Possible to "catch up" here?

[Megiddo]

One of the main complaints that I've seen in the Novice Network, from mentors and sprouts alike, are about grouping with "undergeared" players. I haven't progressed very far at all yet, but a recurring problem that I'm finding is that I'm constantly overleveled and undergeared. This hasn't caused any significant problems yet, but I'm curious about the complaint. How is it even possible here to pause and "catch up," so far as gear is concerned.

[Inaba]

from 50-80 there's poetic tomestone gear that will bring you up to par with the content level, its only after you hit 90 where good gear will be harder to obtain without spending gil or effort

[MOSLEY]

It's incredibly easy to catch up in XIV compared to other MMOs.

As someone who is progressing through the MSQ, your best bet is to buy the tomestone set at the end of each expansion. That will last you until about halfway through the next expansion, at which point you can start to replace it with dungeon drops. If you start to fall behind, just run the highest level dungeon that's available to you a few times and replace some of your gear with the loot that you get. Then when you make it to the end of the expansion, buy the next tomestone set.

For someone who had just made it through the MSQ and wanted to start raiding, you could just buy a set of ilvl 610 gear from the marketboard and that would be good enough to get you started. You would then gradually replace that gear with endgame tomestone/raid gear until you're BiS.

[Megiddo]

Thank you for the quick reply. Can anyone explain how the tomestone gear works, please? Is it a one-time thing for multiple classes, similar to how the Hall of the Novice gear works? Gear that will quickly become obsolete after doing a quest or dungeon or two? Outside of reaching max level, I'm still not seeing how it would be possible to pause and "catch up." Any further explanation would be appreciated.

Edit: I missed @Mosley's reply. Thank you!

[Seera1024]

What gear level is your gear and what level of the MSQ are you?

If those are equal, then you're not under-geared.

You could be level 30, but if your MSQ and gear are level 20, then you aren't under-geared for the content you are doing. You're just over-leveled - which is very easy to do in ARR content even if you're just doing the MSQ. And that's not even considering boosts like what you get from being on a preferred server. It's harder to get significantly over-leveled in the expansions if you're just doing the MSQ.

If you're just leveling up one class, the MSQ and your class quests should keep you appropriately geared for the content you have unlocked.

[Judeo-communism]

FF14 is probably the most "catch up" friendly MMO there is, so yes. Don't worry too much before you're max level, the MSQ and dungeons give you very good gear to use and once you hit level 50, you can start getting Tomestones of Poetics which will help you get even better gear at 50, 60, 70, and 80. That gear should last you until 90 where you can start 90 with job artifact gear, then work up using the current two level 90 Tomestones, as well as current raid gear and eventually, extreme trials and savage raids.

If you're leveling, it's true that low level gear is pretty painful in many dungeons, so aim for level 50 and getting to Mor Dhona for that level 50 Tomestone of Poetics gear if you can. Augmented Magitek is very good all the way until 60.

[Inaba]

Originally posted by Megiddo:

Thank you for the quick reply. Can anyone explain how the tomestone gear works, please? Is it a one-time thing for multiple classes, similar to how the Hall of the Novice gear works? Gear that will quickly become obsolete after doing a quest or dungeon or two? Outside of reaching max level, I'm still not seeing how it would be possible to pause and "catch up." Any further explanation would be appreciated.

tomestone gear starts from these areas, mor dhona, idyllshire, rhalgr's reach and eulmore, at the levels 50/60/70/80 respectively, you get tomestone of poetics whenever you do daily duty roulette like main scenario, alliance raids and 50/60/70/80 dungeon. so as long as you do these daily for exp, you also get the tomestones needed to buy gear for your character

[Megiddo]

Thank you all again. I haven't progressed very far at all, but my item level for any class has typically been less than half of the actual class level. So I guess I'll finally start seeing 45th level drops at 90th level? Is the tomestone gear premium purchased or is it obtained through standard game play?

Edit: Getting very quick replies here. Thank you!

[Inaba]

Originally posted by Megiddo:

Thank you all again. I haven't progressed very far at all, but my item level for any class has typically been less than half of the actual class level. So I guess I'll finally start seeing 45th level drops at 90th level? Is the tomestone gear premium purchased or is it obtained through standard game play?

Edit: Getting very quick replies here. Thank you!

tomestone gear will become available once you cleared a certain part of the main scenario questline so dont worry too much about that, if you are currently under lvl 50, the best way is to do the highest level dungeon you can do to speed up the leveling and also pick up some gear while youre at it. or if you have an abundance of gil, you can also purchase crafted gear of your level to use as well, on my data center, crafted gears on marketboard which is under lvl 50 is pretty affordable even for new players as long as you dont go for the ones that people use for glamours

[Judeo-communism]

Originally posted by Megiddo:

Thank you all again. I haven't progressed very far at all, but my item level for any class has typically been less than half of the actual class level. So I guess I'll finally start seeing 45th level drops at 90th level? Is the tomestone gear premium purchased or is it obtained through standard game play?

Tomestones are acquired just by completing grouped instanced duties (like dungeons!) for free once you hit level 50 and unlock them. :) No premium purchases for item level here. You can only hold 2000 maximum of any particular Tomestone at a time, and most gear costs between 400-800'sh each, so it encourages you to spend them frequently. Once you unlock Daily Roulettes, they also give significant amounts of EXP., gil, and Tomestones every day.

As someone above me stated, if you really want to try to get the most "current" gear for your level, run the highest level dungeon you have unlocked over and over again until you have all the gear you want for your job.

[Bladez]

In short it's very easy, especially at the lower levels.

Compared to an MMO like ESO (which I have played a lot, therefore I use it as an example) grinding for gear is what it kinda boils down to. Then the devs change the meta in a very courageos way and you have to grind all over again. In FFXIV it's so much better

[Megiddo]

It's mostly the lower levels that concern me, actually. From the comments here, the tomestone gear doesn't become available until mid to high levels. Levels come SO quickly, at lower levels especially, that I've constantly been overleveled in class level and behind in item level. Running the highest dungeon level possible sounds workable. As fast as experience comes, though, most of my characters have been well into their thirties by the time they unlock 15th level dungeons. By the time they advance to unlock 30th level dungeons, they'll be in their sixties.

[Dragon Master]

I just finished the Dragonsong war so I still have to go through Stormblood, Shadowbringers and Endwalker, but I find gear, at least for leveling, isn't hard to come by. You get it naturally by leveling a class and getting its class gear at levels 50, 60 and so on. That class gear is not as good as other gear but it's serviceable.

What I love about this game is that it isn't actually hard to get gear from dungeons either. You do the dailies and you'll be swimming in dungeon currency that you can trade in at the various vendors (marked by a blue bag near aetherite plazas) that can give you exactly the gear you need for your current level.

There's also the fact that if you take the time to level crafting jobs up that your gear will actually be better than you can get in drops because you can get upgraded weapons and armor with the proper materia and you'll be better off overall and all other gear after the fact becomes glamour.

[Seera1024]

Originally posted by Megiddo:

It's mostly the lower levels that concern me, actually. From the comments here, the tomestone gear doesn't become available until mid to high levels. Levels come SO quickly, at lower levels especially, that I've constantly been overleveled in class level and behind in item level. Running the highest dungeon level possible sounds workable. As fast as experience comes, though, most of my characters have been well into their thirties by the time they unlock 15th level dungeons. By the time they advance to unlock 30th level dungeons, they'll be in their sixties.

That's normal.

The class level to MSQ level differences don't get as egregious as you enter expansion MSQ so once you're past the early stuff.

If you're just doing the MSQ, the XP gain lowers enough that you're hitting level 50 at the time you hit the final MSQ quests for ARR, pre-patch. Prior to their workaround, you'd have to do some level grinding towards the end if you didn't do too much in the way of roulettes as you leveled.

One thing to note is that every time you run a dungeon with a level that isn't 50, 60, 70, 80, or 90, you will get a piece of gear that you haven't already got on you from that dungeon. So if you run one of those dungeons 10 times, you'll unlock all of the gear even if you get horrible luck with the loot rolls from the chests. Yes, this means that if I go into Sastasha on my main, I will get a piece of gear from it appropriate for my class even if I pass on all of the gear from the chests - because I don't have any Sastasha gear in my inventory or armory.

[Acoustic Stoner]

Also do your Job/class side-quests they're useful.

[Alternity]

Being "undergeared" for instanced content is impossible in this game. There is a minimum item level to have equiped before you can even access the content. People just don't like that content takes slightly longer because someone doesn't have high end gear. I my honest opion of someone with 4000 hours in this game, this does not matter in casual content.

There is however a way to get decent gear at the end of every expansions if you're willing to farm a bit of Tomestones of Poetics. Level 50 you will find these venders near the aetherytes of the 3 main cities (Ul Dah, Limsa Lominsa, Gridania), level 60 you will find the vendors in Idyllshire, level 70 in Rhalgr's Reach, level 80 in Eulmore, and level 90 requires end-game tomestones in Radz-at-Han. This is a way that does not require any gil or crafting and this gear will last the levels. You don't need anything more unless you're striving for end-game savage content.