Gearing , how does it work?

[Iagainsti]

Trust me; I might get 6-10 game hours in a week and I'm i190 and ranking for our progression group through Savage Alexander. My route saves you wasted hours.

[Garlyle]

Gear in XIV uses Item Levels. Higher iLvl = better gear, generally speaking (There's some times where certain substat combos are just so poor for certain classes or other factors come into play, but yeah).

There is a lot of obsoleted gear at this point. The moment you reach level 50, your gear's best possible item level goes from 50 to 130. You can straight up buy i110 gear off the marketboards if you want at that point that you can equip. Your main story quest, after the events of The Praetorium, will also throw i100 gear at you; while you do various level 50 content, you'll also rack up Tomestones of Poetics, which can be traded in for i120 gear that can be upgraded to i130 with reward items from the weekly Crystal Tower raid series quest. A vast number of dungeon reward items will be useless to you... unless you want them for glamour, of course!

As you do Heavensward content, the story quests, side quests, and dungeons will steadily reward you with an increasing item level of gear until all the ARR stuff is obsolete, but it's not an instantaneous obsoletion. So, doing level 50 content isn't a complete waste of time. Gear bought with Poetics, especially if upgraded through certain items; or the items dropped in the World of Darkness (i120) and/or Final Coil of Bahamut (i130/i135) are going to last you a few levels even into Heavensward; Final Coil gear especially doesn't get outclassed until about level 56 (and its accessories, strangely, about 59). If you can find ways into that content it's also great entertainment, even if you're in undersized parties with level 60s.