How do I gear up?

[BlueMage]

Me and a few friends recently started the game, but we have no idea how to gear up. We use the market search, and there's usually nothing for our levels, or its priced ridiculously like 50k or higher for Lv12 gear. How are we supposed to gear up, or make that kind of money?

[Masamune1004]

Try the guilds, no one makes low level gear, it's not profitable because leveling is so fast.

[BlueMage]

Gear in the guilds past Lv10 seem to range from about 20k to 50k, and Lv20 gear is over 100k. I don't know how I'm supposed to make that kind of money or keep my gear up to date.

[Taika]

Hey Wren!

Unfortunately it doesn't seem to matter that much what you wear before level 50. You get some ok pieces from guildleves and some quests. NMs drop some nice level 25(I think) and 35 weapons. When me and friends were leveling up we did the level 25 Toto-Rak raid a lot, it was really nice EXP and you can get some really nice weapons and level 30 gear pieces from there.

I recommend MoogleBox for searching gear your class can use and how to get it.

[Estellios]

Look in the Market Wards (like... physically go into them), there are NPCs in the center of the weapon and armor wards that sell low level items, I believe they go up to Level 20 or so. They're reasonably priced.

Guildleves can supply you with money if you need it, especially if you do the leve evaluations every 8th leve. Just remember you get 4 leves every 12 hours and can stock up to 99 allowances, but you can only carry 8 with you at a time. The list refreshes every time you complete/fail a leve.

[Asiaine]

From 0 to 20 you level quickly, so gear is not used long (or terribly important). A good weapon is useful and can be bought from the sellers in the adventurer's guild.

You can sometimes find the low level items for sale in wards besides Ul'dah (but not very often).

A fair number of low-mid level equipment comes from Leves (as rewards, or in chests you find when out and about).

I would not worry too much about good gear until 25-30 (aside from weapon). If you do a lot of leves until then you should have a decent amount of gil (I usually have about 500-600k from doing levequests till level 30).

This will then be plenty to get you equiped from the Ul'Dah wards until level 50 (provided you are fine with 'decent' rather than top of the line equipment).


Note:
Hopefully you did not choose Archer as your first (as arrows can get expensive). Or a tank job (as you may benefit more from armour). But even if you did, you still can manage, just need to be more frugal with your gil.

Also: The main story line quests give lots of good gil and XP, so do not avoid those ^^

[Taika]

Note: Hopefully you did not choose Archer as your first (as arrows can get expensive). Or a tank job (as you may benefit more from armour). But even if you did, you still can manage, just need to be more frugal with your gil.

In case you DID choose Archer and are a bit short on gil, here's a tip: when you choose your Grand Company, you will be unable to use the seals you have collected for two other companies. That's why you should use them before making the final choice. All companies sell Steel Arrows (level 28) for 115 seals a stack. Those seals should get you plenty of arrows to level all the way to 50.

[REDace0]

Well, for gear up to level 20 it wouldn't be too hard to level a craft and make some of it yourself. Using local leves you should be able to get a crafting class to 10 in no time. Having a crafting class relevant to your main class will also save you money on repairs.

If you really want to make some extra money, there's apparently a market for L15-20 gear that nobody is selling in. Opportunity! You can gather or buy your materials then sell for 50-75% of what the NPCs charge for the gear. You should make a nice profit in most cases.

[BlueMage]

Thank you so much for the all the advice, everyone. ^^