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.

This morning I got my 500th player commendation. I’ve kept the Battle Mentor requirements in the back of my head and knew it would be impossible to get there until Endwalker launches, but I have all the quests (1 each of Tank, Healer, DPS), 500 of 1500 commendations and 590ish of 1000 instances down, so it’s more than 1/3 but not yet 50% done. Not that I’m working towards this goal, but I’ve found it a good benchmark to measure your experience against.

When Endwalker releases this will almost surely be bumped up again, so you need to finish some max-level quests – either role-based again with 3 of 4 role quests needed like now or like it used to be in Stormblood and earlier (afaik), where you needed to e.g. finish the 70 WAR/WHM/BRD quests if you played my main classes.

My plans seem to have changed a bit since I wrote about hitting 80 on Dancer last week, as I did start to level all the jobs I hadn’t started, at least for a bit:

So Paladin is moving towards 70 with daily MSQ when I feel like it and Kojin/Ananta dailies when I have spares. Red Mage is working on Vanu/Vath rep. Scholar/Astrologian got a few dungeons in, mostly Leveling roulette and then whatever is the highest available dungeon. Machinist is doing the Pixie dailies and Alliance Roulette, Summoner is getting cheated by Scholar, as usual. Pugilist and Lancer are doing some dungeons, and finally I’m doing the Hunting Log on all the lowbie classes.

The “plan” is to get everything that is below 50 to 50, mostly to be able to get rid of all the gear and because I was actually nosy how they play. When that is done I will unlock Samurai as well, then it’s back to focusing on the higher jobs. Prio right now are Machinist and Paladin.

Also the mount farming went well, but we spent quite a few hours:

After our 50 odd kills to get everyone the Suzaku wolf we went to Tsukoyomi today and were kinda lucky, after 6 runs we had the few missing ones. Then we went to Lakshmi, where 13 runs where enough, then off to Susano, with 8 kills for the missing ones, and then to Shinryu where we didn’t get a single mount drop in 12 kills, so that will be interesting.

As I wrote I was talked into farming the Wolf pets from Extreme trials and we managed to get a few tries in while learning (it’s fascinating that you still need a few tries for a 70 trial even on unsynced 80 chars, but we weren’t a full party). The first 3 kills yielded 1 flute. Last night we actually did around 4 hours and I’m sitting at 35 Suzaku Totems, which means we did 32 runs last night, I guess. We were 7 people and we’re at 5 flutes, so just 2 people missing. If the drop rate continues like this, that could be another 14 runs, but we’re hoping it’s less.

Anyway, the fight is pretty fun, and we can do it in 4:40 to 4:50 most of the time now. Sure, sometimes someone messes up and dies, but for the most part it’s a simple dance that you learned. The others already got their Tsukuyomi drop but we’ll probably do a few more runs to get us 2-3 latecomers the mounts.

I’ve now also done the 3 NieR raids. They’re… interesting. And weird. Not bad, but if this was a normal fantasy MMO they’d look very much out of place, but it doesn’t seem to be too weird in a Final Fantasy game.

I managed to get to 80 on Dancer, that makes 4 jobs, and I’m focusing on Machinist, Paladin and Red Mage now, although not sure I can really call it focus for the latter two. Playing them, ok. Also trying to do some healing on Scholar, but mostly just the Leveling dungeon roulette. I’ve been diligently handing in my Wondrous Tails diaries and bought some Level 80 gear upgrades.

Also the people I’m running with are planning to do a more casual raid static in Endwalker and I might join. I’m not sure yet if on Bard or Warrior, but as much as I like having one character, in a funny twist currently it’s actually easier for me in WoW to switch between DPS and Tank than it is in FFXIV.

In WoW, my DPS gear is iLvl 236 and my Tank gear is iLvl 233, the major difference is the iLvl of the Legendary, 262 vs 235, most of the slots are shared, only MH+OH are different of course, and a few pieces (rings, trinkets) where I have better defensive stats on them, but I did tank Heroic SoD (and Nathria before) just fine with my DPS gear + 2 mandatory pieces changed + nice to have Legendary changed.

In FFXIV, my iLvl on Bard is 496 now, and Warrior is only on 456 – they don’t share a single piece of equipment (as you hit 80 you may still have the same earring). So in Endwalker that will mean leveling and gearing up 2 classes on their own.

We’ll see. Bard is fun, but I’ve seen my first parse from one of the NieR raids – 3 grey and 1 green. Not that I would’ve expected a lot more when I didn’t know the fights and just got some pointers via voice midfight, and died a few times, of course.

Yesterday I got roped into grinding Hell’s Lid for a bit to get someone their last drops for the Resistance Weapon upgrade (I think) but it was an awesome way to practice WHM healing and in the end I managed to ding 80 as well (after they helped me get the Four Lords quest line done). I might have been conscripted to Hells’ Kier Extreme now, but as they’d already wiped for a bit I’m kinda excited to do something that doesn’t simply fall over when you look at it the wrong way.

Also the plague has hit me (no, not the bad one, just the normal one) and so I piddled around a bit in the evening and this morning and finished all 8 Level 50 crafting job quests instead of doing something that needs attention, reflexes, or a clear head. So I don’t exactly know how much is missing, but boy do these take a while if you do 16-18 quests. Maybe I should’ve done them before I sold off all my spare mats. But I don’t think it cost me that much. Still a bit of Gil wasted. Guess I’ll do the full round until Level 60 then in one sitting another time.

And I finally finished the Shadowbringers MSQ, so technically I am ready now for Endwalker. I have a Tank, a DPS, and a Healer job at 80, all three have their basic Resistance Weapon, the MSQ is done. Everything else now are just personal goals that are nice to have. Well, except a good White Mage glamour, that’s prio #1 now.