Following some raid group drama and and overall frustration with A6 (Savage), I decided last week to step down from raiding for awhile. I had intended to continue raiding with my group until they could find a suitable replacement, as I didn’t want to dead-end their progression. In the end, though, the group as a whole disbanded, as some other members were sharing similar frustrations regarding progression and the like.

I hadn’t yet really decided what I was going to do outside of raiding, though, and that’s left me feeling somewhat aimless in the game, as raiding was governing most of my gearing choices, and had also switched my focus from Ninja to Scholar for the long term. For now, I’m not really worrying too much about gear and just letting my Lore accumulate until the cap (which I’ll not hit for a few weeks). Instead, I’m focusing on other avenues of progression that I’ve not paid as much attention to for awhile, in part because of raiding.

PvP/The Feast
Around the same time that I had decided to take a break from raiding, I “got into” FFXIV’s PvP in a way that I hadn’t really managed to do before. Something about Bard’s playstyle clicked with me in the Feast, so I’ve been trying my best to slowly climb in ranking, in part to see just what I’m capable of, and also to pick up various items for possible glamours (because of course that’s still my primary focus).

I’m now in the Silver tier, and I’ve definitely got a lot of learning to do. FFXIV’s PvP is very different from the World of Warcraft Battlegrounds I spent so much time with in the past, though I have to say I do enjoy it much more than I ever did WoW’s Arena. I do worry that I’ve hit a bit of a wall in terms of ranking progression, but I also know there are things I could be doing to play better, so I’m trying to focus on those and improve and see where that gets me before I give up.

As a very long term goal, I want to rack up enough victories on Bard to pick up the Unseen title. I’m at about 50 right now of the 1000 I need, though, so that’ll probably take me a few seasons to complete. I’m all right with that, though, as it’ll give me something to work on!

Crafting and Gathering
I’m on record elsewhere (primarily on the Official Forums) as being unhappy with the general state of the crafting and gathering endgame in Heavensward. I’ve discussed that a little here on the blog as well. Part of what that has meant that I’ve largely neglected my crafting progression outside of my three main Specialists. Over the past few weeks, I’ve been working on getting the rest of the DoH classes to level 60, though, and now I’ve only got one left (CUL), which is level 59.

I’m focusing more on building up a nice reserve of gil again and also on preparing myself for the new crafted DoH gear coming in Patch 3.3. I’ve got a full set of i170 accessories now, and I’m slowly working on getting those pentamelded. Hopefully, that will put me in a pretty good place to both make a set for myself and to participate in the market for them in a way I wasn’t really able to for the i220 DoW/DoM gear since I hadn’t put a lot of work into my crafters for awhile.

I’m also begrudgingly working on my Miner, which is only level 30. I actually can’t stand leveling it, though, for reasons that are probably silly to anyone else (I really don’t like the sound effects…). It’s the only class I never got to 50 in ARR, though, and given how much more useful gathering has become in Heavensward, I want to at least be in a good place to level both Botanist and Miner for the next expansion.

Battle Classes
I’m actually feeling most aimless here, since I don’t know whether I should bite the bullet and get full Lore sets for my main jobs (rather than holding out to get the Best in Slot pieces from Midas, which aren’t items I’m likely to get anytime soon now). My Scholar still has several Lore pieces it needs, but my Ninja needs a few pieces, too, if I want to hit maximum item level at some point. I’m sort of holding out here to see what the stats are on the new gear from Weeping City in 3.3, I suppose.

While working on my Beast Tribe Quests, I’m also stockpiling tokens for Unidentifiable Items. At some point, probably after they lessen the requirements a bit, I’ll probably finish another Anima weapon, but I’m really not sure which one that will be just yet. I think the two most likely are the Bard and Black Mage ones. The former  I’ll actually use but is rather ugly, and the latter I probably won’t use that much but is gorgeous. It’s a tough decision!

Over the next week or two I’ll probably also finish my Hyperconductive Anima weapon for Paladin. I’m at 2/5 Aether Oils now, and I still need to do my weekly quest for this week, which will put me at 3/5.

As a general sort of goal, I’m also working to have capped Poetics, Allied Seals, Centurio Seals, Grand Company Seals, and Esoterics for 3.3, so I’ve got the maximum amount of stockpiled currencies for whatever the next Anima stage brings.

Glamour!
I actually don’t have a lot of items on my wish list for glamour right now. I’ve largely collected everything from 3.2 I was interested in. As for other items, it might be worth it to get a few AS2 clears for pages to pick up the dyable gauntlets for Ninja, but I’m not even sure that I’d use them, and I can’t imagine AS2 is much fun in the Duty Finder. I’ve collected all of the Esoterics items I wanted for glamour as well, and outside of upgrading them to i210 for the dyable versions, I can now put my Esoterics toward other things, like Aether Oils (at least until the week or so before 3.3, when I’ll need to cap).

I’ve also been picking up old Ironworks gear for the glamour collection, so I’m not necessarily wasting Poetics. Those should have some potential for the new crafter/gatherer gear that’s coming in 3.3.

I think that largely covers everything I’ve got going on in game for the near future. I have to admit to spending a little time on FFXI this week, too, and that may draw me back in again a bit since it’s a relatively quiet time on FFXIV for now, too!