Two Questions from a New Player Regarding Game Purchase and Jobs

[MonkeyBusiness]

Hello all,

I'm currently playing the game on the free trial and I must say I enjoy it very much. Before I purchase the full game I have two questions that I seek answers to.

1) Do players usually level all the possible classes together or just focus on one or two?

2) If I buy ARR and pre-order Stormblood (which includes Heavensward) do I have access to the first DLC contents like Au Ra and the three new jobs immediately, or do I have to wait for Stormblood's actual release?

Thanks in advance!

[magnanimousCynic]

1) this is entirely up to you. But at minimum you want to level up a secondary class to 15 to unlock your job, an improved version of your class. Since the forums says that you're a Maruader you'll need Gladiator to level 15 to become Warrior. Most people focus on one job or one role (Tank/Healer/Caster/Melee DPS/Ranged DPS) as the endgame gear is restricted to those roles. But there's no requirement to have multiple classes at max level. Just level up the jobs you enjoy!

2) You'll have to wait until the launch of Stormblood to access Heavensward content.

[Reinha]

Players usually focus on one battle class at first, then level the others later. If you preorder Stormblood you have to wait until Stormbloods release to get Heavensward things.

However you have to finish ARR main scenario quests before getting to play Heavensward content (including the jobs) and that can take a week or a couple of months depending on your weekly play time. So you're not really missing out on anything in Heavensward except playing an Au Ra until you have completed all level 50 story quests. You can always swap to Au Ra later with the free Fantasia you get as a veteran reward.

[MonkeyBusiness]

Thank you for the replies!

Regarding (1) I was afraid that I have to level all jobs together for the eventual end game stuff. Glad to know that's not the case.

Regarding (2) it's a shame that I'll have to wait to create an Au Ra, but like what you've said I won't be missing out on that much.
I was hoping that if I pre-order it from the Square Enix store directly it would be unlocked earlier.

[magnanimousCynic]

Another tidbit to add that I missed in my first post; I know I said you only need Gladiator at 15, but I recommend leveling it to 22 for Provoke. Provoke puts your aggro at x+1 of a mob's aggro list, x being the person with the highest aggro on the specific enemy.

Here's a simplified example to explain it. Say an Archer has 500 aggro on a target and you only have 200 aggro. Using provoke on the target would put you at 501 aggro, making the mob target you. But if you have 500 aggro and the Archer has 200 your aggro only goes up by 1 since you're the main target of the mob. This makes it best to use when you suddenly lose aggro on an enemy or when you need to do a tankswap in harder content.

DON'T use this skill to grab enemies at the start of a pull! Not only does it put Provoke on cooldown, but your only put yourself at 1 aggro unit for the mob. Using shield Throw or Tomahawk is better in a majority of situations.

Another skill that PLD has that you can cross-class is Awareness at 34. The skill makes all critical hits done against you do normal damage instead. Usually this skill isn't that useful but in some end-game content there are mobs that do critical hits much more often or sometimes always.

But since the launch of Stormblood is changing how we obtain Cross-Class skills obtaining Awareness isn't needed right away unless you want to try out Gladiator.