#I didn't start playing until Shadowbringers so

[sarastuss-a]

ᴹᴱᵀᴬ . SARASTUS &. STRENGTH :

Sarastus, ever since awakening from the long slumber, had the duty as the warrior of light placed upon her shoulders. it started with small deeds, something so mundane many would just have ignored those in need of help &. carried on. but not her. from the very start, she was lending her strength to those, who needed. &. of course as things progressed, more &. more was demanded of her. &. more &. more did she give of herself.

it is something that has been present ever since the times that the star was whole, the way Sarastus radiated strength, one look at her soul &. one could see from its' colors, the brightness of it that she had potential within her, potential to become successor to Venat, to become the next Azem.

even back then when ' there was no need for heroes, ' Sarastus was one. it is what she has always done, taken fights not her own upon her shoulders, protecting even the smallest of lives, fighting for the balance of the star. seeing this, &. knowing that Sarastus was indeed like the sun : both gentle, warm, &. kind, but also, when need be, ruthless &. fierce in the way she could defeat those she must, ... all of this played into the way Venat saw the potential in her. &. when she didn't take any side during the debate of how to proceed in the final days, but instead choosing to fight it all in her own way ( like hythlodaeus said ) it proved to Venat she is fit to be trusted with the weight of the soon to be shattered worlds, to become her champion, the warrior of light.

Which leads me to talk about how much is placed upon Sarastus' shoulders. the events during the ARR - arc, ( her re - awakening ) were a starting point to it all : from acts of kindness &. heroism, quickly that potential within her was seen, &. it was made known she was Hydaelyn's chosen champion. this of course, made others to entrust even more weight upon her shoulders, as she was deemed the only one who could take on the toughest fights. it came with a certain loneliness, this duty of hers. she had the support of her allies, her friends, her found family ... but, despite being loved, there was still that loneliness. something that could not be understood by others.

every fight tougher than the other, mentally &. physically, yet she pressed on.

' even should you lose all that is dear to you. even should it cost you your life ... you bear the burden and fight on, kicking and screaming until your last breath is spent. '

i do not think Sarastus was ever the naive - type to see the world as black &. white, as from the very beginning of her re - awakening, as she began it all by being able to fight primals unlike anyone else to her level, it was clear that there were gray colors to everything. there is no default good and bad, as later proven during Shadowbringers - arc, the scions travel to the first that proved that even too much light is destructive. this in itself, made the weight of fighting these certain battles all the more painful. while she wanted to save everyone, some were beyond saving, such showcased the best when she was forced to kill both hades / emet - selch &. themis / elidibus, who used to be her dear friends, members of the convocation alongside her in her past. a fate worse now, that she had her memories back. this all, the final days that happened again, having to travel back in time to see it all happen then as well, all of these strained Sarastus extremely hard mentally, &. though she is good at hiding it, it was obvious something weighed heavily on her mind. so her immense strength is not also physical but also mental, to be able to handle all of those things mentioned above in itself : though i always want to emphasize that she was extremely affected by it all mentally, &. it really took a huge toll on her, yet she pressed on, because she had to, &. because she still could. because there were still people she wanted to protect. there was no time to be weak or genuinely grieve, it was time to forge ahead.

she in truth, must shoulder so much. not only the weight of one realm, but others too. &. this is to say, she chooses to. she chooses to bear the burden, despite how heavy it weights upon her shoulder. not only because she thinks ' if not me, then who? ' but also, because she genuinely wants to. she wants to save others, she wants to fight for this world : for those she loves, for those she has lost. she is the strongest, &. she is fine with giving everything she has, till there is nothing left of her to give.

[dumb-hat]

roots: Is your OC's look inspired by any specific style of clothing or fashion trend? What are the roots and/or inspiration for their look?

(I'm coming back to that Exalted one, trust me.)

So, I guess this is another good place to talk about the out-of-character origin of Evander.

Ages ago (like, 11-12 years!), he got his start as a Bard with the Archaeologist archetype in a Pathfinder game that @luck-and-larceny ran for me, @irascibleblackguard and @kalencook. As an archaeologist, he had to have an Indiana Jones-style hat. Other than that, he was a short, scruffy looking guy of... around 5'7-5'8, I think? I'm pretty sure he ended up gaining an inch when I made him in Final Fantasy XIV, but he was a contrast to a lot of the other characters I had played recently, which were mostly taller. The point is, a lot of his visual traits (general color palette, height and build) and habits (hedonism, a tendency to go to great lengths to make it look like he went to no lengths at all... The guy loves "artfully disheveled" in all his forms) got their start there, in a tabletop game that happened well over a decade ago. I dug around and even found some art from waaaay back when:

I honestly don't remember why he has a pimp cane, but I kinda love it. Also, no, that's not actually, technically a proto-Malika stealing his money pouch. It's a completely different troublesome, dark-haired girl.

(He may have a type. I may have a type.)

Anyway, when I first made him in FFXIV, I was mostly playing on Gilgamesh and just kinda made him because Mal pointed out that Balmung was open and this was the old nightmare days when you could, like, almost never make a character on Balmung. So I made him, did the seasonal event (I think it was the 2014 Moonfire Faire, but don't quote me on that) and logged out on him for like... years.

I didn't start actually playing on Balmung until like... right around Shadowbringers, and I figured I might as well play Evander since he was like... Right there. He didn't really sit right with me, though. I went through a few fantasias and hair changes and stuff, and he just didn't click until I went to the market board and started looking at the low-level glam stuff and saw the beloved dumb hat. It wasn't a jaunty feathered cap, and it wasn't an archaeologist's fedora, but... It was perfect. I looked at it. I tried it on. It was dirt cheap, so I bought it. I chortled and guffawed, and told Mal "Hey, look. Look at him. Look at this dumb hat. I'm gonna wear it with everything.

And so I did. The hair still didn't look right, and wouldn't until I'd eventually cave and buy Aymeric's whole damn look just for his hair, but god, the hat helped. Everyone just immediately assumes he's a cowboy, which is kinda funny, but other than that? Worth it.

Ask me stuff! oc asks: character design edition

[smol-nevi]

You know...I took the entire last raid tier off from FFXIV. I was so burnt out. I couldn't even look at it. I got to such a peak with what I was doing on an individual level that I've got an orange aDPS parse in P5S (that's the one that's just your damage and your own buffs, mostly good for tracking rotation improvements). For the more common rDPS metric I had straight purples. That was without any parse runs and a not-hardcore group. I literally could not get a better parse under those circumstances and I kept beating my head on trying anyway until I wasn't even tolerable to be around.

I'm actually excited about Dawntrail? I'm cleaning out my inventory a bit (major feat, I've been playing since ARR and I have five retainers). I did something like three runs of Delubrum Reginae last night with my partner because they want to finish a relic and I just love Bozja that much.

I'm so tempted to spend some time in Eureka farming bunny boxes alone while everyone else is leveling and doing Dawntrail...

It feels nice to be able to be back. I'm not sure if I want to raid yet or not, but I'll play it by ear (aka if someone I know needs a dancer/ranged phys, I'm in, lol). Whatever the case though at least I know I proved whatever I thought I needed to with my numbers, and I'm a lot better at spotting burnout in myself and others now.

See, the difference between burnout and no burnout is that I couldn't even remember what I used to do for fun outside raiding, and it didn't sound fun if I did remember. Then I quit, slept for a while, eventually got my shit back together, and suddenly horked up an entire novel—of fanfic, but that counts—within 4 months, and then another in another 4 months. (Tellingly, both of them plus the third one I'm working on are about a lot of things, but they're all heavily about the devastating mental effects of burnout.) Now I'm like, do I even want to raid, if I could be doing all this other cool stuff? And yeah, kind of. My FC and our friends had a huge photoshoot to say goodbye to Endwalker and it reminded me of what's good about raiding: shooting the shit, laughing when things explode, being social around people on a schedule. I got way too focused on the math and not the people.

Slightly in my defense, it is hard to keep your head up when you run the same content for that many months. We cleared P4S week 31 and P8S week 34, if I'm remembering right. But also, absolutely not in my defense, until I intentionally took a short break during the P8S slog I had missed one single raid day since the second tier of Eden, and that was only because I'd had top surgery the literal day before and couldn't hold the controller yet for long enough without it seriously hurting. By the next raid night I was already back in it. I've never had perfect attendance in anything so that was a very hard record to let go of. What I needed was to let it the fuck go about six months before I actually did.

Anyway I'm literally just rambling because that's what I do, but I'm excited to be back. I think I'll level pictomancer because yeah, everyone is, but that's fun too. Bandwagons can be good or people wouldn't get on them. Dancer has been my main since Shadowbringers dropped and one of my favorite memories is still spending hours rolling over the Gyr Abanian maps with a bunch of half-dancer, half-gunbreaker fate trains like a steamroller covered in blenders and bayonets, laughing with strangers. I'm hoping pictomancer and viper will be that way too. It was good shit and I'm looking forward to it. I'll have a slightly late start because I've got a friend visiting through Friday, but that's fine. The point is friends anyway, and I need to remember that this time.

[winterdeepelegy]

My Thoughts on Dawntrail

So having finished DT, here are some of my thoughts on the expansion as a whole. Expect spoilers below the cut, do not click if you haven't finished. Again these are entirely my opinions, I don't intend to present this from a perspective of fact.

Hmm. I don't hate DT, but it's not high on my list: 1. Shadowbringers 2. Heavensward 3. Stormblood 4. Endwalker 5. Dawntrail 6. ARR That said, I don't hate any of the installments of this game, but there are some definitely high and low points. Let's rip the bandage off and get the blanks out of the way: 1. DT has a dialogue problem. I don't hate Wuk Lamat as a character, it was kind of refreshing to see a green, earnest character take center stage while our characters stepped aside and provided a guiding hand. The big problem I have with her is her dialogue. She's basically a shounen character, complete with the 'I'm gonna be king of the pirates'/'I'm gonna be hokage!' schtick, and it really wears on me after a while. That's not the character's fault so much as it is the writing team. That being so, this game is best played in short stints, 1-2 hours at a time instead of trying to marathon the whole thing in short order. Any more than that and it really becomes repetitious. If they want to script it to sound like an episodic anime series, it will be best enjoyed in smaller bites. Sphene suffers from the same problem. I wanted to enjoy her more as a character, but the script made that a challenge. 2. Pacing and exposition. God. The first few hours of EW were enough of a slog with its slow pacing before getting to the first dungeon, this felt like an eternity by comparison. Up to about the level 95 content, it is a long span of exposition and lore stuffing (far be it from me to complain about abundant lore!), so much of which could have been covered in less time and with less repetition. They really wanted to hammer the tribes into our heads, and it felt like too much at times. They wanted us to care about the tribes and the people therein, but few things make me care less than overdoing it. Level 95-ish is when things start becoming more interesting, in my opinion. That's a long way to climb to reach the proverbial cookie jar. 3. The music. I'll be honest, soundtrack wise, this is not my favorite. I appreciate all genres of music, but swing jazz doesn't quite fit the feel of Tulliyolal. I would have liked to hear something closer to a cultural aesthetic to match the visuals and themes presented throughout the areas and civilizations therein. We didn't get that, and it's kind of a weird choice. The main themesong, also? Ehh... I didn't care for it in the trailer. This opinion hasn't shifted since my playthrough. I didn't really start finding enjoyable area music until Shaaloani. 4. 'My people are more important than your people'. This plot point has been done. We just dealt with the Ascians and pretty much got the same shpiel from Hades. They made Sphene and her subjects a little more sympathetic, though, so... good, I guess? 5. Erenville deserved better. Fussy Bunbun got done so dirty in this expack, the very least anyone could have done was give him a hug. He didn't even get that from his mother who, frankly, was the worst character out of all of it. He was also deadnamed repeatedly, which could have been a teachable moment. 6. Wuk Lamat and/or Bakool Ja Ja still owes me tacos. ------------ As for the positives? There are some. Thanks for sticking with me so far. 1. Pretty graphics updates - better over all. 2. No weirdly split zones - thank the Twelve for this. StB, ShB, and EW all had zones that you could only cover in part, and couldn't finish until later. The zones in DT flow pretty well for the most part, and the transition between upper and lower areas of Yak'Tel are nothing short of beautiful, especially in flight. 3. More Reflections - I'm glad to see more of these and I hope this trend continues. 4. For once, I'm not luke warm on the bard AF gear. It's actually a fresh look, but haven't found a dye pairing I like yet.

[laidlays]

MAGICAL RANGED DPS

Magic is fucking cool, man

The Magic DPS in FFXIV are all fairly varied in their own right, but I personally find that they range from deceptively hard to outright brainless, and it's no surprise who's in my last place if you've been paying attention.

Pictomancer

As of 7.05, Pictomancer remains the most overtuned, powerful caster in the game. It's a huge surprise that it hasn't been nerfed yet, but I cannot complain. Pictomancer's kit had a surprising free-flow style to it where most of what you're doing, as long as you understand why you're doing it, will contribute to the party. By its design it has one of the most committed cast times of all the Magic DPS and thus to make up for all the time NOT spent DPSing, your canvas magic makes up for in HUGE DPS. It's no surprise to see them top-DPSing on third-party tools. But like I said, it's a deceptively hard class. Between mechanics, juggling your canvases and building up Aetherhues to gain negative palette, you're constantly working up towards your burst until 2 minute hits and you release EVERYTHING you've saved up. And it feels fantastic. And its pseudo-leylines skill is extremely unique and rewards good playing and knowledge of the raid. Definitely the most well-thought out class overall.

2. Black Mage

The Great Sword of FFXIV made into a class. It boasts (what's supposed to be) high DPS with the tradeoff being long cast times and stationary playing. It's a class that rewards knowing the fight and understanding your kit well to be extremely effective in-combat and I hope they never change it. But it's one of those classes that you NEED to have community knowledge and guides on if you wish to be effective, otherwise you're dead weight. I think more classes should be this difficult and punishing if not played right, but that's just me. In Dawntrail, it's had a very rocky start and was recently changed to play like it did in Endwalker, which I am thankful for. But right now, its damage is pitiful for what's supposed to be THE premiere selfish DPS class. Still better than the other two on the list, but no where near where it should be for how much work you put in unlike Pictomancer.

3. Red Mage

Red Mage didn't exactly change much between Endwalker and Dawntrail. All of its new skills, just added onto the finishers and it still kept its utility as a pseudo-healer and situational resser (thank god). Ironically enough, of all the caster classes I feel that Red Mage is the class that has the least mobility. There's very few movement options that Red Mage has and outside of its finishers, you move very little unless you learn to slidecast. Probably my least played class not because it's bad, but because it has more fun alternatives for me.

4. Summoner

If Dancer didn't exist, this would be the most boring class to me, so we'll settle for second. Its Shadowbringers counterpart was full of an old and outdated design that also dealt with the infamous pet actions that didn't work most of the time. And yet, it was extremely engaging what with micro-managing your Summoned pet and taking in the power of Primals to do devastating damage. It was the first class in FFXIV that forced me to actually study how it worked, and I felt satisfied figuring it out. In Endwalker they had drastically changed it to better encompass the Summoner identity and at the same time reducing its kit to what's basically baby's first color identifier. I had held out hope that Dawntrail would have added more complexity because as it stood, it was a super bare bones class, but unfortunately it seems that they felt they didn't need to do any more to it than just add another phase and swap around Bahamut and Phoenix. To aptly describe the change would be the saddest fall from grace.

Bonus Stage:

Blue Mage

BLUE MAGE #1 STILL THE BEST FOREVER

In all seriousness, I like the role it's been put in by the community. Because none of the spells you learn are locked behind levels, its potential damage output is insanely high at any level, making it the perfect choice to farm Fates or old content with. It's the key reason why I'm even able to farm as many Aetheryte tickets as possible, making me save a LOT of gil, especially as a crafter and gatherer.

[nihilnovisubsole]

oh, right, shadowbringers! i'm overdue for another ffxiv bullet point vibe check. i actually finished it a couple of weeks ago, and then my sink exploded [long story] and i wanted to chew on it for a while. it's clear that this expac is an overwhelming fan favorite, so i figured i should formulate some more intelligent thoughts about it.

part of me worries that my shadowbringers experience was colored by how badly i missed the people and places on the source. more than the aether and gods and soul transference and all that stuff, what i really took away was a sense of loneliness. the first isn't my world. its citizens are strangers to me, though i recognize on a philosophical level that i should help them. even the scions - in theory, my closest comrades - have lived for years in the blink of my eye and become very different people. when did thancred become responsible? when did the twins grow up? i wondered what other NPCs were doing without me. all i wanted was to go home.

on the other hand, i read a theory that this is the point. the story wants you to feel cut loose from everything you know. are you still a hero in an emotional vacuum? will you still put yourself on the line to do the right thing? sure, your world will be doomed if theirs falls, but that possibility seems so huge and far-off that it doesn't register in your gut. i don't think that's the writing failing to connect with me or anything. if that's the intent, it's an interesting feeling for a game to evoke.

i may have also exacerbated that feeling by keeping my actual avatar isolated on norvrandt for so long. i mentioned earlier that i play around the game's day-night cycle, running missions based on when they'll feel most immersive. that extends to maps, too: if the story says i'm stuck in a place, i stay around that place until the story carries me elsewhere. i mean, i'll dip out for wondrous tails and daily cactpot and stuff, but i don't take big story vacations to jet around eorzea. i didn't "come back" from the far east in stormblood until doma was free. that's a lot of MSQ to just spend alone with your thoughts.

there's a storytelling paradox at work: the first's problems are so large and so bad that it's smaller and more personal when you become invested in someone's plight. i expected to care a lot about liberating ala mhigo because i'm so fond of raubahn as a character, and i did. i didn't expect to feel the pity that i felt for, say, kai-shirr, or runar's unrequited crush on y'shtola. it comes on slowly and quietly.

i don't know. it's a curious story. it's a melancholy story. it's a lot more experimental than the expacs that came before it. it'd probably be worth it to new-game-plus it at some point to pay closer attention to the individual character arcs.

same goes for emet-selch. he's a curious villain. i don't sympathize with his methods, and i obviously have no romantic interest in him. but i keep mulling him over. he keeps lurking in the back of my mind, which means that his writing succeeds by virtue of being memorable.

to my mind, everything around amaurot contributes to that success. amaurot is where it all starts to come together for me. it's a beautiful, odd place - art deco in final fantasy? who knew? - and the pinnacle of the arc's surreal "this is a dream, but tangible" tone. you can tell the team wanted to go all out with the ascian reveals they'd been building up to for years. i wonder if they had fun designing it.

even if it is. i. hm. no i shan't say it

all right, i'll say it

I AM EMET-SELCH AND I AM HERE TO ASK YOU A QUESTION

there, it's out of my system. on a less ridiculous note, i finally got royce's canon armor! now i can gpose freely. i wish there were an in-engine way to pose with NPCs, but them's the breaks. who knows? maybe we'll get it eventually. it is a live service game.

[ornerykarakul]

Then Vs Now

Tagged by @drowxiv

This is gonna be a long one I've been playing since 2.0 off and on and didn't really stick to it until Shadowbringers was announced (Viera my beloved).

But Sebli is my current main and that WoL has been sooo many different characters over the years so I will pick her!

THEN

The first iteration was an Au Ra whomst was actually a dragon because I'm sooo original, but her name was Eir Nohsk and she was a cutie. I always have a soft spot for femra.

Then I turned her into a mooncat named Stitch Rega. I wrote soooo much backstory for her and her clan, played her for probably 2 years. At some point she became a Viera because I love them the most but she was still Stitch.

Can't remember why I reworked her after so long, but she then went femroe named Odd Shanty.

I moved over to Aether for like 6 months, joined a lovely FC over there, but I missed Balmung too much. I had alts on Crystal still but had to wait until DT to get a window to transfer my main back over, and then after beating DT I HAD to make a PeluPelu and that's when Sebli Longstride was born.

She started as a highlander, and the idea was that she was adopted by the PeluPelu so that I could joke about her being the tallest in her family. But then I said fuck it and went middie for the full Pelu lean in (I've loved them since FFX), and got some help with scaling her down. And I love her! I'm talking to people, I'm roleplaying again, and I'm fuckin TINY. And its fun to put her in the full get up and just trade shit to people.

Not going to tag anyone for this cause I think I'm a bit late to it? But you know, do it if you wanna.

[nothingxs]

Light

The Crystarium. I don't generally do Warrior of Light Celica stuff, but I wanted to try and capture the bizarre, amazed feeling I had when I first started playing Shadowbringers and arrived to the Crystarium, and how baffled I was about everything I was seeing.

While I know this post is just outright spoilers for Shadowbringers (at least visually), I will be discussing the game more after the jump, for those of you who haven't made it that far. For the rest of you: I hope you've enjoyed my posts so far. This has been really fun! Can't wait to do more.

I almost didn't really stick with Final Fantasy XIV. I really enjoyed Heavensward, to be sure, but many of the parts of Stormblood felt like homework. The pace of it turns a bit into a slog, with the stakes of things being all over the place. The villains were not particularly deep (fighting the equivalent of an overpowered petulant child is not particularly interesting; Zenos doesn't get interesting until they start filling in the gaps of his past and upbringing later, as well as change the nature of his interactions with you two expansions later).

But then Shadowbringers hits, and the world is covered in everlasting light, and everything is awful. And then you see someone get turned into... a monster. And the stakes are immediately real, and horrifying.

Reny complains a lot about how death in this game feels unearned; how healers simply would make those situations fairly irrelevant. Why did any of your friends have to die when you can just cast Benevolence on them? The game logic and the story the game is trying to tell don't line up. The major death in the game would've been better if you could see their aether burn up, or some other reason for why healing was no longer an option—but they never really do the work of fixing what is basically a plot hole between mechanics and storytelling.

Shadowbringers ups the stakes in that regard... significantly. Off rip. And Endwalker doubles down on those... well, it can hardly be called death. But those final steps are brutal, and harrowing, and scary. When you see people start falling to despair, it resonates. You feel it more, because you know that's not an end anyone can truly fix.

Shadowbringers is where i imagine a lot of people will really start to vibe with the story, particularly if they can't stomach the sort of... intrigue that expansions like Stormblood are putting forth. And it's not even that Stormblood is particularly bad, but the bad parts are... rough. But Shadowbringers?

Fucking hell. I love Shadowbringers. It may be the one expansion I replay fully as I spam-level my alt.

[before-calamity]

Gladiator/Paladin Skills Overview: Part 1

Alright, let's do it. Each class/job we'll look at will be in two parts, with one part being Class skills and the second part being Job and Class Traits. This is so you don't get a giant wall of pics or text on your Tumblr dashboard. I'm trying my best to tumblr.

I'm only going to comment unless I have something interesting to say.

Fast Blade, a classic. It was your lvl 5 Sword weaponskill, and it's your starting skill in both forms of FFXIV. Notice it has a frontal positional - many FFXIV tank skills are like that, sort of like a prototypical Goblin Punch.

Another 1.0 thing is that there are attacks that can only be used if you evade or block them. Such as Phalanx here.

Sort of like a prototypical Holy Sheltron back when Sheltron was just an automatic block.

Combos in 1.0 work similarly as they do in ARR - you use an attack with a combo, if you have the resources attack for the next in the combo, it'll be highlighted. However Combos in 1.0 are more complex, as we'll see in a second. Also combo bonuses are not always an increased damage.

Good ole flash. It was a GLD/PLD main enmity getter up until the big Tank rework in Shadowbringers, and in 1.0 it didn't even have the blindness effect that actually made it worth using (...yet). It also wasn't AoE. Also note that the timeouts of these weaponskills are quite long.

Probably a remnant of the Sentinel class, and it's still in ARR today! Now it's a stun on GCD, back in 1.0, it had a 30 second recast time. When I play PLD these days, I don't have it on my hotbar, because Low Blow is better. As Shield Bash is technically a sword class...you may not necessarily need a shield to use it (something to try for later!)

Notice how 1.0's descriptions don't tell you anything? You know that it reduces damage taken but not by how much. Also doesn't tell you how long each ability lasts. This skill is still in ARR as GLD/PLD's 120 second, 30% damage reduction skill. No enmity generation anymore, but the tank stance added in EW kind of makes that irrelevant.

So here, you can branch Fast Blade off of Savage Blade or go into Fast Blade, depending if you want damage or enmity.

Yeah, Riot Blade has a back positional and is ranged for some reason. Now it's just part of a GLD/PLD's standard 1-2-3 combo.

Kind of like EW's Sheltron (at the beginning before it became just a 15% damage reduction)/Bulwark, but also with TP generation.

Probably another Sentinel skill that uses a shield. It's an AoE skill and is an actual shield attack. May not need said shield for the attack itself - looks like it only requires a sword (will experiment later).

I started playing FFXIV during Stormblood, and this was my least favorite skill, because I never saw the point of it - you rarely get binded or heavy, and while knock back and draw in are useful abilities, I never used it (but I was also really new to the game by then). It is amazing to me it survived from 1.0.

Told you combo bonuses are a bit different in 1.0. Basically if you combo Rage of Halone, you'll have more accuracy to hit all five melee attacks. At least the animation in ARR is similar.

(Here is where people scream about PLD losing their DoTs in the "PLD Rework" during EW). Also another skill better for whoever is playing as an off-tank or a fake DPS.

Stay tuned to part 2, where we'll cover Paladin actions & traits. They are very familiar to what you know today. Very similar.

[minti-tales]

what glams do u use on minti??

Anon.

Sweet, wonderful, delightful Anon.

Imagine (with your consent) that I'm pulling you in real close, like Gaston to LeFou, and I'm about to burst into my signature song.

You're in for a good time.

And by good time, I mean an extra long post where I talk about Ms. Minti and her fashions as of the start to the Dawntrail expansion.

I'm writing this the day before Dawntrail drops, so I don't have *everything* available, but I'll update this once servers go back online.

RIGHT. SO. Story time.

Back when I started XIV, I played Arcanist. I had one job. I didn't like that job, so I swapped to Lancer. I kept swapping jobs until I got to, I think Dark Knight? Which I did for a while, until I got to Shadowbringers. I leveled up jobs for the role quests, not much else happened, until I hit Endwalker and start doing Endwalker stuff. It's specifically when I saw the "A Life of Adventure IV" achievement that Things Start Happening.

In case you don't know, "A Life of Adventure IV" says

Obtain the achievements "Mastering War IV" and "Mastering Magic IV."

You get an Amaro mount. For curious sprouts, this is a flying bird(?) mount that appears in the Shadowbringers expansion. Without spoilers, it's pretty special! It doesn't have any special animations, but it's important to the story and will make you cry.

You can't get this bird elsewhere in the game.

What do you need for "Mastering War IV" and "Mastering Magic IV"?

Mastering War IV says

Achieve level 80 as a gladiator, pugilist, marauder, lancer, archer, rogue, dark knight, machinist, samurai, gunbreaker, and dancer.

You get a title. Neat.

Mastering Magic IV says

Achieve level 80 as a conjurer, thaumaturge, arcanist, astrologian, and red mage.

You get a title. Also neat.

What we need to do is get level 80 on all combat jobs that were available to play during the Shadowbringers expansion. As of Dawntrail, that is everything but Sage, Reaper, Blue Mage, Viper, and Pictomancer.

Almost. Every. Combat. Class.

For a bird.

A special bird.

You know what you get for getting all those classes plus Sage and Reaper to 90?

A Chocobo plume.

For your head.

No bird.

No special bird.

So, I had a goal. I had a lot of goals, at the time, that I kept updated on the Notes app on my phone. I started taking Adderall during this time, which I needed for my general mental health, and more recently Lexapro for other pressing mental health needs. Is this too much information? Yes, BUT they helped me to stay focused, get my shite done, and tell my anxiety (which has been my "manager" for a very long time) to stop managing my life.

Reader, gentle reader, I got all those classes up to 90. I got Blue Mage up to 80.

For a bird.

A special bird.

It was worth it.

We're dividing this up into sections. You good? Yes? Hydrated? Had a snack?

If you want me to talk about the glams for the Choir, that's going to be a separate post. I think Tumblr's going to get mad if I make this too long, or, I may lose all this lovely progress in the drafts, because Tumblr does SUCH A GOOD JOB of keeping your drafts saved.

~---~

My Main Classes

As of the start of Dawntrail, I have all available combat classes leveled to 90. Blue Mage is currently maxed out at 80. (No idea when I'm going back to the Carnivale, sorry what's your name. Maybe when I have time in Dawntrail.)

When I run content, I usually choose from:

Warrior or Gunbreaker

White Mage or Sage

Dragoon or Samurai

Dancer or occasionally Bard

Summoner or Red Mage

I like the other classes, but I feel like these are the ones that I vibe with the most. Not too complex, not too simple (with the exception of Summoner), just the right amount of thinking to come out alive and look cool while you're doing your LBs.

~---~

Glams

Please note that I will not be providing the base equipment, just glamours. Everything is organized by role.

~---~

Tank Classes

~---~

Paladin

Current Glam Name: Shiva's Champion

Arms: True Ice Brand/True Ice Shield

Headwear: Altered Mythril Magnifiers (Loam Brown Dye)

Body: Tigerskin Coat of Fending (Royal Blue Dye)

Hands: Doman Iron Gauntlets of Fending

Legs: Kudzu Longkilt of Fending (Snow White Dye)

Feet: Doman Iron Greaves of Fending

Earring: Wayfarer's Earcuff

Neckpiece: Patriot's Choker

Bracelet: The Emperor's New Bracelet

Rings: Hero's Ring of Healing (2x)

---

Warrior

Current Glam Name: Monster Hunter, Slayer of Rathalos

Arms: Majestic Manderville Bardiche

Headwear: Rathalos Helm [F]

Body: Rathalos Mail [F]

Hands: Rathalos Vambraces [F]

Legs: Rathalos Coil [F]

Feet: Rathalos Greaves [F]

Earring: Storm Sergeant's Ear Cuffs

Neckpiece: Horn Necklace

Bracelet: The Emperor's New Bracelet

Rings: Hero's Ring of Healing (2x)

---

Dark Knight

Current Glam: Shadowbringer

Arms: Shadowbringer

Headwear: Altered Mythril Magnifiers (Loam Brown Dye)

Body: Idealized Bale Cuirass

Hands: Idealized Bale Gauntlets

Legs: Idealized Bale Flanchard

Feet: Idealized Bale Sollerets

Earrings: Augmented Shire Conservator's Earrings

Neckpiece: Patriot's Choker

Bracelet: Ishgardian Historian's Bracelet

Rings: Hero's Ring of Healing (2x)

---

Gunbreaker

Current Glam: Iron Cowpoke

Arms: Mandervillious Gunblade

Headwear: Altered Mythril Magnifiers (Loam Brown Dye)

Body: Virtu Bodyguard's Coat (General-purpose Jet Black Dye)

Hands: Metian Gauntlets (General-purpose Dark Brown Dye)

Legs: Virtu Bodyguard's Trousers (General-purpose Dark Blue Dye)

Feet: Outsider's Boots

Earrings: Wayfarer's Earcuff

Necklace: Wayfarer's Necklace

Bracelet: The Emperor's New Bracelet

Rings: Hero's Ring of Healing (2x)

~---~

Healer Classes

~---~

White Mage & Scholar

Current Glam: Ramuh's Grand Arbiter

Arms: Kelesis

Headwear: Altered Mythril Magnifiers (Loam Brown Dye)

Body: Void Ark Robe of Healing

Hands: Orison Fingerless Gloves (Lavender Purple Dye)

Legs: Kudzu Longkilt of Healing (Lavender Purple Dye)

Feet: Orison Thighboots

Earrings: Wayfarer's Earcuff

Necklace: Horn Necklace

Bracelet: The Emperor's New Bracelet

Rings: Weathered Ring (2x)

---

Astrologian

Current Glam: Classic Astrologian

Arms: Dreadwyrm Torquetum

Headwear: Altered Mythril Magnifiers (Loam Brown Dye)

Body: Welkin Robe

Hands: Welkin Half Sleeves

Legs: Welkin Breeches

Feet: Welkin Shoes

Earrings: Storm Sergeant's Ear Cuffs

Necklace: Horn Necklace

Bracelet: The Emperor's New Bracelet

Ring: Hero's Ring of Healing (2x)

---

Sage

Current Glam: New World Bound

Arms: Isnae Phis

Headwear: Isle Shepherd's Headdress

Body: Peacelover's Shirt (Dalamud Red Dye)

Hands: Ravel Keeper's Halfgloves of Healing (General-purpose Pastel Pink Dye)

Legs: Peacelover's Pantaloons (Othard Blue Dye)

Feet: Expeditioner's Moccasins

Earrings: Wayfarer's Earcuff

Neckpiece: Wayfarer's Necklace

Bracelet: The Emperor's New Bracelet

Rings: Weathered Ring (2x)

~---~

Melee DPS Classes

~---~

Monk

Current Glam: Turtle Power

Arms: Shinryu's Ephemeral Claws

Headwear: The Emperor's New Hat

Body: Oyoroi of the Blue

Hands: Kote of the Blue

Legs: Tsutsu-hakama of the Blue

Feet: Sune-ate of the Blue

Earrings: Wayfarer's Earcuff

Neckpiece: Wayfarer's Necklace

Bracelet: Aetherial Coral Armillae

Rings: Hero's Ring of Healing (2x)

---

Dragoon

Current Glam: The Spear of Hydaelyn

Arms: Partisan of Divine Light

Headwear: Altered Mythril Magnifiers (Loam Brown Dye)

Body: Tiamat Mail

Hands: Tiamat Gauntlets

Legs: Tiamat Trousers

Feet: Tiamat Greaves

Earrings: Wayfarer's Earcuff

Neckpiece: Wayfarer's Necklace

Bracelet: Aetherial Coral Armillae

Rings: Hero's Ring of Healing (2x)

---

Ninja

Current Glam: Quick As Lightning

Arms: Phthonos

Headwear: Scion Rogue's Bandana

Body: Hachiya Chainmail

Hands: Hachiya Tekko

Legs: Hachiya Tsutsu-hakama

Feet: Hachiya Zori

Earrings: Wayfarer's Earcuff

Neckpiece: Wayfarer's Necklace

Bracelet: The Emperor's New Bracelet

Rings: Hero's Ring of Healing (2x)

---

Samurai

Current Glam: Cyber Swordswoman

Arms: Mandervillious Samurai Blade

Headwear: Idealized Kasuga Hanbo (General-purpose Metallic Silver Dye)

Body: Idealized Kasuga Haori (Void Blue Dye)

Hands: Idealized Kasuga Kote (Soot Black Dye)

Legs: Idealized Kasuga Tsutsu-hakama (Soot Black Dye)

Feet: Late Allagan Sollerets of Striking (General-purpose Metallic Silver Dye)

Earrings: Wayfarer's Earcuff

Neckpiece: Redbill Scarf

Bracelet: The Emperor's New Bracelet

Rings: Hero's Ring of Healing (2x)

---

Reaper

Current Glam: The Mockingbird

Arms: Kinna Sickle

Headwear: Red Viola Corsage

Body: Neo-Ishgardian Top of Maiming (Dalamud Red Dye)

Hands: Muzhik Field Dressing (Dalamud Red Dye)

Legs: Thavnarian Tights (Dalamud Red Dye)

Feet: Scion Healer's Highboots

Earrings: Halonic Friar's Earrings

Neckpiece: Redbill Scarf

Bracelet: The Emperor's New Bracelet

Rings: Hero's Ring of Healing (2x)

~---~

Physical Ranged DPS Classes

~---~

Bard

Current Glam: The Song of the Sea

Arms: Storm Captain's Bow

Headwear: Augmented Crystarium Blinder of Aiming (Soot Black Dye)

Body: Aoidos' Cloak (Wine Red Dye)

Hands: Aoidos' Shoulder Gloves (Soot Black Dye)

Legs: Aoidos' Tights

Feet: Lominsan Soldier's Boots

Earrings: Augmented Shire Conservator's Earrings

Neckpiece: Horn Necklace

Bracelet: Aetherial Coral Armillae

Rings: Hero's Ring of Healing (2x)

---

Machinist

Current Glam: Thanalan Outlaw

Arms: Fomalhaut

Headwear: Nabaath Scarf of Aiming

Body: Ravel Keeper's Chestwrap of Aiming (Gobbiebag Brown Dye)

Hands: Gazelleskin Armguards of Aiming (Mole Brown Dye)Rakshasa Hakama of Aiming (Gobbiebag Brown Dye)

Legs: Rakshasa Hakama of Aiming (Gobbiebag Brown Dye)

Feet: Anemos Boots

Earrings: Augmented Shire Conservator's Earrings

Neckpiece: Wayfarer's Necklace

Bracelet: The Emperor's New Bracelet

Rings: Hero's Ring of Healing (2x)

---

Dancer

Current Glam: Dancer of Light

Arms: Chakrams of Light

Headwear: Bozjan Hood of Aiming (General-purpose Jet Black Dye)

Body: Ravel Keeper's Chestwrap of Aiming (General-purpose Jet Black Dye)

Hands: Bozjan Armguards of Aiming (General-purpose Jet Black Dye)

Legs: Plain Long Skirt (Wine Red Dye)

Feet: Zonsureskin Sandals of Aiming (General-Purpose Jet Black Dye)

Earrings: Wayfarer's Earcuff

Neckpiece: Wayfarer's Necklace

Bracelet: Aetherial Coral Armillae

Rings: Hero's Ring of Healing (2x)

~---~

Magic Ranged DPS Classes

~---~

Black Mage

Current Glam: Archmage of Ronka

Arms: Asura's Rod

Headwear: Altered Mythril Magnifiers (Loam Brown Dye)

Body: Spaekona's Coat

Hands: Spaekona's Wrist Torque

Legs: Spaekona's Skirt

Feet: Spaekona's Shoes

Earrings: Wayfarer's Earcuff

Necklace: Wayfarer's Necklace

Bracelet: The Emperor's New Bracelet

Rings: Weathered Ring (2x)

---

Summoner

Current Glam: ARR Summoner

Arms: Lemegeton Anemos

Headwear: Idealized Beckoner's Horn

Body: Idealized Beckoner's Coat

Hands: Idealized Beckoner's Fingerless Gloves

Legs: Idealized Beckoner's Sarouel

Feet: Idealized Beckoner's Crakows

Earrings: Wayfarer's Earcuff

Necklace: Wayfarer's Necklace

Bracelet: Aetherial Coral Armillae

Rings: Hero's Ring of Healing (2x)

---

Red Mage

Current Glam: The Cavalier of Roses

Arms: Tropaios Rapier

Headwear: Pince-nez

Body: Virtu Duelist's Tabard

Hands: Virtu Duelist's Gloves

Legs: Virtu Duelist's Breeches

Feet: Virtu Duelist's Thighboots

Earrings: Royal Volunteer's Earrings of Casting

Neckpiece: Horn Necklace

Bracelet: Aetherial Coral Armillae

Rings: Hero's Ring of Healing (2x)

~---~

Limited Classes

~---~

Blue Mage

Current Glam: It's A Blue, Blue, Blue Blue Mage

Arms: The Spirit of the Whalaqee

Headwear: Altered Mythril Magnifiers (Loam Brown Dye)

Body: Appointed Jacket (Royal Blue Dye)

Hands: No. 2 Type B Gloves

Legs: Angelic Slops (General-purpose Jet Black Dye)

Feet: Appointed Shoes (Pearl White Dye)

Earrings: Wayfarer's Earcuff

Neckpiece: Wayfarer's Necklace

Bracelet: Augmented Cryptlurker's Bracelet of Casting

Rings: Augmented Cryptlurker's Ring of Casting (2x)

---

That should be everything except my crafter gears, which I'm not focusing on right now. Hope to see you in Dawntrail!

This took a while to catalogue!!

[anneapocalypse]

100 Word November Final Count & Thoughts

It has been a Bad Year for writing, and so while I definitely wasn't up for doing NaNo this year, I set myself a low-pressure goal just to try and get myself writing regularly again which I called 100 Word November.

I have written plenty of little Ariane snippets this year, but nothing remotely structured or finalized because I don't intend to finish and post anything until I'm caught up on MSQ (and can finally look up lore without fear of spoilers... you do not know how I am suffering). I could not have picked a better month for this challenge because I was playing through Shadowbringers which was an absolute font of inspiration.

My final count at the end of the month is 10,332 words, which averages out to 344 words per day. There were a few days I didn't write, and most days when I did I wrote more than 100. If I averaged word count by my usual five days a week writing schedule, it's almost 450 per day.

Most importantly though it's gotten me back in the habit and excited about writing again, and thinking about what I want to work on in the coming year! I know I'm going to want to work on FFXIV fic, obviously, and in particular I'd like to write the chronologically-first Ariane fic I have planned (it's about her and Haurchefant). I also really do want to finish A Hero Sleeps in Gwaren, and I'd like to set aside some time for that somewhere. If we ever get that final season of Red vs. Blue, I would like to use that as a push to do some more work on Radio Silence, at least get past the last chapter I was stuck on. That's about as far as I'm thinking for now, and that's certainly plenty to keep me busy.

For December I plan to keep it lowkey as usual, but try to keep up the 100 words a day, and also start sorting out what I wrote in November and organizing it. Some of it will undoubtedly get scrapped or rewritten, because I wrote a lot of speculative stuff before I actually reached the point in canon where it would happen, but there is definitely a good amount of material I can use. At this point I do have the broad strokes of what I want to write about Ariane kind of outlined for myself, though no doubt it will change along the way!

I'm just glad to be writing again.

[marcilled]

According to the votes on that poll, at least 70% of you want to hear about my FFXIV ocs (meanwhile, only 12% think i should sleep. so i'm awake still, typing this.) I'll ramble about them under the cut, but for the ~7% that said they don't know what ffxiv is, I ended up rambling quite a bit about what ffxiv even is, and why I personally enjoy it/what i recommend for anyone who's interested in it. (I made it easy to skip over if you don't care to read about that, though)

Gonna put this under a readmore since it got really long;

Cassern Qestir! my main girlie. she/it pronouns. lesbian .

she's the warrior of light. if you don't know what that means; it's the protagonist. if you still need more context:

(skip to the blue text if you don't want to read me explain ffxiv and why i think it's worth playing, i didn't expect to ramble this much about it...)

Final Fantasy XIV is a MMORPG by Square Enix. Most other final fantasy games aren't MMOs, but this one is. That means it's a multiplayer game with RPG elements. It's also heavily story-driven. While you might hear people complain about the story at times- and I'd be one of them- it manages to really leave an impression in spite of any contrivances, awkward writing, or plotholes. That's due to the fact that the player character is... well, whoever you want them to be.

Your WoL (Warrior of Light), the player character, is the protagonist of the story. And it really must be emphasized... They are so, so fully the protagonist, it's hard for other protagonists to even compare to the protagonist energy the warrior of light has. That might seem... dull or uninteresting to some, but eh, it's not like you can please everyone- the point is for you to get into character, and if that doesn't interest you, then hopefully the other characters in the story will. Personally I love this aspect- I've made the WoL my own oc with a really, really detailed backstory. Which brings me to my next point;

The Worldbuilding... The worldbuilding is probably the strongest point of ffxiv, aside from the STELLAR soundtrack it boasts. The worldbuilding is incredibly detailed, and is there to encourage roleplaying, as well as to help the plot along (tho, really, it works best as a means to encourage roleplay). I suppose I should be more specific here; it's the setting that's really the key point here- the world, the cities, each and every river and valley... But also the time period, the history, etc etc etc... There's a lot of material to work with, and I suppose you'll just have to believe me that it's really quite in-depth (if you're interested in that depth! totally fine not to engage with it, too.)

All of this isn't... going to grab or interest everyone, certainly, but eh, I've accepted that at this point lol. Don't force yourself to keep playing it if it isn't grabbing you, but for me, I started playing it for the social aspect- doing something in the game with friends, socializing in the game, making new friends through it... it's been great for that. What I didn't expect is how much the story would grab me.

FFXIV's story is very slow to start, but gradually builds on the humble roots of your adventurer until you're literally saving the entire universe. It's very, very gradual, and this slow pace might turn people off as well. Especially if you hear people say "it really gets good at heavensward!" "shadowbringers is unforgetable!" "just wait til next expansion--" these sorts of things are common to hear, but it's the same as touting that a game gets good "after the first 20 hours of gameplay", it's poison. Just try it out and see how you feel about how it plays. If the style of doing quests is interesting to you, if the combat feels engaging or shallow. etc. hey wait this was supposed to be about my ocs. ok i'll finish talking about the story and then get back to my ocs.

Anyhow. The story is really shallow at first, it's true. Even within the whole base game itself, (A Realm Reborn, aka 2.0), it can be a bit dull and contrived, and boy oh boy is the voice acting completely awful... It's rough around the edges. But if you're like me, you can really appreciate a series that starts out rough around the edges, and slowly evolves over time from humble beginnings into an epic tale that really blows away your expectations... It's about growing with the narrative, to me. If that sounds interesting to you, maybe you'll like it. I certainly did. In fact, ffxiv might be like... top 10 games to me, in terms of how its story affected me personally. Particularly the shadowbringers and endwalker expansions. But you can't skip all the way there, either- the context of everything that happened before it is crucial to understanding where you're at once you get to those expansions. The more you skip, the more lost you'll likely be. Take your time. Don't rush. And ignore anyone who tells you "it gets really good at (x) part!!!", it's a great way to set yourself up for disappointment if you end up not personally connecting with a certain plotline or character moment. I think, the thing that makes ffxiv really special... is.. it's YOUR story. The story of you- your warrior of light. And the parts that are going to connect for YOU, and for your warrior of light, are not necessarily the same as what connects for anyone else. You may end up loving the slow, humble beginnings of ARR, and feel alienated by all the saving-the-world stuff that comes later. Who knows! It's what you make of it. That's kind of the beauty of it. Now, I could talk all day about how I personally connected to shadowbringers and endwalker, (and some smaller moments, scenes, & questlines from earlier in the game), but you didn't come here for all this, you came here to read about my ocs. SORRY.

I'm done talking about FFXIV as a game now. It's time to ramble about my OCs.

FFXIV is really great for making OCs, if you like its setting. Square Enix doesn't like when you talk about it, but there's a pretty big modding scene that lets you customize your characters way beyond what the vanilla game allows for. This is often used for horny purposes, but more interesting to me personally is the gender euphoria I get from seeing my own body reflected in my own character. I gave Cassern wider shoulders, made her taller than any other au ra woman can be in vanilla, and gave her the horns that are typically only on male character models. She is so transgender. i love cassern.

Cassern Qestir is the warrior of light, meaning she's the protagonist that goes on to save everyone and everything. But at the start of her story, she's a budding new adventurer, completely new to Eorzea- her home is far to the east, in the Azim Steppe, where most Xaela Au Ra hail from. It started out casting spells, but picked up ninjitsu along the way, and quickly became one of the most skilled shinobi there is.

(she kills fascists lol)

she's also pretty socially awkward, in spite of her unparalleled combat capabilities... it lacked a lot of confidence early on in the story, too, but over time it got a lot of character development, and gained confidence. my little beepo. i have a lot of photos of it, but I don't want to make this TOO long... plus, it's difficult to give a spoiler-free overview of her character that's still approachable to people that don't know anything about the game. I suppose I could talk about her backstory, because most of my writing for her actually happens before the main game... but, eh, I'd still need to introduce a lot of settings and topics that wouldn't make sense if you haven't played before. tricky to do. maybe I'll attempt that one of these days. Anyhow... onto my next oc...

This is Samga Mol! they/them. bi.

Samga is a touchy, standoffish Xaela dragoon. (Dragoon means they fight with a lance- it's one of the many jobs in the game, like Ninja is. I'd need another long tangent to explain that in full.) Samga was actually close friends with Cassern in their youth, having also grown up on the Azim Steppe- but the two of them haven't spoken in years... I wonder what happened between them?

They're very edgy, as dragoons often are- but they also have a softer, gentler side that they don't often let show... They also get grumpy if you say they're cute. (Which is just even cuter, by the way.) They actually have a soft spot for animals, particularly chocobos.

But shhh, don't tell anyone you saw them like this... they have a reputation to uphold, you know. Tough, menacing dragoon that kills in the name of dragonkind and all that. Most feared heretic in all of Ishgard, strikes fear into the hearts of the temple knights... Wait, weren't they from the Azim Steppe? How did that happen?? Hmm, I wonder...

---

I have a lot more OCs, but most of them don't have cohesive designs and intricate backstories like Cassern and Samga do- and more often than not, mostly exist just to add more depth to the story between the two of them. There's a few others I have, like this mad scientist catgirl named Dr. Frankie. I'm still working on her. She's completely unrelated to Cassern and Samga's story;

stay tuned if you enjoy morally dubious scientist women with an ephemeral grasp on social etiquette. i'm already obsessed with this little freak, i just need to develop her a bit more before i start showing her off all the time. she also has an ... "assistant" that i'm excited to design. more on that later.

Anyhow, this was a really, really brief overview of my ocs, and I have SO many more thoughts on them, that I post about with much more frequency over on @azimsteppe ... when I remember to... (I usually use twitter for ffxiv stuff, but I'm sure you're all familiar with how that website is faring these days...) just be aware that there are spoilers on that blog, and although i try to tag them, you'll likely run into some spoilery stuff if you browse there long enough.

please let me know what you think!! it always makes me happy hearing what people think of my ocs and what interests them about them... :] and!! big thank you for reading all of this!! it was a lot of fun just to ramble lol, my ocs mean a lot to me. so i'm glad it interests at least some of you. take care!!

[la-scree]

Let's Talk About FFXIV's Dancer Story...

For the few who know I exist and voted for this in the poll I put up, it's time to talk about one of the Jobs within Final Fantasy XIV: Dancer. And how...I really find the story horrible. Much worse than Paladin's.

Now before people start coming at me with 'but um actually's, I'm going to state this: I actually love Dancer. I've always been a sucker for classes and jobs who put focus on performance aspects. While I'm not a dancer, I used to sing in choirs and be in my schools' drama clubs. Yes, I was a Drama Kid but not the crazy batshit ones like you see on Glee. I just had fun with it. I also tend to main the Dancer Job at least when I play on Yua and anytime I really don't feel like doing much/my brain decides to go brrrrrrrr after a shift at work. You would too if you had to deal with face to face interactions. It's also great that I tend to think of great glams that would look good without the usage of mods and a lot of my glamour plates tend to be either casting or aiming involved. And yet despite all of this, I have strong feelings about the story. Negative ones.

But it wasn't always like this. In fact, when Dancer was announced during Fanfest before Shadowbringers hit, I was happy to know it was a Ranged DPS. I was going to level it first then hit the MSQ afterwards. And when I played it the first time, I thought it was alright and enjoyed it. Proudly sported the AF gear and paraded around (that's kind of a big oof there but more qualified folks can talk about that than me) But then...others started bringing up some issues they had with Dancer's story; about how the tone didn't feel right or the story was giving off a bad message. And this made me think because people weren't pulling this out of their asses, they were talking about points in the story that I myself had glossed over. Unlike how I was with Hien, blindly going along with the majority in saying how bad he was, I decided to replay the story on another character and really go through all the dialogue and story and see if they had some weight to it.

And they were right. Replaying it, I had started to get angry and really rip into it on the second go. It wasn't until my forth run that I could finally really get a good sense of how I felt. I still deemed it as the worst but I could word why a bit better.

So what is the story anyway? A group of dancers from Thavnair travel to Eorzea and want to 'bring succor'. The group, Troupe Falsiam, performs in Limsa and their leader, Nashmeira (looks like a prim rich lady) sees you and asks you if you wanna join them as a dancer and kind of psuedo guide around the realm so they perform. You also meet her protege, Ranaa, who feels like the genki girl that I swear if I didn't know better that she'd try and act like Tomo from Azumanga Daioh, and she's all happy that you're coming along. It's not until later, around level 65 that Nashmeira reveals that she was hiding something from you and the others: their journey was to stop a dance called the Totentanz from causing chaos and despair.

(On a side note, why the fuck is this dance and the war dance we know are German names and our attacks are French origin names when we don't get anything like it in Thavnair proper? Or was this a 'pull out of our ass and need some pretty names for attacks?' We'll never know.)

And where do we go to stop this place? Poor areas.

You heard me.

Nashmeira's idea is to go to poorer areas, dance for them, bring out a despair monster from it, fight it, and...that's it. Everyone should be happy for about five minutes while not knowing that it wasn't for show. So we're lying about it too? Oh goodie. It's here where I'm starting to see the tone shift/deafness of the story. Here's this conflict happening but what are you trying to tell the audience? A dance will make your problems go away?

In an ideal world, that would be nice but I bet if Nashmeira met and talked to a poor person, did her dance, the poor person is probably going to look at her and ask "It's nice and all but how is that going to help me get food/shelter?" In fact, during the level 63 quest, one of the troupe members asks her why poor people in particular while agreeing that both the common and higher classes should be able to enjoy dancing, it doesn't explain why specifically the poor. You find out later that 'poor folks are more prone to despair' according to her.

Bet during Endwalker, that line of thinking bit her in the ass.

Nashmeira: "Just trust me bro, it'll be fine."

Another point to this is that during the story, this is the only time someone kind of questions the troupe's leader. There's no one who looks at this in the story and questions why they're doing this and what will it help with. Again, no one speaks up and asks "Hey, how will this help me?" or even challenges Nashmeira or Ranaa's beliefs or about what they're doing. Hell, Counselingway from the Loporrits even questioned the Dreaming Ways in their questline. When a dumb meme rabbit does better than you, something's up.

The issue I have here is that Nashmeira isn't doing what she says she's doing. In order to actually stop despair, one has to look at the situation, figure what's causing the conflict, and try to stop it there. Some may say that what she and the troupe are doing are putting a band aid on but what good is it going to do if there's no result of the solution provided? They're not stopping despair, they're just only pretending to do so. It's even worse when some of the people they're trying to help are duskwights (level 65 she and the troupe actually see them as villains instead of people who need help and had them arrested by the Twin Adder and constantly demean them, calling them from rabble-rousers to nasty duskwights), those of the Brume (who have been going through some nasty revelations since the Dragonsong War ended), and those affected by the Garlean Empire's rule for over 20 years. It's heavy matters but it's just thrown off to the side like it's nothing. None of these characters have nothing to say about the meaning of despair, what a dance could do, nothing about how the art is connected to Thavnair outside 'we're from Radz-at-Han'.

Which brings me to another point as to why I say this story is the worst: the motivations of its main characters. Or rather, the lack of motivation. I brought up that Paladin is second compared to this and it's because at least a character had a motivation for picking up the sword: remember that kid from the 50-60 questline? He wanted to get stronger because his mom died. Still a shitty motivation but at least he has one. We never learn why Nashmeira or Ranaa chose the path of the Dancer. Why do they dance? Outside of this mission bullshit, we don't really understand these characters we're supposed to be standing by. While they try to give Ranaa something in the 80 capstone quest, it just has her go to Kugane. Just that and you and her dance together to let her make her choice. Why does she dance? Why and how did she get to come across the troupe? How did she become Nashmeira's protege? If I didn't play this questline four times, I would probably needed to google their names or just call them Rich Lady and Genki Catgirl. They're boring to follow and all I wanted to do was just move onwards so I could get Technical Step. I dragged my feet during my last playthrough because it was that bad.

To add on about the shift in tone, another reason I want to point out is that it was introduced in Shadowbringers. Given the idea of using emotions and finding ways to drive away despair, it should have been introduced in Endwalker. Not only that but it could have given more about the dancers' culture since we see a lot of Radiant Host members are in fact dancers. The tone of each of these expansion stories are different and it just feels like Dancer was just thrown in there because they already had two Jobs for the next expansion and in all honesty, makes me kind of sad. But even in Endwalker, we don't have any kind of lore or stories about the dancers unless you dig through a throwaway line during a small side quest in order to unlock another side questline. They just feel rather forgotten.

However, I think because quite a lot of people had feedback on it, and this is only a silly theory, the devs tried to do more within some of the sections like Thavnair's second half as the Palaka's Stand folk speak about what they learned from the gods or even Endwalker's Role Quests (minus the capstone); actually, those questlines address things I even brought up here like a conflict that's deep rooted within the community and steps to take to make it better besides 'kill the blasphemy'. You can't just fight the thing, you have to understand who they were, why they turned, what's the root conflict, and try to solve it. Some did it better than others but they tried at least.

And if you made it this far, congrats. You somehow survived my ramblings. And if you disagree and think that the Dancer Story is S Tier, then cool. It's ok to think that way. These are just my thoughts and overall, Dancer deserved much better because the potential there is great. But potential can only go so far. You can't solve despair with just a dance: you got to attack it head on and do something to ensure it stays at bay.

[motheatenscarf]

Okay, headache gone, can post thoughts now.

Man, Shadowbringers legit gettin me misty eyed.

Played through the Crown of the Immaculate, had fun getting there, the design on the dungeonand the trial was VERY cool. I'm living for this whole "light as corruption" thing, stark and stagnant, anathema to the churning chaos required for life to thrive. The visual implication that ugly as he was, Vauthry was human and fallible until his transformation into a full sineater, becoming beautiful and corrupted and beyond saving.

And Alphy continues to be my little proletariat pogchamp, I love him so much.

Sad about the Exarch, I get why he had to lie, cuz yeah, his plan to sacrifice himself to save the WoL is not something Talia would have gone along with. She's tired of people deciding she's more important than anyone just because she's the better murderer in a world full of things that need to die. (I'm aware people genuinely see the WoL as a hero, good and true, but from a character psychology standpoint, Talia Does Not see herself that way.) It was what happened with Haurchefant :(

Glad to have it confirmed that Emet Selch WAS sincere in his efforts to try and reach out and see if maybe 7 rejoinings was enough for him to consider us "worthy" again. NOT HAPPY he shot my cat, but the moment before that where you can call out to G'raha Tia directly was sweet.

Even if I'm like.... 85% certain that was a Cats reference.

Anyway, Talia had accepted as an innevitability that defeating the lightwardens would kill her, but was gonna count on the nerds or Ryne to send her to space or strike her with Hydalen's power and scatter her across time and space or something. Learning what G'raha Tia had been doing for the last like... three centuries worth of despair, clinging to hope and helping the people of the Crystarium, that was emotionally affective on its own.

Loved the beat where you're talking to Ardbert and your character starts balling their hand up into a fist and he tells them to take it easy, that if they lose control of their emotions they will DEFINITELY turn into a sineater at this point. It then lets them take a breath and ask what your character is gonna do.

LOVED the options there of either saying, "I"m going after Emet Selch," or, "I'm gonna go and have words with both Emet Selch and the Exarch," and then finally the one Talia chose. I grant you this is likely the one it EXPECTS you to choose/is the default, but I'm glad it was a choice and not the assumption.

Because Talia having to calm down in that moment and being told not to "lose control", i.e., letting her anger take the reigns, gave her that beat she needed to think back to why she was angry. Think back to something Alphinaud told her over hot chocolate about not letting people be sacrificed for a cause.

So she said she was gonna go save G'raha Tia.

And as if that wasn't a sweet enough moment, the fact that the Scions refuse to let you sneak off and do this alone, and then summon the people of the Crystarium who also want to save the Exarch after everything he did for them.

It's that Sam Rami Spiderman shit for me, man. Where the hero just gets their ass beat again and again and when shit looks its bleakest, is saved in turn by the people they've been protecting. The whole "People of Nordvandt coming together to build a kaiju, the world saving the world" bit was nice, I like it, it rewards you for putting in the effort.

But idk. I'm personally more about that whole, at the darkest hour, the hero didn't stand alone shit. Let them think this is the end or they're on their own or they have to hold out just long enough for the acceptance of the inevitable sink in only to offer that ray of light.

Also, goddamn, the voice acting is so good here. You can HEAR Alisaie's voice actor crying when Alisaie cries and tells you off for trying to refuse their help because you could turn into a sineater at any moment. You could HEAR Urianger's choked back tears as he begged for forgiveness, or at least being allowed to help, after having to deceive you.

And then the people of the Crystarium being like, whatever's happening, if it's to help you and the Exarch, we'll do it. We know who you are and what you've done for us and we won't let you face this alone.

Idk. It's nice to see the hero get to have people to lean on. To know that they aren't just saving people as a passing do-gooder but are building a community.

And I hate to say it, but it's made all the more meaningful after the miserable slog that is ARR's thankless hoop jumping where F'lamihn doesn't even save enough food to give your character a decent meal after a long and terrible day. Keeping most of the Scions at arms' length for most of the game only for them to realize and express how much your character actually means to them is good, actually.

And then clicking on the characters afterward, and having Alphinaud mention the exact moment and conversation I the player was remembering as I made the choice that this was a growth moment for my WoL, was like.... YAY, good writing, they know what they're doing and their themes and message are consistent! Him saying, "I wasn't gonna give up on Estinien and I'm NOT giving up on you now!" about my WoL after everything they've been through made me misty eyed, and yeah, Talia would be a sobbing wreck to realize there are People Who Love Her, maybe even as much as she loves them!

[taurusversant]

FFXIV Glamour Archive #2

Okay second glamour to archive is my Shadowbringers Dragoon glam. I've had a completely different look for Endwalker and I've got an even newer one designed for Dawntrail, it's time to let this plate go.

Our only visible piece of jewellery is the Darklight Earrings of Striking. The maiming version is blue, which is of no use to Crimson's aesthetic. Where'd they come from? One of the level 50 dungeons! Maybe Lost City of Amdapor? The only other accessory piece with meaning to me is the Redbill Scarf. You can't see it, but she's wearing it close to her heart. Love Void Ark questline. I hope we adventure with the Redbills again one day.

As for the weapon, it's the Edenmorn Halbred, obtained at level 80 from E12S. I earned this! The Rolanberry Red dye affects the colour of the metal flower on it :)

The headpiece is the Friendship Circlet. I used a number of different feathers for varying SHB glams, but this was the first one. Obtained as part of the Recruit-A-Friend campaign! Thanks to the friends that recruited me to the game!

The chestpiece is very special to me. It is the Ornate Neo-Ishgardian Top of Maiming. Let's hear its story.

So in my early days when I first unlocked Wondrous Tails (affectionately referred to as Catbook), by inspecting the rewards for it I came across this dress. This was back in Heavensward I believe, I'd never even seen SHB gear models directly. So seeing this I was blasted with desire to have it. I adored it.

While I learned later on there was a crafted version of the piece, back when I first desired it all I knew is I needed two silver tickets from the Catbook to buy one. So over the course of my playing through the game, I earned those tickets, bought that top long before I reached level 80, and then held onto it until then. And then when I finally hit level 80, it was immediately on and my look was secured! Gearpiece with story and meaning to me <3

For the hands we have the Arhat Kote of Maiming, which comes from one of the three 4.0 level 70 dungeons. I don't think it was from Ala Mhigo, so either Temple of the Fist or Kugane Castle. It'd be funny if it was from Kugane, the one place I didn't take a screenshot in. I really like how it overlays the sleeves of the top.

While we only see a tiny little bit of them between the top and the boots, the legs are the Augmented Slipstream Breeches of Maiming! I only started playing with patch 5.3, so I wasn't there during 3.x buying primal gear and augmenting it. I think this came from Midas Savage originally? It adds some personality in filling the gap between boots and top.

Last but not least, speaking of the boots, we have the Ivalician Lancer's Thighboots, pulled directly from The Royal City of Rabanastre. I liked the look of these when I got them, so tucked them away for later. And then later came!

Hey! Hey! Did you notice? Only the weapon in this glamour is dyed! Every other piece is its base colour and in fact I'm not even sure what of these pieces CAN be dyed. Maybe just the top? If that? Doesn't matter! This was THE Crimson Fisher look for Shadowbringers, and meant a lot to me. Recorded here forever, my darling Dragoon glam.