Lvl 68, what to aim for now?

[Vyuru]

Right now I am approaching the end game content and I'm wondering where to go in FF from here. Getting to 75 and doing more assaults for the assault gear/weapons are top on my list, I consider some of them vital for leveling and will not level without them, but after that, I'm not sure what to focus on.

I have alchemy and weaving in the mid to high 50s, I could focus on raising weaving and try to make alot of money through high level +1 gear, although I stand to lose alot of money as well in failed synths.

Endgame content I want to do would be Dynamis for Gugnir, Salvage for the Ares armor, and finish CoP/ do Limbus for awesome accessories such as the Rajas Ring, Brutal Earring, and while I want AF+1, the focus would be on Rajas ring/Brutal earring. Of course you get the Rajas ring through completing CoP, but doing that and unlocking Limbus is kind of one and the same.

I'm guessing it's a given that I'm gonna die alot in these events, well maybe not alot but death will not be an uncommon thing, let's put it that way. I am also guessing that I will have time for only one event, due to preping/farming for said event, exp/merits, and whatever else these may require, how would you guys go about it and any advice you might be able to give me?

I could probably do both Salvage and Limbus, Assaults normally don't last long, Salvage is limited to just under 2 hours, and I am under the impression Limbus is not anywhere near as expensive nor time consuming as a Dynamis run. I'm tempted to focus on Salvage/Limbus for awhile, once I have the gear I want I can switch over to Dynamis, and by that time I should have more crafts leveled, and hopefully I will have some gil stockpiled for Dynamis fees/funding runs if I can.

[Murphie]

Re: Lvl 68, what to aim for now?

Well, just your first goal (Gugnir) is going to take you a couple of years, so you're pretty good with that alone.

[Greylynx]

Re: Lvl 68, what to aim for now?

I started the exact same discussion in the DRG forums this week, as I have just dinged 67 and and asking the same questions you are. A link to that post is here:

http://www.ffxionline.com/forums/dra...ctivities.html

Now I have no experience at all with endgame, but I know enough to form a very preliminary opinion. Seems to me like you might be taking on too much. I don't think anyone does all of endgame, at least not at the same time. I personally plan to do dynamis for awhile (6 months maybe?) and slowly finish CoP in order to gain access to Limbus. I think if you try to do everything you are suggesting you won't have time for work, school, family, friends, etc.

Contrary to what some people believe, this game isn't going to be shut down anytime soon, so I would relax and take your time to enjoy endgame instead of trying to fit it all in at once. After all, endgame may be all you have left to enjoy the game for the next few years, or however long you play.

[Vyuru]

Re: Lvl 68, what to aim for now?

Oh no, I am not planning on doing this all at one time, I want to mix it up a bit and I am looking for advice as to which I should do first in order to better prepare me for the others.

[Greylynx]

Re: Lvl 68, what to aim for now?

Ah that makes more sense, I thought you were crazy! Either way you have some big goals (Gungir, Ares) so you have your work cut out for you. Of course if it all works out you'll be one mean DRG!

[Tirrock]

Re: Lvl 68, what to aim for now?

My advice on relic weapons: Buy other things first. You'll get a lot more bang for your buck if you buy every other thing for your character first, then moving to relic. Also, talk to people that has the relic you're interested in. (Looks like there's none on your server yet. http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/Stage_5_Relics#Polearm)

Also, if/when you do start relic, don't upgrade it right away. A lot of people dump money into the weapon, upgrade it once, then quit. (Either from the realization of how difficult the weapon is to get, or from talking to people who own the weapon and were unimpressed.) If you don't upgrade it, then at least you can sell the money if you change your mind.

I'd also consider leveling another job to 75...but I'm a repressed exp fanatic... So take that as you will. It would help increase your odds of joining an HNM LS (if you choose to do that), or helping your group during salvage/limbus/dynamis/assault, no matter what job you pick.

[Karinya]

Re: Lvl 68, what to aim for now?

I'm guessing it's a given that I'm gonna die alot in these events, well maybe not alot but death will not be an uncommon thing, let's put it that way. I am also guessing that I will have time for only one event, due to preping/farming for said event, exp/merits, and whatever else these may require, how would you guys go about it and any advice you might be able to give me?

A DRG won't die *that* much in a competent linkshell. Maybe 1-2 deaths per dynamis run unless it's Dynamis Lord or someone screws up pretty bad, less than that in limbus unless it's proto-ultima. And you'll have Raise II or III for pretty much every one of those deaths. Unless you're a tank, a suicide puller or a particularly careless BLM you won't likely lose more than 5-10k exp/week doing Dynamis and Limbus twice a week each. If you can join or form an ENM static that does the 3 promyvions once a week (you can do all three in one night once you have some experience with them), that should be plenty to cover your exp losses; how fast you want to get the rest of the way to 75, and how much you want to merit, are up to you, of course.

I could probably do both Salvage and Limbus, Assaults normally don't last long, Salvage is limited to just under 2 hours, and I am under the impression Limbus is not anywhere near as expensive nor time consuming as a Dynamis run. I'm tempted to focus on Salvage/Limbus for awhile, once I have the gear I want I can switch over to Dynamis, and by that time I should have more crafts leveled, and hopefully I will have some gil stockpiled for Dynamis fees/funding runs if I can.

In my experience Limbus is more expensive than Dynamis. It depends on LS rules though - ours collects currency to cover the entry fee for Dynamis - but even if you don't do that (and don't have sponsored runs), the entry fee will still usually be no more than 30k, depending on how many people show up. (Of course if you want to sponsor runs yourself, or buy a share of the collected currency, then the cost will go way up, but I second Tirrock's recommendation to leave the Gungnir for last. Get wyrm gear; the helmet and belt are especially impressive and very few shells have much competition for DRG relic.)

Most Limbus runs I get more than enough ancient beastcoins to cover the entry fee if I sold them, but since I don't want to sell them, I lose 50k every run, which adds up fast. (In fact I'm just about broke right now, I can't find a good way to make money in today's markets. Farmable items, HELM and imperial currency have all fallen to practically nothing, all crafts are severe money-losers, even most BCNM drops are devalued.) Limbus is shorter than traditional dynamis zones, about the same length as CoP zones; it's possible to do something else in the same night, either before or after depending on your LS's start times and your time zone.

I can't say much about the costs, death rate or rewards of Salvage, since I don't know anyone that does it regularly. It's short (less than two hours in zone with no time extends possible, so 2-3 hours with organization and travel times), but you also need to do assault to earn points for it, so you have to take that into account too.

And that's not counting the possible benefits of HNMs - sea, sky or ground - or Nyzul assaults.


P.S. I wouldn't consider any endgame gear "necessary" for leveling, for the obvious reason that hundreds, possibly thousands of people leveled DRG to 75 before it even existed. Some of it is very nice, and I certainly hope to have amir boots and pahluwan body in particular before I reach DRG72, but I don't think you should stop leveling if you don't have them - continuing to level will make it easier to get parties for, and succeed at, Assault, which you can only do so much of anyway because of tag restrictions (so people other than idiots won't hold it against you if you don't have every possible 20k piece *right now*).

One other thing you didn't mention - if you don't have them already you may want to look into getting Assault Jerkin and Optical Hat. Both are quite useful. (You can replace the Ohat with Pahluwan head if you have it, but if you don't, Ohat may be quite a bit quicker to get.)

[Vyuru]

Re: Lvl 68, what to aim for now?

Taking another job to 75 is something I want to do, I'm just putting that off until I finish my subs for drg, then I can get rid of about 30 slots worth of gear that I have for them and concentrate on drg and one other job, probably a magey job or support job, my LS doesn't have many of those although I have plenty of brd/rdm/other mage friends who I could call on.

P.S. I wouldn't consider any endgame gear "necessary" for leveling, for the obvious reason that hundreds, possibly thousands of people leveled DRG to 75 before it even existed.

True, but getting the Pahluwan head/body/legs nets me enough +acc with my accessories to not need any +acc food, and letting me go a little more wild with my sub of choice. Also keep in mind, I rarely party with bards or summoners so very often it's just me, my food, my gear, and the mob. So I am a little more interested in getting some of the better gear, and IMO, the Imperial Nezza is just too good to pass up.

Also it's not like I'm going out of my way to get the assault gear since I have alot of friends who want assault gear, so I pretty much help them and get the stuff I want and everyone is happy :D

Gil is a bit of a concern, but I'm not too worried about it, once I'm a little higher I can do some of the uncapped ENMs, and once I get just a little farther into CoP I can do the lvl 40 cap Riverne Site ENMs as well for gil/exp, and I can do alot of repeatable quests/NPC stuff, which while it takes awhile, nets slow but good gil.

And actually doing the Promy ENMs is a really good idea, I'll have to look into that. I know I have people interested in doing ENMs with me once I have Riverne site access, I'll have to see what they think on the other ENMs.

Assault Jerkin may be out of my reach for now, some of my friends are taking a break and my old LS just merged with a larger LS so I don't want to suggest we go camping a NM right off the bat.

However Ohat vs Pahluwan head, which would you favor? I'm more inclined towards the Pahluwan head, it's not ugly, stats are comparable and I'll be doing assaults in that area anyway.


Now doing Limbus to cover Dynamis fees isn't something I thought of. How fast do your coins normally sell?

[Tirrock]

Re: Lvl 68, what to aim for now?

I'm for optical hat myself, but largely because it means I can spend the 20k points in that zone on yigit instead. Plus I had the o.hat before ToAU came out. I use turban (the 5% haste one) when accuracy isn't an issue.

I dat swapped the o.hat with a GM glow, so I look all shiny when I wear the o.hat (and the hat isn't there any more). But it makes my fists sound like 1 handed swords. >_>a

[Karinya]

Re: Lvl 68, what to aim for now?

Oh, I meant I could cover my Limbus entry fee by selling coins (if I wanted to sell them, which I don't.) Most runs we don't pay any Dynamis entry fee because the officers collect the first 100 single coins and sell them to people who are upgrading weapons or relic+1 armor and that pays for the run. It's only in CoP dynamis where there aren't enough drops to do that that we have to collect gil from everyone.

I do think the Pahluwan head is probably better than Ohat (except from level 70-71 of course), but it takes a lot of assaults to get 20k assault points in one area; Ohat might be significantly easier to obtain, as well as being lower level.


The main problem I have with Imperial Neza is that it comes from the same Assault area as Amir Boots - unless you're doing so many assaults there that you can get 35,000 points (and I *really* wouldn't want to put leveling on hold for *that* long!), you'll have to choose between them and there are many more good alternatives to the Neza. If the Neza came from some area where the Amir and Pahluwan pieces weren't particularly good, like Periqia, it would be a more attractive option for DRG. And if you're doing pickup assaults you're limited to the lowest rank of anyone in the group, so I bet you'll get really, really, really tired of imperial agent rescue (which isn't even much fun to start with).

[Vyuru]

Re: Lvl 68, what to aim for now?

Acc+6 on those boots? I thought it was +4, looks like I'll be spending up to 55k points in that area (Pahluwan Seraweels are there)

And if you're doing pickup assaults you're limited to the lowest rank of anyone in the group

Thankfully I have an Assault static setup for when we all have more time, also 2 of our members just kinda disappeared and I haven't heard from them in awhile, although I hear that they are doing ok, just busy.