Final Fantasy XIV

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).

With the WoW flying thing done I spent a little more time in Eorzea. I “finished” Yanxia and The Ruby Sea (including unlocking flying) and just dinged 65 on Bard and will continue the MSQ in the next zone. So far the pacing is perfect. Finishing up the flying quests brought me to 10% shy of the next level to continue, let’s see how this evolves.

Didn’t manage to hit 62 on Warrior but haven’t tanked anything since coming back. White Mage is 53 though, so I did a daily healing roulette + trial most days. I wiped on the last boss of Palace of the Dead so I need to retry this at some point so I can have a look at Heaven-on-High.

Finally my gathering jobs are all at 43 and besides Leatherworker at 29.7 all other crafting jobs are 30-31 (Culinarian 41). Did quite a few GC turnins and also a few more days of Ixal quests. If only I could craft with ingredients from Retainer inventories…

Overall I really want to push through Stormblood right now, although (because?) I’m loving it and then get to Shadowbringers. No real plans for a new job but lost interest in Arcanist and Paladin a bit (and didn’t like Red Mage at all). I’m keen to try Samurai because I’ve not played any melee DPS (except bad Warrior DPS) – but from a gear and overload point of view Dancer would be more reasonable… We’ll see… 1 of each DPS/Tank/Healer is good enough right now, I just need to catch up on White Mage.

Rainy weekend, time to play games.
I’ve finished the first part of Stormblood (Level 61-62 quests) on Bard and have cool looking outfit now. So far I really liked Stormblood and can’t wait to continue.

Other than that I pushed White Mage to 49 with Palace of the Dead and daily roulettes (got some sweet Level 50 gear waiting) and Miner to 43 because I wanted to continue to level my Miner Retainer. Didn’t touch Warrior or Paladin really since the break, but it’s ok.

Yesterday I finally managed to drag myself to continue FFXIV’s MSQ. First I had to do an 8 man trial then some running and some cutscenes, today I had to do a normal duty and a solo thing. But after a few hours I finished Patch 3.4 (Soul Surrender) and now only have like 8 quests left until Stormblood. I know, one expansion late, but at least I’m continuing with hardly any XP as a reward.

Also didn’t get to do my WoW dailies to unlock flying today because of this but as I’m not enjoying them so much anyway this was some welcome distraction. Still feels grindy to be caught between patches, so I kinda just exchanged one grind for another. Such is life as an MMO gamer.

I know it’s a silly coincidence, but I just learned the /battlestance emote in FFXIV, which I didn’t even know existed. That is all.

PS: Thanks to Shintar calling me out in the comments I finally installed OBS again so I can do videos. And I replaced the screenshot with a better one 😉