Am I doing everything right?

[Averax]

At around level 46 in the main quest line, you'll very suddenly hit a point where the next main quest jumps to level 49. There are several sidequest lines available to you at that point however which start from Horizon and lead you to various level 45+ areas with more sidequests. There's also Beast Tribe quests available at 40 (daily repeatable quests with good EXP and unique rewards), a couple optional high level dungeons you can grind, and so on and so forth.

Well that's discouraging.

[sangz]

Basically this. The best you can do to reduce your queue times as a DPS is to make friends with a tank or healer and queue simultaneously with them. Otherwise, you've got to take what you can get, unfortunately; there's just far too few tanks/healers.

Yeah, one way to look at it. Make friends with tank and healers. I wonder why most of the classes fall in the DPS category. Limited classes only goes into tank and healer category. I have another question. For the job classes, do you need to level all of them? I am in a point where i cant find alumen reagent from any NPCs (leatherworks). I saw a forum stating that your mining skill must reach lvl 20 in order to that material. My mining, fish, botany level up really slow compared to others. Hehe, any tips on this?

[Belhi]

Well that's discouraging.

Its not as bad as it sounds.

While the side quests are not technically the main storyline they are flavoured in such a way that suits their place in the levelling process and are relevant. They are also effectively there own self contained quest chains and they will carry you a lot of the way to 49. In addition to that, by the time you hit 46 you will have unlocked a lot of options on making experience as well as many side things such as treasure hunting and such. Beast tribe dailies will have opened up as well.

Yeah, one way to look at it. Make friends with tank and healers. I wonder why most of the classes fall in the DPS category. Limited classes only goes into tank and healer category. I have another question. For the job classes, do you need to level all of them? I am in a point where i cant find alumen reagent from any NPCs (leatherworks). I saw a forum stating that your mining skill must reach lvl 20 in order to that material. My mining, fish, botany level up really slow compared to others. Hehe, any tips on this?

You can usually get stuff you need of the Marketboard but it can be costly.

To level gathering skills then by far the fastest way is with leves. You get a lot of exp for gathering leves and since the things you are gathering are at your level you get quite a bit from the actual process of completing the leve as well.

In addition, you will have daily hand ins you can give to your Supply officer at your Grand Company. With both leves and this hand in you get double exp if the thing you hand in is HQ.

The gathering and crafting classes complement each other a lot. While its not necessary to level all of them they do offer a lot of very valuable cross class actions and most of the things needed in crafting can be harvested or produced by one of the classes.

Finally, with crafting, once you get to 40 on your main combat class you will be able to do Ixali dailies. These are crafting dailies that are pretty simple and give quite a lot of exp to whatever crafting class you hand the quest in as even if you did the crafting as a different class.

Finally, you can get training manuals from your Grand Company Quartermaster that provide a temporary 50% buff to exp earned while crafting and harvesting. This can speed up levelling quite a lot, particularly with the harvesting.

Oh and one final thing, if your wanting to make a lot of things but don't want to use quick synthesis or go through the whole set of commands on every product, macros can help a lot. I don't have any particularly good links but you can probably find some good suggestions just googling it.

[Avenger]

Beast tribe quests! Some people find them tedious but I enjoyed them quite a bit. It seemed like there were a lot of quests between level 40 and 50, so I had use multiple jobs to avoid wasting xp! Finishing hunting log and GC log also added quite a bit of xp. And try to do every fate at least once - they are also fun. And treasure maps. And hunts even at some point. If you can make friends to avoid df, dungeons give a lot of xp.

BLM is awesome though you have to not mind being flattened occasionally - it is the price of ultimate power!

Other jobs can be a nice break too - they are fun and they have cool stories for the class and job quests. BLM is a good one though, and it's also Yoshi-P's favorite job!!

[Avenger]

Oh yeah and your chocobo is your best friend. He can take a lot of heat off of you, especially in defender mode. Or he can attack or heal or do whatever he wants to do.

Parties are also good - especially with people on your server.

One thing I have hardly ever done is guildleve parties, but they are also a possibility.

don't be discouraged by people who tell you to skip cutscenes either - they will in df and it is lame but hopefully you can find some good people who won't try to bully you that way and your experience will be much better since you can experience the story in context.

[Averax]

don't be discouraged by people who tell you to skip cutscenes either - they will in df and it is lame but hopefully you can find some good people who won't try to bully you that way and your experience will be much better since you can experience the story in context.

I'm actually surprised that no one has asked me to skip one yet. In WoW it was go! go! go! And i'd see groups wipe because people didn't want to wait for people to watch a cutscene.

[Anapingofness]

I'm actually surprised that no one has asked me to skip one yet. In WoW it was go! go! go! And i'd see groups wipe because people didn't want to wait for people to watch a cutscene.

You will run into those with the CM and Prae dungeons but as Avenger said, don't let people bully you into skipping.

As for leveling, make use of the challenge log, side quests, fates, levels, daily roulettes.
There is enough methods to get exp that you shouldn't really have to grind.

Above all, make sure you have fun!

[Belhi]

You will run into those with the CM and Prae dungeons but as Avenger said, don't let people bully you into skipping.

As for leveling, make use of the challenge log, side quests, fates, levels, daily roulettes.
There is enough methods to get exp that you shouldn't really have to grind.

Above all, make sure you have fun!

Unfortunately this is true. The last two dungeons have a lot of Cutscenes and the groups that usually do the do them as speed runs. I would suggest watching the cutscenes though you will find yourself getting left behind and locked out of some of the fights. Still it gives far better context to watch the cutscenes in context.

If you do ever opt for skipping the cutscenes you can rewatch every cutscene in game you have experienced in the inn by interacting with the Journal. There is a drop down menu that lets you select between the different type of content the scenes appear in.

However with those last two dungeons don't get bullied. The people speed running it are getting almost double the rewards for completion for having you there so they are being more than compensated for the fact your taking a bit longer. You can always rerun the dungeons after to experience the fights you miss and you quite likely will have reason to since they are an excellent option for endgame currency early on.

[wicked-one]

BLM is just as fine as everything else, i remember me struggling too, mainly because I didn´t read ^^

For Example, I really had hard times in the Mission in East Thanalan where you are supposed to sleep the Enemys, rather than kill them.
-- MainStory upto 50 is quite a tutorial, pay attention to everything they tell you.

The big Gargoyle with the Mage was also heavy stuff for me, back in Beta times. I tought, how the hell... then the Char was wiped and I started over, and when I came there second time, it was way easier
-- Gear is much more Weight than the Level, when you are stuck somewhere, try to get better gear to finish Monsters faster and stop being squishy ^^

HTH

[Chukkaque]

Answering only the original post:

First off I want to welcome you to the world of Eorzea! This place is amazing and wonderful, but I can be overwhelming. So I'm going to provide a couple tips and minor feed back, as well as my opinion.

I'm actually surprised to hear a newer player mention they're struggling to level up! When 2.0 first launched, myself and many others, leveled up just fine until about late 30's early 40's when you really had to FATE grind in Coerthas and run dungeons. So I am bit surprised by this!

Tips for leveling are take any side quests you find, continue plowing through main story, use the daily DF due to the fact they give you EXP and gil bonuses (when below 50). Dungeons now give a lot of EXP especially if you're the same level as the dungeon. They often give 1,000 EXP per kill if youre right at the same level of the dungeon down to about 700 IIRC. So you can easily gain a level from those. Running FATEs and Grand Company Leve's and Leve's is also a good way to get EXP, Bonus EXP, gil, and items. Also don't forget your Hunter's Log. You get reward EXP for just killing certain enemies, so its we'll worth doing if you're not 50 yet.

If you're over level 30 and playing solo its a good idea to go do the Chocobo Campion questline in Central Girdania. This will allow you to summon your bird and start leveling it as a healer, dps, or tank(kind of).

When you log out for the day make sure its in outpost, inn, or your Free Company House. You'll get rested EXP and when you achieve maximum rest you get bonus EXP for battles for up to 2 levels! make sure to eat food, as this gives you an additional 3% bonus and if youre part of a FC see if they'll activate "Heat of Battle" which gives 5%, and if you're FC is rank 8 HoB2 offers 10%.

So there is a lot of ways to get extra EXP. Also when you start leveling a different job you'll automatically be taking advantage of the Armory System which constantly gives you an EXP bonus based on the level difference between your current job and your highest job.

For the groups of enemies you're running into just sleep the enemies and solo fight targets. You should also consider using Freeze which causes 8 seconds of Bind IIRC giving you ample time to start sleeping foes, or to flee from combat, or use an emergency X-Ether, or really any MP potion but its a bad idea to rely on this method since potions should be SOS items only due to the cool down.

Hope you find this helpful!