In a post last week, I started documenting the leveling experience of a third job, paladin, in Final Fantasy XIV. Over three days, I managed to start at level 1 as a gladiator and reach a point I could start running dungeons at level 16. Three days later I reached level 30 and the ability to become a paladin. What follows is my trip to level 30.
Day 4. I started the day with access to the first two dungeon, Sastasha and The Tam-Tara Deepcroft. If I were just interested in levelling I would have entered the Duty Roulette for the extra rewards. Instead, I queued up for Sastasha. In 20 minutes I went from level 16 up to level 19 and received three equipment upgrades.
- Plundered Falchion
- Warded Round Shield
- Dawn Wristguards
Equipping the gear raised my gear score from 14 to 16. I then spent 62 gil in mats and crafted a Brass Ring. I'm an omni-crafter and have a two command macro that results in all items for level 70 and below turning out as high quality.
I also received the level 18 tank ability Interject.
The group was experienced and wound up running ahead of me a lot. I also found positioning the mobs correctly was harder than it appears. I also forgot about Shield Lob, which meant I just ran into groups of mobs to draw their attention.
My next dungeon was Tam-Tara Deepcroft. Even without signing up for the Duty Roulette, I finished the dungeon at level 22. I didn't receive any item upgrades but did receive another damage reduction ability, Reprisal.
By running the first two dungeons, I gained enough experience to unlock two new duties, Copperbell Mines and Halatali. Copperbell Mines is the first dungeon I can run with my squadron. But I finished off the night by completing the level 20 gladiator quest.
I went to the Gladiators Guild and Mylla sent me to the Coffer & Coffin in Central Thanalan. Once again, I tripped over experience point opportunities. While investigating the area, I ran into giant tortoises, which after killing left me with only the level 19 and 20 entries in the Hunting Log to complete. A FATE also regularly spawns outside the Coffer & Coffin so I participated in the event when it spawned.
Upon finishing everything outside the Coffer & Coffin, I zipped back to Ul'dah to witness Mylla and Aldis have another fight. Afterwards Mylla and I travelled to the Silver Bazaar in Western Thanalan to take care of business. Things didn't go so well story-wise as we ran into the bad guy for the Gladiator quest. The quest wound up not giving me an equipment upgrade, so I took the money.
I finished up the night by going to the quartermaster for The Order of the Twin Adder and purchasing a Serpent Private’s Sword and a Serpent Private’s Sash for use at level 23.
Day 5. Sitting at level 22, I didn't want to get too far behind on the Hunting Log so I started off by finishing off the second tier of mobs. After killing the required number of Vandalous Imps, Rotting Nobels, and Bloated Bogies, I found myself 1700 experience points short of level 23. Since I had upgrades available if I levelled, I travelled to Western Thanalan and killed 4 Lead Coblyns. While I was there, I also participated in a FATE.
With the new gear, I queued up for Copperbell Mines. I felt a little under geared but only died to the blob mechanic. I even did a couple of two group pulls. Overall, not a bad run which resulted in reaching level 24.
I only needed 3,000 experience points to reach level 25 and the next Gladiator quest. A quick trip to South Shroud to kill Kedtraps and Overgrown Offerings for the Hunting Log. Then off to talk to Mylla again.
The level 25 quest wasn't really eventful. I had to defeat an ambush, then go out with Aldis and kill one of the assassins sent to kill him. The rewards included my first piece of heavy armor, which is extremely ugly. Thankfully the glamour system exists. After creating a glamour, I logged off for the night.
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| My first tanking glamour |
Day 6. I had not tanked Halatali or The Thousand Maws of Toto-Rak, so I tried queueing for Halatali. After six minutes I became impatient and signed up for the Duty Roulette, quickly finding myself in Sastasha again. I forgot to turn on tank stance at the beginning, which may have led the Dancer in the group to just start pulling mobs ahead of me. So I spent the time grabbing aggro off the Dancer and tanking that way.
I wound up leaving the group at level 27 and added Rage of Halone, a level 26 ability, to my rotation. I was also three challenges away from receiving 10,000 gil from the challenge log. The challenges were:
- Complete 5 dungeons
- Vote 5 times in player commendation
- Do 5 FATES
Since the challenges also award a fair bit of experience, I decided to finish the three challenges. I signed up for Halatali again, and this time I didn't have to wait long. The party was full of sprouts running the dungeon for the first time. One of the DPS decided either I was moving too slow or just didn't know better and kept attacking everything before I could get in range of the pack of mobs. Remapping my keys to fit all the abilities onto my action bars right before the fight didn't help either. The run was hectic, but I felt better about my ability to pull and hold aggro afterwards.
At the end of the Halatali run I found myself at level 29, 134 thousand experience points from level 30. I decided to finish off the level 21-30 entries in the Hunting Log. Doing so just in bonuses would earn me 79,300 experience points. Also, I had that challenge log xp bonus if I ran into a FATE. I wound up participating in 2 FATEs while working on the Hunting Log. When the last Sabotender died, I was a level 30 gladiator ready to become a paladin.
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