I last played sometime during Heavensward. I am looking at coming back. From the Shadowbringers preorder page:
To be granted early access and play the new contents from FINAL FANTASY XIV: Shadowbringers, users need to be playing FINAL FANTASY XIV: Stormblood and have completed certain quests.
and
Please note that the FINAL FANTASY® XIV: SHADOWBRINGERS expansion pack also includes FINAL FANTASY® XIV: HEAVENSWARD & FINAL FANTASY® XIV: STORMBLOOD, which will be provided at release on July 2, 2019.
[Emphasis added]
So does that mean to play the early access, I will need to purchase Stormblood separately (even though it is theoretically included with Shadowbringers) because Stormblood will not unlock until retail access to Shadowbringers drops on July 2?
Here’s the thing… if you haven’t done the Stormblood (SB) story, you won’t be able to do the Shadowbringers (ShB) story. So if you don’t have SB now, and you’re in HW, you can probably get away with waiting to buy just ShB, whether you get the SB stuff 3 days early (or whatever the early release date is) or not. It’s really up to you if you want to spend the money on SB to get started on that story before July.
That’s what I would do, personally. I mean, even if you finish the HW story, you still have SO MANY other things you can do in that time frame, like gathering, crafting, opening ALL THE DUNGEONS (so many…) doing all the trials so you can open the extremes, farming mounts/minions, exploring the deep dungeons… really, so much.
This is what I am doing. I decided to jump back into FFXIV a week after Stormblood was on sale. So I’m playing a game of chicken with the Shadowbringers.
If Stormblood goes back on sale I’ll pick it up.
If I get everything relatively unlocked with Heavensward by, say, mid-June, I’ll consider picking Stormblood at full price for the month. Given that I’ve gone from ~30 hours in game from the first time I tried FFXIV to ~150 in just the past month even if I drop a full $40 on Stormblood in Mid-June and play it until July that would not be the worst value I’ve had out of a game.
Else I’ll just pick up the preorder of Shadowbringers and wait.
One thing to consider with this game is what you can do in 4 days of early access. Keeping in mind how incredibly many Main Story Quests there are and that you absolutely do not want to rush through them, what possible difference is 4 days going to make for you? Rushing in this game is simply a complete waste of time. So whether or not you buy Shadowbringers early should be based on how far you have progressed in the game before the expansion is released, and not whether or not you can rush through the MSQ before the end of June.