Beta Phase 3 & general thoughts about FF:XIV ARR (SPOILERS)

So I made a Conjuror from scratch and was able to get to 32 by the end of phase 3 and run Blayflox's Longstop (Dragon!). I easily finished all of the main story quests, leveled all sub classes to 15 (got THM to 19), and completed all level 15 class quests (Pugilist was by far the hardest IMO).

Tanking: I did tank the lower dungeon, Sashara (sp?) as a Gladiator. I found the aggro mechanics pretty easy to handle unless someone else pulled or started dps before I could start gaining aggro. I loved having one CC class in my one group where I tanked. Made things go smoothly for my undergeared Gladiator. I did notice that Marauders seemed to be able to take aggro more easily than Gladiators, but they also took more damage, probably because of the shield.

Healing: Easy, except a few fights. Heals were plenty large enough. When there was difficulty it was always because of lack of time OR because I had to move out of something on the floor. I was not impressed with Esuna. Whenever a boss had a mechanic that needed cured, it always seemed that it had another status ailment (usually a weak poison) to "cover" up the one I wanted to dispel. Tanks need to carry antidotes is really what that means...

DPS:

• Lancer: Lancers came off to me as semi offtanks, I kept getting the Lancers that wanted to offtank no matter what and would basically double my healing and spread out dps onto several mobs. Saw a few good ones however and I liked those, lancers can apply a Slow effect on demand which is amazing!
• Pugilist: This is a Thief Lite for those missing the Thief class. They have positional DPS moves which is about the end of that similarity. They can also apply a slow like the Lancer, but they have to "Evade" an attack before they can apply it. Great dps!
• Thaumaturge: Love these guys! Great dps, because of how they manage mana, they can never truly run out. There is a huge difference between the good Thaumaturge's and the bad ones. The bad ones do not know what Sleep is. The good ones know when to AOE and when to Sleep adds. Also since they have Magic related stats, and unlimited mana, they are able to heal a group somewhat in a pinch. The heals are smaller, but effective. Extra emergency heals are always a nice option if needed.
• Archer: Able to do amazing dps while being 100% mobile. This class has aggro issues if your not a patient player. I had a few groups of the Archer shooting before the tank established aggro, which basically turns into a kiting festival with the tank trying to herd cats. Great class, takes a steady hand to master.

Disciples of the Land: Mining, Botany & Fishing, was different than most MMO's. I only did gathering and crafting at sub level 10. My initial thought was to run around doing fates and have the detect thingy on for the specific gathering skill like every other mmo out there. Not necessary... Harvest nodes were so abundant that I was able to gather from the same 4-5 trees over and over in a very small "route" and they would respawn before I would have to move on. Doing this like WoW or Rift would be impractical since resources were so abundant you would constantly be gathering rather than fighting. So my thought here is that gathering time gets its own specific time separate from adventure time.

Disciples of the Hand: I did not spend nearly enough time with this side of the game. I can see how handy it will be with being able to craft gear for your other classes. Also this is needed to make and "install" materia on your gear. I did not find out if other players can install materia on your gear for you (hopefully someone knows), so I will go under the assumption that I will need to level my tradeskills to keep materia on my gear.

Bugs:

• I found a few spelling or formatting mistakes on a few Levequests.
• On the level 15 Archer class skill, the description had a spelling mistake (15 Yarls instead of Yards).
• I had found a bug that could cause items in your Armory box thing to disappear occasionally, seems like they had it fixed with this last weekends build.

Feedback:

• Ifrit encounter needs loot bad, hoping this is just a beta thing.
• A few enforced solo encounters need buffed, mainly low level class quests or main story quests
• Pugilist class quest marauders need to have their aoe range & damage lowered on their cleave, so you don't instantly die.
• Increase the amount of Levequests you can do in a day!!!
• Increase the range on being informed of a new Fate when its basically a raid boss, was frustrating to be sitting at a fate with one other person when you knew it would take 10-15+ to take it down in time. Maybe give these fates a different name? Super fate?
• The "Buddy System" really needs more said about it when it becomes available. I did not find out what this was until today...Wow I missed out!
• Guildheists were challenging and the first time reward was great! However I fail to see the use of redoing these beyond the first time. Increase the xp on these past the first, or make the original bonus a "daily" thing. They are a bit steep in gil & xp, so adjust the amount accordingly.
• Company Levequests seemed a bit underwhelming in reward, yeah they had seals, but meh. Especially when you can only do so many a day. Are Fates going to continue giving seals after release? If not then that makes Company Leve's much more valuable. 
• Fates, take a page from Rift here and have the players join a "public raid" by pressing a button. As a Conjurer I was struggling to heal people (in range) that got hit by an AoE ability on the opposite side of a huge Fate raid boss. If it auto joined you into a raid group I could easily heal those taking damage on the other side of a huge boss and also increase my contribution for the reward at the same time.

Great observations.  I'm super new to the beta and these help a lot.

One small thing to add:  I was able to borrow the 20% slow from lancer on my archer (it's only level 4) and make good use of it -- at the cost of a GCD.  So any class that has a GCD and an off-class action slot to spare could add this to their bag of tricks.

Also, isn't Yarls the intended spelling?  Albeit annoyingly close to yards.

I wondered if Yarls was intentional. 

Feint is an amazing skill, it works on auto attacks and the skill recharge timer! Its a must have at least on bosses. 

One thing I found powerful about the Archer was they had dps abilities off the GCD. So weaving them in between GCD abilities was awesome and dangerous lol.

Just as a side note, the Ifrit fight at level 20 is a storyline quest and has never had loot. You get the good stuff from him at 50. (and aye measures of time, distance, and amounts of stuff have thier own language.)

So, archer skills off the GCD?  I was a total beta newb this weekend but I thought I tried every archer skill up to 24, and they all consumed a GCD.  Which ones are off GCD?

The one that draws in the red wind, cant remember the name, Has a 12 sec recast I beleive, but it can fire when other skills are on the gcd

The Ifrit quest should have loot however. Just because it doesn't now, doesn't mean it shouldn't. It's on the duty finder, its a fairly quick thing and doesn't give anything to anyone really unless they need it for quest advancement. I don't see any problem with it dropping a minor chest of some type.

Very interesting post Natch.   I only ran instances up to 23 as an archer, but still saw some of your points.

Especially Esuna.  Too little effect for the cast time!  It should either remove all effects, or remove 1 effect from all party members in range.  Or have a shorter cast time.

When I grouped with Pnub and Hex, we handled loose agro without Repose.  Hex (our conj) punted the mob back toward the tank, and I pinned it down (bind) with an arrow.  Tank taunts easily picked it up by the time it came loose again. 

@Sandolphan, ah good tip about the "red wind" skill.   I'll test it some more next beta weekend.

@ Natch: I agree with your CNJ comments with the exception of mana issues.  I ran instances only up to 24, but did not have an issue with mana other than one time when a silly dps pulled 2 groups and a pat.  But then I was aero-ing as well to try and help dps. I guess it must kick in for the higher level ones.

I hate Esuna. I long for decursive or an instant cast dispel. I found that the poisons up to level 24 were not worth dispelling, nor were things like the physical speed debuff on the tank as it did not affect combat speed.  Esuna was far too long a cast time, and annoying in that it only removed one status effect.  I urge dps to carry antidotes if they need to, as they share a different cool down to potions and ether.

Up to 24 the healing was pretty easy, and I found myself dpsing quite a bit to keep myself busy.  However, I think from 24 up that will change if mana is an issue.  Cannot wait for guild groups.  Duty finder was awesome, and we had three of us on raidcall which only meant one random dps risk.  Most were pretty good though.

 Overall, I loved the CNJ and cannot wait to play it again!

Bloodletter was the skill.

Esuna--Basically I did the same, I looked for Petrification, Paralysis, and Silence (not totally sure what abilities this effects yet). Those were the ones I made an effort to get dispelled, however as I said earlier, when a boss or mob has status ailments as a mechanic, it usually has several. Tanks need to carry antidotes =)

Marking with macros is possible: /mk Triangle or /mk Attack1 or /mk Ignore1

I didn't have mana problems as much. I spent spare cash on hi-ethers and put some points into piety and my gear was pretty top notch as well for 32. What was getting me was having to do 2-3 things at once and not having the time to get caught up, I always managed somehow except for my first Ifrit attempt was a wipe, and an occasional final boss wipe in the 27+ dungeons, usually due to dps not avoiding avoidable damage of some type or dps not killing adds when they spawned.

I am hoping the Arcanist has a heal over time spell =)

ahhh..the old "dps standing in poo whilst tunnel vision key spamming the boss, as their health drops unnoticed" affliction.  I know it well.  I let them die sometimes for lols ;)

Another thing I would like to see added...

Stats on your character sheet need tooltips with explanations! A new player say...starting a Pugilist, might assume that they want to stack Dexterity...or a THM might stack Mind...etc.  Those secondary stats won't be totally useless, however they won't be nearly as efficient in their chosen role. This hopefully will get added. I searched through the in game help feature, there is nothing that explains the stats. I would also like to see a detailed stat analysis, like having 100 resist fire at level 30 gives x% mitigation against fire. Having xyz defense or parry gives x% physical mitigation or parry.

ahhh..the old "dps standing in poo whilst tunnel vision key spamming the boss, as their health drops unnoticed" affliction.  I know it well.  I let them die sometimes for lols ;)

I can't believe how much of this I saw! Poor grouping tactics all around! I look forward to playing with MMO vets again or at least playing with people that are willing to learn efficient small group tactics.

We will be fine once we are all on the same server and can form groups from within the guild!

maybe have a ghetto set of gear for FATEs =p

I can definitely see Gill being an issue later. However I read that "daily" quests are going to be implemented shortly after release for 40+. I assume those will generate some Gil.

Sp that's why Hex let me die!  o_o

-- signed, Well-Ripened Poo-Stander

As far as the Stats having tool tips they are planning on putting a mousover that gives and explanation.  There is an issue they are running into right now with the PS3 controller that is preventing it but they hope to have it fixed by beta 4.

I am having a blast so far.  I am still a little torn on which tank I want to be.  I am leaning to PAL so I played the GLD to 20 and the MRD to 10.  The last phase of beta 3 I plan on getting the MRD up and running the first three dungeons.  The GLD slept right through the first 3 dungeons so I would like to see how the MRD does tanking them.  Of course these first three are no indication of what end game will be like.

I button mashed my way to 15 with an Archer. I had a blast. Totally engulfed in the scenery, I ended up numerous times in areas that were 15 - 20 levels higher than me, but who cares that I died? An explorers heart is in his feet, and there are sights to see. Did I mention that I button mashed the entire time? =0þ

i managed to keep everyone topped off in fights with no major mana issues. granted i only got to about 22, before i switched to explore other things. but the only times i had real mana issues were on end boss fights when the dps were dumb and stood in the fire (ifrit) or got themselves killed. on the whole, i really like CNJ and i believe it is a well built class. considering we will have arcanist to add to it, as well as some of my PGL skills (they made things interesting), i think that there is a lot of opportunity for customization to suit different healing styles.