#ffxiv power leveling

[dragonsongmakhali]

the lighting stuff in ktisis is super rad! as if I didn't spend enough time in this mode _(:з)∠)_

[fisherrprince]

wuk lamat was also born in the wrong time. she would LOVE naruto

[myreia]

✦ D R A G O O N

Her lance burns bright, crackling with magic, and she plummets from the sky. Estinien and Aymeric were the first to notice her movements in combat, noting a physicality not often attributed to black mages. The years she spent in Coerthas were spent honing new techniques, following new pursuits, transforming into someone else. Though she will not admit it, the weapon is intrinsically caught up in her relationship with the Lord Commander, forever connected to her time in Ishgard. She came to the city an exiled mage and left a dragoon. —level 90 compendium

[sebille]

Why would Hermes even have the thingy that removed memories (kairos? Kaios? I am not able to remember its name.) ?? What is that thing even used for

[rabid-catboy]

so based lina

[roguelioness]

Sage should technically be the perfect healer for me because why wouldn't anyone want to pew pew to restore health

And yet the thought of other people HP in my hands terrifies me too much.

[rigil-kentauris]

i think the other legates would have torn valens to shreds

like im glad he didnt win his little weapons gambit but i would have paid money to see him step foot in the capital and see all thirteen other legates turn slowly and look at him with who is this clown expressions

[seaseren]

It's funny bc I have a BUNCH of WoLs but very few of them have any kinda developed Ancient stuff. Like Aggi/Apollo has the Most, and is the only one who I would consider a full OC on their own accord with their own stuff going on, but also their own stuff is very embarassing. So. My frankly shameful level of OCification of Artemis ties into that, of course, and then Leto mostly exists at all because the idea of "an Ancient, but an ojou-sama about it" is delightful to me. But Entlona's my main and she doesn't have one, and I've tried to come up with something for Chiaki and. I just can't find anything interesting in the space ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. Even Dion, who is arguably the most connected to his Ancient self is still like. I don't have a WHOLE lot going on there. He was a Wine Guy and he got fired from Pandaemonium what more do you want.

[fisherrprince]

hi! I know you're probably busy with dawntrail right now, but I was wondering. in your tips for new ffxiv players, you said to always select the recommended option for gear. ignoring glamours, at what point would you recommend to start like. manually picking for stats instead of going with the recommended?

sorry if this is worded confusingly I tried my best to make it coherent,,

hi!

Um, never, unless you start savage raiding. Your “stats” are always going to be sufficient enough to do big damage and keep yourself competitive in normal content. The reason why is the listed stats (determination, skill speed, piety, etc) make such a tiny difference on your gameplay that it doesn’t matter until you’re getting really in the weeds with materia, potions, food for stats… and by that point, there’s tons of guides out there for what you want. What’s really important for MSQ and combat is item level! Which is what the recommended button prioritizes.

How I’ve played normally is I/the automatic button picks the gear with the highest ilvl I can, and then all of my materia (you’ll unlock materia if you haven’t yet) is the red kind. I like to add critical hit and spell speed. Is that savage/ultimate raid viable? Iunno. But you really don’t need to be worrying about it unless you’re hardcore lol

[boneless-mika]

Me trying to understand pictomancer

[cerastes]

Dark Souls is MMA and Monster Hunter is Pro Wrestling.

Dark Souls bosses have insane tracking, and you can adjust your end contact point very freely before a certain point in the animation, your main way of dodging is to use your i-frames, and it actually speaks of a high level, seasoned player when they know which specific attacks can be dodged by just moving or minisprinting and how to do it. Fights are short, you fold in a few hit, but so do 95% of bosses in the franchise. Even in Dark Souls 1, the combat is faster and accounts for this balance entirely, and your main resource to mind is your stamina as your attack and defense all depend on it: If you run out of green bar, you will soon run out of red bad. It's a very straightforward fight, the boss is in the cage with you and you put your fundamentals, entirely based on your rhythm, timing, and management, in a short fight where you either know or don't.

Monster Hunter bosses have bad tracking, just like you, and i-frames are very strict in most cases, you don't mainly rely on your i-frames to dodge, you rely on Not Being There in the first place. Your attacks are committal, but so are the bosses', so if you move just a little, JUST a little, in the right direction, the monster just whiffed their entire bite or swipe. There's a lot of value in attacks that simply Move You, because Not Being There is king, as long as you are Not There, you don't get hit. The same is true for the bosses, sometimes they Aren't There and your roundslash misses, and you are stuck in a big animation. Speed isn't important, knowing where you are, where you'll go, and where you'll be is what skill is in this game, like jumping off the top rope, and it's a real skill. There's no cage in this fight, it's a ring, and the monster can and WILL run backstage now and then. You can pursue them and beat the crap out of them further in the changing room. You are expected to do this. But watch out! Sometimes you get beat up, and now it's you running around backstage, looking for a camp to restock on Power Coating and a meal. You can be fighting Rathalos From FFXIV in a heated brawl, and suddenly you get hit in the back of your head with a steel chair by Great Jagras. Great Jagras then hits Rathalos with the steel chair. It's not a 2v1, this is a 1v1v1, no one likes each other in this fight, because it's Pro Wrestling, you gotta be the champ in the end. It's about big huge flashy cool committal moves. And when you defeat Rathalos, you take his mask, this is what carving represents, it's a sacred process.

Dark Souls is MMA and Monster Hunter is Pro Wrestling. You agree.

[timebender25]

Waiting in queue for the Deep Sea Voyage and still fishing

[remma-demma]

Had a brain blast that involves endwalker msq and manderville weapon quest line spoilers :)

Sorry if this is textually in canon somewhere but I just realized that the reason aliens are so powerful on Etheris is because it’s the only planet / moon that was sundered.

The dragons and the mandervilles likely have power levels similar to that of the ancients.

[tritoch]

i know a lot of people (very understandably) dislike the paladin job quests in ffxiv, particularly HW, but i do think it's fun that, now that the pre-ShB MSQ revamp is complete, paladins now have a very cool and thematic in-game storyline that happens without a word being spoken: the development of passage of arms.

none of the below is directly stated in the script, but imo it's a fairly obvious gloss on what the game presents, if you assume a paladin warrior of light. spoilers for all expansions through the end of 6.X.

in the new version of steps of faith, as vishap breaks through each ward protecting ishgard from attack, lucia mounts a final desperate effort to hold him back, with a very familiar looking animation:

but even lucia can't hold back vishap's flame alone, so the temple knights surge forward to assist her. their efforts make the shield visually more powerful and larger. the temple knights here band together in defense of ishgard, and their knightly resolve to protect their home is the difference between victory and defeat.

lucia and the knights do ultimately succeed in defending the last ward, as you have to defeat vishap before their shield falls or you lose.

later in heavensward, obviously, we will get ffxiv's most famous (failed) attempt at blocking something with a shield.

this moment can be read as fairly impactful on the warrior of light's development; as i've noted elsewhere, after the trauma of watching haurchefant bleed out in their arms at level 57, at level 58 paladins learn to channel their magic into healing (and it's called "clemency," or mercy. mercy for whom? who was guilty?), and as someone pointed out on that post, at level 58 dark knights used to get "sole survivor", letting them heal in response to a marked target's death.

for a time, you literally carry haurchefant's shield with you, and 3.3 very much literalizes in genre fashion the idea that even when you are standing alone, your fallen friends stand with you. you don't need to call any allies to stand at your side and raise their shields with you because they are already there, in spirit.

stormblood marks a pretty important turning point in the warrior of light as a combatant, in my opinion, and the text makes this clear in several ways. first, in pretty much all your jobs, you've now far exceeded your trainers and are pioneering new techniques. this is no less true of paladin, which for 60-70 abandons any trainers at all for you to show off your peerless skills in a tournament.

second, stormblood is straight up a story about you getting stronger. at level 61, zenos kicks your ass. at level 70, you kick his ass. why? because you fought and got stronger and developed incredible new techniques and became a one-man army.

for a lot of classes, this story lines up nicely with the big rotation changes or flashy new finishers on the way from 60 to 70. SMN is now busting out bahamut and casting akh morn; RDM gets verflare and verholy; DRG starts harnessing nidhogg's power directly through dragon sight and nastrond.

the tanks are divided in two: warriors and gunbreakers get huge damaging upgrades at 70 in the form of inner release and continuation, each of which lets them hit the same button many times for lots of damage and satisfying animations. paladin and dark knight get more protective abilities; dark knight gets the blackest night, and there's been plenty said about that already by pretty much everyone.

paladins get passage of arms. instead of a relentless new attack (and you get requiescat at 68, which is a way bigger deal for your dps rotation), your big reveal at 70 for zenos in your fight in ala mhigo is a superior way to protect your party, a shield that lets you stand for your allies so they never have to fall for you again. it's lucia's same shield, except you need no allies' shields to reinforce you, proof of your martial prowess and your ability to transcend limits, and perhaps in truth a reminder that you never really stand alone.

in many respects passage of arms should really feel like a paladin signature move to you now if you are playing it at this point, because you should be popping it in pretty much every fight (you are using your mits, right...?). basically every FFXIV fight has at least one big AOE with downtime that warrants passage of arms usage, usually after the mid-fight add phase with slowly filling bar. since that AOE usually drops during downtime, there's no reason not to pop passage of arms (which otherwise restricts your movement and actions), and even on normal, sometimes every little bit counts on a damage check even if it means dropping DPS (thinking here of harrowing hell P10N on release, which was...less consistent for a lot of roulette parties than you might hope).

so from 70 onward, passage of arms is in a sense a paladin warrior of light's signature move, and certainly the one a player gets to most actually enjoy (since if you're using it, you're by necessity not doing anything besides moving your camera and admiring your sick animation). it doesn't have any competition in terms of spectacle until confiteor, and those you're usually throwing out in the middle of movement.

it's such a signature, in fact, that the only other person shown using your one-person version of passage of arms is your greatest admirer, who studied your legend for over a century.

and it's when he fails (should've popped arm's length, bud) that the warrior of light decides they can't let their friends fall for them, and sends them away with the transporter beacon. this is all wrong: you were meant to die for them, not the other way around. yours is the shield that stands between your allies and defeat. it is you who will win this passage of arms and break your opponents lance. and you do.

and then later, when they need to quickly establish zero's domain as a place of fallen grandeur, the home of someone who once believed in heroes but is now a cool and cynical vampire hunter d, what do they use? a decayed statue of someone in the paladin endwalker gear doing the passage of arms animation, of course.

from a visible instantiation of knighthood as a joint effort to defend what is sacred, to a tribute to the fallen friends whose memories stand by you and animate you, to a symbol of the wol's power as emulated by their allies or darkly mirrored in other shards.

not bad for a mit button you hit once per fight and otherwise never think about!

[battlecrazed-axe-mage]

While we’re on the subject, what’s the weirdest party finder experience you’ve had?

Oh boy. So this one's a couple years old now, but I will never forget this guy.

We (my fiance and I) were going through MSQ for the first time and were in early Endwalker, I think, and our raid lead wanted to take us through an unsync of E12S. Enough of a savage fight to get a taste for if we wanted to do the real thing, but not too overwhelming for a newbie. At the gear level of the time, you had to do up to Titan phase in phase 1, and all of Basic Relativity/a couple mechs after in phase 2, so she was confident we'd be able to manage it. But we didn't have a whole group together, so we put up a pf for the last couple slots.

Enter Mumbo*.

Mumbo said they had watched a video and understood the strats. It immediately became clear this was not the case. For those who don't play the game or haven't done E12S, let me introduce you to Dwayne the Rock Johnson strat**:

You get a colored shape above your head and the diagram shows you where to go with it; this happens three times, and then you're (probably, depending on your damage) done and the boss phases into a cutscene. It's super doable but it also NEEDS to be done or else the party explodes.

Mumbo could not do this. No matter how many times we reset and tried again, or re-explained the strat, or showed them graphics like that one. Also, after a handful of pulls, our lead noticed something bizarre.

Mumbo was on black mage. Except they were ONLY using ice spells.

For those who don't know, the basic gameplay loop of black mage is: you spend your MP with more powerful fire spells, then get MP back with weaker ice spells. There's lots more to it than that, black mage players are more powerful than I could ever be, but that's the basics. When used properly, it's a pretty powerful job. When used like this...it was gonna be a long fight.

We did make it through phase 1, somehow, getting it just right enough to scrape people off the floor after getting exploded by rocks. Then it was time for phase 2, which you absolutely cannot do by vibes. Especially for the dps role, which is what Mumbo had to do.

At this point we regretfully had to part ways with our new friend Mumbo the Ice Mage. But he lives on in our memories***, to this day.

*not their real character name; it's been long enough that they may have mended their ways, so I don't want to put them on blast

**I don't know why it's called that either. FFXIV savage strats often have silly names

***and is referenced when we find someone else who similarly does not fundamentally know how to play their job; i.e. the two Mumbos the White we met in DT trial 2 who were curefishing for their lives

[thegreatyin]

dark knight ffxiv is just. dark knight is an edgy (and i do mean edgy. straight up shadow the hedgehog crawling in my sins levels of unironic emo) tank class that's quite literally powered by love. the entire core of the dark knight storyline is learning to quite literally forgive and embrace yourself in the most homoerotic way possible while wielding giant swords and shadow magic and being ostracized by the anti-dragon elf catholic church. the theme of dark knights is that they do the damage that must be done and take the hits that must be taken and it's all at the behest of the people around them. they are an edgy evil aesthetic job that's also fundamentally based on the power of friendship triumphing over any obstacle. at higher levels you can literally summon your inner shadow self to fight alongside you (this inner shadow self being a manifestation of your own self esteem, who urges you to stop sacrificing yourself for other people, but also accepts this is the path you've chosen for the both of them and loves you nonetheless). they are the physical manifestation of every single MCR song ever written and also the most devoted very literal knights one could ever have. other jobs may fit caeru just as well in an aesthetic sense but no job fits him on quite the same top-to-bottom unabashed level that DRK does. the starter questline even has you reenacting the plot of fight club (1999)