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[Celcius]

Developer: Square Enix
Platform: PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox Series X/S
Genre: MMORPG
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Final Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail is the fifth expansion pack to Final Fantasy XIV, a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) developed and published by Square Enix for Windows, macOS, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S. It was released on July 2, 2024, over two years after Endwalker, the previous expansion. Like its predecessors, Naoki Yoshida served as director and producer and Masayoshi Soken composed the soundtrack.

In Dawntrail, players travel to Tural, a continent across the sea, to participate in a rite of succession to determine the next leader of Tuliyollal. They will serve as champion for Wuk Lamat, one of the current leader's children. They are joined by allies from Eorzea who support different candidates. After the climactic events of Endwalker, Dawntrail was designed as a "summer vacation" for the player's character, the Warrior of Light. In addition to adding new areas, the expansion pack increased the level cap, debuted two character classes and a new playable race, and initiated the game's first major graphical overhaul since its relaunch in 2013.

New classes: https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/dawntrail/job/
Viper (DPS) and Pictomancer (DPS)

New playable race, Female Hrothgar: https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/dawntrail/system/

Other New Features:

• First graphical update: The game's first major graphical overhaul adds a host of visual improvements, including enhanced texture and shadow resolution, and improved material qualities for characters and environments.
• Gear now supports adding 2 different dyes
• Increased level cap (100)
• New 8-man raid series: The Arcadion
• New 24-man alliance raid series: Echoes of Vana'diel
• New ultimate raid: Futures Rewritten (Ultimate)

 

[Celcius]

Lately after finishing the MSQ I've been going after new mounts and new gear. (magitek avenger g1, older extreme trial mounts, dyed vanguard gear, etc...)
I'm also looking forward to watching the world first race next Tuesday when patch 7.05 drops with The Arcadion (Savage). I plan to just watch this time instead of doing the fights but I think the story is great and look forward to seeing more there as well.

 

[Valonquar]

OT | Speak to Wuk Lamat
The more I play Pictomancer the more I'm liking the damage output. At 92 I was instantly killing level 99 mobs with queued beast\hammer skills.

 

[MagiusNecros]

OT | Speak to Wuk Lamat
The more I play Pictomancer the more I'm liking the damage output. At 92 I was instantly killing level 99 mobs with queued beast\hammer skills.

After playing Picto you'll never play Black Mage again. I tried and Picto reigns supreme.

 

[JORMBO]

OT | Speak to Wuk Lamat Yet Again

Fixed

 

[Valonquar]

Am I doing it right?

 

[Celcius]

I witnessed mass destruction tonight:

Spoiler

What a menace

 

[Robot Carnival]

are wall to wall 4 packs pulls the norm in roulette now? I was playing my SGE in roulette and got the Mt. Gulg dungeon from Shadowbrings. PLD ran off from the start and pulled like 4 packs of mobs without mentioning we're doing full pulls. of course we wiped. now I will say for my part that I'm rusty with SGE, but I can easily handle 2 packs just like any normal parties would. but this guy insists that it's completely normal to do wall pulls in roulettes after we wiped a few more times. I told them to just vote me off but they won't do that either since we're near the end of the dungeon already. we finished it but it was one of the most miserable experience in XIV I had in a while.

 

[Valonquar]

It's normal, but wipes are also normal. Everyone is playing jobs with rust on them.

 

[pennythoughts]

I am looking forward to making a few dozen million off of savage raiders on Tuesday and then of course jumping into the raids myself.

 

[Celcius]

Just fought Chi twice to get my level checker mount. I’ve wanted it since endwalker but somehow never knew how to get it before.
Now I fully understand the “5 more minutes until chi” and “2 more minutes until snek” memes

edit: fought him a 3rd time... I forgot that I left my discord notifications on and ended up hoping back on just to fight him for fun with no 5 hour wait this time lol

 

[Valonquar]

Busy day:

Level 100 everything, and a whole lot of fates cleared. Less than 100 fates from the 10k fates achievement so I'll prob do that next and make some gil off extra vouchers before clearing out the newer crafting achievements.

 

[Celcius]

Finally got both of my retainers to level 100

Busy day:

Level 100 everything, and a whole lot of fates cleared. Less than 100 fates from the 10k fates achievement so I'll prob do that next and make some gil off extra vouchers before clearing out the newer crafting achievements.

Nice, I really want that outrunner mount but it requires leveling all combat classes and dragoon is the only class I ever play

 

[Revolutionary]

Nice, I really want that outrunner mount but it requires leveling all combat classes and dragoon is the only class I ever play

Being able to change jobs at a whim is one of the best parts of this game. That's part of the reason I love new expansion launches because I have a reason to play and level all jobs again. It's fun learning new jobs and seeing how the rotations have changed in old ones.

Also it's generally a good idea to understand how other job's buffs work, and playing as those jobs is one of the most effective ways to learn.

Edit:

7.05 Patch Notes

Patch 7.05 Notes | FINAL FANTASY XIV, The Lodestone

Patch 7.05 Notes

na.finalfantasyxiv.com

Pretty much every job buffed except Pictomancer (which was already outperforming)

Viper's debuff has been removed for some reason. I guess keeping track of the debuff was too much for some players? Idk.

Also the new mount looks like IT from South Park

 

[Celcius]

Whoa materia prices went way up last night. Before going to bed I ran 2 hunt trains, dumped all my materia on the market, and then logged off. This morning my retainers had like 2 mil waiting for me and EVERYTHING was sold.

 

[pennythoughts]

Whoa materia prices went way up last night. Before going to bed I ran 2 hunt trains, dumped all my materia on the market, and then logged off. This morning my retainers had like 2 mil waiting for me and EVERYTHING was sold.

Yeah, you don't have to be an omnicrafter or gatherer to make a lot of money this week. People will chew through hundreds of grade XI trying to pentameld sets hoping to clear week 1. Also buying the new crafting mats with aesthetics tomes and flipping them on the mb is an easy way to make money (for now).

 

[JORMBO]

I finally cleared the MSQ. The second half was better then the horrible first half. A lot of it was still way too drawn out though. And I hope the start to make the actual gameplay for the MSQ more interesting. It's mostly just a visual novel where you occasionally stop to kill something for a few seconds. The story was always pretty strong, but with this expansion not having that great of a story the cracks in the gameplay design really stood out.

On to the normal mode raid and 2 lv100 dungeons.

 

[Kumomeme]

OT | Speak to Wuk Lamat
The more I play Pictomancer the more I'm liking the damage output. At 92 I was instantly killing level 99 mobs with queued beast\hammer skills.

pray return to Wuk LMAO

 

[pennythoughts]

M1S is defeated! I am ready to become a busy little

 

[Diseased Yak]

Finally got both of my retainers to level 100

Questions about this. I have retainers, some extra that I pay for, but I have yet to figure out a good setup for them. What do you have your retainers jobs set to? Do you have them all geared out?

I've been sending them all on Quick runs, but I really want to maximize them if possible, just am unsure how to do it.

 

[Celcius]

Questions about this. I have retainers, some extra that I pay for, but I have yet to figure out a good setup for them. What do you have your retainers jobs set to? Do you have them all geared out?

I've been sending them all on Quick runs, but I really want to maximize them if possible, just am unsure how to do it.

I have two retainers which are both Dragoons (same class as my main character and the only class that I play). I have their gear high enough to do the lv 100 ventures but not the very best gear.
Basically as I was playing through the MSQ I saved all the gear that the game gave me and after I would upgrade my main character's gear then I would pass down my old gear to my retainers.
I sent them on the 18 hour ventures that require 2 ventures each since I didn't want to have to log in every hour to view their report and then send them on another 1 hr venture.
Post-MSQ as I continue to upgrade my main character's gear with tome gear then I continue to pass down my old gear to my retainers.
And then of course finding cool glamours for your retainers to wear is fun to do as well.

 

[Diseased Yak]

I have two retainers which are both Dragoons (same class as my main character and the only class that I play). I have their gear high enough to do the lv 100 ventures but not the very best gear.
Basically as I was playing through the MSQ I saved all the gear that the game gave me and after I would upgrade my main character's gear then I would pass down my old gear to my retainers.
I sent them on the 18 hour ventures that require 2 ventures each since I didn't want to have to log in every hour to view their report and then send them on another 1 hr venture.
Post-MSQ as I continue to upgrade my main character's gear with tome gear then I continue to pass down my old gear to my retainers.
And then of course finding cool glamours for your retainers to wear is fun to do as well.

Thanks! This helps a lot.

 

[Valonquar]

For retainers: The higher the gear the better. When you send them on the 1 hour ventures to bring back specific things, the higher the gear, the more they will bring back. At level 100 with ilvl 700 gear they can bring back 15 of the top tier stuff which adds up quickly.

 

[Valonquar]

Well, I made it to rank 9 on Faerie, 607th globally for achievements. Started to dig through what achievements would be next to aim for... and realized I'm really down to the ones I've procrastinated on, like clearing a bunch of Heavensward & later EX trials on blue mage, clearing criterion savages, and solo clears of PotD\HoH\Orthos. Think I've just burned out after grinding hard the last month from Dawntrail's release, but feeling blah now. The PvP achievements are so completely luck based that a month of grinding could see minimal progress. The remainder of 5k HQ crafts for 10K HQ crafts is easy enough but a tedious few hours each.

Also did the math and even if I really focused and powered through the more doable grinds, I'd at best hit rank 6. The top 5 slots are so far ahead it isn't feasable to ever really get that high....

Time to catch up on the gaming backlog until more content drops I suppose.

 

[NecrosaroIII]

Started Dawntrail last night. New hub theme is so good. One thing I'm wondering. The Final Days was assumably a global event. Does anyone in Torel mention what it was like there during that time?

 

[Revolutionary]

Started Dawntrail last night. New hub theme is so good. One thing I'm wondering. The Final Days was assumably a global event. Does anyone in Torel mention what it was like there during that time?

Not that I can recall, and I've done 99% of sidequests in Dawntrail. There are NPCs that scoff at the idea that WoL saved the world so that implies they have no knowledge of the Final Days. However, the Endwalker Role Quests confirm that the Final Days wasn't localized to Ilsabard and that despair spread from Ishgard to Kugane... so I guess the Indigo Deep was too big of an ocean for despair to travel

 

[Valonquar]

2 headed lizardmen and giant trolls got better things to do than despair.

 

[Revolutionary]

2 headed lizardmen and giant trolls got better things to do than despair.

I know you're joking but the Mamook questline was basically all about despair lol

I get the feeling that they've reduced the scope of the world-ending calamity yet again. The 7th Umbral Calamity (aka the fall of Dalamud and the start of ARR) was supposed to be a world-altering event but as the expansions went on they reduced the scope to be localized in Eorzea. But when it comes to the Final Days it doesn't really make sense because the lore has proven that the Final Days was indeed a worldwide phenomenon in ancient times...

So yeah, in conclusion: it's just something that the writers hope you've forgotten and don't think about too deeply lol... because Tural should definitely have been affected by at least one blasphemy during the Final Days.

 

[Revolutionary]

- Finally get VR on PC thanks to PSVR2 PC adapter
- excited to finally play XIV in VR
- find out that Dawntrail broke the mod and the devs are giving up on it (for now, at least)

 

[NecrosaroIII]

I'm in the second area. These two new zones have been REALLY nice looking. Alot of alpacas though lol

Not sure I like Wuk Lamat much, which isn't good since she's so core to the story lol. I'd probably back the Second Promise over her tbh

 

[Celcius]

Just resubbed. I wanna try to get one more of the $50m mounts before all the September games come out...

Edit: The game does seem to be less active now and materia prices have definitely taken a hit so we’ll see how viable this is… fortunately I already saved like $20m from earlier so I don’t have to save up entire amount. We’ll see if I burn out on the grind…

 

[NecrosaroIII]

I think I'm at the halfway point of Dawntrail. I've started leveling up Gunbreaker. It's the first time I have tanked. I was intimidated at first, but it's kinda fun.

 

[Celcius]

After 1.5 days of grinding I've finally got rank 4 in all the DT fate zones. Now I can start selling the vouchers for that big time money...

 

[Celcius]

Job finished, second 50 million gil mount acquired:

Spoiler

Now there's one last 50 million gil mount that I don’t have (golden sheep) but I don't care about that one.
I also managed to get the Ixion and Hydaelyn Lynx mounts as well.

 

[Valonquar]

I still need to get the gold sheep & mecha-gorilla ones, working on the last minion I need still since my fishing retainer is being an asshole.

 

[Boralf]

How is the expansion outside the MSQ? I have an urge to come back, but I heard the MSQ is pretty bad. Is everything else on par with previous expansions?

 

[Valonquar]

Same hallway dungeon design (2 packs of mobs before a wall x2 and then a boss) x3 , a handful of different but the same mechanics for the 8 man raids x4, and a whole lot of waiting for next patch. It is cookie cutter the same as previous expansions at this point.

 

[Celcius]

How is the expansion outside the MSQ? I have an urge to come back, but I heard the MSQ is pretty bad. Is everything else on par with previous expansions?

I've been having a lot of fun. The raid series story is interesting, I've been grinding hunt trains and fates for money to get mounts, going back and doing fate bosses that I missed to get mounts, getting mounts from previous extremes, leveling my retainers, etc...
Also fwiw I had a good time with the MSQ

 

[Boralf]

Alright, installing right now. Hope I still know how to play some of the jobs I have at 90.

 

[Revolutionary]

It's joever


I really hope that SE takes the right lessons from this reception and makes an effort to improve the stagnant elements of this game (quest design, endgame progression, etc.), and not hyperfocus on the story complaints.

 

[MagiusNecros]

I really hope that SE takes the right lessons from this reception and makes an effort to improve the stagnant elements of this game (quest design, endgame progression, etc.), and not hyperfocus on the story complaints.

The Watchers laugh as the disease spreads.

Final Fantasy XIV: Das sagt Naoki Yoshida zur Kritik an Wuk Lamat • JPGAMES.DE

Wuk Lamat ist eine zentrale Figur von Final Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail und erhitzt die Gemüter der Community. Es gibt einen lauten ...

jpgames.de

Some translated nuggets of how out of touch the "Director" is.

 

[Revolutionary]

Next Live Letter slated for Sep 28

Letter from the Producer LIVE Part LXXXIII Set for September 28 | FINAL FANTASY XIV, The Lodestone

Letter from the Producer LIVE Part LXXXIII Set for September 28

na.finalfantasyxiv.com

Looking forward to finally seeing something from the FFXI alliance raid. Also, the date of this live letter means that 7.1 will be dropping in November.

The Watchers laugh as the disease spreads.

Final Fantasy XIV: Das sagt Naoki Yoshida zur Kritik an Wuk Lamat • JPGAMES.DE

Wuk Lamat ist eine zentrale Figur von Final Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail und erhitzt die Gemüter der Community. Es gibt einen lauten ...

jpgames.de

Some translated nuggets of how out of touch the "Director" is.

Ah, so that's why people have been memeing about Wuk Lamat's 'inferiority complex' lately!

 

[NecrosaroIII]

Im on the last duty dungeon and I cant beat it. Ive seen two duty finder parties abandon it due to the first boss. Its beem too hard.

Edit: Beat the expac. Overall, I enjoyed it? Isnit peak FFXIV? Probably not but I found the story great still. Wuk Lamat was grating at first but she got copeable. The story became pretty heavy. I had a hard time emotionally in the last region.

Great stuff. New regions were wonderful.

Spoiler

Bring on the tournament arc

 

[Revolutionary]

Im on the last duty dungeon and I cant beat it. Ive seen two duty finder parties abandon it due to the first boss. Its beem too hard.

Surprising to hear. Maybe some folks forgot their free lvl 99 gear lol

 

[NecrosaroIII]

I think we were all just being dumb and not knowing the pattern