Final Fantasy XIV - Kiwi Free Company

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They really shouldn't have swapped out our aether-bullets for rubber bullets.

There was a joke I heard in some YouTube comments on a FFXIV vid that talked about job balance; guy said that Machinist mains would likely be on suicide watch, but their bullets wouldn't do enough damage.

I just want them to nuke PCT to the ground so that people can stop accusing me of being a meta whore or just outright saying they don't respect me because I play a busted job even though I liked PCT and thought it was cool before everyone realized it mogged everything else.

Only reason why I was considering it at all was because I was thinking about making an Okami-inspired glamour.
 
i got bored and soloed The Mothercrystal for the zodiark trance memes (no wipes to build echo, but the adds phase got to 88%)
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Thank you Venat.jpg
 
To be fair, we're also mass murderers for... The sake of the star? Or whatever.
Who did we actually murder en masse? I'm not sure killing bandits or soldiers or even the tempered who wanted to slice your head off counts as murder, but that could be just me. The WOL has at least never consciously needed to decide if he needed to murder half the star.
 
Who did we actually murder en masse? I'm not sure killing bandits or soldiers or even the tempered who wanted to slice your head off counts as murder, but that could be just me.
Our consciousness still treats it as murder, otherwise we wouldn't have the whole ass Dark Knight series of quests in which we reconcile everything and everyone we've had to kill up to that point with ourselves.
 
I don't think they really can, because the reason it's busted has to do more with their encounter design.
Pretty much. The problem is that it's only really ultimates that have the extended downtime mechanics that cause PCT to be as busted as it is.

They basically designed a job that has stuck them between a rock and a hard place balance-wise. If you just knock out a bunch of PCT potencies then you're going to run the risk of the job being too weak to be viable in week 1 savage. But if they leave it as-is, then by 7.3 when we get our next ultimate, we're pretty likely to see PCT on top by a massive margin again.

I suppose it may be possible to get it a little better by shifting some potency from their motifs to the base rotation or limiting the amount of stacks of each motif can be stored. But the problem here isn't even that they made something too strong. It's that they've made a class that is fundamentally incompatible with how they balance the game right now. And they probably can't really get out of it without reworking the job.

I'm only level 35, but Black Mage is growing on me. Don't know if was leveling Picto or just not really having anything pressing to accomplish
You'll love BLM later then if you're managing to enjoy it while you're still in what I call the "bad early levels" of BLM.

I like BLM but it's got the worst levelling experience in the game imo. Below level 35 is physically painful for me since you don't have Umbral Soul to keep guage between pulls or generally useful instacasts like Paradox and Triplecast.
 
Reached BLM level 61. Just now the class is starting to be fun. I can see why leyline is the crack of the class and once you get a taste you cant stop. That said although im a magical turret, the job class doesnt quite click with me, so its probably gonna be a level 100 and probably never touch again unless i decide to do X relic weapon for it.
 
Since we’re somewhat on the subject I genuinely wonder if Zodiark trancers are still around and malding over Venat. I heard they supposedly scattered after their discord got exposed but a few people have been passing around an anti Venat video created by some dude named Durantes that was made last year. I’ve also heard from others that the trancercord youtube channel, Echoes of Etheirys, isn’t making any more videos but are still active in the comments section of other like minded videos giving the video makers asspats and praising them for “exposing the truth” about EW and Venat.

Anyways back on the topic of jobs I haven’t really felt interested in leveling any more of them. I used to try to level at least one new job that would be introduced in the current expansion at the time but I’ve lost interest. I feel that way about most of the game since DT. I’m mostly just staying to see how the msq turns out. Been playing this game for years so might as well just ride the tide especially since there are some things I did enjoy about it and the gameplay still offers enough to give me something to do.
 
I can't fathom the kind of brainrot you'd have to suffer from in order to come out of the Endwalker storyline not disliking, but  hating Venat. I legitimately think you'd have to be retarded to not understand the thought process behind her decision. For some reason I always see ERPfags going "Well MY WOL wouldn't agree with her way!" You dumb bitch, all of our WOLs are the same. Her decision isn't treated lightly or with reverence, it's not exactly hidden that she feels great sorrow over the pain she caused but knew it had to be done in order for mankind to be strong enough to overcome the inevitable Final Days. It's not exactly the most complex writing.

These people remind me of the weird sect of Emet-Selch simps who have gaslit themselves into believing his wife when he was Solus had the soul of Azem and that's the only reason he loved her and their son. Nevermind the fact that this interpretation completely throws a huge aspect of his development out the window, in that he had legitimately come to genuinely love a piece of humanity and that love was shattered when he experienced loss once again. They don't even understand the character they claim to love.
 
Her decision isn't treated lightly or with reverence, it's not exactly hidden that she feels great sorrow over the pain she caused but knew it had to be done in order for mankind to be strong enough to overcome the inevitable Final Days. It's not exactly the most complex writing.
Venat isn't a god. She's a primal like all of them.
Except unlike those of the beasts who they truly believe to be a god, or Zodiark who was brought into existence as a tool to protect them, Venat most cosmologically resembles Shinryu (technically Asura...) than any of the other primals, something brought into existence by one vengeful being to destroy the status quo.

She doesn't know that it's going to work. She just thinks it will because she thinks that we're in a closed time loop.
She ripped the souls of her very people apart on a risky bet.
They all writhed in demented agony in the forms of the Cubuses (This is why Emet-Selch put them in The Tempest.), until they finally regained human form without any of the memories of society or who they once were.
She's a slave to fate, the worst kind of unintentional villain.
It didn't have to be done. She just thought that it did. Now we have a bootstrap paradox.

There's also the fact that Hydaelyn, and the Twelve, are all deadbeat parents. They don't do anything to help their people and are just there, sitting around in the Omphalos. The Twelve didn't even help when Dalamud fell - They say that themselves in the Myths of the Realm storyline!

But yes. Let's go simp for the deadbeat cosmic flat-earther because she called you her brave little spark in that song. It's not like we're only able to get to Ultima Thule after the events of Elpis because Venat put a tracker on Meteion that the Ancients were likely planning to deal with themselves if Venat who wasn't affected by Kairos the Dementia Machine, had been selfless and told the others about that, allowing them all to look for where Meteion ended up and send their own Entelechies (Or dragons. Just make a Midgardsormr, considering that the reason why he grew to such a massive size and unusual shape was to absorb enough aether to survive while travelling through the sea of stars) to beat her up after they'd made the second sacrifice to Zodiark.
 
She doesn't know that it's going to work. She just thinks it will because she thinks that we're in a closed time loop.
I'm no Hydaelyn simp but if Venat only caused the Sundering to fulfil the time loop, wouldn't she have just done it as soon as we left? Venat and her supporters chose to do it after hearing the whole "let's sacrifice our descendants" plan and seeing how far the Zodiark camp had gone. In the cutscene she clearly tries to convince the other ancients to reconcile and change, and it's after they refuse she goes full slicey on em. Sure, maybe she should have tried harder, but they were only going to get more tempered under Zodiark as time went on.
to beat her up after they'd made the second sacrifice to Zodiark
Even Emet-Selch admits that the methods of his people wouldn't have gotten through Ultima Thule. The WoL had to be able to manipulate dynamis to get to the Endsinger's nest at all let alone defeating her with a limit break.

Obviously this is all pointless nitpicking over a generic JRPG plot which is supposed to be "emotion counterbalances logic", "pain is a necessary part of life", or something like that. It's fun to speculate but it's the wilful ignorance of the Zodiark trancers regarding this that's the most autistic.

There's also the fact that Hydaelyn, and the Twelve, are all deadbeat parents. They don't do anything to help their people and are just there, sitting around in the Omphalos. The Twelve didn't even help when Dalamud fell - They say that themselves in the Myths of the Realm storyline!
I do agree Myths of the Realm makes the Twelve suck. Explaining that the Twelve are actually waifus/husbandos who became artificial gods powered by prayer who don't actually make any decisions is the most reddit shit I've ever fucking seen.
 
I'm no Hydaelyn simp but if Venat only caused the Sundering to fulfil the time loop, wouldn't she have just done it as soon as we left? Venat and her supporters chose to do it after hearing the whole "let's sacrifice our descendants" plan and seeing how far the Zodiark camp had gone. In the cutscene she clearly tries to convince the other ancients to reconcile and change, and it's after they refuse she goes full slicey on em. Sure, maybe she should have tried harder, but they were only going to get more tempered under Zodiark as time went on.
It's a fucking closed time loop. We told her about the horrors of the first Final Days that Emet-Selch showed us in Amaurot, so because Venat is a slave to the concept of Fate, she lets all of that happen and then does the sundering afterwards.

The WoL had to be able to manipulate dynamis
Yeah, that's why I said that the Ancients would be creating more Entelechies to do it. (Entelechies are dynamis-based lifeforms, for example Meteion.)

Obviously this is all pointless nitpicking over a generic JRPG plot which is supposed to be "emotion counterbalances logic", "pain is a necessary part of life", or something like that. It's fun to speculate but it's the wilful ignorance of the Zodiark trancers regarding this that's the most autistic.
Watsonian vs Doylist commentary.
 
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Everything about Elpis and Ultima Thule is boring and hackneyed, reflected by the fact that both zones have absolutely fucking flat camera movement which suggests they were not written by someone with actual chops.

Go ahead - compare the cutscenes in Garlemald to those in Ultima Thule or Elpis. You'll find a lot more static shots of the backs of characters in the latter cases, plenty of shot-reverse-shot with simple pans. As much as I despise Labyrinthos for being a complete waste of time, it is those two zones which make Endwalker's story a complete mess. Which I theorize were written by someone completely fucking clueless. Endwalker before Zodiark is a totally different beast to Endwalker after him.
It's that they've made a class that is fundamentally incompatible with how they balance the game right now. And they probably can't really get out of it without reworking the job.
Or never making an encounter with such high amounts of downtime again, which would make even more rigid an already-rigid design approach. It has me worried about longevity, because Picto breaks the normal class mold in this one very small way and that completely rips open the game. They've sacrificed so much for "balance" and yet the slightest thing has made it completely fall apart.
That said although im a magical turret, the job class doesnt quite click with me
The appeal of the class actually has very little do with Leyline, since doing high damage during burst is what every class is designed to do. BLM's damage outside of burst remains really high, and the puzzle of the class is to make use of your resources to keep the GCD rolling as a result. The actual rotation is extremely simple (even if it isn't just 'hit the flashing button'), but the trick is to keep enough resources for movement while also trying to maximize resources you have sitting around for when the burst window is up.

The class feels awkward before Despair, because you finish each fire cycle with mana just sitting there. Then it's awkward until Xenoglossy, because casting Foul just feels bad. And then it's awkward until Paradox, which is the point at which the class feels great. You always want to bank firestarter procs if possible such that you end your Ice phase with an instant-cast and transpose into F1 before shooting the free, instant F3 - and paradox ensures you always have firestarter and an instant-case available in Ice phase. Then you get Flare Star, which feels like complete ass. Been a while, I still dislike it.
 
because Venat is a slave to the concept of Fate, she lets all of that happen
Alright, but how exactly was she supposed to stop the Final Days? Barely any of the ancients had even heard of dynamis, they weren't going to make entelechies to rival the Endsinger in the period of time they had before it started; that's assuming anyone even believed Venat when she told them that actually, an evil bird in outer space made by Hermes is destroying the planet and Emet-Selch was with me but he got his memories wiped so everyone pour your energy into making telepathic dynamis space birds to fight back against it, source: trust me bro. Especially since she's already a social pariah because she refused to return to the star when she gave up her seat as Azem.

Aside from missing the point of dynamis (it's the power of heart/fighting spirit/super spiral energy, you can't just use it as a useful tool then put it back in the box), using entelechies to fight the Endsinger sounds dumb on the face of it. If Zodiark's followers even would create them, they wouldn't have the strength of the Warrior of Light or the personal experiences to overcome despair and would probably be absorbed into the Endsinger. It sounds equally risky to Venat's plan, and still involves mass-murder since they were going to create new life just to sacrifice it to bring the ancients back. Neither option really sounds great.

Watsonian vs Doylist commentary.

If I wanted to be Doylist I'd say Endwalker doesn't make much sense because it's rushed as shit and probably should've been two expansions but Ishikawa wanted out. What I'm trying to say, poorly maybe, is that refusing to engage with the themes of a story like Endwalker may as well be refusing to engage with it at all.

I always thought the moral, if you want to take one away, is what Venat says during the Sundering, accepting pain rather than ignoring it.
Hermes, Meteion and the Ancients all see themselves as logical beings but fail to confront their own lack of emotional development by trying to impose order on chaos. When Hermes becomes depressed as the overseer of Elpis, instead of touching grass and trying to figure shit out himself, he decides he needs to find the meaning of life in outer space, because he like the other inhabitants of Elpis sees himself as a super logical scientist who can't just be suffering from ennui, he MUST validate his feelings through a grand experiment.
Meteion, when she fails to find meaning, defaults to the same materialistic view by deciding meaning must not exist and life should end completely.
The Ancients, when confronted by physical embodiments of their own pain and fear in the form of the Final Days, choose to ignore the cause and worship Zodiark (who is himself an amalgamation of their fears and desires, but they treat as a perfect logical solution, ignoring that he'll inevitably temper them over time).
So Venat forces the world to change through the Sundering. The point is that, just like the Warrior of Light has to find hope in times of despair, the ancients had to accept despair existed even when everything seemed fine. Having one without the other isn't possible.

If all that sounds really gay and wishy-washy, that's pretty standard for the genre. I personally preferred Heavensward, but I'm not going to act like I can't see what we were supposed to take away from it.
 
I can't fathom the kind of brainrot you'd have to suffer from in order to come out of the Endwalker storyline not disliking, but  hating Venat.

It boils down to two camps, really; first group believes Endwalker's story was undercooked and making her likable was a bit rushed/was poorly done, especially since the plot was supposed to be split into two expansions originally - the difficulties of making a decent "time loop" storyline tend to play into that. The other group believes that the Ancients were completely innocent and that they would've been able to easy fix the Final Days problem by themselves had Venat not been "so eager to commit genocide"... despite the plot repeated pointing out that the Ancients are too dense in Aether, have no real connections/counters to Dynamis, and Shadowbringers even pointing out that a pretty good chunk of them were Tempered by Zodiark.

Incidentally, both camps tend to have roots in the opinion that Shadowbringers is "the greatest and most flawless story/expansion ever told ever", and that anything else is automatically inferior. Mostly either Emet simps who think he's incapable of bias/wrongdoing at all, or people obsessed with the whole "light bad, darkness good" plot tumor endemic to modern writing.
 
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