FFXIV: The Shadowbringers Trial Experience

hello and welcome back goats to the big blue purple Channel and to the final part of my normal mode trial ranking so far until end Walker is complete of course today we will be taking a look at the shadowbringers trials again this will specifically be taking a look at the normal mode trials and not the extremes because I have not done any of the extremes for this expansion yet if you happen to stumble upon this video and haven't seen my previous trial rankings yet they're up on my channel if you're interested in what I think of the other expansions normal trials anyways without further Ado let's get into this ranking foreign [Music] coming in at the bottom spot of my list for the shadowbringers trial ranking we have the Ruby weapon now despite the Ruby weapon having one of the coolest designs out of any of the bosses in this game the fight itself is pretty forgettable and underwhelming I would say well this fight may be at the bottom of the list it is nowhere near as bad of a fight as the lowest points in storm blood and heavensward this is no Bismarck or wrathalos this fight is a solid trial and it's well made it's just that every other shadowbringers trial is more memorable than this by a long shot in my opinion also remember how I said I thought the design was cool well halfway through the fight when you take down his first health bar they say that and just turn them into nail from the coil raids this is definitely cool the first time you see it but to be honest with you I think I'd prefer this fight if it was just the Ruby weapon and nothing else mechanically speaking I don't really have much to say about this fight either there's this one part where you hide behind a boulder and that's kind of cool I guess but generally this fight is just really forgettable and I don't care for it that much but I also don't hate this fight or get mad when I see it in my trial room though it's just a pretty easy and quick fight for this to be the lowest quality trial in the expansion though says a lot about the quality of the trials to come also the music for the weapon trials absolutely bangs but that applies to every weapon trial so I'm not really going to give Ruby any points for that overall this is like the epitome of a b tier normal trial if I was putting this on a tier list coming in at number six on the ranking we have Titania I actually like this trial a lot considering what it is I'm not a huge fan of the design or the music of this fight yet at the same time I think it's incredibly memorable and mechanically very interesting for a normal mode fight for the very first trial in shadowbringers they weren't afraid to up the difficulty for this expansion knowing that players have been playing this game for years now there's some actual tighter Dodges in this normal trial and the ads phase requires some knowledge to clear it properly and that's one thing I have to massively credit this trial for is making an ads phase I actually find interesting there are so many ad spaces in this game that I think are just filler and a complete waste of the player's time I like this ad phase and I think it's well designed and I think that's a rare thing in this game as I'm being completely honest there's also a specific order you need to kill the ads in but unlike the Old King Google MOG trial I don't find this annoying at all and it's pretty intuitive you just have to remember to kill them in a counterclockwise rotation every time there's also actual mechanics that go out during this ad phase so it's not just a filler phase where you need to wail on some enemies to progress the fight there's actually stuff going on here that you need to pay attention to this sounds like a simple concept that should be executed on in every ads phase in normal trials but unfortunately that's not the case and a lot of ads phases specifically in normal mode trials are very boring and uninteresting I also enjoy the setting and scenery of this trial compared to other ones I feel like it's just really memorable this fight also gives Duty Finder a ton of trouble in my experience so that can be either very entertaining or very soul-crushing depending on the mood you're in that day it's also pretty hard for me to come up with anything negative to say about this trial despite it being in the sixth spot I guess my major complaint and really only complaint would be the lack of a huge cinematic moment that the other trials nailed so well in this expansion kicking off the top five of this list we have vothri or the Innocence trial my one and only like major complaint with this fight is that the first phase is essentially entirely filler but I guess you could argue that it's necessary filler for the transition in the fight to be so impactful and this is honestly one of the most memorable transitions in the entire game who could have expected when they started shadowbringers that vothri would just become hot mid-fight it's absolutely hilarious and going into the second phase or the actual boss fight of this trial it's a really really good boss it's the epitome of a trial that has no like knowledge check mechanics but more so just a bunch of dodgeable aoes that you need to react to quickly whereas a lot of normal trials in this game tend to experiment with new ideas and mechanics law3 does a very good job at just honing in on what they know works and making it feel really fun and satisfying to play there's nothing really groundbreaking mechanically here but it's just really damn fun the music for this trial is also absolutely fantastic and one of my favorite osts in the entire game shadowbringers in general it just has such an amazing soundtrack overall this trial does an absolutely amazing job at subverting the player's expectations after building up va3 throughout all of shadowbringers for him to turn into a completely different type of trial than we all would have expected an insanely memorable cinematic combined with a very solid and fun fight makes one of the better trials in this entire game I would say this is totally one of those fights I'd be interested in seeing on Extreme to see how they evolve these kind of simple mechanics and make them more interesting I'm sure a lot of people would rank vathri even higher than this for how impactful of a moment this was in the story but to me personally the other trials I have above it are a little bit better in my opinion [Music] next up on my list coming in at the number four spots we have the emerald weapon this was one of the hardest trials for me to place on this list because I feel like it could have even been number two on this list depending on how I'm feeling I really really love the emerald weapon trial I think the greatest advantage that this trial has is that both phases are very distinct and have their own Unique Mechanics that make them worth playing the first phase doesn't just feel like a filler phase before you get to the real fun I feel like this fight does a fantastic job of using both experimental Unique Mechanics as well as reactable dodgy mechanics that we see in every kind of fight if you just look at the simple Mario Kart laser mechanic in this fight they throw in an extra layer of dodges with expanding donut aoes so you actually have more than one thing to think about and I appreciate this as a player who's gone to to shadowbringers because you're better at the game at this point and then you need the mechanics to be a little bit more demanding to keep you engaged and I've alluded to mention this so far but I think the shadowbringers trials do a much much better job than any other expansion with ramping up the difficulty to meet players skill obviously these are still normal trials and they're meant to be cleared by anyone but at the same time they're more mechanically demanding than the previous expansions and I can really appreciate that as a player the first phase of this fight is one thing but God damn man the second phase of this fight with gaius's combat data coming into play that is crazy I absolutely love the way the arena changes in this fight because it gives the fight so much more identity than just being in your average Garland Castro I love this storyline for these weapon trials as well and I think Emerald weapon in specific has the most cinematic and memorable kind of story experience out of all the weapons also the music is just an absolute Banger and definitely my favorite of the weapon themes and I mean come on the golden version of the emerald weapon looks cool as I also like that instead of your traditional ad phase this fight kind of has like a intermission boss with the Phantom of guys you have to fight overall this fight just checks every box for me in terms of what I like in a trial and I absolutely love it and it's crazy for me to be able to say that this is number four on the list because it goes to show just how much I love these next three trials foreign despite how much I actually love the emerald weapon the diamond weapon after a couple of replays for the sake of this video has become my favorite weapon trial in the game for reference before making this video the shadowbringers trials were without a doubt my least played trials in the game they never really show up in roulette because they're level 80 and I didn't really go out of my way to run any of these more than once because there's no reason to this meant a lot of the trials felt fresh and interesting when I got to try them again and the diamond weapon in specific stood out to me so much that I ended up replaying it multiple times I absolutely love the gimmick in this fight of jumping between the two platforms because I think it's used so Tastefully the fight isn't like a constant spam of having to go back and forth and back and forth it's very specific on when you need to move and why you need to move and it makes perfect sense this fight has plenty of mechanics sprinkled in that aren't related to Jumping between sides of the platform so it doesn't feel like you're just in this Perpetual Loop of having to move around and move around and it gets tedious there's also this super cool intermission phase where the diamond weapon transforms into Ifrit or some and you have to fight him in that form without jumping between the two platforms I much prefer the boss having a cool and interesting middle phase like this than just spawning like 10 ads and oh you need to kill them within 45 minutes or it'll wipe the team like this is far more interesting and fun to play as a player I also give this extra points for basically making its cinematic moment the playable experience you don't just watch the diamond weapon transform into Ifrit do this big AOE and then turn back into the diamond weapon like you actually get to fight him during this transformation before he switches back a good gimmick combined with a interesting Boss Arena and well thought out mechanics makes for one of the most interesting and well-paced trials in the entire game in live opinion I am so glad that I went and replayed these trials for the sake of this video because I was sleeping on the diamond weapon I hardly remembered it from the first time I did it and this trial is so fantastic it's honestly great I'm super interested in trying this fight on Extreme at some point because I'd love to see how they incorporate this gimmick with more difficult and demanding mechanics Diamond weapon has recently become one of my favorite trials in this whole goddamn game and I think giving him the number three spot makes the most sense [Music] coming in at number two on my list is none other than Hades himself I debated putting this trial lower than the diamond weapon and even the emerald weapon but I eventually decided that the story moment from this fight was so goddamn impactful that it carries this trial to the number two spot if somebody asked me what the most memorable and iconic trial in this game was to me I would probably say Hades after I beat this trial for the first time I literally went back and played it like three more times because I could not get over how hyped that story moment was shadowbringers was the most invested I had been in a video game story in a very long time when I was playing it and this fight was such an amazing payoff as a trial and just because I don't think it's as mechanically interesting as the diamond weapon doesn't mean I don't think it's mechanically interesting at all I think there's some pretty cool ideas here and they're executed really well the fight also does a good job at having two distinct phases similar to the emerald like that both phases are important to the fight and one doesn't just feel like filler the ads phase is probably the least interesting part of the fight but I still think it's a better ads phase than a lot of the other trials in this game also Hades impaling himself with his own staff for his transformation is raw as in both phases of the fight he also just looks cool as and I think that's really important in a trial boss if they look cool they're more interesting to fight I think the visuals in this fight are also executed really well they're very memorable without being too flashy or overwhelming to the play I also think the active Time Event used in this fight is completely fine here because it is the conclusion of shadowbringers and having a big moment where you get to Break Free with your light is important to a conclusion like this Hades is in extremely cinematic conclusion to shadowbringers and I don't think he's quite as good as Shin Ryu in terms of mechanics but I do think he is the more memorable fight of the two overall despite my love for Hades as the conclusion to shadowbringers there is one boss who you've probably figured out by now is my absolute favorite in all of shadowbringers and potentially my favorite in the entire game so let's get to number one [Music] if you hadn't guessed it from the start the warrior of light or Elizabeth is my favorite trial in shadowbringers and I'm sure it is many people's favorite trial and shadowbringers if not many people's favorite trial in the entire game first of all the fight takes place in the final room from the circus Tower raid which is cool as secondly Elizabeth as the warrior of light is one of my favorite Boss Designs in the entire game and thirdly this is one of the biggest story moments in the entire game that is told through a trial this is probably the best instance of trial storytelling we've ever seen all topped off by some super interesting and well-designed mechanics this normal child literally gets every single thing right in my opinion and has pretty much no flaws at all I'm not sure how the extreme version of this fight works but I imagine if you have to watch that cutscene every time on Extreme while you're farming the mount that could be pretty frustrating but again this is a normal trial ranking so I'm not really considering those things at all this intermission cutscene where Elizabeth thinks he's won and Emmett silk shows up to save your ass is such an insane story moment told through the trial no other trial in this entire game got me as hyped up as this singular moment even the end Walker trials which have been absolutely fantastic so far have not gotten me as excited as this single moment did there's also a really sick tank lb moment in this fight and I think we just need more tank lb moments like this in general because God damn only the melees ever get to lb and I think it's really cool when the tanks actually have to use it for once I'm not a tank man but I imagine it feels really damn good to press that button there's also such a huge variety of different mechanics in this fight and reusing mechanics that are taught to you in the first phase in more complicated ways in the second phase it feels like every time I go into this fight I notice or learned something that I missed on the previous run out of all these shadowbringers trials in the game this is definitely the one I want to try on Extreme the most which you know makes sense given that it's my number one I absolutely love the warrior of light trial and I think everybody who plays this game and has made it this far absolutely loves the warrior of light trial because it's just so damn good and I think it's the best trial in the game also the song that plays during this trial is just so good and it adds so much to the experience it's crazy how much music adds to these normal trials man but all in all this is how I would currently rank the shadowbringers trials and how I feel about them to be fair these are definitely my least played normal trials in the entire game I've probably even played the end Walker once more than this because I've somehow seen them in roulette more overall it was an absolute treat replaying these trials for the sake of this video because I just had so little experience with them and they all felt fresh and new having ranked all of the shadowbringers trials now though this will conclude in my trial ranking series until we get the rest of the end Walker trials so I can make a full video talking about that going forward in terms of rankings I think it might be fun to do an alliance raid ranking or a normal raid ranking or maybe even a dungeon ranking if people wanted to see that so let me know in the comments below if you want to see any of those things I'll also put up a poll on my channel as to what you guys might want to see next in terms of ranking videos because I want to kind of keep a running Series in the background of my channel just kind of ranking the different content in 14. I think it's fun to make and I think it could be interesting to listen to for some people otherwise I'd love to hear your thoughts on these trials in the comments below what's your favorite trial in shadowbringers what do you agree with about my list what do you disagree with leave a like on the video but only if you did and subscribe to the big blue purple Channel if you're not already go run some normal trials and I'll catch you in the next one [Music] thank you

Channel: BigBluePurple

Views: 2,464

Keywords: final fantasy xiv, ffxiv, shadowbringers, BigBluePurple, the ffxiv experience, ff14, FFXIV trials, FFXIV raid, FFXIV music, FFXIV endwalker, heavensward, a realm reborn, yoshi-p, ranking, tier list, ffxiv ranking, ffxiv leveling, ffxiv roulette

Id: y1NMdei9v54

Length: 18min 13sec (1093 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 10 2023