Hmm. Could have sworn I posted in this thread earlier. Maybe I’m misremembering after being up at 2am and at work all day. Anyways...

Quote Originally Posted by Ralph2449 View Post
Yikes, of course tryhards will falsely inflate ilvl requirements because god forbid you have to do an encounter normally, let's hope there's some decent people around so new players can get into content they want to try without suffering such elitists.
It’s not elitist or tryhard to expect players that are venturing into Savage content—which is where OP would want to go if he is going after the best gear for his job—to have the minimum item level required for said content. When Eden’s Promise first released, i510 was the minimum set by the crafted and normal mode gear. That was the norm. Usually only the first floor, and sometimes the second, can be done in the previous tier’s BiS by an above average group, but you will fail the third and fourth’s DPS checks by not being in melded crafted gear. It’s also very likely you will lack the defense and HP to survive mechanics.

It’s basic respect to have a decent item level when venturing into harder content. Just because the tier is older, and just because players can be carried through the content in shoddy gear, doesn’t mean that you should join Party Finders in said shoddy gear. The PF leader would have every right to remove you, because now you’re making the rest of the party work harder to make up for what you lack—be it defense, HP, or damage. You’re going on and on about decency, but it’s not very decent to join Savage groups undergeared and underprepared.

Expecting new players who just have reached 80 in the game to have enough gil and know you can buy a full 510 set is silly.
And new players are not gonna have a month of tomes of revelation for those 520s either
I don’t know about other data centers, but i510 crafted gear on Aether is stupid cheap now thanks to the botting problems present. My server has i510 HQ body pieces for 70~80k, and other pieces even cheaper than that. Base materials are even cheaper to gather, and you can find level 80 Omni-crafters that will make the gear for you. Either for free or for a small tip. It’s not outside of the realm of possibility for a fresh 80 to have the gil to purchase the crafted set if they saved a lot of the gil the MSQ gives you from ARR to ShB. Especially now when the crafted gear market is so tanked. I remember back in HW when crafted body pieces were easily a couple million gil. Even SB had them at several hundred thousand gil. Times have changed.

Fresh 80s also have a plethora of level 80 content to go through, all of which award Allegory and Revelation. i490 Allegory gear can be purchased easily as a buffer until the player saves up enough gear, tomestones, and tokens for i510 crafted/normal mode gear and i520 Revelation gear. It’s not that hard. It just takes time. And we have plenty of it, since Endwalker isn’t going to come out until the fall.



Anyways, in response to the OP—

All Best in Slot in this game are a mixture of current Augmented Tomestone gear (so, in this case, i530 Tome gear) and Savage gear (i530 Edenmorn gear). To get the best gear, you will have to do Savage content, but you need to prepare yourself for it first.

I would suggest aiming for a mixture of i510 crafted and i510 Eden’s Promise normal mode gear to prep yourself for Savage. It will obviously take a bit of time if you lack the gil to purchase a full i510 set outright, but don’t worry too much about rushing into Savage right now. There’s still plenty of time to clear the tier. Within a couple months, they’ll unlock it and remove the one drop/one book per week restriction, which will make getting BiS even easier. For your weapon, you can either aim for the i510 crafted weapon, or Emerald Weapon’s i515 weapon. Extremes are actually meant to be a stepping stone into higher-end content, so it would be worth your while to start practicing and clearing them. You can do Emerald Weapon in i490~i500 gear, but I would recommend a few i510 pieces just to give yourself some more stat cushion.

In the interim, focus on unlocking and clearing all the level 80 content—from dungeons to all the Eden normal modes to the Nier raid. All of that will give you Allegory and Revelation tomestones, and you can use drops from each to slowly pad up your item level while you work towards securing i510 gear.

I would recommend searching for your main job’s BiS sets either on the FFXIV subreddit or in The Balance Discord. There may be a few different ones, since a lot of jobs have BiS sets that vary based on things like preferred GCD tier. Once you settle on one, save up Revelation tomestones to purchase the i520 pieces present in your BiS set. You can get the tokens to upgrade them to i530 later. If you have a body piece or legs as part of your BiS, I highly recommend saving Revelation to purchase them first. It will take you two weeks for each of them, but it is worth it over choosing an accessory because of the stat gains you get from the body or legs.

During your gear journey, also start looking up guides on level 80 openers and rotations for the job—or jobs—you want to take into Savage. Damage matters in Savage, so you will want to start preparing yourself to perform at a higher level. Practice openers and rotations on striking dummies and in the level 80 content you’re unlocking. You can also start looking at guides for each of the floors, if you want. Just to further prepare yourself.