FFXIV: Alliance Raid Roulette is Great for Leveling!
The title of this article says pretty much all you need to know. The new Alliance Raid Roulette that was added in FFXIV Patch 4.1 not only revitalizes older content, but provides a reliable chunk of experience for characters level 50 to 70. It’s well worth doing!
Make Crystal Tower Great Again
Crystal Tower remains, hands down, my favorite alliance raid content in FFXIV. Labyrinth of the Ancients was the first raid content I experience in any MMO, and those raids went a long way in helping me overcome a lot of group anxiety I had at the time. The CT series was one that we’d take many of our fresh level 50 players through in the FC because it wasn’t traumatizing, but did help teach mechanics and teamwork.
In short, CT is the opposite of the newer brand of alliance raids that we’ve been seeing since Ozma graced us with his presence in Weeping City. I’m not a fan of any of the alliance raids after that point, and I don’t make any attempt to cover up my dislike of this shift to the ‘git gud’ mentality. But that’s a rant for another time.
Anyhow, once the new alliance raids came out in Heavensward, it naturally became harder and harder for new people to see the glory of Crystal Tower. And that was a real shame.
That’s why the Aether database organized a weekly Crystal Tower Sunday. This was unofficial, but it did seem to work for a while helping in with the very slow CT queue times. But even sometimes then, you’d wait 40-some minutes for one of the raids to pop.
The alliance raid roulette was something we’ve hoped for for a while, and now that it’s here, we can play CT anytime we like again! Not only that, but we’ve been able to introduce folks in our FC who have never unlocked this content to these old raids.
Even better, this roulette is extremely relevant to anyone leveling from 50 to 70.
**Note: There is a chance of getting the Heavensward raids in the roulette if you’ve unlocked them, you’re geared up, and above level 60. So it’s not just about making CT relevant, it’s all alliance raids. Interestingly enough, aside from one Void Ark, I haven’t seen the other two HW raids in this roulette yet. Not that I’m sad about that.
Leveling With Speed
There’s always been a substantial bit of slowdown in leveling alt jobs after 50. I’m the type of player who will not spam dungeons outside of a roulette to level. I’m not familiar enough with a lot of the hard mode level 50 dungeon mechanics to run the 50/60 roulette, so I just don’t. That means my main methods were daily beast tribes, hunts, daily leveling roulette and maybe some PotD.
So, for me, the alliance raid roulette really fills in a gap in leveling activities. I’ve seen the roulette consistently level people up, especially those in the 50s, and DPS classes who have long queues outside of this. Coupled with the squadron dungeons for leveling to 50, this has opened up a lot of new possibilities, and is extremely encouraging for those who want to level numerous jobs on one character.
I’ve got way too much work ahead of me!