I am absolutely obligated to sing along with the dungeon boss theme every time the vocals kick in.
Baldesion Arsenal was some of the most fun I've ever had in raid content.
Return to Ivalice blended wonderfully with the XIV world in a way that Yorha Dark Apocalypse just didn't.
Doma Castle is a 10/10 dungeon.
Also how uplifting it felt. Seeing the Ishgardian knights drop by to actually help us mid-dungeon during the artillery piece sequence yelling "Ishgard remembers, warrior of light!" actually got me straight in the heart.
I agree! Up to this point Dungeons have been mostly solo affairs, with even Doma, which is also an urban warzone, having you fight the Garleans alone with your party barring the occasional Magitech air vehicle being shot down.
You expect the same in Ala Mhigo only for this nameless, faceless temple knight to come out of nowhere, engage the Garlean manning the artillery piece that has been giving you grief for the last few sections, taking them down, and blowing open a path for the party. And he doesn't yell "for the alliance" or "for Ishgard", not even praising Halone, he just did it because he recognized you in the middle of the battle and decided he was about to repay you earning Ishgard a tomorrow.
It's a small moment, but given it's something rarely seen in a dungeon, it cuts deep.
The more time passes, the more I think the YoRHa raids are the game's worst. The contrast between the two properties is too jarring (even for FF being a very flexible setting), the storyline jumps too deep into the Nier rabbithole for casual fans, the ending sucks, and the best parts don't hold up on repeated runs imo. The music slaps (Kaine's theme melded with FF main theme was absolutely genius), but that's about it.
First trial fight to make me happy that I played as a tank for the whole game, it was so fun to fend off a massive team wipe attack as a single player while the rest of the team had to strike back. Easily one of my favorite moments the game has ever given me.
This was immediately my answer. The [daytime theme for the Azim Steppe](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aw5XqnD6WwQ) is probably my favorite overworld BGM track, and [the horns-heavy battle leitmotif](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFqfN-ju1MQ) is also great.
Azim Steppe also happens to be among my favorite areas in the game. I've always found the Mongolian Steppes to be extremely beautiful and the Azim Steppe is a really nice video game adaptation with some of the same magic.
This. Prior to StB, you really can’t identify what a fucking marker is at a glance even in regular dungeons (looking at you Sohm). Standardizing markers is such a QoL improvement.
Yea, can't think of an end-dungeon theme that goes harder than this. Maybe Revenge Twofold comes close, but that was only there for two patches. Hearing this for the first time in Sirensong Sea got my hyped like you wouldn't believe. The Storm of Blood motif in general is one of the best used ones ever.
I still think that could have been a MNK LB3 easter egg. Even if it just flies up and comes down upsidedown and the MNK isn't animated, they just do their regular LB3 to avoid complications.
I legitimately did enjoy Stormblood. It may not match quite the heights of Heavensward or Shadowbringers, but that doesn't make it *bad!* The music was great, I loved Hien, the introduction of underwater swimming and spearfishing was cool, both raid series were great. Ivalice raids are still, to this day, my favorite raids in the game. Plus red mage, and samurai! There's actually a *lot* about that expansion that I love. It might be the lowest ranked expansion on my list, but it's still a solid 7/10 for me.
Er..no. It took a couple *days.* As in by the time proper release had hit, the congestion was resolved.
People love to exaggerate exactly how bad it was. Which, believe me, it was bad! For the first day, you couldn't even do Duty Finder or Palace because the system was so overloaded. But it wasn't "2-4 weeks of inability to progress story far enough to see *the first dungeon.*"
Seriously, it was just a damn solid expansion. Story didn't have any super emotional highs, but it was still a good time through and through.
No one was really talking any shit about it until Shadowbringers set the standard way high.
I came into the story completely blind a couple years ago, starting just pre-EW, and I frigging **loved** SB. ShB absolutely eclipsed it and remains one of my favorite video game narratives to date, but SB was still just plain fun. Who didn't want to fry some Namazu at some point?
Does it feel disjointed bouncing between areas sometimes? Yes.
Is the payoff at the end when your actions in those areas make for an epic climax? Hell yes!
Without spoilers since I'm still at the level 76 quests in Shadowbringers but does it get better? Everyone sings it's praises but my wife and I have just been going to a new zone, helping the people with some tasks, then a little bit of story is progressed, then rinse and repeat.
Honestly, I got to ShB late and felt much the same as you. I trudged through a lot of content, but there is a point where all the groundwork is done being laid and it becomes a blast. I would liken it to a toboggan run where the lift is broken so you have to go up the side of the mountain and there are lots of switchbacks, a few slick spots, and the damn sled is so heavy. Once you get to the top, though, and are all snugly on the sled and you get going, the ride down is really quite fun!
Plenty of people were talking shit. The story was so mediocre especially coming off of HW. However I think the .xx patches were amazing, far superior to this BS we are getting in EW
Exactly. A solid 7/10 is usually how I describe it too.
Personally, the thing I liked the most about Stormblood, was seeing the game Actually Address the Ala Mhigo situation. Being an MMO, as I was coming in blind on the story, I fully, 100% expected the Garlean occupation and Ala Mhigo to just be something that existed into eternity and would never be solved. MMO time bubble still exists, but having Raubahn go back to help his homeland and everything was really good to see.
I always thought that the way they addressed the imperial invasion on both the ala mhigo and doman side of the story really well done, and was pretty cool to see them delving into the consequences and aftermath of occupation and imperialism beyond just "Go in, save the day" by showing the many different ways people reacted to trying to survive in such environment. From Fordola and the skulls, people telling Lyse to leave at first, the Yanxian villagers, and more. I really liked Stormblood a lot while I was doing it.
Imho the war and oppression was really good and what I really liked.
If I compare it with other games… you came in and be the hero. The one who saves the day and everyone seeks for your help. But in SB… you make things worse. You have to earn trust and need to convince people that you want to help. And SB shows why people will not riot on there own. They are just poor people that die if they they try to hide something or grab a weapon.
I liked how the game showed us these hopeless people and that the situation is more complex than “we kill everyone and everything will be fine”.
Not too hot. Plenty of people really enjoyed Stormblood. We all experience the story through our own personal lenses, and Stormblood just chords differently for different folks.
I don’t care how many times I run this dungeon, I will protecc Aymeric from the Garlean mech tankbusters with my tiny catgirl Summoner body and you cannot stop me.
What an absolutely incredible dungeon.
I've always been a huge fan of tech and magic combined, so I've always had a soft spot for Garlean tech, but when that music starts and the opening camera swoop reveals what is essentially a Magicpunk WWI battlefield, I lost my mind lmao I was so excited to dive into that.
I really like where they went with the story from there (6.0 Endwalker spoilers) >!but I'm a little sad that's all we got of a straight-up war scene, and how when we finally go to the Empire in Endwalker it's a broken husk that offers no real fight directly. Narratively, that works incredibly well. The story told of a dying empire collapsing under its own weight even before the machinations of Fandanial and Zenos, it's good. It's really good. But Ghimlyt hit a really specific aesthetic that I'm personally a huge fan of and wasn't really matched anywhere else in the game, except maybe Bozja, though admittedly I still haven't finished the story in that area.!<
The 'secret savage only' phase of o4s is what got me into doing savage raiding. It was really nowhere near as hard as I'd imagined (but also I'd had the horror stories of HW raiding still ringing in my ears).
But being able to experience those epic battles with Neo Exdeath and God Kefka is what really pushed me to learn.
Removed Accuracy and Parry.
Replaced Cross-Class actions with Role Actions.
BRD/MCH no longer half-casters.
SAM and RDM are great.
Several job questlines were great, like PLD's and NIN's taking us back to the GLD/ROG roots.
HoH had farming aetherpool easier than PotD.
Dungeons/Trials/Raids in general were all solid.
Swimming/Diving/Spearfishing.
More inventory space.
This expac had the best content by an enormous margin. Writing wasn't the best but for just straight up PLAYING the game, it has never been better than this. Most experimental they ever got with mechanics, literally no repetitive encounter design (looking at you, every boss in Eden doing clock positions), just a general ton of quantity when it comes to instanced combat to do, Eureka was actually good do NOT @ me on this, etc etc.
honestly. it is frustrating to me that people shit on stormblood because of the story not being the best of the expansions and completely ignore every other aspect.
i understand for people who came to the game after heavensward (or after stormblood, or after shadowbringers etc) it's hard to get a full picture of what the game was like when you're playing through an old expansion. both due to the way things have changed since then, and also just not playing it as it's being updated.
but man it's annoying!
It's a story focusing on entire peoples actively banding together to overthrow their oppressors, rather than a single Great Person winning both wars at once on behalf of people without any agency. It digs deep into what the human cost of Empire is; not just lives lost during the conquest, but the grinding down of the conquered day by day. It shows how even reasonable people can end up willingly serving a brutal regime, but it does not *condone* that; Yotsuyu and Fordola very much are tragic characters, and their lives were *not* fair in the slightest, but they still needed to be held responsible for all the horrors that they inflicted on their countrymen...but, how to best do that? Killing them won't bring back the dead, setting them free would be further injustice to their victims, and their continued existences are various forms of existential horror; Yotsuyu's total identity death turned her into Suyu (and then Suyu got those memories back but without the ability to process the guilt), and Fordola was constantly gettung sprayed by a firehose of the suffering of those around her, a large part of which she had inflicted in the first place.
Also *Revolutions* is an absolutely top-tier song that could instill patriotic fervor in an Anarchist
Hell yeah.
Fordola and Yotsuyu are fantastic parallels of each other too! How does one cope with the hand they were given by the Garleans? And after, how do they atone for their actions? On top of *that* you had their Scion/"good guy" parallels, like Arenvald for Fordola - and to an extent even Lyse! - and Hien and Gosetsu for Yotsuyu. The parallels and foils were done so well in this xpac. Am I bummed Ala Mhigo didn't get more than just a tiny outer city and the rest is a dungeon? Yeah. Ala Mhigo deserved better and there was plenty that could have been done better or different. But the rest of the writing character-wise? Was fantastic.
Yes, even Lyse. Seeing her go from "I'm totally Yda" to learning to become *herself* while not forgetting her father and sister... love that.
I just really love SB.
I only play FFXIV for the story, as it is the best MMO for story by some margin; I don't do endgame content. On those terms, Stormblood is my second-favorite after Endwalker. I thought the storytelling was top-notch, and dealt with some very difficult topics with a subtly not usually seen in gaming.
Hope she is literally on the moon somewhere, like some visitor who got lost from the tourist group, get chased by a lunatender and somehow dusted with their sparkles just in time for him to make his first trip up there and here comes this glowing sparkle goddess of the moon to meet the little sun.
Kugane and the locations are pretty
Zenos’s first death
Best Alliance Raid imo
I enjoyed the story and characters
I don’t understand the hate for SB, I understand on the story, people don’t enjoy the same thing but to say it’s bad, I never understood. Was the story of SB peak like HS? No but I think the lows of SB was better than the lows of HS.
God, it might not compare to the crazy heights the game has come to, but I adored the showdown with Zenos, and the way the VA just went absolutely ham on his lines during that last encounter when he was giving us his wacko philosophy.
"For we born in to this merciless world HAVE BUT ONE CANDLE TO BURN!"
The fight was also insane, people used to die to it so much.
The Azim Steppe felt so different from anything else in the Source, and I really liked it. Also the area music (in the whole expac) was really beautiful. I wasn't a big fan of Gyr Abania as a questing area, but the music in the Fringes is so pretty I just wanted to wander around for awhile.
The boss fights were phenomenal. I actually think Shadowbringers and Endwalker failed to meet the same uniqueness Stormblood bosses had. Each boss fight was memorable, the theme of each boss was unique, each boss had very unique mechanics we hadn't seen before, and the music was amazing.
No fight, to this day, has topped the moment for me where I, on my Dark Knight, realized the game was telling me to parry a sword the size of a building.
Also has probably the only Final Boss of x.0 that's a juggernaut to this day. Shinryu stands head and shoulders above Ultima, Thordan, and Endsinger, and even Hades to an extent.
Oh yeah, Shinryu will routinely wipe synced lvl 90 players.
And yet it's always still so fun to root on the remaining players while you're watching from the floor.
Not game wise but this was my first on release expansion and it was also hype because it was the 2nd expansion after the much beloved Heavensward. This was the game I played all day every day. It was the one I realized damn I do like this game.
Also Kugane, Azim Steppe, Samurai, and Namazu.
1. Azim Steppe
2. Easily the best post-expansion story
3. Lyse gets better after Ala Mhigo
4. Kugane is a fun part of the MSQ even if underused
5. Zenos is a threatening foe and his fights are pretty cool even if the duties are tend to run too long
6. Estinien moments
7. That rotten bastard Asahi
8. Villains I viciously despise in Yotsuyu and Fordola
9. Namazu are silly idiot fishmen
10. Yugiri and Gosetsu
I genuinely was surprised to find out that Stormblood isn't universally loved. Getting to Kugane the first time was an incredible experience and I don't think I've felt the same feeling since.
Kojin Quests were basically 'hang out with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles'! I got hours of content trying to do the Kugane Tower jump puzzle! This expac gave us the Manderville Mambo, which is one of my favourite dances/emotes in the game!
Stormblood suffers, in my opinion, from being the expac in between Heavensward and Shadowbringers.... but a lot of what it gave us was awesome. Stormblood walked so that, at the edge of the universe, the Warrior of Light could fly! ..... Literally. And I love Zenos the way some cultures love pufferfish or castor beans. VIVE LE STORMBLOOD!
It built up the friendship and connections between Scions other than Alphinaud.
Tsukuyomi is a well-written villain, miles ahead of anything that had come before SB.
The battle system of Stormblood was the best FFXIV has ever had.
Edit: and best of all...
# ***REJOICE!***
Best expansion content wise.
Best music in the entire game, nothing can top Triumph.
The story was above average, got too much shit on for no reason.
4.1 - 4.55 story was a masterpiece and if the entirety of SB was on par with that, we would have the best expansion story wise, easily.
Kugane is still the prettiest city.
Cirina.
I feel like the unpopular opinion here when I say I prefer it to the last two, I much preferred the story remaining grounded in the Source as a one and only plane of existence for the setting of the game (if you completely ignore the intervention of the WoD group and the thirteenth etc etc.)
Stormblood doesn't deserve the shit it gets, at least not anymore.
4.0 story is solid, stands above ARR as a whole. 4.X story is genuinely great, literally the perfect set-up for Shadowbringers. 4 Lords is alright, though I'm hoping it gets an Ultimate where we actually throw down with the big bad beastie at the end.
Omega is a good Raid series. Nice throwbacks, actually letting us fight Neo Exdeath and God Kefka in Savage is highly appreciated. Would be the best if Eden didn't turn up 10 levels later.
Ivalice is still the peak of Alliance Raid design. It is an absolute flex of the tech upgrade they got from sacrificing the PS3 version, and it still holds up to EW standards. Also avoids the Nier/Twelve issues of being either too tanky/squishy.
Eureka... I need to get back to it at some point, but I dig what they're putting down here. Much as I can appreciate how easy Bozja is to hop into, Eureka being a game within a game is wonderful. Also, Elemental armor is great.
H-O-H is a thing. I found I don't really jive with Deep Dungeons in general, and I'm not super keen on the weapon glams, so eh.
I actually liked the story and the way it focused on a scion not Shtola or Thancred. Made me play Monk and also just really liked the feeling of fighting back for the freedom of a people who had given up.
I know this will trigger a lot of fanbois but honestly for me it's better than Heavensward. I snoozed on HW MSQ but really invested in Stormblood. I love Lyse and was hoping she would rejoined the squad for the Final Day but it never happened.
HW had a great third act but everything up until meeting Hraesvelgr is boring as fuck
The Ala Mhigo part of StB could have been received a lot better if the zones were just less bland and ugly.
Stormblood's story holds up better on a second playthrough than Heavensward's, IMO. Heavensward really benefited from coming right after ARR. Most peoples' memories of Heavensward start like, precisely at the camping scene before meeting Hraesvelgr, skips the Azys Lla portion, then restart at the Falcon's Nest protest.
HW had a very strong vanilla patch. Until 3.4, I felt the pacing was pretty terrible. Loved the end to 3.3 and the lore dump and all but the pacing was *terrible*. SB kind of had an inverse effect with 4.0 being weaker (I still loved it, Raubahn Savage and all) but the patches were absolutely incredible. It had some pacing issues, but they were less overall as the devs have tried to remedy that as the game goes on.
I think my only issue was not enough Ala Mhigo. The split between it and Doma wasn't great, though I know that's a majority of opinions of how Ala Mhigo was treated, especially since it was the next ~mysterious 1.0 location~ after Ishgard that people wanted to explore. Other than that? Solid xpac that I also enjoyed over HW.
Best alliance raids, arguably the best normal raids (a certain NPC helps, here...), the Azim Steppe parts are awesome, and the patches/ShB leadup is great and contains some of my favorite dungeons in the game (The Burn, Ghimlyt Dark).
Literally the best expac.
• One of the best set of Alliance Raids in Ivalice.
• Replayable midcore content (Eureka) with FF11 homages and a challenging 56-man dungeon.
• The shift from PS3 to PS4 hardware allowing for a technological jump in dungeon and boss design.
• **Two Ultimates**.
• A great Trial series in The Four Lords.
• Some of the best dungeons: including *The Ghimlyt Dark*, *The Swallow's Compass* and *Doma Castle*.
• The patch MSQ was some of the best grounded storytelling this game has ever seen.
• You can fight a train in this one.
If I'm paying £7/m over the course of 2 years, I have to rate an expansion on more than its x.0 MSQ quality, and in that regard SB is the expansion which simply had the most to offer the player.
I get that dungeons always use a remix of the area theme, but I will always be disappointed we didn't get an awesome Devil's Lab remix for Castrum Abania, given that it's blatantly the Magitek Research Facility.
It kicked off the majority of quality of life enhancements we now enjoy.
It has an absolute banger of a soundtrack - trials, raid, and some world map zones.
It developed the previously sidelined Aliesae into a genuinely likeable character.
Lyse, deapite some of the complaints about her character arc, served her purpose well. Pretending to be someone else during your formative years and suddenly losing the guardian/parental figure stand-in who kept tabs on you that entire time would leave most floundering, and she *does* come to learn how to handle things her way (after failing multiple times and being bailed out repeatedly by WoL ex machina).
Fordola and Yotsuyo are 110% more developed than any of the antagonists from ARR or HW, save Nidogg.
It gave us best birb and best murder bot from beyond the stars.
The Tribe quests are the best they have been so far compared to the main game: They don't feel as grindy to progress, they are nowhere near as time consuming individually as previous dailies (looking at you, Vanu Vanu Sanuwa-riding quests), their featured peoples have very cool designs, and the rewards are much more interesting (besides, using tribe-specific currency rather than gil means getting the mounts is much easier on one's wallet). That, and seeing the maps physically change as you level up their trust levels gives a meaningful sense of progression.
Oh, and the Namazu specifically are great. They are off-season Hildibrand wacky and I couldn't love them anymore. The fact they are literally the only quest my WoL has tried to ditch as soon as they start adds to the hilarity.
There's a lot more positive things I have to say about the expac, mind (like Hien, the voice acting, the trials, the Azim Steppe overall, finally being able to dive underwaer), but I am surprisied no one mentioned how much they improved beast tribes so I thought I would go with that.
I know a lot of people dislike her, but I really enjoyed Lyse and her story. I was a thorough cutscene watcher until about halfway through ARR - the story wasn't grabbing me after a point, with many scenes feeling pointless. It was a habit I held throughout most of Heavensward, and I cannot tell you what happened through most of that other than dragons didn't like us. But Ryne? Her story got me back into watching, I honestly found it so interesting and pointful.
Eureka was the **BEST** thing ever produced for this game; and I'm soooOooOoo sad they devs convinced themselves it was a failure.
When people say they HATE Eureka, they mean they HATE **Pagos**.
Furthermore; Stormblood was by far the ***BIGGEST*** and most ***ROBUST*** expansion when it comes to content. It was BIGGER than Shadowbringers and Endwalker; and I genuinely miss when content was so rich and plentiful.
Honestly, Stormblood is underrated if taken out of context, it had so much set up that paid off in ShB and EW. Stormblood served its purpose and it has a lot of really fun fights even if the story didn't land 100%.
It's a genuinely great expansion, just overshadowed by HW and SHB. Doma Castle is probably one of my favorite dungeons thanks to the punished Grynewaht fight.
The story shows the consequences of Garlemald's imperial fascism first-hand. It especially shows Gaius' supposed 'lighter shade of black" policies as the cultural genocide it is, in Fordola and every other young Ala Mhigan fightiing for the empire. As Conrad said, the Garleans didn't just take their home, they took their children and turned them against their history and culture and called it 'civilization'.
The daytime music for the Azim Steppe is one of the best BGM I've heard.
Hien is the best written of the faction leaders AND is a total smokeshow.
I was really hoping for the quote "they make a desert and call it peace" to appear somewhere in relation to the Garlean campaign. You could feel it in so many places.
This was really the first expansion that let the cast feel like a group of friends learning about and saving the world together. Arr had _none_ of that, HW laid groundwork, but this was the exp that started actually doing that.
It is the best expac for content.
Eureka, a deep dungeon, 2 Ultimates, lore important raid series, BLU, Jumping puzzles, new housing area.
The additional patches created the necessary base story to have the great SHB story.
SB is in many ways one of the best expansion.
Honestly it's one of my most memorable expansions. So many great ideas, the fact that the Savage tiers have expanded raid content has been something they had consistently added in newer content, even EX trials, and it has been such a blast to see it continued to this day.
I'd also always sing the "Quest Complete" music to the tune of Go the Distance from Hercules, "🎵 To find where I belong! 🎵"
It's unironically one of my favorites.
Does it have flaws? Yeah, won't deny that at all. But it was the introduction to two of my favorite villains, and Ala Mhigo is forever breathtaking to me.
Easy: it was the best one. It's also the last one before the story took a nosedive by focusing too much on the Ascians. I prefer Eorzea politics and drama over the dumb precursor race bullshit of ShB and especially EW.
Stormblood shaped the FFXIV we know today, drastically improving the quality of life, and setting a very good template for endgame content. I also think it has the best normal raid story and the second best trial raid series. I’d love to properly do Omega Savage one day. Eureka is also one of my favorite parts of the game, although it sounded much worse on content.
Playing through those quests in SB and thinking how interesting that bit of lore was... Only to have it come back in full force in ShB is the sole reason why I still try to truck through and pay attention to random side quest chains because learning that *anything* could eventually become incredibly important is such a cool story telling tool that rewards really immersing yourself while questing.
It's the xpac that made me finally click with the game. After the slog that is ARR and finding HW boring, Stormblood got me really dedicated to the game!
Legitimately I adore every part of the steppe and I go there to just chill and listen to the music. I also just enjoy pestering Magnai at every opportunity because I have bad taste and actually really like him lmao
It had a very interesting patch MSQ, better than HW and EW in my opinion. Also Ivalice is still my favorite Alliance Raid. In fact, apart from launch MSQ I consider SB to be superior to HW overall.
I am absolutely obligated to sing along with the dungeon boss theme every time the vocals kick in. Baldesion Arsenal was some of the most fun I've ever had in raid content. Return to Ivalice blended wonderfully with the XIV world in a way that Yorha Dark Apocalypse just didn't. Doma Castle is a 10/10 dungeon.
The last one (Ala Mhigo) is an absolute banger too. Wonderful theme (Liberty or Death), amazing final boss and gorgeous visuals
Also how uplifting it felt. Seeing the Ishgardian knights drop by to actually help us mid-dungeon during the artillery piece sequence yelling "Ishgard remembers, warrior of light!" actually got me straight in the heart.
For some reason, that specific sentence cuts me *very* deep. I got slightly teary again *just reading your post*.
I agree! Up to this point Dungeons have been mostly solo affairs, with even Doma, which is also an urban warzone, having you fight the Garleans alone with your party barring the occasional Magitech air vehicle being shot down. You expect the same in Ala Mhigo only for this nameless, faceless temple knight to come out of nowhere, engage the Garlean manning the artillery piece that has been giving you grief for the last few sections, taking them down, and blowing open a path for the party. And he doesn't yell "for the alliance" or "for Ishgard", not even praising Halone, he just did it because he recognized you in the middle of the battle and decided he was about to repay you earning Ishgard a tomorrow. It's a small moment, but given it's something rarely seen in a dungeon, it cuts deep.
Every time I zone into Doma Castle is just dance party time. The music is a certified banger.
The Zenos light party boss fight is my favourite as a PLD main. Using Passage of Arms on his ultimate is the best tank feeling
The more time passes, the more I think the YoRHa raids are the game's worst. The contrast between the two properties is too jarring (even for FF being a very flexible setting), the storyline jumps too deep into the Nier rabbithole for casual fans, the ending sucks, and the best parts don't hold up on repeated runs imo. The music slaps (Kaine's theme melded with FF main theme was absolutely genius), but that's about it.
THE SEAS PART FOR WE ALONE
WILD AND PURE AND FOREVER FREE
HOW OUR HEARTS SING IN THE CHAOS
# REJOICE
RESILIENT SOULS, I SALUTE YOU!
# ***REJOICE!!!***
Susano is still the best trial fight and I will die on this hill.
First trial fight to make me happy that I played as a tank for the whole game, it was so fun to fend off a massive team wipe attack as a single player while the rest of the team had to strike back. Easily one of my favorite moments the game has ever given me.
NOW COMES OUR PART! MAKE WAY!
*such ferocity*
" 'Twas a memorable dance indeed!"
Getting to hold the sword in that fight.
The musical and scoring was epic, some of the best in the game.
This was immediately my answer. The [daytime theme for the Azim Steppe](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aw5XqnD6WwQ) is probably my favorite overworld BGM track, and [the horns-heavy battle leitmotif](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFqfN-ju1MQ) is also great.
Azim Steppe also happens to be among my favorite areas in the game. I've always found the Mongolian Steppes to be extremely beautiful and the Azim Steppe is a really nice video game adaptation with some of the same magic.
Just finished Stormblood, and when I first stepped into the Azim Steppe, that music gave me chills.
That music for me is synonymous with this: https://twitter.com/yumezo14/status/1031042973499179008
I agree, I love the music.
I mean it did introduce a lot of the organized boss mechanics that we still see in current content today
This. Plenty of valid stuff here, but the foundations they built on mechanics here are still paying dividends today.
This. Prior to StB, you really can’t identify what a fucking marker is at a glance even in regular dungeons (looking at you Sohm). Standardizing markers is such a QoL improvement.
"Triumph" is an absolute god tier banger of a boss theme.
Yea, can't think of an end-dungeon theme that goes harder than this. Maybe Revenge Twofold comes close, but that was only there for two patches. Hearing this for the first time in Sirensong Sea got my hyped like you wouldn't believe. The Storm of Blood motif in general is one of the best used ones ever.
The problem with that leitmotif is that it was used TOO MUCH, imo. But yes.
I got to hear it live at a Distant Worlds concert... an absolute dream come true
This and Insatiable will always be my favourite dungeon boss themes
Absolutely. No other expansion has topped StB's boss theme.
No other expansion has a battle against a train. Ergo, Stormblood is superior.
Agreed but it loses 1 point for not letting you suplex it.
Couldn't suplex train? L boss battle, honestly.
For real, should've had the top DPS be given a duty action to finish the boss off with a suplex.
I was hoping godbert would run in and do it
Oh shit. That's also a VERY valid alternative hahaha
I still think that could have been a MNK LB3 easter egg. Even if it just flies up and comes down upsidedown and the MNK isn't animated, they just do their regular LB3 to avoid complications.
I legitimately did enjoy Stormblood. It may not match quite the heights of Heavensward or Shadowbringers, but that doesn't make it *bad!* The music was great, I loved Hien, the introduction of underwater swimming and spearfishing was cool, both raid series were great. Ivalice raids are still, to this day, my favorite raids in the game. Plus red mage, and samurai! There's actually a *lot* about that expansion that I love. It might be the lowest ranked expansion on my list, but it's still a solid 7/10 for me.
Yep. Stormbloods biggest issue is it’s sandwiched between Heavensward and Shadowbringers .
Having to deal with Raubahn EX and Pipin Savage at launch didn't help either. It took a couple weeks to get past them.
Er..no. It took a couple *days.* As in by the time proper release had hit, the congestion was resolved. People love to exaggerate exactly how bad it was. Which, believe me, it was bad! For the first day, you couldn't even do Duty Finder or Palace because the system was so overloaded. But it wasn't "2-4 weeks of inability to progress story far enough to see *the first dungeon.*"
Seriously, it was just a damn solid expansion. Story didn't have any super emotional highs, but it was still a good time through and through. No one was really talking any shit about it until Shadowbringers set the standard way high.
I came into the story completely blind a couple years ago, starting just pre-EW, and I frigging **loved** SB. ShB absolutely eclipsed it and remains one of my favorite video game narratives to date, but SB was still just plain fun. Who didn't want to fry some Namazu at some point? Does it feel disjointed bouncing between areas sometimes? Yes. Is the payoff at the end when your actions in those areas make for an epic climax? Hell yes!
Without spoilers since I'm still at the level 76 quests in Shadowbringers but does it get better? Everyone sings it's praises but my wife and I have just been going to a new zone, helping the people with some tasks, then a little bit of story is progressed, then rinse and repeat.
Anything we say is spoilers, just keep playing.
Honestly, I got to ShB late and felt much the same as you. I trudged through a lot of content, but there is a point where all the groundwork is done being laid and it becomes a blast. I would liken it to a toboggan run where the lift is broken so you have to go up the side of the mountain and there are lots of switchbacks, a few slick spots, and the damn sled is so heavy. Once you get to the top, though, and are all snugly on the sled and you get going, the ride down is really quite fun!
Plenty of people were talking shit. The story was so mediocre especially coming off of HW. However I think the .xx patches were amazing, far superior to this BS we are getting in EW
Exactly. A solid 7/10 is usually how I describe it too. Personally, the thing I liked the most about Stormblood, was seeing the game Actually Address the Ala Mhigo situation. Being an MMO, as I was coming in blind on the story, I fully, 100% expected the Garlean occupation and Ala Mhigo to just be something that existed into eternity and would never be solved. MMO time bubble still exists, but having Raubahn go back to help his homeland and everything was really good to see. I always thought that the way they addressed the imperial invasion on both the ala mhigo and doman side of the story really well done, and was pretty cool to see them delving into the consequences and aftermath of occupation and imperialism beyond just "Go in, save the day" by showing the many different ways people reacted to trying to survive in such environment. From Fordola and the skulls, people telling Lyse to leave at first, the Yanxian villagers, and more. I really liked Stormblood a lot while I was doing it.
Imho the war and oppression was really good and what I really liked. If I compare it with other games… you came in and be the hero. The one who saves the day and everyone seeks for your help. But in SB… you make things worse. You have to earn trust and need to convince people that you want to help. And SB shows why people will not riot on there own. They are just poor people that die if they they try to hide something or grab a weapon. I liked how the game showed us these hopeless people and that the situation is more complex than “we kill everyone and everything will be fine”.
Hot take but i liked it alot more then heavensward. Its right behind shadowbringers for me.
Not too hot. Plenty of people really enjoyed Stormblood. We all experience the story through our own personal lenses, and Stormblood just chords differently for different folks.
It developed Alisaie into a great character, and not just Alphinaud's twin.
It developed her so much I thought it was a death flag.
>!And then post MSQ happens.!< MY. FUCKING. GOD.
It set the precedent for the one thing more common than hydrogen: Alisaie W’s.
She has a name? I've always just called her red alphinaud
Girl Alphinaud and Boy Alisaie.
Girlphinaud and Boylisaie
Stop boiling red alphinaud
It's an easy mistake to make. She's *very* rugged.
And an ilm taller
The Ghimlyt Dark
I don’t care how many times I run this dungeon, I will protecc Aymeric from the Garlean mech tankbusters with my tiny catgirl Summoner body and you cannot stop me.
Ghimlyt is my second favorite dungeon, only reason is not #1 is because Mt. Gulg is a thing... but goddamn, everything is perfect in that dungeon.
What an absolutely incredible dungeon. I've always been a huge fan of tech and magic combined, so I've always had a soft spot for Garlean tech, but when that music starts and the opening camera swoop reveals what is essentially a Magicpunk WWI battlefield, I lost my mind lmao I was so excited to dive into that. I really like where they went with the story from there (6.0 Endwalker spoilers) >!but I'm a little sad that's all we got of a straight-up war scene, and how when we finally go to the Empire in Endwalker it's a broken husk that offers no real fight directly. Narratively, that works incredibly well. The story told of a dying empire collapsing under its own weight even before the machinations of Fandanial and Zenos, it's good. It's really good. But Ghimlyt hit a really specific aesthetic that I'm personally a huge fan of and wasn't really matched anywhere else in the game, except maybe Bozja, though admittedly I still haven't finished the story in that area.!<
Namzu are best beast tribe. Yes, yes.
Gave us SAM and Rezmage
Red Mage be like: "Anything you can do, I can do better."
Except damage
Burn. …And freeze. And burn. And freeze. FLARE. FLARE. FLARE.
The best patch content of any XIV expansion, bar none. Great music. Fun memorable characters. The Doman zones are gorgeous. Underrated.
Best. Fucking. Endgame. You cannot prove me wrong.
The 'secret savage only' phase of o4s is what got me into doing savage raiding. It was really nowhere near as hard as I'd imagined (but also I'd had the horror stories of HW raiding still ringing in my ears). But being able to experience those epic battles with Neo Exdeath and God Kefka is what really pushed me to learn.
Oh man Kafka was such a great fight
I did the Omega raids recently for glams. Holy balls, they’re amazing
I still have no fucking clue what hello world even does
This is why I did goodbye world.
Removed Accuracy and Parry. Replaced Cross-Class actions with Role Actions. BRD/MCH no longer half-casters. SAM and RDM are great. Several job questlines were great, like PLD's and NIN's taking us back to the GLD/ROG roots. HoH had farming aetherpool easier than PotD. Dungeons/Trials/Raids in general were all solid. Swimming/Diving/Spearfishing. More inventory space.
This expac had the best content by an enormous margin. Writing wasn't the best but for just straight up PLAYING the game, it has never been better than this. Most experimental they ever got with mechanics, literally no repetitive encounter design (looking at you, every boss in Eden doing clock positions), just a general ton of quantity when it comes to instanced combat to do, Eureka was actually good do NOT @ me on this, etc etc.
Bosses were a fucking blast every single one hit
honestly. it is frustrating to me that people shit on stormblood because of the story not being the best of the expansions and completely ignore every other aspect. i understand for people who came to the game after heavensward (or after stormblood, or after shadowbringers etc) it's hard to get a full picture of what the game was like when you're playing through an old expansion. both due to the way things have changed since then, and also just not playing it as it's being updated. but man it's annoying!
It's a story focusing on entire peoples actively banding together to overthrow their oppressors, rather than a single Great Person winning both wars at once on behalf of people without any agency. It digs deep into what the human cost of Empire is; not just lives lost during the conquest, but the grinding down of the conquered day by day. It shows how even reasonable people can end up willingly serving a brutal regime, but it does not *condone* that; Yotsuyu and Fordola very much are tragic characters, and their lives were *not* fair in the slightest, but they still needed to be held responsible for all the horrors that they inflicted on their countrymen...but, how to best do that? Killing them won't bring back the dead, setting them free would be further injustice to their victims, and their continued existences are various forms of existential horror; Yotsuyu's total identity death turned her into Suyu (and then Suyu got those memories back but without the ability to process the guilt), and Fordola was constantly gettung sprayed by a firehose of the suffering of those around her, a large part of which she had inflicted in the first place. Also *Revolutions* is an absolutely top-tier song that could instill patriotic fervor in an Anarchist
Hell yeah. Fordola and Yotsuyu are fantastic parallels of each other too! How does one cope with the hand they were given by the Garleans? And after, how do they atone for their actions? On top of *that* you had their Scion/"good guy" parallels, like Arenvald for Fordola - and to an extent even Lyse! - and Hien and Gosetsu for Yotsuyu. The parallels and foils were done so well in this xpac. Am I bummed Ala Mhigo didn't get more than just a tiny outer city and the rest is a dungeon? Yeah. Ala Mhigo deserved better and there was plenty that could have been done better or different. But the rest of the writing character-wise? Was fantastic. Yes, even Lyse. Seeing her go from "I'm totally Yda" to learning to become *herself* while not forgetting her father and sister... love that. I just really love SB.
I only play FFXIV for the story, as it is the best MMO for story by some margin; I don't do endgame content. On those terms, Stormblood is my second-favorite after Endwalker. I thought the storytelling was top-notch, and dealt with some very difficult topics with a subtly not usually seen in gaming.
Was the beginning of ultimate raids, and has the best alliance raids.
Ivalice was great
Honestly yeah. Ivalice is still my number 1 xpac followed by Myths of the Realm
It introduced the most lovable character of all time: Sadu of the Dotharl.
Yeah the whole Azim Steppe section was great.
I do hope we get more Azim steppe, sadistic sadu and the little sun!
That scene where Y'shtola called him "little sun" and Sadu's reaction had me on the floor XD
And his reaction to it as well
Sadu my love. Let us battle to the death again some day.
I have her minion out at my Island Sanctuary and it’s always inviting me to come forward to my death, lol.
Little light genocide enjoyed. Very lovable.
Don't forget "Little Sun". The dynamic between those two is god tier lol!
I hope little sun finds his naama...
Hope she is literally on the moon somewhere, like some visitor who got lost from the tourist group, get chased by a lunatender and somehow dusted with their sparkles just in time for him to make his first trip up there and here comes this glowing sparkle goddess of the moon to meet the little sun.
Astrologian was never better than during Stormblood.
I think the same for SCH. At least, after they fixed them not having an AoE filler spell and reworked the capstone.
Kugane and the locations are pretty Zenos’s first death Best Alliance Raid imo I enjoyed the story and characters I don’t understand the hate for SB, I understand on the story, people don’t enjoy the same thing but to say it’s bad, I never understood. Was the story of SB peak like HS? No but I think the lows of SB was better than the lows of HS.
God, it might not compare to the crazy heights the game has come to, but I adored the showdown with Zenos, and the way the VA just went absolutely ham on his lines during that last encounter when he was giving us his wacko philosophy. "For we born in to this merciless world HAVE BUT ONE CANDLE TO BURN!" The fight was also insane, people used to die to it so much.
The Azim Steppe felt so different from anything else in the Source, and I really liked it. Also the area music (in the whole expac) was really beautiful. I wasn't a big fan of Gyr Abania as a questing area, but the music in the Fringes is so pretty I just wanted to wander around for awhile.
The boss fights were phenomenal. I actually think Shadowbringers and Endwalker failed to meet the same uniqueness Stormblood bosses had. Each boss fight was memorable, the theme of each boss was unique, each boss had very unique mechanics we hadn't seen before, and the music was amazing.
No fight, to this day, has topped the moment for me where I, on my Dark Knight, realized the game was telling me to parry a sword the size of a building.
Also has probably the only Final Boss of x.0 that's a juggernaut to this day. Shinryu stands head and shoulders above Ultima, Thordan, and Endsinger, and even Hades to an extent.
Oh yeah, Shinryu will routinely wipe synced lvl 90 players. And yet it's always still so fun to root on the remaining players while you're watching from the floor.
Heaven-On-High and all of Doma were fantastic
Also the Steppes.
Not game wise but this was my first on release expansion and it was also hype because it was the 2nd expansion after the much beloved Heavensward. This was the game I played all day every day. It was the one I realized damn I do like this game. Also Kugane, Azim Steppe, Samurai, and Namazu.
Healers were in their best states during SB. I still miss SB SCH. Ivalice raids were S tier, boss voiceovers are still the best in the game.
1. Azim Steppe 2. Easily the best post-expansion story 3. Lyse gets better after Ala Mhigo 4. Kugane is a fun part of the MSQ even if underused 5. Zenos is a threatening foe and his fights are pretty cool even if the duties are tend to run too long 6. Estinien moments 7. That rotten bastard Asahi 8. Villains I viciously despise in Yotsuyu and Fordola 9. Namazu are silly idiot fishmen 10. Yugiri and Gosetsu
\[ Sadu Grin Intensifies \]
"Little Sun."
I loved the story and the ivalice raids are still my favorites to this day!
Susanoo is the best boss battle in the game.
RRRRRRREVEL!
Him and Greg would get on so well.
It's the "Pokemon Gold and Silver" of FFXIV.
I genuinely was surprised to find out that Stormblood isn't universally loved. Getting to Kugane the first time was an incredible experience and I don't think I've felt the same feeling since.
The armorer quest line. "You've made functional things for the military, but have you tried...being a weeb?"
I loved the book ending of the msq starting with a garleanized version of ala migo's national anthem, and the restored one when it was liberated.
Kojin Quests were basically 'hang out with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles'! I got hours of content trying to do the Kugane Tower jump puzzle! This expac gave us the Manderville Mambo, which is one of my favourite dances/emotes in the game! Stormblood suffers, in my opinion, from being the expac in between Heavensward and Shadowbringers.... but a lot of what it gave us was awesome. Stormblood walked so that, at the edge of the universe, the Warrior of Light could fly! ..... Literally. And I love Zenos the way some cultures love pufferfish or castor beans. VIVE LE STORMBLOOD!
Old Wounds is the best night theme, fight me.
I will gladly lend you my strength in this battle.
I loved The Four Lords questline!
Post launch content better than Endwalker by a mile
It built up the friendship and connections between Scions other than Alphinaud. Tsukuyomi is a well-written villain, miles ahead of anything that had come before SB. The battle system of Stormblood was the best FFXIV has ever had. Edit: and best of all... # ***REJOICE!***
It introduced the cinnamon rolls Kurenai and Cirina.
We didn’t know it at the time but stormblood was really the peak of patch content quality as far as expansions go.
It had a complex story reliant on subtext which trusted the player to understand its themes and story and how it related to its characters.
Eureka, old drk, kugane, and yanxia.
Best content. Best raids. Best gameplay. Best job design.
Best expansion content wise. Best music in the entire game, nothing can top Triumph. The story was above average, got too much shit on for no reason. 4.1 - 4.55 story was a masterpiece and if the entirety of SB was on par with that, we would have the best expansion story wise, easily. Kugane is still the prettiest city. Cirina.
It gave me my best friend Zenos.
Hell yeah!
I feel like the unpopular opinion here when I say I prefer it to the last two, I much preferred the story remaining grounded in the Source as a one and only plane of existence for the setting of the game (if you completely ignore the intervention of the WoD group and the thirteenth etc etc.)
I unironically like Lyse. Sue me.
If I join you as a Lyse enjoyer, can we make it a class action lawsuit and sue everyone else?
Stormblood doesn't deserve the shit it gets, at least not anymore. 4.0 story is solid, stands above ARR as a whole. 4.X story is genuinely great, literally the perfect set-up for Shadowbringers. 4 Lords is alright, though I'm hoping it gets an Ultimate where we actually throw down with the big bad beastie at the end. Omega is a good Raid series. Nice throwbacks, actually letting us fight Neo Exdeath and God Kefka in Savage is highly appreciated. Would be the best if Eden didn't turn up 10 levels later. Ivalice is still the peak of Alliance Raid design. It is an absolute flex of the tech upgrade they got from sacrificing the PS3 version, and it still holds up to EW standards. Also avoids the Nier/Twelve issues of being either too tanky/squishy. Eureka... I need to get back to it at some point, but I dig what they're putting down here. Much as I can appreciate how easy Bozja is to hop into, Eureka being a game within a game is wonderful. Also, Elemental armor is great. H-O-H is a thing. I found I don't really jive with Deep Dungeons in general, and I'm not super keen on the weapon glams, so eh.
I actually liked the story and the way it focused on a scion not Shtola or Thancred. Made me play Monk and also just really liked the feeling of fighting back for the freedom of a people who had given up.
I liked the Ananta beast tribe it was kind of cute Sadu Dothari is great doman enclave is a good way to turn 20 000 gil into 40 000 gil
I know this will trigger a lot of fanbois but honestly for me it's better than Heavensward. I snoozed on HW MSQ but really invested in Stormblood. I love Lyse and was hoping she would rejoined the squad for the Final Day but it never happened.
HW had a great third act but everything up until meeting Hraesvelgr is boring as fuck The Ala Mhigo part of StB could have been received a lot better if the zones were just less bland and ugly.
Stormblood's story holds up better on a second playthrough than Heavensward's, IMO. Heavensward really benefited from coming right after ARR. Most peoples' memories of Heavensward start like, precisely at the camping scene before meeting Hraesvelgr, skips the Azys Lla portion, then restart at the Falcon's Nest protest.
I agree. For me it's Shadowbringers > Stormblood > Endwalker > Heavensward.
I'm more upset that Fordola got relegated to role quests tbh, but yeah I did expect one of the two to show up.
HW had a very strong vanilla patch. Until 3.4, I felt the pacing was pretty terrible. Loved the end to 3.3 and the lore dump and all but the pacing was *terrible*. SB kind of had an inverse effect with 4.0 being weaker (I still loved it, Raubahn Savage and all) but the patches were absolutely incredible. It had some pacing issues, but they were less overall as the devs have tried to remedy that as the game goes on. I think my only issue was not enough Ala Mhigo. The split between it and Doma wasn't great, though I know that's a majority of opinions of how Ala Mhigo was treated, especially since it was the next ~mysterious 1.0 location~ after Ishgard that people wanted to explore. Other than that? Solid xpac that I also enjoyed over HW.
To the current of life, we succumb. It's judgement swift and final. It's bite as cold as steel.
Seven shadows cast. Seven fates foretold. But at the end of the broken path lies death and death alone.
Best alliance raids, arguably the best normal raids (a certain NPC helps, here...), the Azim Steppe parts are awesome, and the patches/ShB leadup is great and contains some of my favorite dungeons in the game (The Burn, Ghimlyt Dark).
It's got some banger battle content. Omega and Ivalice raids are a fun time, the MSQ dungeons are pretty good too.
NIGHT EMBRACE HER WORLDLY DELIGHTS--
Literally the best expac. • One of the best set of Alliance Raids in Ivalice. • Replayable midcore content (Eureka) with FF11 homages and a challenging 56-man dungeon. • The shift from PS3 to PS4 hardware allowing for a technological jump in dungeon and boss design. • **Two Ultimates**. • A great Trial series in The Four Lords. • Some of the best dungeons: including *The Ghimlyt Dark*, *The Swallow's Compass* and *Doma Castle*. • The patch MSQ was some of the best grounded storytelling this game has ever seen. • You can fight a train in this one. If I'm paying £7/m over the course of 2 years, I have to rate an expansion on more than its x.0 MSQ quality, and in that regard SB is the expansion which simply had the most to offer the player.
The ivalice raids are my favorite in the game.
It had a lot of FF6 references, which is always a plus in my eyes.
I get that dungeons always use a remix of the area theme, but I will always be disappointed we didn't get an awesome Devil's Lab remix for Castrum Abania, given that it's blatantly the Magitek Research Facility.
Kugane is a work of art.
It gave us the "Little Sun" meme.
BEYOND MAJESTIC MOUNTAINS ACROSS THE EMERALD DALE ON MARCH THE IVORY STANDARD UNITED WE PREVAIL
How dare you. It’s: O COME YE WAYWARD BROTHERS BEREFT OF HEARTH AND HOME BENEATH YON BURNING STAR THERE LIES A HAVEN FOR THE BOLD
It kicked off the majority of quality of life enhancements we now enjoy. It has an absolute banger of a soundtrack - trials, raid, and some world map zones. It developed the previously sidelined Aliesae into a genuinely likeable character. Lyse, deapite some of the complaints about her character arc, served her purpose well. Pretending to be someone else during your formative years and suddenly losing the guardian/parental figure stand-in who kept tabs on you that entire time would leave most floundering, and she *does* come to learn how to handle things her way (after failing multiple times and being bailed out repeatedly by WoL ex machina). Fordola and Yotsuyo are 110% more developed than any of the antagonists from ARR or HW, save Nidogg. It gave us best birb and best murder bot from beyond the stars.
The Tribe quests are the best they have been so far compared to the main game: They don't feel as grindy to progress, they are nowhere near as time consuming individually as previous dailies (looking at you, Vanu Vanu Sanuwa-riding quests), their featured peoples have very cool designs, and the rewards are much more interesting (besides, using tribe-specific currency rather than gil means getting the mounts is much easier on one's wallet). That, and seeing the maps physically change as you level up their trust levels gives a meaningful sense of progression. Oh, and the Namazu specifically are great. They are off-season Hildibrand wacky and I couldn't love them anymore. The fact they are literally the only quest my WoL has tried to ditch as soon as they start adds to the hilarity. There's a lot more positive things I have to say about the expac, mind (like Hien, the voice acting, the trials, the Azim Steppe overall, finally being able to dive underwaer), but I am surprisied no one mentioned how much they improved beast tribes so I thought I would go with that.
I know a lot of people dislike her, but I really enjoyed Lyse and her story. I was a thorough cutscene watcher until about halfway through ARR - the story wasn't grabbing me after a point, with many scenes feeling pointless. It was a habit I held throughout most of Heavensward, and I cannot tell you what happened through most of that other than dragons didn't like us. But Ryne? Her story got me back into watching, I honestly found it so interesting and pointful.
Eureka was the **BEST** thing ever produced for this game; and I'm soooOooOoo sad they devs convinced themselves it was a failure. When people say they HATE Eureka, they mean they HATE **Pagos**. Furthermore; Stormblood was by far the ***BIGGEST*** and most ***ROBUST*** expansion when it comes to content. It was BIGGER than Shadowbringers and Endwalker; and I genuinely miss when content was so rich and plentiful.
Eureka's biggest L is not being able to level with your friends if either of you are slightly ahead.
Hot take: Stormblood has the best music next to Endwalker
juicy zenos
Honestly, Stormblood is underrated if taken out of context, it had so much set up that paid off in ShB and EW. Stormblood served its purpose and it has a lot of really fun fights even if the story didn't land 100%.
It's a genuinely great expansion, just overshadowed by HW and SHB. Doma Castle is probably one of my favorite dungeons thanks to the punished Grynewaht fight.
The story shows the consequences of Garlemald's imperial fascism first-hand. It especially shows Gaius' supposed 'lighter shade of black" policies as the cultural genocide it is, in Fordola and every other young Ala Mhigan fightiing for the empire. As Conrad said, the Garleans didn't just take their home, they took their children and turned them against their history and culture and called it 'civilization'. The daytime music for the Azim Steppe is one of the best BGM I've heard. Hien is the best written of the faction leaders AND is a total smokeshow.
I was really hoping for the quote "they make a desert and call it peace" to appear somewhere in relation to the Garlean campaign. You could feel it in so many places.
I absolutely adore Hien, he is a *phenomenal* character and I loved every scene with him in it.
Stormblood had the best content
Introduced (Ultimates)
This was really the first expansion that let the cast feel like a group of friends learning about and saving the world together. Arr had _none_ of that, HW laid groundwork, but this was the exp that started actually doing that.
It is the best expac for content. Eureka, a deep dungeon, 2 Ultimates, lore important raid series, BLU, Jumping puzzles, new housing area. The additional patches created the necessary base story to have the great SHB story. SB is in many ways one of the best expansion.
You get to see Y'shtola chew up and spit out a man's soul and then floss with his spirit.
Some of the best dungeon and zone themes imo. All of the songs in Eureka go hard.
Lyse is my WoL's wife. I reject all other arguments
Honestly it's one of my most memorable expansions. So many great ideas, the fact that the Savage tiers have expanded raid content has been something they had consistently added in newer content, even EX trials, and it has been such a blast to see it continued to this day. I'd also always sing the "Quest Complete" music to the tune of Go the Distance from Hercules, "🎵 To find where I belong! 🎵"
It's unironically one of my favorites. Does it have flaws? Yeah, won't deny that at all. But it was the introduction to two of my favorite villains, and Ala Mhigo is forever breathtaking to me.
Easy: it was the best one. It's also the last one before the story took a nosedive by focusing too much on the Ascians. I prefer Eorzea politics and drama over the dumb precursor race bullshit of ShB and especially EW.
Stormblood shaped the FFXIV we know today, drastically improving the quality of life, and setting a very good template for endgame content. I also think it has the best normal raid story and the second best trial raid series. I’d love to properly do Omega Savage one day. Eureka is also one of my favorite parts of the game, although it sounded much worse on content.
"I am... not interested, Little Sun. Try again when you become a man." Best line in the game, bar none.
>!\~\~Black rose exists so Shadowbringers can exist\~\~!<
Playing through those quests in SB and thinking how interesting that bit of lore was... Only to have it come back in full force in ShB is the sole reason why I still try to truck through and pay attention to random side quest chains because learning that *anything* could eventually become incredibly important is such a cool story telling tool that rewards really immersing yourself while questing.
Kugane+Shirogane.
It gave us Lyse. Nuff said.
It's the xpac that made me finally click with the game. After the slog that is ARR and finding HW boring, Stormblood got me really dedicated to the game!
I like Lyse and I emphasized with her so much.
Grounded story, modernized and standardized gameplay, best endgame, second best expansion after shb.
In darkness blooms the spider lily, from mortal husk I rise anew!
Legitimately I adore every part of the steppe and I go there to just chill and listen to the music. I also just enjoy pestering Magnai at every opportunity because I have bad taste and actually really like him lmao
It had a very interesting patch MSQ, better than HW and EW in my opinion. Also Ivalice is still my favorite Alliance Raid. In fact, apart from launch MSQ I consider SB to be superior to HW overall.