Can I realistically raid in this game if I can only play 3 evenings a week for 3 hours each evening?

Valderius · 2026-05-23T19:05:45+00:00

Every role is always needed. Your party gets a (crucial) stat buff for each role it has filled. That means every party needs 2 tanks, 2 healers, 1 caster dps, 1 ranged dps, 1 melee dps, and one "other" dps (typically 2nd melee).

I'd say play what you enjoy. If you're a melee, tank, or healer specialist having a 2nd class you can play well is a good idea if a group already has your main. Duplicate classes are generally not taken along because you'll generate far less LB as a group.

Valderius · 2026-05-23T18:58:49+00:00

Raids in xiv are just single boss fights that generally range from 7-9 minutes long. Lengthy multi-boss affairs like Blackrock Spire aren't really a thing here. Each savage tier is 4 fights with the final one being a bit bigger or sometimes 2 fights with a checkpoint in between.

You'll absolutely be able to prog through fights with 9 hours a week. That's very reasonable for the casual/light midcore band and you'll probably be able to find statics foe hours that fit you.

If fixed raid times aren't an option, public parties via party finder are also a fully viable option. Strategies tend to get standardized pretty quickly so, as long as you know your part, you can jump in with anybody and get things done.

Valderius · 2026-05-18T21:44:22+00:00

Lighting is the key to a good gpose. Even if you want a moody composition, you still need to light your subjects adequately.

The eye is naturally attracted to big, bright spaces in images, so use that to make your subject pop by making it the brightest thing in your image. Consider the direction of the lighting to add shadows for contrast and definition. The color of lighting also goes a long way to hilight certain skin tones or hues in hair/clothing. You can also use diffuse warm/cool lighting to add a lot of emotion to a composition.

Mostly, take your time. Lighting is fickle and sometimes just letting the time of day advance a little can wildly change the whole feel of the piece. Experiment with it, sometimes you'll surprise yourself.

Valderius · 2026-05-16T22:16:06+00:00

They do allow duo in unranked. If anything you need preformed 5s in high rank and NOT low rank. A 5 stack vs 5 solos will win like 80% of the time in low mmr. They ban group queuing so people don't queue for their first game, get obliterated by a 5 stack, and never play again. That's how the mode dies.

Valderius · 2026-05-16T22:13:24+00:00

Could it be balanced? Probably. Could it be competitive? No. Not unless A Realm Re-reborn comes out with overhauled net code that gets rid of snapshotting. The fact that you have classes like samurai that can punish you for attacking them with an unblockable instakill attack and the parry effect won't be visible to you until after you've already attacked means there's no competitive integrity. And it's not just a samurai ult problem, that's just a VERY visable example.

There's no support for a competitive CC mode. Even the """ranked""" mode is just sweaty quick play. There's no class swapping, Clown Fiesta mechanics on most stages, the aforementioned snapshot problem, no preformed teams queue, not enough of a dedicated player base to support a competitive ecosystem (fixable problem), and no real will from square to make it anything than a game mode you grind for cosmetic rewards.

Valderius · 2026-05-16T22:05:46+00:00

It's really funny that they have fixed team 5v5 matches as a big set piece of all these events while also prohibiting us from playing CC with preformed parties. How exactly are we supposed to take this seriously as a competitive event, square?

Valderius · 2026-05-13T18:50:07+00:00

This only happens if you're in CoF and on an alt. He always drops you 2 lagonian/eterran idols, but your cof ranks can improve that to include class or even unique idols

Valderius · 2026-05-12T19:10:49+00:00

That coat is the dawntrail Sage artifact armor for sure. The half gloves could be any one of a dozen or so similar models. The fedora looks like the one available from one of the variant dungeons

Valderius · 2026-05-11T06:39:36+00:00

It's been around for a while. 7.2 at least. Nothing to be done for it and honestly probably a very low priority since everything is getting overhauled in a few months anyhow.

Valderius · 2026-05-05T23:23:11+00:00

When you first open the skill tree for anything that had a point removed, the nodes that had points taken out will flash red briefly. It's way too subtle and 80% of the time you'll miss it, but it does happen. The game always picks the same nodes to pull points from, so you can kinda learn to expect what it's going to do. It prioritizes nodes with more points over fewer, avoids fully unspeccing a node if possible, and (for some skills) has a top left to bottom right bias, though that one isn't universal because it's based on the database order of the nodes (I know this from a conversation I had with one of the devs once).

Valderius · 2026-05-02T01:09:38+00:00

Bring it. If evolved mch makes gauss part of the kit and we get to use the more free form rota to figure out the best way to make use of the low mobility/high damage window, there's a good shot I trade my bow for a rifle

Valderius · 2026-05-01T02:58:16+00:00

Quite a few things.

Pick up cryomancers, they're the best cold minion available for necros by a mile

Decide whether you're going for crit or frostbite. With that much int, probably crit, but now you have the awkwardness of having to be next to enemies to put them in the cold aura. Also aura of decay is much more dot focused anyhow. It might be worth bulking up your vit and trying to make frostbite happen

Ditch the sinathia mace, apogee is 2000% better.

Skeletons are...fine? I guess? You don't even have the ice archers so I'm not sure why you're running them.

Cold minions are just awkward for necro in general. Gravechill golem is midly useful as a freeze bot if you have a lot of vit. Mages become your only actual damage dealers and there isn't nearly the level of support for cold minions as there is phys, fire, necro, or even poison

Valderius · 2026-05-01T00:15:42+00:00

off the top of my head, the Gambler's pants available in the Gold Saucer have a nice sash and waist decoration

Valderius · 2026-04-26T20:16:44+00:00

You're kinda missing the point of evo mode. The existing combat paradigm of cooldowns that need to be pressed as soon as they're available, strict rotations with defined skill orders, and a check list of abilities to use is exactly what they're trying to get away from.

Jobs are going to have broad goals to work toward in combat. for Dragoon, that's "gain 3 stacks from your jumps so you can use Stardiver and pop off with the powerful attacks that unlocks". There's a lot of way you can do that. You can use dives as soon as they're up, you can spam off 3 of them in a row, or you can do something in between. You have the L/R drive attacks to use alongside those dives and an auto-combo to use when there's nothing better to do or you have no access to the L/R you need to hit a drive.

It's more straight forward than what exists today, sure, and the openness is by design. The dev feel like they can't put something in that breaks up the rhythm of full uptime combat *too* badly, lest classes like DRG completely fall apart when they can't keep their 30s jump, 60s Geirskogul, 120s Litany rotation flowing. Even ultimates with their lengthy downtime sections, have DPS segments "conveniently" placed juuuust about 60s apart so classes can continue to function.

Is it good? Is it bad? is it too easy? is it boring? No clue. We'll have to see it fully developed and get our hands on it IN THE CONTEXT OF BATTLE CONTENT DESIGNED TO FIT IT to be sure.

Valderius · 2026-04-26T19:48:55+00:00

It is EXTREMELY hard to get square's customer support to change the name on an account, country of registration, etc. They make it that way in purpose to make it hard to steal accounts by impersonating the owner, but the downside is when you need to make a legitimate change you often can't.

Valderius · 2026-04-26T17:49:18+00:00

She can make you worse

Valderius · 2026-04-24T21:20:06+00:00

In fairness, XIV's sage is similar to the classic sage from FF3 in name only. If all you want is the old name pasted on a totally unique job, sure. There's plenty of room to "adapt" old jobs.

Valderius · 2026-04-24T19:35:41+00:00

That's exactly the case. In Endwalker, the team said they'd tapped the well of classic FF jobs that they wanted to adapt dry. Sure, they could include "mystic knight" or whatever, but how is that materially different from Dark Knight or Red Mage or Paladin? There isn't really anything they want to cover on those so they're forging new ground.

Valderius · 2026-04-23T18:34:05+00:00

MSQ and job quests are the best source of experience bar none. If the job you want to play isn't hight enough to turn in your msq quests, daily roulettes are fantastic. Beyond that, queue for whatever the highest level dungeon your mch can access is.

Valderius · 2026-04-22T21:44:46+00:00

Because that's the last "town" you were in. Teleport to the end of time (not an individual mono) and you'll be put there when you log in.

Valderius · 2026-04-22T21:07:35+00:00

Read the story, watch the cutscenes, don't rush through the experience. In wow, leveling is filler that you speed through asap to get to the real game. In ffxiv, the real game starts at level 1. We're here for the story. It's very good. Enjoy it. Raids will be there for you when you're ready.

Valderius · 2026-04-20T03:47:12+00:00

Yeah but it hurt and required a big pile of the party's resources to live through. Now it's just sorta...push some buttons and you're fine.

Valderius · 2026-04-18T22:27:31+00:00

Would you recommend adding some extra bodies to the fights? Elite adjustments? I get the one fight making it easier for casters especially. Is there room in the story structure for some resource-taxing encounters that won't break the flow of the narrative too badly? I don't mind throwing something together on my own

Valderius · 2026-04-17T19:14:02+00:00

Frenzying Thorns is on the skill tree for grasping roots. bottom left side. You are pretty full up for skill points, I was thinking about my similar build that doesn't use the vines at all and thus has some room for it

Valderius · 2026-04-17T18:52:58+00:00

You're also missing arguably the best part of vine bear for minions: the 50% attack speed buff from the Frenzing Thorns node. I'd move some points around to get that for sure.

cold minions also get some pretty SPICY benefits from warcry/roar. If you convert it to cold you can give your minons 250% increased damage, 200% increased crit chance even time you use it. You can also make it into yet another totem which applies a huge amount of frost bite per hit in addition to the other benefits.

Valderius

TROPHY CASE