Getting ready for Final Fantasy XIV Endwalker

If you are one of those people: focus on the Main Story! You will only really get into Endwalker if you have finished Death Unto Dawn, the last Main Story quest in Patch 5.5. After that, feel free to do any content to your heart's content.

There is a certain charm in sharing a new expansion with other players. While some will play like vampires, giving up the privilege of sleep to finish the latest main story as soon as possible, others will casually stroll through it. Knowing that someone else is sharing the same experience as you in that cutscene is one of the unique flavors of playing an MMO.

And if you are worried that the flood of people will hinder the progression of your quests, don't. As you may know, most of the quests in FFXIV are somewhat instanced, meaning that each player has their own mob to hunt or items to collect. However, if your trauma scars still itch from Raubahn's Wall, let's hold hands and pray. Because all we can do is hope that the Squeenix servers are equipped for the multitude of players that will simultaneously jump in the server on the release day.

If you are one of the enthusiasts eagerly awaiting the new jobs, you know that they will be available to anyone who owns Endwalker and has any DoW/DoM above level 70.

To avoid wasting time or money equipping your Reaper or Sage, save some Allagan Tomestone of Poetics, go to Kugane (12.2,10.8) and talk to Rowena's Representative. You can then browse the market for Augmented Scaevan gear and boost your item level.

Keep in mind the 2,000 Poetics limit won't let you get all the gears, so if you want to get the entire set, I am 97% sure that the Reaper items will be those with the Maiming suffix, the same as the Dragoon items, and the Sage items will most likely be the suffix of Healing, the standard for all healing jobs. Unless they create another suffix named Barrier-maker.

However, you can't get the new weapons preemptively; a deadly scythe for Reaper and the stylish Nouliths for Sage. Each weapon costs 600 Poetics, so you know the drill.

If you don't care for the new Jobs because you love your current ones - Dragoon for the win! - but for some reason have been on hiatus and haven't gotten high-item level gear, you can spend Poetics to collect the level 80 gear available when Endwalker lands. Then, you will have an item level above 500 and can complete the new Main Story Quests without any difficulty. And the best part, you will not get left out when you get to the first dungeon of Endwalker because of a low item level.

Until level 70, we had Jobs Quests. These were job-specific quests that rewarded us with new actions and a set of artifact armors to show off the best in us. However, in Shadowbringers, the Job Quests gave way to Role Quests, which acted similarly. Consequently, Role Quests do not reward our jobs with new actions. - something I loved - but they still give players an Artifact Armor at the end.

In Endwalker, the Role Quests will return. This time, they will not be tied to the Main Story - as they were in Shadowbringers. But this does not mean that you should ignore them.

Although Role Quests aren't as personalized and relatable as Job Quests, they are still great storylines that further enhance the lore. In Shadowbringers, the Role Quests show us a little more about the past of the infamous Warriors of Light in The First. Due to the fact that we are back in the Source on Endwalker, these new Role Quests may offer us a deeper insight into Eorzea itself, which sounds very intriguing.

This is also true for Disciples of the Land and Hand. Crystarium Deliveries were the equivalent of Role Quests for our crafters and gatherers in Shadowbringers. Now, these five questlines will be called Studium Deliveries and will work likewise their former in the upcoming expansion. Some gatherers and crafters share the same deliveries.

Normal raids, although not mandatory for the main story, are closely intertwined in it. If you have never done them for lack of a reason, maybe this one will be enough to motivate you. Natsuko Ishikawa, the story writer of Endwalker, strongly recommends that you finish two of the old raids to supplement the story: Binding Coil of Bahamut and Omegascape.

The former tells about Bahamut's events after he caused the calamity and destroyed the old Final Fantasy XIV (thanks, Bahamut!) The latter elaborates more on the Omega weapon and how the Allagans built their entire technological empire based on it. Omega was also used by the Allagans to trap Bahamut inside Dalamud.

These two raids are slightly connected, but I'm not sure how this would affect the next Endwalker raid, Pandaemonium, which has a central focus on the story of the Ascians. But if the scriptwriter recommended it, we'd better follow her lead, right?

If you're on a roll, you might as well do the Alexander raid in Heavensward. Although it's even are more isolated to its zone, the music on Alexander's mount is terrific.

Alliance Raids are also totally optional side stories, even more so if you consider the ones in Stormblood and Shadowbringers. These titles fell more into the crossover category than something inherently belonging to Eorzea.

But - and this is a huge but - players who completed the alliance raid Crystal Tower got a different feel from the Shadowbringers' main story. A critical character from the alliance raid was present in The First, and he recognizes our Warrior of Light if you completed the Crystal Tower. Fortunately, I had finished all the Alliance Raids by then, but this small easter egg motivated me to avoid missing any side content.

So if you are willing, venture through the Alliance Raids and unravel every bit of lore available. Maybe the collaboration with NieR doesn't influence the story at all, but considering that Dalmasca was a trade route between Othard and Ilsabard - the continent where the imperial capital of Garlemald is, a point we will visit in Endwalker - I recommend at least crushing the Alliance Raid from Stormblood.

But suppose you are a mid-core or hardcore player, and you have maxed out all the classes, completed all the raids, dungeons, befriended all beast tribes, and got most of the not-insane-to-get mounts and minions. In that case, you can just stroll over Eorzea, hang with your Free Company colleagues, dance to the song of itinerant bards in Limsa Lominsa, or simply abuse your authority and send your retainers on mission after mission without paid vacation.

Most importantly, we will all soon be together, witnessing and grasping the conclusion of this critically acclaimed MMORPG, taking on the greatest challenge that lies ahead for our Warrior of Light.