New tank: keeping hate

[Velo_Vandore]

Probs obvious, but did you apply all your bonus attribute points? I forgot for about 7-8 levels and it made a huge difference. People say go for all VIT, but because I'm a tight ass about buying good gear and would rather the healer have stress keeping me up than me have stress keeping aggro I chucked a load into strength :P hehe Seriously though, I do have a most points going into VIT now since aggro control got a lot easier after my WAR job upgrade.

[Kydi]

Yep, made sure I applied all the upgrade points. I put them in vitality on the basis that strength seemed to increase fairly quickly anyway and a bucket of extra HP is always nice. By the sounds of it, gear is just the key factor for me unfortunately. I'll just have to keep an eye and make sure I've got the best I can manage rather than making so.

[DarkstarIV]

You may have to look on the market board every once in awhile for newer gear.

[Estellios]

If you haven't made your GC decision yet, don't pick a GC you don't like just because it seems best for whatever class you are currently playing. The gear is only useful until you hit the level cap and then it is vastly outclassed and/or you have a lot of better alternatives. The GC gear is more useful for alternate classes anyway.

Of course if you like the one that offers the gear you want then it's win/win =P

[Kydi]

Hmm, perhaps I'll rethink the GC then. How significant is the choice in terms of Story? Is there any particular one people say is significantly better/worse? My original intention was to have once character for magic, one for melee DPS and one for tanking, hence the Maelstrom with this character...

How much of an improvement would the gear be over what I can get through normal dungeons etc?

[Niwashi]

How significant is the choice in terms of Story?

I have a character in each of the three Grand Companies, but two of them haven't gotten much further than that in the main storyline and none of them have reached endgame. As far as I've seen, there has been one significant storyline event that I've dealt with as part of the Grand Company, but it was essentially the same event in each case, with the only differences being where it took place and which NPCs assisted with it.

There are more significant storyline differences in the first 15 levels of the game based on your starting city (in turn based on your starting class), but unless it changes with events I haven't reached yet, I don't think the GC selection has much impact on the story. Past level 15, differences seem limited to an occasional quest where you deal with different NPCs depending on where you are and who you know, and even those differences are few and far between.

[Estellios]

How much of an improvement would the gear be over what I can get through normal dungeons etc?

The gear can be useful sometimes as usually they are higher item level than their equip level (so your character is slightly stronger than they should normally be) and because of that they can be wearable for decent stretches of time, especially if it's one of the odd situations where an equip slot has no upgrade options for several levels.

However the dungeon drops are the same situation, higher level than their equip level, so they are also very powerful and worth holding onto for a long time. As an example, the level 32 sets that drop from Brayflox's Longstop are item level 34 and usable until the early 40's.

Really the warning against picking a GC you don't like is because you can not only do everything on one character and in some cases is much more beneficial(stat allocation is separate per class, you have access to cross-class skills, classes that aren't your highest get a 50% xp boost), past level 15 the story between all 3 is largely the same as someone has mentioned. While the gear you can use from the grand companies is nice for its level, all three have gear for all classes and none of it is anything that you can use post-storyline where a bulk of the content lies. Changing grand companies to one that you do like is a time consuming process as you have to rank up all over again.

The mechanical benefit is just not worth it as it loses all value once you reach the level cap and you probably would enjoy yourself more being part of the organization you like better and dealing with its people.

[Urthdigger]

Your choice only affects a few quests. Also, you can change later.

Also, there's no real point in making three different characters. Nor is there a point in matching GC to class, as most of the gear that matters is available in all 3.

[Kydi]

Ended up joining maelstrom in any case - pirates are cool and the other leaders were a little irritating.

[Anova]

They have the coolest barding too. You happened to join just in time. Frontlines is a feature coming in a week and it will feature 80v80v80 pvp between the three grand companies!

While it hasn't been important until now, please keep in mind your grand company affiliation if you are joining a pvp fc. You won't be able to party and play with friends (only on the battleground pvp maps) from a different grand company. You get one free transfer to another grand company, but it will cost you 10k gil afterwards. You are also unable to transfer your rank until you reach the rank of 2nd Lt (highest GC rank possible), although SE may give players a window to change for free and/or lower the requirements when patch 2.3 hits.