Featuring: Ammosart, Ashgar, Belghast, Grace, Kodra, and Thalen
Good Morning Folks! I am going to give you fair warning… this is a very Path of Exile episode. We pushed that topic to the very end of the show but once you hit it… it is pretty much an hour of talk about the upcoming Settlers of Kalguur League. We start off the show with some discussion about Last Epoch and the most recent market crash that banned exploiters… but left all the gold in the bloated market economy. From there we dive into Final Fantasy XIV Dawntrail and talk about the new Arcadion Raid. We then talk a bit more about Bel and Grace’s adventures in alting as they finish ARR and start into Heavensward. Finally, we do a dive into the massive meta-breaking changes coming with the Settlers of Kalgurr league in Path of Exile which drops on the 26th.
Comparing the Noct Tanking Set from my Lalafell main and my Roegadyn alt
Good Morning Friends. I have to say I was overwhelmingly excited when I got to the point of the ARR MSQ when it started doling out the formerly Binding-Coil-era gear sets. For pretty much all of my time as a Lalafell I have used this set, dyed jet black, with the bunny kabuto for my signature look. So I was ecstatic to be able to have this appearance on my Roegadyn alt. Sure I could not wear the tanking skirt with it that comes from a level 80 dungeon, but I could get MOST of the way to replicating the appearance. I bounced around between all of the servers in Dynamis until I found the cheapest bunny kabuto for 160k and snapped it up to be able to compile the look. Then in all of my horror last night I realized… the proportions are all wrong on a Roegadyn. It just looks too bulky and my bunny ears are way the hell too small to really work in the same way. So alas… I wasted a bunch of money on something I am probably never actually going to wear until I fantasia again.
I guess I should once again give a fair warning that as I am talking through this ARR revisit, I am going to be talking about spoilers. Be warned if you have not made it this far into the game.
Title Screen for Urth’s Fount the Odin Fight
We started off last night by running Snowcloak and then Odin which represented all of the new things that we had not run yet. Snowcloak was just as sleepy as it always is… and I maybe overpulled a few times leading Ace to have to scramble to keep my ass vertical. We pulled through it and it was a largely enjoyable experience. I still lament the loss of the proper version of the yeti fight where you throw snowballs at him. From there we ran Odin thinking it would be a long queue… but got in almost instantly. This fight is still exceptionally tough and we got some bad RNG on the first attempt and had to deal with a spear phase while he was casting his one-hit enrage attack. The second time though we managed to take him out right before the cast timer was finished. This fight is legitimately still probably more difficult than most of the ARR era Extremes.
Shiva Cutscene from Akh Afah Amphitheatre Hard
Knowing that Shiva was not too far off we put our heads down and quested along furiously until we unlocked Akh Afah Amphitheatre (Hard). It is sort of sad how stinking easy the ARR Hard versions are. When you have spent so much time farming the extremes to get mount drops for folks… the Hard versions just sort of feel like a cakewalk. I keep waiting for mechanics that never come, like I did not remember there was now ice floor phase in the Hard version, or at least not one we had gotten to yet. The music is still so freaking great and if you have not listened to it in a while, you own yourself to click through and do so right now. I have so much love for this era of the game because it represents the period of time when our little FC was the most active and dedicated. It was the era when we were actively fielding raids and hanging out with each other multiple times per week. While Ace and I have recaptured some of that in small bursts… I still miss all the rest of our team.
The Keeper of the Lake Entrance Unlocked in Mor Dhona
I stuck around last night and pushed through the story up until the point where Keeper of the Lake unlocked. I am very much looking forward to this dungeon because I can remember it being one of my favorites. It also has some freaking amazing music and a few really fun fights that make the player feel super cool for honestly dodging some rather simplistic mechanics by today’s standards. The story is heating up and honestly… I am starting to feel some “feelings” because I know what is about to happen in the next patch. It is hard to explain how emotionally it hit me to play through this content the first time. I was so oblivious to the catastrophe that was about to befall my character and my friends… but seeing it all again you can absolutely see the underpinnings of foreshadowing. A game had never quite doing anything like this before, not at least in the MMORPG space… so I was simply not prepared for the level of betrayal that was impending and as such did not heed the warnings.
The hardest part of this replay is having to run quests with Ilberd knowing what is about to happen. I so despise this person and everything that he and the Crystal Braves come to represent. I’m immensely bothered by what the hubris plays out in Alphinaud and I just want to shake some sense into his obliviousness. The writing was absolutely on the wall. I am seeing it now and it was clearly there for us… if we just chose to look at it. Last night seeing Ilberd say “you never betray your own” was just too fucking much. If I could change the course of the game I would… I would strike him down right now and suffer the consequences. I hate “Cold War” periods in video games… because I am a character of action, not politics. I was not designed for this, and quite honestly I think most of us are not equipped to handle it… which as a result is why this whole sequence managed to blindside so many. Unfortunately, this is a card that only works once… and every betrayal from this point forward has been spotted ahead of time because now we know it is possible… and now we are always on the lookout. Ilberd and crew shoot our faith… in a way that can never be regained.
Anyways… I am deeply looking forward to Heavensward because I want to hunt a Sky Whale. I’m probably looking forward to that fight than almost anything else at this point. Heavensward had some freaking amazing primal fights.
Hey Folks! Last night I did something… that I have not done since Heavensward. Yesterday was the opening day of the very first raid of Dawntrail, and Ace and I threw ourselves at the content. Sure we watched a few quick videos… for reference, I highly suggest the content from SamsonGrey because they are short and to the point. However, there is a big difference between watching a recap video of strategies and actually doing the fights. However more important was this is the first time I have thrown myself at the grist mill that was raiding with random people… as a Tank also potentially since Heavensward. I love to Tank but I have had this weird hang-up against tanking for strangers and while I have gotten over that for dungeons… effectively going into day-one raids when no one really understands the fights was a whole new pinnacle of experience.
Across the board the fights were phenomenal and I had a lot of fun learning them. The first encounter made me especially nervous because I hate “break the platform” mechanics in fights, but time and time again I wound up as the defacto main tank and managed to navigate us through all of the encounters. Unfortunately, that does not show in the comm department because I did not get a single one all night long. I am hoping they were tipping their healers and not just being jackasses and not throwing out comms period. Like it is okay not to commend someone if they just fucked up massively… I’ve done this before, but this nonsense of not throwing out any commendations is just a jerk move.
We one-shot the first encounter which felt really freaking great. Honey B. Lovely however the second encounter was easily the most difficult. I think we managed to get it on our third attempt. The third and fourth encounters both took two attempts. There was an asshole in the second encounter that was throwing out shade… but honestly… don’t do that shit on the first day a raid is released. Of course, it was a damned reaper and in my experience, they are the edgelords of the party so it isn’t like I was super shocked. Even with needing to take a few attempts per fight on average, the mechanics were super fun to play around with. I am not sure if we will ever find a static of chill folks to run with again, but I think it would be a lot of fun to tackle this content on savage.
My biggest goal for the entire night was to try and snag one of the accessory slot items. I had a level 99 ring because I had not managed to get one to drop from any of the level 100 dungeons. It was bugging me immensely that I had a single slot that was that low item level. For the entire evening, I managed to snag a 710 ring, two of the items that added up to a pair of 710 gloves. Then for my last piece of loot, I rolled on pretty much everything and got one of four items needed to get the 710 chestpiece. The highlight of the night loot-wise though is that I managed to pull the Black Cat Minion which is super adorable. It randomly runs off and pounces things when you are idle. You can see it beside me in the first screenshot of this blog post.
The highlight of the raid however is the addition of an announcer. I have to be honest, I was not sure how I would feel about the Arcadion as a whole. It is very much WWF/WWE-inspired and there is a running commentary as the fight is going on. There is some really cool tech where the commentary is based on actions that are happening in the fight. If you as the tank happen to soak a really big hit, the commentator will say something along the lines of “Oooo that was hard-hitting” or if one or more players die they will comment on that as well. There is another line about holding things together when you manage to stand everyone back up with rezzes. It makes the entire experience feel so dynamic and fun.
All in all, I am very much looking forward to throwing ourselves at this every week. Since I posted a picture of our alternate dare versions over on Kraken, I decided we needed to take a screenshot of our mains. I hopped up on these trashcans and Ace joined me… at which point we noticed there was a corpse sticking out of the open one. Man, it’s a shame when folks throwing away a perfectly good white boy. I’m having a blast still between doing more serious content on Cactuar and our bonanza of nonsense over on Kraken. After not really being wired for MMORPGs for a few years, it feels like I am having a massive resurgence.
Did you do the raid last night? What were your thoughts? Drop me a line below.
Morning Folks! I legitimately did not expect to grow to like Roegabel… but I gotta say I am digging it. Tanking random dungeons feels specifically fun because I am ginormous and can play fully zoomed out while also knowing exactly where my character is in relation to effects. I also really dig this outfit I have assembled… which admitted was a bit of a challenge given how few cool armor sets I have access to right now. Yesterday I dinged level 65 and will probably hit 70 before I finish up the ARR post-patch content. Ace remembered the existence of silver chocobo feathers which allowed me and them to purchase two pieces of level 60 gear significantly upping our performance. I also picked up a level 70 weapon for when I finally ding that eventually.
Last night we wrapped up the Crystal Tower series and had what was quite possibly the smoothest Syrcus Tower run I have ever experienced. It is all made up by the fact that we had maybe the worst World of Darkness run that I have seen in a while. I was essentially main-tanking everything… and off-tanking whatever I could at the same time because none of the other tanks appeared to be willing to do anything. We had a moment on Cerberus where I died… because no one was tanking the Wolfsbane and I came back up assuming that one of the other tanks picked it up… only to find out that it was running amok and I had to taunt it back on me. We got through it and I maybe feel more positive about my tanking prowess when it comes to larger content. I mean I raid tanked for years but I am rusty as fuck. We also cleared Leviathan which is SO MUCH easier than I remember it being.
I also got far enough in the Manderville quest line for me to unlock the Battle at Big Bridge. I’ve gotta say… while I low-key find Hildebrand annoying… I LOVE the trial fights associated with the series. Fighting Greg was probably the highlight of the evening for me, and I look forward to unlocking the next trial. On my Cactuar main I am nowhere near caught up on the Manderville quests and did not even realize that there was a Shadowbringers Trial and an Endwalker Trial… so I guess I need to get through those so I can see if they are anywhere near as good as the ARR trials.
In other notes I have been in this morning after the patch and unlocked the first wing of the Arcadion. I expect tonight Ace and I are going to challenge this, and I might ping Masto to see if anyone is interested in joining in the nonsense. I have no clue when we will be doing this, but I am figuring fairly early in the evening. I need to figure out what items I want to focus on trying to get. I REALLY need a new ring, so I will probably run things until I end up winning one of those. So I guess I am specifically trying to snag “Light-heavy Holoearring” which is the token used for accessories. I noticed that at least as of this morning there was not a new bookrock type, so I am wondering if they are waiting until Savage goes in for that to happen.
In other news, the sign-ups keep rolling in for Blaugust 2024. At this point, we have a little over thirty folks signed up with still half a month to go until the event starts. You can as always find all of the links in a condensed form on the Media Kit page, but if you are interested in reading my yearly post you can find that here. I’ve seen so much traction in the Fediverse that it is charming to behold. I am hoping that converts to folks actually signing up and participating in the coming weeks. Once again huge thanks to folks like Massively OP for covering the event and lending some additional visibility. More importantly massive thanks to all of the participants who keep returning year after year and are the real reason why I keep this going.
