Welcome to the FFXIV Gear Guide! This comprehensive guide helps players optimize their gear, ensuring maximum efficiency in both leveling and endgame content. Perfect for new and experienced adventurers alike, it covers gear acquisition, optimization, and class-specific tips to enhance your gameplay experience. Whether you’re a casual player or a hardcore raider, this guide provides the insights you need to make informed decisions and dominate Eorzea!
What is Best-in-Slot (BiS) Gear?
Best-in-Slot (BiS) gear refers to the optimal equipment setup for a specific job or role, providing the highest possible performance in terms of stats, item level, and effectiveness. BiS gear is determined by balancing stat priorities, materia melding, and the latest game updates. It is typically a combination of high-item-level pieces from raids, dungeons, tomestone vendors, and crafted gear. BiS setups can vary depending on the job, its role (tank, healer, DPS), and the content being played, such as savage raids or Ultimate fights. Achieving BiS gear requires careful planning, resource management, and often collaboration with other players. While BiS gear is ideal for competitive play, it is not strictly necessary for casual content, allowing players to progress at their own pace. Understanding BiS gear helps players optimize their characters for challenging duties and improve their overall gameplay experience in Final Fantasy XIV.
Importance of Gear in FFXIV
Gear plays a crucial role in Final Fantasy XIV, directly impacting your character’s performance, survivability, and ability to contribute to duties. Higher-item-level gear enhances your stats, such as strength, intelligence, or vitality, which are essential for dealing damage, healing, or withstanding attacks. Properly optimized gear ensures you can effectively execute your job’s rotations and maintain a competitive edge, especially in challenging endgame content like savage raids or Ultimate fights. While casual players can progress with mid-tier gear, investing in better equipment becomes necessary as you tackle harder duties. Gear progression also serves as a milestone in the game, allowing access to more demanding content and fostering a sense of accomplishment. Ultimately, gear is a cornerstone of character development, enabling players to fully realize their job’s potential and contribute effectively to their team’s success.
Current Meta and Gear Tiers
The current meta in FFXIV emphasizes optimizing gear tiers to maximize performance. Higher tiers significantly enhance stats, making them crucial for challenging content. Gear choices must align with patch updates and job roles to remain effective.
Item Level Progression
Item level progression is crucial for optimizing your character’s performance in FFXIV. Starting from lower tiers during leveling, gear with higher item levels significantly boosts stats, enabling tackling of challenging content. At level 90, focusing on acquiring gear with the highest item level is essential for endgame activities. Tomestone gear, crafted items, and raid drops are primary sources for high IL equipment. Progression involves upgrading from Augmented Ironworks to Babyface Champions and Historia gear, ensuring optimal stats for your job. Regularly updating your gear with the latest item levels ensures competitiveness in raids and dungeons. Crafting high-tier Master Recipes XII in Patch 7.3 offers superior gear, while exotic sources like Eureka and Resistance weapons provide alternatives. Balancing item level and stat priorities is key to excelling in Eorzea’s demanding endgame.
Stat Priorities for Each Job
Stat priorities vary significantly across FFXIV jobs, making it essential to tailor your gear choices to your role. Tanks typically prioritize Strength and Vitality for survivability and damage output, while healers focus on Mind and Piety to maximize healing efficiency. For DPS jobs, stat priorities differ between melee and caster roles. Melee DPS often favor Strength or Dexterity for increased damage, while casters rely on Intelligence and Critical Hit Rate for spell potency. Materia melding plays a crucial role in fine-tuning stats to meet job-specific needs. Advanced players often use simulators to determine optimal stat allocations, ensuring maximum effectiveness in raids and dungeons. Balancing stats correctly is vital for achieving peak performance, especially in high-end content where even small optimizations can make a significant difference.
Acquiring Gear
Gear can be obtained through various methods, including tomestone rewards, dungeon drops, crafting, and exotic sources like Eureka or trials. Each method offers unique advantages and challenges.
Tomestone Gear
Tomestone Gear is a primary source of high-end equipment, obtainable through Weekly Allagan Tomestones of Poetics. These are earned by completing various endgame activities, such as Savage Raids, Extreme Trials, and high-end dungeons. Each piece of Tomestone Gear can be upgraded using additional tomestones, significantly boosting its item level and stats. This method is ideal for players seeking consistent progression without relying on drop luck. Additionally, Augmented Gear can be further enhanced with crafted materials, offering even greater power. Tomestones are a reliable way to acquire BiS (Best-in-Slot) items, ensuring your character stays competitive in challenging content. Regularly farming tomestones and upgrading your gear is a cornerstone of endgame progression in FFXIV.
Dungeon and Raid Gear
Dungeon and Raid Gear are essential for progressing through FFXIV’s endgame content, offering high item levels and job-specific stats. These drops are often the first step in acquiring Best-in-Slot (BiS) items, especially for new players. Dungeons provide consistent drops, while Raids, particularly Savage Raids, offer the highest-tier gear. Each boss in a raid drops specific loot, allowing players to target desired pieces. Many raid sets can be augmented or upgraded using additional materials, enhancing their power. While drop rates can be unpredictable, repeating content and using lootmaster rules help in efficiently farming desired gear. Dungeon and Raid Gear remain a cornerstone of endgame progression, offering both power and style for your character.
Crafted Gear
Crafted Gear is a powerful option for players seeking high-quality equipment without relying on drops. Skilled Disciples of the Hand can craft top-tier items, often rivaling or surpassing Raid and Dungeon Gear. In Patch 7.2, Master Recipes XII introduce crafted tools, armor, and accessories that are considered Best-in-Slot for many jobs. These items require rare materials, including those from the new expansion’s zones and dungeons. Crafting gear offers flexibility, allowing players to customize stats through Materia melding. Additionally, crafted sets can be augmented, further enhancing their performance. While crafting requires significant time and resources, it provides a reliable way to obtain optimal gear, making it a popular choice for both casual and advanced players aiming to min-max their builds.
Exotic Gear Sources
Exotic Gear Sources offer unique and often limited-time opportunities to acquire exceptional equipment. These include special event rewards, collaboration events, and exclusive drops from FFXIV’s periodic campaigns. For instance, the Manderville Weapons and Phantom Armor series provide distinctive, high-item-level gear that not only excels in performance but also offers unique aesthetics. Additionally, certain gear sets, like the Resistance Weapons from the Save the Queen series, are obtained through lengthy questlines and offer superior stats. These sources often require completing specific tasks or participating in time-sensitive events, making the gear highly sought after. Exotic gear can be a valuable addition to any player’s arsenal, blending style and power to enhance both form and function in Eorzea.
Optimizing Your Gear
Optimizing your gear involves strategically melding materia, utilizing food buffs, and fine-tuning stat priorities to maximize your job’s performance. This ensures your character is fully prepared for any challenge.
Materia Melding
Materia melding is a crucial process in FFXIV that enhances gear by infusing it with materia, granting stat boosts tailored to your job. By carefully selecting and combining materia, players can optimize their gear for maximum effectiveness in combat. This step is especially vital for endgame content, where even small stat increases can significantly impact performance. Advanced strategies involve calculating the most beneficial materia combinations and prioritizing stats based on job requirements. Regularly updating your materia setup ensures your character remains competitive, making melding a cornerstone of gear optimization.
Food and Buffs
Food and buffs are essential components that complement your gear, providing additional stat boosts to enhance performance in FFXIV. High-quality food can significantly increase your primary stats, such as strength or intelligence, while also improving secondary stats like critical hit rate or skill speed. These effects are temporary but can make a substantial difference in challenging content like raids or dungeons. Buffs, on the other hand, are status effects obtained through abilities, potions, or other items, offering benefits like increased attack power or reduced damage taken. Timing the use of food and buffs before difficult encounters ensures optimal performance. Advanced players often combine multiple buffs and food effects to maximize their efficiency. Using these tools effectively can help bridge the gap between your current gear and the demands of high-end content, making them indispensable for both casual and advanced players alike.
Class-Specific Gear Guides
Explore detailed gear recommendations tailored to each job, including tanks, healers, and DPS. Learn how to optimize your gear based on role-specific stats and item level requirements for maximum performance in FFXIV. These guides help you understand the best practices for equipping your character, ensuring you’re always prepared for any challenge. Regular updates keep you informed about the latest gear trends and patches, so you can maintain your edge in the ever-evolving world of Eorzea.
Tank BiS List
For tanks in FFXIV, achieving Best-in-Slot (BiS) gear is crucial for maximizing survivability and mitigation. The current meta emphasizes a balance of strength, vitality, and critical hit rate to maintain optimal enmity and damage reduction. BiS gear for tanks typically includes high-item-level (ilvl) armor and weapons from the latest savage raids and crafted masterpieces. Tomestone gear remains a viable alternative for players who prefer a more casual progression path. Accessories, such as earrings and necklaces, are often sourced from exotic vendors or crafted using rare materials. Weapon upgrades, like the current relic weapon tied to the Hildibrand questline, further enhance tank performance. Casual players can start with Augmented Tomestone gear, while advanced players may focus on min-maxing through savage raid drops and crafted BiS sets. This guide ensures tanks are well-equipped to protect their allies in even the most challenging content.
Healer BiS List
For healers in FFXIV, Best-in-Slot (BiS) gear focuses on maximizing healing output, mana efficiency, and survivability. The current meta prioritizes high Mind, Piety, and Critical Hit Rate for optimal performance. BiS gear for healers often includes a mix of tomestone gear, crafted masterpieces, and exotic drops. Accessories, such as earrings and necklaces, play a crucial role in enhancing healing potency. Weapons, including the latest relic weapons from the Hildibrand questline, are essential for maximizing spell speed and critical hits. Casual players can achieve strong performance with Augmented Tomestone gear, while advanced players may pursue crafted BiS sets or savage raid drops. This guide ensures healers are equipped to provide exceptional support in any content, from casual dungeons to high-end raids.
DPS BiS List
DPS BiS gear in FFXIV is tailored to maximize damage output, with a focus on Strength or Dexterity for melee roles, and Intelligence for casters. Current BiS sets often combine high-tier crafted gear, tomestone pieces, and exotic drops. Weapons, such as the Babyface Champions, are crucial for their high base damage and stat bonuses. Accessories and armor pieces from savage raids provide optimal stat allocations, ensuring peak performance in challenging content. Materia melding plays a significant role, with emphasis on Critical Hit Rate and Skill Speed for melee, and Critical Hit Rate and Spell Speed for casters. While casual players can achieve strong results with Augmented Tomestone gear, advanced players may opt for crafted masterpieces or high-end raid drops to min-max their builds and climb higher in FFLogs rankings. This guide ensures DPS players are well-equipped to deliver maximum damage in any scenario, whether it’s a casual dungeon run or a high-stakes Ultimate fight.
Final Tips for Gear Progression
Prioritize high-item-level gear, use tomestone pieces as a base, and meld materia strategically. Track upgrades via tools like xivgear.app and stay updated on meta changes to optimize your setup effectively.
Casual Player Tips
For casual players, focusing on high-efficiency gear progression is key. Start by completing leveling dungeons to acquire base gear, ensuring each piece matches your class. Use tomestones to fill gaps in your set and prioritize crafted gear for its flexibility. Don’t hesitate to use the Recommended Gear feature to automatically equip the best available items. Additionally, meld materia wisely, focusing on stats that complement your job. Regularly check the marketplace for affordable upgrades and consider joining a Free Company for support. Finally, take advantage of weekly resets to earn tomestones and gradually improve your gear without feeling rushed. This approach ensures steady progression and enjoyable gameplay.
Advanced Gear Strategies
For advanced players aiming to min-max their characters, prioritizing Best-in-Slot (BiS) gear is crucial. Focus on acquiring the highest item level (ilvl) pieces from savage raids, extreme trials, or crafted Master Recipes. Understanding your job’s stat priorities is essential; allocate materia melds to maximize primary stats like Strength, Intelligence, or Critical Hit for optimal performance. Utilize tools like FFXIV gear planners to simulate and compare sets, ensuring minimal overlaps in stats. Additionally, consider the synergy between gear and food buffs to further enhance your character’s potential. For those chasing competitive rankings, stay updated on the latest patch notes and meta shifts to maintain a top-tier build. Advanced strategies involve balancing aesthetics with performance, ensuring your gear not only looks great but also excels in challenging content like Ultimate fights or high-tier raids.
Gearing up in Final Fantasy XIV is a journey that enhances your character’s strength and versatility. By understanding item levels, stat priorities, and acquisition methods, you can efficiently progress through the game. Whether you’re a casual player or an advanced raider, optimizing your gear ensures a smoother experience in dungeons, raids, and other content. Remember, the best gear is not just about numbers but also about how it complements your playstyle. Stay updated with the latest patches and meta changes to maintain a competitive edge. With patience and strategy, you’ll unlock the full potential of your Warrior of Light and conquer Eorzea’s challenges in style!