Just hit 70.. Grind gear or wait for Stormblood?

Item level 289. I could start grinding dungeons for better gear, but I wonder if anything I get will be replaced soon after SB starts by rewards from MSQ and job quests.

Or, since I plan to level crafting (cooking at least), and both gathering professions, might it be better to do those instead while waiting for SB?

You're going to have to work on your gear - the most current MSQ dungeon (which you'll have to do to start ShB) requires ilvl 360.

You'll want some gear. First dungeon should drop 380/390 ilvl.

yes you need up level crafting and gathering 70 too,because 5.0 have content endgame for hand and land
pretty sure you need up item level at least 380

If you have the funds for it, you can buy some crafted i380 gear from the marketboard immediately and get a headstart on your levels.

Duties should be giving you a lot of mendacity tomes, which get you i360 gear, so you should be able to start purchasing that once you've done a few endgame dungeons - or you can get it from other sources like hunt marks.

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Originally Posted by Brill_

You'll want some gear. First dungeon should drop 380/390 ilvl.

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Do you mean "should" as in "it doesn't but it should"? Early endgame dungeons drop i300, then i310 from Skalla, etc. - that was the cap at the time those dungeons released, and they don't update those.

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Originally Posted by SamSmoot

Item level 289. I could start grinding dungeons for better gear, but I wonder if anything I get will be replaced soon after SB starts by rewards from MSQ and job quests.

Or, since I plan to level crafting (cooking at least), and both gathering professions, might it be better to do those instead while waiting for SB?

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You can wait until shb and buy vendor gear that's nearly as high cheap and easily but, like Gwyn said, you won't be able to complete the MSQ with your current gear. So if you want to start shb immediately immediately when it comes out, you may wish to work on that.

And, you know, what else have you got to do for 3 months while we wait for it.

If you want to complete the post SB questline, you are going to have to gear up. Otherwise you're still going to be waiting for awhile for current Genesis gear to get tossed into the Poetics pool. If you want to complete Omega, Tales of Ivalice, and the Four lords you will need to get to i365. You still have plenty of time to get these all done and they will help you immensely with the gearing up process. And I believe i360 will get you through the MSQ.

Getting to i330/340 is easy enough through hunts for Centurios. Mendacity does not have a weekly cap and you can use these tomes to get to i360. If you have enough gil or a generous crafting buddy you can buy a i380 weapon to skip farming Sigmascape V4 for crystalloids. You can also farm St. Mocianne's HM or the Burn for i355 gear, but I recommend the former as it is a far easier dungeon to get through.

Ultimately, it is up to you. You already know the gear you grind is quickly going to get replaced, but if you want to get caught up there isn't a way around that. Besides, a lot of that gear is really good for glamour purposes if you like to get into that.

I hope you mean wait for Shadowbreakers. I would at least grind out 1 set of tome gear for the job you are most interested in maining.

Tbh just drop 800k on a 380 weapon on mb and tome farm is good enough

It's a patch out of date but information should still be useful: Endgame gearing for fresh 70s

Try to get as high an ilvl as possible. You'll be able to use ilvl 390-400 gear up to lvl 75-76. At least, that's how it's been at the beginning of Heavensward and Stormblood.

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Originally Posted by thantaimetmoi

yes you need up level crafting and gathering 70 too,because 5.0 have content endgame for hand and land
pretty sure you need up item level at least 380

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i havent crafted or gathered since starting HW, what kind of endgame can their be for DoH/DoL?

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Originally Posted by Nora_of_Mira

i havent crafted or gathered since starting HW, what kind of endgame can their be for DoH/DoL?

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Restoration of the Holy See of Ishgard. Likely turn-in based, but we have no solid info yet. It is for DoH/DoL.

Although I've also wondered if it's going to be endgame or ongoing - perhaps take the place of the crafting beast tribe this time, and allow you to level as you go?

Anyway, that's the DoH/DoL content we know of so far in 5.0.

You should at least hit ilvl 365 so you can actually experience more of the content the game already has before new stuff ships. This will get you through the new Alliance Raids and regular Normal Raids. Mendacity tomes alone do much of the work and they come in droves.

There's no reason not to start gearing up now. Yes, everything will be replaced in the expansion, but that's not for another four months. You still need gear for anything you might want to do in the mean time. i289 isn't even high enough to start the patch story, let alone finish it.

If you are poor and don't want to spend 2 million on a 380 set.

Do your daily hunts every day (RR and Ishgard) for a few days and do your two weekly targets (RR and Ishgard) Hit the Centurio Vendor first in Rhalgr's Reach.

Get to 340 easy

From there you can start working on other things.

But bottom line is there is virtually zero reason to be under 340 for very long.

Meanwhile, start stockpiling Mendacity to get you to 360. Shouldn't take more than a few weeks.

Dungeon to 375 and Genesis to 390. Or try your luck in Alphascape for 380.

As people said with the current MSQ even needing higher ilvl, if you're BiS coming out of the final raid tier you can expect your gear to carry you pretty well into the next expansion, and it'll help out your leveling speed quite a bit. But if you don't get top-end raiding gear it'll be replaced a bit sooner, but probably still worth it a bit.

Really just depends how much you want to play the game before the expansion comes out.

I also want to mention that when it comes to climbing to the i360 branch this ilv of gear drops in the Ridorana Lighthouse. Once you centurio your way to i340, you can run this alliance raid as many times as you would like and be sure to roll need on anything that you can. Then whatever slots still needing upgrading you can use your mendacity tomes to fill them. I bring this up because it was so frustrating when I would dump a bunch of mendacity on a i360 item only to get the same ilv drop in the Lighthouse.

The pennies you get from both Rabanastre and the Lighthouse should be spent very selectively on upgrading mendacity gear unless you just love running this content over and over. You will need a penny from each of the 24-man raids to upgrade Genesis gear to i400.

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Originally Posted by Risvertasashi

You can wait until shb and buy vendor gear that's nearly as high cheap and easily but, like Gwyn said, you won't be able to complete the MSQ with your current gear. So if you want to start shb immediately immediately when it comes out, you may wish to work on that.

And, you know, what else have you got to do for 3 months while we wait for it.

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Yeah you are right, there is absolutly nothing to do except farming mounts, clear actually all the dungeons, normal raids and 24 man raids. I guess this would keep a new player busy enough for the time including getting some gear which is seriously needed for all of the mentioned things.

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Originally Posted by InkstainedGwyn

Restoration of the Holy See of Ishgard. Likely turn-in based, but we have no solid info yet. It is for DoH/DoL.

Although I've also wondered if it's going to be endgame or ongoing - perhaps take the place of the crafting beast tribe this time, and allow you to level as you go?

Anyway, that's the DoH/DoL content we know of so far in 5.0.

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If I were a betting man; and I'm not, I'd say that they're going to do as you said with the turn in's, but it will be structured much in the same way that the Doma reconstruction was organized.

We'll spend our time throughout much of the expansions life span rebuilding area's of Ishgard that will eventually; possibly, lead to the opening of Ishgard housing.

If you can get yourself up to being able to buy genesis tomestone gear for your favorite class you should by all means and do the 24 mans to augment it.
If the last two expansions are any example top of the line gear will last you for about 7 levels before it starts getting beat by dungeon drops which means your going to be stronger and faster and more efficient and don't need to worry about swapping gear for more than half of the leveling process

your going to have to play through all the main story anyways which will involve a lot more dungeons higher level than what you currently are

You need to finish the 4.5 MSQ which requires that you complete the final dungeon. My advice would be to atleast gear up 1 class, getting enough tomes for Ilvl 365 is pretty easy right now. If you have the gil, you can buy your way to Ilvl 380 gear,

Work on getting Genesis gear and run the 24 man raids to get tokens to upgrade to i400z if they do it like they did last time before the expansion then they should raise the weekly cap to 900 sometime before Shadowbringers.

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Originally Posted by SamSmoot

Item level 289. I could start grinding dungeons for better gear, but I wonder if anything I get will be replaced soon after SB starts by rewards from MSQ and job quests.

Or, since I plan to level crafting (cooking at least), and both gathering professions, might it be better to do those instead while waiting for SB?

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i kept reading this as Storm blood you mean shadow bringers right?

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Originally Posted by 347SPECTRE

Try to get as high an ilvl as possible. You'll be able to use ilvl 390-400 gear up to lvl 75-76. At least, that's how it's been at the beginning of Heavensward and Stormblood.

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There's no need to gear for lvl 75-76. The Main Scenario quests will shower you with level-appropriate HQ crafted gear every step of the way.

As long as you have sufficient gear to finish the Stormblood Main Scenario quests, that's all you need going into Shadowbringers. Any ilvls you get beyond that are strictly optional, but helpful.

Make sure you're all caught up on your main story quest stuff and gear up enough to get that much done. After that you can do whatever you want.

If ilvl trends stick from previous expansions getting a fully upgraded set of the highest available tome gear and a fully upgraded relic will pretty much remove the need to upgrade gear at all during the duties you get into for the first 3-5 levels into the expansion's new cap.