Everyone tackles Final Fantasy 14 and the MMORPG genre with different intentions. Some come for the story, and that’s lovely! But many, including and especially MMORPG vets, eventually start eyeing the high-end content that makes the endgame infamous: Extreme trials, Savage Raids, and Ultimates.
There are a ton of good reasons to try high-end content. With the saying “glamour is the real endgame,” many come to try to earn the gear, weapons and even mounts that these duties offer. Some use their, uh, ”calculators” to try to externally compete with other players. And many really just are bored and want a challenge.
But no matter what the purpose is, everyone who does FFXIV high-end duties has a hill to climb in the form of “prog.” And if you have no idea what that word means, congratulations! You’re in the right place to start, because this guide is especially for you newcomers.
Having raided for over two years now, I’d like to propose that anyone can start to try to raid, or at least see if high-end duties are right for them. High-end raiding takes a can-do attitude, a persistent willingness to learn, some gear, and good communication.
If you’re a little wary about the whole process, the following guide is meant to fill in many of the most common gaps that newcomers face in approaching high-end content, from soft skills to the technical bits you want to study. If you have further questions, feel free to ask around, whether here, on other sites, or even in-game!
Know What’s In Store
Before we get into specifics, the first thing to come to terms with is that you’re going to be playing with other people. If you haven’t done so, check out our prior guide about taking on multiplayer content. This guide is more for those of you who’ve delved into the standard, “casual” content, generally marked as “normal” duties, and feel like you’re up to a deeper, more fulfilling, if frustrating, challenge.
The next step is accepting that you will mess up, and that chances are this will be a humbling experience if you’ve never tackled difficult multiplayer content.
But that’s not to scare you off from trying! In fact, if you watch the “world best” groups, you’ll see that in trying to figure out the raid mechanics for everyone else, they’ll mess up dozens, if not hundreds, of times before moving forward. You may not be doing it hundreds of times, but in the mid-range, it’ll probably be at least 50 “pulls” before you get a consistent, reliable, no-death clear.
More of what I want to convey is that it’s healthy to come in with a positive, eager-to-learn mentality, including a willingness to smack yourself against the progression wall until something gives. I’ve talked about the soft skills and lessons I took from raiding with my relatively casual group, and not to be a shameless plug for old work or anything, but I still find these relevant, so I’ll save a few words here and point you there if you’re interested.
The only other point I’d wish to convey is that raiding goes well when you strive for self-improvement, which means doing some studying, listening, and learning. I implicitly mention it a few times throughout, but you are going to have to be playing to some degree of others’ expectations. And while that can, and often does, grow toxic (and I would never recommend folding to toxicity), understanding which constructive feedback will legitimately help you grow— rotation suggestions, positioning, re-studying mechanics, etc.—goes a long way. When you find a group or even just a learning strategy that aligns with your skill level, patience, and goals, you’ll have a fantastic, rewarding experience.
FFXIV Raiding Terms
Before I get too deeply into this, it’s useful to rattle off the major terms you’ll be seeing throughout your journey into high-end raiding. This isn’t without going into too many deep-putting (limit-cutting, even) ones; just things you'll reliably see and hear throughout your attempts. I’ll also be bringing a few of them up from here on out, because they’re all very useful terms!
- prog — Short for “progression,” and used in a variety of contexts, but overall it means learning and progressing through the combat. A “prog group,” specifically, is learning the ropes of the battle, and “fresh prog” means they’re learning from the start.
- PUG, or PF/Party Finder Group/Strategy — “Pick-Up Group” and “PF group” are often used interchangeably, as a large number of pick-up groups are found through Party Finder. This also means generally-accepted strategies are referred to as “PF strats.”
- pull — An attempt to smack the boss down, starting from the first attack until either the boss dies or your party wipes.
- instance — An entry into a duty. An instance can consist of many pulls, and a raid session can consist of a few instances.
- rotation — The sequence of combat buttons that you press to do your job (see: “Do Your (Combat) Job,” the next section of this article).
- static — A raid group that meets consistently. Usually consists of the same eight players, with a few that may swap in or out based on needs.
- clock positions, plus cardinal and intercardinal — Technically “compass” positions, but “clock” stuck somehow, these are one of eight positions you’ll be taking around the boss for certain mechanics. Typically tanks take north and south, healers take east and west, and DPS take “intercards.”
- mechanics — Not only the individual attacks the boss is doing, but the movements you and your party will be doing to adjust for them.
- BiS — “Best in Slot,” or the most optimal item build your class can earn. Before you progress, this will likely just be the best iLvl item combination you can get based on what stats you want. When sorting out who gets which loot, you’ll be figuring this out based on what you want to achieve.
- food — Meals to improve stats and vitality. The vitality’s actually important here, as in high-end content, it often determines life or death. Usually BiS guides will tell you what your best meal is.
- pots — Tinctures that increase your job’s primary stat, which vary based on your job and are typically used when you’re sure your raid will get through all of the mechanics.
- true north — North of the battlefield. This is true north. That is the definition of true north. Unless, of course, it’s boss relative…
- boss relative — Sometimes, a mechanic will change by pretty much entirely rotating around the battlefield. Resolving mechanics means figuring out how to adapt based on that rotation. This is boss relative, sometimes even “boss north.” Not true north. If your raid leader confuses you with these terms, please ask to clarify.
- tier - A group of typically four raids released at once. At time of publication (mid-March 2023), the current raid tier is Pandaemonium: Abyssos, comprising the fifth through eighth raids in the series.
- blind prog — Progging without looking at mechanics or guides; usually done for kicks at the start of a tier’s release period, as mechanics get figured out by the experts.
And again, that’s before we get into mechanics and job or job type-specific terms. If you’re not sure, ask!
One other thing you’ll commonly see is odd names out of nowhere, specifically “Hector,” “Bilibili,” “Elmo,” “Dwayne,” etc. These are usually referencing community-known strategies, named either for the person who came up with them (Hector and Bilibili) or… frankly, anything else suitable (Elmo or Dwayne “The Rock,” named after literally strategy pictures featuring these celebrities).
Do Your (Combat) Job
The first of the technical skills you’ll actually need to take a good look at is the combat job (aka class) you’re aiming to try. No matter what job you’re doing, you’re going to want to know three things: your role, rotation, and best gear for your situation.
Knowing your role is important because FFXIV has a party reward system to ensure job diversity. All parties receive boosts in stats depending on job diversity, but you’ll get your best boost if all jobs are diverse, and there’s only one overlapping “role.” And roles do go beyond tank, healer and DPS!
Nowadays, you have: tank, barrier healer, pure healer, melee DPS, ranged physical DPS, and caster DPS. A party aiming for the highest DPS will consist of one of each of these, plus an extra tank and one more job that hasn’t been filled. In prog, it may not matter so much until you’re towards the end of learning mechanics, but once you’re trying to get that HP to 0%, you’ll want those boosts.
Next, make sure you know your job’s skills and rotation. Like, actually, go look at this. It’s not a suggestion to know the foundations of your job skills and rotation, it’s a requirement. The game often rewards you for playing a certain way, especially at the current endgame level, so it’s good to make sure you’re in alignment with these best practices to make for the best damage (or healing) output.
It’s equally important to make sure you know your full toolkit for your job. It may be hard to consistently pull off as mechanics and brainpower come and go, but at least knowing how to adjust one way or another will go a long way. For example, as a Black Mage, my primary obstacle is attacking with long cast times in spite of movements due to mechanics; but thanks to Triplecast, Paradox, and Xenoglossy, as well as a slew of other traits and abilities that keep my Enochian timer up, I can shift my rotation to ensure I don’t drop my damage output, buffs, conditionals, and timers.
You’ll also want to ensure you’re wearing the best gear you can acquire. At first, it may only be crafted gear or tomestone gear, and that’s fine! Until you start clearing and earning BiS gear, the general guideline is that your iLvl is more important than anything else, since that primary stat boost (Strength, Dexterity, etc.) and vitality boost do the most lifting.
After you get an okay iLvl, you can adjust to your playstyle by flipping between the crafted and tome gear, plus using Materia. For example, as a Black Mage, I tend to adjust after getting up to my best iLvl for a certain number in Spell Speed so I can cast effectively.
The Balance and Icy Veins have outstanding guides about how to optimize your job and gear, because there are people who, at the start of each patch, sit and crunch numbers about how to get your best damage output. Seriously, just let the number nerds handle that for you. Everyone’s doing it.
Start With Extremes
Extremes are going to be your best way to get your toes in the water for high-end content.
You can start with Savage or Ultimate, and I legitimately am raiding with a tank that has done one (1) other high-end duty ever before doing The Weapon’s Refrain (Ultimate). He’s doing fine; great, even! But if you want to get a feel for how high-end duties are going to work with you, start with Extremes.
To understand, here’s a quick breakdown of all the current high-end duty tiers:
- Extreme — High-end version of a Trial. Designed to be more difficult than “Normal” duties, but not unapproachable by players looking for a fresh challenge.
- Unreal — A re-creation of an Extreme trial, bumped up to the current endgame’s level to give players a fun trial and fresh rewards. Usually slightly more difficult than Extreme, but certainly not as much as Savage.
- Savage — High-end version of a Raid. These are considered standard high-end duties for most players to tackle for a true battle, and are the core of endgame raiding. Require completion of all of the tier’s Normal Raids to unlock.
- Ultimate — Independent high-end duties, themed around retellings of prior FFXIV stories (literally in-game fanfic), which aim to give the ultimate challenge of difficulty and perseverance. Considered to be the most difficult content in the game, generally speaking. Requires that patch’s highest-tier Savage raid to be completed to be unlock (i.e. UWU requires O8S).
In short, Extremes, and arguably Unreals, are built to be stepping stones into the full spectrum of high-end duties. If you want to know if you’ll be able to handle the full high-end raiding experience, this is a great place to start, and most do find that they want to tackle higher and higher challenges after trying an Extreme out.
Your best bet is to tackle the current-highest MSQ Extreme trial available (which, for instance, in March 2023 is Mount Ordeals). If you haven’t earned the current Relic weapon available, this will give you the current highest iLvl weapon, which is good!
Study Your Homework: Learn Fight Mechanics
Further than three weeks into the release of a tier or high-end fight, it’s expected of most groups to at least look over the mechanics of a fight, especially before joining a PUG.
After a few weeks, content creators who specialize in high-end content start releasing guides on how to resolve mechanics. The most well-known ones tend to be Hector Hectorson, Joonbob and MTQcapture, but the go-to guides tend to flux patch by patch, and each creator out there, whether on YouTube or by written guide, has some kind of advantage.
At the very least, it’s recommended you give a few guides a look, or look at one guide a few times. You can also go over PoV videos of your class completing content, if it’s available.
And look, before I go further, this isn’t empty, senseless, droning normal-person advice. Personally, I am not good at studying, per se. My ADHD or whatever I have going on up in my brain says, no, absolutely not, this will not stick the first, third, or even fifth time I look at it.
What I will say from that specific personal experience is that it’s good to give it that look-over, then use however much or little you took away to try to more effectively bodyslam the learning wall. Just have a general idea of what’s coming, even if not every nuance of a mechanic sticks, so you can carry something into that more effective learning practice of actually doing the thing repeatedly. Along the way, with some experimentation, you’ll figure out what learning style actually works for you and carry that into just about everything you do in life.
It’s going to seem overwhelming, but, look. You may not seem ready, but the point of prog is that nobody starts perfect or even good at this. Just do it!
Don’t dwell if you can’t learn a mechanic for now! Go for it! That’s what prog is: starting from the bottom and climbing up with as much stubbornness and energy as you can muster. Pull up at least a scrap of that confidence that got you this far, brush up on what you can so far, and get ready…
Static or Party Finder? Pick A Prog Strategy(s)
As I described in the terms above, there are two approaches to progging and completing high-end duties: “statics” and “PUGs”/”PF groups.”
Statics are the most well-known raiding approach; statics have eight recurring members and will require a regular commitment to your group. They’re formed in all sorts of ways: friend groups, Party Finder ads, Reddit, and Discord groups are the most common static-forming techniques. When it comes to Discord, there’s likely going to be different Discords for your Data Center, but The Balance’s Discord server will be your best bet to at least start your search, followed by Party Finder.
Especially when you’re starting out, it’s good to communicate what you’re looking for. Is your raid laid-back? How many times do they meet? How flexible are they about absences? Do they have a completion goal? It may seem a little overwhelming and even frustrating at first, but you don’t want any surprises down the road, and neither do they. It’s good to be honest in this stage.
On the other hand, there’s really nothing wrong with exclusively raiding in PF; in fact, many clear Static tiers just through PF alone. Most Data Centers have a good range of PF groups to join that are willing to help you prog so long as, as always, you’re willing to learn. Pop into a group that looks suitable, tell them what’s up, and see if it’s gonna work. Like in static-finding, communication is going to be your key here!
You can also take a hybrid sort of approach, if you don’t think your static is fully enriching you. It’s perfectly acceptable to do statics, then prog a little more through Party Finder. It’s like having independent study sessions.
Adjust to a Healthy Taste
The final lesson to take away before really delving into high-end raiding is that you aren’t confined to a single job, group, or even learning style.
Raiding can be stressful, truthfully, and part of getting good at it is not only slamming against that learning wall I mentioned so many times. It involves having an environment where you’re having whatever your definition of fun is, because at the end of the day, you’re still playing a game. And fun looks different to everyone, because sometimes a four-hour burst of intense salt can turn out relaxing, but some people don’t want to be so intense about it.
If you think you’re severely incompatible with how you’re presently tackling your high-end raiding, it’s going to be to your benefit, both for your attitude and your skills, to address that in a way that works for you.
That doesn’t mean leaving a group, per se—though, yes, that is often what it means. You can watch more videos, review your skills to adjust your rotation, or even change your job altogether. Ask your raid leader to schedule a break into the raid night. Go to the store and get some drinks and snacks for before and during your raiding nights. My personal favorite tip is to keep a glass of water plus a pitcher nearby at all times. Sometimes, even throwing on a new glam can create a fresh, fun perspective.
And sometimes, being a healthy raider just means taking a break altogether. A hobby like raiding is meant to be a recreational activity, not a life-or-death sport, and if you find yourself in that mental hole, it’s going to be more detrimental than constructive to throw yourself into the jaws of your (digital) enemies.
Have you tackled FFXIV high-end content? Do you have advice on how to tackle it, or what keeps you sane while progging? Let us know!
