[XIV] Heavensward Discussion

Blame XI vets that came over since 1.0 and begged for the game to be XI-2 for the blatant abuse of the Relic line, since they all cried out yearning for XI style Relics, and so it was done by the Yoshi-P monkey paw. I still recall back in 1.23 about how the first line of Relic took over a month of content with Hamlet defense and other shenanigans as a way to keep the established players challenged and subscribing past maxing out their classes. ARR hits, and they expand upon it as an attempt to not discard all that effort. With Heavensward, Yoshi is still out to reward die hard players by allowing them to have their progress carry over.

For the majority of ARR, Relic was low effort, low reward, generating a lackluster weapon. Hopefully, Heavensward and all the potential content it can offer will offer the inverse of this, like the old 1.x weapon line, and likewise offer a justifiable reward. Things like speed running for ranks and other bits of content that was once in the game could return, and be designed where the top % get their top of the line stuff, and by design, other players get to play catch up as ilvl increases buffer their performance (or echo, people be lovin the echo)

The only thing really known is that due to the vertical gear progression of XIV, it will never have XI style "these weapons take effort and will remain on top because you put effort into them", until we hit a stagnating level cap, which won't likely happen due to ilvls and level sync being key features of XIV design. Yoshi's design for Relic has always been about keeping old content relevant and keeping the game alive and alleviating the reality that the majority of players will just run the latest content they can outside of leveling, so I expect that to be the case yet again as we go forward.

Given the sheer scope of the zones this time around in Heavensward, perhaps we will see pockets of each area being utilized for the new super weapon line, compared to how the last set really just had people sitting in town to wait for DF to pop, outside of Atma and book challenges. With the Aetheric Current quest line, maybe we'll even have weapons that get powered based on exploration by scrawling the maps to find locations to energize them as a potential ordeal? New expansion, new set of expectations.

Agreed, I can only hope they do something more with these new massive zones vs the other ones. I've been asking for content variety since 2.0 and I hope at least some of the wait will be over soon. One thing that I just don't simply agree with is purely vertical progression. WoW and FFXIV are culprits of this and because of this very reason I feel myself playing catch up at then end of each major patch because currency/progression walls get lifted at that point. Doing this sounds much more appealing than doing the same 3 dungeons day in, week in, and month in and out for 6 months and 1 hour of coil a week hoping to get that 1 drop you need.

Another big problem FFXIV suffers from is that it lacks any real reason to stack "optimal stats" for your class because quite literally it gives you between a 1% to 3% DPS increase. The culprit here is what we call primary stat weight, due to the sheer advantage of stacking your primary stat the game promotes players to simply "Inflate their Ilvl" rather than hunting for secondary stats (unless you can obtain coil gear, but for me I find even though i got to raid ***never dropped for me). Now while I hear that Spell Speed/Skill Speed are weighted more heavily in HW, as long as your main stat is the elephant in the room things will still change very little from where they are.

I always felt FFXIV should start throwing around set bonuses and gear that augments a ability, something to make you think about putting your current piece down just to inflate that ilvl. Adding drops to NM's and having variety stats vary to crafting gear and just overall some horizontal progression would really do some good in this game. Have players actively participate in the open world and stop sitting in whatever new city hub there is for DF/PF... Its funny when you realize FFXIV with its content droughts is STILL the fastest game to release content and with this level of polish no less, only for the previous content to sink into obscurity due to the curse that is vertical progression. Throwing gear into world events, doing something like hamlets again. Maybe making beastman strongholds since they are something this game keeps expanding on. Being able to log in and have a variety of different activities to do in order to get my acceptable amount of tombstones.

Hell sometimes I wouldn't mind a very tame AA system like FFXI's JP system, something really big at level 100, but despite the cap being 550 it still has very mellow advantages up to 550. Too much frilly crappy fluff in this game and its overtaking content that means anything towards character progression in a RPG no less....

I don't care about that stuff anymore




FLYINGGGGGGG

FFXIV Tanking 101 when leveling to 50:

WAR:
Did you just start the fight?
Yes > Overpower into oblivion
No > Butcher/appropriate alternative path

Are your TPs above 300?
Yes > There is a big issue and you need to solve it
No > Good, keep actually tanking

PLD:
Are you playing PLD?
Yes > Pick a different job, now
No > Good, keep playing an actual tank

DRK:
Did you just start the fight?
Yes > Unleash until your MP pool disappears
No > Deal proper damage

Are your MPs above 300?
Yes > There is a big issue and you need to solve it
No > Good, keep actually tanking

This is the general thing to know about dungeons when leveling a tanking job. If you follow those simple rules, you're golden.
If not, well, literally any DD will get hate off you before they finish their first combo (if I remember correctly, 2 Unleash isn't enough to hold a full Aeolian Edge combo on NIN) and you'll be here watching the show while not taking any part in it.

Flash was apparently updated in the year I was gone (it was garbage back then) so it actually makes PLD more viable, but if those numbers are correct, it's still pretty laughable. Viable because you can now actually deal damage rather than spam Flashes that literally do nothing.

I want to play this game. I want to like this game. Why can I not?
I log in wanting to play.. Then I just end up capping crafting jobs.. I hate crafting. sigh..

whats the best ilvl gear out atm/from where?

They are not correct... Never would have been. Flash is calculated at as the equivalent enmity to a 600 potency attack, it scales off your str and weapon damage like a normal attack, that's the way it's always been. Savage blade/skull sunders are x3 enmity, rage of halone/butchers block x5. Shield oath and defiance tacked on an extra x2 (x3 became x4) originally but they got buffed at one point and I've never tested/hunted for testing on what it became since if you are struggling for enmity on either job you are doing something very wrong.

Right now Hive Weapons and Law Tomestone for Armor. (Only can get Law at 60) Hive Weapons are ilvl 190, and Alexander and Savage is predicted to be 200 > 210 or 210 > 220.

I dont see why returning people would want to skip/grind the whole ARR stuff to get to heavensward. The storyline part is more or less a single player game, have you ever felt like skipping the first 3/4 of super mario bros just to get to the last 1/4 ? playing it is considered the fun of it, if you dont enjoy the story in ARR, you wont enjoy the story in heavensward because... its still watching CS and running about.
And if you may say now "but I want to reach endgame...". Imo ffxiv has a poor endgame concept, the linear ilvl progression with fast updates makes long term investments into gear pointless. Usually (ffxi) people grind to get something awesome so they can do stuff with it. in ffxiv you would grind for the fun of grinding which is nonexistent unless youre some kind of masochist. In a post above someone called zodiac weapon owners masochists and I somehow feel thats true. the way the game is made, it was always clear that anything you would do, grinding hours per day for your weapon, would be surpassed by another dungeon drop weapon in the next update. SE kinda offered the option to grind for people that like to grind and the funny part is that Ive seen more zodiac owners than I can count before heavensward. Everyone should do whats fun to them, but I just cant believe that so many people have had fun melding those materias. yeah thats a fun stage, lets do that! its fun. sorry for being a bit sarcastic but XIV just doesnt go with grinds and then, above all, SE forgets it and introduces grinds. what a silly world we live in

I skipped my remaining missions just to access heavensward. Wanted to get DRK

Now at Lv60,

BLM Stuff:
Hunts:
Have yet to unlock any endgame content but will put it here when I do. Will try not to have spoilers but be warned.
Tomestone Gear Prices:
Roulette Changes:

After getting to play around with it, I very much like the group crafting they added in. I expected something as horrible as Synergy, but instead, the end result was much simpler and user friendly.

I appreciate them allowing everyone to operate either on their own, or all together, due to how chaotic the XIV community can be.

Still need 4 people to advance each phase and complete a project lol

Yeah, but for smaller FCs, it still allows them to progress steadily, without having some arbitrary lockout per player on turn ins per phase, since this is SE we're talking about.

Anyone know a macro to switch action bars? Want one for when Enochian is down and one for when it is up. Too many button is screwing up my rotation and damage.

Also updated my last post with Tomestone drops from the first dungeon.

Nowadays it's probably impossible to lose hate but PLD back then was a hate fight whereas WAR could establish proper hate effortlessly. You'd typically be on your second rotation that PLD was still fighting for hate, even though their one and only combo does both, damage and hate.

I haven't played PLD again since I restarted but I may do so if Flash is finally more than a toy.


I gave in to the scaly lady.

I think as Drk I may cross class flash. for those times when blm's sleep the mobs and i can still gather some hate on them.. Only 45 atm and I hope that Drk isn't as squishy as people are saying D:

Extremely easy to hold hate

LOL people think you can sleep stuff.... LMAO.

In leveling dungeons you can though

It shouldnt be, but then again it should. WAR and DRK are not PLDs, you have less cooldowns and you can only Parry. However, if you know what youre doing you can STR gear it up and that parry will block more. Also: Bloodbath + full buffed Unleash: Use ittttt!

Dont be a plebian turtle with WAR or DRK (Uhmean, DPSPLD is possible and alot better too) Put on DPS gear and kill ***faster.

I Agree, but largely the only reason people had trouble holding hate was because they only spammed flash :< People dont understand that DPS and DoTs still build enmity even without modifiers so your common PLD never used Circle of Scorn on cooldown every single time and just spammed flash and riot blade combo.

With the addition of Goring Blade, Single target DPS:Enmity should be ALOT higher and Fracture should be amazing with it since youll have a spell to actually use your MP on and you shouldnt really ever run out of MP long enough that youre using up all of your TP hate combo spamming.

People just dont understand the subtle differences in gameplay that make you better for doing them :<

If you mean block for more then no, it's 20%

My block is also 20% and hasn't changed with new gear


It used to be like 33-34% at 50 for block and maybe 27-28 for parry

The parry stat is very useless, just stick with required HP use and get STR accessories. Parry was only good at 2.0 because 1st Cob all had physical attackers.

Last 2 dungeons have an ilvl wall of 145. The dungeon before them has no loot only tomestones so yea...

You can still block for more than 20%, I'm blocking for 25 atm. The reason your block went down is because there is a minimum amount of str you need before you start getting the benefit, this amount goes up as you level thats why you would have seen it degradeing as you went up. Can easily check it by going into a lv50 capped dungeon with str accessories.

Parry however is now locked at 20%

This was just caused by berserk + wars leaning more towards putting their points in str, it's still a thing now if there is a gear difference and pld is in vit accessories for some reason. It ultimately comes down to math, technically pld makes the better off tank anyways because war has abilities that will ignore the tanking stance penalties to damage + sword oath adds a lot more damage then people think it does. The problem was in the long term they'd end up with more enmity since all they had was their enmity while warrior also had storms and such. Pld main tank is more of a safety thing since it lets the warrior keep both storms up without the ot pld taking hate + cooldowns are a bit easier to work with than inner beast while learning a fight.

Nah it wasn't even good then, we just thought it was because no one had tested yet.

Wat?

"[21:29]You successfully convert the ?mythrite hauberk of maiming ? into a ?savage might materia II."

Did they change how materia works or something? Why did an ilvl 115 turn into a T2 materia?

If they give access to IV/Vs that would crash the market, quests give equipment for free.

Market for IV already crashed lol.

I was actually extremely surprised at how much the game had changed from 2.0 launch to 2.5

A ton of content That i have to get through seeing as i quit right before 2.1 lol.

That being sad, I'm actually glad i came back at 3.0 and not earlier. MSQ are just pooping out high ilvl gear for me lol. I'll still have to grind for more gear for other jobs, but It kind of makes it a whole lot less overwhelming lol. Came back to the game with ilvl 80 gear, so i was pretty underleveled for even stuff like Ramuh. Now I can use the gear handed to me to at least get one job stable enough to get caught up on current content. Had they not done this i might have ended up quitting lol.