Dawntrail Diary - Halfway Home

Another week of playing Final Fantasy XIV's latest expansion Dawntrail is in the books. When writing about my experiences I really want to go on and on but FFXIV is one of those story driven games. I want to give people a chance to experience the game with as few spoilers as possible. For the next few weeks I'm going to use my free company's rules as a guide: no story elements, no zone or dungeon names, and no MSQ elements not already published by the developers. My FC leadership imposed the embargo until 30 July.

I will touch on some things in Dawntrail in the most general ways. Hopefully I've erred on the side of caution and won't spoil the story for anyone.

Running from spoilers - So far I've done a pretty good job avoiding spoilers. I did run into a YouTube thumbnail which partially spoiled the story in zone 2, but only a segments. Also, I know there is some sort of controversy about the MSQ story. As the title of the post indicates, I'm a little past the halfway point of the MSQ. I think I might know a couple of the criticisms already, but I won't speculate on the blog until the 30th.

Earning flying - By this point in FFXIV's history, the method of earning flying in a zone is pretty set. Find 10 aether currents and complete 5 quests. One of those quests is the main MSQ quest for the zone. The other four quests appear in pairs using criteria I still don't understand. One is a single quest and the other leads to a series of quests.

I believe the story writers want the player to do the quests as they appear. I also do the series of quests although to get credit for flying only the first quest requires completion. Doing the quests winds up earning accessory (right side) items which helps meet iLevel requirements for dungeons.

I should add that doing these quests does not lead to really outleveling the content. Currently I'm in zone 4 doing level 96 quests. My white mage job is currently 97, so I'm about one level above. Then again, I haven't gotten carried away doing FATEs. If I did, I'd probably be level 99 or 100 by now.

Zones 3 and 4 - Over the last week I entered and completed zone 3 and got a fair bit into zone 4. The landscape in zone 3 is too tied into the MSQ to describe now and not give out a spoiler or two. For now, I'll just say I found myself taking lots of screenshots and not just to follow the story. Shout out to whoever designed the zone and the art team. I thought the design was great.

Zone 4 was somewhat spoiled for me from comments by someone on the media tour. Still, I've liked the content so far and the music when I first entered the zone was perfect. At this point I don't know which music I like more, that of the capital of Tuliyollal or zone 4. I do look forward to doing a lot of gathering in the zone.

Solo-friendly - As I mentioned before, I'm currently running through level 96 quests. So far, I have not run content with anyone else. The game gives the options at duties and trials but the Duty Support system also handles trials so far. Is the game easy? The last duty I ran I look 73 minutes out of the allotted 90 minute time limit to complete. I also needed to learn the final fight and not just follow Krile around, as Krile died. And Wut Lamat, our main character? She killed me by deciding to run up to me at the wrong time. Still, I didn't have to worry about others getting frustrated with my slowness of learning the mechanics.

Dressed for success - Okay, my glam is still the original Eorzean outfit I started the expansion. But I have been tempted to switch to local garb. One of the dungeons has a set I really like for glamour. Unfortunately the gear is not sellable on the market. But the end game glamour enjoyers have new outfits to earn.

My retainers - As I progress through Tural I don't have to just worry about myself. I have my army of retainers I need to level at the same time. I need to acquire a lot of accessories for my retainers. For the gatherers, accessories usually only provide gathering points. But each one can also hold a materia. With 5 slots, that totals up to an additional 125 gathering if I use Gatherer's Guerdon Materia X.

For my two white mage retainers, I was able to upgrade the gear using gear provided to me completed quests. That's right, I have shed to sets of gear already. Later on I'll set up my retainers' glamours, but for now the current gear they wear has the same glamour I'm wearing while adventuring.

I should add that the non-white mage gear I receive running dungeons I'm turning in for expert deliveries for seals. So far I've earned enough seals to purchase 200 ventures to pay my retainer army. I'm a little behind the pace as the way I'm currently deploying my retainers costs 126 ventures per week. Luckily I built up a significant reserve of ventures before the expansion launched so I don't have to worry for 8 more weeks.

For those wondering, my white mage retainers are level 95 and my gathering retainers are level 93.

Gathering and Crafting - In order to keep my army of retainers levelling I need to level my gatherers. By the end of the second week I have botany and mining at level 94 and fishing at level 96. Now that I'm looking to partake of Tural cooking, I don't need to do fishing ventures anymore. Instead I just need to look for a recipe needing seafood and fish. So far each fish caught has netted me at least 400,000 experience points.

After two weeks, the only crafting classes I've advanced past level 90 are culinarian (93), goldsmith (93) and weaver (91). I need to get those classes up to 95 to continue the next step of Wachumeqimeqi Deliveries. Until then, I made a stack of 30 Royal Toast (+critical hit and +vitality) to last while adventuring overland. I should also get a level or two for my goldsmith equipping my retainers accessory slots. Leveling goldsmith means also leveling blacksmith or armorer and I've chosen blacksmith.

I should add one nice mechanic I forgot about. Since all items gathered and crafted in Dawntrail are a higher level than my Endwalker crafting gear I am getting a lot of materia from spiritbonding. I really do need to mix up some of the medicine that gives buffs to spirit bonding to enhance the effect.

That's all for now. I do have a self-imposed deadline for writing this post. I return to work on Monday so I'd like to get as far as possible into the MSQ this weekend. Ideally I want to finish the MSQ by 30 July so I can blog about everything I've experienced. Also, I really want to read all the hot takes on the Internet. I have the feeling I'm missing out on some juicy blogging subjects.