Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker - Conquering Despair Itself

Holy shit! Just did a Ridorana Lighthouse where neither of our healers had any idea what they were doing. I wouldn’t consider myself particularly good at sage, but fuck! During the many times I was dead, I started watching their cast bars. It seems they would start casting single target heals then stop. They did use Kerachole at least once, but I don’t think I saw any AoE heals. People would die after ressing because they would get no healing. Math boss took over ten minutes. I was constantly OOM on the last fight from trying to Vercure myself and raise people. I eventually started focusing on the DPS because fuck those shitty healers. Khloe better like this fucking story!

Whee! Got a house in the latest housing lottery. Now I can finally do something with all the outdoor furnishing crap I’ve collected over the years.

kenada said:

Whee! Got a house in the latest housing lottery. Now I can finally do something with all the outdoor furnishing crap I’ve collected over the years.

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Ah, won Housing Savage, grats!

It helped that the new datacenter pulled a bunch of people away. There were 10~15 open plots per city available. Unlike recent auctions, there might have been only ten or so bidders for this plot.

Congrats on the new house! New data center or no, it just feel good to get one.

Dear Ars, I have a fantasia problem. I think I have finally arrived at au ra or viera, but I can’t decide which.

Oh yeah. It's been a few weeks, but my static cleared P8S two weeks ago, on the 13th. Felt bad to take 16 weeks to clear the tier after last tier took 6. We had a lot of disruption in schedules later in the tier, which didn't help, but also we had two Magical ranged (DRG/RDM/SMN/DNC), instead of a two melee comp. In SHB, that would have been no problem. Not so much with the imbalances running rampant and major disparity between some classes.

We would have had a clear on P6/7S a week earlier easily if we had a traditional comp. Reclearing p1 of P8 would have have been much easier too. Overall our damage checks were tight, and gear mattered a lot more than it normally did. We did have people swap for P8, we went to SAM/DRG/DNC/RDM. Oh, and our AST finally leveled WHM and swapped over to it, as he didn't have good card targets. It's also just so much less stressful.

Overall I really liked SGE. It has huge heal potential overall, and great mobility. Mitigation is fantastic. It is missing a few tools SCH has. However, with the simple fact that this tier liked to make you move while healing, it was just too good. I can't see how AST/SCH could heal something like Purgation without intense fairy macro.

Last tier I had a greedy co-healer. This tier I didn't. I was still stressed more this tier. Last tier was Decollations and the 2m healing marathon at the end of p2 P4S. This tier was Purgation, and pretty much all of P8S. EVERYTHING hits hard in P8S, and there are plenty of times where you're split into wide formations when the damage is going out. On top of that, add in RNG where you have to adapt healing patterns (Fire/Ice P8 p2). Our RDM died plenty of times to damage when not missing heals from us, and self-healed more than they should have had to. Phase 2 also has the tightest mitigation schedule I've ever seen. Pretty much Panhaima + Physis when up for Aionagonia. Holos ONLY for mit going into Concept, or at the very end with the last buffed AoE raidwide.

kenada said:

Dear Ars, I have a fantasia problem. I think I have finally arrived at au ra or viera, but I can’t decide which.

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Oh no, did you at least buy them during sales? Or does that make it worse?

I've been a midlander female since I started the game. Something about changing would just feel wrong. I do frequently change hairstyles to mix it up though, and try to put together a new glam here and there.

Saikaici said:

Oh no, did you at least buy them during sales? Or does that make it worse?

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I have bought some while they are on sale. It helps, but it also doesn’t because that just make it easier to go through five instead of three at a time.

Saikaici said:

I've been a midlander female since I started the game. Something about changing would just feel wrong. I do frequently change hairstyles to mix it up though, and try to put together a new glam here and there.

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I started as a male miqo’te and played that for a while. It’s been a while, but I think I went female midlander then male lalafell then female au ra in Heavensward. It’s a blur after that. I know I’ve played female miqo’te and elezen. I had a glam where I would tank in business casual, which was fun. Then Shadowbringers released.

Actually, it’s probably more fair to lame the blame at Endwalker. I tried viera in Shadowbringers, but the hair styles were all terrible. I also couldn’t make one that didn’t look a bit derpy. I can’t really remember what I played in Shadowbringers, though I know it was female because I’d bought gender-locked outfits and wasn’t going to lose access to those for glams. Anyway, Endwalker has been adding new hair styles to female viera since release (and now also male viera and hrothgar), so now there are hair styles that don’t look bad!

So a combination of indecisiveness and mistakes (wrong eye colors, skin tones, height, etc) have lead to my going through quite a few fantasia over the last few months. I did eventually pick up on that one weird trick of making alts to test new looks (until I learned there is a daily cap on how many you can make), but that doesn’t help much with glams. For example, I tried going female elezen again, but then I saw her in my RDM glam, and it looked awful because of their goofy proportions (particularly the shoulders).

I’m leaning towards viera, but it’s close. Au ra has some really expressive emotes, though I think the viera facial expressions are better. The lack of hats sucks, but I don’t usually wear a hat, and I’m hoping it gets eventually resolved once they finish adding the race-neutral hair styles to viera and hrothgar. From looking at hat mods for viera, the problem is apparently there are two versions of each hair style: a normal one and a hat-friendly one. Viera and hrothgar lack the second one, which is why most new hats also don’t work.

I also want to rant about some of the goofy jank I have encountered with the character creator.

The lighting is not representative at all of how things look in the game. You’ll pick a color, then it will end up looking totally different under normal lighting conditions. That’s been one of the biggest motivations for making alts, so I can run around and see whether I got the right skin ton, or if it looks goofy/wrong. I hope the 7.0 graphics update fixes that problem.

Another problem is sometimes colors don’t mean the same thing. Everyone seems to have the same color options for eye colors, but viera eyes are darker and less saturated when using the same same exactly selection (confirmed by checking the colors in the palette using by taking a screenshot and using the dropper tool in Affinity Photo). I was trying match a particular eye color (my original male miqo’te used a golden yellow), but it was impossible. I found out about the character creation limit that way.

Finally, it’s stupid that the combat sounds are often nothing like the emote sounds in the character creator. You can have subdued sounds in the creator, and then you get these awful shrieks and wails during combat. There are videos you can watch on YouTube with the combat sounds, but you shouldn’t have to do that. If they’re not going to fix them, which I don’t think is a reasonable expectation at this point, then at least let us hit a practice dummy in the character creator to hear what things sound like.

I would also add another thing. If I’m re-editing a character, let me apply glams. I can understand requiring you to take off all gear to do the edit (to avoid logging back into the game with incompatible gear), but it already has logic for what to do when a glamour plate has incompatible gear. Some races look good in most gear, but some look terrible. If you like high collars, giraffes elezen will probably be fine, but they look funky in other gear (like the obsolete android’s halfrobe of casting, which I use for my RDM plate).

I've pondered going Elezen a few times - I think I made a mostly clone character, just Elezen. However most stuff has to be built with Hyur in mind, so it just all fits and looks better on a midlander. And that's before you get horns/ears/etc going on to clip like crazy.

The only thing I've ever kinda noped out of due to clipping is the Seventh Heaven WHM chestpiece. It looks great, but then it has its hood which looks awful with a staff on your back.


Big oof.

kenada said:

Another problem is sometimes colors don’t mean the same thing. Everyone seems to have the same color options for eye colors, but viera eyes are darker and less saturated when using the same same exactly selection (confirmed by checking the colors in the palette using by taking a screenshot and using the dropper tool in Affinity Photo). I was trying match a particular eye color (my original male miqo’te used a golden yellow), but it was impossible. I found out about the character creation limit that way.

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I don't think there's any saving colors. I doubt they'll rework character models extensively, and materials are mostly to blame for awkward colors in different lighting. Their lighting game has improved, at least. Reworks of Haukke Manor and some of the older dungeons look genuinely great, and I well know the assets haven't changed.

That said I run GShade with basic filters to make color balance more dynamic.

Saikaici said:

Oh yeah. It's been a few weeks, but my static cleared P8S two weeks ago, on the 13th. Felt bad to take 16 weeks to clear the tier after last tier took 6. We had a lot of disruption in schedules later in the tier, which didn't help, but also we had two Magical ranged (DRG/RDM/SMN/DNC), instead of a two melee comp. In SHB, that would have been no problem. Not so much with the imbalances running rampant and major disparity between some classes.

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We finally got through HC2 last night, and still need to do lots of cleaning up on earlier mechs. Don't feel too bad.

Still on track for a faster clear than we had on E12. Just need to get the clear before PLD implodes in two weeks.

Congrats on your clear, @Saikaici! As a fellow SGE, I feel your P8S pt 2 pain. Even with a good mitigation plan, the entire fight feels like we're one missed heal from complete catastrophe.

Saikaici said:

I've pondered going Elezen a few times - I think I made a mostly clone character, just Elezen. However most stuff has to be built with Hyur in mind, so it just all fits and looks better on a midlander. And that's before you get horns/ears/etc going on to clip like crazy.

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Armor doesn’t even have the little embellishments anymore e.g., for races with tails. I read something recently about their process, and they have a tool that automates creating all the race-specific variants.

Saikaici said:

The only thing I've ever kinda noped out of due to clipping is the Seventh Heaven WHM chestpiece. It looks great, but then it has its hood which looks awful with a staff on your back.

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If only viera and hrothgar could opt into clipping …. Regardless, I would be happy if occasionally the role sets were designed for other roles. Why does so little of the Aiming gear look appropriate for a dancer? Why do the monks and ninjas get veils but not dancers?

Saikaici said:

I don't think there's any saving colors. I doubt they'll rework character models extensively, and materials are mostly to blame for awkward colors in different lighting. Their lighting game has improved, at least. Reworks of Haukke Manor and some of the older dungeons look genuinely great, and I well know the assets haven't changed.

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The improved shaders and lighting will probably make the biggest difference. It would be nice if they also added hats for hrothgar and viera, and fixed the ones that clipped off ears, but that’s probably wishful thinking.

Saikaici said:

That said I run GShade with basic filters to make color balance more dynamic.

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I’m just too lazy (and not willing) to install mods even though the hat mod would help with viera. The set you get when you hit 60 on BLM has a hat that would look nice on viera. The set itself looks pretty dumb without the hat too.

Still haven’t actually re-edited yet though. I’ve created a bunch more alts, and I think I’ve got my options almost where I want them. I just need to decide between what I’ve got spoiled below. I went with the monk outfit and identical hair styles to try to keep things a bit more “fair” in the comparison. I’m not sold on the red eyes, but I’m not sure which I like more between the other two. I asked my wife her thoughts, but she doesn’t like the horns on the au ra.

Update: Went with the blue-eyed xaela. We’ll see how long that lasts.

Is it really only two weeks for 6.3? Dang. At least it's a gear catchup patch. Alliance raid should be exciting.

Congrats on your clear, Saikaici! As a fellow SGE, I feel your P8S pt 2 pain. Even with a good mitigation plan, the entire fight feels like we're one missed heal from complete catastrophe.

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Thanks!!

We know we ARE one missed heal from a wipe. It's stressful especially when there are mechanics AND healing to do.

I’m just too lazy (and not willing) to install mods even though the hat mod would help with viera. The set you get when you hit 60 on BLM has a hat that would look nice on viera. The set itself looks pretty dumb without the hat too.

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I don't personally consider GShade a mod. Technically, yes. But it's not editing any assets, merely doing some post-processing to the entire image. Nvidia does it with it's post-processing effects for games. I consider it super worth it.

Still in a state of indecision. I made some tweaks after I posted the above image, and I thought I ended up with viera, but I still also like the au ra. Though if they made the loporrits’ ear emote available to viera (like in the JP FF site’s new years message), that might tip things more towards viera.

Saikaici said:

Is it really only two weeks for 6.3? Dang. At least it's a gear catchup patch. Alliance raid should be exciting.

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Yeah, it seems quick, but it’s not. I’m looking forward to the new raid. I didn’t care for the one in 6.2. While the music wasn’t bad, the fights on normal were kind of meh. Maybe they’re better on savage, but I don’t have a static (and I’m not really looking for one).

Also, irregular tomestone stuff …. I’m about half way through the 500~600 tomestones I’ll need. I’m just running tones of Frontline, which I like, so it’s not too bad. I’ve also been picking up PvP gear for glam, though I’m eventually going to have it all and run out of ways to spend my Wolf Marks (other than on even more ventures). I guess I can turn them into materia that I can sell on the MB.

Saikaici said:

I don't personally consider GShade a mod. Technically, yes. But it's not editing any assets, merely doing some post-processing to the entire image. Nvidia does it with it's post-processing effects for games. I consider it super worth it.

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It’s a thing I’m just weird about. I rarely use mods that change the default content/rendering unless that stuff is really bad (some of the body/face mods for Elder Scrolls games comes to mind). Anyway, I’m mostly okay with FFXIV’s rendering (especially once I applied a patch to my FFXIV derivation to address the flickering problem, though I need to troubleshoot to see if I can figure out the underlying problem because it really hurts performance when a lot of effects with transparency are being rendered).

The eye color problem is just an annoying lack of consistency. With most races, you can see your eye color even from a distance (e.g., in cut scenes). With Veena viera, they look black unless you use very light colors. The only fix for that is a TexTools mod.

I also wish there were more options with skin tones. Both Xaela au ra and Veena viera have pale/purple tones, which are the tones I want. You can get close with Duskwight elezen or Keeper of the Moon miqo’te, but they’re not quite the same, and that’s it regardless.

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Anyway, actual game talk stuff. Had an “interesting” Onsal Hakair where we went up something like 500~600 points while the other two teams fought over an S-rank spot. We lost. It turns out that letting the other two teams fight it out gave them a lot of people with battle highs, and they absolutely destroyed us once they got done, and we couldn’t take any ovoos after that.

I almost got Battle High V as DNC a couple of times, which feels like a ridiculous challenge. My best was 98 a couple of times plus a few others in the ’90s. Your damage just kind of sucks, so usually you end up with a ton of assists. RDM seems easier, but I kind of like the play style of DNC in Frontlines. You just have to be very careful with your engagements and hope to get a few lucky knockouts.

How long has FFXIV had an “all open” inventory view? I noticed that recently while digging through the UI settings for some reason that escapes me. I don’t like how it defaults to a smaller size, but it’s not too bad at full size.

Does anyone play with a PS5 or Xbox Series control? I’ve been playing with a PS4 controller, which is fine (other than the lack of touchpad support), but it’s not comfortable for extended play periods. I’ve also tried a Switch Pro controller. Unfortunately, in spite of the nice feel, the button prompts end up being too confusing.

kenada said:

How long has FFXIV had an “all open” inventory view? I noticed that recently while digging through the UI settings for some reason that escapes me. I don’t like how it defaults to a smaller size, but it’s not too bad at full size.

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At least 4 years.

What an absolutely terrible night of Seal Rock. It’s not a bad mode, but the RNG can be finicky, and people are really bad about going after the correct team. However!



What a crazy match. I didn’t even think I would get it this match. I died at 78, and then we went on a tear shortly after that. I got a bunch of kills, and we almost came back to win. I ended up 9-4-31, which is more deaths than I’d like, but it’s the most kills I’ve had as dancer. I think I had more assists earlier in another match (40+), but I died in the middle, and I obvious didn’t make up the difference.

Week 18 Savage clears are still an accomplishment, right?

necklessone said:

Week 18 Savage clears are still an accomplishment, right?

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You got it while it is still current content. It seems like it should be one to me, though I don’t do savage, so I may have no idea what I’m on about.

necklessone said:

Week 18 Savage clears are still an accomplishment, right?

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Clear before the catchup patch is always an accomplishment! Congrats!

Patch Notes are up. WAR got more healing because of course it needed it.

Finished the MSQ (other than the post MSQ side quest) and Euphrosyne. The Nophica fight was a little disappointing, but the others weren’t so bad. The Halone fight was great. None of the music was as good as Aglaia (particular the Nald’thal fight).

There’s a new alliance raid, so it makes sense that I’m leveling up my crafters instead. All of them. I have CUL to 63, and the rest are in their 20s. I’m just doing the Ixal dailies for the other classes. I thought I would work on Moogle rep while doing the Ixal dailies on other classes, but my CUL blew through 50–60 in a couple of days. It was pretty nuts (but not kupo nuts), actually. I also started the Namazu quests, but I’m not leveling CUL again until I get the other jobs up to 50 to start working on the Moogle quests again. I’m guessing that will take about a month or two for the rest of the crafting classes (CUL to 50 was about a week of Ixal dailies).

Weeks late, I got around to the new Alliance Raid. I'm not sure why I was so thoroughly disinterested. None of the fights packed the punch that Aglaia did. 3rd boss was probably best - although I did like the 2nd even if I felt it was odd that they put a duo in there - I was hoping for a little more from the Spinner, my character's patron saint.

Part of it was just the environments of Aglaia were SO well done. Euphrosyne's first area was OK, but the 2nd and 4th I can't even remember. The 3rd stands out for being awful ice textures - I don't think FFXIV has ever done pure ice zones well. At least snow zones and dungeons have rocks to work with.


A large portion of my static is gearing up to go into TEA again. I'm excited, but sad I'm not SAM. Also very sad looking back at previous prog vids I saved - man I miss Hissatsu: Kaiten. It even prompted me to go complain on the official forums. 2nd time doing so since ShB SCH changes.


Edit: As for MSQ, I assume they'll have another little side story before we get rolling into the new expansion story. After all, we've always had something off to the side for most new EX fights. Sorrow of Werlyt was the big one last expansion, this set of EX fights is just more MSQ central. x.4 usually begins the turning point to the new expansion, after all. And we're one major patch away. With the state of the 13th, I assume it won't be a 13th-centric expansion, I expect an expedition to the other continent (Mercydia?) to be the goal, and the 13th as potential raid content next expansion.

I discovered power-leveling crafting via the Firmament reconstruction turn-ins after my last post, so all my crafters are 50+. Even with omnicrafting and gathering, the Heavensward crafting quests are annoying. I didn’t appreciate the change in Stormblood on CUL until I started doing WVR and hit the master recipe 3 wall.

Saikaici said:

Weeks late, I got around to the new Alliance Raid. I'm not sure why I was so thoroughly disinterested. None of the fights packed the punch that Aglaia did. 3rd boss was probably best - although I did like the 2nd even if I felt it was odd that they put a duo in there - I was hoping for a little more from the Spinner, my character's patron saint.

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I felt about the same the first time I did the fights. I like them a bit more after doing them a few times, but Nophica is still pretty bleh as a fight. DDR phase is lame.

It’s also worth noting you need coins from both alliance raids to buy upgrades. I think this is a change from prior expansions, but I could be wrong. I never managed to stay caught up during prior expansions for every long. I’d always end up blowing through content in chunks.

Nope, previous expansions have required coins from both tiers to get the upgrade (and all three when the final part releases). It's to help keep the earlier raids in the tier firing so people who show up late can do the content.

I'd meant to mention Ishgard Restoration and custom deliveries when you'd previously posted about leveling crafters. There are a ton of catch up mechanics these days to get your level up. And as you've noticed, SE stopped hating crafters around Stormblood (and started coddling them in Shadowbringers). Just need to power through those stupid quests until then.

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Last clear of P8s this week, then on to whatever's next. Static doesn't have any set plans this tier other than working out our lineup for 6.4.

I don't need any coins unless I need tokens for twine/shine/whatever upgrade flavors are named this tier. I really only play Healer and SAM, so my books go towards SAM weapon/chest, and 625 Rubi weapons are good enough for WHM/SCH.

My crafters are neglected. Since ShB/EW changes my bars are nearly all grey. I crafted a few dyes yesterday and got confused at the lack of anything remaining to what I was used to.

necklessone said:

Last clear of P8s this week, then on to whatever's next. Static doesn't have any set plans this tier other than working out our lineup for 6.4.

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I feel you, there's a part of me that wishes there was a break instead, but TEA should be fun. Also, I'm not raid lead. At most I'll be notification bot setter-upper. Much more relaxed. Main reason why I didn't want to raid lead for TEA was recruiting. Thankfully, our big connections member got one (that has already cleared, the poor soul), and the other is a new rando.

I think TEA will be a similar or lighter healing load after the monsters that were P4S/P8S.

One thing about the crafting revamp that’s annoying is having to set up my bars eight times. Everyone has the same abilities, but they’re presumably all different spell IDs, so I can’t just use a shared bar for crafting. It also seems like the Ishgard Restoration turn-ins got messed up a bit with the gathering changes to remove HQ items. Some of the ones that require crafted mats (like ingots) are really easy because you can craft an HQ ingot to bootstrap your quality, but the ones that require raw materials suck when you are going from 40–50.

necklessone said:

I'd meant to mention Ishgard Restoration and custom deliveries when you'd previously posted about leveling crafters. There are a ton of catch up mechanics these days to get your level up. And as you've noticed, SE stopped hating crafters around Stormblood (and started coddling them in Shadowbringers). Just need to power through those stupid quests until then.

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I’ll eventually get them finished, but yeah. I’m doing tribal quests right now because Diadem is boring (and sometimes people want to ERP, wtf). I guess I could do the deliveries I can that are available to get scrips for master books. I kind of wanted to finish off The Customer Is Always Right VI: Ameliance first, but I still have another nine weeks of deliveries with her (and I guess I’ll make progress with other people instead).

kenada said:

One thing about the crafting revamp that’s annoying is having to set up my bars eight times. .

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Set up all your bars on one job then do the below to copy each hotbar to the others (this example will copy culinarian hotbar 1 to weaver hotbar 1, and the skills will translate)

/hotbar copy cul 1 wvr 1

Rogueain said:

Set up all your bars on one job then do the below to copy each hotbar to the others (this example will copy culinarian hotbar 1 to weaver hotbar 1, and the skills will translate)

/hotbar copy cul 1 wvr 1

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So much this. I have a macro made that copies my relevant CUL bars to my current class and it makes resetting after reworks (or just revising my personal macros) much easier.

And all is back as it should be...

I’ve finished the crafting tribal quests except for the lopporits (obviously). I‘m working on the unity quests for Heavensward and Stormblood now. They’ve been mixed. I liked the dwarf quests. Those were great. The others have varied, though I might rate the moogle quests higher than the namazu ones. I find myself growing increasingly tired of the lopporits. Maybe we should have let the Endsinger win.

My personal ranking is Namazu -> Dwarves -> Moogles. Lopporits are TBD and I've been slacking doing my dailies with them.

Working on getting through Eureka Orthos a few times for the mount. Lost a run at floor 94 last night when all of us were just a bit too complacent with a minotaur.

Finished our fourth Eureka clear last night and got the radioactive kitty mount. Just one more for people to get their kit or housing item, then it will be nice to take a break from the place.

Still working through leveling my crafters. CUL is to 90 while WVR and BSM are both in their 80s. Lowest is LTW, but it’s about halfway through the 50s. It will be nice to be done with the moogle dailies, but those will be replaced with qitari dailies as I get BTN up high enough (currently at 65).

I’ve missed a few days, so I’m behind the curve on unlocking the lopporit rep. Overall, I feel pretty meh about all of the tribal quests in Endwalker, but I particularly dislike the lopporit ones.

I've been coming to Ars for over 7 years but never came to the open forums. This thread has been going on longer.....I have been playing FFXIV since ARR released. I am both happy (to find this thread) and sad (that it took this long).

Gotta say, I'm pretty impressed with DC travel for opening up raiding. For TEA we've field tripped to Aether a few times for their PF. QoL features like that are why I give Yoshi-P so much credit.

CelicaGT said:

I've been coming to Ars for over 7 years but never came to the open forums. This thread has been going on longer.....I have been playing FFXIV since ARR released. I am both happy (to find this thread) and sad (that it took this long).

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Well to be fair, we don't chat too much unless it's around a new patch, or when people are finally finishing up a raid tier. I know 2-3 members raid together, but the rest of us seem to be pretty splintered.

There’s also a cross-world link shell, but we never coordinate to get people invites, and I can’t give out any more rights to people.

Oh, a dancer change for PvP!



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