#ffxiv guide

I got some questions about how to work with dark-skinned characters - and also heard some comments on how hard it is to gpose them. So here's a compilation of use cases, some techniques, and setups!

Posing in dark settings

This is where dark-skinned characters shine, pun intended. Point lights give a lot of flexibility, and character/environment lights are great tools to give volume and detach characters from the background.

In this example, 3-point sources are used to provide volume to the characters, without relying on character brightness at all. The Neneko Nikuman preset gives excellent brightness, contrast, and depth of field (DoF) options.

Posing in bright settings

Contrast is a powerful tool, and dark-skinned (and dark-clad) characters can use that to their great advantage.

In the following example, a hard white light is positioned to create a strong rim light for volume, with a support gold source for tone and a light purple point to bring up the character's face. The Neneko Cocktail preset gives rich metal tones and excellent contrast.

The second example is about color. The same preset (Neneko Cocktail) is used, with ADOF+BOKEH and ADOF+BLUR enabled to give a dreamy quality to the background. Light sources emulate the sky.

Colorful/Pastel clothing/scenario

You may have heard that dark-skinned characters don't go well with certain colors, like pink or white. That is not true: Dark skin palettes have as much width as pale ones, just in a different range - and light sources can bring them up.

The first example uses a very colorful background, with Neneko Lux driving the hue and brightness up. Instead of fighting it, we use the scenario colors to our advantage by projecting them around the character.

The second example is a portrait where we again use the scenario to provide hints about the light sources. Neneko Melonpan gives an excellent, smooth pastel treatment. Let's see the step-by-step from the original state to the final result.

The first light is placed to emulate a cyan reflection from the water. The second emulates the bluish reflection from the sky, and The third is pretty near and creates a sunny rim light.

With everything in place, we can enable the preset - and play around with DoF to decide how much we want to detach it from the scenario, taking away attention from the background and popping the character.

 Posing together with fair-skinned characters

We can borrow some practices from real-life photography. The most important: position your light sources around the dark-skinned character. This will give you enough contrast to play with, and lessen the amount that reaches the other.

Composition (Extreme)

Compositions with lots of glow elements make it hard to pop the character features: since armor and weapons don't emit real light, everything needs to be compensated with the three-point lights, plus character and manual scene brightness.

In this case, the character is positioned in such a way as to hide frontal reflections while still bringing his expression out a bit with well-defined rim lights.

Comment: The default in-game lighting leaves much to be desired

This is certainly true to an extent. The in-game settings are apparently tuned towards a common denominator between wildly different form factors (i.e. PC, Playstation 3-5), so a muted palette is used.

This results in ashen colors and small gradient differences between dark tones in certain situations; keep that in mind if you're looking for locations. Again, lighting can be used to remediate - but not eliminate - these limitations.

Final Thoughts

This isn't, by any means, a comprehensive guide. Dark-skinned characters come in a glorious amount of shades and tones, so I tried to keep it simple and discuss some basic aspects.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask! It'll help others that may stumble over this thread.

And thank you for your patience!

Disclaimer: English isn't my first language so...

For grabbing and holding aggro

#27 The Look. Amazing, it's AoE for taking aggro. But you must be aware that if the mobs move, they be outside the aoe when you finish the cast and wont ger aggroed. This happens very often because other BLU entered in their radio before you finish the cast. Thats why I recommend j Kick or Supernakha to catch their attention and then the look.

#31 Sticky tongue: draw-in spell which increased aggro. Useful for one lost enemy in the pull. But be aware of the radius of the spell.

#97 Hydro Pull: draw-in AoE spell. Be aware of the radius.

#62 Frog Legs: The BLU's provoke. Use it to reasure your aggro.

#61 Avail: The BLU's Shirk.

Advice on aggro and tankbusters:

Very important for all the party!!! some tankbusters are based on aggro (fine, you can hold it by reassuring while to while with Frog legs) BUT others are based on roles and you all are dps classes so these will be random. All BLU should have #29 Diamonback for these.

For mitigation

#77 Aetheric Mimicry /Tank) & #30 Mighty Guard. They're basic.

#32 Toad Oil: 20% more evasion. Use it in cooldown.

#29 Diamonback: Blocks 90% of the damage and nulify the knockback and drawin effects. Think about it as your invul. You cant move for 10s. With good timing you can survive to more than one mechanic with this. It's expensive in MP but has little recast time and will help your healers so much! Don't fear to use it for hard tankbusters.

#95 Dragon Force: 40% mit.

#89 Chelonian Gate: 20% mit with a relative fast recast, it reflect dmg when you take >30% of your HP. Very useful! You can mover but shouldnt since It will end the effect.

#75 Devour: Increases your HP in 20%

#107 Schiltron, #49 Veil of the Whorl or #16 Ice Spikes: These counter some dmg you take. Ice Spikes is the weakest of these, pick the one you like most.

#117 Force Field: It grants 50% physical mit OR 50% magic mit but you cant choose which one so I don't really like it. I feel you can rotate dragon force, chelonian gate, and diamondback safely and drop this.

Advices on mit:

This is important!!! Even with the tank stance and Mighty guard your HP will be the HP of a dps class so you won't have a "real tank" HP pool. You NEED to mitigate, specially the tankbusters. Plus BLU healers doesn't have the big toolset that a "real healer" has, and the res spells has a very long recast so you need to help your party by taking less damage and not dying.

Be careful because your "real tank" mits are instant and the BLU mits must be casted. You'll taking a race on which castbar ends before: your mit or the tankbusters one. So your reaction must be on time!

For Utility and support

#28 Bad Breath: Very usefull for debuff enemies, even the bosses usually take some of the debuffs.

#70 Cactguard: 15% mit for other party member. Useful if you're offtanking, you put it on the MT. Or if you're MT you can put it on healer in danger situations.

#13 White Wind , #73 Exuviation or #108 Rehydration : pick one or two healing spell for backup for your party. Exuviation is aoe and removes debuffs from your friends.

#72 Angel Whisper: Always usefull!! The res spell. Since it has a veeeeeery long recast time it's prefered to all BLUs to have it.

#57 Eerie Soundwave: remove buffs of the enemy.

For Damage:

#104 Nightbloom or #9 Song of Torment: DoT, always useful.

#105 Goblin Punch: instaspell for basic dmg spam spell. Must be in melee range. It's single target.

#63 Sonic Boom: the basic dmg spam speel. Useful when you're away of the boss. It's single target.

#80 J Kick: Gap-closer, useful for start a pull.

#97 Hydro Pull: Pulls enemies to you, usefull for dungeon pulls. Aoe.

#31 Sticky Tongue: Pull in one enemy to you. It stuns also and increases aggro.

#78 Supernakha: Usefull primal spell, and useful for starting a pull at dungeons.

#75 Devour: It restores some HP.

#33 Ram's Voice & #92 Ultravibration: Always usefull for dungeons.

#109 Breath of Magic and #121 Mortal Flame: BIG DoTs but only one of each can be active so only one BLU must cast them. I like it to be the tank or healers so the dps has more room for other big dmg spells.

Hope some of this would be useful to you if you want to try the BLU tanking. Once you get used to the different way of aggroing at dung pulls and to casting the mits it gets very fun and challenging!

If you play FFXIV long enough you'll end up seeing a message in chat while running a duty letting folks know someone is getting raised. These are usually done via macro.

Why Do People Use Raise and Other Job Action Macros?

Raise messages basically boil down to "Other healers and raise capable members of the party, I am raising this person so don't waste your Swiftcast."

They can also communicate if this is a hard rez (no Swiftcast) and will therefore take time.

They tell you who scraped you off the floor so you have a suggestion of who to give your commendation. (This is why I appreciate others using them, personally).

They communicate part of a mechanic that another player might not know. The classic example was Paladin's Divine Veil, where they needed to be healed for the action to be completed. Although Divine Veil no longer requires it.

Creating and Editing Macros

Click the System button.

Click User Macros.

Select an empty macro or one you would like to overwrite.

In the opened macro, click the macro icon.

Select an icon to represent this macro. Or, use /micon in the macro itself to use the icon for the action.

Enter a descriptive name in the Name field, like Sage Hard Rez.

In the main body of the macro, you will enter the code of the macro, making sure each line is its own line.

Macro Components

/ac tells the system you are starting a command about an action.

"Action Name" says which action you want to use. This is job specific so you will need to make a rez macro for each job as it is Egeiro vs Raise vs Resurrection vs Ascend etc.

<wait.#> is telling the system to wait before executing the next line. The number tells the system how many seconds to wait. How long you need depends on your computer, internet connection and how congested the immediate area in game is. 2 seconds works for my current machine very well, 3 seconds worked better for my old laptop and if I'm at a world boss Fate or hunt train I don't even try to use the macro due to the long wait time needed.

/party tells the system to send the text that follows to the party chat.

<t> tells the system to substitute the name of who you are currently targeting in whatever message you are sending in chat.

<#> The number will tell the system who to target based on the position in the party list. So a 3 will target the 3rd person on the party list.

/micon "Action Name" will tell the system to give the macro the same icon as the named action.

Optimizing Rez Macro Placement on Your Hotbar

To get the most bang for your buck on your rez macro, I recommend the following order on your hotbar:

[Swiftcast] [Quick Raise Macro] [Raise] [Full Heal Action]

This set up will let you see if Swiftcast is still on cooldown. If it is you can skip your Quick Raise macro and either just click Raise directly or a Long Raise macro (which in that image is the X icon below my Quick Raise macro's icon).

Example Macros

These can all be directly copy and pasted into the body section of the macro editor.

Basic Rez Macro (RDM)

/ac "Swiftcast" <wait.2> /ac "Verraise" <wait.2> /party Raising <t>! Get back in the fight!

Hard (Long) Rez Macro (SGE)

/party Swiftcast is down! Hard rez-ing <t>! <wait.3> /ac "Egeiro"

Rez Macro with Swiftcast and Thin Air (WHM)

This is specific to WHM level 58+ and will allow you to instantly cast Raise with no MP cost to help make the most of your resources.

/ac "Swiftcast" <wait.2> /ac "Thin Air" <wait.2> /ac "Raise" <wait.2> /party Raising <t>! Get back in the fight!

Improvisation Macro (DNC)

Unless your team has played a lot of Dancer themselves they likely won't understand how Improv works. Macro messages are great for telling other people in your party what they need to do to benefit from things like DNC's Improvisation or PLD's Passage of Arms.

/micon "Improvisation" /ac "Improvisation" /party Stand near me until you hear the bongos for healing!

Aetherial Manipulation (for the BLM Who Can't Target Party Members to Literally Save Their Own Lives)

Its me, I'm that black mage. This automatically targets the third person in the party's list which will be the healer in a Light Party or the second tank in a Full Party. You will aether skate over to whoever that is.

/ac "Aetherial Manipulation" <3>

Living Dead Macro (DRK)

This is no longer required as Living Dead has been updated. But it is a good example of making a macro message fun while giving a needed instruction.

Congrats! There are a number of things that unlock here at level 15 that can be fun, exciting, or otherwise helpful. I'll start with the things that unlock with level and then the things that unlock only once story takes you out of your starter city. (I will be making a separate post in a bit about glams and dyes which also fall under this category.)

Hall of the Novice

if for no reason other than gear, please do HotN. the gear it gives you is solid through at least level 20, and still plenty usable up to 25-30 if you get nothing better from MSQ or job quests (tho you should be getting bits from both) and completion gives you a ring that gives you passive exp boost until level 30 plus it gives you exp in and of itself.

Okay I've pleaded, but what is it? HotN is a series of mini tutorials that teach you how to play your class type. there's Tank, Physical DPS, Magic DPS, and Healer classes and the gear for casters (magic dps) is the same as for healers so if you pick up a secondary class of the same basic type (being tank, magic, or physical dps) you can share gear but of another type you'll wanna go in to do the classes again if you want the gear. Which isn't so bad if you want/need to learn it.

You can pick it up the moment you hit level 15 in the adventurer's guild in your city state from the smith. They'll be wearing a light green robe with a special symbol above their head. Like this:

[Image ID: a hyuran man wearing a light green robe and skirt with white pants and boots. above his head is a large sprout symbol on top of a darker green background with a gold border /end ID]

All smiths are dressed similarly because that's the outfit you get from completion (although yours will be grey and undyable. there is a dyable version at level 50, however) and MSQ points you towards an actual physical place in game for the Hall later but you don't need to go there nor is anything there remotely necessary for doing the Hall via these guys.

The Dances

Each nation has a free dance that unlocks at level 15 with no other prerequisite. The emote loops and they're all kinda silly and cute, which is my theory as to why when parties idle in dungeons they often become dance parties.

There aren't a lot of dances or otherwise looping emotes in the game that you can get for little to nothing (most are cash shop now, and others have significant time investments) so if you want a fun dance these are the best option. You're not locked into only one either; you can get each as you go to each nation.

[Image ID: three screenshots of a quest synopsis and the quest's giver. From left to right there's Eral with the quest Saw That One Coming; "Eral has noticed a rare bit of excitement within the serene city-state and would share with you what he knows." Then Dodozan with Good For What Ales You; "There is a hectic flush of panic on Dodozan's face as he looks wildly about Hawker's Round." And then P'molminn with Help me, Lord of the Dance; "When P'molminn approaches, beware, for the impetuous Miqo'te always leads a merry dance." /end ID]

Gridania has the Harvest Dance (chat commands: /harvestdance or /hdance) with the quest given to you from Eral in the adventurer's guild near the door. This is a fun little side to side shuffle.

Limsa Lominsa has the Step Dance (chat commands: /stepdance or /sdance) with the quest given to you by Dodozan in the middle of Hawker's Alley (the markets). In my opinion, this is the silliest of the three quests and all the more reason to do it. It's a fun little, like, simple barrel dance (without the barrel of course).

and Uldah has the Ball Dance (chat commands: /balldance or /bdance) with P'molminn's quest in the Ruby Road Exchange. P'molminn has a soft spot in my heart for this quest and the quest says frankly bonkers shit about Ishgardian noble dances. The dance is a silly stationary little jumping thing.

Post Envoy

here starts the things you can only get once the Envoy quest has been completed but they show up immediately after: The Challenge Log, The Aesthtician, and The Gold Saucer.

The Aesthitician

[Image ID: A picture of S'dhodjbi next to the quest synopsis for Beauty Is Only Scalp Deep; "Rumors of a dangerous madman about town have S'dhodjbi ill at ease." /end ID]

This is unlocked in the Drowning Wench in Limsa Lominsa and gives you access to limited character tweaking for 2K gil (or a Jandelaine token of which there are only two of, counting the one from this quest). You can change hair color and style, face paint and a handful of other options but you can't change race, gender, skin or eye color, height, and the like; those are fantasia only changes.

Also? This man is batshit nuts and I love him so so very much. i'd suggest picking up this quest while you're in Limsa for It's Probably Pirates because it will make you hit all three nations- but MSQ will also do that via the next few quests so just keep it active and take small detours for it.

Challenge Log

While we're in Limsa, and in the Drowning Wench no less, we should also grab the Challenge Log from I'tolwann

[Image ID: screenshot of I'tolwann and the quest synopsis for Rising to the Challenge; "I'tolwann is ill pleased with the carelessness of the Wench's customers." /end ID]

The challenge log has a list of weekly challenges to meet organized by type. They're all pretty reasonable things that even the most casual player can still generally hit a few. The rewards are things like exp and gil which makes it a decent way to start building a bit of gil early on. Challenges get added to it as you get further in the game and/or unlock different things so feel free to check it periodically.

Again this is weekly. Weekly reset is Tuesdays at 12AM PST. That's 3AM EST/ 8AM GMT / 9AM CEST for easier calculation. For most people that means once you wake up on Tuesday the new week has started and the exact time doesn't matter (however I'm not included in that most and I'm sure plenty of others aren't as well.)

The Gold Saucer

This is basically your in game casino. Or your free airship to Ul'dah at the cost of an extra load screen if that's all you use it for. It unlocks from the Well-heeled Youth across from Ul'dah's aetheryte plaza

[image ID: Screenshot of the Well-heeled Youth next to the synopsis for It Could Happen to You; "A well-heeled youth on Emerald Avenue appears to have been the beneficiary of some good fortune, and may not be adverse to sharing it..." /end ID]

There is a lot here and I'mma make a series of posts for it in it's own right but if you are likely to collect glams or emotes you need to unlock it bc there is a lot sold for MGP (Gold Saucer currency) that you cannot get elsewhere but it's important to note that while the GS is modeled as a casino it is near impossible to lose more than you pay.

How the gold Saucer works is basically as a collection of minigames, a few of which have a cost for entry and the payout will at least get you your money back, if not money back plus some, even on a failure. And there is, frankly, a lot of different ways to earn MGP, so I feel like there is something everyone could enjoy, if they wish to engage with the GS.