Shadowbringers Live Letter Part 1: or "How Yoshi powerbombed the sound guy"

credit to The_Ganey on reddit for the image

 Well first off Fucking Woof that was painful to watch at times. You could see Yoshi practically start to boil over like a kettle left on the hob too long. The friends i watched the stream with all said some variant of "Oh Yoshi is going to tankbust that sound guy when this is through" and i wouldn't be surprised. Don't get me wrong in the end we got a wealth of information but holy crap did the audio guys shit the bed on this stream on a level i personally have no comparison for. From random bursts of very loud, high pitched screeching static to "uhh, maybe just hold one of your mics up to a tv?" comments while leaving the mic on while going on a break this was bad. Which for us in the west at like 10pm was no biggie. Just kick back and relax, but in Japan where the core domestic audience was going out to work? thats a real social faux pas. They had to give a deep bow apology at the end and put something up on the Square Enix website. Along with a job posting for a new opening in sound engineering for streams. Ain't that somethin'?

 So onto the actual content of the stream. Largely it was job changes. There was some interesting tidbits at the start but not too much. Regardless i'm just going to run through my notes with a bit of input from my worthless opinion on each. Here we go!

General information:

-"14 Million Players": Not subscribers mind you, at this point i don't think any MMORPG including WoW is realistically pushing over 2 million active subscribers for a game as the sub model and interest in the genre in the mainstream is at a low its not been since the 1990's. But 14 million players is a lot of game copies sold. For comparison FFXV -a game that went way overbudget and contributed to the largest fiscal loss since the Square Pictures disaster of the early 2000's- 'only' sold 8.1 million. That means a steady increase in new players and while not all of them will stick around it does mean the game, as mentioned in the last earnings call, is still steadily growing and profitable which for us players just means we don't need to worry about budget cuts or content slowdown in the near future.

-"Pets are no longer autonomous units you must control but largely cosmetic with their abilities tied into your own skillset": This ones a bit sad in a way. Your egi's, Fairies and new stuff like a certain MCH skill i'll mention later are not targetable party members in their own way anymore. Just a flashy effect which honestly i don't think i'm a fan of. It also means Topaz Carbuncle and Titan Egi can't tank anymore as they can no longer count as an entity in combat to hold aggro and will be reworked. Of all the changes shown in the live letter this is the one i just kind of squinted and made a 'hmm' noise at. Maybe it will be an improvement but so far it sounds like one sacrificing major rpg flavour for convenience that i can't say i'm a big fan of.

-"As part of improving combat flow and to add new mechanicas some existing and new skills will have charges on their own external cooldown": So not too alien a concept if you played stuff like Monks in World of Warcraft. You can have a skill on your hotbar that every few seconds builds up a charge at a set rate to a number like 2 or 3. You can use one when you wish or burn all of them in a row instantly. The example given being DNC's no target required forward dash/blink. It can build to a charge of 3. You can burn them all to cover a large distance instantly or use only 2 and save 1 while the charges start to tick back up. Its a simple change that i can say from experience works very well for what its intended to do. If your party members remember to keep track of when you exhaust them all!

-"Main stat materia is gone": This one left people a little confused. Not that its gone thats self explanatory with the stats bundled into future gear. But more the questions of "So what do armour crafters do to make money now?" and "what do i do with the stacks of main stat materia i currently own?!?" because all they said is its being out and out removed. Not replaced by something like Mhatchi matter to trade in for secondary stat materia. Its just creating a vaccum in each servers economy overnight with nothing -as far as we know right now- to replace it. I don't really rely on materia as much as selling my retainer loot for easy money but the stream chat was full of comments like "well there goes my entire revenue source" or "so i guess my crafter job is useless at endgame?" and that felt like half an answer that missed out the most vital information. Maybe they just intend for it to balance itself out over Shadowbringers and it probably will but its still kind of iffy.

-"Only one Job quest at lvl.80 with 'Role Quests' replacing them from 70 onwards as you level": This one seems pretty easy to explain. Some job quests get more love than others already and we are getting closer to 30 jobs with each new job released. How many of those would be phoned in like the HW WHM questline nobody enjoyed if the resources got spread thinner and thinner with each major content release? This also explains what the Alphinaux and Ysh'tola segments of the last two patches were teases for. In Shadowbringers we will get quests as we level for your role, not job. But these are very much Role Playing quests comparable to certain sections of past games like FFVI. You stop playing your character and no doubt using the echo or simply by being told a story you take on the role of one of the past heros on The First. This is a really cool idea. We are on a different world so more info on our Job and the characters we know doesn't make sense and at the same time we can flesh out this alternate world more by giving its past some more weight. Making it seem less like a new theme park crapped out to spend time in for an expansion and more like a world that was storywise chugging along right beside ours the whole time. Something that other MMORPG's alt world expansions like the famously disliked Warlords of Dreanor really failed to do and was commonly criticised for it feeling like a side jaunt into a theme park in a vacuum where nothing really felt like it mattered. Plus hopefully this can make the lvl.80 quests be a bit more of a bigger affair comparable to stuff like the RDM battle in the Weeping City and not just filler for fillers sake.

-"Crafters and Gatheres meanwhile will have 4 questlines centered around a location called 'The Crystarium Mean' as they level': This one feels a little more iffy to squash things together. Like maybe Botanist and Fisher are helping catalogue and save some endangered species on the verge of being added to the list of now extinct life wiped out by the Sin Eaters and the blinding light burning off all habitable ecosystems on the surface of The First? we have to wait and see but its strange we still have no news about Rebuilding Ishgard quests huh?

-"Role Skills system revamped entirely": So now you don't pick and choose skills. The days of levelling a alt class just to get a single spell for your main job are now truly dead and gone. Now you will get a silence at a set level, a self heal at a set level and so on. With ranged magical dps having the least and tanks having the most. With a new none magical silence to act as a stackable stun where enough players can shutdown powerful boss abilities. The example given was a Chimeras 'Rams Voice' the bane of Healers and laggy melee DPS everywhere. These skills will now have an orange aura around them to show you can spam stuns from the party to shut down these moves like big aoes, tank busters and buff purges.

-"Quality of life improvements": A range of smaller focus comments like normalising tank gear, reducing bloat on skill lists to make room for the new ones and most interestingly 'making healers refocus on healing'. You can still dps but it should not longer be mandatory. Personally i like to dps rather than standing around waiting to whack a mole but i hope the now uniform 10k mp bar replacing mp and tp bars we have right now in the live game means dps'ing as a healer isnt a huge mp loss to brute force sticking to heals. Beyond that they paradoxically want to "reduce synergy so you don't feel like certain jobs are mandatory" while at the same time calling Dancer "the synergy king they hope isn't mandatory for raid groups". Which feels in hindsight more like they just want the underused classes to get more play, not that theres anything wrong with that of course.


New Job Skills:

-Ninja: Kage Bunshin no Jutsu summons Shadow Clones that double your attacks, essentially a much stronger Duality. Visually neat and i hope it changes it enough that its not the playstyle in SB i hate but i remain skeptical.
-Dragoon: Building up the SB version of the Dragon gauge now lets you use moves like Nidhogg possessed Estiniens Flashy dive attack. Looks cool but mechanically seems very similar. Shame we didn't see anything of the rumours saying DRG would get their Dragonling pet like in FFXI, so far at least.
-Summoner: Can Summon Pheonix, not a demi or egi but finally at lvl.80 Summoners are starting to summon actual Summons. Egis are now more visual effects than pet characters and can be changed instantly on the fly even in combat to combo into various 'Egi attacks' as part of the Summoners rotation. Not much to say about this. Shame the pet aspects gone but Summoners finally getting their FFIV/IX/X Job fantasy have been patient and deserve it.
-Dark Knight: Inner Darkness literally rips out your Darkness which once again takes the form of Fray from the HW questline to fight alongside you. Effectively a Jojo style STAND ability which might just be Duality for tanks but if theres some form of intentional move delay you could drop a taunt then focus on more dps as Fray then taunts again. Given the overall 'you shouldn't need to spam to play well' focus of Shadowbringers this feels like a neat, unique way to get around it for the job.
-Black Mage: Now can hold Astral/Umbral stacks for longer and has a new single target Flare -but don't call it Ver-Flare or the RDM will get jealous!- that you can build up two casts of on your new gauge. Simple but its a simple job really. You build up fire for the big boom but now its finally got a single target option which as a job that was basically the aoe trash pest control is a nice addition to its toolset which gets very samey on single target fights.
-Scholar: Gets a new Titania Egi named seraph for super heals as a cooldown. Honestly as the healer summoner its been a long time coming for that to get some love. For a class fantasy based around 'finding lost arts of healing summoning' it felt way too focussed on being 'The Tonberry loredump job' and this is a nice addition to the flavour of the job.
-Astrologian: Complete card system rework. Honestly a bit wary about this one and i will have to wait till just over a month from now to get my hands on it myself. AST is my go to healer job and i hope its not just a buff turret now. We will have to wait and see for this one.
-Gunbreaker: Uses attacks to build a bullet gauge, sorry MCH its not yours anymore, to buff and defend party members while having an off cooldown mechanic to crit like Squall's R1 on attack mechanic from FFVIII
-Red Mage: A new AOE spell to follow up Ver Holy/Flare called 'Scorch' which is an element free explosive spell. Bit 'eh' but as one of the last new jobs i didn't expect many changes when it just had a rebalance for the last patch in the live game. Dull but if it ain't broke right?
-Monk: Greased Lightning now stacks to 4 for more raw dps and is easier to maintain. It feels -and theres more coming later- that Monk is the new Machinist and they don't know what to do with it but just know the hardcore Monk players aren't happy with it. I expect a lot more changes for this job as the expansion unfolds.
-Paladin: A new gap closer and part of their rotation makes skills like Celerity instant cast. Like RDM very safe changes but again 'designed so you don't need to spam abilities' which is nice since Flash Spam to salvage an overeager dps'es mass pull is stressful/annoying to deal with.
-Warrior: Very little new stuff. Only one stance now with higher dps rolled in as baseline. Effectively the dps that can taunt everyone joked it was but now thats officially its role. I have yet to hear a WAR complain about this.
-Dancer: Rarely attacks themselves but moves around the arena to input directional based combos to fill their guage and buff the party while building up for powerful high damage finishers or heals. Effectively Final Fantasy's version of the Monster Hunter Hunting Horn support role and as a RDM main i find the concept fun and i'm eager to play it but its core mechanic they get to later sounds like a nightmare for players with bad ping.
-Machinist: Gauss Barrel and Bullets gone, in its place we have all of Edgars tools from FFVI and the ability to summon a Magitek Knight to fight with us including a pile bunker finisher. If you look back at my last post i said MCH needed the most love and in this liveletter it really explains why we only got two new jobs. Because technically Machinist is the third. I've seen nothing but positive reactions and a lot more people starting to level MCH in time for the next expansion because of it.
-Bard: At level 80 unlocks a new 'Soul Voice' gauge for new, more powerful spells. Basically just a new power tier to replace older outranked, or in a few cases removed, songs. More of BRD being BRD. Nothing bad but nothing too interesting either.

Overall the new abilities range from Cool to just kind of 'eh' as a baseline but nothing thus far has gotten a bad reaction from the playerbase so they are clearly doing this right on paper. What holds up in the live game remains to be seen of course. Right now however it looks neat and what followed was some more info per role that is pretty interesting in terms of significant changes to the dynamics of gameplay.

Tank changes:

-"All tanks are now designed as both Main and Off-Tank viable": This is one of those things that needs to be seen in game to see how effective it is but on paper its a sound idea. There are jobs -particularly during Heavensward- that were seen as MT or OT exclusive and would not be taken for raids if they weren't the right job. Which frankly sucks and this is a change to combat that. You want to Tank then you play the Job you enjoy. End of story and thats really all we want when we tank right?
-"All Tanks will now have some skills that buff the rest of the party or grant them defensive skills": I can see the players that just want to lay back and tank something simple as an aggro magnet for the party finding this a chore on paper alone but personally i like it. The Tank is the vanguard. The forward leader of the rpg party. So the idea of them inspiring their party members is really cool and since i'm used to AST throwing out buffs i won't have trouble doing the same as a Tank.
-"There is only a Tank stance now, the DPS one is gone and that is all baseline toolkit all the time": I guess this also makes you question why keep stances at all then but maybe its just some way to balance the levelling curve or something. They said themselves people stuck to the stance that was the greatest DPS gain so they just made it the norm so i guess the only change is less tanks losing threat because they stance danced too long?
-"Enmity generation combo's are removed": so effectively more passive threat gen and less doing the same 3 moves to fight with the other tank before the tank busters. With some moves changing to compensate. The Example given in this case that Paladins Riot blade no longer combos to build enmity but combos to give a instant cast proc for things like Clemency. Which gives you a wider variety of things to do without interrupting the flow of combat which is a new way to make it feel more like an rpg and less like an mmo, a genre i love but is not know for its smooth gameplay flow across most of the genre.
-"All Tanks have a baseline 20% damage reduction/Enmity generation stat": Inb4 'tanking for dummies' comments but this seems to be part of the role wide normalisation. If you tank you are basically the DPS that holds threat and takes less damage. Again more 'play the job you want rather than whats meta' which as someone that accepts but hates the concept of rpg 'metas' at all i like the sound of but know numbers are numbers and the new meta will show up not long after.

Overall some interesting changes that look to simplify the role as a whole while allowing each individual job to have more flavour and fun stuff to do. Which when you are playing should be how it goes. You want to play a Job because its fun without worrying how other jobs do your job better the whole time.

Healer changes:

-"Healers all being unified to refocus on healing first, dps second if ever": I like to dps so i'm a bit wary of this making healers boring but they are following the same design as tanks to make them all feel unique without any feeling less mandatory so maybe it will work in the longrun? things like Protect being removed are a bit sad from a nostalgia point of view but its really just a pointless, mandatory upkeep buff at this point so i can understand in the name of making room for cool new skills per job.
-"New actions to balance out each jobs repetoire": The examples given being a new instant cast heal for WHM and SCH having more active spellcasting and less bubbles. Essentially so you dont have moments where you encounter situations where you dont have the skill for the job but others jobs do. The jobs will still have their niches but you wont find people going "i wish X other Job was here instead" because you couldn't do something. To use a DPS example the fact RDM will now have a silence like every other dps means it wont have moments where any other job could stop a nasty spell cast while it just stands around and takes it because they have no options. Same thinking applies to healers here and downtime as a healer is the most boring part of MMORPG combat for me so i hope this reduces that.
-"For WHM Lillies accumulate at a fixed rate automatically with skills proc'ing a Black Lilly for a new damaging skill": So the focus now is less on "oh i guess i generated some lillies, neat" and more having a fixed rate of lillies and knowing when and where to use them while the Black Lilly appears to trigger a proc to cast Holy 2 which damages and heals or buffs the party. Its a small change but makes Lillies feel like a part of the job rather than a tacked on side thing you don't even really have to notice at all.
-"SCH is mostly the same with some more active spells to cover the changes coming to pets in Shadowbringers": So with Eos and Selene literally just being a cosmetic now -they even do the same thing since one was numerically, objectively superior in 100% of situations for years now- the only fairy that matters is the new Titania Egi 'Seraph' which is basically the new 'oh shit' big aoe heal for Scholars. Overall its a just thats lagged behind in player interest in terms of healer jobs and maybe managing the fairies was part of that and the dev team had the numbers to prove it. Personally i think its a 'fine' job but just 'fine'. This didn't sell me on it but hopefully makes it more active as more than a heal turret for people who love the job but found it growing stale in Stormblood.
-"AST cards are now all straight buffs with each suit for a specific role, at lvl.80 they can change stances at will during combat for a limited time": So in terms of healing AST is my main job so this was a little worrying. It looked at first glance like losing flavour and complexity for the sake of others not playing the job because they couldn't deal with the gameplay i enjoyed. That could still be the case but it looks like they are focussing more on AST being the hard buffer healer rather than a cobbled together blend of ARR versions of WHM and SCH. Which could be great and i hope it is. But as someone who loves the current state of AST this does worry me some. The new lvl.80 skill however may seem a bit underwhelming but boy is that going to be useful in Alliance raids i can tell you that right now!

For Healers it feels like a lot of trimming and shaping to fit an idea of what each job should be without putting them in the same position they are trying to get Tanks out of. It feels experimental and honestly could go either way. But as long as we get to something that works i'm hopeful for it turning out okay. Thats the beauty of MMORPG's. No mechanic or class is ever truly set in stone and nothing thats unpopular or anti-fun has to stick around forever.

DPS Changes:

-"Some jobs, effectively everything but BRD, DNC and MCH have had their rotation conditions made less strict": Effectively dealing away with the "I missed this one button due to lag or having to move to avoid a plume or something and have to startup my buffs and mechanics all over again fresh" stuff that made us all at some point or another eat a one shit kill because we chose to risk trying to pull off that finisher before moving. I've done it, you've done it we've all done it. At first i assumed they just meant making things less complex but when you see the changes below its more of the 'balance the jobs out so none consistently outshines the others in theory'. Which lots of MMORPG's try as their 'bring the player, not the class' ethos but it rarely means more than a numbers shift which changes a meta at best in the long run. I can't complain as long as there are fun jobs to play but again we gotta wait and see on this idea.
-"Lots of MNK players complained about the state of the job in SB so even though the developers didn't want to they added a 4th greases lightning stack for dps increases": This one came out strange and feels like not nearly the rework the job needs. But its a start. Albeit a very small one.
-"Heavy Thrust is gone to streamline DRG's combos": No complaints from players i've seen. Its an annoying upkeep that can interrupt and totally screw up the flow of your rotation. It should have been gone in Heavensward.
-NIN's enmity moves are gone as Tank changes make them redundant": Well i hope they are sure about that. I don't know how many times back when i was a NIN main that i had to save a healers butt when the tank had trouble holding aggro off them using the NIN's skills.
-"Moving between combat as RDM slowly depletes your gauge": My knee jerk reaction is "aw shit, this sucks man" but really if i'm saving a verholy or flare its because we are already nuking our way through packs anyway and it appears to decade very slowly so it seems more for saving it to cheese fates or something rather than in dungeons so maybe its just to compensate and balance their new Scorch spell being a big numbers opener to steal threat or something? god knows in SB i can steal threat all the time as RDM if i get a good string of procs going.
-"No significant changes to BRD and SMN rotations": Somethings got to be the safe option i guess. But i see it more for BRD than SMN based on the previews thus far.
-"Nobody liked the gauges, gauss barrel or ammo mehcanics so we effectively redesigned MCH from the ground up": Like i said this is really our third new job this expansion. With GUN taking up the focus as the bullet using rooty tooty slash and shooty job -and MCH being abandoned en masse as the objectively worse job in the game in Shadowbringers- they are shifting focus to bring Machinist back to its engineer/magitek routes more in line with Magitek Knights and Machinists of past games. I liked the reload flavour but overall it felt like trying to add complexity for the sake of it. Of the three HW jobs it was always the stand out sore thumb that felt unfinished and hopefully its going to get the love it deserves. The devs sound happy with it, MCH mains sound finally happy about anything and its sold a lot more players in picking the job up after dropping it months or years ago at this point. I hope it works out.
-"SMN relies far less on Aetherflow, you shouldn't be focussed on saving a full stack for boss fights": This seems like a nice way to cut down on complexity. Its very much felt like there are three stages of ramp up to get SMN to a solid 30 seconds of its peak potential before burning out and having to start the ramp up again. It feels like only being a full contributing member of the party for like a third of the time and from a design standpoint that just sucks. You shouldn't spend most of your playtime in combat trying to get to the fun part. Its not some massive dramatic change but should be one that makes SMN mains enjoy their experience as much as the other dps which honestly should never have gotten to the point its at now to begin with. This was a longtime coming.
-"With Job synergies scaled back across the board certain songs are now gone with new ones to replace them, meanwhile procs will occur more often and build up new effects": Again simple but welcome. BRD is a solid job but its core rotation can leave you starved for procs and just wishing for a single proc while you watch the RDM and BLM of the party burning through them at a breakneck pace. BRD has always been a funny blend of "Yoshi likes bards but also wanted to be an Archer" thats left it thematically a bit confused but with some of the changes in the last few patches an the new 'Soul Voice' gauge i hope its more in line with BRD's of previous games like some of the other job changes. Also lets hope DNC doesn't make it feel totally redundant. Speaking of-
-"DNC chooses a player to be their 'Dance Partner' and they move together to build up 2 step basic or 4 step technical dances to buff the party in general and each other to a greater degree as your partner builds YOUR gauge for you. DNC also is the first 'PVaE' dps. With the same attacks doing different effect, e.g single target or AOE, based on distance to the enemy": Hoo Boy did they end on a strange on. First off we have a really neat idea for a Hunting Horn style support job, but how does it compensate for if their dance partner lags or DC's? thats going to be interesting to see in practice. The new adaptive combat abilities however is very interesting and it would be cool to see other jobs get some of this sort of thing as well. As a guy who likes support roles like Hunting Horn in Monster Hunter this job as me excited much more than MCH does. Its a shame its another dps rather than a healer but overall the more i see the more i want to get my hands on it and try it out.

 They finished with the new Benchmark trailer -which interestingly may have teased TRUST Npc's in the open world rather than just squadron reskins for dungeons- a reveal of a left handed gaming peripheral Yoshi worked with famed fighting game controller designer Hori to create and news of a Titania challenge at their E3 event where the second half of the Live Letter including the patch notes will be shown.
Overall, massive tech support screw up's aside of course, there was a lot to get excited for, a little to worry about, and more general build up of excitement.
 It feels like without being divided between two major workloads like Ala Mhigo and Doma we are getting a more focussed but experimental expansion which can always go bad as easily as it can be good but from what we have seen there is nothing that worries me that can't be fixed in a patch so far. I'm excited for the new mechanics like Role Quests and hope they give just as much love to Crafters and Gathers so they feel less like being a collectibles bot.

 Now we just wait for the final live letter and any last minute big reveals (please not another Diadem/Eureka Yoshi!) and beyond that its time to start counting the weeks if not days. Its currently May 24th at the time of writing this and the July 2nd release date -not counting early access of course- is getting real close already. Boy has Stormbloods last few months really flown by!

I'm finally done!

For like what 2 months? eh better late than never i suppose. I got through the Disciples of Hand and Land really fast thanks to collectibles. I was done before they even added the Namazu beast tribe in fact. Combat Classes however was a different story. I hit RDM, DRK and AST fast at the start of the expansion but really fell off and got most of the others through beast tribe dailies and the odd Main Story or Alliance Raid Roulette. In hindsight you spend too much of the expansion on alt jobs just rerunning Bardam's Mettle which can be a nightmare when the healers not able to deal with an overconfident tank bulling that entire winding path at the start in one run. It was a real easy recipe for alt burnout in a period with some great videogame releases. Hard Drive death aside of course.

 So with all of them levelled, Job storylines finished and as geared as i want them to be here is a rough opinion on each before the big combat revamp coming with Shadowbringers:

Paladin: I know a lot of people that will swear by PLD. Its the bread and butter tank. The sword and board shieldwall that protects the party. It still is and it works just fine. Its also super boring. For me at least. They are visually boring, the quest story is boring and i left it last purely because i was doing this job for completionists sake and no other reason really. If you liked it in HW its still the same but does better.

Warrior: This job surprised me. I was never fond of WAR and it still does the worst first impression in beginner group content in my opinion. But nowadays? honestly really fun. The squishier tank but it holds threat very well and does a lot of damage to boot. They feel fast and theres a satisfying weight to their animations and this time the story was pretty fun. It was nice to see a different aspect to the whole Inner Beast storyline. I ended up tanking the most recently as WAR and never expected that back in HW.

Dark Knight: This one sucks but its lessened slightly by the very likely notion that this is the poster job of the next expansion and will get a rework to go with it. Because right now DRK sucks. It feels weak, the story around it is weak and you are just chasing one proc forever. This was my main Tank job in HW but now it just feels so inferior in mechanics, numbers and general fun that it feels like it got left behind.

White Mage: Boring but competent. The PLD of healers really. Everyone loves a good WHM backing them up, nobody goes "boy, i'm having such a good time playing WHM" though because its just 'bleh'. The lillies feel bland. You cast basically the same stuff you did in HW with no variance for the most part and thats about it. Its inoffensive but reliable.

Scholar: Tried some new things which made it more than the bubble healer with a pet but its just not as reliable as either of the others and its story is neat but beyond that theres a reason you don't see too many scholars nowadays.

Astrologian: Still my favourite healer no question. You can aoe, you can buff, bubble, dot, drop timebombs and so much more. The story is a very interesting look into Geomancy and the new abilities are a nice option to have during the times where your cooldowns ensure theres nothing to spend a royal road on. My go to healer job that is fun, visually distinct and the mechanics around the Tarot deck only got better in SB.

Monk: Great story that feels very tied into the Ala Mhigo stuff, the job itself however? eh kind of the same. It does high damage and has good survivability when solo but its very bloated and needs a look at from the ground up in my opinion.

Dragoon: DRG is 'if it aint broke, don't fix it' as a dps job. The story and mechanics add onto whats already there. It looks the same, plays mostly the same and if you love DRG in HW then the SB version will be right up your alley as well.

Ninja: This ones a bit of a sore spot for me. I mained NIN since it first came out in the Dreams of Ice patch in ARR and loved every minute of it right up to downing Niddhog and Alexander. Then SB happened and i was hopeful that the whole Doma aspect meant a lot of love for the far eastern job. Instead it feels like Samurai out and out replaced it. The story was bland and forgettable, the new jutsu ability feels more like a punishment than a power fantasy and it just flows worse than it did in HW and outputs worse damage. RDM replaced it as my main for a good reason: its not fun anymore.

Samurai: speaking of SAM this one took a while to grow on me. Its very much just building a combo for a buff, build one for aoe and build another for a finisher. Its simple. Its raw damage is high and when you have the full toolkit it does end up feeling like how NIN did in HW. The story was a little generic but its a Samurai story so of course they had to go the route they did with it in the Doma expansion.

Bard: BRD like DRG is another expanded but still competent job. It does what it did before but better and if you enjoyed it you still will. Nice story however and i did not expect this one to tie into Ala Mhigo as much as it did. Not too original but made me very nostalgic for ARR in its style and tone.

Machinist: Honestly i think the team doesn't know what to do with MCH. The new meter feels like filler. The new moves feel like filler and would you be surprised if i told you the story feels like filler? its not terrible and does the damage in a pinch but its kind of being left behind by the playerbase at large for a reason.

Black Mage: This was my original Job back in ARR pre NIN but HW changed it in ways that really soured me on it. Happily i can say SB really rebalanced it in a nice way. It still lacks mobility and seems to lag behind on single target fights but its the aoe dps king and the story this time around was pretty interesting and expanded more on the history of the job which too many others failed to do over the last few years.

Summoner: Another job like BRD or DRG that feels like a natural expansion of its core mechanics with a nice story to go with it. You really feel the new power tier when Summoning Demi Bahamut and while it feels like the job lost a little aoe capability to compensate it just feels so nice when you get the rotation down.

Red Mage: My new main job and easily my favourite both in terms of story and playstyle. The story of Amdapoori and Mhachi defectors and the revisit to the Weeping city were really interesting and memorable. The class blending melee and ranged while having healing to cover the raid when both healers die is a nice variety of options which keeps you on the move and always doing something even when theres nothing to dps. You heal, you buff the party, you raise dead players. All while building up spell meters to do a melee combo ending in a mininuke spell. Its simple, satisfying and while the dps might be a little low the support it brings to the party overall really makes it the most enjoyable dps job for me.

Blue Mage: While still stuck back at lvl.50 right now BLU is a very enjoyable job. I enjoy being able to heal, dps or tank in dungeons with friends and the scavenger hunt was a hoot with the story giving us a bit of info on the new world as well. It just kind of tapers off though and outside the carnivale' gets quickly forgotten by most. Very, Very fun job i would main in all content if i could but as it is right now its just a novelty to play with friends in ARR content.


So overall its a bit of a mixed bag. Most of whats good is just things remaining the same but expanded on and the bigger reinventions often didn't sit well with me. Jobs i liked i don't really touch and others just seem kind of left behind. Theres nothing beyond WHM i would consider truly torturous to play but it feels overall like there are less jobs i choose to play when i have the whole roster at cap to choose from at my leisure. I just feel like i varied a lot more back in Heavensward than i do in Stormblood.
 Right now i can say concretely i'm going into Shadowbringers with RDM as my Main/DPS Job and AST as my Healer Job but thats about it. Will i start Tanking as WAR? will DRK get a huge revamp i love? or will GUN end up being a new Tank Job i adore? we can only wait and see but boy do i hope Yoshi and the team gives us more variance when levelling them all this time around because 1800+ levels in and another 200+ on the horizon i need something to start mixing this up beyond beast tribes and the roulettes!

The Man in Black drove across Thanalan, and the Machinist Followed

Hey so points for trying to make that work at least right? no? alrighty then. A swing and a Miss. Now here is an event that i'm pleased to say held up. A lot of the events in XIV during Stormblood has been pretty lacklustre and while this one is pretty late for its intended cross over with a game from two years ago its still been a fun event. Its been a long time since i took multiple screenshots and recorded video to remember the event.

 First off you can breath a sigh of relief. This is not just another dull Fate grind like Lightnings was. There is a fate where you fight Magitek Troops -or MT's- but you need do to it 3 times tops, it takes like 30 seconds to beat and nets you a currency to buy 6 Orchestrion rolls of what most would agree are the best tracks from the FFXV soundtrack. After that? shockingly its a short but enjoyable single player questline instead!

The story was simple enough. The Warrior of Light runs into a certain Lucian Prince broken down at the side of the road in Thanalan and introduces him to Cid -but not the Cid Noctis is expecting of course- to repair the Regalia. In the meantime you and Noctis investigate reports of things from Eos invading Eorzea. At first its just Magitek from Niffleheim but as nightfalls you get the first solo duty fight against a Demon, Eos' version of Voidsent for those who havent' played FFXV. Its a simple fight is smoked as RDM but tried again as BLU and while it took a little longer was still pretty easy but it was fun. After that you go camping and fishing as Noctis explores the shroud looking for something to tell the boys back home about. He even stops for a photo opportunity with you. Really, that actually happens.
 The real fun comes after that when reports come in of the MT's attacking the Ixal in the North Shroud and this drove them to summon Garuda. Only for them to run in fear when it is "like our goddess, but is not out goddess!" as the Astral of the same name from Eos shows up, following the power of the King of Lucis to this shard from their own.

Honestly this fight is fun and its a shame we can't redo this one. Its a rework of the ARR Gardua fight but instead of using a close to the middle ring of stacked stones for cover you use an action move, in this case the blink strike from temporarily being given the power of a Kingsglaive from Noctis, and you blink around and link strike with Noctis for big damage. Honestly if i wasn't playing a RDM with Corps-a-Corps this probably would have seemed cooler than it felt but it was still pretty great.
 You beat XV Garuda and she says Noctis passed this trial and its time to return home, just as Cid pulls up in a repaired Regalia. Noctis says his goodbyes and everyone gets a brief vision of a woman in white calling him home. He rides off into the sunset so to speak with a promise of 'lets meet again someday' and you end the brief side story with a new outfit, the Kingsglaive title and a trip to the Golden Saucer to drop 200,000 MGP on a G-Type Regalia for your troubles!

Overall i liked the event and i'm not even that big a fan of FFXV in terms of the whole series of mainline titles. It even made me contemplate reinstalling it to finish the DLC but not quite enough to bring me to do it.
 I think in retrospect i enjoyed this one more probably because it was delayed. Because lets be real these cross overs are advertisements at the end of the day. They are to sell a product. This one was just stuck in dev hell much like the game its trying to cross promote so came at a time long after the games a current product on the new release shelf to be shilled. For Lightning, granted i cannot stand her character as Toriyamas tulpa waifu insert, the event felt cynical as it was right around the time Lightning Returns came out and so it felt more like an invasive advert getting in your fantasy MMORPG.
 This like the FFXI events were years after the fact so were more of a 'hey i know that track' or 'they name dropped the thing, i know that reference!' type stuff that gets a smile and a prize. Personally i see the odd rare Lightning cosplay once in a blue moon but when did you last see anyone use the weapons from her event? years? ever? this feels like we will be seeing Regalias in regular mount rotation for a long time and the orchestrion music is already in the rotation at my Free Company house so clearly it did something right.

 In general if i have one complaint its that the event made me want to play FFXV again right until a brief glimpse of Lunafreya showed up to remind me what an absolute mess of a game FFXV is and that its not really worth the trouble.

So yeah like i said at the start "A swing and a miss" with its intended purpose.

 But points for trying though right?

A Nocturne for Heroes: FFXIV X FFXV

 Well this one has been a long time coming hasn't it? over 2 years since its release in November all the way back in 2016, and boy thats flown by hasn't it?, FFXIV is finally having the crossover with the last mainline single player entry in the franchise. A little bittersweet since the actual release of FFXV was kind of a hot mess in some ways. The game launched pretty unfinished, the had to patch in scenes from the movie Kingsglaive to try and explain events, the story goes nowhere then falls apart trying to wrap up a story that barely began, strange wastes of time and money on things like an Assassins' Creed tie in and generally trying to be this "jrpg as a service" that helped contribute to a colossal multi million dollar loss for the companies fiscal year that saw the games future content cancelled and the creative director left or was let go from the company. So not only has general interest in the game as the new hotness faded but in general its taken a place for some as the new worst entry in the mainline series that for most was held, depending on who you asked, by FFXIII or FFIII.

 So just like Lightning showing up in Eorzea was met with groans as it was used to advertise what rumours suggested was a Valkyria Profile sequel -something fans of that series have been crying out for for years that got reworked because FFXIII's production overproduced assetts that needed to be flipped to make a profit while Agito XIII came out as the forgotten on release FF Type - 0 and 'Versus XIII' was considered dead until it would later be reworked into the frankensteins monster of a title FFXV limped out of a loooong production hell- with Episode Ardyn seeing the finale of the whole disastrous "Project Fabula Nova Crystalis" the connotations to FFXV and Noctis showing up might seem less like enjoyable fan service and more of a reminder that the single player games in the mainline series haven't really been good since XII and haven't been truly exceptional since IX back in like 1999.

 Not that groans and eyerolls at another failed mascot will put people off chasing a flying car thats a four player mount right?

 What we know so far is that the event starts next Reset. Outside the Immortal Flames Gand Company building you will find an NPC named 'Kipih Jakkya' who starts the quest "The Man in Black". You need to be lvl.50 and completed the Ultima Weapon questline ending with the fight against Lahabrea at the end of A Realm Reborns pre inital credits roll MSQ. All we know so far is from the trailer. You fight the Imperial Soldiers and mechs, do some camping and fight a different form of Garuda. The camping suggests that this might not all be farming the same two fates for tokens like Lightnings event was.
 The rewards shown thus far are Noctis' outfit, his hairstyle, his Triple Triad Card, half a dozen Orchestrion scrolls and of course the Car Mount which rumours suggest has been datamined to cost 200,000 MGP at the Manderville Golden Saucer. Personally i'm sitting on nearly 500k as i work my way through the last couple of things i dont have but i just save it from the super easy challenge log stuff. It probably won't be that hard to get during the event and i imagine it was made in such a way returning players can easily get it, maybe as part of the event the MGP buff comes back or something?

 Personally i like the mount well enough, we already have Clouds Motorcycle, a Magitek Walker AND Claw to fly around on so at least this actually has a flying mode compared to the Bike or the bloody Elephant from the Ananta! i am surprised there thus far doesn't appear to be any weapons though. The Engine blade is kind of a bland, forgettable weapon but they tried to push it in a bunch of stuff the year after release like in Nier Automata and a boatload of Square Enix owned Gacha Mobile Games.

 All in all i'm predicting a lot of foot traffic at the golden saucer for many, i know a few people who took long breaks coming back just for this, but also thing those of us who have the MGP already will breeze through the quest. So if its time limited and not something like monster hunter i'll take some screenshots, maybe record some footage and then back to the usual routine.


 I swear i'll get Paladin to cap by Shadowbringers! Maybe.

JP Fanfest 'we can't use the 'before the Storm' puns this time' Edition

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4.56 The conclusion of the Stormblood Story

 aaaaand its finished already. Did you blink? you may have missed it then. I kid but i logged in, got the 'put time aside for this' message and was expecting another ARR/HW 2+ hour deal. Instead we get two solo duty fights and a little bit of exposition and then credits. Unsurprisingly this left people a little down going "was that it?" but honestly i was expecting this considering the nature of the ending this time.
 Spoilers for those who didn't attend or watch the JP fan fest stream -which i will be writing about after this post- but Shadowbringers begins with our character using something related to the Crystal Tower to make the jump to another of the shard worlds created by Hydaelyn, the First in fact. So no long trip running from Uldah to Ishgard on the lamb, no waiting for the Ala Mihgan resistance and the whole Shinryu deal to go down. We are going in direct continuity from the end of Stormblood where we wake up in Ishgards Chirugeon's ward to grouping up with the Scions at Rising Stones to go find the way to the First. I'm sure in the future when its not during the awkward waiting period it will flow well and have a sense of immediacy to the urgency. You finally get a lead on whats been afflicting the other Scions and its time to jump on it and continue trying to solve the mystery! For now? we wait. Finish off levelling jobs, clear Eureka if you want, do the side quests and the FFXV tie in event when it hits. We still have stuff to do but for a story heavy game like a mainline Final Fantasy it is going to leave some people feeling like the waiting period came too quick. Personally i found it short, but i understand why.

 As for the MSQ itself? well no shocks here we beat up Elidibus/Ze-not just like in the Shadowbringers trailer but then that creepy Echoe like effect occurs mid battle and strikes you down. Before you can be killed by "Zenos" however you black out. When your character wakes up you are greeting to a scene right out of kingdom hearts including an appearance by a character whos design may as well come from there as well. A hooded man with a crystallised arm tells you that oblivion is coming wether you win or lose the war with Garlemald and the only path to salvation is through him. He has left a 'Beacon' at the Crystal Tower for you to find. You wake in Ishgard to be informed by Ser Amyeric that Estinien showed up to save you, which we get shown in a single still image which honestly seemed a little lazy, and then you return to the Rising Stones where Tataru and the gang welcome you and set off to the Crystal Tower to find this Beacon and 'Open the Gate' to the First.

 What do you mean "and thats it?" well mostly. There is a final scene back in the throne room in Garlemald. The emperor, those suspicious as hell twin bodyguards we fought in the last dungeon and Zenos are there alone. An uprising of sorts is starting due to the rumours of a demon possessing the heir to the thrones body and the Emperor "will not fight for the throne a second time". They also mention that curiously Solus, scene chewer de jour, is absent with neither the Emperor nor the Ascian knowing where he is and assuming he is 'using this chaos as an opportunity for his own ends'. The scene ends with the chief scientist making a return to confirm the Black Rose is ready to begin production again. Ending with a strange fade to black and static close up on a manic Emperor reminiscent of Kefka and Spehiroth to a lesser degree. Wether this was to show his internal, hidden feelings or to suggest some form of mania or possibly even some form of multiple personality syndrome we can't say for sure but it was a bit of a jarring shot to end the expansion on as the very, very long credits roll for a good 20+ minutes after this shot.

Finally for the after credits we see Zenos aka 'EleZenos' cut down a Garlemald soldier and look at the flag nearby to state it is "time to reclaim what is rightfully mine", his body or the throne or both we don't know while lamenting that he missed meeting "his friend" again and hopes we "grow more savage" on our jaunt on another world. Finally our character stands on a hill and stares up at the Crystal Tower and a closing comment of "Sow the Seeds of darkness" marks the end of Stormblood, along with Tataru giving you the most Edgelord outfit for a none DRK player since the Void Ark raid gear sets were the in thing.

Combined with the events of 4.5 i mentioned a little while ago my overall opinion remains the same. I am interesting in where its going, i find the increasingly cartoony jumps to make the Emperor evil shallow and a bit of a bruteforcing that wasn't needed. I'm glad we didn't get a character death just for dramas sake as i was honestly expecting them to try another Hauchefant with Hien at the end but thankfully they avoided that one.
 So all in all the main story quest of Stormblood was fine. Not exceptional, not emotional like Heavensward was to a lot of people but just fine. Not quite the usual standard we expect from the team overall but i've said many times that trying to fit two major stories into one really seems like its been a detriment from the outside looking in. The characters were likeable and the world building was great but i would be lying if the minor trip back to Ishgard to see the Heavensward characters wasn't much more impactful than anything related to the current story, for me at least.

Beyond the main quest we have the Beast tribe finale, the Hildibrand Finale and the associated Trial to round off the expansions wrap up phase. The Beast Tribe questline involves Hancock inviting the Ananta to Kugane, no doubt for some kind of trade deal, with you dragged along to be a tour guide of sorts but naturally for this series a familiar face shows up to ruin everything. You know the drill. Its a greatest hits victory lap, though in this case the animation kind of outdoes the MSQ finale honestly.
 Then we have the finale of a certain Manderville Man's latest investigation. To this point i have felt like Hildibrand has kind of been on a declining level of entertainment since A Realm Reborn. I still get the odd chuckle but you can tell this was something they wanted to do once and it was just so popular, which is understandable, that they are not feeling forced into doing it and it kind of shows at times. This time around the culmination of the questline honestly feels longer than the MSQ did for this half of the update. The Yojimbo trial was fun, effectively a remix of two earlier trials but felt like it was over very fast compared to the other trial fights this expansion. Story wise i got some laughs out of it and overall i think this storyline held up better than the GiGi storyline of Heavensward which felt like late in Development they decided to rush a Hildebrand questline out because they noticed how popular he became during A Realm Reborn. This time around it felt a bit more planned out and varied plus it gave us more time in Kugane which adds to it overall and its a shame we didn't get more stuff in Rahlgrs Reach the same way as the expansion went on. But some Thavnair interaction was neat and the ending to it was a real "oooh, thats how they are setting the next one up" moment that was a nice nod back to FFV.

Overall it was a brief maybe 4 hours of new gameplay content but with the expansion over its really just tying up loose ends at this point. It still feels like Ultima was the finale of the expansion and this is just set up with little actual shock value compared to things like Nanamo and Papalymo's events in the past.

But i guess thats Stormblood over and done. Still got one more job to get from 60 to 70 and some cleaning house on a couple of side things before i call it all done and dusted and give it a write up but hey we still have the FFXV event to go before we are truly done with Stormblood so still a little to go before we are waiting around for Shadowbringers eh?

Patch 4.5 in review

 Well it took a while what with the crazy number of excellent videogame releases lately but as usual i have cleared all the content in the current update (outside of Eureka that is) and feel i'm ready to ramble about the update that really feels a lot like "Stormbloods over, this is the set up for Shadowbringers" in retrospect.
 Overall the quality feels like a marked improvement over 4.4 which i believe is the only time "boy, lotta spelling errors in this update" was part of my review of a big budget MMORPG's content update. Without the Doma/Ala Mhigo split the story is no longer serving two masters and it feels far more obvious here than last time that this is seeing an improvement to content quality. So as usual lets start with my go to content on patch day:

The Story
This is a story that, much like the expansion as a whole, felt very divided. There are two story hooks here and one only got more interesting after the extended Shadowbringers trailer while the other just fell flat to me. Overall it flowed well and left me wanting more but it really is night and day between the two storylines.

 First off you have the big story teased in the patch trailer. War has come to Eorzea again and the new Emperor might be revealing a shocking twist! Exciting right? is he going to turn out to be some anti hero thats been waiting to turn on Solus (aka Not-Ardyn) all along? Intrigue and double agents on both sides? No. No he's just a humanity first nazi analogue. Thats it. All the set up just for a 'muh master race' villain. Its not quite the 'the church is evil all along' level of bland but in terms of jrpg tropes that were old on the PS1 this is pretty up there.
 The question of course is why fart out such a lame 'twist' at all right? and i think the best way to explain this is to drop a Jojo's Bizarre Adventure spoiler so hey fair warning This spoils part of Jojo Part 7: Steel Ball Run. Jojo part 7 stands out for a few reasons. Its a universe reset, its a western, its Joestar character is actually the sidekick of the protagonist and so on. Most importantly however is the change it makes with its villain Funny Valentine. The President of the United States of America. Yeah you heard right. In a series who's previous villains range from Vampires to Serial Killers Araki decided his series reboot needed a villain shake up as well and the way he did this was simple: Make the reader almost agree with the villain.

Valentine is chasing the stories maguffin that will allow him to increase the powers of his Stand ability 'Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap', which allows him to hop between parallel worlds and timelines, or pull things from them. With the maguffin upgrade this would allow him to grow strong enough to actively alter the world around him so his timeline is always the most beneficial course of events.
 The example given is that if someone tried to shoot him the gun would misfire but somewhere else in the world a soldier in a warzone has his gun go off by accident and shoot a child to karmically balance this out so to speak.

So he's just a self centred villain out for some form of personal gain right? actually no. Quite the opposite. Valentine wants this power to use it to protect the entirety of America. He is a former civil war soldier and patriot that deeply loves his nation and its his own sense of 'justice' that drives him to ensure a conflict like the one he barely lived through will never happen again. His actions to get there are evil. He will assassinate people, rig elections, lie, cheat and steal to get to the goal, but his goal is "no American child will experience loss from war ever again, no more bloodshed will happen on American soil, as the President this is my solemn vow".

He is arguably doing the wrong thing for the right reasons. You can imagine how the character has been twisted in recent years for the whole 'make America great again' deal online but at the end of the manga when his back is against the wall he gives an impassioned speech about how he has no personal gain he is chasing, he sincerely wants to be the best President he can be by making America a nation that experiences everlasting peace using his abilities rather than some form of authoritarian or facist control. The interesting part? the protagonists actually back down.
Even for a minute the villain of the series who has killed people close to the heroes has them think "maybe he is actually right" and that leads to an agonising dilemma for them and that is superb writing. When the villain can argue that he actually believes he is doing the right thing and can almost convince the hero that he is in fact trying to do the right thing you have a character you can invest in.

Why do i bring up this Jojo character? well because many people i know including myself who read Steel Ball Run felt like the Emperor role was going to end up like Funny Valentine and we were ready for the Garlean leader to be someone we would stop, even for a second, before readying weapons for the inevitable loot pinata style Trial boss to ask ourselves "is he even the villain at all, or just a puppet of Solus ready to turn on his master and make the Garleans truly free for the first time?"

 We wanted him to sit down the leaders of Eorzea and reveal he wasn't a 1 dimensional villain doing evil because the villains must be evil but make them wonder if theres more to Garlemalde in general than being the generic Final Fantasy villainous Empire trope again.
He isn't though. He is just fantasy Hilter now and thats so lame. Its a massive let down and while i still think there are some interesting hooks to come, his two female bodyguards that totally aren't XIV's version of Melti Gemini for example, in a vacuum it was maybe the most disappointing story reveal since "Oh hey Nanamo never died, its only been a few quests since then in the MSQ but lol jk jk :p" and i thought FFXIV's writing was better than this. Which brings me back to 'the why' of it.

This is personal opinion, though i've heard it elsewhere since the patch dropped multiple times, but i believe that because people were expecting a reverse heel turn the writers tried to brute force 'this character is evil' upon the players in the laziest way outside of setting fire to an orphanage full of children. He is literally talking about genocides and a master race, do you get it? DO YOU GET THIS IS THE EVIL GUY?!? and yeah we do. Message received. But it was a poorly delivered one and not up to the standards of the game or the series in general. People wanted General Leo and got 'really shitty Kefka' instead and its just such a black mark on the story which is pretty famous in MMORPG's for being solid enough to be comparable to its single player outings. Usually it is at least. It left me disappointed and feeling a bit let down by the writers who resorted to such a easy cliche to bruteforce opinion on a character who could have had depth and is now reduced to little more than a cartoon. After Yotsuyu or Fordola its a objective step down that clearly annoyed me enough to rant about it, sorry about that.

 Its not all bad however. Conversely the other side of the story was very interesting. The fate of the Scions, the confirmation that -shocking nobody- the Shadowhunter is Gaius Van Baelsar- and the knowledge we have from the extended Shadowbringers trailer is starting to pull these threads together to make for a very exciting prelude to our next big story as the Warrior of Light. Well, y'know, Warrior of Darkness i guess but you know what i mean.

We have some solid character development for characters like Alisae and Gaius. The sense of helplessness and urgency throughout creates a tense vibe that can make you forget this is an online game that limits developments to a patch cycle so there is no real pressing for time and any mmo story that can make you get so into it that you forget its an mmo is a success in my book.
There isn't too much to say since it feels largely like set up for what i expect will be a shocking reveal in the 4.5 part 2 update coming in the next few weeks. I don't think any of the Scions are at risk of dying or in some severe peril from a writing standpoint, but i think these events are all leading up to a factor involving the Echo which has not been given as much time as the whole 'relive the memories of others' aspect has overall.

Now this is something most recently touched on with Xenos turning into, as the fanbase calls him, EleXenos but this secondary aspect to the Echo first showed up waaay back in Patch 2.2: Through the Maelstrom and has since largely been forgotten. In the MSQ of that patch Melwyb leads the Scions to a Sahagin cult that is working to summon Leviathan lead by a Priest that can use a version of the Echo with a dark purple aura. He is quickly killed but rather than his soul returning to the planets Lifestream he uses this Echo to transfer into a body of a nearby worshipper and supplant the victims consciousness with his own. Claiming the Echo has made him 'Immortal'. After seeing things like "Master Matoya" in the Shadowbringers trailer, the fact the story hook was brought back with Xenos and whats going on with the Scions i think its a safe guess that someone is using the Echo to forcefully pull the Scions souls from their bodies to bring them somewhere or somewhen else. We just need to wait a few more weeks to get an answer but that Kingdom Hearts looking image in the trailer that wasn't in this update at all and the general 'Throw open the Gate' line has a couple of tinfoil hat theories going around in my head but for now all i can say is the Scion side of the story was very interesting and left me going "no come on, give me more of this!" which is always a good sign in patch based storytelling in my opinion.

So overall the story is a mixed bag. Some very nice set up, some very disappointing reveals. Heres hoping part 2 of this patches story will end up more of the former than the latter. With the story out the way its time to move on to the other content starting with the good old Dungeon crawling!

The New Dungeon

 Dungeon singular this time but boy is it a doozey. The Ghimlyt Dark is an very visually striking dungeon. Blending World War 1 trench warfare with a suggestion of conflict on a size comparable to the Cartenau Flats conflict at the opening to ARR when Bahamut nuked the continent. It feels desperate, oppressive and urgent. I noticed people seem to treat it almost like a speedrun, but not in the usual 'i want to get my bonus fast and bounce' way but its almost as though people act like theres a countdown going on. So stark and urgent is the vibe you get during the dungeon. The dungeon itself is about average. Lots of chain pulling required as staggered mobs spawn at choke points. Lots of ally NPC's fighting with you which is probably testing some stuff for the Trust System to a degree and while mechanically quite easy the bosses, particularly the last one is a treat to fight. Overall its not the most challenging dungeon around but in terms of tone setting and vibe it feels very much like Scaling Baelsar's wall to fight The Griffon back at the end of Heavensward. As for the final bosses this time? i'm guessing they are showing up later as a fused flesh horror nightmare creature thats a recurring monster in the series. Those mirrored red and blue helmets? tell me i wasn't the only one getting mild Xorn and Thorn vibes off those two.

Seiryu/Wreathe of Snakes
Sadly not much to say about the new 'not-primal' fight. Its as competently made as usual but while Suzaku's Rhythm game fight is up there with Titan or Ifrit Extremes as fun, challenging fights. Seiryu is just a little bland and more on the same tier as Ramuh, Susanoo or Knights of the Round. Visually impressive, also little in the way of interesting mechanics. Its not good, its not bad. Its another Zurvan the Demon. It ends a storyline on a bit of a downward note thats not as interesting as its predecessors. Just as Sophia felt like she should have been the finale to the Warring triad i feel this should have ended with Suzaku who also felt the most actually outraged over her connection to Tenzin.
The story meanwhile was okay, lacked the mystery of the masked child from the Triad but i got a few laughs out of it and it was some neat worldbuilding too. Like Seiryu the story as a whole was competent if a little too safe and dull.

The Raid

I began this section in the last patch with 'Omega has been a mixed bag for me' and while i would say the same about Ivalice's Orbann Monastery raid i mean it in a positive way rather than negative. This really felt like the follow up to the Void Ark Trilogy people wanted. Some challenge, gorgeous level design and music and a story that really hooks you with its nods to the worlds past and the series itself. I'm a huge Ivalice fan and this ended on a series of 4 great boss fights ranging from good to excellent and an ending that i'm sure would be a bit of a tearful moment for those who grew up playing the Tactics games.


 First off we have Mustadio the Machinist. The weakest fight overall, recycling a fair bit of what we just had with Omega but with a neat twist on the positional mechanic. It felt a little more like something that should have been in the Lighthouse raid both thematically and mechanically but its a fun intro that keeps you on your toes.



Second is longtime fan favourite Agrias the Angel. A very enjoyable fight that uses the extra action button to great effect as something more than the 'oh shit' button to avoid a wipe its been in the past. Its visually exciting and doesn't feel quite like any other raid boss in the series yet and letting people do things related more to the other two roles than their own was a refreshing shake up. Be it healers swinging a sword to kill ghosts or dps dropping a big shield of light to block a ridiculously powerful aoe attack for example. Its at this point you get the idea that this raid is a straight incline of complexity and difficulty last seen to this degree of success in the Weeping city of mhach, to this day considered a fan favourite raid in the games growing list of them.

After Agrias we move on to what can basically be summed up as "Ozma 2: wipefest Boogaloo". A boss simply named The Thunder God. A boss fought on a floating ring around him, sound familiar?, with nooks and crannies to drop aoes or simply to avoid his multiple forms of sword strikes that either swing around the out of the ring, the inner edge or in repeatedly slams roatating clockwise or anti clockwise around the board. It even has a section where you are transported to another place to fight 3 large adds. Its visually different but it is straight up Ozma all over again. Parties wiped. A lot. However over time people got 'the dance' down and when pulled off its another extremely enjoyable fight just like Ozma which proves these 'ring arena' fights are always going to be a solid go to design choice in MMORPGS'.

 All of which was just a precursor leading up to the final Raid Boss of Stormblood: Ultima, the High Seraph. A visual blend of Garuda, Sophia, The Ultima Weapon and Yunalesca from FFX. This compared to Alexander Prime, Omega M/F or Diablos Hollow really feels like an end of expansion boss fight. Not so much in difficulty, though it is challenging, but in terms of what goes on and where. We begin the fight with the boss embedded in a wall of Magicite. She regularly spreads walls of the stuff to seperate parties and box you in while aoes and plumes drop to make for some very tight spots to get around, this then escalates to summoning in the Eidolons Famfrit, Hasmal and Belias from Rabanstre. Hope you remember the signature moves from those fights because now they are all going off at once! After that she bursts out of the wall revealing her upper angelic portion hides a sinister, monstrous lower half kind of like Anima in some respects. Then she reduces the entire room to a aoe deathtrap and you must all run to a tiny bubble where even then healers must battle through constant raid wide damage as the entire raid fights through a dps check to repel Ultimas strongest attack. After this the final phase begins where she uses mechanics from all the raids bosses in increasingly fast rotation which turns the fight into a positioning race that must be a nightmare for jobs like BLM or WHM. Thanks to procs i had a much easier job as RDM but even then there was a lot of time in this phase spent cancelling a spell to move than successfully casting one. All in all its hectic and feels like a true endgame boss fight that you feel a real sense of accomplishment for beating.

Beyond that the story was a safe but satisfying epilogue to the bittersweet ending of Final Fantasy Tactics, War of the Lions. I found myself just saying "god Square Enix just really needs to give us a new Ivalice game" because after FFXII's rerelease last year and this i was left only wanting more from a setting that honestly could pull of an mmo all by itself. It was a nice ride to revisit versions of these places and see nods to versions of beloved characters from Ivalice games passed, though it was a bit sad Lea Monde and Vagrant Story got no love in the end, but overall i enjoyed the storys finale tremendously and i wonder if Fran will be showing up in Shadowbringers since her people are now confirmed to be the next playable race. I doubt she will be a faction leader like Raubahn or something but hey you never know with FFXIV right?

After all that the really big thing left to talk about is Blue Mage but i think i'm going to make that its own article since there is a lot to write about concerning SE's first experiment with a 'Limited Job' so for now i'll say this patch had some let downs in writing but in terms of engaging content there was a lot to love here and it left me eager for more in the second half coming soon!