2.4x out -- Next coil jobs

FFXIV 2.4 is out! New content, Rogue/Ninja and the final coil of Bahamut. Hopefully this does mean that they are also on course to releasing 3.0 next year. I guess that there will be a 2.5 release at some point with more stuff for Crystal Tower before the 3.0 release? I'm under the impressions that there's supposed to be a 3rd CT before the expansion.

In any case, after 3 months of playing the same jobs, most people wanted a change so here are the new "coil 3" jobs. Primary jobs have been mixed up.

	Primary	Secondary	(Coil required)
Ascy	NIN	WAR
Holt	WHM	BRD
Kurai	DRG	SCH
Marcux	BLM	PLD
Mday	WAR	BLM
Minori	SCH	BLM
Rhela'to	SMN	NIN
Rooks	PLD	MNK

(Let me know if this is incorrect, or needs to be changed)

Current mix has:

- Tanks: 2 primary, 2 secondary

- Healers: 2 primary, 1 secondary

- Casters: 2 primary, 2 secondary

- Slaying: 1 primary, 1 secondary

- Aiming: 1 primary, 3 secondary

- DRG: 1 primary

- MNK: 1 secondary

- NIN: 1 primary, 2 secondary

 

This mix is amusing, with only 3 people interested in melee DPS and much more on ranged (BRD/BLM/SMN) DPS. I guess that's a reflection of how FFXIV does make it easier to dodge and react when you're at a distance from the boss. We do have a major problem here where only two people are currently interested in healing, with nobody choosing healing jobs for their secondary at all. If someone wants to choose healing as a secondary, let me know. Otherwise, at *some* point I'd like 1-2 volunteers to be able to take up a healing role in cases where either of our healers want to take a break. Kurai has since switched his secondary form BLM to SCH. Thanks Kurai!

 

For melee DPS, the sharing seems to be balanced now with BRD & NIN / DRG & MNK sharing accessories

 

The "primary" party is in theory, balanced with 2 melee, 2 ranged, and one of each kind of healer and tank. If we have to adjust the party for single tank, A'sanya will take on the BRD role. If we absolutely have to have a BRD for some reason in a fight, Ascy will switch to WAR while A'sanya does the spoony thing.

 

Nearly all new jobs will need to be geared up, so take a look at T6-T8 and figure out which pieces you need from which turn. We'll focus on gearing those up, and plan on using the new jobs for new content like Shiva EX. We'll *ALSO* be finishing gearing up the designated jobs from the 2.3 patch too, so if you want something, just speak up! I fully expect that we'll do enough T6-T8 to get everyone everything they want.

 

Finally, these jobs are still based on performance. If, for some reason, the job mix isn't working, we'll shuffle jobs around as needed to get something that works. Many of us are in new roles (or in my case, a new job that isn't even 50 yet), so we'll take some time to get used to the roles, learn, but if we run into walls that people can't overcome, we'll make adjustments as necessary. This is what the "coil required"  column is for, in case we have to swap jobs around from what people want to play/gear up. This column will take priority over the "secondary" gear.

 

Do let me know early if I made any mistakes in the job table up top!

One week more... another coil another newbie~

Yet another new player~ So far the subs have been me for Fuji (back to school), Kurai for Vanh(quit), and then Austin for Zurar(quit). Latest sub is to sub newcomer Minori for Austin(jumped ship).

Minori is a newcomer to the group (and to CTR), one of Kurai's referrals. BLM & SCH only, with a side of BRD, which does restrict our options for job choices. Unfortunately, this mean shuffling jobs around to make things work. She's also new to the 2nd coil, so we're back to "crash course" training for her.

New job/gear table is below. Loot guidelines are the same as my previous blog post

	Primary	Secondary	Tertiary(coil)
A'sanya	WAR	BRD
Ascy	NIN (BRD)	WAR
Holt	WHM	BRD
Kurai	DRG	BLM
Marcux	BLM	PLD
Minori	SCH	BLM
Rhela'to	SMN	BRD
Rooks	PLD	MNK

(Let me know if this is incorrect, or needs to be changed)

Two small changes to the listing is actually listing specific jobs instead of the healer/caster roles, and small job changes: Rooks *may* be asked to play a healer job so I'm putting that as his tertiary, and A'sanya may be switching to WHM for T6, and Holt may need to switch to DRG for T7.

Latest drops and who's up next for oil, etc. will be in the comments of this blog post. We also have a lot of gear to get for Minori to get her ilevel up, and some Ramuh farming.

Meanwhile, it's been a loooooooong time since my last photo post... hopefully I'll have time sometime in the near future to filter through my screenshots and post something!

Running coil... I guess?

So I guess I'm running the coil static for now. I don't think I'm a good leader because I'm highly task & goal oriented, and am not very empathic. My Myers-Briggs testing puts me as a borderline between INTJ and ENTJ. If you're upset or something feels wrong, I probably won't notice so you'll have to /tell me. I also like being fully public and explaining my thoughts so feel free to use the comments or talk to me about your own thoughts

Given the limited time we have as a fully group, I believe we should get through things we can complete ASAP so we can spend time practicing to clear later content. This means getting through T6 & T7 ASAP on roles we're familiar with so we can spend time to clear T8, and later Ramuh EX. From what people are telling me, we should have enough DPS to clear T8 now, and the mechanics of T8 are supposedly simpler than T7 so it's just a matter of practice. Once we're clearing T8 comfortably, we can go back and switch roles around if people want to play around with other jobs for the earlier turns.

For loot, the primary/secondary system works for now, but I'm adding a 3rd tier for sending gear to people who we are asking to come on specific jobs that are not their primary or secondary selections. Make the primary/secondary jobs the ones *you* want to get gear on. I'm also going to prioritize if you use your job for coil. I.e.: Multiple people have Caster gear as their primary selection, but DO always comes as SMN so he gets first call on if he wants to lot on something. I will always ask in priority order if you want to lot on something, so it's your choice if you want to get something for BiS, or to pass if you already have other gear that is better than what dropped.

	Primary	Secondary	Tertiary(coil)
A'sanya	Caster (T6)	Healer (T8/T7)
Ascy	Tank (T8/T6)	BRD	DRG (T7)
Austin	Healer (T7/T6)	DRG (T8)
Holt	BRD (T8/T7/T6)	DRG
Kurai	Caster	Healer (T8/T6)	Tank (T7)
Marcux	Tank (T7/T6)	Caster	MNK (T8)
Rhela'to	Caster (T8/T7/T6)	BRD
Rooks	MNK (T8/T7/T6)	Tank

(Let me know if this is incorrect, or needs to be changed)

If job selections need to be changed for newer content (T9, Ramuh EX come to mind), we'll throw that info up here and if necessary, add to the tertiary lotting. If RNG happens to be kind to you and you finish all the gear for a job and want to change your job priority because you're done, talk to other people lotting on those pieces if it's okay. We'll re-evaluate job choices & priorities when 2.4 or when the next tier of equipment is released.

For oils, sands, and tomestones, we'll do a round-robin method where once you get one, you'll be ineligible to lot until everyone else in the static has gotten one from the group. For tomestones, we'll also prioritize people who have the Soldiery saved up to actually use it. No point in lotting something you can't use when we're getting one drop a week. Since we're also at a point where everyone has gotten a tomestone/oil in the past, and Kurai is just joining us, we'll start the oil/tomestone lotting from scratch next week (At least, I think everyone has gotten one of each?)

If we have to replace someone to fill in, we'll also have them give the same priorities of primary/secondary, and allow a tertiary if necessary, stated up front to the group before starting.

Anything need clarifying? Comment below or talk to me on AIM or in-game. I also appreciate thoughts from others not in the active group for a different perspective (ya Vanh, this means you!)

Fucking frustrated with static

It's been about 3 months since the 2.2 patch was released and I feel like I'm getting nowhere with this new coil static. In fact, I'm pretty sure I'm getting nowhere.

We started off with a decent lineup that had people on jobs they wanted to play. Someone early on, (I think Vanh or DO) asked about gear lotting for people who were playing on certain jobs due to the group composition but really wanted gear for other jobs.

After failing for many weeks at T6, we had to do some job changes to make it possible to pass. I'll be blunt for this entire post. A'sanya dies on a regular basis to the instant-kill "Bouquet" move. For a healer to die on this is a virtually guaranteed wipe. Having him on BLM allows him to screw up once in a while, but still recover.

T7 was just as bad. Having 3 ranged DPS is just bad news with AOEs going to any of them randomly. With Holt & DO both working on animus weapons at the time, switching A'sanya's BLM to WHM made sense and let Rooks use all the MNK gear he was accumulating. The eye opener was when we had Val step in for Zurar for one week on DRG and we saw that his damage on his i90 DRG was significantly higher than Zurar's higher ilevel DRG. Zurar was not carrying his weight as a DRG and could not improve on it. I suggested the switch in jobs, him on WAR, me on DRG to get the DPS boost necessary to get past T7. I could outperform him in i90 gear, though I also started spending Soldiery on DRG to give the group a better chance at progressing.

Now my original choices for gear were WAR & SCH, two jobs which I enjoy. DRG is not among my favored jobs to play, but I know how to play it and prefer it over MNK between the melee jobs. For a DPS, I much prefer BRD over everything else, and even with a massive ilevel disadvantage compared to Holt, I can still stay competitive with him in Sycus Tower and take the 2nd highest damage output in the alliance. Before we figured out Zurar's DPS was too low, I was already spending Soldiery on BRD gear since that was my favorite DPS job. I also like playing SCH a lot, but I've virtually never had a chance to touch it since 2.2 was released. In fact, I've probably forgotten how to play it now. Still, I'm willing to swap that slot for picking up DRG gear if it means the static can progress.

But, this lead to the situation where we go... one week where DRG gear drops to Zurar, a next week where tank gear drops to Zurar due to job switches, and then another week where DRG drops to Austin since he's helping. RNG is one thing, but this feels like downright being fucked. Now that Austin is taking Vanh's spot in the static, my i94 DRG really is not necessary and useless compared to his i106 DRG. Unlike Zurar, Austin knows how to play DRG and probably plays it better than I do.

And now that Zurar is dropping too, we're bringing in Kurai to fill his spot. It was my suggestion to have him fill in the T6/T7 WAR MT slot for the coming run simply because it's easy to run, and Rooks is ONLY going to come on this Tuesday, so actually completing T6/T7 this coming week is questionable. Still, I did not realize that this meant that I'm giving up even lotting on tank gear. Since Kurai was not with us today, tank gear then defaults to Marcux?

So yeah, I'm feeling completely fucked over right now. My HIGHEST ilevel is WAR at i96 due to having spread out soldiery to DRG / being skipped over for high allagan, and that's ONLY because I used last week's ST lot to pick up the i100 hands. I literally cannot even join LEARNING groups in party finder because my ilevel is too low.

So yes, I'm fucking frustrated with the coil static. At this point, I'm going to just throw all my soldiery and gear into WAR & BRD to hopefully be able to do pick-up content, especially since my DRG is now irrelevant since Austin can do a better job than I can on it when we need the DPS push. If you all want to kick me, go ahead. Just let me know by Tuesday.


On a side note: What is up with Rooks's obsession about "training for your coil jobs" for old content? We have a setup that works, people know exactly what they need to do to beat T6. Not only that, they already HAVE to gear to get past T6 since we've been farming that for weeks now! Why are we changing to other jobs that are used in T7 to do T6 on? Especially since some of the job changes were specifically BECAUSE they did not work in the first place! A'sanya on healer did not work on T6, but we're doing it again because that's his role in T7? Why waste hours on T6 at all trying to learn different roles when there's T8 to get past! Since T8 only needs 1 tank, should we go do T7 the single tank way? I mean, it is possible, but we'll probably take another 4-5 hours to figure it out. Maybe if all the content were on farm and we were bored, or we have time, then sure, let's change jobs around for some variety. However, right now we're literally going to coil with 2, 3 hours per week due to schedule conflicts. That's barely enough time to even CLEAR T6 or T7 without fucking around, much less even attempt T8 or new content. Or, for that matter, go to ST together as a group, which I recall was one of Rooks's goals.


Signing off
- Ascy.

Thoughts on the 2.28 FFXIV patch

So, quick post on my thoughts on the 2.28 FFXIV patch.

Yoshi-P did a bunch of very small quality of life improvements for FFXIV... basic stuff like the ability to skip cutscenes that we've seen already, actually being able to repair gear in dungeons (but only your own, so too bad for the gimps who didn't level crafting) and Fantasia potions for RL money (at $10 each, you'd better REALLY want to be a Lalafell!) All things that people have been asking for since launch.

As for new content... let's see... they added the Novus weapon, next step in the progression from animus (requiring TONs more myth farming, and even more spiritbinding or gil buying!) and Sightseeing, which mostly consists of being AFK for hours at a time for hope to catch a specific weather in a specific location.

All designed to be a fucking waste of time.

My thoughts on this patch go back to this post in 2008: http://ascule.blogspot.com/2008/09/respecting-time-and-lack-thereof.html

That's all I have to say on this subject.

Wildstar anyone?

Glamours, clearing content and the next grind!

One of the new major changes that the FFXIV 2.2 patch brought was the addition of "glamours", aka the "vanity system" that is common in many different MMOs. This brings out lots of imaginative outfits and gives a good reason for going back to farm lower level dungeons.

Still... if you haven't quite figured out how your outfit should go together, you could end up in funny situations like tanking Twintania in this!

Ever have that dream where you go fight an angry dragon without pants?

Ok, so I was actually going for a Strike Witches cosplay look, but I don't think many people got it... still, it has the funny side effect of going through cutscenes looking like this

Have you seen my skirt?

Maybe it's over there :o

Oh, so... yeah, since the 2.2 echo buff kicked in, turn 5 of the Binding Coil of Bahamut has essentially become a farmable joke. You still need to know what you're doing and how to handle the mechanics, but it's become fairly easy even with just the initial echo buff. It should become even easier starting this week with the 2nd echo buff. Turns 1-4 are already a joke to tackle and I'm pretty sure that everyone will be farming everything they ever wanted from the first coil shortly.

LOLDRGs putting fire circles everywhere!

And one of... I stopped counting at 12 from the first night... wins for T5.

What else... so the easter event is around, which mainly consists of forming small parties and running around the major cities. There are a few silly cutscenes, but nothing to write home about. You get a barding and have to buy a few silly looking hats for this event.

Just a bunch of eggheads!

Other content is also progressing to be farmed now... Leviathan Extreme was the first to be cracked and is a relatively easy fight. More forgiving than Titan Extreme, and most newcomers can learn the basic pattern for their first win usually within 45 minutes. 

Yet another mechanics fight

We just finished learning Thornmarch Extreme this past weekend. This fight with the Moogles has a lot more randomness to it with all the little mogs running around and potentially screwing things up, so winning here is not a sure thing. This is a healer & DPS heavy fight in terms of responsibility. I forgot to take screenshots of this one so you'll have to settle for this simulation instead!

Being surrounded by moogles! Basically the same as Thornmarch EX!

The only "real" content left that we haven't tackled is the Second Coil of Bahamut, aka "T6-9". I get the general feeling that everyone has been more than happy to just poke and farm the older stuff for the time being, to get geared up and prepare for the eventual wall that is T6-9. 

I also feel that the 2.2 buffs/nerfs have taken some of the drive out of people. My feeling is that pounding our head too hard against the cutting edge content isn't really necessary as SE will probably be nerfing T6-9 in the 2.4 patch. 

Consider what happened in 2.2. The first coil was made farmable at first, allowing people to do this as many times as necessary to get what they want. The first night we beat T5, we did it at least 12 times, probably more. We've gone back and farmed it many more times, much more than we could have done it before the lockouts were removed.

The echo buff also made it so that party finder groups can relatively easily win T1-4. It might even be that by the time the last echo buff is put into the game, T5 can be done with party finder. About the only thing that the echo buff did not help with is Titan and Ifrit EX due to actually needing to perform the mechanics to properly win. 

So... for the 2.2 content, specifically T6-9 and the Atma/Animus quests... it feels like... well, even if we don't rush to take part in this content, when 2.4 comes out (probably around December), we'll just breeze through it easily?

Anyway... enough of that! The main reason for playing MMOs is to play dress-up anyway, right?!

Finally found my skirt!

And found a mini-tank dressed similarly to me! (Also, love that caster outfit in the background!)

I like the little emote additions that SE adds to the game, like the new /changepose

That's it for now! Short post!

FFXIV 2.2 content! House! Crafting!

The 2.2 patch for FFXIV is out bringing with it lots of changes. This is the "hardcore content" patch which brings with it an increase in ilevel, different grinds and more part of the coil. It also releases more main storyline, dungeons, sidequests and other fun features, just like the 2.1 patch before.

The fun features include:
- Glamours -- The ability to skin your outfits however you want
- Retainer Ventures --  Send your retainers out in SWTOR-like gathering missions
- Challenge Logs -- Get gil & exp just for doing stuff! Gil comes a lot more easily in this patch

The grind has changed as well. They've removed the myth cap for 2.2 and instead added a new tome to grind for i100 gear. They also removed the "one item per week" restriction on the Crystal Tower and entry restrictions for turns 1-5 of the Binding Coil of Bahamut. Unfortunately, this means that CT gear is obsolete unless you want it for vanity reasons since people can simply grind for myth or coil items.

Speaking of grinding, not only is the "2.0" style of grinding dungeons for tomes is back with the new solidarity tome, but SE is bringing FFXI-like grinds back with the "Zodiac Weapons". We're talking collecting multiple items with a ~0.5-1% drop rate, doing lots of work for small minor upgrades. It's kinda like the mythic weapons of FFXI, but not quite as extreme. Already people are reporting taking 12-20+ hours of continuous FATEs to start on the quest. Still, there are some people who have already completed their animus weapons the patch being out for less than one week, so it isn't anywhere near as bad as the FFXI relic or mythic weapon grind

Whee... ability to grind low-level FATES for days on end is now unlocked

This patch is definitely on the hardcore side, giving lots of grindy content and making people repeat dungeons over and over. Lots of the content is still gated and many people can't access it. For example, to do turns 6-9 of coil, you have to be able to beat turn 5. To even be eligible to attempt Levithan Extreme, you need to beat Ifrit EX (and many people are stuck at Titan EX). To gradually ease difficulty, SE is adding an "echo" buff that increases your stats by 5-50%. It's already there in the EX primals, and it'll be coming for coil which should make it easy to win... as long as you aren't losing to mechanics or latency issue.

I'm guessing that 2.3 will be the "casual" patch with more Crystal Tower, releasing gear at i95 to provide a bridge between the outdated "myth" gear and the new tome/coil gear.

On my own personal, I've hit level 50 on all crafting jobs! Yay! Just two more gatherer jobs to go before I can retire from FFXIV! The final level 50 quests for the crafting jobs were quite cute in many cases...

(Warning: Small spoilers follow in pics from now on!)

I knew we could use Lalafell as weapons!

Poor Mammet...

Raise works on automations?!

Aww... cute children fighting in the playground!

One of the cutest romances in FFXIV!

Why do Alchemists always try to raise the dead?!

She looks like she means business :o

Double barreled business!

The *other* cute romance in FFXIV!

So... after saving the world a half-dozen times, I'm cooking dinner?

Don't let her know I got take-out from the AH!

That's a big fish :o

The CTR house has really come together nicely since we bought it just over a week ago. Here's what it looks like now...

From the front (and me in my new cooks outfit thanks to Ark!)

Little campfire and mailbox (mogbox?)

And the newly added (as of 2.2) garden!

And romantic bench... with nobody else around ;;

Full service bar (with NPC vendors!)

Social area to hang out... (where is everyone?!)

Fireplace in the basement

And a hot tub!

A Tonberry guards this bedroom from unwanted visitors...

And I stuff the Lalafell intruders and put them on display!

And Marcux created a "multi-person" bed xD

Alright! That's enough of the personal and housing stuff... here's what you really wanted to see! The 2.2 patch content! Screenshots that follow may contain mild spoilers!

Obviously let's start with the most important parts of the 2.2 patch!

Guess who?

Yay! Hildibrand is back!

And making us do goofy things!

Still.. what's with the green chicken :o

And... what's that chicken looking at?

Incoming! O.O

:O

Oh no! He caught Hildibrand!

Grrr! Scary pose!

Whee! Goofy pose!

Waiting waiting... what's the chicken eating? :o

That's a big bridge. I wonder what we're going to do there...

Oh right. This is a game where we fight people!

And the chicken is STILL around :o

No fair shrinking us!

Ribbit!

I'm pretty sure... that's not going to work

Best "Duty Complete" pose ever xD

That's all for this episode!

Next time in patch 2.3!

The Hildibrand quests are pretty much my highlight for this patch! The right amount of silliness, humor and... actually, that's mainly it! It's the perfect distraction from the rest of the grind and seriousness in FFXIV. It's just a pity that it's over relatively quickly and you have to wait another 3 months till the next episode.

For other fun FFXIV content... we have three new dungeons. One brand new one and two new hard modes. The dungeons themselves are pretty fun with some old familiar mechanics, some brand new ones and old friends. I try to make a point of going through the dungeons at least once with as little info as possible to figure things out with a fresh group. Still, they weren't much of a problem and we pretty much passed everything relatively easily.

The brand new dungeon!

Creepy spores... very "Nausciaa" like

This looks like it could be complicated!

You look familiar :o

It's now a gladiator arena!

I like how there are NPCs here. Too bad you can't buy anything xD

Those bears are huge!

Yay! Fan service :D

And more... erm.. fan service :o

Interesting overlay effect whenever this move is used.

More fun in goblintown!

And the goblins have toys now! O.O

So... what else... other minor stuff includes two new Beast Tribe factions to do daily quests. This means another ~45 days of grinding to get max reputation there to get their mounts/minions. It's a clear addition of more grindy content to keep people busy and give the perception of progress so that you'll keep your subscription until the next content release. However, it... actually works... It's still keeping my sub, the new beast tribe quests are actually faster and easier compared to the original, and they give venture tokens which you can use with your retainers. It really seems that Yoshi-P knows just how far to push people here to keep subs up.

The Sahagin are one of the two new tribes

And the goblins are the other. The purple goblins are... female :o

I'm not sure I'd trust these with my chocobo :o

Meanwhile I'm just happily dancing away~

That's enough of the side content! Just like the previous patch, this patch moves the storyline forward a little bit more. It's interesting that they're releasing this in almost episode-like chunks. It's kinda like FFXI's Wings of the Goddess expansion where they're releasing the content bit-by-bit, but unlike WotG, it doesn't feel as annoying as basically, they've released the whole story during the initial 2.0 release and now we're just getting additional content.

Anyway, here's some shots from the main storyline! (spoilers! obviously...)

A new player arrives!

Let's all have a get together!

No fair! I want to dual-wield weapons too!

And jump onto enemies! (yes, a dual-wielding dagger job is definitely coming!)

Still, Merlwyb applies her solution as usual

Uh-oh... hi Levi!

He really has bad breath :o

What part of fighting a giant water serpent from a boat sounded like a good idea?!

And... another vague ending screen for 2.2!

Until next time!