Board 8 > FFXIV Topic Part 2 - Yes, People Are Playing

(+) Yeah! (+)

The questlog isn't telling me exactly what I have to do to get this Sanguine Septer for A Relic Reborn and I'm terrified.

Hold my hand game plz ;_;

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I can't imagine trying to go for a Relic weapon with a 300k Gil cap

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UshiromiyaEva posted...

The questlog isn't telling me exactly what I have to do to get this Sanguine Septer for A Relic Reborn and I'm terrified.

Hold my hand game plz ;_;

I wouldn't do the Relic quests. They're essentially intentional timesinks created to tide over players in-between big content updates. If the Relic quest is current, you at least get a strong weapon out of it. The weapon you'll be getting from doing an ARR relic quest will be far outclassed and not at all worth the time investment you could be using to do literally anything else.

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Ahhhh makes sense.

Also, huh, wierd they made Blue Mage this side thing instead of a regular class. Blue Mage in basically every game that has had it is an idea that is incredibly interesting to me but I never actually want to put the work in. An online game feels like one of the only scenarios where I would want to bother!

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Reactions to what they did with Blue Mage are very mixed, trending towards negative. I can see why they did it but I think people still would have been happier with just making it a normal class.

Some random tips:

-If you haven't been keeping up on your class quests, remember to do them. They're very important!
-Have you unlocked flying mounts yet? Cause when you do, hoo boy.

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I did a few hours of A Relic Reborn then looked it up online and saw that I was like 10% done and noped right out
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I have been waiting to get the flying mount to do more class quests, which I have, so I'll start doing those now. Diving in on the buy so I can get Red Mage and start putting MSQ experience on that, since it looks like I have to go before I can unlock Astrology and Dark Knight.

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Can you get RDM before Stormblood?

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You can unlock Red Mage as soon as you beat 2.0. However, I don't think you can on the free trial because I think it's tied to owning Stormblood.

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KamikazePotato posted...

Can you get RDM before Stormblood?

Once you reach Heavensward, you have access to all available jobs assuming you are the right level and own the appropriate expansion.

(This is a tag)

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Complete your first quest and complete the mains scenario trophies going off simultaneously, lol.

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Tagging this.

Im at level 49, ready to start raiding the imperial place to take down the weapon (as mentioned in previous topic). Im a bard currently, and I basically have to have one eye on bloodletter at all times. Will toss my name in the doc later, as wont have much time to play at all this weekend. Should on Monday or Tuesday though!

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Strongly recommend that the newbies, after hitting Level 50, youtube the cutscenes from the Binding Coil of Bahamut. It's a quest series with meaningful story content that unfortunately doesn't get played anymore due to the same problems as Castrum - long cutscenes in the middle of the level - but it's definitely worth seeing. Might be able to experience it personally if a couple B8ers help run it synced to blow through it, though, which I wouldn't mind doing.

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Keep in mind the following two non-MSQ steps you'll need to complete before you can finish the post-ARR stretch:

• A Trial sequence against Hard versions of Ifrit, Titan, and Garuda
• The Crystal Tower 24-man raid series

Neither step is too difficult, but you will have to complete them

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Also, here's a quick and dirty RDM guide. Doesn't go beyond Level 50 mechanics. This will probably read as complicated but the class is super simple once you understand it.

Essentially, Red Mage has four core attributes:

-You're a melee mage that needs to be in close range to maximize damage (although you can fight from a range when necessary, will just be less effective)
-Your core abilities will randomly proc, and following up on those procs is extremely important
-You have a White and Black bar that fill up as you use certain moves, and you want to keep them about equal
-Dualcast, baby

Essentially, Red Mage's goal against single enemies is to fill up their White and Black bars to 80 each and then unleash a three-move melee combo that does a fuckton of damage.

Your primary moves that increase White and Black bars are Veraero and Verthunder. However, they have a super lengthy cast time of 5 seconds. So what do you do?

Quickcast, baby. Red Mage has the unique ranged DPS trait that, after casting a spell, the next spell will be cast instantly. RDM also has an ability called Jolt, which does low damage and doesn't fill up the White/Black bars much, but also only takes 2 seconds to cast. The idea is that you cast Jolt to get Quickcast, then use Veraero or Verthunder right after, as they will be cast instantly and skip the 5 second cast time. So the very basic Red Mage rotation is:

Jolt (activates Dualcast) -> Veraero (consumes Dualcast)
Jolt (activates Dualcast) -> Verthunder (consumes Dualcast)
Jolt (activates Dualcast) -> Veraero (consumes Dualcast)
Jolt (activates Dualcast) -> Verthunder (consumes Dualcast)

You get the idea. This fills up the White and Black bars equally, which is what you want.

However! There's another very important thing to consider. Whenever Veraero or Verthunder are cast, they have a 50% chance of proccing. You can then follow up those abilities with either Verstone (increases White meter) or Verfire (increaes Black meter), both which are similar in strength but only have a 2 second cast time. So, based on how the RNG plays out, one example of what your rotation can be is:

Jolt -> Veraero (fails 50% chance, doesn't proc)
Jolt -> Verthunder (succeeds in 50% chance, procs) -> Verfire (activates Dualcast)
-Using Verfire makes Dualcast ready again, so continue with:
Veraero (succeeds in 50% chance, procs, consumes Dualcast) -> Verstone (activates Dualcast)
Verthunder (50% chance fails, consumes Dualcast))
-There's no proc and Dualcast was used, so the rotation is restarted.
Jolt -> Veraero

This is WAY less complicated than it sounds. The class plays very smoothly once you get a feel for how it works.

Abilities proccing will naturally make the White/Black magic bars go out of sync, so your job is to adjust your ability usage to make sure they stay about equal. Again, doesn't take a lot of effort.

Once your White/Black bars both reach 80, you use this three-hit melee combo:

Riposte -> Zwerchhau -> Redoublement

This does a lot of damage but consumes your White/Black bars. Then you start up the process of building them up again.

There's other off-GCD moves to include as well, but understanding the core concepts of RDM is the most important thing.

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KamikazePotato posted...

Strongly recommend that the newbies, after hitting Level 50, youtube the cutscenes from the Binding Coil of Bahamut. It's a quest series with meaningful story content that unfortunately doesn't get played anymore due to the same problems as Castrum - long cutscenes in the middle of the level - but it's definitely worth seeing. Might be able to experience it personally if a couple B8ers help run it synced to blow through it, though, which I wouldn't mind doing.

Is that the same thing as the Crystal Tower raid? I haven't done any large post-ARR dungeons and trials yet, but I've done the work to unlock them.

Also I played Red Mage and enjoyed it for the most part, but I had trouble setting an easy keybinding for it. Any tips? I have a mouse with side buttons that I've mapped Alt and Ctrl to.

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ZaziGuado posted...

Is that the same thing as the Crystal Tower raid? I haven't done any large post-ARR dungeons and trials yet, but I've done the work to unlock them.

FF14 has two different kinds of raids, 8 man and 24 man. 8 man raids are (past ARR) divided into normal and Savage modes, with Savage being the designated endgame challenge content. (ARR only has one difficulty for most of its 8 man raids, which is the equivalent of Savage.) 24 man raids are more casual content, roughly equal in difficulty to any duty you've had to do for MSQ progression.

Because this is FF14 everything ties into the world and has a storyline attached, and the ARR 8 man raid story (The Coils of Bahamut) is a very careful stiching-together of where the 1.0 story ended and where 2.0 began. It's a fantastic lore dump written by probably the single best writer SE has on staff and is very much worth your time.

The 24 man storyline (The Crystal Tower) seems less important now but it ties in to 5.0, so much so that it was made mandatory for MSQ progression into Shadowbringers a few patches back. Doing at least two of the 24 man raids also opens up a new duty roulette that's very nice for levelling classes at 50 and above.

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KamikazePotato posted...

Strongly recommend that the newbies, after hitting Level 50, youtube the cutscenes from the Binding Coil of Bahamut. It's a quest series with meaningful story content that unfortunately doesn't get played anymore due to the same problems as Castrum - long cutscenes in the middle of the level - but it's definitely worth seeing. Might be able to experience it personally if a couple B8ers help run it synced to blow through it, though, which I wouldn't mind doing.

Was able to find some 80s to help blitz the quest chain then watched the cutscenes from the inn when I did it (pretty sure you can skip em in raid? It's been awhile) Main pain in the ass was that penultimate boss with the meteors

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I have the RDM pattern down in my head, it's just a matter of finding the right hotbar layout to put it on.

Also, I was able to keep the BLM meter tiny and to the left without a problem. Not gonna work for RDM, back to big and to the right.

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Mac Arrowny posted...

Definitely disagree with this! ARR's story is better than Stormblood's.

Azim Steppe alone is better than ARR's story in my opinion. But you are entitled to your opinion as much as I disagree.

(That said, ARR isn't BAD, it's just not as good as the Expansions imo)

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Here's my RDM controller setup. Was able to fit all the relevant non-AoE skills on one and a half hotbars. Not entirely comfortable with it but it gets the job done.

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MikeTavish posted...

Azim Steppe alone is better than ARR's story in my opinion. But you are entitled to your opinion as much as I disagree.

(That said, ARR isn't BAD, it's just not as good as the Expansions imo)

That doesn't really disagree with what I said. Azim Steppe is better than anything in ARR, and several other parts are worse than anything in ARR.
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For my RDM controller setup, i'll just add that I have verfire and verstone on R2+D-Pad because you have to stay still to cast, while the spells you will most likely be casting in movement (veraero, verthunder, Fleche) are on the face buttons which are more comfy to press while using the left joystick. Jolt I also have on a face button because of Scorch.

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Jesus.

I need to mentally prepare myself for these 24 man's.

I cannot keep track of what's going on.

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You may want to consider turning down spell effects for other people in the menu.

UshiromiyaEva posted...

Jesus.

I need to mentally prepare myself for these 24 man's.

I cannot keep track of what's going on.

The ARR 24-mans are particularly weird because you always skip a ton of mechanics (due to the scaling and everybody being synced to way above the minimum ilvl), so a lot of the fights end up feeling kinda dumb

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Real men play 24-man raids as a melee DPS with all effects on with the camera zoomed in

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Real men play the entire game in first person with the UI off.

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I did Syrcus Tower in first-person view the other day for a bit of variety.

Would not recommend doing this as a RDM.

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If you're ever kinda bored and see a crystal tower min ilevel party finder, I'd recommend joining it. It's kinda cool seeing all the old mechanics. Glasaya is actually really cool!

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I'm one gear level too low for Crystal Tower.

I imagine I will be dead weight, Indided twice in the lead up to it...although from the sounds of it its usually no weight.

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Dantezoid posted...

If you're ever kinda bored and see a crystal tower min ilevel party finder, I'd recommend joining it. It's kinda cool seeing all the old mechanics. Glasaya is actually really cool!

I read up on his mechanics the other day. Kinda weird that now its literally only dodge cone/circle aoes!

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LordoftheMorons posted...

I read up on his mechanics the other day. Kinda weird that now its literally only dodge cone/circle aoes!

Get a load of this guy he dodges things in CT

Healers adjust

Wow, I know you guys already said to expect it, but was the playrate for this Bahamut raid so bad that they straight up broke it up into 5 smaller chunks...and it still has a 30+ minute wait for the first one?

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UshiromiyaEva posted...

Wow, I know you guys already said to expect it, but was the playrate for this Bahamut raid so bad that they straight up broke it up into 5 smaller chunks...and it still has a 30+ minute wait for the first one?

The Bahamut Raids are in 13 chunks, actually, you just haven't unlocked the rest. Each expansions has one set of raids that are 12-13 stages, usually just straight-up boss fights. They're fun content and people still run the ones in other expansions, as they ironed out the ARR jank, but Bahamut's has aforementioned issues that make it undesirable to play more than once.

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UshiromiyaEva posted...

Wow, I know you guys already said to expect it, but was the playrate for this Bahamut raid so bad that they straight up broke it up into 5 smaller chunks...and it still has a 30+ minute wait for the first one?

It was always broken up that way. All 8 man raids are 3 sets of 4 bosses (Coil has an extra though because Turn 3 isn't actually a boss but is a weird platforming thing). The only difference is the later ones have a normal and savage mode with the normal mode being possible for pubs to do so everyone can see the story, and Coil doesn't have that.

You are not going to get a group on-level to do Coil. It's old content so nobody is actively queueing for it and its almost never included in incentives to play old content because It's harder than you can realistically do in a pub. The only way you're likely going to get a group to do it is if you use Party Finder to find some high level players to carry you through it unsynced.

UshiromiyaEva posted...

Wow, I know you guys already said to expect it, but was the playrate for this Bahamut raid so bad that they straight up broke it up into 5 smaller chunks...and it still has a 30+ minute wait for the first one?

The Bahamut raid is not only outdated content but hardcore content. There's no reason to do it the normal, at-level way except if you want to get a coordinated group together and throw yourself at a difficult fight for hours. And very few players actually do hardcore content, I would be surprised if it was much higher than 10% of the NA/EU population.

Starting with Heavensward they also include normal mode versions of the fights so that everyone can do them and get the story, but they never did this for Coil because they expect people to just cheese them at max level. But you don't use the queue for that, you have to manually set up a group with Party Finder.

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Yeah just as a heads up, essentially nobody uses duty finder for coils, savage raids, or extreme trials. You use party finder instead (and for old content these parties will typically be doing them unsynced).

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So beating the ARR one isn't a prerequisite for the following ones?

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You mean is beating Coil raids a prerequisite for future raids? No.

Just pulled it up on YouTube for tomorrow. An hour and a half??

The amount of cutscenes in this thing is as long as a short movie.

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Yes, the raids are story heavy content, which is why its kind of annoying that Coil doesn't have a normal mode.

Also because the Coil fights are quite cool and there's really not a way to experience them now unless you can find a pre-made party of people that want to do them synced for the challenge. IMO Turn 9 is still one of the best fights they've ever done.

Since apparently you didn't do Aurum Vale, just a heads up, these are all the optional ARR dungeons just in case you want them all unlocked. It's nice for leveling alts.

Level 20 - Halatali
Level 35 - Sunken Temple of Qarn
Lever 38 - Cutter's Cry
Level 44 - Dzemael Darkhold
Level 47 - Aurum Vale

And then there are about 18 dungeons at level 50, where only like 2-3 of them you will play through the story.

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Yeah I really don't recommend doing all of the level 50 dungeons, its not really worth it. Or at least, don't go out of your way to do them right at 50 and spread them out.

The only one I'd say is the exception to that is Tam Tara (Hard) because it has quite a good story.

Halatali was optional?

Definitely didnt remember that!

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LordoftheMorons posted...

Halatali was optional?

Definitely didnt remember that!

I think you are eventually made to do it in the 2.X series of MSQ. Qarn as well. It's optional up to that point, though.

I think some of those dungeons are required for other side quests, so you end up doing them for that reason.
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Yeah Cutters is also required for max rank in GC because the GC log includes enemies from it

Yeah I've been unlocking all of those and turning them off in the quest log for later.

Tam Tara is probably my least favorite dungeon so far other than maybe the one where you have to bomb flan, and I've already gotten it twice for leveling duty, lol.

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Finished my relic weapon. Man, that was a hell of a grind.

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