[Megathread] Final Fantasy XIV

[Faroth]

Anyone know what's the general fastest grind method of leveling these days up to 50? up to 60? up to 70?

Started working on Dark Knight finally (I've had PLD but wanted to get DRK up) and finally got my WHM up a bit into the 50s. Probably going to keep plunking away at HW Beast Tribes as an xp supplement on WHM.

I've been mixing up PotD and Squadron runs pre-50 on WHM and figured I'd so some of the same along with leveling roulette on DRK, but thought I'd see if there's anything I'm forgetting or that's become a notable leveling method.

[Katchii]

Given my past experiences:
not really. While BiS is always elusive, Blizzard has made sure that it doesn't take that long to get the item level up via alternative drops. I'd say a raider in a decent guild (a.k.a.: a guild that actually clears the place in a reasonable amount of time) should get the base item level by mid patch. WoW has a lot more alternative drops and a lot more bosses, getting the item level is probably easier than it is in FF-XIV, where your choices are rather limited and bosses only drop 2 items. In some cases, people may prefer a 390 item due to secondary stats.

Thanks again. I'm not a raider in WoW so I'll defer to your more experienced viewpoint here.

Still, based on the ranges you've provided I'm guessing it's still feasible for any given "heroic raider" to have pretty different ilevels at a given time, especially when looking at an individual basis with the RNG of war/titan-forging and a "heroic raider" who got lucky on one Mythic run and got a really good drop or something. Or is that just not the case?

- - - Updated - - -

Anyone know what's the general fastest grind method of leveling these days up to 50? up to 60? up to 70?

Started working on Dark Knight finally (I've had PLD but wanted to get DRK up) and finally got my WHM up a bit into the 50s. Probably going to keep plunking away at HW Beast Tribes as an xp supplement on WHM.

I've been mixing up PotD and Squadron runs pre-50 on WHM and figured I'd so some of the same along with leveling roulette on DRK, but thought I'd see if there's anything I'm forgetting or that's become a notable leveling method.

For tanks, it's usually just highest level dungeon spam. If PotD is still fast queues, floor 50-60 spam from level 1-60 also works. From 60-70, Roulettes and beast tribe quests get you ~2 levels a day. As much as it sucks sometimes, Main Story Roulette is totally worth the xp bonus, the amount of xp you get from it is ridiculous. After that's done if you want to keep going that day, highest level dungeon spam for tanks and healers. DPS can do dungeon spam too, but wait times make it really boring, unless you can make a PF leveling group for dungeon spam.

I can't speak to HoH from 61-70, but random queues are long in my experience (of which there is little, because I don't like waiting around to find out and I don't care enough to keep trying). Some folks have mentioned that making a HoH PF group for leveling can be successful but I haven't tried it.

[Veluren]

Anyone know what's the general fastest grind method of leveling these days up to 50? up to 60? up to 70?

Started working on Dark Knight finally (I've had PLD but wanted to get DRK up) and finally got my WHM up a bit into the 50s. Probably going to keep plunking away at HW Beast Tribes as an xp supplement on WHM.

I've been mixing up PotD and Squadron runs pre-50 on WHM and figured I'd so some of the same along with leveling roulette on DRK, but thought I'd see if there's anything I'm forgetting or that's become a notable leveling method.

Deep dungeons are usually your best bet if you want to be quick. If you need a change of pace, XP from clearing out your daily hunt logs (For HW up, ARR hunts don't give XP) adds up pretty quick, plus you're getting centurio seals so you can immediately kit out a fresh 70 in 330 gear.

Heaven-on-high's experience tends to fall off a bit from 65+ though, at that point, you want to clear out all of your roulettes. Even MSQ if you have the time in the day, for as long as it is you'll usually get ~75% of a level from a single clear, easily double the XP of Alliance Roulettes, which is the next most XP.

[Granyala]

Still, based on the ranges you've provided I'm guessing it's still feasible for any given "heroic raider" to have pretty different ilevels at a given time, especially when looking at an individual basis with the RNG of war/titan-forging and a "heroic raider" who got lucky on one Mythic run and got a really good drop or something. Or is that just not the case?

Not sure why you keep bringing that point up.
Luck plays a role but it's not excessive. The difference to co-raiders are usually rather minor. Enough to cause frustration when looking at parses and not being able to beat teammates but not enough to render your character a hindrance to the raid. Unless you are stupid and pass on everything but BIS equipment.

The difference between a non raider and raider is an order of magnitude larger at least.
E.G.: You cannot just pick up a non raider and expect him to be useful to your mythic raid. Even if the dude is the best skilled player in the world, the raw stats aren't there to push the needed DPS/HPS/have the needed defensive stats.
FF doesn't have that problem. I could hop into savage straight away, wearing my tome gear, because 10 item levels hardly matter.

[Katchii]

Not sure why you keep bringing that point up.
Luck plays a role but it's not excessive. The difference to co-raiders are usually rather minor. Enough to cause frustration when looking at parses and not being able to beat teammates but not enough to render your character a hindrance to the raid. Unless you are stupid and pass on everything but BIS equipment.

The difference between a non raider and raider is an order of magnitude larger at least.
E.G.: You cannot just pick up a non raider and expect him to be useful to your mythic raid. Even if the dude is the best skilled player in the world, the raw stats aren't there to push the needed DPS/HPS/have the needed defensive stats.
FF doesn't have that problem. I could hop into savage straight away, wearing my tome gear, because 10 item levels hardly matter.

That's really the gist of what I was looking for, so thanks for entertaining the question. As I said, I don't raid in WoW, outside of LFR anyway, so have no way to gauge this stuff, but based on what I did know I thought the differences could be greater than they apparently are. I absolutely see a difference in LFR, specifically between people who are apparently Mythic geared vs everyone else, the difference is staggering.

[RohanV]

The difference between a non raider and raider is an order of magnitude larger at least.
E.G.: You cannot just pick up a non raider and expect him to be useful to your mythic raid. Even if the dude is the best skilled player in the world, the raw stats aren't there to push the needed DPS/HPS/have the needed defensive stats.

You're forgetting Mythic Keystone dungeons. It's entirely possible to have a decent item level and not step foot in raid. In fact, last week we were at 19 people, and we dragged in a casual for the first couple of Mythic bosses. We had to explain the bosses because he hadn't even been in LFR. But he had an ilvl roughly in the 360s, and he did manage to stay alive. Was on the bottom of the dps meters, of course, but he did contribute.

[Granyala]

specifically between people who are apparently Mythic geared vs everyone else, the difference is staggering.

Yup. Was always fun to go into LFR with my priestess and ... well .. basically carry the raid with a few like minded individuals.

Being at the other end... well... unencumbered frustration to the point of avoiding group content to be honest.
I hate the feeling of not being able to contribute meaningfully.

- - - Updated - - -

You're forgetting Mythic Keystone dungeons.

No, I didn't forget them. I explicitly said that M+ blurs that line.
I never did farm them, so I cannot assess how feasible it is to get well geared through them.

[Katchii]

Yup. Was always fun to go into LFR with my priestess and ... well .. basically carry the raid with a few like minded individuals.

Being at the other end... well... unencumbered frustration to the point of avoiding group content to be honest.
I hate the feeling of not being able to contribute meaningfully.

It is pretty disheartening, to the point of "giving up" on ever reaching that level of output just due to how much time and effort people need to put in to get to that level vs the level of effort and time I'm willing to do.

Once I accepted that I just won't do what's necessary to get to that gear level, it was easy to just enjoy doing the best I am able to do with the gear I'm willing to put effort into getting. These are just games meant for enjoyment after all, so I just won't do things I don't get some level of enjoyment from....and banging my head against a wall for a gear grind that's irrelevant in a few weeks, months, just a matter of time, is just not fun to me.

That's part of why I enjoy FFXIV so much because the gearing treadmill is so much more tolerable because it's so straightforward.

[Sesshomaru]

Anyone know what's the general fastest grind method of leveling these days up to 50? up to 60? up to 70?

Started working on Dark Knight finally (I've had PLD but wanted to get DRK up) and finally got my WHM up a bit into the 50s. Probably going to keep plunking away at HW Beast Tribes as an xp supplement on WHM.

I've been mixing up PotD and Squadron runs pre-50 on WHM and figured I'd so some of the same along with leveling roulette on DRK, but thought I'd see if there's anything I'm forgetting or that's become a notable leveling method.

The preferred method of leveling, dependent on roles, is:

DPS: Palace of the Dead (pre-60), dungeons (Gubal normal) to 61 and then Heaven on High until 70. Sneak in a roulette at higher levels due to extra experience gain, but overall queue times for dungeons as DPS is horrid. The reason you want to do dungeons, specifically regular Gubal, is due to the fact you gain little exp in PotD at 60 compared to prior levels, making the queue times for it actually more efficient leveling. Even better if you add in HW beast tribes (and SB if you have unlocked those).
Regular The Great Gubal Library as it's a leveling dungeon which by default is meant to give experience. You gain a few times (~2-4 times) more experience per minute in there compared to the other 60 dungeons. Even the experience you gain at the end for clearing it is several times higher than any of the 60 dungeons.

Tanks and healers: Always highest leveled dungeons. Due to the non-existent queue times (more applicable for tanks), doing the highest leveled dungeon will almost always be the most efficient choice. The only time(s) it's not efficient is whenever your daily roulette rewards are up, especially the leveling / MSQ / raid / trial roulettes.
When you enter SB area of levels (61-70), I recommend you await doing your roulettes until you are at an even level mark (62, 64, 66 & 68), so as to maximize experience yield for your level and making it faster to start your next dungeon.

Those are only recommendations based on efficiency, but the choice is yours. You can mix it if you'd like or do something completely different such as Deep Dungeons grinding (not good for ones sanity).

Personally, I got all jobs to 70 a month or two after SB released, sticking to highest dungeon as possible, even for DPS.
For a slightly embarrassing story, prior to SB I had barely touched Palace of the Dead. Didn't even make it to the 10th floor.
So when RDM and SAM got released, I spent a few days in PotD getting them from 50-60 and it felt as if my mind had been detached from my body when I finally got them to 60. PotD is a nightmare compared to Pagos (which is also a nightmare, but not as near as PotD (and presumably HoH)).

[Granyala]

Once I accepted that I just won't do what's necessary to get to that gear level

I had a different effect: the whole "farm gear" thing fell flat once I quit raiding, so I only sub for a month or two every now and then to see the story development.
To me, WoWs open ended gameplay just doesn't make sense unless I raid at least heroic.

[Rogalicus]

FF doesn't have that problem. I could hop into savage straight away, wearing my tome gear, because 10 item levels hardly matter.

FF does have that problem, you won't have your whole set of tome gear until 15 weeks in the tier and with big gaps between tiers your casual will be wearing way lower gear until then.

[Granyala]

FF does have that problem, you won't have your whole set of tome gear until 15 weeks in the tier and with big gaps between tiers your casual will be wearing way lower gear until then.

No it does not.
After half the patch cycle, casuals can upgrade to savage item level via 24man raid token.
So even if you get recruited right at the start of the a new patch, you are basically wearing the same item level as the raiders. Esp once you factor in new crafted items / new normal mode raid drops, which both parties can use as intermediary gear.

Lets not pretend, that savage raiders are clad in the new hotness 2 IDs in. They to need several months because there are only 4 bosses @ 2 drops for 8 people (assuming you clear straight away, the overwhelming majority does not) and RNG is still very much a thing (4 consecutive drops of healing earrings from Chaos, yaay). Books help somewhat but they too take weeks to accumulate.

[Rogalicus]

you are basically wearing the same item level as the raiders

You forgot to add "if you've been gearing up one class for the last 4 months doing weekly normal raids, weekly alliance raids and reaching weekly tomestone cap and still your weapon will be worse".

Also, my biggest gripe is with how useless the whole gear treadmill feels due to stat growth having little to no impact on your gameplay. Floating numbers are getting higher (in the case you are paying attention to them), nothing else.

[dope_danny]

Got a reply from square enix the same time as a mass email: "if you bought the book in the eu we are experiencing difficulties with the manufacturer and your books will be delayed"

'difficulties with the manufacturer' h'okay.

- - - Updated - - -

Anyone know what's the general fastest grind method of leveling these days up to 50? up to 60? up to 70?

Started working on Dark Knight finally (I've had PLD but wanted to get DRK up) and finally got my WHM up a bit into the 50s. Probably going to keep plunking away at HW Beast Tribes as an xp supplement on WHM.

I've been mixing up PotD and Squadron runs pre-50 on WHM and figured I'd so some of the same along with leveling roulette on DRK, but thought I'd see if there's anything I'm forgetting or that's become a notable leveling method.

give up on tomestones and get the daily roullettes which gets you an easy level per day, throw in the ananta and kojin dailies and the hunt for some more bonus xp but beyond that its 60-61 in palace of the dead and then heaven on high and dungeon spam for the rest.

[Granyala]

You forgot to add "if you've been gearing up one class for the last 4 months doing weekly normal raids, weekly alliance raids and reaching weekly tomestone cap and still your weapon will be worse".

All it takes is 5 expert dungeons per week and1x 4th boss normal clear per week for the first 7 weeks.
In the second half of the tier (by then you no longer need experts tomes) 1x 24mans per week.
Even the "casualst" of casuals can do it.

Yes, if you compare to WoW, you should compare a person that only plays one class, else, you have to compare altoholics to omni class fighters. Naturally, they will either have to do WAY more, or have weaker gear because they split their tomes/limited playtime.
BTW: do not ignore crafted gear. It is easy to get decent gear for all your played classes. Sure, you will be 20 ilvls behind fully decked savage raiders but you're still not as gimped as a non raider in WoW. Esp if you overmeld.

Your weapon is only worse if you compare yourself to people that cleared the content. Most groups don't kill the last one until late into the cycle and 5 item levels on the weapon are hardly noticeable.

Gear does indeed feel somewhat underwhelming but I take an underwhelming treadmill to the never ending, RNG infested madness that is WoWs gearing any day.

[threads]

All it takes is 5 expert dungeons per week and1x 4th boss normal clear per week for the first 7 weeks.
In the second half of the tier (by then you no longer need experts tomes) 1x 24mans per week.
Even the "casualst" of casuals can do it.

Yes, if you compare to WoW, you should compare a person that only plays one class, else, you have to compare altoholics to omni class fighters. Naturally, they will either have to do WAY more, or have weaker gear because they split their tomes/limited playtime.
BTW: do not ignore crafted gear. It is easy to get decent gear for all your played classes. Sure, you will be 20 ilvls behind fully decked savage raiders but you're still not as gimped as a non raider in WoW. Esp if you overmeld.

Your weapon is only worse if you compare yourself to people that cleared the content. Most groups don't kill the last one until late into the cycle and 5 item levels on the weapon are hardly noticeable.

Gear does indeed feel somewhat underwhelming but I take an underwhelming treadmill to the never ending, RNG infested madness that is WoWs gearing any day.

It only took a few weeks of BFA to appreciate ffxiv's gearing. Can't even escape RNG with guilds anymore because they made everything personal loot. Random titanforges, no tomes or weekly progress for gear. Just your own luck with drops and loot chest. No thanks.

[StrawberryZebra]

Gear does indeed feel somewhat underwhelming but I take an underwhelming treadmill to the never ending, RNG infested madness that is WoWs gearing any day.

The main issue I've run into with WoW's gearing is that it all feels very disposable. You get gear thrown at you from every direction and even if something is an upgrade, you're likely going to be replacing it for something else within a matter of hours play time anyway. I don't even bother transmogrifying it anymore, it's just a waste of gold. I don't consider the Titanforging RNG to be that much of an issue. While you can get items that randomly have a higher iLevel, it's so small that it's really not going to be a huge deal most of the time.

The one issue I take with it is that there are no reliable, non-RNG, based methods to acquire gear anymore. Without a gear currency you're left without any kind of safety net if things don't go your way. I've been having some pretty rough luck myself and am stuck healing with a iLevel 335 timewarped mace, while the rest of my gear is upwards of iLevel 360. All you can really do about that is just keep doing content that has a chance to drop one.

FF14 on the other hand does make gear feel a lot better. If I get a new piece I know I'll be keeping it for long enough to make slotting Materia worth it. And I have multiple avenues to acquire that gear, all of which require me to run PvE content a for a set minimum each week. It may not be as interesting or as exciting as WoWs trinket procs and Azerite traits, but you will very reliably get the gear that you need. That's something that can't be over stated, any investment you make is going towards improving your character, rather than just the chance to improve it. Even the unluckiest player in the world is going to get the right gear they need sooner or later in FF14. In WoW getting stuck in RNG limbo is a very real possiability.

[Wrecktangle]

Now go and compare the performance of a non raider (not even normal) to that of a Mythic raider and get back to me, because that's what I was referring to.

Is my first raid night sufficient? I.e. first clear of normal of the first boss? If so:

• My Taloc Normal - 10.2k DPS @ i350
• Rank 1 as of today Taloc Normal - 17.7k DPS @i380+.

That's a 74% differential for roughly 30ilvls. Again, still no where near 200-300%.

• Deltascape logs Alte Roite - 2.8k DPS @ i316
• Rank 1 PLD 4.4k DPS @i333 (patch 4.1).

This is a 53% differential for 16-17ilvl.

From what I remember, originally Savage mode was the completely raw version of the raid (specifically Coil), with no tuning done to bring it into line with what the current ilevel was. Because the fights were initially just completely brutally overtuned compared to what a player could actually output at the time.

I don't remember seeing information on how they designed Savage mode in Heavensward and Stormblood. Do you have a source that says this is how they did it?

Correct - that is the original implementation. Then when it didn't get a lot of participation they shifted methodologies and created normal for the regular playerbase and transformed the existing raids into "savage". I do not have any source, but remember it from the LL. Others are welcome to chime in if they remember better than me.

Just to clarify a little, the question was in the context of ilevel difference. For reference, what was your ilevel compared to the ilevel of the people you're comparing yourself to? So the question can be more directly answered.

See above.

The numbers you're quoting indicate it's possible for there to be a at least ~60% different in number output just from skill alone. And in my experience the differences in play style isn't THAT different, it's pretty subtle, since the combo system exists. But those slight differences/ tweaks seem to have a much more profound impact than the ilevel does. That's CRAZY to me.

It's more prevalent with tanks than it is with DPS because a good tank will minimize tank stance thus have a flat 25% throughput gain that lower skilled players will not. Combine that with poor oGCD usage and bad CPM and you see WILD swings in tank DPS.

E.G.: You cannot just pick up a non raider and expect him to be useful to your mythic raid. Even if the dude is the best skilled player in the world, the raw stats aren't there to push the needed DPS/HPS/have the needed defensive stats.
FF doesn't have that problem. I could hop into savage straight away, wearing my tome gear, because 10 item levels hardly matter.

You could hop into day 1 raid with your full tome gear? Come on now. It takes 2 weeks alone to get legs or chest. It takes longer to get the weapon (75% of jobs first buy). Most decent teams clear 1/2 the first day. Hell in both delta I pugged the first 3 in the first week. I pugged the first 2 in delta, then had some IRL shit prevent me from playing for 2 weeks. I pugged 3 on the 3 week.

Now that's not to say you can't, because ilvl is ultimately irrelevant in FF14, but your premise is misleading at best.

We have picked up a few casual players (i.e. non raiders) and brought them into mythic to get 20 bodies and cleared bosses. Sure they died and did shit DPS, but it was never 200-300% less. It was always over half of what I did. Funnily enough some of these casual non raiders had higher ilvl than me despite not raiding consistently.

That's really the gist of what I was looking for, so thanks for entertaining the question. As I said, I don't raid in WoW, outside of LFR anyway, so have no way to gauge this stuff, but based on what I did know I thought the differences could be greater than they apparently are. I absolutely see a difference in LFR, specifically between people who are apparently Mythic geared vs everyone else, the difference is staggering.

You could always come raid with us again man! Granted I'm not playing atm, but if you wanted to raid 8.1 with us, you're always welcome.

No, I didn't forget them. I explicitly said that M+ blurs that line.
I never did farm them, so I cannot assess how feasible it is to get well geared through them.

It's plenty feasible. I never farmed them either. I might do 2-3 a week and call it a day. Every now and then you snag something juicy.

[Granyala]

Is my first raid night sufficient? I.e. first clear of normal of the first boss? If so:

• My Taloc Normal - 10.2k DPS @ i350
• Rank 1 as of today Taloc Normal - 17.7k DPS @i380+.

That's a 74% differential for roughly 30ilvls. Again, still no where near 200-300%.

• Deltascape logs Alte Roite - 2.8k DPS @ i316
• Rank 1 PLD 4.4k DPS @i333 (patch 4.1).

This is a 53% differential for 16-17ilvl.

Then it's gotten better since the recent squish, that is good to know.
I'm not very active these days, so my data pool is limited.

53% seems too high for FF though, I'm not seeing these kind of improvements in my raid group from less than 20 item levels.

- - - Updated - - -

You could hop into day 1 raid with your full tome gear?

Obviously not the first raid of the expansion, but in later tiers, yes, as an active player you should have tome gear updated.
E.g: start Alphascape in 370 ilvl+, which is basically what the savage raiders have, barring the weapon of course.

[Sesshomaru]

Being the moron that I am, this weekend I suddenly decided to farm all the Atma for all of my non-completed Zeta weapons so I can skip that phase should I ever wish to complete more than the 2 which I already have (SMN/WAR).

Spoiler: 

Southern Thanalan and Lower La Noscea were the worst one in terms of gain per hour after finding about my stupidity.
Because I could not fathom as to why after two hours in South Shroud wouldn't yield me a single Atma.
I've done the completed Zeta line twice. I went to South Shroud to farm the Atma there.
That's when it hit me; I am at the wrong location. There are no Atma corresponding to South Shroud.

Now, some of you might have noticed in regards to the image that I have 8/12 Atma at 7 and 4/12 at 8. That's because I did an "/isearch zenith" before I began and found a total of 7 Zenith weapons which I had in my armory and weapon retainer. I counted at the start and found the number to be correct. After I had completed 8/12 areas, I decided to be thorough and count all ARR jobs. I came to 10. Prior, I had already completed 2, which means I had 8 left.

"8? But my count was at 7? How is that possible?" After quickly reading through the log, I went with the command to find Yoshimitsu (NIN relic).
None.
I knew from earlier on that I had completed the normal relic step, the one prior to Zenith which meant I could procure it from the Calamity Scavenger and upgrade it to Zenith once again for a relative 60 Tomestones of Poetics.

Spoiler: 

A few hours later I came to my last zone, namely the one I started with in this weekend session; North Shroud. Did my stuff and finally got my last Atma.
"Finally cleared this stage!" I thought and happily delivered everything to Jalzahn in North Shroud by Hyrstmill.
Now came the time to put them into my weapon retainer to gather some dust until I start doing books on one of them.

Spoiler: 

That is, until I get this image trying to store my Stardust Rod Atma.
Initially I was confused as to why this message popped. Then I remembered, I had 4 mannequins in my house, each with dyeable AF1 gear and more or less corresponding weapons (DRG mannequin has Lux instead of ARR relics).

Spoiler: 

My BLM mannequin which is also my weapon retainer had the Stardust Rod Atma already equipped.
Checking my NIN mannequin right away.

Spoiler: 

Yes.