Back Once Again, Overwhelmed.

[Rayya]

I quit shortly after Heavenward was released due to military issues. Not to mention I also joined shortly before Heavensward dropped and proceeded to no life this game in anticipation for it. Only got my MNK to 55 before I had to stop.

Coming back now, I feel so overwhelmed. I have no idea what I should be doing anymore. I understand I definitely should be pushing the MSQ out to get them done in preparation for Heavensward. However, I don't even know what exactly I should be doing. Like what the heck is Palace of the Dead? I hear some people saying get to +99 or something in order to get a weapon, but to me that sounds like the grinding I did once upon a time for Poetics, or is it fast than Poetics?

I have a feeling between now and Stormblood I won't be ready to tackle any of the challenges presented in Heavensward nor the later expansion without some insight from this incredibly friendly forum.

[Ferth]

Lodestone actually has a pretty good page for PotD.
http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodest...e/deepdungeon/

It's a quick way to gain experience and a relatively easy way to get ilvl 230/255 weapons.

It's certainly a good place to start.

If you enter as a job that is under 50 you get exp and gil for each complete level set you clear (you progress 10 levels at a time.) If you are above 50 but below 60 you get exp, tomestones of poetics and money. If you are level 60 you get Poetics, Lore and Scripture.

[Tsubaki75]

1st thing is don't rush, there's no need. Check your journal for the last msq quest you did and pick up from there. There is pretty much no reason to grind out levels if you aren't into the hw areas yet as you can't continue your job quests for your skills until after you get to ishgard.
There is plenty of story to get you leveled the rest of the way and you can use your fc or the party finder to help get your msq done.
The potd wpn is a filler wpn anyway. you can get just as good a wpn from the side quest hw ex primals. And welcome bk to the game

[Rayya]

There is pretty much no reason to grind out levels if you aren't into the hw areas yet as you can't continue your job quests for your skills until after you get to ishgard.

Yea I am in Ishgard though. The HW quests are up to level 55 right now. It feels like there is so much in the background that I'm going to have to learn and it feels as though the learning curve is back and longer than ever.

Thanks to both posters. If there is anything else you recommend, please feel free to share it with me.

[Ferth]

With your highest Job still just being 55 I think you won't actually see most of the stuff that has been added since you left until you hit 60. Finishing up the MSQ will give you level appropriate gear and access to all the zones and leveling dungeons as well as a fair amount of experience on the way.

I would recommend doing daily clan marks as well. You can start doing daily clan marks from ishgard at level 53 by talking to the quest giver Aytienne in the Inn in Ishgard (Knight's something or other...) The clan mark board is right outside the same Inn. (Apparently you also need to be a Second Lieutenant in whatever Grand Company you are in). As the name implies you can get a new set of marks every day, completing them gets you experience, money and Centurio seals. There are three tiers of daily marks you unlock as you level up.

Centurio seals can be used to purchase ilvl 200 gear from Yolaine inside the inn (and upgrade items from Ardolain that will allow you to upgrade that gear to ilvl210) so that when you hit 60 you will at least be able to do the first few level 60 dungeons right away.

If you reach a point where you aren't a high enough level to continue the MSQ you can fill the gap with Fates or Palace of the Dead, though I think you probably won't have to do that very often.

[Tsubaki75]

Honestly aside from the warring triad and Alexander quests at 60, there's not too much in the background. But what is there will require you to do the msq to a certain point to unlock it so focus on that. Ask your fc for when you need to unlock the side dungeons for roulette access and it should be a straight shot as each one will provide gear for the next. If possible I would keep potd as light as possible esp for a monk. It's good for exp but nothing there will help you learn your new skills or rotation it's horrible for that

[Rayya]

Wow this is extremely helpful. I feel like I finally have an idea on what I should be doing. I truly appreciate all the responses you guys have given me.

I am kinda worries about being paired with high level people when I do dungeons and raids. They probably won't put up with someone with my kind of gear and not being able to understand how everything works at my level compared to someone that has been playing without a break.

[Frizze]

Max level people get paired with low level people all the time. There are many people that run 6-10 roulettes per day. And yeah, a few of them require level 60 and the main story being done/close to. But many of them are designed to get high level people doing lower level content so that lower level people get the help they need to get through(leveling, main scen, mentor, and trials in particular). If i que leveling roulette, i expect to be matched with people lower level then me who have(often poor quality) level appropriate gear and possibly not a full grasp on how their class should be played. So why would i still que? Sometimes to help people, sometimes for tomes, usually because im leveling up something and want that sweet bonus exp. If you really feel self conscious about it, do some practice runs with lower level content. Did you clear all 17 level 50 dungeons to open up the lvl 50 roulette? If not, do one or two of them to get a feel for your class again. You can tell the people in your group at the beginning that youre new to the dungeon/a returning player. After a few runs youll be ready to hop back into the aery(lvl 55 story dungeon youre probly getting to soonish) and continue on with the story.

[LunaFaye]

Wow this is extremely helpful. I feel like I finally have an idea on what I should be doing. I truly appreciate all the responses you guys have given me.

I am kinda worries about being paired with high level people when I do dungeons and raids. They probably won't put up with someone with my kind of gear and not being able to understand how everything works at my level compared to someone that has been playing without a break.

Here's what I would recommend. First off all relax and take a deep breath. While I am not a supporter of people that are lazy or unwilling to learn fights/dungeons/jobs etc, in your case that doesn't even apply. We all have been there, taking a break coming back and are extremely under geared. It happens, but as you've done it, we can do some research to get us back on track and making us less uncomfortable.

With this out of the way, level your character either via clan hunt logs (on daily basis, one you're getting at 53, another at 56 and the last at 59) these logs give a huge amount of exp as well as seals.
As others have mentioned you can at 60 buy some ilvl 200 equipment for your character but don't worry about excessively farming those, and I'll tell you why a bit further down in my post.


Follow your MSQ and while you're getting to run a couple of dungeons, these dungeons are leveling dungeons and nobody expects you to be the highest gear level possible. Use the High Quality items you're getting from your MSQ that's good enough. Pick up some pieces throughout that dungeon if they drop for your job. Start doing the beast tribe quests in the new heavensward area's, again these give a huge amount of exp on a daily basis. And so higher you rank so more quests you can do, as well as getting ranked up if you ever plan on getting a relic weapon later at level 60.

The other method would be palace of the dead. Now before we are jumping right into that, let me say, that normally I wouldn't recommend it since you will have to backtrack the whole MSQ and Job quests the moment you're reaching 60.

However since you're already level 55 and seem to be a bit uncomfortable going forward, trust me I can understand, you could just level your character in there to level 60 and continue even after level 60 for a couple of days.

First of all if you enter palace of the dead at level 60 you get tome stones as a reward after completing 10 floors instead of exp and gil. Since floors 51-90 rewarding 30 tomes of scripture, 60 tomes of lore and 30 tomes of poetics this is a walk in the park as I call it. Floor 91-100 rewards a bit more after you defeated the boss.

Anyways, having done this just on an alt myself, it was way faster then farming hunting seals. It took me 3 days to get a full set of ilvl230 gear from the tomes you're getting anyways for running potd and you can update it too ilvl 240 if you feel like it.

As well as a ilvl 255 weapon that you can get after having reached +90+90 in potd itself. This will give you the possibility to run all your missing MSQ's all the way up to the new expert dungeons (baelsar's wall and sohm al hard) without having to take a break. That way you will also accumulate a lot of scripture tomes (weekly capped at 900 at the moment) and you can pick up some of that gear within the first week already.

Now I don't know how much time you have to play the game, but I assuming it's at least 4 hours a day? If you got more time, well congratulations you won the jack pot

If that's the case, you can run after you have unlocked it at level 60 the higher dungeons for a little bit, making sure you're doing your roulette's every day (Trial/Leveling even if you're level 60 already because tomes/level 60 dungeons/expert)

Again to be able to run expert roulette you will have to have at least 2 pieces of ilvl260 gear, to be able to reach the ilvl requirement to enter. You can from time to time check your servers market board and see if you're getting some ilvl 250 crafted gear for cheap.

Now with the removal of the weekly lockout on dun scaith, I would recommend farming that for a bit, this 24 raid gives out ilv 260 gear and a ivl 270 accessory (accessory still on the weekly lockout tho) giving you a real good chance of catching up till storm blood and snatching a couple of gear sets for other jobs you might want to level, or at least if you're planning on playing red mage. Samurai will share gear set with your monk anyways, don't throw it away.

I hope my post wasn't too confusing, feel free to ask any questions you might have or are not clear enough. I tried keeping it short, but well it's a lot to explain. GL

Edit: POTD can be helpful, if you're paying a bit attention to your abilities. It let's you learn or re learn your class/job and the start of your rotations. If you screw up in there, nobody will say anything or even notice, giving you that absolute freedom of learning your job

[Rayya]

Wall of Holy Information

Wow. I like this idea. Also, time isn't all that much of an issue. I may be in Japan, but I don't do much during the week only the weekends. So maybe 7 hours a day if I'm motivated? Weekends have even more time. So I should be able to realistically deck out 2-3 characters before Stormblood comes out right?

Also, I thought Tomes of Lore were capped every week. Is that true? If so is it really possible to deck out a character with ilvl230 gear in 3 days? Isn't Lore equipment expensive?