Final Fantasy XIV Occult Crescent First Impressions. If you have found you have taken a break from Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn due to the lack of midcore or grinding content, then Patch 7.25 may be the excuse you’ve been waiting for to jump back in. This new area is called Occult Crescent, and can be unlocked from doing a quest in Tuliyollal; however, you do need to be max level on the job to gain access to it. Once you have reached the maximum level for your job, you can take a boat to Occult Crescent and begin.
At first we had Diadem; this was a kind of early test for exploration zones before being changed into its current version. We then had quite a wait until Eureka dropped. This was heavily inspired by FFXI and, until recently, was probably my favourite of the exploration zone content. Bozja was eventually added later in the Shadowbringers expansion; though it had some good ideas, it lacked something from Eureka for me that made it slightly less appealing.
Before we continue on, I will say that if you want to use this content to level up jobs, you are unable to use anything under level 100. There will be a deep dungeon sometime in the future to help level up jobs, but this isn’t for you.
Oh god, Atmas are back
Once you have arrived you’ll be greeted by a number of cutscenes that will play out; for spoiler reasons, I won’t go into any details. Not long after that you will meet your good friend Gerolt, which serves to kick off the grind for this expansion’s Relic Weapon. For anyone new to the game, Relic Weapons are often slightly worse than the Raid Weapon, up till the last part of the expansion. The previous Relic saw a number of players, including myself, frustrated as it was just a grind to get tomes. This expansion, they have brought back the Atma system, allowing you to get drops from enemies inside Occult Crescent or in Dawntrail zone locations. Though I don’t know currently the drop rate at the time of writing, it takes six different atma and five of each of those types.
I will add that once you have completed one of the Relic Weapons, you can then use tomes to then purchase more of these weapons for other jobs you wish to get one for. This, I feel, results in a solid balance of grind and quality of life.
Once you have entered Occult Crescent, you will quickly learn about the Knowledge Level and the Phantom Job System. Knowledge Level is your overall level; your normal job level means nothing in this zone. Knowledge Level can be increased by doing critical engagements and fates and just from killing random enemies in the zone. If you are in a party, you can also level sync to the lowest person. This is beneficial because if someone is too high, it can affect the whole party’s EXP rate. Knowledge Level is key to everything in this zone, and just like previous exploration zones, if you die and return to the home point, you will lose some XP. Not only that, but if you are just above the level, you can actually lose the level you just got. So if possible, try to get a revive; this will remove the EXP penalty.
It’s a job out here
Phantom Job Levels are important too. You start with four Phantom Jobs, which are as follows: Knight, Bard, Monk, and Freelancer.
Each job has its own levelling separate from each other and from the Knowledge system. Every job teaches different abilities at each level. Also, once you have obtained the last ability for that job, you gain a mastery point. That mastery point will give bonus damage stats and healing stats to all your other jobs.
Also, a little advice: there are certain actions that give bonus effects when used next to a Knowledge Crystal near the Aetheryte. For example, Bard’s 2nd skill, Romeo’s Ballad, normally has the ability to stun certain enemies, but when used near the Knowledge Crystal will give an EXP buff for the entire party for 30 minutes. One trick is you can use the Bard ability and then swap to the class you want to level, and you will still have the experience points buff for the 30 minutes.
Certain Phantom Jobs can drop from Critical Engagements, or some can be bought with the zone’s currency at the vendor near the entrance. Each job also has its own max level; for example, Berserker can go only to level 3, but Freelancer goes to level 10. So if you’re trying to get the stat boosts, depending on how good your RNG is, you could level some of the faster jobs first. Due to the EXP trick from Bard, I would suggest at least getting that to level 2 ASAP.
Also at base camp there is a vendor that sells items for silver coins and for gold coins. Silver coins are mostly from doing the fates and critical engagements, but the gold coins are from killing normal enemies on the field. It can be useful to team up with random people or friends when going after gold coins; it’s a good use for the sync system, too. Silver coins can be used to buy certain items like other Phantom Jobs but also can be used to purchase equipment. At the current patch, the gear from coins can be useful for people who haven’t caught up on gear. It also gives bonus stats while inside the Occult Crescent. It can be upgraded with items from gold coins, and I am guessing the second upgrade is from the raid, but currently I have no personal evidence of this.
Overall, I’m still exploring and enjoying this content, and it’s something I have been looking forward to for ages; suffice to say, I’m really happy with everything so far. The next part of the island won’t be available until version 7.4 – which is a long ways off – but hopefully the development team will take all the positive things they have achieved with this version and continue to improve on it.