Greetings folks,

Wanted to fling a few questions by ya'll since I've been trying to figure some things out for leveling.

Firstly, it has been quite a long time since I played, last I did...Alexander Savage was newish, I think the highest one on the DF was A5 or so. With that in mind...

I want to settle down in XIV, and I feel like now is a pretty solid time to start doing so, but I was wondering about all this stuff with Palace of The Dead and what not. I'm currently leveling my Scholar from 52 to cap, and then my Drk from 33~cap, but I'm concerned about gear.

I have about 30 some odd quests left in HW, and I don't really know the gear requirements I'll need to have in order to do any of that. I've heard PoTD gives out an i255 weapon? Would it be worth gimping my class knowledge as Drk to work towards it? I think most of my i180 gear from War can be borrowed over to my Drk, though it may be job exclusive.

Or, since it's Drk, would it just be faster to grind dungeons to cap anyway, and then go back and go through PoTD for the weapon and what not? I'm totally lost on the current state of tomestones/endgame gear and all of that. Hoping to get my Sch and Drk on even grounds for SB so I can pick who to trail blaze with then.

And for a more specific question. Drk's "Artifact" armor, the only way to get it now is by doing hunts for the seals to buy it, correct?

Sorry for all the questions, thanks a bunch for taking the time to respond!