More on leveling... What the behest!?

Talking about levelling from my previous post was all about grinding and how at 20 it was like hill a SP wall.  This time I'm going to talk about Battle Warden Behests, which for us, is the new way to level.

What is a behest?

A behest is a request, that request comes from a battle warden which appears at each crystal at a camp or out in the field.  The battle warden npc will spawn every hour, on the hour at which point you can sign up by talking to them.  There is a player limit of 15 so you will need to be quick if the camp is pretty busy!  Once signed up the event will begin at 5 minutes past the hour.

So what happens?

Hopefully someone will start group, but if not I would recommend that you just invite all the people with the paper icon next to their name just for the sake of getting things going.  

When the event starts, the battle warden will start moving towards areas where the mobs are.  The even is just like a leve quest and you can see areas on the map where the mobs live.  You run around killing everything listed on the screen.  Once done more appear (usually 2 mobs), after they are delt with, the behest is complete!  Talking to the battlewarden will give you some gil, plus a chance to port back to the camp/area you started in.

Mmmmkay, sounds okay, but how does it make for good levelling?

During the behest, all the mobs that are killed net you SP as if you had just solo'd it.

Yeah, so?

If you get the maximum amount of people (15) sign up, the amount of mobs increase, which at level 20 is around 40+ mobs.  The mobs die so fast and furious in the space of 10 minutes that you can get around 4-5k SP.  In effect your getting SP from grinding roughly the amount you could in just over a hour, but in 10 minutes.  Leaving you about 45 minutes to kill which you could grind some more, or like me switch to crafting.

Conclusion

Levelling by behests will most definitely make the best use of your time, not only does it give good SP, but it also gives you a chance to break up the grind.  Take a break, craft, whatever you like in between!

As always, there is a downside.  As there is a limit to the amount of people who can join, you are not guaranteed a spot, turn up early, keep an eye out, and click fast to get your spot!

Happy levelling! 

Leveling Post Nov Patch

By now I would imagine everyone knows about the Nov update and what it brought to the table.  But what did those figures in terms of required SP per level actually mean in terms of levelling time?

It now takes roughly an hour to get from 1 to 10... It actually took me very little effort to take a DOW & DOM over level 10. The first few levels come fast and furious and it does tend to slow a little the closer you get to 10, but as long as you keep the momentum going, the levels fly by.

Ok so in terms of what was being killed? well it's very simple really, rats & beetles can take you there in no time.  Running out of limsa, I killed rats on the way south to the beetles and started killing them at lvl3.

At level 10 the levelling curve changes, and starts to slow a little.  10-12 can be done in a hour or less killing puk, then moving on to 12-16 which will take roughly 3 hours more working on Dodo's.  After 16 you are looking at much longer levelling times but still within reason easy enough to get multiple levels in a matter of hours.

The real hit is when you hit 20, as soon as that little rank up flutters about, you can kiss that 150-200 SP goodbye, you will be looking at ranges of 60-90 per mob.  The sad thing is I was soloing nanny goats and crabs and still only getting 80-90 per.  I found testing each type of mob to be best, find those who were quick to kill vs dmg taken.  Regardless after 20 you are looking at a level or 2 per level if you work at it.

Partying below 20 seems to hurt SP and XP gains so I wouldn't advise it, unless you are like the Kitn and I who just like to play together.  As a party below 20, 150 SP/XP gains turn in to 70-100.

I'm yet to group up after 20 and see if there is any benefit at all but so far it would seem that party SP/XP doesn't seem to be working very well.

So, there we have it, to recap:

1-10 : Easy as pie, face roll your way to 10 in about an hour.
10-12 : Easy enough in a hour to two.
12-16 : Looking at about 3-4 hours solid grinding.
16-20 : Talking a day or so.
20+ : Yeeeaaaahhh..... Ummmm..... Shoot, hell if I know what to do!

This didn't include any other means of SP/XP gain other than grinding.