Leveling up makes me want to quit.

[Voltyblast]

The real strategy to power level with FATEs and dungeons as a DPS is that you find a zone with FATEs at your level, populated or not (you still get decent EXP for most FATEs even when they fail as long as you get gold) then you queue for a dungeon and grind the FATEs while you wait on the queue.

You forgot that you can't get in groups while queueing, so you also have to choose: you want to gain LOTS more of exp within a group (enemies do give exp as well and getting a gold is basically lazy work, which is what we want), or queue for the dungeon and do nothing else (you can't even get your chocobo out while queueing: that's bad programming there).

And the part that it's not supposed to be fun because it's a grind...then what is this? A job? Games are supposed to be fun last I checked: in rpgs levelling is usually the fun part of the game, not the annoying part. Yes this is an MMOrpg but I never found levelling frustrating in OTHER MMOs because you always had different ways to level up ALONGSIDE grinding the usual (questing, dungeons, dailies, you name it).

In addition to that, I always loved levelling and getting new skills and stuff for my characters. In here you don't really get a whole lot to begin with: sometimes you gain a passive (hooray!) sometimes it's a skill (Yaaaay...finally) and now at 50, you can get some of the most useless/badly designed skills ever made (Tornado Kick, Sheltron and last but not least, Wanderer's Minuet/Gauss Barrel). Sure not all jobs get bad skills, but since I play monk as second main job It's really boring to level up with basically no real new skills.

So not only the levelling in this game is annoying and sometimes frustrating (always depending on the situation), but it's also not really rewarding: It's long and tedious and you still get FAR more experience from fates regardless of which dungeon you get in: in the Churming Mists a fate can give more or less 40k exp (Azys Ila give more, but it's deserted and I don't see people grinding there at all). A dungeon (WITHOUT ROULETTE) can only give 100k or 200k at best and in the span of 30-40 minutes of run. Fates only take 2 minutes max and gives half of that amount, and more if you do a boss fate PLUS the armory boost.

FATEs still win. Sadly.

[Malzian]

You forgot that you can't get in groups while queueing, so you also have to choose: you want to gain LOTS more of exp within a group (enemies do give exp as well and getting a gold is basically lazy work, which is what we want), or queue for the dungeon and do nothing else (you can't even get your chocobo out while queueing: that's bad programming there).

And the part that it's not fun...then what is this? A job? Games are supposed to be fun: in rpgs levelling is usually the fun part of the game, not the annoying part. Yes this is an MMOrpg but I never found levelling frustrating in OTHER MMOs because you always had different ways to level up ALONGSIDE grinding the usual (questing, dungeons, dailies, you name it).

In addition to that, I always loved levelling and getting new skills and stuff for my characters. In here you don't really get a whole lot to begin with: sometimes you gain a passive (hooray!) sometimes it's a skill (Yaaaay...finally) and now at 50, you can get some of the most useless/badly designed skills ever made (Tornado Kick, Sheltron and last but not least, Wanderer's Minuet/Gauss Barrel). Sure not all jobs get bad skills, but since I play monk as second main job It's really boring to level up with basically no real new skills.

So not only the levelling in this game is annoying and sometimes frustrating (always depending on the situation), but it's also not really rewarding: It's long and tedious and you still get FAR more experience from fates regardless of which dungeon you get in: in the Churming Mists a fate can give more or less 40k exp (Azys Ila give more, but it's deserted and I don't see people grinding there at all). A dungeon (WITHOUT ROULETTE) can only give 100k or 200k at best and in the span of 30-40 minutes of run. Fates only take 2 minutes max and gives half of that amount, and more if you do a boss fate PLUS the armory boost.

FATEs still win. Sadly.

No, I didn't forget that point, believe me that I well know and understand how the systems work. If you can find a FATE group in an area grinding them out to get your 'lazy' gold (and believe me, I find your choice of calling it lazy and saying that's what is desired a rather telling statement in itself), then you really don't need to queue for dungeons since that would be a waste of time.

However, if you're stuck in a zone where there are no people you're not going to get those 'lazy' golds, and I don't personally see any FATE on-level taking '2 minutes max', then you're best bet is to queue while you FATE. A dungeon will net you a decent amount of EXP, and at this point unless you end up with a totally new group, there's no reason a dungeon should take 30-40 min. Most of my dungeon runs clock in at around 20 min given that no major issues come up, plus you also can get gear out of it.

The fact is that mostly you only see people grinding FATEs in Northern Thanalan and the Hinterlands anymore, and has been that way for a while, and mostly because it's really not worth it anywhere else. If the rest of the community isn't doing something as a means to level, then there's probably a reason they're not doing it and that should be a sign to you.

Now you may think I'm crazy, and want to dispute all of this, but allow me to point out that at the current moment I am 3 battle classes off of fully capping them to 60. I should think that at that point I really should know what does and does not work logistically for leveling. Add on that I am and always have been a solo player, and I might dare well to think that I can speak from a certain point of expertise on the matter of solo leveling strategies and their efficacy.

Lastly, as far as leveling not being 'rewarding', that ultimately depends on what you consider a reward, and the fact that you find a class boring may not be because leveling it is bad but rather just the fact that that particular class/job might not be for you. I personally level them all, but I only play a select few, because I more enjoy how one handles versus the others (I don't care for casters, really, though I actually like BRD). This is more a personal thing then a systematic thing and all it really means is that you need to decide whether or not that class is rewarding to you overall.

[autumn]

I know this may not be a great option if you have friends and a fc on your current server (although if you do have friends they could help your queue time) but you could think about switching to a different server cluster? I levelled my Dragoon to 60 in around 2-3 weeks on the chaos servers (shiva and cerberus) and my ninja alt has just hit 60 in two weeks. my queue times are between 5 and 20mins, never longer. Good luck!

[Evumeimei]

Queues can be long as a DPS, yes, but I've never had to wait two hours in leveling roulette (but I'm on Primal Data Center). Are you part of a FC? Have you made any friends you can do content with? I'm not one to talk since I DF everything (and I don't mind it), but having people to run stuff with can alleviate queue times.

As for you mentioning that FATE areas are dead... You can solo most fates pre-50 easily enough (especially as an arcanist/summoner/scholar), so I don't see the issue? Sure, it'd be nice if those areas looked more flourishing, but you can still do the FATEs no problem.

[Catwho]

1. Roulettes are currently broken, so the OP does have a point. (That said, my leveling roulette was only 37 minutes last night on MCH, compared to the 60-90 minutes others are reporting.)

2. To the OP: Your first job to 60 is the only freebie, and after that you can get two jobs to 15-ish off quests, at which point you're expected to hit dungeons. Everything else is meant to take blood sweat and tears. It took me all of the 2.x to get all the jobs to 50. That is, almost two years. Of course you can't expect to replicate that in the course of a few months. You're not supposed to; the game was really designed for you to gear out one or two jobs at most. You're supposed to get most of the classes into the 20s, and then decide what you like best based off that.

[Esper]

Sounds like op does not wish to apply thyself to the work required to progress.

IMO go on back to watching someone else play the game on a stream if you can't handle the most simple part of the game.

[BunnyHop]

Eh, I recently leveled up Summoner from lvl 15 to 60, I spammed dungeons for the majority of the time. Spamming dungeons is the fastest way to lvl up.

Just remind yourself to grind fates when you hit lvl 50 untill lvl 51, after hitting lvl 51 you can continue spamming dungeons again.

[Felis]

Just remind yourself to grind fates when you hit lvl 50 untill lvl 51, after hitting lvl 51 you can continue spamming dungeons again.

lv50 dungeons give exp since 3.1

[NatSilverguard]

wtf, OP! i'm new as well FFXIV Nat Silverguard, this is the only game I played that has the easiest grind to level up. almost everytime i unlock a certain dungeon, im over level and being synced.


but if you really hate grinding then try this game EvE Nat Silverguard (password: turtle), no need to grind. you are gaining SP over time even if you don't log in as long as you are subbed.

[ChazNatlo]

wtf, OP! i'm new as well FFXIV Nat Silverguard, this is the only game I played that has the easiest grind to level up. almost everytime i unlock a certain dungeon, im over level and being synced.


but if you really hate grinding then try this game EvE Nat Silverguard (password: turtle), no need to grind. you are gaining SP over time even if you don't log in as long as you are subbed.

Worth noting your first class is almost trivially easy to level with all the quests the game tosses at you. The other classes are a bit more tedious, since you aren't doing anything new ((the fact that a number of these quests being your Xth fetch quest not withstanding))