New Player Looking for Advise

[Munsu_]

Hello all! I am a new player as well so I would like to ask something

I am playing a gladiator and I was advised to stick only to the main quest story and fate events,and save the other quests for the the next classes, my current lvl is 21.. I like the game so far and I am taking my time to enjoy it, but since this is my first character what should I do? I plan to take the miner, armorer and blacksmith jobs. And also to unlock the paladin later.

I mean since this my first character, should I go straight to lvl 60 as a gladiator for the exp bonus? or is it more beneficial to lvl up the other jobs along the way or to a certain point first? like getting some cross-class skills.
what else should I do?

[Malicewolf]

Hello all! I am a new player as well so I would like to ask something

I am playing a gladiator and I was advised to stick only to the main quest story and fate events,and save the other quests for the the next classes, my current lvl is 21.. I like the game so far and I am taking my time to enjoy it, but since this is my first character what should I do? I plan to take the miner, armorer and blacksmith jobs. And also to unlock the paladin later.

I mean since this my first character, should I go straight to lvl 60 as a gladiator for the exp bonus? or is it more beneficial to lvl up the other jobs along the way or to a certain point first? like getting some cross-class skills.
what else should I do?

Welcome to the game Braxton and Munsu! Hopefully you both enjoy your time here! ^^
To Braxton, my advice is simply to not be too shy. Find a group to play with that you like (likely an FC or maybe a LS) and things will go much more smoothly. You can solo play for a while and still be entertained, but I find the social aspect to be what keeps me here.

Munsu - I wouldn't necessarily take that advice. Yes, you can do that, it will indeed help out your next build, but by no means is it necessary. There are many other ways to level, the biggest being fate grinding, which they told you to do with your current main. It will be just as effective for your next class as it was your first. Me personally, I did every quest that was in area with my 1st character. This helped me be above the necessary levels when entering main story quests, which helped. But I also lost track of my main scenario quest at level 28... and didn't find it again until level 44... sooo, let that be an idea of how many quests there are... (hint, it's a lot).

The 3 crafting/gathering classes you picked are good one's for a gladiator honestly and if you keep your levels on par with your main, they should be able to provide you with some good gear as you level. But unfortunately, as you get higher, you require more and more cross materials. So you'll need to choose if you want to take the hit money wise to buy them on market boards or if you'd rather pick up more to do it yourself.

As for your battle class, you will have to get a conjurer up to level 15 in order to become a Paladin. So you will at least have to do that. The BEST cross class imo for a PLD is stoneskin. But unfortunately, this is a level 34 conjurer skill, which means you'd have to level pretty high on that other class. It is by no means necessary (i didn't get mine until after i hit lvl 50), but after getting it, you will love it. You can also pick up protect and cure from this class. Cure will help you for solo play at a low level (below lvl 30). After that, it becomes very underwhelming. You usually take more dmg than you're healing in the time frame.
A PLD's other cross class is Marauder. You can pick up most of the cross class skills you'll need for this pretty early. Foresight is great (any damage mitigation is good), bloodbath is decent, but not as effective as gladiator/paladin's don't have much AoE attacks (which is what makes bloodbath good). In fact, it doesn't get an AoE attack until lvl 50. mecry stroke is fair, but higher level to get from a marauder. I personally leveled up my PLD to 60 before really focusing on another battle class, but many like to do multiple at the same time, especially if they use the same gear (so they don't have to buy it again later). Really up to personal play style. I prefer to be a master at 1 (at a time) then a jack of all trades who's only ok at many.

[Munsu_]

aha! thanks a lot Malicewolf! that was helpful, one last thing how often is it good to upgrade gear while leveling? or should I just keep getting gear from quests

[Malicewolf]

aha! thanks a lot Malicewolf! that was helpful, one last thing how often is it good to upgrade gear while leveling? or should I just keep getting gear from quests

heh, that may not be a good question to ask me xD
I tend to buy shiny things on the marketboard all the time (I'm very poor all the time T.T). Personally, I upgraded my gear constantly. By no means do you need to. I probably wasted a lot of money doing so, but I always wanted to maximize my efficiency while playing.

If I were to do it all again, I'd say once every 5 levels or so. Sometimes, I level new classes to 15-20 before upgrading anything above lvl 5 gear... (do not go this route). It all depends on how efficient you are really. The gear stats level to level don't usually increase that much. Especially at a lower level. But I will say, high quality is often worth it. Just ALWAYS pay attention to how much of an increase it will give. If you see at a lower level the HQ is only +1 to stats, don't bother spending the extra (unless you can easily make it yourself). Very seldom do you need that much of a small boost to get through something under level 50.

Now in Main Story, they will give you a lot of gear, and very constantly. You should be fine going with your gear you get for the most part. If you find you're having trouble with an instanced fight though, try it again and if you fail again, look at perhaps maximizing your gear. But as a tank, you shouldn't have too much trouble.

[Niwashi]

should I go straight to lvl 60 as a gladiator for the exp bonus?

There is no exp bonus for getting to 60, or to 50 either. There is an exp bonus whenever you have multiple combat classes. All except for your highest one will get the bonus. But it doesn't matter how high your highest one is. If someone's highest class is level 10 and they have another at level 9, that level 9 class will have the same bonus as it would if their highest were at 60. (The bonus is 100% while leveling from 1 to 50 and 50% while leveling from 50 to 60, but that's based off the level of the lower-level class that's getting the bonus, not the level of the higher level class that lets you earn that bonus.)

As Malicewolf mentioned, you'll at the very least want to get CNJ up to level 15 by the time you hit GLD 30 so you can unlock PLD. I'd recommend getting MRD up to 8 by then as well. Since you can get most of MRD's cross-class skills at such a low level, you may as well do it early and get the use of them sooner. At some point, you'll want to continue CNJ the rest of the way to 34 for Stoneskin and MRD to 26 for Mercy Stroke.

how often is it good to upgrade gear while leveling?

Like Malicewolf, I also tend to upgrade leveling gear whenever better items are available, but agree that that's probably more often than is actually necessary. One exception is your weapon, though. That Damage stat is really important, so you'll want the best sword you can get your hands on. For tanks in particular, it can be very hard to hold aggro if your teammates have stronger weapons than you do (or better gear in general, but it's especially true for the weapon).