Deep dungeons seem like an alt-job leveling superhighway! Are they?

So, again, disclaimer: I'm back into the game for the first time in six years, so digesting all the amazing features of this game in 2019 is a work in progress. I'm currently leveling as a RDM and focusing that via MSQ (and only MSQ and job quests thanks to the road to 70), but I absolutely want to level a lot of jobs down the line. One of the features I can't wait to try is the deep dungeons, because if I'm understanding this right... it seems a one stop shop for rapid leveling of additional combat jobs once the world is "opened up" with one completely leveled job.

-It's the third of only three places the armory bonus applies
-It supplies feature-specific gear throughout, letting one level jobs without constantly buying/crafting gear
-It's role agnostic, so queues are likely near-nonexistent (like island expeditions in WoW I'd imagine)
-It's said to supply generous amounts of XP, and its progress within the feature can be reset.

I guess the only question I have left (and the point of this thread) is whether resetting and re-clearing allows one to continuously get the crazy XP this feature is said to give regardless of actual class level outside the dungeon.

Am I understanding this right? Is it really as good as it's seeming on paper?

Thanks in advance for any and all helpful replies! :)

potd you reset and farm 51-60/60-70 (up to level 61)
hoh you reset and farm 21-30 (level 61 +)

Pretty fast, and great xp.

PotD (and HoH) spamming is recommended for leveling alt jobs—especially DPS, as the queues are usually shorter for them as opposed to leveling dungeons. Tanks and healers are usually recommended to do leveling dungeons because they get fast queues, and you get a sizable chunk of EXP from doing a leveling dungeon you’re in level-range of.

For levels 1-60, it’s recommended to spam PotD 51-60. For levels 61-70, HoH 21-30. Personally, I recommend also trying to mix in daily roulettes and perhaps a few leveling dungeons, as I don’t think that PotD/HoH gives you a decent opportunity to really practice your rotation since the mobs die super fast—it really only leaves you with boss fights to practice single-target on. But it’s entirely up to the individual what they do. I go for the mixture for more practice and to break up the monotony, because it can be really boring to spam the same 10 floors over and over again.

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Originally Posted by HyoMinPark

Tanks and healers are usually recommended to do leveling dungeons

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While I realize and recognize the logic here, part of why I'm playing FFXIV (specifically as a DPS) is I'm just so burned out on tanking for groups in games that are "just known," for the crowd that expects them to be "known." I can't see me ever tanking in FFXIV, I don't "know" it like I'd be expected to as a tank, and I don't need the stress.

Funny story: first class I intended to level through the deep dungeons was dark knight haha! Specifically because a tank isn't "needed," but I enjoy tank gameplay on my own time!

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Originally Posted by Omedon

While I realize and recognize the logic here, part of why I'm playing FFXIV (specifically as a DPS) is I'm just so burned out on tanking for groups in games that are "just known," for the crowd that expects them to be "known." I can't see me ever tanking in FFXIV, I don't "know" it like I'd be expected to as a tank, and I don't need the stress.

Funny story: first class I intended to level through the deep dungeons was dark knight haha! Specifically because a tank isn't "needed," but I enjoy tank gameplay on my own time!

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While I understand what you’re getting at, I was merely just stating the general recommendations for leveling each role the most efficiently. Tanks and healers are generally encouraged to do leveling dungeons because of the faster queues and usually better EXP gain from dungeons; DPS are generally encouraged to use PotD/HoH because DPS queues for the leveling dungeons can be long, so it’s less efficient in terms of time spent. It’s all about making the most efficient use of your time—though I still recommend mixing both dungeons and PotD/HoH for any role to break up monotony.

I've never really understood why people insist on only running 50-60 in potd and then reseting, the later floors aren't really anymore challanging or time consuming, you can still speed through them just about as fast and you get more experience for 90-100. I'd rather have a little more variety and more exp every 5 runs then just doing the same 10 floors over and over.

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Originally Posted by Rhais

I've never really understood why people insist on only running 50-60 in potd and then reseting, the later floors aren't really anymore challanging or time consuming, you can still speed through them just about as fast and you get more experience for 90-100. I'd rather have a little more variety and more exp every 5 runs then just doing the same 10 floors over and over.

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Time efficiency. Sometimes the later floors don’t pop nearly as fast as 51-60 do because less people queue for them. And they can take longer and be slightly less facerolly. They aren’t hard by any means, but 51-60 is braindead and that’s what people leveling alt jobs usually want.

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Originally Posted by HyoMinPark

Time efficiency. Sometimes the later floors don’t pop nearly as fast as 51-60 do because less people queue for them. And they can take longer and be slightly less facerolly. They aren’t hard by any means, but 51-60 is braindead and that’s what people leveling alt jobs usually want.

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Anything 100 and lower is braindead though, there really isn't a difference in difficulty till you get past the stuff you can queue for with a matched party. 90-100 can be ran through just as fast as 50-60. The only thing that makes it more time efficient to run 50-60 over and over is because they don't pop as fast past, but that's because everyone is running 50-60 over and over.

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Originally Posted by Rhais

Anything 100 and lower is braindead though, there really isn't a difference in difficulty till you get past the stuff you can queue for with a matched party. 90-100 can be ran through just as fast as 50-60. The only thing that makes it more time efficient to run 50-60 over and over is because they don't pop as fast past, but that's because everyone is running 50-60 over and over.

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I won’t deny that the entirety of DF PotD is relatively braindead; I was never saying it wasn’t. But 51-60 is the most braindead. If it was more efficient in terms of EXP to time spent to do 51 to 100, I’d wager more people would do it. But people opted for 51-60 because it’s the fastest to do, including the boss.

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Originally Posted by HyoMinPark

I won’t deny that the entirety of DF PotD is relatively braindead; I was never saying it wasn’t. But 51-60 is the most braindead. If it was more efficient in terms of EXP to time spent to do 51 to 100, I’d wager more people would do it. But people opted for 51-60 because it’s the fastest to do, including the boss.

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It would be more efficient in terms of exp to time spent to go through the cycle of 50-100 if the queues would pop faster because any difficulty increase present is negligable as far as how much time it will take, that's more up to rng which is present on 50-60 just as much as 90-100, and you get increased exp gained for 90-100. The only thing that makes it less efficient is everyone resetting to run 50-60 again, so takes too long to actually get into the later floors. The boss on 100 might take slightly longer to kill then the others, but that's really about the only thing that's more time consuming on the later floors, the main factors that can drag out a run are present just as much on 50-60. Party comp, weapon and armor level of party members, bad rng for floor layout, getting in a party with that one guy that wants to go to every room and open every chest, that stuff is all there on 50-60.

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Originally Posted by Rhais

It would be more efficient in terms of exp to time spent to go through the cycle of 50-100 if the queues would pop faster because any difficulty increase present is negligable as far as how much time it will take, that's more up to rng which is present on 50-60 just as much as 90-100, and you get increased exp gained for 90-100. The only thing that makes it less efficient is everyone resetting to run 50-60 again, so takes too long to actually get into the later floors. The boss on 100 might take slightly longer to kill then the others, but that's really about the only thing that's more time consuming on the later floors, the main factors that can drag out a run are present just as much on 50-60. Party comp, weapon and armor level of party members, bad rng for floor layout, getting in a party with that one guy that wants to go to every room and open every chest, that stuff is all there on 50-60.

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Back when PotD 51-100 first released, people couldn’t do the Floor 90 boss right, much less the Floor 100 boss right. That was likely when it was decided 51-60 was simply more efficient to do, and it’s just stayed that way years later. None of these floors are hard—I’ve said that repeatedly—but 51-60 is the easiest and takes the least amount of time. Path of least resistance, and all that. If 51 to 100 was as efficient or more efficient, people would likely recommend it instead. But the recommendations continue to be 51-60 spam for PotD. Even with that one guy who wants every chest in a party.

My personal recommendation was to mix in dungeons with PotD/HoH because, quite frankly, the deep dungeons lose their novelty really fast and become incredibly monotonous even with going to Floor 100 on occasion. Plus, I don’t think they’re the best place to learn rotations or roles on since they aren’t as traditional as normal dungeons.

Anyways, this derailment has gone on long enough; so I won’t reply any further and continue the tangent. Nice to have discourse, though.

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Originally Posted by HyoMinPark

While I understand what you’re getting at, I was merely just stating the general recommendations for leveling each role the most efficiently. Tanks and healers are generally encouraged to do leveling dungeons because of the faster queues and usually better EXP gain from dungeons; DPS are generally encouraged to use PotD/HoH because DPS queues for the leveling dungeons can be long, so it’s less efficient in terms of time spent. It’s all about making the most efficient use of your time—though I still recommend mixing both dungeons and PotD/HoH for any role to break up monotony.

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Right, I get it and I appreciate the recommendation, I wasn't saying otherwise. Thanks for speaking up!

I level using roulettes. I don't personally do any of the deep dungeons. I'm also not in a rush to level everything. Don't get me wrong I've leveled quite a few alts with all their roles and am now really just focusing on my main. She is an omni and I'm slowly starting to climb her mountain. I have friends who have rushed to straight 80's and now have nothing much to do and are bored. Just a thought.

I suspect the dungeons are really good for leveling starting roles that begin at level 1.

Starting at level 20 you can also use your Adventurers (stationed in the Barracks of your respective Grand Company) to run dungeons. While those dungeon runs usually take a little longer than with real players (NPCs only use single target abilities for instance) it's still way faster as a DPS because there is no q time at all. You can use this up to level 60.

The same starts at level 71 again - this time named "Trusts". Another set of (story relevant this time, I guess?) NPCs that can be used to run all ShB dungeons with no DPS q time at all. There only really is that one major gap between 60 and 71 - but this can be done via HoH as previously stated.

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Originally Posted by Omedon

-It's the third of only three places the armory bonus applies

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Did you mean to write "applies" or "doesn't apply"?

The armoury bonus applies to your normal levelling progress - dungeons and field battles - for any class that is not your highest-levelled one, and is not applied in deep dungeons. (Eureka would the 'third thing' if I'm remembering right.)

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Originally Posted by Rhais

I've never really understood why people insist on only running 50-60 in potd and then reseting...

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Higher levels are more rewarding but queue takes much longer, that's only reason.
If you run with full party of friends, you want go past 60.

@OP: No they're not. Very few people do PotD beyond the 1-30 and 51-60, and literally nobody is doing HoH beyond 1-10, and even 1-10 HoH has stupidly long wait times.

Square-Enix needs to add a duty roulette for deep dungeons. If that is impractical, apply the Echo when entering solo.

If people didn't reset to 51-60, the queues would be even longer because you'd have people on 61-70, 71-80, 81-90 and 91-100. So everyone just resets to 51-60 so the most people are in queue making queues shorter. It's just better this way. And aside from the boss, all of the floors are basically the exact same garbage over and over and even the bosses aren't that unique.

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Originally Posted by Rhais

I've never really understood why people insist on only running 50-60 in potd and then reseting, the later floors aren't really anymore challanging or time consuming, you can still speed through them just about as fast and you get more experience for 90-100. I'd rather have a little more variety and more exp every 5 runs then just doing the same 10 floors over and over.

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I agree with you, teams that stop at 60 are kind of dumb because the content is very easy to level 100. If you found a good team, you really should always be going further to maximize experience gain. People follow trends, even if those trends are irrational.

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Originally Posted by Raltar

If people didn't reset to 51-60, the queues would be even longer because you'd have people on 61-70, 71-80, 81-90 and 91-100. So everyone just resets to 51-60 so the most people are in queue making queues shorter. It's just better this way. And aside from the boss, all of the floors are basically the exact same garbage over and over and even the bosses aren't that unique.

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^this

You spread the populace over too many sets of floors and that slows down queues.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

Did you mean to write "applies" or "doesn't apply"?

The armoury bonus applies to your normal levelling progress - dungeons and field battles - for any class that is not your highest-levelled one, and is not applied in deep dungeons. (Eureka would the 'third thing' if I'm remembering right.)

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What I read was that the armory bonus applies only to fates, kill XP in the open world, and deep dungeons. I have yet to see a like a wiki level source that says otherwise.

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Originally Posted by Omedon

What I read was that the armory bonus applies only to fates, kill XP in the open world, and deep dungeons. I have yet to see a like a wiki level source that says otherwise.

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Are you certain you read deep dungeons?

The bonus applies to enemies fought in normal dungeons and guildhests.

I have just personally tested with Palace of the Dead - you get no bonuses at all. No armoury bonus, no rested bonus, no boosts from the aetheryte earring or similar items.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

Are you certain you read deep dungeons?

The bonus applies to enemies fought in normal dungeons and guildhests.

I have just personally tested with Palace of the Dead - you get no bonuses at all. No armoury bonus, no rested bonus, no boosts from the aetheryte earring or similar items.

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I actually looked it up again and, yeah, I'm not 100% right here. The armory bonus isn't as limited as I initially thought, but to be clear, I'm aware that it doesn't apply INSIDE the deep dungeons, but to the XP rewards you get once you get out, which the Armory bonus DOES cover, along with many more things than I initially thought I'd read, including dungeon rewards, which is good. To be honest, I was kinda puzzled when I initially thought the the armory bonus applied to only three things, and I'm glad to be wrong there.

That said, the shorter queues and lack of care about gearing still make deep dungeons great for DPS alt-job leveling... and for tanks that don't want to leap right into the "don't be new" environment of random group dungeon tanking! :)

i just want to be able to run deep dungeons with my trust.