My toons are level 50 plus and I’m farming “Main Sequence Scenarios” for Ironworks Gear for all my jobs. For some of the jobs, IronWorks Gear is very stylish. Paladin’s for example get nice looking black gear with blue highlights, like the rest of Ironworks gear. But Healer Gear looks like a Habit, and it’s a real drag for a man. So I decided to study up on Glamorizing my gear. In this article you’ll see that Glamours have changed. When first introduced to the game, there were three types of crystals, one for each Armor type – Cloth, Leather and Plate. But since path 4.2, it’s a much simpler system, and more accessible too. Glamour prism crafting used to unlock at level 50, but now you can unlock prism crafting at level 15, and in practice you can craft glamour crystals with two professions at about level 20, and at least one DPS job at about level 40 to farm the Wind and Ice Crystals is needed. More details later.
All the popular games have the ability to change the look of armor while leaving the stats alone. Wow calls it “Transmogrification” and Guild Wars 2 calls it Wardrobe. In Tera, there used to be a system similar to Transmog, but they removed that system and now you just wear a “Costume” that changes the look of your entire set of armor, or weapon. I guess Tera went big into “Selling” costumes to monetize the game. FFXIV sells “Costumes” too of course, they are just level 1 armor sets that can be Glamourized to any armor. You may have gotten a “Strife” armor box when you created your character.
Glamorizing with Prisms
You can buy Glamour Prisms on the Market Board. I bought a few for about 1000 gil each. But of course prices will vary. You can craft them yourself for the cost of a “Clear Prism” – 200 gil – and farm the rest of the materials.
Just a couple of prisms can make all the difference. At the top left is the Old Stock Ironworks Healer Robe look. Behind you see someone did glamor on jacket and pants. This Robe with red highlights is my new look. Changing just pants and robe makes all the difference. I like the look of the Thigh-High Ironworks Boots. The stylish fellow below is my new look for my Male Scholar. This is a stylish crafting jacket dyed blue with the rest of the gear being stock Ironworks Healer gear. No more habits for me. Later I decided that the blue jacket wasn’t the best I could do, and looked up Rianne in Ul’dah – Steps of Nald (X:9.8 Y:9.0) . She sells the costumes for the Ceremony of Eternal Bonding. I guess you can’t purchase the white groom’s outfit unless you are signed up for the ceremony, but the Best Man’s outfit looks pretty stylish too. And it’s relatively cheap. These items will glamour to any gear since they are level 1.
The Elvin White Mage much more fetching in the fancy Red Healer robe from the Market Board dyed in Rolandberry Red. The Skirt came from there too. Just remember that when you are picking items from the market board to pick only the same level items in the same material as you are wearing. If you buy a level 54 robe from the board, you can’t Glamour it to a level 50 Ironworks Robe. But a same or lower level item will work just fine.
Some folks go over the top with Glamour. Here’s a toon named Edda who dressed up just like her minion. I’ve not looked up the Lore for Edda Blackbosom, but apparently they make gear, and a minion to match the lore. And don’t prevent you from naming your character the same as the NPC in the game, whoever she is. On the right is my new “Cowgirl” look for my healer. This gear is pretty cheap, but so are prisms now that I can craft them, so when I’m tired of being a cowgirl, I’ll be something else. Glamour Prisms on the market board have been about 1000 gil, but recently they have gone up to about 1500 each and at that price folks are selling 99 at a time. I don’t understand why folks are selling that many at a time. Just greedy, I guess. No way anybody needs that many prisms in a reasonable amount of time. Since you can’t share your stuff among the other characters on your account, selling 20 or so at a time seems a lot more reasonable.
Crafting Glamour Prisms
Apparently to craft Glamour Prisms you’ll need one Crafting Job and one Gathering Job. I thought that leather crafting could do the job alone since only Toad Leather was required to make a prism, but then I found that curing Toad Leather requires Alumen, which is mined. I’ve chosen Botany and Carpentry, both available in Gridania, as my professions of choice.
Botany is easy to level, just follow the Gathering Guide and do the quests. At some point you may need to grind some trees or something else. Elm Lumber is a good thing to grind as you’ll see. Carpentry is the same. Doing every item in the crafting log gets you the most XP, and you only need to do the Lumber and a few other items more than once. If, like me, you waited until you are level 50 before embarking on Professions, then you have lots of gil – 200K or more in my case – so buy the best gear from merchants in any big city as you level your professions. Watch out, your Armory Panel may fill up.
With Carpentry, I ran into a road block at about level 16, but farming a little over 100 Elm logs near Bentbranch and then grinding them into lumber with my Carpenter put him over the top to 18. You need to get to 18 or so to see the Walnut Lumber recipe in your Crafting Log.
Once you have your Carpenter up to level 18 or so and can see the Walnut Lumber recipe, take your Botanist to Quarrymill to farm Walnut logs.
After a few prisms you’ll probably run out of Wind or Ice Crystals.
Not to worry, those are easily farmed with any level 50 combat job, such as Red Mage or Summoner – Or Bard. Whatever you’re playing as your primary DPS job. Ice Sprites are near Dragon head in Coethus just over the border from Mor Dhona, which is where you’re standing around queuing for Main Sequence Roulette and buying Ironworks Gear anyway. The Wind Sprites are near Quarrymill with the Walnut Trees.
The quest to unlock Glamour Prism Crafting is from the Orange Juice loving Swyrgeim sitting on the bench near The Waking Sands in Vesper Bay. You’ve walked by her dozens of times leveling up, and you’ve gotten your Dye and Glamour quests from her. Well at level 15 with a crafting profession, she has a quest to create glamor prisms. Once you get her orange juice from the Bar Maid, complete the quest at the Vendor NPC to purchase your crafting recipe.
And there you are. Ready to craft all the prisms you could want. Glamorizing is cheap in FFXIV compared with the other games I’ve seen. 200 gil for each clear prism and the rest is farmed.
So, if you don’t like the look of your gear, Glamorize it.
Until next time,
:ww
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