Waiting it out paid off, yesterday I checked the Square Enix store like every few days and lo and behold, Stormblood was on sale for 15 EUR. So I grabbed it, cheered in /g and went on to play WoW for an hour until it had patched.
Then I could finally hand in my Level 50 Bard quest and kill 5 mobs to finish the Archer Hunting Log. I hate wasting XP. The rewards for the Job Quest were a bit weird IMHO, the chest for your blue Level 45 set and then a full 50 set as a recolor. But I won’t complain… Checked the AH for a cheap 50 bow, neck, bracers, ring, and earrings and got all except the earrings for cheap. Now to just finish the last 2-3 steps of the ARR MSQ.
So if you started playing recently, grab your discounted expansion.
You don’t need to buy gear on AH until 70, there is endgame poetics set in Mor Dhona for level 50 and level 60 set in Idyllshire (for the later one there is also 5 ilvl lower set that you can buy with gil in Ishgard).
Good to know, thanks! I was still wearing my Level 1 Ring and some Level 30 stuff though because I didn’t happen to come across any upgrades in some slots. And I have enough Gil that 10k (combined) was no problem at all.