#JOURNEY TO WHITEBRIM FRONT AND KILL THEM ALL.

[elizatronicwarfare]

CHEST HEAVING WITH EXERTION, YOU GAZE AT THE BLOODSTAINED SWORD IN YOUR HANDS. YOU ARE UNCERTAIN HOW LONG YOU HAVE HELD IT. 

[beyond-mortal-limits]

FFXIVWrite2024 - Day 12: Quarry

(warning for DRK 30-50 spoilers)

You killed them. Well done. Can we go now?

The giants’ gore still drips off your axe. You struggle to hear the scout’s words over the pounding in your head.

“Certain... allegations have been made. It would seem that you were seen conversing with - with a corpse in the Brume."

He held out his hands placatingly. Condescendingly.

“Not that anyone would ever believe such slander, of course...”

The soldier swallowed hard. He’s afraid of you.

“I should warn you, madam, that some of these allegations were made by Temple Knights. You, um - you may be asked to surrender your weapon...”

He trailed off, turning pale. 

Surrender your weapon? After what happened in Ul’Dah?

“L-look, I’m just the messenger, I-I don’t-”

He turned, and started quickly wading through the snow.

No. No more. Enough. They’ll put you down like just another heretic. Like an animal. You know what these things are like. Nothing for it, then. JOURNEY TO WHITEBRIM FRONT AND KILL THEM ALL.

The soldier was looking over his shoulder every now and again as he struggled up the slope. He’s going to raise the alarm if you don’t stop him.

When he realises you’re chasing him, the fear becomes fully apparent. His breathing becomes ragged, panicked, and he lurches as he begins to try and sprint. The snow drags at your feet, a hellish freezing burden on your legs that threatens to trip you every other step. Everything about this world acts against you. It is long past due a reckoning. The little soldier’s stride is smaller, but familiarity with the frozen countryside makes up for it. 

On and on the two of you go, scrambling and running through snowdrifts and up the hill, both becoming exhausted by the effort. He drops his bow and quiver to lighten the load, and you rip your helmet off to clear your vision. It’s not like any of these things can actually harm you, anyway.

He’s screaming, yelling, making a ruckus, but the mist eats his words. Even as he bowls through the gates, there’s some hesitation as to what is actually happening. One of the more switched-on guards actually manages to get his pike under your arms and into your chest, but you snap it with your axe and tear the point free. I told you, they’re nothing. You are more than them in every way.

He’s climbed one of the flagpoles, finally trapped with nowhere to run. There is shouting the noise of things who think they understand the world all around but your next step is simple. All you have to do is go up there and drag the soldier down and then we will do the rest of them. You grip the pole and - something is wrong. Keep going. You can see his face, looking down, full of the fear of prey and you can see the spots on it, and there’s spots on his face because he’s nothing still a boy. You can see the tears, too. You remember, now. This isn’t right.

You should stop.

And then what? You’ll put your collar back on? You’ll lie down and let others trample you, because it’s so much fucking easier than having a spine? If you won’t crush the vermin in your way, then they will eat you alive. You deserve better. You deserve more.

I can’t.

You can. You are the Eikon-Slayer, the conquering hero, the divinely-appointed warrior of the star, and you can kill every single worm here without stopping. You don’t even need a weapon to do it.

No.

Yes.

No. We shouldn't be doing this.

Either you start standing up for yourself, or we go back to cowering in misery and letting insignificant nothings make our decisions for us. What’s it going to be, Petra? Are you going to have a fucking spine or not? Are you going to speak up and make yourself heard for once?

I will - I will - I WILL NOT KILL BECAUSE YOU TELL ME TO.

[djgamek1ng]

Final Fantasy XIV Job Review: Edgelor- I mean Dark Knight

Rules

So, I’ve gotten DRK to level 70 a while ago (THIS IS VERY LATE, I KNOW! I HAVEN’T BEEN MOTIVATED AT ALL THE LAST MONTH OR SO. SORRY!) and this was part of my deal with @peculiarmarsu. Because of that deal I’ll include a little bonus (ONE TIME THING, DON’T ASK FOR IT IN ANY REVIEW EVER AGAIN), a little guide like thing for DRK. More than that I don’t really have to say, so let’s start with the review!

Story:

Unlike MCH (one of the other HW jobs) DRK’s story is better explained in three parts: 30-50, 50-60 and 60-70, so I will be doing it like I did with the PLD review!

Levels 30-50 goes as followed: you find yourself in Ishgard. The city is in high spirits because a heretic (someone who isn’t a complete ass to whatever Ishgard wants to be an ass to at that moment) has been captured and slain. You hear of the tale of the man who was slain. He was wielding a massive two-handed sword and used dark arts, but to no avail. The knights say that they dumped the body in the Brume and because you are the curious little hero that you are, you go to the Brume to find this corpse. You inspect the corpse and find a soul crystal. Upon picking it up, you are knocked unconscious and hear a strange, but familiar voice in your head. When you regain consciousness, you see the man who was supposedly killed standing in front of you, alive and well. He tells you that the crystal you picked up is one of the dark knight and when you hear a cry of help, he stops you to inform you of the “changes” that will be happening to you. The freedom to follow your heart... To defend the weak and punish the guilty as you see fit. Fray is willing to teach you the way of the dark knight and teach you he will. You accept Fray’s teachings and after Fray’s bit of explaining about the first dark knight, you go to the cry of help you heard earlier. You find an older woman, who asks you to save her granddaughter because she was taken by the Temple Knights. It becomes clear to you that this wasn’t the first time that it happened at that there is nothing honorable about this whole ordeal. Fray says the girl has a chance to survive, but he would rather bring punishment to the knights. You do so, in a rather... gruesome manner. You save the girl and you ask her if she heard someone scream your name. She says she only heard her grandmother call out for help. She thanks you for saving her and Fray is proud of you. You did much better than he expected for your first time. He does inform you that it gets more dangerous the further down the path of a dark knight you go, but he has faith in you. He also says that the voice is the guidance of a dark knight to his/her true calling. He then tasks you a couple times to defeat a equally strong/stronger opponent than you to bring out the darkness within you via communion. In one of the occasions you get interrupted and get asked to do your usual hero stuff again. Fray doesn’t like this and he actively shows that by making you not wipe the blood of you after you’ve slain some Amalj’aa. The next time, you are helping someone retrieving some stolen goods from Qiqirin bandits. You do so, but in your violent cutting down of the monsters, you have kinda ruined the stolen goods. Before returning, you find Fray almost down to the ground. He looks exhausted “Finish it,” he says. “Finish what we started...” You return to the guy who kinda freaks the hell out that his goods where ruined and demands you to pay up for the damage that has been inflicted on them. Fray comes in, curses up a storm on him and then walks away. The weird thing about it is that Fray actually says the things you wanted to say to that bastard. Whatever, you return to Fray to commune one more time. You go kill more giants, because you need a strong opponent to bring out the darkness more. You then journey to Whitebrim Front over a weird allegation: you’ve been observed talking to a corpse in the Brume... Best course of action? Kill them all of course! No not really... Fray stands in front of you, ordering you to kill them all, but you don’t oblige. You ask who Fray is and he kinda laughs and reveals he’s you. He/She’s (yes, the game actually changes Fray’s gender in text according to the gender of your character. I didn’t do that here, because it would completely spoil the point of Fray) your dark side. He/She is wanting to take over and liberate you from everything: the requests from other people, the heroism, etc. so you aren’t pestered by people anymore. You beat him/her and he/she tells you that they will be there with you, if you decide you had enough of being the Warrior of Light. Nobody in Whitebrim Front will talk about what happened under the command of one guy and you are free from the voice you were hearing until that point, thus ending DRK’s 30-50 story line.

Onward to 50-60! It starts with you being asked by a Temple Knight to help with something, since he totally misjudged your character. In a unsurprising twist of events, he turns on you and you murder his back-up. When he tries to run away, he bumps into Sidurgu, an Au Ra dark knight who offers to kill the guy in your stead. Before you can answer, the knight escapes, leaving you standing there with Sidurgu. He tells you to come to the Forgotten Knight in Ishgard, seeing potential in you as a dark knight. When you get there, Sidurgu presents you with the sword of the guy who tried to murder you, saying mercy is wasted on your foes. Sidurgu tells you of a “flame in the abyss” he and Fray got told about from their master. Fray got executed when he and Sidurgu were protecting Rielle, the little girl next to Sid, leaving Sid alone to take care of her, since she’s getting hunted after. Sid asks you to help him and from there on this story line takes a pretty basic turn. You and Sid go to multiple locations to try and get info about Rielle and who/what she is. You eventually find out that she has dragon blood in her, which a big no-no in Ishgard of course. She had gotten the blood by her father forcefully made her drink it. This causes her mother to not see her as her daughter anymore and leads to Rielle getting protected by the dark knights. After visiting multiple locations, it’s time for the final clash. You, Sid and Rielle (she’s a conjurer) vs her mother and a whole bunch of temple knights. You of course win and all the temple knights are dead, but Rielle’s mom isn’t. Sid was threatening to execute her, but he hesitates. Rielle starts to pray to Halone to receive her mother well, washing away Sid’s hesitation to execute the mother. Thus ends 50-60′s story line.

I’ve severely shortened it here, but this is pretty much the gist of it. I could name every location they visit, but that’s not really important to the plot of 50-60 DRK. Essentially they visit the Vanu beast tribe, the conjurers in Gridania, even Vidofnir and for some godforsaken reason the moogles in Moghome...

ANYWAYS, before I start ranting about moogles, time to start 60-70! You find yourself in the Forgotten Knight in Ishgard. The Dragonsong war has ended, but you are of course deep in thought about your failures because you’re an edgelo- I mean dark knight! At the Last Vigil, also in Ishgard, you find yourself, Sid and Rielle there when you suddenly hear glass break. You check your soul crystal, since there is not other source from where it could’ve originated, and it’s split in two! Suddenly a boy with the name of Myste appears to tell you he “borrowed” some of the aether in the soul crystal to do his magic to do good stuff for people. He just wants to help a couple people before he can return it to you. Sid calls the boy a liar, since he knows the real Myste and that isn’t him. You decide you need to play along, otherwise you’ll have only half of your strength (this doesn’t have any effect on gameplay though, no worries). And now the story once again gets kinda basic in the way that it’s very much: help person because “Myste” is holding your aether captive > see “Myste’s” magic to turn people’s memories into “people” > get some of your aether back, so I won’t mention every single instance since the only thing that really changes is some of the flavor text outside of important story things that happen at the end of this questline. Speaking of which! “Myste” doesn’t always succeed in what he does, so that isn’t good. He also speaks about if he returns all your aether, it will be all over for him... Hmm... Anyway, after one particular failure, you, Sid and Rielle devise a plan to go after “Myste” and get your aether back. In a not really shocking twist of events, it’s revealed “Myste” is actually another part of you, like how “Fray” was! Speaking of “Fray”, he/she steps into the battle against “Myste”. Together you defeat him/her and he/she starts to question why you did it. “Fray” tells them that you are really stubborn and that if “Fray” couldn’t make you change your path in life, nothing really will. “Myste” accepts this, but does leave you with the words to not be a complete edgelord all the time. “Fray” and “Myste” depart for now, leaving Sid to wonder what exactly happened, because the whole inner soul thing manifesting into actual physical bodies is new to him. And this ends the 60-70 DRK story!

Let’s finally get to the gameplay aspects of the DRK!

DRK’s power as a tank: DRK is a good tank at the moment. Really simple to play (I’ll go into depth a bit later), but still really effective. They can output a pretty hefty amount of damage, while still being pretty tanky. They also have one of the most broken skills in the game, but we’ll get to that later. Decent utility, pretty easy to pick up and play with a good amount for rooms of error. DRK preforms better as the off-tank, giving utility to the party (more specifically the main tank), but can also do quite good as a main tank. Buffs for the DRK? Maybe give them something extra to work with in terms of both mitigation and damage, because while they are fine, they could be a bit better. Anyways, there is not much to say about relative power without going into detail about their kit! Let’s do this!

DRK’s gameplay: The DRK has two combos to worry about: their Power Slash combo (being Hard Slash > Spinning Slash > Power Slash) and their Souleater combo (being Hard Slash > Syphon Strike> Souleater). The Power Slash combo is for enmity/aggro generation and Souleater is for mild self healing and damage. That’s it for the combos really... Syphon Strike gives MP back and Souleater heals. That’s pretty important to know. 

For GCDs you have Unmend as your long range, single target (ST) pulling skill, you have Unleash as an AoE around you, enmity generator and you have Abyssal Drain, an long range, AoE enmity generating ability. It’s quite costly though, so keep that in mind. Quietus is an AoE around you to generate some MP back and it costs 50 Blackblood. Bloodspiller is a ST strike doing a hefty amount of damage and also costs 50 Blackblood.

On to stances! Grit is their tanking stance where they take and deal less damage and generate more enmity/aggro. Darkside is their offensive stance where MP generation stops in combat, but you do more damage. The cool thing about DRK is is that you can have both on at the same time. It’s kinda required, since Darkside actually needs to be on for a lot of skills.

Okay, oGCDs! You have Dark Passenger, a line AoE skill. It has a mediocre potency and does cost MP, so it’s rarely used. They have Salted Earth, an AoE terrain skill (meaning you activate it and it stays there for a bit) doing continual damage over time and giving you some Blackblood, which I’ll cover in a bit. You have Plunge, a gap closer with a decent potency. Use this just as a oGCD, not as a gap closer when just fighting. You can lead with it to pull mobs/the boss, but it doesn’t generate enough enmity on it’s own. You have Carve and Spit for MP generation and a bit of extra damage.

...It’s time to talk about <b>it</b>, isn’t it? Dark Arts... This move... What is does is that it gives special effects to most of your attacks. It gives Power Slash more enmity generation, it gives Syphon Strike, Souleater, Quietus and Bloodspiller more damage, it gives Carve and Spit more damage but no MP generation and it gives Abyssal Drain the effect to give you health back for every monster you hit, leading to some pretty insane healing when doing this in a crowd of monsters. The best/worst part about it though? You can use it every 2 seconds. It does eat MP though, so be wary of that.

As for “defensive” cooldowns, DRK has a couple to talk about. I won’t cover the Role Skill ones here, if you really want to know them, go look up my PLD review. Blood Weapon can only be used when Grit is off and gives MP back every time you do physical damage, so your combo, Carve and Spit, Plunge etc etc. Blood Price is the opposite, it can only be used in Grit and gives you MP every time you take damage. Delirium costs 50 Blackblood and extends the duration of both Blood Weapon and Blood Price. Shadow Wall is essentially a worse version of Sentinel from the PLD skillset. It mitigates 30% from the damage you take, but has just as long of a cooldown and active time. Sole Survivor is kinda useless, but it marks an enemy with Another Victim. When they are killed when they have that on them you heal 20% of your maximum HP and MP. Living Dead is your panic button. It gives you the status effect of Living Dead, which gives you the status effect of Walking Dead when you would’ve died. When Walking Dead is active, you can’t die for 10 seconds. You need to be full healed (so all your HP back) though, otherwise you die anyways after those 10 seconds. Last, but certainly not least, you have one of the most broken abilities in the game, the Blackest Night. You can use it on yourself or an ally party member. On you, it gives you a shield for 20% of your max HP. On an ally this is reduced to 10% of YOUR max HP. When the shield is fully depleted/breaks, you get 50 Blackblood.

Okay, let’s talk Blackblood. Blackblood is your extra resource. It’s generated through using your combo, activating either Blood Weapon or Blood Price, damage ticks from Salted Earth and as you have read just now, breaking the Blackest Night shield. Try to keep this up as much as you can, but don’t sit on 100 all the time. 

So what is my rating of DRK? - Story: 3 seperate ratings this time, 1 for each of the arcs. 85/100 for 30-50, since it was really engaging and actually a pretty cool twist, which was a bit predictable but still a very cool idea. 62/100 for 50-60, since it dragged a bit and got pretty repetitive. It was cool to figure out who/what Rielle was though! 50/100 for 60-70, since it was a goddamn repeat of 30-50 + they started back paddling quite a lot on the whole edgelord thing of the DRK. I did not enjoy 60-70 a lot and pretty much at the 1st or 2nd quest, I had already guessed the twist... Overall I’ll give the DRK story line a 76-77/100. It’s only really worth it to experience the 30-50 job quest of the DRKs and to see the “<your character’s name here>, be a dear for me and punch a moogle for me” line from Sid in the 60-70 quest line. The DRK story line isn’t that phenomenal that you need to experience it, but it’s definitely good, despite my complaints with the 60-70 story. - Power of the job: 78/100. The DRK is pretty good at point of writing this. It’s not the strongest tank, but also not the weakest. It’s at a solid point and it has one of the most broken skills in the game. It’s so strong and it makes them a lot less squishy. - Gameplay: Personally? 38/100. All of DRK’s gameplay goes back to spamming the crap out of Dark Arts and a bit of MP management. I don’t find that engaging, I’m sorry. I’ll still give DRK’s gameplay in general a 65/100. It’s very simple, which is good for a beginner or someone who plays a lot of jobs, but it bores me to tears.

Overal score: A personal rating of 58/100, but a objective score of 72/100. I love two handed swords, but the DRK is just not a job for me. From a up and down rollercoaster of a storyline to a, in my eyes, boring playstyle of a job... I’m sorry, it just doesn’t cut it for me. I only had once where I considered switching from PLD to DRK as my main and that’s when I got Plunge. I love gap closers, but that doesn’t mean crap if the rest of the job is kinda of a snooze to play in my eyes. I do think the job is relatively good designed, but with only 2 combos, nothing to upkeep (like a debuff or DoT), it’s not a job for me. For everyone who likes this job, good on you!

Okay, now for something completely different, since this was part of the deal with @peculiarmarsu . Small guide section of DRK! I’ll only cover priority list of Dark Arts, as cooldown management really is more of a personal preference thing. Dark Arts priority should be: Carve and Spit (is what I see online) > Bloodspiller > Souleater > Syphon Strike > only if you really need to establish enmity, Power Slash

Thank you guys so much for reading this if you are! This is a long post and it took forever to make (I’m so sorry Rau OTL), but it’s finally done. I just got a bit demotivated to even log into FFXIV, let alone finish this stuff up, but I’m back! I’m gonna try and make weekly posts again. Also, this will be the last review for at least a month. While I enjoy doing them, they are very draining on me. Anyways, thanks again for reading it all the way through if you did, it means a lot!