The Death March To Heavensward, Leading NPCs, And Perfection

Now that I'm past The Praetorium, I'm steadily working my way down the main scenario quests (MSQ) to get to Heavensward. I guess I shouldn't call the effort a death march, but the six patches between the launch of Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn and the Heavensward expansion introduced 100 quests, five 4-character dungeons, and 6 8-character trials to complete. I finished the Patch 2.3 content Wednesday. I ended yesterday with doing the first six quests of Patch 2.4. That leaves 2 dungeons, 3 trials, and 37 quests to go.

Discussing how to defeat the Ascians

Although the 100 quests are a grind, I think players should go through them at least once to pick up the lore. Square Enix does offer items to skip to a particular expansion, but I would only do so on a second character.

Completing another dungeon with the squad

Over the course of the last 10 days or so the number of NPCs I control has increased from 4 to 12. I have had four retainers for the longest time as part of my money making efforts. Now I've jumped into adventurer squadrons. I've recruited a group of eight NPCs.

The adventurer squadron is really pretty clever. Players receive promotions once reaching the rank of Second Lieutenant by leveling their squadron. We do this in two ways. The first is sending out a group of 4 NPCs on missions similar to retainer ventures. The other is running through dungeons. I'm currently running through a level 32 dungeon. Unfortunately, I'm not sure how much more I have to do in order to get promoted to first lieutenant.

A perfect crafting outfit

Finally, I found a perfect crafting outfit. I thought I deserved one as I now have all my crafting classes up to at least level 53. Last week's Fashion Report gave me the excuse to put one together. I've always liked the look of the Amateur's Double-Vest, a level 9 body slot item. Throw in the requirement for New World Hose in the leg slots and a nice selection of dyes and I liked what I saw. Then I used a level 5 Hempen Bandanna to top off the look. The result was a perfect score of 100.

I'm not sure exactly how much I'll play FFXIV because CCP may come up with something that has me playing EVE all night. So for now, I just plan on leveling up my adventurer's squadron and grinding out quests until I get to Heavensward.