I recently ran across a Youtube video where someone was complaining about the long effort to get a Griffon in Guild Wars 2. Griffon is the first flying mount in GW2. I won’t link the video as I’m sure he’s moved on and is now struggling with the many times longer process to get a Skyscale mount. I starting working on getting Skyscale in November 2020 and finally got it in January 2021.
As we know, different MMOs have different requirements for the use of Mounts. Let’s review:
I’m not saying that they copied each other. But it’s odd don’t you think? Shadowlands vs Shadowbringers? End Walker vs End of Dragons? All the game companies are listening to their competitors’ leaks?
Two New Jobs In New Expansions
And FFXIV Sage Barrier Healer vs GW2 Mesmer Elite Spec Virtuoso. Both with daggers and ranged attacks. Links to the video reveals on the next page, but let’s look at some images first:
GW2 Virtuoso Elite Spec for Mesmer
I wonder if the GW2 folks are going to change their virtuoso icon the same way that FFXIV needed to change the Sage Icon? The video reveal of the Virtuoso shows all the skills and animations. Compared with Sage, the Virtuoso daggers are transparent and glowy. But there’s more work to do, maybe the graphics will change before release.
FFXIV Sage Barrier Healer
Here are some pictures of the Sage Job.
We’ve seen nothing so detailed for Sage as we have for GW2 Virtuoso. But FFXIV does not tend to reveal that kind of detail before release. And there are no public beta’s. We’ll just have to wait until November 2021 for the release of End Walker. So far all we have is a visual overview with no detailed commentary.
I’ve mentioned that I’m working on the Amaro mount, which requires all the War and Magic jobs to level 80. At this point I’ve been using MSQ Roulette and Deep Dungeons to get all the jobs to level 71. This level is required both to do Shadowbringer’s dungeons and the Bozjan Southern Front. I’ve tried several strategies to level my jobs beyond 71.
The Bozjan Southern Front
The Bozjan Southern Front unlock quests required a whole day to accomplish.
The Wikis for FFXIV are a little confusing about how to unlock the BSF, but the quest chain requires at least level 80 and starts in the Kugane Markets with an NPC who starts the Return in Invalice quest line. This quest line is long and will take you into three 8 man RAIDs, but don’t let this deter you. These are basically just long 8 Man dungeons and if you have decent gear on a level 80 character, you are good to go. This is a very interesting quest line and if you study Youtube walk-throughs for the Raids before you go, then they are quite interesting. I did them as a DPS job to avoid the pressure of Tank or Healer, but your mileage may vary in this regard. And after you get to the BSN, there are two things:
You can purchase nice purple level 80 Relic Weapons for tomes.
You can level up any character above level 71 toward level 80.
There are lots of folks doing this content. Unlike my previous experience trying Eureka – another similar area at a lower level. But the leveling is hit and miss and the content is brutal. I was able to get to resistance level 9. But I have given up using the BSN to level my characters.
I saw some very interesting glamour in Heaven on High this morning and it took a while to track it down.
I found some of the pieces in the Eorzea Gearset Collection. The boots and gloves appear to be the Deepshadow Casting set from the Crystarium Nuts collection. I believe Nuts are a reward for Fates in the Shadowbringers areas.
The jacket is an Arachne Bolero – Crafted by Master Weaver II. Level 50 ilvl 110 for casters. I found on on the Market board. To achieve this look, dye it “Ink Blue” or “Soot Black”. It comes with white sleeves.
It’s time to order the Pre-Order for the Final Fantasy XIV Endwalker Expansion. The expansion is coming in November and whichever pre-order you purchase you can get some good items to help with leveling. As always, the process or ordering in the Square-Enix Store is confusing. Unlike other games, for some unknown reason, purchasing games and upgrades is very confusing.
For me, the important part of the Pre-Order is the Leveling Earring. Minions are nice, but not that important to me. This earring adds 30% XP for all content up to level 80 and is account wide. You’ll get this from the Delivery Moogle for all your characters.
For a while now I’ve been working on the Amaro Mount in FFXIV. As a reminder, to get this mount, you need to get all of your Fighting jobs, except BLUe Mage, up to level 80. So it takes a while.
Here is my current progress:
I’m currently spamming Heaven on High after getting all the jobs to at least 61 in Palace of the Dead. It takes about 4 to 5 runs of HoH to get a level. Once I reach 70, and equip Scaevan Armor, I move on to another job. Also once per day, I do an MSQ Roulette. At lower levels, doing dungeons was a win for experience, but at this level, dungeon queues are too long and XP too low to make doing dungeons, except the MSQ Roulette, to be worth the trouble. To avoid over running the Armory storage, I’m keeping all the jobs at about the same level. Otherwise the Armory space would be gone pretty quickly.
I’m not sure how to level 70-80 most efficiently. I’ll probably try Trusts and may look into Eureka. I have figured out where to buy level 76 and 78 armor from merchants, so gear won’t be a problem I hope.
Guild Wars 2 or World of Warcraft share mounts and mastery progress on mounts across the entire account. However, Alts in FFXIV are completely separate silos. So to get this mount on all my characters would be a horrific grind. But I have nice mounts for all my characters, esp the Falcons in various colors, from holiday events over the past couple of years.
FFXIV had a streamed showcase on 5 February, 2021. It was over 2 hours long and can be found here on Youtube. For those of you who may not have 2 hours to spend right now, but want the highlights I’ve put up some slides from the show here. I’m not going to comment very much. There are plenty of folks on Youtube that will do that. But you can get the gist of what’s been announced in short form here from the slides: Enjoy.
Back in October I started working on getting the Griffon Mount in GW2. After some frustration I have that mount now. Mounts in GW2 are account wide, so all my 18 or so characters have access to the Griffon.
It turns out that you don’t have to do all the story quests of “Path of Fire”, but only the last section. At least there’s that. There are some good guides for getting the Griffon. Mostly this is a matter of jumping puzzles to get Eggs and then the cost of about 250 Gold to buy the items required. In each of the Five maps there are eggs to collect and Events to participate in. You purchase various items from heart vendors and others. All in all, a reasonable effort.
I’ve pushed my way through most of the effort, and after grinding for a few days on getting Eternal Ice to get Kralkatite Ore, and a few more days farming Diflourite Crystals, I now need Inscribed Shards. Fighting my way around the map and doing some events got me about 20, and I made another round today for only 6. What a waste of time.
The reason I want Griffon and Skyscale is to have them for the upcoming End of Dragons expansion where we go back to Cantha.
I’m working my way through Path of Fire to get the Griffon mount. It’s the first mount that looks like it’s flying, but it’s not.
The second “Flying Mount” introduced into GW2, Living World Season 4 is the Skyscale. This has enhanced flight mechanics, but still can’t really fly.
There must be some “religious objection” to flight. Ever since Gliders were introduced in Heart of Thorns, we could only “Glide” while all other popular games in the genre have True Flight. Well, not really…
Windy Weather 