What Is XIV Nostalgia?

[Silverquick]

Cleric Stance
Doing below level 50 dungeons on WHM and switching between Cleric Stance and cures. It was so much fun until I got heal OGCDs which ruined it for me.
Stance Dancing on tanks
Old content not being nothing due to item level increases so it felt good to do well in it
Old hunts not being nothing due to item level increases so that they left bodies everywhere
Positioning bosses
Using cross-class abilities for fun
PLD's old rotation
5.0 AST or earlier where it felt more fun to juggle cards and handle bad RNG cards
Old MNK because I can't act like I have less positionals
Tank raid-wide mit having less range, because it took me quite some time to not bother running close to the party.
Keeping up Blood of the Dragon even though it was easy
Stuff like both Bard dots buffing the damage of Sidewinder, procs working off crit and buffing players MP, it's a background thing but it just felt better knowing that there was more impact from my decisions

So I just have to endure this nostalgia when I'm going through old dungeons or playing jobs that were around then and try to forget it.

Yeah that is so unfortunate that we lost all that. I was so infuriated when they removed most of it at the outset of Stormblood.

I remember DoT stacking on SMN and thinking the Egis were so cool.. until I got Deathflare. I did love how each little move was a buildup to the next and that was on every class, not just one. You had to actually strategize and put them together like a puzzle piece. Each job was unique in how they functioned, then you throw in cross class skills and subjobs and it was just such a rich and fascinating system to be a part of.

I like Mithron's too, there was just nothing like the feeling of walking through Ishgard and feeling to sucked into that whole story. The entire HW from sound track to story to overworld to everything was just so incredibly well put together. I think that was truly the golden age of this game. I'm not knocking ARR, because I can remember a lot of cool stuff in that one too and I do remember being sucked into it some of those original dungeons and Hard mode dungeons were so unique and cool they just felt like an actual dungeon crawl. Hell I even remember vividly my first Leviathon fight with the whole player crew skittering on the skiff with Leviathon popping up all over tail, head, etc... it was like the cloud whale fight in HW.

I remember trying to do the Relic Weapon in HW, and running Fate after Fate in Helix with a bunch of FC members and that place was already cool, the floating Allegan Research facility. That place used to be packed.

Another thing I remember, you could get another DoT on SMN back then, the key was you had to complete your Arcanist job quest all the way to 50 to get it. It was a healing field like SCH had, that you got at 50th level but this was a DoT field. Most people never completed that, once they got their SMN stone they never finished off the arcanist quests through level 50. I remember whipping that out in dungoens and some people were just amazed because they didn't know it existed. (Was Shadowbind I think)

[Moomba33]

Another thing I remember, you could get another DoT on SMN back then, the key was you had to complete your Arcanist job quest all the way to 50 to get it. It was a healing field like SCH had, that you got at 50th level but this was a DoT field. Most people never completed that, once they got their SMN stone they never finished off the arcanist quests through level 50. I remember whipping that out in dungoens and some people were just amazed because they didn't know it existed. (Was Shadowbind I think)

I think you're thinking of Shadow Flare. Shadowbind was a archer/bard skill that binded targets.
Squadron Arcanists still have Shadow Flare I think.

Edit: Though IIRC it was just a skill you learned by leveling up. I remember SCH couldn't have it active at the same time as Sacred Soil and players used to debate which one to use during trash pulls.

[Silverquick]

I think you're thinking of Shadow Flare. Shadowbind was a archer/bard skill that binded targets.
Squadron Arcanists still have Shadow Flare I think.

Edit: Though IIRC it was just a skill you learned by leveling up. I remember SCH couldn't have it active at the same time as Sacred Soil and players used to debate which one to use during trash pulls.

Yeah that's the one,

But the key is you couldn't get it unless you pulled your stone and did the 50th level quest for it. It was the ending quest in there with the corny cat chick that always overcomplicated things, she runs off with the guildmaster that she always had a crush on anyway and just never would admit to it. But before he leaves with her he imparts that one last piece of Arcanist wisdom to you. They removed that quest now as far as I know so most people never get to know the ending of that story.