New player needing some help with leveling

So, I just started playing the game and got my Marauder up to 45, and have really gotten frustrated with progressing through dungeons to complete my story. Being forced to tank dungeons i know nothing about is becoming a huge chore from abusive players nerd raging to just not knowing fights. I do my research before doing a dungeon of course and try to learn the fights with youtube videos but its just become too much. I started leveling my archer, but the 1-10+ phase is really getting to me, its become just running around trying to farm mobs to lvl up but that's extremely slow.

Is there a faster way to lvl up? It's hard to even try fates because im stuck doing them by myself.

How long does it usually take to get from 1-50 on a class from fates and hunting logs alone? I'm not in a rush, I just want kind of a rough estimate.

Your hunting log and initial class quests should get you to 10 with little trouble, especially with the +50% armory boost. The hunting log becomes less and less viable for XP. FATEs are still fine for XP since they weren't touched at all, dungeons were just boosted to be more lucrative.

Also keep in mind that you don't have to finish fates to get XP from them. If you've been at a FATE for a while and a new one pops up, leave the current one and go to the new one. When the time runs out on any FATE you've participated in or they are cleared by other people, as long as you are in the same zone, you will still get XP no matter how far away you are.

My advice is just to deal with the dungeons, they are too nice to ignore. Your tank should usually have instant queues, too. If people bellyache about you being new just politely ask them to leave. You should be able to find replacements easily for anything that isn't a tank. Might just be a series of bad luck, too. When I do low level roulettes I rarely have people harass like that.

Sorry this is slightly off-topic, but you can also try looking in the tank section of the forums for advice with that part. One thing that will get recommended is to get gladiator up to 6 and then 22 for cross-class skills. Which brings us back to "how long does it take to level"...
On topic - don't forget about your levequests.

I recommend just telling the people this is your first time running the dungeon. If people can't deal with it and just ragequit, you can easily replace them. Oftentimes though, you'll run into players willing to offer advice.

I appreciate the replies. To answer a few, I do alert people to it being my first time, but its not that i'm scared to tank, its that my mood has been killed for tanking due to all the bad experiences and I just want to take the back seat and DPS for a while Until I gain more experience with the dungeons.

My mood too has been affected by some nasty trolls in dungeon. I usually just leave ... :/
What can I say? I'm playing to have a good time not be yelled at for not being godlike perfection.

That being said..I still prefer the dungeons to help level.
There are a few gaps where is will become necessary to hook up with random fate groups. Those times will be when you have reached the limit of the log book and still have 3-4 levels before your next guild quest.
Work on getting your next grand company promotion... You get a new set of logs and quests when you become sergeant 3rd class

If your dungeon run only has one or two people that are acting like idiots, you can vote-kick them from the party list in the social menu. Chances are if they are driving you crazy they are driving the rest of the group crazy and you only need 1 person to agree to the kick to get them booted. You might want to send a harassment report to the service desk too.

I have a level 40 white mage and a level 50 gladiator. We are on the same server. I can heal for you through some dungeons and help explain ones you aren't too familiar with to help you. Dungeons are the best way to level as they really help you learn your job better than fates. I'll look for you IG and we can do some runs together. I actually quit healing due to tanks only fate grinding and being horrible (not using flash/overpower at all). Maybe we can get to 50 together.

Well it has taken me months to get to lvl50 but i like to take my time and am leveling multiple classes at a time.
Hunting logs, chain kills and dungeons for xp but for a push you may also do leves

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Originally Posted by Ludicracy

Is there a faster way to lvl up?.

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For the 1-10 grind, I'd do your hunting log.
Having a Chocobo Battle companion helps LOTS, even if it's low-rank (below rank 4, so won't have gotten Cure yet).

For your Marauder? Assuming you have the Warrior job crystal unlocked and you are wearing your AF gear (level 45 WAR quest, can get all except Body piece from it, wear something cheap off the Auction House like the "Mythril Cuirass" until you get your last bit of AF at level 50) I'd just run the low level Daily Roulette. It is a brilliant way to gain exp, and tanks usually get the bonus. The dungeons you'll be thrown into should all be reasonably easy in AF gear (with the possible exception of Aurum Vale at level 47)

The alternative is to go to Ceruleum Processing Plant in N. Thanalan and join a FATE group. It'll only take a few hours to get from level 45 to level 50 by running the FATEs there.
There are usually loads of groups running as long as you don't go right after 3pm GMT (when the dailies reset)

I would, however, advise you to go the dungeon route since once you hit level 50 there will be a SHARP difficulty curve to climb for Tanking endgame dungeons and primals - the low level dungeons are a very good way to practice.

OP, it can be frustrating to run content with an inexperienced tank. I'm not taking about inexperienced in specific dungeons, but inexperienced to tanking in general. As an example I queued for Qarn once to find the tank had never played an mmo before, kept losing hate, and we wiped twice before the other dps started getting really frustrated. I gave some simple tips (position mobs in front, pull with shield lob, use flash), it went a lot more smoothly and we finished with no more deaths. Maybe you could join an fc and ask them for tanking tips. Go pull up some threads in the tanking forums and read some on new tanking advice.

Most of all, just have a sense of humor. Ask specific questions in the dungeon when you're struggling. If you communicate with your party or show you are willing to adjust your party style they will calm down and be more forgiving. Also, make sure your gear is up to date and has parry and vitality. Especially your weapon.

If you want to be good at a role, don't focus solely on that role alone. I found I got better at each role once I'd played the other roles a few times.

My first character started as a GLD, and after a few runs, I was starting to get the basics of tanking, but it was pretty basic at that point. It was once I started running dungeons with my archer that I got a chance to see numerous other tanks and how they played. I picked up on things (like marking target priorities) that a tank can do to make the DPS's job easier. Later, running as a Conjurer, I saw just how much of a difference it makes to the healer when a tank is good (or bad) at avoiding AOEs. Playing a Lancer or Pugilist can give you a better appreciation for a tank who understands maintaining a mob's facing direction. And so on. It seems each of the other classes has something to teach about how to tank well, so I suspect that most of the good tanks are ones who have a broad range of other classes.

Similarly, it was my experience as a tank that showed me how (or rather how not) to react as a DPS or healer when accidentally pulling aggro. (Don't kite the boss all around the room; bring it to the tank. A tank's range is pretty limited, even with Shield Lob, and the tank can't get a mob off of you if he can't reach it.)

I know how it is. I had the exact same problem. I started off as a gladiator and made paladin and then people started getting more rude. So I started to level up a dps class but trying to level up all over again was kind of frustrating due to lack of quests. Doing levemates got tiring and while there is fates, sometimes it can be hard finding a fates group. So i basically just quit the game all together. I know i can do dungeons but i dont want to do just dungeons all the time to level up. The best option i see is making another character and just start over. The one thing that irritates me though is you cant mail stuff between your characters, so if you have a character leveled up in crafting and start a new character, you cant just mail stuff to it. I'm sure this game will be around for awhile so once it evolves more i'll consider coming back.

While I have no actual proof of this, I think you get an experience boost once you have a level 50. So with that in mind, before you consider leveling up another class, just try to muscle through on your tank and obtain level 50. Now aside from that, Run low level duty roulette once a day for big boosts of exp. After that, i recommend using battle leves, because the experience they award is pretty good for the time investment (and you probably have 99 stock piled up). Just make sure to go to the level appropriate areas.

Other important things to take note of, make sure you join a rank 8 FC (if you aren't in one already) and make sure they have Heat of Battle II active for you (thats a 10% battle exp boost). Also make sure to always eat food (even if its a cheap 8gil raisin from the NPC vendors in town) because they also give you 3% exp boost. I personally do not recommend fates anymore due to the extremely low population of fate grinders. Most people just do dungeons now, so getting into a fate party is really rare, and fates can take a long time to beat.

After you hit Lv46, you can start doing Aurum Vale exp grinding! (You might have to start your own party via party finder). What this entails, is you enter Aurum Vale dungeon, and fight all the mobs before the first boss! Then leave the instance and rejoin the instance. Exping here can be extremely fast, especially since you have overpower. With overpower, you can pull multiple camps of enemies and AoE them down. This can get you to 50 in a matter of hours instead of days.

My first two classes were warrior then paladin...and it was incredibly stressful...but something that really helped me out was listening to the players.

The constructive Feedback Players that is.

If someone offers you advice, review it then see if it will help you with keeping hate.

But thats all i did and i still had a lot of problems but as with anything on planet earth, repetition will make you a king at tanking :)

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Originally Posted by Yunnie

While I have no actual proof of this, I think you get an experience boost once you have a level 50. So with that in mind, before you consider leveling up another class, just try to muscle through on your tank and obtain level 50.

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That doesn't start at level 50. It starts at level 10, as soon as you're able to take additional classes. Your highest level DoW/DoM class uses the normal leveling rate (adjusted by any other current boosts like food or Heat of Battle), while all DoW/DoM classes that are lower than your highest —even if they're only 1 level lower— get a 50% boost to their XP rate (in addition to any other active boosts).

The only time you wouldn't have the 50% boost on all but one of your combat classes is when a later class catches up to your highest one, so you have multiple classes that are at the same level and are all your current "highest" class.