Onaux? Oh, Yes!

As I’ve said before, I’m an altoholic, which means I like having several characters to play in FFXIV. Some of my characters already have a backstory when I create them and others tell me their story as I play them. One character that already had a story before I made him is one of my Elezen men named Onaux Branchais. His name is pronounced “Oh-no Branshays” and it’s sort of a play on, “Oh, no, branches!” as in he has to duck under tree branches if he’s riding too fast through the woods on his motorcycle or other mounts. He’s also a dragoon main so branches can be a problem if he has to dive through them or backflip into them.

Onaux’s somewhat humorous name origins are reflected in his easy-going, no-nonsense personality. Story-wise I don’t really plan on making the point about the whole branches thing, but we’ll see. I created him originally as a partner for my Keeper of the Moon Miqo’te, Qina because I liked the idea of a minimum-height cat girl and a minimum-height Elezen man together. Even minimum height, Onaux is quite a bit taller than Qina, but they manage to make things work. Their personalities balance each other out as Qina is very energetic, enthusiastic, fearless, and spontaneous and Onaux is a bit more grounded and sensible, while not being a stick (or branch) in the mud.

One of the more peculiar things about Onaux is the way I leveled him. Usually, I level a character in a battle class before leveling them in a profession, but in Onaux’s case, I got him to level 10 lancer and then picked up leatherworker. I ended up leveling him into the 30s as a leatherworker and totally neglecting lancer and well, as I have lots of characters, I then neglected him completely for quite some time.

But Onaux is one of my oldest daughter’s favorite characters because she helped me come up with his name, she likes his spikey hairstyle, two different colored eyes, and that he’s mates with Qina, whom she also loves. So I did feel bad about neglecting Onaux, but I have to be in the right mood to play a character and recently I’d been focused mostly on my Sun Kitty D’azri as she finished up Endwalker and enjoyed Island Sanctuary. But with the Island Sanctuary mammet-managed now, D’azri can just rest for a bit and I can focus on other characters.

For reasons I can’t entirely explain, I felt a strong urge to play Onaux this past weekend, and thus that’s what I did. It is partly because there’s an Elftober prompt on Twitter and I’m seeing lots of lovely Elezen posts and it made me miss my own Elezen. I have four Elezen characters, three males and one female, but my desire to play Onaux was definitely the strongest.

So over the weekend, with the help of random dungeons and PVP, I managed to get him to level 30 lancer and then progress him into dragoon. I then wanted to get him some more dragoon-looking armor and the only way to do that really at level 30 is through the PVP gear purchasable with trophy crystals from Crystalline Conflict. So I did lots and LOTS of CC and managed to get him three pieces with trophy crystals, helm, chest, and pants, and three pieces with wolf marks, hands, feet, and weapon. With the help of some dark blue dye, his set looked nicely coordinated and he was the model of a dashing dragoon.

However, over the weekend, I learned that there’s a unicorn mount available to level 30 conjurers and I found the idea of Onaux riding a unicorn mount very appealing. So after getting the unicorn on my already 30+ level conjurer/white mage, Kehda’to, I decided Onaux was going to take a detour from dragoon to level conjurer. My oldest daughter thought I was crazy because she found leveling conjurer very slow and painful, but as I’d already leveled conjurer (and many other classes) to 30, I knew I could handle it. It’s also much less stressful to level a healer now with duty support where I can do dungeons with NPCs instead of other players.

Getting a new class from level 1 to level 15 is the slowest part, but once you hit 15, you can do the first dungeon of Sastasha via duty finder or duty support. To get to level 15, I usually do levequests and fates along with the class quests and if I have rest experience saved up, it doesn’t take too long. I also employed the Heat of Battle II from the FC actions and made sure I ate food for that added 3% of experience. That along with my friendship circlet and Menphina’s earring, gave me a nice little boost of experience to help with those first 15 levels.

Before I even started Onaux as conjurer though, I knew I wanted him to have a look different than his previous, non-dragoon armor look. As it’s October, I decided to buy him the vampire vest and pumpkin earrings because I liked how contrary it was for him to look like a vampire while training as a conjurer. It’s something that fits Onaux’s personality, and I have to say that the cape of the shirt moving when he casts is very magician-like and made even the lower, leveling “grind” more fun. I also had enough wolf marks to get him a level 1 conjurer weapon that looks somewhat like a glorified feather duster but is more interesting than a wooden cane. As Onaux is now level 35 dragoon, he also has his Chocobo, Twig, to help him out with attack, defense, and healing as he levels conjurer.

As of this morning, Onaux was level 23 conjurer thanks to doing two duty support dungeons starting at level 15. I think by the time I go to bed tonight after an evening of playing, I should be close to, if not at, level 30 conjurer, which means unicorn mount! Will I continue leveling Onaux as conjurer/white mage after I get the unicorn? Perhaps. With duty support, it’s a lot more likely that I’ll level healers because I don’t have to worry about my lag and ineptitude as a healer causing issues for other players. Having Onaux at least partly trained in healing is a nice addition to his backstory and character and one that I will definitely incorporate into the tales I write about him, Qina, and my numerous other characters. After all, in a game where one character can be all classes, anything is possible!

***

Update as I go to sleep: Unicorn acquired!