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Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward |OT| The Midas Touch

Li Kao

Member
Ok guys, I finally leveled up 50 and I think it is ample time for me to take a break, breath, and asks some questions ^_^

1/ I thought the level cap was 50 but I keep earning a little bit of XP, is it because I bought Heavensward on sale (but never installed it ?)
Is there no way to block XP in order to have the "normal" pre-Heavensward experience ?

2/ Paladin level 50 ! Full Paladin story set, Magitek shield, felt like one big orgasm putting all these little beauty in my character slots and see the stats boosts. But now what ?
- I suppose that I should do lvl 50 dungeons / tribal quests to earn Allagan tomestones and buy lvl 50 accessories from Mor Dhona ? Right ?
- And for the weapon I should find Nedrick to start the Zodiac weapon quest chain ? Right ?
 

iammeiam

Member
Ok guys, I finally leveled up 50 and I think it is ample time for me to take a break, breath, and asks some questions ^_^

1/ I thought the level cap was 50 but I keep earning a little bit of XP, is it because I bought Heavensward on sale (but never installed it ?)
Is there no way to block XP in order to have the "normal" pre-Heavensward experience ?

The pre-Heavensward experience doesn't really exist anymore; when Heavensward came out they made a lot of changes to make getting through the excess level 50 content easier and get rid of the gear wall fresh 50s would face. Just enjoy the XP you get, it really won't ruin anything.

2/ Paladin level 50 ! Full Paladin story set, Magitek shield, felt like one big orgasm putting all these little beauty in my character slots and see the stats boosts. But now what ?
- I suppose that I should do lvl 50 dungeons / tribal quests to earn Allagan tomestones and buy lvl 50 accessories from Mor Dhona ? Right ?
- And for the weapon I should find Nedrick to start the Zodiac weapon quest chain ? Right ?

Just keep doing the main story. There are a lot of intermediary gear steps that have been moved out of the tome grind and into main story quest rewards (the iLevel 90 gear the job quests handed you used to be a tome grind, for example.) Use tomes as you get them to buy the Poetics gear if you want, but there's no longer a tome grind at 50 itself. This is a good thing--the tome grind waits for you at 60 anyway.

You can pick up the Zodiac weapon quest chain, but it takes a ton of time and grind to get that weapon anywhere near what the main story quest will hand you (an i110 weapon); the first couple of steps are fun, but then you get into the parts that were created explicitly to be a timesink, and there's no reason to hold up enjoying the rest of the game to grind out a weapon.

I would say do the first step of the Zodiac quest for fun, but beyond that I'd shelve it until you're bored of everything else.
 

Li Kao

Member
The pre-Heavensward experience doesn't really exist anymore; when Heavensward came out they made a lot of changes to make getting through the excess level 50 content easier and get rid of the gear wall fresh 50s would face. Just enjoy the XP you get, it really won't ruin anything.



Just keep doing the main story. There are a lot of intermediary gear steps that have been moved out of the tome grind and into main story quest rewards (the iLevel 90 gear the job quests handed you used to be a tome grind, for example.) Use tomes as you get them to buy the Poetics gear if you want, but there's no longer a tome grind at 50 itself. This is a good thing--the tome grind waits for you at 60 anyway.

You can pick up the Zodiac weapon quest chain, but it takes a ton of time and grind to get that weapon anywhere near what the main story quest will hand you (an i110 weapon); the first couple of steps are fun, but then you get into the parts that were created explicitly to be a timesink, and there's no reason to hold up enjoying the rest of the game to grind out a weapon.

I would say do the first step of the Zodiac quest for fun, but beyond that I'd shelve it until you're bored of everything else.

I guess I'm pretty ocd with the whole desire to play "as was intended" and not breaking the game by over-leveling, but now that I think about it, I can install Heavensward and play whatever the hell I want because...

1/ The gear wall has been moved to lvl 60.
2/ The dungeons sync you if you are over-leveled item wise, anyway.
3/ So I can do the original dungeons or start the Heavensward plot line or even try one of the new jobs, do whatever I want, it won't break anything. I mean breaking as in how Wow rendered 90% of its content irrelevant over time. Here it's still enjoyable.

Am I right ?
 

iammeiam

Member
I guess I'm pretty ocd with the whole desire to play "as was intended" and not breaking the game by over-leveling, but now that I think about it, I can install Heavensward and play whatever the hell I want because...

1/ The gear wall has been moved to lvl 60.
2/ The dungeons sync you if you are over-leveled item wise, anyway.
3/ So I can do the original dungeons or start the Heavensward plot line or even try one of the new jobs, do whatever I want, it won't break anything. I mean breaking as in how Wow rendered 90% of its content irrelevant over time. Here it's still enjoyable.

Am I right ?

The irrelevance thing still happens, but people still do everything due to the roulettes. You really can't recreate the original experience for most of the 50 stuff because they've changed how all the gearing works as the patches progressed to help new people get 'current' faster.' You used to hit 50, then grind out Darklight gear followed by tome grinding Myth gear. Then a few patches later they added Soldiery gear, which was another tome grind. Then a couple patches after that, they added the Ironworks stuff as another tome grind. Now the game just hands you the Myth gear as part of the level 45/50 job quests, and moved the Soldiery gear to Main Story Quest, leaving the Ironworks stuff as the only 50 tome grind. A lot of this stuff was just there to give people Stuff To Do once they'd done everything in the game, so once there was more stuff to do in the game they got rid of the timewastey stuff. You can still do all the dungeons we did, you just don't have to do them every day to cap tomes.

With the way the game community works, suppressing your own gearing won't really make things harder, either. The rest of your party will be over geared for the level 50 stuff, so no matter what you're wearing it's going to be a pretty easy ride. And if you get past 50, then want to try experiencing something synched down to 50, you do have the level sync option. Or trying a new job. Etc.
 
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Welo finally decided to finish off the MSQ. That was pretty fucking amusing if you ask me with so many 'Your character looks pissed' moments.

Got my AST ilvl up to 208 and SCH up to 206.
 

Squishy3

Member
I guess I'm pretty ocd with the whole desire to play "as was intended" and not breaking the game by over-leveling, but now that I think about it, I can install Heavensward and play whatever the hell I want because...

1/ The gear wall has been moved to lvl 60.
2/ The dungeons sync you if you are over-leveled item wise, anyway.
3/ So I can do the original dungeons or start the Heavensward plot line or even try one of the new jobs, do whatever I want, it won't break anything. I mean breaking as in how Wow rendered 90% of its content irrelevant over time. Here it's still enjoyable.

Am I right ?
Yeah. Basically what they did to the 2.x story quests (2.1-2.55 leading up to Heavensward) is it removes the need to grind for gear to get the item level needed to tackle Steps of Faith. (the last trial before proceeding into Heavensward.) Before you'd have to do slower procedural gearing (ie run dungeons for i60 gear while gaining poetics to be able to run the next dungeons which will give i70 gear as a reward, rinse and repeat.) but now you get i90 gear from the level 50 job quest and by the time you finish 2.55 you're decked out in i110 gear.
 

EndcatOmega

Unconfirmed Member
If you wish to recreate the launch 2.0 experience pretend warriors don't exist, find the two (non-scything) dumbest dragoons in the world and run Ampador Keep ten times a week while they fall off during Demon Wall.

As Angary said, you really can't recreate it; but you can queue up for most of the post-50 pre-heavensward dungeons after unlocking them and be synced down enough to get a feel for them anyway.
 
Well, you may have to at least get some pieces. But the level 60 HQ stuff is actually better than the blue scrip gear. Save your blue scrips for the tomes.

NQ 60 is fine, but it'll actually make gathering red scrip harder without melds. I had not only went to get a full set of HQ mining gears, I had to meld them with just enough GP to get past 601, enough gathering to actually pick at the node, and just enough perception to get me into the 470 minimum threshold for turn ins. Since I didn't have blacksmith or weaver to 60 I couldn't meld my pickaxe, sledgehammer, or pants, but on the plus side everything else was leather and goldsmith so I could meld those.

Yeah, I think I'm gonna have to suck it up and start farming stuff to sell so I can buy some gear. Been farming mythril and silver ores cause those seem to sell frequently enough.
 

aceface

Member
That's what they needed to do with savage the first time- new, crazy "this isn't even my final form" shit to look forward to.
 

Squishy3

Member
This is only at 89% too. Like... what happens when he splits again? Do you see all the mechanics from A6S again?

I can see why Miu is traumatized.
 

Squishy3

Member
It looks like the mechanics from the final boss of Qarn are present too. (the black/white squares that people needed to get locked into and anyone outside does next to no damage to the add.) You can see one where all the dead people are and there's another on the other side of the boss.
 

BKJest

Member
If you wish to recreate the launch 2.0 experience pretend warriors don't exist, find the two (non-scything) dumbest dragoons in the world and run Ampador Keep ten times a week while they fall off during Demon Wall.

As Angary said, you really can't recreate it; but you can queue up for most of the post-50 pre-heavensward dungeons after unlocking them and be synced down enough to get a feel for them anyway.
There is no way to recreate some of the seven hells that was the 2.0 experience. Getting kicked out repeatedly for the first week or two. Waiting 45 minutes to get into AK with a premade party because the instance server was full on a Monday evening and everyone needed 10 runs to cap Myth. Experiencing Plumes and Landslides in Titan Hard Mode, Twisters in T5 and the Gobbue AOE in Wanderer's Palace (probably the most unavoidable attack but not nearly as deadly as the others :D) with the old positioning update system. Thank god for that.
 

Frumix

Suffering From Success
Miunih is probably traumatized because that fight just throws bullshit at you unrelentlessly.
When you expect you're out of the fire, you're thrown right onto the frying pan.
It just doesn't let up.

Worst of all is that it has forced wipes where if the mechanic isn't done correctly the raid just dies. You can't cheese anything by dying and dropping a dangerous debuff, this will trigger a wipe. And mechanics themselves hate you. A lot. Just looking at the utilized debuffs on XIVDB makes me sick.

Of course I can't really speak of how the fight is until I'll get to suffer in it myself, but it seems to be very anti-fun. And then, of course, of course there's an extra phase with a stupidly high HP pool to burn.

Maybe there's tricks to it but so far everything I've seen of the fight makes Yoshi's statement "The difficulty is between Second and Final Coil" seem like a huge, fat, snooty lie.
 

BKJest

Member
A2S wasn't too bad. A3S was the brick wall. But that remained a brick wall right up until 3.2 and broke up a lot of raid groups and those that made it landed at A4S which just wasn't fun. All persistent raid group will at least progress to A8S this time with some gear updates. And the fights are a lot more fun than Gordias.
 
Still farming Bismarck EX, I'm suddenly running into groups that are putting out the worst DPS. I don't get it. And then another group had one of the tank's gear break.

I'm gonna tear my hair out.
 
I'm more of a casual player, I just enjoy leveling jobs and chatting. I have most jobs at 60 now and went to continue the main story line from the latest patch.. However all my 60s are ilvl 120-140 and I need to be ilvl 180 to so the stupid main story quest for the antitower.... Any idea how to get to 180 quickly without spending a lot of money ? I'm pretty poor with only 5 mil gil
 

Hasemo

(;・∀・)ハッ?
I'm more of a casual player, I just enjoy leveling jobs and chatting. I have most jobs at 60 now and went to continue the main story line from the latest patch.. However all my 60s are ilvl 120-140 and I need to be ilvl 180 to so the stupid main story quest for the antitower.... Any idea how to get to 180 quickly without spending a lot of money ? I'm pretty poor with only 5 mil gil
I refuse to believe that 5 million is considered "poor". I'm usually between 1-2!

Anyway, you should do stuff which rewards tomes of Esoterics (roulettes, mob hunts, HW beast dailies). They drop like candy nowadays and will boost your ilv in no time.
 
V

Vilix

Unconfirmed Member
I just reached 700k. I can't even afford to update my kit. Most things cost 1-2 million. 😔
 

Zomba13

Member
Does Ramuh not drop music? Did like a million runs today and yesterday and not one music scroll.

Titan was handing them out like candy though.
 

WolvenOne

Member
The new Artist Cut of Answers is interesting. The vocals are a bit better, *more clear, a bit more stylistically articulated,* but it's more somber and atmospheric than the version of Answers made for the game.

In-Game Answers is hecka more bombastic at moments. XD
 
One day I will do T13 divebombs without messing up. The one fight with a mechanic that trumps me...-_-

Of course the harder divebombs I do perfectly
 

Akainu

Member
Forget that, in something this story oriented, you enjoy the hell out of those cutscenes. Dont worry about everyone else.

It's crazy I just finished the realm reborn stuff and I didn't even fight the red guy with the hammer and the only part i did during the ultima weapon fight was right at the end when it was 1/4 health left.
 
It's crazy I just finished the realm reborn stuff and I didn't even fight the red guy with the hammer and the only part i did during the ultima weapon fight was right at the end when it was 1/4 health left.
Man, people have been running the last two story dungeons daily for years now, I can't blame em for not wanting to wait. I mostly just skipped the cutscenes during the last dungeon and watched em later in the inn. Aside from the Ultima ones, people were nice enough to wait for me on those.
 

ebil

Member
I just take new people from my FC there unsynced now so they can enjoy their CS and participate in the fights a little while my tank and I do the heavy lifting and kill most of the trash. We usually stop DPSing while Ultima starts casting just to have them freak out a little. :p

It only takes like 30 minutes with 2 lv60 players and the gratitude we get for not having to deal with DF is well worth it.

Undersized parties is my favourite feature in Heavensward, it's great.
 
I refuse to believe that 5 million is considered "poor". I'm usually between 1-2!

Anyway, you should do stuff which rewards tomes of Esoterics (roulettes, mob hunts, HW beast dailies). They drop like candy nowadays and will boost your ilv in no time.

Ty, and for my 5 million I made it all from questing and leveling up alt jobs... thats it and I'm on Excalibur where I know people with well over 100+ mil so I feel really poor since I've only been playing for just over a year =\
 

Squishy3

Member
Does Ramuh not drop music? Did like a million runs today and yesterday and not one music scroll.

Titan was handing them out like candy though.
Not yet. You can see all the songs in the patch notes. I wouldn't be surprised if they added some more in 3.25. Seems like it wouldn't take many resources to add more.

And now I was in a group that got a Thordan bird and only rolled a 40. ;_;
 
Not yet. You can see all the songs in the patch notes. I wouldn't be surprised if they added some more in 3.25. Seems like it wouldn't take many resources to add more.

And now I was in a group that got a Thordan bird and only rolled a 40. ;_;
Seen a handful now and I haven't even rolled above a 40 each time. Feels bad.
 

PepperedHam

Member
Is there a way to be able to spin the camera to see the front of my character while using the standard controls with a gamepad? I switched to standard because I like the strafing but I also like to check myself out when hanging out in town. I tried googling it but I wasn't able to word it well enough in a search.
 
Is there a way to be able to spin the camera to see the front of my character while using the standard controls with a gamepad? I switched to standard because I like the strafing but I also like to check myself out when hanging out in town. I tried googling it but I wasn't able to word it well enough in a search.
L1/LB+right stick click/R3 turns on virtual mouse, then holding L2/LT+moving the right stick should rotate the camera.

Edit: Meant R3, not L3
 
I've been reading on the net and Accuracy materia isn't a good choice for an AST main. I think I may go Determination/Piety or crit. I figured since I'm likely to have a SCH as my partner for raids or trials, I probably won't be dpsing too much. I don't know but some opinions would be nice.
 

Squishy3

Member
I can't wait for the patch where they fix Sephiot's earthshakers, they don't even drop sludge puddles! Too ez pls buff Sephirot
 
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