FFXIV Best In Slot: End-Game Gear Full Guide

If you’ve played RPGs before, you know they have a vast collection of weapons and gear for you to get. Each one is better than the other. The stats keep increasing, and damage numbers start showing in thousands. That said, a functional build requires specific equipment pieces with some factors taken into consideration. It’s more or less the same in FFXIV as you gear up to take on endgame raids and get the higher tier rewards. In our FFXIV Best In Slot guide, we will go over all of the current endgame gear sets available so that you have an idea of what to aim for.

Key Highlights

• Best in Slot refers to the strongest gear available in FFXIV.
• You can receive BiS gear by exchanging your tombstones for gear.
• Tomestones are attained from level 90 dungeons and Expert roulette.
• Raiding also grants you gear.
• Normal raids give decent gear, while the Savage raids boast the best gear in the game.

Related: FFXIV Best DPS Classes

What Is Best In Slot In Final Fantasy XIV

The idea of Best in Slot is defined by what stats a class needs in order to perform at its peak. These stats have their own defined values at several tiers, and it determines a class’s potential DPS output. There is also a stat priority system for the job’s gearset, which adds to build variety though it’s generally similar as new gear is introduced with each major patch, the current Best in Slot changes in relation to new raid content.

Endgame Weapons & Armor in Endwalker In FFXIV

RPG games have no shortage of gear sets. Once you get into the game, there’s a new piece of armor at every turn, and such is the case with FFXIV as well. As of Patch 6.08, we have a variety of armor pieces and weapons of varying item levels. Although you’ll be aiming for the highest tier of gear available, acquiring that requires you to prepare the preliminary Best in Slot. This will help you tackle raid content efficiently.

We’ll first go over all of the different gear tiers currently available and how you can go about acquiring them.

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Moonward Armor & Weapons

First off, in our FFXIV Best in Slot guide, The initial tier of endgame gear, Moonward equipment, was introduced with the launch of Endwalker. Its Item Level is 570, and it was initially used by players to prepare for the expansion’s first set of Extreme Trials. Zodiark and Hydaelyn, in their respective trials, were the first taste of endgame in the current expansion. Having an Item Level requirement of 560, Moonward was the best option available after the Job Artifact Gear.

You can purchase the Moonward equipment from Cihanti at Radz-at-Han (X: 10.8, Y: 10.3) with Allagan Tomestones of Aphorism. These Tomestones can be easily acquired by completing the daily roulettes with any Level 90 job and running the following dungeons, trials, and raids as of patch 6.08.

Dungeons

• The Dead Ends
• The Stigma Dreamscape (Quest located at Base Omicron. Ultima Thule)
• Smileton (Quest located at Bestways Burrow, Mare Lamentorum)

Trials

• The Final Day 
• The Minstrel’s Ballad: Zodiark’s Fall 
• The Minstrel’s Ballad: Hydaelyn’s Call

Raids (Pandaemonium: Asphodelos)

• The First Circle
• The Second Circle
• The Third Circle
• The Fourth Circle

Each run gives you a fixed amount of Tomestones based on the content you decide to play. Should there be a player in your party doing the duty for the first time, you will receive bonus Tomestones as well. All of this combined with the daily roulette bonus gives a pretty solid amount of the currency. 

Furthermore, you can augment this equipment with Materia in classic Final Fantasy fashion. Each piece of armor, along with your weapon, can hold up to two Materia, while the accessories can have one. These augments give you a boost in stats that often comes in handy when doing endgame content while it’s fresh.

While the Moonward gear was phased out with the release of the newer tiers, it still serves two purposes – to bridge the gap until you get the better gear and glamour. The latter is a crucial part of FFXIV’s endgame. Plus, if you have no better use for them, you could just use the gear pieces as Desynthesis fodder.

Divine Light Weapons

These weapons have been available in-game since the launch of Endwalker as part of the endgame trial rewards. Players who are able to clear The Minstrel’s Ballad: Hydaelyn’s Call are rewarded with one guaranteed Umbral Totem. They can also roll on the loot from the treasure coffers. This loot consists of a random Item Level 580 weapon, a weapon coffer, a crafting material, an orchestrion roll material, and a Mount. 

While the last three items have varying degrees of rarity, the weapon and the weapon coffer are guaranteed drops. Moreover, you’re able to trade ten Umbral Totems for a Divine Light Weapon of your choice. Simply go over to Radz-at-Han and talk to Nesvaaz at (X:10.6, Y:10.0).

Considering the weekly cap on Tomestones of Astronomy and the system to get a Discal Tomestone, these weapons are more or less Best in Slot until you ultimately get the Item Level 600 weapons from Asphodelos Savage. Now, even though these weapons are strong, considering the benefits of Advanced Melding, Classical Weapons can give you a slight edge. That said, sub-stat preference and priority play a part here, so to each their own.

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Eternal Dark Accessories

Much like how it’s been since Stormblood, the first set of Extreme Trials rewards you with endgame weapons and accessories. These gear pieces are used to prepare for the first tier of normal raids, after which you combine pieces from various groups of available gear sets to prepare for the first Savage Raid Tier.

Like its counterpart, The Minstrel’s Ballad: Zodiark’s Fall rewards players with a guaranteed Astral Totem upon clearing the encounter. The coffer drops include multiple Item Level 580 accessories. This is accompanied by differing chances of dropping the crafting material, faded orchestrion roll copy, and the Mount. Not only that, if you’re having a bad day with loot rolls, just go to Nesvaaz at Radz-at-Han to trade Astral Totems for your preferred piece of equipment. 

These accessories boast fairly high sub-stat values and can be augmented with one Materia per piece. Since you can only get 450 Astronomy Tomestones per week, it’s wise to mix and match these with Classical accessories to form your Best in Slot. Of course, you will ultimately have to get the Augmented Radiant and Asphodelos pieces.

Endwalker Job Artifact Gear

Next up in our FFXIV Best In Slot guide is the current job gear. While it isn’t Best in Slot anymore, it serves as a bridge when you get to Level 89-90. You can easily combine the Artifact gear with Moonward accessories and be ready for the first set of Extreme Trials in Endwalker. Of course, this is if you are unable to spend Gil on the Classical gear pieces. 

To get the job gear in Endwalker, you need to reach a certain point in the Main Scenario Quest. This point will be during the Level 89 batch of quests and will unlock a shop in Old Sharlayan at The Agora, near the Aetheryte plaza. While you can’t skip this due to it being a plot point, you can forget about it after the initial unlock.

You can claim these from the shop once you’ve reached Level 89 with the desired job. Keep in mind that they can be dyed; however, you need to complete the Job Role Quests before you’re allowed to do it. At a certain point during the Level 85 main Scenario Quests, you will unlock the Job Role Quests at Radz-at-Han. You can either do them along with your MSQ or save them for after you’re done with the main story.

The Artifact Gear has a gear score of 560, and it satisfies the minimum Item Level requirement of the first set of Extreme Trials. It also serves as good glamor, but fashion sense is always subjective. That said, the gear has been entirely phased out with the release of newer equipment. Nevertheless, it still serves some purpose and looks good too. Here’s to hoping it can be augmented later on when we get the Endwalker Relics in patch 6.1 and beyond.

Classical Gear (Crafted Armor & Weapons)

The other line of gear in our FFXIV Best in Slot guide is the Classical equipment. Added to the game with the release of Pandaemonium: Asphodelos (Savage) earlier in January, this line of equipment has an Item Level of 580. Item Level 580 is sort of the middle ground at the moment, with 600 being the highest. Asphodelos (Savage) weapons have the highest individual gear score of 605.

You can get the Classical gear pieces from the market board as it’s crafted by players. The prices were extremely high on launch, but they have since gone down by a lot. It’s a pattern for crafted gear to be expensive when a new raid tier is released due to high demand and crafting requirements. Be sure to check out various worlds in your data center to find the best possible price. You could also get a crafter friend to make these for you.

Overmelding – Pros And Cons

One thing to keep in mind with crafted gear is that the normal quality equipment is never worth it. The sub-stats are always lower than the contemporary armor of its group. That said, the major advantage of using crafted gear is the ability to Overmeld it. You can affix three extra Materia to each armor piece and weapon, while accessories can hold up to four. This, combined with the high-quality stats, gives you a pretty solid boost in DPS that is much needed during the first week of a Savage raid tier.

However, great power rarely comes without a great price, and the price for Overmelding is paid in Gil. You will need a ton of Materia to successfully Overmeld all of your crafted gear due to the low success rates of each meld. Be aware that the success rate goes down with each meld, with the final one being a shocking 7%. Now, of course, if luck is on your side, then you wouldn’t have to worry about anything. However, that’s rarely the case, so be sure to stock up on Materia and Gil beforehand.

On Zodiark (Light Data Center), the prices for Classical gear are within 100k Gil in some cases. Based on the average price point, it’s fairly affordable, and you shouldn’t have much difficulty in getting it. However, it may not be worth Overmelding it at this point due to the existence of Radiant Gear.

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Quick & Reliable Ways To Make Gil

We thought it would be a good idea to add Gil-making tips in our FFXIV Best in Slot guide as well. If you’re not doing too good with Gil, one reliable method to make some is farming Aphorism Tomestones. You can purchase crafting materials from Cihanti at Radz-at-Han and sell them on the market. These materials have gone down in price a bit but still sell for a hefty amount. With 2000 Tomestones you can purchase a set of 20 of each material which can net you somewhere around 500k Gil. 

Another method to make Gil without any hassle is to spam certain Levequests. If you talk to the Levemete in Old Sharlayan, you’ll see a lot of available options. For this method, you’d need any Disciple of The Hand at level 90, but we prefer Culinarian. All you have to do is spam the Level 88 Levequest that requires you to craft and turn in The Noodles of Elpis. You can hold a maximum of a hundred Leve Allowances, and turning it all those noodles will net you around two million Gil every sixteen days. We say sixteen because that’s roughly the time you need to replenish your allowances.

Limbo Gear – Pandaemonium: Asphodelos

Next up in our FFXIV Best in Slot guide is the first line of raid gear in Endwalker. It was added to the game with the release of Pandaemonium and had an Item Level of 580. As is the case with all current raid gear, it currently has a weekly restriction in place. Players can obtain one item from each raid, so they must plan ahead and know what they require to get the gear.

Each Circle of Asphodelos drops two treasure coffers that have a total loot count of seven and higher. The following Unsung items can be obtained via treasure coffers by clearing each of the four normal raids.

• Ring of Asphodelos
• Armor of Asphodelos
• Greaves of Asphodelos
• Gauntlets of Asphodelos 
• Helm of Asphodelos
• Chausses of Asphodelos 

You need two pieces of the helm, gauntlets, and greaves to get the usable Limbo gear for each respective slot. For the Limbo upper and lower gear, you need four pieces of the unsung armor and chausses. The Limbo accessories, however, only require one unsung ring. If we do the math, you can get one of the following gear combinations in a given week.

Possible Weekly Armor Combinations

• Four accessories
• A pair of Limbo gauntlets and greaves
• One lower armor piece
• One upper armor piece

To trade the Unsung pieces for armor, simply go over to Radz-at-Han (X: 10.3, Y: 9.6) and talk to Djole. Alternatively, you can also go to the NPC in Aporia, Labyrinthos where you initially unlocked Pandaemonium. Like some of the other gearsets stated above, you can meld two Materia to the Limbo armor pieces and one Materia to the accessories. It’s actually a pattern when it comes to gear and melding, so do keep that in mind.

Unsung Blade of Asphodelos

Lastly, by clearing The Fourth Circle, you’re able to obtain one Unsung Blade of Asphodelos per week. Collecting seven of these enables you to trade them for a Discal Tomestone. Talk to the NPC at Radz-at-Han or Aporia to get your item. This can be used along with 500 Tomestones of Astronomy to get a Radiant weapon. 

Radiant Gear (Tomestones Of Astronomy)

The inclusion of this line of gear was accompanied by the release of Pandaemonium: Asphodelos (Savage). It can only be acquired with Tomestones of Astronomy, as we’ve mentioned before. Based on how the gear system works in FFXIV, after an expansion’s launch, only one new type Tomestone is available. With the release of Savage raids comes the second type. This variant has a weekly cap of 450 and is used to acquire the best equipment in line after the Savage gear.

You can talk to Cihanti at Radz-at-Han (X: 10.8, Y: 10.3) to purchase the Radiant gear. It has an Item Level of 590 and has marginally higher sub-stat values than the Classical gear. Of course, you can over-meld the crafted equipment, but there is a rule to prioritize your main stat over sub-stats. It does provide a small boost in damage, but we digress.

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Furthermore, Radiant gear can be augmented to Item Level 600 with materials obtained from the first tier of Savage raids. These materials are called Radiant’s Coating, Radiant’s Twine, and Radiant’s Roborant. You’ll need the coating to augment your Radiant accessories while the twine and roborants are used for armor pieces and weapons respectively.

While the normal version of the Radiant accessories can only hold one Materia, this limit is increased after augmentation. You can then affix one additional Materia to the accessories giving yourself a slight boost in stats. These things only factor in when you’re min-maxing to the fullest, so don’t stress over it much. Talk to Khaldeen at Radz-at-Han (X: 10.0, Y: 10.0) to augment your Radiant gear.

Alliance Raids & Patch 6.1

There’s been a trend since Heavensward, which involves the augmentation of Tomestone gear. At first, the materials required for augmentation were only available through savage raids. However, in a later patch, Square Enix introduces the expansion’s Alliance Raid series. This brings with it a token system where you can clear an alliance raid and use the token to purchase those materials.

This trend has continued thus far, and we’re pretty sure it will be the same for Endwalker. Patch 6.1 will add the new Alliance Raids so those players who are unwilling to try Savage can easily augment their equipment. Just need to be patient.

Lastly, the raids themselves bring new gear equal to other variants in Item Level, so there are more options available if you wish to supplement your current build with a preferred sub-stat.

Asphodelos Gear – Pandaemonium (Savage)

The Asphodelos line of gear is the reward players get from clearing some of the highest tier content currently available. As is always the case, the gear acquired from clearing Savage raids is almost always the best for your class. There will definitely be times when its contemporaries would be the Best in Slot you’d want to aim for.

The armor for each of your slots is spread across four encounters that form the first tier of Endwalker’s Savage raids. Clearing The First Circle gives your the Asphodelos Mythos I, which can be traded with Djole for Item Level 600 accessories. These can be augmented with two Materia as well. Keep in mind that you get one Mythos per week from each fight, and you need four Mythos I to get an accessory.

Similarly, clearing The Second, Third, and Fourth Circle raids will give you the Asphodelos Mythos II, III, and IV, respectively. You need varying quantities of these to get the desired armor piece. Clearing these will not be easy by any means, and you will have to be patient and study each encounter to be able to clear it. Doing it in Party Finder with constant random players will lead to inevitable wipes. That said, we recommend you focus on individual progress and not the many guaranteed wipes you are going to see.

While the gear from Asphodelos (Savage) has an Item Level of 600, the weapons acquired from The Fourth Circle are 605. These weapons can be underwhelming for some due to their appearance, but they are Best in Slot in terms of stat values. Furthermore, you can also get the Phoinix mount from clearing The Fourth Circle. A nice reward after all the suffering we endure.

Gear Division in Asphodelos (Savage)

Like it’s been in the past, the loot is on a weekly restriction. You can only obtain one Mythos per week. For the treasure coffers, if you clear the fight and don’t get any loot, you’re locked out for the entire week. Having a static group will help you avoid this unlucky scenario. Keep in mind that you can get multiple items from the coffers, but you only have one chance per week.

The First Circle is all about the accessories. The gauntlets, feet armor, and helm are obtained from The Second Circle. This encounter also gives the Discal Tomestone and Radiant Coating. These can be used to get the Radiant weapons and augment your Radiant accessories.

The Third Circle drops the leg armor, Radiant Roborant, and Radiant Twine. This is also the fight that steps up the difficulty, so be sure you’re ready for it. The Fourth Circle is the most challenging encounter to clear. Of course, it’s been a few weeks since release, and the DPS checks are a bit more manageable, but it’s still a challenge. This final encounter drops the weapons, the upper armor, the Nosferatu minion, and the Phoinix mount.

We recommend checking out the guides by Xenosys Vex and Illya Dalamiq to get an idea of what the encounters are like and how you can handle mechanics.

FFXIV Other Considerations For Best In Slot

We’ll now go over the priority of stats in our FFXIV Best in Slot guide. When it comes to forming character builds in RPG games, there’s always a debate on which stat to prioritize or what skill tree to focus on.

Stat Priority

The debate in FFXIV revolves around stats which are categorized into two groups: main and sub/secondary. For example, as a Machinist, your main stat is Dexterity. This stat impacts the amount of damage inflicted on foes after Dexterity comes sub-stats like Critical Hit and Determination.

Based on the stat priority system, your focus should go from Main Stat to Sub Stats. After prioritizing your main damage stat, you need to decide and focus on what sub-stats your job needs. As a Machinist, you need to prioritize Critical Hit and Determination while also being mindful of your Direct Hit Rate. Your goal with Direct Hit is not to neglect it. 

For the sub-stats, the thing a Machinist doesn’t need is Skill Speed, as it does little for the job. One example is that Heat Blast’s recast time doesn’t scale with Skill Speed, and the job doesn’t have any DoT actions. With this in mind, your Best in Slot gear would have Critical Hit, Determination, Vitality, and Direct Hit Rate as its sub-stats.

When it comes to weapons, the same logic applies more or less. However, you won’t have your Best in Slot right off the bat. When selecting a weapon that would serve as a bridge, you should first prioritize Weapon Damage before focusing on sub-stats. Another thing to know is that not having the optimal sub-stats won’t make your job unplayable. However, if you wish to optimize your gameplay or are aiming to min-max your performance, then these things are inevitable.

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Skill/Spell Speed

Skill and Spell speed are often talked about in FFXIV Best in Slot debates. However, there can’t be a singular best value for these two sub-stats. This is due to the fact that everybody has differing latency values. As we know, latency also has a tendency to fluctuate, which can cause problems in online games.

Having a universal Best In Slot value for stats such as these two would lead to gameplay issues such as GCD clipping. The best approach for this should be finding the value that works best for you. If you’re able to greed an extra GCD at a certain mechanic, that Skill Speed value/GCD recast is best for you.

There are several pre-made Best in Slot builds online for each job that you could use or tweak around with. They use varying Skill Speed stats, and some of them can work for you. Feel free to adjust them if need be.

Community Resources

If you’re not sure how to go about making your own build or just want to use something pre-made, be sure to check out The Balance. It’s a community-run Discord server that has a vast amount of resources for each of your jobs. These resources include not only the Disciples of War and Magic stuff but also the libraries for Disciples of Hand and Land. 

The libraries include in-depth explanations on how your rotations work, what’s Best In Slot, how to align your rotation with raid buffs, and much more. High-end crafting and gathering details are also available in the respective channels. You can always ask a question in the general chat section if needed.

Gear Progression

This section of our FFXIV Best in Slot guide will focus on gear progression. The gear system in FFXIV is based on that aspect. After reaching max level, your gear’s Item Level becomes the factor. This factor is improved over the course of patches until the new expansion is released, and then the cycle repeats.

Each raid tier introduced new Best in Slot gear along with a new Tomestone gear variant. This Tomestone gear is augmented via materials earned from clearing Savage raids, and those same materials are later available from alliance raids. Each time a new gear variant with a weekly cap is introduced, it replaces the old ones. 

Here’s an example – when the next Tomestone gear is made available on a weekly basis, Aphorism Tomestones will be discontinued, and they will be replaced by Astronomy. The new variant will have the weekly cap restriction, and the new crafting materials will be available for purchase.

We went over several kinds of gear in our FFXIV Best in Slot guide that’s currently available in-game. Ultimately, the weekly loot restriction will be removed from the first tier of Savage raids, and people will be freely able to farm the gear. The Echo will also be added to it, eventually making DPS checks easier and assisting the healers in mitigating damage. Of course, this won’t overly trivialize the raids as you still need to use comprehension to clear content. Nevertheless, it serves as a set of training wheels for those players who just aren’t able to clear during the tier’s first few weeks.

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Best Raid Food Buffs

You should always make sure to have a food buff up whenever you do high-end content. The buffs provide stat increases and depending on your job, and you need specific foods to get the maximum benefit.

For example, as a Machinist, you need Pumpkin Pottage. This food item increases your Critical Hit, Determination, and Vitality stats. The stat increase obviously helps out in raids and augments your performance overall.

There are various options available at the moment, but the most common right now is Pumpkin Ratatouille, and Pumpkin Pottage is you’re playing a Disciple of War class. Be sure always to buy the High-Quality versions for the greatest increase.

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How To Gear Up Multiple Jobs

There are lots of ways to go about this. For one, you can farm Aphorism Tomestones to get every job at an average of 570. You can further solidify it with a 580 weapon from Hydaelyn Extreme. That said, you can also farm the weekly loot from Pandaemonium’s normal raids and use that to get 580 gear. Another thing you could consider is Classical gear if Gil is not the issue.

Gearsets are shared between class groups, so, at a very basic level, a striking gearset will help your Monk and Samurai jobs. Similarly, a Casting set will work for Black Mage, Red Mage, and Summoner.

Once the weekly restriction is removed at a later date, you can farm Pandaemonium Savage to get Item Level 600 gear for every job you play. Of course, by that time, the new raid tier will be on the horizon, so do keep that in mind if you’re thinking about changing main jobs.

Conclusion

This brings us to the end of our FFXIV Best in Slot guide. We hope it helped in giving you a better understanding of how gearing up works in this MMORPG. If you have any questions or suggestions, let us know in the comments below.

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