Taking a cue from my favorite Seinfeld actor (Yes, the title is a pun on Jason Alexander), I wanted to touch on the new raid that happens to be the latest endgame for Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward.

As I’m not formally level 60 yet and thus unable to actually give my proper impressions of the raid – I’m taking my sweet time rather than rushing throught the content – I though the folks like me who aren’t at that sort of endgame yet might want a bit of prep time to understand the basic lore and rewards for completing an Alexander run.

The steampunk fortress

What is Alexander, pray tell? You can watch the video below for a pre-raid overview, or read on for additional info!

Alexander is a giant, mobile fortress that is said to be created by an ancient technologist.

A marvel unto itself, Alexander becomes inhabited by a primal when a cult called The Illuminati attempts to take the fortress for themselves and become master of all things technological by swiping something from within the fortress: The Enigma Codex.

Alexander, as a result is now trying to suck the aether out of everything around it. As the Warrior of Light, it’s your job to shut the whole shebang down by defeating the bosses of the raid and eventually turning off the core.

Alexander Itemization

Alexander Normal Mode requires a minimum item level of 170, with rewards from the dungeon being tokens you can use to redeem armor that is at item level 190.

According to existing estimates, getting a full set of item level 190 gear should take about 5 weeks of dedicated raiding. This is because of some loot pickup restrictions in the dungeon.

The loot pickup restrictions keep players from earning more than one token per floor, per week, with the boss on each raid floor dropping 2 tokens upon death. A corresponding number of tokens are turned over to Sabrina in Idyllshire for the level 190 gear.

This post on Reddit should provide you with the overall estimates as to which floor drops what tokens, and what order you should presumably try to acquire the said tokens across five weeks.

Final Thoughts

Alexander looks like a magnificent marvel, and by all accounts, it will also be getting an additional version later on that makes it tougher and more demanding of a person’s skill than other raids before it..

I don’t quite know if I’ll ever reach the point when I’ll want to tackle the super hard mode of Alexander, but one thing’s for sure: I’ll be visiting the raid when I have an opportunity to once I finish the main story quest!

Cheers to one and all, and congratulations to Square Enix for having 5 million subscribers!