Upon completing the “A Realm Reborn” main story quest “Before the Dawn” you arrive in Ishgard, the capital city of the Heavensward expansion. No Spoilers, but you will want to get a box of tissues and allow plenty of time to finish up “A Realm Reborn”.
At this point I have been doing Daily Main Scenario Roulettes and have geared up jobs I don’t even have yet. I have fully augmented Ironworks gear for White Mage [ Level 62], Red Mage [56], with Paladin [30’s] and Dragoon [40’s] following.
But Ishgard is in the Mountains of the Far North. So my outfit is hardly suitable.
The Ironworks Healer and Caster “Tent” has been “Glamorized” to something more attractive, but really only suitable for Warmer climes. These show the Red Mage Caster variety. The Elezen top is quite attractive. The healer variety employs a long open robe with the white Ironworks Healer boots. A little nicer for the cold, but clearly the “Caster” gear needs work.
Shopping
After arriving in Ishgard, and checking in with all the Aetherite Shards, it was time to hit the shops and see what is available for the arriving adventurer.
Unlike many other MMOs, there do not appear to be websites which allow preview of armor for FFXIV. Here are some shots from the fitting room in the armor shop of Ishgard. Very stylish.
Unfortunately the healer and caster armor is mostly “Tents”, except for the level 56 outfit, which happened to line up with my Red Mage perfectly. I didn’t even bother with tent pictures.
The Red Mage level 56 Caster outfit was perfect wear for the audience with the Count, don’t you think?
I’m beginning to feel quite at home here in the far North.
Gear for Other Jobs
Let’s look at some of the other gear for other Jobs I’ll have. Heavy armor for Paladin.
Chain Armor for Dragoon.
And “Cow Girl” armor for Machinest, which I can pick up here in Ishgard now that I have a level 60 character. This job starts at level 30 so it will be a while to grind to level 60.
Quite Dapper, don’t you think?
Samurai Gear is interesting too:
I’ll have to see what parts dye. Grey is not my style.
Brrr Healer Gear – what were they thinking?
Surely there were better choices for Healer garb at level 60? Brrr. Stay by the fire I guess.
Here are those tents or habits for healing and casting. The Level 56 Healer outfit looks like a recolor of the caster gear. None of the other gear looks very attractive, except of course that it all looks warm.
The level 60 Caster gear is a recolor of the Healer gear. Not very nice.
Leveling Strategy for Jobs
I’ve been doing Main Scenario Roulette once per day for Ironworks gear and then leveling the lower level classes using standard Roulette once per day. Good thing there are Alts to play. But now, in Ishgard, a new quest chain has opened up so there is more to do. These give no XP, but they continue to open up the map in the Far North.
Paladin and Dragoon have almost a complete set of Augmented Ironworks gear waiting for them and it seems clear that the only real way to continue toward 70 is to continue the same strategy. Machinist and Samurai seems like the next candidates for jobs. Samurai starts at level 50, so as soon as I pick up that job I can benefit from the Ironworks gear. Machinist starts at level 30, so there will be a grind to get to level 50 to pick up the Ironworks gear.
Ishgard gear costs real gil, unlike Ironworks, which comes along with the XP gained in Main Scenario Roulette. A set of armor, without accessories, is about 100K, so caster and healer gear pretty much took all of my 250K. So the gil from running the Roulette will be welcome.
As you can see from the pictures of gear above, the gear Item Level takes a real jump at level 60. It goes from about 145 at level 58 to 255 at level 60. Since Ironworks Augmented gear is level 130, the best strategy seems to be to stay with Ironworks gear until level 60 and go straight to the level 60 gear.
This leveling design in a game seems perverse. Basically you spam a daily level 50 daily quest all the way to level 70 because it gives the best XP and Gil. I’ve noticed that many players are showing up in Ishgard gear, and beyond, in the daily’s I run. Now I know why. Regardless of the dungeons that show up later, they give smaller rewards and are harder to complete. The ARR Main Scenario runs are quite easy and while they do take a while to complete, as a healer you never wait very long – 5 minutes or less during busy times on the server. Like I said before Tanking will wait about the same, and is harder to play, while DPS waits much longer. Hence my strategy to use Daily Leveling Roulette for the DPS jobs.
If Fates gave better rewards they would be worth the trouble, but actually they don’t give good rewards. I’d rather play Alts than grind Fates.
See you in the Far North.
:ww
Windy Weather 