New tank: keeping hate

[DarkstarIV]

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

[Niwashi]

I'm nearly at the stage where I can join a grand company - am I right in saying their gear is actually pretty good? Should I grind tokens for a bit to get kitted in that?

The gear is pretty decent (roughly on par with the good dungeon drops at most levels), but at the beginning it takes a while to accumulate GC Seals, and there's some other things you'll want them for as well. I (and most players I've talked to) put the first 2,000 seals they earn towards getting a chocobo mount (and thus unlocking the mount system as a whole). That's usually a pretty high priority. After that, it's between buying gear or buying higher ranks in the Grand Company. (The first rank increase costs 2,000 seals, the next one 3,000, then 4,000, etc.) Higher ranks give you access to a wider selection of gear and items you can buy from them.

Personally, I chose to put my seals towards ranking up for as long as that was available. At around my early to mid-30's in level, I reached the point where the next rank up requires a level 45 quest, so I stopped ranking up and the seals started to accumulate. At 38, I hit the cap on how many GC seals I could hold at a time, so that's when I started spending them more freely, buying a level 39 bow and gloves, as well as some venture tokens and cosmetic armor for my chocobo.

How quickly you accumulate GC seals may vary. I got a lot of mine by turning in GC Supply and Provisioning missions that come with crafting and gathering classes. The other major sources are FATEs and Duty Roulette. So whether you craft and whether you spend much time FATE grinding can make a big impact on how long it takes to accumulate GC seals.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[Enkidoh]

As others have mentioned, there is actually little difference between the three GCs other than their names, location, colour of their uniforms and the person who leads them. There is no real storyline with them either after the initial recruitment quest (there are a couple of sidequests given by them later, but all that is is a couple of dungeon runs with no actual story resolution given, that is required for promotion to the last two officer ranks, and a quick trip to the Wolves Den to unlock PvP).

So really, it just comes down to whichever you like the best rather than having a particular story or specific gear (and with Frontlines coming it may also be a good thing to go for the GC your friends are already in, as GC allegiance will restrict what team you end up on in Frontlines when it's released in a week.)

Also, early on the GC gear is not usually that good for tanking - especially the level 20 Private rank uniform, as it might have a lot of high across-the-board stat boosts, but actually doesn't have good defense, as per my earlier post. Other classes it's very useful though, but for tanks, you're better off getting a nice sturdy set of plate or heavy armour instead of the GC uniform.