returning player, completely lost!

[Baxta]

Hi all, I played 1.x from just after launch until server closure and ARR relaunch. I just came back this week and boy have things moved on... I have a TON of questions, google is confusing as hell. What patch number are we even on?

So right now I'm just levelling ROG/NIN since that wasn't here when I left and I'll pick up Heavensward later this week to get all the classes from 50 > 60.

What is the highest GC rank now? I have 49k/50k seals so might as well spend them, iirc you used to use seals to rank up?

I used to play pretty hardcore, but my gear is laughable now. Is there a simple progression chart I should be looking at? Bear in mind I have no idea what I'm doing.

I have all classes at 50 (ROG 45 atm) and I'll work on getting them all to 60 ASAP, but I don't know wtf anything is, is there anything that I should be looking to do as a high priority? Really any general advice would be great as my mindset is still around the game of the relaunch, I'm unaware of so much!

[Rongway]

Current patch content is 3.57. No further content is scheduled until Stormblood launch (but fixes and adjustments to existing content can still happen).

Augmented Ironworks (130, tomes of poetics) and Dreadwyrm (130, Final Coil) gear is the highest gear until 54, and decent until you hit 60. The HW main story will periodically hand you HQ crafted gear.

At 60, uncapped tomes can buy 230/240 gear and capped tomes buy 260/270 gear. The Alexander raids will drop tokens for 180(Gordias)/220(Midas)/250(final) with no weekly loot cap.

If you know what jobs you want to play in Stormblood, you can take one or two of them through 2.1-2.55 story quests (Lv50~54ish), then the 3.0-3.56 story quests (the rest of the way to 60). Then work toward a 270 average to prepare for Stormblood*. If you're interested in PvP, you can get some fair Lv60 gear through that, which will help you meet the minimums for Alexander and Lv60 dungeons.

If you're not sure what jobs you want to play, unlock Palace of the Dead via the Lv17 quest "The House that Death Built" in Gridania Adventurers' Guild, and then complete floors 1-50. After beating 50, you can enter at floor 51 as an acting Lv60 character. This will allow you to take jobs for test drives before you commit to leveling them.




* If you want to play RDM, you'll want THM/ACN gear for both Lv50 and Lv60. SAM will wear PGL gear.

[HyoMinPark]

Hi all, I played 1.x from just after launch until server closure and ARR relaunch. I just came back this week and boy have things moved on... I have a TON of questions, google is confusing as hell. What patch number are we even on?

Welcome back to FFXIV! There's tons of new content for you to enjoy. There was actually maintenance this evening for patch 3.57. So that's what patch we are currently on.

So right now I'm just levelling ROG/NIN since that wasn't here when I left and I'll pick up Heavensward later this week to get all the classes from 50 > 60.

I'm not sure where you left off at (end of 2.0 or a subsequent 2.x patch), but there are about 100 main scenario quests between the end of ARR and Heavensward. Since you have most jobs at 50, you can use these quests (and the dungeons you'll unlock) to get some experience on each of them. It's been buffed even more since I ran it, and I was already level 53 by the time I reached Heavensward (I started playing just before the release of 3.1). Afterwards, you'll reach Ishgard and the Heavensward story will start at that point.

What is the highest GC rank now? I have 49k/50k seals so might as well spend them, iirc you used to use seals to rank up?

The devs only added one new rank, and that is First Lieutenant. To achieve it, you are required to level up a squadron of NPCs by way of squadron missions, rather than just pay X amount of GC seals. The game does a fairly okay job explaining how leveling them works, but when you get to that point, if there's anything you don't understand, feel free to ask on the forums or Reddit and people can help you out.

I used to play pretty hardcore, but my gear is laughable now. Is there a simple progression chart I should be looking at? Bear in mind I have no idea what I'm doing.

You'll want to have at least poetics (ilvl 120)/augmented poetics (ilvl 130) gear entering Heavensward. Poetics are extremely easy to come by, so it shouldn't take you long to get a set/sets of gear for the job(s) you want to play--just unlock all the level 50 dungeons (I think there's around a dozen or so of them) for those sweet bonus poetics, and do your daily Level 50 roulette once you have cleared them all. The augmented poetics gear will last you until level 55-56 (non-augmented around level 54-55), where there you can start using dungeon drops from the main scenario dungeons, and the HQ gear that the MSQ will hand out to you.

When you first hit 60, there will be several level 60 dungeons you can start to unlock to start accumulating Tomestones of Lore. Use these to buy ilvl 230 (240 if you want to augment it) lore gear to progress into the more current level 60 dungeons and 24-man raids (Void Ark, Weeping City of Mhach, and Dun Scaith, which offer ilvl 200, 230, and 260 gear, respectfully). Once you're ilvl 230, you can also run Alexander Creator normal mode for ilvl 250 gear (note that you will have to have done normal mode Gordias and Midas first--these also give out additional gear you can use to supplement in between getting your lore gear, ilvl 190 and 220, respectfully). If you have the gil, there is also ilvl 250 crafted gear that you can buy off the MB, and bypass getting lore gear completely (though you will still need to do the level 60 dungeons).

From there, you start getting tomestones of scripture to get the current endgame gear, which is ilvl 260, and can be augmented to ilvl 270.

All lockouts have been removed, so you should be able to gear up relatively fast.

I have all classes at 50 (ROG 45 atm) and I'll work on getting them all to 60 ASAP, but I don't know wtf anything is, is there anything that I should be looking to do as a high priority? Really any general advice would be great as my mindset is still around the game of the relaunch, I'm unaware of so much!

If you need to test drive your jobs again, I would recommend unlocking Palace of the Dead (the starting quest for it can be found in the Carline Canopy in Gridania). You will be randomly matched with 3 other players, starting from level 1, and you will level up as you progress through the dungeon (the leveling inside PotD is independent from the actual game, but you do get experience for the job you enter as every 10 floors, as well as poetics, since most of your jobs are ~50). The first part of PotD is 50 floors, with mostly trash mobs and a boss every 10 floors. Once you complete Tam-Tara Hard Mode (lvl 50 dungeon), you can accept a quest to go deeper into PotD all the way to floor 200 (albeit, the story for PotD ends on floor 100; 101-200 are more as a challenge to players).

This would be a good way of getting reacquainted with the jobs you have, as well as get a glimpse of the level 50-60 skills Heavensward will offer. Some jobs changed significantly in HW compared to their ARR versions.

For additional experience, you can use the 2.x MSQ quests (those 100+ quests between ARR and HW) and dungeons to give experience to each of your level 50 jobs.

I would suggest taking the time now to re-familiarize yourself with the jobs, and then, after that, try to decide on the primary job you would like to level up through the Heavensward MSQ. It would be beneficial to also look for a Free Company to join, so that you can have other players help you progress, and also make some new friends. :3


Hopefully this information isn't too overwhelming. I wanted to give answers in as few words as possible, but also wanted those answers to be as comprehensive as possible. XD Any questions, feel free to ask.

[Baxta]

Wow thanks so much, both posts really helpful and much clearer than anything I found through google!

I definitely need to be reaquainted with the jobs, before I played just about everything equally, in my FC I was kind of the spare part just dropping in with whatever we needed, but my "mains" were BRD and later SCH too, I really wanted a straight utility/support role, but found that it never really existed. I've got one eye on RDM for future and from briefly hearing about Astrologian that might be fun, but as you said it seems a lot has changed jobs wise with HW and I really need to find just one job to focus on for now I think, since there is so much to be getting on with. Thanks for explaining Palace of the Dead, I heard some people talking about potd but had no idea what they were talking about >.<

When I left before it was to go back to school and I didn't really have intentions of coming back to play, so I gave all my gil to my FC, it was just before housing was due to come out, so I just gave the leaders my money and said see ya, buy a nice house! It was about 40Mil and now I think that wasn't a wise choice as shortly after the FC imploded it seems. When I came back I was the Master and no one was left in it! I spent all the guild points at the GC desk to get the expensive housing stuff, looted the guild bank and disbanded it lol. But yes, unfortunately I'm starting from scatch financially, but thats okay, I don't really mind that. I have some crafts and fishing and mining at 50, despite them only being 50, I'm sure money will come as I take them to 60.

Definitely need to find an FC, glad to see that in general the community in-game is still as friendly as abuse-free as I remember

Thanks again, really helpful for me! I really appreciate it!

[MiniOmegaDragon]

this is a repeat post

[Niwashi]

If you need to test drive your jobs again, I would recommend unlocking Palace of the Dead

PotD is pretty popular for leveling since it gives pretty good XP, but I wouldn't recommend it for learning (or re-learning) your jobs. I suppose it might work if you go in with a fixed group of friends that maintains the standard party mix, but if you're either going solo or queuing for a random group, it can be any mix of jobs, so you lack the standard responsibilities of your job's normal role within the party. (It's kind of like leveling by just FATE grinding in that regard, with the same drawbacks for learning your job.)

I think it'd be better to re-learn your jobs through dungeons that actually involve using the Tank/Healer/DPS roles. If you've been away a long time and need to go over the basics, you can start with low level dungeons where you only have a few skills to focus on and simple challenges. Then when you're comfortable with those move on to increasingly higher level ones that incorporate more of your skills. The level sync lets you kind of work your way through the leveling process over again but without needing to hit XP thresholds while doing so.

[Rongway]

PotD ... you lack the standard responsibilities of your job's normal role within the party

But what you don't lack is access to all your actions, so you can enter floor 51 solo and see what sort of panoply you're working with, read tooltips, arrange bars, and see if your bindings meet your personal expectations.

This makes it a superior playground to standard party content, especially for BRD and MCH, who without the Palace could spend days playing normal content, thinking they enjoy the job, only to find as they get closer to 60 that they don't enjoy post-50 BRD. Reading the action tooltips and experiencing their effects as an acting Lv60 character will give someone a basic idea of whether they like a job or not, without wasting leveling time that could have been applied to something else.

[HyoMinPark]

snip

I wasn't suggesting that OP use PotD as the sole method of learning. According to the OP, he's leveled up most his jobs to 50. Going into floors 51-60, or even just running through 1-50, may spark his memory of "Oh! That's right! I use this skill with this one, pop this buff before I use [skill]." I was thinking more so along the lines of triggering memory when it comes to the jobs.

The post above also makes a great point of being able to test drive jobs after level 60, since some of them change pretty drastically (BRD for example). Let the OP know if he wants to pursue a job to 60 now, later, or never.