What You Can Do Now To Prepare for Final Fantasy XIV Patch 6.2 (Yes, Really)

The next FFXIV Producer Live Letter is scheduled for July 1st, expected to be the first one discussing patch 6.2 in detail. That means, based on folk wisdom, that around 6 weeks after, we’ll be in the thick of patch 6.2, so either August 9th or 16th, given the Friday LL date.

When I last wrote a guide like this, there was a lot more that could be done because 6.1, as with all x.1 patches in the game, brought no new raid tier, crafted combat gear, or tomestones – all of which will come with patch 6.2. Yet, in spite of that, there is still stuff that can be done right now to prepare yourself for the patch and to be ready to gear up quickly, if that is your desire. In FFXIV, each new raid tier in Normal/Savage signifies a clean breakpoint, where all players can leapfrog the current Savage item level and gain a significant amount of power quickly for the new content, starting a new two-patch cycle that will later see additions and expansions in 6.3 before the cycle repeats one last time in Endwalker with 6.4 and 6.5.

Because there has not yet been a live letter as of this writing, some details will be missing for new content modes. We don’t know what to expect from Criterion Dungeons, the first of which will be in 6.2, or the Island Sanctuary, if that even gives gear or items at all. However, because elements of FFXIV’s vertical power progression are built on a simple formula, the rest we can predict with relative certainty, and so, here we go!

Tomestones

Patch 6.2 will be the first Tomestone shift in Endwalker. Aphorism tomestones will be retired, tradable in Mor Dhona to receive a smaller amount of Astronomy tomes. Astronomy, currently the weekly-capped high-end tomes, will become the uncapped base tome for level 90 content. The existing rewards will continue to be available for them, along with new crafting reagents that will be added in 6.2 and used with new timed node materials to make components for item level 610 crafted combat gear. A new high-end tomestone with a weekly acquisition limit of 450 tomestones will become available and will offer item level 620 combat gear, along with 500 of them being tradable with items from the new raid to receive an item level 620 weapon. The armor, accessories, and weapon from the new tomestone will be upgradable to item level 630 with raid drops from Savage, and eventually those upgrade tokens will be purchasable with Hunt Nuts or with coins from both Aglaia and the new Alliance Raid in 6.3.

For right now, you can’t do much to prepare for new tomestone gear, however you have a few choices as the patch draws closer. Because Astronomy will be uncapped in 6.2, you can save any weapon tokens received from P4N and have them ready to cash in on patch day for item level 590 weapons. It is likely that the Radiant Roborant weapon upgrade item will become available for Aglaia Coins when patch 6.18 releases, which will let you upgrade your item level 590 weapons to item level 600, which means that you can stockpile Roborants once that minor patch drops and then on 6.2 launch, have the ability to upgrade several weapons to ilvl 600 on acquisition.

Right now, you can use Aphorism gear as turn-ins for Grand Company seals (a change made in patch 6.15) or can use it to level Desynthesis on crafting jobs, but I would recommend coming in to patch day with a full 2,000 Aphorism banked if possible. The exchange rate will take multiple Aphorism for a single Astronomy tomestone, but it will give you a headstart on building a suitable stockpile for gear catchup, weapons, or crafting reagents for new crafted gear in 6.2. For Astronomy, since you will be limited by the weekly cap prior to the patch, you can continue to use these as normal, but I would recommend coming into patch with as many as possible. If your gearing goals are largely complete, you can enter the patch with a full 2,000 to make some Gil, whether it is through crafting gear yourself or buying the reagents en masse and putting them on the marketboard.

Unlike the launch of the expansion, both tomestones will be available on day 1, so you can begin working towards item level 620 gear immediately upon launch.

Crafted Gear

The new crafted gear that will be added in the patch will cover all slots and be at item level 610. For Savage day 1 progression, this will be the preferred loadout, as the crafted gear can be penta-melded with Materia to offer a huge boost of substats. Crafting the gear will require a new rank of Master Recipes, rank X, which will become available for White Crafting Scrip with the patch. If the trend continues, this will be the last rank of Master crafting for the expansion, as gear added in 6.4 will be available through having the Rank X book. These new recipes will require new materials from new timed nodes and new refining reagents that will be purchased with Allagan Tomestones of Astronomy. The new timed nodes will automatically be known if you have purchased your Gathering Folklore tomes for Endwalker and should not require any additional prep work.

The recipes themselves are quite variable expansion to expansion, but will likely require some higher-level materials from Endwalker gathering (however, they will likely not use the current 6.0 timed-node materials). Until the exact recipes are known, the best preparation you can do is to have a stockpile of Endwalker materials on hand and ready – ore, leathers, and lumber. It would be wise to have some unrefined materials as well as refined ingots, lumber, and leather, just in case – particularly for ores, as the timed-node ingot recipes can sometimes require other base ores to refine the finished product. You’ll also need Aethersands from Endwalker gathering, so keep hitting the Ephemeral nodes and using Aetherial Reduction to stockpile those.

This crafted gear will match the new Normal raid gear in item level at 610, but will also be upgradable to item level 620 come patch 6.3 by exchanging the crafted items and Astronomy tomes through the current gear exchange vendor in Radz-at-Han, making it valuable to have on hand both for day 1 gearing and also for future empowerment, provided you aren’t doing Savage raiding. The early days of the patch will see this gear sell for high prices, and how long it lingers at those rates depends on your world – on Aether DC, the gear tends to lose value quickly as the bigger raiding groups tend to make it themselves while individual buyers are quick to buy, which means demand falls out relatively fast. On less raiding-centric datacenters or worlds, you may have some longer-term success with these, but your best profit tip is to be there day 1 with some items crafted at high-quality and ready to sell. If you can penta-meld them in accordance with pre-Savage BiS lists from guides like those on The Balance, you can command a pretty penny for much longer. On the other hand, if you are looking to buy, take your first couple of weeks to try and gather raiding gear and then check the marketboard to fill out missing slots once Savage has started and the pricing floor has fallen out.

Pandaemonium: Abyssos

The second of three raid tiers for Endwalker will launch in Normal on patch day, with Savage likely the same day, unlike the launch tier (update from Live Letter 71: Savage will launch one week after normal this tier as an “experiment”). As is typical for FFXIV, the tier will launch with a new series of story quests to tie together the new wing, the prior wing, and the overarching story of the expansion, and you’ll need to do all 4 normal bosses in order on the first week to finish the story and then unlock Savage.

Abyssos will drop item level 610 gear on Normal through the normal token system, with each boss dropping two chests that have a mix of 8 total tokens in them. Accessories will cost one token, with all armor slots except chest and legs costing two and chest/legs costing 4 tokens. Abyssos’ final boss will also give a weapon token once per week, and 7 of them coupled with 500 of the new high-end tomestone will allow you to purchase an item level 620 weapon. You’ll be limited to one token per boss per week and one weapon token per week, but you can run as often as you want and selectively roll until you get what you want from each boss, so it is possible to prioritize a high-value slot like chest or legs and keep running until you get the tokens needed for a same-week purchase.

Savage, on the other hand, will offer item level 630 armor and accessories and an item level 635 weapon. Mid-tier bosses will also drop upgrade tokens to bring the new high-end tomestone gear from item level 620 to 630, and a mix of both upgraded tomestone gear and raid drops will make up the best-in-slot for all jobs – so make sure to check your preferred guide site or writer to see what to prioritize once the gear stats are published. Savage drops gear in two chests, with both chests available only to groups where no one in the run has cleared the fight for the week, 1 chest if less than 5 people have cleared, and no chests if 5 or more people in the group have cleared. Everyone receives a book for their first clear of the week regardless of chest count, and those books are currency that can be used to buy the loot from each wing.

Lastly, a small footnote about Asphodelos, the current tier of Pandaemonium from 6.0 – in 6.18, the last remaining loot restrictions are likely to be lifted, meaning you can farm weapon tokens from P4N without a cap and you can run Savage and receive loot indefinitely. In addition, the requirement to run Savage wings in-order each week is rescinded at the same time, so instead of needing to run the early wings (whether you need loot from them or not) or needing someone to help you skip the early wings and forfeiting loot from them, you can directly queue for the wing of your choice on Savage. While the Savage loot is likely not going to be super-useful once you have 6.2 crafted gear, it can help push you ahead of the MSQ curve and give you a few weeks of higher power, at least! For those not doing Savage or EX trials, the weapon token restriction lifting will be the most useful, as you can stockpile tokens to gear up those alt jobs!

New Extreme Trial

The first proper new Extreme of Endwalker will launch in 6.2, along with a Normal version. The normal version is a story-only encounter that is necessary to unlock Extreme and offers no loot of its own (maybe a Triple Triad card, but that would be it), while the Extreme will have new weapons, a new Lynx mount in the Endwalker EX mount series, and totems, which can be used to buy the weapons (10 totems a pop) and eventually the mount in a future patch (99 totems). Based on prior expansions, the likely item level of the Extreme trial weapon for 6.2 is 615, making it a valuable upgrade over new crafted weapons, Endsinger EX weapons, or even Asphodelos Savage weapons. The trial can be farmed indefinitely for loot, and each kill will drop one weapon at random and a weapon coffer that can be used by any combat job for its applicable weapon. Until you can get the Abyssos normal weapon, upgraded 6.2 crafted weapons, or the Abyssos Savage weapon, these will be good stopgaps!

New Dungeon

Not counting the Criterion Dungeon, the first ever of which is coming in 6.2, we can expect one MSQ dungeon for the new story quests to come in 6.2. This dungeon should offer loot at item level 585 for all armor and accessory slots. The primary intent of this loot is purely catchup, so if you only did the dungeons in 6.0 or 6.1 and did not do the first tier of Pandaemonium, this gear will give you the means to gear up to tackle the new raid and meet the item level requirement for it. With this dungeon, we will enter the dark times of Expert Dungeon roulette, as Expert roulette will likely only contain two dungeons – Alzadaal’s Legacy and the new one. Make sure to get your Smileton and Stigma Dreamscape runs in now (and say fuck off forever to the Dead Ends and that awful item level sync!).

New Food and Potions

This one is short and sweet – new recipes for food and potions will be in 6.2. These will require new materials from the scrip vendors in the case of the food, and likely a new gatherable water or base for the potions. Timed node gathering should get you the alchemy ingredients needed, while having a stockpile of Purple Crafter Scrip should help with the ingredients needed for food. Both sets of recipes will be in their respective Master Recipes X (Culinarian and Alchemy).

The Short Guide to Prepare

Okay, so all these gear sources and details aside, what to actually do for patch day?

Well, here’s my list:

-Cap Purple Crafting Scrip for patch day to buy new Master Recipes X books and Culinarian ingredients
-Hold as many Allagan Tomestones of Astronomy prior to patch day as possible (to buy crafting reagents for new armor)
-Cap out and hold 2,000 Aphorism tomestomes for conversion to Astronomy to help the above goal
-Stockpile Endwalker non-timed materials and Aethersands
-Stockpile rank IX and X Materia for use in new gear (IXs if penta-melding crafted gear, Xs in general)
-Stockpile Aglaia Coins to buy weapon upgrade tokens and holding for the 6.3 Alliance Raid for new upgrade tokens
-Buy Regional Gathering Folklore Tomes for Mining and Botany if you haven’t already
-Have a fully-melded HQ Pactmaker’s set for crafting and gathering to have adequate stats for gathering new timed nodes and making new gear/food/potions
-Check for new gear BiS prior to raiding in 6.2 to prioritize gear upgrades

All that should cover your bases to have an accelerated launch into the new patch content!

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