Game update: Final Fantasy XIV Heavensward patch 3.15

The latest patch of Final Fantasy XIV dropped in mid-December, and with it the hopes and dreams of many players.

3.15 delivered a few main scenario quests, the new 24-main raid Void Ark, 2 high level dungeons, and the new relic quests.

Main scenario: Not much truly happened. The new patch continued with the search of the Scions of the Seventh Dawn, which ended in the finding of one more of them. The main scenario storyline also picked up on the ending of Heavensward, where you were left in a horrible cliffhanger regarding the "Warrior of Darkness."

The Void Ark: This is probably the only content that we have enjoyed the most so far. The Void Ark provides the challenges of the late Crystal Tower and delivers ilvl 200 gear. As usual, drama and bad pugs are to be expected, but you are not only rewarded with badass gear sets but an item that allows you to upgrade your ilvl 200 tome armor and accessories to ilvl 210. We. Love. Void. Ark.

Lord of Verminion: We have no interest in playing a redic minion mini-game, so you'll have to look elsewhere for that info ^^

New Dungeons: Saint Mocianne's Arboretum and Pharos Sirius HM, none of them provided any exciting gameplay and sank into easy mechanics.

Relic weapons: Ah, the Anima, those shiny weapons that cost you ages to acquire, but which in the end make you more powerful with every swing. Or so you thought.

The current last stage of the Anima weapon grind is incredibly ridiculous. Up to the point that it made many players quit the game.

Different from Final Fantasy XI where relic grind was humongous, but which in the end got you a weapon that was good for years, FFXIV weapons improve their stats in a vertical system. What this means is that when the next patch drops there will be a whole new set of tome weapons available, and these weapons will have higher stats than the current patch sets.

What happens then? Remember the Zeta weapons from Real Reborn? When Heavensward was released the lands of Eorzea were salted by the tears of those who underwent the original Zeta grind, who stared for hours at the superior stats of new weapon drops from regular leveling quests. Where did their Zetas go? To the retainer's inventory, to become a memory of the good 'ole days...

A vertical system will eventually give you superior weapons with the next updates. Which leaves you with the question: is it even worth it to get the new Anima relic?

The current Anima's weapon final stage is an ilvl 210. And guess what? That is the same ilvl of the updated esoteric weapon obtained from Alexander Savage. What is the difference? According to Yoshi-P, the relic was set to ilvl 210 because the current Alexander Savage stages are uber hard, and a person who grinds ages for a relic weapon should not have a better weapon than someone who spent hours trying to clear Alex Savage.

So why don't we all clear Savage instead of grinding for the new relic? In the end both weapons have the same ilvl. Well, it so happens that the dev team made Alex Savage very hard to comply with the demands of players who wanted harder content. But the problem is that it was too hard. There's people who jumped servers to clear the diverse stages, and it is almost impossible to get a pug group to clear even A1S.

Yoshi-P knows that Alex Savage is to hard, and the team is working on getting the next Alexander dungeons release (Alexander Midas) to a lower difficulty level. Which leaves us to the question of... is it even worth it to get the Anima weapon?

2girls_1up summary: Regarding game content, we wish FFXIV's dev team would spend more time in developing main scenario quests rather than making useless minion games that nobody plays. In any case, we look forward to many new dungeons for tome grind, as patch 3.15 changed roulettes from Alwaysrreap to Alwayspharos and Alwaystrees (and they became boring fast...). All in all, and in our opinion, Void Ark was the best addition to the game.

Regarding the new relic weapon, simply level up a secondary class with the crystal FATE grinding in the first Anima quest stages, clear the 10 dungeons, and help yourself an Awoken ilvl 200 weapon. Would I do the last step? Nope. Because we know that the quest is going to be nerfed, and when that happens there will probably be another major content release that makes the pain and suffering of getting an Anima relic seem worthless. If, and only *if* Square Enix changes the weapon improvement quests from something vertical to horizontal, then it would be feasible to do this horrible grind. Otherwise it's kissing goodbye to hours of your life.

We know the hardcore players will not agree with this, but unfortunately the game does not run on you. It runs on the filthy casuals who pay for your world to exist :D

While everyone was spending their holidays on normal Alex runs, I spent leveling my fisher from 1 to 50.

Peace! And enjoy the game, however you want :P