FFXIV: Omega Deltascape

Warning: Contains Spoilers for FFXIV Stormblood.

Running Omega wasn’t actually on my to-do list this weekend. Logging in Friday night, I didn’t have the ilvl to run it if I wanted to. I hadn’t even unlocked Expert Roulette at that point, so that’s the first thing Syn and I got to doing for the weekend.

During those runs, a LOT of gear dropped for my Red Mage. That, combined with the Verity I earned, put me over the minimum ilvl to enter Omega. I still really wasn’t going to try until my sister started asking if we were going to give it a shot. So, we got together a group that contained the Posse and a few various people from the FC. We were all completely new to these runs, and actually went in blind to a few of them.

Here’s my thoughts.

Storyline

The overall idea of the story is interesting but a little gimmicky. I can forgive the interdimensional rift thing because I have those in my stories, too. Heck, this actually gives me more canon to play around with for when I finally get my own fan story journal off the ground.

Also, any plot device used to enable me to fight bosses from legacy Final Fantasy games is welcome. This one was all about FFV — but I’d love to see them delve just a little into FFIV sometime! Someone on Reddit suggested a series of boss fights with the Four Fiends would be awesome. And a Golbez minion, please? Yes?

Anyhow… I read someone who described this as Dissidia in FFXIV. Yeah, that sounds pretty close. It’s wonky. It’s different. And with Nero on board, it’s always quirky.

I’m looking forward to where this can lead in the future. But then, I’m only in it for the story.

The Fights

I really appreciated that this raid no longer threw in a bunch of trash before the boss. The fights are streamlined straight on through, and don’t waste my time. Boss fights, however, feel really long, but that’s probably because we’re all at or just above ilvl for them right now.

Mechanics. What can I say about mechanics? They aren’t so much hard as they are just a ton of them piled one on top of each other. Alex 1-4 Normal is a cakewalk compared to the number of things these raids throw at a player.

They took a cue from Lakshmi with the new “alternate skill” button — not sure what else to call this thing — for the second fight. Here, you use it to enable yourself to float and avoid damage and AOEs on the ground. It’s a skill well-woven into the fight, and I really like this whole alternate skill idea. It lets the devs play around with new things.

However, it also feels like the devs said, “Well, Sprint no longer takes up TP, so you better be ready to use it in battle at all times!!!” There were soooo many times when mechanics were flat out plastered everywhere on the floor except one little spot — saw this in the Menagerie, too. The floor is lava, but worse. Just death everywhere!

The other thing I’ve noticed is that these fights introduce the idea of having to wait, even when you’re marked with a mechanic. For example, in the first battle, there are times when you’re marked with a lightning circle. However, the ground is turned to ice… so if you were to try to follow your first instinct and move away from other people hurry-skirry, you’re likely to end of slipping to your death.

Instead, players have to learn when to pause and when to move. That takes a level head and real knowledge of what the markers mean. Up until now, FFXIV has taught us that overlapping circles mean death that you need to instantly respond to… and they still do… but those overlapping circles give you a little time to pause for other death mechanics around you. It’s an interesting way to switch it up.

Our FC group picked up a couple randoms and did really well on the first two fights considering some of us went in blind with only Vix to call mechanics. In fact, I don’t think we saw a single death on V1 or V2.

However that third boss and her infernal ribbiting!

On Friday, we had to call it a night after wiping her several times, and enraging her at least once. On Saturday we got a full party together with some folks who were a bit more practiced with it, and came at it with improved weapons and ilvl. We still wiped a few times, but then when we took a step back and took note of what the mechanics were doing, we got it on the third try.

Note to Self: Don’t go into these things blind. Always watch a video… I’ve learned that I need to internalize the mechanics before I try them. I should have learned that from my terrible, and only, Alex 12 run.

I still haven’t cleared the final floor of Omega yet, as we gave it a break on Sunday. I’m in no rush to do it as I don’t care about the gear. I’ll probably just do the clear to see the story and, staying true to the promises I made myself, leave it at that. I don’t have any real reason to run Omega every week, to be honest. I have way too many other things to be doing in game!

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