What have I been doing recently? Why, levelling Ikralla Adnap in Final Fantasy XIV, of course! She finally hit level 30 in Rogue, and I immediately set about getting the Ninja job unlocked.
It’s an interesting character concept. You have 3 core abilities called Mudras, special ninja hand signs, and you use these in various combinations to make attacks happen. The Mudras are Ten (the first one you get), Chi and Jin, and a 4th ability called Ninjitsu is what you activate to unleash the attack.
Using 1 mudra on its own sees you throw a massive shuriken, using Chi then Ten makes an enemy explode and deal fire damage to it and enemies around it, Chi > Jin > Ten increases your attack speed, and so on and so forth. Mess up a combination? You temporarily wear a bunny hat so everyone can laugh at you.
I like this about FFXIV. It has interesting class mechanics (at least, Ninjas do. Not played with other classes much yet). Rogues do too, in that they have certain attacks do double damage when executed after other specific attacks. You use Spinning Edge, which doubles the damage of Shadow Fang or Gust Slash, the latter of which also doubles the damage of Dancing Edge (which does even MORE damage when you attack an enemy’s flank) or Aeolian Edge (which deals further damage when you use it behind your enemy). Rogues are about positioning, or at least about knowing how your ENEMY is positioned, and using the appropriate attacks.
Also, my character is not a cat girl anymore, but a dragon girl! The Au Ra race were introduced with the Heavensward expansion, and I used the Fantasia potion I receieved for being subbed a certain amount of time on changing her! No regrets. Never looked back.
Dragons are fuckin’ RAD.
That girl on the right is an NPC called V’Kebbe, and she’s pretty cool herself.
I will one day be clad in the most garishly-coloured armour I can find, but until then, she’s wearing unflattering greens and manky browns.
Another concept I like about FFXIV is that 1 character can be every class. I levelled Ikralla initially as a Pugilist, then switched to Rogue when the opportunity arose. She’s currently sitting in Limsa Lominsa as a Culinarian, a non-combat class that creates buff foods, but I can switch to a gathering class, magic class, a combat class or another crafting class merely by going to their “guild” location, completing a quest, then equipping that class’s weapon!
There’s a benefit to levelling like this too. Some abilities are marked as being cross-class ones, meaning that you can use that as ANY class. When she was fighting as a Rogue, I can’t even begin to fathom how many battles I might have lost without the Pugilist healing ability.
Anyway, enough gushing. Here’s a Cactuar from Final Fantasy 8. Have a nice day, kids.
Panda Steve Types Stuff 