The "no random trinity light party" leveling path: Some questions

[Omedon]

EDIT: So apparently all I needed was to learn more about POTD, as my answer here appears to be that deep dungeons and trusts will literally take me from 1 to 80!

As mostly a thought experiment, but one I'm seriously dwelling on, I happen to like the idea of leveling a new (to me) class/job, most likely a melee dps from level 1, while following these general guidelines:

1) Never do a roulette for 4 (or even 8 for that matter) person content. Ok maybe the odd MSQ for stones.
2) Never rely on fates
3) Don't rely on sidequests, I can just steamroll those on my main job

The spirit of it all is to generally "own my time," level at a reasonable pace (prioritizing "ownership" over efficiency), and play "good enough" for my needs, but not necessarily enough for yours (and since we won't meet in a small, trinity-reliant, intimate group, it doesn't harm anyone).

The path I'm seeing is this: leves until able to use palace or squadrons, then follow those paths until 50? 60? That's my first question, but I'll come back to that. Then I'd move on to HoH at 60, and trusts at 71. I imagine trusts will be back in endwalker, so that's basically the path at that point.

First question: Where does the palace of the dead bus realistically disembark? 50 or 60? I know squadrons continue into heavensward but I see arguments about how worthwhile they are. Remember ownership>efficiency, within reason.

Second question: Where are my leveling weapons and jewelry coming from post-50, or is it just the marketboard? Obviously left side equipment can be covered through poetics, and I don't really *need* much gear if I'm leaning on deep dungeons, but I found it odd how the right side gear just has no "passing through expansions" leveling gear support for alt jobs. Is that what the market board and all those people that love to craft are for? I mean I have level 70 in every crafting class, but the "make a thing to make a thing" is kinda mind numbing when you get down to making somethnig you're going to outgrow soon. I do like the "manifest your deep dungeon weapon" option for level 70, so that's a thing.

Third question: I asked a version of this question in another thread a while back (https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...ulette-options) but I'm going to roundabout re-ask it here since discovering that it seems FFXIV uses its alliance raids to tell side stories that pull from other Squeenix IPs that are welling up some serious nostalgia: Which raids, if any, are actually worth unlocking in the spirit of steering clear of "No one knows this/the mechanics are punishing, and it's a two hour wipefest" factor? Right now, I see my Alliance raid roulette as "steamrolling comfy ol' crystal tower for DPS XP and stones," and, well, I'm willing to expand my horizons if I will unequivocally not regret taking that one way leap.

Ok that's good for an opening post, thanks in advance for any and all helpful answers, suggestions or replies!

[Vahlnir]

First question: Where does the palace of the dead bus realistically disembark? 50 or 60? I know squadrons continue into heavensward but I see arguments about how worthwhile they are. Remember ownership>efficiency, within reason.

You can level to 50 in POTD, and then from 50-60. So it basically drops off there.

[kaynide]

If you are straight up just leveling and don’t want to ever play with others in a party setting, PvP is an easy option. Daily large-scale PvP nets a very reasonable amount of xp and is very mindless.

Outside of that, I would suggest doing beast tribes.

You will be significantly slower without 4 man roulettes/dungeons, but this will definitely help.

For gear, if you are doing the above, you don’t need to do anything. Otherwise, I would suggest getting tomestone sets at 50, 60 and 70 as you go or as you said, market board what you need (which shouldn’t be much)

[Omedon]

You can level to 50 in POTD, and then from 50-60. So it basically drops off there.

I haven't been back since passing through to unlock HoH for SAM leveling, but do you mean I can ride POTD to 50 by repeating, say floors 41-50, then start them over post 50? How does one best utilize POTD to grind actual outside-deep-dungeon real job levels? As I say, I only know HoH's interface when it comes to re-running the content over and over, is the experience similar, or are POTD kind of in a 1.0 stage of what became the HoH experience?

[Omedon]

If you are straight up just leveling and don’t want to ever play with others in a party setting, PvP is an easy option. Daily large-scale PvP nets a very reasonable amount of xp and is very mindless.

Outside of that, I would suggest doing beast tribes.

You will be significantly slower without 4 man roulettes/dungeons, but this will definitely help.

PVP isn't really owning my time as there are literally other players trying to prevent me from winning, so I don't consider that an option.

Beast tribes... see, part of the reason I'm leaning so heavily on instanced content is I'm playing DPS classes, which always feel less efficient in any overworld content as they aren't built to take damage and, even with a chocobo, get flattened next to the experience I'm used to maining a tank job, so I'm uncomfortable there.

Deep dungeons literally empower melee classes to always be favorably facing the enemy (directional abilities are my least favorite element of FFXIV melee so I LEAPT at the chance to neutralize them in my favor), so I tend to prioritize deep dungeons whenever possible. Also it's non-trinity, and built for that.

[Omedon]

Wow, so I just looked deeper into this and all I really need are deep dungeons and trusts to get to 80, and I don't even need to think of gear until 70, and HoH will essentially feed me a weapon! Sorry for the long and verbose post when really all my answers were just learning more about how palace of the dead works, as it looked like there'd be this gap between 50 and 60, and at level one... but POTD starts at level 1!

[kaynide]

PVP isn't really owning my time as there are literally other players trying to prevent me from winning, so I don't consider that an option.

Beast tribes... see, part of the reason I'm leaning so heavily on instanced content is I'm playing DPS classes, which always feel less efficient in any overworld content as they aren't built to take damage and, even with a chocobo, get flattened next to the experience I'm used to maining a tank job, so I'm uncomfortable there.

Deep dungeons literally empower melee classes to always be favorably facing the enemy (directional abilities are my least favorite element of FFXIV melee so I LEAPT at the chance to neutralize them in my favor), so I tend to prioritize deep dungeons whenever possible. Also it's non-trinity, and built for that.

Beast Tribes are cake man. Even as a DPS! I'd say give them a try (you can only really do 6 per day anyway, so if you do it, it's short. And if you don't like it or it is indeed difficult, you can just skip out. Quite a few of the Beast tribe quests don't necessarily even have combat.

For the huge PvP battles, it doesn't matter if you win or lose. Obviously you should play to win/be a good sport about it, but you can absolutely just spam your base rotation.. it's not a deep system.

I leveled WHM and I think DRK almost exclusively on PvP and Beastribes (did daily roulettes on easier DPS)

All that said, it IS your time, and if you're not having fun with PvP or whatever, you shouldn't feel like you have to do it or that there aren't other ways to go about it. Based on your later post, I'd say you might've found a good niche for you in PotD and/or HoH. At the end of the day, even making challenges for yourself on how to level can be fun- if that's your goal and you're having fun, mission accomplished.

Enjoy it!

OH, btw, also: Trusts don't start until 71. It's a weird thing, but you will feel a little bit of a gap there.

[ReynTime]

You should still try to get squadrons. PotD still takes a long time repeating the floors 50~60 to get you to 60. Specially solo. I'd just alternate between the two to avoid burnout. Besides, squadrons get crazy fast at killing when you unlock the tactics.

[Vahlnir]

squadrons get crazy fast

Fast? No. Crazy? Always. I hate squadrons. It's like dealing with the worst 3 other people one can imagine through the DF, and none of them have a job stone equipped. Any sort of control is made irrelevant by how slow they are to react.

[Omedon]

You should still try to get squadrons. PotD still takes a long time repeating the floors 50~60 to get you to 60. Specially solo. I'd just alternate between the two to avoid burnout. Besides, squadrons get crazy fast at killing when you unlock the tactics.

Oh I love my squadron team, and you make a good point that doing a DD for 50 levels would get old! I'm thinking now I might use POTD for 1-(level of first dungeon) and 50-60ish, with Squads going inbetween!