if I will instantly resub. WoW Retail can be put on the backburner a little, I’m not 100% happy just raidlogging and doing dailies+weeklies, but that’s a plan for a few weeks at least. Classic needs a two level push then I can probably dial that back a bit as well, unless I am renewed in my interest to run dungeons at 70 (and prepare to be able to do Heroics for the Epic Druid Flight Form quest when it is coming). EVE is a wild card atm, day to day maintenance is currently low, but we’ll see how August shapes up…

But yeah, I guess that’s a good problem to have.

Yeah, I can’t really believe it, but 7 of my 14 days of the free login campaign are already up and I guess their plan worked out, because I’m having a blast. Nothing I have tried so far was blocked or paywalled (I do own Shadowbringers, after all) and I think I might sub again when this 2 week thing is up. Actually thinking about pre-ordering Endwalker to get the 30% XP bonus to 81 via the new earring, the one I have was only good until 71, and I reached that on Bard already.

Today I managed to bring Machinist to 40 and then catch up on 4 class quests I hadn’t done. Machinist at 35+40, Paladin at 50, and White Mage at 65. For now I switched my MSQ Duty Roulette to White Mage until I am 70/71, then probably gonna use Warrior. The Leveling Roulette for the Machinist for now, and the 50/60 dungeon one for Dancer, although the XP doesn’t seem to be awesome for that one, but I want the 70 White Mage set for Poetics, having completed the Ranged DPS one already.

So I seem to have a steady pace of 2-3h of content per day, but not a lot more. I dug out the Challenge Log (I think it’s weekly) and filled up a few bars for extra XP there, which meant doing a few Levequests, but I’m not keen on grinding those out. Same for dungeons, really.

I also stumbled upon the Restoration of Ishgard quest line and did a bit of that.

My main problem right now seems to be differentiating between quests with a blue mark which are interesting (like the Restoration), which are completely useless or not interesting (Extreme Trials), and which are important (no idea, maybe none?).

But yes, overall I’m very happy. And I can’t wait to get familiar with the dungeons again so I can tank and heal and not just DPS.

Oh wow, so much to do and so little knowledge left in my WoW-contaminated brain.

What I managed to do today:

• Run Duty Roulette (MSQ and Dungeons) for Poetics, got to 71 on Bard
• Run Duty Roulette (Leveling), got Machinist to 35
• Double checked all my bars and keybinds for all classes (I am so glad that all the roles share a few skills and I have the habit of having roughly same skills on the same keybinds anyway)
• Bought iLvl 400 gear for Poetics: Bow, Chest, Gloves, Belt, Pants -> iLvl 345 for now, saving up for Helm and Boots, then maybe accessories
• cleaned out the 7 left side parts of the Armoury Chest, 5 right side are a TODO
• sold a lot of stuff on the market board

And then there are a few things I deliberately didn’t do:

• played Tank or Healer
• continued the MSQ
• figured out how to level Machinist. Probably Duty Finder, Levequests, FATEs, Palace of the Dead?
• Crafting. Oh wow, had I forgotten how complicated that was. Did one Trial Synthesis and gave up. I need to read up a few things. First of all, what to craft (IIRC crafting an item for the first time gives an XP bonus), then how to craft (omg, so many buttons), and then there are the Ixal and Kobold quests. Not sure Ixal is still good at 52-56. Would be nice to get them all to 60 though, but this is not an immediate goal
• start a Melee DPS class

And then a list of things I actually want to get done in these 14 days:

• finish the whole pre-Shadowbringers MSQ
• get Machinist to 50 or preferably 60
• try to run some duty roulettes regularly
• try to play Dancer a little bit
• maybe try Gunbreaker
• maybe get Paladin and/or Dark Knight to 60, but I guess that is stretching it

It’s been 23 months since I had last posted about Final Fantasy XIV, but for now I am back.

There’s a nice “come back for 14 days” free login campaign since July 9 and today I actually used it. Apparently I had stopped playing while in The Peaks, at Level 68.5, and not in The Azim Steppe, as I had thought. The wiki (as usual) told me that I was 18 MSQ steps away from finishing Stormblood. Not a lot if there are really 122 steps as the wiki says. The first 8 went kinda fine, then I was blocked by my level, so I mopped up most quests in The Peaks and got to 69, then it was off to a Duty Finder, 7 quests more, then I already dinged 70. 2 Quests to go, but also 2 instances, one normal one and one Trial. The normal one went fine, but then I messed up my Duty Finder and didn’t unselect the one I had just done, so of course it popped first and I had to run it again. Ah well. In the trial we actually wiped twice and then needed a mass rez in phase 3, but then we did it. Not sure how many other hadn’t done the fight.

Anyway, so I came back and finished Stormblood on day 1, which is pretty nice. That was enough for one day though and I stopped doing MSQ stuff, but went to Limsa and did the Dancer quest, which was pretty fun. But oh boy is that first dungeon painful if you forget to set up your bars correctly because you don’t actually think they’d let you do normal things with 20 buttons when you just learned the class… but they do.

Before I stopped playing 2 years ago I had already bought Shadowbringers, so we’ll see if I get there. I was planning to play FFXIV for the new expansion anyway, but first I’d have to make it to Shadowbringers and then through that. Not sure yet if I will instantly dig out my Warrior and White Mage or if I will try to push the Bard a little further, and concentrate on one class.

Overall it’s been pretty fun and enjoyable. I rejoined the Novice Network and also had Discord to ask people. My only initial roadblock was not being high enough iLvl for the last 2 duties, but buying a single ring on the market board already fixed that. (And I learnt that you can’t buy Level 70 Poetics gear before you have finished the last Stormblood MSQ. And then the NPC in Rhalgr’s Reach actually appears.)

A really unfun thing is that my Armoury Chest and bags are completely full. And my 2 retainers as well. I don’t have access to the 3rd (that’s the one I paid for), but probably full as well. As much as I love the Armoury system, it’s simply too small for that amount of classes, especially if you are still leveling. That’s one of the reasons I had originally also leveld Paladin and Dark Knight to 50, to get rid of old gear. And Machinist to 33, same reason. So maybe learning to be a Dancer now was a bad idea as well, now I also have that gear… oh well.

I didn’t only play WoW, I also made some sort of progress in FFXIV.

• Paladin to 50
• Dark Knight to 50
• White Mage to 65 (.9)
• Warrior to 65

Also, crafting and gathering, mostly through GC turnins via “buying cheap and crafting myself what’s not cheap”

• 48 Culinarian
• 41 Weaver + Goldsmith
• 40.95 Blacksmith
• 40 Leatherworker + Alchemist
• 39.95 Armorer
• 39 Carpenter
• 53 Fisher
• 52 Miner + Botanist

And honestly I would’ve crafted those 2 items for BSM and ARM, but I’m tired and will be traveling tomorrow and then not be playing any games for a few days.

The only thing I didn’t do is progress in the MSQ. All the other stuff is just too much fun right now.

The Level 50 Fisherman quest is supposed to be time-consuming, catching a Mazlaya Marlin after a double mooch. I needed 6 catches, that was kinda nice.

The Level 50 Botanist and Miner quests seem to be really annoying, only at fixed times of the day (same zone, but 30 real minutes apart) and I didn’t find more than one now. meh.

Yay, managed to get the last crafting jobs to 35 today. Begone, old gear. Also took a little time and Gil to put at least some basic cheap materia in them, now that the mats I use for crafting get more and more expensive.

Also Dark Knight is 40 and Paladin 36. White Mage is 62 and I’m going back to the Stormblood zone where it all began, after the excursion to the east. Still 67 on Bard, though.

Just hit 60 on White Mage after really pushing the last 2 levels and already had my nearly-complete set of 260 Poetics gear ready, yay. Healing is really fun but sometimes stressful. First time in Pharos Sirius for example. Or Titan Hard, depending on the group.

Bard hit 66 and caught up on the MSQ, had to grind out those last 20% to be able to continue. Bardam’s Mettle has one really weird encounter.

I started a Dark Knight and plan to level it at the same time as the Paladin and in the progress get rid of tanking gear below their level. Until I hit 50 and then have to grab the Gunbreaker as well.

Also started a Machinist to get rid of all the sub-30 physical ranged DPS gear for the same reason, until I hit 60 and need to start Dancer.

It’s still funny how I have so far completely avoided playing a melee DPS class (if you don’t count soloing on Marauder/Warrior and Gladiator/Paladin) although that’s my bread and butter in many other MMOs, especially WoW.

Not much progress with crafting, but slow and steady the GC turnins (whenever I get the items or mats for cheap) push the jobs higher. Lowest are Leatherworker/Carpenter/Blacksmith at 32.7 and now I’m trying to catch up to Culinarian (nearly 44).

Didn’t have too much time but spent a bit of time crafting. All crafting jobs are now 31+ (nearly 32+) and all gathering ones are 45+. I’ve stopped doing Ixal dailies and am doing only GC handins for now. If only the inventory management was better… then this would be a lot more fun. Also I’m trying not to lose too much money with this, I’ve tried to stay above 2.7m, but today I dipped down to 2.63m. (I know, peanuts, but I really don’t want to spend all my Gil for crafting and so I’m only spending what I’m making while leveling up.)

Speaking of leveling up. BRD is 65 and doing the MSQ in the Azim Steppe, Warrior is 62.5 and I did tank again. WHM is 56.5 and I’ve been doing at least one duty roulette per day, except today.

Still a little unsure about getting crafting gear or if it’s kinda useless pre-50. So far I just spent as little money as possible, only buying upgrades for < 10k per slot and I only spent 2k per materia today for my 4x gathering main hands, before that I only had materia in the shared gear for gathering/crafting. Need to do the 40 and 45 miner quests now for another 2 free Level 45-46 upgrades (got the gloves already).