I’ve made it my life’s goal to dodge math. Let today be my greatest test.
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0:00 – Introduction
0:20 – QUEST: “Annihilation”
7:58 – RAID: The Ridorana Lighthouse
41:47 – QUEST: “Annihilation” (continued)
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Edited by Daniel Floyd
♫ “Pray Return” by Chris Logsdon
https://lnkfi.re/pray-return
#PlayFrame #FFXIV #FinalFantasyXIV #Stormblood
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It's time for another Final Fantasy Friday Question 🎉
Today's question is: between Heavensward and Stormblood, which expansion has the better raids?
We're finally back to the next raid, so I'm back with a Bonus Lore Comment. Today's a real feast for XII bestiary entries!
Famfrit, the Darkening Cloud
Classification: Esper
Kumbha [Aquarius] Ascendant
"The hideous, darkly clouded form of Famfrit, scion in opposition to Holy Queen Emmerololth, scion of light, was anathema even to his creators. Thus, after a great battle, was he broken and sealed within armor laced with wards.
The confines of his armor are void of light, so is he called the Darkening Cloud.
Men fear the rain that falls from the black clouds that ooze from that giant ewer as a herald of chaos and waste."
Belias, the Gigas
Classification: Esper
Mesha [Aries] Ascendant
"Scion of darkness and guardian of the Holy Realm, made by the gods in opposition to the Transcendent Loghrif, scion of light.
Called the Gigas for his appearance: man and monster fused as one.
Considered a mistake upon his making, and receiving not his intended role, the Gigas challenged the gods and lost. Scorned by his masters, he found another, the Dynast-King, whose tomb he swore to protect for eternity."
Yiazmat
Classification: Ultimate Mark
"One Deity among Dragons, One great Wyrm to rule all Wyrms of the World, by the Creator Himself created.
Legend says it is an Anima, Guardian to a sacred Blade.
Though most sacred amongst its Kind, its great Power drove it to Madness, and in the End, it became a Threat to its own Creator.
His Master was killed by Yiazmat, robbing Montblanc of all joy in Life, and he would have Revenge."
Man, the ff12 boss theme is fun.
Attacks that give you that red triangle over your head you have to group up with another red triangle to reduce damage I've taken to start calling "friendship" mechanics due to this stream clip: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/tF-kM_yjbqc
Nooo my glam portrait got borked
/cry
XIVRamza is acting not like a total jerk
Everyone is worried
It's so fun to run through these 24 people raids using blue mage, i had never done it before
I also used my dragoon-like jump right as the boss was using the ewer and got locked into the animation to my death xD
Glad to demonstrate how much that mechanic hurts
Man, hearing all this FFT music brings me back so much! Most if the songs playing are battle themes, even in dialogue scenes surprisingly, but they were my favorites in the soundtrack.
I was a young man working retail in a mom and pop that got just enough customers to get by. For about a month I was the only one in the store, so for the very long downtimes I set up my PS1 in the back and played the daylights out of FFT. It was a blast!
The only thing it seems was missed was my favorite song, the original boss music when fighting a Lucavi.
So I want to bring up two things with the last two fights that used to be much more significant to the fights but due to both nerfs to mechanics and general power creep are less evident.
Construct 7's spin around and blast move used to be so much faster and more deadly on release, especially in the second half of the fight during annihilation mode. It was actually nerfed and slowed down quickly after release for being too punishing.
The other thing lost is Yiazmat's health being so incredibly bloated. You'll notice that before the adds phase that even Dan's group had barely put a dent in the bosses health. That is because his health pool starts out about 10 times higher than what a normal alliance boss of his type should have. This is health buff is removed after the add phase and the damage does transfer over. This in reference to the fact the boss used to take so long to kill in XII, mostly because of its absurd amount of health. Over time gear creep and ilevel creep have made XIV Yiazmat's weirdly high amount of health less evident, but it is still technically present.
25:34 am a math nerd who dad was a math teacher and who has a long time friend who has a college degree in math; those are EXACTLY the kinds of math jokes we enjoy lmao.
38:23 it does in fact throw you off the arena to your death. I should know, I was the one person in the group who got yeeted to their doom 😂
LIKE A KNIFE THRU BUTTAH
1 is not a prime number!
This is your local math enjoyer, here to help you with basic math.
Between 1-12:
Multiples of 3: 3,6,9,12
Multiples of 4: 4,8,12
Prime numbers: 2,3,5,7,11
o/ I'm your main tank for this raid! The miqo using the massive buzzsaw, which is such a great throwback to FF12 (my favourite FF game). I'm so pleased to get to help feature it on Playframe!
I get that Ramsa is a garlean and the victim of propoganda, but honestly he killed this raid series for me. Watching you go through it has been nice to see all the rest of the subtle nuances at play, but he really does not work, and the fact that everyone tolerates it with light scolding at best makes it even worse.
Playfriends, it's time to go back to school. Today's Raid will test your STEM skills. This is your lore comment!
0:00 – First up, I don't know if we heard this song last episode, but I'll mark it here, this music is the World Map theme from Tactics!
1:15 – The Clockwork City of Goug, or Goug Machine City, is the hometown of Mustadio, one of the key party members. Goug specialized in using machines to mine ore, but their expertise at maintaining the centuries old mining equipment also gave the industry the reputation for building and restoring other relics. One bit of technology that was rediscovered during The Zodiac Brave Story are guns. Mustadio is usually the first party member to have one of these breech loading break action pistols. But Goug also managed to unearth other relics beneath the city, including autonomous weapon systems. Here, FFXIV makes Goug and Ridorana the same location.
We do need to note a major difference between the Ivalice of Tactics and FF12 and the Ivalice of FFXIV. The two worlds are effectively reversed. When FF12 was released, the official Ivalice timeline made 12 the earlier entry. The existence of Bangaa, Moogles, and Viera are ancient history by the time of the Zodiac Brave Story. This makes Goug's industry of recovering relics notable, as they're bringing back things that might have been commonplace in FF12. In FFXIV, the Ivalice timeline is reversed, forcing some edits. In the time of King Delita, things like airships didn't exist, but the analogous events of FF12 are in recent memory. This alters the industry of Goug, they aren't just recrafting relics, but they're also developing new technologies. While much of this technology might be lost to time, some of that knowledge persists in airships and machinist equipment.
1:30 – This track is from Tactics, and is titled "A Chapel".
5:15 – Jenomis has seen what the Empire has become. He's seen the callous treatment of those in the provinces. He knows what exile is like. To see this discrimination from his own son shows how insidious it can be.
8:05 – While Dan reads the description of the upcoming Alliance Raid, I want to point out something in his duty finder menu! The little "10" marks next to these Alliance Raids were for the 10 Year Anniversary event! These select duties gave out special event tomestones to trade in for some goodies! This event also saw a series of letters from the development team (disguised as letters from various tradespeople to adventurers) thanking the players for 10 years of commitment. The event has unfortunately ended by the time this episode has been released.
8:55 – For Ridorana Lighthouse, most of the musical references are from FF12! This track is Ascent (Second Ascent – Reach of Diamond Law)
For all these bosses, Playfriend coastersplus has compiled the FF12 bestiary entries, check them out here in the comments section!
The first boss is Famfrit, The Darkening Cloud. Famfrit was the summon Totema of moogles in Tactics Advance, and his one of the Espers in FF12. Famfrit is associated with the astrological sign of Aquarius (being a water bearer), but interestingly is not the associated Lucavi in Tactics. The data in Tactics shows an unfought Lucavi Cheraub for Aquarius.
10:00 – This track is FF12's Boss Battle theme!
12:45 – The "Dorito Markers", or "Danger Doritos" require players to stack with others targeted similarly. Depending on the fight, sometimes you only have to stack with one other, sometimes you have to stack with everyone affected. The penalty also depends on the fight, but one of the popular effects is Minimum, which shrinks your character, reduces outgoing damage, and amplifies incoming damage. And no, the community hasn't really come up with a better descriptor than "dorito", which is difficult because not everyone knows that "dorito" is a brand of tortilla chip in North America known for its nacho cheese variant. Some have proposed "Red Triangle Stack Marker", but that tends to be too long to say. I swear, if they ever create a blue version of this marker, everyone's going to call it "Cool Ranch". Or maybe "Cool American", as I understand the flavor is called in EU.
14:35 – This inscription is the same as one on the Pharos Lighthouse in FF12!
The second boss is Belias, the Gigas. Belias, or Velius, is associated with Aeries, and in Tactics was a massive ram headed demon. As Dan states, this version is closer to the FF12 incarnation, which was an Esper. Belias is probably based on Belial, which is a demon from Hebrew texts, including the Tanakh.
17:45 – If you look at the tanks in front of the boss, we can catch a glimpse of the modern Tank Buster marker! This red circle indicates that the targeted player is about to take a very heavy hit, and anyone in the circle around them will also be affected. This usually targets the main tank or all three tanks, but sometimes this targets based on enmity. So if your tank isn't at the top of your alliance's aggro list, then someone might have a bad day.
23:00 – This track is FF12's The Mystery of Giruvegan.
The third boss is Construct 7. Construct 7, or Worker 7, was a boss from Tactics, and the opposing counterpart to the recruitable Construct 8. Both are immune to magic, except for lightning, in Tactics, but not here! The community loves to call this Math Boss, and Computation will work your multiplication tables and your addition. You are not required to step into an addition pad to clear the math problems, if your base health works, you don’t have to do a thing. The one catch is that Construct 7 does not recognize 1 as a prime number, which generally everyone else does. You might notice that passing the Computation checks actually gives out a buff, which increases your damage for the rest of the fight, and it stacks!
(Until earlier this year, I didn't know that failing the Computation check would deal damage to you at the end. Partially because healers are usually on point, and partially because I've never failed it.)
26:20 – This track is from Tactics (since this boss is from Tactics), and is Apoplexy. It's fun and quick paced.
34:15 – This track is FF12's Flash of Steel.
The final boss is Yiazmat. As Dan states, Yiazmat was the FF12 superboss at the end of the elite marks. The name is a reference to FF12 director Yazumi Matsuno, being a combination of his names, with an extra I thrown in. There isn't a clear zodiac sign associated with Yiazmat, as Ba'gamnan is using the already associated Taurus stone. I like to call this boss "magnets, how do they work", because the polarity mechanic (which will return in future fights) is easiest thought of as magnets: opposite poles attract, like poles repel.
39:08 – If no one is stacking under a stack marker, the best policy is to leave the targeted player alone. It's a cruel fate, being ignored by your comrades, but a single death is more manageable than many.
40:27 – This is FF12's mission accomplished/fanfare!
46:05 – All it took to make this Ramza not a jerk was to turn him off and turn him on again. If he goes back, we should do it again!
Next time! Wine, Bacon Bread, and another slice of FF12!
– Ramza you imperial filth, be quiet!
– Math really is the greatest enemy, Math Bot is fun tho
– ok Math Bot is straight up using the Giga Drill Break from Gurren Lagann!!
– welp there goes Dr Berkin, i mean Ba' Ganhnam
– oh no, the Auracite made Ramza act nice, quick! thwack him!!
Yay I'm in this one! I was the dancer in Dan's alliance for this raid. I specifically wanted to do this particular one because of Mathbot, because I really love that particular mechanic. I'm a self-declared maths enjoyed, so it's particularly fun for me. Sadly this mechanic doesn't really see a resurgence anywhere else in the game… well, almost anywhere else, as we may see the one other use case of a similar mechanic as Durmin heads to a future expansion…
i never played tactics or 12 so i didn't catch any of the references in this series the first time through and i really appreciate having them all explained
To quote my father, "I love math, I hate arithmetic."
Alas, Dan was too slow to show it off for more than a second, but if you beat the adds in Construct 7's fight and return to the main arena before everyone else does, Construct 7 is doing a fun little victory dance there
💙
Now, you say character growth- however Durmin has NEVER failed math! I've seen the proof! (get it?)
24:53 This is not a shark-friendly dungeon. Or a me-friendly dungeon.
39:49 That rage mechanic feels familiar from SWTOR raids… don't remember which one, but one of the bosses had a rage mode that you basically had a few seconds to burn it down or it'd wipe the whole raid group. Those were times.
A helpful tip for mathbot: Take a look at the party list @28:17. If there are first timers with you when your running the raid, TELL THEM about it the mechanic. that their HP is the base number in the mechanic. It took me 6 trips through this place before I had this pointed out to me. half the time on the calculation phase I died, and when I lived it was due to blind luck. I see sprouts die often, not knowing what their base number.
Wow, Yiazmat has, like, a billion HP, doesn't it? o_O
16:30 In addition to being a mental break between bosses, the "small fry enemies"–despite being commonly referred to as "trash mobs"–serve a practical purpose for the player group. Many jobs in FFXIV revolve around gauges that are filled by combat actions, enabling the player to use harder-hitting abilities by expending the gauge charge. For example, Red Mage Durmin has the Black and White magic meters to fill by casting spells of the corresponding types; when both are full enough at the same time, Durmin can use the Red Mage job's high-damage melee combo.
Trash mobs give players a chance to top off their gauges in a low-risk encounter, so they go into the boss fight with their strongest attacks ready. This is valuable because, in random groups assembled via duty finder or party finder, the first few seconds are likely to be the only time damage buffs are fully coordinated. So the time to get the most performance out of your heavy attacks is in the first 10 seconds or so of the fight. If a DPS goes in without their gauge charged, they miss this opportunity.
I like the idea that Garlean culture resonates with stories about communities of technology users. It makes a lot of sense with the way that reclaiming a lack of magic seems to be both pre existing cultural identity and a focus of imperial propaganda.