Introduction to Palace of the Dead in FFXIV

Palace of the Dead is the first Deep Dungeon players will encounter, with 200 floors and a level cap of 60. All players will begin at level 1 when starting on Floor 1, and level 60 when starting on Floor 51. You must complete the quest The House That Death Built in order to enter the duty.

Clearing a floorset inside Palace of the Dead rewards players with gil and experience at all levels. Players at or above level 50 are also awarded Allagan Tomestones of Poetics. Players at the current level cap are also awarded with both the capped and uncapped Tomestones currently available.

Upon reaching floor 200, a pedestal can be found. Interacting with this will give all players either a Firecrest or a Glass Pumpkin. These can be exchanged for accessories or housing items at E-Una-Kotor in Quarrymill. Which one you receive is random each time you clear.

Various Titles are available from clearing Palace of the Dead.

• Hero of Gelmorra: Clear floor 100 of Palace of the Dead.
• Corpse Dancer: Clear floor 100 of Palace of the Dead, then complete the quest Dead but Not Gone.
• Lonely Explorer: Clear floor 100 of Palace of the Dead solo, having started from floor 1 and not recorded a single KO.
• The Necromancer: Clear floor 200 of Palace of the Dead solo, having started from floor 1 and not recorded a single KO.

• Q: What food should I use?
  • A: Use the highest item level food available, as it gives the most Vitality. As of patch 7.05, this food is HQ i710 Moqueca or equivalent.
• Q: What healing potions should I use?
  • A: If your HP is above 9600, a Super-Potion is recommended as it will restore the most amount of HP. If you have less than that, you will gain more HP back from a Max-Potion.
• Q: Should I use damage potions?
  • A: Damage-increasing Tinctures can be used for a dps boost as necessary, such as the enrage push for the floor 180 boss. The cheapest HQ Tinctures you can currently buy will be the ones for the current raid tier most of the time, as they have the highest supply. As of patch 7.05, these are Grade 2 Gemdraught Tinctures.
• Q: Is there anything else I need to know about consumables?
  • A: Sustaining Potions have their own 15s recast timer. However, all other potions mentioned above share the same recast timer. As damage Tinctures have a 4m30s recast, this means you will be unable to use a healing potion until that timer is done, so be aware of this if you plan to use one.

Sustaining Potions are an item that can only be used inside Palace of the Dead. They give the user a health regeneration effect for 30 seconds, and has a 15 second cooldown, allowing them to be permanently in effect if necessary. These potions are extremely helpful in party runs, but are required for survival in solo runs, especially on jobs with few or no other ways of healing.

20 Sustaining Potions can be bought with 1 Gelmorran Potsherd from E-Una-Kotor at Quarrymill. Potsherds can rarely be found inside Bronze Coffers in Palace of the Dead. You also get a guaranteed Potsherd after the floor 50 boss and another after the floor 100 boss.

In order to farm Potsherds efficiently, you should first enter the dungeon solo on floor 51. From here, descend to floor 100. The drop rate of Potsherds is significantly higher on floors 101 and onwards than it is on earlier ones, so once you make it past the boss on floor 100 you'll be able to collect a significant number of them quickly.

If you wish to attempt a solo clear of Palace of the Dead in order to obtain the Pal-less Palace III achievement and The Necromancer title, you should ideally have at least 500 Sustaining Potions before beginning. While you may find yourself needing more potions than this across the entire run, with some jobs requiring over 700, you will be picking up more Potsherds along the way that can be exchanged for Potions between floorsets.

Players will be restricted to the use of an Aetherpool Arm and Aetherpool Armour while inside Palace of the Dead. In addition to gaining levels, players must enhance these items as they progress through the dungeon by opening Silver Coffers, up to the cap of +99 for each item.

In order to farm Aetherpool efficiently, you should enter the dungeon on floor 51 with either a matched party, or a fixed party of four players, and open as many Silver Coffers as possible. Upon clearing the floorset, delete the save file and re-enter, repeating as needed.

You can exchange 10 Aetherpool from both your Weapon and Armour for an Aetherpool Grip at E-Una-Kotor. You can then exchange three Grips (total 30/30 Aetherpool) for an i235 Padjali Weapon, allowing you to glamour the appearance of low level Atherpool Arms to regular weapons outside of Palace of the Dead. By later trading in your Padjali weapon, plus an additional six Grips (total 90/90 Atherpool), you can obtain an i255 Kinna weapon, allowing you to glamour the appearance of high level Atherpool Arms to regular weapons outside of Palace of the Dead.

Throughout the Deep Dungeon, there is a small chance that unique enemies will spawn. These mobs take on the appearance of zombified NPCs that have died in the MSQ or side stories. While they are mechanically unthreatening, due to only using auto attacks, they are immune to the transformation effect of a Pomander of Witching and should be treated with care. All of them take significantly increased damage from attacks used by players under the effects of a Pomander of Resolution.

While clearing Palace of the Dead with a full party of four players is usually faster, safer and easier than entering alone, clearing the dungeon by yourself from beginning to end is not only possible. Players are rewarded with a rare and prestigious title, The Necromancer, upon clearing floor 200 with no deaths on a run that started from floor 1.

Clearing Palace of the Dead solo relies entirely on a player's individual skill, and can therefore be a welcome change of pace for those who are used to the standard eight player content of Savage and Ultimate raids. However, it is easy for some players to become frustrated or burnt out when attempting to clear. Being able to take a break for as long as needed before returning to the same save file and picking up where you left of is important to keep in mind if you find yourself struggling.

As of 7.05 every job has cleared Palace of the Dead solo. However, some jobs are much easier or harder to achieve this feat with. The floor 180 boss, Dendaisonne, has an enrage sequence that often spells the end of many runs and playing a job with a stronger burst window or better healing can make this challenge much easier. Even outside of this example, Tanks and Healers will find it harder to stay on pace when progressing through later floorsets, as their damage output is lower than that of DPS jobs which will result in more time taken per floor.

The jobs listed below are the main standouts at both ends of the difficulty scale for soloing Palace of the Dead.

• Machinist
  • Machinist excels in kiting and burst damage, as well as highly useful crowd control in the form of Head Graze, Leg Graze and Foot Graze. Peloton is also an extremely valuable skill for navigation through the floors as the extra movement speed allows you to traverse floors faster.
  • Machinist's burst allows it to be one of the easiest jobs to clear the floor 180 boss with thanks to skills such as the Reassemble Drill combo, Hypercharge under Wildfire, and Rook Autoturret.

• Summoner
  • Summoner, like Machinist, excels in kiting and burst damage. Unlike Machinist and most other jobs, it has no gauge it needs to build or resources it needs to manage beyond Fester charges and can simply chain pull enemies rather than wait for cooldowns to come back before initiating. It also has a strong survivability tool with Radiant Aegis.
  • Summoner's burst consists of summoning its primals before entering Dreadwyrm Trance and using Astral Impulse and Deathflare. While not as strong of a burst as Machinist, it is still one of the best options for lowering the challenge of this floorset.

• Warrior
  • Warrior excels in survivability, having access to abilities such as Raw Intuition. It has good burst with Berserk and Fell Cleave. With Holmgang having such a short cooldown in relation to other tank invulnerability skills, it can be used to save runs or more frequently enable strategies such as intentionally stepping on Landmines after having rounded up multiple enemies in order to quickly clear a floor.
  • Warrior is one of the safest jobs to approach the floor 180 boss with, able to make use of its multitude of healing skill alongside its invulnerability to comfortably survive longer than other jobs would be able to.

• Red Mage
  • Red Mage is a very balanced job to take into Palace of the Dead, with good burst and access to healing in the form of Vercure as well as the ability to Sleep mobs in an emergency.
  • Red Mage is able to defeat the floor 180 boss in a similar style to Machinist by stacking Embolden and Manafication for a triple melee combo and has healing tools as a backup in case it needs the safety net.

• Astrologian
  • Astrologian has the lowest personal DPS of all jobs in the game, due to being designed around gaining a significant amount of its power from feeding teammates raid buffs such as its cards and Divination in eight-player raids. As such, it is by far the hardest job to clear Palace of the Dead with, and needs to make full use of both pomanders and strategies like intentionally stepping on Landmines in order to clear floors fast enough to have a chance of completing each floorset.
  • Like all healers, Astrologian has a different challenge ahead for the floor 180 boss than other jobs. As it is able to keep itself healed during the final part of the fight, it is more a matter of having cleared the previous floors fast enough to have the time to kill the boss before the instance timer expires.

• Bard and Dancer
  • Despite having access to all the same role actions as Machinist, as well as Bard having The Warden's Paean, both of these jobs can struggle with Palace of the Dead due to their lower personal DPS. Much like Astrologian they are designed around contributing significantly to the rest of the party.
  • Both jobs find the floor 180 boss extremely challenging due to their lower damage output, though Dancer's ability to stock resources for burst with Fan Dance and additional healing with Curing Waltz do help it in this specific scenario.