Final Fantasy XIV: Northern Solution Nine and Forked Tower: Magicite guide (7.55)

Final Fantasy XIV's 7.55 update has been playable since Tuesday, August 4, 2026. It opens up the northern half of Solution Nine, raises the maximum knowledge level from 20 to 40, adds eight brand-new support jobs, and introduces the Forked Tower: Magicite in two difficulties. For players who dropped off after the southern portion of patch 7.25, now's the time to pick the Ketenramm expedition back up.

Square Enix launched the Nintendo Switch 2 version of the MMO the same day, and the official patch notes temporarily split The Reclaimed Vault and the ghost town into multiple instances to absorb the influx of players. Here's how to proceed: unlock access, reach knowledge level 40 without penalizing yourself, choose your support jobs, then aim for the Forked Tower before 7.56.

Unlocking Northern Solution Nine

It all starts in Tuliyollal (17.2, 11.8), with the expedition liaison officer, who hands out the sidequest "Return to the Crescent". Requirements: be a level 100 Disciple of War or Magic and have completed "The Mystery Remains", the end of the southern questline.

Good news for those who skipped the 7.25 raid: Square Enix states in black and white that you don't need to have cleared the Forked Tower: Strength to access the northern area, nor the Forked Tower: Magicite.

The duty is launched with Jeffroy, at the ghost town (4.5, 6.6) — it's the party leader who speaks to him if you're coming as a group. You can reach the ghost town from Tuliyollal's aetheryte, provided you've unlocked the capital's entire transportation network and completed "A Familiar Face, an Unfamiliar Place".

• Eligibility: level 100 Disciples of War and Magic
• Item level: 690 minimum, synced to 700
• Party size: registration for 1 to 8 players
• Time limit: 180 minutes

Getting around the island: the rules to know from the start

Mounts can be used right upon arrival but cannot fly. Their speed, already increased, goes up further once you obtain the Northern Solution Nine Detailed Map: go get it early, it's the first real time-saver. The Return action is replaced by Half Return, which brings you back to the base camp.

Ancient aetherytes serve as teleportation points once you attune to them, and knowledge crystals resonate when certain support actions are used nearby: they then grant party-wide bonuses, such as reduced damage taken.

Knowledge level 40: what really changes

Knowledge replaces experience on Solution Nine, and the knowledge level now caps at 40 instead of 20. In the southern area, your level remains synced to 20, but gaining knowledge there is still possible: no need to abandon the southern CE you can clear with your eyes closed.

The KO penalty is the real constraint: teleporting to your recall point or leaving the duty after a KO causes you to lose knowledge points. Being raised cancels the penalty. From level 5 onward, if the loss drops the counter below zero, you drop a level.

The chain bonus is the real driver of leveling: chaining kills against enemies with a higher knowledge level than yours increases knowledge, support experience, and currencies, with a threshold that climbs up to the 30th chain. The required gap depends on party size.

A party is considered optimal when the knowledge level gap between its members doesn't exceed 3: the battle then uses the party's average and boosts support experience. Otherwise, the party leader activates level sync — the go-to move as soon as a friend joins the island late.

Eight new support jobs and elemental weaknesses

7.55 adds eight support jobs, identifiable by the new soul shards that appeared in the patch's item list:

• Phantom Black Mage and Phantom Blue Mage, the only two named explicitly in the body of the official patch notes
• Phantom White Mage, Phantom Red Mage, Phantom Summoner, Phantom Necromancer
• Phantom Dragoon and Phantom Ninja

They join the 7.25 lineup: Phantom Freelancer, Phantom Berserker, Phantom Ranger, Phantom Samurai, Phantom Geomancer, Phantom Time Mage, Phantom Gunner, Phantom Oracle, Phantom Chemist, Phantom Thief. Soul shards can be bought at shops or dropped as rewards from critical encounters, and the island's questline also unlocks some.

The Phantom Blue Mage works like its base-game counterpart: it doesn't learn anything from experience, it must witness an enemy use an action before defeating it. The list of learnable actions can be checked in the job's detail window.

Two mechanics structure progression. First, mastery: leveling a support job to its maximum grants a permanent effect (increased damage dealt, among others), which is retained after switching jobs and amplified with each newly mastered job — the Phantom Freelancer even gains a level with each mastery achieved. Then, elemental weaknesses, entirely new: monsters in the south as well as the north have them, and targeting the right element drastically changes your clear speed.

Currencies, the "Phantasmagoric" gear set, and upgrades

Two brand-new currencies, distinct from the southern ones:

• Nickel Nickels of the Twelve: earned from successful CEs and won critical encounters on the northern island.
• Platinum Nickels of the Twelve: earned from monsters defeated across Solution Nine.

They're spent with the expedition numismatist (39.3, 38.6), who also accepts Magicite Talismans brought back from either version of the Forked Tower.

The new set bonus gear is called "Phantasmagoric" (item level 780) and comes in variants for each role: tank, melee DPS, physical ranged DPS, ranged DPS, magical ranged DPS, caster, healer. Each piece can be upgraded three times (+1, +2, +3) using the Ultimate Fixative Vial. Don't throw away your southern set: the expedition outfitter (39.5, 39.0) will exchange it for its northern equivalent, upgrade level included.

The Forked Tower: Magicite — normal, then extreme

The raid requires knowledge level 40 and unlocking a quest on-site. The normal version accommodates up to 48 players and doesn't limit resurrections: it's the right place to learn the mechanics without pressure.

The entry is the confusing part. You need to stand on the magic sigil that appears during the "Mirages" weather condition; no item is required, the sigil activates on its own. If more than 48 players are standing on it, a lottery decides, and pre-formed parties pass or fail as a group. Those not selected receive a priority score that carries over even if you leave the island. Note that "Mirages" is suspended during critical encounters.

Free Company tip: entering the island with an alliance of 24 players or more automatically creates a private instance. "Mirages" triggers there five minutes after arrival, then the instance reopens to the public once the alliance has entered the tower, or after ten minutes.

The extreme version is played with 12 to 48 participants split into three alliances, with no size constraint within individual parties. All members must be in the ghost town at the time of registration, carried out by a party leader with Jeffroy. The timer starts at 15 minutes and extends as you progress.

The major constraint has a name: Doom. Standard resurrections are blocked and only a specific support action can revive an ally, at the cost of one stack of the effect; once all stacks are consumed, the player stays down. In extreme mode, switching classes, jobs, and support jobs is only possible at the starting point, versus "anytime out of combat" in normal mode. One last trap common to both versions: using Half Return or "Return to Starting Point" after a KO sends you back to the base camp without an immediate return.

Completing your phantom weapon

The legendary weapon saga for the phantom weapons concludes with this patch. The quest "On the Edge of the Mirage" is obtained from Lydirceil, in the ghost town (6.6, 7.1), after "Ultimate Phantom Power". Two upgrade stages are on the agenda, and it's during the second one that you choose the weapon's attributes.

The final tiers appear in the list of new items: the eclipticum models go up to item level 790, the occultum ones to 795. To equip a second job, exchange Mathematical Allagan Memory Crystals for Eclipticite Fragments to bring to Dodokkuli, in the ghost town (6.7, 7.1). The series follows the "fixed class or job" rule: you can only progress with the job that started the quest.

The Crescent Log and known bugs

The Crescent Log gains new entries: some fill in on their own, others require observing from a specific spot or using an item found on-site. The added entries hint at what's to come — Arbatel, Algol, Palimagia, Index, Necrophobia, the Ravisher, the Alabaster Blade.

Finally, two bugs acknowledged by Square Enix call for caution: the area of effect of the enemy action "Black Flame" displays smaller than its actual size during a certain critical encounter, and stacking multiple damage-nullifying effects (Shirahadori, Bunshin, Magic Vulnerability Up) consumes all of them at once.

How to spend the coming month

The schedule is tight: update 7.56, announced for September 8, 2026, will close out Dawntrail's story and introduce the limited job Beastmaster. So you have one month to make the most of Solution Nine.

The most efficient order comes down to four steps: finish "Return to the Crescent" and grab the detailed map, level two or three support jobs to mastery to stack the permanent effect, upgrade the "Phantasmagoric" set to +3, then aim for the Forked Tower on normal before extreme. As for the phantom weapons, they don't expire: save them for evenings when the alliance doesn't fill up.