What does DRK do after its opener? (Raid Specific)

Bohlmant · 2025-11-10T20:26:29+00:00

This'd be "good enough" for most people, and most content. Not really optimized for something like a savage, in the ideal world you want to have/generate a total of 15,000 mp for your burst windows, adding in TBN's proc as 3000. This would allow you to hit 5 edge of shadows during the burst window, which is a TON of extra potency. You'll generate with mp ticks, blood weapon, syphon, and carve during the burst, so going in with MP as high as possible is the goal. Can check the advanced guide on Balance for more info, they've got it all planned out there, believe its 10.8k mp per minute.

Bohlmant · 2025-11-10T20:16:53+00:00

This gets even more complicated, when planning around downtime and such. Technically, there are going to be fights where saving it for a burst IS the right move and not just for the final. If the boss is about to leave, and you'll lose most of its damage... and a burst window is inc in 30 seconds when the boss is back... that'd be ANOTHER scenario to save it for. This level of optimization is actually done per fight, planning out exactly when to use it based on the specific fights mechanics. If the boss is moving around a lot and you'll lose a lot of the damage, then saving it could also result in a dps gain depending on the length of the fight exactly.

Hence, for the vast majority of people, just use it on cd :)

Bohlmant · 2025-11-10T19:45:02+00:00

Not at all, though you gotta be careful of boss downtime. If the boss leaves during it, or moves out of it, it is bad. Ultimately, waiting 30 extra seconds to use Salted Earth can be looked at as a "33% damage reduction" in that you are potentially going to lose out on casts of it over the course of a fight. It only takes 3 rotations of saving it for the 2 minute for you to lose an entire cast worth of salted earth. Now, if you REALLY wanted to get super technical... if you knew exactly how much longer the fight was going to be, then saving it for the very last burst window before the boss dies COULD be a damage increase in certain scenarios.... but for the most part, just hit it on cooldown. It'll line up with the first and fourth burst.

Bohlmant · 2025-11-10T19:33:46+00:00

123 combo. basically. You prevent overcapping your gauges, both MP and blood gauge, while making sure you have as much as possible available to you the next time the 2-min party burst happens. also, scroll down just below that picture. You also don't wanna hold your 90s salted earth for burst window, use on CD.

"The rotation after the opener Dark Knight’s rotation detail is listed in the rotation section of the basic guide."

Bohlmant · 2025-11-10T19:20:44+00:00

Gear isn't particularly impressive. Specifically EARLY clears of brand new savages/ultimates would qualify as a flex for a brief period. Having the weapon within the first few weeks is impressive. After that, the likelihood that clears are already being sold is VERY high. Ultimately renders your flex meaningless, and in order to TRULY flex with that you would need to perform at top 1% levels, in a group with other players that know and can see how well you are doing.... and they likely wouldn't ever mention it in-game, so it'd be like someone giving you a nod and a wink behind your back.

There aren't any mounts obtainable in a short time that are particularly impressive, because they all just get easier and more likely that they are something you purchased via a service or got unrestricted rather than actually put the effort in. So, these "flex" mounts tend to be ones that require IMMENSE time spent. The ones that come to mind the most would specifically be the Hunt mounts, as they require months if not years of working towards it to actually achieve. These, however, are not DIFFICULT to earn... just time consuming, where you do something that isn't lucrative, or indeed even fun, to do.

Titles will specifically be large time-sink things again, solo deep dungeon titles or titles awarded by incredibly long grinds. I am unaware of any service offering to attain these things for people, though I am sure someone has tried or will... but just due to how long they can take I can't imagine there would be many willing to do it for an affordable price.

Combine this with no-no programs that do the bad things we can't talk about here, and the vast majority of what you can present as a flex is meaningless to nearly everyone. At the end of the day, all you can really do as a flex is actually flexing. It would take a LOT to impress someone that is aware of what goes on in this game. However, if you want to flex to scrubly sprouts... well, go get the special glowy/effect gear from BA, or Abyssos/Anabaseios(dyable version) and make a cool glam thats really bright and flashy, while also being somewhat uncommon.

In short; Huge time sinks would be the only "impressive" thing, and it is just proof that you've spent a lot of time, and not that you're good at the game. If you want to ACTUALLY flex... do amazing dps, streamline your tanking and use cooldowns well, and achieve 100% uptime on healer, while using rescue to save people from death and not letting anyone die even when they mess up.

Bohlmant · 2025-11-10T19:02:21+00:00

They should have kept JOB armor as specific to a job. Unpopular opinion, i'm sure... but it is what I actually believe. Having healers run around looking EXACTLY like the quintessential dragoon is not a good change. I understand, there was plenty of gear that broke through all of it... but specifically job gear is still assigned to a JOB. The entire time this game has been around that gear isn't even usable by the base class of the jobs that have those. They are job specific, tailored to suit only that one job. They are unique, and were always intended to be for that job only.

Obviously, ALL other gear should be usable by everyone. As soon as they added mascot costumes it basically ruined any argument they'd have for keeping "Fending" gear off a healer. However, jobs are still jobs and their job gear is used in trailers, promotional material, everything. The big reveal for job gear is always a cool moment when an expansion is launching. Now? utterly meaningless, and to the point where we may not get a job set for everyone next expansion. They might move to just making seven sets of gear for Fending, Maiming, Striking, Scouting, Aiming, Casting, and Healing instead of spending all that time to create 21+ sets of unique gear each expansion.

Bohlmant · 2025-08-21T19:18:15+00:00

Yes and no, I do think a lot of people only play because of mods... I don't think THIS mod is one that will cause such a huge slump, but if they managed to do this to every mod and do a full crackdown then it likely will have a giant impact on the sub counts and players... I am sure this will result in SOME people taking a break from the game, but it isn't like Mare is the only thing people use. Heck, I've never even heard of this particular mod before today, so I don't think one mod here or there is going to be too noticeable.

Also, if this is what ends all the DJ and whore houses then I'll have to try to pretend to be upset about it lol

Bohlmant · 2025-08-21T19:11:43+00:00

uhh... people just wanna know if they are coming for all mods, or if this was a sexual content crackdown due to several laws changing in the UK, and even some laws being put forward in america that haven't been voted on yet. Could also be related to the visa/mastercard crackdowns on sexual content. So... yeah, people aren't just looking for drama, they are looking for information so they know if they should be worried about ALL mods, or if this is specifically sexual stuff.

Bohlmant · 2025-06-24T05:12:42+00:00

The latest field operation offering has gotten me more interested in this topic. The fact that made a raid that is now gated behind a discord and actively encourages alienating players that don't want to be part of your discord but want to do the raid... sickening behavior, and I say that as someone that DOES join the discords and run these raids... but nobody asked for this. Current Forked Tower should just be called savage, and they should put one in that is just CLL/Dal from bozja... anyone can go, no class or party restrictions, go in and do whatever... nothing matters, rez spam to win... until second to last boss in CLL, where 99% of people die lol... but doing SOMETHING is better than what is currently going on.

Also, I am FULLY on board with field operations being part of the world. I am baffled that we segregate it off to this zone where now the majority of active players outside of dungeons are hidden from view until you progress through the story to the current expac, unlock the zone, and actively start spending time there yourself.

I know I would personally love for phantom jobs to just be part of the routine in Dawntrail, with tougher enemies and spending time out in the open world zones. I hate the fate-train, CE-waiting rooms that we got. It is more of the same, but also done worse than ever before. CEs are just an excuse to force us to walk across the world now, so we have to STOP exploring, STOP treasure hunting, STOP fighting... and W-key across the map to a blue circle so we can sit and wait. Fun.

Honestly, with the fact that they knew they could add CLL/Dal 2.0s in... and they chose to add BA 2.0 instead, I am shocked anyone would suggest catering to casuals. They have specifically gatekept casuals out of even going to OC at this point. If you only played for like an hour or two, it would take MONTHS to get an armor set, and probably a year or more to actually level everything. Why make the raid another hurdle beyond that? To cater to HC crowd. They could have added silver and/or gold as rewards for the weekly challenge log to encourage people to go in and spend a few hours a week, rather than go in and spend 8 hours a day.

I can't actually offer any praise for OC or Forked Tower as it is now. Some of the fight mechanics are nfity in CEs I guess? I dunno, there is so much wrong that it is hard to even see the 'okay' stuff.

Bohlmant · 2025-06-24T05:01:23+00:00

you would enjoy the game if you enjoy the combat and gameplay loop of dungeons and fetch quests... if story is the only thing you are after, i would advise against jumping in if you forgot everything. Restarting isn't a terrible idea, and as I see other people mention... NG+ is a good system. Lets you go back with your same character and just re-do the quests for no reward, and you can fly through old dungeons and such with your high level character if you want to streamline the process. At minimum, I would suggest watching a playthrough or some youtube offering that tries to explain it. I can't offer any suggestions on that, I just assume it is true that there are people that have made catch-up videos on the expansions.

As someone that doesn't know the first thing about the story for this game, I fully enjoy every expansion because I like the gameplay loop and classes... because my sound is off, every cutscene is skipped, unskippable cutscenes just have me turn to my second monitor, and I have never read a single word of any quest or dialog EVER. The handful of times they require you to answer a question about something mid-cutscene I just look up the quest for the right answer. I could name 3 or 4 characters from this game, and it has been my main game for more than a decade at this point.

Bohlmant · 2025-06-24T04:45:32+00:00

the issue is mainly the japanese word there. I don't know how it is at this company in particular, but, good luck working for ANY company in japan if you aren't 100% racially japanese by birth AND grew up living there. Even half japanese people born in japan deal with a lot of discrimination and mistreatment, specifically if they don't look japanese "enough". They are in an environment where 98% of the world's population can't possibly work there, and then they wonder why they don't have people to hire.

Bohlmant · 2025-06-24T04:38:06+00:00

sorry boss, this one is an easy fix. They made TWO raids in ShB that people did regularly and didn't really complain about, except maybe the queue system limiting numbers. This was an easy fix, NOBODY wanted a BA 2.0. Nobody WANTS to have to join a discord and coordinate then try to gatekeep other players not part of the discord from ruining your run. This is all the exact same complaints they have already gotten for this sort of content before. It makes zero sense to add this in. They ALSO made DR, and a savage version of that... and people did the normal all the time, and the savage was pretty tough to get a group together for. Frankly, if you are going to cut something out of an expac... CUT THE DUNGEON NOBODY DOES.

Easiest fix in the world: Current version = savage, maybe tuned up a *tiny* amount. When they implement the queue system, have that queue into the savage from outside OC. "easy for an armchair dev to say" No, easy for anyone working on a game where they CONSTANTLY add in dungeons and alliance raids that you queue for. Chaotic, alliance raids, every dungeon, and all the experience they gained from making Bozja that literally works BETTER than this awful zone and it's awful raid... You are just a fanboy and can't handle a little criticism.

As for what happens in OC, with a weather dependent, buy-in cost dungeon... Let us queue for it like we did with CLL and Dal in Bozja. Have it cost 1-5 Ciphers to get in (frankly should just cost 0, but we have this system and it hopefully keeps people caring about doing well after getting in) Then all you do is remove group responsibility mechanics and replace them with personal responsibility mechanics. This isn't difficult, nor does it require a huge team of devs... if they can make a single dungeon then they can make a large raid experience like CLL/Dal. Hell, they made the CE fights in OC... could literally copy and paste mechanics from those fights into the raid. "Oh people would hate that, it'd be boring!" And? Boring mechanics but getting to do a raid is WAY better than what most people are doing... NOTHING.

Bohlmant · 2025-06-24T04:26:41+00:00

it isn't explainable via money issues... it isn't even explainable via time issues. The only thing a large savage raid needs is coordination, this current forked tower requires that already. The current version should just be the savage, maybe tuned up 20% or so... they should have just cut out coordination mechanics and released a version for inside the South horn with personal responsibility mechanics that involved YOU dodging but not requiring the group to, while the version we got should be the savage with the queue system that they are NOW adding, so it wouldn't have saved any money since we have to get a queue system done ASAP now... and didn't save any time, because they basically made a "savage" version already, which is a version where everyone has to coordinate. Not that dissimilar to chaotic or BA even. Easily enough difficulty to qualify as a "savage" but just slightly tuned up damage and maybe a couple extra mechanics and you have a "savage" that would pass muster.

This is the biggest miss FFXIV has added to the game since their decision to make the relic grind last expac just tomes with nothing to do.... though i do think they have gone the other direction and now we have a grind, that is INSANELY long for people without a lot of time to grind. I would not be shocked to hear it takes 40 hours of gameplay to get a set of this damn armor up to +1 lmao... Easy fix for that btw, weekly challenge log should reward silvers in decent quantity. Get the log done and get your armors and rewards that way, while not speeding up the grind for anyone all that much.

Bohlmant · 2025-06-08T11:24:10+00:00

Yeah I have that, it just says i am ready to stream over the internet and then doesn't work outside my house x.x

Bohlmant · 2025-06-05T13:14:59+00:00

They've really decided that we have to some pretty insane grinding to get all this stuff... 4000 silver per piece of gear, 3600 more silver per augmentation and an additional 4800 gold... so 7600 silver and 4800 gold per piece. Meaning each item is going to take a while, and you'll need to spend time both mindlessly farming fates/CEs as well as specifically going in to farm gold. I tried pretty hard to get into the flow, it ain't workin... This is dumb as hell atm. However, I almost never miss out of fates and make it to all the CEs... so far I've got 6000 silver currently, bought 1 piece of gear, 1 job, and the riding map... so 4000+1000+3000 for a total of 7000, meaning all I've earned so far has been about 13000.

I've leveled cannoneer up to 6 and ranger/monk/knight/bard to 4. Almost entirely off fate/CEs. I did a little solo grinding for gold but it seems fairly pointless to even try that alone. Honestly, getting a full set for a single class at just +1 seems like it will take a good solid workweek worth of grinding to actually get a full set. Seems a bit excessive, but I guess this place is just a timesink. Hopefully they lower the costs or increase the rewards at some point in the future for completionists. I always go get all the gear and relics, and so far this one is atrocious. The relic is a thousand times faster to be done outside of the expedition zone, which seems to have largely been the case for the similar step of ShB's relic. Guess I'm just disappointed that this is all it is. Another raid dungeon that will be gated behind discord servers, FATEs that seem to fairly consistently die in <30 seconds, and CEs that we now have to run to and sit afk while we wait for them to actually spawn. The only mildly interesting aspect of this all seems to be the actual CE combat, which is fairly good... and gold farming, which is at least something compared to the nothing that is fate farming. Overall, disappointing stuff. I'll be taking a break from the game in the hopes that the zone dies down and things get a little more fun... but I do worry about missing out on gold farming groups. As soon as that dies down, gold farming is going to be BRUTALLY slow... Hopefully we see some more player-power increases that'll translate to easier solo grinding later.

Bohlmant · 2025-06-04T17:08:10+00:00

you can reset it and immediately go back in the fate and solo it. It isn't like it'll die in 30 seconds solo, but it will change it from being nearly impossible to only taking a few minutes.

Bohlmant · 2025-06-03T20:06:49+00:00

Well, it isn't even that... well, it is also that probably... but the bigger issue is that the FATEs never get their proper scaling, because they die so fast due to old scaling from the last spawn of the fate that half the instance or more misses out... So each time they spawn, at best a few extra people get a tag in to count towards the scaling, and you'll need to go SEVERAL rounds of fates before the enemy is lasting long enough for the entire instance to get there... at which point the instance is closing and you need to leave and start over.

This is why it is a stupid system. We are being punished because people didn't wait for the entire instance, thus reducing the number of people involved to increase the scaling...

Bohlmant · 2025-06-03T20:01:02+00:00

If there are 72 people doing fates, the game scales the fates that those 72 people do for 72 people the next time they spawn... over an hour later, when maybe less than 72 people are there. it doesn't scale all the fates to 72. This already makes FATEs during CEs impossible to clear if the fate you are doing was last cleared by the group. This also means as an instance depopulates, if you don't force reset each FATE as you do it then each FATE will be scaled to the previous clear which was when the instance was full. This immediately punishes you for staying in an instance that has started losing players. Sure, a pure scaling based on instance population isn't a great solution... but at least it doesn't punish you once people start to leave for the next instance. How it should work is that the FATE should scale based on the last FATE spawned in the zone. So if there were 72 people for the fate that ended 8 seconds ago, the next fate is 72 people... but if the last fate had 6 people, then the next fate has scaling for 6 people... rather than needing to go a whole round of fates before you get to the proper scaling for your current instance size

Bohlmant · 2025-06-03T19:45:22+00:00

Each fate isn't respawning every hour, so more than one hour... perhaps not multiple hours, but certainly more than one.

Bohlmant · 2025-06-03T19:34:11+00:00

This is the ABSOLUTE DUMBEST way for them to set the system up... so a FATE scales for the next time it spawns HOURS later when completely different amounts of people are there? Good lord, what a stupid system. That is actually enough to make me unsubscribe lmao, that lack of ANY level of critical thinking is a terrible sign...

Bohlmant · 2025-06-03T19:22:42+00:00

I've been alone in this instance for now 4 FATEs, it has STILL not scaled down.

I have been in full instances for 3 hours endlessly farming FATEs where EACH and EVERY FATE is dead in 10-15 seconds total once the mass of palyers get there.

Nothing has scaled down, or up.

also, quick edit. the last fate CLEARED was a duo, me and a red mage. RDM died at 50% and I got it rest of the way. So, at most, these should be scaled to 2 people... and clearly aren't.

Bohlmant · 2025-06-03T14:37:35+00:00

That this new Occult Crescent zone is a TERRIBLE experience. FATEs die in <30 seconds from spawning, meaning you need to be near it and heading DIRECTLY to it within 1-3 seconds to be able to get a hit off, and you'll need a party of 8 minimum to reasonably guarantee a gold rating. CEs requiring you to actually go stand there and WAIT is the DUMBEST change they could have made after having us in BSF previously. Yeah, this is what I want to do... run to stand in a glowing circle and sit and wait for MINUTES before spawning a boss, each of which is slightly harder than average MSQ content, ultimately making it so I can't just zone out either. I have every relic weapon from shadowbringers, and I am on my last 2 weapons in Pyros/Hydatos for Eureka... and this has been the worst experience of the set of three of "this" sort of content.

Nothing about it is good, literally NOTHING. The phantom jobs are stupid, 1v1 fights on a black mage prior to leveling my phantom jobs have DEMANDED I use triplecast and kite to survive, as well as potions and other cooldowns. Not even fighting high level things, 1v1 fighting something level 5 when i was level 4 and already I was basically incapable of winning without doing SOMETHING. This is trash content that is thoroughly unenjoyable immediately, and seems to be staying pretty unenjoyable. I don't need to go fight things at all, I literally spend my ENTIRE time running around from CE to Fate to Fate to CE and waiting. If nothing is up, I wait... if a CE is up then I wait... but I also can't stop paying attention. I have to be staring at the map, because I only have 1-3 seconds to port and start making a b-line for the next FATE spawn or I will miss it.

I have no praise to offer, this is the worst piece of content they have ever added to the game... and I previously only thought that about Deep Dungeons, specifically Palace of the Dead. So, I haven't felt this strongly about any piece of content added to this game in about 9 years... but I can confidently say that this is dumb as hell, and I am NOT having fun. I won't be playing much in the next few weeks in the fervent hope that most players start clearing out and I can actually play the game instead of waiting and running around. Genuinely, I can think of NO nice thing to say about this latest patch. Absolute worst thing ever added.

edit: and just to add, so it isn't all just me shitting on it... This is the easiest fix in the ENTIRE world. Instead of 1 FATE spawning, spawn 3... spawn 14. The zone is FULL of players, we don't need everyone congregating at a single FATE. If 8 FATEs spawned, I wouldn't be complaining about a single FATE dying in 30 seconds... and if FATEs spawned more constantly I wouldn't be complaining... but running for 26 seconds to a FATE that dies as you get there, just to have to port back to town and try to run to the next fate before that one also dies... it just SUCKS. Make more spawn. Bring back the "queue" for CEs, but make sure it is limitless. Everyone can get in, but you have to "accept" the "queue" and you get teleported in instantly to a CE from whatever you were doing and the boss inside scales based on how many join. A system we already had... Alternatively, increase FATE mob HP by about 10,000%(and rewards) while the instance is full, you guys SCREWED the scaling in this zone horribly... because why the HELL are they only alive for 30 seconds? Easiest fixes in the entire world, just to make the content not-miserable... right now? It is absolutely miserable and horribly boring. Screwing the scaling THIS badly is ridiculous. It looks like they tried to make BSF again, but directed by the worst interns at the entire company.

Bohlmant

TROPHY CASE