Originally Posted by
Concerned4FFxi
Some of what khajit says is true, some is complete bs. Aurore gear is fine for leveling until you get your af3+1 or better, the fact is you are a noob now, returning player or not. Your gil status and gear status is that of a noob, and while you shouldnt play like a noob you should definitly conserve your gil and spend it wisely, hence not wasting it on gear that will be replaced soon and using the perle, teal, and aurore at 78. For the amount of money it costs to buy, the amount of money you get back when you sell it, and for the level and it's easy availablity to all new players and those who dont have decent gear or gil, THERE IS NONE BETTER at 78, period. It's not like your going to jump into a great gear set at that level without investing time or resources, so this is the best option and gives you more time to do things you need at the 78+ bench mark, like xp and do missions. Screw what people think, your not gonna be stuck wearing it forever. Why would you waste your gil on something that your going to replace soon anyway. He obviously doesnt read well, but i hope you got what i was saying, rather than waste your gil on gear that you are going outgrow in a week or two, spend too much for because your new and broke; dont spend your gil on gear that is going to get replaced in 5-10 levels.
Just get a decent weapon for every ten or so levels, until you hit 95. Like I said, consider the magian trials as soon as you hit 75 and work on one of those. Work on your af3+1/2, af2+1/2, see what cheap gear is on the AH for jobs 95+. That is were you want to spend money on gear, 95+, not on gear under 95, unless that gear is still useful/affordable alternative at 95+.
As for bb, its going to costs about 4.5-5.5m gil on my server to purchase all three items from mercanaries (1.5m for behemoth tongue, and 1.5-2m each for the other two items, 2m is reasonable, this is an idea how much you should be paying, at least on my server so don't pay too much more on yours, and dont trade gil first until item drops and make sure you can trust the people doing the bcnm for you to buy the rae/ex from). So yes, that's in your future once you start npc'ing cruor from abyssea, no your not going to jump into gear better than aurore right off the bat without a sponser. I've been playing for years and I have under 1000 kindred crests, so doing the bcnm and thinking you are going to get your bb that way is complete bullshit, now that kindred seals are useally replaced by kindred crests and high kindred crests. Back in the day, you'd have over 1000 kindred seals from xp pt, today you'll have over a 1000 kindred crests instead from your xp pt. It's just the way things work.
Like I said, some of what he said is good, the other is just unreasonable as he didnt offer an alternative or consider your starting point is ground zero.