Welcome back to “Getting Good at FFXIV,” the blog where I document my journey to go from casual player to Final Fantasy XIV expert and hopefully encourage readers to follow along and embark on their own journeys. This game can look incredibly intimidating if you take a single step outside the kiddie pool, but if you never jump into the deep end, you’ll never know if you can handle it!
Month 1 Recap
In Month 1, despite having no Wi-Fi and needing to play off my phone hotspot for most of the month, I managed to accomplish both of the goals I had set for myself:
- Beat my first-ever synced Extreme trial (which I did right before the buzzer).
- Get all of my Tank jobs to Level 50, the base game’s level cap.
I set what I figured would be achievable goals for Month 2. So, one at a time, let’s check in.
1) Get All of My Crafters to Level 80
And right off the bat, I’ve got some explaining to do. This happened for a few reasons.
Last month, I was able to get all of my crafter jobs up to Level 60. This wasn’t actually all that difficult, as I had already gathered hundreds of Level 20 and Level 40 materials from the Diadem while mindlessly leveling Gatherers during Shadowbringers. So all I needed were extra materials and a single run of additional Restoration materials to clear that hurdle.
However, getting from 70 to 80 (and, presumably, from 80 to 100) ended up being much more time-consuming than I had expected. The level 70 recipe actually doubles the number of restoration mats you use in each craft. So, I’m going to have to set a more reasonable goal that won’t make me crave death due to how many more hours I’ll need for gathering.
The other big reason this didn’t happen is that I’m a filthy procrastinator. By the time I was really ready to lock in on this goal, I ended up getting a code for Star Wars: Outlaws. The embargo on that was tight, so I spent almost a full week playing nothing but that. I only barely managed to find time for my weekly M4N reclear (for the weapon part) and capping my Heliometry Tomestones thanks to some lucky timing with hunt trains.
This one’s going to require some re-evaluation.
2) Complete War Qor Lar Dor (Extreme)
This ended up being challenging for a completely different reason than I had predicted ahead of time, but I wasn’t prepared for the severity of the issue.
At the end of July, the Savage tier of the first Arcadion raid series dropped and completely consumed the High-End content community. Whenever I logged into FFXIV in August, I checked Party Finder and found maybe two or three Extreme parties. They were almost always “Clear” farming parties, so I wasn’t welcome since I hadn’t completed the duty at least once.
I only found one “Prog” (or “Learning”) party the entire month. While I did manage to make it over halfway through the fight with that team, these Party Finder groups tend to disband when they hit the Duty Timer. I’m further in than the last time I mentioned this fight, but not by much. It seems I’ll have to be more proactive with creating my own Party Finder listing (and overcoming the associated social anxiety) if I’m ever going to clear this.
3) Get All of My Casters and Dragoon to Level 50
This one, I did! (And then I went a little bit further because it was relatively fast.)
The jobs in question were Summoner, Astrologian, and Dragoon. Summoner, since its rework in Endwalker, is an extremely easy job to play. Despite looking rather daunting, its rotation is simple compared to Black Mage and arguably even Red Mage.
Astrologian was tricky, and while I can’t claim I was using its buffs as effectively as possible, being a regen healer (like White Mage, my main job) made it easier to keep the party alive.
Dragoon, my first melee DPS, has a simple 1-50 kit with a buff to maintain, a 1-2-3 combo with two branches, and only one positional. I suspect I’ll encounter the infamous “floor tank” phenomena in higher-level content—Dragoon’s “jump” attacks lock you into an animation for a few seconds, so positioning matters.
As extra credit, I also brought my Bard to 50. I started as an Archer back in Stormblood but hadn’t touched it since. Now that I’m more comfortable with the game’s pace, it felt less sluggish than I remembered.
4) Form a Plan for Tackling Arcadion (Savage)
This one’s a little sad, but since most of my friends haven’t expressed much interest yet, I’ll likely have to buckle down and go through Party Finder. Hopefully, people will understand that someone is coming to Savage content this late in the game.
September Goals
I would say I accomplished about 1.5 out of 4 of my goals this month, but poor timing and underestimating the grind played a part. Here’s what I’m setting for September:
- Get Machinist, Monk, and Ninja to Level 50
These are my last three sub-50 jobs, and they should be manageable. - Get My Tanks and Casters to Level 60
I’m almost there with Paladin and Warrior; the same goes for my Casters. Just need to push Summoner/Scholar and Astrologian a bit further. - Get Armorer, Goldsmith, and Carpenter to Level 80
I’m nearly at this goal with Armorer, and Carpenter is already at Level 72. - Complete War Qor Lar Dor (Extreme) and AAC Light-heavyweight M1 (Savage)
I’ll have my Item Level 720 weapon and gear soon, ready to dive into more difficult content.
Final Thoughts
I may not have accomplished everything I set out to do this month, but I’ve learned and made progress. With a more focused plan, I’ll head into September better prepared. Let’s see if I can crush these goals and regain momentum heading into the busy holiday season!
I’ll see you in October, Warriors of Light!
