Leopard Print Paladin

Susceptible to Grind

Destiny_20140920104852 This weekend I played a good bit of Destiny because it is the perfect game for those moments when I don’t feel like I am get into something terribly detailed.  I play this game much in the same fashion as I play Diablo 3, in short bursts with the ability to jettison out if needed to go do something else.  As such this has become in many ways the game I play when I know we are going to be leaving the house soon.  I am never more than just a teleport to orbit away from safety, which makes me consume the game voraciously in small doses.  As such I have mostly been running the game in private mode with my fire team locked down to keep people from popping in at random.  I feel like I don’t want to deal with the expectations of others when I am playing a game in this fashion.  Generally speaking I am either moments from leaving the game, or playing the game while camping something in Final Fantasy XIV…  and in either case I am not exactly responsive enough to be a proper group mate.

Destiny_20140920114944

The bulk of my gameplay has been doing either patrols on the Cosmodrome or on the Moon.  I finally got a blue engram to drop, but unfortunately it was for my class item… which is essentially just decoration.  Instead of the traditional “flag football” towel, this one is a series of 3 banners that hang down from my waist.  One of the things I am learning about myself is that I am deeply susceptible to grinding.  I find it super easy to zone out and just wander around aimlessly in an area.  I seem to be able to get infinite amounts of entertainment value from simply wandering around killing Fallen and Hive on the moon and accepting the little mini-quests.  As such I was level 16 before I actually finished the Moon this weekend and got the quest chain sending me to Venus.  I am sure I will be 20+ before I finish Venus, because as soon as I unlock the next patrol zone… that is more than likely what I will be doing quite a bit of.

Destiny_20140920112437 I think part of the problem with Destiny is the fact that it has relatively little to go with as far as Story goes.  As such I find absolutely no sense of urgency pushing me forward to keep completing missions.  In a game like Mass Effect 3 I felt like I was moments away from doom at all times, so I just had to keep pushing forward and trying to turn back the tide in a war larger than myself.  In Destiny they have failed to infuse the narrative with any of this.  Sure things are going horribly wrong out in the galaxy, but we have this last city that seems completely immune to the effect of what is happening.  Sure The Traveler is “dying” but I don’t feel this happening, I feel like that is generations away and I have just been drafted into essentially a science fiction stalemate.  So I have zero issue wandering about and taking time to smell the “helium coils” as it were.  The moment to moment gameplay are what keeps me engaged with this game, and the story line and as such story quests could not exist at all and I would still be happy.

Leopard Print Paladin

ffxiv 2014-09-22 06-44-52-320 At the beginning of the weekend I was a level 40 newly christened Paladin of Uldah.  Over the course of the weekend I managed to push my way through to 46 and get the first of my spiffy gear.  For those who are not familiar with Final Fantasy XIV, at 45 you complete a class quest that will reward you four pieces of “Relic” gear that represents the defacto look for your class.  This means you get a full set of gear minus two slots.  The belt is not terribly important because no belt really changes the look of something drastically.  However the other missing piece is the chest piece and it is essentially the item that always ties a class set together.  On the Lalafell the paladin “short shorts” look is minimized by the total lack of height, however of anyone else it looks like you are wearing white boxer shorts without the chest piece that gives you the plate skirt that is so characteristic of a paladin in this game.

There is a full set of gear that drops in the dungeon Dzmael Darkhold, that rarely sees much use since it is level 44, and at 45 everyone gets their class set.  However the one piece that is extremely useful is the chest, which thankfully in all of my journeys I have gathered up a few of these.  The problem is that for pretty much every class there is something goofy going on with this set.  For the tanks the set features an inexplicable leopard print inlay, with no way to “dye” the pattern away.  So as a result for the last few levels you end up looking a bit goofy until you finally ding 50 and get that class chest piece.  Thankfully for me I also managed to pick up a nice pink quality chest for 47 that should make the outfit look a little bit more put together for the last few levels.

Red Bunny Samurai

ffxiv 2014-09-22 06-46-10-323 The other thing I am realizing is just how much of my other gear will work for Paladin.  Almost all of the dropped pieces and jewelry from the endgame levels worth for Marauder, Warrior, Gladiator and Paladin.  The problem with this is that I have several of the pieces glamoured to look like the Warrior class set.  Apparently this will not show as such when I equip them however, and quite frankly the Syrcus tower set looks like crap for plate wearers.  So I am wondering what set I am going to glamour to that can be neutral and work for both classes.  The most important thing after all is that I still have a proper bunny hat.  While I freely admit that I stole wearing this helm from Tam, I think I have more than made it my own… since it was clearly designed to be worn by a Lalafell.  He tends to favor the white one with the full face mask, where I am enamored with the red one that allows my full face to show through.

My goal for the coming days is to push the paladin to 50 and get it fully geared in 90 or better items.  I’ve been stockpiling hunt marks to be able to do this the moment I ding, but I am really not sure how many pieces I will actually need to buy.  All of my jewelry is dual class, as well as my chest, belt, and boots.  That just leaves three pieces of gear that I actually need to purchase, and then again I will need to spend the requisite 1125 tomestones of mythology to get the zenith weapon and shield.  Right now I have a dilemma I suppose in that I am really close to being able to purchase my next Animus book, but I am also really close to 50 at this point.  I don’t have the tomestones to do both.  In theory I can get the book and the process of simply getting my relic weapon should give me more than enough tomestones to be able to at least craft the relic.  Then I can deal with grinding out the rest as a paladin if I so choose.  In either case I should have another animus book and a 50 paladin soon enough.  Then I suppose my focus turns to finishing off my White Mage.

#FFXIV #Destiny

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