So when should i do this??

i have 2 friends leveling with me (i am a GNB leveling with AST and SMN) we are in Shadowbringers atm probably lil over halfway through. might have another friend join us but he is in the 40s atm playing a Bard. We all have desires to eventually raid, Now i know in WoW it would be find a guild, get max lvl get gear and go (which is the game we came from) but i was wondering what it is like here. I know this game has cross server as long as we are on the same data center but when should we begin looking into this, once we hit 80, 90?, once we get geared? Is a FC generally the people you raid with like in WoW or do yall form external teams separate from the FC. I know we are getting into this a lil late as most people are far ahead of us but just something we desire to do eventually and go back and do the old ultimates as well is a desire of ours. We are no means HC just casual raid in the future i am just wondering when we should prioritize finding a group.

You don't generally find a FC (guild) here to raid. What you find instead is a static. A static is frequently composed of 8 people from a mixture of different world servers, who join a discord server together or a CWLS (cross-world linkshell).

The most common place to recruit for members of a static is the "ffxiv recruitment reddit" which you can google. They have a discord server as well which is worth joining.

You can recruit for a static to do old raids with the "Minimum IL" and "Silence Echo" settings (which syncs them so that they are challenging again), but this is not very common. Most people just do the newest raids at max level (currently level 90).

All of the challenging raids are optional (unlocked through blue sidequests). They wouldn't require them to be done for the story quests, but of course they give rewards such as mounts and better gear. The raid difficulty level is in order of

• (Extreme) / (Unreal) / Minstrel's Ballad (1 released every major patch, every 4 months)
• (Savage) / Coil
• (Ultimate)

There are 4 savage raids per raid tier, and 3 raid tiers per expansion with 8 months between (making around 2 years between expansions), for a total of 12 savage raids per expansion.

Recently, they have been trying out a new type of content designed for 4 people which is also of savage difficulty. Only 1 exists so far and they are called Criterion dungeons. If you count this, it makes the savage raid content more frequent.

Ultimates are very hard for them to make and designed to be streamed on twitch, so there are only 1 or 2 per expansion. It's not expected that most players will attempt, or even clear these. But if they do they get a glowing weapon and title that everyone can recognize.

Ultimates actually require the completion of a certain savage tier, although once that savage tier is "old", you can "unsync" it with higher level gear. Ultimates themselves force you to be synced so that you can't unsync them.

It's possible to pug this content as well. If you check the Trials, Raids or High-End categories in Party Finder, you will see tags including

• [Practice] - means they just want to go in and wipe and hopefully learn from those wipes, they are usually friendly and chill
• [Duty Completion] - it might not be a one-shot, but it usually means they are comfortable with most mechanics and expect to clear within several pulls.
• [Duty Complete] - doesn't let you join if you haven't cleared

The description includes important information, such as which phase they want you to be up to, which strategies they are using or which guide they want you to watch. If you don't know what the description means, you can search for it on youtube to see a video on the strategy. Strategies are often named after the content creator who is regarded to have "come up" with it.

If you are optimizing for raids after you complete the MSQ, I recommend searching for The Balance. It's a discord server but they have a website as well and they will explain how to optimize rotations, use food, pots and materia and what the BiS is and things like that.

If you're intending to raid just for the challenge of it, then you can be starting as early as level 50 after you clear ARR, with the first extreme trials and the Coils of Bahamut, and there is an additional set of raids at every "expansion endgame" stage after that.

FCs are generally just people you love to share the game with. They can be the group you raid with and I will admit, that does make the entire experience of raiding better, but they don't necessarily have to be the people you raid with. As far as how early, if you want to experience the complete evolution of raiding in Final Fantasy XIV I'd suggest starting at level 50 and working your way through all of them piece by piece.