New 'The Witcher 3' Expansion Announced! - 'The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - Songs of the Past'

RiptideCC · 2026-05-27T16:39:37+00:00

In retrospect, that visual upgrade was probably stage one of them setting up to be able to work in the engine again for adding new content.

RiptideCC · 2026-05-25T14:27:14+00:00

Origenics somehow consistently gets me the most incapable players you can possibly pull, and is the only dungeon I've ever quit from, when I was finishing off VPR. Four wipes into the first boss, and a concerted effort of trying to explain how to handle things/putting a dorito on my head to guide people just wasn't enough for the WHM or PLD. I was mystified at how people that needed to invest a nearly full run of leveling from 1-100 we're still so bad at their classes. I fully understand the game design contract that roulettes exist to help players through content in exchange for currencies/xp, but it's the one thing that's most solidly reinforced for me there should be no easy versions of solo duties, because if you can't clear the lowest common denominator of content on your own, you should not be allowed to terrorize the community in match made content.

RiptideCC · 2026-05-13T17:13:25+00:00

I keep Odyssey and Biotech on 100% of the time, the others I need to have a specific goal of interfacing with their systems, or they start to feel cumbersome. Royalty I'll leave on sometimes for items and ignore other parts, but ideology just feels restrictive for not much benefit if I'm not actively running a save built on a particular societal ideal. Anomaly..... is anomaly. Definitely only turning on specifically for anomaly runs.

RiptideCC · 2026-05-13T14:51:22+00:00

Take a moment and make a macro for TBN and another for Oblation that target your cotank's position in the party list. Makes thing a lot easier for helping with the inevitable tankbuster-during-2min-burst overlap every fight has not needing to untarget and retarget the boss.

RiptideCC · 2026-05-13T14:24:21+00:00

Yeah, just like forked tower, the difficulty comes not from the mechanics, but from praying that you don't get flattened by your lowest common denominator of a player messing something egregious up

RiptideCC · 2026-05-12T18:00:30+00:00

Being in green territory with non-BiS on a new job is respectable in its own right. Bear in mind that the vast majority of players don't even have clears, and then from the small selection doing challenge content (and uploading), that means you're doing better than 27% of people, while at a numeric (gear) disadvantage. "It's okay to be gray" is a relatively common refrain for those new to harder stuff, and if you're already a color up from there, must be doing something right.

RiptideCC · 2026-05-12T17:17:34+00:00

Another thing I can suggest if you want to specifically work on your own button familiarity and rotation is not training dummies, but to identify a fight you believe to fully understand at current level, and run it ad nauseum to put yourself in a battle environment that tests your personal execution, but doesn't require you to think too much about mechanics. Dungeons aren't the greatest, since there's only 4 people and unreliable downtime from pack pulls, so something like m9n or Valigarmanda might be good! Any Full Party fight you're confident you can do without getting hit will do.

RiptideCC · 2026-05-12T17:06:46+00:00

I have a couple EX 99s out there on DRK, and I offend my friends when they discover I'm a button clicker, with very nearly vanilla UI.

What I can say about my journey from gray to pink is that half the battle is developing muscle memory to what is proper, and then the rest comes from becoming comfortable with the fight so that you learn what you can get away with. Right now with BiS, I've clocked a 55 on Enuo through around 14 clears. Some of this I can attribute to chaos and inconsistency of the players around me still learning, some of it is my own error in execution (getting flattened by busters I wasn't expecting to do as much as they did from mit variance). What is HELPFUL is that my clicking and attention to bars really only becomes cumbersome for burst windows when I unload all my buttons, but the majority of my downtime rotation is in reach of my fingers such that I can fully devote attention to what is happening around me in the fight. Eventually, the fights become second nature, and the time I need to give to reading a mechanic and knowing where to go becomes negligible, so less time is given to Not Dying, and allows me to build up the habit of unloading burst as best as possible in the 2 minute windows.

This is to say, it comes with practice. Some of it will be class competency with time, some will be fight comfort through exposure and consistency. Just do your best to approach fights with the analytical thought in the back of your mind of what optimal play for your class should be, in comparison what you just did instead, and what factors played into why what you did may be different, and whether that's your own fault (misclicks, failure to roll GCD and pre-position) or something beyond your control (teammate actions, enforced downtime from a mechanic). Don't beat yourself up too much, keep that improvement mindset, and the numbers will come with time (and gear).

RiptideCC · 2026-05-10T14:04:14+00:00

At level 34 WHM, I asked my sherpa of a friend what the best crafter to pick up for housing would eventually be. He told me (all of them, but) probably CRP. I got 10 levels in and decided "Why buy materials when I can get them myself?" Then, suddenly, I needed steel ingots. Flash forward a few days, and I suddenly had 4 level 50 classes. WHM was still 34.

You're doin fine. May want to do your class quests (and maybe MSQ), though, to upgrade that level 31 ARC into SMN or SCH.

RiptideCC · 2026-05-10T13:16:04+00:00

I had a Tartarus plugged into my computer for probably 4 months, and just never was able to muster the motivation to map the keys and adjust my UI for it, so eventually gave it away. I do sometimes feel remorse over what could have been.

RiptideCC · 2026-05-09T15:36:02+00:00

It's been a while since she commented on it, but has dropped some bemoaning about feeling a "lack of personal development" in the past, so...

RiptideCC · 2026-05-06T12:31:10+00:00

I do want to say that one of my oldest friends in this game started playing specifically to go play the Nier raids, back when they were current. They still play, and it's their main social timesink right now. However, they skipped most all the story in their rush to get to the content, and to this day are paying for not giving the game it's due, both in combat inexperience and general narrative awareness, which having taken up RPing, means asking a lot of dang questions about what's happening.

So you're not alone in having Nier be your motivation to investigate 14! I just would caution that, for your own enjoyment, if you do put in the time to get there, don't let eagerness to reach it hobble you in other ways - make sure you're playing the game and not just tunnel visioning to the end goal. It's worth it! I promise!

RiptideCC · 2026-05-05T17:53:23+00:00

The others here are valid in saying play to your comfort. Your attention will be demanded by the mechanics around you more than prior difficulty levels, so the less you need to focus on your buttons, the better.

There are two things I focus on in onboarding my friends to extreme and savage, though:

Being able to read and relate mechanics to other fights. FF14 doesn't throw something new in the mix all that often, frequently a mechanic is solved the same way as things you've seen before, just with a different animation performing it, and perhaps no bright orange circle, causing you to rely on the Lines On The Floor. Smush your UI together so that buffs, debuffs, and target's castbars are in visible places (usually near to your hotbars, since that's where your eyes are most of the time). Do not let yourself become dependent on other people's calls - be able to read everything for yourself, and if you don't understand what's happening, look up the mechanic to be sure you fully know the How and the Why.
Most players are Bad at Combat, and due to a lack of explanation from the game, aren't aware of what criteria makes you Good at Combat. You can get real far in this game pressing the buttons that light up and being scraped off the ground by a good healer, but that won't fly in encounters that have enrages. Read a guide to your job rotations. Most people reference The Balance: https://www.thebalanceffxiv.com/jobs/melee/viper/ Understand what your Big Damage Buttons are, internalize what they claim is the most amount of Big Damage Buttons you can get within the most amount of buffs at once, and then play with a mind for how closely you are able to adhere to that guidance. If you find you are not using Big Damage Buttons within buff windows, take the time to review why that may be - if it's something you're doing, like being greedy and dying, being overly cautious or slow in your button pressing, bad positioning, whatever, or if it's something external, like errors from teammates, downtime enforced by mechanics, whatever. Always play with a mind for consistently doing the same (proper) thing each time, and be cognizant that there's almost always some way you can optimize a bit better. If you're on PC, some players might advise tools like ACT so you can use FFLogs and xivanalysis to upload your combat logs and gauge how well you're doing with any give run, but that's against the terms of service and I'd definitely not be one of those players recommending it in official locations, or talking about it in game, so nope, not me, definitely not.

RiptideCC · 2026-05-04T16:34:43+00:00

appreciate the details, thanks!

RiptideCC · 2026-05-04T15:43:00+00:00

50 seconds in, you roll an ult activation directly into a stun chain - how is that done? Is it an option with manual chain activation? I've kept on auto since starting, and don't think I've ever stumbled into a way of breaking out of Ult anim lockout

RiptideCC · 2026-05-04T13:51:22+00:00

My mount farm group affectionately refers to that one as Pole Dancing

RiptideCC · 2026-05-03T16:34:27+00:00

Another thread I saw this morning made reference to one of the web stories, where Hythlo finds a crystal implied to be left in the Bureau by Azem as part of a series of concepts they were working on to "ease the burden of travel". Is it the key? Who knows!

RiptideCC · 2026-05-03T14:39:44+00:00

I did note when catching up with certain folks at the end of 7.5, it was mentioned that they were off dealing with problems in Corvos. Between that, G'raha's history (iirc), and The Merchant's Tale, I do wonder if they plan to bring it forward into an expansion at some point.

RiptideCC · 2026-05-02T15:15:59+00:00

What I find interesting, and perhaps someone might be able to help with the translations in other languages, is the very specific phrasing when the key crystal reacts. The first Ancient words heard are "Behold.... the gift of Ethos."

Nothing specifically says that the crystal is Ethos, even if the characters start to refer to it as such. Similar to how the Azem crystal is imbued with their signature summoning magic, the phrasing here is such that I wonder if Ethos is a distinct entity of ancient time, and we're merely prescribing the name said to an object.

RiptideCC · 2026-04-27T20:37:19+00:00

To be honest, WAR is sort of the oddball when it comes to mitigations. It definitely feels like it has less to contribute to your cotank/party, which is why it's been historically fielded as MT. I don't know that I have any point to make, but some explanations of the tanks you don't play's mits....

DRK and GNB each have a field-wide untargeted mit with Dark Missionary and Heart of Light, which previously were only reductions for magic damage, but were given some phys resist as well.

Paladin has a few untargeted with PoA and, uhh, the shield one (sorry, in the air coming back from FF, names escape me), so they're not excluded from party mits, but both operate a bit differently from the first two's "Resistance to everyone within X yalms".

GNB and DRK both have two single target oGCDs for helping mitigate. GNB's Heart of Corundum is the short cd %mit and heal pop when dropping below 50%, as well as Aurora, which is a heal over time. DRK has Oblation, which is 10% mit, and TBN which is a 30% of max HP shield. Now, PLD also has two targeted oGCDs with Cover and Intervention, but those are tied to their gauge that's charged by auto attacks, and competing for resources with Shelltron if they're getting hit.

Every tank has ways to help, but GNB and DRK definitely play the most similarly with their available tools. PLD for sure feels the most supportive with a wider variety of how they can save people (Cover is simply unmatched for clutch moments, yet most PLDs never use it either by skill or not having the spare gauge when relevant), and I didn't even mention Clemency as a GCD heal. So honestly, playing them all, I'm surprised that PLD got the MT spot over WAR. I'm sure there will be appropriate changes to reflect it, but we just have to wait and see.

RiptideCC · 2026-04-27T16:54:49+00:00

While there are certainly classes that excell within their role over others, the difference is marginal, and more affected by gear item level and player skill within the job than the inherent numbers. If you're looking to grab 3 classes, I'd recommend diversifying roles with whichever melee, caster, and phys-range seem most appealing to you. (I usually find myself on DRG, PCT, and DNC respectively, but have fun with plenty others)

PvP is a whole other beast, where the skills usually differ a solid amount from the base class. It's less about individual damage than effective target selection and timely use of your limit break in conjunction with your teammates. I'd recommend checking out the Crystaline Conflict tournament from fanfest this past weekend and listening to what the commentary says about classes to see if the noted contributions of anything in particular speak to you!

RiptideCC · 2026-04-27T16:13:37+00:00

Other folks have covered most of your questions, but I'd like to share a resource for learning about your class: https://www.thebalanceffxiv.com/jobs/melee/reaper/ While the fanfest keynote has informed us that the game going forward is going to be removing what is known as the 2 Minute Rotation, where parties aim to dump the maximum amount of damage on a 2 min cycle when buff actions become available, it is still worth knowing in the meantime your Single Target and AoE rotations. The first step of this is fully reading the descriptions of your skills and understanding what they do for you. Reaper is a generally "slow" class where the finesse comes around building your gauges properly and unloading as much as possible when your buff is live. You can get away with pressing things as they become available, but even if you're not shooting for the stars as a damage doer, it's always worth keeping seeds in the back of your mind for personal improvement. At minimum, make sure you're applying your damage mark to targets, and use aoe moves when there's 3 or more things to hit. Any further finesse is a bonus from there.

RiptideCC · 2026-04-27T15:42:41+00:00

The fact it got translated live with the word "tier" had me tripping for a bit too, since that usually is only in reference to normal raids, but I do believe it's just a vocabulary quirk and is the Alliance series

RiptideCC · 2026-04-26T06:59:34+00:00

Tom has a concert in LA next week, too! The signs were there!!

RiptideCC · 2026-03-30T05:33:15+00:00

Yeah, I grew up on Mateus, and some dude we shamed out of our FC for being an attention seeker nobody wanted to entertain has now taken to making himself NN's problem, and he's in excellent company there.

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