#However before late HW it is probably also very easy to talk him into pretty much anything if you have the slightest bit of persuasion skil

[avirael]

The Frozen Lake

It was the third day since he had stopped feeling like dying.

About a week ago he had woken up from his far too lifelike fever dream and a few days later the last spikes of the fever itself had been gone too just like the hallucinations it had brought in his sleep.

He still had been sick though and welcomed Rael telling him to stay in bed until he was perfectly healthy again all too eagerly.

While he still sneezed every now and then, it was at least tolerable now, still annoying but he didn’t feel incredibly uncomfortable anymore.

That day, just like the last and also the ones before that, he had awoken late. Against Rael’s order to stay in bed he had found the courage to get up and take a look out of the window. It was a sunny day, which in Coerthas still meant that it was bitterly cold though. But the sun was shining brightly and already high in the sky too which meant it had to be almost midday. He had slept way too long again, way to many hours for a surprisingly dreamless sleep. Or maybe it was exactly the lack of dreams that allowed him to finally rest, after all in the past there rarely had been good ones…

For a moment he considered to go downstairs and ask for a late breakfast if that wasn’t too insolent given the late hour but then a knock sounded from the door.

Quickly he hurried back to bed, just in case it was Rael, but the person who carefully peeked into the room a few seconds later wasn’t a viera.

“Ah, you are awake! That’s good!”, Haurchefant exclaimed happily and brought a small tray with hot soup and also something warm to drink. “It is so late already, you must be horribly hungry. Alphinaud checked in on you earlier but you were still fast asleep and he didn’t have the heart to wake you.”

A little uncertain on how to answer to that, A’viloh just nodded. Haurchefant grinned, put down a mug on the bedside table and handed A‘viloh a comfortingly warm bowl filled with some rather delicious smelling stew.

Instead of fetching the chair from the small desk by the window, Haurchefant sat down at the lower end of the bed balancing the tray with his own lunch on his knees. Rael once told him that ishgardian society had an absurd amount of strict and antiquated rules and so A’viloh couldn’t help but wonder, that although it seemed like a very appropriate distance to him, in Haurchefant’s hometown the fact alone that he dared to sit on someone else’s bed was probably scandalous.

“I hope you don’t mind me having lunch with you.”, the Elezen asked as he noticed A‘viloh staring.

Quickly the Miqo’te lowered his gaze to his bowl of soup. “Not at all.”, he muttered and tried a spoonful of the food just to change the topic. “Mhh, this is very good!”, he mumbled, still chewing, surprised by how good this really was compared to the bland food and bitter teas Rael had usually brought him these last few days. It must have been the Viera’s way of punishing him for running away.

Haurchefant laughed and then for a while they ate in silence.

“You look a lot healthier already.”, the Elezen stated after a while with an amiable smile on his face before taking a sip from his mug.

A‘viloh shrugged a little embarrassed, since it had been his own fault that he hadn’t been well in the first place. “Only because all of you took so good care of me.”

Haurchefant nodded. “You know, you had us all horribly worried right?”

“Sorry about that.”, he said and guitily looked into his mug.

Curiously Haurchefant eyed him for a moment. “Why did you do that anyway? Run out into the storm.”

A bit surprised A’viloh looked up. Had they all thought he had done this on purpose? “There wasn’t a storm when I left! What do I know about weather? I didn’t expect it to start snowing, let alone that much!”

That made the Elezen chuckle again but he still looked at him expecting an answer.

“Still… why did you leave?”

“I assumed Rael told you…”, A’viloh replied not sure what Haurchefant wanted to hear exactly. He nodded. “Rael did. But maybe I want to hear it from you…”

A’viloh sighed. His plan hadn’t been very smart and he felt a little uncomfortable having to explain his reasons to someone else, when in retrospect it didn’t make much sense even to his own ears.

“You know the… circumstances under which we fled Ul’dah… I couldn’t… um… the fact that we didn’t even know what happened to our friends… I wanted to find out, because it doesn’t seem fair to me that we escaped while all of them didn’t…”

“Mhh…”, Haurchefant nodded thoughtfully but let go off the topic for now. Instead he asked, „And how are you feeling today?”

Somehow that question confused A’viloh even more.

“What do you mean?”

“It’s a simple question, isn’t it?”, he said still smiling politely.

Of course it was a simple question. Just the answer felt unreasonable complicated to him. To make things even more difficult people who asked such a question usually wanted to hear “I‘m fine, and you?” or “Very good, thank you.” for an answer and rarely the truth. They certainly didn’t want to hear “A few days ago I was convinced I was going to die and honestly it wasn’t that bad, so now I‘m still not sure wether I am happy to still be alive or not”.

“Alright… I guess.”, he mumbled instead. He had never been a good liar and could only hope that this fact wasn’t too obvious for the Elezen.

“You know what?”, Haurchefant proclaimed after watching him thoughtfully for a second. “Today is a wonderful day. We should go for a walk.”

“A walk?!”, A’viloh exclaimed wide-eyed, as if he had just asked something unreasonable of him.

“Why not?”

A’viloh couldn’t think of a good reason why not, other than that he was supposed to stay in bed, so he shrugged.

“Where’s Rael?”, he asked instead.

Haurchefant smirked. “Do you need Rael’s permission to go outside?”

“Of course not.”, the Miqo’te protested. “But Rael will be mad if I run off again, especially against their orders to stay in bed.”

“Rael and Alphinaud went to the observatory earlier.”, Haurchefant explained. “We’ll be back before they are, I promise.”

What was A’viloh supposed to say against that and also against the expectant look on the Elezen’s face. He took another glimpse towards the window and decided that it looked nice enough to go outside.

“Fine.”

“Good!”, Haurchefant exclaimed happily and collected their empty bowls and mugs. “There should be warm clothes for you in the wardrobe. If you need anything else just ask someone. I’ll wait for you by the northern gate.”

After Haurchefant had left, A’viloh remained sitting in his bed for a moment longer contemplating on the Elezen’s question. Yes, he felt better again. But better in what comparison? Better than a few days ago when he had felt and also been half-dead? Though he didn’t feel sick anymore now, there still was a weigh on his heart. From his plan that had failed so spectacularly and even more so from the dreams he wouldn’t have minded to keep on dreaming forever.

Vehemently he shook his head and decided not to think about that now or he would just crawl back under the blanket of his comfortably warm bed again. Instead he got up and took a look into the wardrobe. Almost none of these were his own clothes of course since all he possessed were the ones he had worn on his body that day they fled Ul’dah. Very unsuitable for this climate. But neither did he see the borrowed clothes he had worn that night when he had tried to run away. Everything in here looked even softer and warmer like someone had wanted to make sure he was feeling comfortable. To his surprise the things didn’t look that much too big for him either, unlike his last set of clothes. Besides a few Hyur most people here at Camp Dragonhead were grown up Elezen but these clothes looked like they belonged to neither. Maybe it were clothes for Elezen children, he wondered and also thought that in that case someone must have brought them here just for him.

Grateful for so much effort he picked a few pieces and got dressed. Lazily he ran his fingers through his hair to get rid of the worst knots but the look into the small mirror at the washbasin, where his tired face stared back at him reproachfully, just made him sigh. Once he was ready he took the warm coat out of the wardrobe too and went out to look for Haurchefant. Just as he had said, the Elezen was standing by the gate that led to the north-east, towards the ruins of the Steel Vigil.

From afar Haurchefant already recognised the Miqo’te, his bright red hair a singularity among all the people living here. Pleasantly smiling as always he waved at him and A’viloh couldn’t help but smile a little too and wave back as he hurriedly walked towards him.

“There you are! I see the clothes fit you nicely.”

A’viloh nodded.

“They do. Thank you very much for these.”

Haurchefant dismissively waved with one hand. “It’s the least I could do…”

But he had done a lot more than that, A’viloh thought. “I think there’s more I need to thank you for. Rael told me it was you who saved my life.”

“Mhhh…”, Haurchefant tilted his head as if he wasn’t sure if this statement was entirely the truth. “Rael is too humble. They played a bit of a role in that too. After all it was Rael who noticed you were gone. And it was also Rael who didn’t leave your bedside and tried their best to heal you.”

A’viloh remembered waking up and finding the usually quite touch-averse viera cuddled up to him with a look on their face so horribly sad like he had never seen on them before. Rael had pretended it was nothing but it had been a very unconvincing performance. Asked about it Alphinaud had only offered a few sentences about how worried Rael had looked and how they had used all kinds of spells he himself had never seen or heard of before, all of it to try and save him. It had made him feel even more guilty for his stupidity.

So maybe Haurchefant was right. But still it had been him who had risked going out into the storm to find him.

“Anyway. I still want to thank you! Honestly.”, he insisted. But how honestly was it really?

Sure, he was glad to still be alive. After all his plan hadn’t been to run out into a blizzard and freeze to death, although some of them seemed to think that was the case. But once he found himself in this situation he had to admit that he had welcomed his fate rather willingly. A fact that shocked even himself a little looking back at it now.

“You’re welcome. After all you wouldn’t be any help to your friends frozen to death out there.”, Haurchefant joked with a wry smile on his lips.

“I guess not...”, A’viloh muttered, the topic of his friends making his mood visibly sink again.

Of course the Elezen noticed and his smile turned into a playful grin. “But I acted a little selfish too, you know? I think Camp Dragonhead is a lot friendlier with your company and I would like to have you and your pretty smile around a little longer.”

For a moment A’viloh’s eyes shot up to look at the others face before he quickly pretended that something somewhere a little bit to his left was a lot more interesting. Sometimes Haurchefant randomly said things, A’viloh hadn’t had the slightest idea how to react to. Not because he was that oblivious but simply because it puzzled him. Nonetheless the air suddenly didn’t feel that cold anymore on his face.

Haurchefant was always very kind to him. Well, he mostly was kind to everybody but sometimes he seemed to admire him especially. Him of all people, although there was nothing special about him. Haurchefant sometimes spoke of him like he was one of the greatest heroes of all time and it felt so ridiculous to him. He was just silly, cowardly A‘viloh! What had he ever achieved in his miserable life to justify such admiration? The people called him a Warrior of Light but wasn’t that some grand overstatement? Some days he thought all of this had been a horrible mistake. A great misunderstanding! Then he wondered how he had ever gotten entangled in this madness in the first place and also if he ever would get out of it again. But what else should he do with his life anyway...

While A’viloh’s brain still screeched in desperate search for a proper response, Haurchefant seemed to realise he had flustered him and glossed it over by gesturing to the gate.

“How about we walk a few yalms? There’s something you need to see!”

Still too dumbstruck to speak or to even wonder what the Elezen was talking about, A’viloh nodded and then proceeded to follow him out into the snowy landscape.

After a few minutes Haurchefant paused and took a deep breath. “Isn’t the air wonderful today?”

A’viloh followed his example, breathed deeply and let his gaze wander over the snow covered landscape with a few pines here and there and the mountains and ruins of the Steel Vigil in the distance. The air was cool and fresh, still cold enough that the warm sun couldn’t melt the snow. Instead the rays of sunshine made the scenery shine and sparkle as if everything was covered not in ice but in millions over millions of tiny diamonds.

“It is.”, he answered and smiled, surprised how beautiful this inhospitable landscape could be, before with a sudden spark of curiosity he finally asked. “Where are we going?”

“It’s not far anymore.”, Haurchefant said with a grin on his face and pointed into another direction. Shortly after and only a bit further ahead they reached a small lake.

As they got closer A‘viloh noticed that it not only was covered in a layer of snow and ice but also that quite a few off-duty soldiers, given the proximity to the camp he assumed they had to be, were standing right on top of the frozen lake. No, they were not quite standing. It looked more like they were dancing or flying maybe. More or less gracefully they moved over the lake‘s surface in fluid swift strides, some just moving in wide circles and other swirling around this way or that. A’viloh had never seen something like this and it looked strange and impossible but at the same time very beautiful to him.

The two of them had almost reached the lake by then, A’viloh a few steps ahead to get a better look at the wondrous people on the ice and he already wanted to ask how they did that, when his attention was drawn elsewhere by a curious squawking sound.

“Oh! Look at them!”, the Miqo’te exclaimed, his fascinated smile still turning a little brighter, as he gestured to a small flock of wild geese resting at the shore of the lake. With ruffled feathers they sat closely huddled together at the edge of the ice and suddenly A‘viloh couldn’t help but worry about them. They looked so unbothered by his presence, sleeping through the day and all the hubbub around them, looking all exhausted and frozen with their puffed up feathers. Like anything could happen to them and they wouldn’t even mind.

Strangely he wondered what he himself had looked like when Haurchefant had found him unconscious in the snow. He must have been a pitiful sight. Had the Elezen thought him beyond saving too, just like he himself had. What if he had found him a little later or not at all? Maybe that would have been better, a voice murmured to him just like it had so many times before and for a moment, tempted by the grief heavy on his heart once again, he almost believed it.

But no, he would be dead then and while he would have liked to imagine that this would mean he could be with his loved ones again, it was not exactly what either of the tribes he had lived with believed.

Vaguely he remembered his father working for hours, digging a grave at what used to be Wellwick Wood. An elderly woman too exhausted by their long journey, his grandmother if he remembered correctly, had died shortly after they had arrived there. With a sad smile on his face his father had explained to his children, who had stared down into the hole in the ground with confusion in their eyes, how by returning her body to the earth there could still grow new life from this death.

Or the drake tribe of the Sagolii Desert, who always burned their dead and left the ashes to be carried away by the desert wind, believing that it would make it easier for the deceased‘s aether to return to the Aetheric Sea and create something new elsewhere.

With a sudden sharp pain in his heart A’viloh realised that neither of the people he loved had gotten the burial they would have wanted for themselves. And neither had A‘viloh himself wanted to die in the coldness of Coerthas and be forever forgotten under a thick layer of snow and ice. He had thought about dying before but never had he been this close to it. For a second he wondered if this was something worth speaking to Rael about, but he wasn’t sure they wouldn’t misunderstand and get mad at him again.

“Why do you make such a sad face now?”, Haurchefant asked having noticed the smile slip from the Miqo’te’s face. But A’viloh just vehemently shook his head and focused on the geese again.

“They must be horribly cold.”, he wondered in a voice that suggested he already planned to take all of them to the safety of his comfortably warm room.

Haurchefant chuckled. “Don’t worry, they survived the storm out here after all. They keep each other warm, that’s why you‘ll rarely see one of them alone. A bit like you and your friends.”

“Maybe…”, A’viloh answered thinking about this comparison for a moment. “I just wish it wouldn’t always be me who needs to be taken care of. But as proven in Ul’dah and now once again I am simply too weak and useless to keep myself alive, not to mention anyone else.”

The Elezen’s face got a little stern as he folded his arms in front of his chest. “Don’t say that, I am sure it’s not true! This was just bad luck! You are neither weak nor useless!”

A’viloh shrugged. “But that’s how I feel right now...”

Slowly Haurchefant nodded before speaking again with a silent but determined voice. “Listen. I‘ll never forget how bravely you fought for Francel although you barely knew him. You could have gotten yourself in trouble with that and you helped him anyway.”

“It’s not like I did that on my own -”, A’viloh tried to protest but was immediately interrupted. “But you still helped! And I’m sure even without Rael you would have done so!”

Another shrug was all Haurchefant got in response, so the Elezen thought for a second before making an offer. “You want to make yourself useful, right? Get stronger? I could teach you how to fight like a real ishgardian knight, with sword and shield. Or we have some dragoons at Camp Dragonhead too! I’m sure there’s a lot you could learn from them.”

A‘viloh‘s face turned to disbelief. “I really don’t think I could fight with armor and weapons this heavy…”

“You can’t say so if you don’t try! And I have you know that dragoon armors are surprisingly light. How do you think they could still be this agile otherwise? Promise me to at least try training with them a little!”

He didn’t really want to agree to that. He knew he would make a fool of himself. But how could he say no with Haurchefant trying everything in his power to cheer him up. Weakly he shook his head and muttered: “Fine…”

“Perfect!”, Haurchefant exclaimed with a bright smile on his face. “I think an early reward for your efforts is appropriate then!”

Confused A’viloh watched him take a small bag off of his shoulders, which he hadn’t even noticed until now. For a moment the Elezen was busy undoing a knot before he opened the bag and presented to A‘viloh a set of two weirdly shaped blades attached to pieces of wood with leather straps. He had no idea what these constructs were meant to do and that was plainly visible on his face. “What’s that?”

“Ice skates of course!”, Haurchefant said as if that would explain it all but the Miqo’te‘s face remained clueless, so Haurchefant gestured to the lake behind them. “You attach them to your boots so you can walk on the ice like this!”

“Oh!”, A’viloh exclaimed as he understood what Haurchefant was planning. “I don’t think-… I mean I‘ve never-… You don’t really want me to step on that lake do you?” The idea somehow scared him.

“Why not?”, Haurchefant asked for the second time today with this smile that made the question sound like a challenge.

“It’s just a bit of ice!”, A‘vi objected. “What if it breaks?”

The Elezen shook his head and proceeded to fasten the metal blades beneath his boots. “Ah, don’t worry. The ice is thick enough, it will take at least a few more days to melt.”

“I don’t know…”, was all A’viloh replied as Haurchefant pressed another pair of skates into his hands. But the Elezen remained determined and took a few wobbly steps through the snow and onto the ice. “See! I can stand on it and it doesn’t break! You are a lot lighter than me, so why wouldn’t you be able to?”

Oh, you don’t know my bad luck!, A‘viloh thought but Haurchefant didn’t look like he would take that for an excuse. Instead he stretched out a hand towards the Miqo’te. “Come one! Believe me, this is going to be funny!”

For a second A‘viloh pondered his options. The idea of nothing but a little bit of ice between him and the water still terrified him but Haurchefant seemed so excited about this and the other people actually seemed to have fun too. Maybe he should at least pretend to try... Reluctantly he sat down on a rock and tried to put on the skates just like Haurchefant had done a moment ago.

“The clasp on the back too. Make sure none of them are loose… Yes, that looks fine!��, Haurchefant helpfully explained. As A’viloh got up, he almost flopped right back down into the snow. It was a weird feeling to balance his whole weight on only two thin pieces of metal. As he carefully took the first few steps towards the lake Haurchefant reached out for him once more. “Here! Take my hand! I don’t want you to fall…”

Hesitantly A‘vi stepped onto the ice and immediately felt like the ground was being pulled away beneath his feet. He struggled for balance, feeling himself falling backwards, so Haurchefants arm was a very welcome thing to hold on to.

With a chuckle the Elezen tried to loosen A‘vi‘s desperate grip on his arm and instead took each of his hand in one of his own before carefully making slow steps backwards pulling A‘viloh over the ice, which A’vi could swear was making suspicious crackling sounds below them. There was no way to tell the blades beneath his feet not to move, so all A’viloh could do was try not to fall and plead to Haurchefant with ears flat on his head and panic in his eyes, as he slowly was pulled further onto the lake. “No, no, no. Take me back, that’s a horrible idea!”

“Calm down. There’s nothing to be afraid of. I promise.”, Haurchefant said soothingly and continued to explain to him how to move on the ice skates. And in fact the Elezen’s calm voice slowly made A’viloh feel less anxious. His hands, frantically clasping at Haurchefant’s, relaxed along with his legs. It was still a weird feeling to be standing on the ice but now it felt a lot easier to remain balanced. He glanced at the people around them while remaining as still as possible, studied their movements for a moment and then tentatively tried to mimic the way they slowly pushed their feet above the slippery surface. To his surprise he really moved forward without much effort and also without feeling the sensation of falling again, closer to Haurchefant who had steadied him with his outstretched arms so far.

“See! It’s not that difficult.”, he said while making another step backwards so A’viloh had to follow with another step forward. The Miqo’te, strangely excited about the fact that he was actually moving on these weird ice-blades, laughed happily. “You are even going backwards!”

Haurchefants laughed. “One step after the other. Let’s teach you how to go forward first, hm? I‘ll let go off one of your hands but don’t worry, I still got you. One feet after the other just like you did before…”

In fact it almost felt easier now that he could use one of his arms to balance himself. Very slowly at first they floated above the icy surface of the lake but soon A‘viloh got braver. Once he almost lost his balance but for a comparably tall and strong person like Haurchefant it seemed like a very easy task to keep a small Miqo’te on his feet. Almost falling had felt like a shock for a second but only moments later they were laughing about it and in the end A’viloh was surprised and also a little proud how quickly he had learned and how much fun this was.

He wasn’t sure how much time they spent there on the frozen lake but at some point a bell sounded from the nearby Camp. Startled A’viloh looked up (and almost lost his balance again). “How late is it? I’m sure you have more important things to do than this! I’m sorry if I’m keeping you from doing your work.”

But Haurchefant just laughed and teased, “What could be more important than prove to you that not all of Coerthas is a deadly wasteland trying to kill you? But I think we really should return soon. I don’t want you to get cold again and after all we also don’t want Rael to find out about this little excursion, do we?”

For a second A’viloh wished the viera could see him now and wondered what their reaction would be like. The thought made him chuckle.

And as they floated, one last circle around the lake, A’viloh couldn’t help but wonder that maybe it was happy moments like this. The reason he was still here. Moments that made his life worth living.

---

inspired by the poem The Reversal by Leila Chatti

[mettic]

Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward, a personal retrospective.

jesus i put a lot of hours in this game. something finally managed to beat dota on my steam hours, maybe because people wont play dota with me anymore but thats a different issue.

You dont really realize how much you get into an mmo until you find one you really like. this is probably gonna be pretty long so im gonna put it under Read More.

How much experience did I have with MMOs pre FFXIV?

Basically nothing. I had done a trial of WoW during WOTLK but WOTLK was like 9 years ago man, I was like 12 at best

Part of my inspiration to start playing FFXIV was because Wildstar was drumming up some hype an I was on board because I could play as a cool robot. I was onboard with wildstar up until the open beta and then i played it and you dont have to be an MMO veteran to know what Wildstar was ass. I was actually SUPER salty about how bad Wildstar was and I think that dissapointment  made me say fuck  it and do the FFXIV trial.

While I like to say that i started playing FFXIV during 3.0 thats a lie. According to these oldest screenshot i started to play around 2.3. I actually did hit 50  and get to the end of the 2.0 MSQ but i didnt do much later and I think life started to catch up to me so I unsubbed. I wasnt even on Hyperion originally, I was Adamontoise! 

3.0, Heavensward

Cant exactly remind myself as to why I started playing again. Old screenshots state that I started playing again around october 2015, a few months into 3.0. I had time available to me again, I think Carlego had decided to try the trial and Vitamin had offered to do stuff iwth me if I went on hyperion so I said fuck it and dropped the bucks for HW and a server transfer and started playing catchup.

its not really worth talking about the leveling experience but I’d like to say taht i actualyl really enjoy questing and leveling in MMOs. Some people hate it but I love this shit, even if at heart its just a huge time sink. Probably the thing I’m most excitied about in Stormblood is to do questing again. maybe I’m a loser?

3.0 was also my first experience in doing  content that you actually have to try to clear, in Bismark EX and Ravana EX.  I dont have much memory of Bismark, we were already pretty overgeared for him by the time I got there, and I swear it only took me atleast one look out to learn and kil lit. maybe. It was like two years ago.

Ravana I had put much more time into, started setting up nights and shit for it. I sorta wish I had footage of me doing ravana because im sure i’d be furious at myself for how bad I was probably playing, but hey I cleared it so whatever. It was an accomplisment, I felt good!

next primal, not so much.

3.1, As Goes Light, So Goes Darkness

I have a theory, and it’s that if you are a person who does end game bosses in the more modern MMO settting, there’s gonna be a fight  early in your “career” that humbles you and forces you to actually really fucking try in future fights. For me that was Thordan EX. Thordan was humbling. 

For reference I did not clear Thordan during 3.1, and its still frustrating to me. There were a lot of reasons for that, we had some frustrating people in the group I did it with, I was pretty bad, Thordan Divebombs were racist agaisnt roes

man i get salty watching this video cuz i was standing on the exact same spot as some other people and get hit but the NIN who gets clipped by the particle  effects didnt. racist.

Thordan forced me to start actually really consider my cooldown usage  in the context of the fight, and all that SHIT.  I still consider Thordan easily the hardest of 3.X primals but I’m not sure if thats just me being bias enough. I got my clear after the fact but it was never the same.

If it wasn’t obvious, I did NOT do Gordias prog at all during 3.0-3.1. Gordias was a meme and I didnt beat Thordan during tis patch, gordias was NOT happening.

3.2, The Gears of Change

Sephriot was also an infuriating fight but for different reasons from Thordan. I was probably the last of the people in my static to get my Seph EX clear because we didnt do seph as much as a group and did a lot of PFing. I play WAR btw and this fight was an absolute nightmare as an OT because OT is easiest role in the fight but the fight had a kinda infamous DPS check so even though I have had this dumb fight down on the back of my hand and can probably still explain it piece by piece off memory to people, I had to pray to god that my PF dpses didn’t die and lose us the fight because lol sephirot.

my sephirot clear was PEAK Mettic Yelling

what a nightmare.

However, as you noticed if you kept watchign the video, I also started doing Midas Progression! Midas prog would be my first e xperience in doing raid progression and what a dream. But I’ll discuss hat more in the 3.3

3.3, Revenge of the Horde

Before I start talking about Midas, I’ll talk about Nidhogg EX. Nid is probably my favorite of the 3.x primals, I think that fight is super fun, especially as a OT as its a very OT involved fight. Fuck the Geirskyol tethers tho that shit was BS sometimes.

Anyways, Midas.  My midas progession at heart was awful. Over the course of two patches worth of our best attempts at consistent two days 3 hours each a week of raiding,  we only cleared A5S and A6S, the later we only cleared two or three times. A couple reasons, one of the biggest was probably that we lost close to one-two months worth of progression due to various reasons of people not being able to make it, and we lost tons of time inside the actual fight due to every reason I could possibly think of, from random 5 minute long DCs to someone thinking that someone’s trying to break into their house. IMO if we didnt miss that huge amount of time, we probably could’ve cleared atleast A7s, because our A7S prog when we got to actually do it was pretty good (I wanna say that we managed to atleast hit second set of cages over the course of our fight dedicated a7s night.) But then someone left and we had to start teaching someone A5S and A6S and we were clowns and didnt get far.

Midas was a nightmare. And also probably the most fun i’ve ever had in this game. The memes were out of this fuckign world.

and so many more were lost to time. Still sad that  we didnt record the time that we fugged a blaster tankswap that we used to vitamin would open on  brawler without 10 trillion magic vuln stacks that ended up with me yelling “NO WAIT” 0.1 second before he gets one shotted by the brawl autoattack. good times. Prog was ass but the memories will never be forgotten.

3.4, Soul Surrender

Won’t talk too much about Sophia. I really do not have much of a memory of the fight. It was a fight that gave me very little trouble in getting clear, probably second only to Bismark in clear difficulty. It’s a pretty good fight, but I got my clear and farmed it painlessly so whatever. 

Creator had a change in my static’s mindset because while Im sure everyone had a lot of fun in Midas, the lack of actual good prog was pretty fucking disappointing, and we had a lot of high hopes for our creator prog because A12S got killed on the second day of the patch, so everyone knew that Creator was easier than Midas.

AC still holds the title of Free Company That Does Everything  Everyone Else Does But Slower And Worst. We got A9S down on our second raid nigth, which  was kinda dooming cuz most groups had that fight down on day 1 but WHATEVER we got it at like 10%.

My screenshots and tumblr posts say that we took down A10s like a week later but it sure as hell didn’t feel like that. I think it was one of those things where we got the clear but didn’t stop clowning it afterwords, and we’d spend like an hour on raid night on getting a10 down before we could get back to progging A11S. 

My screencaps show that we got A11 during early December, so about two months after a10s clear.  These numbers are kinda depressing to write out, but shit hey we got it before 3.5. I remember that those winter months became a pretty big issue for people having to miss weeks, and we had a lot of weeks where we only got out a9/a10 weekly clears cuz people couldn’t stay for a11 and that kinda stuff. This would actually still be an issue into 3.5, if not get worst.

3.5, the far edge of fate

For EXs, I absolutely hate Zurvan. Probably my least favorite fight of 3.5, and I’m sure a lot of people sahre that sentiment.  The fight itself in of itself would already be one of my least favorites in a vacuum because I think think its annoying and the fire and ice tethers is a bad mechanic for a EX, which is designed to be done by PF groups with no voice communcation, but more importantly the community lost its mind on this fight because of that fucking tweet of good players beating zurvan a few hours after 3.5′s launch saying that it was easier than dun scaith. I gotta say really good palyers gotta stop saying shit is easy because it fucks up the PF scene with people having absurd expectations. Skipping Soar becoming common knowledge also helping fuck up the PF scene because peopel would do fucking anything to skip soar. 1-2-5 parties are the expectation for zurvans still, and lots of people even run 1-1-6 because GOTTA SKIP SOAR. not that I can blame them, soar was realyl dumb. Also people using Tank LB2 for second late phase soar is so silly. I do like that it was a fight that didnt require the standard 2-2-4 set up tho. 

It was easier than seph/thor and I think Ravana to get a clear but harder than Soph/Bis to get a clear. Annoying fight, Annoying scene, and Infinity is a wack song dont lie to yourself.

Anyways Creator. To make it quick we did NOT clear A12S before echo, but imo give me like 1-2 more weeks I think we coulda got it. But at the same time it felt like I was saying “we get it next week” for like two-three weeks. A12S was the fight that made me feel like I should’ve been more proactive in helping raid members learn mechanics outside of raid night, something I’ll think about going into Stormblood.  We did however end up clearing it, but we cleared it at the start of april. That’s like a 4 month time inbetween A11S down and A12S down, which is pretty depressing. But in oru defence it was our most awkward season for missing days, and like midas we’ve probably lost like 1-2 monthsf worth of raid nights, and who knows how many “no a12s prog only a9-a11″ nights, and more importantly two of our regulars couldn’t run anymore and we had to find replacements from outside our group of friends. But thats just excuses, and TBH this fight gave a lot of people awkward issues, i’d say taht I know how to do this fight as OT off the top of my hand but apparently I fucked up first time stop positioning last night so idk.

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t amped on actually clearing a raid tier, but getting it on echo it pretty disappointing. Creator to me was also never really as fun as midas even though our prog was much better, the memes weren’t there. But shit I as a player learned a lot from this, especially on optimization DPS in the context of individual fights

still too lazy to use pots tho.

FOR STORMBLOOD

My biggest personal goal for stormblood is to clear an omega tier before echo. I’ll be happy iwth myself if I can get that, and I want to be more proactive in helping raid members learn mechanics because mechanics is and what has always held my group back.

What I’m playing in stormblood is kinda up in the air tbh.  I really want to play Samurai because MY WEBBRAND but I also wonder if its worth it,  because I played almost exclusively WAR for EX and Raids in HW, so all my raiding experiene is on tank. Even on EXs I probably went as my sub class, BRD, less than 10 times over the course of HW. I’m gonna try to level all the melees going into stormblood to get melee practice and start taking my melee 60s to casual 60 content for more practice.  Tho I tell my raid members that I’m going SAM to Omega I’m not 100% against going WAR for the sake of getting a pre-echo clear. Plus none of these fuckign kids play war they just wanna play DRK/PLD. casuals.

get hyped for Omega!

anyways the important shit:  HW glamour.

3.0 glamour

Absolutely ador this set actually? It’s straight up vendor gear but it rules, and there isn’t a lot of good heavy armor set in this game.

The blue color is because its based on my favorite leveling set, the heavy iron set, and for reasosn I do not remember I dyed them all this color of blue. I think it’s a good blue!

3.1, The Behemoth King

A set inspired by old METTIC.TUMBLR.COM followers would recongize, it s bsaed on my favorite dark souls character I made, the Boar King, Which was the giants set with the iron boar helm. it ruled. I attempted to recreate it for FFXIV, and was the most effort I put into glamour because I sat for like 5 hours waiting for Behemoth for the helm. The gold was gaudy btu I love the gaudy. I also switche chest pieces during the patch cuz I was never really sastified.  I think I like the first one more if I ahd found better leg pieces instead of ones that show my fucking underwear. Might bring this back, I love the behemoth helm.

3.3

Probably my least favorite? I  designed it aroudn the chest that I saw the cape chest piece and really wanted to use it. The black and blue undyeable colors of the chest always put me off tho and I never found something that  really made it what I want. Good chest piece tho

3.4-most of 3.5

honestly my favorite leveling set in the game. I think this set fucking rules. SOmething about it just clicks with me. Also makes cutscenes really funny because you cant move your head with it on. 

I actualyl kept this unti llike last week, even through most of 3.5. I only changed it when i got the A12S axe cuz that one is cool

and I just painted it fucking red lmao. Kinda miss the blue but I’ll use this for a while. I’ll honestly probably be using this into 4.0 in some way unless some real dope shit comes out.

BARD 3-1 +

i leveld my bard and got this glamour in 3.1 and I dont think I’ve change it since. I like this set a lot, plus BRDs dont get a lot of full face helmets. Ive changed the weapon a lot tho, used the pruple ironworks for a while cuz i like it but i never really fit the aesthetic. Used the Lore bow  for a long time, and im currently using a purple a12s bow. Dont be surpried if im still using this in 4.0

see yall in stormblood!