Yeah the steppe is actually the only good part of Stormsblood. I'm slightly biased because it's one of the FFXI writers and who did the Dark Knight (FFXIV) quest storyline and Coil story, which too is the only storyline in the game I liked so I'm not surprised one bit. They had to slow your progression down though so they added a ton of filler quests but it was enough to properly level you as once you hit bardams mettle you flew through the levels, granted you didn't spam slut dungeon for the 63 gear and ended up level 68 by time you hit the steppe.
The only good thing about Stormblood is Zenos, and now that he's dead the rest of the expansion is gonna suck.
I think he's saying is he really dead
Spoiler: show
Yep Stormblood story from here on is probably gonna be a big yawnfest. We need something of the caliber of the ARR end cutscene again. But this time don't fuck up the followup.
Come on at least use spoiler tags if you're going to post about a main character's death.
Got to say I did enjoy the big battle at the end of the Steppe quests but the rest of them seemed dull. Maybe I was guilty of skipping cutscenes I shouldn't have though. I can watch them in the Inns I guess.
The person who did the steppe quests is also responsible for a lot of the really fucking good quests.
Aetherpact: fairly useless, or am I missing something?
Yeah, mostly useless. The only time I use it I think is in dungeons when the tank does a big pull and I want to apply my dots feeling safe he won't die in the meantime
In trials, I only ever use Aetherpact in Ultimate Coil because it seems to be the only fight where it hits the tank hard enough for me to make use of it while I got Selene out. And even then she doesn't use the fucking thing half the time I hit the button.
Expert roulette I'll hit it after Whispering Dawn just so I can do more dps upkeep, as Gokulo mentioned.
My SCH throws it on me for some spicy parts like spellblade holy books in 3 off the top of my head.