Upside of having two characters?

Heya! Returning after a long while away (just before 2.1) and daunted by ther prospect of jumping into the end-lvl content with my 50 warrior/Black mage. Considering starting a fresh character, but it seems wildly counterproductive.

Is there any great benefits to having two characters?

'No weekly lookout' seems to be the only benefit.

I'm able to send mail between my alt and main, so double the bank space =)

Sadly, that "workaround" was removed from the game.

You can only cap 2-3 jobs to 100 in desynthesis per character so you could cap 4-6 using 2 characters.

getting treasure maps
Gardening when private housing comes Private housing

Having both male and female exclusive gear.

Weekly lockouts is the big one, and one of the reasons I've seen raiding buddies with a lot of free time to burn make and level second characters.

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Originally Posted by Kos_Mos

You can only cap 2-3 jobs to 100 in desynthesis per character so you could cap 4-6 using 2 characters.

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most profitable things to desynth are charbound, so you cant trade them between the chars, which makes it pointless

The most common reason why people run 2 characters is for coil.

Some players just want to do coil twice, with the same or different people.

Those who do it with the same people are usually going for the double loot method. 4 main accounts paired with 4 secondary accounts, two different teams. Loots per team goes to the 4 main accounts. In this way, gearing is speed up much faster.

Another scenario is for coil selling. One of the raids in our FC have a full alternate account just to sell coil carries, so that gearing for their main account jobs will not be affected.

The only reason to play more than one class is simply to break up the monotony of one job. Once you get into the post 50 grind for virtually everything to progress, you'll begin to see just how tedious and time consuming it becomes to keep 2 or more characters on par.

I started out doing it on smn, pld, and drg. Then dropped to smn and pld. And now pretty much just keeping smn completely up to date and keeping pld up just enough to be competitive in order to get instant content queues.

What exactly is the downside?

Also everything that people have said here but also maps, having your dex/int jobs on an elezen and str/mnd jobs on a roegadyn, that kind of thing. Not a huge boost but there's not exactly a huge detriment to running 2 characters.

It's fun! (I have 13.)(maybe 14.)
You could always use the new character to refamiliarize yourself with the game and swap back later if you want to.

more ventures, can get twice as many tomestones

Plus it feels different playing different characters so it has some variety , and there is no reason not to

If you only have Warrior and Black mage levelled it is worth just starting a new class on the same character. There are benefits to having a second character but you will have to do a lot of the main scenario and GC stuff again to be able to ride mounts etc etc, I would only reccomend starting a whole new character if you plan on doing all those work arounds for lockouts etc people mentioned. Otherwise just start a new class, I found Archanist a fun class to play but you have many options without starting a new character.

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Originally Posted by Freyt

Having both male and female exclusive gear.

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This. I will never have the lightning hair cut unlocked or lightning's outfit. Also, cascadier outfit can only be for one sex. To be honest though, male/female exclusive gear doesn't make a whole lot of sense when two people putting on the same kind of armor can have different designs. (What ever happened to the part of the dragoon armor covering the belly on the female model?! X.X).

However, if you intend to do the end game rep grinds or the atma -> animus -> novus questline, you'd be better off not making a second character. The time requirements on those things, especially when taken as a whole, are brutal.

Not wanting your lalafell to look like 'Ted' when tanking or kicking somethings ass. I prefer a Rogayden for tanking, melee just doesnt fit with being a lalafell in my opinion.

This is a strange thing to do/ say but... I have 6 alts all with level 50's and relics for main jobs.
After I cap tomes on my main character for week (usually Wednesday night) I play another till I grow bored with them or cap tomes. It is incredibly easy to do so because of frontlines (not that I'm complaining). Granted, most of these characters are from 1.0 and had a head start on levels.

Pro tip: Place them in the same FC so that you can share items between them along with Gil. If your main ever gets low the quest rewards from the storyline will come in handy.

I liked seeing the different starts to the main story based on where you started. On my main I started in Limsa and on my alt I started in Gridinia. Also, one is a Miqo'te and one is a Hellsguard Roe, so they look very different. It was fun playing with the character creator. The biggest advantage to me personally was being an arcanist on both and taking one down the summoner route with full 30 in intelligence, and taking the other down the scholar route with 30 in mind.

+ You can play more.
- You have to play more.

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Originally Posted by Freyt

Having both male and female exclusive gear.

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This here is the only reason I have 2 character I play regularly (and am thankful that Lightning event is coming back). Not a big gear grinder so I couldnt care less about coil lockouts. Wouldnt level a whole other toon just to fill spots though I wouldnt mind if I already had one.

Im entry level anyway so the toons are in different servers. Also, later on, I would imagine another reason to make a new character is to just have a low level character to play with. Once you get all your class/jobs to high level you cant be a newbie anymore. Plus some players like revisiting the main story now and then... new race, new starter area maybe ....

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Originally Posted by kuikui

The only reason to play more than one class is simply to break up the monotony of one job. Once you get into the post 50 grind for virtually everything to progress, you'll begin to see just how tedious and time consuming it becomes to keep 2 or more characters on par.

I started out doing it on smn, pld, and drg. Then dropped to smn and pld. And now pretty much just keeping smn completely up to date and keeping pld up just enough to be competitive in order to get instant content queues.

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Are we playing the same game? on ONE Character, you can play EVERY class.

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Originally Posted by dinantes

Is there any great benefits to having two characters?

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Some, which are fairly minor. it depends on how much time you have to invest. If you don't like the way your character looks, you can always buy Fantasia and change. I would recommend this instead of re rolling except in certain circumstances ; such as one character is capped ; you are bored and not enjoying it / want to start fresh / want to start on a new server for some reason.

I did another character so I can coil to help other groups that need a person. Also desynthing is limited so you can do more with that also. Really those are the only things you are limited on at the moment, so basically while you run your alt around your making some more gil on stuff while you play it. In the future I'm sure they will have more reasons why you would want to have an alt though, so please look forward to it.