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Professor Beetus posted:I don't believe you can take the level 63 job quests until you're actually out of HW content and into Stormblood. I just wrapped up Heavensward and my level 60+ job quests for dragoon opened up. Ok cool, that's what I figured but just wanted to make sure I hadn't missed anything. quote:This never changes. Even through Shadowbringers the story is told by sending you to various locations talking to various people, occasionally with small combat in between. The writing is vastly better of course, but the mechanism for story delivery is what you have. Fair enough. They should embrace that less is more sometimes. The temptation to just start skipping cutscenes gets high when they keep giving me fetch quest style nonsense. I have a love/hate thing with the story in this game. I guess there is no escaping the fact that it's still an MMO in some respects.
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Nov 1, 2021 19:09
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PvP in FFXIV's New World of 6.1 It was generally accepted that FFXIV's PvP was it's weakest area. 6.1 looks to have significantly improved it. The complete revamp of Job abilities and the addition of Crystalline Conflict have switched things up and breathed new life into the modes. There's still some concern over the servers not being as snappy and responsive as would be preferable, but from a casual or even semi-serious perspective it's vastly improved. Before I get into the meat of things, I wanted to mention a few very helpful resources.
PvP Rewards They're cosmetic only, and vary significantly. For example, here's a few of the ARR sets I grabbed for a post a while ago. There's also mounts, hairstyles, emotes, music, titles and customization kits for Portraits. Introduced in 6.1 are the PvP Series.  These reward a special currency and their own cosmetic rewards. This first Series, for example, has the emote where you punch your palm or fist that's often used in MSQ cutscenes. Each Series lasts for an entire patch, so four months. After that period the unique rewards move to a vendor and are available for one additional patch before going away. You progress through the levels by playing any kind of PvP you like. The matches themselves also reward regular, non-PvP Job XP with the daily Frontline roulette worth a very hefty chunk. Unlocking PvP In order to access the PvP area, you must first complete the level 20 MSQ The Company You Keep (GC name here) that lets you join a Grand Company. You won't be able to do much, though, until completing the level 20 MSQ Sylph-management and unlocking Jobs and Soul Crystals. When you reach level 30 (with or without a Job, so make sure you've got your Soul Crystal if you want to get right into things), two new quests will appear in your GC's headquarters called A Pup No Longer and Like Civilized Men and Women. The first will direct you to the Wolves' Den Pier in La Noscea to unlock the zone, while the second will unlock Frontlines. Even though you could unlock just the Frontlines, you're still going to want to unlock Wolves' Den Pier because that's where you can unlock Rival Wings and Crystalline Conflict, set up your UI and hotbars with no stress, practice on target dummies, spend the PvP currencies and 1v1 duel other players with no stakes. PvP Actions and Mechanics The first time you enter Wolves' Den Pier will set your hotbar to something similar to the following (this is pre-6.1 so the abilities won't match, but you're looking for something else first):  Highlighted in yellow is the PvP Profile button, one of the first things you're going to want to open. If you've moved this button off your bars, you can find the PvP Profile menu under the Character main menu.  Before I get into setting up your hotbars, you're going to want to go over your actions because there's significantly fewer of them, there's new actions you likely haven't seen and the ones you do recognize are going to be different from what you're used to in PvE.  One of the biggest differences is for those classes with a Combo. Instead of being separate actions, all combos are put onto a single button that will rotate through the actions automatically. The individual abilities cannot be placed on your hotbar for preference, either. There will also be a lot of actions that change into a different one under certain circumstances. Understanding how these work is going to be the first hurdle when starting out, so take some time and get familiar how they work. To help with putting together how everything works, let's talk about some universal PvP mechanics. First is potencies and health. In PvP, the potency you see in a tooltip will be the damage or healing that action does, before any boosts or reductions. To go along with that, every Job has it's own health total. They range from 48,000 to 63,000.  Levels, gear and stats are all synched, so leveling up either your Job or PvP level, or getting better gear will not improve your combat potential in any manner. Burst damage is incredibly important in PvP. Healing is very strong here, and each player has the capability to contribute a significant amount of self-healing whether or not they're a healer. You will want to find the way to get an enemy from 33%-50% to KO'd in the shortest time possible (either through experimentation or looking it up), and keep it in mind. Just like we practice our rotation for PvE, practicing your burst combos to get them as smooth as possible will go a long way to securing a KO. When having a Job that uses persistent AoE on the ground on every team, you can tell which to be wary of by the large, dark vertical bars that ring it. The enemy effects are also usually more red, but that distinction isn't always significant enough so I've found the bars to be far more helpful. Some battle mechanics you are used to from PvE have been removed: damage variability on actions, auto-attacks, blocking with shields, parrying and both critical and direct hits. Additionally, taking damage while casting a spell will not interrupt that spell, save two major exceptions. Status Ailments are all around in PvP, and are quite important. The basic ones are Stun, Heavy, Bind, Silence, Half-asleep, Sleep, and Deep Freeze. These can all be removed by Purify, an action that every Job has access to with a 30 second cooldown. It will also set you immune to these ailments for 5 seconds. There are other crowd control ailments that cannot be removed or prevented by Purify, and these are worth being aware of.
Speaking of Purify, let's quickly go over the other actions shared by everyone.
Limit Breaks carry over from PvE, but they're significantly different. There's only one bar to fill, each person has their own gauge (someone using their LB won't empty your bar) and each Job has a unique Limit Break. These are extremely powerful abilities, and using them properly will decide fights. Taking and doing damage, getting KOs and assists, progressing map objectives, some Job abilities and some Crystalline Conflict map mechanics will increase your Limit gauge. Finally, a small note for macro users. You'll want to use /pvpaction "actionname" <target> and /macroicon "icon name" pvpaction in your macros instead of the normal commands. Once you have everything set up, including a mount keybind and a place for Return (you'll want it accessible, though it doesn't need a keybinding), there's two locations with dummies. Next to the Dueling Circle to the East are these training dummies:  and on top of the ship to the North West are these striking dummies:  After getting comfortable with your actions and keybindings, you'll want to take a second to set up your UI. You'll need to be in the Wolves' Den Pier to do this, otherwise the elements don't show up. The major ones still carry over from PvE, especially for Frontlines. If you're only going to play that mode there will likely be little you'll need to change. For Crystalline Conflict and Rival Wings, however, there will almost certainly be some adjustments to make. To start, you'll want to change to the Duty selection.  This will show the unique windows for PvP, which include the Battle High Gauge for Frontlines, special gauges for Rival Wings and Crystalline Conflict objectives, Rival Wings Alliance and Team info, Crystalline Conflict team windows for each individually and finally the Battle Log for the Crystalline Conflict. It may be worth setting up an entirely new layout preset by changing to one of those numbered buttons on that window, just so you can resize the buffs and debuffs on your target. Some of those can be incredibly important to be aware of in PvP while only situationally useful in PvE. One last, and incredibly important, thing before I get into the different modes: STAY TOGETHER WITH YOUR PARTY! For the larger scale Frontlines staying together with your Alliance is best, but even just your party will be significant in staying alive, getting knockouts and securing objectives. This goes doubly for Crystalline Conflict, since the smaller teams make staggered deaths devastating for your team if everyone keeps wandering into a fight by by ones and twos. There's a lot of synergy to be had that's only available in a Party, so stick with them. Rival Wings was a little different in this regard, where instead splitting up was very useful due to the diversity of map objectives and resources being Party-based instead of Alliance-based, but it's currently being rebalanced and we'll have to see if that'll still be the case in 6.2. Frontlines and Rival Wings As part of being large scale PvP (with total player counts of 24, 48 or 72), any one person's actions probably aren't going to be detrimental to anyone except themselves, so things are very low stress. Also, please report anyone that goes too far. Moderation is taken seriously, so people will face consequences if the GMs are informed. Next let's talk about mounts. They can be used in both Frontlines and Rival Wings, though we're stuck on the ground. The speed boost will be instrumental in getting you around the battlefield to the various objectives, but you want to be careful. Getting hit by an enemy attack while mounted will give you the Limp debuff. It's a massive movement speed reduction for 10 seconds that refreshes every time you're hit while mounted and lasts after dismounting. Having a keybind to dismount on short notice if you come across an enemy will be very important. You'll want to keep your Map open basically all the time. Find a good spot for it to sit, set the zoom so you can see the whole map at once, and keep an eye on it. Objectives are the key reason, as most of them will be random spawns, but you also want to keep an eye on your and the enemy teams. Your team is always visible, as normal, but any opposing player that is in combat will also show up. Keeping track of an enemy team's position will help catch flank attempts or when they disengage and will decide whether your team can capture an objective or get outnumbered and sent back to spawn. Return is usable in these modes and will take you back to base. It's handy for getting to an objective near that, so make sure it's accessible. Frontlines Specific Mechanics All of the Frontlines maps share a point-based capture system. The specifics vary between them. but the general playstyle will be sticking together as an Alliance, roaming the map and capturing objectives. Frontlines matches are all battles with three teams, each with up to 24 players in three different Full Parties (8 people) for a total maximum of 72 players in a match. If there aren't enough players, however, the matchmaker may instead opt for 8-player teams for a total of 24 players in a match. The teams are based on the Grand Companies: the Maelstrom, who are Red; the Twin Adder, who are Yellow; and the Immortal Flames, who are Blue. The queue will randomly place players across the teams. Because there are three teams, keep in mind going into Frontlines that you're likely only going to win a third of your matches instead of half. With a higher loss percentage, losing streaks are more likely, so play in moderation if that bothers you. It is possible to force your win percentage higher by guiding the group to the best situations, but I wouldn't go into the mode expecting that success. Battle High is a mechanic that serves to end a game if one team severely outperforms the others. You can see your Battle High ranking from the bar that has the GC team's flag that you're fighting for.  Getting a higher rating depends on your KOs (10 points) and assists (2 points), while getting KO'd will halve it. Each rank is a 10% increase to damage and healing, which means a maximum bonus of 50% at rank 5. You can see other player's ranks by an icon that shows up next to their name.  Ranks increase from left to right in that image. Finally, Frontlines have a global damage taken modifier and increase the rate your LB recharges depending on your ranking. Melee all take 40% less damage while ranged all take 20% less damage. There are no longer any global modifiers that increase damage done. If your team is in 2nd place, your LB will recharge 1.25 times faster, and if you're in 3rd it'll recharge 1.5 times faster. If you're behind, don't sit on a fully charged LB. Just use it, since it'll be back up before you know it. Frontlines Broad Strategies The best strategy for Frontlines maps are for the majority to stay together as an Alliance and focus on the higher priority objectives. There's some merit to splitting off 2-3 people to go for other objectives, but they must be wary of coming across a larger enemy stack. If defending, calling for help is best done sooner than later unless there's a critical objective your Alliance is fighting over. Stalling is rarely a possibility, so retreating should always stay in the back of your mind. Only strike out from the Alliance group if you're certain you can escape from a mob of enemy players. This requires being very observant of both the map and the area around you since you can see enemies not in combat long before their map icon or healthbar pops up. Retreat will be the name of the game if you're out by yourself. If a capture point must be interacted with to claim, the cast time for that will be interrupted by any attack. Keeping an eye on a critical point to make sure no one is able to get away with freely capturing it will be a priority any time you're fighting around it. Sacrificing yourself to deny a point capture may be worth it, but don't do it if there's no backup to prevent another capture attempt. If a capture point is based on player proximity, it can be forced neutral by an enemy if there's nobody to contest them. On maps like this it can be worth having a small number of players stay behind to defend a point while the bulk of the Alliance heads off, even if it's just to keep an eye on it to call for help before quickly retreating. There's no point in giving an objective away to a single player just because there was nobody watching it. Frontline Maps Each map name will link to the official FFXIV page for the map on the Lodestone. It's got all of the information we could want for mechanics and will be more accurate than other sources that may be out of date. (Usually, they're slightly off right now.) The Borderland Ruins (Secure) This is a capture and defend map, with an extra critical objective that's based on a timer. Knocking out members of the enemy team will also contribute points towards victory. All of the capture points will be active for the entire duration of the map and are proximity based. Having an enemy remain within the objective's circle will cause it to turn neutral until they're removed. Once only one team has players on the point, it will switch to their side after a few seconds. Every three seconds your team gets points to its score based on how many objectives they control. The amount per tick isn't linear: one objective gives 1 point, two gives 2 points, three gives 4 points, 4 gives 8 points, 5 gives 16 points and 6 gives 32 points. Periodically during the match, neutral enemies will spawn in the middle plateau, with icons appearing 30 seconds before the enemies. Defeating them will give extra points depending on the contribution each team made towards killing them. For this map your team wants to hold at least two objectives in a full map or one objective in a smaller match. You'll want to have a couple players defending a held point while the rest of the alliance focuses on taking an enemy team's point; either the team in the lead or the second place team if you're in the lead. When the center objective spawns, the team should immediately focus on it. These enemies are worth a lot of points, plus any additional points from enemy KO's. You can afford to give up a control point for them. Seal Rock (Seize) This is a capture and defend map with randomly spawning capture points of varying strength. Additionally, incapacitating an enemy will steal points. The capture points for this map give a certain amount of points based on their rank from B at the weakest up to rank S at the highest. These objectives are not constantly active and will randomly spawn across the battlefield, so you need to watch out for shifting lines that may turn a safe area suddenly dangerous. These points must be interacted with to claim for your team. After being claimed by a team, an enemy team may interact with them to turn them neutral, then do so again to turn them to their side. The number of simultaneously active objectives will decrease as the match continues. For this map the majority of our Alliance should head for the highest rank point while one or two smaller groups head for lesser objectives to capture and hold those. However, keep a wary eye on team balance. If the enemy team starts overpowering any group, it will be better to retreat and give up an objective than to bleed KOs, because each lost player will increase the enemy's points while also lowering yours. The Fields of Glory (Shatter) This is a capture and defend map with both permanent points to hold and random points to capture, additionally KOs will steal points. Each team has one point near their base to hold on to. These work identically to the points in Seal Rock (Seize), except they don't have ranks and are always active. Additional objectives will randomly spawn after time. Points can be gathered from these objectives by attacking and destroying them, with the points being assigned to each team based on damage done. An icon will show where an objective is spawning 30 seconds before it activates. You'll want to ensure your team holds at least your permanent point while the Alliance fights over the random objectives. If you see this point go neutral, using Return to get back to base will let you recapture the point very quickly. For the random objectives the majority of the Alliance should focus on the larger objectives to ensure getting the biggest reward possible, but do keep in mind the smaller objectives too. If there's no random objectives, grouping up and fighting the leading team, or second place team if you're leading, will be the focus. Stealing an enemy team's permanent point is possible, but you shouldn't expect to hold it for too long since invulnerable respawns will eventually beat down any attempt to hold it. It's better to retreat before that happens. Onsal Hakair (Danshig Naadam) This is a capture map with randomly spawning objectives of varying strength, while enemy KOs will steal points. Unlike the previous maps, there is no defending to be done on this one. Once a point is captured, it cannot be claimed by another team and will give its points to the first team over time. Objectives have different ranks from B giving the fewest points then moving up to S rank giving the most. The number of simultaneous objectives will decrease over time, but there will be a higher chance they'll spawn with a higher rank. With no permanent or random points to defend, the battlefield on this map is constantly shifting. You need to be very mindful of where the battle lines are so you don't get caught out capturing a minor point on what you thought was our side. Remember, once a point is captured, there's no reason to stay there. Move on to the next objective. Sometimes a bad spawn just happens, with an S rank spawning inside enemy territory. There's not always a lot to do about it, but it can be positioned where the other two teams will be fighting over it. In this case it might be worth having a couple people go out and claim smaller objectives while the bulk of the Alliance goes the long way around to flank and pinch one of the enemy teams. Crystalline Conflict Mechanics Just recently added in 6.1, Crystalline Conflict is a small-scale PvP mode with two teams of 5 players. Matches are very short at 5 minutes with an Overtime system, though they rarely go past 7-8 minutes. It's objective is a Tactical Crystal that starts in the middle of a set lane that leads to each team's base. The goal is to push the Crystal to the end opposite your base, with differing obstacles and bonuses at play depending on the map. Communication is limited to preset lines that can be put onto a hotbar, so there's much less toxicity on show. People will always find a way to be a dick, through spamming 'Nice job!' or whatever other method pops up, so it's unfortunately not completely nonexistent. General reception still seems to be very positive however, and there's a bit to go into here so let's get to it. (Quick side-note: Unlike Frontlines and Rival Wings, you cannot change your Job in a match. Whatever you queue with will be the one you use, so make sure you've set up your actions ahead of time!) The Crystal starts locked for the first 30 seconds after the gates open. After that, the Crystal will move forward for the team that controls the circular area underneath it. It will move at a consistent rate independent of the number of players within the area, and will be completely stopped by even a single player from the opposing team. If no team controls the Crystal and it's not in the middle of the map, it will move back to the middle and wait there. The Crystal will move faster if it's traveling along a route it's already covered or if it's being pushed by the team with less progress towards victory. Once at the 50% point, the Crystal will be prevented from going forward until it remains under the pushing team's control for long enough. This duration is determined by the number of players waiting with the Crystal: more players will remove the lock quicker. If it becomes contested, the counter is stopped but not reset. If the initial pushing team loses control, the Crystal will move backward but progress towards removing the checkpoint will not be lost. Overtime will occur when the timer ends if the Crystal is contested by both teams or under the control of the team with the least progress. If completely uncontrolled or being pushed by the winning team when the timer ends, the match will end with the team with the furthest progress winning. Once Overtime begins, the winning conditions change to the following:
Each Crystalline Conflict map has Medicine Kits placed throughout them. They restore 30,000 health and can only be used by one person before they respawn. You should keep an eye out for these when fighting, either to use yourself or to deny the enemy team from using them. They can only be used by an injured player, so there's no use trying to pick one up at full health. Crystalline Conflict Broad Strategies Remember the advice we went over in the top section of this post. Stay together with your team! Nothing will tank a winning match quicker than having staggered respawns running directly into battle, leading to repeated 2/3 vs. 5 fights that the enemy team mops up, building their Limit gauge while keeping your team from making a comeback. If you're down to 3 or fewer people left standing in a team fight against 5, it's usually better to either get KO'd quickly to get your team's respawns in sync, or fully retreat all the way back to base to meet up with your respawning team members. Next is the objective. Obviously, you cannot win if your team doesn't push the objective, and will quickly loose if the enemy goes uncontested. However, there's a little more to it than that. If you're participating in a fight that is not currently, actively affecting a fight happening for the objective or on your way there, you're probably in the wrong spot. This could be chasing a retreating foe, trying to pick off a straggler malms away from the Crystal, picking up a bomb core two lanes over and so on. It's okay to chase for a few seconds to try and secure a KO, but don't go more than that. It's better to let them go than to be picked off by enemy reinforcements. Those first two points will be the most important things to keep in mind throughout an entire match. Everything else assumes you're doing the above, because otherwise you're not helping your team win. At best you're doing nothing and at worst you're contributing to a losing fight over the objective. If you're retreating, remember to pop Sprint. Taking damage won't disable it, and it will drastically increase your ability to get around a corner to break LoS, which will prevent the enemy from using a gap closer or ranged ability to secure the KO. Guard can help if you're already close, but the 50% speed reduction might kill you if you don't make it in time. For a wider view, your team will want to hold on to your Limit Breaks until you can use them together to secure a fight. This will let you push for at least 10-20 seconds uncontested, which is a very significant distance. Outside of that, try to force the enemy team into smaller groups and focus down either one or two targets. Healers are high priority, but if you have an ability that can secure a KO on another enemy that has 20% health, go for it. Just be cautious if it's a tank. Each one has invulns, huge damage reductions and/or incredible self healing that turns an appealing target into a trap that wastes cooldowns. Finally, this is for Ranked players. Remember that this is a team mode, and we all have absolutely zero control over our team members and composition. Bad matchups are going to happen, and there's nothing we can do about it except play to the best of our ability. It can get frustrating, but the more that frustration distracts you, the worse you're going to play and the worse every loss is going to feel. If you can, don't let yourself get too frustrated. Speaking personally, that's not always possible, so sometimes the best thing to do is just stop. Queue for some Frontlines, hang out in the Gold Saucer and knock out some Challenge Logs, run a couple PvE roulettes, go outside and touch grass or whatever floats your boat and gets you to stop focusing on the string of bad games. You'll come back with a clearer mind and have more fun thanks to it. Ranked is ultimately a numbers game. If you want to get to the high ranks, you're absolutely going to be putting in the games, so just have at it and knock them out. Good luck! Crystalline Conflict Maps Maps rotate often at every 90 minutes, unlike the Frontlines maps, so you're going to want to become familiar with all three of them. The Palaistra This map layout sits in the middle for complexity but the lack of extra mechanics make it a very basic map with little to interfere with team fights. There's a couple alternative paths and shortcuts where the Crystal's path runs parallel that can be used to break LoS, but it's pretty straightforward. There are two Sprint Zones, one each on the Northern and Southern sides of the map, that apply Swift Sprint when entered. Swift Sprint is a significant speed boost, much higher than normal Sprint. Keep these in mind when running back to the fight after respawning or trying to get a flank. Cloud Nine A simpler map layout than The Palaistra, but the extra mechanics put this in the middle for complexity. This map has walls set up along the edges and path the Crystal follows that give options for denying vision, but still has the most open space of any of the three maps. There are a few choke points you can use to break LoS, but being wary of ranged Jobs and Limit Breaks will be important. This map has Jump Glyphs that link one spot to another. They are only one way, with the four launch points signified by a glowing triangle feature sitting on a platform over the edge. Two launch points lead to the same landing point, with routes along the North and South. Turbulence is our first Event. There are a couple indicators for when it's happening. First, the Battle Log that displays KOs will start a countdown. There will also be small AoE markers with chocobo chick icons on the ground, and they will begin moving around more quickly and erratically the less time remains. When the time runs out, the sky darkens and players are thrown into the air, stunning them for the duration and dealing damage when they land back on the ground. You can prevent being thrown into the sky by having Guard active when the time comes. However, you could instead be standing on one of the chocobo chick AoEs, as these indicate where black chocobo feathers are waiting in the sky. Grabbing one of these will nullify the falling damage, provide a movement and attack speed increase and give a boost to your Limit Gauge. After the Turbulence happens, the sky will remain dark for a short time and small tornadoes will be spread around the field. These do significant damage, so avoid them yourself and try to manipulate the enemy into them if you can. The Volcanic Heart Rounding out the set, this map has a complicated layout alongside some extra stuff to pay attention to. The Crystal runs along a very simple path, but it's tightly walled in with gaps that lead to a very grid-like feel. There's lots of opportunity to abuse LoS here, so keep that in your toolbox. There is a large Sprint Zone on the Southern side of the map. It's a little out of the way, but very useful for getting to the opposite side or to try and set up a surprise ambush. The Eruption Event spreads Bombs that will self-destruct across the map. Taking advantage of the gird-like layout, these explosions will deal very heavy damage to anyone in the same lane as the bomb. You want to avoid those lanes, but keep in mind where the bomb fell. There will be more than one bomb, so stay on your toes until the event ends. After a bomb has blown up, it leaves behind a Core. Collecting these will increase your damage output for a short bit and this stacks up to 10 stacks. Picking one up also gives a boost to your Limit gauge. You definitely want to grab these if near them, don't just run by! Rival Wings Rival Wings is currently disabled until 6.2. I've moved it down here but I'm keeping this section in the hopes it'll largely still be useful when they're done rebalancing the mode. I've only played a handful of Rival Wings matches, so I'm not as familiar with this mode. I'm also only going over the Hidden Gorge map, since I haven't even touched Astragalos. I'm going to just link the Lodestone page for specifics because there's a lot: Hidden Gorge Rival Wings plays more like a MOBA like LoL, DOTA, or Smite. It's not nearly as involved as those games, but keeping that concept in mind might help wrap your head around everything. There's a lot to go over. First, there's only two teams: The Falcons, who are Blue, and the Ravens, who are Red. Teams are separated into six Light Parties (4-player parties). The map itself has two elevated lanes, with the lower areas holding resources. There are also additional elevated spots that spawn timed objectives. The main objective of Rival Wings is to destroy the opposing team's Core sitting in their base, but it's protected by a shield from two towers, one in each lane. With one shield destroyed, damage to the core is heavily mitigated, so destroying both towers is recommended. The towers themselves have an area around them that gives friendly players extra defense and heals them. Additionally, there are two steam cannons near each core that may be piloted to use in defense. Their Cannonfire ability hits hard and in an AoE, so don't neglect them if the enemy's pounding down the gates. At a regular interval, mammets will spawn from the core and move down the lanes towards the towers and enemy core. They will only fight enemy mammets and self-destruct when they reach an enemy tower or core to do a chunk of damage to the structures. Machina are ridable robots that can be deployed with the use of 50 Ceruleum. CE is gained through various actions* though the majority is Party only. This makes Rival Wings unique in that splitting up your Party will be more beneficial than staying together. There are three kinds of Machina: Cruise Chaser* has abilities that are focused towards combating players and other machina; Oppressor's* abilities are best used against enemy structures; and finally Brute Justice* is effective against players, machina and structures. Each Party can pilot only one machina at a time. Brute Justice also has a special restriction: Each Party may only summon two during a match, one becoming available after each friendly tower is destroyed. Additionally, machina cannot restore lost HP in any manner, and their abilities consume EP which doesn't regenerate. The only way to restore EP is to consume the Party's CE. A simple strategy to start is having someone in the Party picking up CE tanks off the lanes, another person in the lanes getting CE from mammets, the third piloting the Party's machina and the fourth running flex, giving help to whichever of the first two need it. Whenever a timed objective pops up, whoever's available swap to it to try and claim it for your team. Speaking of those objectives. Trains can provide additional CE to the entire team, extra forces to push a lane, a boost to Adrenaline or all of the above*. They will knock you out if you get hit, so keep an eye out when on the tracks. Mercenaries are neutral mobs that can be fought. If your team wins the tug-of-war battle on the health bar, they will join your team* for some time before leaving. After some time they'll come back, neutral and ready to be fought again. Soaring replaces Battle High. Defeating enemy players and completing objectives give stacks. Each stack will increase damage and healing by 2%. It caps at 20 stacks, where it jumps to a 50% boost and also increases Adrenaline rate by 100%. Finally, the global damage modifier. Damage taken is the only stat modified, with tanks, Monks and Samurai taking -20% damage, Dragoons and Ninjas take -15% damage and Red Mages take -10% damage. *Check the Lodestone link for specific information. Onean fucked around with this message at 20:27 on Jun 18, 2022 |
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Nov 1, 2021 19:21
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I'm a player returning after a very long break. I'm basically re-learning the game from scratch. My preferred role is tanking, but things have moved on since I played and there are...ahem...quite a few more dungeons than when I played. Is there any possible way to learn them all at this point or should I just stick to DPS or healing? Sorry if this is the wrong thread for this. I wasn't sure if this should go in the main thread or not, but since I'm pretty much starting over I thought this would be ok. Travic fucked around with this message at 20:07 on Nov 1, 2021 |
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Nov 1, 2021 20:04
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There's not much to learn for a tank, all of the dungeons from Heavensward on have pretty much the same design philosophy. Usually you just run down the only path available, grab enmity on everything, and when you hit a wall or boss door stop and kill everything. The bosses all have their own mechanics but there's not usually anything special for the tank to do beyond making sure the enemy is pointed away from the team. You do not have to have encyclopedic knowledge of every dungeon to tank. Feel free to tank dungeons blind. Feel free to let the team know that it's your first time tanking that dungeon if you want to give them a heads up that you'll be going a bit slow. If there's anything weird to know a vet might pipe up and tell you about it but most of the time you'll just get a "ok sure" or silence in response. Wicked Them Beats fucked around with this message at 20:11 on Nov 1, 2021 |
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Nov 1, 2021 20:09
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Here's perfectly fine. Learning every dungeon is going to be an exercise in patience. Like you mentioned, there's a lot of them, so trying to learn them all at once is asking a lot. Just pick them up as you go, imo. If you're worried, you can mention you don't remember a dungeon at the start, and people will go in with that expectation and will likely give tips too.
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Nov 1, 2021 20:11
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The Gunslinger posted:Fair enough. They should embrace that less is more sometimes. The temptation to just start skipping cutscenes gets high when they keep giving me fetch quest style nonsense. I have a love/hate thing with the story in this game. I guess there is no escaping the fact that it's still an MMO in some respects. HW definitely leans on travel time for padding way harder than Stormblood or Shadowbringers do though. You spend a lot of time in Coerthas Western going trudging to that little snowbound camp or in Sea of Clouds riding out east to that drat military base. There isn't anything quite as tiresome in SB or ShB; if those expansions make you travel a long way to get someplace, it'll usually at least be some place you haven't been before.
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Nov 1, 2021 20:31
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Thanks. I was DPS'ing a dungeon yesterday and there was some mechanic I was told the tank was not doing that was making everything harder. Got me worried I was out of my depth. I'm used to every fight having intricate mechanics that you either do correctly or die. And you'd better know all of them or you're going to get an earful. Travic fucked around with this message at 21:20 on Nov 1, 2021 |
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Nov 1, 2021 21:16
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Travic posted:Thanks. I was DPS'ing a dungeon yesterday and there was some mechanic I was told the tank was not doing that was making everything harder. Got me worried I was out of my depth. Generally FFXIV players aren't like that, and if they are, everyone thinks they're being a dickhead. For the most part, what I would mention is that you are new to this dungeon / don't remember the dungeon mechanics and someone will usually tell you about them before a fight. Also, you should feel comfortable watching the cutscenes. Nobody will give you a hard time about doing so.
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Nov 1, 2021 21:23
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Also, the only time you're likely to ever get an 'earful' in FFXIV is if you join a Static or some Savage party finder group that says you should know the mechanics ahead of time.
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Nov 1, 2021 21:26
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Say it's your first time and you're going to watch the cutscenes and most players will wait. The only time they're really unlikely to wait is during Alliance raids with 24 people, but I have seen it happen. There is an option in the options to auto-skip previously viewed cutscenes, though, and that's a good way to save a few seconds in future replays of content.
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Nov 1, 2021 21:40
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In my experience people usually wait for the cutscene to finish in the 24-person raids. But if they start the fight and you get the popup saying the boss arena is going to close feel free to ignore it, you'll get teleported in to fight the boss when the cutscene ends. edit: they're more likely to wait in the newer raids, if you're in Crystal Tower there's almost always one person who just rushes in and gets things started. Wicked Them Beats fucked around with this message at 21:50 on Nov 1, 2021 |
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Nov 1, 2021 21:47
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Onean posted:So this post took longer to put together than I expected. Partially due to issues at work, but mostly because I wrote too many words. However, I figured that when it comes to PvP having more information can help against the anxiety of hopping into a competitive environment, so why not. Linked in the OP!
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Nov 1, 2021 21:48
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Perhaps a stupid question, but I pre-ordered Endwalker and put in the code from Steam into the Mogstation account, blah blah. It shows I have "Endwalker early access" which means I should be registered correct? The "standard edition" EW code from Steam just spat out errors when I tried to enter it but the early access worked so I just wanna make sure somethin goofy won't happen like I'd be able to play early but not once the main release happens 
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Nov 1, 2021 21:58
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Ok cool. That makes me feel better.Wicked Them Beats posted:In my experience people usually wait for the cutscene to finish in the 24-person raids. But if they start the fight and you get the popup saying the boss arena is going to close feel free to ignore it, you'll get teleported in to fight the boss when the cutscene ends. Great. I was particularly worried about this.
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Nov 1, 2021 22:08
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It also helps that you can res people in combat (and with swiftcast instantly) so a new player completely screwing up a mechanic is extremely easy to recover from in normal content as long as it didn’t wipe the party.
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Nov 1, 2021 22:15
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I love playing Red Mage because when the healer/healers gently caress up and die I can feel awesome by rezzing them
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Nov 1, 2021 22:38
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eonwe posted:Also, you should feel comfortable watching the cutscenes. Nobody will give you a hard time about doing so. it's out of the moment, but if you feel the need to "go go go" and skip cutscenes, you can always rewatch from the endless journey journal in inn rooms
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Nov 1, 2021 23:38
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Skypie posted:Perhaps a stupid question, but I pre-ordered Endwalker and put in the code from Steam into the Mogstation account, blah blah. It shows I have "Endwalker early access" which means I should be registered correct? The "standard edition" EW code from Steam just spat out errors when I tried to enter it but the early access worked so I just wanna make sure somethin goofy won't happen like I'd be able to play early but not once the main release happens Despite going through this three time, I can't quite remember. I think you'll be able to enter your Endwalker standard key at some point during the early access window.
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Nov 1, 2021 23:55
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Travic posted:Thanks. I was DPS'ing a dungeon yesterday and there was some mechanic I was told the tank was not doing that was making everything harder. Got me worried I was out of my depth. To be honest that's probably more of an ARR dungeon thing, where they had a lot more experimental mechanics. Offhand I'd wager that might be the Yeti boss in Snowcloak since the gimmick there rewards blasting adds with a boss aoe and using the resultant effect to do damage to it. In general tanks don't have any significant requirements other than making sure all adds are contained and you're not spinning the boss unnecessarily. Just let folks know it's your first time (or first time in a long while) tanking it. Orcs and Ostriches posted:Despite going through this three time, I can't quite remember. I think you'll be able to enter your Endwalker standard key at some point during the early access window. I can't speak towards if Steam does it differently, but in general, here's how it works. 1) Preorder expansion. Retailer will get you a preorder key more or less immediately. 2) Apply preorder key to account. If you look at your licensing page, you'll see "Endwalker early access" checked off, like the following. You will also get a mail in game with the preorder bonuses.  The early access key will let you start playing as of the early access date, in this case, November 19th. 3) Sometime during the early access period, or shortly into the retail launch, your vendor will provide you a full expansion license key. You need to apply that separate key to your account to unlock the licensing permanently. Don't panic if you don't get this right away, they usually provide a week or two grace period where the early access key still works into retail. This is so you don't get screwed if your vendor is delayed in giving you the permanent key for your account. 4) Beyond the early access grace period, you will need the license to access the new expansion content. If you don't preorder and just buy the game during the retail period you won't get the early access key, you'll just get the retail/permanent key outright and be done when you apply it.
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Nov 2, 2021 02:27
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Tortolia posted:
Ahhh okay, I was wondering about the keys. Steam has both the early access and the Endwalker key already available, but there was nowhere to enter the Endwalker key on Mog Station. You can see it if you right click the game in your library and go to Manage > CD Keys: 
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Nov 2, 2021 02:40
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Yeah the final keys won't work until the actual launch date for Endwalker.
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Nov 2, 2021 02:57
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Yeah, in that case hold on and Square will let you know when to apply the retail keys. Looks like Steam just gives you both upfront but it's normal behavior for the retail key not to be accepted yet.
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Nov 2, 2021 03:06
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Does Shadowbringers’ post-leveling MSQ not give you a few freebie sets of armor from whatever patch you’re on like Heavensward did?
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Nov 2, 2021 04:43
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Regalingualius posted:Does Shadowbringers’ post-leveling MSQ not give you a few freebie sets of armor from whatever patch you’re on like Heavensward did? They're probably going to add that with Endwalker's release.
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Nov 2, 2021 04:48
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Ah, I kind of figured those were conveniences to get you through those expansions once the next released.
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Nov 2, 2021 05:04
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Yeah, that's basically a catch-up mechanic so folks don't have to stress as much about farming tomestones to keep up with the msq gearwise.
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Nov 2, 2021 05:05
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I still want to... I want to be stronk...
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Nov 2, 2021 15:20
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Sorry if this question is asked a lot, but if I signed up for the free trial via Steam...do I have to buy the actual game via Steam too, or can I switch to the Square Enix site without losing anything?
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Nov 2, 2021 20:22
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Mikey Purp posted:Sorry if this question is asked a lot, but if I signed up for the free trial via Steam...do I have to buy the actual game via Steam too, or can I switch to the Square Enix site without losing anything? Once your account is in Steam, it's Steam forever. Once it's registered, you can also use it on a play station account, but Steam / regular PC client are mutually exclusive.
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Nov 2, 2021 20:26
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Mikey Purp posted:Sorry if this question is asked a lot, but if I signed up for the free trial via Steam...do I have to buy the actual game via Steam too, or can I switch to the Square Enix site without losing anything? Steam and non-steam accounts are separate, you'd have to make a new service account with separate characters if you want to go non-steam. It's weird, and presumably part of some old licensing agreement or code they can't change.
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Nov 2, 2021 20:35
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New World has poo poo the bed(I'll hold out hope it unfucks itself but lol whatever) and I ended my 15-year relationship with WoW/Blizzard so I grabbed the 60% off sale gimmick from Square, I read the OP and I like the solo focus along with being able to do every class, I like crafting and fishing so maybe this is the game for me I have 110 pages to catch up on but it was $24 so I think I made the right choice
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Nov 2, 2021 21:01
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Mob posted:New World has poo poo the bed(I'll hold out hope it unfucks itself but lol whatever) and I ended my 15-year relationship with WoW/Blizzard so I grabbed the 60% off sale gimmick from Square, I read the OP and I like the solo focus along with being able to do every class, I like crafting and fishing so maybe this is the game for me Welcome Aboard! If you have any questions after you've read the thread (or even before you've read the thread) feel free to ask.
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Nov 2, 2021 21:07
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Damnit that kinda sucks about the account locking. Never had to pay extra just to play a game via steam before 
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Nov 2, 2021 21:18
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It goes on sale on Steam plenty, just maybe not at the same time. Otherwise the subs and costs are the same.
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Nov 2, 2021 21:19
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Mikey Purp posted:Damnit that kinda sucks about the account locking. Never had to pay extra just to play a game via steam before I believe it’s because steam gets a cut of the sub time and purchases of all steam flagged accounts. I could be wrong though.
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Nov 2, 2021 22:02
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Mikey Purp posted:Damnit that kinda sucks about the account locking. Never had to pay extra just to play a game via steam before Welcome to the true hardcore content - Buying The Game: Extreme
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Nov 2, 2021 22:23
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So how do you get a flying mount? I assume that's a late ARR or early Heavensward thing, but sometimes I see level 20s flying by. Are those just people leveling alts?
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Nov 3, 2021 06:04
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If someone low level is flying, that's not their main job. You get flying in ARR zones by completing the 1-50 story but once you have it, you still have it if you pick up a new level 1 job on the same character.
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Nov 3, 2021 06:06
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And that’s only for ARR zones; in every expansion, you have to go on scavenger hunts (with a handily-provided compass) and do certain quests to unlock flying on a zone by zone basis.
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Nov 3, 2021 06:09
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Mikey Purp posted:So how do you get a flying mount? I assume that's a late ARR or early Heavensward thing, but sometimes I see level 20s flying by. Are those just people leveling alts? You can level every class on the same character. You can fly around at level 1 if you've already unlocked it using another class. Literally every single mount in the game can fly, but you have to unlock flying in the zone first. You get every ARR zone at once when you finish the 2.0 MSQs (main scenario quests, they gate everything in this game), but for the expansions you do them one by one, by hunting down aether currents. There are ten hidden in each zone, and then five you get from quests (including one from the MSQ). ARR flying is a relatively new thing, they only added it with patch 5.3 last august. Before then, you could fly everywhere but those early areas, so it was really annoying to have to go back there.
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Nov 3, 2021 06:15
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