Did Final Fantasy XIV's patch 7.2, Seekers of Eternity, really launch only 2 days ago? So far I've purchased all my level 12 crafting books, crafted all the high level foods I'll need for a week, including fishing a two-week supply of cloudsail so I can keep myself fed with the hot crafting food right now, ceviche. Last night I started the patch 7.2 main story questline. As I kind of expected, I hit the gear wall.
"What gear wall?" I can hear readers who are much better at FFXIV than I am thinking to themselves. Those readers don't think twice about participating in the duty roulette grind and thus don't know about the wall. But FFXIV has a lot of activities I find more enjoyable so I started out the patch wearing a full set of the Archeo Kingdom gear. High quality, obviously, tenderly handcrafted by myself. But not good enough to advance through the MSQ.
The problem I have is the 8-character trial, Recollection. The trial has an iLvl requirement of 715 and my Archeo Kingdom gear only has an iLvl of 710. In other words I can't advance the MSQ until I upgrade my gear. A requirement that wouldn't affect most players, but I'm really bad at the game and don't like running duties with other players.
I do have a solution. I don't even need to run anymore dungeons to get the gear if I want to pay through the nose for the crafting materials I need now. But, I don't want to spend another ridiculous amount of gil. So all roads lead to grinding through patch 7.2's regular 4-character duty, The Underkeep.
My preferred option is to craft the new iLvl 740 Ceremonial set for white mage. Unlike the last 4 duties and 2 trials introduced in Dawntrail and patch 7.1, The Underkeep and Recollection are not item sync'd. A positive since I need all the help I can get. But in order to get the Allagan Tomestones of Heliometry I need to avoid spending all my gil, I need to run The Underkeep. Many, many times. I currently have 296 with each crafting mat costing 20 tomes. I also have 370 of the discontinued Allagan Tomestones of Aesthetics which I can trade in for the tomestones I need. Hopefully the exchange rate is 1 for 1. Either way, I only get 80 Allagan Tomestones of Heliometry if I defeat all three bosses in a run.
Since I have to grind The Underkeep I might as well attempt to get one or two pieces of the new iLvl 750 gear purchasable with Allagan Tomestones of Mathematics. I probably need to do so to prevent running into a gear wall in future point releases. But with a limit of 450 tomestones per week I may not have enough patience to get a full set. Killing the last boss of The Underkeep also grants 50 Allagan Tomestones of Mathematics.
One benefit of grinding The Underkeep is the duty drops iLvl 725 gear. So while I'm striving to get the top sets for white mage I can also gear up my other classes with the drops not useful for my white mage. And, perhaps most importantly, my two white mage retainers. Currently both are at iLvl 670. For bringing back materials the highest effective at the end of patch 7.1 was iLvl 715. If I can get both to iLvl 725 the retainers will bring back 15 Gomphotherium Skins or Gargantua Hides instead of the current 5. A big improvement.
One important feature I haven't mentioned is the difficulty factor. Yes, I didn't finish the duty on my first time through. But I think, unlike the last few duties and trials released, I actually have the ability to learn the fights. Also, the fact The Underkeep doesn't have item syncing also helps. So if I can get my completion time down to 35 minutes or so farming the duty to support my crafting habit I won't mind too much.
I pretty much have 4 weeks in my schedule to get all the grinding done. Once Cosmic Exploration launches and Fanfest is over I want to get away from combat and opening up the stars (or at least moons). Because while some people play for the raiding, this content is just something I have to do to get to the fun stuff.
