What to expect going into an expansion (SB) if you joined in HW, how to transition?

What I mean is as I was on another thread talking about gear lock out etc, I just remembered that I have never gone through being apart of an expansion release. And many other people haven't either so I figured Id make this thread so that maybe those whom have can tell others what to somewhat expect in the transition. Just looking at when the first guide for alex was made I see a tanks hp was like 16k :/.

So I think its fair to say anyone who came maybe a year or six months after hw release has enjoyed the luxury of never struggle busing on gear and ilvl. Those even just getting to level 50 in the game today have the option to gear every job they have in full iron works which I'm guessing wasn't a thing when fifty first came out. And the same with sixty gear is just there, never had to even know what it was like to be under powered.

So now that I,ve thought about this stuff is it actually still fun at the beginning of an expansion are do you feel very weak after feeling so strong?

Is it impossible to gear up all your jobs to the same ilvl as your main just with different gear? (I main tanks but sometimes depending on what Im doing sometimes I maybe better at healing something than I am tanking I can admit this that I cant tank everything in the game)

How did the tomes work in the beginning was it just 450 a week of lore and you just had to only gear your main job?

I know I'm missing things here but I am just really curious I have gotten into the pull everything I can mode and Im wondering how under powered you are when first entering into the endgame phase.

Im just really curious as to what should anyone expect that has never gone through the release of an expansion does your initial excitement go away when you see how weak you are in comparison to a few months prior.

I know I mention things I'm concerned about but I would like to know things for everyone that's in my boat that just came a year later into an expansion where things were already pretty good. So anyone with their own concerns please feel free to put them here as well.

Normal content felt a lot harder in the beginning - I mained SCH, and I went from fairy healing 99% of dungeons to needing to heal together. It took me several days of queueing to get a party that could clear BisHM. Quests gave HQ gear which was nice, split across multiple NPCs - I think it was usually one with melee gear, one with caster? So I collected a set for SCH plus a set for tanks. I'd recommend on selecting one job to use to go through the MSQ / unlock everything first. I did have to buy white gear in Ayzs Lla at the end just to be able to queue into the first level 60 dungeons - min ilvl was a bit of a drag.

We only had tomestones of law at the start, with esoterics coming a few weeks later. The alex raids were also delayed a few weeks, to give people time to enjoy the new content without feeling rushed to get to cap to start farming weeklies. In later patches (3.2 and 3.4 I think?), we lose the uncapped tomestone (gear went to hunt marks), the capped tomestone became unlimited, and we got a new capped tomestone.

Pretty much just sit back and enjoy. There will be a lot of changes all at once to take in.

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Originally Posted by raela

Normal content felt a lot harder in the beginning - I mained SCH, and I went from fairy healing 99% of dungeons to needing to heal together.

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what was the ilvl for law Im guessing they deleted them , and I know about esoterics but dont know the ilvl for that either. Im pretty sure the transition into storm blood will be fine , I know like how the level roulette formula somewhat works. Im worried about the tomes and only being able to gear one job I dont mind caps and stuff like that as long as its other ways to gear up your jobs as well I switch in between almost every job I play depending on what Im doing.

I had someone recruit me and give me chocobo feathers for ironworks gear and it was a life saver. Please please please if you have no one that recruited you, look for a code. Those chocobo feathers will help immensely, especially now that you can get i230 gear. Other than that, I felt like it was pretty easy to gear up granted I only focused on one class.

Law gear was i170 upgradeable to i180.
Eso gear was i200 upgradeable to i210.
All the equipment that used to be bought with these tomes are now available for Centurio Seals from the Hunt vendor in the Forgotten Knight.

Whenever SE introduces a new capped tome set the old capped tome is uncapped and the old uncapped tome is phased out. The gear is always moved to a new source in game.

Two weeks of crashes, whining on the forums over changes, stupid petition threads, and semi-daily emergency maintenance and/or hotfixes.

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Originally Posted by bswpayton

How did the tomes work in the beginning was it just 450 a week of lore and you just had to only gear your main job?

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There was no lore. This game uses tiered currency and removes old currency as it becomes obsolete. That's why there's still an esoterics category, even though you can't earn any. It will probably disappear when SB releases and scriptures become uncapped. But yes, the higher level currency is always capped to begin with. If I remember correctly, the original currency was justice and law, with law being the higher level one, which bought the Doman 170/180 stuff.

Mostly things were a bit more difficult out in the world and in dungeons, though none of it was terribly difficult, just slow. Gear for alt classes that do not share gear with your main job will be a bit hard to come by in the early goings because you'll mostly only be able to gear it in whatever extra stuff you can get from dungeons, but far more people will be needing the dungeon gear.

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Originally Posted by Nixxe

There was no lore. This game uses tiered currency and removes old currency as it becomes obsolete. That's why there's still an esoterics category, even though you can't earn any. It will probably disappear when SB releases and scriptures become uncapped. If I remember correctly, the original currency was justice and law, with law being the higher level one, which bought the Doman 170/180 stuff.

Mostly things were a bit more difficult out in the world and in dungeons, though none of it was terribly difficult, just slow. Gear for alt classes that do not share gear with your main job will be a bit hard to come by in the early goings because you'll mostly only be able to gear it in whatever extra stuff you can get from dungeons, but far more people will be needing the dungeon gear.

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It was Law and Esoterics. Law got phased out when Lore was added, and Esoterics was phased out when Scripture was added. Law purchased the Doman gear, which was i170 and upgradeable to i180, and Esoteric was 200, upgradeable to 210. Law did not have a weekly cap, and I don't believe they added esoteric tomes until 2 weeks ish later?

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Originally Posted by Nixxe

There was no lore. This game uses tiered currency and removes old currency as it becomes obsolete. That's why there's still an esoterics category, even though you can't earn any.

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hmm so like doman was 170, and just vender gear at the end of hw was 150 so Im guessing stuff from dungeons was like in between that 160is maybe. So where players doing their extreme primals and doing raids in dungeon drop gear or crafted gear. I know just from having a gsm I haven't maximized books with etc, that the highest I could craft was 150 so Im guessing after that was in between that 150 to 170 window.

One thing to keep in mind is there's always "artifact gear" that is locked per job early in an expansion. For Heavensward, law gear was by role while eso gear was by job. This means it's incredibly difficult to gear multiple jobs, let alone roles, during this stage. If you want to play all tanks, they will each have a unique set you will have to buy. You really have to plan ahead when choosing which jobs you want to gear out.

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Originally Posted by Elleia

One thing to keep in mind is there's always "artifact gear" that is locked per job early in an expansion. For Heavensward, lore gear was by role while eso gear was by job. This means it's incredibly difficult to gear multiple jobs, let alone roles, during this stage. If you want to play all tanks, they will each have a unique set you will have to buy. You really have to plan ahead when choosing which jobs you want to gear out.

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wait so like your saying that each job didnt share gear like pali, drk , warrior all had to get separate sets of gear? I ask this because I just play each different I hardly bring drk into any high level content simply because if its add phases then I get worried I will run out of mp and be screwed you literally cant even use unmend with no mp. So its usually just my speed run tank, I play pali for raids or trails mt, and I play warrior for raids or trails off tank.

Healers would be easier to switch between but I sure hope that I can still share gear , Im guessing from what it sounds like is that dps just are gona have to com last and Ill have to prioritize tanks and then healers second. I feel like this is gona be a huge transition for people who joined after hw had been out a while. They all had even if it wasn't the best a way to gear every job with some form of unlimited second tier tomes cap. So it sounds like its gona go like you get 450 whatever tomes gear one job in two months, then gear your second priority jobs the following two months and the jobs you occasionally play will just have to have vendor gear for a long time.

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Originally Posted by bswpayton

wait so like your saying that each job didnt share gear like pali, drk , warrior all had to get separate sets of gear?

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It was the same with HW and ARR. There was Artifact gear for each job, but it costs the same amount of tomes as the shared gear now, so instead of gearing all tanks at the same time you just gear one. ARR (darklight, philosophy) and HW (law gear) had a baseline set that was shared between roles though, but the artifact gear which will probably be tome is job only.

With HW they released the normal mode raids which if they follow will have shared sets as well and if you do Savage will probably be shared sets also. (Probably be locked again).

Doman gear (i170/180) was per role and most people were aiming for that for things like bis ex, rav ex and gordias normal while they were initially entering savage with whatever prototype gordian and eso gear they had. Eso was the tricky point for leveling multiple jobs because it was both job specific and capped.

The level 70 AF may be different this time but until we know otherwise it's probably wise to assume it will be bought with the first capped currency (so there will be a tier of tome gear before it which will be the initial uncapped gear).

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Originally Posted by ErikMynhier

Two weeks of crashes, whining on the forums over changes, stupid petition threads, and semi-daily emergency maintenance and/or hotfixes.

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This game sounds amazing, why aren't they doing this all the time!?

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Originally Posted by bswpayton

hmm so like doman was 170, and just vender gear at the end of hw was 150 so Im guessing stuff from dungeons was like in between that 160is maybe. So where players doing their extreme primals and doing raids in dungeon drop gear or crafted gear. I know just from having a gsm I haven't maximized books with etc, that the highest I could craft was 150 so Im guessing after that was in between that 150 to 170 window.

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Yes, the opening level cap dungeons gave 160 gear. It's the Baldur/Valerian stuff, if I remember correctly.

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Originally Posted by Valkyrie_Lenneth

It was Law and Esoterics. Law got phased out when Lore was added, and Esoterics was phased out when Scripture was added. Law purchased the Doman gear, which was i170 and upgradeable to i180, and Esoteric was 200, upgradeable to 210. Law did not have a weekly cap, and I don't believe they added esoteric tomes until 2 weeks ish later?

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Adding Esoterics later sounds correct, but thanks for the corrections. I quit at like 3.1 and I rapidly shed game knowledge when I quit a game, so a lot of details get mixed up.

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Originally Posted by Shougun

This game sounds amazing, why aren't they doing this all the time!?

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Don't think I dislove this game from my post. The salty tears and complaint threads alone is worth the price of entry.

I would bet gil there will be at least one impossible request thread for a new tank and/or healer on launch day. Like they would just hit the breaks and get to work lol.

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Originally Posted by Vaer

It was the same with HW and ARR. There was Artifact gear for each job, but it costs the same amount of tomes as the shared gear now, so instead of gearing all tanks at the same time you just gear one. ARR (darklight, philosophy) and HW (law gear) had a baseline set that was shared between roles though, but the artifact gear which will probably be tome is job only.

With HW they released the normal mode raids which if they follow will have shared sets as well and if you do Savage will probably be shared sets also. (Probably be locked again).

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To be honest I wish they did more gear like eso and myth. Job specific not role specific.

it's usually some of the best looking gear in the game and actually fits the jobs.

The 210 eso gear for ninja for example is one of maybe 3 sets in the game that actually look ninja like.

Creed is pretty nice for paladin.

But when you look a tshared stuff like primal 240 gear and 260 shire it doesn't fit any job..

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Originally Posted by Dzian

it's usually some of the best looking gear in the game and actually fits the jobs.

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I find it to be as hit or miss as any other set - My personal favourites tend to be from dungeons, raids or crafting.

In particular, I find the dark stealth suits ninjas get extremely jarring, because neither the ninja playstyle nor the animations are stealthy at all, quite the opposite - it's flashy. An orange jumpsuit would be more fitting >_> So it just looks goofy when you see a ninja actually don the set, then jump and whirl around while casting fireballs to give their location away in a mile radius.