A bunch of questions

Hey guys

This is my 2nd month of playing ffxiv and I'm really liking it. I'm still confused about some things though. Gonna number these off so it'll be easier to answer.

1. Are bonuses(exp, attack damage,defense,ect) multiplicative or additive?
2. When I was doing the MSQ, I was overleveling. My thaumaturge was level 30 at a level 27 part. Should I be level 2 classes at once? Do you level faster at certain parts in the story?
3. I'm a bit confused as to how stats work. I've heard people say that for tanks, strength increases your damage, but so does vitality. How does that work? Does strength give more damage per point?
4. Speaking of tanks, I was tanking as a gladiator in the level 20 dungeon(I forget the name), and the healer told me I was squishy. He said I should put some points into strength. Why should I do that? How should I be allocating my stat points as a warrior or paladin?

5. Do You want to use a shield with a high block value or high block rate? Right now I'm using the one from the level 20 quest.
6. When and how do I unlock PvP? I heard you could do it at level 30 but I can't find a quest or anything anywhere.
7. Are there other ways to level besides the MSQ,leve quests,dungeons/guildhests and FATEs?
8. Do crafters and gatherers have their own quests outside of the class ones?
9. I've seen some people say they have alts. Why? Doesn't seem to be much point.
10. Is there a way to enable chat bubbles? Sometimes I don't pay attention to the chat log and I miss some stuff, especially in party chat. I hate it.

11. How does chocobo reraise work? It didn't work when my stamina reached zero.
12. How do DoTs and short term buffs(such as that archer attack buff) work in this game? If you cast a DoT while buffed, will its damage return to normal after your buff wears off?
13. As an arcanist, how should I be dealing with trash in dungeons? Should I bother putting up all 3 DoTs? I'm afraid of DoTing multiple targets because I don't want to aggro everything
14. Do you need to be level 50 to try the three Heavensward classes?
15. What exactly is the armoire for in your inn room? I can't put stuff in it.

Sorry for the triple post, but my first post was ~2100 characters long. Thanks for any replies!

First, your last point, if you edit your posts, you can go past the 1000 character limit.
And, not sure I can answer everything, but also sounds like a few points may just be outdated information on your part.

3, and by extension 4, for tanks, you can pump all your extra stats into Vitality. It was changed some while back and now tank's power is based on their VIT, which also increases HP. Less squishy, more squashy.
5 is personal preference, mostly, probably. Personally, I'd rather block some of many attacks, rather than relying on blocking most of a few attacks.
6, outdated info again. A few patches ago PvP was raised to level 50.
7, you've got most sources of decent exp (well, leves are pretty pitiful for battle classes). Additionally fulfilling challenge log entries will give good boosts. And later there will be Beast Tribe quests, although their experience is also pretty miniscule.
8, Crafters have no other quests besides class quests (and later some of the beast tribes require crafting), but they benefit a lot from leves, and Grand Company supplies.
Jump a bit, 12, DoT skills "snapshot" on application. So their power is affected by any buffs you have up at the time, and doesn't change by any buffs wearing off or anything. So in the case of Archer, is best to buff yourself up before applying DoT for a little extra boost.
13, Arcanist is allllll about the DoTs. As the class progresses to Summoner, you'll get to spread them faster, keep them up longer, and generally just watch everything wither away. If you're worried about aggro, tank should be doing better to keep it.
14, as the three HW jobs are based in Ishgard, you will need to complete the main story (and a boatload of other quests after, from the sound of it), so level 50 with at least one class is required.
15, armoire is for more uniquely special gear, stuff you can typically only ever get once. Mostly this seems to be event-related gear, achievement rewards, certain job gear sets, etc. You won't have much use for it at lower levels. (if you really want to dump something in there, there should be an Itinerant Moogle hanging around any of the 3 cities that's selling Hatchling Earrings. They don't do much for you, but at least you can say you got them.)

Editing your post allows you to get around the 1K character limit. Whether making such long posts is wise or not is arguable, but it's likely better than three posts =).

1. You can at least see the EXP bonuses being applied each time you get EXP. It's in parentheses in the chat window. Not sure about the rest.
2. Nothing wrong with "overleveling." If you ever exceed the level of a duty, it will temporarily sync you down anyway. If you are not high enough level, however, you will have to wait until you're high enough to accept the next quest. So arguably better to "overlevel." How much you focus on a single class versus switching amongst them is entirely up to you. The official recommendation and my own preference are to focus on leveling one up to the max level first at least, though. The speed at which one levels certainly varies based on activity, so yes, quest portions that have you do dungeons, for instance, likely will yield a faster EXP gain rate.
3. For tanks, VIT increases both damage and HP, whereas STR increases only damage. So VIT is superior.
4. He was wrong. You want VIT. STR won't help your defense.
5. So long as it's for a tank, I'd just use whatever has the highest item level.
6. Used to be 30+. Now it's 50+.
7. Hunting log, trials, side quests, challenge log
8. Levequests and Ixal/Moogle beast tribe quests
9. I concur. It's an odd choice. I prefer sticking with one character. Some attest they want completely separate appearances for each class they play. Others do it for additional storage space. I'd continue to play just one.
10. No, but you can have any/all chat channels play your choice of sound effect when there's a message.
11. Haven't used it myself. Heard similar complaint. Maybe it's not a noticeable amount of stamina.
12. It snapshots. So all buffs are applied to the DoT at the moment it's cast and, like a torpedo, it's away. You could buff more, lose buffs, die, whatever, and the DoT will have exactly the same effectiveness for its full duration as it did at the moment it was cast.
13. I like the way you think. It can be frustrating as a tank dealing with suicidal DPS that insist on maximizing their DPS even when it means taxing the rest of the party. Others will insist that you should do precisely that, though. It's really a combination of what you're comfortable with and what the party is comfortable with. Both are viable. Some flexibility to do either depending on the situation will be handy.
14. Yes. And then some. Accessing the extra jobs requires completion of a bunch of level 50 main scenario quests.
15. The armoire only holds special items like those from some seasonal events, unique items from 45-50 job quests, etc.

Ill do my best with these. First point, you can edit your posts to go over the character limit. Im going to type this whole thing(im positive ill go over 1k), copy/cut most of the text, post a quick reply, then edit the rest back in. Yay pointless limits!

1. I believe they are multiplicative, but im not 100% positive.
2. Overleveling can happen, especially if youre doing all the side quests. Certain level ranges in the story have less quests then others, which can even end up with your level getting behind and you having to catch up.
3. They recently changed tank stats, so that probly didnt help your confusion. The way it is now, you can put all your tank points into Vit. My understanding is that the damage tanks get from Vit/Str is now the same(it used to be weighted toward str), but only the Vit is also giving you more hp so prioritize that.
4. All Vit. Its possible the person who said that was before the stat change. But Str wouldnt have made you less squishy, it would previously just have boosted your damage a bit.
5. This i dont know. Go for both?
6. Level 30 sounds like what i remember. There should be a quest from your GC that sends you to the wolves den, thats where the first pvp set opens up.
7. Those are the main ways. Repeatable daily best tribe quests become available a bit later on. Your hunting log will also give you some bonus exp for clearing specific targets(one time only each). And you might find some good bonuses in the challenge log(if you havent, unlock this for sure).
8. They have their own class quests, there own leve quests, and eventually some seperate beast tribe quests. Crafters/gatherers also get good leveling exp from daily GC turn ins.
9. I dont see much point either. The only thing one character cant do currently is hold specializations in more then 3 crafting classes. Some people leveled alts to have each specialist. Im sure a few have them for the extra retainer space. And i guess ive heard of some people leveling an alt so they could re-play the story and one time only events from the game. Still, those arent a ton of reasons compared to other games.
10. Not that i know of, but ive never looked as i dont like them.
11. Im not positive on this one, but if you have a really big stamina pool than the ammount restored by reraise1 might not be that noticable. The gold saucer forum has a lot of chocobo racing info.
12. My understanding is that the game "snapshots" the DoT when you apply it. So whatever buffs you have active when you cast it will stay on the DoT until it expires, or you refresh its timer.
13. As a DPS, your job is to kill everything as quickly and efficiently as possible. The tanks job is to get and keep aggro(this is tougher to do at low levels but not impossible). So multi dot, aoe, focus blast, do what the situation needs you to with the enemies the group has engaged. You can always dial it back if you see a tank having a hard time keeping up. The healer adds aggro on every enemy every time they heal, so a few dots from you is fine.
14. The story will send you to Ishgard, where the trainers for the 3 HW classes are. When you get there, thats when you can unlock and start using them.
15. Only certain items can be stored in the armoire, so you probly just havent gotten any of them yet.

1. At least for XP, bonuses are additive. For instance, if you have a 50% rested XP bonus, a 10% bonus from your FC, and a 3% bonus from food, you'd get an overall 63% bonus. For things like damage boosts I believe (not 100% certain) that it's the same if they stack at all, but you'll need to learn which ones stack with each other and which overwrite each other.

2. Overleveling is quite common in the early levels. Leveling a couple classes together can help with that (especially useful if the second is one you'll eventually want to level for cross-class skills anyway). As you get higher, though, it takes a lot more XP to gain additional levels and the amount you get from quests doesn't keep pace with that ramp up. (And there's a bit of a dry patch for quests in the late 40's.)

3. As others have said, Vitality is now the preferred stat for tanks. Both VIT and STR boost damage (and therefore enmity) by the same amount, but VIT also boosts your HP.

4. The healer who said that was confused. Even before the change in stats STR wouldn't have helped you be less squishy. That's always been the domain of VIT. (STR used to be better on the damage and enmity side, but not any more.)

5. Generally just going with the highest item level is a good bet, particularly while leveling.

6. They've removed the level 30 PvP. Now it doesn't start until level 50.

7. Those are the main ones. (Dungeons in particular give the highest rate of XP, especially your Roulette dungeon.) There's also the hunting log, challenge log, and in the early 40s (level 41 or 42 IIRC) the daily repeatable quests from the first set of beast tribes opens up.

8. Crafters have their class quests, leves, and beast tribe quests from Ixali then later Moogles. Plus they can turn in Supply Missions to their GC.

9. There's certainly fewer reasons for alts in this game than in many others, but some reasons remain: a chance to repeat the story, a way to have characters of different races/genders, and some people use them to get around the loot limitations in certain endgame content (letting them max out their loot for each job rather than just once).

10. No, there aren't chat bubbles, but assigning a sound notification to party chat can help for drawing your attention to it.

12. Your DoTs remain buffed however they were the moment you added them.

13. It really helps if you know your tank and how much they can handle. With a good well-geared tank who can hold aggro no matter what you're doing, you want to maximize all those DoTs. They're an arcanist's or summoner's main damage tool. But if your tank is new, low-level, or undergeared and having trouble holding aggro, then it's worth scaling back to match what they can manage. In that case, you might not want to DoT everything right away. Start with the mob the tank is mostly focusing on, and give them some time to build aggro before you start spreading your DoTs to the other enemies. In a random group, you can get a general idea by checking the tank's level and gear, but may still have to play it by ear a bit through the first couple packs of mobs while you familiarize yourself with your teammates.

14. You'll need to level to 50 and finish around a hundred level 50 quests before you can get to Ishgard to unlock the new jobs.

15. The armoire only holds items you can only get under special conditions, mainly this is things like seasonal event gear, veteran rewards, and the like.

4. I don't play tank classes, but can tell you that the healer's comment may not necessarily be all you. The healer could simply be used to having tanks in their group that are synced from a much higher level giving them ridiculous HP in an early dungeon. A good healer won't call their tank squishy, and instead make efforts to sync with the tank. If you have less HP than most, the healer simply needs to be aware of it, and heal accordingly. I really hate people who point fingers.


7. Don't use leves to level battle classes. Save them for your gatherers and your crafters. Even if you choose to not level these classes, there are much better ways to get your exp. Other than what you mentioned there is roulette. Right now, you only have access to leveling, but soon you will have access to other roulettes that grant their own bonuses. Beast tribe quests are unlocked at lv 41 if I remember right, which is another source of repeatable quests for exp, but you have a certain amount of allowances like leves.

9. ALTs can be two things. It can be a class/job that a person plays other than their main one(s). Even players who have all jobs at cap level will still consider one or two jobs their "mains". The other is an entirely different character. There really is no point to having an ALT character in the early levels. Most gear and items are easily obtained. However, in the upper levels, certain tradable items can only be obtained every so often. A great example of this are the Grade 3 soils used for gardening, which can only be gathered once a day in a three hour window. Also, some people want to re-experience the MSQ and the battles involved that can only be done once.

13. As an arcanist, it is a good idea to keep all DoTs up until the mob is near death. With DoTs you have to remember that the longer the duration, the higher its potency. Slapping a 30sec duration BioII isn't going to be worth the cast or MP if the mob dies 2 seconds later. I can only give you an arbitrary number to stop casting DoTs. It really is something that you pick up as you go. But with critical health/low HP mobs, it is typically best to burn them down with Ruin/Ruin2/Energy drain.

The other questions would just be a reiteration of the what the other posters provided on my part.

Just in case you still check this thread, I thought it'd be fun to go through these. Sorry for repeats of other answers already posted:

1. What bonuses are you looking at that might seem additive? EXP bonuses show in the chat log, and Fight or Flight really does increase physical damage by 30% like it says. All buffs stack. Now that I think about it, maybe you're looking at Internal Release? That ability, and any other action, does indeed directly add crit by the shown %. Crit Rate gained from the stat itself is actually a little bit low.

2. The levelling rate is really consistent. It is very easy to greatly overlevel with dungeon and FATE EXP if you're also doing every single quest there is. This is a personal taste thing if you like being overlevelled or not, but even if you're at the "correct" level, there's still never a real challenge in the Main Scenario by intentional design.

3. If you're curious about the exact numbers, each point of STR or VIT increases Attack Power by 0.45. That's why VIT is better; same AP gain but also gain HP. Therefore, there's no serious reason to increase anything besides VIT with bonus stat points. The bonus stat system was kind of a failed experiment by the devs, unfortunately.

4. Before Patch 3.2, released February 22 this year, only STR increased tanks' Attack Power at 1 per point. However, STR never gave HP, so I have no idea what that person was thinking. There's a lot of idiots on the internet, sadly.

5. Shields with different block numbers are also a bit of a failed experiment by the devs. Nothing's hard enough to make them matter at all. The best shield would have equal values of Block Strength and Block Rate, which is what most shields at Level 50 and 60 have if I remember right. If you had to choose between only high Block Strength or high Block Rate, I believe high Block Rate would be better because the base block amount is still meaningful.

6. Already answered.

7. You listed them all. But at Level 50, you will gain +50% EXP from FATEs for below Level 50 on any class. That may require finishing the first part of ARR's Main Scenario to unlock, but it's permanent.

8. Crafters & Gatherers just have the levequests and story quests. They're just plain not treated quite the same as Battle classes.

9. It's difficult for me to understand alts. The most legitimate reason I've seen people give is that they view certain races as better fitting for certain classes, which is fair. Like a Roegadyn for Warrior and Miqo'te for Monk. So it's largely a roleplay/immersion reason.

10. Chat bubbles have deliberately not been implemented because the PS3 wouldn't be able to handle them. Yes, it's sad and very stupid, but getting this game to run on PS3 was a primary focus of the FFXIV remake process a few years ago. People can't wait until PS3 support is dropped and stops holding the game back as much.

11. Sorry, I never got around to playing in The Gold Saucer.

12. If you're familiar with the term "snapshot," that's how every periodic effect works. The strength of the DoT or HoT applied at the time of application stays the entire time, including ground targeted actions. I think it makes sense in this game because most actions performed are deliberate with an opportunity cost, so many DoTs/HoTs aren't purely upkeep maintenance like in WoW. However, Bard, Machinist, and Summoner all do involve "maintenance" DoTs and, for only Bard & Machinist, maintenance buffs.
A couple more details about periodic effects: First, all periodic effects, and a variety of other things, are controlled by a server wide, 3 second tick. It doesn't matter when the periodic effect is applied, it will do damage/healing based on that global tick period of 3 seconds. Second, in general I've found that all DoTs, except one from Pugilist, are worth using if the afflicted target will live 9+ seconds. It almost seems intentionally designed that way.

13. As long as you're giving the tank about 5 seconds to generate enmity, you should never have to worry about pulling aggro after Level 40, within reason. If you do, that is a VERY bad tank if it's a normal situation. Your job is to do damage. The tank's job is to keep aggro, so let him/her worry about that. There is one ability that casters can use if you levelled Archer to 34 called Quelling Strikes. That ability halves enmity generation for 15 seconds, but it has a 2 mins cooldown, so it's not really something to fall back on. Btw, ironically it's harder for tanks to keep aggro below Level 30 (Level 40 for Paladins), but at the same time, the enemies in dungeons at that level and below aren't a real threat, so it doesn't matter.
When it comes to DoTs, they literally deal their damage over time, so an Arcanist/Summoner really should never have to wait for the tank to generate enmity within reason. As for when you should cast all 3 DoTs, refer to my answer above. In general, yes, it's practically always worth casting them as an Arcanist/Summoner because almost all of your damage is periodic whether it's through the DoTs or your pet. The order I recommend is Miasma, Bio II, Bio, but it really doesn't matter and it'll change as fights go on. Just tab through the targets and keep casting DoTs. The more targets, the more DPS for an Arcanist/Summoner!

14. The three new classes in Heavensward are based in a new city where the Heavensward story revolves around, so that does indeed involve being Level 50 and completing all of ARR's Main Scenario which leads to that city.

15. As a new player, you'll almost never be using the Armoire. Throughout the years, the game has had a lot of seasonal events and nice-looking costume items to go with them, and the Armoire is primarily to store those items. Later, you can store certain Job-specific gear.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Teiren

7. You listed them all. But at Level 50, you will gain +50% EXP from FATEs for below Level 50 on any class. That may require finishing the first part of ARR's Main Scenario to unlock, but it's permanent.

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Is that one new? I don't remember seeing anything about it in patch notes.