And so the Benchmark trailer dropped AKA The thirst is real!

So there i am getting over a nasty flu and a break from XIV when i check my twitter. Through my fugue state i see the official XIV twitter mention "Hey don't forget to check out the new Stormblood trailer in the Live Letter!" which was a bit of a surprise. I thought we were not getting SB related live letters for a while to go now. What we got was surprisingly long. New locations, new gear sets and most surprisingly: New Abilities.

Some of it is solid info, some of it guesswork based on what we have seen but a rough list of info so far can be summed up with the following.

• DRG now appears to have a skill where it burns off Blood of the Dragon as a ranged burst damage spell
• DRK appeared to use Shadowskin on the SAM, perhaps an on ally version of PLD's 1 physical block skill?
• AST has two new cards in their tarot, The Lord and The Lady
• BRD fires a flurry of magical homing arrows at once
• MCH has a flamethrower skill
• NIN has a new skill to summon a giant fire breathing Toad
• WAR appears to have a new downthrust charge similar to DRK's current ability, possibly a new cross class skill?
• SMN appears to fire off a new spell reminiscent of ravana's wings, not unexpected considering 50-60 brought an emphasis back to SMN using the powers of primals.
• PLD appears to have a small holy style aoe.
• SCH now appears to show an ability to link Eos or Selene directly to a targeted party member, probably as a more direct healer instead of an aoe turret its used as now.
• MNK appears to shift into max Grease Lightning level instantly
• RDM appears to use a combo on one enemy then the chainspell finisher on another suggesting it is a 'counter' tied to the player not an enemy upkeep.
• WHM appears to have another group wide heal or buff
• BLM shows a dark purple stabbing graphic spell not dissimilar to the AST weakening debuff. Painflare perhaps?

As well as these teases we also received concrete info that the TP cost for Sprint has been removed entirely, Crafting Specialisations will have more weight on crafting choices now (glad i picked those up for BSM, LTW and CUL) and now would be a good time to cap Poetics -yes Tomestones of Poetics as they will be exchanged for a new currency used for progression in 4.0. Perhaps as an all purpose low tier with the mid and endgame tiers remaining the same for now instead of the mid current replacing poetics as tiers upshifted in the past? for now they just recommend 2k poetics will be a nice "ahead of the curve boost" for whats coming in 4.0.

Aside from this its mostly tidbits. the initial inventory boost will be 10 extra slots for every page of the armoury and 40 for inventory to test server load and a much larger increase after should it take properly. Flying mounts will swim underwater and some current ground mounts like Sliepnir will fly. New hairstyles are coming to nobodies surprise and the SAM Limit Break is a move some FF fans will find quite familiar.

Overall a nice bit of info in a time where the Heavensward content is running tired and Idyllshire is getting real empty this time of year. Now its just time to rewatch the trailer to see what tidbits i missed and get back to the countdown, just 52 days to go...

The lonely Easter, or 'Ten weeks to Stormblood!'

So its that time again. Not Easter i mean. Well yes technically its also Easter but thats not what i'm talking about here.

-But go to Gridania and get your egg mount. Takes like 10 minutes tops.

What i'm talking about here is that its the 'pre expansion lull' again, yay! or something. I guess i could be more bummed but after putting up with the "we beat the big bad... now lets settle with NOTHING for the next 18 months!" level of content updates between final patch and next expansion i did back in my WoW days. Waiting 2 and a half months isn't looking too bad.

Still what does it mean right now? Well it means a huge amount of fantastic games have just come out and Nier Automata, Zelda Breath of the Wild and especially Persona 5 (which is fantastic btw) have decimated the FFXIV population in this period where the story and content updates are done with till those ships to Othard make ready to leave in June.
So while this does mean longer queue's it also means a lot less competition on the market board and maybe your chance to pick up a free housing plot to boot. One thing folks have to learn if they are new to mmo's like this is that this is the perfect 'cleaning house' period. Farm gil and get your inventories cleaned up and so on.

Though it is always a little bit of a downer at these times to barely see anyone outside Idyllshire even when a seasonal event is on its always good to take a break to avoid burn out too. Stormbloods just around the corner so its always nice to have some time to take it easy i guess.

-Or go crazy buying and selling on the marketboard. Y'know. If so inclined.