Dungeon time!

Zel's Weekly Digest

Week 21 - April 2 - 8, 2024


A closeup of Zel's face. She is smiling while looking off into the distance.



Worlds Collide…Again


So it seems Yoshi P was able to convince FF16’s Naoki Yoshida to do a crossover event!


The Wandering Minstrel and Zel are looking at Clive from Final Fantasy 16, who is prone on the ground. Zel is kneeling beside him.

Xarale and I did the event together, as we always do.


Zel with a determined expression, with Ifrit's flames in the background.

It was a fun enough event, and clearly was trying to get people to get 16, but that’s kinda hard to do when it’s still a console exclusive. Not everyone can afford, or even wants, a PS5, and it was incredibly tone-deaf for Yoshi to tell people to just buy a PS5 when he was asked about when a PC release was coming. For one, they're expensive! I'd much rather use that money to upgrade my decade old PC than get a console that I don't even have any games for.

The fight was fun, but I feel like the advertising is kinda misplaced when a lot of the players won't even be able to play 16, which kinda kills the hype a little.


Clive in the foreground, with Zel in the background. Clive is noticably more high def than regular final fantays 14 characters.

That said, I’m laughing at how out of place Clive looks. He looks like a modded character!


Zel and Xarale sitting on their Torgal wolf mounts. Xarale is using the mount feature that lets you pet Torgal on the head.

I LOVE the mount from the event. It's so cute! You can even pet it! I immediately tossed the glam into the armoire, probably never to be seen again, because I don't really like how it looks on Zel.





Special Tarasque Force


I honestly never thought I’d beat this achievement fate!


A battle screenshot of Zel with Cecily and a party of strangers fighting Tarasque. The whole ground is marked with an AoE as it uses Dragon Stomp.

For those not familiar with it, The Tarasque fate, introduced in heavensward, is notoriously tough. In fact, even in current day, you need a sizable group, and for a while, you needed multiple parties. This is because the boss has one really nasty attack called Dragon Stomp, that is big enough to fill the whole fate area, so it’s pretty much out of the question to just dodge it. Thankfully, it can be stopped with a stun from the tank.

The issue is that it can use this attack several consecutive times in a row, meaning you need multiple tanks, as well as needing the firepower to wear it down.

Thankfully, now that Blue Mage exists, you can Perpetual Ray to stun it when needed, without waiting for a tank’s stun to come off cool down.


Zel and Cecily attacking the Tarasque.

Well anyway, I was hanging around in the Dravanian Forelands, doing fates to farm dying memories, ignoring this fate like I always did, when I see a shout mentioning the party in party finder. Curious, I signed up. And promptly died.


A cluttered screenshot showing FATE COMPLETED

I came back as Warrior to make sure we had another tank, and while it took several minutes, we managed to chip away at it, blue mages keeping the stomping at bay with my stun on standby as backup. And we beat it!


A cropped screenshot showing the Fate success dialogue box, along with the achievement notification. The achievement is called Falling Down.

So that’s a long overdue achievement I honestly never expected to get, but that’s part of what I love about this game, sometimes unexpected things happen, and you meet some cool people along the way. Also I probably should have been paying attention to chat. Whoops!





Roulette time!



Zel and party running through the first section of Thaleia

I needed to get some of the MotR coins for upgrade items, so I queued up. Mag showed up while I was waiting, and though we got Aglaia down, Euprosyne was taking forever to pop and said we had a wait time of half an hour as a two healers, so we decided to do roulettes instead.


Zel and Magris during the Byregot fight
Zel using Holy 3 in the Aetherfont dungeon

It was fun, of course, I always enjoy hanging out with my FC mates! And I like healing for Mag, since he’s actually a good tank, unlike half the Duty Finder tanks I run into. I always kinda dread paladins and gunbreakers. Warriors are so mind numbingly easy to keep alive that it’s honestly a shock when someone is bad at them. And Dark Knights are kind of a mixed bag. They’ve got the lowest survivability overall, but I find that the ones that actually stick with the class at 90 tend to love the class enough to actually learn what they’re doing.


Zel and Mag with their party running up to the rainbow golems in Aetherfont
The party waiting at the start of Lapis Manalis

Plus we’re at the tail end of the expansion, so everyone’s pretty geared up now and most duties are way easier. We even completely skipped the scales mechanic in Aglaia! I fear it's going to become one of those rare mechanics that rarely gets seen, but maybe that's for the better. It was way too easy for one single person to wipe the whole raid by themself completely on accident. In fact, I've done it before! Just ask Zeb! She saw me do it during a 7am run!





Marvelous Manderville


Yes I keep grumbling about the relics.


Zel holding the Mandervillous Compound Bow

And yes, I’m still making them when I have enough tomes. I’m not really making it a priority because I can already foresee it being my Poetics Sink come Dawntrail.





Bonus Round


Just a snippet from my Fate grinding.


A crop of Alaimbert of the Spiked Butt. His chat bubble says I may not even need my butt!



Thats all for now! See you again next time!


Zel, Cecily, and Dagger chilling on the roof of a building in the Dravanian Hinterlands.



Posted 2024/04/19

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