High Quality

A high quality Hempen Yarn, indicated by the golden shine and the HQ symbol

High Quality or just HQ items are highlighted with a golden shine on the icon and with a symbol in text. All craftable gear, meals, medicines and intermediate materials exist in HQ variants. HQ items may not stack with normal quality ones in inventory.

HQ items are crafted by increasing the "Quality" bar to its maximum by using Touch actions whose effectiveness are governed by the Control attribute. They function the same as their normal (NQ) counterparts but convey extra benefits. They also provide double rewards when turned in for Grand Company supply missions and levequests.

You may irreversibly downgrade an HQ item into a normal quality one via an option on the right-click menu.

HQ gear

Example comparison of normal and HQ gear

HQ gear has much better stats than its normal (NQ) counterparts. This is particularly evident after level 50, when stats start to get large. NPC vendors only ever sell normal quality gear. The sole source of HQ gear for gil is from other players via the Market Board. Players will also receive HQ leveling gear directly (and in coffers) from the Main Scenario Quests and certain Side Quests.

For endgame crafted gear, meals, and medicines, only the HQ items should be used to participate in current high-end duties. (NQ items have a 10% penalty in stats, which is like being ~20 item levels lower)

Visually, HQ gear is exactly the same in every respect to Normal Quality gear, including the way it dyes. Therefore, for glamours the Normal Quality version has no downside.

HQ materials

Crafted

An icon has been added to indicate high-quality versions of a material may be used for an initial increase to a recipe's quality.

When used in crafting, HQ materials provide up to a 50% bonus to the starting quality bar, depending on how many HQ mats are used. The degree to which 1 material increases the quality bar is different for each craft depending on the recipe.

Gathered

Retired Content

• The subject of this section was retired or removed from the game in patch 6.0, and is no longer available to players.
• Retired items may still be kept in inventory but can no longer be renewably obtained. Tradable items may still be obtained from the Market Board or directly trading with other players.
• The information in this section is kept and maintained for historical purposes.
• Replaced with the Gatherer's Boon effect.
• Crafted intermediate materials can still be made as HQ

For each gathering attempt, there was a chance that the item gathered would have been HQ. This chance was modifiable through specific actions.