As you play Final Fantasy 14, you’ll amass tons of a specific currency called Allagan Tomestones of Poetics. This currency has a cap of 2,000, so you should spend them rather than letting extras you get waste away to the aether. If you’re just starting out, it can be hard to figure out where to spend them.
Keep in mind that you are not going to make millions of gil in profit from Poetics. Every player above level 50 has Poetics, so there’s a massive surplus. Whenever a new expansion comes out, you’re able to purchase the previous expansion’s stuff with Poetics, so they’re just a unified way to buy old stuff. However, there are a lot of valuable personal uses for Poetics!
Where to spend Tomestones of Poetics in FFXIV
You can trade in your Poetics at every expansion’s hub town (Mor Dhona, Idyllshire, etc.) but the Rowena’s Representative vendors in Ul’dah, Limsa Lominsa, and Gridania, sell A Realm Reborn gear, the representative in Ishgard sells Heavensward gear. and the representative in Kugane sells Stormblood stuff. (You will still need to go to Eulmore to get Shadowbringers items, though.)
You can find these NPCs on the map in most of the hub cities near the main Aetheryte as marked by the blue sack icon:
Below, we list a few things you can dump them on, in order of our personal preference.
Leveling gear for combat jobs
You can get Augmented Ironworks (level 50) gear from the Rowena’s Representative NPCs in Ul’dah, Gridania, or Limsa Lominsa, Augmented Shire (level 60) gear from the rep in Ishgard, and Augmented Scaevan (level 70) gear from the rep in Kugane. You’ll have to go to Eulmore to get Augmented Cryptlurker (level 80) gear, though.
This stuff is pretty strong and it’ll take you most of the way to the next level benchmark before you’ll need to upgrade.
Relic weapon materials
If you’re interested, you can buy the materials for some of the previous expansions’ relic weapons for Poetics. You can grab some of the stuff ahead of time before even starting their respective quests, but some require you to get to certain parts of the questline to buy.
You can buy almost all of these materials from Auriana in Mor Dhona, Hismena in Idyllshire, or the Rowena’s Representative NPCs in Ishgard, Gridania, Limsa Lominsa, and Ul’dah for Poetics. Some of them can only be purchased from specific quest NPCs during the relevant relic quest step, though.
A Realm Reborn/Zodiac weapons requires a few materials. Here’s what you can buy before you even start the quest for it, along with how many you need to make one weapon:
- 1 Radz-at-Han Quenching Oil (15 Poetics each)
- 3 Thavnairian Mist (20 Poetics each)
- 3 Superior Enchanted Ink (25 Poetics each)
These items are only obtainable either during the required step or after you unlock the required step:
- 15 Mysterious Maps (75 Poetics each)
- 9 Brave Books (100 Poetics each)
- 4 Sacred Spring Water (200 Poetics each)
- 12 Mahatma (50 Poetics each)
You don’t mandatorily need the Mysterious Maps, as you can farm the Alexandrite you get from them using other methods, but if you have the Poetics to spare, you might as well.
Heavensward/Anima weapons require a ton of materials that you can buy with Poetics before you start the quest. You’ll need the following for a single weapon:
- 10 Unidentifiable Ore (150 Poetics each)
- 10 Unidentifiable Shells (150 Poetics each)
- 10 Unidentifiable Bones (150 Poetics each)
- 10 Unidentifiable Seeds (150 Poetics each)
- 5 Aether Oil (350 Poetics each)
- 50-60 Umbrite (75 Poetics each)
- 125-150 Superior Enchanted Ink (25 Poetics each)
- 125-150 Thavnairian Mist (20 Poetics each)
- 50 Singing Clusters (40 Poetics each)
These items are also needed to make an Anima weapon, but you can only buy these after you get to their respective part of the quest:
- 15 Pneumite (100 Poetics each)
- 1 Archaic Enchanted Ink (500 Poetics each)
Shadowbringers/Resistance weapons only require four Thavnairian Scalepowders per weapon (costing 250 Poetics each), but you can’t buy these until you start the quest for this weapon.
That said, you can stock up on a lot of this stuff if you’re ever planning on backtracking relic weapons. Yay!
Orchestrions
A Realm Reborn, Heavensward, and Stormblood all have orchestrion rolls to buy from Rowena’s Representative for varying prices, if you like to collect the game’s music.
Gear to trade for Grand Company seals
Okay, here’s the thing. If all your combat jobs are at max level and you don’t need that Cryptlurker (or older) gear anymore, you can buy it and then go turn it in to your Grand Company for company seals. It’s best to buy accessories, as they’re the cheapest and still turn in for around 1,700 seals. You do need to be Sergeant Second Class rank or higher at your respective GC, though.
This way, you can use GC seals to buy things like Ventures, GC Aetheryte Tickets, Glamour Prisms, and even Materiel Containers, which are effectively RNG loot boxes for old minions and even mounts, if you’re lucky. If you don’t already have it, there are also emotes, orchestrion rolls, and chocobo bardings to buy.
Unidentifiable Ore to trade in for Grade 3 Thanalan Topsoil
This is really the last resort. If you have everything above (or if you really don’t want that stuff), the soil market is always fine. To get it, you’ll need to trade your Poetics for Unidentifiable Ore (yes, the same ones needed for the Anima weapon) and then head to Idyllshire. Talk to Bertana inside of Mowena’s Center for Cultural Promotion and select “Uncanny Knickknacks” to trade your ore for topsoil.
Most of the materials you trade Poetics for are extremely old and have little-to-no value anymore. However, topsoil is pretty much always in use (though the price does fluctuate) as you’ll need high-grade soil to cross breed specific plants (like the very valuable Thavnairian Onion).
Some players will note that they’d rather just let their Poetics overcap than to even bother selling soil, but it’s up to you.
If you’re just starting out in the massive world of Final Fantasy 14, we have tons of guides to help you. We have a beginner’s guide to get you started, along with guides detailing when you’ll get your mount and which Grand Company you should join.
If you’re starting but are feeling overwhelmed, we have guides to help with picking a job and a guide that explains how long it may take to catch up to current content in FFXIV.
We also have guides on side content, like ocean fishing, relic weapons, and Island Sanctuary, for those who want to take a break from it all.
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