FFXIV Heavensward Fresh 50 Guide
Congratulations! You reached level 50. You finished your Lv50 job quest and now you have your ilvl 90 left side gear. You beat Praetorium and the base ARR story. Now what?
Step 1: Get your relic weapon
From now on, the most important part of your gear will be your weapon. Anything you tackle from level 50 and onwards will require you to have your gear up to date, and the hardest piece of gear to acquire are the weapons. Luckily for you, the first steps of the relic are easy enough to do.
You can start your A Relic Reborn quest chain by talking to Nedrick Ironheart in Vesper Bay of Western Thanalan (x12,y14). The first quest in the chain is named The Weaponsmith of Legend. You can find the specifics here.
The relic quest will have you fight some bosses, including harder versions of the primals. Eventually, you'll get your ilvl 90 weapon, which should be good enough for you to move on. My suggestion: don't bother upgrading that weapon any further, you'll get an even better weapon very soon (and with way less effort).
Step 2: Unlock Labyrinth of the Ancients
Once you have your relic weapon, you should be well on your way to move ahead. The next step I recommend is unlocking Labyrinth of the Ancients. This is what is called a 24-man raid, in which three full parties go through a boss-filled dungeon, and in the way getting loot to help them gear up. While Labyrinth itself has lower level loot than the one you'll have starting out, you need it to unlock Crystal Tower and World of Darkness, which are the next two 24-man raids that go right after, each one with higher level gear that you'll need moving forward.
Labyrinth has an ilvl 50 requirement, so if you've been running around with crappy accesories all this time, you might wanna look into getting at least some ilvl 40 ones now (at least). Like I said, from now on your gear is very damn important.
By doing these 3 raids, you will get a sense of progression, as each one requires a higher ilvl than the previous one, so you'll have to find ways to gear yourself better to unlock the next raid. Once you clear World of Darkness, you'll be very much ready to tackle Heavensward.
Step 3: Keep doing the story
The story will continue to be your main way of progressing as a character. Not only does it unlock important (and usually fun) dungeons and trials for you, it also rewards you with higher ilvl gear. So, honestly, the main thing you should be doing is continuing the story. After all, if you want to enter the Heavensward areas (where you can unlock the DRK, MCH, and AST jobs), you need to finish the extended ARR story.
Of course, the story can get a little tiring sometimes, so I will put in some suggestions of alternate stuff you can do while you recharge batteries and go back to doing the story again
Step 4: Use your resources to gear up wisely
If you've bothered to go to your currency window (If you don't know what that is, go look for it *now*), you'll notice that a new type of currency just unlocked; soldiery and poetics. Ignore soldiery. Poetics is a type of currency that you acquire after doing Lv50 dungeons and trials. You can use this currency to buy gear, as well as some other miscellanous things.
What you'll want to do with poetics now, however, is spend it on accesories (and your belt) first. Normally, I'd tell you to buy the best weapon first, but seeing how you need a higher ilvl to run some stuff, you buck is better spent in getting a higher ilvl first. Once you have all your poetics accesories, then you should buy your poetics weapon.
Alternatively, if you're still not in Heavensward but somehow you've hit Lv51, you can ask for help to acquire Lv51 gear, which only has an ilvl that is slightly lower than the one you get with poetics, but is also high enough to clear the content you need to do.
Step 5: Level your other classes to acquire your missing cross-class skills
This is something you can do casually, but it's something that you eventually REALLY NEED TO GET DONE. Some of the jobs in this game aren't really complete until they have all their cross class skills. For example:
- PLD is incomplete without WHM's Protect + Stoneskin and WAR's Foresight
- WAR absolutely shouldn't be taken to trials without PLD's Provoke
- WHM is pretty handicapped without BLM's swiftcast
- DRG truly benefits from most of MNK's cross class skills like Internal Release
- MNK, in turn, really gets a good use out of DRG's invigorate and Blood for Blood
Levelling other classes will also help you get better as a player!
Step 6: Do your roulettes religiously
By now you should have at least two roulettes: Levelling roulette and Main Scenario roulette. You should use levelling roulette as a lazy way to level something once per day, while main scenario roulette will be how you earn poetics daily in a very lazy fashion. If you do these two daily and without fail, I promise you won't need to make much of an effort over time to follow most of the steps in this guide (Plus you'll be making easy gil!)
Step 7: Level a gatherer
Now that you're 50, it'll be way easier to level your gatherers and crafters. I would advise against levelling crafters juuuuuust yet. Focus on getting at least one gatherer up. Not only can you make money off it, but having a gatherer levelled will make levelling a crafter later on that much less expensive.
Step 8: Don't worry about EX Primals or Coil yet!
Here's the deal. You should prioritze, above everything else, getting the story done and gearing up. EX Primals and Coil are no longer relevant content, so there's no hurry in getting those done. They'll still be there when you hit 60. Focus on gearing up, doing the story, and getting to 60, because the sooner you get there, the sooner you catch up with the rest of us. And then we can take some time for EX primals and coil.
Step 9: Once you're in Heavensward, don't stop 'til you're 60
The Heavensward story is one of the best things about this expansion, so once you start, don't allow yourself to stop. You'll be constantly gated from doing the quests as they require you to keep levelling up, so don't forget to do sidequests and your levelling roulette!
In summary, once you hit 50, your goal is to reach 60. However, it's not a straightforward process, and you're bound to be derailed somewhere along the way. Hopefully, by following this guide, you'll be able to reach 60 quickly and be ready to do the latest content with the rest of us.
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