FFXIV: Deepshadow Barding & FATE Progress
One of my goals for this past month was to work on completing the FATE log challenges in every zone of Shadowbringers. This expansion changes things up a little, as FATEs now drop gems which you can trade in for various things across the different zones. There’s three ranks you can achieve with each zone, and it takes 66 FATEs per zone to max it out.
At the beginning of the month, I was Rank 2 with each of the zones, and about 10 FATEs into the 60 I needed to go to Rank 3. I wanted to knock this out on my main, and while I enjoy FATEs, I knew I’d burn out fast if I did too much.
So my goal was to do at least 10 FATEs in a zone per day until I completed that area. I’ve been able to do that (and a little more) to finally reach this point last night:
Finishing up the Lakeland area gave me access to purchase the Deepshadow Barding for my chocobo. I wish I’d tackled that one first, because the barding is pretty spiffy, and a nice change of pace from the Yo Jimbo set I was using before. I like that set, but it really doesn’t fit with the feeling of the First.
Needless to say, this has been a pretty drawn-out undertaking. Usually, I’m the only one out there doing the FATEs since most folks are either done with this, or done with leveling and just don’t need it anymore. I was off doing other things while people were rushing the FATEs during launch, so now I’m dealing with that trade-off.
Because it takes so long, and because I’m the only one out there most the time, I learned really fast that taking a sub-80 class in hopes to level with FATEs really doesn’t work well. I mean, I can do it in the lower level zones, but it makes it far slower and there’s no promise that you’ll be able to take the NM FATEs at all.
So, I did all of this on my already leveled and mostly geared Red Mage. It’s sad that all that experience went to waste. But the trade off was time for me, and given that I want to do other things in a night, losing the experience was what I sacrificed.
I’m in my final zone now – leaving Tempest to last. I’d really like to get all of this finished up by the end of the month and just put it behind me. Especially since the Mogtome event starts on the 30th, and I want to focus on that. So, I’ve been doing a bit more than 10 each day to put me on track to be done by the final day of September.
Eventually, I might do this again for Amon. But if I do, it won’t be for a while. I’m ready to take a break from FATEs!