FFXIV Grand Company Guide: Seals, Ranks, and Squadrons

Around level 20 of the main story, the game drops a choice on you. Pick one of three Grand Companies and you start banking a new currency called Company Seals. Those tokens unlock a whole pile of stuff down the road: a personal NPC army, housing, mounts, glamour gear, and an easy way to flip junk dungeon loot into gil.

The whole setup looks like a wall of ranks and menus at first glance. It's way simpler than it seems, though. Below is how to pick a company, farm seals fast, climb the ranks, raise a Squadron, and spend those seals on the good stuff instead of frittering them away.

Picking a Grand Company

So you hit that level 20-ish story beat and now the game wants a decision. Three flavors of military outfit, one per starting city. Here's who's who.

The Three Companies

The Maelstrom is based in Limsa Lominsa. Big naval theme, pirate-adjacent energy, led by Admiral Merlwyb. Their seal currency is called Storm Seals.

The Immortal Flames run out of Ul'dah. Desert military with a flame motif, led by Flame General Raubahn. Their seals are Flame Seals.

The Order of the Twin Adder calls Gridania home. Forest archers and politics, led by Elder Seedseer Kan-E-Senna. Their seals are Serpent Seals.

Does the Choice Actually Matter?

Honestly, not much. All three companies work the exact same way. Same ranks, same seal costs, same unlocks, same Squadron system. The seal type just has a different name and a different colored icon.

The one real difference is cosmetics. Each company sells its own branded gear, mounts, minions, and chocobo barding, and you can only use that branded stuff while you're currently aligned with that company. Earn the Maelstrom warsteed, then swap over to the Flames, and you can't summon the horse until you switch back.

So the practical move is to pick whichever look you like, or just join the company of your starting city since you're already standing there. Limsa starts lean Maelstrom, Ul'dah goes Flames, Gridania goes Adders.

Switching Companies Later

You're not locked in. Once you hit Second Lieutenant, you can talk to a Personnel Officer at another company's headquarters and transfer over.

A few catches, though. Switching drops you back to Private Third Class in the new company, unless you've belonged to it before, in which case your old rank restores. Your seals don't travel with you; they sit in the old company and wait for you to come back. There's a 15-day cooldown between swaps, the first one is free, and after that each switch costs 50,000 gil. Your Squadron moves with you and re-runs its flagged missions, but the unique Command Missions you already finished stay done.

Bottom line: don't stress the choice. Pick what looks good and move on.

Earning Company Seals Fast

Seals are the fuel for everything here, so you'll want a steady supply. Good news is the game hands them out through a bunch of channels, and the best one opens up once you rank up a little.

Low Ranks: Hunting Log and FATEs

Early on, before Expert Delivery exists, your bread and butter is the Grand Company Hunting Log. It's a one-time checklist of monsters to kill out in the world, and each one drops seals into your pocket. You need to clear at least Rank 1 and Rank 2 of this log anyway to qualify for the higher promotions, so you might as well knock it out early and dump the seals straight into ranking up.

FATEs in the base game, Heavensward, and Stormblood zones also kick out a small seal payout when you finish them. The amounts are modest, more of a bonus if you were already grinding FATEs for something else. Still, free seals.

Supply and Provisioning Missions

If you've leveled any crafters or gatherers, this one's gold. Each day your Grand Company asks for a specific item per crafting and gathering class. Hand the item to the Personnel Officer and you get seals plus a chunk of experience for that class.

A couple of details worth knowing. For the supply (crafting) requests, turning in a high-quality item doubles both the experience and the seals. Starred items on the list pay out extra on top of that. The list resets every day at 8pm GMT, five hours after the normal daily reset. You can check it through the Timers menu (Ctrl+U) from anywhere, so you don't even have to be at headquarters.

The catch is you actually need leveled crafters and gatherers, which is a time sink. If you're still early, save this method for later or just buy the requested items off the Market Board on the cheap.

Expert Delivery: the Real Earner

This is where the big seals live, and it unlocks at Sergeant Second Class. Once you're there, talk to the Personnel Officer, pick delivery missions, and open the Expert Delivery tab. You hand in unwanted equipment for seals. Pink, green, and blue rarity gear all qualify, as long as the item can be sold to a vendor, which shows up as a "Sells for" value in the tooltip.

The payout scales with item level, and the formula comes straight from the game:

| Item Level | Seals Rewarded | |---|---| | 200 or lower | 5.75 × item level | | 201 to 400 | 2 × item level + 750 | | 401 to 530 | 1.75 × item level + 850.5 | | 531 to 660 | 1.67 × item level + 895 | | 661 to 790 | item level + 1339 |

So an item level 200 piece is worth roughly 1,150 seals, and an item level 400 piece nets about 1,550. The returns taper off at the high end, so don't expect a 700 piece to pay seven times what a 100 piece does.

The loop a lot of players settle into looks like this: spend a few seals on Ventures, send your retainers on Quick Exploration missions, and they drag back blue and green gear that you then feed into Expert Delivery. You spend some seals to make more seals, and you still come out ahead. Rolling Need or Greed on dungeon loot and dumping it here keeps you topped up for free. You can even convert spare Tomestones of Poetics into seals this way by buying tradeable gear and feeding it to the Personnel Officer.

Two warnings, though. First, flip the dropdown to "Hide Gear Set Items" or "Hide Armoury Chest Items" before you mass-turn-in, or you'll accidentally shred something you were using. Second, there's no buy-back button. The confirmation popup is your last line of defense, so glance at it.

Roulettes and Leves

The Leveling Roulette and Guildhest Roulette both pay a small seal bonus on the daily clear, and queueing as the Adventurer in Need tacks on extra. The Guildhest payout is tiny, so skip it unless you're already there, and Leveling Roulette is only really worth it for seals if you land the in-need role. Grand Company Leves are special levequests in Thanalan, La Noscea, the Shroud, Coerthas, and Mor Dhona zones that also pay seals if you want to grind them.

Priority Seal Allowance

Want a flat 15 percent more seals from everything above? That's the Priority Seal Allowance buff, and it tips the math in your favor. The snag is you mostly pull these from Squadron missions called Primal Recon and Stronghold Assault, so it's more of a later-game boost. Your Free Company can also cook up a Seal Sweetener action if the FC is rank 5 or higher. Grab one right before you do a big turn-in session.

Rank Ups and Hunting Logs

Ranking up is the backbone of the whole system. Higher ranks raise your seal cap, unlock new features, and gate basically every good thing in this guide.

The Rank Ladder

Each promotion costs a chunk of seals handed to the Personnel Officer, and your seal cap climbs with you. Here's the full climb:

| Rank | Seals to Promote | Max Seals | Notes | |---|---|---|---| | Private Third Class | 2,000 | 10,000 | where you start | | Private Second Class | 3,000 | 15,000 | | | Private First Class | 4,000 | 20,000 | | | Corporal | 5,000 | 25,000 | | | Sergeant Third Class | 6,000 | 30,000 | needs Hunting Log Rank 1 | | Sergeant Second Class | 7,000 | 35,000 | unlocks Expert Delivery | | Sergeant First Class | 8,000 | 40,000 | | | Chief Sergeant | 9,000 | 45,000 | needs Dzemael Darkhold cleared | | Second Lieutenant | 10,000 | 50,000 | needs Aurum Vale + Hunting Log Rank 2; unlocks housing, the Hunt, Squadrons, and transfers | | First Lieutenant | - | 80,000 | needs Squadron Rank 3 | | Captain | - | 90,000 | needs 5 unique Command Missions finished |

Two big milestones to circle. Sergeant Second Class flips on Expert Delivery, which is when seal income stops being a grind. Second Lieutenant is the huge one. That's your housing unlock, the Hunt, your Squadron, and the ability to change companies all at once.

The Gatekeeper Quests

Notice how a few ranks have extra requirements beyond seals. That trips people up.

At Sergeant Third Class you need to finish Rank 1 of the Grand Company Hunting Log. At Chief Sergeant it's a clear of Dzemael Darkhold, a level 44 dungeon, via the quest Shadows Uncast. Second Lieutenant piles on the most: a clear of The Aurum Vale (level 47) through the quest Gilding the Bilious, plus Rank 2 of the Hunting Log. The Aurum Vale has a reputation for being annoying, so go in ready for the fruit-and-coin mess on the first boss.

Why the Seal Cap Matters

The max-seals column isn't just trivia. Once you're capped, every extra seal you'd earn just vanishes. At 10,000 seals as a Private Third Class, that ceiling hits fast, so early on you should spend down to pay for promotions before you keep grinding. By Captain you're sitting on 90,000 headroom, which is plenty for most spending sprees.

Working the Hunting Log

The Grand Company Hunting Log lives under Main Menu, Logs, Hunting Log, with a tab for your company. Each rank is a list of specific monsters, and some marks are tucked inside dungeons rather than out in the open. Knock out the low ranks while you're naturally leveling through those zones and the seals add up without feeling like work.

Your Squadron and Command Missions

This is the fun part. Hit Second Lieutenant and the game hands you command of a small squad of NPC soldiers. Think of it as a second retainer system with teeth.

Unlocking Your Squadron

You need Second Lieutenant rank and a Disciple of War or Magic at level 47. Pick up the quest Squadron and Commander from your company's Personnel Officer. The prerequisite is the quest Rising to the Challenge, which is the Hall of the Novice intro. Finish it and you get access to the barracks.

Recruiting Members

Recruits don't just show up. They trickle in based on your Challenge Log. Each week you clear Challenge Log objectives in certain categories, like dungeons, FATEs, PvP, crafting, and gathering, and a recruit with a matching "reason for enlistment" gets attracted to your barracks.

The Gold Saucer category is the wildcard. It can pull a recruit from any clan, so do your Gold Saucer challenges if you want variety. A new recruit's level starts one below your lowest current member, so they ramp up over time. The barracks holds eight soldiers max; to add more you have to discharge someone. There's a random element here too, plus a Squadron Enlistment Manual you can buy later that nudges the odds of a recruit showing up.

Training and Stats

Recruits have three stats: Physical, Mental, and Tactical. You raise them through training courses on the regimen board in the barracks. A session takes one hour of real time, you get three sessions per day, and the daily counter resets at 8pm GMT.

Each training course shuffles stats around. One option pumps a single stat by 40 while dropping the other two by 20. Another raises two stats by 20 at the cost of 40 from the third. There's also a no-stat-shuffle option that just hands out experience for leveling your units. Plan around your flagged mission requirements, since hitting certain stat thresholds is how you pass the harder missions.

Squadron Missions

Deploy your squad on missions and they head out for 18 hours of real time, then come back with rewards if their stats were high enough. Each unique Trainee (rank 1) and Routine (rank 2) mission can be run once a week, plus one Priority (rank 3) mission per week. The weekly reset lands Tuesday at 8am GMT.

Deploying costs seals, so keep a few thousand banked for this. The payoff includes buff manuals that are genuinely useful. A Squadron Battle Manual gives +15 percent combat experience for two hours, the Engineering Manual gives +20 percent crafting experience, and the Survival Manual gives +20 percent gathering experience. All of them run 120 minutes, and a Priority Seal Allowance from these missions cranks your seal gain up 15 percent too.

Missions can fail if your stats are short, in which case recruits only get half experience. Squad members also develop "chemistry" over time. Those are little preferences for certain party setups that boost stats or experience when you meet them.

Command Missions

This is the part that sells the Squadron for a lot of people. At Squadron Rank 2 you can take three of your recruits into specific dungeons as a four-person party, with you filling one of the standard roles (one tank, one healer, two DPS). It's basically trusts with a military coat of paint, and it costs seals to enter.

| Dungeon | Level | Seal Cost | |---|---|---| | Halatali | 20 | 1,000 | | Brayflox's Longstop | 32 | 1,600 | | The Stone Vigil | 41 | 2,000 | | The Aurum Vale | 47 | 2,400 | | Sohm Al | 53 | 2,800 | | The Fractal Continuum | 60 | 3,500 |

The full eligible list runs from Halatali all the way up through Pharos Sirius (Hard) at 60, so there's a decent spread of leveling dungeons to grind. Costs climb with level, topping out around 3,500 seals for the hardest entries.

While inside, an Orders hotbar lets you drive the squad. Engage points them at a target (the tank pulls if that isn't you). Disengage pulls them back so they stop fighting and healing. Re-engage gets them going again. Execute Limit Break fires the squad's Ungarmax, which deals single-target damage and slaps a 50 percent damage-up buff on the whole party for 15 seconds. Save it for bosses.

Your recruits are tankier than players and shrug off some fight mechanics, but they won't resolve mechanics for you. If a fight needs someone to stand in a specific spot or grab an add, that's on you. Each member also picks up Battle Tactics over time (Independent, Offensive, Defensive, Balanced) that level up and tune their stats.

The big reason to grind these: finishing five different Command Missions unlocks the Flagged Mission Sapper Strike, which is the last step to hitting Captain rank. Clearing ten Command Missions total also nabs you four exercise emotes, Breath Control, Push-ups, Sit-ups, and Squats.

Spending Seals on the Good Stuff

So you're swimming in seals. Now what? The trick is knowing what's actually worth buying versus what looks tempting but wastes your currency.

Rank Up First

Always the priority. Every seal you spend on a promotion raises your cap and unlocks features that make future seals easier. Don't go on a shopping spree until you've at least cleared Second Lieutenant.

Ventures and Glamour Prisms

Ventures keep your retainers working, so stock up on them from the Quartermaster whenever you're near the seal cap. Glamour Prisms are the other staple. You'll burn through them constantly if you mess with the glamour system, and they sell reliably on the Market Board too. Glamour Dispellers and Cordials round out the useful consumables.

Cosmetics

Each company sells exclusive emotes, minions, mounts, and chocobo barding. The Ballroom Etiquette items unlock emotes like /attention, /atease, and /reflect, and every company has a cute hatchling minion. Remember the branding rule, though. Company gear and mounts only work while you're aligned with that company, so factor that in before you splurge.

Turning Seals Into Gil

Here's where seals quietly turn into money. A handful of crafting materials you buy from the Quartermaster can be resold on the Market Board. The usual suspects to check on your server's market are Coke, Raziqsand, Peacock Ore, and Petrified Logs. Prices bounce around, so peek at the board first.

Once you're Second Lieutenant there's an even lazier option. Several crafting materials run around 600 seals each and vendor-sell for a small but steady profit. Bamboo Paper, Magicked Oilcloth, Composite Whetstone, and Duck Bones all fit the bill. Buy them, sell to a vendor, done. It's not glamorous, but it's a reliable way to bleed off a seal surplus.

Loot Boxes and Relic Mats

Feeling lucky? Materiel Container 3.0 and 4.0 are seal-bought loot boxes with a chance at a random minion or, rarely, a mount. The 4.0 box has the broader mount pool, while the 3.0 box is mostly for chasing the Night Pegasus. Treat these as a gamble, not an investment.

If you're chasing relic weapons, seals can front-load some of the annoying steps. The level 50 Zodiac weapons want four Bombard Cores each, which run a hefty chunk of seals apiece (tens of thousands per weapon). The Heavensward Anima weapons need a set of materials, Adamantite Francescas, Titanium Alloy Mirrors, Dispelling Arrows, and Kingcakes, four of each, also running into the tens of thousands per weapon. Stash seals ahead of time if you know a relic grind is coming.

Skip These

A couple of buys look better than they are. Grade 8 Dark Matter lets you self-repair gear, which sounds handy, but NPC vendors sell it for gil so cheap that spending seals on it is a poor trade. You get more value out of the autosell materials. Grand Company Aetheryte Tickets teleport you to headquarters for free, but at a couple thousand seals each it's a steep price to skip a ten-second walk, especially when regular aetheryte tickets are easy to come by for free teleports anyway.

Keep your seals liquid until you're near the cap, then spend the overflow before it evaporates. When nothing else is calling your name, dumping a stack of those vendor-resale crafting materials is a fine default, and a full pile converted to gil adds up faster than you'd guess.