The Adventures Of Pirotess: PVP In Final Fantasy XIV

Sometimes I get a little burned out on the grind of Final Fantasy XIV. PVP offers a nice break from the grind while giving experience for melee or mage classes I'm leveling. PVP also gives tomes needed for better gear for your job classes. It also gives a currency called wolf marks that you can use to buy PVP gear and items like song scrolls and wind up minions.

To participate in PVP you need to complete the level 30 quest A Pup No Longer with your Grand Company. This will require you to visit The Wolves Den where you have to talk to the NPC Berkoeya Loetahlysn. Once you do that, you can join in PVP. The Wolves Den is also where you can spend your wolf marks on PVP gear and various items. You can also practice sparring for PVP matches here.

Pirotess at the Wolves Den.

To participate in PVP, you will look in your adventure log and see a list of the types of PVP matches you can do. The Feast matches require that you be in a party which is perfect for doing PVP with your friends. Rival Wings is a large scale PVP event involving up to 48 people divided into two teams. Frontline PVP corresponds with your Grand Company. 

List of PVP events are in your PVP log. 

I personally enjoy doing the Frontline PVP. They did make a change to where instead of being able to choose which Frontline area you want to do, you go to the one that is available that day and it changes each day to a different area. The following three areas for Frontline are, The Borderland Ruins, Seal Rock, and The Fields Of Glory. 

The Borderland Ruins are a fairly easy map to navigate. Your team needs to rack up points by capturing the opposing teams base as well as their outposts. Knocking out members of the opposing team will rack up points as well. You will notice in your hot bar that you have job specific PVP abilities. These are useful during PVP matches and the flee button especially helps when you're in a pinch during a match because you can run away and regroup with your team. 

PVP in the Borderland Ruins.

Seal Rock is quite a different map and it can be a little challenging to navigate, but if you have your map up and call out coordinates to your team, it makes things easier. It is also a good idea to move as a group with your team so you don't get ambushed. The goal here is to find Allagan tomeliths and activate them so that you can extract their data. The more you find, the more points your team racks up bringing you closer to victory. 

PVP in Seal Rock. 

The Fields Of Glory is my favorite PVP because the map is incredibly easy to navigate and it's quite straightforward in what you're supposed to do. In this one, there are icebound tomeliths that will activate at a random point of time. Once activated it is up to your team to attack and destroy these tomeliths in order to collect the data from them. There are small and large tomeliths. Large tomeliths will reward you with more data, but be prepared because battles around these are intense. 

PVP in The Fields Of Glory.

As mentioned before, having the map up and calling out coordinates is very helpful to your team during PVP. It is also important to be aware of your surroundings. Don't get caught alone by the opposing team because you will get a KO that sends you back to the starting base and it will give them points. You want the other team to have as few points as possible and your team to succeed because the team with the highest points wins the match. Use your job specific abilities during matches and be aware of the cool down timers so that you can do your best to be helpful to your team. 

Do your best and use the PVP skills at your disposal. 

Win or lose at the end of PVP matches, you get pretty good experience for jobs you're leveling, the aforementioned wolf marks, and endgame tomes needed to buy endgame gear for your melee and mage job classes. The tomes are especially helpful if your job class is the max level and you need to get endgame gear. PVP has helped me outfit my endgame bard, samurai, and soon my monk. PVP is a lot of fun to do with your friends and it does offer rewards that make it worth your while. Just remember to do your best and work together with your team towards victory. Another thing to remember, it is just a game and it's meant to be fun so don't take it too seriously. Get out there and enjoy yourselves. See you at the next adventure everyone!

Pirotess having fun in PVP. 

*Final Fantasy XIV is available to play on the following platforms: PC and Playstation 4

Mother Gamer Plays The Second Dream and The War Within Warframe Quests

I just finished playing through the story quests The Second Dream and The War Within in Warframe. These were very interesting because they had some epic reveals in the story and lore of Warframe. The Second Dream is first and there are a few missions that lead up to the story. I enjoyed exploring and learning more about the world of the Tenno and hearing some intriguing information about The Lotus who many of us Warframe players call Space Mom.

Discovering secrets in The Second Dream. 

I feel that I enjoyed The Second Dream more, but I did like The War Within also. Both offer a lot of great story reveals and some awe inspiring secrets regarding the lore. The Second Dream also unlocks your Operator. You can customize your Operator according to your style and tastes. I actually spent a bit of time with this and had fun with it. 

Customizing my Operator. 

The War Within is great too, but I was incredibly frustrated with some of the mechanics of this story driven quest. One of those things is the length of this quest. It is incredibly long with missions back to back with no real checkpoint, so if you fail you have to start all over. There is a mission where you can't touch the laser beams because if you do it's an instant failure. This took me a couple of tries because it's on the archwing which I am not the best at. I did eventually get it after about the third try. 

After this, there are a few missions showing you how to use your Operator's abilities like void dash which lets you jump across large distances. This wasn't terribly difficult. It was just a matter of timing and practice. However, there were robot monsters that could eat my Operator if I didn't time things right. 

It was the final part of The War Within that tested my patience because of having to switch between my Operator and my warframe while fighting multiple enemies. This took me about four tries before I was successful. It was a bit frustrating because there were so many things to remember and failing i.e. dying put me back at the beginning and having to start over. 

I persevered however, and finished The War Within quest. I did like the story related secret reveals and it is very cool that you can switch back and forth between your Operator and your warframe. Both The Second Dream and The War Within are good story quests with more layers added to the lore as well as some new things added to the game. I am having fun playing the game with my husband and friends while getting ready for the upcoming Fortuna content. There's so much to do and the Warframe community is so friendly and nice, there's always great people to play with. 

Operator and Warframe together!

*Warframe is available to play on the following platforms: PC, Playstation4, XboxOne, and soon the Nintendo Switch

The Adventures Of Pirotess: Crafting With Alchemist

Alchemist is an interesting and fun crafting job that makes useful potions and elixirs for adventurers. Alchemists can also make wands for conjurers and books for arcanists. To unlock the Alchemist job class you need to visit the Alchemist's Guild in Ul'dah and talk to the NPC receptionist.

Pirotess talks to the Alchemist's Guild receptionist.

As with the other crafting jobs, you have a crafting log that lists the items you can craft and get experience points for. The crafting log shows you the materials and elemental shards needed to craft each item. Alchemist uses a lot of lightning and water shards. This is where Botanist and Miner come in handy because you can gather the shards needed for crafting. When you successfully craft an item from your crafting log, a check mark appears next to the item to show that you completed it. 

A list of items that can be crafted in your Alchemist crafting log. 

When you begin crafting, you will have a set of abilities you can use to ensure you are successful in your crafting. For example, when you use the ability Master's Mend this will restore your item durability by 30 and help keep your item from breaking. When you are crafting something a little more difficult you can use the ability Steady Hand to improve your success rate by 20% for the next five steps of your crafting. When an item is more challenging to craft, expect a little failure here and there. Crafting does take patience, but when you complete the recipe the rewards are worth it. 

Use your Alchemist abilities for successful crafting.

You can also craft items for the Ixal (one of the beastmen groups) such as hull components. These are daily quests that you can do which offer extra experience points and their currency which you can trade to their merchant vendor for items like crafting and gathering materia. It can be a little slow doing these as well as challenging, but once you finish the recipe you do feel a sense of accomplishment and some of the rewards they offer are nice also. It is best if you do these at lower levels because once you hit level 50 on your Alchemist the experience is not as good. This is just something to keep in mind. These recipes are in your crafting log under the housing tab. 

List of items you can craft for Ixal quests. 

Making sure you have all the materials needed for crafting is a must. Luckily this is easy to remedy in several ways. For the basic materials when you are just starting out, you can visit the NPC merchant at the Alchemist's Guild in Ul'dah. Here you can get the items needed for your lower level recipes. 

Pirotess buys materials from the Alchemist's Guild merchant. 

For the higher level and slightly more difficult recipes you can use Botanist and Miner to gather materials. Some materials you can craft on other crafting jobs such as Blacksmith if you have them unlocked. Another option is the Market Board which shows the list of items sold by other adventurers. Don't be afraid to shop around on the Market Board to get the best price for your needed materials. 

Pirotess shops for materials at the Market Board. 

When you reach certain levels like level 10, you unlock a quest for your Alchemist. You are required to craft a certain item or items and present it to the guild master NPC Severian. After the cut scene of Severian inspecting your crafting skills you are rewarded with job specific gear of your choice that enhances your crafting abilities a bit. 

Pirotess prepares for her level 10 Alchemist quest. 

There you have it, the basics of Alchemist. I am enjoying crafting on it because it is not only useful, it is a lot of fun. If you would like to try out Alchemist for yourself, just visit the guild in Ul'dah and start crafting. See you at the next adventure! 

See you at the next adventure!

Great Things Coming To Warframe

It is amazing to me that Warframe is a free to play game because of how much fun it is to play and all the great things it already has. The story is interesting as well as the missions. Digital Extremes is always adding a lot of great content and opportunities to get free warframes. For example, a month ago if you signed up for Twitch Prime and Amazon Prime you got the Trinity Prime warframe for free.

My Trinity Prime ready to do missions.

There are often events too where you can get fun items for free like custom Halloween or Easter colors that you can use to customize your warframes. You can also get items like a jack o'lantern head for your warframe for a Halloween event. It just adds some fun to the game and it's always interesting to see what they come up with for the various holiday events.

Celebrating Halloween Warframe style. 

I like to play Warframe on PC and Playstation 4 because I have friends who play on both. I often play the game on PC on the weekends with my husband who is great at helping me get missions done and and helping me navigate upgrading my warframes. The gameplay is great on both platforms although PC gets the new stuff first, then the gaming consoles. Whichever one you play on, it's always great especially playing with friends. You can play the game on the Xbox One as well. 

Exploring missions on my Volt Prime on PS4. 

Both my husband and I were excited to get a free Ash Prime just from watching Digital Entertainment's Twitch livestream from TennoCon celebrating Warframe and announcing things that were coming to Warframe. The turnout for the livestream was incredible. About 350,000 people showed up to watch the Twitch livestream and it was fantastic. The community for Warframe is incredible because everyone loves the game and players help each other with missions, gameplay advice, and just have fun together. It's one of the things I love best about Warframe. There isn't any of that toxicity and everyone supports each other.

We were really excited for this and it did not disappoint. It was fun and the reveal showed all the great things coming to Warframe. It was amazing and my husband Ron and I were cheering and discussing how fantastic all of it was as we watched the livestream together. I was in awe that this is a free to play game because what is coming looks incredible. This is what happens when a gaming developer genuinely cares about its fan base. You get an amazing game that is truly for everyone. You can watch the TennoCon reveal video here: 

My personal favorite was the ship battle. It looked so great. Of course, all of it looks amazing and I can not wait to explore all the great new content coming.  There were so many people who watched the livestream it took a bit of time for everyone to get their free Ash Prime, but they worked on it to make sure everyone got theirs. I was quite excited to take mine out for a spin. It was fun doing missions with Ash Prime and checking out its abilities.

My Ash Prime and Ron's Umbra ready to do missions. 

Ron finally got his Ash Prime on Monday. I can't wait to go do missions with him this weekend. It's going to be a lot of fun! Warframe is one of those rare gems that is free to play, but is so incredible that you forget that it is. It has all the bells and whistles with a great gaming community and is just a lot of fun to play. See you at the next adventure, everyone!

My Ash Prime in spiffy colors. 

*Warframe is available to play on the following platforms: PC, Playstation 4, and Xbox One 

Elder Scrolls Online: Summerset

When I am not playing Final Fantasy XIV,  I play Elder Scrolls Online. I enjoy it because I can play it with friends or do a lot of adventuring on my own. I was looking forward to the latest expansion of Summerset so I pre-ordered it. If you got the collector's edition, it came with some pretty nice perks in the way of items. My personal favorite that I got to use right away was the Nightmare Senche mount.

The Nightmare Senche mount is very cool. 

The other great items that came with the Summerset collector's edition pre-order are: Court of Bedlam costume (costumes are like glamours that go over your armor), two non combat pets; pocket salamander and a baby gryphon, treasure maps, Psijiic vault crown crate, experience scrolls, and a Psijiic spectral horse mount. 

Court of Bedlam armor and baby gryphon pet. 

The spectral horse mount is fun to summon because it comes up from the ground. Its speed is fairly okay as well. You can add it to your collection if you bought the collector's edition of Summerset. Mounts are just for fun and a great way to travel around the world of Tamriel. 

The spectral horse mount is great too.

To start the Summerset quest line is easy enough. You can find it in your user interface menu. Once you accept the quest, you can travel to the realm of the high elves in the isle of Summerset. This is also where you start the Psijiic Order quests.

Accept this quest to go to Summerset.

Summerset is beautiful. The pretty colors of the trees and the surrounding areas as well as the cities show how much thought went into the new area. The high elves are pretty too of course, but as with the lore many of them are incredibly snooty and racist towards anyone who is not one of them. My little Khajiit, Piroluna had to tolerate many of them calling her an intrusive cat or a meddling foreigner and yet they needed her help for the main story quests. 

Piroluna arrives in Summerset.

The main story itself is pretty interesting and you meet with your old friend Razum-Dar who is investigating for Queen Ayrenn since he's known as the Queen's Eyes. The quests themselves are a lot of go to this location and defeat this villain or fetch this item which can get tedious at times, but the big thing is the story. The characters that are introduced are complex and interesting and of course exploring Summerset is a lot of fun because of the scenery and towns. 

Talking to Razum-Dar.

The Psijiic Order quests are a bit boring. Part of the problem is one quest that has you trying to find time breaches on a map. The thing is, the breaches are not marked on the map. You have to use a key item in your inventory and then play the most frustrating game of Hot and Cold ever. I don't mind a challenge, but this was incredibly time consuming to the point of frustration. I had to look up a guide showing breach locations on the map just to get it done. 

Another part of the quests was having to wait around for abyssal portals to open so you could defeat enemies. You can do this with a group of other players which is fine, but it can be a long wait for these portals. I spent a lot of time fishing while waiting. They need to make the waiting time a little shorter or at least give you an idea of how long the wait will be. You do get rewards for completing the Psijiic Order quests in the form of weapons, gear, crafting materials, and scrolls. A lot of the gear seems more beneficial to the mage class, but there are some items for damage dealer and tank classes too. 

Piroluna visits the Psijicc Order.

There are a couple of public group dungeons you can do as well. However, be warned these are very challenging. The enemies here are stronger and hit harder. Using your skills and teamwork are key here. That being said, the dungeons are fun and the rewards of armor and weapons for your job class are pretty nice. There are group raids you can do also that are fun to do with your friends. The great thing about Summerset is you can play solo if you wish or you can join group events. There is something for everyone here. 

Summerset overall is colorful and full of a lot of things to do and see. The main story is pretty good with nice rewards while the Psijiic Order quests are a little boring, but they offer good rewards too. It has something for veterans of the game and allows newbies to dip their toe in the water without overwhelming them. Summerset is a solid chapter in Elder Scrolls Online and offers a lot of adventure that is fun to play by yourself or with a group of your friends. 

One of the costume rewards from Summerset. 

*Elder Scrolls Online is available to play on the following platforms: PC, Playstation4, and Xbox One

The Adventures Of Pirotess: Gathering With Miner

Botanist is not the only gathering job in Final Fantasy XIV. Miner is another gathering job that is useful. Miners gather ores, precious stones, and fossils that can be used in various crafting jobs. To unlock the Miner job, visit the Miner's Guild in Ul'dahh and talk to the receptionist at the desk. Once you have your trusty pickaxe equipped, you can go gathering.

Talk to this NPC at the Miner's guild to unlock the job. 

There are tons of places you can gather on Miner. In order to find these items, you need to make use of your skills and abilities. Abilities like Lay of the Land show you where you can harvest items on the area map. They will look like small golden pickaxe icons on your map. These locations are where you go to gather materials needed for crafting jobs like blacksmith or armorer.

Use Lay of the Land to locate materials to be gathered.

In your gathering log, you can look to see what items are in the area that you can gather on Miner. As you level up a new gathering log will unlock revealing more items that can be gathered in different locations. A check mark will appear next to items you have successfully gathered. 

A list of items that you can gather in an area are in your gathering log. 

Places that can be harvested will have a sparkling point known as a gathering node. This shows that this is where you can gather materials. You can also use abilities like Sharp Vision which will enhance your mining abilities and help to ensure successfully gathering materials. 

Gathering nodes will sparkle like this. 

When you start gathering, your gathering log will pop up listing items you can harvest from the node with a percentage next to them. This shows you the average success rate of gathering these particular items from this node. Don't forget to use your abilities to help get the best rate of gathering on your Miner. 

Pirotess uses her gathering log to harvest materials.

 Just like with the other disciple of the hand and land crafting/gathering jobs, when you hit certain level caps you get a job specific quest from the guild master. For Miner, talk to the guild master NPC Adalberta for the quest. When you complete these quests you get your choice of gear for Miner. 

Talk to Adalberta for your job specific quests.

Miner is just as useful as Botanist for all your crafting jobs. As you can see, you can gather the elemental shards you need for crafting as well as the various materials needed for crafting on these jobs. Pair Botanist and Miner together and you will be able to have a majority of the things you need for your crafting. Get out there and start gathering. See you at the next adventure! 

*Final Fantasy XIV is available to play on the following platforms: PC and Playstation 4

Saying Goodbye To A Dear Friend

This is one of the hardest Mother Gamer posts to write because it is about a dear friend of mine who passed away suddenly. I had a difficult time writing about my friend MrsMagik/Tara when she passed away a few years ago from Cervical Cancer. It is never easy to say goodbye to the people we love and it is one of the parts of life that is truly heartbreaking. Today I'm writing about saying goodbye to a dear friend who has been part of my life for fifteen years, Rob who many of us knew by his gaming handle when we played Final Fantasy XI with him, Nedstark.


I first came to know Rob (Ned) when I started playing Final Fantasy XI. He came into our linkshell Crimson Kindred invited by our friend Cothius. He was cheerful, friendly, and cracked hilarious jokes that would have you laughing. I mentioned I liked his name and that was how we got to talking about the Game Of Thrones books and about how we both loved the character Ned Stark even though his story ended abruptly. I don't think he ever had a bad thing to say about anyone. That's just who he was. Level grinding could be a bit tedious sometimes in the game, but Rob made it fun with his banter, jokes, and the fact that he was just happy to be having fun with his friends.

It was Rob who gave me the nickname Killer. It was an inside joke about something that happened when we were level grinding in the game. Rob was leveling his paladin and I was leveling my samurai. We had a black mage in our pick up group and the mage was more than a little rude to him about holding hate. The thing is the mage was going to town with spells which many of us Final Fantasy veterans know is something you can not really do because it will make the beasties go for you. You have to space it out and tone it down. Rob was polite and explained this many times. We commented in our linkshell chat that we did not know how he could be so nice about this. Rob laughed it off saying it was just a game and he was trying to give the mage a chance. We keep going and again the mage is nuke happy, but Rob was actually a very good paladin and did his best and managed to keep up. However, the mage is again being rude and throws some insults his way. By that point I decided I had enough and did not like the way this person was treating my friend. I told them that I thought they were being incredibly rude and that even though my friend was being polite and doing his best they were on him and maybe they needed to remember it's just a game or they could do everyone a favor, take their nasty attitude, and go. There was a pause and then the mage apologized to all of us. Rob in our linkshell chat tells me, "Dang, Killer I think you may have made him cry. Remind me to never make you mad or at least give me a warning so I can hide all the knives." which had all of us laughing, but the name stuck. Rob was the only one who ever called me Killer and the only one who was allowed to. Even when we spoke on the phone he would always say, "Hey, Killer what's up?" and it would always make me smile.


Our group of friends was pretty close knit and we would do a lot of things together in the game. Brenner was one of the things that we did as a group (it's like a game of Capture the flag) and it was something fun to do together in between level grinds and quests.

Everyone in Crimson Kindred meeting for Brenner.

Another event we liked doing together was Dynamis. Dynamis was much more challenging and there were so many wipes, but again it was something Rob made fun with his jovial nature and jokes. That was the thing about him that stood out the most, he was always happy to be there and having fun in the game with us his friends.

Doing a Daynamis run. 

Many of us became more than gaming friends, we became real life friends. We exchanged phone numbers, emails, and eventually Facebook. Rob and I would have a lot of great conversations about books, gaming, and what was going on in our lives in general. When I was going through the divorce with my ex-husband it was a very low point in my life. My three daughters were very young at the time and I was doing everything I could to keep it together, but I was struggling. Still, I did my best to put on a brave face, but I think Rob knew and he would call often and say he was just checking to see how I was doing. I was grateful that he did that because it helped me immensely to feel less alone. He encouraged me and offered supportive wisdom about how to handle everything. I am glad I was able to thank him for being there when I needed a friend. All he said to me about that was, "That's what friends do for each other, Killer. I'm glad I was able to help in some small way." No, Rob. It was a big way and I'm forever grateful for it.

Final Fantasy XI is also how I came to be friends with my husband Ron (Sheitara) and he was friends with Rob too. When I first mentioned having reservations about my first date with Ron, it was Rob who said he thought Ron was a good guy. He told me, "Give him a chance, he may surprise you." I did give Ron a chance and he did surprise me with how incredibly kind he was, how much he understood me, and how we liked a lot of the same things and had fun together. Rob was genuinely happy for both of us when we got married saying it was a perfect match. 

My character and Ron's character from Final Fantasy XI together. 

There were so many adventures we had together in Final Fantasy XI. Rob couldn't be there for all of them, but we understood. Real life comes first. He had a wife and two young sons and work of course. Whenever he spoke about his family there was always love and joy in his voice. He loved his family and you could hear it when he spoke about them and see it on his Facebook in every photo and video he shared of time with them. We did a Christmas party in the game and he couldn't make it, but I sent him the picture we took and he stated that it made him smile, that he missed everyone, and he was glad we had fun.

Final Fantasy XI Christmas party.

Rob played when he had free time here and there. We'd go exploring in the new areas with updates, we'd check out scheduled events, and do level grind sessions when we all had time. Our favorite event was the one where you ate a cookie and it turned you into a little kid. Rob thought it was hilarious us running around as little kids in town in the game. No matter what we were doing, we always had fun together.

Doing the turn into kids event with Nedstark.

Last week Rob was taken from us suddenly when he died in a tragic accident while he was on site at work. He was only 38 years old. All of us who knew him are struggling with why this happened and coping with the loss of his light from this world. Rob was one of those rare souls who could talk to a total stranger and make them feel like they had known him for years. He was always able to make you laugh or smile with his humor and good cheer. His love for his family and friends was immense. Rob was a kindred spirit and all of us who loved him are missing him terribly. Our hearts are heavy as we mourn his loss with his family. Saying goodbye to a dear friend is painful and sad because of how much they meant to us and how they made us feel when they were here. Rob made so many of us feel happy and loved just being around him or having a great conversation with him. He was a husband, a father, a son, and a friend. He was someone that shared his love of life with all of us and it is hard to believe that we'll never hear his hearty laugh or see his happy go lucky smile again. I hope he knew how many people loved him and appreciated the incredible person he was. Until we see you again, Rob. Thank you for sharing your light and joy with us. We love you. 

Goodbye, Rob. We love you and miss you. 

*Note: This link is a fundraiser for Rob's family. This is to help them with whatever they may need during this difficult time. Please donate if you can or share it. Thank you. Much love to you all. To donate and share click the link here:  https://www.gofundme.com/love-for-the-smith-family