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.

HEAVENSWARD

 And so the story comes to a close for now. Two years ago we left Uldah in a hurry and wound up in the downtrodden alleyways of the foundations of Ishgard. Today the story finished and we now have the 12 week wait for the gates of Othard and Ala Mhigo to open to us.
Its a little bittersweet as all endings are. The Far Edge of Fate quest is probably the last time the 'Ishgard Fanfare' variant will play upon a quest completion, no doubt to be replaced by a more Othard sounding equivalent and places like the Sea of Clouds will probably be put on the backburner to become another ghost town zone like Southern La Noscea or Coerthas in general.

Still i can say i have had fun from start to finish (bar the umbrite step of the relic mind you, still not finished my second on that particular hump!) and honestly compared to the recent mainline release of Final Fantasy XV i can honestly say this was the more enjoyable experience. I loved the locations, the boss fights, the story. Going through the Void Ark, fighting Ozma, the Griffin atop Baelsar's Wall and so on were a truly enjoyable experience. Both as an MMORPG and as a mainline numbered Final Fantasy experience.
It was not perfect mind you and my own enjoyment doesnt speak for all the players who seriously had a problem with the new raid structure that again is changing in Stormblood but this was an expansion that just never let up on fun things to do and personally i just felt it needed a few more post launch dungeons if even just a new hard mode or two even if that potential list is running short. Perhaps Copperbell Mines Extreme next?


All in all the final update was very short, perhaps an hour of content max. But there is at least one
twist of something dating back to the Calamity i won't reveal here. Needless to say it important and in a way what most of us kind of expected. The reveal of the Primal as Shinryu suggests our first update primal fight -or perhaps the bend of time raid is not fighting Omega but fighting with it to finish off this 'Doman Bahamut' who survives to fight another day -though thanks to coil we know that doesnt always mean intact does it?
Gosetsu was a nice character to join the main team. I expected the reserved yet stern sage-master kind of trope. Instead he seems to be the as yet unseen masters underling and just Yugiris superior in a 'loud mouthed, brave yet rash older brother' sort of role and its always nice to get new Roe' characters with a bit more personality to them. Though personally i feel like a certain former XIVth Legion higher up last seen at the Crystal Tower steals most of the scenes of dialogue, though i'm not sure if the Elder Seedseer and Cid have had a voice actor change again though the rest remains the same. Odd but could just be me hearing things i suppose.

 So now we have reached the end of a very enjoyable expansion and reach the calm before the storm. Which in a period of some of the best games thus far this gen releasing like Nier Automata, Horizon Zero Dawn and Nioh to name a few its the perfect time for the Warriors of Light to take it easy and sit for a spell.
My advice is make sure you have some 50-60 BLM gear for RDM and MNK gear for SAM just in case you havent actually levelled BLM/MNK so you can play catchup easier. Never hurts to be tomecapped and same with company seals and of course you never can have enough gil. Beyond that this is the perfect time to check off what you do or dont need to do. I'm probably not going to finish any more relics right now and i have every class levelled up and the beast tribes all at max. My goals right now are just to get my DRK relic past the Umbrite stage since its almost finished and sell all my crafting materials for HW recipes while the gettings good and folks are leveling their last crafting jobs. Always someone that forgets to just use the moogle tribe.

For now though it doesn't really matter what you do its just that rare period to take it easy and enjoy the sights and get some other games out of your backlog. All the while counting the days left till the Stormblood Early Access goes live, of course.

Just 79 days to go. Spend it well folks and see you in Stormblood!

Fan Fest Europe: A Realm Expanded.

WELL SHIT.

So yeah. Bit of a surprise this one eh? We expect the full trailer to get a bit of the Far Edge of Fate story they couldn't spoil yet -outside of a title in game that is- and we get a massive world map expansion in this, uh, expansion.

What does it mean? well the Garleans are fighting a war on two fronts now. The Eorzean Alliance takes back Ala Mhigo and Yugiri and her master Gosetsu will be leading the warriors of Light to retake Doma and the continent of Othard. 

Not exactly what we expected eh?

So first heres the trailer:

and yep thats SAM confirmed alright. Red Mage and Samurai. Both DPS which has some folks going into nuclear meltdowns over. Because forget PLD desperately needing a once over, we needed another tank just because right? sheesh.

Surprised no Red Mage in the trailer, but also no RDM info at all thus far. We know SAM shares gear with MNK but thats about it. We have our second new race and their primal:

The Kojin: a race of Turtle-like Beastmen that live in edo period looking towns in bubbles on the floor of the Sea of Jade and The Ruby Sea.

They are traders, craftsmen and believe everything in the world has a spirit/god inside it known as a Kami. They recruit adventurers to collect these Kami by bringing in rare treasures from the Sea floor and mainland Othard.

Which says to me this is our new Crafting/Gathering Beast Tribe.

and then we have their Primal - Susano, Lord of the Revel. Another new Summon for the franchise. Looks cool but at the same time its a shame its another dude with a sword like Ravana.

But at least we have the launch tribes and primals locked in info wise, shame the rest is a bit confusing still though.

So what else did we learn about?

-A 4th housing Area with an Edo era Japan style but not available at launch so theres no mad day 1 rush when servers will be rocky.

-Blitzball might be happening

-Garo gear will be put on the Calamity Salvager so you dont need retainer slots for 13 sets of pvp gear

-DPS jobs were added because few none tanks and healers took up the new tanks and healers in HW and the payoff for work put in was not worth it when classes like PLD suffered from problems they didnt have time to fix because of it.

-We will be visiting the Steppes of Othard the Au Ra call home. Called the 'first wide plains zone' which reminds me a lot of FFXI areas and the Calm Lands from FFX

Sadly thats really it. There was a lot of tidbits like Yugiri wearing the NIN AF3 gear in the trailer but other than that very little information about the expansion itself. Whats the combat like? no clue. How does gathering and crafting work and what does it drop that didn't in HW? no idea. Thats basically been the experience which is a bummer. The reveals were great and the world size is amazing but we still no very little about the mechanics of Stormblood at this point and with less than 4 months till its hitting retail thats a little worrying.

But this is the mmo with no public PTR style testing so i guess par for the course?

Regardless the fan fests are over and the countdown to launch begins. Till then its time to wait on the final updates to Heavensward to see it to its conclusion and i'm pretty excited for that coming soon.

The Far Edge of Fate review

So the Christmas break is over, our Stormblood pre-orders are out and the finale of Heavensward has begun. For the first post of the new year i thought i would go over my basic thoughts on the content so far while trying to avoid spoilers -a shame that a certain main story quest title could not avoid doing the same eh?

So for story:
Main Story Quest: Honestly i can't say i was surprised this time. The Warriors of Darkness ended all too briefly but what happened and why remained a pleasant surprise. This time however i called on twitter exactly what would happen and lo and behold it was exactly what i expected. It was not bad mind you, but part of the trouble of an expansion with more set up on the horizon means a lot more blanks get filled in for the inbetween content in a way usual patches mid expansion cycle don't have.
I liked it, the story was interesting, not too much 'go talk to different npcs for 2 hours' for once and it resulted in one of the most satisfying boss fights since Ozma. However considering the trailer was name dropping the Omega Weapon and its a no show i can't help but feel a little unsatisfied. Still at least this means Omega shows up in March.

The Scholisticate: I am going to be brutally honest here. I didn't care. I just did not care about the Scholisticate. I am a lore nut. I have my Encyclopedia Eorzea next to me as i type this and i never skip quest text ever. This was the one quest line where i came real close though. The characters were so bland i could sincerely not tell some of them apart, the story across the patches felt like a waste of dev time and on the whole it felt like doing it just for completionists sake.
That said the actual final quest and the reveal of what the scholisticate was and more history of the dark past of Ishgard actually ended up being one of the most interesting bits of lore for the patch. Considering i had written off Ishgard as 'done now, off to Stormblood set up content!' i really did not expect one of the most interesting moments/reveals of the patch. Still on the whole not especially interesting.

Hildebrand: Honestly this was brief, cliche but ultimately fun stuff. It was a different side to the character and Gigi was a nice reference to one of my favourite FF games. The storyline started weak in 3.1 but on the whole it was a nice send off and i eagerly await more in Stormblood.

The Warring Triad: Zurvan was a joke. I'm sorry but Sophia should have been the finale not 'generic monster with generic adds'. Disappointing boss fight aside it was interesting to get our young assistants backstory reveal even if it did feel like something more Kingdom Hearts then Final Fantasy. Regulus was more General Leo than the Kefka people expected but on the whole was a character i wish we got more of. Not a huge finale but its a better side story than a lot of the Ascian stuff near the end of ARR.

Beast Tribes Finale: It was a silly, charming send off with some neat rewards. That did not surprise me. What DID was that nobody i know has done it. Because not one of them finished any of the Beast Tribes in HW up to rank 8. Vanu and Gnath i could understand but i really am surprised how few did not use the huge boost in xp and gil the Moogle quests rewarded you. Honestly i would not be surprised if by 5.0 we have a pve beast tribe just because and a crafting beast tribe as the main focus for a small niche and it gets regarded as a bit of a failed experiment with increasing diminishing returns on their dev resources spent on them.
Still it was nice to be reminded that in some places we are leaving Ishgard and Dravania in a better state than we left it.

Dun Scathe: Hard to talk about without spoiling the ending to the raid but on the whole it was great. No Ozma style really high point but for the final raid of the expansion we got a pretty satisfying final boss and i really hope we don't just see the Sky Pirates as the intro to the new Diadem. I would love if they are part of the next Relic quest and aiding us in exploring Eureka the Forbidden land. Great raid, little easy when you get the small list of abilities down but visually fantastic and the lore implications of 'Hollow' Voidsent gets the mind racing, especially after the triads reveal of what voidsent are to begin with.

All in all a mixed bag but nothing i hated. So now theres the new timesinks.

Anima: I ran 100 A1 Savage party finder runs for 2 hours a day over 3 days. I got my ilvl270 Relic and got to work on my DRK's Umbrite step. An extremely easy light step. Possible the easiest step for the entire chain really. So naturally i fear the final step coming in the next update.




Garo PvP event: That went live? you might ask. Because it has no quests right? well there aren't any. Go to the Wolves Den for a new NPC. All you do is spam Frontlines and the Feast, buy a full class set and weapon and talk to her. You now have a title to equip and use in pvp. 10 Frontlines wins gets a mount, 30 Feast wins gets the second and a total of 60 wins in total in anything gets the third.
Honestly the combination of this and Frontlines Freelancer options has revitalised PvP to the extreme. Ques are near instant. Matches are much more even and everyone is rolling in marks and some of the new sets look fantastic. My only complaint is A: no reward for getting all the sets like the Youkai but its around for 6 months and B: can't store it in the inn and 7 pieces for 13 jobs is a LOT of retainer space nobody has 3 years in! Roll on the inventory expansion come Stormblood.

New Dungeons: This is just straight up night and day. Baelsar's Wall is excellent. Neat mechanics, cool set pieces and the finale boss is easily the best dungeon boss fight in the expansion to my mind. Satisfying to fight and a real test of reflexes. I imagine on keyboard and mouse some of the sequences could be a bit of a nightmare for the more casual player.
Then you have Sohm Al Hard Mode. AKA "Heres some Snowcloak style teasing of models in the upcoming expansion, have fun!" only its hard to have fun when you have a dungeon more boring than Neverreap. The final boss is 'okay' and just okay. Everything else is mindless. Its a loot pinata to let people gear up in the new metal gear looking Fillibuster sets and just feels so uninspired bar the final volcanic cavern stretch. Really disappointing honestly.
So one great new dungeon one not so great. New dungeon set is really cool looking for most classes and the music and art is superb. However i cannot see them really being something people are excited to run 3 months from now. Feels like Neverreap and Keeper of the Lake all over again in that regard.


 So thats my brief reaction to the content. I'm working on pvp sets, some alt relics and tweaking my NIN best in slot gear for the expansion. On the whole a very fun variety of content but story wise it really feels like they kept my most wanted points for the second half of the patch coming after fanfest. So at least i have something exciting to look forward to next month after fanfest and the totally not happening reveal of Samurai.

JP Fan Fest 2016 RDM confirmed!

So part 2 of the 3 part worldwide Final Fantasy Fan Festivals events has concluded and aside from my cleeng stream being a complete dud i demanded a refund for (though i hear niconico was problem free) we have had some interesting reveals. Not as earthshaking as people expected but nothing that doesn't look fun to play which i guess is the selling point at the end of the day eh?

So first off in a reveal that surprised pretty much nobody FFXIV is getting its third Mage class with Red Mage and as i expected it is still the fencing musketeer archetype from XI. In some mechanics it is surprisingly similar to XI in a way that has finally gotten some diehard XI playing friends to finally make the jump from Vanadiel to Eorzea. On the whole it is an interesting looking class. It is a hybrid of range and melee. Using a Rapier and Crystal the job will have you combine the two to form a stave for spells at range, then boost forwards to pierce the enemy with a barrage of physical strikes from the split rapier and crystal then blink away again to pop off a large spell like Flare. There isn't too much known mechanically other than this Jobs mechanic is called "Chainspell" or "Spell Linking" which i could imagine meaning casting certain spells in one school strengthens one school of magic and weakens others and perhaps a balance allows for RDM specific spells to be used? I suppose we will see in the EU fanfest in Frankfurt in about 8 weeks time.
For now i am happy. It is my main FFXI job returning and it looks both similar enough to that and fresh enough in terms of XIV jobs that it may replace NIN as my new main job in XIV. Though personally i am glad it looks like more of a faithful incarnation than BLM turned out to be.

Next up we have Swimming. Perhaps those FFX outfits for buying a stream are not as random an inclusion as we thought and Blitzball is the next Lords of verminion? personally i kind of hope it is even if i know most folks hated that in X. Swimming itself looks less like FFXIV pulling a WoW style "sunken city of vash'jir" with its underwater combat and more adding little sub zones to areas for gathering and exploration. Along with underwater mount use and a new skill for our Chocobos to learn this makes me wonder what neat things this can be used for in none combat areas. Perhaps some interesting ways to hide some secrets in game? or just a Manderville beach episode adventure.

Then we have the shirt. Because of course Yoshida worse a shirt. This time it was Spiderman and i have NEVER seen people argue and bitch this much in the community. Some are certain it alludes to Sam Raimi which naturally means "SamU Rai-mi", because shut up reasons. Personally? thats a bit reaching. But the people who want SAM reaalllly want SAM in XIV and like the new Ridley in Smash its going to be pushed at every opportunity because that thirst is strong. Amongst other guesses like "web swinging means PUP confirmed" my personal leaning is the straight forward one. Peter Parker was bitten by a Spider and gained the abilities of a spider. That is a 1 for 1 description of how a Blue Mage works. I would be completely unsurprised if BLU is the new tanking job in Stormblood. BST could be a possibility but characters like Raubhan have been teases for BLU for a good while now.


We also had information on the new Beast Tribe of Lamia, the allagan experiments had to come from something right? and their primal. The new raids 'Return to Ivalice' and 'Beyond Time: OMEGA' and a tie in event for a 'mature sentai' series from one of the megaten artists. Aside from that though there wasn't much information about stormblood proper this time around, with the real reveals being promised for Frankfurt. Honestly? kind of a bit of a meh event compared to the US fanfest and i hope the EU one is better. There is nothing i disliked here but it didn't really reveal what we will be doing beyond 'playing more FFXIV'. More zone and enemy previews would have been very welcome since more Primals and Omega Weapon were already a certainty at this point. Perhaps more gear set reveals for the next artefact tier would have been good but with 6 months before release the collectors edition confirmation and the release date of June 21st was better than nothing.

And at least the waifu fans have a new Primal to obsess over on pixiv. Swings and roundabouts and all that right?

On the whole i feel its been played a bit safe this time since everyone outright knew about DRK before its reveals last time and so it fell a bit flat, so mystery is not always bad and the team has earned the positive expectations for their work i just personally wish this fanfest had some more world info, perhaps a picture of Ala Mhigo after its been a none entity in the in game world for all these years now.
Still with some patience we will get it all in the end, for now i am just happy with have multiple new jobs, primals and raids confirmed so i get more of what i love.

Even if the 'Ivalice=Eorzea' tinfoil crowd are now crazier than ever after this event. Remember kids Primals can't melt steel memes.

Well that didn't take long

So this was easy. A little TOO easy in fact. Which really does beg the question: Just how bad is it going to be if the next form is the final stage?

We already know it involves repairing an Allagan mini ADS servitor so i imagine that means Crafted items AND something from Azys Lla.

Hopefully my recently 60 and full HQ Ironworks gathering jobs will come in useful for something, anything beyond making Gil!

Still i can't complain. New shiny weapon for a couple of days work two weeks in a row. Bit underwhelming but after those massive grinds that came before it -and no Umbrite nerf to speak of as well- i think Yoshi wanted to give us tomestone grinders a bit of a vacation this time.

I'm not complaining.

But i'm prepared for the worst in the next patch...