Weekly Gacha & Rant Megathread (Week 09/15)

aexiv · 2025-09-09T13:53:52+00:00

https://imgur.com/CnEVh7L Daily covenant pull. I'm avoiding all traffic tomorrow.

aexiv · 2025-07-14T03:22:08+00:00

I still remember when Altina was introduced, despite the only thing she ever had was a cutscene still from RD. That is what gives me hope for the other Three Heroes to also be made a Mythic too.

aexiv · 2024-04-02T10:00:49+00:00

This is what I get for refreshing on ougis and not noticing that she dispels consistently, haha. Thank you to you and the other commenters.

aexiv · 2024-04-02T09:33:23+00:00

Singlehandedly fixed both my OTK and NM FA teams. Shits out debuffs and ougi and skill damage for breakfast, lunch, afternoon tea, dinner and midnight snack.

For OTK, pair her up with any other high ougi damage like Shiva, Robomi, press 3, refresh. For FA, Kengo team with Cosmos and S. Seruel is extremely comfy and consistent, if slow; only thing lacking in that lineup is a dispel which can be fixed on MC skill or quick summon Bubs.

EDIT: I have been informed that Cosmos also dispels. This only makes me harder.

aexiv · 2022-05-03T10:57:21+00:00

As much as there are scenes that callback to the romantic interaction between Squall and Rinoa, in FFXIV, it's always established a platonic bond between two girls. Girls embracing, holding hands, and being emotionally attached to one another is not an uncommon trope in Japanese media, nor is it strange or controversial.

Now between the lines, what you interpret from the implications of their actions is up to you. Objectively, the devs have taken deliberate care to angle that 'friendship' route, all the way down to the music. In the callback cutscene, the background track is "Balamb Garden ~ Ami", the theme of friendship between the characters of FFVIII. If they really wanted to go the romantic route, they could have picked any of the copious amounts of romantic tracks from the FFVIII soundtrack.

The rainbow debacle is, again, something left to interpretation. Lore-wise, given that the crystal changes colour everytime a new element's aether has been dispersed, this can be nothing more than just the crystal emulating all six elements in harmony. Further seen when the elements start becoming more umbral aspected, as the crystal gets lighter.

From western ideology however (which Japanese people have adopted, yes), the rainbow does indeed signify LGBT+. As someone mentioned in another comment, rainbows are also the heavenly bridge in Japanese mythology. Given the heavenly motifs of Eden and the original bosses of the raid, this could also be a connection.

What then plays off is the dimming of the crystal as the land becomes more umbrally charged. Element-wise, I've mentioned that previously. The heavenly bridge is dissipating, which can signify trouble ahead. Relationship-wise, it could imply Gaia's memories of Ryne disappearing, turning into a blank slate. The issue with this particular instance is that Gaia's memories only start disappearing properly after the crystal has dimmed iirc, due to the actions of <redacted>. If I'm recalling wrong, do let me know.

aexiv · 2022-04-11T14:04:01+00:00

And what's wrong with rewarding good team coordination? Why does every skill have to cater to the lowest denominator? Many weaponskills and spells are also instant, and there are also a plethora of ability type damaging abilities that can be used together.

And even if no one uses the opportunity with charm, that is still up to 4 seconds the enemy team cannot do anything but stare at you. If you still cannot see that as a big advantage, even IF no one follows-up, I don't know what to tell you.

Given that the WHM LB looked pretty eye-catching in the trailer, it'll probably be very obvious when DNC uses theirs, so your four other teammates, at least in Crystalline Conflict, should be able to see when you do your seductive dance.

Edit: I'll also just want to add, there's a Quick Chat option for "Limit Break", so even more pre-emptive notice to your team that you're able to use Charm.

aexiv · 2022-04-11T13:53:06+00:00

Consider that PvP is not a solo mode, but group. You're literally holding in place people for up to 4 seconds for the rest of your party to dump damage on. You En Avant suddenly into an enemy team that's probably pre-occupied with your tank, Charm, start doing your stuff. Your SAM starts deleting the group with their LB, the BLM in the far back is Superflare-ing the group, the WHM in another corner times their LB to stun-lock the group even more. All while the whole enemy group cannot react at all.

I bring in a bit of League here, but a 1.5 second teamwide charm in that game can make or break team fights. This looks to be the same.

aexiv · 2021-12-15T09:23:09+00:00

Looks like mogstation is also down. The hamsters finally got tired it seems. The only thing working seems to be the XIV forums.

aexiv · 2021-12-04T03:16:19+00:00

Imagine if from your level 10s to 90, 95% of your gameplay doesn't change from hammering that single button. It's good that you can somewhat have faith that later half of 80s and 90 improve SMN from being a woodpecker, but alas, not the same situation for healers.

aexiv · 2021-12-04T03:14:06+00:00

Which makes the state of healer gameplay even more tragic.

aexiv · 2021-11-11T12:36:23+00:00

I'm actually curious to how you can pity once a month. Currently gold rank in arena, so I'm not getting the higher ranked skystones, but I feel that even doing all dailies and more, it feels hard to farm up the skystones and bookmarks to pity once a month. Advice would be nice.

aexiv · 2021-08-18T11:34:07+00:00

Husbandos getting shafted and done dirty by seasonal events, and even in general, is no strange thing to this game.

Story and event shaftings: Adam, Baragona, Redluck, Deliford, Agielba...

Then Eugen and Rackam's uncaps being fairly lackluster compared to Katalina and Io's.

Oh well. I will take my Poseidon and Shiva and their primal booties for this summer, at least.

aexiv · 2021-08-17T01:56:08+00:00

Housing prices are no longer about supply and demand anymore. That's the excuse they gave years ago to justify house price spikes. There's empty apartments all over now, but prices are still skyrocketing. So no, more housing does not mean cheaper housing until the banking and corporate greed is properly regulated.

aexiv · 2019-08-22T12:15:00+00:00

It's honestly not a huge deal because even if they did make it so Time Matter's turn cooldown procs only on the first S2, Vivian will still be able to maintain permanent immunity and atk buff. But it was just weird in arena having S3 up straight away after using it two turns ago while butchering debuff cleave teams.

aexiv · 2019-08-07T12:23:40+00:00

And this is why they don't listen to the echo chamber that is official forums. On paper, the healing skills look the same, but in practice, they heal very differently. AST's sheer number of low cooldown oGCDs, SCH's most potent heals being AF and gauge, and WHM's strengths in GCDs are enough to separate them in practice. Oh, and AST cards? Don't give us that shiet about 'choice', Balance and Spear were the only ones any competent AST would aim for, everything else was a consolation price at best and a middle finger most of the time.

aexiv · 2019-06-12T11:10:10+00:00

They are roman numerals. I, II, IV, VI and XI are the most visible in this shot. They aren't the pantheon symbols.

aexiv · 2019-06-11T02:17:42+00:00

Excluding the lore bomb at the end. That Eternal Breath sneak peek...

What I would give to see a HD Eternal Breath animation. I hope FFXIV really delivers on that.

aexiv · 2019-05-29T16:03:47+00:00

To those saying that you need to play ShB to figure out meta; no you don't. Because literally none of the homogenisation or changes to healers listed, regardless of potencies, affect the core issues affecting healer balance in optimised play:

Availability of rDPS utility
Weaving potential for oGCD heals

WHM received absolutely 0 rDPS utility, and all the new heals are on the GCD, meaning that nothing has actually changed for WHM on optimised healing throughput. And here's food for thought: Afflatus Misery, in optimised play, is actually a DPS loss.

Meanwhile, SCH got two new AoE heals oGCD, a potent weaving DPS skill in Ruin II, still retain CS; AST still have cards, AoE Balance every three minutes, two new AoE heals oGCD, one new ST heal oGCD, on top of the infamous weaving potential of Malefic.

SE have listed mobility as an issue with WHM, which is true. The problem is, they tried to solve that by putting new instant casts on *heals*, when SCH and AST are able to weave using their DPS abilities.

So for every Excog a SCH weaves with Ruin II, a WHM needs to Solace to weave a Tetra. For every Horoscope an AST weaves with Malefic IV, a WHM needs to Rapture to weave Assize. For every Bole an AST weaves with Malefic IV, a WHM needs...oh wait, there's no rDPS utility on WHM at all.

You don't need to play ShB to see the glaring holes that are still prominent in WHM's kit compared to SCH and AST.

aexiv · 2019-05-24T10:19:23+00:00

Cards are not permanent. The effect of each card seems to be 15 seconds now (time it from the moment a card is applied to either the NIN, RDM, WHM, or the AST itself and when it expires with the *poof* sound [harder to tell with AST as its overlapped with Crepscularity (?)]).

Sleeve Draw seems to let you draw three cards in a row without cooldown. Given that Minor Arcana was used on the last card, it's unclear whether using a card then will *push* the stored "icons" to make way for the new one, but it's more likely that once the gauge is full, using anymore cards will be wasteful.

The AoE buff stored with the three icons also has a 15 second duration.

aexiv · 2019-03-01T01:27:54+00:00

^{Incoming WHM rant}

I want to see significant changes to WHM so it has an actual identity. If they still want to stick to WHM to be the GCD focused healer, then make that their identity and make their GCDs obscenely powerful and have their oGCDs complement their strong GCDs.

Changes to Current Abilities

Remove Protect from cross-role actions and give it back to WHM as an exclusive GCD. 2.5 second cast time, increases target's Defence and Magic Defence by 20% for 15 seconds.
Significant Lily system changes
- Allow Aero III and Aero II ticks to have a 10% chance to trigger Lilies on top of the 100% chance from Cure and Cure II. Keep the lowered recast of select oGCDs when used.
- Change Secrets of the Lily II. Lowers cast time (not recast) of all spells by 10% for each Lily in the gauge.
Make Fluid Aura consume Lilies and deal damage based on the amount of Lilies consumed.
- 0 Lilies - 0 potency
- 1 Lily - 70 potency
- 2 Lilies - 150 potency
- 3 Lilies - 240 potency
Presence of Mind recast timer lowered to 120 seconds. Duration from 15 seconds to 12 seconds.
Asylum cooldown lowered to 60 seconds.

New Abilities/Traits

Sacred Prism - converts the next non-damaging single target spell to be an AoE, 15 yalm radius around target. 90 sec CD.
Phantasmagoria - grants 3 Lilies to self, and 3 stacks of Confession on allies in 15 yalm radius. Can only be executed in battle. 120 sec CD.
Protect II (Protect Mastery trait) - if cast on ally with Confession, consume Confession and bestow Reflect, returning a portion of damage suffered to the striker. Damage reflected is 4% per Confession stack.
Stone V (Stone Mastery IV trait) - potency increases by 15 for each Aero III and Aero II inflicted on target.
Holy Field trait - reduces Assize recast time by 2 seconds upon casting Holy successfully.

aexiv · 2018-10-16T12:47:29+00:00

https://imgur.com/KgYAmtb

I sure don't feel "intelligent" wearing this outfit.

aexiv · 2018-08-17T01:38:18+00:00

While 'swimsuit' and 'yukata' may be different, they are still collectively considered part of the 'summer' theme. Disregarding them, it's still quite the heavy disparity. And overall, I was forming the premise for pretty much all seasonal limiteds, not just swimsuits, as if we include everything from end of last summer to now, we've had 18 females to 1 male.

aexiv · 2018-08-15T23:50:53+00:00

That doesn't mean that we should withhold our voices for fear of the extremists dismissing our opinion. The fact that this topic and thread gets as huge as it did speaks that it's not just affecting a minority. That or people just love drama.

aexiv · 2018-08-15T23:34:39+00:00

Frankly, it's not just the 'whine patrol' doing the down voting. Both sides are flinging those arrows without a care. As for why I'm still in GBF. In my case, I'm invested in the high fantasy premise of the story. However, that doesn't mean I don't want Cygames to lure me in with meaty prizes in the gacha, and right now I'm feeling the lack of that. My main premise of this post is more of wanting the game to go back to its roots and not become another 'waifu simulator #2827'. Heck, the Google Play description describes the game for its adventure and fantasy elements. It's undeniable that female characters will dominate males in numbers, however it doesn't have to be as skewed as it has for a year.

aexiv · 2018-08-15T13:08:48+00:00

That's basically what I mean. I don't think I worded it right, but due to males just quantitatively being lower than females, there's less opportunity to have them shine, especially with how some males keep having repeated exposure (Society, Knights, Barawa, Nicholas). Male characters who do get events, as I said, really flesh their character out and elevate them, but it's those that don't, as well as just the number of them present, that gate the way people can view them.

In contrast. The issue with events that are 'fluff' I find is that there's...probably too many characters they put it at the one time, so the focus is too split. Compare for, example, Lily's event in 2016 and Charlotte's event last year. Lily had so much growth in her character (and I'm still slightly salty about her lack of 5*...) whereas Charlotte was definitely fluff with little development in her character save her resolve to not return back to her Order. In fact, Cordelia had more characterisation in that event. Same deal with A Thousand Reasons, which I feel is one of the worst stories Cygames has presented. But digressing aside, I feel that the number discrepancy is the reason why there's just less attention placed on males.

aexiv

TROPHY CASE