Comprehensive Guide to Gear Upgrades in Dawntrail

This guide serves as an introduction to gearing and details how to acquire leveling and endgame gear in the latest expansion, Dawntrail. Additionally, we will go over the various methods of gearing and how to quickly and efficiently gear your jobs up to improve your character and tackle more challenging duties.

Players who are already familiar with FFXIV's vertical progression system can head to the gearing section to see how to gear up in the latest patch.

Equipment is divided into weapon and armour. All jobs except Paladin have a single weapon slot, while Paladin has both a Sword main-hand and a Shield off-hand. Armour is divided into armour and accessories, commonly referred to as left-side and right-side gear as they are displayed on the left and right in the character menu, respectively. Each has five slots: Head, Chest, Arms, Legs, and Feet for armour, as well as Earrings, Necklace, Bracelet, and two Rings for accessories.

Each piece of gear will denote the affinity of the equipment, which describes what classes or jobs can equip it. Gear is divided into sets based on role: Tanks, Healers, Caster DPS, and Ranged Physical DPS all have their own sets, while Melee DPS are split into three distinct sets encompassing two jobs each.

Gear progression is based on item level, commonly referred to i# or iL#. For example, if a piece of gear is i660, its item level is 660. The higher the item level, the stronger the piece of equipment is. Upgrading gear is very straightforward in FFXIV. Endgame gear with higher item levels can be acquired from various types of content. Increasing your item level is important, as all duties have a required minimum item level, although this can be bypassed when queueing with a full premade party.

The maximum item level is increased during each expansion and each patch which introduces a new Savage raid tier. The base item level for that patch's content is the maximum armour item level for the previous patch cycle plus 10. On odd-numbered patches, the maximum item level is not increased. However, more ways to upgrade gear are introduced. Best-in-slot (BiS) gear, or the strongest gear that is available in a patch, is generally a mix of gear acquired with capped currency and acquired from Savage raids.

If you examine your gear, you will notice that each piece has materia slots. Materia are gems that are inserted into gear to gain additional substats. After players acquire endgame gear, they must get materia to meld into them to maximize their potential and customize stats to suit their job's needs. Gear acquired from raids generally has one or two materia slots, but certain pieces have three or even five guaranteed slots. Each piece of crafted gear has five slots in total.

Players can meld gear at any Materia Melder NPC in major cities or by themselves if they have a crafter job leveled to the appropriate level. Crafters can also overmeld crafted gear, allowing them to put up to five materia in them.

Materia comes in multiple grades, and the current endgame materia in Dawntrail are Grade XI and Grade XII materia. Grade XII gives the highest substats, while Grade XI materia are strictly used for overmelding crafted gear.

Melding gear is extremely important for endgame content, as it gives many substats. Materia meld priorities for jobs can be found on our job guides. Players can acquire materia from a variety of sources.

• All max level dungeons randomly drop materia, which can be either grade.
• The Adventurer in Need bonus for Duty Roulette: Leveling and Duty Roulette: Alliance rewards clusters which can be traded in for combat-based varieties of materia.
• Hunts reward many materia, including the currency listed above that can be traded for materia of the player's choice.
• Players can extract fully spiritbound gear for materia. Equipment gains spiritbond when doing level-appropriate duties with them equipped, and upon reaching 100% spiritbond, you can extract materia from it through the item menu. Only the newest expansion gear will extract into the newest materia.
• Wondrous Tails commendations can be traded in for materia currency.
• Materia can easily be bought from other players on the market board with gil.

Gear can be acquired from a variety of sources in FFXIV.

1. Dropped in dungeons;
2. Dropped in Extreme Trials, or purchased with tokens from those trials;
3. Dropped in raids, or purchased with tokens from those raids;
4. Crafted by Disciples of the Hand;
5. Purchased with Allagan Tomestones.

To learn more about the different types of content and how to acquire loot from them, visit our raiding loot and lockouts page.

Dungeon gear is generally the weakest option out of all the endgame gear sets. However, dungeon gear serves as a stepping stone for leveling for the expansion launch and for players who are catching up to the current patch cycle. These drop from dungeon treasure coffers, and players who complete a leveling dungeon will receive a random piece for their job that they do not already have. To learn more about dungeons in Dawntrail, visit our Dawntrail dungeon guide!

Extreme Trials mainly reward weapons, although certain trials will reward accessories and even armour. These duties and their weapons serve as a precursor to Savage raiding, and the difficulty of Extreme Trials is certainly a step up from all other non-Savage content in the game. Visit our Trials hub to learn more about the Extreme Trials available in Endwalker.

Raid gear can be acquired on a weekly lockout. There are three types of raids players can acquire gear from: Normal Raids, Alliance Raids, and Savage Raids. Normal Raids and Alliance Raids are of low difficulty and can be done through the duty finder on a weekly basis, while Savage Raids are much more difficult - it is recommended to form a premade party to challenge them. The gear acquired from Savage raids is some of the strongest gear available in a patch and forms a majority of the best-in-slot gear set a player can acquire. To learn more about raids, visit our Dawntrail raiding hub.

Crafted gear forms the cornerstone of raid progression. Crafted gear can be acquired for any job and is essentially unlimited with no lockout, so players can acquire crafted gear at any point for any job they would like. In addition, crafted gear is at the same item level of gear acquired through the Normal difficulty raid. However, crafted gear must be HQ to match the stats of the raid gear; Normal Quality gear is essentially worthless in terms of stats.

As the name denotes, crafted gear is made by Disciples of the Hand with materials purchased with Allagan Tomestones and those gathered by Disciples of the Land. Players without access to crafters or friends who are crafters will need to purchase these from other players on the market board. These recipes require the crafter and gatherer to have high stats, but the payoff is well worth it. To learn more about endgame crafting, visit our Dawntrail crafting guide.

Gear purchased with capped Allagan Tomestones is generally the first major upgrade players will acquire. Capped tomestone gear is ten item levels higher than crafted gear or gear acquired from Normal Raids and can be upgraded further with upgrade materials acquired from Savage Raids or Alliance Raids. Upgraded gear from Allagan Tomestones forms the other half of best-in-slot gear that can be acquired.

Uncapped Allagan Tomestones can be used to purchase gear or can be used to purchase materials needed for crafted gear. The tomestone vendor is located in Solution Nine and services both types of tomestones.

The most efficient way to acquire the capped Allagan Tomestones is to unlock and complete Duty Roulette: Expert. The dungeons reward 50 tomestones, and the roulette reward 40 for a total of 90, so it takes five roulettes a week to cap tomestones! It also rewards a great deal of uncapped tomestone both from the roulette and the duty. To learn more about Allagan Tomestones, visit our Currencies page.

Accessing Dawntrail content requires at least one Disciple of War or Magic at or above level 90. Additionally, you must have completed the Endwalker MSQ all the way up to Patch 6.55, Growing Light Part 2. For new players just reaching Endwalker, Augmented Credendum gear with an item level of 660 can be purchased from Cihanti in Radz-at-Han (x10.8, y10.4) with Allagan Tomestones of Poetics.

Ideally, buying these pieces should help you increase your item level enough to tackle the duties in Endwalker's patch 6.1 to patch 6.55. If not, consider buying item level 640 Diadochos or the new item level 645 Dawntrail leveling gear from the marketboard. Make sure you purchase HQ gear and the strongest weapon possible. You'll need to be at least item level 625 to finish Endwalker's final duties and move onto Dawntrail, though we suggest item level 640 to ensure smooth encounters.

Patch 7.0 is the first patch of Dawntrail, and with it comes a massive item level increase. Players will be given many equipment coffers as they progress through the MSQ. Between these coffers and dungeon drops, you can catch-up if needed and stay up-to-date with your item level as you approach Level 100.

Once you reach Level 99 and progress to a certain point in the main scenario, you can receive each job's Artifact Gear for free. This includes a full set of item level 690 armour and a weapon. This will be serviceable left side equipment for the entirety of endgame released so far, though further upgrades to your main(s) are recommended for the more challenging duties.

Once you reach the level cap of 100, you will be able to start acquiring endgame accessories and armour. The level cap dungeons (names redacted as to avoid spoilers!) will drop item level 690 accessories, which is again serviceable for the entirety of the endgame released so far. However, the ring is unique, so you'll have to acquire another one. Unlocking and completing the extra two level cap dungeons is necessary to unlock Duty Roulette: Expert to farm Allagan Tomestones much more easily.

At this point, players can start farming uncapped tomestones to purchase item level 700 gear. Tomestone gear serves as best-in-slot armour for Patch 7.0, but will be replaced shortly by gear from the first raid tier and crafted gear. It's up to the individual whether or not you wish to acquire this gear, though being stronger for the raid is never a bad idea.

Once you've farmed enough gear, you can tackle the two Extreme Trials in order to acquire an item level 710 weapon and item level 710 accessories, which are the strongest gear for their slots available so far. Gear up and prepare for the release of Arcadion: Light Heavyweight!

With the release of the first raid tier, AAC Light-heavyweight, new endgame gear has been added. Players can obtain item level 710 armour and accessories by completing each floor of the raid weekly and rolling for loot. As there are two weeks until the release of the Savage difficulty, players should aim to get as many good i710 pieces as possible. Job guides on Icy Veins will have optimal buying orders for each class, but don't worry too much about it as crafted gear released in two weeks will fill in the gaps.

Arcadion Savage is finally here, and that means best-in-slot gear for the patch cycle has arrived! Crafted item level 710 gear has been released, and while it may be expensive right away, it will become more affordable over time as players amass more materials required to craft them. Purchase or craft these as a way of increasing your item level to tackle harder duties.

Players can obtain item level 720 Quetzalli gear by purchasing them with Allagan Tomestones of Heliometry, which are capped at 450 per week. These can be upgraded to item level 730 by using items dropped in AAC Light-heavyweight M2 and M3, so completion and weekly farming of Savage will be required to acquire true BiS gear. For those who are not interested in Savage at all, it'll take roughly eleven weeks to acquire a full set of Quetzalli gear. To purchase the weapon, you must defeat AAC Light-heavyweight M4 once per week for seven weeks to purchase the necessary token.

Savage fights will reward item level 730 Dark Horse Champion's gear, and players can either receive coffers directly or purchase them with tokens from killing the bosses weekly. Again, these also drop upgrade materials for Quetzalli gear. BiS will be a combination of Savage gear and Tomestone gear, and Icy Veins has all possible BiS lists on our job guides. The Savage weapon is five item levels higher than the gear at 735, as usual.