Of Animus Books

Destiny of Poppy

Last night we recorded the latest episode of AggroChat.  This week we were joined once again by Tam and the regular cast of AggroChat…  Asghar, Rae and Kodra.  I went into the night thinking we would end up gushing about Destiny quite a bit, but in truth it turns out we all have a some very valid complaints about the game.  We do in fact talk about the good points, but also we talk about the weaknesses of the story.  Moreso we talk about the fact that there really isn’t much of a story at all.

Apparently this week some craziness happened in League of Legends with the team Unicorns of Love.  It seems as though they broke one of the taboos of the game and played Poppy in competitive play  More so than that they seemed to dominate a match with her.  We talk about the ramifications of this and get into an offshoot discussion about what happens when something is toxic for a game.  When a game changes the class or mechanic that you love, what do you as the player do?  I know a good part of why I wont be playing Warlords of Draenor, at least not at launch is the fact that Blood Deathknights “feel wrong” in ways I cannot quite quantify.

Of Tidal Bardings

ffxiv 2014-09-14 10-05-52-018 Since the last three days have been spent working on my Easing Into Eorzea guide series, I have not really posted much that was actually about me or my endeavors.  In fact this morning it feels more than a little weird to not be working on the next segment of that guide.  I guess in part I wanted to get some of the most basic information out there especially since I have a good number of friends either just starting the game or considering starting it.  One of the problems with Final Fantasy and just how content dense it is, is that it has so many different systems that it just expects you to know how to use.  I remember when we first started playing, it took me weeks to figure out what everything did and even to this day I am still finding systems that I knew nothing about.  So my goal was to try and flatten this learning curve by discussing things from the perspective of a player who is used to playing traditional western MMOs.

However this does not mean that I stopped doing things while writing these guides.  One of the most exciting things from the past week is that I managed to get Tidal Barding.  The entire reason why I was going for Turquoise color with my chocobo, was that it would match the Leviathan bardings perfectly as seen in the picture above.  Leviathan has been my favorite summon since Final Fantasy IV and as a result I knew when I saw this that I would have to get it for my chocobo.  The problem is that it involves getting a rare drop from Extreme Mode Leviathan, when I have not done any of the Extreme primals leading up to that.  The other issue is that it is a three star armorcrafting pattern, meaning it takes an extremely well geared crafter.

This is the point at which my good friend and awesome cosplayer Spiral Sun rides in to the rescue.  It turns out her Free Company leader could make the barding, so I shopped around on the market and managed to piece together all the bits needed.  All told I think I spent around 150,000 gil to gather up the bits, which is a significant discount over what the completed barding had been going for on the market boards.  Last night I checked it was still floating around the 500,000 mark.  So thanks to Spiral I am now sporting my spiffy barding, and with the Turquoise color it works almost perfectly.  The barding and bird kinda meld together perfectly and it feels like I am in fact riding around on a tiny Leviathan.

Of Animus Books

ffxiv 2014-09-14 10-23-09-943 The other thing I have been working on in Final Fantasy XIV is my Animus Weapon.  Late last Sunday I managed to wrap up my Atma grind and I was able to convert my Bravura Zenith into a Bravura Atma.  The problem is the Atma step is basically a “half step”.  While the weapon is in fact ilevel 100 instead of ilevel 90…  the stats of it remain the same.  You power up the Atma weapon by completing a series of books, each one giving your weapon a stat boost.  To complete the weapon you have to do this 9 times.  Each book costs 1500 tomestones of mythology and requires you to kill 100 mobs (10 each of 10 types), run 3 specific dungeons, complete 3 specific fates, and complete 3 specific guild and company leves.  Throughout the day yesterday I knocked out all of the steps for my current book other than the three dungeons.

So today at some point I plan on running the three dungeons which are…  Tam-Tara Deepcroft Normal, Stone Vigil Normal and Lost City of Amdapor.  I figure I will ask in guild to see if anyone needs these dungeons before running them, because I would far rather complete them with a guild group.  After turning in the book I will get +2 strength to my current Atma weapon and it will put me one step closer to the finished Animus.  Then it begins the process all over again of grinding up 1500 tomestones of mythology for the next book.  My guild thinks I am mostly insane for this, but at least Cylladora and Warenwolf are doing it with me as well.  I believe Cav is maybe on the same step also.  Essentially the fastest way to get the mythstones is to grind hunts, and as of yesterday Waren is now in the most popular of the hunt groups, so hopefully that will help things out a bit.

Atma Weapon Get

Naps Are Evil

This morning I am completely dragging and seem to be wallowing in a near zombie like state.  The answer to my predicament is rather simple.  I indulged in taking a nap with my wife yesterday, and as a result I paid a heavy price.  As glorious as naps feel, I for whatever reason cannot take them.  I mean I can fall asleep for a nap just fine, but the act of napping dooms me to being unable to sleep later.  I am envious of my wife, who can wake up from one nap and immediately fall asleep for another one.  My body however seems to hate sleep, and if I partake of the forbidden fruit it means I will be wired at midnight  trying desperately to get my body to calm the hell down and sleep.

Last night was of course one of these nights.  So this morning I am in a stupor that I fear no coffee will raise me from.  I would love to say that the nap was worth it, because it really did feel amazing at the time.  However the ultimate results or nap taking seem to always leave me in this condition, and it seems to be a less I have to relearn on a regular basis.  So I present to you…  Naps are Evil, or at the very least they are unadvisable for someone with screwed up sleep patterns like myself.  I realize that I could drug myself into a sleep like state but that generally causes more issues than it is worth.  So once again I will just deal with it this morning and hopefully get a good nights sleep tonight.

Atma Weapon Get

ffxiv 2014-09-07 23-18-01-366 This weekend for me was ruled by an overriding goal, to acquire all twelve Atmas and be able to upgrade my axe to its next evolution.  There are some caveats there but I will get into them later.  Over the course of the past week I have done enough FATEs to gather up around 80,000 grand company seals.  If you figure that on average you get around 100 seals per FATE, that means I completed somewhere in the vicinity of 800 FATEs between collecting all twelve Atmas.  I am guessing that would Math out about right considering I am roughly 2000 FATEs into the 3000 FATE achievement.  So yeah…  my guild thought I was crazy for embarking upon this, but I pushed through it regardless.  I am by far not the first to get it as Warenwolf and Cylladora managed to get theirs significantly before I did.  I feel like they simply had better luck than I did in a few of the zones as I know for certain I ground Southern Thanalan for 3 evenings.

In any case it feels good to put this step of the process behind me for the time being.  The funny thing is… I am not absolutely opposed to doing the grind again for another job.  I figure at some point I will do it for my Dragoon, however I am going to need to put a lot of pacing between the two grinds.  More than likely I am going to shift focus to working on my White Mage for awhile to do something “different” feeling.  I tend to go on these missions every now and then, where I am all consumed with getting this one thing done.  The games that get me to stick around are the ones that can create large numbers of these traps to ensnare me with in order to keep feeding me new goals that I actually want to accomplish.  So far it seems like upon returning to Final Fantasy XIV there are more than enough shiny baubles in the distance to keep me focused.

Beginning the Animus Grind

ffxiv 2014-09-08 06-49-40-830 While I finished the most random portion of the level 100 weapon, I still have to power it up.  The Atma Bravura while ilevel 100, it really is no different than your existing Zenith weapon other than having a changed appearance.  In the case of the Warrior the blade is coated with blood.  From this point out I have a slower and more deliberate grind.  The first step is to get 1500 tomestones of mythology which I will then exchange for one of 9 books needed to power up my weapon.  Each book is in itself a quest, that involves me to complete specific dungeons, fates or leves in order to complete that step.  If I am understanding correctly, each time I complete a book it will imbue my weapon with some stat improvements until finally after completely all nine it will be a proper level 100 weapon.

Some of my guild members are taking a completely different route to get to their ilevel 100 weapon, and in truth it is probably the easier route.  I like this one however because it reminds me of how it felt to do an epic weapon quest in the original Everquest, and to some extent in Everquest II.  They are long epic quests and at the end when you finally get your hands on the next step in the sequence, it feels well fought and earned in a way that simply saving up tokens could never feel.  I am sure I am romanticizing the process, but completely relic weapon quests in Final Fantasy XIV has this same feel for me, so I can see myself doing even the most insane ones just to be able to say I did it.

There is a club of sorts among the folks that have completed the Atma step that I have noticed.  They sit around and tell tales of how long it took to get this piece or that piece.  Sure it was an arduous grind, but I feel happy to be admitted into that club and be able to tell the tales of the process to get my own bloody axe.  Similarly I am sure I will enjoy retelling the tales of the various books that I had to complete to get my animus step as well.  The truth of it all is, that these little goals on the horizon are what will keep me hooked on a game for more than just the moment.  This long range missions are what keep me grounded and focused.  So I might be insane for grinding them out when there are potentially easier alternatives…  but I am enjoying the journey.

#FFXIV #Atma #Animus