New Player Looking for Advise

[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).

[Maero]

Well you are already on a very populated server. I would actually suggest to check out the ffxivrealm forum for Free Companies to join as most members of that forum are on that server.
The game itself is very easy to pickup, archer/bard, gladiator/pld, both good choices to get into the game. Also unlike some other mmo's you can actually have all classes on your character, you just switch between them by equipping the weapon and soul stone (for the jobs)
Jobs is basically the advanced version of a class. So Archer becomes Bard, Rogue= Ninja, Gladiator=Paladin, etc..

[LordLucavi]

In general, it's best to pick up your Soul Crystals as soon as you can, simply because they add special job actions to your abilities and make you more powerful. You do lose some cross class abilities, but the job skills put what you lose to shame. Also, you'll see a lot of griefing in the forums about numbers and dps for everything. Don't let that dissuade you, the game is /not/ about how much damage you can put out on your class, it's about having fun. Whether you prefer to play alone or with friends, whether you like to dungeon run or craft or do the FATEs or simply wander Eorzea looking at the beautiful landscapes, it all boils down to what makes it fun for you. You don't even /have/ to get your soul crystals for the jobs, but it is extremely recommended that you do for pretty much any party content post level 35.

[Munsu_]

So much information thank you all !! ^_^

I am learning new stuff everyday via playing asking and reading online some guides but I am a kinda lazy reader so I mostly read about specific things as I progress.

Anyway I am 29 now almost 30 recently I got my chocobo mount at last! and I got to the point where you /dance for the sylphs in the main story.

I noticed how it's becoming more difficult for me to keep aggro when I am in parties my gear lvl is kinda low 17 I think, like you mentioned it's becoming a problem. So I guess I am gonna lvl up CNJ now at least to lvl 15 for the PLD job and also pick up some cross skills from MRD and some PGL skills maybe they seem pretty cool. And after that I plan to lvl up MIN so I can start having an income from the marketplace in order for me to be easier to upgrade my gear.

ah one more thing, the armory gear I find in my journeys, should I start selling them to the marketplace ? I kinda thought I should keep it and convert it to materia..

[Malicewolf]

So much information thank you all !! ^_^

I am learning new stuff everyday via playing asking and reading online some guides but I am a kinda lazy reader so I mostly read about specific things as I progress.

Anyway I am 29 now almost 30 recently I got my chocobo mount at last! and I got to the point where you /dance for the sylphs in the main story.

I noticed how it's becoming more difficult for me to keep aggro when I am in parties my gear lvl is kinda low 17 I think, like you mentioned it's becoming a problem. So I guess I am gonna lvl up CNJ now at least to lvl 15 for the PLD job and also pick up some cross skills from MRD and some PGL skills maybe they seem pretty cool. And after that I plan to lvl up MIN so I can start having an income from the marketplace in order for me to be easier to upgrade my gear.

ah one more thing, the armory gear I find in my journeys, should I start selling them to the marketplace ? I kinda thought I should keep it and convert it to materia..

Yea, honestly, it's kinda funny. The beginning dungeons are the easiest overall, but the hardest for tanks to hold because you really don't have much to stay ahead of the DPS or healers. Some of my hardest tanking has been in the beginner dungeons (granted, I'm also sitting there looking at my normal hotbar that's like, 90% blanked out because of the lvl sync). I'll click on things and be like, dang it! I don't even have that?!

If you're reading guides to try to get better, then I don't think you'll have any issues ^^ It means you're proactively trying to improve yourself. Sadly, many don't feel the need for this. Not to say everyone has to be perfect, I could care less about that. But I think everyone should want to be better if they can be =) It's one thing to say, "I'm just here for fun, don't make me change what's working" and another to go "I do what I want!" while causing wipes (referring to lord's post). Definitely prioritize having fun! But I can tell you, it'll be hard if you're the sole reason for wipes occurring. You won't be able to progress and they will be stuck and likely, angry. Some overreact though :P

Now, back to Munsu. Definitely play around a bit with the other cross classes ^^ At the very least, it's nice to know how each role functions. You'll learn the woes of the healer and the pains of the DPS that require positionals (PGL being the biggest one).

I recall that you said you were also looking to level Armorer and Blacksmith. Those both will be able to create a majority of your gear, meaning you can get HQ gear that you don't have to buy if you can sustain leveling it along with you're class. I'm not sure if you've reached the point in story yet, but eventually, you'll get to pick a grand company and be able to turn in provisioning for whatever disciple of land classes you have. It gives great xp, especially for HQ (as it doubles the amount you get). But buying materials is usually the hard part here. Leveling miner though will provide you with a majority of what you need. But once you hit 30+, you'll begin to require a lot of cross materials from the other gatherers (well, not fisher for armor lol. That'd be funny. Need a harbor herring for this titanium armor. It's for good luck). But very often higher crafting requires you to rely on other crafts and gatherers for materials. Find a good group and try to coordinate with them. It helps tremendously. I'm a lazy CUL and rely on my FC mates to gather botany materials for me, but I am our only Fisher. It can get a bit crazy, but I do still find that aspect fun too ^^

The gear you get on your journey will likely not get you much in the marketplace. The reason being, most people do that too. They get their own gear and simply sell what they get from the quests. Sometimes it gets you some, and considering what it sells for at vendors to what you can sell for on MB, it's a good profit. You'd often sell these armors for like, 100 some gil but on MB, for 1000 or so. But this is actually very small gil. I would suggest putting a bit of time into a craft and looking up a few things you can easily make that sell well. Don't overdue it though. Flooding the market with 1 item causing your item to deflate in value usually as others will also hop on board the gil train and undercut you a bit.

As for materia, that gear will likely give you level I materials. They don't sell very high and don't provide the best stats. Personally, I've barely ever melded materia into my gear. It can definitely help, but it's not needed. And at your level, you'll likely be changing gear often enough that you'll find you're wasting more money for the melding than is worth it for the amount of time you're in that armor.

[A_Cidrelli]

I'm a new player too. Up to Lv 20 now, and still in the exploratory mode for the most part. Only recently I discovered the Gold Saucer, and knocked off a dungeon with a party of about five other players. So far I only have the archer class for my character, but have already been contemplating setting her up as a mage as well.