I had the most fun with the Machinist, which is surprising considering my preference for heavy armor tank classes. Finally, the Machinist is patterned off of FFXIV's version of Cid the class wields magitek handguns as a damage dealer with additional support abilities in the form of mechanical turrets. The Astrologian is a healing class focused around a floating star globe with various cards allowing them to heal or deal damage. The Dark Knight is the new tank class, splitting the difference between the Warrior's damage dealing and the Paladin's mitigation. Each new job fits into one of the three major MMO roles and all three lack base classes, so they begin at level 30.
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Next up are the three new jobs: Dark Knight, Machinist, and Astrologian. They're not plentiful, but later in the expansion it becomes a bigger problem. I do wish there was more of an indication of which quests require flying ability though. Even beyond that, there's still new spots out there to explore once you've taken to the skies on your Chocobo. Square Enix' implementation is a bit more elegant for future expansion purposes, as wind currents can theoretically extend forward to any new areas.
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In WoW, they tend to lock flying behind a skill you can only acquire late in the expansion, going so far as to leave flying out of most of the recent Warlords of Draenor. This gives you the added benefit of actually appreciating each region Blizzard has lamented in the past that flying actually diminishes some of the impact of ground-based level design. This means you've usually explored an area before you get the chance to soar over it. Some you can simply find by exploring, while others are locked behind certain content. Each region has wind currents that you have to attune to in order to fly within that area. In true nFinal Fantasy XIV fashion, you can't just pick up a flying mount and take off to the skies. The biggest new feature is flying mounts and flight in general. Heavensward is an expansion, so that means new features outside of a few brand-new stomping grounds. It breaks up all the fantasy seriousness. I don't know if that's primarily through Square Enix' Japanese writers or their English localization counterparts, but I appreciate a game that's willing to make me laugh every now and then. Many of them are throwaway like every other MMO, but there are the occasional few with a great sense of humor about them. I also want to call attention to some of the side quests. The main story is still well-told and interesting, and the character voice acting is of good quality (though no one ever wonders why you don't speak). I feel like they're more active in Heavensward, especially within the backdrop of Ishgard's ongoing war. The shift in region also allows Square Enix to throw the motivations and status quo of the main cast members into some disarray. By the end of A Realm Reborn's cycle, a few major cast members and organizations bit the big one, leaving the player without a support structure in the expansion's new lands. Instead, FFXIV has a whole host of major players for you to occasionally interact with and it's through these characters that the story is experienced. Unlike WoW though, you're not the main focus of that plot. Like Blizzard has been doing in some of WoW's latter expansions, Final Fantasy XIV is heavy on the plot. That may seem unfair to others who are used to being able to tour new areas in other MMOs, but here it makes sense. Yeah, you can't even go sightseeing if you're not up-to-date.
#Final fantasy xiv pc games Patch
If you started A Realm Reborn, but missed some of the later patches, I have bad news for you: you need to finish the game's primary storyline up to the patch prior to Heavensward (patch 2.5) to even see the new content. Of course, before you can get to all this new content, Square Enix wants to make sure that you're prepared. From the opening look at Ishgard to the Churning Mists or the Sea of Clouds, Heavensward outdoes A Realm Reborn visually, mostly by expanding upward. When you're cruising above certain areas in Heavensward's new regions, having a PC that can show you everything as the developer intended is worth every penny.
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Around halfway through my playtime with the expansion, I decided that Heavensward deserved a new rig. The characters are smooth and detailed, the armor is great, the spell effects are amazing, and the level design is still some of the best in the business. That's good enough for some PC titles, but Final Fantasy XIV is bar none, the best-looking MMO in operation today. I was previously playing Heavensward on my old PC that hadn't been updated since 2008. You may be wondering why this review is coming in August, when the expansion itself came out at the end of June.
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Let's get this out of the way upfront: Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward is a class act of an expansion.