Preparing Yourself for the Expansion

Hey everyone! With the expansion on the horizon in the next two months, I am sure many of us are looking at what we can do to help us out when it comes out! Consider this a little guide for things that you can do in order to help yourself and get prepared. While it is important to remember that many things you do now will have no bearing on your play in several months, it's just as important to remember that it's a game. If you want to do something go head and do it! Burning yourself out before an expansion trying to get ready is awful and will ruin some of the experience, but doing a bunch of work just to have it all be pointless soon is another way to burn yourself out. Carefully choosing the balance for yourself is the key. Other than the first two items, everything below is optional, and is looked at in an objective manner. I've slightly tiered the list, so it's easier to read. One thing may be more important for you than it is listed, and the more things you have completed further up the list the more you can finish down the list. Without any further adieu, these are the things you can do to help yourself.

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Mandatory Tier: You NEED to do these things.

Get your job to level 50 : It may seem redundant, but the expansion is almost exclusively aimed at those 50+ , without a character at that level, there's not really anything to prepare for since you won't be able to enjoy any of the content. This should be your priority asap, and will be required to complete heavensward

Finish the 2.55 Storyline: In order to access the content of Heavensward, you will be required to finish the story up to 2.55. You will know that you have done this as A. You will have a VERY long set of cut scenes to watch in a row and B. There will be no more story quests for you. This is something that MUST be done, which means you will need to raise your item level to 90 to finish the story, so keep that in mind.

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Important Tier: Some of the most important things you can do.

Get a Gathering Class to 50: There is a twofold reason for this being so important. The first is that you can make fairly respectable 10k-15k on nodes that you can gather when you hit level 50, that can add up to making you some extra money to either help you out now, or save for the expansion. The second is, once the cap is moved to 60, many crafters who want their crafts leveled asap will be paying high price for the gathering mats. This means you can bring in some very serious money by gathering at the expansions launch, which will be of great help! Fishing is lower on this list currently, it does not make as much money at 50.

Get a surplus of Gil: When the expansions comes, all types of currency (Soldery, Poetics, etc) will become useless. That is to one exception, Gil. Gil will remain useful, and will help you with whatever sort of new relic quest, or any sort of purchases you wish to make in the future. This is personal how much you want to save, but at least 300k will help you out a lot, if possible more than a mil should remove any stress you have so that you can enjoy all the new content and not focus on getting money!

Get all your cross class abilities for your primary job: Many things will not carry over into the expansion, your abilities will however. It will allow you to push into all the new content without worry about trying to level another class to get skills you could already have.

Get a crafting class to 50: Having a crafting class at 50 helps you do several things, being independent, helping others with melds, and making a small bit of money along the way if you do it right. With the new specializations coming it may be possible to effectively play only one crafting class!

Leveling a Second Role: On the topic of being independent and helping others, picking up another role allows you to be a much more versatile player, able to fill in spots where needed.

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Useful Tier: Things that will be helpful later.

Get your Relic Weapon completed: Having a better weapon will not only help you now, but has been said to be of "some" use in the expansion, currently it's not known what that will be, but it will at least not be useless, and can help you immediately. The new relics will not be coming til 3.1, moved down to reflect this

Getting all combat classes to 50: Leveling classes before the expansion comes out is always of great use, it means you can play the new content and not worry about old stuff. All your progress will definitely carry over, and may even help with cross class abilities on the new classes.

Get all Gathering classes to 50: Getting all gathering classes to 50 will allow you to pursue whichever will help you the most, or whichever will make the highest profit in the expansion. The gathering classes also have different nodes, so you can make more money now!

Level your crafting Desynth: I can't see them removing desynthesis, simply adding more to it. In 2.0 it was important to end game crafting, and was hands down some of the best money you could possibly make. You can have 3 classes with 110 desynth, so chose wisely!

Get 3 Crafting classes to 50: Speaking of 3 classes, you will be allowed to have 3 Master Crafting classes that you specialize in the expansion. Picking 3 will help you make a lot of money come the expansion.

Getting all Crafting classes to 50: It may seem redundant to say all this stuff about crafting, but it definitely is the best way to stay independent, and not have to completely rely on others or the marketboard. Having all classes at 50 will not only let you repair your gear (should be all the way to 60!) but will also allow you to wait and figure out later which is best to specialize in.

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Less Useful Tier: Will help you a bit, but not as important.

Pushing into difficult content: While this will not directly benefit you, but if you have any interest in doing the latest end game content in the expansion, you should definitely try to do as much "hard" content as you can for practice, the future content is said to be harder, so if you are unable to beat the current content you may have difficult in the future.

Hording items/materia to sell later: This is a risky proposal, and while it may lead you into having a lot of money later, many of the things above is a lot safer, and can generate you revenue immediately. Gamble on this at your own risk

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Not Useful Tier: Many things here will be irrelevant come the expansion, do them at your own discretion.

Gaining your BIS gear In two months, all the gear you will have will be useless, other than aesthetics it will be the equivalent to vendor trash. Melding you BIS, be it your relic, or crafted gear, will not be of any use later. Getting gear to help you immediately is of more concern. Ideal stats are not as important as having the gear themselves which lets you do harder content.

Getting Star'd Crafting: Currently, with the amount of effort, time, and money it will take to get yourself to 2-4 star crafting you will not be making your money back before the expansion launches. Come the expansion, all the star'd crafting will be useless as 60 all crafters will be on a new even playing field. Look closely at 1 star, it MAY be profitable for you but it will vary on class, and the amount of effort you wish to put in.

Getting Star'd Gathering: For many of the same reasons as above, you are unlikely to make your money back that you put in. One star may be worth it, and you should use your own discretion on it.

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Speculation: Possibly useful, but may not have any relevance, bit of a gamble to do, but possibly very important.

Do the Hildibrand Questline: I'd be a bit upset if they don't continue this, or have something similar, but it may be worth it to finish it if they do plan to continue. It's also really fun if you don't skip all the cut scenes, definitely one of my favorite parts of FFXIV

Unlock all roulette and Dungeons: It's possible there will be new types of roulettes, and it would suck to have to go back and do old content just to unlock it. Having them all done will help you out should they implement this
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That's it! Hopefully this helped anyone consider what they could be doing to help themselves later. Remember having FUN is the most important thing you can do, just because something isn't objectively as useful, doesn't mean you can't enjoy doing it and try for it anyways. If there's anything I've glaringly missed please let me know and I'll be sure to add it!

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