Is it really this easy to catch-up?

[Masamune11]

Am I missing something? I log in for the first time in close to 2 years. I explore with RoE and realize that you can get sparks for already having completed "nation" missions (I have all three ranked to 10). Needless to say - I'm clicking through these and I'm maxed out on sparks without even moving outside of town (still have plenty of tasks to turn in).

Seems like I can buy a full set of 117 gear now. Is this enough to clear all of the Adoulin missions / Rhapsody missions?

With full 117 gear - what should I shoot for next? It looks like 95% of the stuff to do is now invalidated per the 117 item level gear. Anything I'm missing? Just looking for what I should do next.

Thanks

[Alhanelem]

the sparks gear is nothing to write home about, but it does help you get going.
ilvl stuff is needed for basically everything in the expansion and will be needed for most of Rhapsodies.

Also FYI, only visible gear has item levels. Rings/earrings/back/waist/neck and non-thrown throwing items other than special pet items for SMN/PUP don't have ilvls and aren't "invalidated."

Content related to relics/mythics/empyreans is all still played for making money / creating those things and upgrading AF/relic/empyrean armor to lv119. Most old BCNMs have new high-tier versions with multiple difficulty levels (And that 117 gear won't be enough for anything above Normal difficulty
Audolin has multiple endgame contents such as sirmish/alluvion skirmish, delve, incursion, and vagary. Rhapsodies has 119 content as well (and will have more in the coming updates).

Look into skirmish or delve first, you can also hit up some of those BCNMs, those will help you get qualified for the tougher contents. Unity Concord hunts are also a good thing.

[Masamune11]

Thanks for the response. Any suggestions for trust combinations to use? I play as a DRK which I realize is not the most in demand job. Obviously would only be interested in currently available trusts (not ones that I may have missed). Thanks

[RalphTheGalka]

You can sleepwalk through the current Rhapsody missions in sparks gear, but I think you'll hit a wall with some of the Adoulin missions without help. Trusts will be destroyed by AoE on later fights and you'll have to fight against multiple enemies at times.

You might try working on reforging artifact/relic/empyrean armor pieces next, or try for skirmish gear.

[Fynlar]

the sparks gear is nothing to write home about, but it does help you get going.

For someone that mostly hasn't touched the game since Adoulin, the stuff is really quite amazing. It might not quite be enough to make you godly in the higher tier Adoulin content, but the difference it makes in doing nearly anything else before it is like night and day.

[Cyleena]

Am I missing something? I log in for the first time in close to 2 years. I explore with RoE and realize that you can get sparks for already having completed "nation" missions (I have all three ranked to 10). Needless to say - I'm clicking through these and I'm maxed out on sparks without even moving outside of town (still have plenty of tasks to turn in).

Seems like I can buy a full set of 117 gear now. Is this enough to clear all of the Adoulin missions / Rhapsody missions?

With full 117 gear - what should I shoot for next? It looks like 95% of the stuff to do is now invalidated per the 117 item level gear. Anything I'm missing? Just looking for what I should do next.

Thanks

Sparks gear is a step to get going but to get into most groups you will need a little better gear. I would say try to get in skirmish runs with people to get skirmish gear (you could be book person in Alluvion Skirmish to start getting you pieces), and upgrade your AF/Emp/Relic gear. Also depending on jobs you might want to get some delve gear/weapons as well which some are still good for people coming back like the Delve Shark GK if you play sam, etc, and there is still some rings, neck pieces, etc that are still not bad to use for some jobs. You will probably need some help to get delve wins and gear but most places still have shout runs that occur, or if you have a group that does delve try to get in on it. You might also want to think about leveling something besides dark because you will find that dark is not used for most content nowadays unfortunately. Support jobs are wanted a lot like brd, geo, sometimes cor, whm, sch, or DD jobs like sam, pld, Rune, blue, etc. Once you get gear sorted you can maybe do some Incursion for a decent Capacity Points (job points) capes (Mecistopins Mantle with capactiy points augment on it), and JSE (job specific equipment = JSE) cape though you can get JSE capes augmented from a npc without doing incursion with refractive crystals but still need incursion for Capacity Points capes.

[Fynlar]

Once you get gear sorted you can maybe do some Incursion for a decent Capacity Points (job points) capes (Mecistopins Mantle with capactiy points augment on it), and JSE (job specific equipment = JSE) cape though you can get JSE capes augmented from a npc without doing incursion with refractive crystals but still need incursion for Capacity Points capes.

There's also the Aptitude Mantle (+1) if Incursion is too hard to get into, which has very much been the case for me

[bungiefanNA]

Level 117 Sparks armor is like the Perle/Teal/Aurore set from Abyssea. It's a baseline set to get you into current events. Better gear comes from current events, but at least you have something that can get you by.

Rhapsodies is currently set to be clearable if you could beat the Shadow Lord mission, aimed at level ~60 players. The next batch will be aimed at 75-99, and the last one will be aimed at level 119. Adoulin and maybe Abyssea are the only things you will have trouble soloing now without a very specific job and gear build. Most endgame isn't realy soloable right now, like Vagary and hard mode battles, unless you go on easy difficulty on the things that give an option.

Spark gear should let you into hard mode orb battles, skirmish and alluvion skirmish, and maybe Delve, so you can get better gear (maybe your job uses reforged Empyrean, Relic, and Artifact armor) that is level 119, so you can do harder things like Vagary. You can also farm silt in Escha Zi'Tah for high level equipment.

[Masamune11]

An occasionally attack twice augmented Wildskeeper weapon seems like it would be better than most weapons and incredibly easy to obtain. Would something like this be sufficient for almost all story content? I'm not looking to put in huge grind hours (I primarily play FF14).

I see no mention of these augmented wildskeeper weapons on various threads I browse but I do the math and they seem to be better than the vast majority of available weapons. Something I'm missing?

[Alhanelem]

Well, accuracy kinda trumps everything in high end content. VD BCs and the highest level incursions etc demand that you max out your accuracy to the extent humanly possible (and even then you need multiple buffs). The WKR weapons with augments are very good but you really need something 119 for the hardest content. On PUP I have the augmentable 119 hth from delve 2 (that bear-like NM) and it seems to outperform the WKR weapon with OAT in high level content. In lower end content though, it might not be the case.

[bungiefanNA]

An occasionally attack twice augmented Wildskeeper weapon seems like it would be better than most weapons and incredibly easy to obtain. Would something like this be sufficient for almost all story content? I'm not looking to put in huge grind hours (I primarily play FF14).

I see no mention of these augmented wildskeeper weapons on various threads I browse but I do the math and they seem to be better than the vast majority of available weapons. Something I'm missing?

Does that augmented weapon give you the same or more skill levels than what you are comparing to? Does it give more accuracy? If no to either of those, it is worse. Skill levels count for damage and accuracy against higher level enemies, and when taking on the hardest content you need really high accuracy to even hit an enemy. What good is OAT if you have a 50% hit rate, so one of the extra hits misses? Level 119 weapons are that level for a reason, they give you stats like you are level 119 instead of 109.

Now, if just wanting to do missions, even sparks armor and weapons are enough to solo through Wings of the Goddess and Voidwatch (most of it). Some of Adoulin is not soloable unless you are the right job with the right gear and Job Points/Gifts.

[Fynlar]

If you don't need the extra atk/acc from a i119 weapon, i115s with OAT are the best things you can use, generally speaking.

There's a reason why weapons like the Joyeuse remained popular for a very long time in the level 75 era.

[Selindrile]

The 115 WKR OaT weapons are extremely good if you don't need the extra acc/atk for higher level content, the new "blurred" weapons are better yet for a lot of content but quite expensive to obtain at this moment.

But yes depending on your other gear (119 reforge af + 115 WKR OaT) generally should probably get you safely through the Adoulin missions and none of that is terribly hard to obtain, skirmish armor is extremely good though it can be pricey to get decent augments are, but with the right augments it's some of the best stuff in the game for a lot of situations.

[Masamune11]

Thanks for all the feedback. Is it even remotely possible to solo the Adoulin missions (with trusts) as a DRK? I'm assuming at some point i'm going to need help regardless of my setup.

[Fynlar]

You will eventually reach a point where the trusts will mainly just get massacred (at least without additional human player healing/support), hopefully after putting up a buff or two, but still massacred nonetheless.

Building off of that, you will find that a huge advantage a player has compared to a trust is the mere fact that they're actually able to put up buffs *before* you start fighting.

[bungiefanNA]

I'd say the Chapter 5 Adoulin fights are hard to solo without being a specific job with a specific set of gear/gifts/job points. I've heard of BST soloing them with 10-second Ready available. Trusts get wiped out pretty easily in those fights. They are easy with a trio of real people in level 119 armor.

I did them about 3 weeks ago and was unable to solo, but got a few people in town and from the LS and was able to plow through the entire chapter in a couple of hours. The variety of buffs available in a party of real people is much better than what Trusts provide. Those buffs can make the difference. Also, a pet job will help, because you have more bodies to absorb damage, and pets are immune to some debuffs, like Encumberance/Death/Charm.

[Valonquar]

I concur. The final chapter of the Adoulin missions are painful. You can easily solo all the way to the last fight in chapter 4, although you will want to do every quest you can find in town and in the field beforehand to gain the KIs you will need to travel freely past colonization reive obstacles.

[Masamune11]

I concur. The final chapter of the Adoulin missions are painful. You can easily solo all the way to the last fight in chapter 4, although you will want to do every quest you can find in town and in the field beforehand to gain the KIs you will need to travel freely past colonization reive obstacles.

Any tips? I'm a 99 DRK and I pretty much just have a WAR, NIN, DNC and THF sub. Since I recently returned, my gear right now is pretty much item level 117 spark gear, an item level 115 Scythe from the Wildskeeper Reives and then I have probably older gear / WS sets / etc. (rajas, etheral earring, moonshade earring, Soil Belt, Soil gorget, etc.). Maybe I'm using the wrong trusts? Or maybe DRK isn't going to work well for these? Basically I tried to do the Stonewalled battlefield (the chapter 3 battlefield) and I quickly got taken out.

I focus my attack on the main guy - but the Gargouilles spawn so quickly that they start to pick my trusts or myself apart. It's really hard to do without human assistance. I'm sure it's definitely possible and I'm just lacking the correct trusts / strategy - but I definitely didn't find it easy. Thoughts?

[bungiefanNA]

Tips would be to get Alluvion Skirmish gear (that event is very popular right now, and easy to get into and get equipment from) to have something better than sparks gear, and then do a shout in town to get a group of 6 real people to do the last chapter. It only takes about 3 hours to do, and has about 4-5 fights.

I was unable to do earlier chapters solo for some fights with my jobs of BLM and SAM without bringing in a second human, usually a WHM to keep NPCs alive. Duoing these battles is easy before chapter 5, soloing them is not without the right jobs and equipment.

[Obysuca]

Tips would be to get Alluvion Skirmish gear (that event is very popular right now, and easy to get into and get equipment from)


Just going to leave this here, but depending on your server, it can easily cost 400k to get the KI for skirmish, seeing as pts lately are requiring everyone to have a KI for it, not to mention depending on how populated your server is (seems only Asura is doing things lately), chances are, no one is shouting for anything or interested if you shout. Saw someone earlier shouting for a good few hours and couldn't get more than 2 people >_> just something to think about

Both of those, mainly the second one, are why I'm still behind on gear(either full 109 reforged or a mix of some lower lvl delve stuff). No one shouts, no one is interested in doing things, even people in ls :/

What I'm curious about is that if just having 119 somehow gives you more acc even if the piece doesn't have it? Because I've seen everyone and their galka using qaaxo, yet my manibozho body has almost double the acc qaaxo has, way more attack and only like 1 str less. I've pumped as much ilvl acc gear as I can into my job and I can't hit for crap, only get about 850, yet I see numerous people using full 119 with almost no acc on any of their gear, yet they can hit perfectly fine o.O Haven't seen anyone ask this and couldn't find anything online about if ilvl actually does anything, since some lower ilvl gear have better stats than some of the 119