FFXIV: Leveling A Scholar

While I wait for patch 5.5 to drop in Final Fantasy XIV, I have taken to leveling a new job, Scholar. The Arcanist path is unusual, because while leveling the Scholar job, I also level the Summoner. Which, of course, requires two sets of gear at higher levels. But until I reached level 45 and completed the job quests, I could get away with only one set of gear. Right now I'm at level 46 and am one Squadron dungeon run away from running The Aurum Vale.

From the Arcanist story line

Right now, I have divided my leveling efforts into two phases. The first phase covered levels 1-20. I based my activities around the Arcanist class quests and the Hunting Log. The class quests are a necessity because the quests provide new spells. But the Hunting Log is interesting. I used the log as a guide as where to visit as much as what mobs I needed to kill. When I traveled to a zone to kill a type of mob, I would also do all the quests in the area as well.

I also made use of the Challenge Log to get more experience. For example, two of the challenges involved levequests. I had to do 5 different levequests and 20 total levequests. So what I did is turn in a couple of levequests involving fish as well as 10 levequests involving Coffee Biscuits. Then I had to only do a couple of levequests involving the Archanist class to get the bonus experience.

The second phase began at level 20. From that point on, I basically only did the Squadron dungeons and the class job quests up to 30. At level 30, the Arcanist class splits into Scholar and Summoner, so I did both branches. I may have done some other things, but the Squadron command missions are so good, I basically just keep running them, alternating between Scholar and Summoner to keep things fresh.

One of the benefits of running so many command missions was I got to level the NPCs in my squadron. I started out with a Grand Company rank of First Lieutenant and am now a Captain. I know have access to all the Order of the Twin Adder equipment as well as upped my seals capacity up to 90,000. 

As of this time, I plan on continuing doing the command missions and job quests until I reach level 53. At that point, I want to start doing the Heavensward beast tribe quests again.

Current Beast Tribe Standings

The beast tribe quests are perfect for leveling. Plus, one of my long term goals is to finish up all the beast tribe quests in order to get all the cool beast tribe rewards. My overall goal with my current leveling effort isn't to reach level 80 so much as do content I out-leveled. I have months to go until Endwalker reaches the servers. 

I haven't thought much beyond phase 3. I haven't done any of the Stormblood beast tribe quests, so I might be able to finish those before reaching the Shadowbringers content. I might switch over and work on the Trust System. I'll have to give an update when I've figured out what to do.