GUIDE: Solo levelling to 20Follow

ok problems taht i dont like about this is i really dont think BLM/any melee is gonna help you alot its obvious that you want a well rounded job to fight but maybe you should try elsewere other than sandy

Places with more worms

South Gustaberg worms till 7-8
Konstat Highlands worms till 12-13
Maybe find a partner and do worms in Korralan tunnel or Maze of Shakrami till 20ish
there you got at least for BLM anyway

I dont think it wise to take probably the 2nd weakest melee job and try to even it out but hey its your opinion

You forgot to add the Funguar mobs in the sorta hidden cave in the outpost. I don't have the game on now so I can't give a position for it. Just do some exploring. Anyways, it depends on the job as to what level you start on them but you can get up to level 13 on them real easy and get dark crystals too. You just keep running around in the circle till you get dizzy and fall down. They do link so you might be fighting up to 4 at a time. Oh well, didn't really want to give this info away but it's the only good low leveling dark crystal farming place I know of.

Nice guide... rate up for that. But it still needs some work. I'll try to help out with a few tips of my own.


If you have a high level BST (>50), subbing /BST with WHM and BLM starting from level 10 actually is a good idea. I leveled both my WHM and BLM to 36 and 35 resp. with /BST sub. It is nice to be able to charm local fauna and let them do the heavy work while you as a mage finish off the battle with a few spells. It is also the only subjob that will allow you to fight DC and EM mobs safely at levels 10-20-30... Also (not unimportant) it allows you to skill up club/wand/...skills, evasion skills, and even most magical skills. It does, however, give you a 30% EXP penalty since you will not be able to release (leave) your pet.


Never underestimate the power of grandma and her crutches . However, I would suggest skilling up on both staff and club on WHM and BLM. Some of the higher level weapon skills on both are too good to miss out. Also, as BLM, I had a preference towards daggers over clubs/staves for melee. Especially the daggers with stat effect like the Blind Dagger, Poison Dagger and Bastokan Dagger (EVA+2, ACC+2).


Agree with most of your statements. But you totally ignored drinks (or I missed them). Up to level 10-12, stacks of Selbina Milk should fill your inventory. Cheap (around 500 gil per stack) it will restore 40 HP over time. Usually this compensates for the damage you sustain fighting your DC opponents. This means you will hardly ever need to rest (thus quicker EXP rate). Also while leveling, you will gradually use up your stock of milk to make room in your inventory for the crystals and other stuff that drops from the mobs you fight. At higher levels, consider switching to au laits (more expensive, unless you can cook them up yourself).

If you are a mage that can cure, consider bringing juices. Restore MP faster, then use MP to regain HP (it is a lot quicker to heal to full MP than it is to heal to full HP).


You also didn't mention the use of EXP bonus rings. They are a great asset, especially for leveling low level jobs. The empress band gives a bonus of up to 1000 EXP (that's one and a half level free from 1-3).

Also important might be to mention the use of your NPC (if you have unlocked it). Your NPC will follow your level at least up to level 30 and can be set to either assist you in fighting (melee) or provide healing/buffing. You also get a 30% EXP penalty, but EXP rate will be increased.

USE SELBINA MILK!

generates 1 HP / Tick

cost 1-3k pr stack of 12

GODLY for levels 1-10, really good for lvs 10-15, still decent at 15-20

A cheap alternative to sushi for HP, is a stack of Baked Popoto. It's +20HP +2VIT (+25HP +3VIT for HQ). When I'm leveling my tarutaru mule, a stack of those and a stack of selbina milk go a long way.

Great post one option I'd like to mention that is always overlooked, it will help you level faster in all situations at low level and for melees get rid of the need for a mage sub....

1) Vagabonds set
Stick on all 4 peices and you get an increase of 4hp per tick. Thats quite a substantial gain at low levels.

2) Selbina Milk
Yes good old sleby milk, +1 hp per tick regen food. Au-lait gives more but they don't stack. Having stackables is key, the food lasts for 2 mins so assume for a 2 levelling session you want to take out 5 stacks fo the gear.

3) Food Coerl Sub / Meat Mithkabobs / Red Curry (for the very rich)
* Meat Miths give the +20% attack and +7 str
* Coerl sub gives a firther +1 to HP per tick whilst healing and +22% attack
* Red curry rules +4 per tick to hp regen while healing, + 24% or so attach and str +7 (also a price tag aorund 150k) last for 90 mins.

If you put those together well you'll find your down time reduced and you kill speed increased massively. Ignore sushi as targets are ep / dc and not worth in sub 50.

Obviously the above is targetted at mellee...

I've got 68 cooking skill, so in addition to the milk, I'd kill lots of bees for chips and honey, and then use the honey and a stack of fruit and make au laits. The milk itself works just fine though. Took no time for me to solo MNK from 11-13 in Dangruf using it.

No...no, no, no, you've just blown by the "Food" category entirely! Dork.


Let's say, as a Warrior10 I have around 50 attack.
Red Curry gives +24% attack up to an extra 150, and +7 str.
Grilled hare gives +30% attack up to an extra 15, +2str, -1int.
Red Curry gives you 12 attack and 7 str.
Grilled hare gives 15 attack and 2 str.
Red Curry costs 150k.
Grilled Hare costs 150g.
So you'll pay 149,940 extra gil for 5 str for 3 hours?



What did you do, solo the Kraken Club NM and sell it? x_x

It's entirely up to you, but unless you're sitting on a small fortune, it's much more economical to just research what food gives the best bang for your buck, and go with the cheaper alternatives. =p

http://mysterytour.web.infoseek.co.jp/ffxi/us/
That's a really good site, and has a comprehensive listing of foods. It'll list foods according to the buff you want, and it'll tell you what the bonus cap is for % foods.




Everyone else: Ahhh! How did I forget drinks! XD I wrote it at 1:30am, that's how. Shush. :-P
Yes, you're absolutely right. Selbina milk does wonders, and if you got the Dream Robe +1 during the last event, it'll do even better.
Drinks are...um. I find, when levelling, that I rarely use MP for anything but healing myself. It takes 2 minutes to heal to full MP, at most, and at the rate I use MP, drinks are a bit of a waste.
It's the players' personal call there, but I don't see need in wasting space on drinks if I'm not going to get good use from them.
Especially since I don't have cooking levelled. x_x;;




I already told you I was focusing on the San d'Orea circut for this job. Next time I'll do Bastok. Then I'll do Windurst. 'til then, kwitcherbichen. =p
And you'll be surprised how much blm/melee will work, especially if you find a good solid staff. Staves match or beat the damage on swords 9 times out of 10, and Blms have good skill in them.
Try it yourself and see.


Karaga: No, I didn't! Check levels 14-15.
Demetres: Once again...yes, I did. ^^; Section 4.

Someone mentioned worms in la theine or konschtat. NO. You will fight in the beastmen strongholds. When mobs are ep and giving 15-25 xp a kill, it doesnt matter whether they're worms or orcs; they all go down fairly fast. And there are about 10000x times as many orcs wandering around in ghelsba as you can find worms in konschtat or la theine.

Another thing: THIS is the reason astral rings are worth millions of gil. Astral rings will help your soloing out a LOT. They pretty much cut your resting downtime down to about 20% of what you have to without astrals.

Selbina milk is a waste of time. It's only 40 HP or like two cures. Not worth the trouble of walking to selbina, vendor, or even AH to buy it. I never used any type of drinks, and I only had to rest once every 8-10 minutes or so, even at high levels like 18+. That's cause I tried to fight mobs as weak as possible, unlike most of you morons who will read this idea and proceed to attack all the DCs and high EPs you see. You don't get it and never will, so too bad for you. Continue with your ignorant, sheep-minded ways of soloing xp.

For a melee job, you can expect about 1200 xp/hr once you get to the higher levels if you do it right. You can get a little better if you're super efficient and there's no one around, but 1200 xp/hr is the figure I would shoot for. If you can't make this at least, you are doing it wrong.

Obviously this is easier with npc, but the point is that you don't need npc to solo effectively 1-20.

I think sandoria is the best place for this (though havent tried windy and bastok yet) because orcs drop fire crystals. You make mad money killing hundreds of orcs per level cause of this. Yes, hundreds. If you can't fit over a hundred orcs into your level, again, you're doing it wrong. The wimpier the mob the better, as long as it gives you xp.

This sorta goes without saying, but what you want most in your equipment for this is defense. STR, attack, DEX, doesnt matter one bit. You want the maximum defense you can get at that level. That's why def food would be better than attack food, if def food wasn't so expensive. Anyway, after a while I stopped using jerky altogether. Why? I wanted parry skillups, and the attack food only made fights last one swing shorter anyway. Point is, defense is all that matters.

Just a reminder:
You will not get skill-ups if you keep attacking only EP.

So one 'negative' side to soloing to 20 is that when you do get into a party and start fighting ITs, your going to be a little upset that your skills are about 5+ levels below cap.

It took me a couple hours of XP parties (and some +acc food/items) to be able to relevel my GAxe skill so I can dish out the expected Weapon Skills.

If you have a second job that CAN skill up those skills, consider skilling it up before you start.

This is typically what I do.

Perhaps it was not a great example, however it was a 'realistic' example, as that was what happened to me :)

So if you do have the ability to level it up beforehand it will also help you later on, and while fighting (+5 to a skill while beating up easy prey will help).

For example, I'm planning to do Dark Knight to 15-20, and will try to level up the sword skills first with my other job (Warrior).

This is a really good guide, and I would recommend people to consider doing this. I for one will always level up to at least 15 (so I can chocobo down to the dunes), or even consider going up to 20 (and head straight to Quifm).

Some other interesting tidbits (suggestsions/warnings/etc):

1) If you die, HP right away and come back out. No point waiting for a raise at those levels.
2) Always use your XP Ring.
3) If you can get the Aketon, get it and get some free extra crystals. (Fire Crystals @ 8-10k/stack now on Slyph).
4) Keep your signet on! Crystals and CP! {Yes, Please}
5) Fighting EP Lizards are fun, you can rip through them in 1-2 hits with a good job :)
6) Set /autotarget on, and try to link EP mobs on you, so you go from one mob to the next without having to re-attack (and wait forever so you CAN attack). I like doing these with the lizards, sometimes move them around so I go through 5-6 without having to disengage.
7) Remember, healing causes you to loose TP (some of us Mage only types forgot this), so use your TP before healing.
8) Check out healing harness type gear, they might be worth using?


That's it for now.

Have good luck out there everywhere, and hopefully this post will get stickied somewhere since its a really good guide.

Yes, that's why ghelsba outpost is absolutely godly for level 12. Every lizard will give xp, and there are a freaking ton of them, and they respawn quick. Nonstop ep slaughtering at level 12; it's pure bliss. And yeah, they drop fire crystals.

The way the autotarget works is that, if the linked mob is "in front" of you when you finish off the main target mob, then autotarget will switch you over to the linked mob automatically and you won't have to put your weapon away and pull it out again. "In front" in the sense that you can shield-block and parry and guard their attacks too. If you are parrying the linked mob's attacks, you know it's in front of you enough. You can fit about three mobs in front of you at one time. This strategy requires you to be continually positioning yourself, unlocking and rotating a little bit, so that you always autotarget after each kill.

Also, it's a funny little trick that your weapon delay appears to be reset whenever the game autotargets like this. I.e., you will finish off the lizard with a blow from your greataxe, the game will switch you to the next lizard, and you will swing your greataxe at THAT lizard almost instantly - no delay. It's pretty cool looking when for example, youre fighting an ep lizard but it linked with two too weaks -- you'll finish off the ep, then one-shot both too weaks right after the other if you positioned correctly. Looks just awesome :)

Too expensive. You might as well be using hi-potions. If you really, really wanna spend mucho gil to speed up your soloing-to-20 by only a tiny percentage, the best way would probably be au laits. Again, I didn't bother to use even those, just didn't feel it necessary. My opinion is, if you're taking enough damage to start wishing you had some au laits, you're doing something wrong -- fighting stuff too high, or your gear sucks (or maybe you're just blm). This sort of soloing is really for melees.