Final Fantasy XIV (Guide in first post)

They're both fine, but WHM is definitely the EQ cleric.

Ultracore_sl said:

Hes joking, theres no raiding for awhile so everyone can catch up very easly.

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actually bahamuts coil is open and is a 10 or so boss raid instance, the core FC poopsockers are focused on getting geared up and into that - its a fairly long and involved process requiring your entire raid team to be geared to the teeth to kill HM Titan and the second boss of Coil. A few non-legacy guilds have completed the keying though and started raiding and downing bosses already, and I'm sure the hardcore in the ISIS guild have that as a goal so thats why they may seem a bit busy.

The thing is for most of us the endgame is pretty generic and linear - you gotta buy T2/T3 with badges you get from grinding out 4 mans, dozens of runs. Kill Ifrit and Garuda HMs for weapons and relic reborn (upgraded weapons) quest chain. Then you are pretty much done realistically, going into the real raid instance is going to require a lot of teamwork and effort like oldschool raid teams, and very top of the line gear, class min/maxing, buffing, etc. Not a casual "hey anyone do the raid", at least until the next content patch.

So really just enjoy leveling and the visuals and all that jazz, don't rush rush rush because while there is quite a good chunk of endgame content it is beyond the reach of most of the playbase, which is a good thing to have in an MMO many would argue.

I will say the Job/Class system seems a little odd currently given that nearly all classes only have one Job open to them (Arcanist has Summon and Scholar) and the benefit of cross class skills is nifty but mostly I find myself wanting only a couple that come from the existing subclasses for the given Job anyway.

AladainAF_sl said:

I have been crafting and not leveling... but i'll level for sure. Is SCH > WHM for healing? I was a cleric in EQ for 10 years. I love me some healing.

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I wouldn't compare WHM to the EQ plate wielding indestructible force...

It's much closer to WoW, WHM is a Holy Priest (big heals and regen), SCH is more like a disc priest (bubbles and decent dps)

I've been hearing a LOT of good things about Bard's end game viability as a whole. I'm tempted to level one, but I'm afraid my gear would be too fab.

Vilmz_sl said:

I've been hearing a LOT of good things about Bard's end game viability as a whole. I'm tempted to level one, but I'm afraid my gear would be too fab.

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Mana song is amazing for healers and bard dps is amazing. You can move and do your entire dps rotation without a problem, no positioning, no casting etc. Also you get amazing cross class abilities(inner release, blood for blood) to go with your own.

Makes me sad when I think about my BLMs cross class abilities.

I dunno... I've actually healed a Light Party when the White Mage faceplanted midboss with my Black Mage. Sure the cross class abilities arent terribly exciting, but I'm glad to have a heal.

Ao-_sl said:

mana song is a direct 20% reduction in bard dps...

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True but its used on occasion when needed and not kept on entire time. You might have to use it once a fight or something but your bard still does amazing dps.

spronk_sl said:

actually bahamuts coil is open and is a 10 or so boss raid instance, the core FC poopsockers are focused on getting geared up and into that - its a fairly long and involved process requiring your entire raid team to be geared to the teeth to kill HM Titan and the second boss of Coil. A few non-legacy guilds have completed the keying though and started raiding and downing bosses already, and I'm sure the hardcore in the ISIS guild have that as a goal so thats why they may seem a bit busy.

The thing is for most of us the endgame is pretty generic and linear - you gotta buy T2/T3 with badges you get from grinding out 4 mans, dozens of runs. Kill Ifrit and Garuda HMs for weapons and relic reborn (upgraded weapons) quest chain. Then you are pretty much done realistically, going into the real raid instance is going to require a lot of teamwork and effort like oldschool raid teams, and very top of the line gear, class min/maxing, buffing, etc. Not a casual "hey anyone do the raid", at least until the next content patch.

So really just enjoy leveling and the visuals and all that jazz, don't rush rush rush because while there is quite a good chunk of endgame content it is beyond the reach of most of the playbase, which is a good thing to have in an MMO many would argue.

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Takes about 60 Ampador Keep runs to get geared up. For those interested.

Yea, the game is really good. It's nearing EQ-like for me, which I said previous. WoW got me, but it was more the novelty that I could do more than just grind. FF has awesome looking environments, crazy good music that you don't mind listening to (With the exception of chocobo music which I have already turned off and battle music, which I hope you can turn off at a later date) and just some really polished questlines/stories. There are a few weird things; crafting is weird - I don't mind the actual work going into combines, but synthesizing and having to go back to the main menu every time is such a killer. Not being able to talk to your linkshells/friends while in dungeons is weird; not being able to accept duties during a cutscene, and then not being able to exit a cutscene quickly if you need to (like swtor's escape that just reset it) are some of those iffy things where you go, wait, what? Really?

The invisible walls not letting me walk certain places is odd too. I mean I understand it in some areas - most games have that where maybe you can't get into areas like the top of ironforge, but I literally mean I cannot jump into a stream when I am two feet on top of a rock. It's perplexing.

Allowances should probably come at a faster rate; if you didn't do much beta you're going to be short, and currently I'm out of allowances. I need to grind seals god dammit!

There are a few other things that escape me atm that just come up while I am doing things. All in all, it's sort of an amalgam of things you loved about mmos. The exploration/oh shit moments from EQ, the quests/dailies etc from WoW, the stories/cutscenes that are swtorish, and the fates/combat systems that are reminiscent of GW2.

I sort of decided to pick it up on a whim; I play WoW but obviously that's been boring and I only log in for raid content anymore, so figured, what the hell. I'm hooked currently. I don't know how long that will last, because I don't think I want to hardcore raid, and it sounds like if you aren't going to go "all in" there might not be a lot for you to do. That said, I plan on going all in as far as min/maxing, and for some reasons being able to level all of the classes on a single character and pick and choose cross class abilities fills me with glee, so I'll probably be around until my last class hits max.

At which point we'll probably get Dark Knights, Thieves and Red mages and I'll be back in again.

Really wish you could spec a WHM with sleep into an enchanter type though; my EQ enchanter is probably my favorite character of all time, though I imagine a lot of that is nostalgia. Not sure I want a game where that kind of CC is required, simply because you have a class capable of turning a 5 pull into a 1 debuffed to fuck and back pull.

Edit: Got my elder scrolls beta key so this should be interesting shit, trying to juggle the two of them.

Ao-_sl said:

mana song is a direct 20% reduction in bard dps...

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It's not like you run them full time, Mana and TP songs are more like "oh shit" abilities. You can't run any of the Bard Songs for very long, but they're extremely potent when you do run them - especially with the Double Song Effectiveness cooldown ability.

And Bard DPS is pretty rape, it's rare that I'm not right behind the tanks on threat (even with using quelling strikes a lot). Bards have amassiveadvantage whenever movement is involved over every other class due to how their mechanics work.

Sadly the current parser doesn't record DoTs and DoT crits properly and is horribly inaccurate.

1GB Patch up. Servers still down though.

I really like playing my Bard after playing a Monk / Dragoon, so much more freedom. Not sure what stats to try and bump up besides Dex; Skill Speed, Crit and Determination all sound good. I just HOPE that at some point the game will allow for costume slots...I'm not looking forward to wearing the Bard AF armor. =/

Zindan_sl said:

I really like playing my Bard after playing a Monk / Dragoon, so much more freedom. Not sure what stats to try and bump up besides Dex; Skill Speed, Crit and Determination all sound good. I just HOPE that at some point the game will allow for costume slots...I'm not looking forward to wearing the Bard AF armor. =/

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Accuracy to whatever hit cap, which is yet to be determined, and then Dex/Crit > are everything else. Skill Speed is pure junk, once you hit 48+ and if you stack up crit you'll rarely be at a point where you won't be hitting something due to River of Blood procs chain resetting Bloodletter and keeping all your buffs and shit on cooldown.

Bard AF armor isn't that bad, and you won't be wearing it for long anyways once you hit 50 and start farming AK for Toxotes gear and Philosophy tokens for Darklight. It does suck though that the Mythology token gear is just reskinned AF shit. At least the Allagan gear is different.