Search our Entire Website





End Game Guide (2.3)

This guide is current as of patch 2.51.

This guide has not yet been updated for Heavensward and needs to be rewritten.

The purpose of this guide is to talk about the current end-game activities in FFXIV: ARR and give you some guidance of what you should be aiming for and when, to keep you on the right track. The guide will continually update and change throughout the lifespan of the game in order to keep current and remove activities which are no longer considered end-game.

Make no mistake, end-game is all about challenging harder and harder content and having fun while doing so. As you complete content you will gain better gear, which can be used to challenge even harder content. If your gear is not good enough then you will struggle with content, so it is important to not get too far ahead of yourself. While it may feel that end-game is all about gear, the main thing is having fun. The gear rewards you for taking on the challenges and gives you the feeling of getting stronger as you beat higher challenges.

End game in FFXIV: A Realm Reborn currently begins at level 50. Upon reaching this level you should prepare for end-game by first completing your level 50 job quest to gain your final piece of AF armour. You should then complete the main scenario, which will take you to Castrum Meridianum and The Praetorium.

You now have all of your job skills and a basic set of equipment to begin end game with. You may need to take a look at your accessories and get level 50 ones for any that aren't up to standard, and it is worth picking up your level 50 Grand Company weapon as it will be your best weapon at this point.


iLevel & Tokens


From here onwards the ilevel of equipment is important. This is basically a tier system where higher ilevel means better gear stats and higher performance in battle. The tiers drop in dungeons, primals, trials, raids or can be bought with tokens. You can expect to find the following tiers of equipment in the following locations:

ILevel Weapon Location Armour Location
55 Wanderer's Palace, Amdapor Keep Wanderer's Palace, Amdapor Keep
60 Ifrit Primal Pharos Sirius, Haukke Manor (Hard), Copperbell Mines (Hard)
70 Garuda Primal, Crafted Brayflox's Longstop (Hard), Halatali (Hard), The Lost City of Amdapor, Crafted
75 Moogle Primal N/A
80 Relic Weapon Crystal Tower: Labyrinth of the Ancients, Ultima Weapon, Tam-Tara Deepcroft (Hard), Stone Vigil (Hard), Hullbreaker Isle
90 Relic Weapon +1, Extreme Primals Binding Coil of Bahamut, Extreme Primals, Mythology Tokens, Crafted
95 Binding Coil of Bahamut Turn 5, Leviathan Extreme N/A
100 Leviathan Extreme Mirror Upgrade, Ramuh Extreme, Animus Relic, Soldiery Token Weathered Weapons Crystal Tower: Syrcus Tower, Soldiery Token Weathered Set, Thornmarch Extreme (Necklace only), Ramuh Extreme (Ring only)
110 Soldiery Token Weathered Upgrades, Novus Relic, Shiva Weapon Second Coil of Bahamut, Soldiery Token Weathered Upgrades
115 Second Coil of Bahamut Turn 4, Nexus Relic
120 Poetic Token Weathered Poetic Token Weathered, Crystal Tower: World of Darkness
130 Poetic Token Weathered Upgrades Poetic Token Weathered Upgrades, Final Coil of Bahamut
135 Final Coil of Bahamut Turn 4


So what are these tokens I mentioned? When completing dungeons, raids or primal battles you will earn a number of tokens as a reward. These can then be used as currency in Auriana's shop, who is located in Mor Dhona. Potetic tokens are harder to come by as most dungeons give 0 and you are capped at 450 per week. For now it is not worth worrying too much about these as you are still new to end game, however it is worth listing where tokens come from.

Dungeons

Content Level iLevel Entry Requirement Soldiery Tokens Poetic Tokens
Castrum Meridianum 50 N/A 20 0
The Praetorium 50 N/A 20 0
Wanderer's Palace 50 N/A 20 5
Amdapor Keep 50 N/A 20 5
Pharos Sirius 50 48 30 10
Haukke Manor (Hard) 50 48 30 10
Copperbell Mines (Hard) 50 48 30 10
Halatali (Hard) 50 55 40 15
Brayflox's Longstop (Hard) 50 55 40 15
The Lost City of Amdapor 50 55 40 15
Tam-Tara Deepcroft (Hard) 50 70 50 20
Stone Vigil (Hard) 50 70 50 20
Hullbreaker Isle 50 70 50 20
Sastasha Seagrot (Hard) 50 80 70 30
The Sunken Temple of Qarn (Hard) 50 80 70 30
Snowcloak 50 80 70 30
The Wanderer's Palace (Hard) 50 90 100 40
Amdapor Keep (Hard) 50 90 100 40
Keeper of the Lake 50 90 100 40


Raids

Content Level iLevel Entry Requirement Soldiery Tokens Poetic Tokens
Crystal Tower: Labyrinth of the Ancients 50 50 100 10
Crystal Tower: Syrcus Tower 50 70 100 15
Crystal Tower: World of Darkness 50 90 100 20
The Binding Coil of Bahamut Turns 1, 2, 4, 5 50 70, 73, 70, 77, 82 10 5
The Second Coil of Bahamut Turns 1, 2, 3, 4 50 N/A 20 10
The Final Coil of Bahamut Turns 1, 2, 3, 4 50 N/A 0 30


Trials

Content Level iLevel Entry Requirement Soldiery Tokens Poetic Tokens
Chimera 50 52 8 4
Hydra 50 52 8 4
Ifrit (Hard) 50 49 9 5
Ifrit (Extreme) 50 70 16 10
Garuda (Hard) 50 52 9 5
Garuda (Extreme) 50 65 16 8
Titan (Hard) 50 57 12 6
Titan (Extreme) 50 67 16 9
Good King Moggle Mog XII 50 54 9 5
Good King Moggle Mog XII Extreme 50 54 16 11
Leviathan 50 60 12 5
Leviathan Extreme 50 80 16 12
Ramuh 50 60 12 5
Ramuh Extreme 50 80 16 13
Shiva 50 61 12 6
Shiva (Extreme) 50 61 20 14
Gilgamesh 50 61 8 4
Ultima Weapon (Hard) 50 61 12 7
The Dragon's Neck 50 80 15 5
Odin 50 95 15 7
Battle in the Big Keep 50 90 15 7
The Chrysalis 50 90 15 7


Roulette

Roulette Level iLevel Entry Requirement Soldiery Tokens Poetics Tokens
Low Level 50 16 60 5
High Level 50 48 50 15
Expert 50 70 0 35
Main Scenario 50 50 80 0
Trials 50 60 40 10


Increasing Your Item Level


As you probably know, once you reach level 50 the game is all about increasing your item level in order to take on harder and harder content. The current maximum ilevel as of patch 2.4 is 135 for weapons and 130 for armour. The standard for entry into top tier end game is considered an average item level of 110, which is the maximum from the previous two patches. How you reach this point is up to you, but the main ways are outlined below:

Soldiery Tokens

Weathered item level 100 gear can be bought from Auriana's shop in Mor Dhona and then upgraded to i110 gear by using an Oil of Time or a Sands of Time. As of 2.4 the number of Soldiery tokens you can farm per week is unlimited, so you can run as many dungeons as you want in order to obtain this equipment. Of course if you want to get Soldiery tokens quickly you do need to be able to do the higher dungeons. As a fresh 50 this won't be the case.

With item level 90 Mythology gear being removed from Auriana's shop and the Hunt Billmaster in 2.4 the only real way of gearing up before i110 is via dungeons and raids. The fastest way to do this is via the Syrcus Tower, which was added in patch 2.3. This drops ilevel 100 gear and as of 2.4 you can take as many as you need. This is also the easiest place to obtain the upgrade items mentioned earlier - Oil of Time and Sands of Time. You can also get an Unidentified Allagan Tomestone here, which is used for obtaining Weathered weapons.

As Syrcus Tower requires an average item level of 70 to enter your first focus should be obtaining this. You can either purchase equipment from the market boards or follow the dungeon table above and get drops from those. Once you reach the required item level for a dungeon begin running that one. Use the drops to allow you access to higher content and the Soldiery tokens to purchase ilevel 100 gear. A few of pieces of i100 will boost your ilevel quite a bit.

Poetic Tokens

As of 2.4 until Heavensward expansion the highest tomestone is called Poetics. These allow you to purchase i120 gear from Auriana's shop. You should aim to buy these, however as they are limited to a maximum of 450 per week you cannot rely on these as a fresh level 50 - you will need to use Soldiery to gear up quickly and replace the pieces with Poetic gear as and when you can.

To gain Poetic tomestones quickly you will have to do dungeons with an ilevel of 80 or 90 anyway, so upon reaching level 50 you'll find this tomestone is out of reach. Don't be discouraged however as obtaining a full set of Weathered Soldiery gear takes very little time.

Other Content

Hunts are also worth looking into. They are not as popular as they used to be but these drop Allied Seals that can be used to purchase Soldiery gear at the Hunt Billmaster. You can also purchase Blood-spattered Mark Logs which can be traded for Oil of Time and Sands of Time in Mor Dhona (the NPC next to Auriana). This is a grind and may take longer than farming dungeons for gear, but it does get you access straight to the i100 and i110 gear as it can be done as a fresh level 50. These days however you are probably better off purchasing the Unstained Mark Logs as they allow you to upgrade the i120 Poetics gear.

The extreme primal battles can also provide equipment that can set you on your path to i110, however they can be difficult if you don't know the fights and it will be hard to find a group for the older ones such as Ifrit and Titan. The newest is Shiva and she drops ilevel 110 weapons and ilevel 120 bracelets, but this is a difficult fight and you will generally need an item level over 100 or 105 to even get into a party for it.


Raiding


Another way of obtaining i110 equipment is via the Second Coil of Bahamut. This was the top tier raid in patches 2.2 and 2.3 and it is still difficult in 2.4 if you have not spent many hours learning the fights. The raids drop i110 armour and i115 weapons and you will generally need an item level of 100+ to do well in them, but they can be done at ilevel 90 (not recommended!)

You will of course need to beat Turn 4 of the Second Coil of Bahamut if you wish to progress on to the Final Coil of Bahamut. This was added in patch 2.4 and is currently the hardest content in the game. Before you tackle this you should aim to have an item level average of i110. Turn 1 of the Final Coil of Bahamut is surprisingly easier than the last turn of the Second Coil so if you beat that then you should not have too many difficulties getting into the Final Coil.

For raiding it is best to find a good Free Company and learn with a set team rather than use the party finder. You will be able to obtain ilevel 130 equipment in the Final Coil, and your new goal is to have a full set of ilevel 130 equipment before the expansion.


Relic Progression


You can progress on the early stages of the relic quest until Ifrit any time you want, but by around ilevel 55 you should be looking at defeating Ifrit. Maybe even collect a primal weapon from him by defeating him multiple times until you get a drop.

Before you take on Garuda you should aim to have an average ilevel above 60, and for Titan above 65. You can do these with less gear if you are skilled, but as a new player you probably want to make things easier so the higher the ilevel the better. Garuda drops an ilevel 70 weapon while Titan drops an 80, so you can see the level of progression here considering Ifrit dropped a 60. Try getting yourself a Garuda weapon if you can for this reason. It is not important to get a Titan weapon because when you beat Titan you will be able to finish the relic quest very quickly and obtain a weapon as good as Titan's. You could however get a Moogle weapon inbetween but it's not necessary.

Once you defeat Titan you can go get your relic weapon, assuming you had 110 Soldiery tokens for your Bottle of Radz-at-Han Quenching Oil. If not just keep farming tokens. You can also upgrade it to an ilevel 90 Zenith weapon by trading in 3x Thavnairian Mists (150 Soldiery Tokens each).

See our "A Relic Reborn guide" for the full details on the relic quest.

After the relic quest you can work towards an ilevel 100 Zodiac weapon but it is better to work towards a full set of ilevel 90 equipment before doing this. Your first Zodiac quest requires farming 12 Atmas with extremely low drop rate, followed by 9x 500 Soldiery to purchase books full of content requirements in order to obtain an ilevel 100 Animus weapon.

Going forward from this you will have to start collecting 75 Alexandrite from either completing your daily Expert Roulette (recommended), purchasing maps with 400 Soldiery (recommended), farming F.A.T.E.s (not recommended), or purchasing Alexandrite with 200 Allied Seals (not recommended). Some methods are not recommended because of the time involved. More information on the Zodiac quests can be found on our dedicated guide page via the link mentioned earlier.

After this comes the Nexus part of the quest, which requires obtaining 2000 points of light. The light can be obtained by completing a variety of content such as dungeons, primals and raids. Each content will give a different number of lights and you can either casually complete this over time or grind out the quick fights such as Garuda Hard Mode.

From Nexus you can then upgrade to the new Zodiac weapon, which requires farming dungeons for quest items, gaining crafted items and items bought from NPCs and GCs. Once completed you can then upgrade it one more time to Zeta, which requires buying mahatma and gaining light on each of them. It is similar to the Nexus stage except much less time consuming.

See the Zodiac weapon guide for further information.
A guide by Xenor Vernix of Ragnarok server.


Comments


The following comments are from our legacy commenting system.

AnonHunter [Anon]
May 03, 2015 - 13:10:11 | Location: Nowhere, In a Box

I looked at this when I first started and it seriously made me feel like I'd never catch up (I started 3 months ago). Why not tell them to just do hunts?!? It's so easy to get i110 gear and there are so many linkshells on servers dedicated to finding the hunts that if you are hunting actively, you won't miss a thing. I've literally leveled two classes to 50 after my paladin and had i110 gear waiting for them because hunts were such an easy way to get soldiery. I now main a Paladin (i126) and am making final coil progress. I wish someone had told me about hunts sooner, because I was trying for this crap loot drops that can be replaced in less time than it took to finally get the drops.
 
congotim [Anon]
Aug 07, 2014 - 15:37:23 | Location: Nowhere, In a Box

I just recently hit item level 76 and I have yet to do any of the big dungeons/raids

http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodestone/character/5957418/

A great way that I have found as a more casual player (2-3 hours during the week, 5-6 on the weekend), to get a nice cache of Tomestones is to do 1 duty roulette of the trials and then repeatedly do Chimera. The reason for this is that, most of the time, there is a new player hitting the Chimera battle, and that means 50 extra tomestones. Because Chimera is so quickly repeatable and the battle is about 5 minutes long, you can usually do it 5 or 6 times. Granted there is some luck involved, but you can snag 300 tomestones of mythology in an hour and not even break a sweat. Between fights, I have been able to find time to sell items and get caught up on the main quest story line, so it has worked pretty well for me!
 
john wayne [Anon]
Jul 21, 2014 - 20:02:15 | Location: Nowhere, In a Box

I'm curious as to how much time all these steps take. Likehow many runs or how many hours. A few guestimations throughout would be really cool. Other than that very informative guide, thanks!

 
terrack [Anon]
Jul 13, 2014 - 02:28:57 | Location: Nowhere, In a Box

Hey all, just trying to learn this game

 
Xenor
Jul 12, 2014 - 10:49:12 | Location: Durham, United Kingdom

The guide has now been reworked for patch 2.3 and the Tomestone changes have been updated.
 
Xenor
Jul 11, 2014 - 00:43:01 | Location: Durham, United Kingdom

It hasn't been updated for 2.3 yet however the general progression route is still the same since most 2.3 content wasn't top tier. That doesn't mean it won't be updated - the plan is to update it sometime this weekend (tomorrow or Sunday).

The Mythology rewards will also be updated - the majority of those changed in 2.3. On the plus the Duty Finder in-game now gives you this info too.
 
Hey there [Anon]
Jul 09, 2014 - 19:06:50 | Location: Nowhere, In a Box

Is this up to date?

 
anon [Anon]
Jul 08, 2014 - 05:21:15 | Location: Nowhere, In a Box

ummmmm apparently its not... those numbers for the myth rewards are ALL wrong... just lettin ya know
 
Xenor
May 31, 2014 - 10:07:34 | Location: Durham, United Kingdom

Yeah it's current as of patch 2.2. It doesn't go into much detail about 2.2 content because the guide is more about the progression path than the content itself. Guides for Leviathan and Moogle extreme can be found elsewhere on the site. Guides for the Second Coil of Bahamut are overdue, but unfortunately my static collapsed when 2.2 went live and I have only just gotten a new one.
 
Canti [Anon]
May 23, 2014 - 17:46:06 | Location: Nowhere, In a Box

Does this end game progression cover everything in the latest patch of the game?
 
Anonymous
Apr 11, 2014 - 20:02:44 | Location: Nowhere, In a Box

Nice guide!

 
Xenor
Mar 27, 2014 - 21:29:06 | Location: Durham, United Kingdom

It will indeed, in the very near future once I finish gathering all the data for the new end-game progression. Right now I'm prioritizing things like the item database and dungeons. But most of the 2.2 stuff should be ready by the end of the weekend.
 
Ezenithor [Anon]
Mar 24, 2014 - 16:56:39 | Location: Nowhere, In a Box

Will this be updated to reflect 2.2 changes?
 
Xenor
Oct 20, 2013 - 22:33:50 | Location: Durham, United Kingdom

Just updated these for 2.05, thanks for the reminder.
 
Anonymous
Oct 18, 2013 - 16:30:50 | Location: Nowhere, In a Box

Any plans to update this post with the 2.05 changes to tomestone drops?