New Player - Questions Roundoup

[Secretus]

Hello everyone,

I am a new player and I must say I really like this game and it is growing on me but I have a few questions:

1) I've always played a tank in every MMO, love tanking and have a pretty good experience with it so naturally I started playing a gladiator. Soloing qs takes too much time. I was thinking of starting the quests of a warrior/rogue so that it goes faster. What would you advise me? Which classes should I combine with gladiator?

2) At which level can I choose a job and how? I assume I have to choose paladin if I want to be a tank, correct? How's that with leveling? slow to death?

3) At the moment, I just use fast blade and riot blade. I spam 2 buttons 24/7. All my other skills are for tanking purposes it's kinda boring and really really slow. Anything to do about it?

So, if you can give me any tip as to what I should do/avoid, etc. that'd be great!

Thank you in advance & sorry for the wall of text.

[MistakeNot]

You can get a job after doing the level 30 class quest of your current class (not counting crafters/gatherers). In addition to level 30 in the main class you also need to be at least level 15 in a second class. For paladin you need level 30 gladiator and level 15 conjurer. Picking up marauder is also a good idea for cross-class skills.

The tank classes in FFXIV are Gladiator/Paladin, Marauder/Warrior, and Dark Knight. You will not be able to pick up the Dark Knight job until you are level 50+ and have finished all of the 2.x main story quests, so forget about that one for the moment.

The gameplay on early levels for all classes consist of spamming a couple of skills. As you gain levels you will gain more skills and things will improve. For gladiator one major improvement comes when you get Rage of Halone at level 26.
For good damage output it is also necessary to have decent gear - with your mainhand weapon being by far the most important item.

While the DPS classes will be able to kill mobs quicker (and be quicker to die from them if you make mistakes) they won't be able to kill them all that much faster.

[Niwashi]

Trying out other classes is a good way to see what you'd like. Sometimes people come in thinking they'll like one but find they like something completely different better, so I generally recommend at least unlocking and trying out everything. (This game has no limits on how many classes or jobs you can use. There are people who take every single one of them all the way to endgame, though of course that takes a lot of time and effort.)

Marauder might be a good one to try. It's another tank class, but a bit more damage-focused, which can make soloing go quicker. Also, by the time you get to unlocking a job, you're going to want both Gladiator and Marauder leveled up at least part way if you plan on getting a tank job.

Unlocking jobs:
Each of the jobs available in the base game (A Realm Reborn) builds on a class. So a Paladin, for instance, is an advanced type of Gladiator (but still with all their GLD skills, traits, level, etc.) Similarly, a Warrior is an advanced type of Marauder. Up to level 50, those are your options for tanking. (Later, once you get into the Heavensward expansion, that opens up Dark Knight as another tank, and it doesn't have a base class. But since you won't get that far for a while, I'm going to stick with discussing the others that will be available sooner.)

To unlock an ARR job, you need to get its base class up to level 30 (and do all its class quests), plus also get another specific class up to at least level 15.
To unlock Paladin, you need Gladiator at 30 and Conjurer at 15.
To unlock Warrior, you need Marauder at 30 and Gladiator at 15.
Once you meet those requirements, a job unlock quest will become available at the same place the class quests from its parent class were at. (Though that job unlock quest may then send you elsewhere, where you'll need to go to do later job quests.)

When you have more than one class unlocked, you can assign certain skills you've learned from one class to be available while playing another class or job. (It's done under the "Additional" heading in the Actions & Traits window.) Not all skills are available that way, though. (If you check the skill description, it will say which classes/jobs can access it. If it only lists your current class and its associated job, then it cannot be cross-classed. If it lists others as well, then it can.) So, for instance, if you unlock Marauder, you may want to assign Flash, Convalescence, or Provoke that you've learned as a Gladiator. How many you can assign is level dependent. (1 cross-class slot per 5 levels while you're on a base class, or 1 per 10 levels while on a job)

While on a job, there are only a couple other classes you can pull these cross-class skills from. A Paladin can get cross-class skills from Conjurer or Marauder (plus having all the Gladiator skills natively without cross-classing). A Warrior can get cross-class skills from Gladiator or Pugilist (plus having all the Marauder skills natively).

So, in your case, I'd say try out several classes, but at least include Marauder amongst them. You'll want it at some point, and it might fit your desire for quicker soloing.

Oh, as to the spamming 2 buttons issue, all the classes start off pretty limited in early levels. Plus you're dealing with the fact that with a tanking class, a lot of your skills are only useful for tanking. (Even with a damage dealer class, though, you'd have skills that are only useful in a group, or more useful in a group than solo.) The skills get far more involved later on once you've unlocked more of them.

[Frizze]

Hello everyone,

I am a new player and I must say I really like this game and it is growing on me but I have a few questions:

1) I've always played a tank in every MMO, love tanking and have a pretty good experience with it so naturally I started playing a gladiator. Soloing qs takes too much time. I was thinking of starting the quests of a warrior/rogue so that it goes faster. What would you advise me? Which classes should I combine with gladiator?

2) At which level can I choose a job and how? I assume I have to choose paladin if I want to be a tank, correct? How's that with leveling? slow to death?

3) At the moment, I just use fast blade and riot blade. I spam 2 buttons 24/7. All my other skills are for tanking purposes it's kinda boring and really really slow. Anything to do about it?

So, if you can give me any tip as to what I should do/avoid, etc. that'd be great!

Thank you in advance & sorry for the wall of text.

Hello! Welcome to the community. We're(i have chosen to speak for everyone - they're probly cool with it) happy you're enjoying the game and hope you continue to. On to the questions. I will start by seconding the advice from MistakeNot and Niwashi, they both make excellent points. Now i will ignore everything they said, and answer your questions for myself.

1. Past preference is a great place to start when deciding what to play. This game treats every class a little differently though, so if gladiator tanking doesnt feel right then by all means try out some marauder tanking for awhile to see if it fits you better. And yes, while youre at it try out conjuror(you need 15 levels to advance into paladin anyway) to get a feel for healing, and one of the DPS classes(maybe pugilist or lancer?) so you can see just how they stack up. You may currently feel your solo quest kills are going too slowly, but some of the advanced quests are SO much easier for a tank then other classes(taunt the enemy off the NPC you need to protect, kill it, win) that it will even out in time. And you may not realize this yet, but this game gives tanks a super-power that isnt well advertised: insta-que's! A tank gets into most dungeons and trials almost instantly, while a DPS might have to wait a long time for a group slot(healers are inbetween but usually closer to tanks). You can potentially use this to even out some slower quests by making up lost time with a dungeon. As for what to combine, gladiator uses cross skills from marauder and conjuror so definitely those, plus anything else that seems fun to you.

2. Your job quest is level 30. Each job is modeled on a particular class, so you need the class that matches your job at level 30, you need to have finished all of the quests for that class, and you need a particular other class at level 15 or higher(the main storyline also needs to be advanced to a certain point, but that point is in the low-20s, so most people are there long before they hit level 30). For Paladin: you level Gladiator to 30, do all the quests for it, and get Conjuror to level 15. Then the Paladin quest becomes available at the Gladiator guild. If you decide you like Marauder better then get that to 30, do those quests, and you will open up the Warrior quest at the Marauders guild(your Gladiator level is already high enough to meet the secondary class requirement). Paladins and Warriors are both excellent tanks, and either would be a fine choice. My somewhat simplified understanding(i dont play either, so i defer to people with actual experience if i state anything that would oppose what they say) is that the Paladin is harder to kill/tougher but Warrior does more damage to make up for it - both can keep the enemies attention when played well. As for leveling, remember that super-power i mentioned before. All the dungeons you want as soon as you want can certainly speed up leveling. At this point, you should have your first good roulette unlocked - Leveling. Once per day this gives you a big exp boost, in addition to being a dungeon(usually) full of things to kill. Its worth something like a level per day, so do this a few times a week(or daily for that matter) and you can speed things up to your liking.

3. Well if you do more dungeons, you'll use more of those tanking skills. But as has been pointed out, everyone starts with just a few skills and use more as they level up. I main Black Mage, and at your level 95% of what i did was Fire 1 spam(damage), Transpose(stance change), Blizzard 1 spam(mana regen phase), Transpose, Fire 1 spam, repeat. I had a couple other spells, but they were mostly situational - kinda like your tanking abilities. Now ive got 10-15 spells that i use constantly, and another 10-15 that are situational, so just leveling up will give you more variety. Also, as Niwashi pointed out you should have some cross-class slots open. Level up a few of the melee classes to 5 or 10 and you should find some new tricks you can mix in. Marauder and conjuror, since they carry over to your potential time as a paladin are double important for this step.

General advice:
Keep up with the Main Storyline Quests(MSQ for short)! The game has a great story, but this is also the primary way to unlock more content. Most of the things in game that are locked, are gated by certain story quests(they ask you to do ____, now ____ is open). Even if you decide to take a break from the story, its a good idea to at least have the next quest in your journal. The story will take you all over the world, and its possible to forget where the quest you never picked up was at.
Explore! Remember what i said about the MSQ opening up content? Well it does, but theres still a LOT of side-story content you can miss if you get tunnel-vision on the story. There are side dungeons, extra trials, and a lot more that only happen after you find them elsewhere in the world.
Experiment! The game doesnt limit your character to one class/job, so try some of them out. Try crafting and gathering. You never know what new passion you could discover.
Make friends! Ok, no brainer here, but online games are more fun with friends then as solo affairs.
Don't be afraid to ask for help when you need it! You're already here, so this one is also kinda common sense, but i'll reiterate anyway. If you arent sure, feel free to ask. If you arent comfortable with a certain dungeon, point out to your group that youre new and they will usually(9 out of 10) either cut you some slack for any goofs, or actively offer you help and encouragement so you can get better.
Finally, Ignore any haters! This is the internet, and we all know some people suck when you let them be anonymous jerks. Just ignore those people. Most of the people in this game are great. Be one of them - one of us.

And you thought YOUR post was a wall of text.

[ChameleonMS]

1) I've always played a tank in every MMO, love tanking and have a pretty good experience with it so naturally I started playing a gladiator. Soloing qs takes too much time. I was thinking of starting the quests of a warrior/rogue so that it goes faster. What would you advise me? Which classes should I combine with gladiator?

IMO the easiest class to complete quests with is the Arcanist. Excellent damage, Physick to self heal and summonable mini-tank for protection.
The largest benefit of a tank is very fast dungeon queue times. It is advisable to level a DPS class (like Arcanist) with quests and use dungeons for tank and healers.

2) At which level can I choose a job and how? I assume I have to choose paladin if I want to be a tank, correct? How's that with leveling? slow to death?

Tank levelling is very fast compare to other classes because of the fast queue times and dungeon XP is far superior to other forms.

3) At the moment, I just use fast blade and riot blade. I spam 2 buttons 24/7. All my other skills are for tanking purposes it's kinda boring and really really slow. Anything to do about it?

Yes, well until you get much further along (like lv58) the GAL/PLD rotation is pretty much Shield Lob > Fracture > Fast Blade > Savage Blade > Rage of Halone.
Riot Blade falls by the way side once you have Rage of Halone.

[Teiren]

The truth is FFXIV is a much slower-paced game than other MMORPGs. There will be more things to watch later, but for now, you have to get used to the 2.5s GCD and how it sets the pacing for everything. Unfortunately, it's most glaring with Gladiator. That's not to say the slower pace makes FFXIV unfun at all. I just know that for me it was a huge adjustment coming from WoW which is an extremely fast-paced game. Try focusing on things besides just levelling and numbers and you should be able to find enjoyment in a variety of things. That's what worked for me. I intentionally went in to this game by somehow dumbing myself down as if I was new to MMOs, and I've had a great time ever since.