It was a clear windy night out in Western La Noscea, and Laureine had just found her mark for the week. Before departing the area, she stopped at The Brewer’s Beacon and just looked out into the sea towards Pharos Sirius. The cool breeze gently moving her dark blue/teal accented hair, and simply enjoying the tranquil view with nothing more than that as company.
Even with it being near the sea at night, the cool night didn’t affect her at all. The warmth of her Allagan Suit comfortably kept her warm even on the coldest of nights. Not long thereafter though, her exhaustion caught up from all of the day’s adventuring and she decided to head back at HQ with her cousin awaiting already asleep in the bunk.
Episode XXIX! – Enjoying a lovely outing together at Costa del Sol with me having a nice hot cup of tea and Aikirees with her large mug of chocolate milk.
A tuckered out Lizicus rests her weary head on Laureine’s, as they both bask in the warm campfire’s glow on a beautiful starry night sky relaxing on the beach after a full day of adventures.
The cousins got all dressed up and had their Little Ladies’ & Hatching-Tide outing the other evening, even with Laureine insisting that Lizicus wear a pair of bunny ears for the occasion. Even with the two of them radically approaching the festivities in their own way, they kept the spirit of both seasonal events to heart.
The event itself is incredibly short, only with a couple of things to do around Gridania before it migrates over to Ul’Dah to conclude. It’s still a bit of fun though with a nice mount acquired at the end, along with all of the wonderful festive decorations that can be seen across the realm as both of these are celebrated together.
Couple more images showing all of the scenery an their outfits close-up.
May y’all have a very wonderful Little Ladies’ Day & Hatching-Tide event 2024! Head on out there in your favorite outfit, hug a bunny or two, enjoy some deliciously confection delights, and have lots of fun with it all!
We’re still only Rank 4 as of this post, but just from getting through all of the basics to being let loose on our islands, it has been such a relaxing and zen experience. We did ultimately get a couple of workshops built with full schedules for the week for the both of them figured out and all gathered for too.
I was surprised how much time can pass just going from gathering node to node and just enjoying the super relaxed pace of it all with nice lush scenery for as far as one can see. I can tell even with the absurd amount of gathering we’re going to be doing getting up the ranks as relatively quick as we can, this is going to be a pretty chill time.
After everything we’ve accomplished up to now in Endwalker, I think that this the kind of change of pace, even if it’s only for a little while, that will be very nice to mosey through.
Episode XXVII! – We had two very wonderful friends pay us a visit, so we all decided to do this week’s Fashion Report together and then retreat over to Azem Steppe for a lovely evening of catching up and talking about whatever came to mind. It was certainly a very memorable evening.
One objective for Aikirees after completing the role quests was to finally get around to adjusting her Dragoon attire, which had been the off-shoot of the first Artifact Set acquired after completing the level 50 Dragoon Quest. She’s had a few lances since then before dawning the current one that has a nice blue/red glow when wielded; that one she acquired with Crystal Trophies.
It took a bit of fidgeting to keep some of the dragon-like aesthetics and combine it with something else more in line of what she’s usually wearing. One idea was to role in some Stormblood attire since she initially started out her adventure in the late Stormblood era (hence also why her Black Mage outfit has a strong homage to Shisui of the Violet Tides), and once she discovered the Tigerskin of Maiming top that kind of pointed her in the direction she was wanting.
Her top being the Aforementioned Tigerskin of Maiming, her gauntlets just being simple Fingerless Goatskin Gloves of Gathering dyed blue, legs are the Virtu Dragonlancer’s Cuissots (PvP Crystal Trophies) dyed Gunmetal, and the boots being the 90 Dragoon Artifact Greaves – Tiamat Greaves.
Overall I think this was the ‘glow-up’ she was looking for. There were some other iterations considered, but adjusting the colors was becoming very messy. Some items like the Tigerskin top washed out a lot of the details once dying was attempted. It might be rectified in DawnTrail with the dual dye system, but for now she’s got her Dragoon look for the foreseeable future!
With all the battles fought, going to the far reaches of existence and back again, along with delving into adventures on the Thirteenth, the two weary cousins finally take time to enjoy some quiet island relaxation.
There is quite the surmount of tasks to do on their islands still, but the far laid back take to these said tasks will be a good change of pace, especially for the ever punctual Laureine, as we get ever closer to heading westward to Tural…
Over the past weekend, we completed not only the remaining two role quests series left to do, but also the finale series after one has completed all of those as well! Bearing in mind that the last ‘bonus’ questline doesn’t appear until after completing the Endwalker MSQ, but just up to 6.0.
Note: Minor spoiler talk about the bonus finale role quest series, along with the achievement image.
The Caster Role Quest series was pretty good, nothing really to write home about but did a nice job adding in an additional story relating to Heavensward. The instance fight at the end was super fun and even Black Mage friendly! The Healer Role Quest, however, was by far the absolute best one in terms of story. The ‘fight’ was fun and required using an ability that most of the player base keeps forgetting about (this would be Esuna). To me, it felt more manageable of an instance fight than the Shadowbringers’ one was, but that might have also something to do with how they fixed how heals work with NPC’s in these sort of scenarios.
Originally, to the best of my recollection, AoE heals wouldn’t work correctly and everything had to be hard-targeted to NPC’s for them to work in instance fights. I can’t say for Trusts as I’ve never healed for them before. I could be very inaccurate in this thinking, so definitely take my thoughts about this with a cup of salt.
Anyway, in terms of Role Quests stories, I’d place them in this order from my favorite to ‘least’: Healer -> Tank -> Caster -> Ranged -> Melee. Melee and Ranged aren’t ‘bad,’ but they just didn’t hit any interesting notes with me. I think I said in the prior post about these, that one’s mileage will vary with how one feels about them as well.
The cousins just after finishing the bonus Role Quest series.
Speaking specifically of the healer one without getting into spoilers, it just had me moved to tears on a number of occasions. If one appreciates the later Stormblood MSQ sections, I’m certain one will very much appreciate the entirety of the Healer’s Role Quests series as well.
Moving on, once we were able to access the final bonus questline, it had us heading to Garlemald to deal with one more Blasphemy with all of our friends from all of the role quest series. The entirety of this whole adventure was an absolute blast! Everything upon entering Garlemald to the instance fight (dungeon?) it had was so darn fun. One recommendation I will say as of right now the instance fight is not iLevel Sync’d, so go in with whatever one is more comfortable with and/or highest iLevel for a fun tail kickery.
Once it’s all done, everyone goes home, and hints at something to come that I believe was mentioned for Dawntrail, but we’ll see. We’re asked to return to Radz-at-Han and let them know that the end of the Blasphemies are upon us and all is well once again.
Yisss~!!
Overall, I cannot recommend these enough to anyone wanting to see the entirety of it. It’s just so fun, but please don’t go out of one’s way to level 5 different job types just to see this specifically. If one is already going to level said job types, then that is where I recommend looking at these.
Comparing it to Shadowbringers’, I think it suffers a little bit in terms of anchoring the stories as well as those did. However, they’re nice little additions and follow-ups (or perhaps conclusions) to specific areas of previously told parts of the story/MSQ. One nit-pick is I hope in Dawntrail and beyond is they start them again at base expansion level (i.e. 90 for Dawntrail) instead of halfway through.
With those behind us, on wards to the next adventure~!!
Just a small quiet moment while enjoying the rain out in Thavnair. My dear little dragonet perched on my should, while I have a moment or so thinking about things as the sound of the rain just feels like it’s pausing time for a spell if only to collect my thoughts before heading on wards to another adventure.
Lately, while working on the usual weekly things, we’ve been taking on each type of Role Quest series that Endwalker has. Unlike Shadowbringers, Endwalker has five role quest series that consist of one for each of the different classes that are playable: Melee Physical Damage, Ranged Physical Damage, Tank, Healer, and Magical Ranged Damage. Prior to this in Shadowbringers, Melee and Ranged Physical were one quest series as opposed to two separate ones.
Just as a general note, I’m not going to be talking about any story specifics for the Endwalker nor Shadowbringer Role Quests, aside from very generalized feelings towards them.
If one completes all five sets, a bonus quest series appears to ‘conclude’ them. Shadowbringers’ ones were incredibly good and the bonus quest series upon completing all four of those was just as incredible if not better for bringing them all together especially.
The five all picked up at Radz-at-Han
Since we just completed getting Dragoon to 90, it was now the perfect time to take them all on at once without interruptions! Each quests does give a pretty nice chunk of experience as well, but we just wanted to experience the entirety of them without having to pause and catch up in levels. Each series has 6 quests, so to complete all 5 is 30 quests overall. Each one also has an instance battle at 90 which, to me, feel very varied on enjoyment thus so far.
One’s mileage will vary for each of the stories as well, the Tank one personally was my overall favorite thus so far from the ones we’ve completed. Physical Range started off kind of rough, but ended on a very nice high note whereas Physical Melee was kind of just there with a really fun finale fight. Don’t get me wrong, regardless they do add some more fleshed out parts of the story and add in past story elements too, so they’re still fun and worth it to take on. If one is wanting to dye the Endwalker artifact armor sets, they must be taken on regardless per the role for the armor wanting to be dyed.
Progress as of now!
We’ve taken on three of the five series thus so far, only leaving Healer and Magical Damage remaining. The really nice thing about these this time is each series stays in one region and will keep staying there until after the 90 quest is completed. Only then, will it request to return to Radz-at-Han to conclude the series, get a New Game+ unlock, Achievement, and the ability to dye all of that Role’s artifact armor!
I’m curious as to what the last two have in store and if they can change my mind about how I feel about the current ones we’ve already done.
After a long day of adventure, the two cousins reconvene at the end of it at EOCA HQ’s warm fire pit. Shortly thereafter arriving and telling both tales of adventures they did separately, as well as talking about the ones they did together, poor Lizicus begins to nod off right then and there.
As much as Laureine wanted to chastise her cousin for doing so, she simply just smiles and lets her drift for a moment before nudging her to let her know it’s time to retire for the evening.
“Cuz, you looked so peaceful nodding off there at the fire pit, even if it was for just a spell. I know you really appreciate sleep and rest, so I just let you do so without giving you a hard time. Sorry I had to, but I really didn’t want you to go fully asleep in that position, especially with exposed legs and that corset out in the cold weather for a prolonged period of time. Even so, thank you for the brief talks about how everything went today; these little moments together mean so much to me.”
