[FFXIV] Omnicrafter complete

So I had a 1500-word ramble in my drafts about leveling up the gathering classes and my progress on the crafting jobs, but well… it was a ramble.  And it was from almost 2 weeks ago, so it was really out of date too so… It’s deleted and now this is in its place.

Right as I got my last one to 80. My gear’s better now…

I’m a full-on omnicrafter again — all my crafting and gathering jobs are level 80.  And I’ve even done enough collectible turn-ins that I almost have my “BiS” crafting gear fully pentamelded — just have the rings left, and I may even see about finishing those up this weekend.  Thing is, though…. I really only have ever leveled the jobs up for the sake of “completionism” and not becuz I ever really planned to craft anything, so I’m not really sure why I suddenly put so much effort in to crafting on this go-round.  Maybe becuz the recent changes to the xp awards made leveling up crafting and gathering to be more or less trivial, so with the ease of leveling i just blasted through it to “get it out of the way” and then since I was already “in the mode” it was easy enough to just keep doing it?  i don’t even know.

Level 80 Bard artifact gear

But anyway, so far as my FFXIV progress goes….  All the dex-based jobs are to 80 now, so that’s Dancer, Bard, Machinist, and Ninja.  I find that given the skill changes from 5.0 that I prefer bard, as I generally play for relaxation and Bard’s skills can almost all be put into a single-button macro.  “Dot 1, Dot 2, Spam the Macro” is about as simple a playstyle as one can get.  and while on the one hand, the lack of skill queue on macros is considered “bad” by serious players, but since Bard actually relies on a bunch of procs and so you not only have to register that the proc hit but then select the skill, I find without the macro I’d often (maybe 1/3 of the time) miss procs entirely.  Then there are the longer cooldown skills that I always would “save for a burst phase” or something…. but I don’t raid, so there really aren’t any burst phases for me to ever worry about.  Add in that since I was used to NOT using the skills since I was always saving them, and then I’d always forget to use them anyway, so… yeah, I’m a bad player 😉  But anyway, putting all those skills into a macro means they’re actually being used, so… my macro might honestly be increasing my bard dps just becuz I’m bad at hitting procs and using the big-hit cooldowns.

Level 80 Machinist Artifact gear

I’ve taken a page from Aywren’s book and been getting all the other jobs to 71 so I can run trusts with them, if I desire.  I’ve not done much with trusts yet, only unlocking up to the level 73 dungeon, but if I use trusts to level characters up, then I’m sure the rest will come rather easily over time.

Oddly enough, for the tanks, my formerly least favorite — the Warrior — is now my “Holy Hannah this is awesome!” tank job.  Go figure, right?  Yet in groups, it seems Warrior is the rarest to be seen.  I mostly see Dark Knights, then Gunbreakers, with Paladins being a distant 3rd, and hardly ever seeing a Warrior at all.

Level 80 Ninja Artifact Gear

Anyway — in the interest of cleaning out gear from my bags I was planning on leveling Dragoon next, followed with Samurai and Monk, but in the interest of being able to level my retainers, I may just to Summoner and Black Mage instead.  I think I’ve got a decent handle on Summoner now with its 30-second phases for the Bahamut summons and whatnot, but Black Mage is still somewhat throwing me for a loop.  I like how Enochian is now up while your Astral or Umbral buffs are up, not running on a separate timer anymore, and the A/U buffs are 15 seconds now instead of 12, so it’s much more forgiving on being able to keep the buffs up (especially since Transpose is available on 10 second cooldown, so if you remember to hit it you can always keep the buff up anyway), but even so, it still just feels as clunky to me as it did back in 3.0.  I still feel like I’m fighting the job to play it, not just fighting the monsters.  Red Mage feels a it underwhelming, but is fun to play, at least, so between the 3 casters it shouldn’t take me long to get them up to 80 so the retainers can cap out and I can clean up space in my bags 😉

Ye Olde Nutsy Mount

I finally caught up the Stormblood beast tribes, so I’m allied with the 3 of them now.  I also finished getting to Bloodsworn ranks with the Pixies just last night, and I even saved up enough Nutsy seals to buy the Lion Sin-Eater mount.  Which is so big it blocks half the screen and that’s annoying, so I took some screenies and will probably never use it again.

And this is only 800-ish words, so it’s far less of a ramble than the previous draft…  Happy gaming out there!