How to Get the Best Weapon and Armor

Yesterday I reached level 80 and my most important goal now is to get the best (Samurai) weapon and armor that the game offers.

I have done some googling and "think" this may be by running Eden's Promise. But, as often happens to me in this game, google doesn't always give the best information.

Assuming Eden's Promise is where I should aim, my current IL is 430 and I believe the minimum IL you need to get in there is 485. What is the easiest way to get to overall IL of 485? I purchased a IL510 weapon and Body armor. That used up all my gil.

One of the players in my FC recommended soloing Sastasha unsynched. I have not tried to do this yet. Is this a good way to obtain the gil I need to buy the armor I need to get to IL485? What are some other ways that you recommend to get gil?

I also considered crafting. But it seems to me that for this to be a good source of gil requires one to reach level 80 in a craft. I have a lvl 39 goldsmith, but my guess is that to get him up to level 80 is a long and time consuming venture.

Any thoughts any of you have on how to eventually wind up with the best weapon and armor in the game will be appreciated!

Thank you!

Emerald Ex or Relic questline for suitable weapon.
A mix of Cryptlurker and Eden Promise normal gear.

Then you can raid. They arent taking anyone below 510 in partyfinder right now.

I havent checked your class, but judging by your knowledge of the game in practice on a dummy for a little while and try to hit some numbers.

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Originally Posted by Provoke

Then you can raid. They arent taking anyone below 510 in partyfinder right now.

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Yikes, of course tryhards will falsely inflate ilvl requirements because god forbid you have to do an encounter normally, let's hope there's some decent people around so new players can get into content they want to try without suffering such elitists.

Expecting new players who just have reached 80 in the game to have enough gil and know you can buy a full 510 set is silly.
And new players are not gonna have a month of tomes of revelation for those 520s either


Honestly since I learned how NA/EU players behave I feel happy I am in Australia and can play in JP where you even que with DF for extremes.

510 is a pretty reasonable requirement this late in the tier, I will agree it isn’t necessary to be 510 though but that’s what a lot of people started at with full crafted sets.

That aside as for the OP, you can run your roulettes for tomes, the uncapped tomes you can spend on 490 gear OR if there’s a crafter in your fc or have a crafter friend see what items they need to make you a set of 510 crafted gear. That would be the quickest way to hit 510 overall. Other options are run emerald weapon EX for the 515 weapon, run the edens promise normal raids for 510 gear (still limited on one drop a week from each turn), run puppets bunker for 490 left side pieces, or run the previous tiers savage for i500 pieces. Obviously the crafted set will be your quickest path to a higher ilvl.

To add to it, the bozjan southern front can also give you ilvl 495 left side pieces, and delubrum reginae will give coins for 510 left side pieces, but these are a major time investment and not quick options.

Finally yes your bis gear will be a mix of augmented tomestone gear and savage raid gear, relic weapon is an option to work on as well, it’s currently capped at 515ilvl so it’s not bis yet, it’s also a pretty big time investment.

At the moment, the best weapon will probably come from Eden's Promise. In a couple months the relic will be slightly better and most likely BiS because the stats are customizable.

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Originally Posted by Ralph2449

Honestly since I learned how NA/EU players behave I feel happy I am in Australia and can play in JP where you even que with DF for extremes.

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You realize you're basically the embodiment of the NA/EU mindset and opposite of the JP mindset, who are only able to queue for endgame content in DF because it's their culture to do their best to contribute to the team before queuing, where NA/EU can't use the DF because it's our culture to feel entitled to carries and do nothing for the team if we find it fun, thus rendering many endgame DF runs impossible to clear. So JP are actually the "tryhards" as you like to put it and the people setting ilv requirements over here are the handful with the JP mindset of trying to ensure team contribution. JP won't be openly toxic, but actually keep public blacklists for players like yourself who join without preparation and drag a group down but don't care. Just saying :)

It's not unreasonable to ask that people bring the best gear available into stuff like extremes/savage with how insanely cheap the 510 crafted gear is these days.

Every bit of extra HP/DPS helps when you're fighting against an enrage timer and I've had way too many sub 1% enrages that could've been clears had a player or two in the group been using a better, but reasonably attainable weapon. I see an alarming amount of people in Eden savage without the Emerald EX weapons particularly, even in full reclear groups.

At the end of the day, it's a group effort. It isn't unreasonable to expect each player to put in a certain amount of effort and preparation. This isn't a single player game, so the mentality of 'I DO WAT I WANT' is quite rightly dismissed by a lot of players. If we were talking about a game like Skyrim, then sure...people can play however they want without anybody ever claiming that they need to do things differently.

Yet we're talking about an MMO. If one player in a group is putting in the bare minimum amount of effort, they're making things needlessly harder for other members of their group. They're not getting paid to babysit and it isn't fair to expect them to bend over backwards and waste extra time and effort to carry someone who is not sufficiently prepared.

your ilvl is 430? did you finish the story?

Loool the white knighting are sooo goood, it extends even here. I just can’t—
Anyway, fun aside....

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Originally Posted by qaija

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The short answer is to work your way slowly to get to said goal if you don’t want to invest gils to simply buy the cheap exarchic pieces off the MB.
Take note that while on your way to unlock Eden’s Promise, you will have to unlock Eden’s Gate & Eden’s Verse too. Assuming you’re not picking up stuffs from MB, you can start small by needing all the loots in these raids and trade them for straight upgrades for your Samurai. Eden’s Gate provides i450 pieces while Eden’s Verse provides i480 pieces.
There are also other pieces you can get from other contents as you work on your way, but I’ll just copy my old list for you:
• The 1st ShB alliance raid drops i460 ~ Copied Factory
• The most recent dungeon drops i485 ~ Matoya’s Relict
• The 2nd ShB alliance raid drops i490 - Puppets’ Bunker
• Allergy... err I mean, Allegories can get you alt i490 pieces, i500 if you augment them.
• Bozja content can win you i495 & i510 pieces, but these takes longer to get than Exarchic & Eden’s Promise loots
• Revelation tomes can get you i520 pieces, albeit timegated by weekly limit. Their augmented version (i530) exist but locked behind savage raid contents, just like any other non-tome i530 pieces.
• Special mention to... ShB relic weapon (Starts at i485) It’s fairly easy to bring them to i500. The max is i515 atm but it’s quite grindy and takes time.

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Originally Posted by Ralph2449

Yikes, of course tryhards will falsely inflate ilvl requirements because god forbid you have to do an encounter normally, let's hope there's some decent people around so new players can get into content they want to try without suffering such elitists.

Expecting new players who just have reached 80 in the game to have enough gil and know you can buy a full 510 set is silly.
And new players are not gonna have a month of tomes of revelation for those 520s either


Honestly since I learned how NA/EU players behave I feel happy I am in Australia and can play in JP where you even que with DF for extremes.

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Queing for Extremes in DF sounds awesome tbh

In every raid patch cycle progression goes like this:

1) HQ Crafting Gear = Entree lvl Endgame Tier
2) Current Tier High-End boss (Example: Emerald Weapon) = Provide Weapon Upgrade usually, use this before you get your tome piece
3) Un-upgraded Tome Gear & Alliance Raid Gear (The ones that come after the raid patch)
4) Savage Raid drops/Upgraded Tome Gear
5) Ultimate Tier Weapon (If one exist for that raid cycle, else it is vanity only)

This Cycle will reset EVERY EVEN PATCH. so 5.0, 5.2, 5.4, 6.0, 6.2 and so on.

Dungeon gear is basically glamour only once you hit endgame, why you will see so many people just run past the chest as the gear Ilvl is just horrible. Not a bad place to start if you are new to lvl 80 but it is really weak.

My Suggestion is save up for the crafted gear and go from there, it is the fastest and most efficient way to progress. You can also work your way up through the prior tiers, but it will be a snails pace and that gear is considered obsolete and only for vanity purposes. You will find most party finders will set the Min Duty Finder lvl at the crafted tier's Ilvl for alot of the current endgame tier. This is mainly because once you hit the 8man savage/extreme content all fights have a heavy DPS check (this is what SE uses to gate all upper tier content in this game). While technically doable at lower ilvl with a perfected rotation, no pug groups will be expecting to find 8 random players who are in the upper 10% of the player base performance wise that can pull that off.... Most people are happy to find 8 ppl in pugs who know what "North" is.

Last bit of advice, if you are venturing into Savage content. Get a static if you can it is much more efficient and having the same people to work with makes it so much easier when everyone is use to the same positions, same strategy, and are in coms together and so on.

I don't think i510 is high for PFs, E11S and 12S are literally min i510. 9 is 500 and 10 is 505. Easy to get there with crafted gear which is insanely cheap these days, or a couple of weeks of grinding Promise Normal and tomes for Cryptlurker (because of weekly caps/lock). Lower than that you're literally asking for a carry unless you're a top%. Doing Bozja+Delubrum Reginae will get you a full i510 left side set (sans belt) with a 515 weapon, so you only have to worry about accessories. Be aware that all of this is a huge grind but you'll be skipping about 3 patches of gear upgrades.

As for leveling crafters, it's also VERY easy now with the Ishgardian Restoration, I've seen people gain FIVE levels in seconds from the turn-ins. Though if you don't have gatherers it'll cost you money to get the materials off the MB (and you also need to actually craft them, ofc).

The recommended starting item level (which is easy to get) is 510. Higher item levels (up to 530) come from weekly gear progression and high-end content.

It always works that there is a crafted gear item level (510), a weekly tomestone item level (520), and a savage raid gear item level (530).

4 weeks after the expansion releases, the crafted gear will probably be 580, the weekly tomestone item level 590 and the savage raid gear 600.

Then it'll increase by 30 item level every 8 months with the same system and 4 new raids.

Crafted Gear (HQ 510)
Revelation Gear (520), purchased with Revelation tomestones at Eulmore
Crystarium Gear (490), purchased with Allegory tomestones at Eulmore
Eden Gear (450, 480 and 510, item level increases each 4 floors). Exchange in Eulmore.

Crafted Gear will be upgradable to 520 in the next patch, using Allegory tomestones at Eulmore.

Idk about y'all but I'm going to be setting min ilevel to i530 for the next EX fight whenever that comes out.

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Originally Posted by MPK

Idk about y'all but I'm going to be setting min ilevel to i530 for the next EX fight whenever that comes out.

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https://media.giphy.com/media/4LwKrBfFQgBaw/giphy.gif

Hmm. Could have sworn I posted in this thread earlier. Maybe I’m misremembering after being up at 2am and at work all day. Anyways...

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Originally Posted by Ralph2449

Yikes, of course tryhards will falsely inflate ilvl requirements because god forbid you have to do an encounter normally, let's hope there's some decent people around so new players can get into content they want to try without suffering such elitists.

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It’s not elitist or tryhard to expect players that are venturing into Savage content—which is where OP would want to go if he is going after the best gear for his job—to have the minimum item level required for said content. When Eden’s Promise first released, i510 was the minimum set by the crafted and normal mode gear. That was the norm. Usually only the first floor, and sometimes the second, can be done in the previous tier’s BiS by an above average group, but you will fail the third and fourth’s DPS checks by not being in melded crafted gear. It’s also very likely you will lack the defense and HP to survive mechanics.

It’s basic respect to have a decent item level when venturing into harder content. Just because the tier is older, and just because players can be carried through the content in shoddy gear, doesn’t mean that you should join Party Finders in said shoddy gear. The PF leader would have every right to remove you, because now you’re making the rest of the party work harder to make up for what you lack—be it defense, HP, or damage. You’re going on and on about decency, but it’s not very decent to join Savage groups undergeared and underprepared.

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Expecting new players who just have reached 80 in the game to have enough gil and know you can buy a full 510 set is silly.
And new players are not gonna have a month of tomes of revelation for those 520s either

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I don’t know about other data centers, but i510 crafted gear on Aether is stupid cheap now thanks to the botting problems present. My server has i510 HQ body pieces for 70~80k, and other pieces even cheaper than that. Base materials are even cheaper to gather, and you can find level 80 Omni-crafters that will make the gear for you. Either for free or for a small tip. It’s not outside of the realm of possibility for a fresh 80 to have the gil to purchase the crafted set if they saved a lot of the gil the MSQ gives you from ARR to ShB. Especially now when the crafted gear market is so tanked. I remember back in HW when crafted body pieces were easily a couple million gil. Even SB had them at several hundred thousand gil. Times have changed.

Fresh 80s also have a plethora of level 80 content to go through, all of which award Allegory and Revelation. i490 Allegory gear can be purchased easily as a buffer until the player saves up enough gear, tomestones, and tokens for i510 crafted/normal mode gear and i520 Revelation gear. It’s not that hard. It just takes time. And we have plenty of it, since Endwalker isn’t going to come out until the fall.



Anyways, in response to the OP—

All Best in Slot in this game are a mixture of current Augmented Tomestone gear (so, in this case, i530 Tome gear) and Savage gear (i530 Edenmorn gear). To get the best gear, you will have to do Savage content, but you need to prepare yourself for it first.

I would suggest aiming for a mixture of i510 crafted and i510 Eden’s Promise normal mode gear to prep yourself for Savage. It will obviously take a bit of time if you lack the gil to purchase a full i510 set outright, but don’t worry too much about rushing into Savage right now. There’s still plenty of time to clear the tier. Within a couple months, they’ll unlock it and remove the one drop/one book per week restriction, which will make getting BiS even easier. For your weapon, you can either aim for the i510 crafted weapon, or Emerald Weapon’s i515 weapon. Extremes are actually meant to be a stepping stone into higher-end content, so it would be worth your while to start practicing and clearing them. You can do Emerald Weapon in i490~i500 gear, but I would recommend a few i510 pieces just to give yourself some more stat cushion.

In the interim, focus on unlocking and clearing all the level 80 content—from dungeons to all the Eden normal modes to the Nier raid. All of that will give you Allegory and Revelation tomestones, and you can use drops from each to slowly pad up your item level while you work towards securing i510 gear.

I would recommend searching for your main job’s BiS sets either on the FFXIV subreddit or in The Balance Discord. There may be a few different ones, since a lot of jobs have BiS sets that vary based on things like preferred GCD tier. Once you settle on one, save up Revelation tomestones to purchase the i520 pieces present in your BiS set. You can get the tokens to upgrade them to i530 later. If you have a body piece or legs as part of your BiS, I highly recommend saving Revelation to purchase them first. It will take you two weeks for each of them, but it is worth it over choosing an accessory because of the stat gains you get from the body or legs.

During your gear journey, also start looking up guides on level 80 openers and rotations for the job—or jobs—you want to take into Savage. Damage matters in Savage, so you will want to start preparing yourself to perform at a higher level. Practice openers and rotations on striking dummies and in the level 80 content you’re unlocking. You can also start looking at guides for each of the floors, if you want. Just to further prepare yourself.

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Originally Posted by HyoMinPark

Hmm. Could have sworn I posted in this thread earlier. Maybe I’m misremembering after being up at 2am and at work all day. Anyways...

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yup, tons of posts got deleted :^)

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Originally Posted by Rinhi

yup, tons of posts got deleted :^)

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He literally spam reports anyone who so much as disagrees with him, which is why I repeat - just report him in silence and put him on ignore. All of his posts are made with the specific intent to incite arguments which he then takes advantage of.

next week new Nier raid will have i520 gear and a coin (by having all 3 nier coins) lets you augment crypt lurker without needing to do savage
they have a weekly lockout but it can save you on gil
and Diamond weapon EX next week will have a i525 weapon which will be handy for prog.

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Originally Posted by Ralph2449

Honestly since I learned how NA/EU players behave I feel happy I am in Australia and can play in JP where you even que with DF for extremes.

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But, were they able to carry you? Or was it so bad, the party disbanded from the wipes?

Id like to ask what do you do with the best weapons?

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Originally Posted by Jirah

Id like to ask what do you do with the best weapons?

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Well, for this particular tier, the gear will last until level 85-ish when Endwalker releases. Otherwise, the best weapons and best gear are used for speed killing, parse runs, and Ultimate fights (if one releases within the same tier).

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Originally Posted by Jirah

Id like to ask what do you do with the best weapons?

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They aren't really needed for anything (unless an Ultimate releases, which it doesn't always), they are mainly to boast that you beat this content and therefore can do more damage and healing than those who haven't.

It's nice to jump into expert roulettes, max level trials and alliance raids and show how much quicker you can destroy that content now that you have this better gear that most of the others don't have.

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Originally Posted by Jirah

Id like to ask what do you do with the best weapons?

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makes my life easier with Expert,unsync duties,maps,hunts,Dragon farm etc etc
people complain how this tier is useless but i dont think they are just because no Ultimate.

also it's glam always nice to have.

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Originally Posted by Duskane

makes my life easier with Expert,unsync duties,maps,hunts,Dragon farm etc etc
people complain how this tier is useless but i dont think they are just because no Ultimate.

also it's glam always nice to have.

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You see we didnt have ultimate until 4.1 I think and when I did have top tier crap i barley noticed in farms and why would i do expert if i have the best gear? Also glam is incredibly subjective. Alot of MMos fall into this pointless endeavor for raiding or trialing as i call it in ff14 of nothing to do with the best gear it would be nice to have somthing more for hardcore ppl

Adding on to the expert thing its benign dungeons are hardly any measure of victory. Raid gear no raid gear wont magically make any instance better as the lack of depth

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Originally Posted by Liam_Harper

You realize you're basically the embodiment of the NA/EU mindset and opposite of the JP mindset, who are only able to queue for endgame content in DF because it's their culture to do their best to contribute to the team before queuing, where NA/EU can't use the DF because it's our culture to feel entitled to carries and do nothing for the team if we find it fun, thus rendering many endgame DF runs impossible to clear. So JP are actually the "tryhards" as you like to put it and the people setting ilv requirements over here are the handful with the JP mindset of trying to ensure team contribution. JP won't be openly toxic, but actually keep public blacklists for players like yourself who join without preparation and drag a group down but don't care. Just saying :)

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Also doesn't the DF provide tools to filter what part of the fight one is working on? That's another problem with the NA pugging is that people will just put "doing second half of the fight" and you get people who are not that far yet joining.

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Originally Posted by Colt47

Also doesn't the DF provide tools to filter what part of the fight one is working on? That's another problem with the NA pugging is that people will just put "doing second half of the fight" and you get people who are not that far yet joining.

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Not just in DF but also PF.
Many people hop into PFs that want to practice specific mechanics although they have only seen that mechanic once somewhere with lots of deaths and don't play the prior mechanics clean enough to reliably reach that part. If a PF states "tower practice" for e9s you're almost guaranteed to see lots of seeds placed too far centre and blocking the way for breaking tethers, people running to the wrong side on WA/ AA or tanks staying too close with their point-blank and killing a healer stack, people locking others during platform and killing them during side cleave etc. before even seeing towers once. Although that was the mechanic the party was supposed to practice.
JP has the general rule of "3 wipes = disband", so if you didn't reach that mechanic within 3 pulls, you need to queue again and if someone specific was at fault for the wipes, they'll get added to the unofficial blacklists in most cases. Although some PFs here disband really fast aswell, at least on Light most people are more lenient towards mistakes on earlier mechanics, joke about warm up and try to stick together for longer. I've seen practice parties stay together for several hours although they rarely reached the part they wanted to practice.
Multiple floor weekly reclear parties are more strict and if someone keeps failing something, they get kicked and replaced within a few pulls.

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Originally Posted by Jirah

You see we didnt have ultimate until 4.1 I think and when I did have top tier crap i barley noticed in farms and why would i do expert if i have the best gear? Also glam is incredibly subjective. Alot of MMos fall into this pointless endeavor for raiding or trialing as i call it in ff14 of nothing to do with the best gear it would be nice to have somthing more for hardcore ppl

Adding on to the expert thing its benign dungeons are hardly any measure of victory. Raid gear no raid gear wont magically make any instance better as the lack of depth

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Speaking for myself, I still do Expert to get tomestones to buy gear for alt classes so that I can give them a bit of a headstart in the next expansion. I typically get whatever gear until near the end of an expansion, then I start loading up on the top stuff I can for whatever class I don't really play. Only my main tank, healer, and DPS, get to keep having gear updated as the patches drop.

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Originally Posted by Jirah

You see we didnt have ultimate until 4.1 I think and when I did have top tier crap i barley noticed in farms and why would i do expert if i have the best gear? Also glam is incredibly subjective. Alot of MMos fall into this pointless endeavor for raiding or trialing as i call it in ff14 of nothing to do with the best gear it would be nice to have somthing more for hardcore ppl

Adding on to the expert thing its benign dungeons are hardly any measure of victory. Raid gear no raid gear wont magically make any instance better as the lack of depth

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I definitely notice the difference with gear especially with stuff like Titan e4s killing it around the second set of tumults ,while yes Expert dungeon are easy shaving off 5 minutes when everyone is competent and geared makes a huge difference,Glam is subjective yes but so is your "pointless endeavor".

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Originally Posted by Jirah

Id like to ask what do you do with the best weapons?

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Farm extremes more quickly for mounts and mount achievements.

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Originally Posted by Liam_Harper

You realize you're basically the embodiment of the NA/EU mindset and opposite of the JP mindset, who are only able to queue for endgame content in DF because it's their culture to do their best to contribute to the team before queuing, where NA/EU can't use the DF because it's our culture to feel entitled to carries and do nothing for the team if we find it fun, thus rendering many endgame DF runs impossible to clear. So JP are actually the "tryhards" as you like to put it and the people setting ilv requirements over here are the handful with the JP mindset of trying to ensure team contribution. JP won't be openly toxic, but actually keep public blacklists for players like yourself who join without preparation and drag a group down but don't care. Just saying :)

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Stop using logic here your elitism is showing here.

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Originally Posted by Ralph2449

Yikes, of course tryhards will falsely inflate ilvl requirements because god forbid you have to do an encounter normally, let's hope there's some decent people around so new players can get into content they want to try without suffering such elitists.

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God forbid you have to make your own pf with your own rules right? But nah, easier to just whine about the requirements other groups set.

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Originally Posted by Ralph2449

Yikes, of course tryhards will falsely inflate ilvl requirements because god forbid you have to do an encounter normally

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Buy you can literally get 510 in 5mins. Crafted gear has been pretty cheap on the MB for some time now.

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Originally Posted by Ralph2449

Yikes, of course tryhards will falsely inflate ilvl requirements because god forbid you have to do an encounter normally, let's hope there's some decent people around so new players can get into content they want to try without suffering such elitists.

Expecting new players who just have reached 80 in the game to have enough gil and know you can buy a full 510 set is silly.
And new players are not gonna have a month of tomes of revelation for those 520s either


Honestly since I learned how NA/EU players behave I feel happy I am in Australia and can play in JP where you even que with DF for extremes.

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Huh?

510 is the lowest ilvl you should be using in savage right now. Period. If you don't have 510 gear, run the normal raids to get it. Not hard.

Also you don't even raid..

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Originally Posted by Katie_Kitty

Also you don't even raid..

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On the contrary, they actually do. It’s called Troll (Savage).

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Originally Posted by Liam_Harper

You realize you're basically the embodiment of the NA/EU mindset and opposite of the JP mindset, who are only able to queue for endgame content in DF because it's their culture to do their best to contribute to the team before queuing, where NA/EU can't use the DF because it's our culture to feel entitled to carries and do nothing for the team if we find it fun, thus rendering many endgame DF runs impossible to clear. So JP are actually the "tryhards" as you like to put it and the people setting ilv requirements over here are the handful with the JP mindset of trying to ensure team contribution. JP won't be openly toxic, but actually keep public blacklists for players like yourself who join without preparation and drag a group down but don't care. Just saying :)

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It's true, just because they're polite, doesn't mean they don't hate people that want carries.

It's not elitist to set in a party finder created group of random people a higher ilvl as an offset to make the kill easier.

Considering our friend is new with a fresh 80 SAM to begin with. He'll be looking for practice runs or a Static to work with.

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@OP - Honestly, I would get into that content later. For now, I'd be doing the Resistance Relic (which for SAM looks insane anyway). Do Bozja and get the first set of gear for 495, then move upto Law's Order (510?), while aiming for Cryptlurker, or Chrystarium as they come through doing content or daily roulettes.

You can totally buy the crafted for 510, as you did. But then you have no money, either way, you'll figure it out.

I feel like its worth mentioning that you can simply not do savage or extreme trials and miss nothing. There is no more story added to them and there is no other content in which the gear you gain will be necessary or even give you a distinct advantage. The gear will help you with further savage or extreme clears, but other content is quite easily done with just tome gear and the relic weapons of the current expansion.