The End of an Era (1.0 Recap) – Endgame

Oh, here we are again! As promised, I will be addressing today things related to endgame in FFXIV (1.0 exclusively). I won’t be making any references as to how it will be at “A Real Reborn” launch. Despite what many people claim, 1.0 had a bunch of end-game content. I must admit it wasn’t a whole lot, compared to other games, but with a game with such a crippling launch I can say that FFXIV held it up pretty well. I’m glad to say I got to do everything the game had to offer, and did it with all of my good friends.

After leveling some jobs, I joined Nibelheim. Nibelheim is composed to many Kiraboshi members, and I am glad to say all of Nibelites are my friends. In this linkshell I’ve made strong, lasting friends that I never thought I would. I’m talking about real people, with good intentions and good players. I was first invited to Nibelheim after doing some dungeon runs with them.When I refer to dungeon runs I refer to Aurum Vale and Cutter’s Cry. These two are dungeons where upon completing certain requisites, at the end show up different chests, witch each having a chance to drop a Darklight piece of gear. Darklight drop is pretty rare, unless you’re spamming every day, and even then, it is very rare. Drop rate is stingy… what else is new in an SE MMO, amirite?

Good thing is they’re enjoyable and thanks to speed runs, people try their best in order to succeed, separating the men from the boys.

Before joining their dungeon runs in a permanent way, we also did some Hamlet runs. Back then, before my break, they were doing their seals and I helped on a couple of occasions. With them I got a taste of what Hamlet actually is, and they showed me how to really do it.

Hamlet is still boring though, but it’s the bitter pill to swallow if you want to start your Relic quest. Speaking of which, I never thought I would start it before 2.0, but I got extremely lucky with my doublemeld. One of the steps in the Relic quest is that you have to submit a class-only expensive weapon with a unique set of doublemeld. I once tried Pixel to make my Avengers doublemelded, but sadly it failed (bear in mind, it’s an 18% chance, using the lowest tier IV materias). So one day, this happened:

That was one of the craziest things I’ve ever done. I only had enough for one try, and basically blew all my money by buying both the materia and the weapon itself. It felt so mother-fucking great! Best of all is I did it on my own, and on the weapon I would have tried from the start, if I was rich! So yeah, thanks to that I got motivated to start on my Relic quest. For that, it required that I obtain 9 seals dropped from Hamlet. I only had 1 from a RedDot run I did, and with the guys no longer doing Hamlet (and having done more than 150+ runs themselves), I went on a quest to get them before the final save day. Doing Hamlet was painful, but thankfully with the help of some friends wasn’t so bad. I provisioned during Rank 1 Hamlets, trying to reach top 1. I got really lucky because I was Top 1 for Hyrstmill, thus being able to complete that Hamlet. Then I focused on Golden Bazaar. It was Rank 2 and so I had to compete against the seals but managed to still get 2 in one day. On the last week, I got Top 1 in a Rank 1 Aleport Hamlet and managed to get the last2 seals from there. I had one thanks to Johannes Cabal, who passed it to me, on the last Rank 2 Aleport one day that I spent 14 hours trying for it (and nothing!). So counting again, I had H: 3/A: 3/GB: 2. At that point I was desperate, and Pixel offered to lend me 1 million in order to buy items to provision for the Hamlet. Luckily I managed to make it to Top 3, and thanks to everyone, it reached Rank 2. On my third run with a JP group, managed to get my last seal! Yay! (tl;dr: Hamlet sucks)

Before I focused on Hamlet, I joined some Garuda runs with RedDot. They had managed to work on a BLM-burn strategy. It involved PLD WHM BRDx2 BLMx4 and it was thrilling. With them I also managed to get Garuda’s Van (BLM) on my very first win! It was amazing, and many people hated my luck, haha. What can I say, I’m not the one to blame! We did many runs and I managed to get Garuda’s Talons (MNK), Garuda’s Scream (WAR) from the chest, and decided to trade in my 40 Vortex Totems for Garuda’s Beak (DRG). Here I am sporting some of them.

This was my happy face going 1/1. I had never been this lucky! (Note, this was before the Astrolabe doublemeld!)

Like I said before, dungeons like Aurum Vale or Cutter’s Cry are one of the main endgame content. Well, for the longest time I thought I would get to 2.0 without a single piece, but one day something amazing happened…

But like I’ve said before, gear is not what makes good MMOs, but the friends you make and the bond you make with them. That’s why the end of 1.0 event was so emotional. It was the last moment we had to play in this game with the friends we made, to enjoy every minute until the servers went down. That’s why I’ll have to say thanks to all my friends, and hope to see you in-game as soon as possible. Thanks for everything!

Non-pictured is Vod, who decided not to load on my screen. ):

The End of an Era (1.0 Recap) – Leveling

Now that the servers are offline, our data is saved and we are being ported to the future by our dear friend and hero Louisoux, it’s time to look back at all the experiences I lived along with friends and foes in FFXIV, 1.0. Let’s go!

Ever since my last update, way back in june this year, I’ve been very busy with both RL and the game. That’s mostly the reason why I haven’t been updating, and since the game had an expiration date, I’ve focused completely on doing as much progress as I could, just so that I could focus on exploring and experiencing 2.0 from a different perspective.

As far as leveling goes, I spent some time as only-BLM. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to get into leveling, even if it was easy enough. During that small period of time, I managed to do my first Ifrit (Hard) with Kiraboshi peeps. I first joined Kiraboshi through Atma Kun, since he was in RedDot (GAF Linkshell). I have to admit Kiras are probably the best social group I’ve ever had. Helpful, funny, open-minded and talented. Needless to say, it has since then become my main social linkshell, and it’ll continue to be so in 2.0.

After I got BLM to 50, a friend of mine joined my server. His character name is Teddy Maximoff, and we had originally met in the KillingIfrit FFXI forums (are those even alive still?). Since he was going to level Conjurer/WHM, I decided to join him, since I wanted to get all the possible mage jobs to 50. Leveling together was a blast, and we got our WHMs to 50 in no time. Also, with Kiraboshi members, they helped us tackle down all those pesky AF and job quests in no time! Don’t we look cute? (and eerily similar, too!)

After WHM, I decided it was time to level-up MNK. This is a job I was really curious about, ever since FFXI. Also, I wanted to broaden my experience in FFXIV, and since leveling was so easy (even without PLing) it was an oportunity too good to pass up. Teddy also wanted to level-up his WAR, and thus we decided to static together, in hopes of having little to no trouble to find groups. Wether it was him or myself making a group, it was easy enough, and we found ourselves reaching 50 in a breeze. I must admit that during leveling MNK, I was really gimp, but I’ve come to gear it up very well, and now it is one of my most favorite jobs.

After BLM, WHM and MNK, it was time to settle down a bit and work on the Grand Companies storyline. Being a Twin Adder myself, I really enjoyed it, and I felt it was really interesting. I love our leader (even if she’s a bit of a nutjob) but I still regret not having started in Gridania. If there’s a chance to change it, I’ll do so once 2.0 lands. Teddy and I decided to team up, once again, to work on these missions. Most of them were easy and we only needed help in the ones that required a group of 4. The only trouble we had was during the last “important” mission, To Kill a Raven. Since most of our friends had already completed it, we had to look from pick-ups, and that’s where the problems arose. This is one of the missions where you can’t really go easy on the setup, and it clearly separated the boys from the men. But we ended up finding a group of nice pick-ups.

… and finally we managed to bring Nael van Darnus down! After that, we could progress with our Grand Companies, even reaching the highest rank and doing the quest, Living on a Prayer, which involved sending you on a pilgrimage to pray to the Twelve’s markings around Eorzea. It was a very nice quest and allowed for some exploration. Also, it is highly linked to the “End of an Era” trailer, which made it even more emotional than it is.

After this, I decided to focus on leveling at least one DoL and one DoH to 50 before 2.0. I wanted to be able to say that I experienced everything there was to offer before “A Realm Reborn”. Sadly, I don’t have many (if at all??) pictures from that. I guess it’s not really that interesting, but I was happy to reach Goldsmith and Miner to 50. Getting Goldsmith to 50 was easy, since I had most of the materials from Miner. Miner wasn’t as bad as I thought, and I still enjoy it to this day.

Once these were to 50, I was sort of itching for getting back to leveling, and this time I wanted to do DRG. DRG is one of the jobs I had been curious for the longest time, and my boyfriend has always encouraged me to it, since it’s his most favourite FFXI job. Well, I don’t know what else to say but DRG is one of the most entertaining jobs I’ve ever played. Even in the low levels, 30-somethings, it was an amazing job to play. Fun, dynamic and enjoyable. Also, it was wonderful to be able to use a lot of the gear on my MNK on my DRG. Sadly I didn’t get much use out of it on endgame, as my MNK or BLM would always end up being favored by the content. I decided that I might as well level everything but the tank-jobs, and the last one I needed was BRD. Now, BRD is really different from the BRD I knew in FFXI, so it was a bit of a challenge for me to appreciate it for what it is.

But the job grew on me and it is tons of fun to play it. Soloing on it is a bit of a pain in the ass,and that’s what makes it so annoying to level it at the lower levels. But beyond that point, it is really fun, particularly in parties.

Well, that’s it for now, I’ll be writing a post about other aspects of 1.0 beyond leveling (endgame, primals, hamlet and relic progression) so be sure to check soon!

BLM 50, AF, friends, and a lot more! Oh my!

Whew! What an action-packed post this one will be! I don’t even know where to begin.

Let’s see, I’ve been playing BLM a lot, enjoying every bit of it! Various friends, and particularly Atma, have been adorable and helped me out taking good care of it! Atma himself helped in the level-40 quest, and all the way throughout 50! He also spoils me a lot ;_; I can’t make him stop, no matter what!

RedDotZero have also helped me a lot, and did a Dzemael Darkhold run just for me! We managed to even kill Batraal, and it was a lot of fun! Some parts were scary, but so far I enjoy these dungeons!

Been leveling a lot, like I said. Atma helped me while doing leves, so I wouldn’t be alone! I really recommend Camp Nine Ivies at 40+. Switching the difficulty of the leves makes leveling a breeze, and most leves are somewhat close (something I’ve found annoying, in other-than-Black-Shroud regions).

Ding! 50BLM!

Kiraboshi/Steam Cleaners people also helped me obtaining Wizard’s Tonban and Wizard’s Coat. The first ones were inside Aurum Vale, and it was kind of exciting! I can’t wait to do it fully!

They also helped with the last BLM quest, to obtain the super-awesome Wizard’s Coat! The quest was pretty interesting, sadly I didn’t spend much time because I didn’t want to waste their time much more than I did!

It’s really cool how many of them are Lalas lol. I’d like to thank Atma, Vodevil, Pixel, Ken,  Muga, Dellio! Thank you everyone <3!

Starting FFXIV

I wanted to start a new blog on FFXIV, but decided it would be more coherent to keep updating this one, as most of my readers will relate to my story. For those interested in checking how I did at beta and launch, go here!

After I quit it, I decided to come back on the “Welcome Back Campaign”, organized by SE. At first I logged in on Enki Oro, in Hyperion. Noticing how I knew nobody, I decided to join the GAF group over on Sargatanas, RedDot. This meant starting from 0, but it’s not like I had lots of progress.

Started doing story quests, and also managed to get an Inn! I really like the rested EXP system, and is a nice way to know that you can log out, and the game helps you push further when you sign in back again.

The game is really pretty, even with my shitty graphics card!

I’ve met lots of great people, like Nagisa ❤ She got me a Loyalist’s Bliaud, a really good armor for Disciples of Magic, level 30. You can see me wearing it, after.

Obtained my Goobbue mount (goobby pls) once I reached 30, too! It’s really cool to go around, too bad it takes most of the space on the screen, haha. I will still try to get a Chocobo, but right now I still need some seals!

As you can tell, in little but 3 weeks, I’ve EXP a lot. The game is easy to level and it’s not much of a grind. I’m currently 45 THM/BLM, 25 CNJ and 20 PUG! I also leveled some crafts, but before focusing on one, I’ll try to get them all to 10!

Last but not least, I must say I’m grateful to have found such a nice group of people! I met Atma Kun, a really sweet Taru Lala, and he invited me to a Lalafell-only LS! It’s funny haha. He also gave me a lot of equipment, expensive one x:! I tried to refuse it but I couldn’t ;_;/ Thanks Atma, you’re lovely! ❤