Well, it's been a very long time since I blogged something. As someone with a tunnel focus, it's easy for me to get sucked into the momentum of things. Right now, I'm at the final stretch of the Stormblood MSQ where below is the place this music is played.
Without a doubt, FF14 has some very great tracks. For the Lochs daytime theme, it drives home the fact that I'm at the final stretch. At the same time, it also brought forth the emotional aspect of the Ala Mhigan dream. So how do I rate Stormblood in terms of storytelling?
A storm of emotions compared to the heavens' scales
The above title would be how I rate Stormblood's storytelling. I don't fault players for saying HW has the better plot. In Ishgard, we're dealing with something more character-driven. As a result, the darkness of human nature saw the light of day. Be they Dravanians or Ishgardians, no one was immune to bitterness and hate. In a real sense, Estinien was the symbolic character of the expansion. He represented an Ishgard consumed by hatred and an Ishgard never beyond redemption. As for the Dravanians, they became the mirror image of their enemies. In this sense, they were in Nidhogg's image. If there happened to be a real-life person associated with Heavensward, it would be Friedrich Nietzsche.
Heavensward was a story where the line separating humanity from monstrosity was blurred. But more than a tale of human darkness, it's also a story of redemption. Redemption not just for Ishgard but also for the Dravanians. So the next time you think a person is nothing short of an irredeemable monster, go play Heavensward.
For Stormblood, the plot was a straightforward epic story. Heavensward can be compared to the likes of G.R.R. "not J.R.R." Martin and Isayama "Hametsu no Hajime" Hajime. Stormblood would be likened to J.R.R Tolkien and C.S Lewis. If you expect another HW, be prepared to be disappointed. But if you're okay with the old-school approach, then SB should do well enough. That being said, modern Japanese storytelling is known to be very character-driven. As for what manner of a song is to be sung after SB, we know it was composed by the late Miura Kentaro. Well, sorta...
Copy and paste
Per the title, I've copied and pasted my posts about Lyse and the Dragoon job questline in SB.
Dun Scaith and Emiya Kiritsugu
Wouldn't it be great if you were Emiya Kiritsugu? In the epic fight between him and Kayneth, he unleashed the full glory of time manipulation. In real life, I find my brain can process time slower than in reality. Ever wondered why time seemed to slow down, that a thirty-second GCD felt like 60 seconds instead? Science has the answer in the form of neurology.
Something didn't seem normal since I shifted my hotbars to the right. In my recent Dun Scaith run, I didn't feel I was contributing since my brain was processing things with the speed of a Lonesome George. Imagine my surprise when I got a player commendation. While I did have player commendations for both Void Ark and the Weeping City of Mhach, Dun Scaith was another monster. Then I adjusted the camera zoom distance to 100.
It's funny when I think about it. Like how it took a player 6500 gaming hours to discover you can rent your own bird, I needed 500+ gaming hours to know how to adjust the camera zoom distance. With one problem solved, another said hi: The hotbars obstructed part of my character view. As a result, I had to shift the hotbars to the right. And this was how I got my first commendation for Dun Scaith.
Dun Scaith was an interesting raid to run with 23 other mina-sans. The good thing about playing on a Japanese server is that many Japanese players enjoy running group content. And that includes Alliance raids. The learning curve has been much better than I expected since the key is to read my teammates' movements. In my first two Dun Scaith raids, I had to be resurrected by a healer at least twice against the first boss. A massive flaw in my raiding game was a short camera distance due to the default setting. Once I stretched it to the max, my movement game became much better. In fact, I didn't die against the first boss and the only moment when I needed a rez was against the second boss (something happened, but I can't recall the cause). However, my rotation felt much slower. I thought I screwed it up, but getting a commendation as a DPS made me question my original stance. And this was how I obtained the relevant information.
Throughout the raid, my focus felt stretched. However, I recalled the same under the same situation in running the easy stuff via MSQ roulette. The only difference lies in the extent. Previously, I was more of a berserker. Now, I'm more of a tactician. This made me wonder how my brain functioned during those moments. Will I feel less stretched once I get used to my self-imposed change?
Speaking of slowing down...
It's good to have a job (gauge)
If there's an annoying thing about playing a Dragoon, it'd be getting the job gauge only at level 70. Before that, I was used to intensifying the pace of my focus. With the job gauge, however, I have to slow down for a reason: I need to visually process the hotkeys to pull off the Jump>Mirage Dive rotation twice in 30 seconds. The thing about Life of the Dragon isn't about whether Emilia "she's probably as tall as the Dragon of Oshu" Clarke should be playing the most British FF14 job. I can't use it for crowd clearing since 30 seconds are needed to trigger it. Without LotD, Geirskogul would have a cooldown of 30 seconds. Not cool. With LotD, Nastrond only has a 10-second cooldown. This makes it surprisingly good as a bridge between my DoT damage chain and the direct damage chain. Dragoons are easy to use for single-target. Two sets of rotations consisting of five GCDs each. I probably won't get envious looks for dealing damage. But Dragoons are good tactical DPS where a combination of consistent DoT damage and Battle Litany can make one a valuable member in any Alliance raid. Well, at least if you're playing on a Japanese server. Not as tactical as Dancers, but decent enough. Once I finish a rotation, I can straightaway pull off Nastrond since it's an OGCD.
This comes to the level 90 question: How will Wyrmwind Thrust figure in my build strategy? Possibly as another single-target rotation bridge with Nastrond/Geirskogul plus AoE rotation usage. Double usage instead of single.
P.S.: I need to thank Frontline Bro for playing this song in his car. It helped a lot in maintaining my focus.
