The Final Fantasy XIV Thread [SHADOWBRINGERS LAUNCH 5.0!!]


Can I gush a little over how excited I am for the first patch I can actually be part of and excited for since we started playing this game?

We played on the free trial for... over 2 years, I think. Due to shit and stuff, we couldn't buy and subscribe. But this year, we finally could. We've spent the last few months playing pretty much nothing but XIV, sprinting through everything we've missed.

Naturally "baby's first patch" lands when we're away for a few weeks.:closedmonster: But it's still exciting!
The Engineer
DRK is my tank main!

What level are you playing DRK at? At lvl 70+, it's amazing and I regularly pull double pulls so long as the healer is up to it. The Blackest Night (TBN) is pretty OP from a defense perspective and in large dungeon pulls, you should be using it on CD and supplementing with Rampart/Shadow Wall at the beginning of the pull if you are having trouble. TBN is also the go-to ability to use on tankbusters when facing bosses because it nullifies 25% of your HP damage, which is pretty sweet if you're just getting the hang of the job.

Below level 70, before you get TBN, is where DRK has problems. And it call feel squishy then. That's when knowledge of a particular dungeon becomes more crucial. Sometimes I still double pull, other times I don't. But it also has a lot to do with how good of a healer you have. I typically double pull the first pull of the dungeon if I can and see how the healer handles it. If they handle it fine, then it's double pulls for the rest of the dungeon, if they don't, then I oftentimes single pull it.

It does really depend on the dungeon and the healer though. Even in experts there are some dungeons where the hardest pull is the very first one and how well the healer does there doesn't indicate how well they'll do the rest of the dungeon. Other times there's mobs that will specifically make pulls hard if you don't stun certain abilities, etc.
The Engineer
24-man raids are weighted for 24 casuals to do. So they can have quite a few people die and still be salvageable. They are not at all at the level of Savage or Extreme fights. You pretty much just join them through the Duty Finder. There's even a Roulette for them that gives you a decent chunk of end-game currency or experience points. Communication isn't really needed as the community figures out a general strat and markers in like... the first month the raid is out. And over time, they get easier as people out-gear them. And the entire point of 24-mans is to help the casual players catch up to the item level of the hard raids.

However... they have some of the most spectacular set-pieces and bosses in the entire game in terms of scale. They're usually the scene for stories where the location and spectacle is part of the story-telling in some way. So... the Crystal Tower, World of Darkness, Weeping City, Rabanaster, Ridorana Lighthouse, the Nechrohol... they are all gorgeous zones with bosses that feel massive.

Which is part of the reason everyone is so excited for YoRHa and NieR being a 24-man. There are some absolutely massive bosses and iconic locations in NieR and with the 24-man format, they can actually feel in FFXIV like they feel in NieR. And if NieR was just some normal crossover, all we'd get would be a few bosses and no custom locations. Let alone the the sheer scale needed for it to feel right. Also... the 24-man raids have a three part story that is fairly long with a lot of cut-scenes in it. So there's enough time to actually make a story that feels involved as opposed to something simple like the other SE crossover events we've had. And who doesn't want NieR inspired armor either?


Pro Adventurer
thanks so much Obsidian. You are reminding me of my bro Obsidian heart Sidurgu . Now I don't have to worry about the new raid being an elite activity...

Nothing is better than knowing that I can mess around and die and still get NieR armor.:desucait:
The Engineer
Heh... due to how the raids work... I'd recommend going as a DPS because 24-mans are one of the few places DPS classes have short waits because so many DPS are needed. 24-man raid parties are 1 Tank, 2 Healers and 5 DPSs. Also, you don't have to worry about healing or tanking unknown mechanics...
The Engineer
Sometimes... usually only when doing like... trials though... Since comparing runs of one trial to other runs of the same trial will tell you something.

I find ACT makes a lot more sense when you are with a static. When you primarily only play the game with randoms, it looses a lot of it's value, since most DF/PF groups are really bad at synergizing buffs. And synergizing buffs are the main thing people look at when coming up with a meta.

Like... it is a great tool to use to see how your DPS is and what you are doing and how you are improving. But when it comes to playing in groups... it can't tell you the difference between someone doing a bad rotation with a high ilvl vs someone doing a good rotation with a lower ilvl. So I always take where I am on the damage meters with a massive dose of salt.

The one thing to be aware of is that it is against the ToS. So no bringing up in party chat that you are using ACT or using the numbers you get from it to discriminate against other players. As good as a tool as it is, ACT (along with FFLogs, a website that you can upload parses to to analyze them) are very much responsible for certain classes getting ostracized in the PF or being thought of as worthless.

Using ACT is very much a "don't ask, don't tell" situation, and you always see people using ACT to find things out about fights that they never could without ACT. Especially when it comes to finding out which mechanics will be happening before they are happening. SE has done certain things in the past with mechanics to counter the people using ACT in ways they don't like.

Like... how ACT has effected the community is probably the number one reason the devs will never add an offical damage meter to game.

All that said, it is an excellent tool to use to see what you are doing in a given fight. Just don't be a dick about the information you get with it and no one will have a problem with you using it.
The Engineer
ACT doesn't really "do" anything. It all depends on how you end up using the data it collects. What it really is, is a parser. It will get a record of your actions (and the actions of everyone else in your party/alliance/mobs) and show you useful stuff like overall DPS, Crit Chance, etc. It's up to you to figuring out what it's telling you and how you can improve with that.

Like... Savage is the type of content it's used in the most. But not because it actually helps you do Savage. People are running Savage all the time, so you can reliably get lots of parses of the same fight and compare all of them. During the actual Savage fight, it doesn't really do much, except let you know who's contributing the most DPS and things like that. The reason why it gets used with Savage is because Savage is the current end-game content and it is pushing people to play their class optimally.

I'd honestly say one of the best uses of ACT is seeing how well you do your basic rotation on a dummy. Do a bunch of rotation loops and see what happens when you shift around oGCDs, if certain ones clip, etc. That's how all the "suggested" rotations get found out; a bunch of people who know their class really, really well get out ACT and do rotations on dummies and experiment around with it.

There's two main tools to use ACT with. The first is FFLogs, which turns your ACT file into a nice graph with a bunch of tools to do analysis with. The second tool is XIVanalysis, which analyses your FFLog for you and suggest things you need to improve on. Really, ACT just provides the raw data for you to see what buttons you are actually pressing in-game and when. It's the starting point for a whole lot of analysis on how you currently play your class and what are the most obvious changes you should make to get better.

The few classes I would say it directly "helps" when doing savages (or any content) are classes that buff single targets, like AST and Dancer. They can help their team out a lot more if they buff the DPS with the highest overall DPS instead of just someone at random. It's also useful when you are a healer and a lot of people are dead to know what your raise priority should be. Raising the higher DPS jobs is usually a much better idea then raising the ones putting out less DPS... unless it's a Red Mage or SMN. But like... when I play SAM and use ACT... all it does for me is tell me how much damage I'm doing compared to everyone else. And it's usually a nice ego stroker, since I have a decent idea on what an effective SAM rotation looks like.
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