Non-tomestone ways to get to item level 460? Crafting?

[Omedon]

Ok, so I come and go from FFXIV in stints as other games lull and surge, and I'm now at the point where I have to run the Heroes' Gauntlet... and I need 20 item levels to progress. And, like... I'm on my way out of the game again in a couple weeks.

Leveling through other expansions, quests mostly outfitted me (there was that generous chest o' gear every now and then) and I imagine when ShB is a "passing through" expansion, something like that will happen too... in quests I'm already past.

I am, however, a level 70 omnicrafter (a product of my last stint!). Will that help me if I level those jobs to 80?

What I'm basically saying is I am not interested in a protracted dungeon grind of days or weeks in what is really a "secondary game" for me. Does that mean I'm... like... done in FFXIV? Like eventually I'll return... and still be here. Needing to run dungeons. Not even high enough to run them with trusts. Where, outside a daily dungeon grind does one get the gear to progress? Can my crafting help me?

And even beyond 460, will crafting, traditionally, serve me when I hit these bumps? I've never had crafting at the endgame while the expansion was fresh so I feel this is a valid question!

Again, I'm just interested in seeing the story, not burdening people in raids and such. Just me and my trusts... and I'm not even good enough for THEM right now haha!

EDIT TO ADD THE POST I MADE 5 PAGES IN:

I just wanna throw in here, as the person that started this thread, that I've since re-evaluated just how much I'm unwilling to tank for strangers, and I will likely just tomestone it out at some point in the future when those stones will be potentially worth more.

I do appreciate all the information as to my options. I think the only real mind boggling element to me that was SO CLOSE BUT SO FAR was that the prior story dungeon loot is literally 5 ilvls short of the minimum for the next story dungeon. They'd have an entirely self contained ecosystem of trusts and blissful absence of tank heckling if not for that odd broken bridge.

That all said, I'm not gonna try to piss into the wind because that's just not efficient. I have always been a big fan of FFXIV's currency options for gaining "good enough is good enough" gear levels for most activities. The roulette is a pretty amazing idea for keeping dungeons relevant and keeping people doing those dungeons. I just... you know how it goes. The first rule of tanking in MMOs is "don't be new on other people's time," and the way I play the game puts me in a perpetual state of newness. Tank specs fit my play style in literally every other aspect of any trinity MMO... except this.

But I'll be ok. Thank you all for the fascinating discussion on where all the options are hiding, I learned a lot in this thread! I'll see you in a few months when WoW inevitably goes stale again.

For future reference when I return likely next expansion (but even for now, or if I return before that!) : What are my options that aren't gated by duties that I'm not interested in roulette'ing?

Or is this a "FFXIV isn't meant to be a secondary/vacation game" kind of thing? Is this a "you're not meant to quit right now" thing?

Thanks in advance for any and all helpful replies!

[Moomba33]

Crafting would let you create i510 gear which would be enough to finish the patch quests.

However it would take a fair bit of investment as not only would you need to level your crafters you would also need to craft end game crafting gear and meld it in order to be able to create the latest battle gear.

To be honest it would probably cheaper just to buy i510 gear directly from the marketboard instead of leveling and gearing your own crafters. Try searching "exarchic" on the marketboard and see how much pieces for your job are going for.

Edit: The final main scenario dungeon for Shadowbringers requires i490 to enter. You can use any Allegory Tomes you've gotten from required content to buy i490 Crystarium gear in Eulmore which could help you save save some gil even if you don't want to grind extra tomes.
Revelation tomes can get you i520 gear but you are less likely to have enough to buy anything without some grinding.

Edit 2: I know you've said you aren't interested in burdening people in raids, but I feel it's worth mentioning that Eden Normal and the Nier alliance raids are fairly forgiving and clearing them once each could get you a lot of free tomes and gear without feeling like a grind.

Edit 3: I completely forget about Hunts since I don't do them much myself. Hunts are world bosses that drop a lot of tomes when killed, most servers organize "hunt trains" to kill a bunch at a time. They aren't instanced and are very low pressure, you could try joining a party for those.

[Isabun]

You can do the Bozja raid (Delubrum Reginae: Normal) to get 510 left side gear. No ilvl requirements to do that, so the weekly quest can get you left gear in 4 weeks of one raid per week. It is much slower assuming you don't care about the relic weapon, but if you planned to do the relic anyways there's lots you can do there. (And 525 left-side available assuming you get to the end of the relic quests.)

Rather than leveling/gearing crafters it'd be easiest/fastest if you leveled gatherers enough to get the scrip gear to gather the items for a crafter to use (if you can find a crafter to help you).

Besides that it'd be buying 520ilvl gear from the Eulmore vendors as mentioned above, buying the 490ilvl gear at the Eulmore vendors, or buying off of the marketboard.
Doing your daily roulettes on a lv80 class will go a long way towards that tome grind.

[AnotherPerson]

Crafting takes a while since you're kinda behind. Remember, lv 70 crafter gear means you are just at the peak of StB gear level, the highest crafter gear in StB would be roughly around the level of beginning-mid ShB 5.0 crafter gear. If you think about the expansion cycle (lv 80 at 5.0 lets you craft base form ilv 430 with some recipes being 460 to 480, and then the white scrips from 5.1 to 5.55 to get the best crafter gear available to craft better gear). You can technically cheese your way through if you buy the crafter gear to craft the Neo-ishgardian gear / Exarch gear. Then again, you could just as well buy the ilvl 480 or ilvl 510 gear from marketboard for your DoW/DoM jobs unless you plan on crafting multiple sets.


Bozja - if you caught up on Alliance raids.

Finishing lv 70 alliance raids lets you unlock Bozjan Southern Front. Bozjan weapon (Starting the Bozjan questline gives you a free relic gear at ilvl 485.)

Finishing the story up to Castrum Lacus Lactore in Bozja unlocks another currency where you can buy Bozjan gear (ilvl 495). -- Gear takes around 14 to 28 Bozjan coins per slot to purchase.
Finishing Delubrum Reginae raid immediately after unlocks another currency where you can buy Law's Order (Ilvl 510) gear.
Finishing Zadnor unlocks the final currency where you can buy Blade gear (ilvl 525).

Raids - Eden's raids E1 to E4 requires ilvl 425 to get illv 450 gear. E5 to E8 requires 455 to get ilvl 480 gear. E9 to E12 requires 485 to get ilvl 510 gear.
Savage counterparts are a bit higher. Eden's grace is ilvl 470, Edenchoir is ilvl 500, and Edenmorn is ilvl 530.

Alliance Raids - Nier (Lv 80). - While these raids have currency, you don't need the currency to get the gear, only to augment the tomestone gear, so just focus on the drops of the raid itself.
Copied Factory - ilvl 435 requirement - ilvl 460.
The Puppet's bunker - ilvl 465 requirement - ilvl 490.
Tower at Paradigm's Breach - ilvl 495 requirement - ilvl 520 gear.


For the most part, the least amount of grind to get ilvl 480+ is finishing the Bozjan story, since a lot of Skirmishes (FATEs) and Critical Engagement in Bozja will give a couple of coins, Field Notes can be exchanged for coins, and the CLL run will give 100 coins per run as long as you pick up every chest and as long as people do the CLL correctly to get those chests. Plus, it's a good place for lv 71 to 79 jobs to get exp too. The real grind in Bozja is if you want to get Augmented gear for whatever reason (which only gives bonus stats in Bozja/Delubrum Reginae/Zadnor, not in the main game or anywhere else). The ilvl of the augmented gear doesn't change, however, so there's no point if you aren't doing super hard content for Bozja.

[Omedon]

Crafting would let you create i510 gear which would be enough to finish the patch quests.

However it would take a fair bit of investment as not only would you need to level your crafters you would also need to craft end game crafting gear and meld it in order to be able to create the latest battle gear.

To be honest it would probably cheaper just to buy i510 gear directly from the marketboard instead of leveling and gearing your own crafters. Try searching "exarchic" on the marketboard and see how much pieces for your job are going for.

Edit: The final main scenario dungeon for Shadowbringers requires i490 to enter. You can use any Allegory Tomes you've gotten from required content to buy i490 Crystarium gear in Eulmore which could help you save save some gil even if you don't want to grind extra tomes.
Revelation tomes can get you i520 gear but you are less likely to have enough to buy anything without some grinding.

Edit 2: I know you've said you aren't interested in burdening people in raids, but I feel it's worth mentioning that Eden Normal and the Nier alliance raids are fairly forgiving and clearing them once each could get you a lot of free tomes and gear without feeling like a grind.

Edit 3: I completely forget about Hunts since I don't do them much myself. Hunts are world bosses that drop a lot of tomes when killed, most servers organize "hunt trains" to kill a bunch at a time. They aren't instanced and are very low pressure, you could try joining a party for those.

Thank you for all this input! What I'm potentially going to do is level my trusts so I can farm dungeons leading to the most current, then farm that most current, then buy minimal market board purchases to put me over the hump.

Honestly, it's kind of ridiculous that Anamnesis on its own, farmed to completion, won't minimum gear me for Heroes' Gauntlet, but it seems it will get me close!

But yes, I do love trusts that much and dislike random duties with strangers that much (I'm a tank) to take that long road on my own time, be it now or much later on! Thank you for the suggestions!

[Krokov]

If you can find someone to craft you the gear there always that way to avoid tomestones gathering

[Jettinson]

Edenchoir is ilvl 500
Tower at Paradigm's Breach - ilvl 495 requirement - ilvl 510 gear.

Just small corrections, the final normal eden raids give artifacts that can be exchanged for 510ilv gear which is also the cheapest/gill less way to get accessories at that point if you do not plan to augment exarchic gear
The Tower gives ilv520 gear which is also a temporary replacement vs base cryptlurker gear/augmented exarchic until you augment the the tome gear.

[Iscah]

You're asking the wrong question. You're not looking for a non-tomestone way but a quick way.

Trusts and crafting are definitely not quick.

Meanwhile, every level 80 dungeon you do will be giving you Allegory tomes, while trusts will be a lot of grinding before you can make any use of them.

Invest in an Exarchic weapon (because weapons are tedious to get other ways), buy some Crystarium tome gear to get you over the line for completing 5.3, then if you only play every so often you might actually want to leave off at the end of 5.3 anyway because it's a clear "season finale".

If you keep going, playing Eden once for story should land you with enough tokens to buy some upgrades too. You're not burdening people with difficult raiding, just playing something on the level of a normal trial.

[Jeeqbit]

Buy item level 510 gear from the market board, if you have the gil.

[LaylaTsarra]

510 crafted gear is pretty cheap especially now that most people have already geared their characters. If you don't like dungeons I might suggest getting involved in A train hunts which generate a lot of tomes which can be used for capping weekly and buying tome gear as well. They are pretty easy and quick to do so you don't have to run dungeons. You can also get crafted gear upgrades with allegory which is very quick to get with hunt trains.

Personally I don't run many dungeons anymore or experts unless I'm doing it with a friend more so to keep them company than to earn the tomes.