#HW relic weapons

[stormbabylore]

Well. There it is. First finished HW relic, third relic overall.

Casually melting into nothingness, now, bye.

Also, I unlocked Eureka because Stormblood relics, I guess.

Seriously, please send help.

Please.

[myreia]

✦ F F X I V L E V E L 9 0

—compendium

[thatcritterthatskitter]

badly misinterpreting lyrics today, despite how much i love answers i could never get all the words right

[johnnylandslide]

"Hello? You can hear me?"

"Wait, are you Callie? I didn't think you were real!"

Beruru was curious why her father talked to his sword/staff so much. Callie (Excalibur) the Anima was overjoyed to meet her!

[fantasmagoriam]

[the-manderville-mambo]

Personally I think that, out of all the relic weapon questlines so far, the one that has the best ratio of effort to reward is the HW relics. There's some grinding, yes, but it's far easier to bear than having to do the same exact thing 9 or 12 times (Zodiac weapons), or having to level up an entire separate thing just to progress a story in an entire separate area in order to unlock more weapon stages (Eureka and Resistance weapons), or just doing a bunch of roulettes to buy some rocks (Manderville weapons). And it has far more reward for that level of effort than any ARR, StB, or ShB relic while not being as ridiculously easy as the EW ones

[sealrock]

For Paris: 20. Spriggan - What do you like to collect, and to what extent?

ask meme

20. Spriggan - What do you like to collect, and to what extent?

I've always had it planned that paris would start collecting relics after their journey as the WoL comes to an end. it first began as a hobby to fill the void of no longer experiencing constant danger and peril, they can't sit down and 'relax' anymore. because of their knowledge with the job disciplines paris has collected every fabled weapon available, but it took years of blood, sweat, and tears to get all of them. it's partly the reason why they disappeared and lost contact with family and friends for a time

ty for the ask @icehearts!

[saucynadles]

nothing has been worse abt leveling all my dps jobs than not being the tank

[impossible-rat-babies]

one day I’ll do a personal ranking of the relic grinds

[lesbianbishounen]

blogging abt ff14 like ive actually played since last patch bcus the game is so fucking boring rn

[stormbabylore]

Look at her precious little shocked Pikachu face. ♡(◕‿◕๑)

I finally finished my first HW relic grind, and the plot for this really tugged hard on a key thread of Aeryn's backstory. I need to muse about it... So it's oc lore dump time! \o/

Spoilers for the HW relic weapon story, but that's it!

A quick tl;dr of Aeryn's story, pertinent to black mage:

Aeryn's soul is fused with the remnant magic of the star from her past life. It functions a bit like a shell, "protecting" her, but also blocking her access to the magic of the Source. This prevents her from doing most types of magic without significant effort.

In canon, Aeryn just lives like this, unable to do magic except in extreme circumstances. But in black mage AU, she works with the thaumaturges to disentangle her soul and the "foreign" magic (they none of them realize what it is), enabling her to both access and better utilize magic on the Source.

The disentangled star magic does not disperse. It lingers, greatly enhancing her newfound magical abilities, but also overwhelming her natural senses - especially her sight. Despite this, she takes to magic use with inexplicable ease and turns almost exclusively to magical combat.

Aeryn later channels most of the lingering star magic away during the finale of the StB class quest. The yellow in her hair fades as a result, and she is able to see without magical obstruction once again.

I thought that would be the end of it - that Aeryn-as-Black-Mage would no longer have her connection to her past life or her star following Stormblood. But rolling through the HW relic quests and awakening a new being connected to the WoL through their aether/soul/weapon got me thinking:

What if, in Aeryn's case, the soul she helps give voice and form to is what little remains of her star? (✧_✧)

The connection the anima feels towards the WoL and its desperation to get stronger so it can help/impress/protect them is very reminiscent of the headcanon I have about Aeryn's past connection with her home star and how it "saved" her in its/their last moments. Other than the timeline itself (and the suggestion that other warriors with similar experiences might likewise be able to connect with anima), nothing in the relic quest lore really breaks that theory.

And I'm casually obsessed.

Probably going to shirk the timeline and work this into Aeryn's black mage story, some time following Stormblood. Perhaps she needs a new weapon at that time. (The Stormblood class quest could feasibly have destroyed her existing weapon. Yeah, going with that.) I just love the circular notion of this: Aeryn's star dying in such a way that she was able to be "reborn," but then in turn being "reborn" itself in the form of an anima so that the two can learn, grow, and travel on together.

;-; Yes, this makes my heart is happy. I shall accept this headcanon. It shall be mine.

[quad-weave]

Monster Hunter

When I was grinding HW relics, I got this Dravanian Tunic of Scouting as a random drop. I tried it on when I was in one of my healer glams, which has the Songbird Skirt and some thighboots on, and I loved the look. The glam was born from there!

It's perfect for leveling Viper as well, as all the pieces are below level 80. :)

Body - Dravanian Tunic of Scouting Hands - Wayfarer's Fingerless Gloves Legs - Songbird Skirt in Mesa Red and Kobold Brown Feet - Valerian Rogue's Highboots in Dark Brown

Weapon - High Durium Twinfangs

Earrings - Copper Ear Cuffs Necklace - Alliance Necklace of Aiming

Facewear - Brass Rimless Glasses

These pictures were taken in Ihuykartumu with Candle's Autumn shader!

[aotopmha]

It's been a year since I made my FFXIV account.

This might just be the one subscription service I got the most value out of ever outside of basic utilities.

This game has offered me hours upon hours of fun.

And I still have so much left to do a year in.

For example, I've only leveled 6 of the 22 classes (also haven't touched Blue Mage).

I haven't touched Savages and Ultimates at all (this one's on shaky ground in general because of the necessary time commitment).

I haven't touched Deep Dungeons at all.

I haven't even completed all Extremes.

I'm still working on my first relic weapon, as well.

And every expansion still has countless side quests to do.

And the only things holding me back are other games that I love and exhaustion; in general, time, really.

While I was doing my dailies today, I had a realisation that I love the game on so many levels, it'd be difficult to make it so bad I would quit.

I've seen a bunch of people feel alienated from the game because of Dawntrail's story, but even if I have my issues with it, I still think it came together nicely by the end (and 7.1 is a nice continuation of it), but above all, I just really love other aspects of DT, as well.

I love going around the zones, I love the battle encounters, I love the graphics update.

I suppose making an expansion which has both bad story and bad gameplay would be closest to get me to stop playing; there is a possible scenario where they fumble both encounter design and story so bad I wouldn't be able to find anything good in them.

You never know.

But I think every time this team has had the foundation set, they've made gold.

The slower ARR is followed by HW.

The slower StB is followed by ShB/EW.

There is a set-up/pay-off pattern I see within the complete picture that I often see other people bring up as well.

The foundation set by ARR, HW and StB is part of what made ShB and EW so good.

Not all parts were great (in fact, as much as I am painting HW in a positive light, I think it in particular was much more flawed than people usually view it as), but the complete whole is one of my favourite fantasy stories ever because it did what mattered the most so well.

I mean, I suppose another way to "ruin" the story would be to irrevocably destroy what came before with new reveals, but once again, they just earned my trust so well with ShB and EW, I really do have faith they'll do another story (and game) rivaling them once all of the pieces are in place.

I really do think they have an interesting seed in place they can expand into something truly great.

But above all, I never thought an MMO would become one of my favourite games ever.

But it did.

I never thought I would like a battle system nor encounter design within an MMO as much as I do in this one.

Even after beating many of the Extremes on min ilvl, I still want to go back and do them again to teach and help people get through them.

Now, do I think it should not have any of those low points at all?

Yes, that definitely would be the ideal.

I could've done without the several detours before facing Titan or a lot of the Ruby Sea story or a good chunk of Labyrinthos and Bestways Burrow or the terrible retcon for the end of ARR in HW.

But I'm happy that for every bit of bad pacing or any irrelevant detour, we get long-term plot points like saving Gabu, the mystery of the Ascians, the liberation of Ala Mhigo, Omega, the dragons, the Reflections, the evolving story of Garlemald or even Niddhog's eyes and the journey those go through.

So, I think we're truly in trouble with the game's story when the long-term set up isn't paid off properly.

And we're truly in trouble with the game's gameplay when the team can no longer make content that is extremely replayable and fun to master.

Or probably if they at any point decide to go the path of least resistence and start making timesink mechanics like mandatory dailies.

It's the elements relating to player freedom that keep it going, I think.

[lilbittymonster]

Nine people I want to get to know better

Last Song: Heimsins Augu - Danheim

Favorite Color: Cobalt blue

Last Movie/TV Show: The Secret Garden (1993) with some friends over discord. It was very fun watching the first reactions from some of them

Sweet/Spicy/Savory: Savoury, especially herbed stuff.

Relationship status: meh. not a priority.

Last thing I googled: "ffxiv azdaja minion" bc I was so convinced it was a minion item we receive after the final trial of 6.5 but I guess not, bc all I found were mods that made Middy into Azdaja

Current Obsession: working on my Splendourous Tools in XIV to the exclusion of almost all else lmao. I saw someone call Endwalker "the waiting room expansion" because there's not a big grind area like Eureka or Bozja for the relic weapons and I was soooo tempted to shout back "join the omnicrafters in our tool grind then".

Last Book: Genuinely do not remember the last time I read a book.

Looking forward to: starting HW on my alt and beginning to write the Heavensward arc of my WoL's story, maybe actually teaching myself to mod and use Blender by summer

Tagged by @sarenhale thank you!

Paying it forward and tagging some regulars in my notifications (zero pressure)

@zeloinator @neosatsuma @fjordstan @eorzeanflowers @damian-elero @myfairmidnightladyspade @clariongradiation @candycryptids @necro-man-sir

[sjofn-lofnsdottr]

27 for the ask game?~

Hmmm, what IS my favorite relic?

This is sort of a biased thing coming from me, because I secretly don't like super sparkly weapons and often hate grinding relics (especially out of date relics!) (it's the FATEs, I hate doing goddamn FATEs), so while I'm sure ARR and HW and SB all have perfectly lovely relics that I wouldn't mind dropping into my lap, I didn't even try to finish one until Shadowbringers and it was current content.

I love the matte version of Blade's Ingenuity, though. Machinist weapons I like are few and far between, so when this was handed over to me as my finished relic reward I was delighted.

Thank you for the ask!

[sealrock]

What is your character(s) weapon of choice? Do they have a specific weapon they carry around with them that you could describe in detail or is it more of a metaphorical 'if they could chose from this list, they would choose x'? Has this weapon changed over the years?

answering for all:

paris: as an all-rounder warrior of light, paris has no particular weapon of choice. they do, however, tend to collect various weapons of legend (i.e. relic weapons) to keep in their personal vault yves: yves' weapon of choice is his mystical claymore named 'fragarach', embedded with runes and magic only yves can use. crafted by his mother to protect and aid him, yves has kept his sword by his side throughout the centuries. the weapon itself has not changed throughout this time achille: besides being efficient in hand-to-hand combat, achille owns an ornate labrys that was given to him by his adoptive father on his 17th nameday. achille is more likely to use his fists as his weapon of choice, but he can switch to his axe if the situation calls for it. he dubbed the nameless labrys 'bonebreaker' when he couldn't come up with anything else. the weapon has slowly begun to grow dull and chipped in the last few years due to achille's lack of care hector: he owns a magicked rod embedded with a large orb of auracite, a heirloom that he stole from the tatlonghari family years ago. the orb itself appears to change color with certain spells and incantations. it doesn't have a name but hector has kept his rod the same throughout the years andromache: her weapon of choice is an antique sword in rather excellent condition named 'the untamed' she found during her journeys in recent years, the blade aspected to the elements. she's never seen without it, and the blade has made her a formidable opponent against even the strongest warriors patroclus: patroclus carries a grimoire as his weapon of choice. at first glance it looks no different from an ordinary tome, but the pages are filled with text and symbols of arcanima. patroclus has owned this grimoire, which he calls 'ilion', for quite a while; he created the book and its contents himself in secret throughout his teen years kirke: her weapon of choice is a staff of allagan construction, but with design liberties she slowly added on, the most prevalent is lunar motifs. calling it 'aglaos', it has been in kirke's possession since the very beginning of the 6th astral era after she became free from her allagan prison evander: while not a weapon in the classic sense, evander has his chemist kit on hand, so it has no name. usually contained in a travel bag, evander's equipped with 4 floating milpreves to help heal and various potions he can mix to create more potent effects depending on the situation, whether for offense or defense. the kit itself has remained the same since evander first put it together 5 years prior azem (helen): a weapon of choice for helen is a thin star globe of their own creation, which carries the name 'parthenos'. embedded with a small chunk of crystal in the middle and aetheric playing cards holding several different creations and familiars, it carries an astrological motif fitting for the current azem's seat. it has since been destroyed due to unforseen calamity