<I'm confused and frightened><Please><Help me out!>

[Optimo]

Just came back to game after about 1 year absence. I'm not (too) lazy, and I've done my best to get back up to speed by slogging through every single set of patch notes from the last year. I've also lurked in just about every forum imaginable that is even remotely related to FFXIV, but I can't find what I'm looking for. Hopefully the community here at Lodestone can help or at least point me in the right direction.

For lack of a better term, I'm looking for an "endgame guide". Patch notes are in chronological order, but from the information available, I can't possibly decipher any type of hierarchy or order of operations for what "endgame" type of activities I should be attacking or focusing on first.

My THM is already 50, my CON will be 50 soon enough. I snagged my Gobbue mount. Most of my gear is NM drops from about a year ago when SE released about 10 NM's all at once. Below is my rough road map of what I think I should be doing next. Any advice or guidance is greatly appreciated; thanks in advance for your time and consideration. If I'm way off base, please let me know!

(1) quickly level my subs so I can unlock BLM/WHM jobs;
(2) run the job quests to get all the BLM/WHM abilities;
(3) work on BLM and WHM AF armor quests;
(4) join a GC and grind out ranks to get choco;
(5) ??????????

This where I'm very lost. Is the next level or tier of gear progression obtained by running dungeons / raids? Have dungeon drops been trivialized by Ifrit / Garuda / Moogle battles? Is the gear obtained from upper ranks of GC and seals > < = other equipment obtained in dungeons or the HNM boss battles? What about any new NM's and the gear that they drop?

There seems to be a decent amount of "endgame activities" now (dungeons, boss battles, GC seal/rank grind, AF armor quests), but I would greatly appreciate it if someone could explain a simple hierarchy of gear / difficulty in these activities.

Thanks again for your help, and thanks to everyone who has stuck with this game and didn't jump ship a year ago like I did.

[Alzelia]

yup, after you get your AF gear, next is spamming primals, starting with Ifirit. Although I would suggest working on a DOL class to make some money

[Felis]

Make the GC between 2 and 3 or between 1 and 2. Normally it should be before 1 ^^ (GC with 22 and job with 30)
For some AF you need to go to Dzemael or AV and the Dzemael quest you need to finish before you can go in AV. And you get the Dzemael quest from your GC.

[AdvancedWind]

Difficulty wise, IMO:

Stronghold coffer farming
Ifrit
Darkhold
Moogle
Cutter's Cry / Aurum Vale
Hamlet Defense
Garuda


Forgot to add something: Beat Dzemael Darkhold at least once before everything else - you need to do it to access CC / AV and get the AF gear in there.

==

Easiest end game content both to beat and to find parties is gonna be Ifrit, and he drops very good weapons. Start from there.

After that, you might want to try getting into Dzemael Darkhold parties just to get acquainted with how instanced dungeons work in FFXIV. However, do NOT farm DD gear, as they're all subpar. Beat it a few times, then move on.

Once you have an Ifrit weapon and AF gear, you're more or less good to start doing CC and AV, and some pieces of Darklight gear are very useful (tho the mage pieces suck, so you might not want to focus too much on them if you don't plan to level melee jobs). You might want to try them a bit, while working on getting dual melded gear to substitute some of the weaker AF pieces *cof, cof, BLM hat, cof cof*. A few moogle runs won't really hurt as well.

Start working on company seals. Even if you do not particularly want any of the gear, you should try to at least reach the maximum company rank - this will ensure that you will be able to do every 7th umbral era quest, and continue the questline once the next patch hits. If you don't have the time to do anything else, focus on this.

After this, it's really your call. Some of the stronghold gear is very good, but pretty annoying to farm. A few company pieces can be pretty useful as well. I would recommend trying to level at least one craft. For some gear slots and builds, Double / Triple melded gear can be considerably better than everything else, so you might want to try getting money for those.

Hamlet Defense and Garuda also give good rewards, but you pretty much need an endgame linkshell to have a shot at getting parties for those on reasonable time, as there's not many PUGs going on for those and they're pretty hard without a coordinated team.

TL;DR: Acquire AF, do Ifrit, acquire seals, run CC/AV, get monies for materia, have fun.

[Krausus]

like Felis said you will need to do a darkhold quest to gain acess to AV for some of your AF, after that it is spamming Ifrti,moogle, garuda, AV and CC. During down times for the endgame, level other classes and or crafting/gathering. There is also hamlet defense which you will need to grind for seals for your relic weapon as well as getting a base weapon made for relic. here is a guide you can start for your relic weapon http://xivpads.com/?-Guides&Guide:_AF_Weapons also grinding GC seals for promotions and gear is always good.

Edit: oh there are also strongholds to do as well for some gear.

[Optimo]

Zomg, great info everyone, thanks so much for replies!!!

Quick questions though.....what the hell is "double / triple melded" gear mean? Multiple materia on a single piece of gear? HQ procs?

Sorry, I guess I'm a noob again ><

[Krausus]

Multiple materia on a single piece of gear?

yep

/10ten10

[IStolzI]

Yea, while I can only speak for BLM, spending money/time to put two or three materia on crafted gear beats almost all endgame gear, even weapon.

[Kafeen]

Quick questions though.....what the hell is "double / triple melded" gear mean? Multiple materia on a single piece of gear?

Yup, exactly that.

[REDace0]

... I'm not (too) lazy, and I've done my best to get back up to speed by slogging through every single set of patch notes from the last year. ...

Bravo!

Just so you don't waste time looking for parties, most of your job quests can be solo'd as 50 BLM or WHM, exceptions being:

• Getting into a dungeon for one AF piece (it's Aurum Vale for BLM, so you have to beat Dzemael Darkhold first to gain entry)
• Getting into a beastman stronghold for one AF piece, depending on how good you are at using sleep/repose and avoiding aggro
• The final job quest (for body AF) and the one before it (not the one you gather your AF pieces on, but the prior one that involves a battle)