Hi all - quick few questions

[rallyd]

Hello everyone! I'm new and I love the game! Just a few questions:

1. First, these forums don't seem super active? Is there somewhere else people go to post about the game? I looked over at Allakhazam and that seemed pretty dead, too.

2. I'm currently leveling Lancer - I love it! (Freya from FFIX is one of my all-time favorite characters.) Anyway, I'm level 17-18, and I know I have two abilities that currently "combo" off one another, but I actually computed that spamming Impulse Drive yields slightly higher raw damage than comboing True Thurst and Vorpol Thrust. Can anyone confirm if this is true? It is slightly boring, but I want to be sure I'm doing the most damage I can. Thanks!

3. Finally, is there a way to "turn on" chat bubbles above characters' heads in-game? I always liked when MMOs had this option, as I'm not always looking at the chat log and I feel it's more immersive when I can see what people are saying right on the game screen.

[Martin_Arcainess]

Hello and welcome to the wonderful world of FFXIV \o/.

1. Forum activity I find varies from time to time and it depends on language of the forum for example the English/American Forum is move active in the afternoon once people are off work and are at home.

2. Glad t see your enjoying lancer *later on it will be Dragon* and yes it will get alot more complicated as you learn more skills and Dragon has 2 rotations, the thing about dragon is it wont all fall into place once you about high level and you start learning jumps. Impulse Drive yields more damage on it's own but the True Thrust and Vorpol Thrust as a combo will deal more damage. If you like in your Vorpol description you notice it also mentions Combo potency, that is the potency it will have IF used as a Combo from True Thrust.

3. No sorry XIV dose not have this feature.

[Anova]

Hello and welcome to the game. Glad to see you're on Leviathan. Maybe I'll see you in game some time and fill you in on any more questions you have or to clarify things.

1 - Only about 10% of the online community visits forums, so it's not the best way to get information. In addition to those sites and this one, I would also check the reddit forums. Those tend to be a lot more people posting. Most people here and on allakazham would rather be playing the game than looking at forums (especially since you need a fully paid account to post here).

2 - And if you effectively combo true thrust and vorpal thrust, you will squeeze out about 20 more damage (every 5 seconds) than if you just spam impulse drive. You should also be using Heavy thrust (from the enemy's flank for max damage) every 12 or 24 secs for that extra 15% damage buff. Keep in mind this test was done using levelsync though, so the difference might be smaller.

Potency actually isn't a % calculation as much as it is timey-wimey ball that spews out logarithmic math gobbledygook when you plug STR in to it. Safest way to test this is to attack a training dummy and see what numbers pop up for the combos.

Also, this is true for all classes, but none of the classes feels complete until 50. It's almost like they made a class at 50 and said, "this is what we want it to play like" and then just removed abilities as they leveled it down. It's not the best design plan I think, but its what they used.

Anyway, I hoped that helped explain a bit. Dragoon/lancer is currently the top DPS class right now, so you're in good company. Just don't forget to level Marauder to 15 by the time you're a level 30 lancer so you can upgrade lancer to Dragoon (same level, just different name, exclusive armor, and 10 bonus abilities).

[Mykll]

Good advice above, nothing I can add.

Then I read this.

Potency actually isn't a % calculation as much as it is timey-wimey ball that spews out logarithmic math gobbledygook when you plug STR in to it.

Thumbs up for that ALONE. Love my Dr. Who.

[rallyd]

Thank you so much, guys!

[Leshpar]

I'm a member of a facebook group for FF14 that is really active. A lot of people complaining about things from time to time, but some awesome stuff too, hense why I stay in it. Here is a link: https://www.facebook.com/groups/84017816585/?fref=nf

[rallyd]

Hello again! I figured I'd just bump my thread rather than making a new one.

When it comes to leveling, how should I handle it? My current game plan is get Lancer to 30, then go back for Marauder to 15 to get Dragoon, right? So I just got the story quest where I go to the other two big cities to deliver letters, and I'm seeing these lower level quests all over the place. My thought is to leave them for when I come back through to level Marauder rather than doing lvl 15 quests on my 20 lancer - does that make sense? I'm assuming quests that you've already done don't "reset" when you switch to another battle class, correct? So is "saving" quests for future classes a smart thing?

Sometimes I stop to think about all of the classes to level and it seems a bit daunting, but I really enjoy the world, and I love the story quests thus far, so I'm not too discouraged.

[Niwashi]

Yeah, save those low-level quests for your next class. They can only be done once and leveling gets boring on later classes if you used up all the quests on your first one.

You actually can level later classes easily enough even without quests, but then it ends up being more about grinding (grinding FATEs or grinding dungeons, or whatever). It's more fun if you can break up the grind a bit by doing quests as well. And since your first class is generally the one doing all the main scenario quests, it's not a bad idea to save the other sidequests for later classes.

Once you have multiple classes unlocked, you'll get an XP bonus on all but your highest level one. All mob kills from any of your other battle classes will get double XP. That helps to speed up the process, so leveling lots of classes isn't as hard as it seems like it would be. So although saving sidequests for later used to be about making the most of the XP they give, now it's more about ensuring you can alternate activities enough to not get bored from grinding.

[Anova]

Follow Niwashi's advice. He covers all the major points.

The side quests you find are a lot of fluff. Do them to get acquainted with the world and the lore rather than the experience gain. Some do give good equipment too, which you might find useful, but if you ever feel like it's becoming a grind, take a break and do a hunting log or sightsee log, or a dungeon/guildhest. Those also give you experience.

[rallyd]

What about the levequests (did I get the name right)? Are those good ways to level, or do people gravitate more towards the guildhests/fates?