As I mentioned a couple times previously in the lead up to Stormblood‘s Early Access period, I planned to start with Samurai and take it to 60, rather than jumping into the Main Scenario on Ninja. As expected, that’s what I spent most of the weekend doing, and I hit 60 on the first of the new jobs on Sunday morning. That means I’m using the Shire glamour I put together for Monk awhile back for it now, which I’m actually quite happy with, especially with the Shire katana:

Along the way, though, I had two other glamours. One of them was a Striking version of an older Ninja glamour, which I went to after I decided my starting glamour felt somewhat out of place with Samurai’s animations and combat flow. There was one more, though, that I actually put together in advance, that lasted me from 55 until 60, and that’s the one I want to talk about today.

Glamour Components
Head: Elegant Rimless Glasses (Sunset Orange) | Body: Orthodox Tunic of Striking | Hands: Replica Allagan Gauntlets of Striking (Charcoal Grey) | Legs: Coeurl Beach Tanga (Sunset Orange) | Feet: Orthodox Thighboots of Striking

Of course, from all the times I’ve used the tunic model, it’s no secret it’s one of my favorite body pieces in the game. It’s both functional and sleek, something that we really don’t get a lot of. I knew I was going to want to use the Orthodox Striking version once Samurai got to 55, since my plan was to shift to Ninja for the Main Scenario Samurai hit 60 (which means I wouldn’t have much time, at least for now, to use the Dravanian Striking version).

All of the pieces-parts here are pretty standard, though this is one of the few times I’ve gone with the Allagan Gauntlets with some version of the Tunic. Normally I’ve gone with other gloves, but this particular version’s color scheme makes it harder to find a good match. The Allagan Gauntlets match the central dark grey pretty well in the proper dye, though, so I’m pretty happy with them. The Orthodox Thighboots are probably my favorite of that model, so I elected to use those instead of the Expeditioner’s Thighboots.

Everything really came together though because of the new Inferno Katana. I’ve never really liked the game’s Ifrit weapons, which is actually quite a shame. Thematically, I mostly associate Alahra with the element of fire, but the Ifrit weapons are often sort of bulky in ways that I don’t care for. The new katana though, is gorgeous, and it just so happens to fit in very well with the brown-orange of the Orthodox Tunic. I very nearly glamoured over my level 60 stuff with this look when I got to 60, but I didn’t want to break the Shire theme until I was actually in Stormblood content proper.

And even then, this look isn’t likely to disappear. There are dyeable crafted versions of the Tunic for post-60 leveling gear, and after playing around with them in the preview window, I’m positive I’ll be finding some use for the Scouting and Striking versions at least (I’m less thrilled about the dyeing patterns on the Aiming version). Considering this was one of my favorite looks throughout Heavensward, I’m quite thrilled I can finally perfect the look with more appropriate colors.

Starting with Wednesday’s post, I’ll hopefully have been in the expansion itself for a couple of days, with new gear and glamours to show off. I hope everyone’s enjoying the expansion now that the worst of the congestion difficulties seems to have been dealt with!