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I main a WAR and I can't resist posting some glams.    (pretend this one has a Minos axe) 
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Jul 10, 2022 23:20
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Maybe it's because I came to the Job after really taking a liking to PLD or maybe it's because I'm still in the early 60s with it, but I just can't get into WAR. It's fine, and I can see everything that people point out as the stuff they like for it, but personally it's my least favorite tank to level.
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Jul 11, 2022 07:24
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Onean posted:Maybe it's because I came to the Job after really taking a liking to PLD or maybe it's because I'm still in the early 60s with it, but I just can't get into WAR. It's fine, and I can see everything that people point out as the stuff they like for it, but personally it's my least favorite tank to level. Oh, I definitely prefer Paladin as my main tank, I, with quite a bit of ego and smugness, would consider myself one of the better Paladins in the game. I would say that Paladin fits for me because of the way the rotation just 'lines up' with some mechanics, when I was doing certain current content, whenever I would have to move away from the boss only for that to just not matter my FC would always get to hear "God I loving love being a Paladin. Could you imagine not being a Paladin right now? That'd be miserable." It's the class I've sunk the most hours in to, the most energy and I adore it. I am also shocked when I hear people say it's hard, like... optimization is a bit complex but I find the core incredibly intuitive. Also, I like my glam and I'm going to post it, you can't stop me.  The only thing I have to complain is we need more big swords on fire, we have so many spindly poo poo blades or glowy weird things. I just want a big sword that's on fire that isn't Aettir Lux or Excalibur Zeta. God the Shadowbringers Relic looked SO BAD.
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Jul 11, 2022 07:36
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sweet geek swag posted:The berserk status would though! Nah, that's confusion. Berserk just makes the affected act like a Berserker and attack the enemy every turn.(Usually with increased attack power)
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Jul 11, 2022 08:42
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Onmi posted:Oh, I definitely prefer Paladin as my main tank, I, with quite a bit of ego and smugness, would consider myself one of the better Paladins in the game. I would say that Paladin fits for me because of the way the rotation just 'lines up' with some mechanics, when I was doing certain current content, whenever I would have to move away from the boss only for that to just not matter my FC would always get to hear "God I loving love being a Paladin. Could you imagine not being a Paladin right now? That'd be miserable." It's the class I've sunk the most hours in to, the most energy and I adore it. I am also shocked when I hear people say it's hard, like... optimization is a bit complex but I find the core incredibly intuitive. Yeah being a PLD main is cool. Couldn't pay me enough to learn the super-cursed FoF-prepull opener though.
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Jul 11, 2022 08:51
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Sorry for the delay in the most recent update, I had a time-sensative thing I had to do that prevented me from finishing on time, but things are mostly ready after I add one last section and then give it a once-over. Next chapter will be up *checks clock* later today.
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Jul 11, 2022 09:48
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Ibblebibble posted:Yeah being a PLD main is cool. Couldn't pay me enough to learn the super-cursed FoF-prepull opener though. I mean the worst part of that opener is that no one ELSE understands why you have to set the timer to 25 (So you can do it comfortably) and gets antsy/lovely/whiny "Lol what kind of opener needs that long?" Mine. Blame the game not the player.
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Jul 11, 2022 10:38
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Onmi posted:I mean the worst part of that opener is that no one ELSE understands why you have to set the timer to 25 (So you can do it comfortably) and gets antsy/lovely/whiny "Lol what kind of opener needs that long?" Just be the one to do countdown timers yourself.
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Jul 11, 2022 10:40
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SirSamVimes posted:Just be the one to do countdown timers yourself. I am. Do you think I'm going to let anyone else be the main tank unless it's a specific fight?
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Jul 11, 2022 10:52
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I'm usually offtank and I like it that way. Cannot be hosed to do too much positioning finagling.
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Jul 11, 2022 10:55
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Off-tank gets the most tank privilege. All of the tanky stats, so much less of the responsibility.
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Jul 11, 2022 14:02
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Onmi posted:Oh, I definitely prefer Paladin as my main tank, I, with quite a bit of ego and smugness, would consider myself one of the better Paladins in the game. I would say that Paladin fits for me because of the way the rotation just 'lines up' with some mechanics, when I was doing certain current content, whenever I would have to move away from the boss only for that to just not matter my FC would always get to hear "God I loving love being a Paladin. Could you imagine not being a Paladin right now? That'd be miserable." It's the class I've sunk the most hours in to, the most energy and I adore it. I am also shocked when I hear people say it's hard, like... optimization is a bit complex but I find the core incredibly intuitive. I personally just use the Crystarium sword and shield (ShB tome gear), because I'm a sucker for plain, sturdy-looking weapons and armor. I'd post screenshots but I've got no power in my room at the moment 
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Jul 12, 2022 00:16
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what are the main pieces in this one? i might have to nick it for myself, or at least get that top
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Jul 12, 2022 03:32
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https://i.imgur.com/7kqlGqw.mp4
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Jul 12, 2022 05:16
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nice.
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Jul 12, 2022 05:18
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hexwren posted:what are the main pieces in this one? i might have to nick it for myself, or at least get that top
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Jul 12, 2022 05:50
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Chapter 8: ...But the Memory Remains After that battle at Wineport, Curious Gorge took his brother to the therapeutic hot springs resort at Camp Bronze Lake to heal. His name is Broken Mountain, and it didn’t take all that long to get him back on his feet. Once he did, though, Gorge got some sad news. The whole experience of being taken over by his Inner Beast drove his big brother to forsake the Warrior ways entirely. I can’t say I blame the guy. That’s not to say that Mountain is giving up on their dream for the Warriors to flourish in Eorzean society again. On the contrary, he’s decided to dedicate all his time to scholarly pursuits, so he can analyze those ancient tribal scriptures. He hopes more effective methods to control the Inner Beast are hidden in the archives. While he wants Warriors to return, he now knows that if he and his brother could lose themselves to the Beast, anyone could. They dare not train others until they solve that mystery.  So far, he’s found a fat load of nothing. Many passages describe techniques that can only be performed after the Beast has been tamed. Worse, the entries increasingly strain credulity as he goes back in time. He complains to Kheris about the particularly absurd deeds ascribed to one legendary Warrior, Mythril Heart, including that he once ripped the arms of a full-grown Behemoth with his bare hands. The mention of the name excites Gorge despite his brother’s negativity. This ‘Mythril Heart’ is his childhood hero, and he doesn’t like that Mountain is so quick to dismiss the stories. Their argument is interrupted by the arrival of Wheiskaet, former Captain of the Company of Heroes and master of obnoxious dinner party errands. I figured he was the guy Gorge kept referring to as his old boss in the last set of quests. While he’s quick to razz Gorge for being too gung-ho about childhood fairy tales, he’s also not so sure that Mountain should be close-minded about what a great warrior can accomplish.  I can’t argue with that! Mountain begrudgingly agrees that if Kheris can find some evidence that Mythril Heart actually existed, he’ll take the records and their techniques more seriously. Frankly, Kheris thinks that his time would be better spent on that ‘Taming the Inner Beast’ research rather than focusing on new Warrior powers. They still don’t even know why she can control it so easily, let alone how others might learn. After his revelation that internalized anger was the main cause of his loss of control, Gorge speculated that Kheris had so much success because her willpower exerted superior control over her emotions. This control was akin to how his Tribe conducted themselves in the glory days. Therefore, her bearing must have led his ancestors to connect with her more strongly, and this connection keeps the Beast at bay. He might be right, but that’s a little vague mystical for her to bet control of her mind and body on it. More concrete answers would be nice. Despite her reservations, Kheris recognizes that any progress in the man’s research might be helpful at this point, so she agrees to hunt for proof of Mythril Heart’s existence. The good news is that his last known location was Mor Dhona, which allows her to say hello to some old friends; The Sons of Saint Coinach. The Sharlayan archeologists have been busily excavating that buried Allagan town since the Crystal Tower incident. A quick check of their records reveals no sign of any Hellsgaurd Roegadyn artifacts in the area. But one scholar notes that several caches remain untouched near the lake’s edge. Sure enough, when Kheris goes digging, she finds an axe engraved with the initials MH. The lads back at the hot spring are stoked by this find and the implication that the techniques described in the histories might be legitimate. Behemoth Arm Ripping is the kind of thing that makes people sit up and take notice, so if Kheris and Gorge can use these abilities in battle, folks from across the continent will be clamoring to train as Warriors. Thankfully, before he gets too caught up in the moment, Gorge proves he learned his lesson last time by realizing more powerful attacks might mean drawing even more deeply on the Inner Beast. It’s more crucial than ever that we find the secret to controlling it before we allow the Warrior ways to pass on to others. His attitude is at least a little reassuring. As it turns out, Broken Mountain is even more concerned than Kheris. While his little brother is off serving with a Maelstrom unit against Kobolds on the Lominsan border, Mountain meets with Kheris privately and tells her that he’s not prepared to take Gorge’s purported caution at face value. Before he shares any new abilities with either of us, he wants to take us on a monster hunt. He doesn’t say it directly until after the fact, but it’s clear he wants to stress test our control of the Inner Beast because these Mythril Heart Techniques are just that dangerous. His caution proves to be wise. When we all gather at the designated hunting spot, Kheris finds that the brothers got there before her, and Gorge has already been overcome!  I get a duty battle that’s almost an exact repeat of the final fight from level 50, which makes this a decent opportunity to talk about Warrior gameplay. This job is a weird experience after playing two other tanks for a simple reason: through to level 60, it doesn’t have a single attack off the Global Cooldown. The only abilities you can use between your swings are defensive and support skills. As a result, I think it’s fair to call Warrior the simplest of all the jobs I’ve played, at least up to the end of Heavensward. Technically there is some added complexity going on under the hood. For example, you have two Combo Finisher attacks, one of which gives you a 30-second damage boost. You’ll need to mix up the third button you push in your sequence every couple of rotations. But many of those effects are automatic, passive, or obvious as to the path toward optimal play. If your main damage cooldown gives you three automatic crits, you have a two-charge ability that gives you 50 resources, and a big attack that costs 50 resources, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to line those things up. You could argue that, at least on offense, there’s almost no room for the player to engage with Warrior dynamically. One of the most egregious examples is how your biggest tank cooldowns have theoretical offensive applications that you’d never want to use. Warriors can counter-attack any enemy that strikes them for free damage. Sounds cool, right? Well, it’s less cool when it’s stapled to your 30% damage reduction cooldown. You’re probably never going to activate it for that damaging effect over the protective effect. Even worse is how your 4-Minute super cooldown, Holmgang, is also the button that activates the iconic chain spell that I’ve seen multiple MRD/WAR NPCs utilize. Who would ever push a ‘Save me from certain death’ button for the secondary effect that stops one enemy from moving for 10 seconds? It’s one of the most significant opportunity costs I’ve ever seen on an MMORPG button. I’ve been a bit negative here, but I admit this isn’t all bad news. The fact that you have no offensive OCDs and a narrow optimal playstyle means you have no safety net. Every button you push matters because you know you’ll be relatively helpless after hitting it. The consequences of your mistakes in positioning or from any misclicks are this hugely amplified. When I first started, that would have caused me a lot of stress, but now that I’m used to FF14’s pace, it gives Warrior a surprisingly thoughtful feeling. The job demands more planning ahead than the other two tanks. Limiting the job’s offensive variety also gave them room to be much more dynamic on the defensive end. But let’s hold off on talking about that until a bit later. When Kheris takes Gorge down, something strange happens. Some invisible force shocks her body, and she’s driven to her knees. Then you get a system message: “Recollection of past battles rouses your inner beast!” This experience leaves her body numb, and she describes it to Mountain as feeling like her Inner Beast was “trying to escape.” I took particular note of that description. Not trying to take over her mind, but to rip its way to freedom from her physical form. The beast does not return to an idle state either. When she speaks to Broken Mountain about her condition back at Camp Bronze Lake, she notes how just remembering the battle with Gorge has that force stirring inside her. And yet the dialogue is very careful to note that her mental faculties are not affected in the slightest. The answer comes from a passage in the ancient texts: “Only the flames of animosity may temper a Warrior’s soul.”   So, because Kheris has total command of her Inner Beast and it can’t affect her mind, an intense enough battle will make it so frothing with fight lust because it’s been bottled up under her will that it starts exploding with magical energy. If you’re physically able to endure that burst of power, it shocks your body to a new level of physical capability and awakens techniques hidden deeper within the Soul Crystal.  I like it. It’s got a very Shonen Battle Anime feeling to it. A novel explanation compared to other times I’ve found a new ‘tier’ of abilities and another example of how every Soul Crystal works differently. It also calls back to Gorge’s observation that Kheris is more like the ancestral Warriors than he is. She has the same perfect control over the Inner Beast, so she experienced this phenomenon which neither brother ever did. Thus, she can now access the techniques from the chronicles that recent generations thought were nothing more than bedtime stories. After all, they had long since lost what they needed to unlock them. It all connects rather neatly. The only pieces to this puzzle we’re missing are what the Inner Beast actually is, and how Kheris dominated it without even trying. Speaking of Gorge, he apologizes for losing out to the Beast once again. He admits that since that day in Wineport, his mind has grown cloudy every time he’s tapped into the Beast’s power. He’s not entirely sure why he kept that to himself. He hopes it was to avoid worrying his brother but fears it was for the more selfish reason of not wanting to admit to his untrustworthiness. Mountain bars him from learning any of Mythril Heart’s techniques until we can solve this issue. He sends Gorge back to the Maelstrom to continue that from-square-one training regimen, hoping he can at least get back to the level he used to be at before this mess started. Of course, Mountain isn’t going to leave him to handle it alone. He returns to the ancient texts, hoping the ancestors explained how they leashed the Beast so flawlessly somewhere in there. As for Kheris? He wants her to go monster hunting again. Now that we know that she can learn these lost arts safely (body numbness aside), he wants her to see how much she can unlock by following in Mythril Heart’s footsteps. ~*~*~ Moving through Heavensward levels quickly meant more dungeon roulettes. Since I was above level 50, I got to see the last and most impressive of the ARR revamps: Castrum Meridianum, Praetorium, and The Porta Decumana. Within these instances, the entire ARR finale was dramatically revamped to make it shorter and less tedious to run yet simultaneously more challenging and satisfying in gameplay terms. Not to mention they’re now standard 4-Character Party affairs instead of 8-Character Trials. When I heard about all this, I was worried. Those final areas were a unique experience with their hyper-cinematic dungeon structure and interspersed cutscenes at every step. I feared that editing them down might erase some of what made them so special. I’m sad to say that worry came partially true for Castrum. The core of the dungeon is mostly intact. About half of the changes were to remove certain cutscenes and replace them with in-game text boxes and character actions which take far less time. You still have to deactivate spotlights to stop the intruder alarms and move through the garbage chute to bypass security. You still fight past advanced Magitek mechs to clear the important doors, fights that are actually bosses instead of glorified trash mobs.  You still team up with Cid to blast through doors and knock down a tower to foreshadow when you overload Maggie’s weapon in Praetorium. You still have that big confrontation cutscene with Livia where she says you won’t take everything she’s owed. Your fight with her is now far more exciting. She showcases a half-dozen fun mechanics. Standouts include Infinite Reach, a layered explosion/charge move that demands you pay close attention to what order the danger circles hit the floor, and Artificial Boost, which unlocks her armor’s limiters and causes her to spam purple explosions at you in a desperate effort to kill you or die in the attempt.  Yet this progress wasn’t without a price. One of the best things about Castrum narratively was how the cutscenes showed Livia watching your progress nearly the entire way through. That reminder of who she is and what she did to your friends added a lot of anticipatory tension to finally finding her at the end. In this version, you don’t see her until just before your fight. Another sacrifice was entire chunks of the dungeon being walled off and their mechanics removed. Losing out on the bit where you blew up the base’s ceruleum refinery is a bummer; it was a classic Base Infiltration set piece. The swing toward the airship landing platform where you fought the Advanced Colossus before Cid shot down the tower isn’t the most significant loss, but it does mean you miss the interactable guns waiting for you at the end of that section. You could use them to blow up the trash if you did a large enough pull. It also foreshadowed using those same guns later against the Garlean Gunship and Livia’s Reaper. This brings me to my next point: they removed the Garlean Gunship and Livia’s Reaper. These being gone legitimately made me sad, particularly the former. The arrival of the gunship and Cid encouraging you to keep fighting against the seemingly impossible foe was a cool moment. More importantly, you no longer have the scene where after the Warrior of Light shoots the gunship down and it crashes into one of the shield towers. Now, granted, this is a contrived event. Cid says as much. But the thing about it is Cid calling out the contrivance was not played as a joke or a 4th Wall Break. It’s played as a character moment. Remember, up to this operation you’d only been with Cid for a short time. Your character doesn’t know him very well. Yet because of his restored Pre-Calamity memories, he trusts you implicitly. We never got a good explanation of what was going on with that vision of a golden Warrior of Light floating in front of his eyes, but from the moment he remembered seeing that, he treated you like an old friend. This dungeon serves the purpose of illustrating that and making you want to reciprocate. That way, when you go through Cid’s emotional roller-coaster in Praetorium, it’ll matter more to you. Plenty of moments through the run accomplish this job, but to me, there were two standouts. First, when he lets himself be vulnerable in front of you by sympathizing with Livia despite your feelings about her (which is still there). Second, when he takes the piss out of you by announcing he’s not going to let you claim that you planned for that gunship to come down on the tower. Even among characters who think of the Warrior of Light as a friend, so few of them act with that level of irreverence for your actions. At that moment, Cid felt like it was ok to make fun of you, regardless of how short your time together had been, and that tells you a lot about him and endears you to him. Now that moment is gone. ~*~*~ While Castrum was a mixed bag, Praetorium was a triumph. So many of the annoying little hiccups are gone, like the elevators and several bits of pointless backtracking. Almost every cutscene that matters is intact, while several useless ones were removed and replaced with that seamless in-game action. With only four players, the trash is far more engaging, so you don’t even mind that you can’t skip it anymore. Both the Colossus in the control room and Nero have been significantly upgraded to have legitimate mechanical demands instead of being brainless tank-and-spank bosses.  And as for Gaius? Well, he’s got all kinds of moves now. Throwing around magical blade slashes, summoning phantasmal copies of himself, shooting explosives, he’s an absolute banger. This is the boss that he always deserved to be. He’s even got a full-blown ultimate attack!  The most interesting difference to me, however, was a small but noticeable narrative change. The biggest cutscene change was the removal of the reveal of Maggie. You still find her parked in the vehicle pool, and Cid lets you know on linkpearl that this is the same mech from before, but that moment where you see out of her sensor, and she looks at you the same way she did the first time you made a connection in Mor Dhona is gone. At first, this upset me, as that was a memorable part of my first run. But then comes that scene where you overload her gun to break the blast door, and you see this:  The Warrior of Light expresses remorse and grief for Maggie’s apparent sacrifice. Originally, your expression as you looked at Maggie was completely neutral. The game did not define the Warrior of Light’s reaction to this as a character. They left it ambiguous as to whether they were the type of person who would care about the fate of a machine, even if it did have some level of intelligence and emotional capacity. There was a clear intent for the PLAYER to be upset about Maggie’s sacrifice, but their character’s feelings were left open. It seems clear that the writers recognized that removing the moment Maggie sees you was emotionally significant, and they (quite correctly IMO) weren’t willing to leave that on the cutting room floor. Now, since your ability to feel the emotion directly has been somewhat dampened because finding Maggie is less of a ‘moment,’ they have your character feel the emotion for you. In doing so, they willingly define the Warrior of Light’s personality in a way they previously had not. Considering the importance of that line between player and character to the narrative and the ongoing questions about how much you get to determine your WoL’s personality, I’d say it’s a noteworthy move. ~*~*~ Gaius is the final boss of Praetorium because the two Ultima Weapon encounters have been broken off as a Trial instance called The Porta Decumana. Like Gaius, these two fights are a significant upgrade. Each now feels worthy of the build-up Ultima received during the story, and each has at least some mechanical challenge for the player. The first encounter remains largely easy, more of an interactive cutscene than anything. Instead of starting the fight invulnerable to damage, Weapon can be hurt immediately, though his health pool is still massive. But a few moments into the battle, things take a big turn. Instead of primarily relying on its built-in weapons, the machine throws around Titan’s attacks, including summoning a phantom Titan to jump on the field. As the fight progresses, he does the same thing with Ifrit and Garuda, remixing attacks directly from those bosses and summoning their doppelgangers to execute flashy attacks.  Then come the phase transitions. Each Primal you fight through ends with Gaius triggering some ultimate move that is certain to one-shot you. And each time he does, Hydaelyn intervenes.  No longer is there any ambiguity or way for the player to miss that Hydaelyn is the entire reason you win this fight. Her intervention on your behalf is blatant. This, in turn, makes the whole Ultima attack and Lahabrea bragging that you won’t have that help for the final confrontation much more intense. As for the final battle against Ultima, like Gaius and Livia, it’s been entirely revamped into a legit boss fight. No longer can you just let the Magitek bits spam laser shots and alpha-strike your way to victory. There’s extensive dialogue from Gaius throughout the battle to make things feel a little more personal and dramatic. The boss hits like a truck and has a wide variety of moves that will kill the group if they don’t handle them. Some I recognized from the Extreme Trial version of the fight, like the Chain Bombs, and some were brand new.  But the best change was to that final moment when the boss casts Ultima. They gave him enough HP that your party probably can’t beat the timer… except that Hydaelyn casts one last spell and gives you a free Level 3 Limit Break. What a fantastic decision. LB3s are awesome, but it’s so hard to get them in more casual and story-focused content. The closest I’ve gotten was against Nidhogg’s final form, and we didn’t fill the last bar before he died. I wish they’d come up with some way to make Limit Breaks available in overworld or quest content, but in the absence of that, making the finale of ARR give you a free one, so every single player has the chance to fire one off during a big event was a great call. The battle with Lahabrea is not part of this trial. I’ve been told that, like Cape Westwind, it was made into a solo duty. Thus far, I haven’t had the chance to check it out. But if they’re even close to as good as the final instances, then I envy any new players coming into the game post-6.1. My criticisms aside, this revamp is an incredible achievement for the dev team, and I’m glad I took the time to check it out. ~*~*~ To master the Warrior Arts of Eld, Kheris is first sent to hunt bears in the Dravanian forests. These creatures can grow to the size of a small house, which is why Mythril Heart deemed them a worthy challenge back in the day. Her victory is swift, and with it comes the reward of an upgrade to her Beast Gauge attack. Fell Cleave involves summoning magical buzzsaws that chew through your enemy alongside your axe strikes, so that’s pretty metal. Notably, this is the first new skill I’ve gotten since 50, so that whole incident in the cave where Kheris’ body was wracked with pain was just for show. I’m guessing you used to get a button from that quest, but it got remixed out at some point. All seems well with our plan, but not with Curious Gorge. Wheiskaet informs us that he’s becoming nervous and hesitant both in the field and at practice. His overall performance is suffering, and it seems likely based on reports from his squad mates that he’s not tapping into the Inner Beast at all and just fighting with his own strength. That’s understandable, although it’s also counter-productive to his goal of reclaiming his old level of control. So far, it hasn’t caused any problems in accomplishing his missions, but if we don’t find the secret to controlling the Beast soon, he might end up like his brother and give up being a Warrior entirely. That wouldn’t be the end of the world from Kheris’ perspective, but it comes with a more significant problem for the dream of spreading the Warrior Arts. The Maelstrom has finally been picking up on the positive buzz about this us. Due to extreme pressure from Beast Tribe offensives, this is pushing them to consider establishing an official Warrior training program. It’s everything Mountain could have hoped for… but it also means that Gorge’s performance is falling under unusual scrutiny at the worst possible time. Who knows what this new pressure might drive him to risk? To counteract this, Kheris is asked to join an operation against the Serpent Reavers, the pirate faction that serves the Sahagin. They’ve poised themselves for a raid on Aleport, and a Warrior helping to foil such an attack will go a long way toward cementing their reputation among the Lominsan brass. Kheris deploys with a Maelstrom squad which includes a former Company of Heroes member, and the pirate resistance is fierce. Our team takes a casualty every time we engage a new pack of pirates.  Yet, for Kheris, it’s more or less a walk in the park. Whenever one of her comrades is wounded, she fights a large group of pirates by herself and gets stunned adulation from the survivors. This continues all the way to our defeat of the Serpent captain and his pet Coerl. The quest explicitly states that these foes are badasses at each step, but the Warrior of Light easily crushes them. Our job done, we return to Aleport, and the soldiers she saved ask Kheris where she got all that power from? What allowed her to trounce that mass of foes? Rather than provide a dialogue option to the player, the WoL simply gives them an answer that seems to be our Big Message.  It was not some unique emotional control that allowed Kheris to tame the Beast, nor was it seeking foes of great power that roused it in the first place. Whether the enemy is powerful or weak is irrelevant. The Inner Beast’s true nature is not a predator but rather something like a guard dog. It gains strength when threats to the helpless show themselves. To control it, you don’t need discipline over your emotions; you need the instinct to protect others. This synchs up surprisingly well with the previous story. Kheris’ first contact with the Inner Beast was because of that Sand Worm. While Gorge presumed it was the danger and the challenge that would awaken it, we can now interpret that Kheris’ wish to make the desert safe after she heard from the locals that the creature destroyed all those caravans was what allowed for the contact. That would also explain why the developers went out of their way to leave visual evidence of the worm’s victims around the combat area. Her beast grew stronger when she faced Gorge since he was endangering innocents (including himself) every time he gave in to the beast. The bear hunt involved hearing from the hunters of Tailfeather how dangerous the creatures were to their livelihood and how often they’d have to come home empty-handed rather than risk being near them. And now, after all those big battles, the Beast shows even greater strength than before against foes far weaker than Kheris. Her wish to protect the wounded Maelstrom troops was strong even if the enemy wasn’t. We can also reinterpret Gorge’s character and the Warrior history we’ve heard within this framework. When Gorge had control over his Beast, he was protecting something: the Warrior legacy. It was only when his pride began to overwhelm that wish, such as when he grew frustrated about Kheris getting to do all the fighting while he was reading books, or when his desire for the armor’s power led him from a wish to save his brother to hunger for recognition of his status, that his control was lost. Pride is framed as the inverse of Protective Instinct, which is why that Warrior from the armor legend lost control when his armor made him supremely powerful. His apprentices were initially strong when they set out to retrieve that armor: they were motivated by a wish to protect their master’s legacy after his death. They began to falter when the armor’s spells made their powers uneven and fomented pride. They then regained their control when they parceled the armor out, protecting each other at the direct expense of pride. It also implies that Broken Mountain completely misinterpreted the legends of Mythril Heart. He’d assumed the hero went on these monster hunts to test his mettle. In reality, he must have been wandering the land trying to protect the innocent. Mountain made assumptions about how all this worked because he was also too flawed to control his Beast. It makes me curious to know more specifics of exactly how that happened to him. On an emergent narrative level, this works quite well for Kheris. Thanks to her experiences in the Dragonsong War and her Bard training, she has already learned this lesson about discarding pride. It makes perfect sense for her control to have come so naturally, and coming to this realization would set her mind at ease about the Warrior powers. On a meta-textual level, this is an elegant turn by the writers because it reminds the player that Warrior is, in fact, a tanking job. You’re not here to get big numbers or slay the monsters for your own sake; you’re here to protect others. In some ways, it’s a culmination of the greater Marauder-to-Warrior narrative going back to Level 1. And wouldn’t you know it, the skill you unlock when you learn this is one of the most potent defensive abilities I’ve yet seen, Raw Intuition. On a 25-second cooldown, Raw Intuition adds a massive self-heal to every weapon swing the Warrior delivers within the next six seconds. This skill was a game-changer, and what I was alluding to when I said that on defense, Warrior is exceptionally dynamic. When combined with the following skill, Equilibrium (a large OCD self-heal with a heal over time on top of it), and Thrill of Battle that you got back as a Marauder, the Warrior’s self-healing capabilities are insane. Once I unlocked these skills, I found that I was virtually unkillable if I intelligently used my cooldowns. Even after I got a healing spell on my Paladin, it didn’t feel this invincible. True story: while approaching 60, I was in a group that wiped three times to the Book Demon in Great Gubbal Library. On the fourth attempt, rather than letting myself die to reset, I used every tool at my disposal and solo’d the boss from 80%. My party was stunned, and frankly, so was I. This is where they put the skill gameplay on this job, and I love it. Back in the plot, our theory about the Inner Beast’s true nature and the key to controlling it seems to be backed up further when Kheris returns to the hot springs. Gorge was wounded on his last outing against the Kobolds because they used a new type of explosive against him, and he threw himself on the grenade. But the strange thing is, he feels completely fine. The wounds barely amounted to scratches. He chalks it up to luck, but Mountain figures out that his Inner Beast achieved maximum power and hardened his body against the blast because he was trying to protect his allies. Gorge can’t believe this, as he didn’t even feel the Beast at that moment… much like Kheris never does when she’s using it at full strength. This new theory seems too good to be true, and Gorge is terrified of what might happen if he tries it and we’re wrong. Yet fate seems intent on forcing his hand because news arrives that the Kobolds intend to strike Bronze Lake. Our only way to protect the medical facility is to intercept them in the nearby caverns, tight corridors where a Warrior could do great damage if they lost control. Kheris promises Gorge that if the worst happens, she’ll be there to stop him. And then she helps him muster his courage as only a true Warrior would… by slapping the poo poo out of him.   All goes as we hoped, and Gorge fights off a small army of Kobolds single-handed while Kheris does the same at the canyon’s far edge. He tells her afterward that he barely felt the Beast’s wrath despite the fury with which his axe fell upon his enemies. Thanks to her example, he’s finally overcome his demons. Logically the story ought to end there, but we’re only at 58, so we need to stretch it out a bit and get one last set piece in. Therefore, Gorge decides to keep doubting himself until he faces a worthier foe and stress-tests this control method. And wouldn’t you know it, the Sahagin are planning to attack the two Tidegates near Aleport, and my old pal Storm Marshal Slafynsyn has personally requested our aid. They’re playing all the Limsa hits in this questline. The final quest big ups the stakes, saying that Limsa itself may fall if we can’t turn back the Sahagin at the Tidegates, which strikes me as a bit melodramatic given previous battles. Wheiskaet does mention that the Fishmen have called up horrific beasts from the depths, which they believe will make a difference this time. They really push the Monster Hunting angle in these Warrior quests, don’t they? Moreso than almost any other job, Warrior seems to be all about taking on big nasty creatures. Wheis intends to take the field despite his old wounds from fighting Titan, and Mountain will fight as our pocket healer since he won’t take up the axe again. It’s a whole thing.  Then we get a whole second Dramatic Speech and Hype Up To Fight moment when the Storm Marshal shows up and pledges to fight with us.  The actual battle is decent. Nothing exciting, just waves of Sahagin troops, and then a short cutscene where it seems like Gorge is going to lose control, but he tames the Beast just in time for the Big Undersea Monsters to appear.  This would have had more impact if things hadn’t been settled in the last quest already, but that was off-camera, so I guess there’s value in letting us see Gorge’s moment even if there’s some redundancy. Either way, we slay the beast, and the Storm Marshall formally invites the brothers to begin training the first Maelstrom Warrior unit. Happy ending.  Warrior 50-60 improved substantially over 30-50 and Marauder, but it was still a bumpy ride. The story felt jumbled and could have hit its marks far more cleanly. I liked how it managed a twist that echoed back to the earlier Warrior quests, and it adequately explained why the Beast was never an issue for the WoL despite being this massive problem for others. Still, it suffered from underwriting in a few places, not doing a great job of explaining times when the characters were telling you things were wrong, and depending on you to sort out the misinformation and determine what was going on. The Inner Beast’s nature is more apparent, but we still haven’t been told precisely what it’s supposed to be, and a lot of Gorge’s character arc happened off-screen in a way that seemed unnatural because they wanted to have that moment in the last quest. People in the comments who’ve been calling this a proto-Dark Knight story that suffers by the comparison being so easy are dead on the money. Still, I think there’s room for improvement. Maybe Stormblood will keep the upward quality climb going and produce something unambiguously good. Next time, the Scions set sail! Sanguinia fucked around with this message at 06:52 on Jul 12, 2022 |
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Jul 12, 2022 05:52
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Hogama posted:It's beyond this LP, so mild spoilers for future content, but I can help with at least the top and hands: YoRHa Type-55 Jacket of Fending, from the third alliance raid in Shadowbringers. Also the Gloves from the same set. I suspected as such. I have the worst drop luck with those raids, I get nothing out of them. anyway, back to the expansion at hand...
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Jul 12, 2022 06:00
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Fun Fact: Raw Intuition didn't have that lifesteal effect until Endwalker released. That used to be tied to the alternate button you got at 76 that shared a cooldown. They could've tied the lifesteal bit to a trait at the same level as that button for reasons, but they didn't, because????? Either way, the massive amounts of self-sustain you have as a Warrior is one of the big draws of the job. You'll see the other at 70.
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Jul 12, 2022 06:03
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Shout-out to Broken Mountain for being one of the very few NPCs in this game to say "hmm, this dangerous source of power almost destroyed me, that's not good" and actually stop using it
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Jul 12, 2022 06:21
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Fell Cleave has a really satisfying animation.
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Jul 12, 2022 06:32
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I figure Fray had the Inner Beast in a headlock or something. This brain is already occupied!
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Jul 12, 2022 06:42
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Sanguinia posted:On a 25-second cooldown, Raw Intuition adds a massive self-heal to every weapon swing the Warrior delivers within the next six seconds. This skill was a game-changer, and what I was alluding to when I said that on defense, Warrior is exceptionally dynamic. When combined with the following skill, Equilibrium (a large OCD self-heal with a heal over time on top of it), and Thrill of Battle that you got back as a Marauder, the Warrior’s self-healing capabilities are insane. Once I unlocked these skills, I found that I was virtually unkillable if I intelligently used my cooldowns. Even after I got a healing spell on my Paladin, it didn’t feel this invincible. True story: while approaching 60, I was in a group that wiped three times to the Book Demon in Great Gubbal Library. On the fourth attempt, rather than letting myself die to reset, I used every tool at my disposal and solo’d the boss from 80%. My party was stunned, and frankly, so was I. This is where they put the skill gameplay on this job, and I love it. Just so long as you don't totally surrender to pride and lose control, as it turns out.  Broken Mountain is a solid character, much better than his brother.
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Jul 12, 2022 06:50
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Blueberry Pancakes posted:Fell Cleave has a really satisfying animation. "These silly NPCs, getting consumed by their desire for rage. Hey what's this button do..."
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Jul 12, 2022 07:03
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Yapping Eevee posted:Raw Intuition's current version is so absurdly good. As noted, you really don't need a healer at all for dungeon content if you're a WAR past 56; it's a real power trip. No die, only buzzsaw. Every tank gets a 20-second (-ish) cooldown button that's really good damage reduction in some form or another, but Warrior's scales obscenely well with multiple enemies (ie all dungeon content) so it gets the attention. I appreciate that they put such a useful ability on such a short cooldown so the tanks are never scared to use it. By the time you "might need it later" it's up again, in contrast to Holmgang and the other death-avoiders. Bruceski fucked around with this message at 07:13 on Jul 12, 2022 |
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Jul 12, 2022 07:08
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Side note, whoever is responsible for Steel Cyclone being replaced by Decimate should have been flogged for their insolence. Solidarity for Warriors everywhere who had to watch Ardbert kill Ravana with their lost skill. 
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Jul 12, 2022 07:10
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i really miss steel cyclone, it was replaced at the beginning of Shadowbringers. it had an incredible sound when you used [redacted] to guarantee crits and you'd get the crit sound effect on every mob in the pack one by one. shing shing shing shing shing shing! i also miss the Overpower cone. it was better than the circle in every way. 
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Jul 12, 2022 07:16
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The talk on how Warrior feels and plays as a much more defensive tank compared to the other two you've played is interesting. I've always perceived it as the most offensive tank. That's probably a hold over from a time when it's damage scaling was just off the charts compared it's contemporaries.
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Jul 12, 2022 07:29
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I do note that this monster fighting/hunting thing manages to tie into the original Maruader questline too. You had to fight a big monster to protect people, and for a fresh character with no other job that might easily be the place where the ability to control the inner beast came from.
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Jul 12, 2022 07:29
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OhFunny posted:The talk on how Warrior feels and plays as a much more defensive tank compared to the other two you've played is interesting. I've always perceived it as the most offensive tank. That's probably a hold over from a time when it's damage scaling was just off the charts compared it's contemporaries. What's most interesting to me about that with the current iteration of when you receive your skills, it's almost a calculated bait and switch in terms of ludonarrative. The story from Marauder 1 to Warrior 56 is entirely about offense despite how ultimately basic and formulaic the offense actually is, and then right when the story reveals that the secret of the class is that its all about protecting people, you suddenly start getting these dramatically more powerful and engaging defensive moves. It's real chef's kiss stuff.
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Jul 12, 2022 07:47
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Sanguinia posted:People in the comments who’ve been calling this a proto-Dark Knight story that suffers by the comparison being so easy are dead on the money. Still, I think there’s room for improvement. Maybe Stormblood will keep the upward quality climb going and produce something unambiguously good.  As for the ARR level 50 revamps, yeah, I was pretty disappointed with the Castrum Meridianum rework. The actual dungeon feels pretty bland and boring compared to the feel of charging through and really loving the whole place up you got from the 8-man version. And they basically completely removed any indication of Livia's white magitek armor. That was basically her signature thing, and gets called back to when Lucia shows up in white magitek armor later. That scene will really fall flat for new players now. The Praetorium and Ultima Weapon changes were great, though.
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Jul 12, 2022 07:57
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The one big flaw in this particular WAR chunk, as far as I see it, is the heavy reliance on fighting off Tribefolk by the horde. It doesn't feel great if you've been doing the ARR Sahagin or Kobold questlines, or simply left a lot of that fighting behind as the story shifts to one of the larger sources of those conflicts. E: And hoo boy if one feels like filling out a hunting log for completionism's sake you're gonna have a rough time not thinking about it too much. Zomborgon fucked around with this message at 08:05 on Jul 12, 2022 |
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Jul 12, 2022 08:03
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A few historical notes for Warrior to this point: Berserk used to increase your Attack Power by 50% instead of guaranteeing Critical Direct hits. Because most ability formulas take your attack power into consideration, this meant that Equilibrium healed even more during Berserk. However, Berserk ALSO used to inflict Pacification upon expiration, which would leave you unable to use any Weaponskills until it either wore off or a healer (or bard) cleansed it. Raw Intuition's original incarnation was a bit less whelming - it automatically parried any attacks from the front but made all attacks from behind crit (there was an unintended side-effect at one point where it also made all HEALS from the back crit as well). You could combine it with Awareness, an ex-ability that prevented being critically hit, though. The big thing you used to unlock at 52 was Deliverance - tanks used to have a "tank stance (increased enmity and max HP/damage reduction, at the cost of only dealing like 75% damage)" and a "damage stance (increased critical hit chance and no damage penalty, but no enmity or defense boost)", and Deliverance was Warrior's damage stance. Not going into the weeds on old tanking here but that's what passing out and then awakening your Inner Beast further did at the time of the quest's initial release (you also needed to be in Deliverance stance to use Fell Cleave).
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Jul 12, 2022 08:12
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For the record, the reason you might think it's weird to tie Warrior's invuln to the 'grab enemy and keep it locked down' ability is because originally all Holmgang did was the latter, but Warrior was significantly weaker than Paladin without an invuln and so they added one in on one of their other skills. And yes WAR 50-60 is significantly better than 30-50.
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Jul 12, 2022 08:25
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Zomborgon posted:The one big flaw in this particular WAR chunk, as far as I see it, is the heavy reliance on fighting off Tribefolk by the horde. It doesn't feel great if you've been doing the ARR Sahagin or Kobold questlines, or simply left a lot of that fighting behind as the story shifts to one of the larger sources of those conflicts. Someone mentioned this in the thread in the last couple days, and I honestly didn't think it was too bad. You personally only fight the Kobolds and Sahagin once each, not counting the skirmish with the Serpent Reavers who you're trying to stop from attacking a city, and in the case of the Kobolds you're preventing them from blowing up a hospital. I would agree that the Sahagin section is way over-the-top bordering on gratuitous in terms of the scale of the battle and how much they overhype the stakes. THE FATE OF LIMSA HANGS IN THE BALANCE and all that. I mentioned as much in the write-up. Granted, Gorge is fighting the Kobolds off-screen for a lot of the story, but the dialogue does mention that he's not on an offensive campaign and is spending his time pushing back raiders who are presumably targeting civilian settlements since that's usually what raids are. I think it would be fair to say that the story kind of uses them as props, and that's unfortunate. One of the main keys of the Beast Tribe storyline is that they are NOT the Barbarians at the Gates, they're people with legitimate grievances and their own internal politics and problems within their societies without even talking about the Primal Tempering. It's not amazing to see them thrown out there as a generalized Threatening Thing and/or the plot device which is pushing the Maelstrom to want Warriors in their ranks. On the other hand, we can also see it as the story illustrating that just because you're off in Ishgard and aren't able to take an active role in the stuff you were once knee deep in anymore doesn't mean those conflicts stopped. The Kobolds and Sahagin keep fighting because the poo poo that the Lominsans are doing to them isn't stopping. The fact that Merlwyb seems dead set on this idea that Vylbrand is a Zero Sum Zone and she had no choice but to keep up her bad behavior toward them was one of her most important solo scenes during the ARR Patch Content. We even saw that the wounds are so deep they might keep fighting even if Mel did back down during the Gu Bu plot. Using that on-going conflict as the backdrop for an unrelated story is a reasonable call, I think, even though if I were writing the story I probably would have made it a more substantive thing so I didn't risk making the Tribes look like Generic Baddies.
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Jul 12, 2022 08:36
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I don't miss the actual fight with Livia's Magitek armour, with the slow-moving claws and the cannons and waves of near-oneshottable adds. It was a big borefest and half out more of the party basically just had to AFK through it, there was nothing to do but wait. It was old Copperbell's slime fight but at 50. However I do miss the badass "front flip away from the explosion, land in front of the WoL and continue the fight" thing she did, and I also miss the white Magitek armour existing at all! She just sort of walks up to you now. Much less cool. Everything else is a huge upgrade though. Rythian fucked around with this message at 08:39 on Jul 12, 2022 |
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Jul 12, 2022 08:37
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Hellioning posted:For the record, the reason you might think it's weird to tie Warrior's invuln to the 'grab enemy and keep it locked down' ability is because originally all Holmgang did was the latter, but Warrior was significantly weaker than Paladin without an invuln and so they added one in on one of their other skills. Rythian posted:However I do miss the badass "front flip away from the explosion, land in front of the WoL and continue the fight" thing she did, and I also miss the white Magitek armour existing at all! She just sort of walks up to you now. Much less cool.
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Jul 12, 2022 08:52
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Warrior eats tankbuster, loses most of their HP DPS: 'Uh, you okay over there dude?' Guttural Screams and Heavy Metal Music Intensifies. Healer: 'He's good.' Warrior Gameplay in a nutshell.
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Jul 12, 2022 10:35
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Hey Sanguinia, really loving the LP and can't wait to read your thoughts on the next story step to the Far East which is one of my favourite experience in the game. Also, this isn't directly relevant to the current LP but I remember Kheris has been looking for a house to call her own and the current housing lottery is probably going to be the best chance to snag a plot as wards 10-18 are opened up for personal housing right now, meaning hundreds of plots are currently up for grabs, especially in the Empyreum. Of course that goes for anyone who's reading the LP and is looking to get a house as well.
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Jul 12, 2022 11:12
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One interesting tidbit, Sang: You already did Hullbreaker Isle Hard, which canonically takes place after the HW Warrior storyline, and that dungeon shows off that there are genuine Warriors in the Maelstrom now. Storm Commander R'tiki, a miniboss fought near the end, fights with an axe and conspicuously uses Warrior abilities like Fell Cleave, Steel Cyclone, and the no-longer-available-to-players Fracture against the party.
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Jul 12, 2022 12:27
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