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Well hello there! It's sure been a hot minute since the last time this was updated. Almost a full calendar year has passed. In fact, the last time I updated this, the ongoing pandemic was only a mysterious disease picking up steam in China.
A lot has changed in 356 days. No that's not a typo. Keeping things relevant to FFXIV, three full sized patches have come and gone, an entire year's worth of limited time events, and the Shadowbringers story - still relatively fresh at the time - has come to a close with the arrival of patch 5.3.
There was also one more thing. Something Yoship said shortly after I started this LP originally.
Yoship posted:
As a side note, we're working on adjusting the A Realm Reborn main scenario to be more compact, and are aiming for patch 5.3.
It died before because the rework took the wind out of my sails. I've since played through the entire reworked 2.0 story on an alt and have returned to show you all what changed and what has remained the same. The answer, of course, is less than you would hope but more than you might expect.
Primarily, Ginger has changed. Since the LP started, I have realized that I hate the way Black Mage plays. Hate, perhaps, is too weak of a term for how much I loathe its playstyle. And doing a LP with a job that I despise would just wind up with it being abandoned again. So I was forced to recreate Ginger.
To avoid having to do as much rework, I had to pick another Ul'dah class to start as. And while I like the way Paladin plays, it's not my tank of choice. And Monk is a lot of fun! So we get to now have a Ginger that beats things to death with her fists. That's pretty cool!
This update is going to be something of a clip show. I'm going to speed through the reworked Ul'dah intro up until where the last update left off while also taking some time to discuss how PGL/MNK works.
I like this new version of Ginger better. You don't see a lot of darker skin tones in the game outside of catgirls. Pale, fair-skinned characters are twelve for ten cents. I should know... I have several myself!
For the most part, cutscenes weren't changed. So the Blades are still corrupt as fuck and will plant drugs on people to shake them down for bribes.
18 mails waiting. Told you I'm gonna be fast forwarding through a lot of this. My recording this morning dropped a fuckton of frames and I don't especially feel like replaying the 4 hour opening to get screenshots for something that I'm speeding through anyway. Anyway, we're on our way to the pugilist's guild... we've been there before, if you recall.
It was reviewing my footage when I realized just how badly frames got dropped. For the most part it's not a problem for the catchup stuff because it's just a clipshow. But for this? Yeah. I need to show it off. So, Brendori also returns. The most recent patch added the ability to replay class quests through the New Game+ feature, something I'm going to be making quite heavy use of throughout the LP.
So let's take advantage of that to show off the first 3 PGL quests!
Greetings and welcome to the Pugilists' Guild! We pugilists are specialists in hand-to-hand combat. Through rigorous training, we forge devastating weapons of our fists and feet, which we employ to great effect in battle. There is no better place in all the realm to train in our discipline than here. If you would walk the path of the pugilist, I highly recommend you add your name to our roll. What say you, friend?
I want to be a pugilist!
A decision you'll not regret! But before we proceed to the paperwork, it is essential that you know something of our guild's storied past. Nobody ever reads this text and everyone just clicks through it as fast as they possibly can because nobody's interested in any of this and it never comes up again. I bet you at home reading this LP update aren't even reading all this! I'm just typing out something that looks about the right length. I could just copy the text from the wiki but I can't be bothered. Whoops, better wrap this up before the readers get suspicious.
I've told this tale a thousand times, but gods, it never fails to fan the flames of my fighting spirit! Now then, before we can proceed with your enrollment, you must first obtain the guildmaster's approval. Let me know when you are ready to meet him.
New Game+ mode is billed as "relive your past adventures" so you don't get further rewards for completing it. In this case Bren is missing out on a shirt and a pair of fists, something she needs neither of.
Go talk to Master Hamon. He used to be famous you know. Hamon Holyfist! I'm still cutting her dialogue short because we will probably never talk to her again in the LP and all these introductions are the same for every class.
Heh heh... Past time you got your arse back here. Well? What did the dancer have to say about my...proposition?
Eh!? Y-You're not my errand boy! There's no dancer-there never was! I'm not doing anything indecent, I swear to the gods! ...What? You're here to enroll? Ohoho, well, why didn't you say so sooner!? In my capacity as guildmaster, I would be glad to give you a primer on the art of hand-to-hand combat!
Doubtless you already know this, but we pugilists fight with our fists and feet. While these don't deal as much damage as a blade, it hardly matters when you can land several blows for each swing of the sword. What we lack in destructive force, we more than make up for in speed and cunning. Under my guidance, not only will you master striking techniques...
Hamon punched the air in front of Bren and it shocked her. Miqo'te have expressive ears 
You'll also learn to string them together to deliver an endless flurry of blows! Only through such fierce combinations can a pugilist realize his potential! Yaaarrrgh!
<cough> <wheeze> Crikey, I'm spent from all this talking. You ought to speak more, lass-it'd give me a chance to catch my breath. But where was I? Ah, right. Joining the guild. Before you do so, I must warn you that the path of the pugilist is long and arduous. Do you believe you've got what it takes to go the distance? Be honest with yourself, now!
I will find my way. I can go the distance!
Yes, you have fighting spirit-I can see it in your eyes. I see no reason to deny you a place in these halls. Welcome to the guild, lass. For your first lesson, I want you to test your fledgling skills against the vermin of Thanalan. Get out there and put down three marmots, three hornets, and three shrews. Return here when the deed is done.
Hamon's dialogue up above I had to join together. You see, Bren here is a level 80 monk in extremely powerful gear. That includes a relic weapon... tonfas from the Bozja Resistance. Don't worry if that doesn't make sense. It won't. For like years in realtime thanks to LP update schedules. The point here is that she has a weapon that only monks can use... not a pugilist.
Shush. Monk isn't my main job, so I'm not putting materia in a relic for an alt job. Especially not when the upgrade steps are mere weeks away.
With no PGL weapons, I can't unequip the monk job stone. So let's go find a PGL weapon!
Riveting, I'm sure. But I didn't realize class quests were restricted to, well, classes instead of jobs.
Now that we're a proper pugilist and we have a shitty level 8 weapon equipped, we can undertake this quest. It involves beating up bees and mice. I'm not gonna show that because we've seen it already, so...
Ah, you're back, and none the worse for the exertion. Youthful vigor's a truly blessed thing! You've gotten off to a fine start, son. To help you on your way, I want you to have this hunting log. Within you'll find the names of various creatures-opponents that you might hone your skills against. If you want to become strong, you mustn't neglect your training. Indeed, a pugilist is only as good as the number of strikes he's dealt. Get out there, Brendori, and let your fists fly. When the time is ripe, I'll teach you something new. There's no limit to the potential of youth. I look forward to seeing you come into your own! Hah hah hah!?
There's no dialogue transcribed for this on the Gamerescape wiki and DoubleNegative can't be bothered to hand transcribe it. The short version: I, Hamon Holyfist, dropped money in the Ul'dah streets and I want you to go find it for me. This is supposed to teach you to pace yourself or so I'm going to claim.
There's money just randomly all over the Steps of Thal, including in the infamous Quicksand. Recall that my main is on Balmung. That money dropped on the floor of the Quicksand is fucking nasty and needs to be sanitized in acid before it should be touched by human hands. Anyway, we eventually find all five coins so, back to Hamon...
...Five hundred gil? Crikely, this is good for a week's worth of-- Ahem. I mean, well done Brendori. Now that you're warmed up, it's time for your lesson proper, a trial to be precise. Go out to Scorpion Cross in the West Thanalan and smack rocks with a bootshine combo. This will rouse the earth spirits living inside. I want you to beat these earth elementals to a pulp. With your fists.
I may have stopped transcribing and started abridging again. But for quests without transcriptions, I'm not typing out all the game's flowery dialogue and I can't be bothered feeding it into a screen reader. That requires effort that is better spent writing jokes that I think are funny in the moment!
Smack the rock with the PGL combo starter and...
Out pops an earth elemental! There's four rocks, so I'm sure you can do the math yourself! Let's return to Hamon.
So you've given the earth sprites what for? Well done, Brendori! By smiting stone and earth, you've forged unyielding weapons of your fists! You're a nigh-endless fount ofvigor, Brendori. Aye, just like myself in my younger days.
Hamon laughs some more and then has a fit of coughing. I want you all to appreciate that I didn't make a "socially distancing" joke here. I thought about it... but ultimately decided against it.
This must be the promising recruit you've been telling me about!
Well, of course she's promising--she's training under Hamooon HOLYFIIIST!
Hehe, that's our Master Hamon!
Brendori, I don't believe I've introduced my assistant yet. This is Chuchuto.
A pleasure to make your acquaintance! As introduced, I serve as Master Hamon's right hand, though there's still much and more I have yet to learn. Together, let us strive for mastery of our art!
Chuchuto joined the guild soon after I was made its master. She's my very f?irst student, as a matter of fact. Well, there was one other, to be sure, but...
Let's not dwell on the past, Master. It was Brendori's bright future we were discussing. Which reminds me, did you collect my gil from her? My gear is rather worn down, and I do need the money for repairs...
<sputter> A-Ahem! Yes, Brendori's future with us is bright indeed! If she keeps up her efforts, she may well become the next Holyfist! Train hard. young one, and grow strong. When the time's ripe, I'll have another little lesson for you. Hah hah hah!
Ah, there you are, Brendori! I see you've been training hard as ever. Aye, your eyes are startlng to have the sharpness of a predator about them. Last time, you learned the basics of combinations. Today, I would have you bulld on that knowledge.
This is a lie. Last time we used our level 1 ability in the level 5 quest. We didn't learn jack shit about combos. But we will in this quest.
I've set up five wooden dummies outside the guild, along the Merchant Strip. By way of a warm-up, I want you to deal each a solid Bootshine combo. Oh, and don't mind the townsfolk who've gathered to watch.
Locals and local roleplayers both gathering to watch us beat up training dummies, once again, with the bootshine move. You can't get this quest until level 10, at which point you have a full combo. I don't know why they harp so hard on fucking Bootshine. Yes it's probably the most important combo move, but that involves lategame Monk stuff.
So the wooden dummies have felt your wrath? Good! Now we can move on to your lesson. When you first came to us, I taught you that combinations make a pugilist. What you need to know next is that not any hotchpotch of strikes makes a combination. There's an order to things a natural flow from one technique to another. Today, I would have you practice one of the most elementary combinations in a pugilist's arsenal. It goes like this:
Lead in with a swift Bootshine combo! Keep your foe off balance with a True Strike! Then bring it home with a blistering Snap Punch! If you pull this off. you'll attain a heightened state of awareness called Greased Lightning. In this state, we pugilists can unleash more combinations, more swiftly. Now, you'll need some opponents to practice on. The Qiqirn that infest the Rat's Nest in central Thanalan ought to serve. Hit them with Snap Punch three times, and we'll call it a lesson well learned.
So while I wouldn't normally show off a kill quest, I want to illustrate a point here.
Once we use Bootshine, two more weaponskills become available! We also get a buff telling us what form we're in. The "form" changes depending on what skill we used last. Using Bootshine puts us in Raptor form. Following Hamon's advice, if we use True Strike next, we get put in Coeurl form, which will let us use Snap Punch, which puts us (back) into Opo-Opo form. Every time we finish off a combo with Snap Punch, we get a stack of Greased Lightning.
Greased Lightning stacks up to three (technically four, but shush that requires special circumstances) times depending on your level. Ginger, who is only level 10 in this quest, can only get a single stack. Bren is max level, so she gets three stacks max. So what is Greased Lightning? Each stack makes your actions 5% faster and causes you to deal 10% more damage. The downside is that Greased Lightning decays after 16 seconds. So you have that long to complete a full combo or your damage will plummet.
So to put everything all together, PGL/MNK attacks through using martial arts style combos. Each time you use an attack, you shift your form which allows you to use the next attack in the combo. Each time you finish the three-action combo, you get faster and hit harder, up to 15% faster and 30% more damaging.
Individual attack potencies are very low as a result of Greased Lightning, and it's why a monk without any stacks will do fuckall for damage. There's a monk rework planned for the next major patch - probably due in November or December - and there's been a lot of supposition from the community that Greased Lightning is gonna become a trait... a passive ability. Why?
Because monk suffers the most from bosses going invulnerable, which is something that becomes frustratingly common the more you play the game. Also, seemingly all their high level abilities are ways to mitigate the loss of GL stacks, including a way to pause the timer for 30 seconds straight. The level 80 capstone ability is a decently long cooldown move that's a desperation "fuck it, I need to preserve GL NOW" move that refreshes the timer to full but puts every ability on a 5 second recast.
The most recent patch has a boss fight that has a minute-long cutscene in the middle of it. Understandably, monk mains are not happy about losing their greased lightning stacks because of this. Turning GL into a passive is not a sure thing by any stretch, but the devs have effectively painted themselves into a corner because of its current incarnation. Regardless of what happens, Monk is not gonna play the same in the not-too-distant future!
Eh!? Y-You've already experienced Greased Lightning!? Crikey, Brendori, you're a natural at it, just like I was! Not to brag, but I happen to be a veritable storm under Greased Lightning. I'd treat you to a demonstration here and now, except...
"...I'm liable to tear down the entire guild in the process.' Master Hamon has a penchant for regaling us with tales of his exploits. but these never amount to a demonstration. His favorite is his victory over the fearsome marauder, Wideaxe, whom he felled with a combination so swift and seamless, they say you couldn't see his hands... or so the legend goes.
Hah hah hah! That one never gets old!
You can probably see where this is going already, but if not just hold tight until the level 15 quest, which Ginger will be covering in a future update... probably the next one.
Our dearest master's humility aside, your progress is truly astounding, Brendori. If l don't keep on my toes, you're like to surpass me in a matter of moons.
Just between you and me, Chuchuto's been in a slump of late. It all began when her closest friend and guildmate suddenly up and disappeared. Rurukuta's the lad's name, and he and Chuchuto joined the guild together. The two of them were born to refugees, and were orphaned in the Calamity. Not long after I was made guildmaster, l found them on the streets, starved near to death.
I did what any decent man would--I took them in, and clothed them and fed them. When they were strong again, they said they wanted to become pugilists like me, and so I trained them as well. Since then, they've been best friends and rivals both, one helping to raise the other up. <sigh> Would that we knew what's become of Rurukuta...
But we were talking about you, Brendori. You've impressed me yet again, and I hope you continue to do so. Keep up the good work, you hear?
The quest ends with your character just staring at Hamon with a blank expression on their face. 
But anyway, that's all from Bren for now. She'll be back later to show off more class quests and hopefully job quests in the future as well!
FUCK. I just got the reference in the title. Anyway, let's check in on how Ginger's doing.
Looks like she just saved Lady Lilira. Good! The Ul'dah start up until that point has zero changes, but soon after is a different story altogether!
Here's where the first change is, this quest here. This is the closest screenshot I have to it. Seriously you guys, if you record something for a LP be sure to check your settings BEFORE you record 2 and a half hours of video. And unlike the PGL quests, 2.0 isn't on New Game+ yet. So Bren can't save us here.
Regardless, after we turn in the pumpkins to Roger here, the next two quests - ones I barely showed at the time if you recall - are straight up gone now. The first was one where you wait tables, and the one after that had us killing ants. Both were blatant padding and so they're gone.
After we give him the pumpkins, Roger sends us up the road to Blackbrush Station which is quite nice.
Up to Warin who tells us to equip level 5 gear and talk to him again.
The quest where you kill coblyns in the tunnel is still there, but gone is the one where you poke and prod at the railroad tracks that followed it. Instead, after we return to Warin, we're sent straight to the Way Down in the Hole duty!
After the duty, things are exactly the same until the end of the previous update. So we talk to Momodi who unlocks a bunch of stuff for us, and then we run off to Horizon to do quests there. Also after the quest was over, Orokin Reactor showed up in her FF15-mobile to give Ginger a lift back to town!
I don't think that's a safe way to sit at all, but you do you Ginger! Also I have many questions about how Orokin is driving her car.
Most quests in the MSQ were given XP increases. Here, we received well over half of the XP we needed to level up! And we're actually overleveled right now. That's actually gonna be a continuing theme throughout this LP.
On the way over to Horizon, I spotted something very unusual indeed. Zona Seeker, if you can see his name bar, is an S-Rank Hunt. Those things don't just spawn willy nilly. Someone had to fulfill some obscure requirements to spawn him, and it had to be a certain amount of time since his last death. I've only ever seen two S-Ranks in ARR content... and Zona Seeker right here right now is the second!
I sincerely doubt we'll see another in this LP.
Over in Horizon, it's business as usual. Though unlike with OG-Ginger, I'm not doing any sidequests I don't have to. There's enough XP in the MSQ to keep us well overleveled, and I don't plan on having friendly Goons unsync dungeons for Ginger's sake. So we'll be getting a fuckton of XP from each dungeon we run! The end result is that she'll be level 50 probably long before the end of 2.0 content.
You know, I was tempted to keep going when I recorded this earlier. I'm now glad I stopped when I did. The frame skipping was getting atrocious! I recorded this at 30 frames per second, and the difference between the previous frame that the recording got stuck on and this one right here can be measured in minutes. At any rate, this is where the previous update left off! So that's where we'll leave off for now!
NEXT TIME: Actual progress, but with a punchy potato instead of a potato who bakes stuff!