With Final Fantasy XIV’s Dawntrail expansion launching for players who pre-ordered it on June 28, it’s time to start thinking about how to make the most of your downtime now. If you’re already at level 90, and caught up with the main scenario, there are still plenty of useful ways to ensure you’re in the best position come Dawntrail’s release. Things will be quiet in 14 until Dawntrail, so let’s take a look at how you can best prepare for the new journey ahead.
Dawntrail is the start of an entirely new story arc for FF14, but some things never change, and that’s how to prepare for a new adventure.
Complete the Warring Triad quest
During the FF14 London Fan Fest, director and producer Naoki Yoshida told PCGamesN in that he would recommend that all players complete “The Warring Triad” questline found in the game’s first expansion, Heavensward.
The quest focuses on the Thirteenth Reflection, which was a strong focal point of the Endwalker patch series. The Warring Triad has the player help Unukalhai’ and their task to keep the balance between light and dark from shifting too heavily. You’ll have to face off against three Meracydian Gods known as Sephirot, the Fiend, Sophia, the Goddess, and Zurvan, the Demon to protect the balance and stop them from breaking free. While we don’t currently know its ties into Dawntrail, you can’t get a more direct recommendation for content to see. It consists of a series of 8-player trials, but don’t worry, you can use the in-game matchmaking to see this content though.
You can start this quest by speaking to Torsefers at The Pillars (X:11.7,Y:11.5).
Join a Free Company
If you haven’t joined a Free Company yet, you should start looking into that. Free Companies are guilds of players that all play under one banner, offering each other help in dungeons, raids, and everything in between. Aside from having a group of players to play through harder content with, there are also universal buffs that can help you through the leveling process.
For instance, the Free Company can turn on the reduced teleport fee which will significantly reduce the Gil cost for traveling around Eorzea. They can also turn on increased battle experience which is obviously great for leveling once the expansion hits. The Lodestone is an easy way to find actively recruiting Free Companies.
Buy a bunch of eggs—no seriously
Once the level cap increases to 100 in Dawntrail, you’ll start the grind to the cap. All food has a base experience bonus of 3% across the board. So staying well fed will give you that extra boost to get ahead of the level curve.
Eggs are dirt cheap on the market board, going for around 3 Gil a pop. Buy 99 and you’ll be all set. The buff stays active for 30 minutes, so just keep an eye on it and eat another egg from your inventory when it expires. No need to waste good money on expensive food when the humble egg will get you where you need to go.
Check the Dawntrail benchmark to ensure your PC can run it
Alongside Dawntrail, there is a new graphics update to FF14. The minimum and recommended requirements for the game have jumped up a bit. Luckily, there’s a benchmark you can download to figure out what settings you should run the game on. Run the benchmark as soon as possible to see if you’ll need to upgrade your PC ahead of launch. Console players won’t need to do this.
Gear up
While you’ll be picking up plenty of new gear in Dawntrail, it’s still important to use the time you have before the expansion to gear up. If you’re not Savage raiding or doing difficult endgame content, you’ll be able to hit item level 660. Using Tomestones of Comedy will allow you to purchase item level 650 gear from Cihanti in Radz-at-Han (X:10.8,Y:10.4)
Running the Endwalker Alliance Raid Thaleia each week will grant you a Thaleia Coin, which can be turned given to the NPC Nesvaaz in Radz-at-Han (X:10.6,Y:10) for a Divine Twine, Divine Shrine, or Divine Solvent. These items are used to augment your item level 650 Tomestone gear into item level 660 gear.
Complete your Manderville Weapon
The Manderville Weapons are the Endwalker Relic Weapons for this expansion. These weapons require quite a grind to obtain, but are the most powerful weapons you can currently have with an item level of 665. Outside of that, they are some of the coolest gear available in the game.
To even start the quest you’ll need to have completed the Hildibrand questline from Endwalker. The Hildibrand quests were first introduced in A Realm Reborn, so if you haven’t even started them, you’ll have 48 quests to work through.
Once you’ve completed all of them, you’ll have everything you need to start the Manderville Weapon grind. Here you’ll need to collect 1,500 Tomestones of Comedy 4 separate times. So that means you’ll need 6,000 total. Running your daily Roulettes will give you roughly 1,000 each day, but are quite time-consuming. So start this chase sooner rather than later.
Level an alternative job
Now that the Endwalker dust has officially settled, it’s time to pick up a second or even third Job. Having an additional Job and leveling it to 90 isn’t an easy task, but this is the most downtime you’ll have before Dawntrail drops. So if you’ve been thinking about finally leveling that Healer or Tank, now’s your time.
If you’ve preordered Dawntrail you will have received the Azeyma’s Earrings accessory. This will give all Jobs below level 90 an increased 30% experience gain, which will significantly speed up the amount of time it takes to hit the level cap.
Make the most of the returning collaborations
FF14 is going to be quite busy with extra crossover and collaboration events. The FF16 event is still kicking around until May 15, so grab your Torgal mount and Clive’s armor before that goes away. The Yo-kai Watch Collaboration starts on April 24, which hasn’t been here since 2020. So grind that out before it’s gone for a while.
There’s a Dragon Quest X collaboration that is also returning on June 5. You’ll be able to grab some slime drip and other Dragon Quest goodies before it ends on June 20.
Another Moogle Treasure Trove event is slated to start back up on May 14, which is good for getting a mount or two you might be missing, as well as some extra MGP vouchers if you’re running low.
Clear out your retainers
It’s time for some spring cleaning: Check on your retainers and clear out their inventories before Dawntrail arrives. We know you’ve been stocking up on useless trinkets and materials you’ll no longer need. So it’s time to say goodbye to that piece of AR-Caean Velvet that’s been sitting in your Retainer’s inventory for multiple patches at this point.
Having a clean Retainer will allow you to drop off the new stuff you think you might need during Dawntrail. Then, when the next expansion comes out, we can remind you to throw that away, too.
Stock up on dyes
Dawntrail is releasing a much-requested feature: the ability to dye clothing with two separate color dyes. The market value for certain dyes is going to skyrocket, and players will be purchasing dyes left and right. So, if you have the Gil now, stock up on general-purpose Jet Black, Pure White, and Pastel Pink Dye. Its value is only going to go up once people are looking to experiment with new glams.
