Coming back to FFXIV after A Realm Reborn?
You wrapped the base game and drifted off. Five expansions have landed since, so there's a real mountain of story ahead, and the first stretch of it is the one people warn you about. A Realm Reborn's post-launch patches, 2.1 through 2.55, sit between you and Heavensward, and they're a long run of quest turn-ins before the game opens up. Worth knowing going in. The good part: it's one straight line, you never have to grind old content to climb it, and everything past that first stretch is the part people stayed for.
Pick up where you left off
Choose the closest match and the planner opens with it filled in. You pick the goals.
What launched while you were gone
- Heavensward3.0Up next for you
Seeking asylum in the isolationist Holy See of Ishgard, you are drawn into the thousand-year Dragonsong War between the city's knights and the Dravanian Horde.
New jobs: Dark Knight (Tank), Machinist (Ranged Physical DPS), Astrologian (Healer). You can pick one up at its starting level and skip straight past the content you missed on the way here.
- Flying mounts across the new zones
- Level cap raised to 60 and the Au Ra join
- The Alexander raid series
- Stormblood4.0
The Eorzean Alliance moves to liberate the occupied nations of Ala Mhigo and Doma, rallying their resistance fighters to reclaim their homelands from the Garlean Empire.
- Shadowbringers5.0
Called to the First, a parallel world drowning in eternal Light, you take up a darker mantle to hold back its ruin and unravel an Ascian's ancient design.
- Endwalker6.0
The decade-long Hydaelyn and Zodiark saga reaches its climax, taking you from Old Sharlayan and Radz-at-Han to the very edge of the world to hold back the Final Days.
- Dawntrail7.0
You sail to the New World of Tural as champion for Wuk Lamat in a rite of succession, exploring its cultures and chasing the mystery of a legendary golden city.
The big changes to know
- Cross-class skills were removed in 4.0. Each role now shares a small set of role actions, so expect gaps on your hotbars where borrowed abilities used to sit.
- Every job got an on-screen job gauge that tracks its core resource.
- TP is gone as of 5.0. Weaponskills no longer drain a second resource bar.
- Most job kits were reworked around their gauges in 5.0, so expect your old rotation muscle memory to be wrong in places.
- A stat squish scaled the big numbers down across the board.
- Belts were removed from the game (and from gear/materia).
- High-quality crafting materials (HQ mats) were removed.
- Duty Support started covering ARR main-scenario dungeons in 6.1, and later patches kept extending it. Most story dungeons on your way to current can now be run solo with NPCs.
- Data Center Travel arrived in 6.18: you can visit other data centers in your region and queue with friends there without transferring.
- The whole game got a graphical overhaul: new textures, lighting, and character models.
- Gear now has two dye channels instead of one.
- Your rotation likely changed. A couple of minutes with a current job guide beats relearning by trial and error.
- Every endgame tomestone from before the current expansion is Poetics now: the permanent catch-up currency, capped at 2,000. Spend freely as you level.
Want the whole thing in one place? The complete catch-up pathlists every patch from A Realm Reborn to now with a reason for each step. The planner cuts it down to just what's ahead of you.
Build my return planWhat's in the live patch