While we’re all sitting around patiently chomping at the bit Final Fantasy XIV to drop Patch 5.1 to drop, what are you guys doing to pass the time? I’ve been super busy working at my day job, so I haven’t had a lot of time to dedicate to grinding, but when I do get a chance to play I’ve been focusing on leveling up my alternate jobs. I’ve been leveling up my WAR (previously my main prior to swapping to DNC) by doing side quests I missed when going through the Shadowbringers main story, as well as grinding FATES in the new zones and doing Trust Dungeons since I hate waiting in queue.
I’m currently up to level 73 on the WAR, but I’ve also leveled my SCH to 71, and I’ve been working on getting some of my other level 70 jobs - such as SAM or MCH to 71 so I can start doing dungeons on them as well. If I don’t feel like having to finagle with the sometimes painfully bad AI in Trust Dungeons, or once I finish my roulettes, I’ve often been swapping back to slowly level all of my jobs to 50+.
I believe my lowest job right now is my AST, which is level 37, and it’s simply because I don’t like the way that class plays. Healing as a whole is fine, but trying to remember which card gives what boost to which classes gets confusing for me in battle, and I prefer the SCH’s ability to cast heals that grant Galvanize for the added shielding while throwing a few DoTs so I’ve got a few more seconds to breathe. AST is just too busy for my taste.
When leveling, I typically will play level 1-20 by doing the hunting logs and joining in on any low level FATES I can find that I can solo or assist a sproutling who I see trying to solo when possible. After that, I’ll often move to Palace of the Dead, because I hate myself, but it’s usually a fast way to level up, so I deal with how mind numbingly bad that dungeon is, and I will grind while the groups are rolling quickly.
)
The reason Palace of the Dead is so bad is because you’ll only get an instant or quick queue running floors 51-60, since the Deep Dungeon only scales the experience earned by that second tier of levels. You’ll basically get cursed/poxed ad nauseum, and it gets super boring fighting the same few types of enemies over and over as you grind. Furthermore, the horseman boss at the end is dull as dishwater and the only way to die in that fight is to stand in the poison smoke trying to die. If I get bored of that, I’ll run my command squadron through the highest level dungeon available to my class at the time.
Lord knows I’ve run more than fair share of Stone Vigil, but it’s also cool being able to essentially farm gear for my alt classes without worrying about rolling on greed or fighting with randoms for lower level crap simply because people want to use dungeon gear for disenchanting. Thankfully, that’s going away in the near future, or so they said a while back.
Once I get a job to 50ish, I typically will save and run any roulette I can queue for to help that character get a nice burst of EXP. After that, I typically supplement with more command dungeons - Sohm Al is a good dungeon to run for XP from 53-57, but this dungeon can be extremely difficult if you aren’t experienced with the mechanics and actually commanding the squad. The fight with Myath can easily kill you (which sucks cause if you die, everyone dies) if you don’t focus on the big slime and stack/spread when the fire/ice slimes explode. At 57, I’ll usually farm The Vault since it’s both great exp and nice gear to get you caught up if you’ve been slacking on upgrades.
At 60, I’ll run roulettes or any available level 60 dungeon I can queue into (Great Gubal Library Hard twice will typically take you from 60-61.) And then, once I’ve hit level 61, I’ll move over to Heaven on High. Heaven on High suffers from the same fate that POTD does as you’ll want to spam the 21-30 set but at least there’s far less annoying traps to deal with, and you can get esper orbs that kill every enemy on the floor instantly.
)
At 70+, I’ve been saving the main scenario roulette for any class I’m trying to focus on, since Castrum Meridianum and The Praetorium both give a huge chunk per run (as they should since you can’t skip the cutscenes) and then just trying to find either FATES or other random stuff to do since I’m typically burnt out by grinding and want to find something a little more fun that allows me a better way to practice that classes skills so I’m not a burden to real groups when I get slotted in.
Don’t forget that the Moogle Treasure Trove event is running once again. This is a good way to get some of those special mounts without grinding for old world factions. Plenty of people are running some of the leveling dungeons to get those bonus MogTomes so this is also a great time for leveling up those alt jobs. On Thursday, All Saint’s Wake returns, so make sure you go get your spooky witch Ahriman or your pumpkin carriage while that event is running again!
Do you guys level up on a similar path? What’s your go-to path to get from 1-80? Feel free to leave more options down in the comments below.
