Saving the Last Dance For Me: Trouble beating it

[AphraelAmarantha]

Uhm so what gives? I was not expecting this quest to be ilevel 395. Like how am i supposed to have that at this point? I spent all my poetics just trying to get shire gear at 60. I thought it was only going to be at 330 for like it was at the end of Stormblood. Can I get the required gear from the market place or is there a way to get poetics really fast? I keep getting one-shotted in the aoe phase when I'm targeted by an aoe and there is donut aoe to dodge. I can dodge the donut one but the aoe that is targeted on me one shots me.

[Kirika-]

Get some crafted gear for your level, check your Market Board or ask around in one of the main city states. Get HQ if you can afford it.
Failing that, the venders in Kugane have basic L70 gear for gil, look around the market area.
You are attempting a L70 job quest, but wearing L60 gear, so your damage output and ability to take damage is greatly reduced.

As for the specific mechanic you are having trouble with, while making sure to avoid the doughnut AOE on your dance partners, make sure the AOE circle around you doesn't clip onto one of your partners.
Position yourself just inside a partner's safe zone, while making sure your circle doesn't touch them.

[HyoMinPark]

What does your current gear look like? Are you in i330 stuff? I don’t recall this instance having a minimum item level requirement so much as it had an item level sync—I’ve noticed some of the newer job instances show a pop-up with a listed sync, but not a requirement.

[AphraelAmarantha]

What does your current gear look like? Are you in i330 stuff? I don’t recall this instance having a minimum item level requirement so much as it had an item level sync—I’ve noticed some of the newer job instances show a pop-up with a listed sync, but not a requirement.

It wasn't a requirement, the duty syncs to i395 which surprised me. I was only in Shire gear at 261 so I was terribly undergeared, hence the one shots. I was still trying to augment my shire gear but apparently I outgrew that already with no poetics. I remember the post Stormblood dungeons being around 330 so I was surprised that this was so high at level 70. In the end I had to spend a ton of money to gear up which sucks because i don't have that much money and I don't have a reliable way to make money in this game that I find fun. Anyway, sorry I started a useless thread.

[Frizze]

So i know this is too late to help you OP(im responding incase this comes up in a search later), but there are a ton of easy to acquire poetics tomes just waiting to be grabbed. Several of the duty roulettes offer poetics as part of the reward if completed on a character above level 50. The roulettes for 50/60/70, alliance raids, and main scenario(shudder) will each pay out 100 or more poetics daily. You also get paid in poetics when you help kill any A or S rank hunt. But the quickest source is the new player bonus. Each time you complete an older instance(dungeon, raid floor, trial, etc from before the ShB expansion) with a player who hasnt done so before, you get 50-100 extra poetics on top of what the instance itself would have paid. You yourself also count as a new player if you havent run something yet, meaning that all those optional dungeons and outdated raid floors are potentially quick clears with a big payout. If you can, put together a PF group with the stated goal of doing all the floors of a raid set(if you want to watch cutscenes, put that in the PF and those who join will be willing to wait). If you go unsynced and skip cutscenes, something like the 12 alexander floors can be cleared in about half an hour. Itd still be less then 90 mins if you did the floors sync'd and watched all the scenes(though the group might take longer to fill). Thatd be more then 1200 poetics for roughly an hour spent. The people helping in PF also get those poetics(an anima takes SO many poetics to finish), plus some second chance points for khloe if theyre into that sort of thing. Seems like a win win.

[Lumy]

Thanks for this tip, I am having problems with iLevel myself and feeling a bit lost.

[Kemiko]

To be clear, the quest doesn't require you to be i395. If you're above that, which is entirely possible, you're synced down to i395. Any 70 gear, for your job, should work though obviously higher ilv gear will do make it easier.

[Frizze]

Thanks for this tip, I am having problems with iLevel myself and feeling a bit lost.

Lets call this General Upgrading 201.

For 1-49, just try to keep most of your gear within 10ish levels and youll be fine(if you hit a roadblock, look for an upgrade or work on your class a bit). At level 50 your class quest will gift you a set of i90 gear. If you progress through the 2.x patch quest line they will eventually get you into a set of i110. You can get better gear 4 ways. First, is the crafted i115 set(the HQ versions are what you want). These are fairly easy level 51 crafts, so if you have a friend(or the appropriate classes leveled yourself) who can make them youre golden. Feel free to check the market board, but the prices are sometimes out of line with the difficulty. The second way to get better gear is to run the coil of bahamut raids. The final coil will drop gear at i130(and a weapon at 135!). Back then, these were the hardest fights in the game. These days, a high enough level player can clear most of them solo(i believe theyre all possible with a team of 2). So for these, high level friend(s) and unsync runs are what you need - a DF que will never fill so dont even bother trying. Method 3 is the crystal tower alliance raids - specifically, the 3rd one drops armor(not jewelry or weapons) at i120. The alliance raid roulette means these ques will go off frequently, so unlock and que up - then hope your classes stuff drops(side bonus, this run is also worth 100 poetics). Then the 4th method is poetics. One of Rowena's girls in Mor Dhona sells i120 gear(the weapon is in north shroud with gerolt). These ironworks pieces can be upgraded to i130 with special items(dropped in the last set of coils raids, in the last alliance raid, and purchasable for more poetics).

From 51-59 you play it by ear a bit. If you started out at a roughly i120-130 range, then your gear will be good through roughly level 56. These leveling dungeons(all leveling dungeons going forward, none of the cap dungeons unfortunately) have a forced drop at the end - you are guaranteed one piece of loot for the class you came in as(auto-dropped into your armory after the last boss) plus whatever randomly drops in all the chests. Check if anything you get is an upgrade, change as needed. The level 57 and 59 dungeons hit harder then those before, so try to get a few upgrades along the way. Once you hit 60, the same process as 50 repeats. Your class quest gives you a set, the quest line will give you a better one, but theres still upgrades to be had. Theres still a crafted set(i255), still a set available for poetics tomes(vendor is in idyllshire - still upgradable from i260-270), still a set from the 3rd alliance raid(i260), and this time theres a normal and a savage difficulty raid set(the normal is i250 while savage is i270).

From 61-69, you guessed it, play by ear. If you started near 260-270, youll be fine until probly lvl 66. This level range most classes get big defense boosts from their gear, so make sure you check dungeon and quest rewards to see if anything is an upgrade. Again, the last 2 dungeons hurt. At this point, you could probly guess what your options are at level 70. Class quests, quest path upgrades, better options. Youre still spending poetics tomes(rhalgrs reach has the vendor), still choosing between crafted and the various raid tier items. These sets run from i380-i400.

And that brings you to "current" content. From 71-79 watch your dungeon and quest drops for upgrades. Your class set at level 80 is i430(this only includes armor and weapon, your 430 belt and jewelry drop from the current lvl 80 dungeons). The normal mode raid set is i450. Theres a crafted set available also at i450. The savage difficulty raid set sits at i470. The alliance raid set wont be released until the october patch(alliance raids are odd patches like 5.1, regular raids are even patches like 5.0 and 5.2), but it will land at i460 when it does. And finally you have your tome sets. There are 2 types of tomes available for level 80 content. You have your "low" tome(currently Goetia) and your "high" tome(currently Phantasmagoria). The only limit on "low" tomes is that you can only hold 2000 of them at a time, but you can earn them as quickly as you want. They can be used to purchase i440 gear. The "high" tomes you can only earn 450 per week, you can still only horde up to 2000 of them, and theyre used to buy i460(deepshadow) gear. The 440 gear cant be upgraded, but the 460(deepshadow) can. The drops to upgrade it come from the savage raids, and will also be available from the alliance raids in 5.1. Finally, in current content you can also get gear upgrades from running extreme trials. We currently have 2. One drops ilvl 450 jewelry, the other drops ilvl 450 weapons. Most patches only one extreme will be considered current, and it will drop weapons(never quite top of the line, but often an available upgrade step that can help you get there).

Gear upgrades on even number patches, so 5.2(jan-feb) will see new sets become available. At that time, the current "low" tome will be retired and the current "high" tome will become the new "low" tome(the weekly earning cap goes away when this happens, the set youre buying with these uncapped Phantasmagoria tomes will still be the Deepshadow set). A new "high" tome will become available(along with a new gear set which should be roughly i490) with the same restrictions we have currently. A new set of raids will also go live at that time(as will a new crafted tier), with the subsequent gear upgrades. This will all repeat itself one more time in 5.4. The gear from that patch will be the max-level gear for this expansion(prediction is i530-540), and the one that gets slotted into the description like the ones i used for the level 60 and 70 ranges. Those intermediate gears(as the current 460s will eventually be considered intermediate) are still available for the level 50/60/70 range, but the effort to get a middling set is the same as that to get a good set, so why settle?

Finally(took me long enough, right?) - when upgrading try to prioritize your gear in tiers. You get the biggest boost to productivity from your weapon. The next tier is chest and legs. Then hat gloves boots. Then the lowest boost is from belt and jewelry. Gear from any tier will inflate your ilevel if you need a boost to get into a higher content, but starting at the top gets you the biggest boost to your actual performance(stronger heals and dps, better survivability, etc). This was probly all a lot to read, but hopefully it makes the process of moving from low level to high level gear easy enough to understand.

[TaiyoShikasu]

Get Scaevan gear.

[Berteaux_Braumegain]

Invest in some ranged Augmented Scaevan Gear, even if you need to put off the quest for a while. I had the same problem with the RDM Level 60 quest when I was fresh at the game and still wearing Ironworks.