The New Ambuscade Isnt Easy ......

Every Set has a theme: Ares was High DT, High acc/att, traded for low Haste. Marduk's was high magical defensive stats, Usukane was high troll stats (seriously don't see the theme for this one, maybe high acc? utility like MA + Regen). This current set appears to be a nice mix between range and melee with a sprinkle of some DT/DD (with Dead Aim, Snapshot, and Triple Attack) utility and lower than average haste. The AGI on the feet are insanely high as well.

Morrigan's could be pretty neat. My guess is it will be a mix between Macc/Matt, Acc/Att, with some +skill pieces and some Magic Damage/Burst Bonus sprinkled in. High INT as well. Guess we'll just have to wait and see.

Usukane one has extremely high evasion. it would actually be very cool if flooring enemys acc on trash content was a thing...

You miss a lot when you build a group then afk the entire time while everyone else does the work.

Ok I know it had something to it, I just forgot (troll stats is accurate then!). But my point is the same, that there is a theme-per-set and Marduk's is looking like the MAB/MCC/ATT/ACC build we're waiting for, since we haven't touched that stat combination yet and that set seems appropriate for it.

You clearly have never done end game raiding in FFXIV with minimal gear... I haven't done end game in this game so I'm not going to comment on that but FFXIV's true end game is not easy by any stretch of the means.

XIV endgame is not really hard. It's just memorizing patterns. For most things there is one set way of doing things and that's it. Learn patterns, rinse and repeat until dead. The hardest part is finding people capable of doing it.

And yes I've done it. Did all the coils when they were relevant content, and a bit of Alex Savage, then I got bored and started XI.

But his analysis of FFXIV battle system design philosophy is correct. Unless they change the design philosophy while I was away, FFXIV is really all about knowing a set of predefined pattern and don't make mistakes. It doesn't matter whether you fight in a low lv dungeon or endgame, the whole battle system design follows the same design direction. And all these "FFXIV is hard" opinion came from the fact that the game punishes people if they make one mistake.

So, how about that Ambuscade...

What fanboy stories? I did enjoy XIV while I played it, I just think it has taken too many steps in the wrong direction and to me personally it stopped being fun.

Furthermore I'm not saying they are harder or easier than XI. I'm just saying they are not hard in general.

Keeping a high DPS on any class is easy. Learn your rotation and adapt if necessary.

And if you had read my post you would notice I was talking about coils and savage raids, which are not hard. The only thing holding people back from clearing savage raids on day 1 is DPS checks because gear is gated behind a *** weekly tome system.

And that's all from me because this argument is pointless and irrelevant to the topic at hand.

What are your thoughts on the new Meghanada (Skadi) set? It has the most acc on it out all the ambuscade sets today.

Definitely leaves Taeon in the dust for Acc and Att.

Has some BIS pieces for a few items. RUN and shooters likely get the most out of this gear, but it pretty job friendly across the board. I think the majority of people were using Adhemar/Herculean gear anyways, so will need a bit to see where the new set stands. Don't think it would replace SamTights/Adhemar Body/Head/Herc Hands/Feet for most tp sets, though.

I have DNC and RUN. I was thinking for my DNC this set would be an upgrade over my Taeon and would be nice for RUN DD until I get Abj/Reisen gear.

I know HQ Meghanada beats my Taeon in the Acc and Att dept.
Currently got using Taeon Head, Legs, Feet, Rawhide Body, Buremte Hands. Taeon has +20 acc/att.

Taeon has been dead for quite a long time, to be brutally honest.

Head: Excellent for ranged TP.

Body: Competitive with a good Herc Vest for stacked Rudra's, beaten by an excellent one.

Hands: BiS for Dimidiation, likely best for Last Stand. Not bad for Rudra's, but can get better.

Legs: Good high accuracy legs IF you're not losing gear haste cap. LSmate says they're solid for Pyrrhic, too, but most likely just for higher accuracy.

Feet: Snapshot, I guess. Can easily get better WS pieces through Herculean.

I really like this set. Even if it isn't perfect, it's better than the horror show I was expecting. Considering all the jobs that can wear it, I was expecting mismatched pieces with pet stats, waltz, runes and so on.
This is a nice set for people who want to test a new job (I might give rng a try now), or who want to fill a hole missing in their current sets.

Even without Dark Matters, it's possible to beat most of the pieces using Herculean, though in some cases the difference is minimal or requires really amazing augments (like with the hands, very high DEX and WSD). Except for people with HQ abjuration gear and outstanding Herc augments, most of these pieces have a lot to offer.

The legs are also great for STR-based multihit WSs like Resolution or Ruinator.

How do Samnuha stack up for Reso in comparison? I don't spend a lot of time maximizing my RUN DPS as it's almost always a tank, but I'd like to start.

Ah, yeah, forgot Samnuha. Well, the Skadi piece has a great deal of accuracy that Samnuha sorely lacks, so it's an option.

Yeah, absolutely, not to mention massive attack. I've actually been overall pleased with this set. Most are at least viable alternatives rather than just plain worse than other options. Not like that travesty that was the Usukane set.

Well that philosophy applies to every game. Once you do something over and over again it will obviously get easier. The only difference is RNG, which this game has plenty of but RNG is definitely artificial difficulty while memorization and performing is not.

I remember watching a video of someone doing Schah and the fight was literaly SCH's using immanence and communicating when they were going to SC and then BLM's MBing Death. There isn't really depth or difficulty in that. The difficulty is getting the gear to do that and then relying on RNG to not eff you up. I just recently solo'ed Insidius for the RUN af quest and this fight was supposed to be pretty hard and required you to use bio and keep re-summoning trusts. The fight was a breeze for me, simply because it just never charmed. Same thing with Rani. Supposed to be an easy fight at i119 but one unlucky charm and he will just simply de-pop.

The hardest part of FFXIV was figuring out the patterns and then executing them as a whole. During the first Alex savage "Jump rope" mechanics were extremely harsh, but that also makes the fight hard. Needing to perform several steps perfectly can be very daunting even if you know the "pattern". If it was easy then there would be no punishment for making small mistakes. Also if it was easy then no one would make those mistakes to begin with. The jump-rope mechanics were only horrific on one fight in that game which was Alexander Savage 3. Even then that fight on release required perfect execution of mechanics(which some were RNG based) and requiring you to do your absolute best at dpsing which can be easy on test dummy but when you are trying to dance with mechanics can be very hard.

This also isn't to say that RNG is a factor in FFXIV, which it is in some fights. Most fights are either difficult because of jump-rope mechanics, gear walls or rng. FFXIV has executed on all of these. Once you learn how to do the end-game, it definitely gets a lot easier since it is following a pattern- bug again what game doesn't do that? Fights in FFXI are gated by the very least gear walls. I know I can't do any end-game fight simply because I don't have enough accuracy- but does that really make the fight difficult?


Bottom line you can't really say that FFXIV is "easy" just because the content will eventually become easy once you learn how to do it. I have raided extensively in FFXIV with both bad and good players and I can honestly tell you that there is a degree of difficulty in FFXIV raids. Not only with performing your role in your group but also in playing as a group. Saying FFXIV is easy because the fights just require memorization is just like saying ice-skating or synchronized swimming is easy because they just require memorization and one mess up could easily cost you a win.

That being said, outside of raiding the game is easy and extremely repetitive. An absolutely stunning game with a great story but lacks in depth of content, which they are slowly adding but I won't be back any time soon.

For reference FFXI - Schah (Poster claims this is one of the hardest fights in the game) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xvqgviDCS0

Can someone explain the difficulty in this fight? Honestly, I have yet to do end game in FFXI so I'm not entirely sure what to look for.

FFXIV - AS3 (In my opinion one of the harder fights release in FFXIV, but I stopped playing shortly after alex was release) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Smzup8TWOWs

It doesn't matter how many times I watch this. Handling all the mechanics in the last fight of AS3 is extremely hard. Having to bounce around debuffs and handling mechanics based on your debuffs while still needing to perform your job at its core function is extremely challenging and can be very taxing over the course of a 13 minute fight. I know this fight like the back of my hand and would call out every single mechanic before it was happening but that did not prevent people from messing up because of RNG involved as well as the reaction time needed to do it.


Anyway.. /endrant. I love both games, it definitely makes me upset when people say FFXIV end game was easy when I have experienced it first hand multiple times and can promise you it isn't.

Sorry for double post but it is a different topic.


The lost haste can be made up with a Sailfi Belt which isn't too bad of a belt. As a scrub player who is trying to gear up for end game content this set will let me get closer to the needed accuracy.

Schah itself isn't especially dangerous or difficult with the right preparation, but it summons adds that largely have to be dealt with before you can really do anything to it. On top of this, some of the adds punish you if they are alive too long, which can jeopardize the fight. The challenge is partly coordination in killing the adds in a timely manner, and also meeting a threshold of skill/gear requirements to actually pull weight.

edit: I personally don't consider it to be the hardest fight in the game, or even in its NM group.

Schah is only difficult to a new group who hasn't fought it often. Otherwise it's extremely predictable as Schah himself is a pussy. If everyone listens and does their role then it's pretty easy. Teles on the other hand is the exact opposite, it's a very chaotic that can be either extremely easy or a nightmare depending on which SP it decides to use. Mandy is another easy one but you need to sleep -> wipe -> sleep it's adds and then kill it quickly before the adds one shot the entire alliance.

The cheapest is by far Sandworm. You have almost zero control of that fight due to it's Stone / Fire mechanic being random. We've gotten it to 50% in under 5 min, and then it *** us over for 25 minutes straight. Fire Fire Fire Fire Fire Stone <Immediately after> TP MOVE! Fire Fire Fire Fire. For 25 minutes straight. Other times it's been reasonable and we've killed it in under 10 minutes.

@eliroo

I don't think comeatmebro disagree that FFXIV is more punishing when it comes to 1 mistakes wiping party. He just used different measure when talked about "difficulty". RNG is one thing, and I don't agree that it's more of an artificial difficulty than "practice until you're perfect" FFXIV style.

He also mentioned hardest content last longer and I mentioned why, it's harder to retry a failed fight repeatedly because KI needs gil or time to farm.

Also another FYI, schah being super hard is outdated info. Ever since someone posted info about leaving Mantri up. the difficulty of schah pretty much knocked down a tier since dps check is not as steep anymore. When people claim it was the hardest nm, it was mostly due to dps check IMO.

Thank you for explaining, as I am still learning the current end game of this game it is sometimes hard to distinguish what different things people are doing. Hopefully I can find a spot in end game sometime soon

Also @ Fujilives, I saw the reply and I apologize for going off-topic but I didn't start the debate. It is funny because this sort of debate happens on FFXIV where the premise is the opposite and I have had arguments claiming that FFXI was/is hard. At least back when I originally played it was and there is still some challenging to getting things done.

Probably the most challenging thing I have done so far is duo'ing Dawn II (and failling at 10% of the second form) with me as an undergeared RUN and my partner as an undergeared dnc. Every skill use was important and we ended up dying because I didn't use valiance at the right time and it expired once the boss started hitting pretty hard. Same with One for all.

FFXI isn't "hard" so much as it's "random". The player frequently has little control over what the NM can or can't do and instead SE's Random-Number-Generator is what determines the fight. This is what leads to a "rush kill it quickly" mentality because the less rolls of the dice it gets the less chance of it rolling natural 20 and *** you over. In FFXIV the fights are largely scripted, meaning you can prepare and predict what the boss will do and take the appropriate action.

No, my questions sought out metrics to objectively gauge the "difficulty" of one game vs another using a fairly large sample size, shifting away from the subjective opinions of people such as yourself - in short to end this argument before it spiralled into a fanboy strawman.

There are millions (Millions) of players in XIV and only maximum 5% of that player base cleared Alexander savage T4 in 5 months of its release.

The players of FFXIV are also generally more diverse and experienced outside of FF titles. They aren't a niche market like FFXI's playerbase are which is evidence they would naturally be more skilled and adaptive as players, not like your typical Final Fantasy XI fans, for who FFXI was their first MMO, and for many their only MMO.

You want subjective arguments from someone who has been in endgame in both games and does fairly well?

I can 6 box end game content in XI.
I cannot duo box your standard dungeon in XIV.

There are no trusts in XIV - Bam, Headshot!

100% agree. That is one of the biggest issues with FFXIV; it lacks retaining power and appeal. Fights go from extremely difficult to extremely boring once you've memorised the fight sequence.

But boring doesn't mean easy. Bismarck extreme is an example of where SE implemented both random and sequenced scripted mechanics into a fight and it was hell for many to do deal with.

There's always a lot happening at the same time in XIV's end game fights. Just because we know we have to dodge a landslide, a dive bomb or a deal with a tank buster doesn't always make it any easier to deal with.

Personally I think FFXI is a much better game that allows a lot more freedom, or the illusion of it, in how one approaches fights.

XIV is unforgiving, scripted, gets boring quick, but it that does not make it easy.

Outside of tanking, DPS is also on a complete different level in XIV. I can't imagine these bandwagon blus and bsts ever being able to fill a dps slot in an XIV party. Your dps is monitored. You don't hit a certain number, boom your out of static and replaced.

Healing - hah! all these lazy *** WHMs in XI think they have a hard time because they have to cast the occasional NA spell. In XIV they're regening, aoe healing, Dpsing, dodging, tethering and God knows what else.

I think the entire argument started when someone said XIV was easy in the context of people wanting instant gratification.

Can we honestly say XI doesn't instantly gratify people now?
It went from a Haijin culture during Tanaka's reign to casual mode.

Getting the best weapons in XIV now actually requires more effort than getting them in XI, save perhaps mythics.

Nah, people kick weaker blm out of their groups on T4 or ask them to play something else, all the time. Or they probably don't get invite to begin with.