Final Fantasy XIV (Guide in first post)

Kriptini said:

The Alphascape bosses are cool, but aside from that there is basically nothing in this patch for non-raiders.



Well... do you like single player games? Because at this point, FFXIV is a single player game with a chat lobby. While it has endgame raids that are very good (and a new tier of raids were just released today), everything else is pretty brainless and is completed either solo or with dungeon finder randoms that might as well be robots. If you were to start the game now, at level 1, you have hundreds of hours of single-player content to slog through (and most of it is a slog) before you can get to endgame, which is the only place where the multiplayer aspect of this game really comes into play. You can buy a level skip and story skip potion (both of which I'd highly recommend, because while the story has some good points it is overall nothing special) and that will lessen the amount of single-player you have to do to maybe 20-30 hours, if you're like me and prefer to play MMOs for the multiplayer aspect.

I guess if I were to throw out some random other bullet points:

• Everything pre-level cap sucks. Pretty much everything post-level cap is high-quality, at least for MMORPG standards. At level cap, combat for all the classes is very fluid and engaging, and the higher difficulty fights are challenging without being bullshit. I have enjoyed combat in this MMORPG immensely.
• Devs spend a lot of time working on terrible shit that nobody cares about. Even though we get a patch with new things to do every three months, very little of it will actually last you three months. This is the kind of game where once you are in endgame, you are subbed for maybe 1/3 of the year and the other 2/3rds you are playing something else.
• Crafting can be difficult to get into late in an expansion cycle. It's also very time-consuming, as it requires leveling all crafting classes for important cross-class skills. It's really cool if you like crafting in MMOs, but unless you plan on buying a bunch of Gil from PlayerAuctions or something, you probably wouldn't be able to hit "endgame" level until the start of the next expansion.
• Housing system is cool.

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Thanks for the feedback. Is the leveling from 50 to 70 particularly slow or is it just the MSQ that forces you to drag ass through everything?

Lodi said:

Thanks for the feedback. Is the leveling from 50 to 70 particularly slow or is it just the MSQ that forces you to drag ass through everything?

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It's going to be the MSQ that's the hurdle, especially the 2.0+ stuff leading up to Heavensward. That stretch is brutal. I found the MSQ stuff for Heavensward and Stormblood pretty decent.

Thanks for the feedback. Is the leveling from 50 to 70 particularly slow or is it just the MSQ that forces you to drag ass through everything?

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The leveling isn't really slow. The vanilla/ARR MSQ is a grind, though, because of how it was designed. You have to do like 100 quests, with a lot of travel tedium, to unlock HW. However, the final part just before HW is pretty badass. HW before SB MSQ grind isn't as bad and the story is much better.

I think I bought the ARR MSQ skip awhile back and never really played (my kid was born when stormblood came out.. literally, day of). I've been meaning to get back into this.

If one wanted to aim to play endgame as a DPS, what choices are more desired than others? I think I need a break from tanking.

For raiding or anything else? If not really doing cutting edge raiding, can pick whatever you like. Otherwise, Redmages and Ninjas and Bards are always a strong bet.

Noodleface said:

I think I bought the ARR MSQ skip awhile back and never really played (my kid was born when stormblood came out.. literally, day of). I've been meaning to get back into this.

If one wanted to aim to play endgame as a DPS, what choices are more desired than others? I think I need a break from tanking.

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Everything is perfectly viable at endgame. If you want to get into the top of top groups your best bets will be DRG, NIN, BRD, and SMN. (Raids like taking RDM for progression but have them switch to SMN for clears/farms.) But these groups are already racing so just play whatever DPS you like the most. XIV has issues but class balance is not one of them.

Raid teams are 8 characters. 2 tanks, 2 casters, 4 DPS (usually 2 melee, 2 ranged because mechanics).

The two favored melee:

Ninja is welcome because of their uber threat management tools (they get a cooldown to give the tank extra threat and another cooldown to reduce one party member's threat), and 10% slashing debuff is nice even if warriors have it too. Their personal DPS/contribution is lower, but people geek out on the threat stuff, so most groups want one.

Dragoon is uber because they have the only piercing debuff in the game, making your Bard/Machinist love you long time.

The two favored range:

Bards make everyone better and have tons of utility. They also do nearly as much DPS as a machinist.

Rez Mage ("progression only"): dual cast rez is nice. Their DPS is just okay.

Summoner: the most welcome caster, but the rotation will punish you especially if you die.

Then again, as long as you don't play Samurai or Black Mage, you'll likely never be blacklisted from groups. Whatever your preferred class (even Samurai/Black Mage), you'll have no problem finding a raid team to clear content if you're competent.

As has been stated, unless you're gunning for l33t groups, play whatever. I play Samurai and don't give a fuck ;P

Samurai contribute more DPS than ninjas, but the stigma and "meta" with the playerbase is dumb.

Noodleface And if you want more details than a name (namely what they do):

FINAL FANTASY XIV Job Guide

yamikazo said:

Samurai contribute more DPS than ninjas, but the stigma and "meta" with the playerbase is dumb.

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This is only true for groups that don't coordinate burst windows. You forgot about Trick Attack.

Guess I'll be playing again soonish. Can't decide what class I want to play. Have a 50 WAR, 50 BRD. Thinking I want to try something new, though. MCH sounds kinda fun.

I think I'm on the old FOH server: toons name is Doctor Krieger.

A lot of people aren't happy with MCH right now because most of its damage revolves around a single CD, but it's still a very viable class.

Kriptini said:

A lot of people aren't happy with MCH right noe because most of its damage revolves around a single CD, but it's still a very viable class.

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Hmm, damn. What's a fun but challenging DPS? I'm not looking to be FOTM or anything. I just want to level something that is kind of unique and fun.

dvoraen said:

Noodleface And if you want more details than a name (namely what they do):

FINAL FANTASY XIV Job Guide

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Thanks. I had a pretty good idea since I have played up.to 35 or something (and played ffxi for years). Not sure if I'll level my warrior to 50 and proceed or level something new. Not sure I want to tank... But maybe....

Lodi said:

Hmm, damn. What's a fun but challenging DPS? I'm not looking to be FOTM or anything. I just want to level something that is kind of unique and fun.

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Monk can be challenging...you have to rotate your combo attacks to keep various debuffs/buffs up and keep greased lightning stacks up. Plus their attacks look pretty cool.

Lodi said:

Hmm, damn. What's a fun but challenging DPS? I'm not looking to be FOTM or anything. I just want to level something that is kind of unique and fun.

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None of the classes are challenging from a base level, the difficulty comes from optimizing your play for every fight. In that sense, MNK and NIN probably have more challenge.

Noodleface said:

Thanks. I had a pretty good idea since I have played up.to 35 or something (and played ffxi for years). Not sure if I'll level my warrior to 50 and proceed or level something new. Not sure I want to tank... But maybe....

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Tanking in FFXIV is different from tanking in WoW. Warriors, especially, basically play like a DPS class – I've likened them to a Barbarian in Diablo.

Also as a precaution, the feel to the FFXIV leveling experience is… slow. Even at level 50, you only have a handful of buttons to push. It's not until well after level 60 does the combat become fleshed out, though some classes are better than others.

And to reiterate, the game is designed to be played casually. Leveling from 35 to 70 will take awhile, especially if you're relying on dungeon queues as a DPS (tanks get instant queues, DPS can regularly be 10-30 minutes depending on time of day). Your daily dungeons will get you a level or two quickly, but beyond that you're grinding.

Quests /MSQ gives a bunch of xp. I was level 54 by the time I unlocked HW.

Roulettes in duty finder are worth a ton of XP.

Noodle bought the MSQ skip. He'll be strictly running roulettes or highest level dungeon.