Shadowbringers week 2

Posted on Edited on

Thoughts after some time with the expansion.

Outline

  1. Scholar
  2. Encounters
  3. Dancer

Scholar

There's a very good post about the state of Scholar that I recommend reading. Additionally, Momo has a video on his thoughts on the job.

For me, I'm enjoying the job for the most part, though that might just be the excellent dungeons and trials that we're playing through, because I certainly do not enjoy any content older than 5.0.

My biggest gripes are:

  • We need some way to dump aetherflow stacks
  • Dissipation is still awkward with its healing bonus
  • We're unable to generate Aetherflow out of combat (pre pull / between pulls)

I find the job to be effective at clearing content, and being enjoyable while healing. It's all the time that I'm not healing where the job is very boring.

Encounters

The dungeons in 5.0 all seem to be longer than their counterpart leveling dungeons in 4.X. I haven't measured, but it feels like there are more trash pulls in 5.0 than 4.X, and amount the same number of trash pulls as in 3.X, which I personally don't care for. Additionally, as we were all leveling up from 70, those pulls took longer than pulls we were used to in 4.X, as we weren't at or overgeared for that content. The bosses have largely been interesting and fun, with a few of surprising difficulty and a few others (mostly in the end few dungeons) of really interesting design (the boss itself or the fight). I think the trials that we received in 5.0 are really, really well done. I've just recently cleared and farmed Titania Ex, and I'm learning Innocence Ex.

Titania Extreme

It took me a little over 2 days of learning and cleaning PUGs to get a group that could clear the content. The tipping point for this encounter is the add phase, which is something that we haven't really seen in a while. The last add phase that repeatedly wiped groups that I can think of is Lakshmi Ex when groups couldn't figure out when to finish off the adds to restore Vrill. Overall, this fight has many different mechanics, many of which require positioning changes. Now that I've finally graduated out of the learning parties, I can look back and say that I enjoyed the fight.

Innocence Extreme

I'm currently progressing at what the Balance Discord calls Phase 4, so I'm at the later part of the fight. Compared to Titania, I find Innocence's mechanics far more intuitive - rather than having to learn each mechanic individually and in order just to survive, I find that I'm able to interpret what the game wants me to do just from the AoE markers. As I'm still learning, I haven't yet cleared it, but so far, I like this fight more than Titania.

Dancer

So far in FFXIV, when I enter a new expansion (or even a new raid tier) I start with one of the healers, than progress one of the tanks, then another healer, then another tank, then a DPS job. In 5.0 though, I've gotten Scholar to 80 first and have no interest in leveling either AST or WHM. I plan on leveling PLD for the tanks, but am not really feeling that either right now. I unlocked GNB, but I don't really care for the visuals of the job, so it's just sitting at 60.

Dancer, however, is a joy to play. I really liked the reactionary-focused, skill priority system that the BRD had in 4.X. Since it got that toned down in 5.0, I haven't played on it at all yet. DNC, however, seemed to inherit all of BRD's reactionary playstyle and then some! I'm only 63 - only playing it when I'm bored of prog with SCH in the 5.0 Ex trials - but I'm having a good time. The only part that sucks about leveling a DPS job from 60 to 80 is actually having to level it.