FFXIV Leveling Guide III: Gathering Crafting & Advanced Tips

My final segment of the Final Fantasy XIV Leveling Guide will cover crafting, gathering, and some random tips that I remember to cover.

• Leveling Crafting – A few tips for crafting.
• Leveling Gathering – A few tips for gathering.
• Levequests
• Rested Experience
• Random Tips

Crafting

Crafting gets its own log type. The crafting log is a bit different than the hunting log. The first successful craft of the item on the log list marks that item off the list. You will still get bonus experience for completing an item on the list, however, you do not get extra bonus experience for completing a difficulty tier.

The best way to level up your crafting prior to level 20 that I’ve toyed around with so far is crafting base materials. For instance, Carpenter uses wood refined from logs. If you collect a bunch of logs you can get quite a few levels just crafting the level 1 recipe. Crafting is more a grind fest than anything else, so you’ll just have to put up with it. You can do Levequests for crafting though. I’ll put more about Levequests in the Levequest section.

Gathering

Here is where you’ll want to punch faces. I dislike leveling gathering. You have a log again, but the gathering log has two parts: a primary gathering and a secondary gathering. The primary gatherings are as follows.

• Logging
• Mining
• Fishing

Each primary has an associated secondary, however, since fishing has not been released yet since its restructure, that secondary is unknown. Logging’s secondary is harvesting, you will need a scythe secondary tool to harvest. Harvesting will get you materials primarily for Weaver and Culinarian. Mining’s secondary is quarrying, which requires a sledgehammer.

Failed gathering attempts give you no experience, however there is a really low success rate until you hit your first success on an item option on a node. You have to discover the item on the node and then you can start farming the item you want. Discovering an item on a node checks it off on your gathering log and gives you bonus experience. However, like crafting, gathering doesn’t give extra bonus experience for completing a difficulty tier. I really just don’t have any patience for gathering anymore so I don’t know any ways to speed it up other than Levequests.

Levequests

Levequests are like regular quests but are repeatable. You have a limit to how many Levequests you can do, known as Levequest allowances. These allowances will replenish over time, it used to be once a day in 1.0, but I haven’t really done Levequests in A Realm Reborn yet to confirm if it’s the same. I recommend saving your allowances for a class that you’re struggling to level, because Levequests really boost the leveling speed.

You can’t start Levequests until you complete the level 10 main scenario quest so your allowances won’t build up until then. When you do Levequests make sure you set your home point to the camp that they come from. If you die and have to leave the area you fail the quest. You will also fail if you queue into a dungeon while in the middle of your progress so keep that in mind as well. Failed Levequests can be reactivated, but at the cost of another allowance so try not to fail.

Rested Experience

If you’re planning on being logged out or idle for any length of time make sure you are at an Aetheryte camp or a major city. While you are in these areas you will build up rested experience, which will boost your experience gain for the amount of rested experience you have built up. It’s really useful for crafting and gathering, though you can use it on your battle classes as well.

Your rested experience is marked by a translucent blue meter within your normal experience meter, with the exception of if it carries beyond the point you would level. If it carries beyond the level it will be red instead.

Random tips

A few random tips I have, turn in quests on a class you don’t want to spend much time on but want to get 50 on. Make sure that class can turn in those quests though. Stock up on materials and crystals before starting a crafting class. Invest in retainers as soon as you complete the prerequisite quests. You’ll need to store all of your materials somewhere. Level ALL the things! No seriously, I recommend leveling them all so that you’ll be more versatile for endgame, plus it will make unlocking new jobs easier.

That’s pretty much it. I hope this three-part guide has helped you out. Please follow the links to the other parts of the guide; Getting Started and Experience. For more guides please check my all encompassing list of guides.