Here are a bunch of helpful leveling tips for Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn by kallell.

• Levels 1-10, grab a buddy and chain monsters your level to 1-2 levels above you. Make sure you find a camp in a area where it's not too congested. You should be able to do this in an hour or so. Another thing to note here is it's ideal to bring your level 5/10/15 gear with you so you don't have to make another trip in to the city. You can pick up these items in each cities trading type alley (market board, tons of merchants, etc.) from various NPCs.
• Guildhests as soon as they are available (you unlock one by one) - 1x. These are great exp the first time you run. Also, ESPECIALLY AS A DPS, MAKE SURE TO CHECK "JOIN INSTANCE ALREADY IN PROGRESS" in the top left. This will save you a ton of time finding one, and you still will get credit for completion.
• Instances as soon as they are available - 1x. These are great exp the first time you run. Also, ESPECIALLY AS A DPS, MAKE SURE TO CHECK "JOIN INSTANCE ALREADY IN PROGRESS" in the top left. This will save you a ton of time finding one. This will save you a ton of time finding one, and you still will get credit for completion.



• Hunting logs (not GC hunting logs) asap. Take note of the monster levels you are killing. This will be crucial as to "where to go next". Use http://xivdb.com/?search/!filters/IkhMT0ci if you need help finding the mobs.
• Find a zone that has a good amount of people in it and do fates that are your level to 5 levels higher or so. I will say however, there is a happy balance between too many players in the zone and too few. Too many will cause fates to end extremely quickly, and you will have issues even selecting targets. Too few and the fates will take too long to complete and cause not as many to spawn. In either case, pick up all the quests from all the camps, and ONE of the leves (I only say one since you only get the exp bonus from the first leve you do in the main area). Do fates as soon as they pop, then do quests in your downtime. Eventually, you will run out of main quests for the area. At that point, If the fates are good, you can continue to grind them + normal monsters your level or above (chain bonus) for a level or two. I personally don't recommend staying in a zone where fates are greater than 2 levels below you, but it's your call.
• As mentioned in number 4, figure out the level of some of the monsters you killed in your hunting logs. Based on your current level, figure out which mobs were a few levels above where you are at. For example, if you are level 30, you should be finding monsters level 32 from your hunting logs. It's a pretty good rule of thumb.
• You may notice that I didn't mention the main storyline. While this is a pretty epic questline, I will admit it's a bit tedious as it tends to have you run from one end of the world to the other a lot. I stated above that I did "key" quests as well. These will help you immensely in your leveling endeavors, so take the time to do them if you haven't already -- I did as much as i had to to get my chocobo, materia creation, gc, and fc. Not to mention, with the duty finder being down this weekend, I ended up constantly stuck at certain points. Overall, I believe you should only need to get your main story up to level 21 ish (quest level) to be sufficient.
• Level 20, join a GC, farm 2k seals asap from GC leves, and get your chocobo license. More detailed guide here - http://www.ffxivguild.com/ffxiv-arr-guide-for-how-to-get-a-chocobo-in-a-realm-reborn/[2] . In addition, fates can provide a decent amount of seals as well. I personally took the leve route (make sure they are guildleves, not regular), and it took me about 30 mins or so cranking the difficulty to +4. Locations for guildleves are, Moraby Drydocks in Lower La Noscea for The Maelstrom, Hawthorne Hut in the East Shroud for The Order of the Twin Adder, Camp Drybone in Eastern Thanalan for The Immortal Flames.
• Level 25, join or create a FC, as you gain rank/exp in them while passively leveling.
• Level 30, do the quest which enables you to use your chocobo in combat ("My Fiesty Chocobo" quest from Camp Tranquil). Make sure you buy a ton of Gysahl Greens, as they are required to call your chocobo to fight for 30 minutes at a time. Chocobo's level up and gain skill points which you can allocate (character profile, then the little chocobo icon), so use this as often as you can. Futhermore, your chocobo can be set in different states - defensive (tank), healing (heal party), offensive (dps), or free (makes logical decisions on its own based on the situation). You can change out the gear for the chocobo as well, but at this point it's all atheistics and provides no offensive/defensive bonuses. You can get this gear from your GC rank 2 and above. Also, in case anyone was curious, the scholar butterfly pet WILL heal your chocobo like any other group member automatically!
• Level 30, do the quest to get your soul crystal pertaining to whatever advanced class you want (this is to say you have the proper main/sub class to 30/15 respectively). If you do not have your sub class to 15, go do that quick.
• Make sure to do your class quests ever 5 levels, as they give you nice gear + crucial spells. This includes subclasses and baseclasses.
• Grab every Aetherlyte you can, regardless if you are going to level in that zone or not, as porting (while somewhat expensive) is awesome. Not to mention, this will help immensely with other chars + main storylines.
• Grab every Chocobo porter you see as well, while this takes slightly longer than porting, it saves you some money. Think of them as flight paths ;)
• Keep your low level spiritbound armor and turn it in to materia for higher level gear. You get the quest to create materia (any DoW class can do this) around level 18 I believe from your main storyline quest. To meld it (insert in to gear), you need to have the correct crafting profession high enough (19 or above + do the crafting quest). More info - http://www.ffxivguild.com/ffxiv-a-realm-reborn-materia-guide/
• Always have a surplus of food. That 3% exp bonus coupled with the + skills and abilities adds up quick.
• You can purchase EXP scrolls from your GC as well for seals. If you have an abundance of seals and do not care about some of the other gear, this might be a great option for you.
• For the most part, I saved the majority of my leves. Since gathering professions feel to be the most tedious to me, I'm saving all I can for those. You get 3 every 12 hours, and can store up to 100 - with max of 16 being active at any given point. Be careful though, because once you accept a leve it subtracts from your total; even if you abandon it.
• If you are trying to kill mobs in a heavily congested area, remember that you don't have to tag to get credit essentially. As long as you do a decent amount of damage you will get the item/exp. Furthermore, you can always invite others in the area to help finish the quest more quickly. Many will turn down the invite, but you'll end up meeting just as many friendly people in the same boat as well.
• A quick note of clarification on only doing an instance/guildhest/challenge the first time. While they still could grant decent exp doing them after the first time, usually it only makes sense to do this as a healer or tank due to the instant queues. You cannot queue for while your chocobo is out fighting with you, which then in turn makes leveling take slightly longer while waiting to join (which can take upwards of 30-45 mins).
• If you get bored leveling a gathering class, you can accept quests as the gatherer and complete them with a battle class you feel like leveling. Then turn them in as the gatherer and get the exp. It helps break up the tedium of grinding a DoL.
• For DoH related jobs; if you turn in high quality (HQ) items for tradeleves you get a 200% bonus for exp
• Make use of your "recommend" menu option within your main on screen actions (bottom right, looks like a piece of paper with lines across). This will help show you monsters in your hunting logs, fates, quests, and leves within your level range. Furthermore, if you go in to your escape menu you can make this menu pop up by default upon entering a new zone.
• Some have brought up a good point about leveling and missing out on some of the story. I wanted to add you can still see any missed backstory and cinematics up to whatever point you left off on by checking in to an Inn, then reading the book on the dresser.
• Don't be too concerned leveling up where to spend your skill points. Make sure to spend the points. While each class does have preferred stats that carry over to your advanced class (ie ACN > SMN), you can buy a respec voucher from your GC for 10k seals.
• Saving Gil when traveling to Limsa Lominsa from Ul'Dah: If you've got the Aetheryte Plaza crystal in Limsa Lominsa favourited, it's faster (no cutscenes) and less expensive (170 gil as opposed to 200) to simply Teleport there from Western Thanalan. Take the Aethernet to the Gate of the Sultana and teleport from there. Note: To get to Gridania, go to Central Thanalan and teleport from there. You only save 6 gil, but still.

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