[Nattack]

the lower levels are remedied by FoV
and there is a guide, look on bst on wiki, "Hunting grounds" is what i used years back

[anyenai]

I'd assume I would just PL myself in normal EXP parties until about 40, then start soloing, as I have heard the lower BST lvls are not so fun.

oy vey

[Rikkitikkitavi]

oy vey

How do you think I level so many jobs to 75 lol. Taking the frustrating part out of them makes them enjoyable and fun ^^. Noone likes to seek in Valkrum dunes for 2 hours.

I'm liking this EP exp bonus though, I solo'd like 20k exp on thf the other day killing birds outside Whitegate for WS points lol.

[Requim]

For a game this old, it's really hard to not become jaded toward leveling. While you can definitely enjoy a job, at some point the returns from fun tend to fall behind (xp/hr)*ease.

Don't get me wrong, knowing how to solo, manage hate, and use your job to the fullest is important, but most jobs in xp is redundant. You get new JAs, change your gear, but you basically repeat what you've been doing in a difference place (or with a new sync!). Certain jobs definitely experience a change in play style at some point (leave, sic), certain types of camps become available (bombs), and other anomalies occur, but once you adjust your play style it just becomes redundant again.

Beastmaster can work very well in normal parties, and when trying to get the best return on your time, those normal parties tend to be significantly less risky and more xp. The nice thing about bst is that you can alternate the two, shifting from parties to looking for a party, without stopping xp.

And not everyone with jobs 66+ was intentionally aiming for a maat's cap! Some of us have very short attention spans for any sort of play style (and then were repeatedly scolded by friends that they might as well get it). It is rather disappointing to see so many people with the cap that really only leveled the job for the cap. I'm constantly struggling what to level next just because they are all so different and fun in their own ways, but to each their own.

Recently, the best xp I've been getting pre-merits is the old school areas. Been staticing with 3 friends as rng, sam and cor + rdm, with me DBing another rdm. Even with the rdm leaching we're been getting 10-13k by grabbing a brd or DD and just burning through Qufim, Yuhtunga, Yhoat, and Garlaige. If you can bring a PL similar setups can easily get 10k in any of those areas, which will make a DD bst level in no time.

Though, it's best to know how to play your job before devolving in to pure TP setups.

[Janeash]

Recently, the best xp I've been getting pre-merits is the old school areas. Been staticing with 3 friends as rng, sam and cor + rdm, with me DBing another rdm. Even with the rdm leaching we're been getting 10-13k by grabbing a brd or DD and just burning through Qufim, Yuhtunga, Yhoat, and Garlaige. If you can bring a PL similar setups can easily get 10k in any of those areas, which will make a DD bst level in no time.

Though, it's best to know how to play your job before devolving in to pure TP setups.

Yeah this is quite true!
I've actually had a friend who made a lot of worm parties at Qufim who would invite me to come along to get some merits.
There's a huge choice of jobs seeking around 18-25 that it's pretty easy to make a party and burn some worms.
If you have a friend to plvl you, it's even better because you can basically roam around the place killing everything with very little downtime. As your lvl sync party member gets too high and leaves, you just get another and you can just go on like that till people get too tired to party.
My friend hit 75 on his MNK in Qufim and he got there in no time at all.
Although he needed a few extra days skilling up his Hand to Hand so he could get Asuran Fist ws NM set.
Anyway, I think if this was a common thing, maybe SE would prevent people healing from outside the party if they had the level sync effect on.. {How dare they?}

[Follow]

maybe SE would prevent people healing from outside the party if they had the level sync effect on.. {How dare they?}

im nto gunna lie, that would break the game.

[Janeash]

lol why not? They broke offensive campaign when they nerfed exp on wall beating.
It's made me not want to do that anymore because of it.
Oh yeah Bastok had it's first week of town battles of 2009 last week so of course it took me 2hrs to complete my ops YAY!

[Follow]

it would break because no one outside the pt could heal you..?

which ruins curing?

[Janeash]

I am not going to disagree with you but SE have made some changes that have gone against the benefits of the player recently.

[Goldengreg]

The last thing SE broke was to withdraw the drain/aspir samba effect on our pets.

I hated them for this.

[(Balmarog)]

Question-
Do pets still take away from xp earned?

[Nattack]

no, but they will still contribute to the highest level of the party if the mob level is higher than yourself.

[Blackmoon]

From 21 - 35 - I just ran through dc/ep mobs and just destroyed those levels.

35+ = fun, leveled about every 2 times I was on, limited play time.

60+ = started to slow down and had some lapses in camps

67+ = leeches vs parrots (colibri)

currently @ 71 - having a blast leveling on character - should have leveled on other character.

[Auronius]

Y'all are crazy.

If BST isn't the hardest job to level, what is? o.O

I'm talking solo.

If you're going to level bst in parties. Honestly, why bother? Just level war or drk, or roll another character and level sam again.

If you're leveling BST so you can fap over your ridill and adaberk well... then you're a douchebag.

I just got bst to 75 the other day. 1-35 is brutal. 70-74 is brutal. 74-75 is FUCKING brutal. It was a labor of love for me til I hit TAU areas where BST leveling goes from an intense, always on your toes experience to a there's no reason for you to pay any attention at all whatsoever experience.

It's difficult early on, painfully slow and brutally grindy later on. BST is very difficult to level.

[Nattack]

BST isnt the hardest job to level BECAUSE it can solo, you can play bst whenever you want. as long as theres a camp open. and, you can take a few hits.

I'm having the hardest time with blm due to a lack of viable camps. though now that im 66 that trouble seems to be alleviating. (60-64 were a drag)

past that, THF may be difficult to level in areas, and beyond that. I think PUP or DRK may be the absolute hardest, due to drk being useless pre-60 and pup being useless preeverything (teehee)

[Janeash]

Y'all are crazy.

If BST isn't the hardest job to level, what is? o.O

I'm talking solo.

If you're going to level bst in parties. Honestly, why bother? Just level war or drk, or roll another character and level sam again.

If you're leveling BST so you can fap over your ridill and adaberk well... then you're a douchebag.

I just got bst to 75 the other day. 1-35 is brutal. 70-74 is brutal. 74-75 is FUCKING brutal. It was a labor of love for me til I hit TAU areas where BST leveling goes from an intense, always on your toes experience to a there's no reason for you to pay any attention at all whatsoever experience.

It's difficult early on, painfully slow and brutally grindy later on. BST is very difficult to level.

I found 70-72 pretty fast as long as I could get the colibri camp to myself (yes I know some days that was hard) but 72-73 was pretty long and the last 2 lvls were finished off at mount Z which wasn't so hard once I learned how to work the camp.
The long tnl's (to next levels) at 74-75 is pretty slow but you just got to keep it up.

I can relate to you post there and people tend to level BST for different reasons. (I've mentioned a few in some of my previous posts in this thread, namely Maat's cap.)

I took the BST sub/campaign battle route to make life a little easier when I was trying to hit 75 on my THF because trying to get a party on that job is even more brutal then BST main, lol.
I guess it's safe to say that in a party my THF is pretty crappy and I wouldn't take it to any end game events because I feel that my friends would judge my performance as gimpy at best.
So in a nutshell I can't really call anyone for taking an easier route to hit 75 if they choose to do that on BST because I have done that myself on other jobs.

[Nusayb]

For me it hasn't been bad so far. The changes that SE made, letting you get Refresh buff and stuff, help out a lot for the lower levels. I mean 1MP/tick is enough to keep you topped off most of the time. The deaths can be frustrating though. And 90% of the time with me it's like "damn you shouldn't have taken that risk". Occasionally there's just bad luck but if you're careful I think I'd take BST leveling over pretty much anything because you can do it any time, if you got just an hour or two you can bang out some exp. For the slower levels, just get a level sync party.

Of course I'm only 43 now so we'll see about the long levels (65-75). I think what I'm going to do is duo, it's so much safer that way, and easier to chain too. I level sync'ed tonight to a lower BST and we did Qufim at 6-7k/hour, was very happy with that, and I think we're going to just set up a nightly leveling session.