FFXIV: Jeuno the First Walk Alliance Raid
Posted on November 18, 2024 by Aywren
This past weekend, Syn and I ran the new FFXIV 7.1 Alliance raid, which I’ll just refer to as Jeuno from here on out. I waited until the weekend for a reason. I’ve heard the stories of people wiping the first few days, and I was hoping that waiting would pair us with folks who had run it before and who had a bit more knowledge of the raid.
We watched a video of the boss mechanics before going in, as we tend to do. Even so, there’s so much going on for some of these fights, it’s not until you are faced with doing the mechanics that you can actually learn them. Still, I like to be somewhat prepared with knowledge of what I’m about to face.
Our run must have been a lucky run, considering the tales I’ve heard of other runs. While we had lots of individual deaths across the board (even me), we never had a full team go down, nor did we wipe at any point. Again, I know that was a fluke, and we got very, very lucky.
As a Red Mage, one thing I enjoy most is working together with the healers to pull together a fallen team. There were times when we’d lost a healer and the other three DPS, but through communication, Syn and I were able to get everyone on their feet again.
Despite the numerous rezzes, I only walked away with one comm. But I did get a tank chestpiece out of the run, too, though I was really hoping to upgrade some of my caster gear.
I’ve been very, very lax on upgrading my gear this time around. I avoid running Expert Roulette, and tend to only run Alliance for tomes. And not even very consistently. So much of the gear drops in Jeuno are an upgrade for me.
Flashbacks to FFXI
While I have played my fair share of FFXI in the past, as I’ve written about on this blog, I never got in deep enough to scratch the surface of story or lore. Much of the references are lost to me in this raid, aside from a comment about the sub-job quest and, of course, Jeuno and some of the areas.
The music is really the highlight to me, and I love the way they’ve chosen to go about rewarding orchestrion rolls for this raid. Because there’s just so many songs on offer, you roll on a music scroll token, which you can then take to an NPC in Jeuno to select the scroll you want to unlock. I’m not sure if the orchestrion rolls are tradeable (they usually are), but as someone who collects the music in this game, I will be gunning to pick them all up eventually.
I know that this particular gear set is a big deal to FFXI folks. However, I haven’t sat down with the gear and tried out the dye options to see if it’s something I want to work towards. Aside from just being upgrades to what I’m currently wearing, the question of glam is in the air.
Overall Impressions
Again, I know I got extremely lucky on a team that was able to make it through the raid without a wipe. Looking at the fights, I feel the first two bosses are tricky but learnable. The third is fairly chaotic, and the fourth with the clone mechanics will likely always be troublesome to me.
Some folks have likened this to Orbonne difficulty, and I agree. It’s certainly going to give the unaware and unpracted a tough time. While I’m not a fan of overly difficult alliance raids – remember, these are somewhat here to help people catch up with gear – the truth is, this is a level 100 (optional) raid at this point, so a difficult curve can be expected.
I do think it’ll get better as people gear and learn the mechanics. I know it’s going to take some time for me to practice it, which I will be doing, for the sake of gearing and for music. Hoping for not too many wipes in the future!