Various Thoughts

So I’ve briefly mentioned crafting before… but didn’t really say anything about it. The thing is, all the crafting classes have the exact same abilities and produce items in the exact same manner. It’s just the items they can create are different.

Early on you don’t have to worry about anything other than using the Basic Synthesis ability. Once you need to start crafting high quality items for class quests it gets a bit trickier, since quite a number of the abilities are traps.

A simple (if highly risky) way of handling them is by starting with Inner Quiet and then using some combination of Innovation, Waste Not, Hasty Touch, and Basic/Standard Touch combos. Any Tricks of the Trade that trigger can be used to replace Hasty’s with Basic’s, just make sure to use Trial Synthesis beforehand to see exactly what kind of synthesis combo you need to finish with; Basic Synthesis || Veneration + Basic Synthesis || Name of the Elements + Brand of the Elements.

Once you hit level 50 though you’ll want a reliable process to quickly craft the various master gear. Pretty much all of the macros I’ve seen around are for level 70 crafting and aren’t applicable for new(er) characters, so I put one together myself and it makes perfect high quality 80 durability level 50 items with a single button press (no high quality ingredients required):

262 CP (with at least 280 Craftmanship and 255 Control)
/ac “Inner Quiet” <wait.2>
/ac “Hasty Touch” <wait.3>
/ac “Hasty Touch” <wait.3>
/ac “Hasty Touch” <wait.3>
/ac “Hasty Touch” <wait.3>
/ac “Waste Not II” <wait.2>
/ac “Innovation” <wait.2>
/ac “Basic Touch” <wait.3>
/ac “Standard Touch” <wait.3>
/ac “Basic Touch” <wait.3>
/ac “Standard Touch” <wait.3>
/ac “Great Strides” <wait.2>
/ac “Byregot’s Blessing” <wait.3>
/ac “Basic Synthesis” <wait.3>
/ac “Basic Synthesis” <wait.3>

Decided to go with the second option, which is to say switched over to Conjurer/White Mage to continue the main questline… and yet again I hit level 50 before finishing it. After the level 41 quest this time.

The healer role is quite a bit more involved than the DPS role. Rather than simply attacking the weakest target(s) until they die while trying to avoid telegraphed attacks, you have to watch your party’s status while at the same time hopefully getting in a few hits of your own. Moreover, unlike DPS which mostly just has to worry about accidentally drawing too much aggro, the healer has to worry about both the tank and DPS classes drawing too much aggro.

There’s nothing quite so annoying as a tank running ahead to pull 6+ enemies and getting themselves killed in less than 5 seconds. Seriously, how exactly am I supposed to react to that?

On the positive side of things there really does seem to be a dearth of people playing healers, as the mandatory party quests (in addition to the ones I mentioned earlier, there are more at levels 24, 28, 32, 34, & 41) launched almost instantly this time around. It’s also pretty easy to rake in player commendations so long as you display the slightest bit of competence.

My strategy as a White Mage ended up being quite simple:
1) Cast Regen on the tank and any melee DPS.
2) Cast Aero on any enemies.
3) Cast Cure on the tank if necessary, otherwise use Stone if it’s a boss/miniboss.
4) Repeat from the top.

You’ve got to watch out for unavoidable AOE attacks of course and the lack of fast mana regen can certainly be an issue if you spam Cure II too much (Lucid Dreaming helps). This is the reason to not bother casting Stone on basic enemies in the dungeon; the DPS classes should be able to handle them fine (especially with Aero support) and that mana may be necessary to spam Cure II or Medica if the tank gets overzealous.

All that aside, since I just hit 50 again it seems time to switch to another class. Arcanist is all that’s left of the basic magic classes, and interestingly enough it has both a DPS and a healer specialization. Which fits quite nicely into this character‘s theme.

Of course shortly after I posted about not having to join a party I run into the mandatory party quests: There are 3 immediately following the ‘visit the other two starting cities’ main quest (for levels 15, 16, & 17) and another as the first level 20 main quest.

They’re… not great. While it helps quite a bit that apparently any player who’s completed the quest before can join up, there’s still notable wait times (expect at least 10 minutes for a DPS class) and playing with random people who may or may not know what they’re doing (and I include myself in that group) is less than ideal. I don’t like the rigid 1 Tank, 1 Healer, 2 DPS party requirements either. I’m not looking forward to future instances of the mechanic and wish they had added that NPC party option introduced in the most recent expansion to the earlier content.

In other news I tried out crafting; it’s a little overwhelming with all the various quality-related abilities. The way the system is set up, making a high-level item is almost like fighting a turn-based battle. It’s a bit odd really and kind of annoying in regards to crafting low level items even despite the ‘quick synthesis’ option.