Who moo? Ramuh.

What I don’t get is why the sylph primal, Ramuh, is some old human. All the others we’ve seen so far, save King Mog, are the embodiment of primal forces. This guy looks like the Winter Wizard.
Anyway. The first chapter of this new patch jumps right in with the aftermath of the Scions giving refuge to the Domans in Mos Eisley. Seems the Ala Mhigan refugees camped outside Ul’dah feel they should get a homeland as well. The plan, it turns out, is to ship them all to the Carteneau Flats, home to the Frontline PvP arena. Carteneau Flats was ground zero for the Calamity, where the Red Moon touched down on Eorzea and exploded, freeing Bahamut. I enjoy the occasional PvP match in Carteneau, but Kasul vehemently detests PvP. We both wondered (and still do) if we’re going to have to do PvP to finish this module — it IS the one where the Frontline PvP was first introduced.
I’m more hoping that we get to see the zone outside of its PvP context. There’s a lot of ruins in there that never really get used during PvP.
That plot continued on just long enough to expose the Lalafel traitor within Ul’dah’s ruling Syndicate. We were called away then to deal with the rising of a new threat. Renegade sylphs had summoned their primal, Ramuh, in order to keep the Ala Mhigan refugees who’d wandered into the Black Shroud from taking their lands. We Scions had managed to keep the sylphs from summoning Ramuh previously, but clearly this new refugee threat had pushed things past the tipping point.
Since the sylphs aren’t inherently evil, there was still a chance diplomacy could solve this problem. Maybe we could… negotiate with Ramuh!
After some quests which let us hit Thancred a few times (always fun), we reached Ramuh’s summoning point and came face to face with the Lord of Levin. Though angry at first, when he learned of the trust we’d been given by the good sylphs, he relented. He understood, at last, that not every human came to him looking to fight him or to kill his people.
Kasul and I were shocked. NOT having to fight a primal? Diplomacy… working?
Yup. Diplomacy worked. But to seal the deal, continued Ramuh, we would have to fight and kill him.
(insert record scratch sound here).
I really need to go carefully watch this cutscene again, I think. I am not 100% sure how we got from us showing Ramuh the crystal entrusted to us by the good sylph, to having to kill him in order to establish our bona fides. So we joined a duty to kill him. Wiped once because “kill the adds” was an unfamiliar concept to some people apparently. Kasul went in as dps instead of healing because I queued us up just a little too quickly; I was a paladin, as usual, but was pretty useless as offtank. Not really a lot for the offtank to do, aside from suggesting people kill the adds on our second foray.
Ramuh thanked us afterward, as he dissipated, for showing him that we had the strength not to kill… or something… I was still a little confused. I thought we WEREN’T going to fight? The after-fight gave us a glimpse of the Ascian council becoming concerned that we mortals were getting entirely too comfortable killing primals. Creepy elf Urianger confirmed that our primal kills had given the Scions enough information to give some hope that the Ascians could be trapped, bodiless, forever, in the timeless realm between life and death.
—
We stopped the story there. Kasul went on to reach level 50 leather worker, and I went on to reach level 50 bard. I immediately queued up for a “Main Scenario” run. I usually do this as dragoon, but bard worked out well. The running song was a big help on the huge Castrum Meridianum map, the magic resist debuff song a decent boost on some of the larger fights (and the rain of arrows AE no slouch either). I was able to keep the missile loaders pretty safe from my perch at the last fight, and… pretty darn easy mode, all things said. I still appreciate the sheer physicality of the dragoon, though. And, right up there fighting with the tanks, people remember you and give you commendations. I was arguably more help to the raid as a bard, but nobody noticed.
The storyline quests had been pretty free with high level jewelry and weapons; combined with the ilevel 90 gear from the bard quest, and the ilevel 120 bp I had previously bought because I was capped on tomes, I didn’t need to immediately buy any new gear to make the bard pre-Heavensward endgame ready.
Kasul figures we have about a patch and a half of content before we start on Heavensward. I’m still hoping to get Ninja and Monk to 50 to get that achievement before we go. Kasul will have gotten the corresponding one for the Disciples of Magic, and probably the one for gathering professions as well.
Still loving the story. I am really going to have to unlock the Bahamut’s Coils, though — there’s weapon stuff I need there.