Don’t want to do Savage? Don’t want to throw yourself into Final Fantasy XIV’s various grinds? Don’t worry, we have you covered in this handy guide for gear progression for casual players. Make sure you don’t fall behind!
Imagine a world in which you don’t have to play high-level content and are still more than sufficiently equipped to tackle the daily trials of an adventurer in Final Fantasy XIV. After all, there is so much more to do than throwing yourself at hard boss fights, finding a group, and spending hours of your life learning the intricate ins and out. Would you not rather spend all that time on your brand new Island Sanctuary? Or chase that mount you always wanted or just decorate your house until every single detail is placed perfectly? We are here to help.
Nice and Easy, Forge Ahead
Imagine a world in which you don’t have to play high-level content and are still more than sufficiently equipped to tackle the daily trials of an adventurer in Final Fantasy XIV. After all, there is so much more to do than throwing yourself at hard boss fights, finding a group, and spending hours of your life learning the intricate ins and out. Would you not rather spend all that time on your brand new Island Sanctuary? Or chase that mount you always wanted or just decorate your house until every single detail is placed perfectly? We are here to help.
While equipment in Final Fantasy XIV tends to be straightforward by the time you hit level 90 and rolled the credits on the Endwalker expansion you might find yourself spoiled for options and a little lost. So this little guide will explain it all in neat little details you can refer back to. The only requisite is that you have a job at level 90 and completed the main scenario quest ‘Endwalker’.
First Steps into Newfound Adventure
By the time you’ve completed 6.0 your job of choice should be hovering somewhere around the average item level of 560. To progress into the next story dungeon, you’ll need to raise your average item level by quite a bit. But for that, we have the tombstone currencies. First, you want to unlock the two optional level 90 dungeons The Stigma Dreamscape and Smileton, you can find both quests so unlock them in Old Sharlayan. ‘Where No Loporrit Has Gone Before’ for The Stigma Dreamscape and ‘Cutting the Cheese’ for Smileton you will be required to complete both to unlock the Level 90 dungeon roulette.
If you happen to have a surplus of money you can now buy yourself all the new gear and be done with it. But because the new raid tier has just dropped, those prices for the gear will remain high for some time. But we have alternative ways of gearing up as well.
When you complete any kind of roulette in the duty finder at level 90 you’ll be rewarded with Allagan Tomestones of Astronomy and Allagan Tomestones of Causality. You can only collect 450 of the causality type but you can grind out the tomestones of astronomy infinitely. You can then use the astronomy tomestones to buy item level 590 gear at the vendor at Radz-at-Han. The 590 gear will be more than enough to let you access the other main scenario dungeons of Endwalker’s 6.1 and 6.2 patches and all the non-savage and extreme optional content.
But there is more! If you plan to unlock more content we highly suggest you go and unlock the normal raids and the alliance raid for Endwalker. All of these come with their own questline that’ll also start in Old Sharlayan at the Baldesion Annex. It is probably not worth taking any of the tokens from the first set of normal raids but you should definitely get the tokens from Abyssos.
Turning these in will reward you with the new item level 610 gear sets but be warned you can only receive one token a week from each fight. Chest and pants take 4 tokens, Head, arms, and feet 2 tokens, and one token for each accessory slot. For just completing the last fight of the tier, you get a token once a week. For 7 tokens and 500 tomestones of causality, you can get yourself the item level 620 weapon. And if you save up your weekly tokens you can slowly buy yourself up to item level 620.
Looking Forward
This covers the absolute basics of gearing up for just this patch. But keep in mind that by the end 6.2 so in about 8 months you want to land at a cozy average item level of 630 or even more. Don’t worry this won’t take any more effort, you just need to play the game!
Let’s talk upgrades, by the time 6.3 rolls around which should be around December/January you’ll be able to upgrade the new crafted gear sets from item level 610 to 620. You’ll only need to special upgrade material and exchange it and the gear at the vendor in Radz-at-Han.
Alternatively, you’ll also be able to upgrade the gear you bought with the tomestones of causality. You simply have to participate in the great hunt and spend the sacks of nuts on the right materials to upgrade the gear from 620 to an average item level of 630. You can also obtain those materials once a week by participating in the alliance raids. Do keep in mind that you’ll need the coins from all the level 90 alliance raids to get the materials with the most recent one rewarding only one coin per week. So maybe you want to get some runs of Aglaia in before the next alliance raid drops with patch 6.3.
Alternatively, if you are planning to end up at an average item level of 620 you can wait for the next alliance raid and grind out the gear weekly from there. And then you can supplement that by grinding out the extreme trail that’ll also release with patch 6.3.
But there is more! Patch 6.25 will introduce the new relict weapons with the next set of Hildibrand quests. You will have to continuously upgrade these until the end of Endwalker’s patch cycle and by the end of that cycle, they’ll be the most powerful weapons of the expansion. So it’s probably gonna be worth investing some time into them. As of writing, those relicts aren’t out yet but we will have a guide up as soon as they’ll release. The relict weapons of 6.25 will probably end up being in the item level 625 range and you will be able to upgrade them further in patch 6.3.
Next up is armor. While we don’t exactly know what the rewards for the new be-introduced Criterion Dungeons will end up being. We do have a strong suspicion that they’ll also be gear related. Either as a simpler way to catch up and get ready for Savage and/or the upcoming Ultimate encounter in 6.2 but they might also prove themselves as an alternative to grinding Savage content, even if they come with their very own savage difficulty. This gear will probably also end up being in the item level 625 range, maybe even more. We’ll keep you posted on that.
So, that concludes all the little and major ways you can alternatively reach the average item level of your dreams without even touching savage content. Technically grinding out savage content will only get you there faster and the gear from the savage tier only matters if you’re planning to be the best in slot. Which is different from job to job and takes more time to explain than it’s actually worth.
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