Board 8 > FFXIV Topic 14 - A Topic Series Reborn

(+) Yeah! (+)

JonThePenguin posted...

Well shit, they moved Mirage Dive out to a separate button. My single-target hotbar is crowded enough as it is.

https://eu.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodestone/topics/detail/5130fef15f5ffc6a72fd818eb1843a592e39b93c

BOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Went to Raw tonight and got my sign on TV a bunch of times.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/6/8/5/AABEJEAADl51.jpg

Bloodfest
Recast time has been increased from 90 to 120 seconds.

I'm assuming this is less of a nerf and more of a "make the burst window alignment for Gunbreaker less awkward"?

Holos
The additional effect "Erects a magicked barrier which nullifies damage equaling the amount of HP restored" has been added with a duration of 30s.

I didn't ask for this, but that is a very nice buff
oGCD Succor yes please

The following action has been removed:
Astrologian
Crown Play

God bless

This action will no longer be replaced by Mirage Dive while under the effect of Dive Ready.
* Following this change, Mirage Dive must now be set to the hotbar separately.

Now, I haven't leveled up Dragoon far enough to have access to Mirage Dive... but that seems counterintuitive to the whole "reduce button bloat" stuff they used to justify removing Kaiten. What's up with that?

Looks like no changes for RDM in PVE

I actually still haven't quite figured out how to play it correctly; I liked the way the class worked in ShB a lot better.

Eh? RDM plays mostly the same as it did in ShB, didn't it?

Only things that changed going into Endwalker (IIRC) were: Acceleration effectively being a Swiftcast with a guaranteed proc, Manafication being a guaranteed melee combo at any mana level, Enchanted Moulinet contributing to the melee combo finishers, and some adjustments to the mana levels.

I quite like the changes to Red Mage in EW. The Acceleration and Manafication changes still take time to get used to, but by and large the changes felt like QoL more than anything.

Yeah Endwalker RDM is a huge improvement.

Took a little time before new Acceleration clicked, there can be some growing pained there.

The Manafication change is good. I hate the changes to acceleration and mana; I can't figure out how not to waste procs/leave accelerations sitting unused for long stretches, whereas that type of thing only happened when I made a mistake in ShB.

Need a new content checklist for the new stuff.

Am I crazy or is this required item level whack for this dungeon?

UshiromiyaEva posted...

Need a new content checklist for the new stuff.

I've used this site when going through patch content and I think it works well.

https://ffxiv.consolegameswiki.com/wiki/Patch_6.2

That said:
https://twitter.com/surfacage/status/1562003435624763393

Heads-up for anyone that's cautious about it.

People have been insanely secretive about this Trial.

I'm not going to do the extreme of whatever it is, so guess after I get to it I'll habe to look it up!

I'm sure I'll get spoiled by it from YouTube within the next few days. Wouldn't surprised me if I saw what it is today.

People were putting up spoilery thumbnails and titles on videos on YouTube within hours of the patch going live, so yes, be careful.

Good dungeon!

Spoiler free 6.2 MSQ review.

"The people who ship their WoL with NPCs are so cringe"

*Plays 6.2*

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/5/0/0/AAeolZAADmGk.jpg

Havent finished the MSQ yet (just arrived in Zeros domain) but I do appreciate that youre traveling in a group of five, yet another of the many callbacks to FF4 going on in this bit.

The trial, though a callback I expected, was not the one I expected, nor the style of fight. REALLY was not predicting Barbie Kong.

OK so did the MSQ and the raids and unlocked the island, this is everything before 6.25 right?

Those sick new crafting recipes where I get to give my SAM a longsword aren't out yet?

I'm glad that SAM set is so cool so I can get the Maiming or Fending gear from the Raid set, which are so obviously the best ones. Cannot WAIT until the dyeable is available for us non Savage players.

The music for this raid tier is so good. Gonna make for a fun Savage prog

All the crafting recipes are out, but you need scips for books and actually I'm bad at explaining crafting stuff because I don't do it. Just google 6.2 crafting or something, there's resources out there.

Also, the Extreme version of the new trial is great fun and very much worth doing. Best EX trial in a long time, possibly ever?

If I've never done endgame raid prog before, should I do EX1, EX2, EX3, and P1S-P4S before doing the latest raids? Or should I just jump in once I'm caught up with gear?

There's unlikely to be many parties doing P1-4S anymore now that they're outdated. People will still be farming all the extremes though to get the rare mounts that drop, but the first 2 are outgeared at this point so that either makes them a good entry point, or not a realistic representation of a current fight, depending on your outlook. EX3 is probably still at a fair level right now. EX4 and P5S are both perfectly fine starting points though, just make a party labeled [Fresh]/[Learning], you can even say "It's my first time raiding", people usually join those and are happy to help.

Oh right, I didn't think to go look for scrips! I'm capped so hopefully I can at least make a dent (or am I capped? I heard they were raising the limit to 4k).

Jump in once you're caught up on gear. You have to do P1-P4 normal modes to unlock P5-P8, but nobody's going to be doing the Savages anymore since the rewards are all obsolete. (Technically some people might need to clear P4S to unlock Dragonsong Ultimate, but that's not a concern for you if you've never done endgame raiding before.) EX4 is a fantastic entry point to difficult content and the weapons it drops are the best available at this point in time.

610 crafted gear is available on the marketboard and shouldn't cost too much - keep an eye on prices, they'll most likely go down a bit in the next day or two before spiking on the weekend. If you have the ilvl to do P5-P8, the tokens there buy 610 gear too. And if all else fails, you can get an infinite number of Astronomy tomestones for 590 gear and upgrade them with Aglaia coins to 600 to fill in gaps.

Not_an_Owl posted...

610 crafted gear is available on the marketboard and shouldn't cost too much - keep an eye on prices

They were all 1 to 3 million yesterday lol.

For day 1 crafted gear that's actually pretty cheap! Savage launch being delayed a week cratered prices.

I just had to get in the damn dungeon!

Got it! Guess I got finish out the Patch 6.1 quests and get started on 6.2 and also do Aglaia and Asphodelos.

Is Aglaia part of the Alliance Roulette? I'm wondering how long it'll take to queue up for it. Duty Finder failed me during the final boss of Endwalker (waited over half an hour as a Healer before I went "screw it" and put up a PF that got filled instantly).

Kirby321 posted...

Duty Finder failed me during the final boss of Endwalker (waited over half an hour as a Healer

Woah what? That's wild.

Anywhere where I can confirm which recipes are in which mastertomes?

not sure.

do you want me to just make the sam sword for you?

Naw I got it worked out, NP. I have everything I need it's just been a while.

MikeTavish posted...

Went to Raw tonight and got my sign on TV a bunch of times.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/6/8/5/AABEJEAADl51.jpg

You're a hero and don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

Also I love everything about this patch so far except separating High Jump and Mirage Dive again. Stop making me change stuff damnit.

i'm really annoyed at the minor arcana/crown play change.

the two main reasons are a) it doesn't show the cooldown timer anymore while you have the card drawn. but optimal AST play means saving the card you draw at 1:00 to use in the 2:00 burst window, so you can't see the cooldown at all now until it's up again basically. i used that cooldown to track where i am in my rotation so it's annoying for it to be gone.

b) you can't double-weave crown play into minor arcana draw anymore, since the game forces a second-long wait for the skill to change. it forces it the other way too, which matters less, but i do sometimes draw and play immediately when i don't care which card it is.

oh and c) if i draw a lady at 1:00, i might be saving it in case i need it. if, at 2:00, i realize i haven't needed it at all, i can just press minor arcana to draw a new card. but now i'll have to spend the lady first, using up a weave slot in the leadup to burst. again, minor thing, but yeah it's all just annoying.

obviously this only matters if you're going for an optimized speedrun/parserun or clearing week 1. i don't think many in this thread (who play AST) will particularly care. it's a change that's better for like 90% of the playerbase.

Damn, that's a fair perspective. You know what, I have a solution.

Bring back ShB AST.

As someone who only started in ShB and only picked up AST for real in EW (I mean I had it at 80 in ShB but used it at 80 maybe twice total) I completely agree with all the "revert to Heavensward/Stormblood" ASTs.

I feel like an inauthentic AST because I never played back when all 6 cards actually did unique things.

Honestly it sounds way more interesting than just 6 differently coloured damage buffs.

While we're on that topic, could we get Miasma, Bane, Shadow Flare, and unique effects for Selene back on Scholar? When I first played the game (a few months after ShB dropped), I got to have fun using Bane before shortly losing it after splitting off into Scholar. And apparently it was so much fun to play back then! Especially when the fairies weren't just palette swaps.

... I mean, it'll never happen, but giving healers some semblance of DPS outside of Glare/Malefic/Broil/Dosis spam would be a pipe dream.

The first entry in the Endwalker short story set is up. Spoilers, obviously.

https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodestone/special/tales_from_the_dawn/

Optimal play when receiving the old arrow card on some classes:

Click off the arrow buff

Dantezoid posted...

Optimal play when receiving the old arrow card on some classes:

Click off the arrow buff

Yeah, the old cards were not good. A brief summary:

Ewer: Restored MP. Sounds great, except that the amount of MP restored was so small as to make the card functionally useless.
Spire: Restored TP. What's TP? It used to be MP, but for physical classes. SE got rid of it in ShB when it became clear that the only purpose it served was to limit your ability to AoE trash pulls.
Bole: Damage mitigation. Again, sounds great, except that because you had a 1/6 chance to draw it every time you tried it was completely unreliable and damn near unusable for any sort of mitigation plan.
Arrow: Increased skill speed and spell speed. There was all of 1 job in the game for whom this was a good thing (BLM). For everyone else, this card was a good way to deliberately troll your friends by messing up their rotation timing.
Spear: Increased critical hit rate. This one was actually fine, though ideally you gave it to the BRD and only the BRD (since BRD's entire job design back then was predicated on its DoT ticks critting).
Balance: Increased damage. What all the cards do now. The only card you actually wanted to draw in 99.999% of situations.

So out of 6 randomly selected cards you could draw every time you pressed the button, 4 were useless if not outright detrimental, 1 was acceptable but suboptimal, and 1 was what you actually wanted. Pre-ShB AST was a mess and anyone who wants the old cards back either has nostalgia goggles or doesn't understand how the game works.

Oh I'm aware the old system had issues. I just think the concept as a whole is more interesting than just "they're all the balance"

I'd tweak it to make the effects actually worthwhile. I'd also remove the redraw that made people just fish for balance, though I don't know exactly how it worked. I'd make it so you just have to work with what you get and give it to the best person.

But even then, yeah, this game's battle system has become consistently streamlined around DPS being the only thing that matters, with MP management, aggro management, anything else really, falling by the wayside. And of course, totally scripted at all moments in a fight, so you don't want or need any variation anyway. So the old system doesn't make much sense. The new one doesn't feel satisfying either though.

The problem with making every card unique is that, by virtue of them being different, there's always going to be a "best" card, and not getting the "best" card can feel bad or suboptimal given that there's always an RNG element.

By homogenizing everything into DPS boosts, it makes all cards viable in every situation. To keep things interesting, you can match blue cards to melee and purple cards to ranged for a larger damage boost. So every card play can always be optimized in a clear way, though the odd dungeon run without any ranged DPS makes things less clear (is the 6% DPS boost on a healer worth more than the 3% DPS boost on a melee?).

The only issue was that since Divination was tied to getting three unique seals, having it up in time for raid buffs wasn't always reliable. There's really no easy solution here because of AST's inherent RNG mechanic being what makes the class interesting and fun, not to mention the limiting factor of console/controller players having a nightmare trying to target party members with cards.

meh, it also "feels" bad when your big attacks don't crit, or when you don't get a proc on dancer/bard, or etc etc. ideally you have it even out over the course of a long fight.

but new AST already has feel-bad moments when you draw the wrong minor arcana, or when you don't hit 3 seals despite your best efforts. (which they've mitigated somewhat now. but it did feel bad, even if over the course of a fight it evens out, so you're not wrong)

but if they made a system like that in this day and age, they'd need to make the effects a lot better. MP restore should restore a *significant* chunk. mitigation should be party-wide at least so if there's *any* raidwide in the next 30 seconds you can get value. change the TP thing to a 5-second party-wide expedient. just spitballing. this would of course need to remove the 2nd charge of draw since you would want to actually have 30 seconds to use these at a good time, not spam them during burst like you do now.

but yeah, it's hard to make it work. but still i'd rather they try to do something interesting. i totally understand why ASTs who started in HW because they wanted a buff/utility/support class are annoyed it's been streamlined into "its just damage buffs" meta.

Oh I don't disagree about new AST. I really don't like how unreliable the Minor Arcana system is, and I think I've just become numb toward Astrodyne and don't even bother going for seals anymore and instead just placing cards on whoever is doing the most DPS. Which, to say the least, sucks.

I mean, not getting ShB Divination whenever it's off cooldown also sucked, but it was simple to mitigate by using Redraw stacks or burning trash cards with Minor Arcana to get the DPS boosts without ruining the seals (plus reworked Sleeve Draw, which I never got to use). It used to be such a good system with how much decision making was involved. Minor Arcana in Endwalker is quite frankly garbage imo, especially because it's so disconnected from the main card system

yeah i def preferred the ShB minor arcana from the bit i played. just a tiny bit of decision-making, "do i want this card or can i burn it on damage and draw a better seal before next div is needed?" but i didn't play AST at high level then so i could be missing some intricacies.

some ASTs now actually dislike this redraw change, because it makes it harder to redraw a ranged card into a melee card. i think they prefer melee cards even over getting the 3rd seal, because the third seal only adds 5% to your damage, but a melee in burst does (i imagine) more than 5% more than a bard/dancer, maybe even more than the other ranged?

so before, if you redrew a ranged card, you had a 3/5 chance of getting a melee, because you could draw the melee version of the same seal. now you can't, so it's only a 2/4 chance.

...very high level optimization stuff, but still.

Yeah, I heard about that. It's really funny how stuff like that doesn't even cross our minds as casual AST players, but it's true. Just goes to show how much of a mess the Astrodyne system is when you really think about it lol

And yet, I'll still prefer playing Astrologian to White Mage.
(Nothing against White Mage mains; I just don't find White Mage particularly fun, but I'm also a Scholar main, so I'm clearly insane lol)

The Minor Arcana change is the really bad one. There's threads on the official forums now complaining about it too so hopefully SE listens.

I genuinely think no one on their job design team plays AST, and if they do, they did not test this change.

Even if you're not at a high level, it makes total sense that you might draw a Lady of Crowns and wait until a good opportunity to use it, and then have no idea when the 60 second cooldown of Minor Arcana is ready again.