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

[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.

[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.