FFXIV: A Weekend of Small Victories
This weekend in FFXIV has been one of many small victories and steps forward. I was very pleased to have capped out on Scripture Tomes mostly through runs of PotD with The Posse this week. As I deduced before, I didn’t touch Expert Roulette once, and I’m having a much better time of it.
The only downside to it all is that I’ve been the one running healer on our deep delves, but only my White Mage is level 60. I much prefer to heal with Scholar for a number of reasons, but I don’t have the job to 60 yet — just dinged level 56 last night, so I’m working on it!
Speaking of which, I finally earned my second glowy aetherpool weapon, and after much internal debate, I chose to pick up the Scholar book for when I do get the job to 60.
Crafting Progress
I bought another piece of Ironworks crafting gear this weekend, which put me right back to almost broke. It also puts me through halfway through buying the big gear, though, which is nice. The stat boost the gear gives has put me at a much more comfortable spot when trying to craft items for Blue Scrip turn-ins (yes, I’m very far behind).
So this weekend, I put some research into what I needed to do to start upgrading my tools to Script tools. This felt very nice…
Then I researched what I needed to make the counterfoil for the Goldsmith tools… This also felt very nice.
To turn it all in for my first Blue Scrip tool! Woo!
I’ve got a long way to go, but I’m getting there piece by piece. I haven’t started melding materia into any of it yet, though.
Alexander: The Creator
I told my FC that this time, I was going to try to finish Alex with the rest of them. So, I’m trying to make good on my promise.
The story has improved quite a bit with the time travel theme, and I’m curious how it’s going to turn out in the end. We had a mostly FC group on Saturday working for the clear, and was able to get to A11.
A9 took some learning and a few wipes. A10 we cleared on the first try with a little explanation on how the fight works.
A11, though, we worked on for a while and never got the clear. But I did get a good idea of how the mechanics work. We got past the orb phase the final time only to get trashed by mechanics right after the shield. Have no idea what happened there. There’s a lot of moving and awareness required, but it’s very do-able.
We’re taking you down next time…
The best part of the run is that I got loot drops on both floors, including one that I traded for my first ilvl 250 accessory for Zuri’s dragoon. Goodbye old ilvl 200 ring!
Starting to level up this Dragoon, finally!
Of course, I’ve been throwing tomes at Umbrite and Sands, too, in working on my Relic. I have a long, long way to go. I’ve actually had a strong flow of Poetics that has allowed me to purchase materials for all the sands I need without fishing, which has been quite nice.
Squad Progress
So my little squad hasn’t been doing too well, and I’m starting to find my stack of GC seals dwindling. Time after time, I’ve sent them out on the first level 5 mission, and they’ve failed it, even though they outlevel it and the stats required are pretty close to what they need.
So, I spent some time rearranging their stats a bit. I also earned a second new recruit through finishing a gathering challenge log. I was happy to see he’s a ninja, because I heard ninja have quite high tactics stats.
I’m also happy to see that new recruits seem to come to your GC with a level that’s fairly close to your existing Squad members. It was nice not to have to level him from scratch.
So, I sent the ninja out with the Squad instead of the monk this time, and finally completed the level 5 mission.
I decided to hold on to my seals, though, rather than throw them to a much harder level 10 mission that would “push them to their limits”. The missions reset tomorrow, and I’d much rather let them work on missions I know they can complete.
I’m still figuring this all out.