Final Fantasy XIV (Guide in first post)

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Pyros

<Silver Donator>
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You get varying amounts of Echo depending on the encounter. Some of the old shit you start with full echo, some others you need to fight for what was it, 2+mins before a wipe would give you echo, and it was 5% up to 25% max or 10% up to 50% max depending. It's stuff to help casuals catch up and shit, but it's never active for the most recent content. It's like how they removed primals gating the other primals after they've been around a while, they do that kind of stuff every now and then, and increase drop rate of stuff, like how old primals used to have 2% chance to drop a pony or whatever the droprate was and then they boosted it to like 20% shortly before the expansion so people could collect the ponies at a decent pace.

As for the comment on learning the pattern, that's not that easy. A lot of the abilities, just like in wow, have randomness added to them which forces you to react in real time quickly. Stuff such as who gets targetted by missiles or where the areas you have to stand in appear and who replaces the guy who was assigned to do something but instead got targetted by something else so now he can't do it. It's mostly the on the fly decisions that make encounters hard. The timing/patterns you can learn relatively quickly, and knowing what comes next certainly helps a lot in quickly figuring out what to do when it happens, but it's still sometimes confusing as shit, And obviously while all that shit happens you have to maintain rotations, which for some classes are semi random/have complex elements, or if you're a healer you obviously have to keep healing fuckers but not overheal or you run oom.

It works the same way as wow raiding really, while in theory most fights can be broken down in simple steps, the combination of all conditions and possibilities at once and choosing the optimal choice everytime is what makes it hard.

You know you have to run to the middle when you get the mark and that's the only important part, but you also need to make sure you don't let the tank die while also making sure you don't cross path with someone else while also making sure you have max health while also keeping an eye on the other people meeting you in the mid if they're late to compensate your positionning so you're stacked with them while also remembering that right after you have to aoe heal and spread. And you have to constantly remember these things over the course of 10-15mins fights.
 

Pasteton

Blackwing Lair Raider
2,751
1,936
i would also say some of the mechanics in the savage mode are hard even without the healing and dps requirements that are needed at the same time. coordinating nisi to disable all 6 pentacles in a4 savage is pure mechanics and nothing else, yet is still incredibly hard because of the nature of the debuff and the randomness with which they spawn. gear definitely helps, as without it you pretty much have to run the fights to absolute perfection, but even overgeared, several of these fights are hard - and they would remain hard after the next content patch, (even with echo) - except they will certainly be nerfed.

But it really cannot be overemphasized how much of a difference there is between the two hardest fights in this game, and pretty much every thing else content wise currently. I think for everything else, (except maybe thordan extreme which is definitely mechanics heavy- and fun, but not as hard from a dps/healing execution standpoint), you can pretty much face roll it with gear. A1 and A2 savage are pure gear checks now in the sense that their difficulty can be mostly overcome with gear.
 

Rangoth

Blackwing Lair Raider
1,737
1,867
So I keep trying to pub(not in a guild or LS or whatever it's called) this Trial thing called Urth's Fount and I've yet to be part of a group that beats it. We(different pub each time) keep making it to this part about halfway or a bit more in where these giant nail things drop and just continuously pulse some rape AE until we all die and DPS can never seem to get them down in time.

Is this something you pretty much need a pre-made or at least people in full poetic suit to do? None of the mechanics seem challenging and I have no problem keeping tanks/people healed until that phase. Even then I can do ok until they starting pulsing so hard they essentially start one-shoting people. Actually, just looked it up, this is what kills us:

Shin-Zantetsuken: Unavoidable 99,999 damage to the entire raid. Cannot be interrupted. Starts the cast at about 15% HP, or after 6 minutes. Not sure on how much time you have to kill him after he starts cast, but eyeballed at about ~30s. XivDB also says the cast time is 30s. There's a 7s or so cast animation afterwards during which you can still kill him to acquire a win.

So I'm guessing whatever pubs I'm in just don't have the DPS to kill the fucker. Also it's kinda sad that any gear I find it WAY worse than the stuff poetics buy. I'm sure it was not like that at release, but it makes running dungeons outside of a quest or daily pointless.

To the people giving advice, are you on all gilgamesh?
 

bixxby

Molten Core Raider
2,750
47
So I keep trying to pub(not in a guild or LS or whatever it's called) this Trial thing called Urth's Fount and I've yet to be part of a group that beats it. We(different pub each time) keep making it to this part about halfway or a bit more in where these giant nail things drop and just continuously pulse some rape AE until we all die and DPS can never seem to get them down in time.

Is this something you pretty much need a pre-made or at least people in full poetic suit to do? None of the mechanics seem challenging and I have no problem keeping tanks/people healed until that phase. Even then I can do ok until they starting pulsing so hard they essentially start one-shoting people. Actually, just looked it up, this is what kills us:

Shin-Zantetsuken: Unavoidable 99,999 damage to the entire raid. Cannot be interrupted. Starts the cast at about 15% HP, or after 6 minutes. Not sure on how much time you have to kill him after he starts cast, but eyeballed at about ~30s. XivDB also says the cast time is 30s. There's a 7s or so cast animation afterwards during which you can still kill him to acquire a win.

So I'm guessing whatever pubs I'm in just don't have the DPS to kill the fucker. Also it's kinda sad that any gear I find it WAY worse than the stuff poetics buy. I'm sure it was not like that at release, but it makes running dungeons outside of a quest or daily pointless.

To the people giving advice, are you on all gilgamesh?
Are you 50+? There are vendors in Foundation that sell ilevel 115 gear to catch up for the expansion content. The Ironworks stuff that looks awesome as hell is slightly better, from the poetics.
 

Rangoth

Blackwing Lair Raider
1,737
1,867
Are you 50+? There are vendors in Foundation that sell ilevel 115 gear to catch up for the expansion content. The Ironworks stuff that looks awesome as hell is slightly better, from the poetics.
I am level 60. I have a full set of that Ironworks Healing set you buy with poetic tombs(tomes?) and then some healing ring I found in a level 50 dungeon. I think my iLevel is 114 or something avg. So basically I am not sure what the next gear step is atm and I still have lots of MQ to do before HS opens for me.

Anything I run right now syncs my character/gear level anyway. It just seems like the DPS in pubs kinda suck, which isn't a shock, but puts me at a roadblock with some dungeons.

Edit:

I am not playing hoping to be a badass raider or anything. Mostly just for fun but at the same time I do like to continue to progress obviously.

My daily routine is pretty much:

-Do my beast tribe dailies
-Switch to any other class and do daily level and daily guildheist dungeon to try and slowly "background" level some other class(which I can do concurrently with beast tribe due to class switching)
-Do daily level 50 trial
-Do daily level 50 dungeon
-work on one of the 9 books towards the level of my epic weapon(I could probably do a book a night if I skipped all of the above but whatever)

I can do the book/beast stuff while I'm in queue for any of the dungeons so there is heavy overlap in the above. If I finish all of that and I am still online I try to finish up some of the quests I have that involve dungeons. This is where I am "pub stuck" because the dungeons are becomming a bit hard to do with pubs where any given DPS is not fully geared or whatever. So that is where I am stuck

Just by doing the above I've got a SUM/SCH at 60(same class) and both have full Ironworks set. The SUM is a bit behind in the epic weapon department as I do not play it other than class quests. I also have a few other classes in the 40 range because I'll pick a random one for the two xp dailies depending on my mood.

I tried crafting but holy shit fuck that. I mean, if I bought enough material I could probably AFK it while working since you can queue up like 99 items to be crafted and just let it go, but it's pretty boring. Maybe in a year when all classes are 60 I'll think about it.
 

Kriptini

Vyemm Raider
3,682
3,574
The average FFXIV player is awful. In fact, out of all the major PvE MMOs I've played (EQ2, Rift, etc.), FFXIV has had the least skilled average population. Odin is not difficult by any stretch of the imagination, PuGs are just garbage.
 

Rangoth

Blackwing Lair Raider
1,737
1,867
The average FFXIV player is awful. In fact, out of all the major PvE MMOs I've played (EQ2, Rift, etc.), FFXIV has had the least skilled average population. Odin is not difficult by any stretch of the imagination, PuGs are just garbage.
And I don't have a regular enough play schedule to join any meaningful guild so I'm basically stuck with a group of RL friends(which I don't have in FFXIV) or PUG
 

Kriptini

Vyemm Raider
3,682
3,574
And I don't have a regular enough play schedule to join any meaningful guild so I'm basically stuck with a group of RL friends(which I don't have in FFXIV) or PUG
Well the only content you need an actual static to clear is Gordias Savage. You can do mostly everything else with PuGs as long as you find the right PuGs. Even if you don't join a hardcore FC, you should still be able to find am FC that has at least decent players.
 

Malkav

French Madman
2,686
1,583
I am level 60. I have a full set of that Ironworks Healing set you buy with poetic tombs(tomes?) and then some healing ring I found in a level 50 dungeon. I think my iLevel is 114 or something avg. So basically I am not sure what the next gear step is atm and I still have lots of MQ to do before HS opens for me.
Wait, isn't ilvl114 crappy for level 60? The poetic set should have been replaced around lvl54/56 from quests and dungeons items.

Unless you managed to get to level 60 before even hitting HW.
 

Ao-

¯\_(ツ)_/¯
<WoW Guild Officer>
7,879
507
Wait, isn't ilvl114 crappy for level 60? The poetic set should have been replaced around lvl54/56 from quests and dungeons items.

Unless you managed to get to level 60 before even hitting HW.
That would be impressive given storyline quests give SHIT xp until you hit HW.
 

Pyros

<Silver Donator>
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Might not have noticed there was better tomes than poetics. Basically Poetics are lvl 50 gear, they're completely worthless and you shouldn't make sets of them for anyone other than glamour sets, random quest gear or even white vendor gear is better at 60(albeit kinda expensive for what it is). What you want to do is use the other tomes, which are named hmm... shit I don't remember, is it esoterics? Or is that the capped ones? Anyway the ones you get in lvl 60 dungeons that also don't have a weekly cap, and you buy gear in Heavensward with those, in the goblin town. That gear is way higher ilvl and way better, and ultimately just as easy/easier to farm.

To put things in perspective, i115 was meh even by pre expansion standard. People are like i200 or whatever by now I assume in the expansion, or at least 180+ easily.
 

Rezz

Mr. Poopybutthole
4,486
3,531
Wait, isn't ilvl114 crappy for level 60? The poetic set should have been replaced around lvl54/56 from quests and dungeons items.

Unless you managed to get to level 60 before even hitting HW.
Pretty sure it's a typo since he's still doing pre-heavensward trials. 114ish is plenty to start Heavensward, then it's just ilvels and levels to unlock more content. The easily farmed level 60 tomestones are "Law" and you get boatloads doing basically anything at cap. Esoterics are the capped ones. But yeah, this information is way past where he's at hah. 115 is plenty to heal any of the normal level 50 crap, and he'll upgrade ilvls plenty fast enough once he's actually doing the post 50 content in HS.
 

sike

Silver Knight of the Realm
246
-1,200
Rangoth, why are you doing dailies etc before prioritising your main story quest? Almost everything you are doing is completely obsolete for heavensward (save to experience the content once). You can get a full set of item lvl 160-190 gear extremely quickly once you hit 60 and unlock things with the MSQ. Not to mention the fact that the MSQ is some of the best content in the game.
 

sike

Silver Knight of the Realm
246
-1,200
Oh also, doing zeta books is also a complete waste of time (aside from for the glamour). You can get the anima (lvl 60 relic) without doing that using fates, which is a fairly good way to level alts.
 

Rangoth

Blackwing Lair Raider
1,737
1,867
To all of the above, some great advice btw....

I am 60, not a typo. The reason I am only ilevel 115 or whatever is because I have not unlocked HW(expansion, HW or HS?) because I still have quite a bit of the main story to do. The Ironworks gear I have is the best from any of the level 50 dungeons/trials. In fact shit I find is WAY worse. I am starting to collect the other tomes but I am not sure where to spend them yet and that just started about a week ago. Once you hit 60 you get them instead of XP from the dailies, I have no other way of farming them yet though as I do not have the expansion unlocked.

Honestly, even if I upgrade it would not help me any right now. As I said everything that is open to me is iLevel synced and I'm above it. This probably all goes back to me not having the expansion unlocked.

As far as why I do the beast quests and the epic weapon thing, mostly just because I want to/they are something to occupy me/im a completionist/I wanted the mount. I don't kid myself into thinking I'll be badass in any MMO these days, my interests have just changed over the years and while I have heavy play stints, I'll go on a random 1 month sabbatical because whatever random reason. I just play for fun, and for me that's doing all the side quests and farming a mount or whatever.

Mostly I was just curious about a few encounters that I can't seem to beat in PUGs
frown.png
It is good to know that the MQ unlocks all that gear and stuff though. I probably should put a bit more focus on that.

Is everyone here on Gilgamesh? Are there any guilds or LC's or whatever they are called from this board with a group of players that are active and friendly? I'd pay to transfer if so. I take it I don't lose any character progress or anything in a transfer?
 

Valechec_sl

shitlord
38
0
Couple of us from the old WoW minivan are on Leviathan in a FC that has about 30 mostly active people (from looking at how many logged in in the last 24 hours). At least two of us would help you run through things if you were on this server, likely more.
 

sike

Silver Knight of the Realm
246
-1,200
I hadn't realised you hadn't bought the expansion yet - didn't think it was possible to go above 50 without it. I honestly can't imagine hitting 60 without doing the MSQ (including the heavensward part of it). The MSQ provides so much content, not to mention exp - if you did it when you were already 60 you'd be wasting a tonne of exp...
 

Delly

Trakanon Raider
2,995
634
Is the beast tribe stuff still worth it? I'm lvl 46 on my first char and I unlocked all the beast tribe missions. Just wasn't sure if that was 2.0 stuff or if its actually useful in 3.0
 

Pyros

<Silver Donator>
11,233
2,371
The mounts are cool and they made some of them fly, that's about it I think. Although they might also be relevant in the new relic, not sure if it's only the 60 factions or the old ones too.

In general I'd say it's not worth the time unless you're bored though, especially while you're still leveling. They're not good xp and it takes like a month to get to max rank for the mounts.