Category: Games

Game shareware utility programs or discussions on gaming topics.

Protect Your Eyes From the Sand

While doing some events in a Sand Storm in Dry Top, I was opening some Buried Lost Chests, I found an Adventurer’s Spectacles. When I looked them up I found that they can be used to craft a better looking Adventurer’s Mantle. I was afraid I would have to grind more chests in Sand Storms or pay a lot of gold to get them, but nope. They are cheap on the Market Board.

As you can see, a set of 3 Specs, and Scarfs doesn’t really cost that much. I guess the drop rate is pretty high from the chests. Also there are the pictures of the Light and Heavy versions. They all look the same actually. These parts are all dye-able.

So you can craft the mantles if you have Tailor, Leatherworker, or Armorsmith at about level 400. Follow the links in the Wiki for crafting instructions and use Discovery for the Recipes.

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Amaro Mount Achieved

I have the Amaro mount, at long last. I started the long climb for the Amaro mount right after I got Skyscale in GW2 back in January 2021. To review, to get the Amaro, you need to level 17 jobs of War and Magic up to level 80. Not including BLU mage. It took about Eight Months. Much Much longer than the few weeks that it took to get the Guild Wars 2 Skyscale Mount.

Another thing to note is that Mounts in FFXIV are “Per Character” except for a few mounts purchased from the Store. So to have this mount on the rest of my 10 or so Alts, I would have to do the Eight Months work on each of them. Not going to happen any time soon. The last few weeks, I’ve been playing a lot of Guild Wars 2 while I logged in once per day to do Pixie quests and one run of the Main Scenario Roulette.

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Ghost Ship in the Cursed Shore

There was an old forum post, but the ship looks different and I don’t see the disturbed water in this post.

Old GW2 Forum Post

Not sure what’s going on. The ship stays around for a few seconds and then disappears, but appears later. Not sure the schedule or how long it really lasts.

Here’s a segment of video I took of the ship:

Ship is at 3:30 in this video

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Mounts in Different Games

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:

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FFXIV Sage vs GW2 Virtuoso

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.

Check out the videos below:

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Leveling Jobs 71 to 80

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.

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FFXIV Caster’s Glamour

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.

The skirt is the Star Velvet Bottoms of Casting which I found on the market board. The default color is black.

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FFXIV Endwalker Pre-Order

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.

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Progress on Amaro Mount

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.

May you walk in the light of the Crystal.
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Get Your Greater Pets

As you level your role, my experience indicates that you need to get your “Greater” pets as soon as possible. The reason for having “Greater” pets is so these pets can survive when you do “Instant Adventures”. Lesser pets only level up to level 30, and often your Instant Adventures will be at level 50 or 60, and your lesser pets will die quite quickly in these adventures.

In order to get “Greater” pets, you might need to manually adjust your Soul Points at about level 20-25 to in ways that are not the normal progression for your Role. Here are two examples: Click on the pictures to expand them to see them more clearly.

For an Elementalist, you need to have 21 points in Elementalist, and to have selected “Greater Affinity”, so you may need to manually add the points to get that trait as soon as possible.

For Druid, to get Greater Healing Faerie and Greater Saytre, you’ll need to have 24 points in the Druid Soul.

These Greater pets do much better in higher level instant adventures. There are ways to get pets in almost all the Roles, so you may want to adjust the Soul points in Warrior or Necromancer and other Roles to get Greater Pets sooner.

Enjoy, and Close those Rifts!
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