Starting off, the initial cutscene after creating your character is such an adrenaline rush that it gave me not just a semi but a raging hard on for FFXIV!
My first thought, look at that badass mother fucker! That is MY fucking character, being a boss, standing up to the darkness approaching Eorzea, fully pimped out in the artifact armor of my chosen Job, Paladin. He is ready to take on Bahamut solo and carve him up like a Thanksgiving turkey. Immediately, I am involved with my creation, with this cutscene I see what he can be, I just have to get him there.
Quests
Just like in phase 1 and 2 we began by doing a series of fetch quests then proceeding out into the world following the story quests to take us between hubs. I do want to note that Ul'dah is not a great starting area, there seemed to be a large amount of back and forth traveling in it compared to what I experienced in phase 1 and 2 in Gridania and what people were telling me about Limsa Lominsa. Overall it was an enjoyable early adventure with a variety of quests and FATEs to keep me involved.
As you can see, my gladiator was already looking the role by 6 with some heavier armor and a nice red and black outfit by 6. Early on during story quests you almost always seem to have an NPC that can heal you if you go below half HP or so which is incredibly useful, sometimes necessary, but a crutch for new players. Hopefully, we get weened off this trend.
Another story quests pits you against a group of attacking follows with lots of NPCs of your own to help, I am not going to spoil anything else about the second phase of this fight but I will say to bring an antidote because it is very possible you will die on your first attempt.
Story quests have you fighting almost everywhere, it really brings the world alive. Also, so glad I got out of that green abomination ASAP. At 15, your story quests sends you on a mission to do the first 3 dungeons in a row. There is nothing else to do aside from FATEs and some guildleves if you manage to have a stack of allowances ready. This is a major flaw in a game that emphasizes letting players do what they want in the leveling experience.
I managed to take some time to run around and explose the LL areas, got to around the 45 Kobols, they look a little "steampunky" to me.
Dungeons
Next I will go into the dungeons, I will not include boss spoilers but will talk about some interesting mechanics. Also, props to Lilaea Syvara for healing all the dungeons as THM with just Cure.
Satasha Seagrot (15-17)
As an entry level dungeon is is very fun. While I don't understand where the idea of fire breathing clams came from, I thought it was a very cool mechanic that you could only damage them when their mouth was open. The last boss I will comment that you need to examine the bubbling water to stop adds from spawning.
Not a lot to say other than that, nice dungeon with a few side rooms with coffers, very good at teaching beginning group play.
Tam-Tara Deepcroft (16-18)
Same as in beta Phase 1 and 2 with some slightly different mob placement and mob abilities. First, the HP down effect that was always being placed on the tanks by the lancer mobs is gone, making the dungeon a lot easier to heal.
Copperbell Mines (17-19)
Another typical dungeon with an amazing mid-boss mechanic, I don't want to spoil it but definitely try to let the bomb explode instead of killing it.
Halatali (20-22)
This dungeon had some pretty cool mechanics and after you are enlisted in a grand company, completing it will ned you around 860 GC seals, a good boost to getting that chocobo fast.
Thousand Maws of Toto-Rak (23-25)
Same as in beta Phase 1 and 2 with some mob placement adjustment.
Haukke Manor (29-31)
Obviously have not completed the updated version of this dungeon given I only reached 23, if I complete it today I will add commentary.
Brayflox's Longstop (32-34)
My appologies but I will not reach this dungeon today because I am more focused on learning about the Diminishing Returns and Refractory Period for Shield Bash because I feel it would be a tremendous boost to know all about it for raiding.
Chocobo/Battle Companion
Battle Chocobos are fucking pimp. They can heal, dps, or tank, though I didn't ever try the tanking. They open up a lot of possibilities in low-man or solo play. Don't get me wrong, they don't make you invincible, even with 4 of them set to healer, but they definitely make it so you don't have to depend on random healers in fates.
Summary
Questing content seems incredibly linear and will definitely cause some problems when people level up other classes for the cross skills, at least at the initial release. Yes, guildleves should alleviate this in the future, if a character creates a stockpile of allowances, but this is not the system I thought was describe by the designers. The early content seems to be designed for DPS classes to excel, some of the later story and GC missions took me a couple attempts to clear the mission because I either had some bad luck and the mobs would target my healer for some reason, or I had to kill them in a certain order. Being a gladiator, I felt the content would be much more suited to a DPS class spamming skills while the NPC helper usually healed them. The experience overall was still very enjoyable and I would definitely go through it again.
Dungeons were simple, a few cool and new mechanics kept them interesting, but they were typical MMO dungeons, no groundbreaking work here to be perfectly honest. I hope the raid content provides a much larger challenge and forces players to optimize party play. I do not see the point of a time limit at all in dungeons though, most were completed the first time at 30 minutes or less, so I suppose I am saying the time limit is just pointless overall.
Being among the first few to experience the new content we often found ourselves looking for ways to get experience points. I quickly realized a lot of FATEs in East Thanalan could be soloed or low manned fairly easily, taking about 5-8 minutes. This was decent EXP but inferior to straight questing regarding efficiency.
Gladiator definitely has some interesting quirks. The Defensive cooldowns (Rampart and Convalescence) being off the GCD was a help; however, there is still an animation lock after using a weapon skill, so you cannot activate these for about a second still after using an ability. Shield Bash could very well be the difference in a good Paladin and a great Paladin. In the Ifrit fight that happens in the progression of story quests you can actually stop him from using Eruption if you get the stun off before he is 40-50% completed on the cast. Shield Bash being on the GCD actually causes this to be tricky. Coming from a heavy World of Warcraft background I am accustomed to using Rebuke, an interrupt that is not on the GCD and usable at almost any given moment. With the Ifrit fight as an example, if you have just used a skill on the GCD like Fast Blade and Ifrit begins casting Eruption at the same moment, even if you are spamming Shield Bash at that point, by the time the GCD is off cooldown your shield bash still hits Ifrit during the casting time; however, the ability will still go off. This led me to use skills a bit differently during the fight, I would freely open up spamming skills for threat, then watch Ifrit's animations, if he was doing an attack or just finished I continued as normal, but if he took a moment to pause I stopped using skills so I would not be hindered by the GCD if his next attack were to be Eruption. This type of heavy focus on watching the monster very carefully feels like you are almost playing an action game such as Dark Souls and could be vital for a Paladin to perform at the top levels of play, but it also lowers your DPS which could be a hinderance in the future if there are DPS check encounters. Time will tell how important or helpful Shield Bashing will be, I just wish that it were off the GCD because that is the system I am accustomed to and it is difficult breaking that mentality.
That's all for now, I may edit the entry at a later time with updated info. Feel free to asked me any questions in the comment, I'd be happy to answer them to the best of my ability.
Update 1 on Shield Bash: Using the Bubbly Bernie NM as a test mob.
4 stages of Shield Bash stun:
Stage 1 - Interrupt and 3.0 second stun
Stage 2 - Interrupt and 1.5 second stun
Stage 3 - Interrupt, no stun
Stage 4 - Full Resist
After hitting Stage 4, the mob's Diminishing Returns on stuns resets after 15 seconds it seems, need to test for other mobs.
Update 2 on Shield Bash:
Reconfirming after multiple tests, debuffs like stun (I am assuming sleep and others to work similarly) will reset to let the max duration of the effect occur again 15 seconds after the first use of the skill. Could be vastly different with sleep, but it is 15 seconds from the ability's use not the end of the stun effect for shield bash.
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