Returning player from the beta/launchFollow

Hey forums, I just returned last night and so much has changed since I left. I say at least 6 months. I'm lv50, but my gear is obviously not current. I heard a lot of changes happened and so far, I've only done a few of the story quests. I'm asking if anyone on ZAM has any advice for a player like myself that is out of touch with today's systems. I'm going to be hanging with FC friends for now until I feel confident enough to play with others.

It looks like I have the Ifrit spear, Relic(myth tombstones) helm, and Darklight gear. I was stuck on the final fight against Titan for my relic. I keep hearing from friends about Brayfox being the new spam dungeon, but I assume for these points? It was AK and WP when I left.

Sadly, you aren't going to spam Brayflox with an ifrit weapon and darklight gear. At least not with any relative ease. You can run Ak and WP, but they drop ilvl 60 gear. Haukke manor hm is a pretty decent spam if you find the expert duties are too much for you. Copperbell hm and pharos sirius are a bit tougher than haukke manor, with no real additional reward. You could run Crystal tower for ilvl 80 stuff, but it is a cesspool of people that are either trolls or dont know what they are doing (sadly). Fortunately, you have other options now. The darklight gear you saved up all those philosophy tomes back in the day for now drops with another ilvl 70 type gear in halatali hm, brayflox hm, and lost city of amdapoor hm (you need to unlock those first). People readily defeat titan hm now, primals are in roulette so you will get a party for that easily in duty finder. Plus in those now you get an echo effect that shoots you all the way to 50% in 10% increments for each party wipe. So you will get you relic. Trade is in myth tomes now, you can convert your philosophy tomes to myth tomes in mor dhona. Then you can earn the soldiery tomes from running the dungeons (soldiery is the new myth) and buy ilvl 100 gear, or use your myth to buy your relic zenith, or ilvl 90 gear. Coil 1-5 is available now through duty finder, and while 1-4 are easily winnable in pugs, people are still having a hell of a time with twintania (at least on my server).


Edited, Jun 12th 2014 9:45am by Valkayree

Thanks for the advice everyone.

I have made about six million gil crafting. (Around half of which has been donated to FC housing.)

They added in master crafting books that are used for the higher tier recipes now as well as creating the glamours needed to adjust gear. They also added the Venture system for retainers, and retainers need gear while leveling just like PCs and an endgame set just like PCs.

I make a killing primarily on endgame jewelry, as people buy the HQ items since spiritbond on those goes faster and there is an enormous appetite for high level materia. I also make a point only to sell things that have 0 competition on the boards.... but I make multiples of them. High demand items ftw. I joke that I make four HQ Spinel Rings in five minutes and sneeze out 60K.

In short, I can barely keep my three retainers fully stocked. Items I put up sell at an average pace of once every ten to twenty minutes, I think. There has been more than onetime when things were selling faster than I could craft them.

This is all very encouraging news. Thanks.

I think alchemy is the least useful craft. I leveled it to 50 for the title, but the only thing I ever do with it is make oils for my other crafts.

That is no joke. I regularly see normal armors going for 18k. Low level stuff. Not as many low level crafters anymore. Everyone is competing at the mid level. Not too many elite elite crafters either. For that you need fully melded craft specific gear (not patricians) and you must have the new glasses and crafter tool (specific class) that requires you craft a crapton of really hard hq 2 star items.

But even gathering hq items is profitable. Anything hq sells well in the gathering market. Since they put in a high score list on lodestone for seal gathering, everyone is doing daily turnins.

I am sitting on about 5 million now, made mostly off of retainer ventures very early on. My retainers got to 50 first on the server, and got the flayer minion and taffeta cloth first on the server. Sold the first taffeta at 1.9 mil and the second at 1.8. The pet for 800k. Now the pet goes for 8k and the cloth for 30k. Supply far exceeded demand once everyone had 50 retainers. Farming glazenuts has made our FC nearly a 3 million profit as well.

I play the materia lotto occasionally, buying materia and transmutating 5 of them into a singe random one. I play III and IV high stakes, and have gotten fairly lucky.
Making glamour crystals can be profitable as well. Simply selling the stuff your retainers bring back from quick ventures can make you a tidy profit.

Boar Leather HQ sells REALLY well. Just a hint. So does toad leather. Also hq jewelry, like Kat says. With the atma hunt, people need to feel like they aren't totally wasting their time.