Level Black Mage til lvl20+ in 2 days
First of all this is my first guide so don’t expect a wonder work.
This guide is based on facts and not theories like most guides are, I try to keep it realistic and give you the best tips I got to offer. I did this myself in three weekdays.
Three? you might ask, yes because I’m still in school so I don’t have time to play 24/7.
You could do this in just two days, weekends recommended, if you got the time and the patience.
It DOES get boring from time to time, no point trying to fool you thinking this goes in a flash and that it’s so much fun you’ll be cracking up, it’s not.
But it is effective none the less, so with a determined mind, loads of coke (or mountain dew, as I’ve learned that’s what you US people drink) you should keep reading!
Note: I’ve also inlcuded some nice tips such as how to make easy gil, path exploits and just general good ideas of where to level for most exp.
Pre-leveling
Before we start our long journey we need to equip ourselfs with some gear and spells.
I would recommend having some ’starters gil’ so that you can buy armor and spells for the next couple of levels too and just carry them with you until you reach the required level.
It saves loads of time.
The following is a list of items I recommend you to buy, also when to buy them and what they cost.
Level 1
Robe ______________200g
Circlet_____________ 400g
Slops______________100g
Ash Clogs__________100g
Cuffs______________100g
Blood Stone_________200g
Ash Staff___________200g
Input: I recommend you to buy all of these parts as you won’t buy anything new until lvl8.
Level 8
Tunic_____________2500g
Mitts_______________500g
Slacks____________1500g
Solea______________200g
Feather Collar______5000g
Cape______________200g
Input: Feather Collar would be optional since it’s quite expensive, personally I didn’t waste my cash on it.
Level 12
Linen Robe____________1500g
Linen Cuffs_____________700g
Linen Slops____________1000g
Holly Clogs______________500g
Legionnaire’s Staff_______5000g
Eremit’s Ring____________3000g
Onyx Earring____________2500g
Opal Earring____________2500g
Input: You could get the earrings, rings and the weapon at lvl10, but I recommend waiting until lvl12, to save time.
Also take note that you will have to get two Eremit’s Ring, which will end up being 6000gil.
Might sound expensive but you will keep the expensive stuff for quite a while, so it’s definatley worth it.
Level 20
Black Tunic___________12500g
Black Neckerchief_______3000g
Scentless Armlets_______2000g
Friar’s Rope____________5000g
Black Slacks____________3000g
Mage’s Sandals________12000g
Cotton Cape_____________900g
Hermit’s Wand___________300g
Input: You gone "Whoa?!" yet? Yeah, this IS expensive and not neccessary for most. It all comes down to how long you are planning to stay in you 20ish, myself I’m going to take a long break at lvl23 to do quests, crafting, farming gil and so on.
You could get the Armlets at lvl12 and the Rope at lvl14, but again I advice you not to, to save time.
I recommend you to buy the lvl1 gear and the lvl8 gear right away, then go back to town at lvl12 and upgrade.
Also take in account that you do resell all the gear you’ve bought so it all ends up being less expensive than it looks like.
You can probably get all the lvl1 gear at the vendors, except for the Cape, and at a much cheaper price too. Always check vendors before you invest in low level items!
For the spell part just keep updated at all times, I bought all spells up to lvl12-14 from the start.
Leveling
Level 1-5
Once you have bought everything you need and equipped it, head to East Sarubaruta, next to the AH.
As soon as you’ve gone thru the gates turn to your right, there’s a small enclosed area where you will probably find alot of people fishing.
With signet on the bees here will drop Wind crystals very often, you will probably end up with 3-4 stacks at lvl5, which will get you about 4500gil.
Just run around here and kill tiny mandragoras and bees until you reach lvl5, which shouldn’t take long.
Level 5
Go back to the gate where you first came from and this time go left instead.
Just a couple of feet from there you will find some trees and probably one or two Yagudos, along with some rarabs and birds.
I would suggest you start off killing rarabs and then move on to birds.
Level 6
Go a little bit further to your left (left if you’re standing outside the gate) and you will reach a river to your right and a lake to your left.
Inbetween these two there spawns crawlers, yagudos and carrion crows, kill these.
Level 7
Now it’s time to move your ass a bit.
Head a bit further from where you are and you will reach the first entrance to West Sarubaruta, go thru it.
Now run forwards until you have a hill infront of you or a bit to the right of you.
Run across the hill and a little bit to the right to reach the Outpost, there you can get signet and set your homepoint, which I recommend you to do.
Here you can kill birds and rarabs, probably not yagudos yet, since the level of all mobs here are noticable higher.
Level 8
Either stay where you are and move on to harder mobs if you can or head over to the tower, which is located northeast from there, or above giddeus if you like.
Inside of this tower goblins and bats will spawn quicker than normal and with signet on they will make you a fortune.
Staying there from 8-10 (which WILL slow you down!!) can net you a nice 7-10k gil.
Tip:
Altough I recommend you to make a new character and level from 6-10 there, then delevel to 6 again and repeat.
This is a great way of making gil and I have found that a Hume Monk is best for the job.
Level 9-10
Now you get Aero which will help you out ALOT.
Stay where you are but advance to yagudos, crawlers and such.
Do NOT, I repeat, do NOT go into Giddeus. If anyone gives you this advice just ignore it.
The mobs there are quite hard and the place is very enclosed and crowded, you’ll end up having five mobs chasing you until you die, you won’t make it out of there alive.
For you who live in San D’Oria or Bastok, you should head to Crag of Dem or Crag of Holla.
Crag Strategy:
There you can take on any VT con mob. Just fire off Aero from a nice distance on the mob, run up the stairs to the crystal and wait for it to come closer (not close enough to hit you), then run off the edge and fire off another spell.
What will happen is that the mob will have to run back down the stairs to get to you, cause of a path exploit.
Once you’ve fired off that second spell turn to your right, hugging the wall of the platform, this will make the mob go to the right to get to you. Once he reaches where you can see him thru the whole (there’s a space between the two walls in the platform design, where you are standing) fire off the third spell, then run up at the platform again and repeat.
Level 11-14
For you Windhurst people thinking you missed out on a nice pathing exploit; you didn’t.
We just have to wait a bit longer, that’s all.
Head to Crag of Mea located in Tahrongi Canyon and do the crag strategy explained above.
Start by killing saplings, rarabs and pugmoi (or what they are called), then move on to goblins and bees.
At lvl13 or so you should be able to take down Dhalmels, which gives 160xp each.
These are even the easiest since they have to be close to attack, so you can drag them down there all the way from the alley, where there should be teams fighting.
Level 14-20
You have a couple of choices to make here.
- Find a team in the maze (located northeast of Mea) and kill mazemakers, very nice exp.
You could do this to lvl17 and then get a team in Valkurm Dunes and get yourself to lvl20.
- Find a team in Valkurm Dunes (take the boat to Selbina from Mhaura) and level to lvl20.
The thing is that at lvl18 you’ll start thinking it goes slow chaining crabs and pugils.
What you could do is either go back to the maze at lvl18 and solo mazemakers (you got Blizzard now) which will give you about 140-200xp, or you could use the exploit path at the beach.
However, this exploit can you banned quite easily since there’s always people around there.
Beach Strategy:
Take on any tough mob and run to the wrecked boat, then run thru between the boat and the wall to make the mob go around the whole boat to get to you.
As you may have figured out you simply run thru, cast a spell, run back, cast a spell and repeat.
Note: You should learn how to magic burst when you reach these levels, people will love you for it.
It’s okay if you don’t have the whole chart in your head, just ask the team what skillchain they will do and what element
you can magic burst with.
Right now I am level 20 and I have just done my subjob quest, so I am currently leveling WHM.
This took me three days as I mentioned from start, and that’s because I got school, homework and other things to do.
Doing this on a weekend is definatley to recommend as you got all the time you need and you could play for alot of hours in a row.
After lvl20 you should probably head to Quifm Island and get a team, however according to alot of my friends this is very hard these days, so they often stay at dunes a bit longer.
As I feel rather nice today I’ll share one of the many great tips I’ve gotten from my Japanese friends.
Level 20-25+
Head to bastok Mines and go to the Koro Tunnel.
Either get a WHM to cast Bastonra on you or if you subjob as one do it yourself, and then start killing off Worms.
These mobs will cast Rasp on you which can be quite annoying, but appearantly shouldn’t cast Stone II as often.
So instead of fighting the worms in Quifm Island and having a hard time because of the repeated castings of Stone II, just solo here or get a mage friend to help you.
A whitemage for example could silence the mobs and it would go alot faster.
Also to take note of; alot of people claim they can get out of range from a Worm and heal and still have it engaged to you.
According to me this isn’t possible, it can respawn or someone just might kill it for you, which I would like to call stealing.
So bringing some juice to regain your MP is well worth it.
