28:44 Mods are a "don't ask don't tell" situation with this game for the most part. I'll edit this post as I find more stuff to comment as I watch, but I will watch all your playthroughs on this channel of this game as I've been playing this for a long time now – probably longer than gw2 now given the number of breaks I took from that.
31:05 BDO had a massive amount of QoL these few months actually – arguably more than FF14 ever does. Still isn't on gw2 level.
Dark knight used to, ages ago, have a buff that could be turned on or off called "darkside". It drains your mp every second its active and will turn off when your mp hits 0, while its active it gives a damage buff and allows for the use of certain skills. That has since been condensed down to the 2 darkness skills. As long as you don't need the blackest night (a stormblood level 70 skill that costs 3K mp) you should actually use the 2 darkness ogcd skills (the aoe one for aoe situations, single target for single) everytime you can. They use mp as a resource. Dark knight used to have WAY more skills that cost mp – that aoe you're spamming, unleash? it used to cost MP. As did unmend.
36:33 Halone is "the fury" – which is kind of her title – that the ishgardians worship out of the eoreza pantheon. The temple knights in the dark knight quest, in all honestly, are your stereotypical religious fanatics that abuse their station that you see VERY often in Japanese media (anime in particular). Japan has a hate boner for Christianity.
38:10 That blood gauge isn't an aggro indicator. it's a resource used for 3 skills you get later (in stormblood, iirc).
50:10 the dye system in FF14 is shit. If you've played gw2 and move over, you'll appreciate how much better gw2's is (and BDO's dye system is very good as well). The glamour system is an extremely annoying convoluted version of gw2's wardrobe. The dresser in your inn can store 400 items. Everytime you get an item you want to use as a glamour, you can expend 1 prism to store the item in the dresser and if you open your character sheet and click on the glamour plate button next to the 'recommended gear", you can see 15 tabs. These tabs are your glam storage where you can store a particular look. You can link it to your gear sets so for instance when you swap to a dark knight, it uses that tab as it's glam. If you swap to a paladin, you can link it to a different tab and it will swap to that look. Alternatively you can use the old system which just copies the look of 1 item onto a piece of gear with 1 glam prism.
1:12:50 Tank and healers can do the solo story instances, just more slowly.
1:41:50 The title screen music changes with the xpacks, like gw2.
1:46:50 unfortunately Hrothgar don't really look like kimari in FF10
1:59:40 the dark knight questline is basically your typical anime edgy shit. TBH considering how much you say you like edgy shit, I thought you would like it and gotten the hint earlier that he's basically your inner dark edgy self.
2:50:50 The english localization adds far too much unnecessary crap into the translations that warp the original meaning entirely, imo, but NA players love the bullshit koji fox throws in so whatever, I guess.
You do not have to worry about belts, they are deleting them in endwalkers
2:38:10 Blue mage is a limited class. It will always be 10 levels below max and cannot ever use the duty finder or do the main quest. While people say its OP, and it IS OP for its level, you can literally unsync a higher level class and they will generally be just as OP for the old content that blue mage is "OP" on. It is however the only class that you can actually do some buildcraft on, as it has a ton of skills but only 28 slots available for skills at any one time (like gw1 is with its 8 skills) and it can tank, heal or dps.
2:49:15 The vast majority of the Japanese playerbase plays on PS4 controllers, so yes, they do. A lot of them in fact.
2:59:10 I mean, don't the british eat jellied eels? Unagi don (barbecued eel with tare sauce on rice, it's a Japanese dish) is incredible, as is sushi made from it.
3:04:35 Aetherites cannot be used as frequently as your character can by the regular people in the land. Your character has much larger reserves of aether than other people do (it's explained later on in the main quest why you are like that) which is why you can port around that much.
And yes rahbaun does come back. I wasn't sure if I should spoil it, but since you asked and this is a pretty old story, might as well answer.
I did enjoy the vod and I won't mind seeing more FF14 stuff here.
About your confusion as to level requirements for quests: the Dark Knight unlocks at level 50, but the job starts at 30 itself, that's why the level req changed. Also, when you pick up a job it usually unlocks a few quests that introduce you to that job and it's storyline(and usually a skill) so try to do those right away. Also I totally get you on music! I still get warm feelings in my heart whenever I hear songs for games I really liked in the past and stuff like the overworld themes in GW2/FF14
Edit1:Yeah the weapon Gwen was carrying is one of the flashiest skins out there for sure, only topped by the kind of stuff you get from Ultimate-level content(which I think is a fair reward for beating the hardest content in the game). Most "legendaries"(relic weapons) don't look that flashy
Edit2: What a lot of people do(including me) is get a new job and look through the skillset and set up your bars in general with some rules(example: all my melee jobs are 1/2/3 for single target, 4/5 AoE, 7 for the ranged attack so on and so forth) and then adjust the bars as you level up.
Edit3: forget all about what happens in the future, that's not important now and may hamper your understanding of the concepts being presented now
edit4: the point about unmend breaking your combo – that's something they're changing with ENDwalker, all of the melee ranged attacks won't interfere with your combo anymore c: Along with changing salted earth to cast on yourself automatically and improvements to AoEs like maxing range and pushing the skill again to activate it
edit5: for context as to how many buttons you'll use as a DRK: I main it and I use 3 hotbars quite comfortably, my mouse has 9 buttons so I use "1-9" on it, then Q,E,R and the rest are modifiers – Shift and Ctrl. It fits quite loosely in 3 hotbars. The job with the most skills in the game IIRC is SAM and even that one fits in 3(a little tightly) they can't add too many buttons because of gamepad users(have you tried using one? A lot of people, even world's 1st raiders, swear by them)
Final edit: While they can be watched ingame, the quality of the trailers really suffers, so I'd suggest watching them on youtube instead! Ah, and you didn't see it because you're in the free trial, but every expansion gets its own main menu and main theme(They also play the xpac's trailer, so when you get the full game make sure *not* to idle in the ShB/END main screen before seeing those trailers hahah)
I’m so happy we’ve got an FFXIV play through starting as the story ramps up & starts to get really good! I loved Heavensward! Also I main DK so I’m enjoying watching it as the job played through the story. Anyway if I can catch the streams while I’m not at work, I’m gonna certainly try.
I've put together some answers for the various things you've asked during this. It'll be in two comments – one for story-related stuff and one for everything else.
STORY
-Story doesn't get good until lead-in to Heavensward I agree, but for me, it was during the lead-in to Stormblood that I fell in love with the story, though that particular story beat is more about setting up Shadowbringers and doesn't have much to do with the main story of Stormblood.
-Story recap There are three primary threats. The two that everyone knows about are the beast tribes – bestial folk not integrated into the dominant societies, whose desperate prayers summon Primals, magic given form and destructive purpose – and the technologically-advanced empire of Garlemald, which has subjugated several nations already and recently tried to take Eorzea, bringing about the Calamity when they tried to use an ancient civilization's technology. The Calamity was the Garlean's attempt to bring down what everyone thought was a moon, with the idea that it would obliterate the gathered Eorzean defenses, but the "moon" was actually a prison for a colossal, devastatingly-powerful Primal, Bahamut, who was released and let loose his wrath, reshaping Eorzea. The third threat is a hidden one, the shadowy Ascians, but those in the know see their involvement all around.
-Garlemald during the expansions They're mostly just a looming threat during Heavensward, but Stormblood is about dealing with the Garlean occupation of two other nations. We're going to Garlemald in the upcoming expansion.
-What's going on right now You're laying low in Ishgard, a theocracy that has been very isolationist recently. To acquaint yourself with Ishgard and repay the kindness of the noble sheltering you, you're hanging out with his sons and helping solve some issues. Ishgard's traditional enemy is the draconic Dravanians, whose assaults are presaged in the stars, and the Ishgardian astrologians (c'mon, FF14, quit being weird with names) say that a major invasion is imminent.
-Dark Knight story The DK story makes a lot more sense if you read your journal, which has your character describing their mental state during all this. It's really disappointing to me that there's so much new stuff in there, despite the journal being pretty irrelevant at all other times. For what it's worth, even with that additional info I didn't care for the story much. My personal favorite set of job quests are the Thief quests, with ARR Ninja a strong second.
-Ishgardians are jerks Ishgard is a harsh, authoritarian place. The templars taking the girl are especially horrible, but my experience is that Ser Aymeric is more of an exception than they are.
-Ilms, yalms, onzes, etc. That's an Eorzean thing. They're inches, yards, ounces, and so on – the first letter is the same as the real-world equivalent. Not exactly my favorite bit of world-building.
-"Ah, yes. I should've known you'd do that." Fray was eluding to your character's silent nod, which several NPCs do. I like to think that the devs are poking fun at the limited palette of reactions available to the player character.
-Halone Halone is one of the Twelve, gods and goddesses worshiped by Eorzeans. What they are and how they might be related to Primals is unknown. Halone (pronounced, regrettably, as ha-LONE-ee) is the goddess the Ishgardian church is focused on, and is both a war goddess and the "mover of glaciers". She's also known as the Fury.
-Llymlaen Another of the Twelve, beloved by Limsa Lominsa. She's associated with wind and is the goddess of navigation, also regarded as the "watcher of the seas".
-Dark Knight chapters The Fray stuff, which was for levels 30-50, was the equivalent of other jobs' ARR stuff, like the 30-50 Monk stuff. When you meet Sidurgu, the Au Ra DK, that's the start of the proper Heavensward DK quests, which are for levels 50-60.
-Who was Sidurgu referring to when he was talking about "she" learned the conjurers' arts quicker than Fray? He was talking about Rielle. She heals you during the 50-60 quests, just like Fray healed you during the 30-50 stuff (and seeing him with the basic conjurer twig was hilarious).
-What does the DK story have to do with being a DK? Not much that I recall. You're helping Sidurgu accomplish his goals in return for him teaching you DK things. Defending the girl from authority is fitting for a DK, but that's about it.
-Foundation Ishgard is the nation and the city. Foundation is just part of the city.
Quest levels Your level depends on the job you have equipped. If you're a level 50 Monk but a level 2 Lancer, you can't do the level 50 things if you have Lancer equipped. With the DK, it (along with the other HW jobs – Machinist and Astrologian) starts at level 30. You have to be at level 50 on something to unlock DK, but while you're a DK your level is whatever level you're at on DK, thus your first DK quest is at level 30. Later expansions' jobs start at higher levels – 50 for Stormblood (Red Mage, Samurai), 60 for Shadowbringer (Gunbreaker, Dancer).
Unaspected damage Your damage doesn't have an elemental association. Elemental damage is, as far as I know, an outdated system and completely irrelevant. Elements do come into play with the Eureka content, but it's an entirely separate system.
What's Your Sign blue quest That unlocks the healer job, Astrologian.
When to AoE Your point-blank AoE, Unleash, does even damage with your single-target combo at two enemies, exceeding it at three. HOWEVER, your single-target combo also gives you HP and, more importantly, MP, and later on gives you another resource, too.
Blood Gauge, Darkside Gauge, etc. Job gauges are indeed a whole lot of UI bloat (especially with Black Mage, yikes!). There's an option to have simple job gauges, though, which make them way more useful. It's under UI Element Settings, visible at 38:40.
Skills on or off the Global Cooldown A major part of this game is fitting oGCD (off the global cooldown) abilities between GCD ones, such as using Flood of Darkness in-between your single-target combo in a way that doesn't slow down the combo. Same with Perfect Balance on Monk. With more advanced play, in addition to weaving oGCD skills in, you can also double-weave two OGC skills in-between CGD abilities.
Solo questing as a tank I find it tedious to solo quest as a tank or healer. It's safe and you can pull more than you can as a DPS, but for me the problem is that the damage rotations for non-DPS just aren't as compelling. Even if it might be faster in some situations (which I doubt – mob density is just never that high), it's not as interesting to me.
Flood of Darkness (and Edge of Darkness) Use it enough to keep the buff up and use it enough to not cap MP, while using Blood Weapon as often as possible. As long as you stay between those two and you're weaving it between GCD abilities, you're fine.
EEL PIE?! It doesn't have anything to do with FF14, but eel can be really good – some of the best sushi I've ever had had barbecued eel atop it, for what it's worth.
Very glad you decided to get into this. You were the 1st YouTuber I actively started to follow, but I've not played GW2 since before the Icebrood Saga so I've not heard from you in what feels like years.
There aren't many content creators for FFXIV that approach games with the level of appreciation for world lore as you tend to so I look forward to following your journey through this. If you start getting as into it as much as you did FFX, I know you'll love it.
Side Notes: The game was pretty quiet, could do with a slight volume boost in the future.
Also, you were wondering if you should wait till after MSQ for side quests. I did this and regretted it because many of them take place during the course of MSQ. So you'll often end up doing quests that deal with issues you may have resolved already in MSQ. If you're not in a hurry to get to end game and plan to take your time anyways, it's worth doing them as you go since many of them don't unlock till after certain events anyways.
The memory thing around smells and sounds is actually because the sensory pathways for both interact or at least travel by the amygdala, the zone responsible for long term memory. This is why they tend to make you reminiscent of past events
about 19 minutes in you say not many people will watch on youtube. Be that as it may, i'm part of the small crowd who appreciates it! watching the vods here is much preferable to twitch.
Returning to this series after a bit and starting from the beginning again lol
I will say that your views about GW being the most polished MMO may be a personal bias as that's my take on FFXIV by a mile. It's interesting how much certain personal preferences can change someone's outlook.
Excited to watch this!
Dang I misread this as ff12 but I'll take it 😛
28:44 Mods are a "don't ask don't tell" situation with this game for the most part. I'll edit this post as I find more stuff to comment as I watch, but I will watch all your playthroughs on this channel of this game as I've been playing this for a long time now – probably longer than gw2 now given the number of breaks I took from that.
31:05 BDO had a massive amount of QoL these few months actually – arguably more than FF14 ever does. Still isn't on gw2 level.
Dark knight used to, ages ago, have a buff that could be turned on or off called "darkside". It drains your mp every second its active and will turn off when your mp hits 0, while its active it gives a damage buff and allows for the use of certain skills. That has since been condensed down to the 2 darkness skills. As long as you don't need the blackest night (a stormblood level 70 skill that costs 3K mp) you should actually use the 2 darkness ogcd skills (the aoe one for aoe situations, single target for single) everytime you can. They use mp as a resource. Dark knight used to have WAY more skills that cost mp – that aoe you're spamming, unleash? it used to cost MP. As did unmend.
36:33 Halone is "the fury" – which is kind of her title – that the ishgardians worship out of the eoreza pantheon. The temple knights in the dark knight quest, in all honestly, are your stereotypical religious fanatics that abuse their station that you see VERY often in Japanese media (anime in particular). Japan has a hate boner for Christianity.
38:10 That blood gauge isn't an aggro indicator. it's a resource used for 3 skills you get later (in stormblood, iirc).
50:10 the dye system in FF14 is shit. If you've played gw2 and move over, you'll appreciate how much better gw2's is (and BDO's dye system is very good as well). The glamour system is an extremely annoying convoluted version of gw2's wardrobe. The dresser in your inn can store 400 items. Everytime you get an item you want to use as a glamour, you can expend 1 prism to store the item in the dresser and if you open your character sheet and click on the glamour plate button next to the 'recommended gear", you can see 15 tabs. These tabs are your glam storage where you can store a particular look. You can link it to your gear sets so for instance when you swap to a dark knight, it uses that tab as it's glam. If you swap to a paladin, you can link it to a different tab and it will swap to that look. Alternatively you can use the old system which just copies the look of 1 item onto a piece of gear with 1 glam prism.
1:12:50 Tank and healers can do the solo story instances, just more slowly.
1:41:50 The title screen music changes with the xpacks, like gw2.
1:46:50 unfortunately Hrothgar don't really look like kimari in FF10
1:59:40 the dark knight questline is basically your typical anime edgy shit. TBH considering how much you say you like edgy shit, I thought you would like it and gotten the hint earlier that he's basically your inner dark edgy self.
2:50:50 The english localization adds far too much unnecessary crap into the translations that warp the original meaning entirely, imo, but NA players love the bullshit koji fox throws in so whatever, I guess.
You do not have to worry about belts, they are deleting them in endwalkers
2:38:10 Blue mage is a limited class. It will always be 10 levels below max and cannot ever use the duty finder or do the main quest. While people say its OP, and it IS OP for its level, you can literally unsync a higher level class and they will generally be just as OP for the old content that blue mage is "OP" on. It is however the only class that you can actually do some buildcraft on, as it has a ton of skills but only 28 slots available for skills at any one time (like gw1 is with its 8 skills) and it can tank, heal or dps.
2:49:15 The vast majority of the Japanese playerbase plays on PS4 controllers, so yes, they do. A lot of them in fact.
2:59:10 I mean, don't the british eat jellied eels? Unagi don (barbecued eel with tare sauce on rice, it's a Japanese dish) is incredible, as is sushi made from it.
3:04:35 Aetherites cannot be used as frequently as your character can by the regular people in the land. Your character has much larger reserves of aether than other people do (it's explained later on in the main quest why you are like that) which is why you can port around that much.
And yes rahbaun does come back. I wasn't sure if I should spoil it, but since you asked and this is a pretty old story, might as well answer.
I did enjoy the vod and I won't mind seeing more FF14 stuff here.
About your confusion as to level requirements for quests: the Dark Knight unlocks at level 50, but the job starts at 30 itself, that's why the level req changed. Also, when you pick up a job it usually unlocks a few quests that introduce you to that job and it's storyline(and usually a skill) so try to do those right away.
Also I totally get you on music! I still get warm feelings in my heart whenever I hear songs for games I really liked in the past and stuff like the overworld themes in GW2/FF14
Edit1:Yeah the weapon Gwen was carrying is one of the flashiest skins out there for sure, only topped by the kind of stuff you get from Ultimate-level content(which I think is a fair reward for beating the hardest content in the game). Most "legendaries"(relic weapons) don't look that flashy
Edit2: What a lot of people do(including me) is get a new job and look through the skillset and set up your bars in general with some rules(example: all my melee jobs are 1/2/3 for single target, 4/5 AoE, 7 for the ranged attack so on and so forth) and then adjust the bars as you level up.
Edit3: forget all about what happens in the future, that's not important now and may hamper your understanding of the concepts being presented now
edit4: the point about unmend breaking your combo – that's something they're changing with ENDwalker, all of the melee ranged attacks won't interfere with your combo anymore c:
Along with changing salted earth to cast on yourself automatically and improvements to AoEs like maxing range and pushing the skill again to activate it
edit5: for context as to how many buttons you'll use as a DRK: I main it and I use 3 hotbars quite comfortably, my mouse has 9 buttons so I use "1-9" on it, then Q,E,R and the rest are modifiers – Shift and Ctrl. It fits quite loosely in 3 hotbars. The job with the most skills in the game IIRC is SAM and even that one fits in 3(a little tightly) they can't add too many buttons because of gamepad users(have you tried using one? A lot of people, even world's 1st raiders, swear by them)
Final edit: While they can be watched ingame, the quality of the trailers really suffers, so I'd suggest watching them on youtube instead! Ah, and you didn't see it because you're in the free trial, but every expansion gets its own main menu and main theme(They also play the xpac's trailer, so when you get the full game make sure *not* to idle in the ShB/END main screen before seeing those trailers hahah)
I assume the double upload is for the VR stereoscopic experience
Whats did you do to lvl your black knight to 55? Without doing the main story?
Did the GW2 story dev not know who Angsiyan was? I thought they just weren't sure how to pronounce it.
I’m so happy we’ve got an FFXIV play through starting as the story ramps up & starts to get really good! I loved Heavensward! Also I main DK so I’m enjoying watching it as the job played through the story. Anyway if I can catch the streams while I’m not at work, I’m gonna certainly try.
If there's a game worth switching to ESDF instead of WASD, this is it!
I've put together some answers for the various things you've asked during this. It'll be in two comments – one for story-related stuff and one for everything else.
STORY
-Story doesn't get good until lead-in to Heavensward
I agree, but for me, it was during the lead-in to Stormblood that I fell in love with the story, though that particular story beat is more about setting up Shadowbringers and doesn't have much to do with the main story of Stormblood.
-Story recap
There are three primary threats. The two that everyone knows about are the beast tribes – bestial folk not integrated into the dominant societies, whose desperate prayers summon Primals, magic given form and destructive purpose – and the technologically-advanced empire of Garlemald, which has subjugated several nations already and recently tried to take Eorzea, bringing about the Calamity when they tried to use an ancient civilization's technology. The Calamity was the Garlean's attempt to bring down what everyone thought was a moon, with the idea that it would obliterate the gathered Eorzean defenses, but the "moon" was actually a prison for a colossal, devastatingly-powerful Primal, Bahamut, who was released and let loose his wrath, reshaping Eorzea. The third threat is a hidden one, the shadowy Ascians, but those in the know see their involvement all around.
-Garlemald during the expansions
They're mostly just a looming threat during Heavensward, but Stormblood is about dealing with the Garlean occupation of two other nations. We're going to Garlemald in the upcoming expansion.
-What's going on right now
You're laying low in Ishgard, a theocracy that has been very isolationist recently. To acquaint yourself with Ishgard and repay the kindness of the noble sheltering you, you're hanging out with his sons and helping solve some issues. Ishgard's traditional enemy is the draconic Dravanians, whose assaults are presaged in the stars, and the Ishgardian astrologians (c'mon, FF14, quit being weird with names) say that a major invasion is imminent.
-Dark Knight story
The DK story makes a lot more sense if you read your journal, which has your character describing their mental state during all this. It's really disappointing to me that there's so much new stuff in there, despite the journal being pretty irrelevant at all other times. For what it's worth, even with that additional info I didn't care for the story much. My personal favorite set of job quests are the Thief quests, with ARR Ninja a strong second.
-Ishgardians are jerks
Ishgard is a harsh, authoritarian place. The templars taking the girl are especially horrible, but my experience is that Ser Aymeric is more of an exception than they are.
-Ilms, yalms, onzes, etc.
That's an Eorzean thing. They're inches, yards, ounces, and so on – the first letter is the same as the real-world equivalent. Not exactly my favorite bit of world-building.
-"Ah, yes. I should've known you'd do that."
Fray was eluding to your character's silent nod, which several NPCs do. I like to think that the devs are poking fun at the limited palette of reactions available to the player character.
-Halone
Halone is one of the Twelve, gods and goddesses worshiped by Eorzeans. What they are and how they might be related to Primals is unknown. Halone (pronounced, regrettably, as ha-LONE-ee) is the goddess the Ishgardian church is focused on, and is both a war goddess and the "mover of glaciers". She's also known as the Fury.
-Llymlaen
Another of the Twelve, beloved by Limsa Lominsa. She's associated with wind and is the goddess of navigation, also regarded as the "watcher of the seas".
-Dark Knight chapters
The Fray stuff, which was for levels 30-50, was the equivalent of other jobs' ARR stuff, like the 30-50 Monk stuff. When you meet Sidurgu, the Au Ra DK, that's the start of the proper Heavensward DK quests, which are for levels 50-60.
-Who was Sidurgu referring to when he was talking about "she" learned the conjurers' arts quicker than Fray?
He was talking about Rielle. She heals you during the 50-60 quests, just like Fray healed you during the 30-50 stuff (and seeing him with the basic conjurer twig was hilarious).
-What does the DK story have to do with being a DK?
Not much that I recall. You're helping Sidurgu accomplish his goals in return for him teaching you DK things. Defending the girl from authority is fitting for a DK, but that's about it.
-Foundation
Ishgard is the nation and the city. Foundation is just part of the city.
NON-STORY
Reaper role
Reaper's a melee DPS.
Quest levels
Your level depends on the job you have equipped. If you're a level 50 Monk but a level 2 Lancer, you can't do the level 50 things if you have Lancer equipped. With the DK, it (along with the other HW jobs – Machinist and Astrologian) starts at level 30. You have to be at level 50 on something to unlock DK, but while you're a DK your level is whatever level you're at on DK, thus your first DK quest is at level 30. Later expansions' jobs start at higher levels – 50 for Stormblood (Red Mage, Samurai), 60 for Shadowbringer (Gunbreaker, Dancer).
Unaspected damage
Your damage doesn't have an elemental association. Elemental damage is, as far as I know, an outdated system and completely irrelevant. Elements do come into play with the Eureka content, but it's an entirely separate system.
What's Your Sign blue quest
That unlocks the healer job, Astrologian.
When to AoE
Your point-blank AoE, Unleash, does even damage with your single-target combo at two enemies, exceeding it at three. HOWEVER, your single-target combo also gives you HP and, more importantly, MP, and later on gives you another resource, too.
Blood Gauge, Darkside Gauge, etc.
Job gauges are indeed a whole lot of UI bloat (especially with Black Mage, yikes!). There's an option to have simple job gauges, though, which make them way more useful. It's under UI Element Settings, visible at 38:40.
Skills on or off the Global Cooldown
A major part of this game is fitting oGCD (off the global cooldown) abilities between GCD ones, such as using Flood of Darkness in-between your single-target combo in a way that doesn't slow down the combo. Same with Perfect Balance on Monk. With more advanced play, in addition to weaving oGCD skills in, you can also double-weave two OGC skills in-between CGD abilities.
Solo questing as a tank
I find it tedious to solo quest as a tank or healer. It's safe and you can pull more than you can as a DPS, but for me the problem is that the damage rotations for non-DPS just aren't as compelling. Even if it might be faster in some situations (which I doubt – mob density is just never that high), it's not as interesting to me.
Flood of Darkness (and Edge of Darkness)
Use it enough to keep the buff up and use it enough to not cap MP, while using Blood Weapon as often as possible. As long as you stay between those two and you're weaving it between GCD abilities, you're fine.
EEL PIE?!
It doesn't have anything to do with FF14, but eel can be really good – some of the best sushi I've ever had had barbecued eel atop it, for what it's worth.
Very glad you decided to get into this. You were the 1st YouTuber I actively started to follow, but I've not played GW2 since before the Icebrood Saga so I've not heard from you in what feels like years.
There aren't many content creators for FFXIV that approach games with the level of appreciation for world lore as you tend to so I look forward to following your journey through this. If you start getting as into it as much as you did FFX, I know you'll love it.
Side Notes:
The game was pretty quiet, could do with a slight volume boost in the future.
Also, you were wondering if you should wait till after MSQ for side quests. I did this and regretted it because many of them take place during the course of MSQ. So you'll often end up doing quests that deal with issues you may have resolved already in MSQ. If you're not in a hurry to get to end game and plan to take your time anyways, it's worth doing them as you go since many of them don't unlock till after certain events anyways.
The memory thing around smells and sounds is actually because the sensory pathways for both interact or at least travel by the amygdala, the zone responsible for long term memory. This is why they tend to make you reminiscent of past events
about 19 minutes in you say not many people will watch on youtube. Be that as it may, i'm part of the small crowd who appreciates it! watching the vods here is much preferable to twitch.
Returning to this series after a bit and starting from the beginning again lol
I will say that your views about GW being the most polished MMO may be a personal bias as that's my take on FFXIV by a mile. It's interesting how much certain personal preferences can change someone's outlook.