Vegan Pete and Avi Aiel are a married couple who loves podcasts so much they decided to start their own! She Heals I Tank is a weekly podcast that covers current events and gives a casual take on issues the community may face. They also talk about their experiences throughout the game whether it’s raiding or the social aspect.
Introduce yourselves!
Pete: I’m Vegan Pete, one of the hosts of the SHIT podcast aka She Heals I Tank. I’ve always been into video games, my MMO cherry was popped with Dark Age of Camelot which I played for 5 plus years. I dabbled in WoW but never made it to the first expansion. I downloaded the FFXIV free trial on the PS4 since I knew Avi liked Final Fantasy. I had never played a Final Fantasy game. She liked it, I tried it out and liked it. A couple of rebuilt PC’s later here we are making our own FFXIV podcast.
Avi: Hey guys Avi Aiel here. I feel like that’s sort of my tagline now. I’ve been gaming since I was kid. Mostly Nintendo and what-not at that age. I actually didn’t get into the Final Fantasy series until later in life, but it is an amazing series. I’ve played WoW, FFXI, and love DragonAge, but I definitely find it difficult to finish other games when I’m playing an MMORPG like FFXIV. I know our podcast is She Heals I Tank, but I do more than heal. I currently try to keep my Scholar and Summoner relatively equally geared up, and have been preferring Scholar of late.
How did you come to the idea of a podcast?
Pete:I listened to a few FFXIV podcasts before we started ours. I had always liked podcasts in general and had an admiration for people that were creating their own content. I interacted with some of the FFXIV podcasts but found that it wasn’t really satisfying my want to talk about FFXIV. I had opinions on the game I wanted to voice and outside of that I really needed a creative outlet. So I thought about it for a while, I really didn’t want to copy anything someone else was doing. Once I felt we could do a unique show we just went for it. The first show was just with 1 mic plugged in via USB and we slowly been adding equipment to try to make a better quality show. It was very much my project to begin with, but I think Avi has really started to add her own voice now as well now. She comes up with a lot of segments and our nice fancy website was all done by her.
Avi: Yeah it was all Pete’s idea to start the podcast. I was very much just along for the ride assuming it was something he’d give up on in a month but once it stuck I started putting some effort into it as well.
Could you describe your podcast for those who haven’t listened yet?
Pete: I’d say we lean towards an informative podcast. We always talk about the latest news for FFXIV but we also try to keep it really fun and play silly games like Fuck, Marry, Kill with FFXIV characters. I think we give a unique perspective from a now married couple that games together. We’ve gotten a lot of comments that other gaming couples enjoy listening to our dynamic and comments from people asking how they can get their significant other to start playing the game.
Avi: She Heals I Tank is a FFXIV podcast that doesn’t take itself too seriously. We are a couple that play together, and enjoy helping others. We like to try to do that through the podcast.. while enjoying the occasional beverage, and perv’ing out on Yoshi P. Oh wait… I think that’s all just me.
The both of you talk a lot about current events but you also have a lot of advice for beginning players. Was this something you always had in mind?
Pete: That was actually not something we had in mind from the beginning. We do the Greenleaf Minute near the top of each show and that was just come up with during a brainstorm session for regular segments we could do. It’s actually probably our most popular segment because it’s great for new players and a lot of stuff we talk about is something that even a veteran player may have forgotten or would be useful for someone just coming back to the game.
Avi: Honestly, the podcast developed very organically. We were trying to think of different segments to have as staples in the show, and the Greenleaf Minute was a great way to help new players, and people really appreciated it. It’s also fun for us, because we learn sometimes just writing them up.
I’ve also seen your Youtube where drinks are created. Are there plans to bring this back? I felt like it was something really cool for people to watch outside of the podcast with how Eorzea is interpreted with drinks. Have you thought about doing this with the food in the game?
Pete: Yes! I definitely will be bringing this back it’s just about finishing some IRL house renovation projects first before I can spend the time doing additional content like DrinkAbout Eorzea. I am still coming up with recipes though, so I’ll definitely be ready when we have the time. I have thought about doing this food actually, I don’t come from any sort of video background though so I need to figure out a good way to film something like that. Even before the podcast my original idea for a creative outlet was to do blog posts of veganizing recipes from FFXIV. I did one post for Frozen Spirits before the podcasts started to take all of my attention. I did make a vegan version of Fish and Chips but never even got around to posting the pictures. I’ve attempted homebrewing but gave it up because it was too hard in a small apartment, now that we have the space I’d love to try to brew some beer based off of FFXIV. Avi was a baker in a past career, I’ve suggested her creating some FFXIV cupcakes but she hasn’t come around to that idea yet.
Basically I have a lot of ideas I’d like to do it’s just about finding the time to do them. Between having to adult and working on the Podcast and other FFXIV related projects some week it feels like I hardly got a chance to actually play FFXIV.
Avi: Pete loves the DrinkAbout segment. This was originally my idea, but I don’t want to do it until our new (to us) house is at least reasonably put together. There’s only so much of yourself you want to put out on the internet. And a sloppy home is not something I’m cool with sharing. But yes, they will come back. Maybe not every week, but we will do them again.
Talking about the game for a little bit, what do you both think of the state of the game?
Pete: Overall I think the game is in a good spot right now. Stormblood got pretty much all positive reviews from gaming sites which is good for getting some fresh blood into the game. Now, what I might consider a negative is probably a positive for some people. My negative is the patch cycle and ilvl progression that they have been sticking to since the beginning. I find it a negative because if you play a decent amount like myself you get kinda bored. However people that don’t play as much that content lasts longer for them and for people that maybe took a few months off, it’s really easy for them to catch back up to the latest content.
Lately, I’ve been talking about how I want to see new types of content. At the Fan Fest we went to, they announced the Forbidden Lands of Eureka and we haven’t had any news since. That worries me a bit. I was willing to accept fewer dungeons in exchange for them trying new things. Next months patch will be the first patch where we are getting the reduction in new dungeons and I want to start seeing some of the new content.
I’ve recently gotten back into raiding with Stormblood and I think they are in a really good spot right now. They’ve made the first couple levels of savage pretty accessible so that you can even do it with a group of randoms. The second couple are a bit harder and you’d probably prefer to do them with a static. I think just getting people into trying the first couple is really important though. If people are banging their heads against the first floor they will just give up and not try again. That was a problem they had in the Heavensward expansion. They made the first level of the new savage raid way too hard that it took the best raiding groups in the world a long time to clear it. When the best of the best are having a hard time and their statics are breaking up, that might be a bit too hard.
There is a line they have to walk. You don’t want to make it too easy that it feels like normal mode, but you don’t want to make it so hard that only 1% of the population is beating it.
Avi: The game is definitely in lull status at the moment, but there are still fun thing going on. I know there isn’t a ton of new content at the moment, but Omega Savage is much more approachable than previous Savages, and there are still the new classes to level and gear your current classes too. It’s fun, because with the added levels, your favorite class to play could change. I think that’s definitely worth finding out. I am hoping for the relics or something to come out soon, so I can have another “in the meantime” task that feels at least somewhat productive. Sorry Yokai. I don’t care about you.
If you both had the power to fix anything in the game, what would it be?
Pete: PvP for me. I long for the nights I had doing PvP in Dark Age of Camelot. I’d love to have a PvP zone that had objectives for you to take and try to hold. I’m not holding my breath on this one though, with the latest PvP format they’re introducing being 24v24 instanced content.
Avi: I still want a butt slider. Yes, I’m using my one thing to fix a character aesthetic. But damn I wish I could have at least a little bit of a butt. I mean, the Hyuran females have a bit more going on, but it’s more hip that butt. Give us some bootie!
What is advice you would give to someone starting out?
Pete: It’s a MMO so it’s meant to be played with other people. What you can play this through pretty much like a single player campaign, it is so much more fun playing with other people. If you don’t have any friends that are playing try joining a FC and making some. Being able to run content with people you’re used to helps a lot as well when learning new content. Don’t be afraid to say you’re new, people are willing to help if you ask for explanation on something.
Avi: If you have friends who play, make sure to play on the same server as them. And if you don’t, even if it puts you out of your comfort zone, introduce yourself and find other people to play with. The community is what makes this game great. Playing by yourself gets old and a bit monotonous (like in life…. booyah). But seriously, that’s why Pete and I have always been so big on inviting our listeners to play on our server, Adamantoise, because that’s the sort of FC that we really try to curate. We have members who we met at Fanfest, who are listeners to our podcast, and friends we’ve made in game. It’s really great.
Any parting thoughts?
Pete: Be nice to each other. We play games to have fun and many of us play to escape from something shitty in real life. You don’t know what someone might be going through, there is no reason to be an asshole cuz someone wasn’t playing the way you want them to play.
Avi: Umm… just to have fun. It is a game, and no one pays your subscription, but you. Don’t let others make you feel bad for playing the way you want to play. You aren’t obligated to do Savage, craft, or level every class (or any class for that matter) to 70. If people are making the game not fun for you, find people that will. It’s even ok to leave an FC. Again, you are paying to play. Make sure it’s fun for you.
Shoutouts!
Pete: Shout out to all our listeners, we wouldn’t be doing this interview if it wasn’t for all of you tuning in to listen to us. And a shout out to our FC Astraea Redux.
Avi: Same, shout out to our listeners and FC and thank you for wanting to interview us.
You can catch their podcast on their website https://shehealsitank.com/
Twitter: @SheHealsITank