Driving Kasul…

Yes, Uber has set up shop in Eorzea. I'm just out to make some extra gil with my chocobo between adventures.
Yes, Uber has set up shop in Eorzea. I’m just out to make some extra gil with my chocobo between adventures.

With our free month of FFXIV about to end, Kasul and I had to make a difficult decision. Not about whether or not to continue playing the game — we're both having a lot of fun with — but just who was going to recruit who for the recruit-a-friend program. See, in FFXIV, if you recruit someone, you get a bunch of cool rewards, like that two-seater chocobo in the picture. If you're recruited, you get some lesser rewards.

Kasul discovered, though, that we could recruit each other, and so that's what we did. He subbed for longer than I subbed (90 days vs month to month), so I got my rewards first. I didn't realize, at the time, Kasul's master plan: I was going to be driving him everyplace on our story night.

We play for awhile most every night, but the story night is our night to play our main jobs and progress the story. My paladin job is 42; Kasul's been keeping both his scholar and summoner jobs the same level at around 40 to 41.

Last week we ended the story at the Titan fight. When we reported to the Scion of the Seventh Dawn headquarters afterward… well, it was clear the storyline had taken a sudden, unexpected, dramatic shift. The Garlean Empire had gone too far. It was time to take the fight to them.

The eventual goal is to take on the primal Garuda, but Garuda is very well-protected. To get to her, we would need an airship. And to get an airship, we would need to find the legendary engineer, the common thread who connects every Final Fantasy game, Cid.

Cid had (reportedly) died during the Calamity, so this was going to be somewhat of a challenge. But that's fine. Kasul had immediately pegged an amnesiac monk as Cid in disguise. We tried various means to spark his memory, but it took one of those androgynous elf twins to name him and wake him.
Cid!
Cid's airship was last seen in Coerthas Central Highlands, drifting away after losing its crew in a battle. We eventually determined it had come to rest in the Stone Vigil, one of the four watchtowers built by the city-state of Ishgard. We were finally able to get permission to go there and attempt to retrieve the airship (with Cid and the androgyne elf along for the ride). Unfortunately, the whole place has been overrun with dragons….

The Stone Vigil is the next dungeon in the story. It was just a little too late for me to attempt a new dungeon. I'm hoping we get to it tonight. Dragons. I love killing dragons.

Last night's chapter was filled with running-around quests, but they didn't rise to the same level of boredom as last week's, leading up to the Titan fight. That was partly due to the wonderfully dark, oppressed atmosphere and castles of the Coerthas Central Highlands. Kasul and I had been through there briefly before on some task or other, when we were much lower level. We were finally able to enjoy it, even join in on some Fate hunts.

I did not think we'd be this far along in just a month.

Nina Tanglewood, the Doom Banana.
Nina Tanglewood, the Doom Banana.

With Stone Vigil being a level 42-44 dungeon, and Garuda herself being a level 45 trial, I feel we're getting near the end of the main, pre-Heavensward, storyline. I can't believe it would take more than a month to close it out. We have lots of jobs to level and lots of dungeons to run before we start in on the hard dungeons that we'll need in order to proceed to Heavensward. I hear that characters with average item level of 100 and more are doing okay in the expansion; my paladin average armor level is in the high 30s. It should be 50 when I start on hard dungeons. I'm a tank. My armor should be the best in the group.

It probably WON'T be, at least to start. It's a goal.

6 thoughts on “Driving Kasul…”

  1. I thought I read somewhere that with the release of 3.0, some of the 2.0 story quests had their rewards adjusted to a higher ilvl to help remove some of the gear grind for returning players and smooth out progression to the xpac.
    Can’t find the info right now though, since I’m at work.

  2. Well, after you finished the levelling story, you have the level 50 story (about 6 patches) you need to do. But, patch 2.1 and the start of 2.5 have a…quirk. To be precise, they require you to do or have done certain optional content.
    That is:
    – A certain guildhest (can’t remember which one)
    – The Temple of Qarn (Normal)
    – The original three Primals Hard Mode
    Other than that, you have 6 trials and 2 dungeons with the rest being solo. 2.1 is the slowest and weakest of the patches, so you get through that and your golden.

  3. I ran Stone Vigil last night in a Duty Roulette. It’s fun to go back and re-visit. And if you like killing dragons, just wait until the Churning Mists zone in HW. Very few mobs in that zone *aren’t* some type of dragon.
    Here’s a named dragon you fight for a quest in the Dravinian Forelands. Dravinian Forelands has some dragons toward the end. And the Sohm Al and Aery dungeons are dragons galore to boot. You even eventually get a dragon mount, so yeah…. HW is for you if you like to fight dragons.
    As Dan noted though… there’s a *ton* of quests to do at level 50 before HW becomes available. The number bandied about is 160 quests in the main story line after hitting 50. Takes some time to get through, but I found it to be completely worth it. And if you want to play the “Dark Paladin” then running through that and into Ishgard, unlocking DRK and then riding the FATE train to 50 and you can pick up the main story again at-level. Or keep going with PLD too. I’ve actually seen a lot of DRK’s running around, but in dungeons I still see a lot more PLD’s than anything.

  4. @Storgrim — that would be great. Really dreading the gear grind.
    @Dan — Well, I’ve done all the guildhests to which I have access. And Qarn, normal mode. Hard mode primals — *shudder* — don’t want to think about hard mode ANYTHING quite yet. Nearly collapsed in a puddle of sweat after Qarn.
    @pkudude — mmmm dragons mmmm must kill… I actually am glad to hear there’s plenty of story ahead. I prefer leveling to the end game grind, and tend to quit at that point. The story is the fun bit to an MMO! I never seemed to meet any dark knights until I started playing heals or deeps in dungeons — and now I see them all over the place. It seems to be a very interesting class. Paladin just seems like the roleplay class for me — a stout defender, a first and last line of defense. Deeps seems rather dull, and heals way too stressful.
    When I played a cleric in EverQuest, I loved having a really solid tank in the group, because I could relax and enjoy the game. Trying to keep a weak tank alive would give me the jitters. BEING a tank means my health is someone else’s problem, but if I can do my job, everyone is going to have a great time.

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