Where to go from here?

[Kieie]

Hiya everybody, so returning back after giving it a brief stint at release and loving the changes so far

I just hit lvl 15 today, which is the highest I've gotten so far in this game (yeah...clearly I didn't put alot of effort in the first time around...) but my question is what should I be doing now? I mainly just got to 15 off solo grinding, leves, and missions. Should I keep doing that or start looking for groups to grind with? I've heard about something called Shposhae that I should do for gear, but I ventured in and there was too many clusters of aggressive mobs I felt like it probably would have been a bad idea to run in there tossing out spells. Should I have a group for that as well?

I played FFXI a decent amount so I can assume that at some point I'll mostly be focusing on grouping and lvling, but it just seems a lot less rigid in the order as FFXI with the basic "lvl 10 go to Dunes, and continue from there." Any help is appreciated, oh and also if any LS are willing to accept a lowbie on Mysidia let me know I'd love to join!

Thanks in advance!

[Conradus]

Hiya everybody, so returning back after giving it a brief stint at release and loving the changes so far

I just hit lvl 15 today, which is the highest I've gotten so far in this game (yeah...clearly I didn't put alot of effort in the first time around...) but my question is what should I be doing now? I mainly just got to 15 off solo grinding, leves, and missions. Should I keep doing that or start looking for groups to grind with? I've heard about something called Shposhae that I should do for gear, but I ventured in and there was too many clusters of aggressive mobs I felt like it probably would have been a bad idea to run in there tossing out spells. Should I have a group for that as well?

I played FFXI a decent amount so I can assume that at some point I'll mostly be focusing on grouping and lvling, but it just seems a lot less rigid in the order as FFXI with the basic "lvl 10 go to Dunes, and continue from there." Any help is appreciated, oh and also if any LS are willing to accept a lowbie on Mysidia let me know I'd love to join!

Thanks in advance!

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.

[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.

[Shyd]

This is how I would level I think nowadays....

Try making/finding a group for shaposhae (whatever). Good exp if the group is successful in chaining mobs. Stuff respawns fairly quickly so group can farm NM (boss) and kill mobs all over the place in there. *Its just lil south from Limsa Lominsa btw*

Getting into a LS that has players around your levels is a good idea, will help you find at least one person you could team up with to do leves/grinding etc.

When you reach I believe lv. 20 you can start Grand Company stuff. This will net you your own chocobo, making getting around faster and cheaper (though I think you can just get a Goobbue at Red Roosters).

Lv.25+ I believe you can group up for Toto-Rak (something).You pick up a quest to enter from your respective grand company. This instanced dungeon is fairly quick, and can be run over and over again for really good exp. The mobs are all fairly simple there to defeat.

After that back to grinding leves at Lv.30. You should always though look for grinding parties for juicy chain exp points.
When you reach higher ranking 45+ you can get group for the higher end dungeons, there are 3. All this while working on your respective job quests.

-All is just suggestions, hope it helps as I have not leveled up a DoW/DoM class in a long time. =/

[Kieie]

Thanks for all the feedback guys, it really helps!

As far as powerleveling goes I'm going to try to avoid that for a while, maybe later on down the road when I already have a few classes leveled and want another but for now I wanna get a feel for the game.

I've been trying to keep an eye out for a LS, not as hard as I should I suppose, but it seems like most of them are just waiting until server mergers to even accept new people. That should help out with Shposhae definitely make it easier to find groups, but hopefully I won't have to wait til mergers, I might have almost soloed to 50 by then :P

[Holy_Dragoon]

Yeah a lot of people are waiting down the merge clock to allow new members into their shells, ours included.