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Are all these hard mode dungeons that become available once you get to level 50 and through the MSGs of ARR necessary. Actually I am just trying to get to the Heavensward content and then Stormblood. Do I need to do these right now. What is the benefit.
You don't need to unlock them to progress through the story; however, you would need to unlock them in order to queue for the 50/60 roulette. For now you're getting plenty of experience and gear through main scenario and dungeons required for main scenario. You may wish to unlock them later, because each dungeon you haven't completed will give you bonus tomes. SO they're also good to run if you need the extra tomes.
Okay..thank you for the reply. I think I am just going to stick to the MSQs for now.
The HM dungeons may not be a requirement for the main scenario, however some do give further story explanation for other parts of the game (specifically, if you've done Palace of the Dead, Tam Tara Deepcroft HMexplains Edda's appearance there - the events of Tam Tara HM acting as a sort-of prequel to PotD, at least as far as Edda is concerned.
Amdapor Keep HM alsoexplains the origins of one particular boss much later in the Dun Scaith raid, namely Ferdinad, who was the final boss of AK HM, again I won't spoil anything more, so play for yourself and find out. ;)
So yeah, they might not be specifically required by the main scenario, if you're interested in the game's lore and storyline they are still worth doing for narrative and lore.
you didn't mention the hard mode trials, but just in case you are lumping them in with the dungeons, those you do have to do to get to HW.
If youre playing the game normally, theres an easy distinction to make on dungeons. Once you get level 50 and clear a certain quest you will suddenly have unlock quests available for like 13ish dungeons. Worth running? You get exp, you get to break up the monotony of always doing the same thing, you earn a bunch of extra poetics tomestones, and it can be fun to revisit some of the older dungeons youve already been through once to see how theyve changed since you cleared them the first time - and you almost certainly will want the roulette available someday so they all need to be done once eventually. Required though? None of them. The dungeons youre required to run dont unlock this way. The mandatory dungeons(there are only 4 or 5) are all unlocked via the MSQ at the point that you need to do them(afterwords they remain open if you want to run them again, like all other dungeons). So if the goal is just push through to the newer content, you can easily tell what is and isnt required.
Sidenote: The optional leveling dungeon(lvl 51) in HW IS required if you want to finish unlocking the ability to fly in the outdoor zone that holds it, though the story wont force you to go there. The optional leveling dungeon in SB is the same.
Edit: When i typed "playing normally" it was meant to distinguish from "using a skip potion". The skip potion just unlocks everything(not actually everything though) and doesnt distinguish in this same way. However, since you "skipped" these things none of them are technically required and you can just continue onwards.