Advice for a new player

[Soonkyu]

There are many benefits to joining a Free Company, depending on the kind of FC that you join. The ones sending you random invites are just looking for people to add to their roster, so you're justified in finding it as almost spam. While I can't speak to the quality of any of them and whether or not you'd find a good home off a random invite, the perks of being in a Free Company can be hit or miss. If you join one with lots of people leveling, it's likely they're going to have the experience point boost Action executed, so you would gain an extra 10% experience points. There are a lot of other Actions they could have going, like increased food duration, gear durability, or teleport cost reduction. These are quality of life things, though, and you aren't necessarily missing out by not being in one. Everyone else gave good advice on how to squeeze out extra experience during lower levels.

[Wings]

One thing to mention is that you get and exp buff to lower leveled classes than your highest, so getting Bard to 50 isn't a bad idea since it gives your side-classes a boost. But really, Soonkyu gives great advise - do things in the order you want to!

[NamNem]

Well, I will level all my subclasses up as well to get all the skills I need. I prefer to my characters to be as optimal as they can, because I don't want to be "that person" in raids. :x

[NamNem]

Are there any dps meters to use with the game or addons in general? I tried seatching for some, but had no luck.

[TheBrownHatter]

Outside third-party programs or modifications to FFXIV are against the Terms of Service agreement.

[Atoli]

Yes there are some and since they do NOT modify the code of the game, they are not against the rules, at least that's what most people think and no one has ever been banned for using them. All they do is read the information the chatlog presents.
Just google for "ffxiv parser" and you'll find them.

@leveling up other classes first:
It's not THAT big of a deal to not have BfB or Mantra right away. If you enjoy the story, just finish it (the initial one, until you see the credits roll) with your main class and then level up everything else that might be useful to your main class. The story encounters are so faceroll easy anyway that it's not noticable when someone has one Dmg Buff less for 20 seconds when the whole fight takes less than a minute.
Also, like others said, the bigger the gap between your highest class and the lower ones is, the more exp you get on the lower ones when leveling them up
None of the cross-class skills for BRD will matter until you hit endgame, and tiring yourself out with leveling several classes to 40+ before you ever experience anything epic made several people leave the game early on because they felt they were just grinding and grinding without any real payoff.

[Sagittarian]

Yes there are some and since they do NOT modify the code of the game, they are not against the rules, at least that's what most people think and no one has ever been banned for using them. All they do is read the information the chatlog presents.

That is incorrect .. sort of. I don't think anyone has been banned specifically for ONLY using a parser BUT people have been banned for using a parser and harassing other people with the results. AFAIK parsers fall under a DADT policy - if you aren't flaunting it or using it to harass other people with the data results then they will ignore it. But if you are telling someone in game that their dps is too low because you are running a parser and they report you, you WILL likely get banned.

[sereh]

The best way to level a second class is through the hunting log which has already been stated :P (Access this through H on the keyboard)

Aswell as doing fates, if you have your Chocobo yet to fight along with you, this can make things so much faster too.

As for Free Company's that's exactly how I feel about them, I'd never join one that just threw out a invite to you. It feels way to inpersonal to me. The best way is just to play your way through the game and keep a eye out for a FC to join, I joined mine through the forums, I found it there. There are many bonuses as well to being in a FC, other people to talk too, play with, join in dungeons with you etc.

[Noshpan]

The default hotkey for the Hunting Log is "H". Doing them will help you a great deal for when you are leveling alt classes/ jobs.

Doing leves & FATEs until your class is leveled enough to do dungeons helps.

Once you have access to dungeons on your alt class, at start doing the low level roulette on that class at least once a day. The bonus experience goes a long way. As you are waiting on dungeon queues, you can do FATEs (you can also do leves, but there's a chance the dungeon can pop while you're in the middle of doing a leve).

Also! Don't forget to eat food! Food offers a +3% bonus to gaining experience. Any food will do, and some offer stat bonuses, but if you just want the experience bonus you can go to Limsa Lominsa's culnarian guild and buy some lemons. I wouldn't recommend eating food at the start of a Trial as they tend to end quickly and don't offer a whole lot of experience, especially at higher levels.

As others have mentioned, do take advantage of leveling up Lancer and Pugilist for the cross-class skills.

[Reinha]

http://www.ffxivguild.com/ffxiv-bard...-skills-guide/
That's a decent guide for cross class skills. I recommend going for pugilist level 12 first and the get lancer at your own pace. Invigorate and Blood for Blood are useful but it's not going to hurt your leveling much to not have them.

As for professions, I'd say start the ones you're interested in immediately so your bags don't end up full of materials from mobs. You can level all crafting classes to about 15 with just vendor materials, and gathering is quite fast aswell. A good pairing is mining and goldsmithing, because goldsmithing isn't very dependent on other crafting professions. Also with goldsmithing you can make jewelry for every class. Right hand side gear is quite hard to come by when leveling your battle classes.

Here is more info about the DoH and DoL class dependencies:
http://eorzeareborn.com/crafting-and...-realm-reborn/