I’m not going to lie, I struggle to remember to repair my Gear in every single game I play and my Twitch Community has witnessed me play full games like the Witcher 3 and never notice my Gear break. I’m sure most people agree that they prefer games where your Gear doesn’t break, but I’ve gotten a lot better about keeping an eye on my Gear in FFXIV because of how awful it is to battle when you have broken Gear.
Although players can get through most content with some broken Gear, I would strongly recommend against it as broken Gear severely decreases your stats and increases the amount of time it will take for players to complete content, no matter how easy the content is. Essentially, when a piece of Gear is broken it will not provide you with any stats. None. Zippo.
Admittedly, if you’re low level or if you’ve got some trash equipment on that’s much lower than your level it won’t matter as much, but I still recommend the repair.
Luckily for players, repairing Gear is quite simple and players will have the option to pay for it at a Mender or will be able to unlock the ability to repair it themselves after some quests and with the right resources, though both options are relatively cheap and the choice between them will depend on which the player prefers.
Typically, I will just pay Gil to repair my Gear, but it depends on how much I’m playing Final Fantasy and where my Crafters are at, but I’ll dive into this more shortly.
HOW DO PIECES OF GEAR BREAK
There are a few ways that pieces of Gear Break in FFXIV, meaning that players may see their Gear break more of less depending on what kind of content they are currently running through.
When it comes to damage Jobs, no matter the role, players will see their Armour go down in Condition whenever they take damage. Players will see their Armour lose the most condition when they die in combat, even if they’re resurrected.
Tanks tend to see the most of their Gear breaking in dungeons, though if a DPS or Healer pulls mobs too early or stands in AoEs, they will see their Gear break faster. Although your condition won’t go down by a drastic amount, this should encourage players to be a bit more careful around AoEs instead of eat them in Dungeons especially.
Players will have to make sure that they are aware of how much durability is on their pieces of Gear when in Raids, especially if it is a new raid that requires players to complete multiple attempts in order to clear it. In these situations players will have to either repair their own Gear or request a repair from a player who is able to, so always check your Gear before entering a tough raid so you’re not stuck in a position where a piece of Gear breaks simply from you taking damage from an unavoidable attack.
As mentioned, I will cover what you do in this situation later in this post.
Weapons, unlike Armour, take condition loss when they are used rather than when a player is damaged. This means that players will continuously lose durability on them no matter what content they’re completing even if they’re up against mobs that they kill in one shot. Players will want to make sure they keep their Weapon’s condition above 0% at all times as this is where the majority of the player’s damage comes from and they will not be able to rely on their other Gear in order to deal a healthy amount of damage. While this is alright against mobs that you would typically one-shot (being that they will be a good number of levels under you), this will never be okay against mobs around your level, so repair your Weapon!
Players will typically see their Weapons break while completing Savage Raids or simply too much content between repairs.
HOW DO YOU TELL YOUR GEAR HAS BROKEN & WHEN IS IT A PROBLEM?
Players will be able to tell the condition of their Gear by heading into their character menu, where they would switch out their Gear. Next to each piece of Gear will be a little bar that shows the condition of the equipment, Blue being 100% and anything else being under 100%.
Players don’t need to keep their Gear at 100% at all times as they will only lose the benefits of their Gear if their Gear hits 0%.
I would strongly recommend that you head to your character menu before each Dungeon, Trial or Raid just to make sure your Gear isn’t broken.
HOW DO YOUR REPAIR GEAR?
There are a few ways that players are able to Repair their Gear in FFXIV and the way you will want to do so depends on what content it is you have unlocked and what currency you want to use.
USING AN INDEPENDENT MENDER
For players want to take the simplest route they can head to an NPC in any of the major cities, and often located in the wild, which are marked with the Hammer image. These NPCs are called Independent Menders, however, when players hover over the icon they should see the word “Repairs.”
These Menders will charge a small amount of Gil to repair your Gear which is based on the iLevel of your Gear as well as how damaged your Gear is.
Now, there is no actual strategy to “saving Gil” when it comes to Independent Menders as no matter what a player will spend the same amount of Gil in the long run. To make things clear, if you repair at 20% condition you will spend more than if you were to repair at 80% condition, thus resulting in the same amount of Gil spent if you were to repair at worse condition.
Admittedly, this is the route I’ve been taking in Endwalker as I haven’t been arsed enough to repair my own Gear. Though Repairing your own Gear does come at a cost difference, tending to be less expensive, I really couldn’t care less because I spend a maximum of 2k Gil on each piece of equipment when it is severely damaged.
REPAIRING YOUR OWN GEAR
Now, for players who are doing long-form content such as Savage or Ultimate Raids, you’re going to want to be able to Repair your own Gear to maximize your capabilities.
As most people in these situations will be attempting this content for hours and will not want to waste time leaving the instance in order to repair their Gear, they will want to use their Crafters instead.
Admittedly, this method is not difficult to do, nor is it expensive, it just takes players a decent amount of time to actually get to a level where it is possible.
When players hover over any piece of Gear they will see a section that states Crafting & Repairs. In this section players will see the Condition of their Gear as well as the Repair Level and the Materials required.
Each piece of Gear will rely on a different Crafter to repair it being:
Weapons – Goldsmith
Heads – Goldsmith
Body – Weaver
Hands – Leatherworker
Legs – Weaver
Feet – Leatherworker
Ears – Goldsmith
Necks – Goldsmith
Wrists – Goldsmith
Rings – Goldsmith
Players will also need various Grades of Dark Matter in order to complete the repair, which can be purchased using Grand Company Seals, though I would strongly recommend purchasing them directly from the Market Board.
The reason I say this is that there are much better purchases players can make using Grand Company Seals that will actually make more Gil than if you were to buy the Dark Matter. Essentially what I mean by this is is that players should purchase other items from their Grand Company that sell for more on their Server and then buy Dark Matter from the Market Board.
Although I don’t really pay attention to my amount of Gil, I still take some precautions not to overspend or spend stupidly.
Now, while many players would worry that there’s an optimal time to Repair your own Gear, this is actually not true.
When players Repair their own Gear they will simply add 100% Condition to their Gear, no matter what Condition that Gear was already in. How does that make sense you may ask? Well, if you repair your Gear at 99% it will be brought up to 199% condition and 20% to 120%.
Players will not be able to Repair a piece of Gear that is 100% or higher, but their over repairing is very useful for Raiders or folks who simply do not want to think about their repairs for a very long time. Admittedly, this is very appealing, especially due to the fact that you can save Gil for repairing on your own and also get more condition than you would from an Independant Mender.
My reason for laziness on doing this process is simply the fact that I haven’t gotten my Crafters up to a good enough level, due to my years off, but now that I’m back in the game, I hope to use this process instead.
As a side note, players can repair their Gear at any point as long as they have the necessary Dark Matter. It doesn’t matter what Job you are on, just right click on the piece of Gear, hit Repair and you are good to go! You just need to make sure your Crafter is the right level!
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