GEAR UP! A GUIDE TO GEARING IN 7.5
7.5 represents the last major patch for Dawntrail, and the last injection of new gear we'll see until the next expansion lands. Whether you're just newly returning or have been here the entire time, getting geared up can be a daunting task with many options. This guide aims to help guide you through your options to gear up a level capped job. Note this is not a materia guide, as that will depend heavily on your specific job. Check out the Balance if you want to know more about what materia to use. I originally wrote this to be more generic and as a useful guide going forward, but then Fanfest happened. So now we know that this is the last gearing guide for the current system you will ever need! Note that this is long. I recommend going below the readmore, copy and pasting the text elsewhere, and then using ctrl-f to look for specifics you may be interested in.
SOME THINGS TO KNOW ABOUT CURRENCIES
We will be primarily interested in the current tier of limited and unlimited Allagan Tomestones. We do not care about Allagan Tomestones of Poetics in this guide.
The current unlimited tomestones are the Allagan Tomestones of Mathematics. While they, like all tomestones, have an overall cap of 2000 tomestones, there is no weekly limit on collecting them. You could quickly get 2000, spend them all, and then get 2000 more, no problem.
The current limited tomestones are the Allagan Tomestones of Mnemonics. These also have an overall cap of 2000 tomestones, however they also have a weekly cap of 450 tomestones. That is to say, you can earn a max of 450 of these in a week. Once you hit that limit, you're done getting more until the next Tuesday, when the weekly limit resets.
Sacks of Nuts are the currency you get for taking down Hunt targets. Hunt targets are special mobs out in the overworld that you can defeat to earn this currency. While you can get a few of them by simply visiting the Hunt Board (there's one near the marketboard in Tuliyollol), the fastest way of earning this currency is taking part in Hunt Trains on your server. Learning where to find and participate in these is outside the scope of this guide, but a quick internet search for "FFXIV Hunt Trains" should point you in the right direction.
Everkeep Certificate of Grade 3 Import are specific to crafted gear, and you can get these by turning in said crafted gear.
GEAR SLOT PRIORITY
Your weapon is, unsurprisingly, going to have the largest impact on your DPS, and will come with its own generous stat allocation. It is also the piece of gear with the fewest options for acquiring one, as you cannot get weapons from dungeons or Alliance raids.
Of your vestments (clothing, left-side gear) your Body and Leg slots are the going to be the next most important pieces of gear, as they have the largest stat allocations among all the gear that you wear.
Next of your vestments, the Head/Hands/Feet slots will have a middling stat allocation.
Last are the accessories, or the gear on the right side of your character sheet, which contribute the least to your stats.
HOW THIS GUIDE IS ORGANISED
This guide is organized by the different methods of acquiring gear, loosely in iLvl order. Next to each method listed, I will tell you what gear it applies to (weapons, vestments, and/or accessories), and then inside of each section, how to acquire the gear, and what the upgrade paths are, if any.
CRAFTED GEAR (applies to: weapon, vestments, accessories)
Crafted gear starts at iLvl 770 and can come in either normal quality (NQ) or high quality (HQ). It can be turned in to Eirene at the Nexus Arcade in Solution Nine to upgrade it to iLvl 780. The iLvl 770 HQ Crafted gear is on par with the iLvl 770 gear you can get from turning in Heavy Holotokens (which you can get by running the Arcadion Heavyweight raids). However, the large advantage of the crafted gear is it can be overmelded, and you can slot up to 5 materia into it, unlike most gear which can only take 2. Note that this overmeld advantage only applies to the iLvl 770 crafted gear. The iLvl 780 augmented crafted gear cannot be overmelded in this way.
However, there are no timer lockouts or other restrictions on how fast you can acquire crafted gear, and this perhaps will be the easiest and fastest way to get a new weapon if you need it.
ACQUIRING (iLvl 770)
You can either make it yourself, if you're a craftsman with the right books and materials, or you can simply buy it off the marketboard.
UPGRADING (iLvl 780)
Eirene is a vendor at the Nexus Arcade in Solution Nine. If you speak to her, you can turn in your iLvl 770 crafted gear for Everkeep Certificates of Grade 3 Import. Turning in an HQ item gives you enough of these to upgrade that exact same item that is turned in. If you turn in a NQ item instead, you will get far fewer certificates, and will need to turn in several items to get enough certificates for an upgrade.
This same vendor will sell you Treno Rain for some quantity of Allagan Tomestones of Mathematics.
You can turn in both Everkeep Certificates of Grade 3 Import and Treno Rain to the same vendor to upgrade your crafted gear to its augmented (iLvl 780) variant.
A reminder that, unlike the baseline iLvl 770 crafted gear, the iLvl 780 augmented crafted gear cannot be overmelded.
NORMAL RAID GEAR (applies to: weapons, vestments, accessories)
Normal raid gear comes at iLvl 770 and cannot be upgraded, with the exception of the weapon, which comes at iLvl 780 and can be upgraded. Most of this gear cannot be dyed, with the exception of the upgraded weapon.
ACQUIRING (iLvl 770)(weapon: iLvl 780)
Completing Arcadion Heavyweight raids will give you the chance to roll on Heavy Holotokens. There is one holotoken type for each vestment slot (head, body, arms, legs, feet), one holotoken type that covers all accessories, and a special holotoken type used to help you get a weapon. The body and legs will require four of their respective token, the head arms and legs require two of their respective tokens, and the accessories take one of their holotoken each. As of patch 7.5, there will be no weekly limit on acquiring these tokens, so if you're diligent and the rolls for loot go your way, you could fully gear up a job with a few raid runs.
You can turn these tokens in to Hhihwi to get your gear.
The weapon is special in a few ways. One, unlike the other gear, it can be upgraded. Two, it starts at iLvl 780. Three, it is still time locked. As of patch 7.5, you will need four Heavy Holoblade tokens, which you will turn in to Hhihwi to get one Universal Tomestone 3.0. You can only get one Heavy Holoblade per week, and it's a guaranteed drop (you will not need to roll for it) from the Heavyweight M4 (also known as M12) raid. With the Universal Tomestone 3.0 and 500 Allagan Tomestones of Mnemonics in hand, you will need to go over to Zircon who is at the same counter as Hhihwi. Turn in all those tomestones, univeral and Mnemonic, and you will get your weapon.
UPGRADING (WEAPON ONLY: iLvl 790)
The Heavyweight raid vestments and accessories can not be upgraded in any way. The weapon, however, can be upgraded. You will need a Thundersteeped Solvent. Take the Thundersteeped Solvent and your iLvl 780 Bygone Brass weapon to Theone , and trade them in to get your augmented weapon.
As of 7.5 going live, the only way to get this Solvent is to either successfully roll for it as a drop from Heavyweight M3S (also known as M11S), the Tyrant. Or to turn in four AAC Illustrated: HW Edition III books into to Hhihwi. These books are a guaranteed reward from M11S, and you can get one per week.
Eventually, you should be able to buy the Solvent using Alliance raid coins, but I do not know when that will happen.
TOMESTONE GEAR (applies to: weapon, vestments, accessories)
Tomestone gear is most likely going to be the gear that carries you into the next expansion. Historically, the augmented tomestone gear is what you would eventually be able to buy with poetics with the launch of a new expansion, but with the changes occurring in 8.0, I am no longer certain if that will still be true. However, you can certainly get it right now, and it can be upgraded into an augmented variant. The non-augmented gear cannot be dyed, but the augmented gear can be.
ACQUIRING (iLvl 780)
Every week you can earn up to 450 Tomestones of Mnemonics. You can store these earned tomestones up to a maximum capacity of 2000 tomestones. You can spend these tokens with Zircon to get the unaugmented iLvl 780 gear. The weapon is a special exception, as it will also require a Universal Tomestone 3.0. There are two ways to get this Universal Tomestone: either by turning in four Heavy Holoweapon tokens, which you can get by running the Heavyweight M4 (also known as M12) raid once per week; or by defeating Heavyweight M2 Savage (also known as M10S) and successfully rolling on one
UPGRADING (iLvl 790)
You can upgrade your basic Bygone tomestone gear by turning it in, along with an upgrade item, to Theone in the Nexus Arcade in Solution 9. The upgrade item is a Thundersteeped Solvent for weapons, Thundersteeped Twine for vestments (left side gear), or Thundersteeping Glaze for accessories (right side gear). Once upgraded, the gear becomes dyeable.
There are a few ways to acquire Thundersteeped Twine and Thundersteeping Glaze.
First, they can be purchased from Uah'shepya in the Nexus Arcade in Solution 9. She will ask for one coin from completing each of the Alliance raids. You can earn as many Ordelle and Montiont coins as you like per week, one for each time you complete their respective raids (Jeuno: The First Walk and San d'Oria: The Second Walk respectively). The third coin, a Ranperre coin, can only be earned once per week by completing the third Alliance Raid, Windurst: The Third Walk. Earning this coin will also eventually become unlimited, but I do not know when that will happen.
Second, they can be purchased from the Clan Hunt vendor for the expansion, Ryubool Ja in Tuliyollal. The Twine costs 3000 Sacks of Nuts, and the Glaze costs 2000 Sacks of Nuts. There is no limit on how fast you can earn these currencies, and they have a capacity of 4000 before you have to spend them. This can be the fastest way to upgrade your gear, so long as you can routinely catch hunt trains. How to go about doing so is outside the scope of this guide, however.
Lastly, the Twine, Glaze, and ALSO the Solvent can be rolled for as a drop from the Arcadion Heavyweight Savage raids. Heavyweight M2 Savage (aka M10S) drops the Glaze, and Heavyweight M3 Savage (aka M11S) drops both the Twine and the Solvent. The Heavyweight Savage raids also drop AAC Illustrated edition books, which can be turned in to Hhihwi at the Nexus Arcade in Solution Nine. 3 AAC Illustrated: HW Edition II books can be turned in for one Glaze. 4 AAC Illustrated: HW Edition III books can be turned in for either a Solvent or a Twine. The Edition II books are a once a week guaranteed reward for completing Heavyweight M2 Savage (M10S) and the Edition III books are a once a week guaranteed reward for completing Heavyweight M3 Savage (M11S).
Later in the patch cycle, the Thundersteeped Solvent will also be able to be purchased from Uah'shepya for Alliance raid coins, and Ryubool Ja for Sacks of Nuts. I do not know when this will happen.
ALLIANCE RAID GEAR (vestments only)
Alliance Raid gear will be available in Windurst: The Third Walk. This gear is dyeable, and has no upgrade paths. Note that this will be vestments (left-side) gear only. The Alliance raid has no weapons, and no accessories.
ACQUIRING (iLvl 780)
You can roll on loot dropped from defeating bosses in Windurst: The Third Walk. You can only win one piece of gear per week, and after you win a roll, you will be locked out from getting any other gear until the weekly reset on the next Tuesday. Again, note that you can only get vestments, and that while they will be dyeable, there is no upgrade path for this gear.
EXTREME (weapon only)
Completing an extreme trial will give you a chance to roll on a weapon coffer, as well as a totem. Ten of the same totem can be turned in to Uah'shepya to purchase one of the weapons available from that same Extreme.
ACQUIRING (iLvl 775 / iLvl 785 (estimated))
Beat an Extreme Trial and roll on the weapon, or beat the Extreme ten times and use the totems to buy a weapon. There is no limit on how many totems per week you can get from running the Extreme trials.
For the purposes of this guide, the extreme trials of interest are Hell on Rails (Extreme) for the iLvl 775 weapon, and the new extreme trial in Patch 7.5, The Unmaking (Extreme), which will probably drop an iLvl 785 weapon.
There are no upgrade paths for these weapons.
SAVAGE (weapon, vestments, accessories)
Savage raid gear matches the Heavyweight Normal raid gear in appearance, but has the advantage of being dyeable, and currently will be the source of some of the best in slot gear available. It has no upgrade path, but does not need one.
ACQUIRING (iLvl 790)
Each of the four Heavyweight Savage raids have different drops. How much gear a given raid will drop will depend on how many people have already completed that raid for the week, with the most loot dropping when nobody has cleared that boss for the week (8/8 people eligible for rewards). If 1-4 people have already cleared the raid that week, but the rest have not, the boss will drop half the loot it would have otherwise. If five or more people have cleared the raid that week already, the boss will not drop loot at all.
However, no matter how many people have cleared, if it is your first time clearing the raid that week, you will get an AAC Illustrated: HW Edition book corresponding to the raid. The books can be turned in to purchase your gear instead of rolling on it.
Note that the bosses drop coffers, each of which will be for a specific gear slot. The gear that comes out of that coffer will be for the job that opens it, so if your Paladin opens a Foot gear coffer, they will get Fending Boots.
Heavyweight M1 Savage (M9S) drops accessories. Heavyweight M2 Savage (M10S) drops head, foot, and hand gear, as well as a Thundersteeping Glaze which can be used to upgrade tomestone accessories. Heavyweight M3 Savage (M11S) drops chest and leg gear, as well as Thundersteeped Twine and Thundersteeped Solvent, which can be used to upgrade the tomestone vestments and weapon, respectively. Heavyweight M4 Savage (M12S) drops the iLvl 795 weapon.
You can also purchase gear by using the AAC Illustrated: HW Edition Books. The books can be turned in to Hhihwi at the Nexus Arcade in Solution Nine.
Three HW Edition I books can be used to purchase an accessory. Four HW Edition II books can be used to purchase either head, hand, or foot gear. Six HW Edition III books can be used to purchase chest or leg gear. Eight HW Edition IV books can be used to purchase the weapon.
As well as gear, the books can be used to purchase upgrade materials for the Tomestone gear. It takes three HW Edition II books to buy Thundersteeping Glaze for upgrading accessories, or four HW Edition III books to buy Thundersteeping Twine (for upgrading vestments) or Thundersteeping Solvent (for upgrading the Bygone weapon).
The HW Edition IV books can also be turned in at a one-for-one rate for earlier edition books.
RELIC (weapon only)
Getting a relic weapon is a long and involved process that involves multiple grinding steps and spending a lot of Allagan Tomestones of Mathematics. It's included here for completion's sake, but talking about the full relic process is outside the scope of this guide. In any case, the final step of the relic weapon will not be able to be completed until Patch 7.55 lands, currently slated for July 28. Once available, it should be an iLvl 795 weapon, on par with the Savage weapon. Currently, if you have been keeping up with the Relic process, the best weapon you can get from the process is iLvl 775.
SUMMARY
tl;dr
CRAFTED GEAR
iLvl 770 weapon/vestments/accessories: can be crafted or purchased from the marketboard. Can be pentamelded.
iLvl 780 weapon/vestments/accessories upgrade: Available through Eirene, in the Nexus Arcade. Cannot be pentamelded.
NORMAL RAID GEAR
iLvl 770 vestments/accessories: Earn tokens from running Heavyweight Normal Raids and turn them in to Hhihwi in the Nexus Arcade. No limit.
iLvl 780 weapon: You can earn one weapon token a week from Heavyweight M4 (M12 normal). Turn in four weapon tokens (after 7.5 is live!) to get a Universal Tomestone 3.0 from Hhihwi. Turn in that and 500 Allagan Tomestones of Mathematics to Zircon to get your weapon.
TOMESTONE GEAR
iLvl 780 vestments/accessories: Spend Allagan Tomestones of Mathematics with Zircon in the Nexus Arcade. You can earn 450 a week, and can carry a max of 2000.
iLvl 780 weapon: 500 Allagan Tomestones of Mathematics and a Universal Tomestone 3.0, which you can get from turning in Heavy Holoblade tokens from the Normal raids to Hhihwi.
iLvl 790: Turn in an upgrade item (glaze, twine, or solvent) and the gear piece to Theone in the Nexus Arcade to get the upgraded item.
ALLIANCE RAID GEAR
iLvl 780 vestments: You can get one piece of vestment gear per week from Windurst: The Third Walk.
EXTREME RAID GEAR
iLvl 775 weapon: Roll successfully on a weapon coffer from Hell on Rails (Extreme), or get 10 totems from the same and turn them in to Uah'shepya in the Nexus Arcade to just buy a weapon.
iLvl 785 (estimated) weapon: Roll successfully on a weapon coffer from The Unmaking (Extreme), or get 10 totems from the same and turn them in to Uah'shepya in the Nexus Arcade to just buy a weapon.
SAVAGE
iLvl 790 vestments/accessories: Roll on gear chests from beating savage bosses, or turn in AAC Illustrated HW Edition books to Hhihwi to just buy the gear.
iLvl 795 weapon: Roll on a gear chest from Heavyweight M4 Savage (M12S), or turn in eight AAC Illustrated HW Edition IV books to Hhihwi to just buy the weapon.
TOMESTONE UPGRADE ITEMS
Thundersteeping Glaze-
1 Ordelle coin, 1 Montiont coin, 1 Ranperre coin to Uah'shepya in Solution Nine
2000 Sacks of Nuts to Ryubool Ja in Tuliyollal
Drops from Heavyweight M2 Savage (M10S) - 3 AAC Illustrated HW Edition II books to Hhihwi in Solution Nine
Thundersteeped Twine-
1 Ordelle coin, 1 Montiont coin, 1 Ranperre coin to Uah'shepya in Solution Nine
3000 Sacks of Nuts to Ryubool Ja in Tuliyollal - Drops from Heavyweight M3 Savage (M11S)
4 AAC Illustrated HW Edition III books to Hhihwi in Solution Nine
Thundersteeped Solvent-
Drops from Heavyweight M3 Savage (M11S)
4 AAC Illustrated HW Edition III books to Hhihwi in Solution Nine
