I already made a chart for each character and what weapons I want for each of them to keep track...I've lost control of my life (Really I just want one or two per character for the classes they will main but I want them all on Imry for completionisms sake) I LIKE TO SUFFER
also good news! because I will seemingly have weekend employment, I should be able to resub next week :]
jfc... I'm frankly amazed I got "Asch Fon'fabre" for my Asch alt's name though, the tales fandom must not be that active on ff14
Yeesh, I only have two FF14 characters that I actually play. A third I've created and will probably pay to transfer to Balmung, given that's the only way to get new characters on Balmung anymore for all practical purposes.
And nearly the case with Gilgamesh, which of course is where I have a couple friends play. sits quietly in the corner on turtle
Part of it is "I have this character idea and I just want pretty screenshots", part of it is sometimes I get burnt out on endgame and want to do mindless low level stuff for a while. Spoiler: UNNECESSARY BABBLING Also even though you can play every class on one character I feel weird about it when it's OOC. The exception is that I play WHM/Bard on Imry when not tanking just for flexibility and convenience w FC mates. (and i hate tanking for strangers) But, ICly she's PLD/DRK only. I love RP but I am the type that plays a lot of characters for short periods and then goes back to them every now and then, I've unfortunately lost my ability to stick with only one character for a long time. I was sorta hoping it would come back once I got on medication and got my shit together, haha. I was active on LJ/DW rp for a good...like...7 years? it was a long time, holy shit. And then I just suddenly stopped, I couldn't keep up anymore. I'm kinda bummed about it. I recently briefly did some threading in a game a friend runs that's super laid-back, but RL distracted me again. I haven't really rped with anyone but my partner for a while now and our private stuff tends to jump all over the place following our whims. I have a couple friends on Balmung, one runs an RP FC with an interesting premise, so I transferred several characters at once in case one of them ended up being a concept I could work with. Since transfer costs the same amount regardless of how many characters you move it seemed more efficient. I got characters onto Balmung and Gilgamesh by sheer luck because of maintenance months ago, but its basically impossible now. the last 3 on Balmung are the ones i just bit the bullet and transferred. Honestly about half of them aren't above level 20, but...I still probably have way too much free time. (also obvs Sparrow was a joke made during a hiatus of our forum Dragon Age 2 playthrough) @Starcrossedsky I've actually seen a couple Tales people around (Estellise Heurassein is taken on every single server for some reason!?) And obvs there's my Victor alt and a friend plays Van as a catboy for the lulz. But yeah, there's not a huge amount of people. I've only gotten a couple comments on Victor. Oh btw, i sent you a friend req a while ago but i guess you were afk.
Fortunately my fandom is so obscure that Jamethiel Knorth is almost never taken. I keep her to IC classes; no healers, no tanks. Preference for melee combat. No swords.
I am pretty sure I, in fact, ran into that Van on my last night of the 30 days that comes with the game, and had a sad about not being on my Asch alt at the time (I was pushing HW plot and Cherna is the character I have who is actually decently far in it, Asch is still newbie-ing around Gridania getting his cnj levels so when I unlock the other cities I can just glad/pal him straight through) (also I bitch constantly about the lack of appropriate hair for him). My friend Fort made a Sync alt at the same time and she's been playing him a bit, though. (Asch is Hyur and Sync is a cat b/c we went with "what fits canon height/build best") Tales of Turtle Alts, clearly we should party up someday.
SMALL FANDOM IS SMALL I just kind of [/DRIVEBY'D] in Ul'dah while doing summoner class quests so Asch is gonna pal-> drk because [looks at dark knight lore, begins laughing] eorzea AU Asch would be a sultana's man through and through anyway so it fits. she is best tiny.
ahh Nanamo. Love her. I will say, I find classes I dislike more fun when playing a character that fits the class! I'm a pretty terrible dragoon but I have fun with it on Victor and Sivana. And I hate warrior a lot...(some of it is just the attitude of a lot of WARs I've encountered, the class just seems to attract elitist assholes. But it's also just not my style of tanking. I prefer not to take damage in the first place, absurd HP or no. And i loveeee PLD's support skills.) But I've been levelling Weinblyss, who is a pirate lady, and having exponentially more fun w/ it than I did on Imry. Edit: ...if you ever want someone to yell about dark knight related stuff for hours, I am that person. I unashamedly love the edgelords. (Imry is honestly the worst edgelord, in the sense that she is FAR too Shounen Optimistic, but that makes things pretty funny, which is kinda why I did it.) ...this reminds me that I really wanted to make a proper character bio page on my FFXIV tumblr but the way tumblr handles HTML is so frustrating that I gave up a few times. Maybe I should just do all the code in a google doc before copy/pasting.
(I will NGL that part of the reason I want to learn tank is that no one in our FC really plays much tank and also it means that everyone has to wait for my laggy ass in dungeons. because my computer is like the ABSOLUTE minimum that can run the game and I am constantly bringing up the tail of the group because of it. But no one outruns the tank unless they Wanna Die.) (Thankfully my main is summoner so I don't actually have to catch all the way up to be able to do shit and even when I'm lagging out my pet will bite things. This is important when I'm having model-loading-lag because I can't attack things until their models load.) (Titan has gotten into some hilarious Invisible Fights in the kobold quests lemme just say.) but anyway yes please talk drk to me. talk any class to me I am a super nerd. I'm in this club in the first place because in the DWRP I'm in, the IC postgame is "everyone who is dead in canon goes to Eorzea" which includes almost all our abyss cast. Which includes my Asch because I'm a one character wonder so please imagine post-dead Asch tooling around Eorzea.
Just fyi in case you haven't figured this out, you can knock your settings down to help w loading and fps. I played on a crappy laptop for the first six months myself. System config > graphics. Turn everything to "low" or "off". Put them back up when taking pretty screenshots. Also under Character config > Character you can turn down or disable battle effects. (aka flashy attack lights) IDK how much you know about DRK plot-wise, it's hard to talk about without spoiling shit, but I will say the storyline is one of the more fun and engaging ones. I like PLD as a class but the PLD story is...just sorta boring, haha. As a class it is a bit squishy for a tank, but I like that it keeps you busy. I play PLD when I'm tired or just want to chill out, your main priority is keeping the enemy busy so you don't do very much unless it's a cleave-heavy fight and you have to strategize with cooldown timing. DRK is basically "I am keeping the enemy busy by doing ABSURD AMOUNTS OF DAMAGE oh shit where did my MP go, WHO STUNNED THE BOSS I NEED IT TO HIT ME TO REGEN MP GODDAMMIT" The thing to remember about it is by level 50, your MP recovery combo does more damage than your enmity combo so enmity combo is basically useless unless your DPS is super overgeared and pulling off you. And you basically HAVE to spam Souleater to use Dark Arts enough.
yeah I've got lots of shit turned down real low lmao I still Suffer. I need to disable battle effects though, I keep forgetting to do that. I don't mind spoilers and I have a basic idea of the class lore concept (it's the Fuck You Inquisition class, that's why it... works... so well for Asch...), so! I am sure that advice will be more meaningful to me when I have actually played it [/has only played DPS and the minimum amount of cnj you need to unlock sch]
I will say the very first dark knight quest DOES have a rape reference thrown in that was not in the Japanese version (why...) but if you're leveling smn you probably saw the worst it can get with that level 15 class quest. Just...be warned there. I don't wanna spoil too much just because it's REALLY FUN to figure out what the hell is going on on your own, but the lvl 50+ class quests involve taking the "gruff adult man and cute little girl he's protecting" trope and turning it on its head. He's actually more like an angsty teenager w emotional problems and she actually calls him on his shit a few times. (They're hanging out in the Forgotten Knight if you want to say hi ;D) I'll write up a little tanking guide with stuff I wish I knew starting out, just gimme a bit :p
Take your time! I have a will-be-furiously-busy weekend job between me and actually getting playtime, and then I'll have to actually level Asch enough to get to tanking. However if you want to run literally any of the optional 50 dungeons let me know because I didn't do any of them on Cherna because I'm DPS and Fuck DPS Queues. And yeah, not only did I see the 15 arcanist quest but also... Livia... she and Asch are dating in Portes, sort of, because Problems Squad
Enzel's guide for baby tanks!! Uh, when I said "little guide" I meant...well...I FORGOT HOW MUCH I LIKE TALKING ABOUT THIS STUFF. I'm so sorry. This is too long. But I have no idea what to pare down. So I broke it up into sections. First of all, I'll say that you may know some of this stuff already but I'm gonna lay it all out anyway because some of it was NOT obvious to me when I started playing, and I wished people had explained it to me. Disclaimer: I know less about Warrior than the other two because I've only gotten it to level 50. Spoiler: General Tank Stuff Enmity/hate/aggro=all the same stuff. "Enmity" is the game's term for it, the other two are general MMO slang that probably carried over from WoW. There are two ways of checking on it on your UI, your party list and your enemy list. Your enemy list tells you where all the enemies are on your aggro table. As long as there's at least one enemy on it, you will be considered "in battle". (this makes speedruns of Praetorium really annoying because you can't cast Stoneskin II as a White Mage but I digress) In addition to the enemy names/hp/whatever, there are little shapes next to each one. ' These basically tell you how pissed the enemy is at you. Red square = full aggro Orange triangle = high Yellow triangle = low Green circle = none or basically that. As a tank, your goal is to have every enemy be red all the time. Your party list, on the other hand, will tell you everyone's aggro levels related to the specific enemy you are targeting at the time. The little white bar under your class icon is your relative aggro. A full bar means 100%. An empty bar means that enemy is probably green for that person. It can be anywhere in between. There are three ways to generate aggro. One is doing damage. Two is healing someone an enemy is mad at. (this is why, as a healer, the moment you heal the tank, all the enemies will pop up on your list suddenly.) Three is using tank skills that say "generates enmity" in the tooltip. #1 rule: PUT ALL YOUR SKILL POINTS INTO VITALITY. As of 3.2, Vitality actually contributes to tank damage output. It used to be strength, which is why there are strategy guides for "strength build tanks" around, but they're obsolete now. At max level DRK you may want to play around with some points in INT or piety, but while leveling, stick with vitality. It gives you HP and helps you hit stuff harder. While doing damage is the DPSs' job, it also helps you generate aggro by itself, so you wanna do it. Paladin is a pretty classic tank, in that the strategy of the class is to prevent damage before it hits, hence the shield and lots of defensive cooldowns. Warrior has more HP and relies on self-healing (which also generates aggro, incidentally) after the damage is done rather than preventing it. Dark Knight...has sorta overtaken Warrior as the DPS tank, essentially. They're definitely more fragile than the other two, but they kinda destroy stuff, so...tradeoff. Also, you shouldn't have too much trouble if you cross-class defensive cooldowns from the other two. Spoiler: Cross Class Skills CROSS CLASS SKILLS: Paladin gets skills from Conjurer (up to level 34) and Marauder (up to level 26). Warrior gets skills from Gladiator (up to level 34) and Pugilist (up to level 42) Dark Knight gets skills from Gladiator (up to level 34) and Marauder (up to level 26). The MOST essential tank skill is Provoke (GLA lvl 22). What Provoke does is bump you up just above the person with the highest aggro on an enemy. So if the BLM pulls the boss off you, or you die and get rezzed and suddenly it's green, this is how you steal it back. Note that all it does is put you JUST ABOVE the other person, so it's best so follow it up with your ranged attack (Shield Lob/Tomahawk/Unmend) or your aoe if the enemy is close enough (Flash/Overpower/Unleash) because if that person keeps hitting the enemy they'll just take it right back. (this is why Quelling Strikes is important for bard/blm/smn/mch, as is Shroud of Saints for WHM and Luminiferous Aether for AST, idk if Scholar ever gets a similar thing. They knock your aggro down which makes it easier on you AND the tank.) Other useful skills for DRK: From MRD: Foresight (lvl 2, boost phys defense), Bloodbath (lvl 8, gain back HP with every hit you land), Mercy Stroke (lvl 26, extra dmg, sweet 20% heal if you time it correctly) From PLD: Convalescence (lvl 10, boost HP recovery from heals. only works on spells, not stuff like Second Wind), Awareness (lvl 34, protects you from crits) stuff I didn't mention: Savage Blade/Skull Sunder = useless, you have Spinning Slash which does exactly the same thing, plus you don't get combo damage from cross class skills. Fracture = you have Scourge, also the extra time it takes to use it you can be doing other, better stuff Flash = Unleash is better. Flash is only useful for Warrior/low level MRD in a pinch. As Paladin: Same stuff from MRD as Dark Knight. Fracture is kinda useless as it takes a GCD you could be using to get things to pay attention to you, and when you're leveling Paladin, that's tough until you hit level 40. At 50 you get Circle of Scorn which makes a single-target DOT pointless. The conjurer skills you can swap out based on what's most useful to you while soloing. Just keep in mind your Cure/Protect/Stoneskin won't be as potent as they are coming from a healer with full Mind. (heh) But they can be handy if you're running with a Scholar or Astrologian that hasn't done THEIR job cross-classing and are missing Protect or SS. As Warrior: Conv/Provoke/Awareness. Flash is helpful when you want to conserve TP but keep in mind your MP pool is very small, you'll probably be only able to use it 2-3 times at most. (also, before you hit level 30 you can use Invigorate from Lancer which makes you REALLY FUCKING BROKEN [evil laughter, spams Overpower] ) From Pugilist: Second Wind is nice for the heal, Internal Release is vital for your dmg output, Haymaker and Featherfoot are...eh, maybe useful for soloing. Mantra is best left to a DPS that has it but it's not bad to have, just a pain to level Monk that high if you don't intend to play it. Spoiler: SO YOU WANT TO BE AN EDGELORD If you're starting off with DRK, especially if you haven't tanked before, my recommendation is to start out with the level 10 guildhests. Heavensward classes start at level 30, which means you have to learn and memorize 30 levels worth of skills at once. However, if you look at the tooltips, you'll see that those skills DO have a "level learned" on them that varies. This is for content that syncs you under 30 and also Palace of the Dead (where you start from lvl 1.) Therefore, going into level 10 content and moving up thru guildhests and dungeons slowly lets you learn your skills at a less overwhelming pace. Another recommendation is to do the Tank Novice training if you haven't already. It teaches you some basics and is good practice. Your top priorities: keeping the enemies busy and keeping your MP up. Dark Knight is a bit unique in that it uses a lot of MP-based skills. (PLD has only two, Flash and Clemency) As you get higher in level, you need to get used to your MP bar constantly being in flux. Darkside, which you want to be up as much as possible, will constantly drain your MP. But it also nullifies some of the damage reduction from Grit and gives you access to certain skills you can't use without it. Use Blood Price and your MP combo as much as possible to keep up with MP regen. Your hardest hitting skills (Dark Passenger, Dark Arts) eat an absurd amount of MP, so by level 50 this is very necessary. Esp starting out, don't worry about using Scourge on trash pulls. Save it for bosses. Or trash that takes an especially long time to die. (that sounds really really morbid out of context) Just use Unmend and then Unleash a couple times, then move into your enmity combo. (hard ->spinning -> power slash) Once you're sure no one's going to pull off you, you can start busting out the damage combo (hard slash ->syphon strike -> souleater) Once you have Delirium use it first instead of Souleater to get that debuff out if the enemy does magic damage. Otherwise stick to Souleater and use Dark Arts whenever you can. I like to use it right before Syphon Strike since that will recover a chunk of the MP you just used on it. Then it will activate when you use Souleater. Spoiler: Skill and Attack Breakdowns Shadowskin/Shadow Wall: damage reduction. Use your discretion. ("reduces damage taken" means it works for both physical and magic attacks) Low Blow: Stun. Use whenever it's up for extra damage, unless you are timing stuns for a reason. Blood Weapon: Use whenever it's up. Helps w MP regen and damage. Cannot be used while in tank stance, for DPS only Reprisal: Pops up when you parry something. Use it immediately. Puts a debuff on the enemy that cuts their outgoing dmg. Darkside: Drains MP, boosts damage. USE IT. It will fall off if you run out of MP. Astrologians' Ewer card will not work on you while it's active. Neither will Bard MP song. :( My strat is to drop it between pulls to regen MP faster and then slap it back on right before I pull again. Dark Dance: Increases parry. Awesome if you need to stun stuff later because you get a trait that chance resets your Low Blow timer every time you parry. Also parry is a bit like block in that it mitigates damage taken. Blood Price: restores MP relative to damage taken. Do not use in conjunction with defensive cooldowns or stuns, will reduce the amount you get back. Dark Passenger: Line AoE. Can only be used w Darkside on. Use it when you can. Eats a lot of MP. Dark Mind: Boosts magic defense. Good against caster enemies. Dark Arts: eats a big chunk of MP, powers up certain abilities once per cast. Lasts about 10 seconds or drops off once you use a move that links w it. --Power Slash: Boosts enmity --Dark Dance: increases evasion by 20% --Souleater: boosts potency from 240 to 400 --Dark Passenger: boosts potency from 150 to 250 and adds Blind effect --Dark Mind: increases magic def from 20% to 30% --Abyssal Drain: Absorbs 100% of damage dealt as HP --Carve and Spit: boosts potency from 100 to 450, but removes MP recovery effect Living Dead: lasts for 10 seconds. If you take a hit that should kill you during that time, you'll survive it but your status will change to "Walking Dead". While Walking Dead you are more or less invincible, but if you aren't fully healed by the time it wears off, you will die right as soon as it does. Useful in a pinch. Salted Earth: Placeable AoE that does DoT to anything standing in it. Not unlike Shadow Flare. Use it whenever possible, esp at the beginning of a fight. Abyssal Drain: Ranged AoE spell centered on target. Sole Survivor: Marks an enemy, if that enemy dies within 15 secs you regain 15% HP and MP. Not super necessary all the time but very nice for intense fights and spoiling your healer. Carve and Spit: Off GCD attack, does a measly 100 potency but gives you some MP. Better used with Dark Arts for damage boost whenever possible. Stuff that overlaps w other tanks If you HAVE tanked before, a lot of the skills are nearly identical, or have equivalents. I prefer putting similar skills in the same slots for when muscle memory takes over. Unleash (DRK): Circular AOE, does damage and grabs aggro. Uses MP Flash (PLD): Circular AOE, grabs aggro. (no damage. It's best to hit each enemy with one of your single target combo moves after this to ensure they stick to you.) Uses MP Overpower (WAR) Conal AOE, does damage and grabs aggro. Uses TP Unmend (DRK): Ranged attack. Also increases aggro. Uses MP Shield Lob (PLD): Ranged attack. Also increases aggro. Uses TP Tomahawk (WAR): Ranged attack. Also increases aggro. Uses TP Hard Slash/Fast Blade/Heavy Swing: Basic attack/Combo opener Spinning Slash/Savage Blade/Skull Sunder : 2nd combo attack/enmity generation Power Slash/Rage of Halone/Butcher's Block: 3rd combo attack/enmity generation. RoH puts a strength debuff on the enemy. Syphon Strike/Riot Blade/Maim: secondary combo attack, combos off opener. The first two regain MP and do more damage than the enmity-generating equivalent, Maim does less dmg but gives dmg buff. Souleater [also Delirium]/Storm's Path [also Storm's Eye]/Royal Authority: 3rd move of secondary combo. These all do different things depending on class. Souleater restores HP when Grit is on and does an absurd amt of damage when paired with Dark Arts. Delirium puts an INT debuff on the enemy and does the most damage when you can't use Dark Arts. Storm's Eye/Path each deal damage and put different debuffs out. Royal Authority is just pure damage. Scourge/[none]/Fracture: single target damage over time. Low Blow/Shield Bash/Brutal Swing: damage/stun. PLD version is a GCD move, the other two have their own cooldowns. Grit/Shield Oath/Defiance: Tank Stance. If you have it, use it unless you're soloing. (can sometimes be useful for solo instances when you need to protect NPCS.) [none, just Darkside alone]/Sword Oath/Deliverance(?) DPS stance, use when off tanking or soloing. Plunge/Spirits Within/??? Off GCD attack, just use whenever it's up. Plunge can be used from range and will move you up close to an enemy very quickly. Spirits Within will also cause Silence. Not sure if WAR really has an equivalent. General tips: Read your tooltips, especially when you level. Check your Traits every now and then. What Traits do is modify certain abilities. For example, Ninja poisons start at +5% and +10% dmg respectively, but at level 50 they are both +20% due to a Trait. Some abilities will gain extra effects as you level. Traits will disappear while level synced under the level you obtain them.
In some form of order: I already know Cure/etc won't be as potent on PLD, I play summoner and prayer circle my physicks a lot. Multiclassy abilities are generally low priority for me right now; I leveled Thaum to swiftcast for my summoner and that's about all I have done with that kind of thing. (As it is I usually use it for post-revive resummoning.) Knew about enemy list aggro (I'm a summoner, I carry my own tank, etc etc), didn't know about the party bar aggro. The more you know! I've heard from a friend of mine that DRK is the most complicated set of abilities to keep track of? That's part of why I was going to PLD first (even though, really, Asch is an drk down to his toenails lmfao).
