Tag: crafting

Sing a song of Stormblood: Best Memories

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Headmistress Kela here with a survey of highlights from everyone’s accomplishments from the last expansion.

Kaido Nihil
Fighting Susano and hearing these magical words: WILD PURE AND FOREVER FREE

Jamukha Oronir
the wild and pure and forever free one was good, but alternatively, the worm’s tail

They’re not the only ones who enjoyed fighting Susano. C’rhys Tia talks about helping H’unter Tia with his first kill back at the every beginning of the expansion. Warning: LONG (but so good)!

The setting is early Stormblood; the only class I had leveled was WAR, and Hunter was a fresh-faced BLM. I’d been farming the fight for twenty or thirty clears, as it’s actually really fun for tanks, and Hunter had been struggling through the frustration of #puglyfe chasing a clear due to the fight’s tendency to failscade if the healers don’t remember that they have to heal through the Ukehis later in the fight or people will die, especially if purple markers weren’t dropped on the correct side of the arena.

So, we set up a PF clear-for-one trap party, as one does. Everything was going fairly smoothly up through the first half of the fight, until the inevitable sloppeh began to rear its head; someone stood in the middle while they were frozen and sadly sank to their death. People didn’t MAKE WAY and dropped to thunderbolts from being on the wrong side. The merry dance transitioned to more of a frenzied limp, and as the boss’ HP dwindled, it began to look as though the Lord of Revel would be the only one rejoicing; a stray Thunderbolt was forgotten, and the end seemed nigh as the party (sans tanks) were wiped out by an Ukehi barrage with a scant 2% of the boss’ health remaining.

However, hope was not lost; my valiant DRK co-tank furiously popped cooldowns, Gritting through another percent of the boss’ health, auto-attacks whittling him down; at a scant few thousand health, I Provoke and Onslaught to solidify hate, hoping to keep him alive a bit longer; sadly, the fight script had other plans, as the next mechanic was Susano’s stone jail that I had no hope of breaking, trapping the Dark Knight in what must have been pure Salted Earth.

Party chat is veritably screaming at this point; I’m at half health, with a single percent the last wall standing before the glorious [Duty Complete] tag. I switch to Defiance, Inner Release comes off cooldown, and I Inner Beast spam my berserking little heart out to heal up, layering on every cooldown I had left; the gauge spent, I switch back to Deliverance, hoping to eke out just a little more damage. The autos are inexorable, and my health ticks down. 20k. 14k. 8k. Susano readies a Stormsplitter as his health ticks down to a single pixel.

I Holmgang, blessing the absurdity that is the Warrior cooldown suite. 1 HP. Two seconds left on Holmgang. An auto attack goes out. My gauge ticks up to fifty. Fell. Cleave.

And the Lord of the Revel falls.

Chat explodes. My hands are shaking. And for a brief moment, I feel like a hero. Not just for keeping calm under pressure, but for having helped a friend through their frustration; and that, really, is what keeps me playing this game–the sense of community. Of camaraderie. Chasing that feeling of wonder, of overcoming trials and tribulations through teamwork and cooperation.

Wow! I always get so hyped reading that story. Here’s a sweet one:

Ricola Tesla
Bringing me in to not only the fc but the raiding static when I started as a substitute with no prior experience which helped me grow as a tank, clearing my first ever raid tier, and most importantly it got me the chance to meet my yin to my yang wifey sweetheart. Hehe

Ricola and his better half Mika met and connected after both joined the free company at different times. Their love spans continents: Rico’s an American and Mika lives in the beautiful Philippines. Their real-life wedding is scheduled for next summer! I better get an invitation!

Some of my memories are bittersweet: the Data Center split tore the FC down the middle and we lost a handful of great players who chose to stay with their raid on primal. Totally understandable but we still miss them so much. Here’s Rynthe Corthan‘s memory:

Making Top 10, Top 5, and Top 3 for Deltascape, Sigmascape, and Alphascape for Samurai dps respectively before echo was added, and being apart of this FC of course❤️
(seriously I miss this FC a lot lmao)

We miss you too, Rynthe! I doubt there’s anyone on Primal who can quite replicate our organized chaos. Here are our Crafters – they work so hard and quietly, but they have a great time playing this game alongside the rest of us (casuals)!

Silva Cataracta
being able to clear all of the EX primals before being able to unsync them in the next expansion and being able to clear Sigmascape 1S and 2S when it was current! Also being recognized and appreciated for my omni-crafting skills and being able to put together a group of crafters to help out with the Workshop

Bjrn Borg
Finding something I could really get into for the FC despite my unusual schedule. Being able to finally breathe a sigh of relief/exasperation/frustration all in the same sitting when finally unlocking the last Sector of the Airships after months of trying. The feeling of Pride and joy for helping unlock everything there was/is to unlock in the workshop. Being able to surprise people with random gifts along the way because we could craft it. Being HERE and NOW is the best memory I could have throughout Stormblood AND in Shadowbringers to come!

I couldn’t have said it better myself! Here are some more war stories!

Rhoamer Korbyn
Highlights eh?
Comedy: Doing a blind run of The Burn and being the last alive (as BRD). Breeches suddenly dyed brown but managed to get that Mist Dragon down (still had LB3 :P)
Tragedy: Wiping on 1000 Memes of Toto last boss because the DRK can’t hold emnity.
Farce: DRK was level 68….

Louisoix Belanger
Reaching enrage on Neo Exdeath when the lagpocalypse was upon us, followed shortly by getting my first clear of Chaos Savage with y’all

Validus Sol
Definitely clearing my first Savage raid!

You guys definitely earned those kills. It’s a real blessing to be able to see so many people progress in skill and in passion for this game and the people in it. Oh, I think Validus has another top memory to share:

Joining this fc after being in a terrible one that almost killed my experience in this game, and then seeing it in a whole new light and learning Savage content with you people <3 and also getting to know everyone and making it more of a family than an fc :3

Aww~! I definitely didn’t pay him to say that.

Here’s a story about making your own fun in the game:

Genesis Nebul
there was the time H’unter and I stayed up all night sightseeing ingame architecture and comparing and contrasting it. I also savor the time H’unter and I won the FC Valentine’s day couple glam contest, challenges yin yang; we entered with Kingdomhearts inspired glams, him as a Whm foreseer, and me as a BLM org13 or perhaps traitorous master; KH3 had recently come out so it went over really well! Then there was just last week when Nimoa Bahjeera (Blm), Gerard Montblanc (Dragoon), and I went into Ala Migho and our whm couldn’t stay alive. I was a Pld healing and tanking the boss fights…. I’m a summoner main. I honestly didn’t even know I knew PLD well enough to basically carry a party without a healer x.x
I also won’t forget the very first time I parsed out of grey on Savage content; it was on Choas.

Storyline? Alisaie pouring her heart out to me. I didn’t finish the binding coils of bahamut prior to the story with her so this was the first time I really had her character open up to mine and share much. I cried. I really feel for her and relate to her passion and protectiveness of those she loves.

I love how Genesis finds so much joy in things that aren’t even strictly “content” driven. Who takes the time to look at architecture? Maybe I should…

I guess I should probably add my favorite memory too! There’s so much to choose from when you work with and encounter so many amazing and talented people. In terms of Free Company accomplishment, my favorite moment was taking (almost) a whole FC Alliance into the Orbonne Monastery. That is the most people who have ever participated in a FC event at once and it really demonstrated how much we were growing and how many of our members had reached late-game level-cap content as a result of their hard work.

And for a personal accomplishment: Clearing the Alphascape Savage raid, and especially with the same people I started the raid with. I had never been in a group of people who stuck it out together through so much and for so long.

Thank you, Stabbies, for sharing your stories with us. I can’t wait to see what Shadowbringers has in store for us. I don’t know about you but I’m ready to THROW WIDE THE GATES.

Until next time!

To the Skies: Professor Silva leads the Airship club to new heights – and depths!

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Hello there, Headmistress Kela there with a special news and information bulletin: all about Airships.

For those who are unaware, Free Companies can build parts, create and fly Airships on complex retainer-venture like missions and earn rare and valuable rewards for our free company, including materias, minions, blueprints for housing skins, and components for level 3 Free Company Buffs. What they do is vital to the FC, but we don’t hear much about them. Because of this, I took some time to reach out to the Professor in charge of Airships, Silva Cataracta and asked her what her group has accomplished for us, so that they can have proper recognition of their efforts.

When I handed over the Airships project to Silva, we had two airships and only about half of their available sectors unlocked – only just enough to gain the materials to create our lovely Carbuncle Walls in-house, in fact! Since that time only a few months ago, we now have four airships! Silva has the details:

We have made 2 other airships on top of the 2 that were already made for a total max of 4 airships. The HMS Wanderers Maiden and Doinky McDonkface 2 were sent out on exploratory voyages to unlock the sectors that hadn’t be unlocked yet over and over again. We were able to get almost all of the sectors unlocked, we’re missing 1 more sector that we’ve been trying to unlock for a few months now but RNG hasn’t been so nice to us. Those airships are also at the max rank of 50 and can go visit many sectors at once to bring back all sorts of things like crystals, minions, materia, etc. The other 2 airships we built are currently being leveled up, but will only be used for Diadem trips when the maxed out airships have been sent out on missions. So fair, we have made 1 set of each of the airship prototypes in the fabrication station and will be working on making specific builds in the near future for each airship for certain needs. For example, one of the maxed out airships will be used to bring back deep-green and deep-red clusters to be used in crafting grade 3 aetherial wheels. We will be crafting some extra parts when we get to that point as well for those future builds.

Here’s a map of our available sectors:

Meanwhile, Submersibles: We are very proud of our First Submersible the Pearl of the Rhotano, and also the very aptly named second Submersible: the You don’t pay my Sub! Silva reports:

REALLY similar to airships but underwater. They also have sectors that need to be unlocked through subaquatic voyages and they gain their rank ups this way too. We currently have 3 submarines built and will be building the 4th one in the near future. The Pearl of Rhotano and You Don’t Pay My Sub are maxed out at rank 50 and will be getting specialized builds, just like the airships, while the 3rd and 4th submarine get sent out to rank up. Right now, we are currently gathering materials to make the 4th prototype parts, the Slydra-Class. Once those are built, we would have built one of each of the current submarine prototypes currently in the game and can begin our specialized builds.

 

And our map of accessible sectors for the Submarines:

Sometimes Airships and Submersibles will return from voyages will bring back Deep Red and Deep Green specialized clusters. These are critical and our Airship team is experimenting with builds to farm them from voyages. Why are these so important? This is something every member of our Free Company should know and appreciate: they are used to spin level 3 Free Company Buffs.

You should all be familiar with the buffs being a member of our FC gets you: everyone’s favorite is Heat of Battle, which increases experience gain. The highest level buff you can purchase with credits is level 2, which for example increases exp gain for battle classes and jobs by 10%. However, by using our Aetherial Wheel located in the FC house’s kitchen and these special clusters, our crafters can create Heat of Battle III, which increases gain from 10% to 15%! Did you know our crafters have already started stockpiling these buffs for Shadowbringers so that you can hit cap faster than members of other Free Companies? If you didn’t, you should! Here’s more information:

Making grade 3 aetherial wheels is something we only recently started doing. We’ve been making Heat of Battle III and Reduce Rates III for a little while now and activating them when needed, but we also plan on making Earth and Water III, Helping Hand III, and Meat and Mead III to be used when Shadowbringers comes out. It takes 3 days for a grade 3 aetherial wheel to be primed for use, so only 2 wheels can be primed in a week. So far, we’ve started on a small stockpile of non-primed wheels (stored in slot 1 of the chest) and will be making more in between the bigger projects.

What a huge contribution Silva has made, but while she is the leader and organizer, she hasn’t been alone! Communicating through the Discord’s #crafting_and_gathering channel, she gets the help she needs for collecting materials for airship and submersible components, and people to send the vehicles out on voyages or start priming buffs, so that we’re making progress around the clock.

 

“Jigo has been the BIGGEST help when it’s come to these projects and consider him to be my right hand man. He sends the airships and submarines out on their missions and helps with crafting/gathering mats for all the projects along side me. He also helps me make sure that the Teamcraft lists are as accurate as possible so we don’t gather/craft extra mats. If I didn’t have his help, progress in the Workshop would have been very slow. Nade, Jamie Porter, and Ricmorn have also helped out with gathering and crafting mats here and there when they have free time.”

 

 

Well, there you have it, everyone! The bottom line is this: if you didn’t know this was going on it’s largely because Silva, Jigo, Nade, Jamie and Ricmorn have been taking on this mostly thankless job in the background while the rest of us profit from their hard work. If you run into one of our crafters online, take a second to appreciate what they do that makes this Free Company such an awesome, beneficial place for all the players involved. We couldn’t achieve what we do, without them.

THANK YOU, CRAFTERS!
From the bottom of our hearts!

Headmistress Kela and the Royal Academy Leadership Team

Crafting Tutorial now available via our YouTube channel

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Here’s a permanent link to the tutorial Headmistress Kela made regarding the level 70 endgame crafting rotation known commonly as a Maker’s Mark rotation or a MaMa rotation. All newly 70 recently geared specialist crafters should learn this rotation, if they don’t already know it. Direct questions to @Kela#8130 via the Crafting/Gathering channel of the discord, or in game in the /fc chat.