Yes, I missed yesterday. I could have predicted that was going to happen, what with it being a Friday, and with Final Fantasy XIV’s new expansion Dawntrail launching into its “early access” period for those who preordered. So I’m catching up now, and another post for “today” later and we’ll be all square.
I could just not bother, because no-one but me cares how well I stick to the whole #oneaday thing, but it’s the principle of the thing. Last time around when I did this, I handled “missed” days like this and I don’t feel like it compromised the integrity of my run of daily blogging, so my own self-imposed rules still stand. So there.
Anyway. Final Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail seems good so far. I haven’t gotten into the new storyline as yet, because I thought for a change I’d dive into one of the two new jobs included: Pictomancer. For those unfamiliar with Final Fantasy XIV, new jobs introduced with an expansion tend to start ten levels lower than you need to be to start the new storyline, giving you ten levels to get to know your new job by playing dungeons and boss fights you’ve (presumably) already done on other jobs.
I’m actually quite grateful for having to go through this bit of levelling, because it gave me the opportunity to catch up on some sidequests I’d somehow missed on my run through Endwalker. I’ve played all the previous Final Fantasy XIV storylines by thoroughly progressing through all the available sidequests as they came up, but several groups of them apparently unlocked after I’d already passed by their respective areas. I’d held off completing them because it felt wasteful to do them and not get any experience points for them, and none of my other jobs were high enough level to take them on. So they’ve been used to get Pictomancer up to scratch.
Pictomancer seems like quite an interesting job. It’s a ranged magical DPS, which means you stand back from enemies and pelt them with “stuff”. The unique selling point of Pictomancer over something like Black Mage is that there are several sets of abilities you can use to pelt enemies with stuff. Firstly, there’s a sequence of chromatic/elemental spells that function as basic single-target or area-effect attacks, and these also show off the interface’s new ability to automatically switch icons in your hotbar rather than you having to map everything individually.
Secondly, Pictomancer unlocks access to three “Canvases” as it levels. One is for painting creatures, one is for painting weapons and the third is for painting landscapes. “Painting” is a fairly lengthy spell if cast in combat, but it’s instant outside of combat, so you can sort of “pre-load” yourself ahead of time if you’re thinking ahead.
The creature paintings can be unleashed as attack spells, and also contribute to a larger combined spell which can be cast once you’ve set off the previous creature paintings. For example, first you’ll paint a moogle’s pom, then set that off as a spell, then paint a pair of wings, and set that off as a spell. This then allows you to immediately set off a spell in which you fling a completed moogle at your enemies. As Pictomancer levels, it looks as if it gains the ability to paint more different creature parts, which trigger in sequence, so weaving that into your attacks is clearly going to be a key part of its strategy.
The weapon painting, meanwhile, can be set off in combat to trigger a status effect known as “Hammer Time”. While under the effect of Hammer Time, you can trigger a three-hit combo using a big hammer. This always hits a critical and direct hit, which means it does significantly more damage than most other abilities; the trade-off is that there’s quite a long cooldown before you can use it again, though higher level Pictomancers can store a couple of “charges” before having to wait.
The landscape painting, finally, initially acts as a simple damage buff, but at higher levels also makes an area on the floor which, while you stand in it, causes your spells to cast more quickly. This is very helpful for the chromatic/elemental spells, particularly if you use the Subtractive Palette ability to change them into more powerful but slower versions.
If this all sounds a bit complicated, I thought it would be overwhelming at first, but upon starting the new job you have a nice little instanced mini-quest to get to grips with things, and just experimenting with the job in various dungeons and boss fights means things soon become second nature. I’m sure someone is theorycrafting all the fun out of it as we speak, but for now, I’m enjoying just playing it how it “feels” right.
Right, that’s enough for yesterday. Time for dinner. Back later!
Want to read my thoughts on various video games, visual novels and other popular culture things? Stop by MoeGamer.net, my site for all things fun where I am generally a lot more cheerful. And if you fancy watching some vids on classic games, drop by my YouTube channel.
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