It was way worse than Heavensward but HW set the bar pretty fucking high so eh. Ala Mhigger shenanigans were dull but the Doma stuff was slightly better. The Azim Steppe portion of the story was easily the best along with the post SB questline
Spoiler
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
Lyse can eat a fat one
Zenos yae Galvus single-handedly saved SB
Yotsuyu was tragic and deserved better ;__;
Asahi was wasted potential, go fuck yourself Yoshi and let me symphatize with Garleans
Maxima is pretty cool
Hien is the best of the allied characters but that doesnt take much
Estinien was present to expand my BotD if you know what i mean, god i fucking love Dragoons
The rest of the allied characters are nobodies except maybe Y'shtola
Stormblood locations are all worse than what Heavensward had to offer.
Gyr Abania is a slightly better Thanalan which has the dullest ARR locations. The Lochs has some interesting places like the underwater Loch Seld ruins
Yanxia is better but doesnt hold a candle to HW again. Setting foot in to the Azim Steppe the first time with a foggy weather was a high point.
-Thoughts on content of Stormblood
SB dungeons are such unbelievable garbage. Every single one of them. SB's leveling dungeons are a slog comparable to ARR dungeons. Expert SB dungeons are only slightly better if only due to having all your abilities.
Coming from Heavensward where even the leveling dungeons are good beyond the first one. Not to mention the expert dungeons, some of which ive queued into just because of the music.
So now that i had experienced the god awful dungeons of SB, i went into alliance raids with low expectations even though i was excited for them being Ivalice themed.
The Royal city of Rabanastre.
Mateus is still the same cool design but the fight is nothing special.
Hashmals control tower ability is a pretty neat brainlet filter but again the rest of the fight is nothing special.
Rofocale is nothing special.
Argath Thadalfus is one of the coolest designs in the game but the fight itself is lame. His Obey/Disobey ability is garbage trial and error design. Cool lines though
YOU DO NOT BELONG IN MY WORLD, STEP INTO NOTHINGMoving onto The Ridorana Lighthouse which was one of the most interesting locations of Ivalice.
Famfrit is a pain in the ass to play with casters but its kinda fun to see everyone eat shit at Tsunami.
Belias is shitty for jobs with timed gauges and overall is nothing special.
Construct 7 is a special kind of fuck off with its math ability. With no explanation youre supposed to take into account your HP number when calculating the correct number. Fuck off. That aside its nothing special aside from watching people eat shit at Dispose.
YIAZMAT much like Argath is a cool design although not as good as the original from XII. His fight doesnt stand out much to my disappointment and i dont understand why they thought the voice lines were a good idea. Shouldve been a harder fight too honestly. Disappointed we didnt get anything in the Subterra parts.
The Orbonne Monastery
Mustadio sucks.
Agrias sucks and has THE WORST voice acting ive heard in the game.
The Thunder God is a pretty good fight and i enjoy optimizing it with BLM, VA is decent.
Ultima is a decent end to the Ivalice raids and has a sick design. Tera nut flare whenever i pull off Between the Lines and Onslaught when she does knockback into the maze.
Overall the Ivalice raids are worse than Mhach and Dun Scaith but better than ARR raids.
Onto normal 8 man Omegascape raids. Its story is miles better than the actual main SB story, Omega is cool as fuck. Unabashed fanservice but its the best kind of fanservice.
Deltascape is meh
Sigmascape fights are better
Alphascape ill get into more because it has some of the best gameplay XIV has to offer
1.0 is fun all around with a good variety of movement mixed with no movement
2.0 has THE Midgardsormr i mean fucking goddamn if that is not some goooooooooooood shit. I will eat
Akh Morns for breakfast even if it kills me. Audio and visual design is top notch with gameplay to back it up.
3.0 is the first fight against Omega in its beetle form. The ornate design is 5/5
Actual fight taught me ship terminology and again i love watching others eat shit at wavecannons
4.0 is peak Final Fantasy and XIV tbh fams. Not only does it have Yoshitaka Amano designs come to life but it has the kind of place, music and importance i would expect from final bosses of previous FF's. Topped off with what is in my opinion the best fight in the game.
As for the other 8 man trials
Susano is about as engaging as Ifrit from ARR. Only redeeming factor is
Rules of Nature.
Lakshmi is hard for a normal trial and thats a good thing ™. Arena is too bright though.
Shinryu is another hard normal trial and a pretty great fight overall
Byakko is weird but fun, i wasnt expecting bullet hell in my XIV.
Tsukuyomi is up there with alpha 4.0 presentation wise. Bit of a bummer story wise.
The rest i havent unlocked yet.
Unfortunately i cant say anything about the Savage fights because i dont have a FC to play with and ive given up on pubs.
-Now for the jobs ive played
Starting off with the TRAGEDY that is level 70 Dragoon. What
. The fuck
. Is this
.
''Hey yoshida, Dragoon has an active opener but feels empty after and the BotD timer could use some touchup''
''Hello here's some more fucking buttons to bloat and extend your opener, here's an ability to use between animation locks, try not to eat shit cunt and finally take this extension to the worst Job timer with no way of holding it''
I am STILL SEETHING AFTER A MONTH SINCE I HIT 70. I LOVED DRAGOON. FUCK.
After literally quitting for a few days i picked up my secondary, Black Mage, and it became my new best friend.
BLM received nothing but improvements in SB like triple fucking cast for just that itty bitty extra overkill.
I wasnt sure how i felt about Foul first, it looked and sounded weak but ive grown to appreciate its less is more design. Now that quadruple Flares and Foul exist, there is no need for other DPS's to exist ;^)
That being said i still had an itch for support so i leveled Red Mage after.
Stylish kit visually and canceling Displacement backflip mid air with Corps-a-corps is SSS tier style. RDM's kit overall is way too simple for me so i didnt stick with it after capping it.
Decided on Samurai next after being too lazy to pick up Monk back at 60.
SAMs kit is stylish as well as relatively fun and engaging. Hitting 2 Midare Setsugekkas in a row is nearly as good as quad Flares. Even though i enjoyed SAM i dropped it before getting to learn its rotation at 70.
Went on to level Summoner after eyeing it for the longest time. An absolute nightmare slog to play below 50.
After 60 is where it quickly became my favorite Job second to BLM. Its ''2 minute rotation'' at 70 is incredibly satisfying to do with almost no downtime, keeping you engaged at all times. Akh Morns son.
But O'ssu how come you like SMN's long rotation and not DRG's!?!?!?!?!?!1?!?!?
Fuck youOh and Bard continues to be fun but exhausting and Warrior Fell Cleaves put PLD and DRK in their sheds
Final Fantasy XIV Stormblood ramble