Arbitary Item Level walls.

I just recently came back to the game, after three months of not playing. I left with my healers with an iLvl of 218. Not great but it allowed me to casually run dungeons and even enjoy the new content as it came out.
Now, with the additions of 3,5 , story quests and the new 24 alliance Dun Scaith I decided to renew my suscrpition. I managed to do most of the story quests for Hildibrand and The scholasticate, while begrudgingly farming for Lore tomestones since it forced me to run over and over the same old dungeons. I wanted to experience the new content.
What was my surprise to learn that the ilvl for the new content was 230 for Baelsar's wall and 235 for DunScaith.
As of now, I am stuck at 229 ilvl. The only thing I am missing is a 230 weapon.
But it turns out its stuck behind yet another grind fest of 1000 lore tomestones and 30 minute ques for Alexander Fist of the Son.
Could they have made catching up to do STORY quests any more frustrating and slow?

There are plenty of ways to boost your ilvl. Hell, Kinna Weapons are mega cheap and i255.

Also If i rememeber correctly you can get a ilvl 235 weapon for 4000x Wolf marks.

Since the daily Duty Roulette: Frontlines gives 1000x of them just by participating, you can get that weapon in 4 days by just completing it 4 times.

While that is indeed the fastest solution I have found. The only redeeming aspect is that it allows me to level other classes while filling up the aetherpool. It's still a rather grindy process on top of the lore hunting in dungeons.

Also keep in mind that while Dun Scaith may be a little difficult, I believe you can skip the ilvl restriction for Baelsar's Wall by queuing with a full premade party. Full parties are often not subject to ilvl restrictions. Dun Scaith you may be able to skirt around by I assume you would need a full premade 24 man alliance.

its a matter of about 3-4 hours to get the 235 potd weapon, which can be upgraded to 255 if you invest some more hours

Have a crafter friend make you the 250

It's also worth pointing out that the gear restrictions are there for a reason. If you want to join a random group, the other people will expect you to pull your weight, and as such it requires you to have the gear from the previous tier (not BiS previous tier, just the regular stuff). If you want a group to carry you through while you're undergeared, that's an option as noted above with a pre-formed party, but that would mean they all know that you lack the gear and are ok with it. Forcing random people to pick up the slack for you isn't fair to them.

True the game gives you plenty of options, but I understand your frustration. I was freshly caught up with 3.4 and was loving my pacing into 3.5... until the ilevel wall. Running side content for several hours is in no way appealing when the story is right there.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by bardaboo

Have a crafter friend make you the 250

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I don't think anyone who considers farming like 6000 tomes in 11 months, with the tomes being uncapped in almost 4 of them, anything but trivial is going to have the funds to afford the crafted stuff, even if you only buy the raw mats.

I recently came back to the game as well. Though, unlike your situation i came back with ilv225 so it didn't take long to catch up. But all I did was run a few Midan's and Weeping City/Void Ark and was able to get majority i230 gear and an upgraded Lore weapon. Though its probably not encourage, you can probably cheese ilvl by buying a Scripture accessory for 375 tomes your first week of coming back. At the same time as long as you are able to enter the 2 new dungeons, they drop i245 gear as well.

I think it's honestly faster to get 235 pvp gear and then use the lore you have and get an upgraded 240 weapon then go onto the new stuff. Freelancer ques are 5ish minutes and you can do the Feast which takes no time at all compared to an older ilvl synced dungeon. Not to mention it counts towards mounts, achieves, titles, 50 lore per, 20 scrip as well.

To be honest, just capping tomes for the week allows you to buy 1 i260 accessory/belt, so consider that along with your Lore options considering you can just grind Lore out. As for weapons, I highly recommend running PotD for it if you need an i235 fast; otherwise jump in one of the EX Primals(Nidhogg preferably) and wreck it for your weapon.

Don't forget that you can upgrade your i230s into i240 by running Mhach/Void Ark if need be.

If your friends/FC are generous they can run you through midas and creator normal mode to get you tokens for 220 and 250 gear now that it is unlocked. Doing it in DF is going to be awful so I'd suggest against that. Also doing all these will give you enough lore to buy the tokens to get the 230 weapon.

They are NOT arbitrary at all. It's hell dpsing with a tank who is 30 ilvls before you who cheesed their ilvl. It makes completing duties so much harder because you have a black mage tanking instead of an actual tank.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by GrimGale

[...] after three months of not playing. I left with my healers with an iLvl of 218 [...]

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Three months ago max ilvl was the same as it is now and you already had the chance to pick ilvl260 pieces.
So it's kinda confusing. Are your healers your 2nd/3rd classes?
If not, it seems you were not really "up to date" (when it comes to ilvl of gear) when you left as well. (Don't want to blame or be rude, I'm just wondering, so please don't take that as an offense!)

I would recommend the pvp-weapon for you as well (like many others did). Easiest way to get it, you only need to do frontline a few times (4 times a week with daily bonus is more than enough) to get it.