By now, I’ve begun to really enjoy the Neo-Ishgardian sets, to the point where I’ve had glamours planned for most of them even before shelling out the gil to get the various body pieces. In the case of Dragoon, I’ve had a general idea of what I wanted to do for a couple weeks now (since around the time I shelled out for the Striking glamour), but in terms of spending priorities, Maiming gear is always on the lower end of the totem pole for me. Though my mechanical distaste for Dragoon dating back to A Realm Reborn was largely dispelled by changes to the class during Stormblood, Alahra has two canon melee jobs already (in Ninja and Monk), both of which will always be before Dragoon in line for gear.

Prices continue to drop on my server, though, and not long ago I was able to pick up the Neo-Ishgardian Top of Maiming. It took me until after the release of Patch 5.21 to sit down and actually sort out a glamour for it, though. Thankfully, with so much practice working with the other Neo-Ishgardian sets (the Fending set in particular, since the Maiming one shares the body’s base), I had a good idea of the things I was going to like with it, so putting together a look wasn’t that difficult in this case.

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Glamour Components (Requirements: DRG 80, Female)
Weapon: Neo-Ishgardian Trident
Head: Neo-Ishgardian Cap of Maiming
Body: Neo-Ishgardian Top of Maiming (Gunmetal Black)
Hands: Serpentskin Armguards of Maiming
Legs: Hempen Pantalettes (Jet Black)
Feet: Ishgardian Thighboots (Jet Black)

Given the overall similarities of to the Fending Top, I knew I was going to end up with the same general profile, but I was curious to see what ways I might differentiate in terms of specifics. First and foremost, I knew some time ago that I was going to be using the Serpentskin Armguards, which are more or less the perfect complement to the Neo-Ishgardian Top, even without applying any dye (and it’s a real shame that there’s no Fending equivalent to them, as I vastly prefer them to the Arhat Kote of Fending).

The Armguards are also a really good fit for the Neo-Ishgardian Cap: both items feature similar stitching and and have matching textures. It was about time I actually used one of the stylish caps, too, instead of sticking to Alahra’s familiar Reading Glasses as I’ve done for all my other looks through this glamour cycle. I considered going with Dragoon’s Neo-Ishgardian Boots, too, only to find that they aren’t actually tall boots (unlike the Fending ones), so I stuck with the Ishgardian Boots instead. For further differentiation from my tank look, I brought in the Hempen Pantalettes from my Aiming glamour, too.

Just about everything here works with any color scheme, with nothing I’d chosen really suggesting one color or another. That proved the perfect chance to try out one of the new dyes from Patch 5.21’s Ishgardian Restoration update, and given that most everything was already black outside of the body, I thought I’d give the new Gunmetal Black a whirl. I’ve been hoping for a dye just like this one to be added for years now, since Jet Black doesn’t always work well on metal items, and after testing it on a variety of items, it might actually end up being my default black dye (though that’s going to require a lot of Skybuilders’ Scrips!). Once I build up some more Scrips, I’ll probably also replace the Jet Black on the Pantalettes with Gunmetal, but the Jet Black works well enough until then.

Only two more Neo-Ishgardian sets remain, and they’re the two I’ve got the least in the way of ideas for. Casting might end up looking similar to my Ninja glamour (since the bodies are the same model), but the Healing body is one of the other unique tops, so I’ll need some time to experiment with it in earnest before putting together a glamour. That should happen sometime soon, depending on what my gil income looks like over the next week!