Where to go from here?

[DAMNLAMA]

Most people like to power level through this stage. I don't, but that makes me kinda unusual. Power levelling in this game consists of a party with up to seven people at similar levels and a lvl 50 mage (THM, usually). Mage aggros everything in the area and then gets booted from the party. Once he's out of the party, he AoE's all the mobs and the party gets all the XP. The people being power levelled pretty much just stands around. I find this very lame, but it does level you *very* fast. Not only does this leach away all the people you might have partied with, it means that people go from 15 to 35 in a few days, so there just plain aren't that many people at your level.

Now, let's talk about what you can do while *not* power levelling. You can continue solo grinding and doing leves; unlike FFXI, this will get you advancing at a good rate. If you can join a party, it will be faster, so looking for one isn't a bad idea; just don't be surprised if you can't find one. My personal preferences are party is better than soloing is better than power levelling, but like I said, I'm different. Incidentally, go to www.mooglebox.com and look at their mob location tool (under "Other Stuff"). It's a great way to find grindable camps.

Shposhae does have nice level 15 gear in it, but Shposhae is designed to be run by a full party around level 15. And it would rock if people actually did that. To get at the best loot, you have to figure out how some things work that are very nicely thought out (and will get you killed at the intended level if they take you by surprise). Alas, I've never gotten a Shposhae party, and I don't know anybody who has. When I go there on occasion to farm stuff, it's empty.

The first few times I PL'd I did it in the way that you described and was not a fan of it. When being PL'd it was boring and I found when doing the PL'ing for other People it was a very convuluted system to get all the mobs, go in the menu to leave the PT, rejoin the PT and repeat the process over and over. However a few of us in my LS have figured out a way to speed things up a bit and still have fun:

The low level people who need PL'd get in a party. Then each person goes out an fishes a mob and brings them back to the LVL 50 player who is not in the party. The lvl 50 player AOE the mobs and players get XP. If you get in a good rhythm of going to fish your next mob as soon as you bring it back to the lvl 50 "Tank" you can get pretty fast. As I said I don't know if it is as fast as when the PL'er gathers 15 mobs at once but since everyone is participating it is a lot more fun and you get to learn your job a little bit as you go. That was always my gripe about doing it the old way of just standing around was that when you finally hit LVL 30 and got in a party you had no idea how to use your job.

While I don't like PL'ing I really want all my DD jobs to 50 before 2.0 so it has become necessity for me and doing it the way I described is a bit of a compromise I suppose.