Testing Espers
I don’t use espers individually much, and so I want to see their strengths. Testing time!
Belias: One mist charge. Single-target fire, area fire. Major technick is Hellfire, area-effect fire damage.
Mateus: One mist charge. Basically a chilly version of Belias. Major technick is Frostwave. Sweet animation with her diving into the sea, hurling her harpoon out, creating a freezing wave and shattering it.
Zalera: One mist charge. All-or-nothing. Can use Kill and Banish, single- and group-instadeath spells. Major technick is Condemnation, which deals random damage in an area.
The animation is legit spooky. The shamaness half of Zalera screams out and the grim reaper part lets out a bubbly mwa-ha-ha.
Cuchulainn: Two mist charges. Auto-reflect. [Later edit: Maybe I should try this on Zeromus.] Curaja. Area-effect Bio magic. Malaise technick (drains health). Major technick is Blight, area effect non-elemental damage.
The Blight animation is GROSS – a poison growth thing bursts out of his back and into the ground, infecting the area.
Exodus: Two mist charges. Curaja. Ardor magic, dealing huge aoe fire damage. I kind of think this even pre-empts the need for Belias. Major technick is Meteor. What a cool attack.
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The mist charge cost seems a good tier-system. Belias and Mateus are the weakest two. Zalera is kind of a niche choice above them. Cuchulainn and Exodus are far stronger, with Cuchulainn as the tankier option and Exodus as more of a glass-cannon with special strength against fire-weak enemies.
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Hunt: Roblon
-Heading back to the Nabreus Deadlands to take one last look for Roblon, my only remaining hunt on my log.
-YIKES! Found a brutal crystalbug in the place of a red crystal that nearly fried me.
-Found a new enemy called a Shield Wyrm. Getting horrific memories of the FFV Shield Dragon knocking me silly.
-No luck. I can’t find the way to get to that little patch of land with Roblon on it.
-I did find my way to another section of Nabudis Necrohol, a whole WORLD of nope.
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Phon Coast to Archades
-I head east from Phon Coast to Tchida Uplands. Still some coastal elements, but more hills and ruins.
-There’s a lot of unused area here. Paths that lead to cliffs with nothing on them. I think I’ll be back here, whether for a hunt or something else.
-An Archadian kid at a save crystal shows me a hastily-drawn hunt bill and asks me to take out a monster that looks just like a bunch of food piled on top of each other lol.
The kid’s dad tried to post this hunt officially with the Clans and was refused. I even get a message that
this mark won’t count towards my Clan Centurio total. This is gonna be either a superboss or joke boss.
-Yay, got Float magick! And later, Blindga.
-I find a cave to the north and head in.
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Hunt: Mandragoras
-This cave is the next leg in the journey to Archades.
-I enter a main hall and find VEGETABLE PALOOZA.
This is ABSOLUTELY what FFXIV must have been referencing in that Hildibrand quest, when vegetable royalty attacked me!
I had worried that playing FFXIV before XII would spoil me for stuff, but in practice it doesn’t feel that way. I still get to appreciate the reference and be surprised by it – just in reverse order.
-They all run about and dump status effects on me. A bit tough but not too bad.
OMG AFTER I DEFEAT THEM THEIR SPIRITS/GHOSTS ASCEND TO HEAVEN WTF IS THIS
Headcanon: FFXIV is their own personal heaven and that's why they're there too.
-I return to the two Archadians who gave me the task to defeat the vegetable menace. They’re dicks. They pay me crap wages (1,000 gil and a few Remedies).
This was just a chance to test whether I’d be worthy of being his butler or w/e.
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Pilgrim and Ascetic
-Found a Pilgrim’s Door beyond. Its inscription warns me away from opening it.
“You who are yet drawn toward the Pilgrim’s
Door, the heart of Time and the deeds you must
accomplish share their place midst the falls.
“From the heart look north to Heaven.
From the heart step south to Earth.
Walk in Time’s footfalls to open the way.”
Another inscription on a nearby wall is similar:
“You who are yet drawn toward the Pilgrim’s
Door, journey Heaven and Earth in search of the
heart, and you will surely reach it.”
[Later edit: You’re not kidding about ‘trouble and confusion.’]
-There’s a puzzle here, but I don’t see anything obvious about heaven and earth yet.
-As I explored, came across a boss. Ahriman.
It used Doom like Ahrimans tend to do, but it looks nothing like a floaty eye. More like a wraith/ghost. Nothing wrong with that! I love how FFXIV calls back to everything, and oddly enough also love how FFXII twists expectations around.
-Found another puzzle door beyond this. The Ascetic’s Door.
The Ascetic’s Door inscription:
“You who are yet drawn toward the Ascetic’s
Door, count out your steps tracing Sun’s round.
At journey’s end, the door embrace you.”
Another inscription:
“You who are yet drawn toward the Ascetic’s
Door, in circles travel from land of Sun’s birth.
Stray but once, another day must you return.”
So there are all these “Doors of Hours” nearby. Maybe I start here and go clockwise through the doors?
Yes! It opened the Ascetic’s Door… that led to another locked door. Probably best that I can’t get into it yet, since the room beyond is the “Hall of the Wroth God.” Yikes. Definitely sounds esper-y.
-I backtrack to the Pilgrim’s Door. There’s one particular area I’m trying to reach that’s surrounded by waterfalls, and the clue basically tells me that this is where I have to solve the puzzle.
-The “Heart” the clues reference may be the area in the
*over an hour later*
GRRR THIS IS SUPER FRUSTRATING. I made a little bit of progress by doing what I basically did for the Ascetic’s Door and going in a clockwise circle around the area. It adjusted the waterfall, but I couldn’t figure out what to do next. The waterfalls kept resetting rather than opening the way to progress.
The thing that’s most frustrating to me about this is that I can’t make any connection between the Pilgrim’s Door puzzle about Heaven and Earth and whatever and the actual actions that moved the waterfall here. The Ascetic’s Door? Fine. Makes sense. This? No clue.
*a long ass time later*
Yeah, fuck this. I give up. I don’t get it. I’ve wandered here, testing stuff out, looking for hints and clues about Heaven and Earth and stuff (and leveling up a few times in the process, getting hundreds of LP) but nothing.
I actually looked up the answer. Felt a bit bad about it, but not that bad. I had to know. What was I doing wrong? What was I missing?
Turns out I don’t know if I was missing much. Apparently, I had to weave in and out of subzone in a very specific order, which I suppose I could have brute forced.
I’m not actually doing it now. When I Googled the answer, I made a deal with myself that I’d do so just to sate my curiosity. I don’t want to profit from it in game, so I didn’t end up opening the door. I’m also a bit salty at the moment.
[Non-rhetorical question: how was I supposed to unravel this puzzle? What about the clues the game gave me were supposed to tell me how to open the Pilgrim’s Door successfully?]
-Anyway, I’m done here. I take a lift up to a save crystal by the exit.
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Next time: exiting the Sochen Cave Palace.
