the pain I've felt right now when Xenos said "I didnt play a paladin HAHAHAHA BUT YOU DID" while I watch his video playing paladin was too much to bear, my villain arc has started. *vampire hissing noises*
Agree! I played a lot during Stormblood. It had the best content, the best class additions, the most interesting relic system (Eureka) and overall it was my favourite expansion. I also enjoyed the story a lot. Don‘t know why people complained about the story split 😅
Stormblood doesn’t get enough credit. It gets lot of hate because of the story, but the amount of content and improvement from Heavensward with quality of life is bigger than any other the expansion came after it. World travel, new housing district, new glamour system with the introduction of the glamour dresser, and PVP jobs having its separate own skills from PVE no longer require to be at max level and can start as early as lv30.
@@exiaedges TBH I was also hyped AF because I came from a hiatus during Heavensward and Friends convinced me to join them at Fanfest 2017. So Fanfest trailers hyped me for the game again and I joined back in 2 weeks before Stormblood came out. Plus I had good friends to play with during the latter part of the expansion.
As someone who can't always pay a sub month-to-month, and doesn't do above extreme, Island sanctuary/Eureka is my favorite content. Low-stakes, long-term progression content is very important to me. The only bad thing about island sanctuary is that there is not enough to do after you rank up.
im glad xemo said something about baldicante its super sad they spammed the boring puzzle mechanic instead of doing some fast paced stuff like barb, hopefully next primal isn't 90% puzzle and 10% mechanics xff
I think it's better than people make it out to be because of the content. People that say SB wasn't good are probably people that only sub for the main story. IMO, I think the main story gets good in the patched content, but the raids in SB are still some of my favorite raids in the game.
@@SILVERONIN People only hate it because of the story, and since most people don't do raids and all that, they judge it off the story. If that's cringe to you, fine I suppose, but it makes sense to me.
It's refreshing to see someone actually ranking them not exclusively based on the MSQ alone, cause outside of the fairly weak MSQ Stormblood was incredible. Omega, anyone?
Ivalice raids, anyone? Yes, I am still mad and will be mad with Alliance raid design post StB. Nier raids was loooking amazing(and so is the glam), but overall gameplay was very mediocre and completely not punishing. Endwalker alliances are basically a flashy Crystal Tower. Looks cool, but after a couple runs you have to force yourself to stay awake until the end. Especially as a healer, lol.
The point you made about ShB and the covid stuff is what I was thinking back in the day, for me makes more sense that Endwalker was being polished and 7.0 onwards being made during covid than the Shadowbringers in general, I don't think SE will make things on the run like that.
@@xLXTRAx not sure, but if it's a standalone game, I think there will be too many plot holes, no? Like, Scions and the Blessing of Light were established only in ARR, so if ARR until Stormblood were taken out, then it would leave a lot of questions on why do we have the blessing, etc. Up until Stormblood, we also thought that Hydaelyn was good and Zodiark was bad. However, Shadowbringers added a lot of nuance to it. The build-up to Shadowbringers was also amazing, like the Scions, one by one, they fell into a slumber. It added a sense of urgency that we entered Shadowbringers to "save our friends". Turned out, Shadowbringers was all about "saving the First" to prevent the Eighth Umbral Calamity. Then, the game also needed to explain what is the Umbral Calamity... which eventually would lead back to the events shortly before ARR with the Dalamud and Bahamut stuff. Too many knowledge required IMO for Shadowbringers to be an amazing standalone game (story-wise).
Storm blood was the most fun I've had with Monk and Astro which were my main jobs. I can't even really enjoy either anymore with their changes. They aren't bad (except the button bloat with Astro) but I just don't enjoy it as much now
SB Monk was probably the most fun job/class I have ever played in a PvE environment. Only some specs during Mists of Pandaria really come close, which funnily enough is somewhat the WoW equivalent of Stormblood.
100% agree on the amount of content/ranking of Stormblood. Whether you like each piece of content or not, it really did have a bit of something for everyone, and I never really felt it was stuck in a drought like Shadowbringers and Endwalker did.
Im not an mmo player in general, i only played XIV cause im a massive FF stan. So i cant really comment on mechanics and balancing as i played DRG for the cool factor but the story trough all of expansions was dope. My favourite by far is Heavensward. The standoff with Nidhogg as i waited for a party will stay with me for eternity. Fucking awesome conclusion. And my boy Estinien before he revealed his dumb face. Co cool.
Stormblood is legendary for content amount and quality. MSQ wasn't great but fuck it I'm mainly there for the content. Thanks to COVID we'll never see that quantity and quality combination in an expansion content ever again.
bozja alone was the best highlight of shadowbringers for me because it stressed your class fundamentals and knowledge as a whole. it featured FFXIV's most ambitious raid - a 48man savage raid that had mechanics on par with mid-level savage fights. Eureka had a bigger one, but it wasn't as refined as delubrum reginae savage (DRS). DRS brought out the best in everybody exactly because it required a lot of people (so more people could be exposed to world-first communities) and demanded the best performance out of everybody. granted, there were still casuals shitting around and it was apparently a nightmare to even get people to bring the bare minimum, but it allowed best of the best to shine the brightest. DRS had two things that made playing DPS exceptionally enjoyable for me - haste and the duelist buff. haste came from the Law's Order set, the FF12 judge armor. already one of the hottest armor sets in the entire game. upgrades came from DRS, making it dyable. when you had a full set of upgraded armor, your GCD was UNIMAGINALLY fast. for slamurais like myself, it clocked out at a 1.78GCD. this meant that only the wildest samurais who fundamentally understood freestyling itself would be the most successful. the duelist buff came from a very unique role - the duel in DRS. Duels are 1v1 pve content that are surprisingly pretty challenging. to do it for a crowd of 48 people meant that you were hand-chosen to be the best player in the raid, an honour that you wouldn't hear about anywhere else in the game. it gave you unimaginable power, enabling you to do 1million damage with a midare. quite literally PEAK samurai. so yeah. even though DRS is irrelevant, i look back on it with such fondness. having been chosen as the freestyling slamurai duelist for my group, i can confidently say i peaked in shadowbringers. this moment was 2nd to sks paladin in heavensward... though that's just me explaining how i came to be so wildly good at this game.
I've really liked the story in EW, but outside of that, it has been really dry in terms of good quality content. It badly needed some Bozja-type content where we can interact with a lot of players at once. Criterion is an afterthought, Island Sanctuary is relaxing but once you get everything it loses it's luster very quickly. Relic is a joke so far, ShB handled it better with poetics-- meaning you can do any content you want at any level range 50+, though to be fair, the alliance raid step sucked. We haven't got that far with EW relics. We still don't have a BLU update, which is very late now. The PvP revamp is a huge plus. I'd give it a B-.
The first "...but you did!" that Xeno gets me with talking about HW PLD (mostly to meme on the new raid finder Sophia EX and do top damage in ManOath with a 10+ death party)
Stormblood gets an S from me solely for the Return To Ivalice raids. They are my favorite raids in the game (though Myths of the Realm are giving it a run for its money).
from what i explorered in Bozja and Eureka. i like Eureka more. BUT i think the grinding is done way better in Bozja simply because joining a party that isnt your level doesnt Nuder you. Housing: I'm on the new EU Chaos server Phantom. you know the real housing crisis here? its trying to find ppl/FC's to settle for small plots. most wards have all large plots sold, some med plots sold.. and all the smoll plots are just empty.
Maaan I actually enjoyed Endsinger, the only thing i didnt like was it having the first theme instead of the second, even though i thought both were great
Endsinger P2 theme is only good for the duration of that phase tbh. If it played for a whole extreme encounter you'd hate it after progging, because it only has the one vocal section then repeats.
@@Corvus7159 see its all down to the opinion, all the songs repeat eventually no matter the fight. Also if im progging or farming i tend to have my own music going to focus better lol preference doesnt mean something is better, it just means you like it more than the other option
Man, he's making it too complicated *A* Realm Reborn - obviously A tier Heavensward - added flying, instant S tier *S*tormblood - S tier, duh Shadowbringers - Sh tier, or S+. Endwalker - more like *S*endwalker. Everybody gets sent.
The problem with Endwalkers story is how quickly it rushed through story beats. Plot points we'd been building up for 4 previous expansions, like Garlemald or Zodiark, were swept aside in the first three levels of content, leaving three middle levels of faffing about with no direction, and the sudden inclusion of a brand new villain who then promptly fucked off to space to do background shit until the final confrontation. Endwalker was rushed, and absolutely could have been two expansions instead of one. ALL of Meteion and Elpis/Ascianworld could have been its own storyline. Endwalker should have been Garlemald, culminating in Zodiark. Then given us the "end of days" as our between-expac filler, and then had an entire expansion to build up Meteion as a precious snickerdoodle/universal threat. As it stands, Hot Topic Bird was way too last minute to build any real connection. We had ALL of Shadowbringers dedicated to Emet-Selch. We had like, one zone dedicated to getting to know Meteion. And Emet had better justification for being sad to boot.
I think with Endwalker not having exploration content such as Eureka or Bozja, having no relic grind to put you into past content, there isn't much reason for you to log in and work towards something unless you're hardcore in niche content such as Ultimate, Deep dungeon or the Savage tier(Even then are you seriously still doing the current tier?). The 24 mans have great music, but without the possibility to wipe I feel they have really downgraded since heavensward and stormblood's version of 24 mans. Memes are funny and keep it fresh and If you get hit by something you are not supposed to, you should die and not be immortal like most bosses in the last 2 expansions for 24 mans. Criterion is well designed, but the rewards have to be the worst for all content ever created bar none. I'd give Endwalker an A for story, B+ for content, and B for balance. Hopefully in the future they can once again do exploration content, because we need a new sandbox to go screw around in
I am sadly still disappointed with Endwalker, not just the Story but the content too. Maybe the next raids will change it. You can really fell how many people they had to pull from the normal stuff and put them onto The PvP Team. And even PvP is still an unbalanced mess. Its fun but just for a few games and not worth the missing dungeons or Bozja/Eureka.
Oh my god, I missed the Tornado kick openner. It synergized well with perfect balance and it's the first time in forever that MNk got an actual new openner. MNK mains back there were all exciting. well let's just ignore thoses 3 colors shoulder tackles for sanity sake.
I'm sure end Walker will be remembered more fondly as the years go on, but I do not get the endwalker hate. Especially toward the story. There is a moment where the true villian is revealed and what exactly your fighting against and I've never felt a story beat as harrowing or daunting before.
I think a big reason for the hate is the reveal itself. The expansion brought in very few new characters capable of being the big bad, and huge surprise; it was those characters who were responsible for the end of days. The pacing was god awful, with multiple plot threads being one-off fights or zones. They hyped it up as the finale to the story, but most story beats were more detached from the overall plot up to that point than even ShB. Which is an issue, as ShB is a different freaking world altogether. There's no real loss, there's no tragedy. The end of days is supposed to be the coming of the end, but had so little emotional impact. There are side quests that build up faceless characters better than EW's main quest, when it's obvious their fate is to literally just die. And this isn't me speaking about nostalgia, I came into the game a little over a year ago, expecting HW and ShB to be overrated shlock. And it was obvious while playing them all back-to-back that EW was the story writers trying to get to each big "wow" moment, while ignoring the intricacies and small details to the point where the foundation of the story turned to rot.
@Sock n Boppers I could not disagree more. The game is steeped in tragedy, and one of the critisms I have with it is there are very few moments of levity. It's so heavy throughout that it did make the pacing feel slow. From zone to zone It's nothing but. Heck at its worst we see an entire plaza of people get wiped out, in an out of control butterfly effect of despair. To me, the big bad wasn't meteion, or hermits, or a face at all It was just dispair. The emotional climax wasn't the final boss fight, but it was the fight with hydaelyn. And everything after that was the resolution. And as for personal loss to the player. I guess there wasn't much. But honestly after thavnar, I wasn't sure I wanted there to be. I was glad for the happy ending. Especially when they at some point decided, the wrap up of ff14s main plot was going to be more about its themes and less about the world itself. Because, I believe from release, to endwalker, it was always about the struggle of human beings and how they survive in the face of hardship and not about Emmet, or zenos as they also delt with great struggles. I can understand if that doesn't do it for you, but it absolutely had all the elements you described. Just maybe not in the ways you wanted it to.
Man I gotta agree with the shadowbringers balancing being the best, every class felt so good to play back at 80...endwalker changed some classes for the better, like paladin and summoner and outright killed other imo like monk (shadowbringers monk was the best version of the class don't @ me)
for me the biggest problem I have iwth endwalker is the lack of exploration content. I feel that's the biggest downgrade so far. 2 ultimates is nice but idk what I'll be doing for the rest of the of patch after this last raid tier.
I think a lot of the disagreement on the stormblood story ranking is mainly divided by people who played stormblood on launch and people who didn't. The base story was honestly a huge disappointment with how they just kinda dropped Ala mhigo in favor of Doma. The patch story is really really good though but 4.0 still leaves a bad taste in my mouth to this day
I played after it released, and I thought going to Doma made sense. It was set up since Yugiris arrival all the way back in ARR, and even more so when Gotestue arrives. It would have felt even stranger to have never gone to Doma. Like, what would Yugiri and Gotestue be doing if we only freed Ala Mhigo?
"Balance was a D, but I played Warrior!" *AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA* "I DIDN'T PLAY PALADIN" *AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA* "BUT YOU DID" *AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA* 10/10 Moment
Heavensward is easy S-tier simply because PvP was so much fun that i dropped PvE and became full time PvPer first time in my life when it comes to MMO's. I feel sorry for those who didn't experience PvP in HW especially if you are a Warrior enjoyer, i still occasionally look out for HW private servers in hopes that i could go there and do some PvP.
Man it was jarring to go from the most complicated caster rotation to the easiest rotation in the game period. I really miss summoner being as fast spell slining dot caster. And I hope the next caster we get will be exactly that.
@sonoskay like i would be ok if they just add cast timers back in the class. would add abit more complexity to it and make it not known as the 4th phis range. (would also have the side affect of kicking people off the class who only like it do to no cast times as a caster). Actually just adding cast times and the Phoenix one 2 combo would make the majority of the old smn fan base happy. Basicly, what most there complaints are about anyways
I think Stormblood was a fine expansion (you know, other than the whole "she's a whore so she must be evil" Yotsuyu and then cruelly fucking us over with that redemption arc) in terms of gameplay and content. However, I feel like one critical element wasn't even factored in; the music. Shadowbringers is S++ tier on that *alone*.
I really love Endwalker but looking back at the raid tiers, they have really been awfully mid, P8s is fun but like Baldicante said, the skipping phase depending on pattern is awful and it second phase has really long downtime mechanics, DSR is a BANGER though and TOP since im still in Sigma with my static, it has grown on me since i didnt have to deal with those awful bugs, lets hope the final raid tier is awesome
To me SB and ShB were very close. I liked the story in ShB a lot more, but I found a lot of the content in SB was better. I also thought Scholar was a lot more fun back when it had bane. The strange thing for me is that I don't dislike Endwalker as a game. I definitely had fun with parts of it, and I like the patch content. It's also got my second favorite alliance raid. But it's been my least favorite FF14 expansion so far as a whole.
SB also introduced swimming and spear fishing which was pretty cool. For me the plot drags it down to a B tier because that shit was painful to go through and I'm mainly here for the story. Eureka was also dogshit, calling it a tribute to XI felt like an insult frankly but whatever. ShB was definitely better than HW though come on (both are excellent) and I'm sure many people will probably disagree with me but I actually really liked 1.17-1.23 and thought it was better than the whole 2.X era. Heh I'll never forget the final night when everything was just total chaos with monsters everywhere and Dalamud hanging in the sky that shit was epic never did beat Nael hardmode though, not that it matters since they nerfed the shit out of the White Ravens (which really pissed off a friend of mine who busted his ass to get them) I don't miss Hamelt Defense, but I do miss having real Relic Weapons and Artifact Armor instead of the shitty, bland gear system we have now (I miss elemental weaknesses too)
ARR was a Good Foundation which was better than 1.0. Because 1.0 was more like the Continuation of the misguided Quality Downfall started by FFXIII. Heavensward took that Foundation and gone Heavenswards withi it xD + we saw Xeno soloing Titan Ex unsynced! Which was just great but the Bow&Gun Mages were shit gameplay. Stormblood aside of Raubahn Ex the MSQ was okay and feature the Best Finale of a Storyline with 4.3 ever. + it introduced me to my New Main Job! Shadowbringers is so Good that it makes FFXIII Look Good! That's Big!+ The Post MSQ Content is really Good aswell, overall the most solid Experience we have in FFXIV. Endwalker is how you end a Story Arc. Though I hate the Kaiten Removal which made way for Kenki's Utility to Spam Shinten like a Bitch instead of boosting your next Weaponskill, the PvP Rework was the Saving Grace for the Samurai and I'm not a PvP Guy.. yay but the PvP Battle Pass FOMO gives me incentive to play FFXIV PvP. Not necessarily because it's fun but because it's time gated. Though I disagree with the removal of Direct Hit since it could be the way to Bring Back Kaiten. Because currently the Utility for Kenki making the Player responsible to boost their Damage Output is effectively Lost, because Spamming Shinten like a Bitch isn't fun or fulfilling and Iaijutsu is Auto Crit anyway BUT! if Kaiten would make the next Weaponskill Direct Hit suddenly the Samurai would've the responsibility to Direct Crit Every Iaijutsu and Ogi through Good Resource Management! And I wouldn't to sit on 20 Kenki which are taunting me all the time. But well! Let's see what Dawnsinger will have in store for us: lvl100, Bard as Poster Job the 13th Shard to save and more?
Rubicante could've been so good but he's not at all punishing in my opinion. Sure, if you get hit by any mechanic you get a ton of damage and a vuln stack but by the time he gets the cloak out of his ass for another mechanic you are a) already at full health again and b) that vuln stack is more than likely gone... so like, where's the threat? Not to mention his second "phase" is him literally just switching mechanics up a bit. He visually looks almost the same. The only time i could ever think of him being a threat is when i play healer and rescue one of these funny 4 bajillion degree tankbusties on the party... yeah, then we're having fun ;)
As for the newest raids; i think SE has to start getting less newcomer friendly. It's Endwalker, people know mechanics and are (usually) quite fast with learning them. I don't want a raid where the first 70% of the boss is it literally introducing you to their respective mechanic and then, when they're almost dead, start testing you. It's, to put it in a few words, too slow of a pace.
You are spot on with Abyssos, it was terrible and forgettable, once I got my first P8S clear, I never touched it again. I didn't care about bis or the mount once I was done. Add to that the lack of content in relation to the relic. Eureka and Bozja served as great filler content to keep everyone busy before the ensuing patch. The result of this combination...I am an FF14 refugee playing WoW, raiding and doing mythic plus...and having a lot of fun. Endwalker's sole redeeming qualities to me are the trials and the story (damn it's great final act). I will always come back for the story and the extremes in FF14, I don't know if I'll ever do savage again. Raiding in Endwalker is too much of a pain in the ass for me to give a shit, between finding groups that fit my work schedule (which disband anyway because the content is too hard for 1 or 2 of them) and dealing with pugs.
As if pugging in WoW was any better. If anything its even worse, because the bosses there are piss easy and people still mess it up. On top of that WoWs endgame is extremely repetetive and everything you farmed becomes worthless once they release a new patch.
@@FloleLuYaR Oh I fully agree, Wow pugs are worse, only difference is in WoW I run stuff exclusively with my guild (once I reached out to them, lol). In FF14, my FC is of no help so when it comes to high end content, I am on my own. And most statics get burnt out to easily.
Bruh don't get me wrong shadowbringers aesthetic, new job abilities and pivotal trials were amazing, but good lord was I not a fan of the nier raids and having to unlock them and questing in rhaktica and il mheg was so ass. The world building was great don't get me wrong, but shadowbringers was not without its faults imo, I rate it an A - I think stormblood is the overall best expansion, and endwalker is great, it fumbled a good amount of stuff but I would say it's better then shadowbringers
i do think endwalker content feels like a B, especially gameplay wise it has very few changes from shb to EW because if you play shb and then play EW, it actually feels almost the same except with one or two extra steps stormblood is by far the biggest changes when it comes to battle mechanics however 24 man raid in endwalker is by far my favorite compare to previous expansions
It’s so nice to see people praise Stormblood. It is miles ahead all of Heavensward in every single way for me. Completely underrated expansion in the community. Heavensward is overrated and has some of the worst zones in a video game, ever.
In terms of enjoyment I think endwalker has been the worst expansion the relic quests are just finish hildibrand spend tomes, the raids have been meh at best, the 24 mans are probably on par with stormbloods, but I think the increase in time between patches is what’s ruining it for me I get it but bleh.
I'd certainly rate Stormblood's story as a B due to half of it (the far east) being fantastic and the other half (ala mhigo) being a boring slog. Averages out to be right in the middle.
I dont know what it is this raidtier but it just doesn't have alot variance to it so the theme just gets boring. Only outstander is phoinix and its by far my fav. P8 feels almost like p4 to me edgy dude tranforming into an abomination. They really need to step it up the last 4 ones
![[UA] NAVI vs MOUZ | BO5 | IEM Rio 2024](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/CMBYk0cbGoA/mqdefault.jpg)
I came here for a critical analysis of each expansion. What I didnt expect was the best and funniest cosplay of Rubicante😂😂😂 I am in TEARS🤣🤣🤣
the pain I've felt right now when Xenos said "I didnt play a paladin HAHAHAHA BUT YOU DID" while I watch his video playing paladin was too much to bear, my villain arc has started. *vampire hissing noises*
A dark knight has been born
Dont let it get to you. His loss. PLD is a work of art
DIESOFCRINGE why the hiss
"Throws Garlic and Garlic Powder"
Stormblood was the only expansion I did not take a single break and played every content that came out. It was really really good!
Same. The only content I didn't do was Ultimate. Aside from that, I logged in every day and farmed all the dogs.
Agree! I played a lot during Stormblood. It had the best content, the best class additions, the most interesting relic system (Eureka) and overall it was my favourite expansion. I also enjoyed the story a lot. Don‘t know why people complained about the story split 😅
Stormblood doesn’t get enough credit. It gets lot of hate because of the story, but the amount of content and improvement from Heavensward with quality of life is bigger than any other the expansion came after it. World travel, new housing district, new glamour system with the introduction of the glamour dresser, and PVP jobs having its separate own skills from PVE no longer require to be at max level and can start as early as lv30.
@@exiaedges TBH I was also hyped AF because I came from a hiatus during Heavensward and Friends convinced me to join them at Fanfest 2017. So Fanfest trailers hyped me for the game again and I joined back in 2 weeks before Stormblood came out. Plus I had good friends to play with during the latter part of the expansion.
@@vaan_ I'm sure you could organize a min ilvl no echo party if hou wanted to.
As someone who can't always pay a sub month-to-month, and doesn't do above extreme, Island sanctuary/Eureka is my favorite content. Low-stakes, long-term progression content is very important to me.
The only bad thing about island sanctuary is that there is not enough to do after you rank up.
Return to Ivalice is hands down the best 24-man alliance raid. Orbornne is legendary
Ivalice raids still incinerate sprouts asses.
Still waiting for Endwalker alliance raids to get anywhere close to "Return to Ivalice" difficulty, as was promised by the devs...
I love Orbonne’s vibe. The set piece, the map, the mood, the VOICES.
Yeah, as a guy who loved FFT, it was an amazing piece of fanservice for me, also gave us a not jackass Delita too XD
Ivalice is worth doing lvl70 rotation for
It's funny how for Endwalker they tried to take away variance from jobs but retroactively made everything feel worse and more rng dependent.
Hell yeah people who started ShB/EW need to put respect on SB’s name
Aah the old main menu, RIDING HOMEEEE!!!!
im glad xemo said something about baldicante its super sad they spammed the boring puzzle mechanic instead of doing some fast paced stuff like barb, hopefully next primal isn't 90% puzzle and 10% mechanics xff
Stormblood was probably the beat expansion for how the jobs/game feeled.
Initial SB story just felt disjointed, but the post initial story was S to me. It also had the biggest cast of characters that I loved
20:06 had me in tears, cause he's right.
BALDICANTE GRACED US WITH HIS PRESENCE, MY KING
I like to listen to Xeems talk abt FFXIV history as a person who started late ShB
Wow, and here I thought I was the only one in the entire community who also thought that SB was the best overall expac. Color me surprised.
I think it's better than people make it out to be because of the content. People that say SB wasn't good are probably people that only sub for the main story. IMO, I think the main story gets good in the patched content, but the raids in SB are still some of my favorite raids in the game.
Nah stormblood is finally getting it's recognition after the cringe hatefest
@@SILVERONIN People only hate it because of the story, and since most people don't do raids and all that, they judge it off the story. If that's cringe to you, fine I suppose, but it makes sense to me.
Unfortunately most of the hate comes from people who overvalue story compared to other aspects of the expac
@@Tystolfo MMOs are more than stories 🙄
It's refreshing to see someone actually ranking them not exclusively based on the MSQ alone, cause outside of the fairly weak MSQ Stormblood was incredible. Omega, anyone?
Ivalice raids, anyone? Yes, I am still mad and will be mad with Alliance raid design post StB. Nier raids was loooking amazing(and so is the glam), but overall gameplay was very mediocre and completely not punishing.
Endwalker alliances are basically a flashy Crystal Tower. Looks cool, but after a couple runs you have to force yourself to stay awake until the end. Especially as a healer, lol.
Stormblood have both my favorite raid and alliance raid, and i liked the story
Based on when Kaiten got removed? Endwalker is an A until 6.1 EW and then it became an triple FFF at best for me. Unbiased opinion obviously.
I’ve felt this way for a while. Personally, I think Endwalker peaked in 6.0.
The point you made about ShB and the covid stuff is what I was thinking back in the day, for me makes more sense that Endwalker was being polished and 7.0 onwards being made during covid than the Shadowbringers in general, I don't think SE will make things on the run like that.
Ast Healing in stormblood was absolutely BROKEN. This thing could solo heal damn near anything with ease.
I recently just finished FFXIV after 3 months of playing and Shadowbringers was amazing. That expansion should have been a mainline FF game.
great news, it is a mainline FF game
Well, ffxiv IS a mainline FF 😂
@@Charlie-ly1rq i think he ment as a Standalone game Story Wise like Without Expansions and stuff, just a simple Stand alone game
@@xLXTRAx not sure, but if it's a standalone game, I think there will be too many plot holes, no? Like, Scions and the Blessing of Light were established only in ARR, so if ARR until Stormblood were taken out, then it would leave a lot of questions on why do we have the blessing, etc.
Up until Stormblood, we also thought that Hydaelyn was good and Zodiark was bad. However, Shadowbringers added a lot of nuance to it. The build-up to Shadowbringers was also amazing, like the Scions, one by one, they fell into a slumber. It added a sense of urgency that we entered Shadowbringers to "save our friends". Turned out, Shadowbringers was all about "saving the First" to prevent the Eighth Umbral Calamity.
Then, the game also needed to explain what is the Umbral Calamity... which eventually would lead back to the events shortly before ARR with the Dalamud and Bahamut stuff. Too many knowledge required IMO for Shadowbringers to be an amazing standalone game (story-wise).
Storm blood was the most fun I've had with Monk and Astro which were my main jobs. I can't even really enjoy either anymore with their changes. They aren't bad (except the button bloat with Astro) but I just don't enjoy it as much now
SB Monk was probably the most fun job/class I have ever played in a PvE environment. Only some specs during Mists of Pandaria really come close, which funnily enough is somewhat the WoW equivalent of Stormblood.
100% agree on the amount of content/ranking of Stormblood.
Whether you like each piece of content or not, it really did have a bit of something for everyone, and I never really felt it was stuck in a drought like Shadowbringers and Endwalker did.
Im not an mmo player in general, i only played XIV cause im a massive FF stan. So i cant really comment on mechanics and balancing as i played DRG for the cool factor but the story trough all of expansions was dope. My favourite by far is Heavensward. The standoff with Nidhogg as i waited for a party will stay with me for eternity. Fucking awesome conclusion. And my boy Estinien before he revealed his dumb face. Co cool.
Stormblood is legendary for content amount and quality. MSQ wasn't great but fuck it I'm mainly there for the content. Thanks to COVID we'll never see that quantity and quality combination in an expansion content ever again.
bozja alone was the best highlight of shadowbringers for me because it stressed your class fundamentals and knowledge as a whole. it featured FFXIV's most ambitious raid - a 48man savage raid that had mechanics on par with mid-level savage fights. Eureka had a bigger one, but it wasn't as refined as delubrum reginae savage (DRS).
DRS brought out the best in everybody exactly because it required a lot of people (so more people could be exposed to world-first communities) and demanded the best performance out of everybody. granted, there were still casuals shitting around and it was apparently a nightmare to even get people to bring the bare minimum, but it allowed best of the best to shine the brightest.
DRS had two things that made playing DPS exceptionally enjoyable for me - haste and the duelist buff.
haste came from the Law's Order set, the FF12 judge armor. already one of the hottest armor sets in the entire game. upgrades came from DRS, making it dyable. when you had a full set of upgraded armor, your GCD was UNIMAGINALLY fast. for slamurais like myself, it clocked out at a 1.78GCD. this meant that only the wildest samurais who fundamentally understood freestyling itself would be the most successful.
the duelist buff came from a very unique role - the duel in DRS. Duels are 1v1 pve content that are surprisingly pretty challenging. to do it for a crowd of 48 people meant that you were hand-chosen to be the best player in the raid, an honour that you wouldn't hear about anywhere else in the game. it gave you unimaginable power, enabling you to do 1million damage with a midare. quite literally PEAK samurai.
so yeah. even though DRS is irrelevant, i look back on it with such fondness. having been chosen as the freestyling slamurai duelist for my group, i can confidently say i peaked in shadowbringers.
this moment was 2nd to sks paladin in heavensward... though that's just me explaining how i came to be so wildly good at this game.
I've really liked the story in EW, but outside of that, it has been really dry in terms of good quality content. It badly needed some Bozja-type content where we can interact with a lot of players at once. Criterion is an afterthought, Island Sanctuary is relaxing but once you get everything it loses it's luster very quickly. Relic is a joke so far, ShB handled it better with poetics-- meaning you can do any content you want at any level range 50+, though to be fair, the alliance raid step sucked. We haven't got that far with EW relics. We still don't have a BLU update, which is very late now. The PvP revamp is a huge plus. I'd give it a B-.
The first "...but you did!" that Xeno gets me with talking about HW PLD (mostly to meme on the new raid finder Sophia EX and do top damage in ManOath with a 10+ death party)
Stormblood was my personal favourite, but for a music tier list I would hands down pick Shadowbringers.
Stormblood gets an S from me solely for the Return To Ivalice raids. They are my favorite raids in the game (though Myths of the Realm are giving it a run for its money).
from what i explorered in Bozja and Eureka. i like Eureka more. BUT i think the grinding is done way better in Bozja simply because joining a party that isnt your level doesnt Nuder you.
Housing: I'm on the new EU Chaos server Phantom. you know the real housing crisis here? its trying to find ppl/FC's to settle for small plots. most wards have all large plots sold, some med plots sold.. and all the smoll plots are just empty.
21:11 blinding warning.
I love island sanctuary because it's a good source for me to get my crafting and gathering materia without having to spend so much gil.
Maaan I actually enjoyed Endsinger, the only thing i didnt like was it having the first theme instead of the second, even though i thought both were great
yeah its the only downer
The first theme is better
Endsinger P2 theme is only good for the duration of that phase tbh. If it played for a whole extreme encounter you'd hate it after progging, because it only has the one vocal section then repeats.
@@Corvus7159 see its all down to the opinion, all the songs repeat eventually no matter the fight. Also if im progging or farming i tend to have my own music going to focus better lol preference doesnt mean something is better, it just means you like it more than the other option
I would put ARR over EW because in ARR at least it felt like they tried.
Man, he's making it too complicated
*A* Realm Reborn - obviously A tier
Heavensward - added flying, instant S tier
*S*tormblood - S tier, duh
Shadowbringers - Sh tier, or S+.
Endwalker - more like *S*endwalker. Everybody gets sent.
I think the 24 man's in ARR were great if you played them when they were current. Current players probably don't event know Glabbydos mechanics
The problem with Endwalkers story is how quickly it rushed through story beats. Plot points we'd been building up for 4 previous expansions, like Garlemald or Zodiark, were swept aside in the first three levels of content, leaving three middle levels of faffing about with no direction, and the sudden inclusion of a brand new villain who then promptly fucked off to space to do background shit until the final confrontation.
Endwalker was rushed, and absolutely could have been two expansions instead of one.
ALL of Meteion and Elpis/Ascianworld could have been its own storyline. Endwalker should have been Garlemald, culminating in Zodiark. Then given us the "end of days" as our between-expac filler, and then had an entire expansion to build up Meteion as a precious snickerdoodle/universal threat. As it stands, Hot Topic Bird was way too last minute to build any real connection.
We had ALL of Shadowbringers dedicated to Emet-Selch. We had like, one zone dedicated to getting to know Meteion. And Emet had better justification for being sad to boot.
Thx xeems. Finally someone understands how good stormblood was.
I liked the Endwalker story much more than the Shadowbringers story. Endwalker being my favorite expansion and Stormblood the one I liked the least
I think with Endwalker not having exploration content such as Eureka or Bozja, having no relic grind to put you into past content, there isn't much reason for you to log in and work towards something unless you're hardcore in niche content such as Ultimate, Deep dungeon or the Savage tier(Even then are you seriously still doing the current tier?). The 24 mans have great music, but without the possibility to wipe I feel they have really downgraded since heavensward and stormblood's version of 24 mans. Memes are funny and keep it fresh and If you get hit by something you are not supposed to, you should die and not be immortal like most bosses in the last 2 expansions for 24 mans. Criterion is well designed, but the rewards have to be the worst for all content ever created bar none. I'd give Endwalker an A for story, B+ for content, and B for balance. Hopefully in the future they can once again do exploration content, because we need a new sandbox to go screw around in
As someone who is slogging through the meh story of storm I'm happy to know the end Content justifies it and the next 2 stories are arguably s tier
Ok I didn't like Stormblood but the trials/raids in Stormblood are some of my favorite in the game
I am sadly still disappointed with Endwalker, not just the Story but the content too. Maybe the next raids will change it. You can really fell how many people they had to pull from the normal stuff and put them onto The PvP Team. And even PvP is still an unbalanced mess. Its fun but just for a few games and not worth the missing dungeons or Bozja/Eureka.
hell yeah stormblood getting love. story was okay but the dungeons, raids, and the 24 man great imo
Oh my god, I missed the Tornado kick openner. It synergized well with perfect balance and it's the first time in forever that MNk got an actual new openner.
MNK mains back there were all exciting. well let's just ignore thoses 3 colors shoulder tackles for sanity sake.
IMO Balance in ShB is B for BORING.
It utterly ruined my favourite job: Scholar.
I'm sure end Walker will be remembered more fondly as the years go on, but I do not get the endwalker hate.
Especially toward the story.
There is a moment where the true villian is revealed and what exactly your fighting against and I've never felt a story beat as harrowing or daunting before.
I think a big reason for the hate is the reveal itself. The expansion brought in very few new characters capable of being the big bad, and huge surprise; it was those characters who were responsible for the end of days. The pacing was god awful, with multiple plot threads being one-off fights or zones. They hyped it up as the finale to the story, but most story beats were more detached from the overall plot up to that point than even ShB. Which is an issue, as ShB is a different freaking world altogether.
There's no real loss, there's no tragedy. The end of days is supposed to be the coming of the end, but had so little emotional impact. There are side quests that build up faceless characters better than EW's main quest, when it's obvious their fate is to literally just die.
And this isn't me speaking about nostalgia, I came into the game a little over a year ago, expecting HW and ShB to be overrated shlock. And it was obvious while playing them all back-to-back that EW was the story writers trying to get to each big "wow" moment, while ignoring the intricacies and small details to the point where the foundation of the story turned to rot.
@Sock n Boppers I could not disagree more.
The game is steeped in tragedy, and one of the critisms I have with it is there are very few moments of levity. It's so heavy throughout that it did make the pacing feel slow. From zone to zone It's nothing but.
Heck at its worst we see an entire plaza of people get wiped out, in an out of control butterfly effect of despair.
To me, the big bad wasn't meteion, or hermits, or a face at all
It was just dispair. The emotional climax wasn't the final boss fight, but it was the fight with hydaelyn. And everything after that was the resolution. And as for personal loss to the player. I guess there wasn't much. But honestly after thavnar, I wasn't sure I wanted there to be.
I was glad for the happy ending.
Especially when they at some point decided, the wrap up of ff14s main plot was going to be more about its themes and less about the world itself.
Because, I believe from release, to endwalker, it was always about the struggle of human beings and how they survive in the face of hardship and not about Emmet, or zenos as they also delt with great struggles.
I can understand if that doesn't do it for you, but it absolutely had all the elements you described. Just maybe not in the ways you wanted it to.
I have started playing for 5 months and my favorite expansion is Endwalker
Pretty solid tier list, thanks Tyler
Man I gotta agree with the shadowbringers balancing being the best, every class felt so good to play back at 80...endwalker changed some classes for the better, like paladin and summoner and outright killed other imo like monk (shadowbringers monk was the best version of the class don't @ me)
Glad someone else appreciates how good stormblood was and didn't judge it solely by the levelling experience story lol
Lol i love how the tier list has a baldicante summon. S tier editing
Honestly, say what you want, but Baldicante's music slaps.
I SUMMON THEE, BALDICANTE!
for me the biggest problem I have iwth endwalker is the lack of exploration content. I feel that's the biggest downgrade so far. 2 ultimates is nice but idk what I'll be doing for the rest of the of patch after this last raid tier.
finally someone agreed with me that stormblood is an S tier :)
I think a lot of the disagreement on the stormblood story ranking is mainly divided by people who played stormblood on launch and people who didn't. The base story was honestly a huge disappointment with how they just kinda dropped Ala mhigo in favor of Doma. The patch story is really really good though but 4.0 still leaves a bad taste in my mouth to this day
I played after it released, and I thought going to Doma made sense. It was set up since Yugiris arrival all the way back in ARR, and even more so when Gotestue arrives. It would have felt even stranger to have never gone to Doma. Like, what would Yugiri and Gotestue be doing if we only freed Ala Mhigo?
"Balance was a D, but I played Warrior!"
*AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA*
"I DIDN'T PLAY PALADIN"
*AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA*
"BUT YOU DID"
*AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA*
10/10 Moment
EW has Baldicante therefore S tier ez
Endwalker best expac because we got cringe xenos, lover of erp and night club, clearer of msq, the-man-who-rant-for-justice
7:50 has me DEAD! I frikin love Xeno
Heavensward is easy S-tier simply because PvP was so much fun that i dropped PvE and became full time PvPer first time in my life when it comes to MMO's. I feel sorry for those who didn't experience PvP in HW especially if you are a Warrior enjoyer, i still occasionally look out for HW private servers in hopes that i could go there and do some PvP.
endwalker is B for me mostly do to the smn rework. (yes im still salty about it. got that 7.0 copium)
Man it was jarring to go from the most complicated caster rotation to the easiest rotation in the game period.
I really miss summoner being as fast spell slining dot caster.
And I hope the next caster we get will be exactly that.
@sonoskay like i would be ok if they just add cast timers back in the class. would add abit more complexity to it and make it not known as the 4th phis range. (would also have the side affect of kicking people off the class who only like it do to no cast times as a caster). Actually just adding cast times and the Phoenix one 2 combo would make the majority of the old smn fan base happy. Basicly, what most there complaints are about anyways
I cleared a12s on content as a paladin.... i'm still recovering...
I wasn't ready for Baldicante.
*My eyes, when the light hit the dome 👀😵💫
I think Stormblood was a fine expansion (you know, other than the whole "she's a whore so she must be evil" Yotsuyu and then cruelly fucking us over with that redemption arc) in terms of gameplay and content.
However, I feel like one critical element wasn't even factored in; the music. Shadowbringers is S++ tier on that *alone*.
Endwalker got the sickest Relics and Gear Sets tbh
If you say that then clearly you haven't gotten the ARR and HW relics
Zodiac and Anima weapons are peak, but we're off to a decent start aside from the awful, unnecessary second step re-colors.
I’d love to see a tier list of memes from each expansion (ie skip soar)
I really love Endwalker but looking back at the raid tiers, they have really been awfully mid, P8s is fun but like Baldicante said, the skipping phase depending on pattern is awful and it second phase has really long downtime mechanics, DSR is a BANGER though and TOP since im still in Sigma with my static, it has grown on me since i didnt have to deal with those awful bugs, lets hope the final raid tier is awesome
Banger vid already
To me SB and ShB were very close. I liked the story in ShB a lot more, but I found a lot of the content in SB was better. I also thought Scholar was a lot more fun back when it had bane.
The strange thing for me is that I don't dislike Endwalker as a game. I definitely had fun with parts of it, and I like the patch content. It's also got my second favorite alliance raid. But it's been my least favorite FF14 expansion so far as a whole.
i'm sorry but Heavensward is an S purely for Deliverance and Bloodbath, coz yes fellow warrior main
SB also introduced swimming and spear fishing which was pretty cool. For me the plot drags it down to a B tier because that shit was painful to go through and I'm mainly here for the story. Eureka was also dogshit, calling it a tribute to XI felt like an insult frankly but whatever.
ShB was definitely better than HW though come on (both are excellent) and I'm sure many people will probably disagree with me but I actually really liked 1.17-1.23 and thought it was better than the whole 2.X era.
Heh I'll never forget the final night when everything was just total chaos with monsters everywhere and Dalamud hanging in the sky that shit was epic
never did beat Nael hardmode though, not that it matters since they nerfed the shit out of the White Ravens (which really pissed off a friend of mine who busted his ass to get them)
I don't miss Hamelt Defense, but I do miss having real Relic Weapons and Artifact Armor instead of the shitty, bland gear system we have now (I miss elemental weaknesses too)
time for xeno to indulge the old story of warrior of light then KEKW
Endwalker MSQ was SS tier.
As far as endsinger aria, i do feel it was underwhelming. Too easy, not epic enough, and no phase changes.
Stormblood balance will always be wack to me because of the existence of Stormblood Lilies on WHM
Accuracy checks. 2.0 horrors.
ARR was a Good Foundation which was better than 1.0. Because 1.0 was more like the Continuation of the misguided Quality Downfall started by FFXIII.
Heavensward took that Foundation and gone Heavenswards withi it xD + we saw Xeno soloing Titan Ex unsynced! Which was just great but the Bow&Gun Mages were shit gameplay.
Stormblood aside of Raubahn Ex the MSQ was okay and feature the Best Finale of a Storyline with 4.3 ever. + it introduced me to my New Main Job!
Shadowbringers is so Good that it makes FFXIII Look Good! That's Big!+ The Post MSQ Content is really Good aswell, overall the most solid Experience we have in FFXIV.
Endwalker is how you end a Story Arc. Though I hate the Kaiten Removal which made way for Kenki's Utility to Spam Shinten like a Bitch instead of boosting your next Weaponskill, the PvP Rework was the Saving Grace for the Samurai and I'm not a PvP Guy.. yay but the PvP Battle Pass FOMO gives me incentive to play FFXIV PvP. Not necessarily because it's fun but because it's time gated. Though I disagree with the removal of Direct Hit since it could be the way to Bring Back Kaiten. Because currently the Utility for Kenki making the Player responsible to boost their Damage Output is effectively Lost, because Spamming Shinten like a Bitch isn't fun or fulfilling and Iaijutsu is Auto Crit anyway BUT! if Kaiten would make the next Weaponskill Direct Hit suddenly the Samurai would've the responsibility to Direct Crit Every Iaijutsu and Ogi through Good Resource Management! And I wouldn't to sit on 20 Kenki which are taunting me all the time. But well!
Let's see what Dawnsinger will have in store for us: lvl100, Bard as Poster Job the 13th Shard to save and more?
BALDICANTE I SUMMON THEEEEE!!!!!
We need to credit xeem for dark arts stack xffing
Rubicante could've been so good but he's not at all punishing in my opinion.
Sure, if you get hit by any mechanic you get a ton of damage and a vuln stack but by the time he gets the cloak out of his ass for another mechanic you are a) already at full health again and b) that vuln stack is more than likely gone... so like, where's the threat?
Not to mention his second "phase" is him literally just switching mechanics up a bit. He visually looks almost the same.
The only time i could ever think of him being a threat is when i play healer and rescue one of these funny 4 bajillion degree tankbusties on the party... yeah, then we're having fun ;)
As for the newest raids; i think SE has to start getting less newcomer friendly. It's Endwalker, people know mechanics and are (usually) quite fast with learning them. I don't want a raid where the first 70% of the boss is it literally introducing you to their respective mechanic and then, when they're almost dead, start testing you. It's, to put it in a few words, too slow of a pace.
After ARR, I quit and didn't come back until Endwalker. It was that bad. I quit at.... T9? After getting all the relics and balance was still trash.
You are spot on with Abyssos, it was terrible and forgettable, once I got my first P8S clear, I never touched it again. I didn't care about bis or the mount once I was done. Add to that the lack of content in relation to the relic. Eureka and Bozja served as great filler content to keep everyone busy before the ensuing patch. The result of this combination...I am an FF14 refugee playing WoW, raiding and doing mythic plus...and having a lot of fun. Endwalker's sole redeeming qualities to me are the trials and the story (damn it's great final act). I will always come back for the story and the extremes in FF14, I don't know if I'll ever do savage again. Raiding in Endwalker is too much of a pain in the ass for me to give a shit, between finding groups that fit my work schedule (which disband anyway because the content is too hard for 1 or 2 of them) and dealing with pugs.
As if pugging in WoW was any better. If anything its even worse, because the bosses there are piss easy and people still mess it up. On top of that WoWs endgame is extremely repetetive and everything you farmed becomes worthless once they release a new patch.
@@FloleLuYaR Oh I fully agree, Wow pugs are worse, only difference is in WoW I run stuff exclusively with my guild (once I reached out to them, lol). In FF14, my FC is of no help so when it comes to high end content, I am on my own. And most statics get burnt out to easily.
Same I did to clears, got my bis and left it alone. Shit tier
Bruh don't get me wrong shadowbringers aesthetic, new job abilities and pivotal trials were amazing, but good lord was I not a fan of the nier raids and having to unlock them and questing in rhaktica and il mheg was so ass. The world building was great don't get me wrong, but shadowbringers was not without its faults imo, I rate it an A - I think stormblood is the overall best expansion, and endwalker is great, it fumbled a good amount of stuff but I would say it's better then shadowbringers
What's a good cheese for a burger?
This is the biggest coal tier list i have seen in my entire life
EW gets C tier just because of how boring jobs are
We can all agree heavensward is goated
Besides story, Stormblood was fire
i do think endwalker content feels like a B, especially gameplay wise it has very few changes from shb to EW
because if you play shb and then play EW, it actually feels almost the same except with one or two extra steps
stormblood is by far the biggest changes when it comes to battle mechanics
however 24 man raid in endwalker is by far my favorite compare to previous expansions
It’s so nice to see people praise Stormblood. It is miles ahead all of Heavensward in every single way for me. Completely underrated expansion in the community. Heavensward is overrated and has some of the worst zones in a video game, ever.
Endwalker is S tier just for Baldycante.
7:44 bruh pld main HERE had to swap to F*** drk, i fEellllllllllllllll that FFFFF!!!!!
I binged all the expansions in a year so based on MSQ:
S: SB, EW
A: HW
B:
C: ARR, StB (patch content saved from being D)
D:
Fight me if you disagree
ALL PRAISE BE TO BALDICANTE
In terms of enjoyment I think endwalker has been the worst expansion the relic quests are just finish hildibrand spend tomes, the raids have been meh at best, the 24 mans are probably on par with stormbloods, but I think the increase in time between patches is what’s ruining it for me I get it but bleh.
Stormblood over Shadowbringers is blasphemy
It should have included music as well. Failed.
Well, this is coming from someone who mutes the in-game music
tier list THIS BUTTS
I'd certainly rate Stormblood's story as a B due to half of it (the far east) being fantastic and the other half (ala mhigo) being a boring slog. Averages out to be right in the middle.
BASED
I dont know what it is this raidtier but it just doesn't have alot variance to it so the theme just gets boring. Only outstander is phoinix and its by far my fav. P8 feels almost like p4 to me edgy dude tranforming into an abomination. They really need to step it up the last 4 ones