Posted in Final Fantasy XIV

Healing & tanking

Though the first class I ended up leveling in Final Fantasy XIV was arcanist, I never really ended up playing scholar that much, mostly focusing on summoner—the two jobs the class can specialize in—and consequently it wasn't until I started leveling as a conjurer/white mage that I ended up actually doing any sort of healing. It has been interesting so far, though rather easy still, as I haven't gotten overly far to be fair, but the curious thing has been that it has once again reminded me why I like healing, something I had curiously managed to forget. Well, not really forget, but I had been expecting that the slower pace of the game—or more specifically, the longer global cooldown—would mean that healing would be less enjoyable to me, and as such I didn't really think I would enjoy it as much, yet to my surprise my experience so far has been almost the opposite: I think I enjoy it more than healing in World of Warcraft at the moment.

It's way too early to make any sort of final judgement on that front though, as the types of content I do in both of the games is so vastly different that the gameplay isn't really comparable at all.

Speaking of things that I rediscovered recently: tanking. Well, not really rediscovered, but I have been playing as a gunbreaker more recently, leveling through duties and tanking. It has actually been really fun again, especially since I tend to end up doing the same duty several times due to level restrictions, meaning I really get to learn and optimize my play therein, allowing me to actually start thinking about how I pull and where I use my cooldowns. What also really helps strangely is going back to the duty finder from doing trusts—trusts are basically duties (dungeons) that you do with NPCs, duty finder is finding random players to do it with—because even though the interactions are generally rather limited and I do tend to get unreasonably nervous about the prospect of having to interact with new people and afraid of being judged, I think those same fears play into it being that much more rewarding when things go in a reasonable way like they are wont to do. It is curious though, these fears seem much more prominent while playing a tank than a healer for me, probably because of the more visible role in having to lead the group—or perhaps because as a healer I haven't been queuing alone but with a friend, which probably also helps a lot.

A slight drawback of actually playing with other players is the availability of such, and the increased queue times in trying to find players to run with, which are actually while still not long per se surprisingly long as a tank, generally somewhere between 2-10 minutes. The variance is of course rather high, depending on many factors, but it is still rather interesting to see since I'm somewhat used to tanks being the most in-demand role. Healer queues on the other hand have been surprisingly fast, essentially instantly being put in a party, which is also something of a surprise to me. Perhaps the level range also plays a role, more of the playerbase being available.

At any rate, both of these factors have given me a rather great deal of renewed interest towards the game which I have been happy to see, since it is nice to have something to do once more that I enjoy.

Otherwise occupied

Still adventuring in Eorzea, not found the time to really sit down and write. I know, already happened last week without notice or mention, but I simply do not have the energy for it at this time.