This guide is for those of you who can’t wait to go out into the world of the First and take to the skies where no Warrior of Darkness has ever gone before. Now for those of you who have already gone through the Heavensward and Stormblood expansion, the path to flying is still the same, so this guide is really for those who have used the story potions and job level potions to skip their way into Shadowbringers, whether they finished and quit at A Realm Reborn, newbies who just wanted to get straight into the adventure of Shadowbringers, and everyone else who just didn’t go through the previous expansions.
The thing we need in order to attain flight powers is to interact/obtain aether currents. Aether Currents allow one to be able to understand the movement of the winds in the immediate area according to the game. So once one is able to attain all aether currents for the area then they are able to fly, albeit only in that one map. We’ll need to find the Aether Currents in every other map to be able to fly throughout the whole region.
So first things first, there are 2 ways in which we can get Aether Currents and we need both in order to fly. The 1st method would be to find them out in the wild, but before we go exploring every nook and cranny for them, we need to get a certain item to make things a hell of a lot easier for everyone.
So the item in question is called the Aether Current Compass key item. One can easily get it from either Gibrillont at the Forgotten Knight in Coerthas or from Gaufrid in Rhalgr’s Reach.
After that, it’s as simple as key binding it to the Hotbar and activating it. It will tell you which direction the closest one is at and how far in terms of “yalms” (0.9144 meters). You can easily just spam this baby while you have your character on mounted and on autorun to make things easier.
Now finding wild Aether Currents sounds easy enough but it’s not always the case. There are some aether currents that are far from reach, so the only way to be able to reach them would be to advance in the story. Advancing in the story opens up a new part of the map which allows us to hunt for the other Aether Currents.
Now the 2nd method is rather simple, just do certain quests! In an area, there are multiple quest markers with the “!” symbol. The quests we’re looking for that gives Aether Currents are the ones with a blue background around the “!” symbol. It’s basically the game telling you “You don’t need to do these but it’s really beneficial for you if you do”. The quests are usually really simple enough that they’re basically no brainers. However, some of the quests won’t show up immediately as it requires the player to do a few necessary main story quests in the story in order for them to pop up, kinda like trying to get the reputation up for the town/outpost.
And there you have it. This guide is all one really needs in order to go around the maps hunting Aether Currents. While having a map cheat sheet sounds good and all, I believe going in blindly and relying on the traditional compass makes the adventure a much better experience. Well, happy flights now!