Useful Final Fantasy XIV Macros

Hey all, I wanted to post some of my macros I use for gameplay for my jobs in Final Fantasy XIV. I think macros are a great way to make some shortcuts and make the gameplay experience a bit easier for all. I'll write down the macro, the instructions, and an explanation of what each one does.

Some commonly used terms:
 
/ac - Stands for "action".   
/macroicon "Name of Ability" or /micon "Name of ability" - Replaces the icon of the macro with the icon and cooldown of the name of the ability it's tied to.   
<t> - The current target. "<t>" is replaced for the current target of the player.   
<tt> - The current target of the target. "<tt>" is replaced with the target of your target.
<me> - Your character. "<me>" is replaced with yourself.
/wait # - The amount of seconds (denoted by #) one will wait before executing another line in the macro. Note if you hit another macro, the current macro is ignored in favor of the new one. So hitting different macros in succession for a lot of different wait timers will overwrite one another.
/echo "Insert text here" - Speaks to yourself and alerts you about anything you want.

Example: /ac "Cure" <me> would begin to cast the spell "Cure" on myself.

So let's get started! If you're on PC, you can copy/paste these right into your macro pages and they should work. Drag them onto your hotbar and you're good to go! If you're on PS3/PS4, print this page out or write these down and input them in manually. Good luck! (Just copy and paste the bolded parts.)

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Paladin/Gladiator/Warrior/Tank Macros:








Provoke Macro - Every tank should have this, especially for fights that require hate swapping in order to succeed. This macro effectively uses the provoke action and sends a ding on party chat to alert the party and/or the other tank that you just got the monster's attention.

/macroicon "Provoke"
/ac "Provoke" <t>
/wait 1
/p <<- Provoke @ <t> <se.10>

I play very nervously which causes me to spam the macro repeatedly. The /wait 1 before the final line ensures that the line at the end will only play once since hitting it repeatedly would cause the macros to override one another.

This macro effectively replaces my Provoke button on my hotbar and I've removed the original Provoke button from my ability list.

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Spirits Within  (Paladin Only) - Not exactly necessary, and may be borderline annoying. Considering taking this out depending on the viability of silencing monsters in the future. But this is mainly used as a heads up to other people on a Silence rotation that you're using your ability. 

/macroicon "Spirits Within"
/ac "Spirits Within" <t>
/wait 1
/p Spirits Within ---> <t> 
/wait 45
/echo Spirits Within is now up. <se.10>

This macro effectively replaces my "Spirits Within" button on my hotbar and I've removed the original "Spirits Within" button from my ability list.

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White Mage Macros:

Benediction Macro - I made this one as a safety catch. In normal gameplay, if you hit Benediction, it will automatically heal yourself and waste a cooldown on an important ability. For this reason, I wrote a macro that would force you to have someone targeted to use the ability so it wouldn't go to waste if you accidentally hit the wrong key.

/macroicon "Benediction"
/ac "Benediction" <t>
/p Benediction used on <t> --
 




This macro effectively replaces my Benediction button on my hotbar and I've removed the original Benediction button from my ability list.

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Eye for an Eye/Virus Macro - This can be used with Scholars as well. Casts "Eye for an Eye" on the target so they take reduced damage and then applies Virus to their target so they do less damage to it. Great for preparing for a strong attack on the tank like Titan's "Mountain Buster" which can do 1500-2000 damage+ if hitting an unmitigated tank.

/macroicon "Eye for an Eye"
/ac "Eye for an Eye" <t>
/wait 2
/ac "Virus" <tt>
/p Using Eye for an Eye on <t> and Virus on <tt>

This macro effectively replaces my "Eye for an Eye" and "Virus" buttons on my hotbar and I've removed the original "Eye for an Eye" and "Virus" buttons from my ability list.

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Divine Seal/Surecast Combination Ability - These two abilities are used together on my set. Surecast being used by itself is likely a waste of space, but feel free to correct me if you use White Mage and the ability often. I play White Mage very casually.

/macroicon "Divine Seal"
/ac "Divine Seal" <me>
/wait 1
/ac "Surecast" <me>



This macro effectively replaces my "Divine Seal" and "Surecast" buttons on my hotbar and I've removed the original "Divine Seal" and "Surecast" buttons from my ability list.

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Stoneskin Macro - Stoneskins the whole party automatically. This one is admittedly a bit broken if you have less than a full party. I would recommend keeping Stoneskin by itself as well on the hotbar so you can apply during the fight as needed.

/ac "Stoneskin" <1>
/wait 4
/ac "Stoneskin" <2>
/wait 4
/ac "Stoneskin" <3>
/wait 4
/ac "Stoneskin" <4>
/wait 4
/ac "Stoneskin" <5>
/wait 4
/ac "Stoneskin" <6>
/wait 4
/ac "Stoneskin" <7>
/wait 4
/ac "Stoneskin" <8>

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Aero/Aero II/Stone/Stone II Macros - The nuking spells for White Mage have to be cast on enemies. I've re-written these to work so that hitting these buttons will cast these spells when you have a party member targeted. Of course, the party member has to be attacking the boss. I usually do this with the tank targeted if everyone's good on HP in order to dish out a little DPS on my healer class. These macros make use of the "target of target" <tt> function I was talking about earlier.

Aero -



/macroicon "Aero"
/ac "Aero" <tt>

Aero II -

/macroicon "Aero II"
/ac "Aero II" <tt>

Stone -

/macroicon "Stone"
/ac "Stone" <tt>

Stone II -



/macroicon "Stone II"
/ac "Stone II" <tt>

The problem with these macros is that they're no good if you're soloing. If you want to solo, you could likely add the a third line below it that will cast it on <t> instead of <tt>.

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Black Mage Macros:

Manawall/Manaward Combo Macro - I find having Manawall and Manaward as separate abilities a waste of an ability space. If I am going to be hit by one devastating ability, I would rather have all my resistances go up at one time, so keeping them separate does me no good. I may get rid of this macro if fights in the future require these to be used separately, so this isn't an end all solution.

/macroicon "Manawall"
/ac "Manawall" <me>
/wait 2
/ac "Manaward" <me>

This macro effectively replaces my Manawall and Manaward buttons on my hotbar and I've removed the original Manawall and Manaward buttons from my ability list.

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Bard/Archer Macros:

Blunt Arrow Macro - Alerts the party and other silencers when you're silencing a monster if you need a silence rotation.



/macroicon "Blunt Arrow"
/ac "Blunt Arrow" <t>
/p << Silencing <t> with Blunt Arrow <se.11>
/wait 30
/echo Blunt Arrow is now up

FFXIV Character Appearance/Race Change!

Since we get one opportunity to change our race/looks of our 1.0 characters, I'm heavily considering changing to male mi'qote [cat man]!. I have a few templates in mind for a character. This is idea #1. What do you guys think?

Oh, yeah. Look at these fangs and ears! My decision has been solidified!

FFXIV: Server Transfer

The legacy servers for FINAL FANTASY XIV: A Realm Reborn have been announced, and it looks like Aegis (the server my linkshell/guild was on) is going to be a data server located in Japan. So it seems those of us who were NA/EU are transferring elsewhere because of latency concerns in the transition to the new game.

There were lots of cool people/adventurers that I met (and became facebook friends with) that might not necessarily be making the move to wherever we decide that our guild is going to go. And to those who will unfortunately not make the move with us, I say "thank you". Thank you for helping the first version of the game awesome. The game sure as hell wasn't, but it was the people I met along the way that kept me sticking around through it all. Sure there were some pricks along the way, but there were far more awesome people and a community that stuck together and saw the game evolved from what it was.

Look out, A Realm Reborn! Viva's coming to Hyperion!



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See you in FFXIV: ARR!

August 27th! I'll be on a legacy server though, since there's no way in hell I'm going to wipe my character with all those level 50's!

A May Gaming Rant!

It's the beginning of May, and I feel like talking about what I'm playing through or looking forward to in my spare time!


Final Fantasy XIV - Beta Phase 3

Since I'm a staff member on a FFXIV editorial site, I was allowed by Square-Enix to break the NDA to talk about my thoughts on the Beta Test version of "A Realm Reborn". You can see that editorial from all of the staff at "Secrets of Eorzea" here.

Phase 3 of the Final Fantasy XIV beta will be starting in early-June, which means I can use my level 50 character!

Though I have Paladin, Warrior, Black Mage, White Mage, Bard, Monk, and Dragoon at level 50, as for the launch, I'll probably only be gearing up PLD, WAR and BLM as main jobs and the rest will come on a greed or "gear up for xy content" basis. I'll be playing through the new low level content as Arcanist and that'll be quite the easy road to 50 because unlike players who are starting off who have all jobs to level on the quests they're handed, I can focus it all on one.

For more information on our linkshell, you can check out our newly created LS website that Elie's currently working on, or our linkshell's Facebook page. Elie will be posting LS strategies for upcoming content on the former, and I post a lot of up-to-date information on the latter, which you can find an interesting read if you're into Final Fantasy.

Linkshell Group at Castrum Novum

(L to R) Divo Divine, Rionnen Ragnarok, Nyda Morioka, Candlestar Arandur, Raime Einherei, Me, Kitana Masters, Zell Dragori, Elieris Zaelen, Clayers Ray, Lukeprime Titan

Pokemon SoulSilver

I stopped playing this a few years ago (early 2011?) when Pokemon Black Version came out. I transferred all of my Generation IV pokemon from SoulSilver and Pearl Version over so they arepretty much completed games with NO pokemon on them at all. (Well, except an event notched ear Pichu I couldn't do anything with.)

Though Pearl was my first version since taking a near 7-8 year hiatus from Pokemon. (It was a mix of peer pressure in middle school when Yu-Gi-Oh was the new thing and my great displeasure with how Ruby and Sapphire essentially rebooted the franchise), I felt like I played that version to death and caught what I needed to.

SoulSilver, however, I felt like I greatly rushed. I had level 100's from Pearl and LeafGreen (which I played after Pearl) and I traded them over when I got to the Kanto region making it a very swift adventure and in a sense killing the enjoyment.

Now that my Level 100's are on Generation V, and there are some holes that need to be filled on that dex, especially when my V pokemon get uprooted to Generation VI X and Y, I wanted to give SoulSilver what I feel is a fair playthrough.

So I deleted the file with no pokemon and started anew, nicknaming my whole team and generally having some fun in the process.

I just got to Azalea Town last night and I'm in the Slowpoke Well. My team is looking as follows ---

Totodile - "Chompy" - Level 14
Ledyba - "Bugbug" - Level 13
Ekans - "Charbuckle" - Level 13
Wooper - "Woopah" - Level 9
Slowpoke - "Pokeygirl" - Level 6


Other games I'd like to play:

I'm pretty limited on spare time, so I only allocate a few hours of gaming (if that) a night. I have a feeling it'll pick up again once "A Realm Reborn" launches and I have linkshell events every evening again. But most of my once gaming time is used for work and setting up a development studio nowadays. After SoulSilver is complete, I'd like to use that time to finish Xenoblade Chronicles, as I keep putting off for some reason. Dragon Age, too.




That's about it for now. Until next time!



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Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn Announcements : Likes and Dislikes

Note: This is only going off official announcements so far. I can't comment on any non-sanctioned Alpha/upcoming Beta game-play due to existing NDAs in place. I will be using official released videos/dev tracker/producer letters as sources for this post. So no cease-and-desist orders, okay?

"A Realm Reborn" will be going into beta testing phase 1 very soon, as a Legacy member, I will have the opportunity to play phase 1 of the beta test. I wanted to publicly express what I like and dislike about the new remade version of FFXIV based off official announcements and translations we have had so far. 


Likes: 


Improved Targeting Mechanics/New Server Architecture/HUD:

Source:
Levequests/Targeting System: @1:17
Party HUD: @2:42





Targeting:

The most important aspect of the list. Targeting mechanics in FFXIV 1.0 were very awful. There were some temporary "band-aid" like fixes to the targeting system to hold us over, (Target Mode A/B/C) but it required completely changing the game configuration in order to play different jobs.

For example, when playing Paladin/Gladiator, I would have Target Mode set to "All" so I could target party members for abilities like "Cover" as well as hold hate against the enemy and heal myself if I need to. When playing Black Mage/Thaumaturge, I would have the target mode set to "Enemy Only" so I could focus on nuking/targeting enemies efficiently. White Mage was the worst of them all. At first I would have "Party Only" in order to just heal/buff party members, but when I started using it for Hamlet Defense, it wouldn't work for healing/buffing the NPCs, so I needed to go to "All" which required quickly tabbing through all of the monsters to get to where I needed. Frustrating!

According to the video above, "A Realm Reborn" seems to be doing away with the differing targeting modes and have it based on different actions themselves hoping making the ordeal of playing a variety of different jobs/classes much easier. 



Server Architecture:

Targeting was the most important on the list, and this has to be the aspect that the the most frustrating.

For "A Realm Reborn", servers have been re-coded and re-designed from scratch to be more efficient.

Like it or not, most of Final Fantasy XIV 1.0's difficulty came from how well you and your party can adjust to lag and latency in the fights themselves.

In fighting Ifrit: Hard Mode, there were cracks that appeared on the ground. It was your responsibility to be able to avoid the cracks before they erupted with fire. (It would seriously damage, if not, kill you if you did not run away.) It's a fun little move, and adds some moving dynamic to the fight itself, and that's fine. However, I think the developers underestimated how much lag/latency plays an issue to how well people succeed in the fight. Especially in Ifrit: Extreme Mode on my server,  I hear stories that parties were 'almost' forced to use players based in Japan in order to give them the heads up that a move was taking place, because the game was so slow in executing the move that by the time it appears, your HP is already dropping.

In the Garuda primal fight, the difficulty came from how well you can get out of the way from the tornadoes, and avoiding her dashes if you were unfortunate enough to not do enough damage. The fight itself was a big gear check. The fight had three distinct phases, and by the time of 1.0's end, most players found a way to skip the second phase entirely to get her to the last phase and finish her off from there. But to those who had to bear through the second phase, getting to the other side of the battlefield from where she was was a minor obstacle. (Teleporting to the middle was a sure fire death, even running behind her you never had enough time due to server latency.)

Nael Van Darnus was better designed to handle the latency. The main lag in that fight was the occasional laser shoot beam thingy. At first, I had trouble getting to avoid that as a tank, but then I developed a method to avoid it. ("One-mississippi, two-mississippi, RUN!") and even though I got hit by the laser animation, I never took any damage, it considered me avoiding it. Huh.

Players in Europe had the most problems playing the game due to the extreme latency and distance from the Japanese-based servers.


The usual response I get from fellow players on this issue goes along the lines of "It was easy!", "Play better next time", or the like. I won't disagree that there isn't room for improvement gear-wise, but it would be an outright lie to say that most of the skill in these fights come from not the obstacles themselves but how well you get used to the lag/delay on the moves themselves.


In "A Realm Reborn", servers are going to be based out of different data centers world wide. As well as the game utilizing an MMO-friendly engine rather than a modification of Final Fantasy XIII's Crystal Tools game engine. I'm hoping with these two major improvements, players would be able to react based on their actual skill and intuition rather than the latency. Well, a game is always going to have lag/latency. No one has a perfect internet connection, but reducing it as much as possible goes a long way.



Improved HUD:  

 

In the video above, the new HUD shows what party members are casting at all times. It seems a bit insignificant, but in the events I posted above (Ifrit, Garuda, Nael Van Darnus) we would always parse the amount of damage people did in each fight and we would be somewhat puzzled when the total damage outputs looked something like this:

Black Mage 1: 22969
Black Mage 2: 20780
Black Mage 3: 11220

See a big discrepancy there? Chances are, Black Mage #3 wasn't doing his/her share of the spells. In some early cases, I was Black Mage #3. But what happened to fix that was people would ask me what spells I was casting, and we were able to fix it after the run ended and I was able to be Black Mage #2. I was never Black Mage #1. XD

But the point is, the party slots can be organized by job, and we can figure out who the bad apple is and try to correct the casting as the battle is going rather than try and fix it afterwards or even worse than that, them not knowing the reasons on what they're casting and why.

For example, we were doing an event, and one of the Black Mages was using Flare, and Blizzard/Blizzara for little to no damage. They were unaware that Flare is radial around the caster and won't hit mobs from a distance, Blizzard and Blizzara are similar but more of a "get the hell out of dodge" run away spells more or less. By seeing them cast in the HUD, we can stop them immediately and tell them to stick to the spells more appropriate for the situation. 

FATE System:

The FATE System stands for "Full Active Time Event" (ha, Final Fantasy IX reference!) . Players will be able to come together and are automatically partied up to do an in-game event. While the game term is from FFIX, it has been likened to that of recent MMO "Guild Wars 2" in its implementation of dynamic in-game events.

It has been confirmed so far that FATE will be used for Chocobo Escort missions, Hamlet Defense Battles, and an upcoming battle against the Behemoth and other notorious monsters.

There will be 5-10 FATE events per zone. Maybe some achievements for doing FATEs too? That would be lovely.

Since Hamlet is changing to what I understand to be an open-world defense battle... how will getting relic quest items change I wonder?


Possible Removal of Speedruns as a primary requiremnt of getting gear?: 



It's been confirmed that gear you could only get via speedruns from dungeons will be a drop in "A Realm Reborn" such as Darklight gear. But the ways of getting them will change. However, from the above video, it seems that a time limit of some sort will remain.

Some interview questions and answers from JPGames Interview:

JPGames-Frederick: And what about the time limit on current dungeon raids? Will they remain in A Realm Reborn?

Yoshida: The raids in the current version are basically things we have put together with very limited methods and that is why they are limited at the moment. This is not what we want to do in A Realm Reborn, we want to create many different things. Expect that instanced raids in the new version will be a lot of fun. We will probably remove the time attack type of system where you are fighting against a boss. Yeah, our instanced raids will have many different settings where you have to go through in order to make it to the final boss. 

JPGames-Frederick: So it will possibly take a lot of time to clear those dungeons?

Yoshida: Yeah.

Limit Breaks:


Still too early to see how this will come out, but I would like to see how Limit Breaks work and how often they can be used.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dislikes:

What class you start as determines your starting nation:

It's been confirmed that what class/job you start off as determines where you end up in. The class/job matches the guild.

For example, the Conjurer's, Lancer's, and Archer's guild is in Gridania. The Marauder's and Arcanist's guild starts in Limsa Lominsa, and the Gladiator's, Pugilist's, and Thumaturge's Guilds are in Ul'dah.

This bugs me greatly. If I was a new player, and I wanted to be a Gridanian, I would need to start as a Lancer, Archer, or Conjurer.

Limsa Lominsa is going to be shafted in the newbie department because they get 1/3 less players by default. Gridania gets three classes to where people end up, Ul'dah gets three classes, and Limsa only two. 

Hmm...

Spiritbinding prevents trading to others or re-selling gear:

Spiritbonding is when points goes to your gear and weapon when you begin to equip and use it. Once a weapon is 100% spiritbonded, you can choose to convert your gear into materia to attach onto better gear.

Confirmed on Friday that once an item has had one point of Spiritbond attached to it, it will not be tradable/sellable.

This is a touchy subject. I can see WHY they did it, for economic purposes in the game, and simplying the process.

But there should be some kind of fee or penalty and be able to un/de-spiritbond an item. Prices for multiple-melded pieces of equipment are going to skyrocket because people will either craft them to sell or wear.

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Wow, that was a longer rant than I expected. Well, I'll see how these events will play out in the beta. I'm mostly optimistic. We'll see!




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It's been a while since I've talked about FF MMOs, hasn't it?

Viva Eorzea 5 Minutes before Dalamud Impact

It's been a while since I've blogged about Final Fantasy MMOs.

Since Dalamud crashed, I've kind of been wandering in lack of MMO-land until "A Realm Reborn" hits beta testing.

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My thoughts on FFXI/Adoulin:

In the meantime, I've heavily considered coming back to Final Fantasy XI, and old friends have suggested I come back to that game, but despite the announcement of "Seekers of Adoulin", I still think the game has grown largely stagnant. MMOs are nice but without a story to play on, I'm just not interested. I think my Vana'diel days will remain in the past for now.

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Viva Eorzea:

In terms of Final Fantasy XIV, I'm coming back with Viva Eorzea in full swing, though we will likely move to a North American server. We've switched things up, though. The vision of the linkshell in 1.0 was to recruit as many people as possible, but due to the changes in the game, We're changing it to be more of a small close-knit LS that gets things done on our own. With most events requiring a party of 8 and some raids requiring 24 people, it shouldn't be that big of a deal, luckily.

Oh! Voice chat. If I had the option, I hope voice chat isn't as integral to success in ARR that it was in 1.0 (but it probably still will be). Instead of paying to use Ventrilo or the like, we've settled on RaidCall, a free voice chat service. It is (to my great surprise) a really good program, and like I said, free!

Our LS Room is...

Room: Viva Eorzea
Room ID: 5547535

and my username is "UltKnightGrover". Feel free to say hi. Unless you're an official member, you will be restricted to the Lounge or AFK rooms.

Did I mention I hate talking? I regularly mispronounce things and constantly stutter.
Anole = Anal
Marauder = Marooder

Oh, the list goes on. Try pronouncing "Qufim Island".

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Character Creation:

Anyway, character creation...

We all get one free chance to re-create our character and retain our stats and what not. I'm debating on being either a dark-skinned hyur like my current build OR changing to a male cat-man with similar skin features as my Hyur. I'm largely undecided. We'll see! I do hope we get more hair options. I was unsatisfied with my hairstyle in 1.0. (See below)

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Music:

I do love some of the new music. It seems most of the new themes are composed by Masayoshi Soken while still using "Answers" from Nobuo Uematsu as the main theme for the whole game in general.

I like Soken's compositions as they're more ambient and more fitting for a MMO and not as repetitive as Uematsu. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the old FFXIV themes, but the repetition doesn't have the appeal after a while. I hope the old FFXIV themes by Uematsu are used and restricted to cutscenes only. (And the victory theme stays in the game for...obvious reasons!)



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Limit Breaks:

New adventures? New raids to complete! I'm looking forward to this. How frequent can they be activated, when is appropriate to trigger a Limit Break? It sounds exciting!

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Score to Settle:

Oh yeah, see these people? They will die. Eventually! We have a score to settle in 2.0. :)





I'll be around in the first phase of the Beta due to my status as a Legacy Member. Until next time!



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I met a Final Fantasy friend in real life!

Yesterday, after months of planning, I got to meet a long time Final Fantasy friend in person!

Those of you who have played XI or XIV with me will recognize who it is, I'd rather not display their name for everyone to see here, but I'm very happy to finally meet a friend I met in an online game in person.

We're gonna plan to meet again real soon in order to actually do things like raids in "A Realm Reborn" in the same room, will be fun!

People have said I look angry or unamused in the picture - that is definitely not the case. A mix of a lack of sleep and me not being very photogenic >.<

The End of Final Fantasy XIV 1.0: The Coming of the Seventh Umbral Era - What a Weekend (Part 2)

XIV Terminology you'll want to know for this post.

Seventh Umbral Era - The era that is to take place after the events of the Meteor crash, and the small in-game events that took place before that.

Louisoix - An old sage who in the 1.0 version was a major NPC involved with fighting the primals (summons) of Final Fantasy XIV. Dies in the final meteor impact while using the twelve to attempt to seal Bahamut. Uses a spell from one of the twelve in order to send surviving adventurers to the future where they would be safe.

Dalamud - Eorzea's lesser artificial moon. It is summoned closer by the enemy Garlean Empire. Every patch leading to the meteor impact, it would grow larger in the sky. Bahamut cracks out of this in the meteor impact (below)

The Twelve -  The Twelve gods of Eorzea. Summoned by the players with /pray in the final 1.0 mission in order to try to rid Dalamud from impact. Used by Louisoix to attempt to seal Bahamut away with the players' help. Fails when it's shattered free. Louisoix uses the power of  "Althyk the Keeper" the Eorzean god of space and time to transport everyone to the future before being killed by Megaflare. The Twelve are gods, do not confuse with primals (the in-game XIV summons.) They are not the same, summoning the twelve can cause doom/chaos and is only left to important NPCs.

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    @1:31 - The three Grand Company leaders of the three city-states  @1:35 -  Gaius (FFXIV's Main Antagonist) @2:28 - Cid in FFXIV

On midnight on Sunday, November 11th, the original version of Final Fantasy XIV went down in anticipation for the re-launch of the game, titled "A Realm Reborn".

Here is the in-game justification of the impact, as said by Final Fantasy XIV developers themselves.

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Eorzea. A Land embraced by Gods and forged by Heroes.

Seeking control over this realm and its abundant crystal resources, the Garlean Empire (a scientifically advanced nation hailing from the north) begins gathering an army of epic proportions. To ready themselves for the coming conflict, the city-states of Eorzea reinstate the Grand Companies?comprehensive centers of command which combine the commonwealths' military and economic assets. However, the commander of the invading forces, VIIth Imperial Legion Legatus Nael van Darnus (a.k.a. “White Raven”), has plans of his own. Driven by madness, he silently plots to usher in a more permanent form of devastation: Meteor.

The Meteor project is comprised of a complex scheme employing arcane magicks and lost technology to summon the lesser moon down to Eorzea in an attempt to annihilate the realm's inhabitants in one fell stroke. Dalamud, as the celestial object is commonly known, is revealed to be a colossal machine launched thousands of years ago into the planet's orbit by an ancient civilization.

Realizing the futility of standing alone against such a threat, the Grand Companies put aside deep-rooted differences and consolidate their forces under the banner of the Eorzean Alliance.

At the behest of this new confederation, adventurers from across the realm take up arms and march on the floating islands of Rivenroad. Here, the brave heroes confront Nael van Darnus, and after a heated battle, put him to the sword. But by this time, the White Raven's plan is too far along, and Dalamud continues its descent.

In an eleventh-hour bid to save mankind, the Grand Companies turn to Louisoix, an enigmatic scholar hailing from the forgotten city-state of Sharlayan. The 'Archon,' as he is called, devises a plan to summon the power of the Twelve, Eorzea’s pantheon of guardian deities, and use that power to banish Dalamud back to the heavens. But for this to succeed, the rite needs to be performed directly beneath the point of Dalamud's impact. After several sleepless nights of deliberation by the realm's foremost arcanists and astronomers, that point is determined to be a vast swathe of barren lowlands in central Eorzea known as the Carteneau Flats. With this information in hand, the Grand Companies order the immediate mobilization of their forces.

Unbeknownst to the Alliance, the soldiers of the VIIth Imperial Legion, oblivious to their leader's dark intentions, have also begun gathering in central Eorzea. Ordered to defend the area with their lives, they prepare for a fight, unaware that victory will bring about their own demise.

And so, with two great hosts amassed, the Battle of Carteneau begins.

Both sides fight with a desperation-fueled frenzy, neither yielding the other ground, until from the skies, a great roar issues. Dalamud has begun its final metamorphosis. In a matter of moments, the stone and metal of the moon's crust crumble away to reveal none other than the elder primal, Bahamut, now free from his ancient prison.

And thus do the people of Eorzea learn what it is that truly faces them. Never was it the White Raven's intention to blight the realm with Dalamud, but what slumbered within it.

Enraged after aeons of duress, Bahamut unleashes his wrath upon the realm, spewing forth endless fire and destruction. Louisoix quickly conjures a barrier to protect what remains of the Eorzean Alliance, and then begins the arcane rite that will channel the power of the Twelve and focus it into rebinding Bahamut. The sheer force of the primal, however, is too strong for even the Archon, and his efforts fail.

Realizing the end is nigh, Louisoix summons the last of his strength to call upon Althyk, the Keeper, god of space and time, to send those surviving heroes into an aetherial rift, where they are to remain untouched by the passing of the seasons until it is once again safe to emerge...and continue their struggle to forge Eorzea's future.
We await the return of FINAL FANTASY XIV: A Realm Reborn, and will look for you fellow adventurers in the dawn of a new Eorzea!

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"A Realm Reborn" is going to include new class/job See: Arcanist // See: Summoner  a redesigned user-interface with tutorials, a new storyline explaining the post-apocolypse. Redesigned towns (meteor was the in-game justification for the change of zones). And a battle system overhaul that includes Limit Breaks, new spells and attributes, and a free company-summoning system (different than Summoner job to where the company summons can summon the primal at its full unleashed power.)

Here is a video of the re-designed Gridania, which in my opinion, was the worst off area out of them all. (And I say that with love. Sort of. That is my home.)

Here are some final pictures we took on the few days before impact. The last one being 5 minutes before meteor hit. :) 

 

Did you know?

The final boss of 1.0 (Nael Van Darnus) gets the power of meteor in his second form. His ultimate move is Megaflare. Should have been a good hint about Bahamut coming.

Dalamud and Bahamut sound similar, and have the vowels in the same parts of the word.

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Some comments/questions I've been getting regarding relaunch:

Character data is not wiped. If you had a character in 1.0 and quit, you will be able to come back in ARR with your character. In fact, you will get a one-time chance to freely change your character look/race/gender/name with the new customization options they have given.

For people that stuck around in the hard times, they get a permanent discount of $9.99/month as opposed to people who will come back or join at PS3 release who will pay the standard rate of $12.99/month.

The alpha version will be coming out worldwide on November 26, 2012. They're about two months behind roadmap schedule, so the full version of the game should hit around March 2013.


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Grover's Guide to playing Black Mage (XIV)

Grover’s Guide to playing BLM:

Credit to Clayers Ray of Aegis Server where appropriate. 

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Cross-Class Abilities you should have for BLM:

Pugilist: Second Wind/Featherfoot

Archer: Quelling Strike/Chameleon

Conjurer (Optional): Sacred Prism

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Things you should shoot for stat wise:

INT: 325-ish+

Magic Accuracy: 471+ (For Garuda this should be in 490+ range)

Attack Magic Potency: 460+

Note from Clayers Ray: You can never have too much INT (literally as it doesn't cap, yet) for Garuda it's possible to do 100% acc. with 480+, so you can use that extra ten points on something else, and if you're in a party with a half decent tank the enmity - gear should never be worn (I don't even have them anymore)

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Good Gear Guide:

Most of the BLM AF as it is right now is useless. Dump everything in your storage container in your inn except the AF Body and Feet, that’s all you’ll want out of that.

Head: Felt Hat of Intelligence (Meld Magic Accuracy or INT)

Weapon: Lightning Brand or Electrum Scepter (Meld Magic Accuracy or INT)

Body: AF Body or Militia Body.

Note from Clayers Ray on Body Gear: If you're Uldah, get the officer coat for your BLM AF replacement. and for feet (if you can't afford by all means keep the feet) get Mahogany or Spruce pattens with AMP or Lightning potency materia.

Shield:  Depends on if you’re Twin Adder or not:

Twin Adder:  Gridanian Square Shield

Not Twin Adder: Aubriest Allegory

Hands: Mage’s Halfgloves

Legs: Felt Trousers (Meld INT/MND Materia)

Feet: AF Feet or Spruce/Mahogany Pattens with double Attack Potency meld.

Note from Clayers Ray on Feet Gear: Mahogany or Spruce pattens with AMP or Lightning potency materia.

Neck: Mage’s Choker (for Magic Accuracy) or Spinel Choker (For Attack Magic Potency)

Bracelet: Black Pearl Bracelet (Enmity-) or Zircon Bracelet (INT)

Belt: Raptorskin Satchel Belt (Meld Enmity – Materia), Raptorskin Satchel Belt (Meld MND) or Mage's Rope Belt (If deficient on Magic Accuracy)

Rings: Either Magic Accuracy or Intelligence Rings. It depends on what your numbers are and where you’re lacking. 

Combos:

Thunder/Thundara/Thundaga – The basic nuking combo for single target spike damage.  If Thundara is used without a combo, it has an additional stun effect. Not efficient for damage, but good for stunning a mob if it’s planning something deadly.

Thunder/Excruciate/Thundara/Resonance+ Quelling Strike/Dark Seal/Thundaga:  Great for spike damage. Good for Zergs. Good for Garuda if she teleports mid-combo. I use this to get off Thundaga if Garuda teleports. Most of the time because of Resonance, Thundaga will land.

Thunder/Thundara/Convert/Burst: Only good if low on MP and do not have hate. Use Thunder and Thundara to get low on MP, Convert, and then combo with Burst. Burst does more damage if combo’d with low HP. You can easily get a 1200+ spike damage. Warn your White Mage to cure you after you do the combo! Great for Garuda.

Fire/Fira/Firaga – Good for area nuking. If mobs are resistant against Thunder, like Golems or Thunder/Earth Elementals, use Fire combos.

Resonance+Flare/Blizzara – I use this for Aurum Vale and Skirmish. It’s great if you have these two abilities near each other on your bar or in a macro. Resonance enhances spell range, and Flare is … well Flare. Aurum Vale it’s good for mowing down a wide volley of mobs and anything that might be grabbed on the side. For Skirmish, it is good for the Golem or Tree, since it resets hate and runs over the place, with Resonance on, you can get a good DoT and the wide range helps Flare landing. Use Blizzara after to do any damage if mobs are left.

Sanguine Rite – Do not forget this spell. It’s good for saving your ass if you have hate.

Freeze - Hate Reduce. Nuke until you get Red. Pop this in lieu or with Chameleon to reduce hate.





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My Final Fantasy XIV 1.23 Adventures

In the last week, the last update for the 1.0 version of Final Fantasy XIV launched, bringing a lot of additions and wrapping up things before the reboot. The reboot of FFXIV was also announced, called "A Realm Reborn", and will be launched late this year-early next year. Check out the trailer if you haven't.





New Music in Patch 1.23:

Nael Van Darnus Fight (Phase 1) : Formerly the Coerthas Leve Theme



Nael Van Darnus Fight / Final Fantasy XIV 1.0 Final Boss Battle (Phase 2) : Entirely New Track



Nael Van Darnus -- The Final Fantasy XIV Seventh Umbral Era Storyline Finale
(Contains Spoilers!)

I know a lot of people reading this probably won't be playing until the reboot version is launched. Note that this mission will be unavailable after the launch of "A Realm Reborn". This is because this serves to tie up the pre-relaunch storyline, and after the reboot, meteor will have already crashed. This serves as the final prequel mission of sorts. If you're still playing, I would recommend skipping this part to avoid spoilers. If you don't plan on playing until the reboot, read for some background information.

Nael Van Darnus is a Garlean Imperial who wanted to purge the land of Primals by summoning Eorzea's second moon (Dalamud) to wipe them from existence. In the Patch 1.22 previous storyline quest, we had to storm the Imperial stronghold of Castrum Novum to de-activate the lunar transmitter that was bringing Dalamud closer and closer to crashing with Eorzea.

In this storyline quest, Nael Van Darnus found a way to get to Rivenroad (the floating island archipelago) in order to summon small baby meteors upon Coerthas from parent meteor Dalamud.


Something a lot of people don't notice is that in his fight he says lots of quotes like "I will return back to nothingness". Most of his quotes are nod backs to older Final Fantasy games. I know the one I mentioned comes from Final Fantasy V, where some other quotes come from Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy IX, and Final Fantasy XII.

According to Wikia, he uses the phrase "mummer's farce", a phrase also used in Final Fantasy XII.

There's also scenes where he's walking through the fire in 1.22 which is a clear nod to Sephiroth from VII.

But enough about nostalgia, on to the mission/boss itself. Note that the videos only contain the cutscenes pertaining to the mission. The screenshots of the fight are below. Beware of spoilers. I would recommend watching in High Quality on the links themselves. The embeeded low-quality versions here don't do it justice.

Part 1
Part 2





Phase 1:

Phase 2:

See the meteorites? He calls them down to assist him. They need to be nuked down with Thunder combos. If they land on the battlefield, the whole party takes a massive amount of damage. It also adds damage to Megaflare (his ultimate move- Bahamut reference) if too many land on the battlefield. My job as Black Mage is to nuke down Nael Van Darnus, and run up the stairs to nuke down meteors. Originally we only had both Black Mages on Meteor duty, but now we have one (usually me) that nukes the hell out of the boss until the meteors become too much to handle with only one Black Mage.


Skirmish:

The 1.23 update added Skirmish which is a small-scale end-game event. There are two zones: Locke's Lie and Turtleback Island.

Locke's Lie is an island that houses lots of small-scale Notorious Monsters. They're scattered throughout the island in near a star-shape. The objective is to go around as a full party of 8, speed-killing all of them to spawn a giant tree in the middle of the island that likes to reset hate frequently and put the tank to sleep.

Locke's Lie:

Turtleback Island is also an island (but literally empty. Only a few palm trees and no caverns) They have bigger ferocious monsters that must be dealt with quickly in succession before the next one spawns. We've almost gone all wins except for one time where we wiped to Chimera because we were too close.

Turtleback Island:

The reward for Skirmish are some pretty good high-level weapons. They need to be melded with materia to be useful though. One weapon is guaranteed to drop to one random party member, and sometimes two drop.


XIV Summerfest Festival:

It's pretty fun, and this comes from someone who traditionally hates little events. They added /firedance (see video below) and you have to use that on approaching bombs to kill them. You get different colored Yukatas for defeating them.

Check out this dancing glitch.




And that's about it on my report for adventures. Catch me on Lodestone, and follow me! I would appreciate it greatly.


-Grover Eyeveen of Viva Eorzea Linkshell -- Aegis Server