FINAL FANTASY XIV: Shadowbringers - Remember that we once posted

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Kanfy: Jan 9, 2012; Just gotta keep walking down that road.

Veriun posted:

-I always have Regen on the tank (after they've pulled, of course... ask me about pulling all the aggro without knowing why for a real long time until someone sat me down and explained it)

Good

quote:

-heal with Cure until I proc a free Cure II, never use Cure II otherwise unless someone's missing huge chunks of HP because it costs a lot of MP

Less good, in fact in most circumstances Cure is practically obsoleted the moment you get Cure II. Something costing a lot of MP is only relevant if you actually run out of MP at any point, which you practically never will thanks to Lucid Dreaming and fights just not taking that long. It's not that Cure is insufficient healing-wise, but the problem is that you have to cast it more often than Cure II which means less time spent DPSing.

quote:

-Medica II if the party takes damage and happens to cluster close together

Sure, only things to keep in mind is that

1. Cure III is better if everyone's really close together and about to take especially heavy damage, which 95% of the time means whenever there's a stack marker. As with all group heals, try to pre-emptively time the cast so that it lands right after the damage itself drops.
2. Medica 1 is better if everyone already has the regen effect from an earlier cast of Medica II but are too far for Cure III, though that's a lot more rare now that the duration was decreased.

quote:

-Benediction if I gently caress up and somehow cause the tank to reach critical health

Yeah, Benediction is good to have somewhere where you can slam it reflexively. Once you feel more confident you can occasionaly use it just as an off-GCD full heal while spending your actual casting on DPS. Make tanks sweat a bit occasionally, it's good for you.

quote:

-Swiftcast + Raise if Benediction somehow fucks up too

Good, and if a bunch of DPS die in a larger group and one of them is a Red Mage, they're a solid first choice for a revive since they have a fast revive themselves. Thin Air at 58 removes MP costs from spells for a time and Resurrect is a real MP hog, so it's a solid time to use that ability as well.

quote:

-Lucid Dreaming to keep my MP on the up, I usually activate it whenever possible unless I have more than 80-90% MP

You got it.

quote:

-chime in with Aero and Stone whenever there isn't an immediate HP shortage to get some DPS in

Good for any time there are 2 or fewer targets, Aero (later replaced by Dia) should be kept up on bosses at all times and it's also a good one to cast on trash mobs while they're chasing after a tank who isn't finished pulling all groups yet. If there are 3 or more targets, Holy spam is usually the way to go. (E: Right, with Presence of Mind active whenever possible, same with Stone/Glare spam on single targets) Since this also stuns all normal enemies, it practically doubles as damage mitigation.

Also Assize is amazing and once you get used to having it you'll never want to lose it.

Kanfy fucked around with this message at 10:33 on Jul 21, 2019

# ? Jul 21, 2019 10:18

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# ? Jun 11, 2024 11:15

SwissArmyDruid: Feb 14, 2014; by sebmojo

Veriun posted:

Hi, thread! I started XIV quite some time ago because everyone said it was good, decided to main WHM for some reason, and have been giggling at how the MSQ absolutely assumes you main... anything but a WHM. Due to real life I took a lot of breaks, but I finally made it past The Slog and got into Heavensward last week. Gotta say the story really picked up somewhere around Titan, and the entire endgame before Heavensward's title showed up on my screen was a nonstop train of . Given what I hear about Stormblood and especially Shadowbringers, and most of Heavensward which I haven't yet gotten to, I'm expecting great things

I just got to meet the pope guy, and I'm like 80/20 on "is he evil y/n". I mean, it's a Final Fantasy game so "evil pope/bishop" would be obvious, but after ARR's endgame I'm not sure what to expect. And I love it.

Any tips on not sucking as a WHM? I think I've managed nicely so far, but I have healer anxiety and always worry that I'll cause a wipe or otherwise be terrible. This is mostly me being a doofus, since the community has been beyond amazing so far, with very few bad experiences and most players being excited at explaining stuff to me. Anyway, I'm currently at 56 and haven't changed my "strategy" for the past twenty levels and wonder if I should do anything differently.

-I always have Regen on the tank (after they've pulled, of course... ask me about pulling all the aggro without knowing why for a real long time until someone sat me down and explained it)
-heal with Cure until I proc a free Cure II, never use Cure II otherwise unless someone's missing huge chunks of HP because it costs a lot of MP
-Medica II if the party takes damage and happens to cluster close together
-Benediction if I gently caress up and somehow cause the tank to reach critical health
-Swiftcast + Raise if Benediction somehow fucks up too
-Lucid Dreaming to keep my MP on the up, I usually activate it whenever possible unless I have more than 80-90% MP
-chime in with Aero and Stone whenever there isn't an immediate HP shortage to get some DPS in

I got Asylum and Assize too, but haven't been using those too much yet due to most dungeons/bosses restricting me to lv 50 (and, using a PS4 controller, I keep messing up or taking way too long at aiming Asylum's placement, I imagine it's going to be fun stressful times when I get to use it with a party).

You sound fine. That you learned about not regenning tanks as they're pulling makes you better than half the healers out there to begin with. Learn to love Assize, even in its nerfed state, it is still infuriatingly powerful.

On top of what Kanfy said, If you haven't yet made a habit of popping Presence of Mind, and then Holying the ever-loving poo poo out of pulls until you're out of mana, then using your multitude of free/non-MP-costed and instant heals to top the tank back up while recovering MP, guess what? Thin Air at level 58 means you've literally got no reason NOT to, since it'll make all those Holys MP-free.

Literally, Holy. Holy holy holy holy holy. Drop the Holy on their miserable heads. It's six-seven seconds of "the enemies aren't hitting the tank" combined with a knob of damage with each time it lands. It is so goddamn easy to dungeon heal with WHM its disgusting.

At any rate, it's absolutely something you can do now, it's just that Thin Air lets you do it without ever touching your MP bar. That stun time should help you find the breathing room you need to plop down Asylum. If you aren't averse to using a macro for Asylum, you can put

code:

/merror off
/ac "Asylum" <t>
/ac "Asylum" <t>
/ac "Asylum" <t>
/micon "Asylum"

and it will drop it centered directly on your target, giving either your tank a nice little zone of regen + increased heals they can run around in, or target yourself to put it right at your feet.

SwissArmyDruid fucked around with this message at 10:21 on Jul 21, 2019

# ? Jul 21, 2019 10:18

Kanfy: Jan 9, 2012; Just gotta keep walking down that road.

I don't actually even use Thin Air with Holy post-Shadowbringers, it's literally just 600 MP a cast now which is almost half a single Cure II so you can spam Holy for three days straight with just Lucid Dreaming and Assize. I always save it for revives or situations where I need to cast more than one group heal in a row.

# ? Jul 21, 2019 10:24

SwissArmyDruid: Feb 14, 2014; by sebmojo

In that case, follow Kanfy's advice, because I haven't touched nu-WHM yet. Still sitting over here being Lot's wife over how they loving savaged AST, and not being able to muster up the will needed to carry on levelling it.

# ? Jul 21, 2019 10:35

Shy: Mar 20, 2010

I rarely use Cure in high level instances. It's either one of the two instant heals, or spam Cure II if I run out of options and the tank is low. WHM doesn't really run out of mp until dead.

# ? Jul 21, 2019 10:55

Veriun: Mar 9, 2013; As long as we're alive,
good things will come.

And we'll be okay.

Truga posted:

Also, you can get away by never using cure 1 altogether unless you're really low on MP.

BrightWing posted:

Cure 1 sucks, stop using it.

Kanfy posted:

Less good, in fact in most circumstances Cure is practically obsoleted the moment you get Cure II. Something costing a lot of MP is only relevant if you actually run out of MP at any point, which you practically never will thanks to Lucid Dreaming and fights just not taking that long. It's not that Cure is insufficient healing-wise, but the problem is that you have to cast it more often than Cure II which means less time spent DPSing.

Welp, I guess I have a free slot on my hotbar now! Thanks guys, gonna un-learn my Cure I dependency.

Kanfy posted:

1. Cure III is better if everyone's really close together and about to take especially heavy damage, which 95% of the time means whenever there's a stack marker. As with all group heals, try to pre-emptively time the cast so that it lands right after the damage itself drops.
2. Medica 1 is better if everyone already has the regen effect from an earlier cast of Medica II but are too far for Cure III, though that's a lot more rare now that the duration was decreased.

My brain went "oh Medica II applies Regen AND AoE heals, that means it's better and should be exclusively used for all my group healing needs :v:

" at some point and then refused to consider anything else.

SwissArmyDruid posted:

On top of what Kanfy said, If you haven't yet made a habit of popping Presence of Mind, and then Holying the ever-loving poo poo out of pulls until you're out of mana, then using your multitude of free/non-MP-costed and instant heals to top the tank back up while recovering MP, guess what? Thin Air at level 58 means you've literally got no reason NOT to, since it'll make all those Holys MP-free.

I use Presence of Mind for Stone spam, guess it's now time for Holy spam. I see I got to unlearn my love of a full MP bar.

Thanks for the tips, guys! I felt like my healing was getting ineffective/stale lately but couldn't quite put my finger on why. Turns out relying almost exclusively on Baby's First Cure was bad, who knew! Gonna do some dungeons later for practice, and am definitely going to check out macros. Haven't been using them at all so far, but they sound too useful to keep ignoring.

# ? Jul 21, 2019 10:56

EponymousMrYar: Jan 4, 2015; The enemy of my enemy is my enemy.

Don't outright get rid of Cure I unless you never plan on doing leveling roulette. Because one day you'll get stuck in a really low level dungeon and have to fumble to put it back on your bars :v:

Kanfy posted:

I don't actually even use Thin Air with Holy post-Shadowbringers, it's literally just 600 MP a cast now which is almost half a single Cure II so you can spam Holy for three days straight with just Lucid Dreaming and Assize. I always save it for revives or situations where I need to cast more than one group heal in a row.

In addition it's worth spacing out your holies so you get the maximum stun duration out of it in the new dungeons. Holy's stun is good mitigation for a hugemongous pull. Thus get into the habit of throwing a swiftcast Holy out ASAP once you've thrown regen/asylum on the tank.

I still use Thin Air + PoM for holy spam because I tend to forget to use Thin Air for anything else. I don't heal raids though so I can see throwing Thin Air on for a couple of medica's would work nicely there.

# ? Jul 21, 2019 11:35

Kanfy: Jan 9, 2012; Just gotta keep walking down that road.

Beaten but yeah, you shouldn't actually remove Cure from your bars entirely, if you get synced below level 30 in Leveling roulette or whatever you won't have Cure II yet. And for what it's worth I've never used combat macros, though I also don't use a controller.

Ultimately the main goal of playing WHM (and probably any healer) is ironically to minimize the amount of time you're casting heals. Cure and Medica are both "last resorts" that you cast because your off-GCD heals and abilities aren't sufficient to cover what's needed. The more work you can do with just Regen backed up by Benediction/Assize/Asylum/Divine Benison/Tetragrammaton to keep people healthy while all your actual casting is focused on dealing damage, the more you contribute overall. Of course, all of these are relatively high-level abilities, at lower levels you gotta work with what you have.

Afflatus Solace and Afflatus Rapture which were added in ShB are kind of an exception to the rule once you're past level 74, since while they're not off-GCD they do feed your strongest damage ability which is Afflatus Misery, but that's obviously not relevant for you yet. Though even before that Afflatus Solace which you do already have is just as potent as Cure II except free and instant cast which is an incredibly good addition to the WHM arsenal and also allows for some great burst healing with combos like Cure II+Solace or Tetragrammaton+Solace.

Kanfy fucked around with this message at 12:04 on Jul 21, 2019

# ? Jul 21, 2019 11:52

hobbesmaster: Jan 28, 2008

Thats a lot of words to say WHM post 74 is B̷̢̼̘̗͎͉̹̟̰͓͙͂̈́́͂̔͆̕͝L̴̢̧̩͕͍͐̎̋͆̏͐̇̕Ö̴̢̨͎̠͕̟̜̱͍̳̭͚͖͓́̈́̓͒̀͒͝O̸̧̧̬̻̦̥̮̭̰̯͙͋͂̈́̋̓̋D̷̤̩̝̼̣̝̮̠̹̖̜̃̈ ̴̡̹͍̥̮̄́͒̒̔̆̃̆͌̾̕F̶̪͆̏̓́Ó̴̢̤̮͔̠̟̰͚͉̈͊̀͂͊̅́́͒́̇̇͗͝R̴̩͖̫͉͑́͊́̿͛̕͘͠ ̶͓͙̗̰͔͔͈͓̲̪̹̻̹̎͗̉̈͋̋̊̕͘̚̚̚ͅT̸͙̉Ḩ̴̢̛̛̫̺͉̣͔̲̥̲̘͚̓̀͆͆͠E̵̗̺̪̼̟̖̪̲͓̣̋͆̈̈́̉͌͆͛̑́͗͘͜͜͠ ̸̞͍͖̤̩͛͛̅̿̏B̷̧̨̛̠͇̙͈̜̦̦́̔̏͐̊͒͆̈͒̚͘͠͝L̸̛̺̥̬͕̬̼͋́̅̈͒́̉͜Ơ̵̛͍͆͂̆͒͐͐̔̈̇̋͌̉̕O̵̝̒̀̊̆͐̎̀̈́̚͝D̶̫̳͗̊͒͆͘ ̸͖̘͇̩̪̙̻̙̂Ḻ̴̥͕̣̳̲̯̂̽̈́̑̔̂̈́̑̀̕̚I̶̠̭̟̖̟̣͙͍͓͚͕̊̾͒̃̋̍̅̃̅̐͒͒̌̽̚L̴͔̣͍̱̺̟̠͌͌̑̿̇͑́̉͌Y̷̧̨̢̦̪̤̪͙̥̗̪̹̻̦͂̈́́͜

# ? Jul 21, 2019 12:02

Veib: Dec 10, 2007

Yeah doing synced content with WHM right now is funny because I always go "now why would I even use Solace here it doesn't do anyth-- oh right it heals"

Also the Ronkan healing set dyed black makes you look like a sith lord or something, which is very good for the whole Blood Lily aesthetic

# ? Jul 21, 2019 12:07

Veriun: Mar 9, 2013; As long as we're alive,
good things will come.

And we'll be okay.

I have separate hotbars I use for leveling roulettes so I don't get stuck with half the options grayed out, but thanks for the heads up

Didn't consider Cure and Medica to be "last resorts" things, but the way you explain it makes sense and I'll try to have that in mind.
I think part of my problem is that I'm pretty reactive. I have a hard time spotting patterns in attacks, so I tend to heal damage after it's been dealt rather than setting things up so by the time damage is dealt, the HP is already rolling in on its own. It does sound like it'd make my life infinitely easier if I could manage to prepare for stuff before it happens, though.

# ? Jul 21, 2019 12:09

Kanfy: Jan 9, 2012; Just gotta keep walking down that road.

I like to set the boss as my Focus Target and put it somewhere clearly visible to see when they start casting things, I also have hotkeys for targeting the Focus target and for targeting the Focus target's target which is normally the tank so that I can respond quickly to whatever. The ability's name is usually indicative of what it's going to damage, like if a boss starts casting Punch Incredibly Hard it'll probably be a single-target tank buster. Mostly it's just a matter of learning them by experience though.

You can also separate your target's casting bar in UI customization and do the same with that, especially useful as a tank or DPS since they always tend to have the boss targeted anyway.

Kanfy fucked around with this message at 12:20 on Jul 21, 2019

# ? Jul 21, 2019 12:17

Your Moms Ahegao: Sep 3, 2008

I tried to replay WhiteMage after a long break and I just wasn't feeling it. I find Holy spam incredibly awkward, I often waste a huge amount of time have to constantly recast it moving out of danger zones, it feels bad. It just does not feel like a spell a healer should have. I'm also not comfortable letting dots heal people.

Moved to Scholar, now this is my jam. Art of War is instant cast, I can weave around danger zones. Shields mean I feel safe letting the tank sit at half health while I dps. I love precasting Adlo on the tank, my fairy basically dots for me, its super satisfying casting a big Succor in a raid keeping everyone safe while the white mages Medica heals them. Aetherflow feels like a way more reliable "oh poo poo" button then Benediction.

Granted this is only from playing them both at 50, so I have yet to see how both evolve as I level them.

# ? Jul 21, 2019 12:29

Nessus: Dec 22, 2003; After a Speaker vote, you may be entitled to a valuable coupon or voucher!

Man, Gunbreaker has a lot of... buttons. They all seem to whip rear end though. I feel bad for DRK, which seemed to have significantly fewer buttons. On the other hand, DRK lets you summon your Stand and shoot ghosts and poo poo, so I guess it balances out.

# ? Jul 21, 2019 12:36

Catgirl Al Capone: Dec 15, 2007

Veriun posted:

I have separate hotbars I use for leveling roulettes so I don't get stuck with half the options grayed out, but thanks for the heads up

Didn't consider Cure and Medica to be "last resorts" things, but the way you explain it makes sense and I'll try to have that in mind.
I think part of my problem is that I'm pretty reactive. I have a hard time spotting patterns in attacks, so I tend to heal damage after it's been dealt rather than setting things up so by the time damage is dealt, the HP is already rolling in on its own. It does sound like it'd make my life infinitely easier if I could manage to prepare for stuff before it happens, though.

As a healer you definitely want to work towards playing proactively. It's significantly more important for sch than whm but all healers want to be prepared for what happens to some degree. keeping the boss as a focus target and messing with the UI to decouple the target cast bar, make it bigger, and put it somewhere easier to see will help you to memorize what the boss' casts do so you can go into the next run more and more prepared. using divine benison before a tankbuster is rarely necessary but it saves some of your other healing resources, for example.

# ? Jul 21, 2019 12:41

Krabboss: Nov 11, 2016; MY HUSBAND'S PARSE IS BETTER THAN YOURS

Nessus posted:

Man, Gunbreaker has a lot of... buttons. They all seem to whip rear end though. I feel bad for DRK, which seemed to have significantly fewer buttons. On the other hand, DRK lets you summon your Stand and shoot ghosts and poo poo, so I guess it balances out.

GNB finally forced me to fix my hotbars so that I don't have to mouse click on anything anymore. I had to rewire my muscle memory on all my jobs afterwards but it worked out in the end.

I don't know who holds the award for fewest button but I know when I switch to MCH about half my hotkeys are empty.

# ? Jul 21, 2019 12:44

Nessus: Dec 22, 2003; After a Speaker vote, you may be entitled to a valuable coupon or voucher!

Krabboss posted:

GNB finally forced me to fix my hotbars so that I don't have to mouse click on anything anymore. I had to rewire my muscle memory on all my jobs afterwards but it worked out in the end.

I don't know who holds the award for fewest button but I know when I switch to MCH about half my hotkeys are empty.

Back in stormblood I managed to cram everything I needed for SMN onto two hot bars, thanks to ~~Ifrit~~ Ruby Carbuncle not requiring me to do anything to drive it. I generally use two now, and I am a mouse and keyboard puppeteer

# ? Jul 21, 2019 12:50

Your Moms Ahegao: Sep 3, 2008

I hate DRK tanks because their giant purple voidclaw always looks like its something I should be avoiding and don't think i'll ever get use to it.

# ? Jul 21, 2019 12:54

Zoig: Oct 31, 2010

I have 3 hotbars setup that i can hit 2 and a half of without moving my hand from wasd. I also have a indent in my ctrl key.

# ? Jul 21, 2019 12:57

Your Computer: Oct 3, 2008; Grimey Drawer

Your Moms Ahegao posted:

I tried to replay WhiteMage after a long break and I just wasn't feeling it. I find Holy spam incredibly awkward, I often waste a huge amount of time have to constantly recast it moving out of danger zones, it feels bad.

I thought I was the only one here who didn't like Holy :v:

It's supposed to be one of the major upsides to playing WHM but I just don't like using it. I'm not a fan of PBAoE's in general and since it has a cast bar too it just feels awkward to use for me. My favorite healer is still AST even after the redesign, a big part of that is the aesthetics but also the toolkit just... makes more sense to me and I much prefer popping Lightspeed and spamming Gravity (especially now with the increased duration!)

CYBEReris posted:

As a healer you definitely want to work towards playing proactively. It's significantly more important for sch than whm but all healers want to be prepared for what happens to some degree. keeping the boss as a focus target and messing with the UI to decouple the target cast bar, make it bigger, and put it somewhere easier to see will help you to memorize what the boss' casts do so you can go into the next run more and more prepared. using divine benison before a tankbuster is rarely necessary but it saves some of your other healing resources, for example.

My problem with playing proactively, whether that's as a shielding healer or a tank popping cooldowns is that before Shadowbringers the bosses usually don't have a cast bar on their tankbusters. I've had people tell me "there's a pattern you just have to learn it" but that's a pretty big task when there are hundreds of boss fights in FFXIV and each one is different

It's one of my favorite things about the Shadowbringers dungeons - with few expections, every tankbuster has a good ol' cast bar and gives you time to react and pop your cooldowns. They also hit like a truck to make up for it, but it just feels much better than the guesswork that is the other fights.

# ? Jul 21, 2019 12:59

ReWinter: Nov 23, 2008; Perpetually Perturbed

A ton of people are saying that precasting Regen is bad but with the changes to tank stance in ShB this is frequently not true - it may be technically safer not to do it, but if you're running along close to the tank like you should be then you'll eat at most one or two hits before the tank effortlessly AoEs them off of you, and that damage will immediately get healed by Assize once the pull is clumped up. Meanwhile Regen during lengthy wall pulls picks up slack once Divine Benison wears off and gives more leeway for that sweet sweet Holy.

This is not directed at that person learning WHM, but when you're running EXDR at level cap for the 90th time Regen during pulls is the right move if you're playing well and having tanks click it off when I'm two steps behind them is just weird.

# ? Jul 21, 2019 13:12

super sweet best pal: Nov 18, 2009

ReWinter posted:

A ton of people are saying that precasting Regen is bad but with the changes to tank stance in ShB this is frequently not true - it may be technically safer not to do it, but if you're running along close to the tank like you should be then you'll eat at most one or two hits before the tank effortlessly AoEs them off of you, and that damage will immediately get healed by Assize once the pull is clumped up. Meanwhile Regen during lengthy wall pulls picks up slack once Divine Benison wears off and gives more leeway for that sweet sweet Holy.

This is not directed at that person learning WHM, but when you're running EXDR at level cap for the 90th time Regen during pulls is the right move if you're playing well and having tanks click it off when I'm two steps behind them is just weird.

No kidding, building enmity is effortless with new tanking.

# ? Jul 21, 2019 13:19

Heroic Yoshimitsu: Jan 15, 2008

Does anyone have/had good crossbar controller layouts for gunbreaker? I just unlocked it and did the follow up quest, and there�s so many abilities and they�re all over the place and I don�t know where to start!

# ? Jul 21, 2019 13:23

isk: Oct 3, 2007; You don't want me owing you

ReWinter posted:

This is not directed at that person learning WHM, but when you're running EXDR at level cap for the 90th time Regen during pulls is the right move if you're playing well and having tanks click it off when I'm two steps behind them is just weird.

It's less weird when you're used to most healers standing/moving some distance away/reacting poorly when they get aggro. A healer with good movement who sits close to the tank is the weird part in my experience - not that it's bad, simply uncommon.

# ? Jul 21, 2019 13:35

luchadornado: Oct 7, 2004; A boombox is not a toy!

I played FFXIV at launch and am just coming back to play with a friend - holy poo poo is the game better. Got a few questions:

1) Can't pick the server goons play on. Does it ever open up?
2) If I'm trying to level with my buddy, but I also want to play on my own on a different job, what's the recommended way? It sounds like it's easiest to level MSQ as your first class, but MSQ is easy experience for DPS. I'm thinking of doing DRG or NIN solo and doing MSQ, and then doing PLD or WHM with my friend and doing dungeons/leves/etc. with him. Does that make sense?
3) How do queue times vary between tank/healer/dps?

# ? Jul 21, 2019 13:38

isk: Oct 3, 2007; You don't want me owing you

Helicity posted:

I played FFXIV at launch and am just coming back to play with a friend - holy poo poo is the game better. Got a few questions:

1) Can't pick the server goons play on. Does it ever open up?
2) If I'm trying to level with my buddy, but I also want to play on my own on a different job, what's the recommended way? It sounds like it's easiest to level MSQ as your first class, but MSQ is easy experience for DPS. I'm thinking of doing DRG or NIN solo and doing MSQ, and then doing PLD or WHM with my friend and doing dungeons/leves/etc. with him. Does that make sense?
3) How do queue times vary between tank/healer/dps?

1) Yes. Might be a while since ShB is super popular.

2) It does. Might cause some weird level gaps, but there's always good sources of XP outside of the MSQ.

3) Significantly, but they can vary. Usually it goes healer > tank >>>>> DPS. Sometimes I wait 5 mins in queue as DPS, other times it's closer to 30. Typically there's stuff to do while in queue, like FATEs, crafting/gathering, daily activities (like Cactpot at the Gold Saucer), market board maintenance, etc.

# ? Jul 21, 2019 13:42

ReWinter: Nov 23, 2008; Perpetually Perturbed

isk posted:

It's less weird when you're used to most healers standing/moving some distance away/reacting poorly when they get aggro. A healer with good movement who sits close to the tank is the weird part in my experience - not that it's bad, simply uncommon.

That makes sense, although my goodness that's frustrating given that the same job that HAS Regen also has "spam a PBAoE" as their most common action in dungeons - seems like that should solve the riddle of "where do I stand." Maybe I'm just way underestimating how bad the average healer is.

# ? Jul 21, 2019 13:43

super sweet best pal: Nov 18, 2009

Basically if you party up as a tank and a healer your queues will be instant.

# ? Jul 21, 2019 13:47

Catgirl Al Capone: Dec 15, 2007

Helicity posted:

I played FFXIV at launch and am just coming back to play with a friend - holy poo poo is the game better. Got a few questions:

1) Can't pick the server goons play on. Does it ever open up?
2) If I'm trying to level with my buddy, but I also want to play on my own on a different job, what's the recommended way? It sounds like it's easiest to level MSQ as your first class, but MSQ is easy experience for DPS. I'm thinking of doing DRG or NIN solo and doing MSQ, and then doing PLD or WHM with my friend and doing dungeons/leves/etc. with him. Does that make sense?
3) How do queue times vary between tank/healer/dps?

1) Yes, but it's pretty rare. Around Stormblood launch when I started playing there was an opportunity to get in at around 2:00 AM EST, it might open up around that time if it's less congested but there's no guarantees.
2) It depends. Most of the time you play with other people is in dungeons, which have 1 tank, 1 healer, and 2 DPS. As long as you can fill some of these slots without exceeding any you can play with friends.
3) In 4-man content healer queues are almost always instant, while tanks are steadily normalizing but still slower and DPS tends to take a while. In 8-man/24-man content DPS tend to get somewhat better queues because of the sheer number of slots, but not always.

# ? Jul 21, 2019 13:52

Damn Dirty Ape: Jan 23, 2015; I love you Dr. Zaius

Helicity posted:

I played FFXIV at launch and am just coming back to play with a friend - holy poo poo is the game better. Got a few questions:

1) Can't pick the server goons play on. Does it ever open up?
2) If I'm trying to level with my buddy, but I also want to play on my own on a different job, what's the recommended way? It sounds like it's easiest to level MSQ as your first class, but MSQ is easy experience for DPS. I'm thinking of doing DRG or NIN solo and doing MSQ, and then doing PLD or WHM with my friend and doing dungeons/leves/etc. with him. Does that make sense?
3) How do queue times vary between tank/healer/dps?

1. You can try at off times but things are kind of crazy right now.

2. You and your friend have to level your MSQ no matter what, so you may as well do it with a DPS class if you think you want to play one as they have the longest queues (as always, play what you think seems most fun first of all). I did most of my MSQ so far as a NIN and I had no issues. You can always level sync down to run dungeons or FATEs with your friend on whatever job you want so play whatever is most fun. I ended up leveling a bunch of jobs at the same time, but most recommend charging forward on one job. Just remember keep advancing on the MSQ to unlock dungeons and game features (companies, mount, etc).

3. DPS is by far the longest, in the last 2 days for me varying between 10-20 minutes on most roulettes (faster for raid, slower for MSQ roulette). Right now it seems like healers are the fastest due to lots of new gunbreakers tanking out there and some general grumbling in the playerbase about some healer changes, but late in last expansion it was almost a coin flip on whether or not the queues were faster as a healer or tank. Weirdly in my experience I usually got a group faster as a healer even though the bonus was more often given to a tank.

Queue times can vary a lot by roulette as well, but for now you probably just need leveling which would probably be (fastest to slowest) healer > tank >>> DPS. Tanks tend to be insta for trials and MSQ roulette and DPS usually doesn't have to wait as long for the alliance roulette.

# ? Jul 21, 2019 13:55

Your Computer: Oct 3, 2008; Grimey Drawer

I'm waiting for the tank queues to get better before leveling another tank because leveling Warrior now the queues were almost as bad as DPS. Average queue times of 15+ minutes which sometimes went slower, sometimes faster, presumably because everyone is/was leveling GNB.

Still not as bad as going through the story before ShB as a DPS and having 30+ minute queues for every single (mandatory) dungeon and trial though :v:

# ? Jul 21, 2019 13:56

EponymousMrYar: Jan 4, 2015; The enemy of my enemy is my enemy.

ReWinter posted:

A ton of people are saying that precasting Regen is bad but with the changes to tank stance in ShB this is frequently not true - it may be technically safer not to do it, but if you're running along close to the tank like you should be then you'll eat at most one or two hits before the tank effortlessly AoEs them off of you, and that damage will immediately get healed by Assize once the pull is clumped up.

It's still a good habit to get into. Because sure one or two hits isn't a big deal.
Unless it's six mobs doing that. Because they ran out of the range of the tank's AoE as they were sprinting past to do a wall-to-wall pull.

I've seen and had that happen to me (as well as seeing tanks die during holy spam while under regen.)

Sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do even if that's a 'less efficient' way of doing things, because it's more efficient than wiping in the end.

# ? Jul 21, 2019 13:56

The Black Stones: May 7, 2007; I POSTED WHAT NOW!?

ReWinter posted:

A ton of people are saying that precasting Regen is bad but with the changes to tank stance in ShB this is frequently not true - it may be technically safer not to do it, but if you're running along close to the tank like you should be then you'll eat at most one or two hits before the tank effortlessly AoEs them off of you, and that damage will immediately get healed by Assize once the pull is clumped up. Meanwhile Regen during lengthy wall pulls picks up slack once Divine Benison wears off and gives more leeway for that sweet sweet Holy.

This is not directed at that person learning WHM, but when you're running EXDR at level cap for the 90th time Regen during pulls is the right move if you're playing well and having tanks click it off when I'm two steps behind them is just weird.

It�s all well and good if the WHM is right next to you, but I had a WHM in Bardam�s Mettle who would constantly cast regen and proceed to stand as far as possible away so I would have to constantly wrangle enemies away because the ticks would grab aggro and the enemies would zoom away. It�s annoying as heck. It doesn�t ruin a run or anything but it can really mess with the rhythm of the Tank.

# ? Jul 21, 2019 13:59

SwissArmyDruid: Feb 14, 2014; by sebmojo

I would like to go on record as saying, it's a damned crime that RDM isn't available to new players until they hit level 50 and get SHB, because it's a great job for people who can't mentally juggle lots of buttons and do mechanics at the same time, because of how buttons morph based on state? Like, I keep going back to my spellbook to make sure I didn't forget to drag in any new skills. (I haven't, I'm just still level 70.)

# ? Jul 21, 2019 13:59

Cleretic: Feb 3, 2010; Ignore my posts!
I'm aggressively wrong about everything!

Finally, I've managed to hit the end of Shadowbringers! I really liked... most of it! Shame about the part that ruins it. (Shadowbringers endgame spoilers specifically ahead)

Shadowbringers is nine-and-a-half levels and five zones of the best FFXIV's ever been, with A-grade world design, writing, monster design, dungeons, trials, side-content, and acting, broken only by the occasional presence of an annoying character that the writers think has more charisma and adds more to the story than actually does.

Unfortunately, literally right after Vauthry dies the quality of the writing takes a sharp dive off a cliff with the single most infuriatingly bad cutscene in the entire game, and possibly the entirety of Japanese RPGs as far as I can remember. And the quality of most everything else takes a sharp nosedive soon after as the developers decide that the best way to end their expansion is with a water level, and then the world and dungeon designers desperately try to pull them out of their tailspin by basically just calling back to Zanarkand for half a zone and hoping that salvages a plot now controlled by the worst character.

Emet-Selch is a version of Borderlands' Handsome Jack, as written by someone who doesn't know that the best part about Handsome Jack is regularly wiping the smug grin off his face. I think Urianger set my hopes too high in assuming that characters in the story would be regularly conscious of the fact that this guy is a shitbag that needs to shut up, and kept hoping for more cutscenes of people throwing things at him to make him shut up and go away. Alas, that didn't happen; in fact, it doesn't happen to such an extent that even when he's extremely loving dead it still feels like he went out on top and the writing is utterly convinced that he's a tragic and sympathetic figure instead of an annoying shitbag that wants literally everybody to die.

At least this time, they actually decided to kill off the villain instead of trying to drag out their story. At least, hopefully he's dead, which means that we can now forget about him and move on.

I really wish that wasn't the end of the story, in large part because it means that I'm talking the most about the worst part of the expansion! Everything before that is absolutely amazing! I loved everything about the sin eaters, most of the zones and dungeons look amazing, the actual story of Norvrandt is really compellingI love Y'shtola's character development and the fact that Urianger and Alisaie finally got to do some things! Basically every NPC that is not regularly slouching is absolutely stellar, and I love that the story's got this great willingness to engage with old side-content and details that would otherwise fall by the wayside. And the aesthetics for the equipment is great, I especially love that not all of it is 'upscale and fancy' and more just specific aesthetics we didn't have yet; I've been rocking the Ravel keeper stuff because I love that we've finally got a more 'wild' look. It's just a shame that the story forces everything into a total trainwreck for that last leg.

I took The Screenshot, but I admit that by this point I had lost respect for the story and this probably shows.

# ? Jul 21, 2019 14:00

Damn Dirty Ape: Jan 23, 2015; I love you Dr. Zaius

Your Computer posted:

I'm waiting for the tank queues to get better before leveling another tank because leveling Warrior now the queues were almost as bad as DPS. Average queue times of 15+ minutes which sometimes went slower, sometimes faster, presumably because everyone is/was leveling GNB.

Still not as bad as going through the story before ShB as a DPS and having 30+ minute queues for every single (mandatory) dungeon and trial though

I'm actually considering boosting a WHM rather than starting from level 1 to take better advantage of the healer queues. Then again, it seems kind of wasteful to boost a job that gets easy groups when I still have so many DPS jobs unleveled (looking your direction DRG).

I'm a little surprised you had to wait so long on story dungeons. I could be wrong, but I thought there was a mechanism that basically put you in the front of the line if you were on a particular MSQ instance and queued directly for it. I recall only having to wait long for a few trials.

# ? Jul 21, 2019 14:12

The Chairman: Jun 30, 2003; But you forget, mon ami, that there is evil everywhere under the sun

Cleretic posted:

Finally, I've managed to hit the end of Shadowbringers! I really liked... most of it! Shame about the part that ruins it. (Shadowbringers endgame spoilers specifically ahead)

Your reaction to the ending is interesting because it's the polar opposite of pretty much everyone else's -- most players appreciated that we now finally understand at least one Ascian's motivation and developed the Ascians into something more than just some interchangeable cryptic guys in spooky robes chanting nonsense about a god who lives on the moon. Emet-Selch is a quintessential FF villain: someone who could've been a hero in another place or time, but whose quest to regain something dear to them has become twisted and destructive, no longer caring about or even really aware of the human cost of restoring their old life or finding closure for themselves.

# ? Jul 21, 2019 14:12

ReWinter: Nov 23, 2008; Perpetually Perturbed

EponymousMrYar posted:

It's still a good habit to get into. Because sure one or two hits isn't a big deal.
Unless it's six mobs doing that. Because they ran out of the range of the tank's AoE as they were sprinting past to do a wall-to-wall pull.

I've seen and had that happen to me (as well as seeing tanks die during holy spam while under regen.)

Sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do even if that's a 'less efficient' way of doing things, because it's more efficient than wiping in the end.

The only way you'd get more than one or two mobs this way (easily survivable) is if the tank is either dealing with nearly unplayable latency or they're purely body pulling instead of using their resourceless AoE that doesn't slow down their run in any way. I'm not saying it's never happened (although it never has to me since the ShB tanking changes), but you can recover even if it does. WHM isn't exactly hurting for panic buttons that can be hit while moving so framing it as "it works perfectly or you wipe" is going a bit far, I think.

I'm not trying to say that precasting Regen is a must or you're bad or something like that, just that calling it a bad move (or in this case, saying that it's a good habit not to do it) is a pet peeve since it is the correct choice in many or most cases.

# ? Jul 21, 2019 14:24

Catgirl Al Capone: Dec 15, 2007

The Chairman posted:

Your reaction to the ending is interesting because it's the polar opposite of pretty much everyone else's -- most players appreciated that we now finally understand at least one Ascian's motivation and developed the Ascians into something more than just some interchangeable cryptic guys in spooky robes chanting nonsense about a god who lives on the moon. Emet-Selch is a quintessential FF villain: someone who could've been a hero in another place or time, but whose quest to regain something dear to them has become twisted and destructive, no longer caring about or even really aware of the human cost of restoring their old life or finding closure for themselves.

Moral relativism, and all that

# ? Jul 21, 2019 14:24

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# ? Jun 11, 2024 11:15

Cleretic: Feb 3, 2010; Ignore my posts!
I'm aggressively wrong about everything!

The Chairman posted:

Your reaction to the ending is interesting because it's the polar opposite of pretty much everyone else's -- most players appreciated that we now finally understand at least one Ascian's motivation and developed the Ascians into something more than just some interchangeable cryptic guys in spooky robes chanting nonsense about a god who lives on the moon. Emet-Selch is a quintessential FF villain: someone who could've been a hero in another place or time, but whose quest to regain something dear to them has become twisted and destructive, no longer caring about or even really aware of the human cost of restoring their old life or finding closure for themselves.

See, I agree with most of that; the problem isn't Emet's story, the ever-getting-weirder cosmology of FFXIV, or the things we learn in Amaurot, that's all great. The problem is that it all has to go through a delivery mechanism of 'smug rear end in a top hat I want to punch in the face', and so I'm either not listening to it because it's coming from someone I wish would shut up, or I'm passing it by because I think I'm getting close to punching that guy in the face. Emet is a figure that works best if there's a few times when he gets taken down a peg, to both deflate his ego and change the dynamic, and I kept waiting, and then eventually begging, for that to happen. And it never did.

I genuinely think that the expansion as a whole would be better off if, for most of the story, Emet were instead replaced with a large book. As it stands he wears out his welcome extremely quickly, to the point where when he actually takes the 'main villain' role I'd been tired of his poo poo for about three zones. He actually does well with his screentime post-Innocence (well, as long as you rewrite the scene where he shoots the Exarch in a way that doesn't leave me screaming at my screen for one of the Scions to just STAB HIM ALREADY), but he'd already lost me long before that point, and he doesn't do well enough to win me back.

# ? Jul 21, 2019 14:39

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