New Player: How do I gear for BLM and RDM?

Hello, meow :3. I just started playing about two weeks ago and am now a level 44 Black Mage and was wondering how do I actually get good gear in this game or how do I progress my gear? My average item level right now is 34 but I see all sorts of things showing item levels at over 200 and 300. O.o

I have been progressing through the story mode in 2.0 (which I have been thoroughly enjoying btw :3 ) and my natural progression of classes that I want to play is THM, BLM, then RDM as my end game class. However, I am not for certain how to gear for how I am progressing my classes. I just want to make sure I'm not a hindrance for DPS when I do higher level instances when I get to that point.

BONUS :3 - Also how does the glamour system work exactly? I know it unlocks at 50 but that is all I know about it. Thanks to anyone taking the time to answer my questions :3

NOTE O: - I am not interested in pvp just so that is out in the open now.

Well you can level to 45 and then pick up your job gear, that gear is in most cases better than the upcoming dungeon gear, you can check the market board on your server for the level 44 chest piece, that you normally get from Dzemael Darkhold, or even farm that dungeon to get that piece if it's to expensive on your server.

You wouldn't have to worry till level 50, and at level 50 you will get another set of Job gear ilvl 90, that will get you through the end of the ARR MSQ. However during that time you will accumulate tomestones of poetic and can then exchange these for ilvl 120 gear, and the update material to upgrade that gear to ilvl 130.

Which will last you till level 55, and then farm the aery as a dungeon, this gives great gear as well. On top of that the MSQ from HW gives out HQ gear, so you wouldn't have to worry about that either. After that you can upgrade some pieces from the vault (lvl 57 dungeon) but don't bother farming it, another upgrade would be from the library at level 59.

Again by that time you have accumulated even more tomestones and at level 60 you can pick up a set of shire armor (ilvl 260 and upgrade material for ilvl 270). The SB MSQ gives out HQ gear as well. For right now don't worry you will be fine on the way to 50, don't waste your gil on something you replace within couple of days. Hope it helps.

Glamour is unlocked at level 50 as you already know, it's a little side quest you need to do, after that you can craft or buy prisms (clothcraft, leathercraft, armorcraft, goldsmithing etc) after you obtained the correct prism, just right click your gear, select cast glamour and pick the piece. You're done. It isn't that difficult but it will be explained once you reached level 50.

Ok, thanks. Uhm what are tomestones of poetic and where do you get them? O.o

You get them automatically the moment you hit level 50 from the daily roulette's, or the higher dungeons, that you will have to run anyways to unlock the roulette's. Some of the daily beast tribes give out tome stones as well, starting at level 43? already I think, and then continue all the way till end game, that's another method if you chose to do that. However roulette's and the higher dungeons give the most tomes in comparison to other things.

Another good method would be palace of the dead at level 50+, since after successfully finishing the 10 floors, you'll be given tome stones and gil as well as exp at the end. The higher floors give more rewards but still it's a easy route, since you don't need actual gear in there, and it's based on your aether armor/weapon. You can unlock that dungeon at level 17.

RDM you start of with a chest just use it inside of a major city, yet it can use BLM gear. Or crafting. Otherwise tomes.

Oh I see. Yeah I know nothing about daily beast tribe quests or daily roulette stuff or how any of that work. I've just only been focusing on the MSQs for 2.0 and I've done PotD up to floor 30. But that's about it. I haven't really found any guides for any of this, or up to date guides anyway since 4.0 changed quite a few things.

Just do the main story quests. It's going to give you all the equipment you'll ever need until you hit the end of Stormblood.

SE is super generous about dumping equipment on leveling players so they can catch up.

Ah ok, thanks everyone. :3

Yeah, youll be swimming in tomestones soon enough. Every level 50 dungeon raid and trial gives you some, the first time you do most of said dungeons trials and raids you get a bonus of a bunch extra, most of the roulettes give you more, then once you get to 60 the dungeons raids and trials will give more, the first time bonuses will be even more, and thats on top of other methods you could acquire them. As was mentioned, most beast tribes offer a small few of them for doing their daily quests, you can find them inside some chests if you get a map and go treasure hunting, and a couple other methods too.

To the original questions, dont worry too much about gear yet. The way the game is set up, gear levels slowly increase as you level up. Then when you get to a cap level(50, 60, 70 for ARR, HW, and SB respectively) they shoot up by a great deal(at the end of the HW story you likely have an ilvl approaching 150, by the beginning of the stormblood story its jumped all the way close to 260 - then going through the stormblood story gets you to roughly 290... we'll see how high we get before they get to 5.0). Safest course of action is to do your quests, and buy upgrades with tomes as you can afford them at the cap levels(tome gear will be basically the best at cap levels), and keep an eye on dungeon drops to see if its better or worse then what you already have. And if you feel like your gear is sub-par, the most important piece to upgrade is your weapon. It makes the biggest difference in your performance.

As for glamours, do the level 50 quest in Revenants Toll to unlock the system. Crafters can make glamour prisms at level 30(though you need to level one up to 50 to get the recipes), but you can also buy them from people off the market board. Either use the cast glamour ability from the menu, or right click the item you want to change and cast glamour. Itll show you the options you have on hand(it doesnt check retainer inventory), and what kind of prism is needed(for instance to make a robe appear to be a leather armor you probly need a leather prism). You can only apply glamours that can be equipped by the class on the gear(so no making your BLM robe look like a dragoon only set of mail), and you cant make something appear to be higher level then it is(no putting a level 300 glamour on a level 50 armor - the game has several sets of glamour only gear and all are level 1 and so can be applied to anything). Also, you can only use originals to make glamours(in other words, keep the good looking items stashed somewhere if you think you might want to use them again, a duplicate will not suffice). Once the glamour is cast, for all intents and purposes that is the new appearance of that gear, and every time you put it on it will appear as such. You can use a glamour dispeller to remove a glamour from an item, which is required if you decide you want to do a new glamour instead. So real world example. You find a robe you like the look of. You get an upgrade you dont like, and glamour the old robe on top of it. Now you have new stats with the old appearance. Later on you get another ugly upgrade, you can glamour the new one to look like the original too. Later you find a new look you like but with either bad or no stats, you can either replace the glamour on what youre already wearing(via a dispell and a new cast) or wait for your next upgrade to come along and put the new look on the new gear.

Thanks. Cause i bought lvl 60 BLM and, while it have ok default gear that comes with it, my RDM is not impressed with child level trinkets and that ugly dress that comes with new RDM.
I havnt yet went into first expansion territory (doing main story quests).
My RDM, while doing story and some other things, managed to level to 54. And in lvl 54 RDM quest i for first time fealt super weak. Killing those 2 mages was not easy. I mean they was eating my health up fast and i was somewhat slow at killing them.
If my gear doesnt change, i take it i will rage at lvl 56 RDM quest, right? :D

Another *smart* question:
Gear I got by purchasing lvl 60 BLM i will be able to use on RDM when it reaches lvl 60, right?

Yes. All of the Shire gear you got from boosting BLM is usable by a level 60 RDM (and SMN for that matter).

Not including the weapon of course.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by AphraelAmarantha

now a level 44 Black Mage and was wondering how do I actually get good gear in this game or how do I progress my gear? My average item level right now is 34 but I see all sorts of things showing item levels at over 200 and 300. O.o

---

Item level 34 when you're 44 is getting a little behind. I'd suggest checking either the Market Board or your Grand Company quartermaster for something in the 40's. (You'll get significant upgrades to your hat, gloves, pants, and shoes from your level 45 job quest, so don't spend too much on those four slots, but you might have a little trouble completing that quest if all your gear is 10 levels below you. Upgrade other slots, but just upgrade those 4 if it's cheap.)

Up until you hit level 50, the level you need to equip gear and that gear's Item Level stay fairly close to the same thing. There are a few particularly good pieces where the Item Level is slightly higher, but never by much. That changes at level 50, since that was the game's first level cap.

At 50, SE not only started with multiple levels of gear to be rewarded by increasingly tough content, but they continued bringing in new and ever stronger gear with each patch that was added. But since level 50 was the level cap at that point, all that gear shares that same required level to equip it. Though players going through it at the time as each came out went through a series of upgrades, you can now skip most of them and jump right from the item level 90 gear you get for your class quests (originally, we just got item level 50 and one piece of 55 from those quests) to the level 130 gear you can get with tomestones of poetics. With ARR content taking item levels so far above equippable levels, Heavensward started out with a major difference between the two even for its leveling content, and at its level cap of 60 the same thing happened, with another long series of upgrades most of which you can skip over now.

The result is a pattern of huge jumps in item levels whenever you hit one of the (former or current) level caps.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by LunaFaye

You get them automatically the moment you hit level 50 from the daily roulette's, or the higher dungeons, that you will have to run anyways to unlock the roulette's. Some of the daily beast tribes give out tome stones as well, starting at level 43? already I think, and then continue all the way till end game, that's another method if you chose to do that. However roulette's and the higher dungeons give the most tomes in comparison to other things.

---

A and S rank Hunts are another good source (also at levels 50/60/70). If you join an active hunt linkshell or a hunt train party that goes after one hunt mark after another after another, you can rack up quite a lot of tomes pretty quickly.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Frizze

You can use a glamour dispeller to remove a glamour from an item, which is required if you decide you want to do a new glamour instead.

---

The dispeller is only required if you want to remove the glamour to get the item's natural appearance back. You can replace one glamour with another using just the glamour prism and item whose appearance you want. (You cannot, however, use a glamoured item as the appearance to transfer onto something else.)

Ok yeah, I kind of thought I was getting behind. I just bought some new stuff but I am still only at item level 38. If you look here, this is what I have. http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodest...cter/18294391/

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by KilimYolo

And in lvl 54 RDM quest i for first time fealt super weak. Killing those 2 mages was not easy. I mean they was eating my health up fast and i was somewhat slow at killing them.
If my gear doesnt change, i take it i will rage at lvl 56 RDM quest, right? :D

---

Your weapon is roughly 4-10 times more important then your other pieces of gear in terms of determining how much damage you do in battle. If you feel youre falling behind look here first. A quick character search shows that your gear is a little low. Your jewelry and belt are all way behind. But upgrading your rapier to the augmented ironworks would be a big step(alternatively, the level 55 dungeon drop rapier is exactly 1 tick better then said augmented sword - disadvantage to the dungeon sword is that its a drop rather then just a purchase in revanents toll). This sword upgrade alone would be roughly equivalent to getting an extra 100 points of intelligence(your attack stat). And if you similarly went to appropriate level 54 jewelry and a belt youd get roughly another 100-125 points of intelligence(and a little vitality for extra hp). I imagine that would make you feel more powerful.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Frizze

...

---

Thanks :)
If only i could somehow fast level my red mage to lvl 60 without suffering (i probly still would have to buy new sword before that) i would get my gear problem sorted on its own (BLM gear, except weapon afc...)

I've got one other question, is it possible to use a glamour for a different class on an item that is a different class? For example, a warrior outfit to be used as a glamour on a mage outfit?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by AphraelAmarantha

I've got one other question, is it possible to use a glamour for a different class on an item that is a different class? For example, a warrior outfit to be used as a glamour on a mage outfit?

---

In most cases, no. Gear's appearances can only be shown on classes/jobs that would be able to wear that gear directly. So, for instance, some of the low level mage gear and most crafter/gatherer gear is equippable by "All Classes" which in turn also means that all classes/jobs can use it for glamour appearances while wearing gear whose stats are more appropriate. But when the gear limits who can wear it, that also limits who can display the appearance of wearing it.

This is particularly problematic when it comes to the Artifact Gear that's only wearable by a single job and is designed to match that job's iconic style. If for instance your best caster gear is for all caster jobs and you make it look like Black Mage AF gear while playing as BLM, the glamour won't work when you equip the same gear as SMN or RDM. It would appear with its original native appearances for those jobs. The same goes for tank gear if you want to look like a Paladin sometimes and a Dark Knight or Warrior other times, and so on. The result is that many of the best looking outfits in the game are sadly underutilized for glamour.

If, however, it's not so much a specific piece of gear you want the appearance of, but an overall style, you might find something wearable among the cosmetic gear that's set to level 1 and All Classes because its main purpose in the game is to use for glamour. There are a few armour plated cosmetic options (though not a lot) that would be available even for mage jobs.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Niwashi

In most cases, no. Gear's appearances can only be shown on classes/jobs that would be able to wear that gear directly. So, for instance, some of the low level mage gear and most crafter/gatherer gear is equippable by "All Classes" which in turn also means that all classes/jobs can use it for glamour appearances while wearing gear whose stats are more appropriate. But when the gear limits who can wear it, that also limits who can display the appearance of wearing it.

---

Doh, that sux. I like how some of the DoW gears look, but I don't want to play a DoW. D: The Glamour system is pretty limiting in this game huh? Oh well... D: