My distaste for FFXIV‘s heavy armor is well-documented by this point, but it’s been rearing its head more readily ever since I took up Dark Knight as my de facto main in Shadowbringers. Outside of the new Voeburtite Jacket, the expansion hasn’t added much in the way of new armor that fits my preferred tank aesthetic for Alahra, which has resulted in a bit of frustration since I’ve been ready for a new look to replace my previous one for a couple weeks now.

For most of that time, I’ve had my eye on the new Hooded Fireglass Leather Vest and Adventurer’s Hooded Vest that were added with the recent release of the expansion’s Treasure Hunt dungeon. Of course, they’re both insanely expensive, so I’ve been waffling about whether or not to pick one of them up, trying to put together glamours in the fitting room window before taking the plunge and gravely wounding my gil reserves. I’d not had much success with that because I’d been focusing too much on the second version, thinking the undershirt made more sense for Alahra. While I still think that, it actually results in a lot of clashing, and after I moved toward working with the Fireglass version, I had much more success.

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Glamour Components (Requirements: All Classes 1, Female)
Weapon: Weathered Shadowbringer
Head: Reading Glasses (Metallic Red)
Body: Hooded Fireglass Leather Vest
Hands: Crystarium Gauntlets (Jet Black)
Legs: Expeditioner’s Pantalettes (Jet Black)
Feet: Crystarium Greaves (Jet Black)

Once I thought I could make something work, I threw my money at the Market Board and started experimenting. Initially, I started working on a look for casters, since I’ve been slowly picking at both Black Mage and Red Mage lately, and I never found a glamour I was happy with for them at the end of Stormblood. As I experimented with various combinations for gloves and boots, though, I eventually landed on the Crystarium pieces, which have a good mix of leather and metal, and that made me wonder if I’d prefer to use the body piece for tanks instead. I’ve long been fond of using cloth/leather body pieces alongside armored arm and footwear, with my old Nezha Lady’s glamour for tank making it well into Shadowbringers as one of my favorites ever.

That switch had everything come together nicely, with the only really decision points coming down to which dyes to use. I started out with the Vest in Jet Black (with everything else to match), but found that I wanted a little bit more color in the look, so I went back to its natural color scheme. That meant swapping the glasses to Metallic Red to match the vest’s undershirt, of course. I also debated leaving the Crystarium Greaves in their base color, since their leather bits are naturally brown (matching up with the straps on the Pantalettes), but that ended up being too much brown and disrupted the overall color cohesion more than I liked.

Of course, this look can be worn by any class or job, since it relies entirely on vanity gear, but so far I like it best for tanks—at least for Alahra! I’ve also been using the look while I level my two remaining casters, since I like the way it looks with the Augmented Scaeven weapons in Metallic Red, but at some point I’ll probably get Black Mage and Red Mage swapped over to something more unique for them.

When it comes to Dark Knight specifically, I’m much happier running around in this—it’s well-suited to Alahra when it comes to the adventuring half of her life, and it’s worked well in various cutscene tests I did, too. I may actually continue forward with Dark Knight in the Main Scenario come 5.1, too, after initially thinking I’d do so with Monk thanks to its gorgeous Artifact set from Shadowbringers. But I’ve got several weeks before I’ve got to make that decision! Either way, I suspect this look could be an expansion-spanning one in some form or another, much like the Nezha Lady’s glamours I had in Stormblood.