returning player, completely lost!

[HyoMinPark]

Hi all, I played 1.x from just after launch until server closure and ARR relaunch. I just came back this week and boy have things moved on... I have a TON of questions, google is confusing as hell. What patch number are we even on?

Welcome back to FFXIV! There's tons of new content for you to enjoy. There was actually maintenance this evening for patch 3.57. So that's what patch we are currently on.

So right now I'm just levelling ROG/NIN since that wasn't here when I left and I'll pick up Heavensward later this week to get all the classes from 50 > 60.

I'm not sure where you left off at (end of 2.0 or a subsequent 2.x patch), but there are about 100 main scenario quests between the end of ARR and Heavensward. Since you have most jobs at 50, you can use these quests (and the dungeons you'll unlock) to get some experience on each of them. It's been buffed even more since I ran it, and I was already level 53 by the time I reached Heavensward (I started playing just before the release of 3.1). Afterwards, you'll reach Ishgard and the Heavensward story will start at that point.

What is the highest GC rank now? I have 49k/50k seals so might as well spend them, iirc you used to use seals to rank up?

The devs only added one new rank, and that is First Lieutenant. To achieve it, you are required to level up a squadron of NPCs by way of squadron missions, rather than just pay X amount of GC seals. The game does a fairly okay job explaining how leveling them works, but when you get to that point, if there's anything you don't understand, feel free to ask on the forums or Reddit and people can help you out.

I used to play pretty hardcore, but my gear is laughable now. Is there a simple progression chart I should be looking at? Bear in mind I have no idea what I'm doing.

You'll want to have at least poetics (ilvl 120)/augmented poetics (ilvl 130) gear entering Heavensward. Poetics are extremely easy to come by, so it shouldn't take you long to get a set/sets of gear for the job(s) you want to play--just unlock all the level 50 dungeons (I think there's around a dozen or so of them) for those sweet bonus poetics, and do your daily Level 50 roulette once you have cleared them all. The augmented poetics gear will last you until level 55-56 (non-augmented around level 54-55), where there you can start using dungeon drops from the main scenario dungeons, and the HQ gear that the MSQ will hand out to you.

When you first hit 60, there will be several level 60 dungeons you can start to unlock to start accumulating Tomestones of Lore. Use these to buy ilvl 230 (240 if you want to augment it) lore gear to progress into the more current level 60 dungeons and 24-man raids (Void Ark, Weeping City of Mhach, and Dun Scaith, which offer ilvl 200, 230, and 260 gear, respectfully). Once you're ilvl 230, you can also run Alexander Creator normal mode for ilvl 250 gear (note that you will have to have done normal mode Gordias and Midas first--these also give out additional gear you can use to supplement in between getting your lore gear, ilvl 190 and 220, respectfully). If you have the gil, there is also ilvl 250 crafted gear that you can buy off the MB, and bypass getting lore gear completely (though you will still need to do the level 60 dungeons).

From there, you start getting tomestones of scripture to get the current endgame gear, which is ilvl 260, and can be augmented to ilvl 270.

All lockouts have been removed, so you should be able to gear up relatively fast.

I have all classes at 50 (ROG 45 atm) and I'll work on getting them all to 60 ASAP, but I don't know wtf anything is, is there anything that I should be looking to do as a high priority? Really any general advice would be great as my mindset is still around the game of the relaunch, I'm unaware of so much!

If you need to test drive your jobs again, I would recommend unlocking Palace of the Dead (the starting quest for it can be found in the Carline Canopy in Gridania). You will be randomly matched with 3 other players, starting from level 1, and you will level up as you progress through the dungeon (the leveling inside PotD is independent from the actual game, but you do get experience for the job you enter as every 10 floors, as well as poetics, since most of your jobs are ~50). The first part of PotD is 50 floors, with mostly trash mobs and a boss every 10 floors. Once you complete Tam-Tara Hard Mode (lvl 50 dungeon), you can accept a quest to go deeper into PotD all the way to floor 200 (albeit, the story for PotD ends on floor 100; 101-200 are more as a challenge to players).

This would be a good way of getting reacquainted with the jobs you have, as well as get a glimpse of the level 50-60 skills Heavensward will offer. Some jobs changed significantly in HW compared to their ARR versions.

For additional experience, you can use the 2.x MSQ quests (those 100+ quests between ARR and HW) and dungeons to give experience to each of your level 50 jobs.

I would suggest taking the time now to re-familiarize yourself with the jobs, and then, after that, try to decide on the primary job you would like to level up through the Heavensward MSQ. It would be beneficial to also look for a Free Company to join, so that you can have other players help you progress, and also make some new friends. :3


Hopefully this information isn't too overwhelming. I wanted to give answers in as few words as possible, but also wanted those answers to be as comprehensive as possible. XD Any questions, feel free to ask.