new player general thoughts/questions

[Lujei]

Thanks a ton for the answers, that's basically what I've been doing.

[bechyni]

So I just recently reached 60 on my first job (just started playing a few weeks ago) and asked the group that I'm with what's the best way to get i210 gear. The answer I received was to do dailys for esoterics, and then Void Ark for a possible weekly drop. To me this just seems off, basically I have to do dailys and cap at 450 esoterics a week, which puts completing a set of gear around 3 months?

Obviously I'm new to the game so any real advice on gear obtainment would be helpful.

[solracht]

Diadem has no real lockout and rewards i210

[bechyni]

Is the gear there comparable to the esoteric i210 though? Heard they had random stats and it wasn't really worth the time. That's what I've heard anyway, the information was from an extremely laidback FC lol

[Niiro]

The stats are random and the vast majority will be crap.

Also unless you enter with a pre-formed group all items are Greed only and you'll possibly be lotting against everyone else in the group.

(also it's not very fun, but that's obviously subjective, won't know till you try it)

[bechyni]

Yeah that's what I figured, on average probably get a decent once every three runs? Trying to figure the situation out mostly because I don't know what job I want to main yet lol.

Have a few jobs at 50 with BRD currently being my only 60.

[layoneil]

Yeah that's what I figured, on average probably get a decent once every three runs? Trying to figure the situation out mostly because I don't know what job I want to main yet lol.

Have a few jobs at 50 with BRD currently being my only 60.

actually, getting a good piece every 3 runs in a random group is highly optimistic. more like 1/8 if you ask me. though even the bad pieces are worth using over i190 stuff. and what pieces you get from Diadem tells you what slots you don't have to spend Esoterics on until later.

[Niiro]

I couldn't tell you the average rate of "good" drops really, I ran diadem twice the week it came out and haven't been back since.

I can only tell you that twice was enough for me.

[bechyni]

Is there any noticeable difference between NM and HM with diadem? More pertaining to drop rates/quality of gear.

[Niiro]

Afaik HM just means harder mobs (see: more HP) and a higher rate of S ranks which are the main source of 210 pieces.

[Rocl]

Hard mode tracks guarantee a star mob afaik. There is no difference in HP I'm pretty sure, at least nothing worthwhile (I remember rounding the HPs of Rank3s in HM and Rank3s in NM to be the same and star mobs were def 3.5m in normal and hard); just the fact that easy mode is only rank 1-3 mobs, normal mode is 2-4 (??) and hard mode is 3-5 (trax excluded obvi).

Pretty sure gold chest guarantees a 210 in HM? Not sure about Normal anymore, never bothered to farm mobs in Easy. Pretty sure golds in Hard have more 210 "slots" but baseless conjecture and like has been riddled throughout this post I haven't done Normal Diadem in forever.

[Silenka]

Is there any noticeable difference between NM and HM with diadem? More pertaining to drop rates/quality of gear.

Yes, if you want 210 gear you are 100% better off in HM. I have done NM runs where every tracks that's popped is a V, which doesn't guarantee a gold chest (indeed it's usually bronze/silver). You could go many NM runs without even seeing a single 210. Whereas in HM, you are guaranteed at least one 210 piece for every gold chest, which is guaranteed for every Notorious Monster you defeat. Not to mention you're usually killing IV or V exclusively as trash mobs to build your tracks gauge, which gives you an even better chance of getting gold chests. You can also get gold from buried coffers if you're lucky enough to find any before they get picked over by the rest of the groups in the instance.

I do a HM run just about every day and we usually end up seeing 6 to 10 210 pieces per run.
If you just want brass spoils to get pegasus or whatever you're better off farming Easy Mode. Normal doesn't really have a good niche nowadays.

[jmc]

Decided today to start playing this again.

I can't really remember where I left off, but my highest is a 53 pld and the highest ilvl piece of gear I have is 120.

Is there anything special I should be doing to get back into things? Just grind out dungeons until I get some classes to 60?

[BaneTheBrawler]

can you pick up the relic quest sub-60? if not, hit 60 and pick it up ASAP so if you decide to level other jobs it's not a waste.

[jmc]

can you pick up the relic quest sub-60? if not, hit 60 and pick it up ASAP so if you decide to level other jobs it's not a waste.

Like the atma/zenith weapons? I do have the ilvl 100 ones for pld/nin/brd already. Should I finish this quest line while leveling?

[Silenka]

I think Bane is referring to the new relic weapons, which are called Anima weapons. The quest starts with Rowena in Idyllshire, I believe. However, I don't think you can get the quest unless you're level 60. The quest requires a lot of grinding for law tomestones as well as beastmen tribe quests and other things that get you xp/gear, which is why it would be a waste if you did them all on a level 60 character - far better to do them while you're leveling another job from 50-60.

So yeah just do storyline and grind quests/dungeons until 60, then pick up new relic quest and start working on that for whichever job you decide to main.

[Ragnus]

The new relic quest is level 60 to start, and you can't even get to Idyllshire until level 57 or 58 anyway.

[StaplerGuy]

Is there a way to see the desynth level of an item without having it in your inventory? I'm leveling Blacksmith and I'm at about 100 and the pickings are slim - most of the lists on the Internet are pre-HW, let alone pre-3.1.

[haroldsaxon]

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...Endgame-Guide?

Apparently updated to 3.0:

dSkill 1-10: Weathered Shortsword/Weathered Daggers (r1) [90% - 100%] (buy for 63 gil in Ul'dah/Limsa Lominsa)
dSkill 10-20: Amateur's Culinary Knife (r6) [98.6% - 100%] (buy for 136 gil in Limsa Lominsa)
dSkill 20-30: Brass Knives (r16) [87% - 100%] (FC1???) (buy mats for 120 gil from vendors and synth for ~320 gil)
dSkill 20-32: Iron Pickaxe (r20) [75% - 100%] (FC1) (buy mats for 163 gil from vendors and synth for ~363 gil)
dSkill 30-36: Initiate's Mortar (r24) [86.8% - 100%] (FC1) (buy mats for 244 gil from vendors and synth for ~500 gil)
dSkill 36-40: Plumed Iron Hatchet (r29) [83.2% - 93%] (FC1)
dSkill 40-50: Plumed Steel Hatchet (r35) [72% - 93%] (FC1)
dSkill 49-56 Mythril Head Knife (r39) [77% - 88.55%] (FC1) (buy the Mythril Ingot from the Amal'ja vendor and the Oak Lumber from the Ixali vendor) (Credit: Satya Beoulve of Midgardsormr)
dSkill 54-64: Horned Hatchet (r49) [60% - 77.5%] (1x FC1, push this as far as you can unless 3k for Aged Pestle seems like a good deal)
dSkill 60-80: Aged Pestle (r55) [60% - 92.5%] (buy for 3k from Silver Bazaar vendor)
dSkill 64-80: Militia Scythe (r55) [68% - 92.5%] (FC2)
dSkill 75-85: Misericorde Blades (r70) [60% - 77.5%] (FC3) (if Darksteel Ingots are cheap enough for this to be feasible)
dSkill 75-85: Warwolf Blade (r70) [60% - 77.5%] (BC3) (PvP: 965 Wolf Marks (note: Direwolf Longsword is ALC, not BSM))
dSkill 75-85: Garuda (HM) PLD, WAR, MNK weapons (r70) [60% - 77.5%]
dSkill 75-85: Moogle (HM) PLD, WAR, DRG, NIN weapons (r75) [50% - 70%] (see this post for information on Mog Farming for BSM)
dSkill 70-100: Artisan tools (r70) [50% - 100%] (FC3/MCD) (will give less than 0.01 after dSkill 95)
dSkill 85-110: Perfect Pestle (r90) [40% - 85%] (FC3) (only use if Aged Pestle Pieces are cheap)
dSkill 80-110: Summoning Bell (r90) [30% - 85%] (FC3) (better than Shower Stands if Petrified Logs are around the same price (or cheaper than) Scheelite)
dSkill 80-110: Shower Stand (r90) [30% - 85%] (FC3) (only better than Summoning Bells if Scheelite is notably cheaper than Petrified Logs)
dSkill 90-110: Allagan PLD, WAR, BRD, NIN, MNK, DRG weapons (r95) [40% - 77.5%] (from Turn 5)
dSkill 100-120: Mythrite Pugiones (r120) [15% - 50%] (BC2) (buy from Elbert in Ishgard for 15,301 gil) (Meld this! Meld it at least twice, but up to 4 times! Use Tinker's Bacon! This part of BSM is still terrible!)
dSkill 110-135: Mythrite Lapidary Hammer (r125) [22.5% - 70%] (crafted, not bought, and preferably melded 1-2 times)
dSkill 130-148: Titanium Scythe (r139) [32% - 68%] (crafted, not bought, and preferably melded 1-2 times)
dSkill 148-170: Adamantite Pliers (r148) [50% - 73%] (bought from Junkmonger in Matoya's Cave for 15,966 gil) (melding is still a good idea)

Note: Leveling BSM in 3.0 is still pretty miserable at the ~75-110 range. Unless you love farming T5, there aren't any dungeon/raid drops that are BSM desynthable at the r80-r120 range. There really aren't good options besides Summoning Bells and Shower Stands, and you won't recoup much of the price with the FC3s they yield. I still believe that the best way to level BSM, starting at ~80 (or even as early as 75... whenever you're sick of Aged Pestle), is with Summoning Bells (or Shower Stands, whichever is cheaper at the moment). However, I would definitely recommend making 20-30 of them, and then use an HQ Tinker's Calm and an HQ Bacon Broth. Going from 22.5% (your chance at dSkill 75 to desynth an r90 item) to 37.5% (your chance at dSkill 75 to desynth an r90 item with Careful Desynthesis +6) is a huge jump and totally worth the price.

Not sure how accurate or if there are better options

[StaplerGuy]

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...Endgame-Guide?

Apparently updated to 3.0:

Not sure how accurate or if there are better options

3.0, yeah, but with 3.1 they did this:

[2.0][3.0] The following adjustments have been made to item desynthesis:
The skill value required to desynthesize certain items has been alleviated.
The success rate for desynthesis and the skill progression rate has been increased for low to mid-levels.
Desynthesizing a rare item is now more likely to increase the player's desynthesis skill.

Which means that lists are probably out of date and, more importantly, that there might be an option that isn't just "buy from a NPC and 15% your way up the ladder." - even if that option is "buy from a NPC but it's 25% base now".