30 Days of Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn. Day 7: Best Primal Fight [NM/HM]

My favorite primal fight might come off as odd to some as I used to abhor this primal back when I was still running for my relics.

When extremes came out, I immediately thought of rerolling to another dps class to survive Titan... (This is why I have a Bard XD)

Back when we were sporting penta melded Ilevel 70s and Ilevel 90s; I would cringe at the mention of Titan.

The countless deaths I suffered from the fight because of latency issues, animation lock, and just plain unawareness caused me trauma that I would do my best to avoid the fight in any way I can.

The only time that I would submit myself to this torture is if a close friend asked or if I really really really need to do it as part of a quest. I even skipped the weekly token to get a new weapon to avoid it.

I went on hiatus from the game for some time and only came back last July – August.



It was unavoidable since I wouldn’t be able to progress in the Primal fights if I don’t clear it. Together with my friends, we queued in Extreme and as soon as the queue popped up, I held my breath.

“This is going to be a long night…” I told myself.

Indeed, it was. We kept wiping but I noticed that I was able to avoid the attacks more efficiently than I did before I went on hiatus. (Probably better now that I got a new computer and a faster connection.)

I was dodging landslides, weight of the land and healing tumults.

“So far, So good…” I thought.  We’re past most of the things that usually killed me before so I felt a little secure but after a cast of bomb boulders, I was casting heals when a subsequent landslide was cast my way and hit me.


I fell off the platform and died and my WhiteMage friend ended up one healing the fight.
“So sad…” I thought.



They cleared the fight without me and though I was thankful that it was a clear, I felt sad that I died in the fight again.

After this, I was able to progress to Ifrit extreme but I always felt like going back to Titan to get that perfect clear.

After going through the nightmare that is Leviathan Ex, and clearing Ramuh Ex, I decided to go back and clear Titan again.

So one afternoon, I solo queued Titan Ex. As usual, I held my breath and as the fight started, poured my focus in the fight. We wiped a few times but I got the hang of it and survived most of the fight.



It was the 4^th attempt and we got to 10%, but I didn’t want to celebrate yet.  Everyone’s health is dwindling and I’m running out of mp so I was using my pet’s cooldowns for AoE Heals.

The Dragoon cast his Limit break early and left the boss with 2% health.
Just a nudge more and the screen went black.



CLEARED! And I’m alive! :D

Suddenly clearing Titan Ex was the best feeling ever. I’m happier than a bird with a French fry!

It’s amazing how I used to hate this fight before and would avoid it at all cost but now, I’d willingly join anyone who’d ask on FC chat.
This experience has taught me how something awfully dreadful could turn out to be so fun once you get the hang of it.

30 Days of Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn. Day 6: That dungeon you dread

Much like I have favorites, there are also dungeons that I dread.

I had a hard time choosing between Sastasha Hard and Aurum vale since I dislike them equally. However, for this entry I will probably discuss Aurum Vale.



To gain access to this dungeon, you will need to talk to Nedrick Ironheart in Vesper Bay, Western Thanalan
And to unlock it, you would need to head to Coerthas Central Highlands (x14,y35)

This dungeon can get frustrating for healers both new and experienced, since majority of the mobs and bosses in this dungeon hit like a truck. (either through brunt damage or Damage over time)

Upon entering the Dungeon, you will have to cross a bog filled with patrolling mobs. This can be difficult if you pull too many so it’s always best to have your tank pull them in batches to a corner or back into he cave where you emerged from.

Locksmith

Once through, you will enter the boss room with a giant ochu in the middle. Around him are Morbol fruits that you have to devour throughout the fight. It would be best to assign a morbol fruit to each member to avoid players not being able to eat any.

During the fight, the boss will cast an unavoidable room wide AoE, called Gold Rush,  that will keep stacking. This Debuff will periodically deal damage and can be manageable up to 2 stacks. After 2 stacks, it is highly adviseable to consume a morbol fruit to remove the stack. If not, the healer may find it hard to top off the party.

Aside from Gold rush, the boss will also cast an AoE spell on a random player called Gold dust.

As for the tank, you will deal with the boss’ melee skill, hundred lashing that hits like a truck. Blowing your cooldowns for this could be a great help to your healer to lessen the stress on healing.

If you’re lucky enough to have a party who will easily grasp these mechanics, you should be able to clear this with very little difficulty, if not; this fight could cause frustration to all members.

Coin Counter



The next boss in this dungeon is a Giant/Cyclops that packs an arsenal of AoE attacks that could be deadly to anyone in melee range.

This fight isn’t friendly towards newbie tanks so if you’re a healer and you’re familiar with this fight, it would be best to brief your newbie tanks about this boss or you’ll spend your hour dreading  why you queued for this dungeon in the first place.

This boss has 3 melee attacks that you would need to lookout for. First of three is the 10-Tonze Swipe. This is a frontal aoe attack that will hit anyone in front of him. If you’re not a tank, you shouldn’t worry about this. The next 2 are 100-Tonze Swipeand 100-Tonze Swing. 100-Tonze Swipe is a frontal cone AoE attack that deals a truckload of damage to anyone it hits while 100-Tonze Swing is a an AoE attack where he swings his club at full 360 and will deal severely large damage to all players standing in melee range.

From experience, these 2 are usually what would kill your tank. Either they’re not aware of what these skills do or they confuse one for the other since they both start with “100.”

To help you differentiate the 2, 100 tonze swipe is cast only when the boss is holding his club with one hand, while 100 Tonze swing is cast with 2 hands holding his club.  If this happens, just tell your tank to step through the boss for 100 Tonze Swipe and for 100 Tonze swing, ask the tank and dps to run away from the boss to avoid getting hit.  Or if your tank and Dps is alert enough, they can also try to interrupt them.


Aside from these, the boss has 2 other skills called Glower and Eye of the beholder.
Glower will be fired at a random player in the form of a laser. The targeted player will take damage and will have a paralysis debuff .

Eye of the beholder is a larger cone AoE spell that will deal damage and electrocution debuff on anyone it hits. This will happen when the boss faces a random player and you will see the emote "The Coincounter takes a moment to reconsider..."

After this boss, you will encounter some morbol mobs surrounded by morbol fruits. It would be best to lure the morbols away from the fruits and kill the fruits with AoE since these may spawn smaller adds and it will be harder to manage.

Miser's Mistress

The Final boss in Aurum vale is a Morbol. Like any other morbol, it has bad breath so it’s best to stay behind or beside him if you’re a healer or dps. Tanks needs to side step or step through the boss to avoid the frontal AoE debuff attack.

If you get hit by bad breath, you’ll be inflicted with Paralysis, Silence, Poison, Blind, Slow, Heavy, HP Penalty, and Determination Down. This is going to be a pain to remove and it will take a bit of time to wear off so be nice to your healer and avoid this.

Miser’s Mistress has the same mechanic as locksmith. He will cast burr burrows similar to locksmith’s Gold rush and you must eat fruits to remove it after 2-3 stacks.

The boss will also cast Hooked burrs on a random player increasing his burr stacks by 1 so party members need to be alert and aware.

The only other thing that the tank should look out for is the AoE Vine probe attack that will deal a moderate amount of damage to all that it hits.

If your team manages to get these mechanics, you should be able to fish the dungeon without issues.
Newbies may take some practice but it should be easy once you get used to the fight.

I’m sure I’m not the only player who dislikes this dungeon out there. I hope that this helps you in getting through the dungeon.

 

30 Days of Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn. Day 5: That one dungeon you always pray for Roulette’s

The game has a fresh list of Dungeons that you'd love and enjoy. My favorite among them is a recent addition to the list as of 2.4. 

Snow Cloak is one of the new dungeons released as a precedent to the new Shiva Primal fight. For those who have yet to complete the new Main Story line quest, you will find yourself in this dungeon at some point.

This dungeon is short and shouldn't take you more than 30 minutes with a good group.

There are 3 bosses in the dungeon and you can find their mechanics below:

Wandill

I usually tank the boss in the middle of the room until he casts Tundra. After Tundra, I move the boss to the north part of the safe area to give more room for the healer and dps to move around. 

In this fight, you would need to move around on Snowdrift to avoid getting stacks of deep freeze cause once you get to 3 stacks, you'll get the effects of Frozen and wouldn't be able to move or perform any action for 10 seconds.

The boss will also cast AOEs on the ground called cold wave. You would need to avoid these or you'll get a stack of deep freeze. 

Throughout the fight, ads called Frost Bombs will also spawn. These needs to be killed immediately or they'll explode and everyone in the party will gain a stack of Deep Freeze.

Note: You wouldn't be able to avoid Snowdrift before due to a bug but they fixed it in Patch 2.41


Yeti

This boss is fun. I love this encounter cause it's not the typical strategy where you burn the boss down. And.. well... you get to play with snowballs. 

The fight may require some good positioning. Depending on how you position the boss, this fight could be quicky and easy or tedious and unnerving. 

The boss has 3 Skills. First and most relevant is the Frozen mist. It's a cone AoE Attach that freezes any player within it and turns Spriggan Icecutters into snowballs. Each time a snowball is hit with this skill, the snowball increases in size and increases the amount of damage it will deal on Yeti once kicked towards him.

The second skill is Buffet. Its a smaller front Cone AoE attack and is easily avoidable by stepping through the boss or to the side. 

His last skill is Northerlies which is a room wide AoE attack that should be interrupted by hurling snowballs at the Yeti. 

What I do to make it easier, is to tank the boss at the north most part of the room to give a bigger range to Frozen Mist. This way, it will be easier to draw the spriggans so they stand directly in the path of Frozen Mist. More Spriggans; More snowballs ; More damage ; faster kill. 

Aside from Spriggan Ice cutters, there is also another spawn called Frostbound. These should be killed easily by 1 dps and it should be killed as soon as possible.

I usually ask 1 dps to lure and gather the spriggans in one spot for me. We can afford to lose dps from direct attacks to the boss since it doesn't take much damage unless it's a snowball. 

Fenrir

This fluffy is last boss for this dungeon. This fight has brought a lot of funny moments because of the ice pillar mechanic. 

This boss is fairly easy and mostly tank and spank. He has a frontal cleave attack called Heavansward Howl. This shouldn't be an issue with your tank unless his/her health is dwindling before getting hit. 

There is also a room wide blizzard attack that will hit all players for a small amount of damage called Thousand-Year Storm. There's no way to avoid this but it shouldn't kill you right off the bat. 

Lunar cry is also a room wide AoE attack and it will kill anyone it hits or leave you with very little health (from experience XD). He does this after every 2 sets of Ice pillars.

Fenrir will also do an Ecliptic Bite after every lunar cry. This is only cast on the Tank or the next person in the aggro list if the tank is no longer alive. It shouldn't kill you but it will deal a moderate amount of damage. 

3 Ice Pillars will appear  through out the fight. Their landing spot will be marked by circles on the ground and you best avoid them. 

These pillars will drop from the sky randomly (or on any dragoon in the party... Kidding! XD) And 2 out of 3 will have target players with a directional attack. It is easily avoidable so just be alert. The last crystal will explode. 

The last crystal is the key to avoid Lunar cry. If he's casting lunar cry, just run behind the last crystal until Fenrir pounces on the tank. 

These skills aren't difficult to manage and you should be able to clear with no worries. :)

30 Days of Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn Challenge Day 4: Got any DoL?

This is probably one aspect of the game that I almost never touch. 

Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn is the only game I've ever played with this kind of gathering mechanics. I appreciate the effort they put into creating the gathering system. 

The system is not as simple as most that I've seen in different games where in you just need to level the skill by gathering from open world nodes. The gathering system in Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn requires you to wear the appropriate equipment for your level, and using the skills to get higher quality items. 

Aside from these there are also special nodes that give rare materials that are only available at a specific time. To get to these some players would need to keep watch of the spawn times.

If you don't have your own timer, there are external websites who keep track of these for you. Here's what some of my friends use:

http://www.ffxivclock.com/#/



Some maps that you might find useful:

http://www.disciplesoftheland.com/Maps.aspx

Since I don't usually spend time gathering, I don't really have a lot of screenshots of my character doing this. But I will post more photos once I get some. 

Probably the only gathering I really do in my almost free time is Mining. I always fall asleep while fishing XD 

30 Days of Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn Challenge Day 1: Introduce yourself

Hello there!

I’ve been meaning to write a new entry for a while now, but I've couldn't think of anything to write about. I was researching about tank macros yesterday when I came upon a tumblr post called “30 Days of Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn” Challenge.

From what I understand, for 30 days, you will post 1 entry as a response to the challenge. I figured that this is a great opportunity to overcome my slump.

So….without further ado, here is challenge number 1!
30 Days of Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn.

My name is Juju and I've been playing online games, on and off since 2004. In the past, I've touched games such as Ragnarok online, Tales of Pirates, World of Warcraft and Ragnarok 2: LOTS.

I started playing Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn since Closed beta 3 on Diabolos as a Conjurer around a year ago.  And I’ve been smitten ever since.  I found that the game has a lot to offer and it majorly appeals to my taste.

I was awed by the attention to detail and intricate work that Square Enix has invested in the game. Everything in the game is designed to make you feel that you’re transported into another realm. Details such as ambient sounds and NPC interactions are designed to tickle your imagination.

My online handle is Juju Whitewind and I’m a Dunesfolk lalafell (because every extra inch of MND and PIE is never bad. And as an added bonus, Dunesfolks are so adorable.)

My focus on MND and PIE is justified by the class that I main. I originally played Conjurer in beta, but I’ve decided to switch to scholar for end game to fit in with my static group for raiding. Though I can heal on both classes, my gear is more optimized for scholar healing or at least I try to make it so.  (RNG isn’t usually my best friend)

After SE offered the free server transfers last year, I transferred to Tonberry (JP). Playing on an NA server from my location scores Titan HM a Juju kill every single time. So out of frustration, I decided to move to a server with less latency issues.  

On Tonberry, I’m part of a large Filipino community. This community is made up of Free Companies that houses other Filipinos. At the same time, our server also houses a lot of other communities from Singapore, Japan, Australia, and more.
So far, the people I’ve met in-game are generally nice and are always willing to help out other players.  This is a refreshing change from other MMOs I’ve been in, and I like it.

As a fan of all things small and beautiful, aside from being obsessed with lalafells, I am also a collector of mounts and pets. And this game spares you not from the cute pets and mounts that you can acquire in the game.

Aside from this Blog, I also have a twitch channel where I sometimes stream my game with friends. You can find my twitch channel here: Lainewell

And if you're more of a hitbox person, please also check my Hitbox account here: Huffypandabear


I also upload some fun videos on my YouTube channel so if you wanna drop by and check out some of them, you can click the link here: Aphetile

That’s it about my intro I guess. If you’re on Tonberry or planning to move there, please hit me up so we can run some dungeons for fun J

Final Fantasy XIV : A Realm Reborn

Hey there. This will be my first entry for this blog. Today, I’m writing about the game that I’m currently into, Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn. 

I’ve been playing this game since beta last year, but I took a couple of breaks for IRL stuff during this year. I recently came back and I have to say that it’s been a blast.

Why, Hello there!

The game offers a lot of things to new and old MMORPG players and new content is added every few months. This is a game where you’ll never run out of things to do. 

There are many things that I like about this game and I’d like to give you a run through and hopefully, this will also pique your interest after reading this entry. 

Once you start playing the game, you will find that it will slowly start to tickle your senses and one of the things that would probably draw you in, is the graphics. 

The game is fully quipped with lush forests to a full starry sky. Everything is detailed from the beaches of Limsa Lominsa, the gardens of Gridania, to the deserts of Ul’dah. 

Costa Del Sol (Limsa Lominsa)

Forgotten Springs (Ul'dah)

Sanctum of the Twelve (Gridania)

You will find yourself exploring these maps more as you progress in the game, on the back of your very own Chocobo… 

That is, after the countless hours you will spend creating your character while choosing from all the available customization 

Once you finish creating your character, you will be greeted by the game’s opening cutscenes. Your starting location will depend on the class that you chose. (Don’t be afraid to choose any class as you can try them all on the same character at a later time ^_~)

You will encounter lots of Cutscenes in the game when doing quests and dungeons and you will never regret watching each and every one. If you would miss any, for any reason, you can also re-watch it from the inn feature in-game.
My personal favorite is that of the Hildibrand quest line. It’s the comic relief quest line in-game.

Final Fantasy is known of its stories and this Final fantasy will not disappoint when it comes to this aspect. The story will draw you in and your main story quest line will lead you to all sorts of adventures in the game with the ultimate reward of *drum roll* A Magitek Armor mount!<3

Magitek Armor Mount

Quests! Oh quests! You will never run out of them. More quests than your journal has room for! 

Also, you will find that most of the NPCs that you interact with in quests have their own story line too. 

Another thing that I appreciate with Final fantasy XIV : A Realm Reborn, as with all the Final Fantasy games, is the music. You'll find that their musical collection isn't lacking when it comes to quality. Most of the tracks would get you in the mood to play, especially the raid scores.  You can sample the sound track from the link below from YouTube.

Final Fantasy XIV: ARR Soundtrack


When it comes to gameplay, Final fantasy XIV : A Realm Reborn is similar to some of the games I've played before. It follows the same trinity playstyle as World of Warcraft. A light party of 4 made up of 1 tank, 1 healer and 2 DPS classes and a full Party of 8 would have 2 Tanks, 2 healers, And 4 Dps. A full raid would contain 24 people or 3 full parties. 

I can say that the game is newbie friendly and the main story quests ensures that you are well taught of the whole trinity concept if you're entirely new to it so don't be afraid if this all sounds foreign to you right now.

Aside from questing, you have other options to get XP to level up which would prevent the tedious level grinding you have to go through in other games. You will be introduced to FATES, Guildhests, leves, Hunting Logs, all throughout the game as you level up, giving you limitless options on how you would level up.  

Main story quests will not leave you unprepared for end game content either. You will receive your first set of relic armor which you can use to run end game dungeons to acquire better gear at a later time. 

And lastly, What I love best about the game is the community. The game has a healthy environment for newbie players and learning is always a good part in raids even in Pugs. 

Bomb Dance with random people in Limsa Lominsa

Nanamo dance in Ul'dah during the Halloween event

People in the game are friendly too. You'd often find people hanging out by the Aetheryte while forming end game groups or just FATE parties and doing emotes at each other.  Unlike in other games, PVP here is not as toxic as it is in other games I've played before. There're less instances of griefing and bullying since your names aren't displayed.   There are also Free Companies (Guilds) That you can join to mingle with other players. 

If you find that you want to try the game, but not quite sure if it's worth your penny, the game offers a free 14 day trial. You can check the free trial here: 

http://www.ffxiv-freetrial.com/

Good luck! And I hope to see you in Eorzea soon! :D <3 

I'm playing on Tonberry-JP. Please hit me up if you ever decide to join:

Juju Whitewind

Lainewell Whitewind

I sometimes do streaming on twitch too: 

www.twitch.tv/lainewell