Late to Eorzea, what to do before EW?

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Originally Posted by Floortank

If I stopped to grind the iLvl just to go into Eden...

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You're getting my suggestion back to front. Don't grind to get into Eden, make use of Eden (and other side content) when you have the ilevel to get into it but not higher MSQ content.

Doing content earns you tomes. Tomes give you free gear. You'll get an assortment of gear as you work through the MSQ dungeons along with tomes to buy more.

Even if you plan to do nothing but MSQ, it doesn't make sense to go out and buy a full set of i510 gear to tackle content that only requires i430 initially (for the 5.1 dungeon) and never needs more than i490.

If you're going to buy gear, get a weapon and enough pieces to see you over the necessary threshold* but don't pay to overgear yourself at this point.

*I would suggest aiming for i465 initially as that gets you into the 5.3 trial and Shadowbringers' final epilogue, then play through to that point, then fill any gaps in your equipment first with tome gear then either purchased gear or Eden Part 3.

Edit to add: ...and then get the rest of the Cryptlurker gear with poetics once Endwalker hits.

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Originally Posted by Skivvy

Do the leves reset in full with the expansion?

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Don't think so, but the gold from leve will be nerfed to counter Gil inflation, so better to do it while it is still good.

I'd say get iL520 minimum. Your gear will get replaced by 2nd dungeon gear drops (lvl 83). iL530 get's their gear replaced with 3rd dungeon gear drops (lvl 85). All players should gear themselves with quest gear rewards + 3th dungeon drops (lvl 85). Else lvl 87 and lvl 89 dungeons will be a nightmare to heal. They are usually very hard-hitting because players go into them with low iL.