Aloha, Islanders! Here’s a guide on what to do every rank in your Island Sanctuary. Here, you’ll see what each rank unlocks and a little advice on what to do every rank in your island in FFXIV. Watcha waiting for? Let’s get our feet wet!
Updated Jan 17 ’23: Patch 6.3 Added Ranks 10 to 12. Rank 10 has retroactively more unlocks than before, so I noted those down in that segment so make sure to check it out. Guide updated up to R12!
FFXIV Island Sanctuary Walkthrough / Guide – Navigation
Island Rank – 1/2/3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 |10 | 11 | 12
Island Sanctuary Rank 1, 2, 3 – “Tutorial”
If your Island Rank is in this range, just keep following your island “MSQ”. These early levels are FFXIV’s way to onboard you to your own Island Sanctuary. Just keep going, while taking note of what they’re teaching you.
You’ll get an intro to farming, the pasture, and workshops. Getting past this tutorial can be done within a few minutes so don’t sweat it.
Island Sanctuary Rank 4
Let’s start with what you should have DURING your stay in Island Rank 4
- 2 Workshops (the only thing you can build on the plots)
- Level 2 Cabin (Just visual upgrades, do it anyway since I don’t know if it correlates with other upgrades)
- Level 2 Pasture (Up to 10 animals)
- Level 2 Farm (Up to 10 plots) (See: FFXIV Island Sanctuary Farm Guide)
Island Rank 4 – What to do?
For this rank 4, it’s a little jarring as you’re just plopped down after the tutorial into all this. Your important goals are listed above, if you have all of those built, then it’s time to level up to R5.
The best way to gain Island EXP is through the workshop. Grinding materials is also OK if you’re that type – you’re gonna need quite a bit of ‘em anyway. Farm and pasture give a little, but it’s not relevant or very repeatable. Completing island upgrades gives some EXP too.
As you gather the materials for these upgrades, you should get pretty close to leveling up to R5 anyway.
If your island rank increases but seemingly nothing changes, wait for the next hour and / or zone in and out of your Island Sanctuary. This “bug” happened to me once and it might be a thing to look out for.
Island Sanctuary Rank 5
Island Rank 5 Unlocks:
- Islekeep Shovel – gives additional new resources from soil nodes. Island Parsnip Seeds, Island Popoto Set, Island Tinsand, and Island Clay.
- Granary unlocked – allows you to build Granaries
- Basic Mammet Sized Building Tools – Craft to unlock your first Landmark plot.
- Better Mammet Sized Building Tools – Craft to unlock Landmark plot, and 2 more basic plots.
Island Rank 5 – What to do?
Crafting the Shovel should be your first goal, as it allows you to gather the materials needed for further upgrades.
You can now build Granaries! Granaries are for Island Expeditions, which give you a pile of resources per day depending on where you choose to explore. I didn’t try to build a 3 Workshop 1 Granary split – which would be preferable as it gives you more EXP. I did a 2/2 split, but if you can do 3 Workshops do that.
Landmarks, of which you’re gonna get two plots for, are just small generic boosts to your island overall. Just make ‘em, as you can’t use the plots for other things anyway.
FOR THE FUTURE: as soon as your Granaries are up, you can start gathering for higher tier upgrades later on. This isn’t so important, but at least I can tell you now. You’re gonna need 9 Island Spruce log, and 9 Raw Island Garnet for these future tier III upgrades. You can get these from Wild Woods and Fatal Falls expeditions respectively.
Island Sanctuary Rank 6
Island Rank 6 Unlocks:
- Islekeeps Copper Scythe – gives additional new resources from plant nodes. Island Hemp, Island Sugarcane, Island Cottonboll
- Makeshift Restraint is now craftable, which allows you to catch medium sized monsters.
Workshop and Granary Tier II upgrades.
Island Rank 6 – What to do?
Crafting the Scythe should be your first goal, as it allows you to gather the materials needed for further upgrades.
Makeshift Restraint gives you more options for your pasture (Middle sized, tier II animals). Notably Carapace from Glyptodon Pup, Feather from Black Chocobo (an easy to get rare animal), and Eggs from Wild Dodo being the resources you’re gonna more easily gain with these medium animals.
The Tier II upgrades for Workshop and Granary are welcome upgrades, which increases overall yield.
Island Sanctuary Rank 7
Island Rank 7 Unlocks:
- Islekeep’s Bronze Gig – gives additional new resources from the ocean nodes. Island Squid, Islefish, and Island Jellyfish
- Best Mammet-sized Builder’s Tools. Craft to unlock Landmark III and Facility V.
- Cabin tier III upgrade – seemingly only aesthetic.
Island Rank 7 – What to do?
Crafting the Gig is, again, the best first course of action. New resources!
Crafting the mammet-sized tools unlocks your third Landmark plot and fifth facility plot. Note that you are “forced” to build a 3 Workshop 2 Granary split – It’s a limitation set by the game.
The cabin upgrade, I mean, just do it. It’s your lowest priority IMO but you shouldn’t skip it as I don’t know if it correlates to future upgrades. Save this for last.
A rather boring tier, but the Gig does allow you to make a whole lot more stuff for your Workshops.
Island Sanctuary Rank 8
Island Rank 8 Unlocks:
- Islekeeps Bronze Beakaxe – gives additional new resources from mineral nodes. Island Leucogranite, Island Iron Ore, Island Quartz.
- Makeshift Soporific gives you more options for your pasture (Large sized, tier III animals)
- Workshop and Granary Tier III upgrades.
Island Rank 8 – What to do?
Start off by making the Beakaxe – no surprise here. New resources, new recipes yada yada.
Workshop and Granary tier III should be your next goal. Improving the yield and efficiency of these buildings is never bad, right. You’ll be using alot of the new minerals.
Makeshift Soporific gets you large animals for you pasture. Most notable additions would be any of the animals that give Horn. Sadly, Horn is only a primary resource on rare animals like Grand Buffalo, and Island Billy. It is a secondary material on the basic catch Aurochs.
Island Sanctuary Rank 9
Island Rank 9 Unlocks:
- Tier III Pasture and Farm – which allows for caretaking services.
- Indirectly, new purchasable seeds from the NPC seeds for Isleberry, Island Onion, Island Tomato, Island Wheat, Island Corn, and Island Radish.
What to do?
First of all, upgrade your farm and pasture to tier III. Doing so allows for “automatic” caretaking. Here’s how it works for each. For both the farm and pasture, the maximum capacity will be increased to 20.
Tier III Pasture – For a small fee, each animal will be fed the “BEST AVAILABLE FOOD THEY CAN MAXIMIZE”, and their leavings will be gathered up to a max of 20 banked leavings. As for what food they’re gonna use, its a priority system that goes like this. “Food that can possibly raise or maintain their mood” > “Any lower food” > “Basic feed”. So they’re never gonna feed the tier III food to a miserable animal, and will only feed tier I or II food to a happy animal if there’s no choice.
Tier III Farm – For a small fee, the mammets will water, gather (up to 20??? as well, I’ll recheck), and replant your crops. Since you have 20 plots, and 10 kinds of seeds – it’s a basic split of 2 each.
Island Sanctuary Rank 10
Island Rank 10 Unlocks:
- Flying Mount access on your Island Sanctuary. Allowing you to gather some new things (IE Multicolor Islebloom), and access some (Paissa) rare animal spawnpoints.
- Islekeeps Iron Hatchet – gives additional new resources from trees. Island Wood Opal, Island Coconut, and Island Resin.
Island Rank 10 – What to do?
Flying lets you gather something new – Multicolored Islebloom. Their only purpose is for the workshop, for now. Gather some up just so you have the option to use these recipes.
Same goes for the Islekeeps Iron Hatchet – all of these materials only serve to unlock new recipes for the workshop (for now). Craft this as soon as you can.
There’s nothing else major going on, so continue the grind via workshop. Getting a good stockpile of these new materials going isn’t a bad idea either.
You also get to complete your first major vision at R10 – check the blurb below if you can’t see the quest marker yet.
Now is a good time to re-check all your buildings to make sure you’ve seen the “built or upgraded” cutscene. If you’re Rank 10, and have a fully upgraded “baseline” island with all buildings and landmarks, you’ll get a quest (The Land, Wind, and Sea) that rewards you with the Farmhands cosmetic armor set.
You NEED to view these cutscenes to unlock these quests!
Patch 6.3 Island Sanctuary Quick Notes
If you’re reading this as you’ve maxed out your island, there are some “retroactive” changes to Rank 10. Be sure to re-check the above Rank 10 notes before proceeding.
Aside from that adds a a BASIC rundown of 6.3 Island Sanctuary changes: 2 produce items, 4 gatherable materials, 3 rare animals, 2 new landmarks (plus a new permit system to unlock new landmarks), and a quest with cosmetic rewards for R12 completion. As well as a few knick-knacks in the island shop.
Island Sanctuary Rank 11
Island Rank 11 Unlocks:
- 2 New seeds for produce.
- Island Paprika Seeds, producing Island Paprika.
- Island Leek Set, producing Island Leek.
- Both of these seeds are from the seed vendor.
Island Rank 11 – What to do?
A whole lot of nothing. The only relevant evolution here is adjusting your farm setup to include the new produce items, Paprika and Leek. Since this is the first time you unlock them, you might want to add 1 or 2 extra spaces to grow them so you can get a little bit of a stockpile going.
You might want to re-evaluate your farm setup going forward as we will likely be stuck with this 12 plant 20 plot configuration for quite some time.
Island Sanctuary Rank 12
Island Rank 12 Unlocks:
- New landmarks – Gamboling Garden, Water Otter Fountain
- The permit system. More on this below.
Island Rank 12 – What to do?
Permit system unlocked – the permit system essentially lets you trade specific items in the real world for items (permits) used in your island. For now, this is only used for and unlocks another landmark, the Water Otter Fountain.
Another quest, Far Eastern Yarn, for the Isle Sheperd’s cosmetic item set. All you need is Rank 12, and, in case you missed it in R10, making sure you’ve finalized each building by viewing the construction and upgrade cutscenes when clicking on the signboards.
Well, for now, this is how you “win” your island. Here’s where you can start doing what you want, and chasing all the bells and whistles that you’d want out of your Island Sanctuary like…
- Achievements
- Optimizing pasture, or capturing all rare animals
- Obtaining all special items from the shop
Try and find a good weekly setup for yourself so you can get a steady stream of resources without much management – if that’s your thing. Your main reward for this is DoL and DoH materia.
FFXIV Island Sanctuary Walkthrough / Guide – Navigation
Island Rank – 1/2/3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 |10 | 11 | 12
Summary & Outro
(Things i’d like to add or refine: more specific ‘self-imposed’ end-game goals, I suppose? hmm fix the formatting and linking a bit)
Well that’s about it for this little walkthrough guide for your Island Sanctuary in FFXIV. It’s a pretty cool side system that I wish they continue to expand on or tie in with other systems. You get some decent rewards that you can ONLY get here – but honestly the gameplay shift is enough of an attraction for most players to try this out. It’s not difficult to “max out” your island anyway.
Just don’t expect to get “rich” in the outside non-island world here. Your island economy isn’t gonna make you a gillionaire.
All in all it’s a nice “retreat” from the real game that everyone should try! Good luck out there!