Heavensward Physical Copy & Steam

[DracotheDragon]

This is not the case with FFXIV. You can open the ARR-Steam Edition without even having Steam open or installed by just finding ffxivboot.exe

you would still need to open steam and use a steam version to allow the expansion to be paired with it, its the way they do it, its a really asinine way to be honest but its how they sell things, but they have shown saying you need to buy the steam version sold for the steam version of ffxiv, so your outta luck if you want the physical edition.