Final Fantasy XIV (Guide in first post)

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Crone

Crone

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Curious, after the MSQ is done, is it supposed to be just common knowledge to go around and do all the Purple (blue) unlock quests? Because even if that is, I still see no sign of raids, or whatever. Like I know there are raids? I think they are called Omega? There are savage and ultimate versions of them, maybe? But literally have no idea how to get to them, what to work for?

FFXIV holds your hand like a MF'er through all the MSQ, etc, but at end game, I really feel they just dump you in with a good luck figure it out!

It very well could just be experience with their "raid model" , but in WoW, at least I knew I was gearing up in dungeons, to then get into LFR, to then do NOrmal, Heroic, Mythic, etc. I knew right away the progression path. For FF, all I know is I'm leveling jobs to 70, my main BRD I bought Rakasha crafted gear on, have unlocked some Alliance and Normal raids, but have no idea if that's the path to take, that'll lead me to further end game stuff?

Also, I understand the gearing path, as someone told me about 390 gear, upgradeable to 400, etc. I know how to gear up, but it's all outside of raids. Why is it so hard for the game to tell me about their end game raids? Or am I just derp and missing something?
 
Cybsled

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If you see a quest icon that has a + in it, that means it unlocks something (dungeon, raid, etc).
 
Malakriss

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When you come in at the end of an expansion there's a crapload of unlocks because there's literally 6-7 patches worth all at once instead of tiered. Both raid types are a chain like the MSQ so for example you have to complete the three 24 man questlines in order to unlock the last which is likely the only one relevant, same with the usual 8 man raids. Obviously the system works a lot better when you do it patch by patch and "jumping in" right at the end is not the design.

Tomes are the only thing that happen naturally as you do dungeons or stumble across A or S rank hunts. Hit the required level, do the content, get the rewards. Eureka and the crafted 380 -> 390 upgrade system are new this xpac as well, honestly if you played 4.0 or 4.1 and returned to find your friends have maxed crafting then effectively handing you a 380 crafted set is piss easy and you can upgrade 390 as soon as you get the mendacity for it.

Catching up on crafting scrips with custom deliveries is also pure god damn easy mode compared to Heavensward. They literally throw reds and yellows at you each week once those are unlocked.
 
Crone

Crone

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Cybsled said:
If you see a quest icon that has a + in it, that means it unlocks something (dungeon, raid, etc).
Click to expand...
Malakriss said:
When you come in at the end of an expansion there's a crapload of unlocks because there's literally 6-7 patches worth all at once instead of tiered. Both raid types are a chain like the MSQ so for example you have to complete the three 24 man questlines in order to unlock the last which is likely the only one relevant, same with the usual 8 man raids. Obviously the system works a lot better when you do it patch by patch and "jumping in" right at the end is not the design.

Tomes are the only thing that happen naturally as you do dungeons or stumble across A or S rank hunts. Hit the required level, do the content, get the rewards. Eureka and the crafted 380 -> 390 upgrade system are new this xpac as well, honestly if you played 4.0 or 4.1 and returned to find your friends have maxed crafting then effectively handing you a 380 crafted set is piss easy and you can upgrade 390 as soon as you get the mendacity for it.
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Yea, I know about the unlocks, and that's what I've been doing. I guess I'm not used to the progression being actual different raids, instead of just harder versions of the same raid? I'm on the 2nd 24 man raid unlock. I've got the first SB raid unlocked, Deltascape 1.0 I think?

Thank you Malakriss for explaining it. I realized I was coming in with all these expansions, but it didn't click that the raids would have all been added as well and it's all progressive.
 
gshurik

gshurik

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Sneak peek of BRD AF from ShadowBringers. Uploaded to the official instagram.

I actually quite like a gear direction we've seen from Gunbreaker and this. I'm so glad to get away from the asian aesthetic for every job bar SAM and NIN.

56692420_116146049580910_647480686449546533_n.jpg
 
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Pyros

Pyros

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Crone said:
Yea, I know about the unlocks, and that's what I've been doing. I guess I'm not used to the progression being actual different raids, instead of just harder versions of the same raid? I'm on the 2nd 24 man raid unlock. I've got the first SB raid unlocked, Deltascape 1.0 I think?

Thank you Malakriss for explaining it. I realized I was coming in with all these expansions, but it didn't click that the raids would have all been added as well and it's all progressive.
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There is harder difficulty of the same raids, although it requires clearing them on normal first. Each 8man raid has a Savage version, minus Coil which is a bit weird since it's old, coil was balanced to be pretty hard from the getgo, then they made savage for the 2nd coil only as an experiment, but because coil clear rate was kinda low, in HW they split raids into "story" normal mode and "hardcore" savage mode. 24man only have one tier, which is easy(for the most part, the last 24man in expansion tends to be relatively challenging for pubs).

So like for SB, you have 2 questlines, the Omega questline which involves Deltascape 1 to 4, Sigmascape 1 to 4 and finally Alphascape 1 to 4 with some story stuff mixed in, and after completing the 4th of each tier, you get a quest to unlock savage for that tier which is basically the "true raiding" of FFXIV, with Ultimate being some bonus stuff added later as single super hard fights. Then the other questline is the 24man Ivalice raid stuff, unlocking Rabanastre, Ridorana and Orbonne. Again these are also accompanied by various story stuff.

So yeah in XIV you have to unlock stuff sequentially, and do the story related to all that content, similar to the MSQ gating virtually everything. It's nice because each raid has their own storyline stuff(same for primals/trials after ARR) and they tie in to the overall world building. Omega reveals a bunch of story that's kinda interesting after Heavensward events, Ivalice obviously is a sneakpeek of next expansion, Alexander is fairly standalone but does give some interesting insight on the beastmens, Dun Scaith was mostly interesting to hear about the Void but kinda weak in story imo(it does have Cait Sith though), Coil ties 1.0 with 2.0 story by showing some missing bits and putting an end to many of the loose ends and Crystal Tower was interesting because of the Allagan exposition as well as the Void too, but apparently will also be relevant for next expansion.
 
Noodleface

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I was kind of curious about UCoB, just from a history perspective. I was watching Xeno prog it last night (btw, he's a really funny player to watch), but then I saw he had a guide to it from a year ago?

Is there multiple difficulties? Is it an old raid? How can someone remember how to perfectly execute a 20 minute fight?

Longest fight I've done was Mythic Argus which was 12+ minutes for our first kill.
 
Malakriss

Malakriss

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Noodleface said:
I was kind of curious about UCoB, just from a history perspective. I was watching Xeno prog it last night (btw, he's a really funny player to watch), but then I saw he had a guide to it from a year ago?

Is there multiple difficulties? Is it an old raid? How can someone remember how to perfectly execute a 20 minute fight?

Longest fight I've done was Mythic Argus which was 12+ minutes for our first kill.
Click to expand...
Ultimates were newly introduced this expansion and are 100% hardcore difficulty using multiple previous bosses / abilities in a single long fight but jacking them up to the crazy level of mechanics. UCoB is from 4.11 (Oct 2017) and The Weapon's Refrain Ultimate was 4.36 patch. To give an example raid guilds scheduled 2 weeks of leave off from work to do the first Savage tier of raiding for Stormblood but it only took everyone a couple of days, meanwhile the first Ultimate took 11 days for the world first and it's only a single fight. In order to enter the ultimate fight you needed to full clear the Savage tier so you knew no scrubs could enter.

As for progression and execution since the fights are based on previous bosses most raiders already knew the basics, but it came down to what the new twists and insane levels of gameplay are required. The final boss for each coil was included as a phase for the fight, plus more, with these new mechanics woven throughout. There are no checkpoints, so if you wanted to even see a new part of the fight you had to perfectly execute everything up until that point and die to it, then figure out what was required.

Ultimate fights will always be synced to a max ilevel that was available at the time, so if you want the title and weapon looks you will have to learn the whole damn thing and fight it as intended even 5 years from now. At the time the weapons were +5 ilvl over the top but also had a 3rd materia slot instead of the usual 2, which meant +40 to a secondary stat.
 
Noodleface

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Thanks for the explanation. THe raiding tiers in this game are tough to grasp. Hopefully if I stay current in Shadowbringers it'll make more sense.

I can equate those raiding times to WoW's mythic race in a way. Usually if a final boss lasts into the next reset (1 week) it's considered a good race.
 
Pyros

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Noodleface said:
Thanks for the explanation. THe raiding tiers in this game are tough to grasp. Hopefully if I stay current in Shadowbringers it'll make more sense.

I can equate those raiding times to WoW's mythic race in a way. Usually if a final boss lasts into the next reset (1 week) it's considered a good race.
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Ultimates are a side thing really, they reuse models from original content(Ultimate Ultima is Ultima obviously with a lot of Garuda/Ifrit/Titan stuff mixed in and Ultimate Coil is Twintania/Nael/Bahamut mixed together). They only reward cosmetic rewards, gold weapons and titles and what not. It was added as a challenge for really hardcore players to beat, which is also why they don't have Echo or have ilvl scaling to prevent cheesing(and it's likely they won't be able to be done unsynced next expansion either).

The main raiding system is fairly simple. 8man raids are divided into 2, normal and savage, normal is story/for casual, savage is your usual raiding content for mmos. 24man is casual larger raids, released in catchup patches. There's 3 tiers per expansion, released every 3months and alternating with a catchup patch(so first raid tier is x.0, then catchup 24man in x.1, then 2nd tier in x.2, catchup 24man in x.3, last tier of 8man in x.4 and final catchup 24man in x.5). And that's basically it for "normal" raiding. You also have trials, which are 8man 1boss only encounters, normal/story mode generally has no reward, extreme difficulty has various single slot rewards(mostly weapons but accessories too). Extreme trials are easier than Savage raids, but harder than normal raids(most of the time), so they're kinda inbetween and good for people who don't want to commit as much time. These are released every patch, with x.0 having 2(3 in ARR) and x.1 being an extreme only version of the last story boss of x.0(for HW and SB).

The difference with wow is the 24man stuff is catchup content, not actual progression raiding. They drop low ilvl gear than the same tier raid, and are a lot easier. They're a bit like LFR(well what I heard LFR was a while ago, no idea about BFA) but not LFR versions of actual raids, just their own stuff. The "real" raiding is only 8man raids. Trials tend to be casual content too that helps with gearing up but is also behind the current tier. And that "real" raiding has 2 tier, normal/story which rewards lower ilvl stuff and savage which is the real real raiding.
 
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Crone

Crone

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Pyros said:
Ultimates are a side thing really, they reuse models from original content(Ultimate Ultima is Ultima obviously with a lot of Garuda/Ifrit/Titan stuff mixed in and Ultimate Coil is Twintania/Nael/Bahamut mixed together). They only reward cosmetic rewards, gold weapons and titles and what not. It was added as a challenge for really hardcore players to beat, which is also why they don't have Echo or have ilvl scaling to prevent cheesing(and it's likely they won't be able to be done unsynced next expansion either).

The main raiding system is fairly simple. 8man raids are divided into 2, normal and savage, normal is story/for casual, savage is your usual raiding content for mmos. 24man is casual larger raids, released in catchup patches. There's 3 tiers per expansion, released every 3months and alternating with a catchup patch(so first raid tier is x.0, then catchup 24man in x.1, then 2nd tier in x.2, catchup 24man in x.3, last tier of 8man in x.4 and final catchup 24man in x.5). And that's basically it for "normal" raiding. You also have trials, which are 8man 1boss only encounters, normal/story mode generally has no reward, extreme difficulty has various single slot rewards(mostly weapons but accessories too). Extreme trials are easier than Savage raids, but harder than normal raids(most of the time), so they're kinda inbetween and good for people who don't want to commit as much time. These are released every patch, with x.0 having 2(3 in ARR) and x.1 being an extreme only version of the last story boss of x.0(for HW and SB).

The difference with wow is the 24man stuff is catchup content, not actual progression raiding. They drop low ilvl gear than the same tier raid, and are a lot easier. They're a bit like LFR(well what I heard LFR was a while ago, no idea about BFA) but not LFR versions of actual raids, just their own stuff. The "real" raiding is only 8man raids. Trials tend to be casual content too that helps with gearing up but is also behind the current tier. And that "real" raiding has 2 tier, normal/story which rewards lower ilvl stuff and savage which is the real real raiding.
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Lol. I'm getting a better grasp on why jumping in just a couple months ago was confusing as hell when it comes to raiding. Thanks for more details Pyros!
 
Folanlron

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Ultimates are alot of fun if you get the right people together, but they will put you in your place if you screw it up, even Coil is still giving us problems but were at about a 80% clear rate on it right now.
 
khorum

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Omega 12 savage would get you a 405 weapon, though it isn't as good as a decently rolled eureka relic.
Crone said:
Lol. I'm getting a better grasp on why jumping in just a couple months ago was confusing as hell when it comes to raiding. Thanks for more details Pyros!
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One of the downsides of signing up this late into an expansion is that there aren't very many learning groups up on the PF for older content. If you're not in an FC that still farms mounts in seiryu or o12s, it's virtually impossible to find learning groups progressing through the bajillion phases in the savage/ex fights on the Party Finder.

Seiryu EX is up on the regular duty finder now after the patch, you can still get a 395 weapon farming that if you haven't finished Eureka yet. Progressing through omega savage is pretty fun if you can find the right groups and the mount is cool but you'd have to luck out during prime time/weekends to progress through it if you haven't cleared.
 
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Crone

Crone

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khorum said:
Omega 12 savage would get you a 405 weapon, which isn't as good as a decently rolled eureka relic


One of the downsides of signing up this late into an expansion is that there aren't very many learning groups up on the PF for older content. If you're not in an FC that still farms mounts in seiryu or o12s, it's virtually impossible to find learning groups progressing through the bajillion phases in the savage/ex fights on the Party Finder.

Seiryu EX is up on the regular duty finder now after the patch, you can still get a 395 weapon farming that if you haven't finished Eureka yet. Progressing through omega savage is pretty fun if you can find the right groups and the mount is cool but you'd have to luck out during prime time/weekends to progress through it if you haven't cleared, but that can get you a 405 weapon, although not as good as a decently rolled Eureka relic.
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Yea that sucks because I'd love to be a tourist and at least go through and see all the raids. Might be pretty rough to do at this point. Maybe can search reddit recruitment sub to see if anyone is still doing it.
 
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khorum

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Crone said:
Yea that sucks because I'd love to be a tourist and at least go through and see all the raids. Might be pretty rough to do at this point. Maybe can search reddit recruitment sub to see if anyone is still doing it.
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You can still do regular omega all the way to o12. In fact you NEED to clear o12 and farm the o12 data token to get the ilevel 400 weapon via genesis tomes.

If you haven't started the omega raid line it should start in Rhallgr's reach after you've finished the SB MSQ iirc...I THINK it may be after you finish some of the patch content, not sure but it's definitely after the 4.0 credits.
 
Pyros

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khorum said:
You can still do regular omega all the way to o12. In fact you NEED to clear o12 and farm the o12 data token to get the ilevel 400 weapon via genesis tomes.

If you haven't started the omega raid line it should start in Rhallgr's reach after you've finished the SB MSQ iirc...I THINK it may be after you finish some of the patch content, not sure but it's definitely after the 4.0 credits.
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Yeah doing the story mode is definitely mostly "enough", for the most part. Noteworthy however is that in Stormblood, they decided to add an additional phase (which really is like a full boss) to every raid tier, and they come with cool transitions. I suggest looking them up on youtube after you've done them on normal. But first just clear all the normals, it takes a while and some of the fights are still fairly interesting when you're learning(not so much after the first couple of times though).

Also recommend doing Ivalice raids, and might as well do the trials questline too, then you can clear some of the older stuff, mostly with a priority on ARR stuff since it'll be relevant next expansion(well the 24man part, but the 8man is still interesting to see).

Can always do that stuff next expansion too though it's not disapearing and people still do this kind of stuff due to roulettes or just for glamours and what not, just it's unsynced so it's less interesting.
 
khorum

khorum

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Oh yeah you also need the Orbonne tokens for the ilevel 400 gear upgrades. I thought he said he got that tho.
 
Ehrgeix

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Noodleface said:
I was kind of curious about UCoB, just from a history perspective. I was watching Xeno prog it last night (btw, he's a really funny player to watch), but then I saw he had a guide to it from a year ago?

Is there multiple difficulties? Is it an old raid? How can someone remember how to perfectly execute a 20 minute fight?

Longest fight I've done was Mythic Argus which was 12+ minutes for our first kill.
Click to expand...

4.0/4.2/4.4 = savage tier raids. These drop bis gear, 5 total bosses (the last two are combined).

4.1/4.3 = ultimate raids. These use bis gear from 4.0/4.2, and are sync'd to that ilvl. These drop cosmetic rewards only (basically, the weapon has an extra materia slot which is approx 0.25% extra damage).

* 4.1 was ucob, this is a completely redone fight using the savage tier boss models from 2.0/2.2/2.4. It's 18-19 minutes and quite challenging.

* 4.3 was uwu, this is a completely redone fight using ex primal models from 2.0-2.5. It's 15-16 minutes and moderately challenging.

Ucob and uwu are still current content, basically. They're quite difficult - I had a reasonably good group for ucob (everyone purple+ on fflogs, no dead weight, group competent with mechanics) and it took us 100h+ with complete guides to everything available.

Note that when I say 'redone' I mean they use the same animations and some of the same moves (e.g., megaflare = AE damage) but the fight is totally different, new script, new stuff to learn, different combinations of abilities, etc).

I would guess that in shadowbringers we'll see an Alexander medley ultimate (raid bosses from 3.0/3.2/3.4 completely redone), and perhaps some other 3.x primal related ultimate (dragonsong war?).
 
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Folanlron

Folanlron

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Just no more Ultimate Weapon and I'll be happy, after doing Weapons Refrain + o12s back-back I'm really tired of his shit...(albiet o12s was fun, all the programming jabs are very lol worthy..)
 
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