Having some problems gearing up.

[Bethor]

Just go with the LV1 Arrows all the way to.. I dunno LV30 or 40. There's no real difference between the arrows yet. Gear isn't important as well. Just pump up your VIT and do a bit in STR and DEX. can reallocate it once SE fixes the attribute stuff and adds new gear.

At the moment I'm wearing my Bowman's set @35. But mainly for the looks I love that hat!

There are designed "archer"-sets @19, 29, 39 if I'm not completly mistaken

And just keep doing leves, you'll earn money from that. I've done botany at the very first beginning and just NPC'd everything and it was enough to buy arrows to do leves and stuff. But in the end selling shards made me a bit rich. Currently the shard prices dropped so heavily it's almost not worth the hassle haha. Keep them for crafting ;P

[Dargoth_Draconia]

Depends if you are religious on you crafting or not, you can always make money selling crystals/shards even though the market on that has plummeted since the beginning. Just do leves and behests and sell stuff to vendor, money will start flowing in once you start do the r20 leves. Gil really isn't a problem like it was in FFXI, only seems like it would be slightly at first.