Final Fantasy XIV (Guide in first post)

yea finding people to help complete the 16-20 log was pretty interesting (read: huge pain in the ass for 99% of the population) but the market will likely fix that in live. possibly by making it a huge money sink but thats crafting for ya.

The interconnection between the tradeskills really solidifies my intent to focus on gathering/crafting as I level (instead of doing a variety of classes first to open up job options) especially early on. The level 15 ones didn't seem too impressive, but some of the 25 ones definitely seemed worthwhile. It doesn't look like early on the HQ market will be viable, but definitely after the game has been out for a couple of months.

Finished the main story that was available during the beta, loved where it went, and the Ifrit fight was pretty damn fun. We ended up doing it without a dedicated tank (lancer/pugilist/pugilist/conjurer*me*) and our victory basically came about through key limit break usage after the drop. Hi-Potion + AE limit break heal for the win. Was fun learning the encounter and the best ways to handle it with people who didn't have tons of mmo experience (noticed that a lot actually. There were a lot of semi-new to the genre people who either only played ffxi or played WoW but never hit cap, that sort of thing) while showing them the ropes. Granted, the fight was really a lot of "don't stand in weird circles" type shit, but for being only 20 levels in, it was a fairly brutal fight. I appreciate the difficulty and I am definitely looking forward to what they come up with in the future. The dungeon bosses also showed a bit of variety (didn't do anything after the first three+ifrit) and while the mechanics may be somewhat stale to a degree since the genre has been out so long, the party dynamics and pace of the fights made them seem more interesting than they would have on paper, I imagine.

Pyros_sl said:

Yeah noticed these before, they're pretty nice.

On crafting, there's a lot of reliance on other tradeskills to do shit, like tools you make are pretty much always for another crafting class so if you want HQ tools(and you do if you want to make HQ shit) you'll need to buy them from other people. Then there's a lot of materials that are byproducts of another tradeskill, for example to make Arcanist books with Alchemy, you generally need Leather+Weaver threads, or Ingots+Weaver threads so for a HQ book you'll want HQ material made by another class, which is gonna be quite annoying most likely. There's also a huge impact of leveling EVERY tradeskill up, as each of them unlocks unique abilities you can use in the process of crafting and they can all be cross classed. While every crafting skill gets stuff like Steady Hands, Inner Quiet and Great Strides, they also get 3 unique shareable abilities(lvl 15, 25 and 42) that will let you 100% perfect any item once you have them all.

Also a guide that was pretty interesting:
http://ffxiv-roleplayers.com/showthread.php?tid=2482

One important fact in the guide that I didn't know is you can turn in HQ items for Tradecraft Leves and they give 200% bonus reward, but on top of that for some(all?) leves if you turn in full HQ items, you get a free leve back for the same items. So in theory you could like craft 30 of an HQ item, then turn in all these in a row to get massive xp while only using 1 leve point. Seems like a good way to powerlevel tradeskills later on in the game when people are selling HQ shit on the AH, you just buy a bunch then turn them in for quick level ups.

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You mentioned Arcanist. That job isn't in till launch right?

the 25 HQ gear shits on my cavalry armor

Some very basic combat parse results for those interested in that type of thing:

Over the course of 4 Brayflox runs and several FATES with a guild group, I was running the FFXIV App Combat log parser, and wanted to mention a few highlights.

The two DPS classes (Pugilist and Archer) were almost identical in terms of total damage. The archer (me) was at 321,639 and the pugilist (Syia) was at 311,939. This is only a 3% difference, pretty much gnats ass. The parser put us both right about 30 DPS when you factor in time.

One of the biggest surprises was the role that auto attack played. For the archer, it was my 2nd most damaging attack by a mile, next to my spam weapon skill. For the pugilist, auto attack was the most damaging attack. I was not really expecting auto attack to be such a big part of the overall damage.

The tank in our group contributed nearly 66% of the damage of the two DPS classes, which seems pretty respectable.

I did not have a chance to parse a group that had an offensive caster. I would like to see some results for that, considering they don't have auto attack, can't cast on the move, and seem to have somewhat long cast times.

If anyone knows how to get the FFVIX App to output results, please let me know.

Fletch101_sl said:

The two DPS classes (Pugilist and Archer) were almost identical in terms of total damage. The archer (me) was at 321,639 and the pugilist (Syia) was at 311,939. This is only a 3% difference, pretty much gnats ass. The parser put us both right about 30 DPS when you factor in time.

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Do you have to purchase arrows for the Archer? If not then I'd lean towards that over Pugilist for the simple reason you're not in melee range and subject to AoE damage as much. The prohibitive cost of playing a Ranger in FFXI, namely ammo, dissuaded most people from playing the class or they just used shitty ammo and ended up getting booted from parties.

FFXIApp is horribly broken right now and not reliable. DoT aren't recorded in the log per tick (a game problem not an App one), and often App completely skips abilities you use and doesn't record them. Bards will do about half the damage of any other dps class worth their salt.

Monks are pretty much ahead of any other dps class right now. Their only problem is getting tp starved 3 minutes into a fight without a bard.

How do you progress in this game, is following a series of quests the only effective way to level?
I am level 5 now, solely killing trash monsters outside the main city. TOO lazy to go click on NPCs/Objects to finish a "quest". Can I avoid it and do dungeons instead?

Yeah Sunday is my main gaming day so I can't play this. Unfortunate

Pyros_sl said:

Right, unless we're very lucky and they change their mind and add them for phase4(open beta) but most likely not before launch. I was just referring to books because they use multiple types of components, threads made by weavers, leather by leatherworker or ingots by armor/weapon and raw wood logs as well as alchemy made ink(which requires grinded metal dust so you need mining on top of botanist). It's often the case for gear you can craft, that they use one component not made by the crafting class directly so you'll need to trade or level the other class and make them yourself.

On a similar synergy concept, getting Goldsmith up would also be pretty useful, so you can craft HQ jewelry which gives CP which is one of the most useful stat for crafting HQ stuff, and you might also want Weaver AND Leatherwork to craft HQ armor for the crafting(and gathering) stats. Or you could level Culinarian for crafting buff food, even though I'm not sure how good they are compared to store bought stuff. There is definitely a point in getting all the tradeskills which is an interesting concept vs most other games which generally want you only focus on one or two by hard or soft capping the skills.

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I typically do crafting much later in the game when things are generally easier and you have money to front overhead costs. With how gathering and crafted items compete significantly, I'm seriously thinking of leveling these aspects prior to adventurer (once 20ish). The quest and time it takes to get materia and the ability to apply the materia is significant but due to how gear seems to be populated in the world, tradeskill items will be mint, especially if you get HQ. HQ is actually not all that hard to hit if you use HQ materials... of which you have to harvest only (or buy). Pretty well connected and rewards those that build something from the ground up (base mats gathered... all the way to materia additions).

There are a few concerned posts about Materia and how it will work... like if you can resocket gear or is it lock so you cannot over-right with better materia etc.

With a few well organized people, item creation could be done very well and without much fuss... if the system is to drive social interaction, I think it will achieve that where not everyone will level all classes so they don't have dependencies.

One more quick add - I'll be using my leves for crafting... you know what to make and can stock up rather quickly, then hand in 5-10 at a time with a little repeat running. Don't forget to try and hit HQ as the leves will reward you with 200% more xp / money (huge).

Sythrak_sl said:

FFXIApp is horribly broken right now and not reliable. DoT aren't recorded in the log per tick (a game problem not an App one), and often App completely skips abilities you use and doesn't record them. Bards will do about half the damage of any other dps class worth their salt.

Monks are pretty much ahead of any other dps class right now. Their only problem is getting tp starved 3 minutes into a fight without a bard.

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Is there confirmation from level 50 jobs about monks being ahead of everyone? I figured that's what would end up happening, including the TP issue. The last boss of Longstep (Aiatar?) would pretty much always starve me of TP towards the end of the fight. I had the same issue on cancer. Right now the TP system is terribly designed for all classes, but with 300 skill speed and constantly rolling greased lightning, I was incredibly starved of TP this test. The app not recording DoTs properly is really bad for me, where I roll both DoTs anytime that I can guarantee 80% up time on them. I'm considering not playing MNK at all if they don't fix the TP issue as it will only get worse with another stack of greased lightning. I don't even have cleave yet and the 100+ TP cost of cleave from MNK will further press the TP issue.

On a side note, I'd love to see a reactive ability on Pugilist. My entire rotation was just a simple schema of rolling buffs (Greased Lightning/Straight Shot/Twin Snakes) and DoTs (Touch of Death/Demolish) with not a single active ability. Also, switching from flank/back position was frustrating on really large bosses (such as Cancer). However, I didn't notice how severe the necessary angle was with flanking and back position until I started leveling lancer, using heavy thrust.

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