FFXIV – Crafting My Way Back Into It
706 words.
I’m getting back into the swing of FFXIV with my slightly embarrassing, adorable Miqu’te that looks a bit like a porcelain doll in the game.
Rather than jumping back on the gear treadmill, I’ve spent most of my time on relaxing activities like gathering and crafting. Unlike most MMOs, those things are quite engaging in FFXIV and there are a whopping eight crafting and three gathering classes to level, so there is plenty to do. (By which I mean it would be impossible for me to max them all out without spending the rest of my life in the game.)
Weaving with the giant turtles.
If I were to be honest I’d have to say I’m a bit scared to go back to instances. Even though FFXIV combat isn’t super complicated, rotations are complex enough that people will probably notice if you’re doing it wrong and I don’t particularly enjoy looking like a moron in PUGs. So I’m breaking myself back into combat slowly.
Therefore I’m putting off going into any of the new dungeons. In fact, I never did most of the “old” level 50 dungeons. Amdapor Keep is the only level 50 dungeon I’ve ever done because it’s part of the Relic quest line. So The Wanderer’s Palace, Pharos Sirius, Copperbell Mines (Hard), Haukke Manor (Hard), The Lost City of Amdapor, Halatali (Hard), Brayflox’s Longstop (Hard), and The Stone Vigil (Hard) are all unknown to me. Not to mention trials Ultima’s Bane and all of the Extremes. And Syrcus Tower, and any of the Binding Coil Turns. So yeah, that’s a lot of content left for me to work through, some of which will be impossible without a guild. I’ll probably start with Syrcus Tower, since it’s easier to hide your screw-ups within a 24-man raid. :)
I started the Atma quest line to upgrade my Relic bow, but I feel pretty confident that I’ll never ever finish it in a million years. I haven’t seen a single Atma FATE yet, and somehow I need to find twelve of them, and then there’s a ridiculous amount of grinding for books after that. I can see where it would be gratifying to complete that, but it’s so far distant right now that it might as well be on the moon.
Fishing overlooking Aleport. Best done with a controller while watching Netflix.
One of the great things about returning to FFXIV after a long absence is the tremendous amount of rest XP you have built up, and the 100 “leve” quest allowances saved up. In a surprisingly short amount of time, I leveled Miner from 40 to 50 to go along with the previously-held 50 Botanist. Then I discovered ffxivclock.com, a site which lets you know when you can go gather those level 50 resources from “unspoiled” nodes. I’ve been gathering up bunches of Crystal Clusters and selling them for mad cash. Well, more cash than I normally get, at least. For some reason, Fire Clusters are in great demand. (I have no clue what you even make with them, but people seem to like buying them.)
I had already made it to 50 in Carpenter, but I discovered that I hadn’t finished the Carpenter class quests. I was still on the level 45 quest. So I finished that one, which was pretty tedious, and then I did the level 50 quest, which was also tedious. And expensive, since I failed to craft the HQ Crab Bow on the first try, which destroyed the one expensive HQ Red Coral I bought, so I ended up just buying the damn bow for a ridiculous price but anything was better than risking another failed crafting attempt. Crafting can get pretty complicated in FFXIV. At least gathering the ingredients.
Currently I’m working on getting to 50 Weaver. After that I’ll work on Leatherworker. That will let me craft my own gear for Miner and Botanist so I can gather even more stuff to sell for mad cash. It will take a long time though since I’ve already used up all of my rest XP and most of my leve allowances. By the time I get those to 50 I probably will have already bought all the gear I need.
Archived Comments
AstralEcho 2014-09-12T16:07:23Z
I went back to FFXIV in July after loving the way Yoshi-P modified 1.0 and subsequently hating the way 2.0 went in a much more traditional themepark direction. Despite my reservations I’ve found that the current state of the game and its direction thus far have been rekindling my interest in a game model I previously thought I would never enjoy again. I’ve already lasted significantly longer with A Realm Reborn than I have with any other modern themepark and there’s still so much left to accomplish before I risk losing interest from a lack of goals. Crafting being chief among them, so insight from someone else breaking back into it is much appreciated!
As for Atmas, those dont come from specific fates so there’s no waiting for a special atma fate to spawn. They are just a painfully low droprate from any fate in a zone, with one zone per specific atma. You will need to have a zenith weapon equipped to obtain atma as well, so no killing two birds with one stone and fate-leveling on another class at the same time. Rumor is that each zone has a specific hour when droprates are higher (on a 12 hour cycle), and I’ve had some success with that method, but its likely just confirmation bias as I was spending most of my farming times in adherence to those hours anyway.
What server are you on? We have some more casual friends just getting started on level 50 content, so if you’re on Balmung you’re more than welcome to get your feet wet with us!
UltrViolet 2014-09-12T17:48:11Z
Re: Atmas… ohhhhhh, I get it now. That makes more sense. I kept looking at the map for FATEs that started with “Atma of something something” lol. Thanks!
I’m on Gilgamesh. So far I’m enjoying toodling around doing my own thing, not really feeling the need to find an FC yet. But I’ll keep you in mind if/when I do!
gattsuru 2014-09-12T19:55:57Z
It’s /generally/ not worth bothering with Atma, Animus, and Novus. The amount of time, Mythology Tomestomes, and energy required to go through the upgrades is extreme for the amount of benefit. By comparison, the last boss of Syrcus Tower drops an Unidentified Allagan Tome 33% of the time, and this along with 1300 Soldiery can be exchanged for a weapon upgrade at much less time investment (especially now that few people bother rolling on the Tome when it drops). Ramuh EX and Levianthan EX drop weapon upgrades as well, and while they’re not on the same level as the Novus or Unidentified Tome weapons, they’re much, much easier to get to.
Bards running high-difficulty Coil of Bahamut groups may want to grind out the Novus anyway, but that’s mostly because their Unidentified Tome weapon has some inefficient stats for that combat. If you’re mostly doing small dungeons, though, even Bards don’t really have cause.
Fire Clusters are mostly used for 2-Star (i70) and 3-Star (i90) crafting as a Blacksmith or Culinarian, as well as some furniture. The Culinarian stuff is actually in demand, since the change, and unlike Water Clusters (which folk can grab while looking for Topsoil) there’s not much reason to sit gathering Fire Clusters.
I’d strongly recommend unlocking Hunts, if you have not done so already, and looking into the Ixal beastmen dailies. The Ixal quests involve crafting and give pretty big boosts of crafting XP for completion, and the higher ranks of their quests also give tokens that can be turned in for 2-star crafting ingredients.
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