Final Fantasy XIV: The ultimate leveling guide

In this guide to Final Fantasy XIV we tell you:

  • The different ways to power level
  • The different approaches based on your job class
  • How to boost your experience gain

One of the key features in Final Fantasy XIV is the ability to switch between all available classes with a single character at any time. This makes it extremely attractive to try out a different class.

The question of how and where you should level up your new classes is a controversial one. This guide should give you an overview of the different possibilities and clarify once and for all how you can level up the fastest.

In addition, we have compiled the best tips and tricks for getting started in the online role-playing game in our Final Fantasy 14 tips guide.

Final Fantasy XIV: Level up through job quests

You can level up your starter class through the quests in the main scenario, which give you a lot of experience points and variety. As you level up, you'll unlock more and more options that will help you level up your next classes.

The side quests don't give you a lot of experience, but often reward you with equipment appropriate to your level. Check with the quest giver beforehand to see what rewards you'll receive to save yourself a trip or two to the merchant.

You should take the random content with you every day!

Besides the main scenario, you should complete the random content every day, which resets daily at 4pm. Here you can expect not only a bunch of experience points, but also a lot of Gil and Allagic Stones, which you can exchange for powerful equipment.

Also, don't forget to complete your job quest every five levels, which will reward you with moderate experience, in addition to new skills (commands) and an interesting storyline.

XP Bonuses: Stay rested and full!

Before you start the actual leveling, you should know that there are many ways to increase your experience gain.

Always log out near an aetheryte, i.e. in a pacified area, as you will generate a rest bonus on your experience gain depending on the time of your absence. This bonus is marked as a blue bar above your regular yellow experience bar and indicates how long the bonus will last.

The blue bar represents your rest bonus.

Food items are easy to get and give you a three percent bonus to your experience gain. This may not sound like much, but if you use this buff continuously, it will get you to your goal a lot faster. Food can be found at any merchant that sells buffs. They can be found in any market area.

Always make sure that the social command "Battle Routine Bonus" is active, which will give you up to 15% more experience points per defeated enemy. If you do not have the rights to activate the command within your guild, just ask nicely in guild chat.

Current Agenda - Challenge Log

An important tool that is not available to you from the beginning is the so-called "Current Agenda" - called "Challenge Log" in English. The Current Agenda resets every Tuesday and offers adventurers certain challenges in different categories that provide a lot of experience points and gil when completed.

To unlock the Current Agenda, you must be at least level 15 and have completed the quest "The Forgotten Agenda" with the NPC I'tolwann in Limsa Lominsa (Upper Decks X:11.5 Y:10.9).

The Current Agenda offers you a few simple challenges.

For example, a challenge may consist of completing five dungeons or ten guild feuds. The experience you receive depends on your current level. Thus, you'll be sufficiently compensated at each level.

Final Fantasy XIV: The first levels

If you start with a new class at level 1, you can level up the first levels easily and quickly with the help of the bestiary, which you can find under the menu item "Notebooks". The bestiary will give you mob targets, of which you'll have to kill a certain number.

As you roam around the starting areas slaying monsters, keep your eyes peeled for Fates. FATEs are short for "Full Active Time Events" and represent dynamic scenarios that appear in the open game world and can be completed alone or with other players, gaining quite a bit of experience.

The Bestiary is the fastest way to get started!

As you progress through the main scenario, guild hymns and charters will be available to you starting at level 10. Guild Guilds are the first instanced group content and will be unlocked once you have completed all the freebies of the corresponding freebies NPC's that you find in larger towns.

Guild hobbies and fates are the fastest way to reach level 15. You can buy your equipment for little money at the normal merchants during this time. At level 15, you will unlock your first dungeon. What happens to you after level 15 depends largely on the role your class takes on.

Final Fantasy 14 Leveling Guide: Class Specific Differences

During the regular content search , you have probably already noticed that tanks and healers are much rarer to find than the attackers - also called damage dealers (DD's). This means that as a healer, and especially as a tank, you will get into instanced group content much faster than a DD.

To get to level 70, tanks and healers are the fastest to level through the regular dungeons. As a Damage Dealer, you'll progress fastest through the Deep Vaults. Up to level 61, you'll play through the Palace of the Dead (PotD) as a DD, and from level 61 to 70, you'll progress through the Pillar of Heaven (HoH).

The access to the Command Operations, you will find in the Guard Room of the State Company.

Thefastest way to get to level 70 is to use the so-called Command Operations of your State Company. They are playable from level 20. These are the regular dungeons that you fight with computer-controlled allies. This is suitable for all classes, as it eliminates the waiting time to find a full party.

The fastest way to level up: Command Operations!

From a certain rank in your state society, you unlock the so-called command operations. Here you send NPCs on missions, which are rewarded with various items. Keep an eye out for the so-called "Society Guide Combat Doctrines", which increase your experience gain for killing mobs by 15 percent.

To gain recruits for your command, you will need to complete Current Agenda challenges. You will be notified as soon as you have new letters of application.

The bonus from Combat Doctrine can be combined with other XP bonuses.

Once you have completed enough missions and brought your command to level 2, you can talk to the respective adjutant in your state company's guardroom to unlock the command operations. In Command Operations, you'll take on the role of one of your commando members and play through familiar dungeons. Your party must consist of a tank, a healer and two DD's.

Command operations will give you the most experience and let you level up your classes to level 70 the fastest. You do need state thalers to start commando operations, but you can simply exchange the gear you find in these dungeons back into state thalers afterwards at the quartermaster.

The Deep Vaults - PotD and HoH

The Deep Vaults are divided into the Palace of the Dead and the Pillar of Heaven. Deep Vaults are instanced group content and differ significantly in structure from other dungeons. In these endless dungeons, you fight your way from level to level. Every 10 levels you have to defeat a different boss.

Here, it doesn't matter what kind of equipment you enter with, because you have content-specific equipment here that can also only be leveled in that content, has nothing to do with the regular game, and is used across classes.

The equipment level can be increased by silver chests in the Deep Vaults!

In the deep vaults you can expect dull grinding, but there is also a lot of experience, almost no waiting time and you don't have to worry about your equipment.

To level up effectively in PotD, you must first make it to level 50. Level 50 is the only checkpoint where you can always re-enter. The plan is to keep playing from level 51 to level 60, defeat the boss, exit the content, and repeat the process. In fact, from level 50 to 60 you will get the most experience.

Start in the Plast of the Dead from level 51, as this is where you'll get the most experience!

Theoretically, you can also start here from level 1. If you want to be faster, you should approach the first levels differently. From level 61 you can continue in the Sky Pillar, the Deep Vault in the Stormblood expansion.

The Pillar of Heaven is built almost exactly like the Palace of the Dead and should get the damage dealers among you from level 61 to 70 quickly.

The path from level 70 to 80

Once you've made it to level 70, you'll continue with the content from Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers (). You unlock the first dungeon at level 71, so your first goal should be to get to level 71 using the random content.

The Shadowbringers expansion introduces the so-called "side-by-side system", which works similarly to the command operations. Using the side-by-side system, you'll play alongside computer-controlled story characters through the regular Shadowbringers dungeons and won't have to deal with annoying wait times.

Here you can expect the same principle as in the command operations.

As a DD, you'll play through the side-by-side system until you reach level 74. Since your computer-controlled companions also need to be leveled up through the dungeons and get much less experience than you, it makes sense to switch to the normal content quest at level 74. While you wait for other party members, you can farm the fates in the new areas for a little extra experience.

As a tank and healer, you can immediately proceed to the Shadowbringers dungeons via the regular content quest, as you won't have to wait as long as a DD. Regardless of your class, you should never forget to pick up the daily random content!

Final Fantasy XIV: Buy Classes?

If you absolutely don't want to level up at all, you can simply buy your levels. In the Mogstation - the cash store of Final Fantasy 14 - the so-called adventure stories are available. For 21.75 Euros you can level up a class directly to level 70.

We strongly advise you not to do this, though, as you'll suddenly be confronted with umpteen commands and have no idea how they interact and how the class even plays

Save your money and learn your class!

If you level up a class yourself from start to finish, you'll gradually unlock new abilities that all build on each other. So to really develop an understanding of how the class plays, you should start from the beginning.

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