Dawntrail’s first two major patches landed within five months of one another, and together they reshaped how level 100 players gear, raid, and earn currency. Patch 7.1 (Crossroads) introduced the Echoes of Vana’diel alliance raid, a new dungeon, and the first wave of job adjustments; Patch 7.2 (Seekers of Eternity) followed with a new Arcadion tier, a new tomestone, and a sweeping second round of balance changes. Read on for what each patch changed and what it means for raiders, crafters, and the market board.

What changed

Patch 7.1 — Crossroads

Released on November 12, 2024, 7.1 opened the post-launch content cadence. The headline additions, drawn directly from the official Lodestone patch notes, are:

  • New main scenario quests beginning with “A Royal Invitation” in Tuliyollal, available to any level 100 Disciple of War or Magic who has finished “Dawntrail.”
  • A new alliance raid series, Echoes of Vana’diel, starting with Jeuno: The First Walk — a 24-player duty requiring item level 695, tying FINAL FANTASY XI lore into XIV. Completion grants Ordelle Coins, used to enhance tomestone gear, and Tattered Sheet Music for orchestrion rolls.
  • A new dungeon, Yuweyawata Field Station (item level 690, four players, 90 minutes), added to Duty Roulette: Expert.
  • A new trial, The Minstrel’s Ballad: Sphene’s Burden (Extreme), plus The Jade Stoa (Unreal) cycling in for Faux Hollows.
  • Pelupelu allied society quests in Dock Poga, Kozama’uka, granting Pelu pelplumes for exchange rewards.
  • Futures Rewritten (Ultimate) in Patch 7.11, and The Cloud of Darkness (Chaotic) roughly one week after Patch 7.15.

7.1 also carried the first round of job adjustments: Dark Knight’s Abyssal Drain and Carve and Spit both gained a 500-potency self-heal, Gunbreaker’s Double Down dropped from two cartridges to one, Dragoon’s Nastrond and Stardiver saw large potency increases, and Black Mage’s Flare cast time fell from 4 to 3 seconds while Ley Lines became a two-charge action. Esuna became instant-cast across all healers.

Patch 7.2 — Seekers of Eternity

Released on March 25, 2025, 7.2 is the patch that matters most for raiders. Per the official notes:

  • New main scenario quests starting from “A Glimmer of the Past” in The Backroom.
  • A new dungeon, The Underkeep (item level 705, four players, 90 minutes), added to Duty Roulette: Expert.
  • A new trial, Recollection (Normal/Extreme, item level 715) and Hells’ Kier (Unreal) replacing The Jade Stoa.
  • The new raid tier, AAC Cruiserweight Tier — the second Arcadion installment. Normal drops tokens (Cruiser Holohelm, Holosurcoat, etc.) traded for chosen gear, with no weekly lockout on entry, only on the one-token-per-week reward. Savage opened one week later with item level gates of 730/735/740/740 across M1–M4 and 90/90/90/120-minute timers. Savage coffers yield Babyface Champion’s gear at item level 760 (765 for weapons), and AAC Illustrated: CW Edition books can be traded for pieces of your choice.
  • A new tomestone: Allagan Tomestones of Mathematics, capped at 450 per week / 2,000 total, spent at Zircon in Solution Nine and enhanced at Theone.
  • Tomestone consolidation: Aesthetics are retired (exchangeable for Heliometry via Auriana in Mor Dhona), Heliometry loses its weekly cap, and Causality/Comedy are removed entirely.
  • Borderland Ruins (Secure) returned to the Frontline rotation with reworked terrain, key-location distribution, interceptor commander systems, and new large-scale PvP role actions for every role.
  • Cosmic Exploration and Cosmic Tools scheduled for 7.21; Occult Crescent field operation, Mamool Ja allied society, and Phantom Weapons scheduled for 7.25 (per the 7.2 notes’ “additional features in future updates” section).

How it works

The tomestone ladder, reset

The single most consequential system change is the tomestone reshuffle. Before 7.2, three capped tomestones coexisted at the level 100 tier (Aesthetics, Heliometry, and the soon-removed Causality/Comedy). After 7.2:

  • Allagan Tomestones of Mathematics become the new weekly-capped currency (450/week, 2,000 cap), earned from Expert roulette, Savage raids, hunts, and high-end duties.
  • Allagan Tomestones of Heliometry lose their weekly cap and become the uncapped “filler” currency, replacing Aesthetics everywhere it previously dropped.
  • Aesthetics convert one-to-one to Heliometry through Auriana in Mor Dhona, so existing stockpiles are not lost.

Duty Roulette rewards shifted accordingly: Expert now pays 60 Heliometry plus 40 Mathematics, Leveling pays 100 Heliometry plus 20 Mathematics, and so on down the list. For crafters and gatherers this matters because tomestone-spending gear drives demand for crafted augmentation items (Surgelight Twine/Solvent from 7.1, Evercharged Ester/Twine/Glaze from 7.2 Savage), which are crafted from materials that flow through the market board.

The raid reward path

7.1 and 7.2 changed how raid gearing compounds. In 7.1 the Arcadion Light-heavyweight Division lost its weekly reward restriction (except the Light-heavy Holoblade), and the Holoblade cost to buy a Universal Tomestone dropped from 7 to 4. In 7.2 the Cruiserweight normal mode switched from direct gear drops to tokens you choose to redeem, removing the RNG of “the piece you wanted never dropped.” Savage kept its coffer-and-weekly-book structure but added AAC Illustrated: CW Edition books as a deterministic fallback — 8 Edition IV books buy a weapon, for example. Futures Rewritten (Ultimate) lost its Oracle Totem weekly restriction and was item-level synced to 735 to preserve its challenge.

Job balance in plain terms

7.2’s job pass was a wide one. The official notes list adjustments for every job. The throughlines:

  • Tanks mostly gained AoE potency (Paladin’s Prominence combo 170→220, Holy Circle Divine Might 200→250) but lost multi-target falloff on several abilities (Dark Knight’s Salt and Darkness, Shadowbringer, Disesteem all dropped from 50% to 25% after the first target).
  • Melee saw potency reshuffles — Samurai’s Guren 500→400 and Kyuten 120→100, Ninja’s Dokumori no longer loses potency after the first target, Viper’s four Legacy actions 280→320.
  • Black Mage got a major redesign: Astral Fire/Umbral Ice and Firestarter/Thunderhead no longer expire, many cast times dropped to 2 seconds, Flare Star potency rose 400→500, but Ley Lines duration fell 30→20 seconds and Enhanced Enochian potency was trimmed.
  • Pictomancer was rebalanced toward the single-target elemental spells (Fire in Red, Aero in Green, Water in Blue all up) and away from the muse finishers (Mog of the Ages 700→500, Clawed/Fanged Muse 1,100→800), shifting the job’s burst profile.
  • Healers received small DoT buffs (Dia, Biolysis, Eukrasian Dosis III all 75→80) and a few AoE fixes.

Build path

For a raider walking into 7.2 Savage, the practical progression is:

  1. Cap Mathematics weekly. 450 per week, 2,000 hard cap. Spend at Zircon on item level 730 gear, enhance at Theone with augment materials from hunts (Sacks of Nuts at Ryubool Ja) or Ordelle Coins (alliance raid).
  2. Clear AAC Cruiserweight normal for Cruiser tokens — one token per week, no entry lockout, redeemable for any slot at Hhihwi.
  3. Enter Savage at the item level gates (730/735/740/740). Each M-coffer yields a job-specific Babyface Champion’s coffer at 760; M4 also drops weapons. AAC Illustrated books provide a deterministic fallback for the pieces RNG denies you.
  4. Run The Underkeep and Recollection for the lower-ilvl 725/715 starter pieces to bridge into Savage, and Hells’ Kier (Unreal) for totems toward Wings of Ruin/Resolve.

For crafters, the play is different. The 7.2 recipe book added Cronopio Leather, Diatryma Felt, Cordia Lumber, Octahedrite Nugget, and Rhodochrosite as the new material tier, all feeding the Ceremonial (ilvl 740 crafted) and Innovator’s (ilvl 720 crafter/gatherer tool) sets. Master recipe level requirements were removed, and the desynthesis cap rose from 720 to 740, opening a wider market for crafted raid food (Alpaca Stew, Lomo Saltado, Ground Woolback Steak — all +3% EXP, 30-minute duration) and Grade 3 Gemdraughts.

What it means

The 7.1→7.2 arc does three things at once. It lowers the barrier to current-tier raiding by tokenizing normal-mode rewards and removing the RNG from gearing choices. It consolidates the currency sprawl that had accumulated across Dawntrail’s launch, leaving a clean capped/uncapped pair plus Poetics for older content. And it resets the job meta with a balance pass that touches every role, giving players a reason to relearn rotations before the 7.21 Cosmic Exploration and 7.25 Occult Crescent drops.

For the market board, thetomstone reset and new material tier typically mean a two-to-three-week window of high demand for new crafted gear, food, and augmentation reagents before supply catches up. For raiders, the takeaway is simpler: cap Mathematics, run normal Cruiser for tokens, and use the deterministic book system to fill the gaps Savage RNG leaves.