New Player Guide (2017) by Aysha

Category:Guides
== Aysha's Brand New Player Walkthrough 1-99+Endgame-Ready Guide ==
Hello! I am Aysha of Slyph, and I've decided to write a guide aimed at completely new players, or players who once played, but for some reason or another do not have access to their old accounts, or they decided to start an entirely new character because they feel so lost with their old character.
This guide is designed to get someone from Level 1 with absolutely nothing to Level 99 in a reasonably fast and efficient manner.
This is a walkthrough, and I will provide step-by-step instructions at first, but as the guide goes on, I am going to assume that you're learning things as you go, though important things I will stress.
This website is rather good for most early-game content, though please be aware that some information might be outdated (we're working on it!). I will be referring to this site as "the wiki" in this Guide.
I'm not going to provide step-by-step details on specific quests (unless I feel it is important to do so), because they can be found on this wiki. I will, of course, give you the names of the quest(s) in question so that you can search for them and find them.
I also want to make a couple caveats about this guide:
You can choose whatever race you want, make sure you pick whatever race you feel the best about. Your race cannot be changed by any means. However, I am going to ask you to pick Windurst as your starting Nation, and Thief as your starting job. There are various reasons for this, having to do with ease of travel as far as Windurst goes, and Thief... well, Thief has so many awesome tools to help the first-time leveler that I seriously cannot recommend starting as anything else.
So, before we go further, let me explain "Why Thief?". Thieves are excellent solo jobs. They get Treasure Hunter, which makes items drop more often (this helps out a lot when trying to get a quest item to drop from a monster), they have high evasion and reasonable defense for a melee damage-dealer, they have Flee (which is a short-term large boost to movement speed), Hide (can sometimes save your life by allowing you to escape combat), Perfect Dodge (which is relevant in a couple different places), Steal and Despoil (good for making money later on).
With all of these tools in the toolbox, you will be well-equipped to take on the various challenges that await your path to Level 99.
This Guide is written so that 90% of all of this can be done absolutely solo with no help from the outside. I think the entire thing can be solo'd, but a couple of the things one needs to do to get to Lv99 will be incredibly difficult to do solo. Thankfully, the hard stuff is mostly rather quick and easy, it shouldn't be too much trouble to get help with, assuming you are prepared ahead of time (which I will guide you to do). The only exception is the Yagudo Crest, and I will be explaining that in the Guide. Everything else shouldn't be too hard to do solo.
So, let's get on with this, shall we!?
==Glossary of Terms==
For those of you who have never played FFXI before, or even an MMORPG before, I will include a small glossary of terms so you do not get confused when I use certain acronyms that are natural to FFXI players.
1). Aggro = When an aggressive monster senses you and proceeds to attack you. IE, "I got aggro'd" = "I got too close to an aggressive monster and it is attacking me." or "Does this monster aggro?" = "Does this monster attack players unprovoked?"
2). Mob = Monster/Enemy/etc. Anything you can attack or fight.
3). NPC = Non-Player Character, these have green names above their heads and can be talked to by targeting them and hitting the enter key.
4). "???" = Various objects in Vana'diel will simply read "???" when targeted. These are usually used in quests and have no purpose unless you're on said quest, or possess a certain item. They are usually examined for cutscenes, or sometimes one trades items to these to do something specific.
5). Link = When one mob sees another similar mob (usually, of the same type) in combat, it will join in. For example, if you see 2 bats near each other that will link, and they are not aggressive and you attack one, both of them will attack you. If a third bat wanders close enough, it will attack as well. When a monster links, it will attack whoever the mob sees was attacking.
6). Add = Additional Monster (in Combat). Whenever you are fighting one enemy, and another aggros, or links and starts attacking you/your group, we call that an "add".
7). True Sight/True Sound = Every mob in the game has one or more methods of detection. Learning what detects by what is crucial, as there are various methods of Sneak (Sound) and Invisible (Sight) to avoid the monster detecting you. True Sight, and True Sound monsters, however, are immune to these effects and will still sense you even if you have these effects on you.
8). Magic Aggro = Certain enemies like Dolls, Pots, or Elementals will aggro a player whenever they attempt to cast a spell and are close enough. Sneak and Invisible will not prevent Magic Aggro, regardless of what other detection(s) these mobs have.
9). Blood Aggro = Certain enemies (usually undead) will aggro a player whenever they have Yellow, Orange, or Red HP. Lower HP = Further range they can detect you. Most undead detect by sound, and said undead will still aggro by Low HP even if you have a Sneak effect up.
10). RoE = Records of Eminence. You'll find out what this is shortly.
11). Zone = Each area of Vana'diel is a "zone". When used as a noun, it basically means "area". When used as a verb, it means to go from one area to another. Zone Line refers to the point where you transition from one zone to another. When a player zones, any mobs that were attacking them will stop doing so (because you're no longer in the area). Be warned, however, that should you get hit at the exact moment you attempt to leave the zone, you may get interrupted and the zone attempt will fail.
12). Game Day = Time in Vana'diel is split up into 8 different Game Days. In order, they are: Fireday, Earthday, Waterday, Windsday, Iceday, Lightningday, Lightday, Dark Day. This is indicated by a small colored dot next to the clock beside your compass. If you don't see a clock or a compass, type /clock. A good way to remember what the order is, is the phrase "FEW WILL D(ie)". The two W's are in alphabetical order, and Light/Dark are side-by-side.
13). JP Midnight / RL Day = Many things in the game reset every RL Day, or Japanese Midnight. This occurs at 3PM GMT. If you live in an area that observes DST, in Winter Months this will be 10AM EST and in the Summer it will be 11AM EST.
14). RL Week: Some things (like Conquest) reset every Sunday at JP Midnight.
15). AH: Auction House.
==Before Doing Anything Else...==
Before we do anything else, let's do some Config stuff.
Hit the - key twice to open Menu 2 and go to "Config".
In Gameplay: Inventory Sort: Set this to "Auto".
In Chat Filters: Turn the following to "ON":
 -Special Actions started on/by others
 -Special Action effects on/by others
 -Attacks by others
 -Missed attacks by others
 -Attacks evaded by others
 -Damage taken by others
 -Special Actions started on/by NPCs
 -Special Action effects on/by NPCs
 -Attacks by NPCs
 -Missed attacks by NPCs
 -Attacks evaded by NPCs
 -Damage taken by NPCs
 -Missed Attacks by You (Optional!)
In Misc: Damage Display: Both
In Key Assignment -> Commands: Ranged Attack (highlight this and hit "G")
Background Aspect Ratio: 16:9 or 16:10 (whatever your display is)
Global: Auto-Disconnect: OFF
Also, in Config 2 and Config 3, look for these settings:
Status Effect Duration: ON
Target Status Effect Display: ON
Some of these are preferences, and your preferences may differ from mine, but these are my recommendations. You may wish to tweak other things like windows and such once you get used to the game, but these will at least get the game to a playable state.
There are also a few text commands that you can set, that I will explain briefly:
/partyinfo showtp (this will display the TP value for yourself and human party members near your HP/MP meters). Once you turn this on, it will stay on even through logouts.
/displayhead on/off (this will display/hide your helmet. I find that I don't particularly like helmets in most MMOs I play, I usually hide their appearance. If you're like me, you will want to set this. Once you've set it on or off, it will remain that way until you change it. Hiding your helmet takes precedence over /lockstyle; if you have helmets turned off and try to lockstyle a helmet, you still won't see it).
/lockstyleset # (replace the # with the number of one of your macro gear sets). This will make your current armor look like the armor specified in the Macro Set of your choice. For example, if you set up Macro Gear Set #20 with a set of gear and then type /lockstyleset 20, you will look like you are wearing the gear specified in gear set #20, assuming your current job can normally wear that gear. This will persist until you change jobs or use /lockstyle off.
==Part 1: Getting Started==
Again, as I said before, I am going to assume you are starting in Windurst, and are a Thief. Don't worry! You can change your job at any time. This guide, however, is going to assume that you are keeping your thief leveled. This guide also assumes that you installed the Seekers of Adoulin Edition of FFXI, which means you have all of the Add-On content registered. You will know you have all of the Add-Ons installed by looking at the various Add-On banners on the Title Screen. If they are all lit normally, then you have everything installed and registered.
If you started as a Mithra or a Tarutaru, you will start in Windurst Waters. If you started as a Hume, Elvaan, or Galka you will start in Windurst Woods. You will get some dialogue (it will be slightly different depending on your character's race), and an adventurer's coupon. The NPC will teach you how to use the map (you can type /map to bring the map up) and the Marker system (you will need to know this later, so don't forget!) to show you where the Jack of Spades is.
Before you do anything, open your menu up and go into Equipment. Unequip all of your gear by choosing the gear you already have equipped. Escape out of that screen and then go to Menu 2 (hit the menu key again) and select "View House". Select "Mog Wardrobe" and then click on all of the equipment to shift it over into Mog Wardrobe. Escape out of that, and go back into Equipment and then re-equip the gear you had on by going to each slot that you had equipped. Select the slot, hit enter, and then select the option on the right that says "Inventory Options" or some-such. Select that, then Select "Mog Wardrobe" and your piece should then appear in the list to equip. It will seem awkward at first, but you should get used to it quickly. The reason we did this, is because you have 4-5 pieces of gear (depending on what race/job you started as) that is taking up your very limited 30-slot regular inventory. Moving this equipment into your 80-slot Wardrobe frees these slots up.
With that done, go to the Jack of Spades, trade him your coupon to get a whopping 50 gil! Once you have done this, open your menu, and hit left or right on the arrow keys (NOT the number keypad!) to switch to the 2nd menu, and go to "Quests". Once in this menu, navigate down to the "Records of Eminence" section (the bottom half of the window) and select "Objective List". There will only be one selection available -- "Tutorial". Go in there, and select the only quest available (First Step Forward).
If you are a Mithra or Tarutaru, you will have a bit of a walk on your hands. From the Jack of Spades, go East and zone into Windurst Walls, and then go all the way East and then South to zone into Windurst Woods. Proceed South until you see a large fountain. This is where Galka/Elvaan/Humes start, so once you've gotten here, continue with the rest of the guide.
Once you've gotten to the Fountain (for Mithra/Tarutaru) or after you've traded your Coupon to Jack of Spades (everybody else), head East towards the Zone to East Sarutabaruta. As you come out of a narrow pathway, look to your right -- you'll see a Mithra dressed in red, and her name is Fhelm Jobeizat. Talk to her to get a cutscene and complete the RoE quest you just accepted.
Open your Quest Log up again and go back Objective List and you will see lots of new items there. Undertake the following:
Basics -> Synthesis: 
 -Speak to Culinarians' Guild Master
 -Speak to Bonecrafters' Guild Master
 -Speak to Weavers' Guild Master
Basics -> Tutorial:
 -Undertake an FoV Regime
 -Heal Without Using Magic
 -Vanquish One Enemy.
Combat (Wide Area) -> Spoils 1:
 -Earth/Water/Fire/Lightning/Dark Crystal
Combat (Wide Area) -> Spoils 2:
 -Bat Wing
Combat (Wide Area) -> General: 
 -Total Damage I
 -Vanquish Multiple Enemies I
 -Total Damage Taken I
Fishing: 
 -Speak to Fishermans' Guild Master
Once you've taken all of these (If you don't see the Combat ones, they might become available after "Vanquish One Enemy" is completed), it is time to take a tour of Windurst!
From Fhelm Jobeizat, turn East and target the big blue glowing crystal. This is a Home Point, and as the game will tell you, you can use this Home Point to warp to other Home Points that you've already visited at least once. These Home Point Warps will save you a ridiculous amount of time in everything you do, so always, always, always touch every one of these crystals that you see!
With this one touched, go south past the Chocobo Stables, and then towards the Auction House (AH). There's another Home Point on the roof of the AH. Once you grab that one, head West and then enter the Bonecrafters' Guild. In there, you will see two NPCs wearing a brown apron with a skull logo on it. One of them is the Guildmaster, who should offer to let you join the Bonecrafters' Guild. Joining the Guild will complete the RoE quest that you took earlier, which will probably give you a levelup (don't worry about which guild(s) you join: you can join all of them simultaneously). You will also get a crystal. Look around and you will see an Ephemeral Moogle -- talk to him and he will explain his crystal storage service. Agree to keep quiet about it and the game will tell you that you can now use crystal storage. Trade the crystal you just got to him, and he will store it for you. These Moogles are at all guilds, and they share the same storage inventory -- storing this crystal on the Moogle in the Bonecrafters' Guild will allow you to later retrieve it from any Ephemeral Moogle in any area.
Once you've done this, head south and then further west to find another Home Point. Touch it and then go into the western building with the Weaver's Logo on it. If you see two shopkeepers behind a stall, you have the wrong building. Go into the other building and you should see people working on various cloth-related machinery. This is just like the Bonecrafters' Guild; talk to the person wearing the Weaver's Apron and agree to join the Weaver's Guild. This will complete the RoE quest for the Weavers' Guild. Store the crystal on the Ephemeral Moogle just like you did with the last one.
Once you've done this, head North, and then West to zone into Port Windurst. Stop by the Mog House Entrance near you (take the first right) to touch the Home Point crystal there, and then go south again and head all the way West, until you see the Fishermans' Guild (and also the Home Point crystal near it). Touch the Home Point, and then talk to the Fishermans' Guild Master to join the Fishermans' Guild (which also completes an RoE objective). You will not get a crystal for joining this guild, because fishers do not craft using crystals. After doing this, head North and then West over to the West Sarutabaruta zone.
Over here, you will see another Home Point (this one is VERY important!) and even more importantly, over against the south wall, you will see two books floating in the air. The black one is called a Survival Guide; touch it like you did the Home Point crystals. They essentially do the same thing: you can warp between Survival Guides, though they are more expensive gil-wise, but offer to let you use tabs instead (you will get some here soon).
Once you've done this, use the Home Point to warp back to the Home Point near the Fishermans' Guild (Windurst -> Port Windurst -> Home Point #1 IIRC) and once you have control of your character, head North to zone into Windurst Waters. Keep heading North and you should pass a Home Point (check it) and eventually the map will change even though you didn't zone. Many areas in FFXI have multi-map zones (usually dungeons), but this is one of the few examples of a town having a multi-map. Once you're in Windurst Waters (North), head over to the Culinarians' Guild, check the Home Point beside it, and enter the west-most building and talk to the little taru wearing the cooking apron and hat to join the Culinarians' Guild. Store the crystal you just got on the Ephemeral Moogle.
Head out of the Culinarians' Guild, and then go North to the West Sarutabaruta zone for another Home Point, and then head back South and then East to the Mog House entrance for yet another Home Point. If you are a Mithra or a Tarutaru, this should look familiar: this is where you started. Keep going East to zone into Windurst Walls. Once in Windurst Walls, head east until you have a choice to go North or South; go North and grab the Home Point (it's marked on the map as a blue crystal) and then go South, and get the Home Point on top of the Auction House. Go south into Windurst Woods, and on your way down there, stop by the Mog House entrance for another Home Point and then head East across the wooden bridge pasture area, and then head South for the last Home Point! You now have every single Home Point in Windurst, which will make travel a lot faster and easier.
==Level 1-10: East Sarutabaruta==
Examine the Home Point Crystal you're standing beside, and warp to Windurst->Windurst Woods and select the crystal with the (E) after it. E means Entrance/Exit, M = Mog House, and A = Auction House. Home Points that have no letters after them are usually near guilds or other various points of interest. Hovering over an option for a couple seconds will display a map to help you understand where these home points will take you.
Anywho, once you're at Windurst Woods (E), talk to Fhelm Jobeizat (remember her?). Since her name is a little annoying to type out, I am going to call her "Sparks NPC" from now on. Since we now have several hundred (or even a thousand+!) Sparks of Eminence, we can get ourselves some equipment! Buy the following from her:
From "Equipment (1-9)":
 -Bronze Knife
 -Brass Dagger
 -Luaun Shield
From "Equipment (10-19)":
 -Knife
 -Bone Mask/Harness/Mittens/Subligar/Leggings
These should come to a total of 515 Sparks, which you should easily be able to afford if you did all of the above.
Stick all of these items in your Mog Wardrobe, and take note of their level so you know when to equip them (you can equip the shield and the bronze knife right now). Before you exit into East Sarutabaruta, note the Tarutaru with the "W.W." after his name. Talk to him and ask him to cast Signet on you. This is very important! Never fight without signet. You won't get crystals, and enemies will do a lot more damage to you than they should otherwise. When you receive Signet, you will notice a little icon at the upper area of your screen. It should have the time remaining underneath it (if it doesn't go into Config 2 or Config 3 and look for the setting for Status Effect Durations and turn it on). Keep track of this, and don't let it wear off. Thankfully, it lasts for several hours depending on what place rank Windurst is in the Conquest (this changes every Sunday at 3PM GMT). Third Place will add 2 hours, and Second Place will add 1 hour to your Signet duration, and each Rank you attain (you'll do this later) will add 1 hour to the duration as well.
Now that we have Signet, step out into East Sarutabaruta. Immediately after you get control of your character, look to your right. You'll see a floating book, only this time it is white. This is a Field Manual. Check it, and read about Individual Training and choose Page 2 and when it asks you if you want it to repeat, say Yes. This should fulfill the RoE objective for FoV Training Regime.
Now that we have that set up, target the nearest Bumblebee, hit the enter key and you will see a small menu on the bottom-left of the screen. The top button says "Attack". This makes your character draw their weapon and lock on to the mob you've chosen to attack. Run up to it and kill it (it should not be hard at all; if you have Signet, it should be doing 0s and 1s to you). Keep fighting Bumblebees until you've attained Level 5 or completed the FoV Regime (6 bees) at least once. If the game day changes or is about to change (the game day uses a 24-hour clock!), do the FoV Regime twice. You will get XP, Tabs and Gil once per game day -- if the game day changes, you can get the Tabs and Gil twice, but I wouldn't wait any more than a few minutes, it isn't that big of a deal.
Once you are Level 5, go back into Windurst Woods and open up your Quest Log and go into the RoE section. Under Basics->Tutorial, you should see a new quest called "Call Forth an Alter Ego". Undertake this quest, and head West from the entrance to the area with the big fountain. Near the fountain is an NPC named Wetata. Talk to her, and she will explain the Trust Magic system. Once she's done with her explanation, walk North to the Mog House Home Point and use it to warp to Windurst Walls #1 (the one near the center of the zone). After warping to this Home Point, get up on the bridge that leads to the huge tree in the center of the area, and walk into the doorway to be teleported into Heaven's Tower. Once there, head straight in, you will see two doors (it doesn't matter which you take). Once you enter the doors, behind the counter is Kupipi (who you were told to talk to). Speak to Kupipi about a cutscene having to do with Trust Magic and Alter Ego. She should then give you a Key Item (this does not appear in your inventory; it's stored under a separate area of your character called Key Items in Menu 2) and ask you to try summoning her in Sarutabaruta.
Exit Heaven's Tower the way you came in and use the Home Point crystal to warp to Windurst Woods (E) again, step out into Sarutabaruta. Press F1 to target yourself and then hit Enter to get that little menu to appear at the bottom-left of the screen. Go to "Magic" and then "Trust" and you will see "Kupipi" listed. Note the wand icon next to her name -- this means that she is a healer. Hit enter, and don't move while you cast the spell, and *POOF!* You now have Kupipi in your group, and this will also complete the RoE objective, and also reward you with an item (you can't use it quite yet). Turn around and zone back into Windurst Woods, and use the Home Point to warp back to Windurst Walls #1, and then go back into Heaven's Tower and talk to Kupipi and tell her that it went well. This will complete the quest.
Go back to the Home Point, and warp to Windurst Woods (M) and then head south to Wettata. Trade the Cipher:Valaineral to Wettata for a short cutscene and you will learn Trust: Valaineral! Open your RoE objectives, and under Basic -> Tutorial, you will now see an objective called "Alter Ego: Valaineral". Grab this quest, and then run East to go back out into Sarutabaruta, and summon Valaineral. Note the Shield icon next to his name. This means he is a tank (someone who is highly armored and keeps enemies attacking him to protect everybody else). Once you've summoned him, you will fulfill that RoE objective and you will gain another Cipher (Mihli Aliapoh). Go back to Wettata and trade her this cipher, and open your RoE objectives again and you will see a new Alter Ego quest. This is probably going to get a little annoying, but thankfully it won't last too long. Joachim is the last NPC you will get in this manner, so you know that when you get his quest, you're on the last quest. This quest-line will give you a decent tank, a rather good melee DPS (Tenzen), a magic DPS (Adelheid), a combination DPS/Healer (Mihli), and a support character (Joachim). Note the icons next to their names; this is how you tell who can do what. Note that if you gain a level, your Trusts will not get stronger until you release them and call them back out. There's a short cooldown (2 minutes?) from the time you called them out, so there's really no penalty to calling them out again. They will automatically be at your level when you call them, and they will learn all of their spells and abilities. A Trust NPC will never do anything until you physically swing at a mob (at which point they will enter combat against that enemy). If you switch enemies in mid-combat, your Trusts will also switch enemies. If you sheathe your weapon, your Trusts will do the same, and will not react to enemies hitting them. Healers like Kupipi and Mihli will never cast spells while not in combat.
Now that we have all of that done, go back out into Sarutabaruta, and call Kupipi out (Mihli has less MP and will do too much damage and kill enemies too fast). I would not bother calling anybody else out. As you may have noticed earlier, you were gaining Dagger and Evasion skillups while you were fighting those bees. You do not want to level up too fast, or your skills will fall behind and you will have to stop and skill up later on weaker enemies. You and Kupipi should be able to handle nearly anything in East Sarutabaruta; by the time you get up north to enemies that are actually dangerous to a Level 5-6 character, you should easily be Level 7-8 by now which is easily strong enough to kill anything in E.Saruta. Note that Yagudo and Goblins will attack you unprovoked if they see you, this is called "aggro" (if you didn't read over the glossary section above).
Keep fighting in Sarutabaruta until about Level 10-ish. If you are confident, you can move on at 10. Or, if you think the rate of XP is good enough for you, you can keep going until 12-ish. At some point, enemies will stop giving XP altogether (you can do a /c while targeting something to figure out how strong it is relative to you. "Too Weak" means it will not give XP when killed). One thing I would suggest doing, is cancelling your Field of Valor (FoV) training regime and replacing it with #5 (Crows/Crawlers) because this one gives slightly more XP/Tabs/Gil. I do not recommend buying any of the field support options; you will desperately need those tabs later. Don't use them on this stuff; Kupipi is all you need. You can, however, use the Meat Jerky that you were awarded from the RoE quest earlier. This is a 30 minute food that makes you do slightly more damage. Don't forget to equip your new weapon at Level 8.
You will get several items from doing this; I would peek at your inventory every so often to make sure you are not filling up (you only have 30 slots!). Here's a short list of what to do with said items:
 -Yagudo Necklaces: Keep these!
 -Yagudo Feathers: Sell them to a vendor NPC (the one near the Bonecrafters' Guild in Windurst Woods works)
 -All Crystals: Keep these, and store them on the Ephemeral Moogle later.
 -Beehive Chip: Keep them for now
 -Honey: Keep them for now
 -Crawler Calculus: Keep
 -Smooth Stone: Sell to NPC if possible, drop if not.
 -2 Leaf Mandragora Bud: Sell to NPC
 -Cornette: Keep (you can store this in Mog Wardrobe because it is considered equipment)
 -Yuhtunga Sulphur: Keep!
 -Bird Feather: Sell to NPC
 -Goblin Armor/Mask/Mail/Helmet: Sell to NPC
 -Fishing Poles: Sell to NPC
 -Silk Thread: Be very happy if you get any of these. Definitely keep.
 -Rock Salt: Sell to NPC
 -Land Crab Meat: Sell to NPC
 -Rarab Tail: Sell to NPC
 -Letters (of various kinds, torn/soggy, etc): Keep
Once you're done leveling out there, head back to town!
== After Leveling Sessions ==
Now that you're done with your leveling session, a good thing to do while in town is to process the items. If you have a full stack of anything, visit the AH to see if there's anything worth selling, if not, then simply vendor it (it will take quite awhile before you come across anything that you should keep because it is "too hard to get"). Always dump crystals on the Ephemeral Moogle, and when you have 144 or more, you can remove 144 to get a stack of 12 clusters and then sell this stack on the AH for money.
Don't worry about trying to keep crystals for crafting later; you can get infinite crystals (yes, really!) once you are Level 99 with a little time farming.
Check the Sparks NPC to see if there's any new gear (and perhaps buy gear for a few levels in advance!).
Once this is done, visit the Curio Vendor Moogle to replenish any food (once you obtain your first Rhapsody -- more on that later), check your Emperor Band (more on this in a sec), and get ready for your next session!
== Repeatable Quests ==
Remember those items I told you to keep that you got just a bit ago? Let's turn those in and get ourselves some fame! I will link the quest with the Items' names, and provide links to the NPCs to make them easier to find.
* Torn/Soggy/Etc Letters: Ambrosius (Windurst Walls J-12)
* Yagudo Necklaces: Nanaa Mihgo (Windurst Woods J-3) (Note: There's a Vana'versary Objective for this too until May 2018!)
* Crawler Calculus x3: Illu Bohjaa (Windurst Woods I-6) (Note: Don't turn Silk Threads in unless they are not selling on AH)
* Cornette and Yuhtunga Sulphur: Yoran-Oran (Windurst Walls E-5)
I wouldn't suggest trying to farm any of the above just yet, just turn in what you have when you get these kinds of items. Please remember this section for when you come back to level your support job later as you will get more of them. The only exception I would make, would be the Yagudo Necklaces which can be farmed in Giddeus (which is south of West Sarutabaruta) once you're Level 45+, as this is a weekly repeatable RoE (which I will cover soon). Until Lv45, you could simply kill Yagudo in Sarutabaruta or Tahrongi as you only need 4 necklaces per IRL week.
== Level 10-18: Tahrongi Canyon ==
Before heading out, remember that Emperor Band I mentioned? Go visit the Signet NPC and now that you've done some leveling, you should have some Conquest Points. Tell the guard you wish to spend some of them, and then ask him for Common Items (All Ranks). In there, an Emperor Band should be listed. You should have enough CP to buy it by now, and also keep an eye on that Warp Ring -- you will want that too eventually, ASAP. If you don't have enough for it, then buy a Scroll of Instant Warp (it's only 10 CP) instead, that will do for now.
Emperor Bands is a usable item with an enchantment -- place the item in your wardrobe, equip it, and then target yourself by hitting the F1 key. Hit Enter to bring a menu up, and on this menu, there will be a button labeled "Items". Choose this, and it will bring up a list of any items that can be used that's in your inventory, as well as any usable enchanted items you currently have equipped (including the Emperor Band you just equipped). Use the Emperor Band to gain a 12-hour XP buff.
Now, when you kill enemies, you will get 50% more XP until you've gotten a total of 30,000 extra XP. For example, if you kill something worth 100XP, you will get 150XP and you will have 29,950 bonus left. The buff will wear off if you gain 30,000 bonus XP, or if the 12 hours pass. It will not wear off upon death, and you can overwrite it with a new buff.
The Emperor Band can be recharged (it only has 3 charges) by trading it to the Signet NPC, but you can only do this once per RL week resetting on Sunday, so use all 3 charges before attempting to recharge the ring (and each charge costs 200 conquest points).
The Warp Ring works the same way, only it is infinite-use, but has a 10 minute cooldown and will warp you back to your home point (which should be at or near your Mog House in Windurst).
Next thing you will want to do, is join a Unity. The Unity Concord system will provide several daily RoE objectives that will earn you even more Sparks and EXP, so I highly suggest doing this. To do so, go to Basics -> Tutorial -> All For One and talk to one of the two Tarutaru across from the Sparks NPC in Windurst Woods. I recommend joining Apururu's Unity, as Apururu is an excellent healer once you get into the Level 40+ range. She's better than Kupipi, in that she can cast Haste, she uses Nott (a weaponskill that restores her MP) and at Lv80+ she will also Convert when she's out of MP. She also won't cast Paralyze/Slow which means she won't run out of MP as fast on weak mobs like Kupipi tends to. You can call Apururu (UC) out, once you've fulfilled enough RoE objectives once you've joined her Unity (this might take a few RoE quests). If you don't fulfill any RoE objectives for a week+ RL time, you might lose the ability to summon her, but you can get it back easily enough. Also, don't forget the Daily non-Unity Objectives (Vanquish Multiple Enemies).
With that said, let's go up to Tahrongi Canyon! It will be a walk that will take you awhile since you don't have any fast-travel options just yet, but you will get there soon. Go clear to the northern end of East Sarutabaruta and then zone into Tahrongi Canyon and call your Trust NPCs out.
Up here, you will want to kill Canyon Rarabs and Pygmaioi (there's a Grounds Tome page for this) until you are about Level 14-15. Then you can switch to Pygmaioi and Killer Bees until you are about Level 18 or so.
Don't forget to pick up the Survival Guide at the very north-western edge of the zone, and also go to the northern side of that huge white structure you'll see (the "Crag of Mea") and check the Telepoint for a Key Item (it's not as relevant these days, but you never know. Doesn't hurt to grab it anyway). You'll see the crystal icon on the map if you have trouble finding it. Note that it is not the "Shattered Telepoint" or the "Dimensional Portal". It should say "Telepoint" when you target it. This is for the White Mage spell, Teleport-Mea. Without this Key Item, the spell will not teleport you.
== Job Ability Fun! ==
You might have noticed, if you opened up your Job Abilities menu, that you have a couple Job Abilities: Steal and Sneak Attack. Steal does what you would think it does, though sadly it rarely works, and it only works on certain enemies and has a 5 minute cooldown.
Sneak attack, though, is what we're really looking at here. You got this ability at 15 (so if you are reading this ahead of leveling, keep this in mind when you ding 15 if you haven't yet). Basically, what it does, is if you stand behind the enemy, and use the Job Ability, you are guaranteed to land a critical hit with your next attack, and the damage is boosted based upon your Dexterity stat. The really nice thing about this, is that this can be combined with non-elemental weaponskills! If you use Sneak Attack and then immediately use Wasp Sting before you swing again, you will deal monstrous damage compared to anything else you can do at this point. If you get the hang of how to perform a skillchain, you can close a skillchain and do even more damage.
At Level 31 (keep this in mind, until you get it), you will not only get Trick Attack, but you will also get Viper Bite (once your dagger skill is high enough) which is an upgrade to Wasp Sting. With Trick Attack, you will want to stand so that there is an NPC (ideally Valaineral) between you and the enemy (doesn't matter which way the enemy is facing, but be careful with enemies that have frontal cone attacks). Any enmity you generate with the damage will be given to the Person or NPC standing between you and the enemy (basically what you're doing is you're doing a... trick... attack... making the enemy think said person or NPC hit them instead of you. The main reason to do this, is like Sneak Attack, you are guaranteed to get a critical hit, though Trick Attack is based on Agility instead of Dexterity. You can also combine Trick Attack and Sneak Attack before doing a Weaponskill, but this is more difficult to do without a macro, and it requires an NPC to be standing between you and the enemy, and you must both be behind the enemy for this to work. There really isn't any reason to do this, though.
If you're having trouble getting this to work, you can make a macro:
 /ja "Sneak Attack" <me> <wait 1>
 /ws "Wasp Sting" <t> (or) /ws "Viper Bite" <t>
And there you have it. Once you ding Level 15, things should die much faster and easier, and then at Level 30/31, you'll get an even bigger boost to damage. Also, when you get to Level 68, Dancing Edge also works with Sneak/Trick Attack. Shark Bite will as well, but I find that Dancing Edge usually does better damage on its own (though Shark Bite can potentially make better skillchains).
I suggest either checking your Job Abilities every few levelups, or referring to the Thief page here on this wiki for more/future Job Abilities that you will learn along the way.
== A Little Side-Quest... ==
Once you have Level 18, before we do anything else, continue to kill Pygmaioi until you get three Mandragora Dewdrops as you will need them for what we are about to do. Also, go to the Crag of Mea that you were just at, and go East from there, to find the cave to the very Northeastern tip of the area. Zone into there (the Maze of Shakhrami) and pick up the Survival Guide there.
Zone back out into Tahrongi Canyon, and follow the wall of the canyon to the south and then east when you can to zone into Buburimu Peninsula. From here, get the Survival Guide at the Outpost and make your way over to Mhaura, but be careful of the many goblins around as they are quite strong at this point (they will most likely rate Tough to Very Tough). Don't worry about getting killed trying this, you don't lose anything until you are Level 30. If you absolutely cannot survive the trip no matter what you do, you can always gain a couple more levels to drop the goblins down to Decent Challenge which will make the trip a lot more safer. Beware, though, of the Goblin Muggers, Gamblers, and Leechers that are found between the road and the gates to Mhaura -- I suggest following the coastline south as you get closer to Mhaura to avoid them. They are a good slice stronger than the Butchers, Tinkerers and Ambushers you met on the way there.
Once in Mhaura, you should get a cutscene that mentions the Mayor. Take the stairs you will see on the right, and follow along towards the right (making your way through the huge throng of people you will see there) and one of the doors, when targeted, will say "Mayor's Residence". Once there, speak to Numi Adaligo who is standing behind the counter, and she will ask you to get 3 Mandragora Dewdrops. But, if you followed my guide, you should already have them. Simply trade them to Ekokoko who is standing on the stool right next to the counter which will start the next part of this quest.
You will get a Gilgamesh's introductory letter which will allow you to then go and talk to Vera who is nearby. Instead of wanting rare mob drops, she will give you the ability to equip a Support Job immediately! Do this before talking to Tonasav as Gilgamesh asked you to.
Once you've unlocked your support job, go ahead and talk to Tonasav and once you arrive at Norg, do not under any circumstances miss the Home Point and/or Survival Guide. Getting to Norg is no easy task otherwise, and you will not be able to do so again safely for quite some time.
Once you're in Norg and once you've picked up the Home Point Crystal and the Survival Guide, proceed forward, and go up the large set of wooden steps that you see, and follow the tunnel all the way back and check the door there for a cutscene. It doesn't matter what you answer during the cutscene, and once the cutscene is over, check the door again for a second cutscene and you will receive Rhapsody in White. This Rhapsody will give you a lot of bonuses, see the linked page, but please note the ability to call out 4 Trusts -- this will help you a lot.
== Level 18-32: Buburimu Peninsula ==
Once you have the Rhapsody, Warp back to your Mog House in Windurst and deal with your inventory issues, storing crystals, etc. Now that you have the Rhapsody in White, you can now buy Food from the Curio Vendor Moogle (which is in Port Windurst right outside the Mog House). I suggest always keeping some Meat Jerky or Grilled Hare on you. The Grilled Hare will give you more buff per gil, but if you get killed the food buff will wear off and Grilled Hare doesn't stack unlike the Meat Jerky. Personally, I suggest Meat Jerky as you can fit 6 hours worth of Food (30min each) in one single stack, whereas a Grilled Hare only lasts for 3 hours. Also, if Dilatory Digestion happens to be in effect, the Jerky will last 60 minutes instead of 30.
I highly suggest buying a crossbow and some crossbow bolts from the shop in Windurst Woods that's across from the Bonecrafters' Guild. Put these in your Wardrobe and equip them.
Anywho, head back up to Buburimu Outpost (use the Survival Guide -- it's cheaper now that you have the Rhapsody), though be careful that Goblins can sometimes aggro before you're ready. Step in behind the wooden fence as soon as you can to hopefully avoid this. Once behind the fence, call your trusts and get ready for battle! If you followed my guide, Ctrl+G (or whatever key you assigned) should be your Ranged Attack button. Target a nearby enemy, hit Ctrl+G and then run behind the fence. Wait for the enemy to follow you and then pull out your weapon and start attacking it. Your trusts will, as per usual, wait for you to melee before engaging themselves. This way, you can fight enemies safely without additional enemies attacking you.
For the time being, I suggest limiting yourself to Sylvestres, Rarabs, and the goblins you will see near the outpost. I wouldn't go attacking a Zu until you are at least Level 20 -- they are a good slice harder. When you do get Level 20 and try a Zu, make sure you don't stand in front of it, and if you can, try to get your Trusts (except the tank) to stand behind it. I find it helps if you call the tank last; this makes it easier to get people positioned right, as the Zus (like all birds of the same kind) have a frontal cone attack that will waste Kupipi's MP when it can be dodged by staying to the side or behind it.
None of these mobs are aggressive except for the goblins, but the Zu will link with one another which is another reason to wait a bit before taking them on.
Continue to fight around the Outpost until you're about Level 24 or so, and make your way down towards the shoreline. You can switch to crabs and fish by this time, and should do so clear until Level 32. The XP gains will slow down a bit in the last two levels, but getting Level 32 here and now will make the next couple steps a lot easier. You definitely want to do this.
== Some More Side-Questing (Rank 3, Nation Access, etc) ==
Go back to Windurst and sort your stuff out, get your equipment updated, and all of that happy stuff. Before doing anything else, stop by Pehki Machumaht in Windurst Woods (she's in a tent near the big fountain) and buy the following maps:
 -San d'Oria Area
 -Bastok Area
 -Jeuno Area
 -Palborough Mines
 -Ghelsba
Once you're done with that, go to Windurst Woods and talk to Rakoh Buuma and accept the first mission from her (The Horutoto Ruins Experiment). Proceed with the mission (check the link for a walkthrough), as well as the mission after it (The Heart of the Matter), and the mission after it (The Price of Peace).
Doing these 3 Rank Missions will earn you Rank 2! But we're not done yet, as we're aiming for Rank 3 (you will see why soon). Before you start any more rank missions, you will need to trade crystals to a Signet NPC; I normally trade one full stack of crystals (use cheap crystals like Earth or Water if you can) to trigger the next Rank Mission (Lost for Words). The next mission (A Testing Time) is skippable -- you can do the one after it (The Three Kingdoms) instead.
When doing "The Three Kingdoms", make sure you go to San d'Oria first! The quest plays differently depending on where you went first, and starting Bastok first is far more annoying. 
To get to San d'Oria, go to Mhaura and ride the Boat (don't get on the Al Zahbi one -- ask the NPC at the dock which boat is coming next) to Selbina. Whatever you do, do not go up on deck! Sometimes a very powerful monster called the Sea Horror will spawn and it will kill you fast. Also, sometimes Pirates can spawn too, and they too will kill you. Just stay down in the room you started in to be safe. Once you arrive in Selbina, grab the Home Point Crystal and exit out into Valkurm Dunes. Be sure to get the Survival Guide north of Selbina at the Outpost and then head to the very North-Eastern end of the zone. Nothing in here should pose a threat to you if you are Level 32 -- the enemies here are roughly the same level as the ones in Buburimu.
Continue North through La Theine Plateau, getting the Survival Guide in the very eastern exit to Jugner Forest (don't go in Jugner Forest yet, you are not ready for this yet) and then continue to the northwest. Get the Telepoint at the Crag of Holla on your way westward, and zone at the very northwestern exit into West Ronfaure.
Once in Ronfaure, follow the zone up along the western edge to the Outpost; grab the Survival Guide, and San d'Oria is right there! Don't forget Home Point Crystals, and other such stuff along the way.
When doing the quest for Warchief Vatgit, make sure you continue on past him and zone into the other Gheslba Zone -- there's a Survival Guide right inside the zone that will let you warp out easily (and warp back to it should you ever need to in the future).
To get to Bastok, take the Survival Guide to Valkurm Dunes and then take the Southeast exit to Konschtat Highlands. On your way down, be sure to grab the Survival Guide (just inside the zone) and the Crag of Dem. I highly suggest going East to zone into Gusgen Mines to get the Survival Guide there; this will save you a lot of time if you ever want to visit there later. Continue down and talk the southern exit to North Gustaberg and then continue on to South Gustaberg (there's an outpost with Survival Guide on the way). Once in South Gustaberg, I also suggest going West to zone into Dangruf Wadi to get the Survival Guide there; another big time-saver. Might as well pick it up while you're here.
Continue East to get to Bastok Markets, and then proceed from the linked walkthrough above.
The Dragon fight in Bastok is not that hard (please don't forget the Home Point crystal -- it's the only fast travel to Palborough Mines!); use your Trusts as you would with anything else. Kill the eye first (it will die faster than the dragon) and then focus on the dragon. At Level 32, you should be fine (it was originally a Level 25-cap fight).
By the time you have the whole shebang done, you should have picked up a few Trusts (Semih Lafinha, Halver, Ayame) and you now have an Adventurer's Certificate which will allow you to enter your Mog Garden for the first time!
I highly suggest doing just that! The quests start automatically and it should be rather clear of what to do, but I will explain the benefits of having your own Mog Garden here:
* A Vendor that will buy all of your stuff accessible from the Mog House who sells some basic items as well.
* Free Money (you can vendor all of the stuff you get from the various hobby locations, once-per-day).
* Crafting Materials (for later on when you're more equipped to start crafting)
* A Fishing Spot (Moat Carp can sometimes sell decently on the AH -- get a pole, some worms, and fish out of the pond)
* An Ephemeral Moogle; you will need 15 Shining Stars to buy the Shimmering invitation first.
* Free/Easy Adoulin Access (once you've already been to Adoulin)
As for what to plant in the Furrows, I suggest Vegetable Seeds. Nothing that you will harvest from said seeds will be worth very much except for maybe Dragon Fruit if you get lucky enough to see any. There are Cactus Stems, but they cost 1,650 each and take 2 days before you can harvest, but they will yield Darksteel, Gold, Platinum Ores as well as Kitrons. All of these are rather pricey on the AH but the risk might not be worth the reward. When doing the Mog Garden, I suggest using www.ffxiah.com to see what is worth anything and what is not.
== Level 32-40: Bibiki Bay ==
Once you're ready to go back out to do some more leveling, take the Survival Guide to Buburimu Peninsula. Remember that beach where I had you fighting fish and crabs to the south of the Outpost? Go there and follow the beach all the way west, and you will see a cave which will have a zone line. Go ahead and zone into Bibiki Bay and call forth your Trusts (don't forget you can call 4 now!). Since this is the first time since Rank 3 that you have done any XP (I am assuming), I suggest calling out Valaineral, Kupipi, Tenzen and now Semih Lafihna. Semih is a ranger, but once she gets about Level 30 she will start using a very powerful weaponskill called Sidewinder which can do upwards of 400 damage! Also, Valaineral will start to use Savage Blade which is a Level 72+ weaponskill normally, and it can land for almost 500 damage at times. Also, Semih and Tenzen will very much enjoy making skillchains together, and you will likely notice this when a mob falls flat on its face from 75% to dead in three seconds.
When you first get here, you will likely want to stick to Dhalmels, but be careful of the lone Goblin Shaman near the dock on the hill. You can probably handle him with some mild trouble, just make sure he doesn't aggro while you're fighting something else. The main trouble here is that the Dhalmels, Rarabs, and Birds will all link, so be careful of what you fight and where. Now that you are above level 30, you can lose experience points when you die, and you can even lose a level if you don't have enough exp to cover the loss. It is easily recovered on the fish in Buburimu should that happen, though. Just play it safe, don't take unnecessary risks and you should be fine, especially once you're able to start doing birds at about ~Lv36. There's fewer of them and they are a lot less likely to link.
I would advise against fighting Efts -- they have an AoE dispel move called Geist Wall. This annoying attack will blow through Kupipi's MP like crazy because they will keep dispelling your Protect and Shell buffs which will force Kupipi into recasting Protectra/Shellra which will waste all kinds of MP. They also link, too. There's also an NM Eft that you probably don't want to tangle with, that can spawn by the docks. You'll know when you see it, it'll have an actual name.
Once you get Level 40, you're done here, though if you wanted, you could get 41-42 if you're patient.
== On The Road to Jeuno ==
Now that you are Level 40, you should be able to make it to Jeuno with minimal problems. Start by making sure your inventory is in order and then take the Survival Guide to Tahrongi Canyon. If you didn't pick that one up yet, you could use the Maze of Shakhrami one instead, zone out into Tahrongi and go to the furthest northwestern edge of the zone and exit north into Meriphataud Mountains. Once there, follow the road all the way up to the Outpost and get the Survival Guide there.
Before going any further, it's time to put your new Treasure Hunter skills to good use! You will need 4 Gausebit Grass for an upcoming quest. These are dropped by Crane Flies to the east of the outpost. These should be easy pickings for your Level 40+ character. Just keep killing them until you have 4.
Once you have the 4 Gausebit Grasses in-hand, zone north into Sauromugue Champaign. Here, you will find enemies that actually pose a threat to you. My suggestion for getting through here safely is one of three methods (call your Trusts out before trying it, just in case):
* Method 1: Stick to the cliff you will see on the left and once along that cliff, proceed until about the middle of J-9 and then head straight north to the mountains. Hug the mountains as you go east, and then north, and then west and then get on the road. If you get aggro, activate your Flee ability (aren't you glad you're a thief?) and just make a run for the Jeuno Gates at F-6, make sure you take the northern of the two gates.
* Method 2: Stick to the right edge of the map, and follow that wall all the way up north, and then east when you see the cliffs near the sea. Be mindful of the enemies (everything except lizards and beetles are aggressive!). You may or may not have trouble with cockatrices; there's a couple on the way. If you get aggro by one, you can activate Flee and make a dash for it, or you can try to fight it.
* Method 3: (Safest): Buy two Silent Oils and two Prism Powders from the Curio Vendor Moogle in Port Windurst. Use the Silent Oil first, then the Prism Powder. These will give you 10 minutes of Sneak and Invisible and with these up, nothing will attack you until it wears off or until you do something that removes Invisible.
Either way, once you arrive in Jeuno, make sure to tag the Home Point in Port Jeuno as you come in. Note the Tarutaru wearing white armor standing next to it -- they are a Signet NPC if you need to refresh your Signet, and he will sell the same items and recharge your Emperor Band just like the War Warlocks in Windurst would, regardless of which nation you are currently allied with. Each Jeuno exit has a Home Point Crystal and a similar guard near them.
== What to do in Jeuno (Mounts, Dancer, etc) ==
Now that we're safely in Jeuno, it's time to make your game a lot faster and easier. First, head through Port Jeuno all the way to the end. You'll see an upstairs and a downstairs, and a Home Point Crystal. Get the Crystal, and go upstairs. Get the crystal you will see there, and then go upstairs again, and get that Crystal too. Head out towards the exit, there's yet another crystal on your left near the Auction House NPCs, but continue on clear to the other Home Point near the exit.
Turn around, and you will note several NPCs dancing. Talk to Laila to start the Dancer job quest (answer "I surely do" and "never"). This will be vital to you soon, but we're not going to do it quite yet. We need something else, first!
Behind Laila, you will see stairs down into a little Chocobo area. Go down there, and talk to a man named Brutus. He will probably mention a Chocobo that went to La Theine; talk to him again and he will mention this Chocobo again. Talk to him a Third Time and he should ask you if you want to ride a Chocobo. Answer yes.
It's time to kill some time! Trade a Gausebit Grass to the Chocobo next to Osker. The chocobo won't eat the grass the first time; this is normal. Wait one game-hour, and trade the Gausebit Grass to the bird again. The bird still won't eat it, but you're making progress! Now, after each game-hour, keep feeding it the Grass (it should start eating it at this point) and after you've fed it all four grasses, the bird will be better. You should receive your Chocobo License.
We're not done yet! Once you have your License, turn right around and note the tarutaru wearing the chocobo outfit (Mapitoto). Assuming you bought the Map of the Jeuno Area like as I mentioned earlier in this guide, she should ask you to help out with her raptor mount. Agree to help her.
This quest (Full Speed Ahead!) is a bit tricky and may take you a try or two (see link for walkthrough), but the rewards are so very vital to a smooth FFXI experience. This will make your game loads easier. Once you are done, you will get a Trainer's Whistle and a ♪Raptor companion. Now, while in any outdoor area, you can simply type /mount raptor to get on a raptor mount. While on a mount, you cannot get aggro'd by anything regardless of level or detection type. This will make outdoor travel much easier, though you must get off the mount (/dismount) to interact with NPCs, items, and the like.
Now that we have that, let's go do that Dancer quest, shall we? First, let's start by talking to Rhea Myuliah who is standing right next to Laila. She will send you to Southern San d'Oria to Lion Springs Tavern (it's near the South Sandy Moghouse). Once in there, talk to Valderotaux for a cutscene. It doesn't matter what kind of poses you take, just keep choosing options until the cutscene ends. Return to Rhea Myuliah and she will mention the lake in Jugner.
Now, head out into Batallia Downs by taking the exit out of Upper Jeuno (you're right next to it). Get on your Mount, and ride to the Cavernous Maw at H-5. Examine this Maw for a cutscene which results you in getting a Pure White Feather and sends you to Batallia Downs (S), Rolanberry Fields (S) or Sauromugue Champaign (S) (which one is randomly chosen). Depending on which zone you went into, make your way to Batallia Downs (S). If you zoned into Sauromugue, you will need to take the exit to Rolanberry Fields and then take the exit to Batallia. Once in Batallia Downs (S), go to the far Southwestern Exit to Jugner Forest (S), but don't forget the survival guide!
Once in Jugner Forest (S), ride south but try to stick right, and find the lake. Once you find the lake, keep Tab-Targeting until you find a target called "Glowing Pebbles". Checking this will get you the Key Item that Laila asked for. Once you have it, you can Warp back to Windurst, and then take a Home Point to Upper Jeuno and then talk to Laila who should train you as a Dancer.
== Fame, Inventory Expansion, etc. ==
Now that you have Jeuno Access, you should start thinking about inventory expansion. That 30-slot inventory will not get you very far in Vana'diel, neither will that small Mog Safe. However, inventory expansion can be a bit on the expensive side, so this is not something you will complete right away. I will provide a list of quests that you will want to keep an eye on, and complete whenever you can as you progress on your way to Level 99. Even just one or two of these done will make a big difference!
First off, before you do anything, you are going to need some Fame for all three nations. I will link you the easiest/cheapest Fame quests:
Windurst: Mandragora-Mad: Buy Cornettes from the music shop in Bastok Markets K-10. They will cost ~250 gil, but you will get 200 back, bringing the total cost per turn-in to 50 per. Do this about 50 times and then check Zabirego-Hajigo in Windurst Waters North. If your fame is maxed, he will refer to you as Lord/Lady. This will cost a total of ~3,000 gil.
Bastok+San d'Oria: You will need to wait until San d'Oria is in First or Second Place in the Conquest (use the /rmap command to check). Buy 75 Stacks (you will need to use Mog Satchel/Sack/etc to hold them) of La Theine Cabbage from Aveline in Southern San d'Oria F-7 (the Grocery Store) and take them to Selbina and talk to Melyon at I-9. Give him 5 Cabbage at a time. This will cost about ~4,500 gil. Check Flaco in Port Bastok and he should say that you've become a household name. Namonutice in Southern San d'Oria K-6 should mention that everybody thinks you're a hero.
Jeuno: Jeuno fame is actually an average of the 3 Nations' fame, so if you did everything properly, Jeuno's fame should be maxed too!
Next, let's visit an Artisan Moogle in any nation to buy a Mog Satchel for 10,000 gil. Return to this Moogle any time you expand your inventory and he will expand your Mog Satchel to match!
There are two kinds of quests: Gobbiebag and Mog Safe Expansions. Let's start with Gobbiebag. All Gobbiebag quests are given by Bluffnix in Lower Jeuno H-9 (Muckvix's Junk Shop). Note that all Gobbiebag Quests can be completed with a Goblin Stew 880, which will occasionally be sold during Mog Garden Campaigns by your Green Thumb Moogle, but these are expensive at first (but will save money later). Check the AH to see which is cheaper. Said quests will also sell the furniture needed for the Mog Safe quests too! 
* The Gobbiebag Part I: Dhalmel Leather, Steel Ingot, Peridot, Linen Cloth 
* The Gobbiebag Part II: Ram Leather, Mythril Ingot, Wool Cloth, Turquoise 
* The Gobbiebag Part III: Tiger Leather, Gold Ingot, Velvet Cloth, Painite 
* The Gobbiebag Part IV: Cermet Chunk, Darksteel Ingot, Silk Cloth, Goshenite 
* The Gobbiebag Part V: Bugard Leather, Paktong Ingot, Moblinweave, Rhodonite 
* The Gobbiebag Part VI: Balloon Cloth, Shakudo Ingot, High-Quality Eft Skin, Iolite 
* The Gobbiebag Part VII: Lynx Leather, Adaman Ingot, Rainbow Cloth, Deathstone 
* The Gobbiebag Part VIII: Smilodon Leather, Electrum Ingot, Square of Cilice, Angelstone 
* The Gobbiebag Part IX: Orichalcum Ingot, Peiste Leather, Oil-Soaked Cloth, Oxblood Orb 
* The Gobbiebag Part X: Molybdenum Ingot, Griffon Leather, Foulard, Angel Skin Orb
 Some of the above, particularly the last 3-4 Gobbiebags might be expensive depending on your server or your market conditions. One thing you can do for the first few Gobbiebags, is start collecting materials that are required to make these from your Mog Garden (especially the first few Ingots) and other sources, and /yell in town for a crafter to assist you with making them if AH availability is not good. Some of the above (High-Quality Eft Skin, for example) can be farmed yourself though some of the above items require a certain amount of Promathia and Wings of the Goddess Mission progress to get to the areas where they may be found. Just keep an eye on each Gobbiebag and set aside items when possible.
Now, let's move onto the next set of quests, Mog Safe. Each one is started by placing the relevant bed in your Mog Safe. To do this, place the item in Mog Safe or Mog Safe 2 and then use the Layout command in the Mog House menu to place the bed. Exit your Mog Safe and come back in (this may take some time) and the Moogle will request two items. Obtain the two items and then trade them to the Moogle and the Moogle will go on a vacation (you'll get a substitute Moogle temporarily) and when he comes back, you will get an expanded Mog Safe! As mentioned previously, all beds can be sold by the Green Thumb Moogle if the relevant campaign happens to be active (this will be mentioned on Playonline.com).
Mog Safe Expansion #1: Bronze Bed, Power Bow, Beetle Ring (Buy the bow with Sparks, find a crafter to make a Beetle Ring after farming a Beetle Jaw or getting one from your Mining Node in your Garden. Note that a +1 Ring will not work, tell the crafter you need an NQ ring beforehand!).
Mog Safe Expansion #2: Mahogany Bed, Selbina Butter, Shrimp Lure (The Cooking Guild's limited time NPC will sell the Butter, and the Shrimp Lure, you're going to need to buy from the AH).
Mog Safe Expansion #3: Noble's Bed, Raptor Mantle, Wool Hat (You can get a Wool Hat by killing monsters in Rolanberry Fields or Qufim Island and then successfully opening the brown Treasure Caskets, they are a somewhat common item to find in them. The Raptor Mantle will need to be bought from the AH, or crafted if you can get the materials.
Once you get these quests done, you will have 80 storage Mog Safe! 
Now, let's get Mog Safe 2 opened up, shall we? Go to Areebah in Upper Jeuno H-6 and buy a Marguerite, Amaryllis, and a Lilac. Then go to these three Mithra children and trade them these items (you do not need to talk to them first; they won't even mention their quests): 
* Windurst Walls C-13: Ojha Rhawash (Lilac) 
* Northern San d'Oria F-7: Kuu Mohzolhi (Marguerite) 
* Port Bastok J-12: Valah Molkot (Amaryllis) 
Once you trade those three in, you will have Mog Safe 2 and be able to go to the 2nd Floor of your Mog House (which is just for cosmetics, and space to place furnishings so that it does not affect your Moghancement).
There's one last way to upgrade your storage, and that is by actual "Storage" in your Mog House. The way this works is that all Furnishings have a "STG:x" number displayed on the item. This is how many slots of storage the item provides. Your maximum Storage is 80, and any storage above that is "wasted". 
Since you must place items in your Mog Safe to get Storage, you will want the best return for your investment as simply placing 80 1-Storage Items won't give you anything. Here's a list of some of the better furniture to use for Storage (pick-n-mix until you get 80): 
* Gilded Shelf: 40-Storage. Get them from AH, but they might be expensive. 
* Mannequins: 28-Storage. If you can get all 5 Mannequin Parts during a Mog Garden Campaign, you can do a quest to get a Mannequin, though you will need to buy additional ones after completing the quest. 
* Bookshelf: 20-Storage. AH. 
* Gilded Chest: 20-Storage. AH. 
* Marbled Drawers: 45-Storage. More Storage than Gilded Shelf, but you need 2 either way. These will be more expensive due to more expensive materials needed. 
* Panetiere: 65-Storage. This is nice, but again, this won't solely give you 80. Though you could go with this + 20-slot (like a mannequin) to get your 80. These may or may not be cheaper than the Gilded Shelves. You could optionally get all the materials from your Mog Garden once you've ranked it up later and have it crafted for you as everything needed can be gotten from Mog Garden. 
Note that you can place Furnishings in your Mog House 2F to avoid undesirable Moghancements, as furniture placed up there won't count towards Moghancement. To access your Layout command, you will need to use the Open Mog button while you're in your 2F.
== Subjob: Dancer 1-40 ==
Now that we have Dancer unlocked, go back to Windurst and change your Main Job to Dancer (it will be level 1) and then your Subjob to Thief. Make sure you have knives a dancer can use (there are some they can't), but otherwise most of the equipment you wore as a thief should be good to wear as a dancer too.
Basically, you will go through the same process as you did getting Thief from Level 1 to 40 -- start in Sarutabaruta, go to Tahrongi, then to Buburimu (make sure you stay until 32!) and then go to Bibiki Bay. You should note that you will seem stronger as a dancer -- this is because with a subjob equipped, your natural stats are higher, and your dagger skill should be capped for quite awhile (if you check Combat Skill, dagger will be listed with a Blue Number which means the skill is higher than your current level allows for). This means you will do more damage and take less damage.
Dancers have a really nice perk, in that their Curing Waltz (the first of which you will learn at Level 15) allows you to heal yourself by spending TP (that you would normally use for weaponskills). You can do this with Dancer set as your Subjob, so when you get back to leveling your Thief (not quite yet!), you will be able to do this as your Thief too!
Also, Dancer comes with Sneak and Invisible in the form of Spectral Jig (Lv25), though this will require your Thief to be Level 50 to make use of it with Dancer set as Subjob. This ability is insanely useful, and will serve you quite well in the near future.
== Level 40-50: Garlaige Citadel ==
Go back to Windurst Woods and buy a Map of Garlaige Citadel from her, because that's where we're going next! Make sure you have either a thrown weapon that returns (Boomerang, Wingedge, Chakram, etc) or a good number of bolts (you can buy a stack of bronze bolt quivers which gives you more than 1,000!) and a crossbow to shoot them with (even the Lv1 crossbow is fine). Note that the only ranged weapon you're likely to find for a Dancer is the AF weapon which is not easy to get if you don't know what you're doing. Take a Home Point Crystal to Port Jeuno, and exit out into Sauromugue Champaign and mount your Raptor (this mount thing is so awesome, right!?). Follow the right wall most of the way south. The actual way to get to the very bottom is a little convoluted -- you will need to make several twists and turns to navigate the debris and cliffs but you should eventually find it. At one point, you will need to actually drop off a ledge.
Once there, there's a Survival Guide just inside so you don't have to do THAT ever again. There's also a Grounds Tome right next to it! Grounds Tomes work just like Field Manuals, only to have additional bonuses: the EXP rewards will increase each time you complete a regime. Take the page that asks for Beetles and single Bats (not the Wingrats!).
You will need to be very careful in here -- dropping down the holes in the floor is most likely guaranteed death unless you can get a Spectral Jig up before anything can attack you. If this happens, try to find your way to the stairs up to get back to where you were. Either way, make your way East and then South until you find a huge door labelled "Banishing Gate #1" (it will have four large switch plates next to it). This will be your camp for now. There's a beetle (they are aggressive!) and bats (not aggressive, but they link to sound), so take care when pulling these enemies. Fighting them way back near the door is generally safe, though sometimes a bat can wander close enough to link if you're fighting another bat. If you're doing Dancer, you will likely just have to fight stuff where you see it.
Thankfully, your Curing Waltzes should take care of any aggro problems. To cast Curing Waltz on one of your Trusts, select the job ability and hit enter. Instead of hitting enter again (which will cast it on yourself), use F2 through F4 to target one of your Trusts instead (in the order they appear in your party window). You can also use the command 
 /ja "Curing Waltz" <pn> 
(or "Curing Waltz II") where n is the slot the person is in -1. For example, if you want to heal Valaineral who is in the 2nd slot right under yourself, you would use <p1> because you, yourself are <p0>.
You should soon get the hang of fighting here, you may need to wander back north to get a beetle or two and bats there, or you could wander west for some more. Keep fighting here until you get Level 49 (or take it the extra mile and go to 50 if you don't mind). Note that you cannot attain Level 51 yet; you will stop 1XP away from dinging 51, no matter how much stuff you kill. I suggest getting at least one of your jobs all the way up to 1XP shy of 51; you'll see why in this next part.
Once you do this as a Dancer, bring your Level 40 thief here and do the same thing or vice-versa if you did Thief first. Note that once your Dancer is Level 49+, you will never need to touch it again unless you are actually interested in pursuing Dancer as a main job. Since your subjob is always capped at one-half your current job, Lv99 job can only get Lv49 subjob, so you needn't take it any further unless you're seriously interested in the class for actual Main Job use.
Once you are Level 50 in both (or 49 if you didn't feel like getting 50 in Dancer), you're done in here for now. Before you leave for the last time, though, I suggest going West of the Banishing Gate, and into the rooms with the Skeletons that leads back towards the exit of the Citadel. On the ground in one of the rooms, you should see a ??? on the ground at G-8. Hit the + key on the keypad just under the menu button twice to move your cursor up to your buffs and use the left/right menu keys to highlight the icon with the blindfold (invisible). Hit enter to remove the buff. Don't worry, the Skeletons can't see you, so you're still safe (the Beetles will attack you, but there are none here). Check the ??? (you couldn't do this while Invisible) to get a Pouch of weighted stones. You will need this item very soon; it allows you to open the Banishing Gates without 3 other players to stand on the switches.
== Level Limit Break (Genkai) #1 and #2 ==
So you've attained Level 50 and you might have discovered the hard way that Level 51 appears to be impossible, so what's up with this!? Well, before we try to remedy this, go to Windurst Waters, and then proceed to F-8 (the Optistery). Go up the stairs to the roof and talk to Churano-Shurano and buy the Magicked astrolabe from him (it will cost 10,000 gil). You should have enough money by now if you've sold any crystals or stuff from your Mog Garden. This item is absolutely vital to the upcoming quest, so do get it before you leave Windurst.
After that, go to Upper Jeuno Moghouse, and then go up the stairs again to get to Ru'Lude Gardens. Once there, proceed to the palace you can see in front of you (there's a Home Point in front of it, get it) and go around the stairs you see in front of you, and exit out the back. You'll see a Magian Moogle to your left and to the right, you'll see an old man named Maat. Get familiar with this guy; you'll be seeing him a lot until you get Level 99.
Talk to him and tell him you want to transcend your limits and he will ask you to fetch him a few items: An Exoray Mold, a Bomb Coal, and an Ancient Papyrus. The quest (In Defiant Challenge) has a good walkthrough, and this is as good of a time as ever to practice looking things like this up on the wiki, so good luck! The linked page should have more than enough information to get you well on your way; pay attention to the parts about the Key Items (the method you'll be using to get the items Maat wants). Don't try killing the enemies to get the natural drops; they are far too powerful for you just yet except for maybe the Exorays. But then again, you'd be wasting XP since you can't ding 51 yet. Definitely don't try the Explosures; they WILL kill you most likely and you'll probably not do much better against the Liches. If you can get someone to help you, if you've found a Linkshell or you're going in knowing a friend, then you can simply stand in the entrance of the zone, join their party and let them kill the enemies for you and simply lot on the items when they drop. But if you're doing this solo, get the key item fragments as described in the link above instead.
Anywho, once you have what Maat wants, return to him and he will unlock the ability to level up to Level 55! If you heeded my advice and got to 1 XP shy of 51, open your RoE quests and go to Basics->Level Cap Increase and undertake the first quest you see there. Since you already have this done, it will complete as soon as you take it, and you will gain Level 51! Talk to Maat again and he will give you the next quest (Atop the Highest Mountains), since you are Level 51. If you do this quest now, you can level clear up to Level 60 without having to stop at 55.
With that said, to do this quest, take a Home Point to Northern San d'Oria (#2 if you have it, Moghouse will also work). Near Home Point #2 is an NPC named Elesca. She will sell Magical Maps. You will want to buy the map of Ranguemont Pass, and the Map of the Northlands Area.
Once you have those two, take the Home Point to Southern San d'Oria Exit (Moghouse if you don't have that one) and exit into East Ronfaure. From here, go to the very Northeastern edge of the zone and you will find a cave. That's Ranguemont Pass. You need not worry about aggro until you find a big red door with an NPC standing in front of a table-like structure. Talk to her and she will ask if you're sure you want to proceed. Tell her yes.
Once you get through, use Spectral Jig and proceed until you see a Grounds Tome. Cancel both Sneak and Invisible assuming it is safe to do so (check nearby enemies, if they rate Too Weak then it is safe). Check the book and check the option labeled "Field Support". Buy "Circumspection". This will give you both Sneak and Invisible for 10 minutes which should be more than enough time to get to the other end of this cave.
Open your map -- you're wanting to get to the very Northeast. Do not, for any reason, allow Sneak and Invisible to go down as the enemies up near that exit are Level 80+ and will kill you very fast. Proceed up there, and exit out into Beaucedine Glacier. Once out here, mount your raptor (yaay, no more aggro!) and proceed to the east, and north. You're wanting to get to Xarcabard, and on the way you should pass the Survival Guide (it has a book icon on your map). I suggest grabbing it on your way up.
It's somewhat windy, but if you study the map you should have a clear idea as to how to get up to the Xarcabard zone that's at the very top-left of the map. Once in Xarcabard, you will want to head to the Survival Guide (again, it's marked on your map as a book icon). There's also a Telepoint Crystal (which is also marked on your map), it's rather close to the Survival Guide. This one is called "Vahzl".
Now that you're here, I suggest checking the quest I linked above. You're after three ???s, and each one is behind a True Sight/True Sound enemy, however you might remember that I told you that you cannot get aggro while riding a mount! Simply ride your mount to the back of the cave, wait for the enemy to move away, /dismount, check the ??? to get the Key Item and then get back on your mount before it comes back. Don't worry if you die after getting the ??? -- you just want the key item. You can always warp back up here with the Survival Guide even if you do get killed before getting all 3 of the Key Items.
Congratulations! You've done one of the easier Genkai quests. The next one will be a nightmare, though. But you can't do it until you are Level 56+, but trust me. You will want Level 60 for sure. That said, warp back to Windurst and get ready to do some more leveling!
== Level 50-58: Crawlers' Nest ==
Before we start on this, I would ask you to stop by Lower Jeuno Moghouse Homepoint. Once there, go out into Lower Jeuno, and note the large building on your right (the Chamber of Commerce). In there, you will want to speak with Darcia. She will start a quest called "The Geomagnetron" which will give you Adoulin Access (you will want this later). She will tell you that there are several locations that would suffice, and one of them is in the area we're about to go into! Also, buy a Map of the Crawlers' Nest from the other vendor in the same building.
Once you're done talking to Darcia and getting your map, exit out into Rolanberry from Lower Jeuno (you can refresh Signet if you need) and get on your mount. Be prepared for a long ride; your destination is near the very bottom of the zone. There's a big long ridge there with a fence; you will want to get ontop of that ridge and you do so by going significantly west from the southern exit. You'll know when you see it when you see a large cave entrance in the wall. This is the Crawlers' Nest, and it is your next leveling spot. Just inside is a Survival Guide and a Grounds Tome -- you want the Hornfly/Exoray page.
Once you've gotten these pages, make your way inside (go straight at the 4-way intersection). I suggest getting Level 51 on the crawlers you see along the way, and maybe the bees if you feel confident, but try not to link any of these -- everything in here links, at least everything not including the ultra-high level enemies in the very bottom area. We won't be going that far down, though.
You'll soon come to a big round room with several hanging sacs and a dropoff. Go ahead and drop off here; if you look at the map it should be rather clear on how to get back to the earlier area if you need to for some reason.
When you get to this round room, you'll see lots of lizards, and down one of the tunnel are Hornflies, one of your leveling enemies. But not so fast! Let's do the Geomagnetron quest first. Instead, take the path that's just right of the one the Hornflies are in, and follow this one. The beetles in here will aggro, but they are rated Easy Prey so go ahead and kill them, or you could use Spectral Jig if you don't feel like fighting them. I still suggest getting Level 51 before trying the Hornflies, though but it isn't mandatory.
Head to the very back of this area, and you will find a clickable target named a "Geomagnetic Fount". Target it, remove Invisible if you had Spectral Jig up, and interact with it and it should tell you that your Geomagnetron has been attuned or some-such. That's it, you're done! Turn around and go back out the way you came, to the big round room.
This time, we're going for the Hornflies. Again summon your Trusts, but beware -- Valaineral will now use an AoE weaponskill called Uriel Blade. This will oftentimes bring nearby enemies to attack him as well, so I would advise using your ranged weapon to pull enemies into safer locations to fight.
The flies are not that dangerous, but the exorays sure are! Try to make sure nobody is standing in front of one, and if Kupipi ever finds herself in front of one, make sure you're ready with your Healing Waltzes. Dark Spore is a move that can do very heavy damage -- it will hit harder with the more HP it has when it uses it. That's the only move it has that is actually all that dangerous, everything else Kupipi should be able to handle, but if she gets nailed by a Dark Spore at 75% or more HP, it is likely to one-shot her.
Once you gain a couple levels, this should be much easier. You will need to stay here until at least Level 58, if not 60. I highly recommend going the full 60+1 shy of 61, even though it might take a little bit longer.
== Rank 5, Limit Break (Genkai) #3 ==
Okay, now we're in for some travel and questing. I hope you don't mind a break from leveling, because this might take a little while.
First off, we are going to need to do Genkai #3 before you can level any further, BUT, this quest also requires you to be on the Rank 4 Mission (optimally, you will want to finish Rank 4 first which is easy enough).
We're going to start by trading a stack of crystals to a Signet NPC, and then going to our old friend Rakoh Buuma. You will get a Mission called To Each His Own Right. I really enjoy the nation of Windurst, but if there's one thing I hate, is that stupid tower and you will find out why very quickly. The quest itself is rather easy, refer to the wiki page I just linked. The only thing I will note here, is the Castle Oztroja is directly east of the Meriphataud Mountains Outpost (you should have the Survival Guide there; I instructed you to get it while you were doing the Gausebit Grasses earlier). There is absolutely no danger of aggro whatsoever if you follow the directions in that walkthrough.
Once you're done with that, head back on over to Buuma and skip "Written in the Stars" so that you can instead do "A New Journey". This mission is also pretty simple, there should not be any issues with aggro whatsoever, everything should rate Too Weak to you, unless you take a wrong turn in Delkfutt's Tower.
With that done, and Rank 4 attained, it is time to trade another stack of crystals to a Signet NPC (there's one in Ru'Lude Gardens, Morlepiche who is standing near the stairs to Upper Jeuno who is nearby). With that, you should get the new mission, "Magicite", from the Embassy NPC in the Windurstian Consulate.
Instead of following the walkthrough, I will provide one of my own, as I've done this mission enough times to know the fastest way through it. Before starting, buy the maps for Beaudeax, Davoi, Jugner Forest, Pashhow Marshlands, and Castle Oztroja.
# Talk to Ghebi Damomohe in Lower Jeuno (Neptune's Spire near the Moghouse)
# Choose the 3rd blank option.
# Go to Port Bastok (Homepoint #3 if you have it).
# Enter Warehouse #2, speak with Jabbar or Silver Owl. Go back to Ghebi.
# Go all the way back into the Tenshodo Area and talk to Aldo.
# On your way back out, talk to Sattal-Mansal.
# Go to Upper Jeuno, talk to Paya-Sabya and Baudin (near the Auction House/Exit Home Points respectively).
# Check AH under Food->Ingredients for a Coeurl Meat. If there are none in, or the price is too high, go to Sauromugue and kill Coeurls until one drops (this should be easy at your level).
# Take the Survival Guide to Crawlers' Nest, and zone out into Rolanberry and proceed South to Pashhow Marshlands. Get the Guide at the Outpost and continue south to Beadeaux. Get the Survival Guide just inside.
# Once in Beadeaux, proceed to the cave at H-7. I suggest calling out at least Kupipi.
# Activate The Mute at G-7; go to the exit at F-8.
# Proceed South and stay along the right wall until you get to a ramp that takes you up onto the ridge.
# Go up the ramp, then turn north until you see a bridge to the right. Take that, and proceed area of I-9.
# Find and kill De'Vyu Headhunter (this should be easy at Lv60) and collect the item he drops (he will drop several but you can only take one).
# Go north and then west, stick against the wall to your right, clear up until you get to F-6 which is right near the entrance. Stay up on the ridge, do not drop down. Kill Go'Bhu Gascon (who will also drop several items you can only have one of).
# Warp out and give these two items to Sattal-Mansal in the Tenshodo area to get two Key Items.
# Give Baudin the Coeurl Meat.
# Go to Lower Jeuno, enter Muckvix's Junk Shop and talk to Muckvix to get the Yagudo Torch.
# Go to Beadeaux, and proceed to the cave at H-7. This time, stick left and zone into Qulun Dome, go straight and examine the Magicite and watch the cutscene.
# Go to La Theine Plateau (or Batallia Downs), and zone into Jugner Forest. Proceed to the Outpost and get the Survival Guide, then south to G-12 to enter Davoi.
# Get the Survival Guide just inside, and follow the path West to G-7. Examine the magical wall there to get through, proceed straight and grab that Magicite.
# Go to Castle Oztroja, and proceed to the same trapdoor you took for the earlier rank mission.
# Stand between the two switches, throw one of the switches and quickly run out from between them. If it is the trapdoor, hopefully you got away before you fell. Hit the other switch to open the door (it's random per day which one it is).
# Go up the stairs, and on the next map, turn right at the first intersection, pass the next right turn up, and continue to G-7. Proceed north (do not fall), until you go down some stairs. Mobs in this next area may or may not aggro; even if they did they are only Easy Prey.
# Turn right again at the intersection, pass up the left turn, and make a forced left.
# Stand a bit away from the door but between the two torches, and examine a torch to light it. You may need to keep adjusting your position until you can get the torch lit.
# Turn right upon going through the door and simply open the next door, zone into the Altar Room, and watch the cutscenes/get the Magicite
# Warp back to Ru'Lude Garden, and turn the Magicite in (You'll get the mostly-obsolete Airship Pass) and return to your ambassador in Jeuno to receive Rank 5!
Whew. With all of that done, now we're ready to go have a chat with Maat. The quest that he has (Whence Blows the Wind) will be #1 of 2 roadblocks to your path to 99. Be prepared to put some time and effort into this, and don't be discouraged if you die. This will probably not be easy by any means. I warned you!
Let's get the easy part out of the way first. Buy a few Silent Oils (at least 3 to be safe) from the Curio Vendor Moogle, and head to Beaudeax and follow steps 10 through 14 from above (you don't need to kill De'vyu again). I also highly suggest keeping a Scroll of Instant Reraise on you at all times until you are done here. You can buy them from the Signet NPC.
Once there, continue all the way west, and then north to K-6. Stand on the ridge near the cave entrance there, and use one of your Silent Oils. Drop down (these enemies here are aggressive, and will likely rate Very Tough to Incredibly Tough to you).
Proceed to the very south to find a Mute. If you are still silenced with less than 5 minutes left, I suggest waiting for Silence to wear off somewhere safe, or use Echo Drops if you happen to have any. Get a fresh Silence status from the Mute and then proceed back North, but take the East path. You will come to a 4 way intersection with crawlers and doors, go south here.
From this point on, do not get too close to Ruby Quadav, Diamond Quadav, Adaman Quadav, or Za'dha Adamantking as they are all True Sound. Just wait for the turtles to wander around away from where you want to go and slip through when they're as far away as you can wait for them to be (this is why I told you to bring multiple oils, you might run out of time).
Once you get through this passage, there's another door requiring the three key items you got during the Magicite Mission, and once you get through that, you will zone into Qulun Dome again, though a different section this time.
There's only one main room here, and it's filled to the brim with the strongest Quadav around, including the aforementioned True Sound mobs. The ??? you are looking for is near the wall towards your left as you come in and look at the room. Tab-target around to find it before attempting to cross the 'creek' in the middle. Pay attention to the True-Sound enemies. Use your Scroll of Instant Reraise in case you die, and if you get aggro, try to get to the southwestern edge of the room before you die, so that you can wait for the mobs to go back to their original location before getting back up. Once back up (if you got killed), Spectral Jig and sneak over to the ??? and nab your Quadav Charm. Back away, and use your Warp Ring.
Whew. 1 of 3 done. The easiest one.
From here on, I am going to strongly advise you get somebody to help you, but I'll provide directions for a solo attempt just in case you can't.
Before I say anything else, I will remind you that Hide should be attempted first if you get aggro. Sometimes, if you get lucky, you can Hide away from aggro, assuming the enemy detects by Sight (which all major/relevant enemies from here on do).
Let's go to Davoi next. I suggest getting some Silent Oil and Prism Powder both, at least three of each. In fact, might as well get a whole stack of Powder if you can afford it.
From the Survival Guide, you want to make your way over to that magical barrier you went through for the Magicite Mission, but once you get there, continue north and make the first possible left turn (use a Prism Powder or Spectral Jig here -- you will get aggro from here on) and then go all the way west, then north, then south (you should be in the west-most passage now). Take the next possible right, proceed east, then take a forced right turn, and go all the way south until you get to the very southern end of that room and then proceed all the way east, and then make a south turn and then zone into the cave (Monastic Cavern).
Use another Prism Powder (I highly suggest Powder over Jig; Jig might not last long and there are few safe places to re-apply) and proceed to the first big room. Go straight north and there should be a passage going north and it should then make a right turn into another passage. Take the second right here which should immediately turn left and start going uphill. You will zone back out into Davoi at the end of the passage.
This is where it is going to get hard. Use a Prism Powder (not Jig!) before taking a single step anywhere, and then proceed North. As soon as you come out of the cave, you should see a wooden bridge to your right; go across it and follow the path staying south, and you should see another magical wall, but we have a major problem -- there's a bunch of orcs around it.
You're going to need to be patient here -- wait until they have their backs turned (study them carefully!), cancel Invisible and interact with the wall. Try to get Invisible back up as soon as possible, as this wall needs a different item (Crimson Orb) to open. As soon as you get invisible back up, go straight north and talk to Sedal-Godjal to do his quest for the Crimson Orb as detailed here.
Once you have the Crimson Orb, return to the wall, and again check it, this time you can go through. As soon as you can, run forward. Do not worry about re-applying invisible; just get through the barrier! If you get aggro, that's OK because there's a zone line about ten feet in front of you. Hopefully you make it.
Once you zone in, the hard part's over. You pretty much have it in the bag. Use another Powder (not Jig, again) and stick to the left wall like glue. You'll go through a large room, and at the northern end of this large room is a smaller passage. Be careful not to take the drop-off, it's a one-way and you would have wasted the trip if you go there without the item. The ??? you want is to your left on the upper ridge. Examine it to get your Orcish Crest. Yay, 2 of 3 done. That last one though....
Seriously, shout for help for this one. I'll give you directions to solo, but please... unless you enjoy pain and your character's death groans, please get help with this next part. I will warn you, it is NOT easy by any means.
But, if you really insist...
First, start by getting a Scroll of Reraise and a full stack of Prism Powder (yes, a whole stack), and at least one Silent Oil. Once you're done with this, go to Castle Oztroja. Before you do anything else, wait for a fresh game-day. This can take awhile.
First, you will want to start by making your way into the first large room, and then south to the small room at H-9. Examine this and then write down, type in notepad, type in /p, but take note of the name (it changes every game-day).
You should be familiar with the Trapdoor by now, make your way past the trapdoor and up the stairs. Once up there, instead of going right like you did for the Magicite, go left instead. Take a second left, and then a right, and then a second right. You will see a wall in front of you, but you can target the wall to open a secret door. Behind this door are four switches -- memorize or type/write down the pattern of the switches, whether they are up or down and what order they are in. This also changes every game-day.
Once you have that, turn around and leave this room and proceed all the way to G-9, which you will be forced to turn right. Do so, and keep going straight. You'll come across a small round room that forces you to turn left and then you'll have a choice of straight or left. Go straight, open the torch door and get the name from the statue much like you did on the bottom floor. Once you have this, go back to the previous intersection and take the bridge that goes across the big room. At the end of this bridge, you will see four switches on the wall. Before fiddling with them, I suggest calling out all of your Trusts in case you get aggro (they will be Decent Challenge most likely, do-able, but not solo).
Once you have your Trusts out, input the "password" (the same pattern the other four switches had) to open the door. Step through and use a Silent Oil and a Prism Powder both, if you didn't get aggro. Once you are stealthed up, proceed through the only path. You will go up a set of stairs, and through a small square room with a pond (which has leeches in it, which will aggro if you don't have Sneak), and another set of stairs.
This is where the hard part begins. You will see, if you open your map, that there's an "HH" pattern room, where the south is where you entered, and there's a door north. Northwest, Northeast, Southest and Southwest all have a torch in them. One of these torches will open the big door in the northern exit of this area, and that's where you need to go. The problem is, all of these enemies will rate Very Tough, if not Incredibly Tough. You could maybe try to fight them, but most likely if you end up with a link, you could very well get killed trying this. The better solution is to sneak up to one of the torches, nab it while everybody's looking away and mash your Spectral Jig macro. Before you try this, however, remove Sneak -- if you have Sneak up but not Invisible and you try to Spectral Jig, it will fail and won't give you anything.
Provided you can safely get the door open, if by some miracle nobody sees you try it, hurry through the door before it closes! It will only stay open so long (about 2-3 minutes). Once in there, you will see a small room with an obvious trapdoor and a statue in front of it.
Remember those two names from before? They are the First and Last names of the puzzle. The Middle, you're going to have to brute-force. Input the first name, and then one of the names from the list on this page, until it tells you that you have the right name and then the last name you got from the second statue. If done right, the trapdoor should open and you should drop.
Don't think you're in the clear yet! Oh, no, you've got even more problems to face. Use your Scroll of Instant Reraise and make sure you have Perfect Dodge and Flee ready (put them on temporary macros!), and I suggest calling out your Trusts as well.
Use a Prism Powder when you've collected your nerves and proceed forward, but be careful: the Yagudo High Priest is significantly stronger than the other enemies here (He's Lv72-74!) but most importantly, he is True Sight. Don't let him see you!
The ??? is right smack-dab on the middle of the platform where there are several Yagudo and there is almost always one, sometimes two, High Priests there as well. Cautiously approach the platform, keeping an eye on the High Priest(s) to make sure their backs are turned and stand right next to the ???. Target it before you do anything else.
Use Perfect Dodge to break your Invisible and immediately spam the enter key. You will almost certainly get aggro from at least one of the nearby Yagudo, but hopefully before they could hit you, you got the item. There's the chance you may get a message along the lines of "Action interrputed". If this happens, you do not have the item!
If you get the item, just let them kill you and return to homepoint.
If you fail to get the item, run back towards where you dropped earlier, let them kill you and then let the Yagudo wander back and raise back up. I strongly advise waiting an hour for Perfect Dodge to be ready again for another try (though you will not be able to reraise again). If you get lucky and somehow only one bird aggros, you can engage it and let Valaineral Provoke it, and then immediately use the asterisk key (the one on the number keypad, not Shift+8) to unlock, turn around away from it, use Spectral Jig and go back up to the platform and try again while the bird pounds away at Valaineral. Any additional birds that come will also attack Valaineral until he dies and will likely go after Kupipi next if she healed him.
Hopefully, somehow, you managed to get the Crest.
Again, I can't stress this enough -- do get help for this, a single Level 99 with any Item-Level gear at all, even 117s, can kill everything in this room solo, and easily so.
Strategy #2:
See those Yagudo Conductors right nearby? Call your Trusts and pull one. Conductors are Bards and Bards are generally fairly weak with their physical attacks. Get the bird to follow you back to somewhere safe and then pull your weapons out and attack it, and get Valaineral to Flash and Provoke it (which he should do immediately).
Put your weapons away by selecting the "Disengage" option, use Spectral Jig and run towards the platform, but still try to avoid the High Priest if you can. Valaineral will follow you, and the Conductor you pulled earlier should also be attacking Valaineral.
The birds up on the platform will see the Conductor attacking Valaineral and will then get angry at him as well. At this point, try to quickly step back onto the other ramp, and let the enemies kill Valaineral. When they do, the Yagudo should all disappear except for the drummer. Quickly target the ???, use Perfect Dodge, and time your enter keypress between the Conductor's swings (or, maybe you will get lucky and it will decide to start casting a song other than Foe Requiem or Lullaby). Either way, you should be able to grab the ???. Do so quickly because the other Yagudo will respawn very soon.
The main danger of this plan, is that if the Conductor casts Horde Lullaby before you ran away from it, this plan will be sunk. If this happens, I suggest attempting to kill the Conductor back in the safe area instead, though it might be a bit of a tough battle. Wait for another Conductor to respawn and try again.
The second danger to this plan, is the Conductor casting Horde Lullaby when you are attempting to get the Yagudo to see Valaineral in combat; this will remove your Invisible status immediately and you will likely get aggro yourself and die.
The third danger to this plan, is the High Priest seeing you in which case you will very likely die unless you can somehow sneak a grab at the ??? before you die.
Lastly, there are some Prelates here too which are Black Mages. If one of them casts an AoE (Stonega, Aeroga, etc), it will not only hurt a plenty but it will also remove Invisible.
This plan is more dangerous, but if you get lucky enough, it has the potential of working better than the first strategy above.
== Let's Get Another Rhapsody! ==
Before we go out leveling again, wouldn't it be nice to have yet another +30% Experience Point Gains? Yes?
Head to the Crag of Holla (using La Theine's Survival Guide), and check the Shattered Telepoint near there (remember earlier when I said not to check it? It's on one of the other platforms). You will get a cutscene with Lion. I don't think it matters what you answer, but the correct answer is Qufim Island either way.
Next, head to Qufim Island (if you got the Home Point on your way to Delkfutt's, your objective is right next to it, otherwise use the Survival Guide outside of Delkfutt's, or the one inside Delkfutt's and zone out. Either way, you want to head to the Home Point on your map).
Call your Trusts (full setup, Valaineral, Kupipi, Tenzen, Semih) and get ready to do battle. Check the weird glowy portal thing for a cutscene, and then check it again to spawn the monster. It might be a somewhat tough fight, but it should be do-able. To make the fight easier, you can attack one of the easy mobs to get Kupipi to buff the group with Protect and Shell before spawning the NM itself, that way she doesn't have to waste MP and time doing it while fighting the NM. Either way, you shouldn't have too much trouble at Lv60.
Once it's dead, check the portal for another cutscene to be whisked away into Escha - Zi'Tah, a very strange and weird place. After finishing the cutscene, look around for the exit portal (not the white glowing one, you want the green/black/red one). Use it to escape Escha (you could also just use your Warp Ring too).
Once you escape and/or warp back, return to the Crag of Holla and check the Shattered Telepoint again to get your Rhapsody in Umber and Cipher: Lion II. With the Rhapsody in hand, you get the aforementioned +30% Experience Points bonus, but you also get something else: Remember that Curio Vendor Moogle? He now sells more stuff. The relevant items he will sell you, are Meat Mithkabobs which are far better than the Meat Jerky you've been eating up until this point. As for the Cipher, you should know what to do with that by now -- trade it to Wetata. As for the Trust NPC, I don't think she's really worth calling out unless you just want a change from Semih, or you're in some place you cannot afford Semih's AoE attacks (which she will start doing soon). IMO, Lion II is better than Halvar, though Ayame could be better than Lion II. Experiment around and see who works best for you!
== A Note about Equipment ==
You might have noticed by now that the Crow Jupon set is the best gear you can buy from the Sparks NPC and it is Level 50. You're now Lv61. You're probably wondering "What about my Armor?" Sadly, there's not much you can do, though one thing you can do that might help you a little, is you can check to see if there is a Scorpion Harness available in the Auction House (only get the body) for an acceptable price. By now, you surely should have sold enough crystals that you can afford one of those. This is optional, though, as the only thing the said Harness has to offer you is Accuracy and Evasion, which you really should not need as you should be using Valaineral to tank and if your daggers are capped, you should not be having accuracy problems if you are staying to Very Tough or less. Otherwise, it's Crow all the way to 78. You can keep your weapons up-to-date with the Sparks NPC though, all the way to 99 and I highly suggest you do so.
==Genkai #4, Level 61-66 (Kuftal Tunnel)==
If you've been following my suggestions, you should be 1 XP shy of Lv61, unless you got killed while trying to do the mess above. Either way, once you get the previous quest done, get Level 61 by any means (using RoE objectives, or just killing a mob or three, whatever you need to do), go see Maat again and accept his next quest (Riding on the Clouds). Before clicking this link, you're probably cringing, going "what is it gonna be this time?"
You may be shocked to find out that it is ridiculously simple and easy this time. I suggest following the link above, but basically you need 4 Kindred's Seals, and Maat will describe 4 NPCs (they are all in the 3 nations + Selbina/Mhaura) and you need to trade one Kindred's Seal to each NPC. If it's the right NPC, you get a Key Item. If not, don't worry, you won't lose your Seal, just nothing will happen. The link above has the full list of NPCs and what Maat will say about them and where they can be found.
Once you get this little side-quest out of the way, it's time to head over to Kuftal Tunnel! Some people might recommend Escha - Zi'Tah for leveling, but I highly suggest you don't try this on your first time through, for two reasons: One, you have zero Escha Silt with which to buy Vorseals (which is the main draw of leveling there) and two, you have no Escha Silt to buy Mollifiers. Unless you're fighting Eschan Worms (which are completely safe, but are too low level for you if you're Lv61), sometimes NMs can spawn immediately after the enemy dies. The Crawler will most likely smear you flat, and that's to say nothing about what the Dhalmel will do to you (it's Lv99). Needless to say, if an NM decides to spawn upon you killing a normal mob there (the Mollifier prevents this, but it costs 500 silt which is way above your means at this point), you are dead plain and simple. It could take 500 kills to spawn an NM, or you might get the NM on the 2nd kill. It just isn't worth the risk.
Instead, let's go to Kuftal Tunnel. Before we start, you will want to buy Maps for Kuftal Tunnel, Korroloka Tunnel, Zeruhn Mines, Kuzotz Region, and optionally Vollbow Region (you can get that one later, you don't need it quite yet, or you could get it now just to get it out of the way).
To get to Kuftal Tunnel, you will need to start by going to Bastok Mines. Once in Bastok Mines, go to the very west of the zone, and you should see a big cave up on a hill. That's Zeruhn Mines, go in there. Once inside, continue straight, and you'll see an NPC standing in front of a big iron gate. Talk to this NPC who will mention that the entrance to Korroloka Tunnel has been sealed off, but he is permitted to let seasoned adventurers through. Go through, and zone. Once in the Tunnel, you will want to just go straight -- nothing in here will aggro and you do not need to take any of the side-paths at all. You will exit out into Eastern Altepa Desert.
Once in the Desert, you can mount up and ride Northwest to the Crystal Icon on your map, which is the Altep telepoint for the Teleport-Altep spell. Might as well grab it while you're here. Once you have that, go almost straight east to the zone to Western Altepa Desert (there's a Survival Guide, but it is far south and way out of the way, you can get it if you want but it isn't a big deal). Once you zone there will be a Survival Guide right inside the zone. Get it, and then head straight north and zone into Rabao, for a Home Point and a Survival Guide both. You don't really need to do anything here just yet, but having the Home Point and the 'Guide will save you time later when you need to come here for various quests relating to the Zilart missions.
After doing your business in Rabao, exit there and head back down south a little and then due west to get to the big open area. Once there, head up to H-4. It's not marked on your map as such, but that little 'finger' on the very northern edge of the zone here is actually the entrance to Kuftal Tunnel! Zone in, and there will be a Survival Guide just inside.
Summon your trusts, and take the page that asks for Sand Lizards and Robber Crabs. Before you pull anything, there's a few things you should be advised: The Lizards will link, but not aggro, but the crabs are very aggressive, but do not link. The first room you will see have Lizards in them, but there are too many around to fight them here, you'd likely get slaughtered at first. See that little railing ahead of you near a dropoff? Do not go there if you have Yellow HP; there are ghosts that might aggro from below and those certainly will put a major hurt on you. Seriously, they hurt. Bad. Instead, if you look around, you'll note a side passage that goes down and around. 
You will want to camp in this passage -- there's two lizards in this passage that wander around, and you can usually safely pull a lizard from the room above (you might need to pull one into the passage with the Survival Guide; you can easily zone out if you get a link, but you'll need to re-summon your Trusts if you do). You can pull the Robber Crabs from the passageway below, just don't step out too close to those Haunts, and again, watch for Yellow HP -- use your Curing Waltzes if you end a fight with Yellow HP and don't fight too close to the room they're in. Don't worry about your Trusts: They can't aggro anything even if they are low HP.
I suggest you get Level 66 in here: it will be slow the last couple levels, but there's not all that many good/convenient alternatives. It will give you plenty of time to make sure your weapon skills stay current. If you really have some good patience, aim for 70+1 shy of 71 so you can do the next Genkai, but be warned, trying to do this will greatly slow you down, and you have a potentially lengthy quest during which you will gain plenty of XP.
== Level 66-70: Cape Teriggan ==
Once you get 65-66, either grab a Silent Oil if you had any left from your Genkai 3 quest, or simply use Spectral Jig, and proceed into that room where you were pulling Robber Crabs from. You will want to head North, and it will be a lot like Korroloka Tunnel -- it's a straight shot all the way through the zone pretty much. Use your map if you're not sure, but be careful where and when you try to re-apply Jig if you chose to use that.
Once you get to the other end, you will zone out into Cape Teriggan. Call your Trusts and get on your Raptor and head to the Outpost and pick up the Survival Guide there (be careful of the goblins that wander around).
Once you have the Guide, I suggest getting back on your Raptor and going straight East up over the little sand dunes until you come to a small grey ridge. Take a look around here, and note the location of the Goblin Bandits that you will see wandering the area. It should be relatively safe to camp up against the wall here, so dismount and once you've gotten familiar with the goblins and where they are, pull Goblin Bandits.
Now, while you fight these guys, you are going to want to use your Steal ability every chance you get while fighting the Bandits (and only the Bandits!). What you are trying to get is a Thief's Testimony which you will need for your next Genkai quest. You could get lucky and steal the stupid thing on the first attempt, or you could be here for quite some time; it all boils down to chance. If you followed my suggestion, you need to gain a couple levels anyways, as you don't need to do the Genkai until Level 70. Have fun, and I wish you good luck!
== Genkai #5: Cheating in a Duel ==
You got your Thief's Testimony? Awesome. Now it's time to go talk to Maat once again, and this time he will offer to duel you. He will pick a place and even teleport you there! How nice of him. But before you do this, make sure you have the Rhapsody in Umber! Do not attempt this if you don't!
Anyways, once you have the Rhapsody, go ahead and tell him that you accept his duel and you will be teleported to Waughroon Shrine. You should recognize this place; it's the same place you fought the Dragon during your Rank 2-3 quest. Trade your Thief's Testimony to the Burning Circle to begin the battle.
Please note, your Subjob will be temporarily removed during the fight, and so will your Trusts' Subjobs. Yes, you can call Trusts, but only if you have the aforementioned Rhapsody in Umber. Call out your usual crew (including Valaineral and Kupipi!) before heading in.
Draw your weapons and engage him and even throw in a Steal attempt. If you steal the Scroll of Instant Warp he has, the battle will end immediately with you "winning" the fight. Otherwise, just let your Trusts pound him flat (help them out, obviously) and it should be an easy and flawless win. Note that this battle is a solo fight; only you and your Trusts and nobody else can help you.
Once you ganged up on the poor old man, return to Ru'Lude Gardens and he will finish the quest.
== Level 70-75 (Labyrinth of Onzozo), Merit Points, Genkai #6 ==
Once you've finished beating up on the old man, and once you've turned your quest in, it's time to get ready to do some more leveling up. Sort out anything you need to do (buy a map of Labyrinth of Onzozo while you're at it), and head to Mhaura, and zone out into Buburimu. Once there, ride north to the beach on the eastern edge of the zone, and just like the other beach, there's a cave at the very end of the beach, which leads directly into the aforementioned cave.
There's the usual Survival Guide and Grounds Tome (take the page asking for Torama/Manticore) here, and the enemies here will not aggro -- yet. I suggest calling your Trusts before heading in, though. Keep an eye out for a goblin named Mysticmaker Profblix, and if you see him, kill him! He can drop an earring that you may or may not be interested in (it's for offensive casters).
Anyhow, once you're ready to proceed in, head North, and then and take the first right. The room here is where Profblix can spawn, and if you see him, kill him. Don't forget to Mug him, as you should get several thousand gil, and he will drop a good deal more, and he will usually drop a spell scroll that should be worth several thousand as well. The earring is Rare/EX, which means you can't sell it, so keep it or drop it, your choice. It isn't too hard to get another these days. The main draw to killing him is the ~20,000 gil that you get from Mugging, his gil drop, and selling whatever scroll(s) and other items he dropped.
Once he's dead (assuming he was there), continue north and stay along the right wall in the large room. You'll come to a small room, at which point you will want to turn left and you will see another left turn. Stop here, and use Spectral Jig -- everything beyond this point will aggro. Continue West which will go uphill and turn North and it will open up into a room. Turn right immediately and get up against the wall and find a safe place to camp. You will want to kill Torama and the Manticores found in this room, and the best way to do that, is to stay along the walls as there are numerous goblins in the center of the room. Do not even think about pulling the Wyvern until you're at least 73+, he is much harder than everything else in this room and his breath attack hits like a truck if he uses it early in the fight.
You will also want to beware of the Manticores too. The northwestern exit out of this room is a small little nook dead-end that's usually safe to rest in, but whatever you do, do not for any reason enter the northern exit (the one with the huge skeletal hands on the wall). This will lead into an area with Level 90+ skeletons which will straight up murder you fast. This is also the tunnel the Wyvern is usually found near, and also a couple goblins will wander here.
While killing Torama, beware of an NM called Ose -- he will be far, far harder than the normal Torama. I highly recommend avoiding him at all costs if you can. Even if you were 75, it would still be a bit of a tough battle because he has incredibly high evasion for a mob of his level, even moreso than the Torama. There's also a goblin named Soulstealer Skullnix which you will want to avoid too. If, for any reason, you should go into the Southwestern Passage for more Torama or Manticores, sometimes Narasimha (a named Manticore) can be in the very far western room; she will kill you period, so don't even think about it.
Otherwise, just kill cats and manticores until you are Level 75+1 shy of 76 and return to Jeuno and talk to Maat and/or the Nomad Moogle next to him. They will mention something about Merit Points. This was once the endgame, back when Level 75 was once the maximum level. If you go into Status -> Merit Points (which is at the very bottom), you can choose whether you want to gain XP or Merits but if you leave it on XP, you will automatically gain Merits if your XP is full for any reason, so there's no real reason to change it. Just leave it on XP. That way if you die, you will automatically regain the lost XP and then once again start getting Limit Points.
Talk to Maat/Nomad Moogle again to also pick up the Genkai 6 quest, but you can't do it quite yet. You need some Merit Points first, as well as some Kindred's Seals.
== Merit Points, Genkai #6 and #7 Done, Level 75-85 ==
Assuming you picked the Survival Guide up, head to Zeruhn Mines (otherwise you'll have to get there from Bastok Mines again). Stop by the Grounds Tome and take the page that asks for Soot Crabs and Colliery Bats. This time, take the south turn, and head down into the mine proper. Call out your trusts, and go all the way south until you see a passageway at the end of the large room. None of these enemies will link or aggro, but they are rather strong. Once you get into this passage, start killing said Bats and Crabs. Note that you will now gain Limit Points instead of Experience Points -- every 10,000 Limit Points will equal one Merit Point. I highly suggest doing this until you get all 30 Merit Points that you are permitted to hold on you.
These mobs (and any other mob you fight from this point on) should also drop the Kindred's Crests that you will need (don't drop or get rid of any extra ones!) for your Genkai Quests all the way up to Level 99.
Once you have your 30 Merit Points, return to the Nomad Moogle and give him the Seals he asked for to uncap your level. Open your RoE quests, and take a quest so that you will ding Level 76 and then talk to the Nomad Moogle again, who will ask for Kindred's Crests and more Merit Points. Since you already have said Merit Points, trade the Crests and complete the quest right there and then. You can now level up to 85.
Return to Zeruhn Mines and wail away at the enemies some more, but once you get Level 78, you will want to get yourself some armor, if you can.
First thing to attempt to do, is go to Port Jeuno and find Joachim near the stairs leading to the AH. Talk to Joachim to get a cutscene and a quest, and then try checking the chest next to him; sometimes during specific campaigns, you can get a bunch of loot, key items, currencies, etc. What you're interested in, is that sweet 100,000 cruor. If you were able to get this, head to Windurst Woods, and exit into East Sarutabaruta and ride all the way up to Tahrongi Canyon. Once there, check the Cavernous Maw to be teleported into Abyssea - Tahrongi.
Note that you will get a warning saying that you will be ejected in 5 minutes unless you get Vistant Status, so go see the Cruor Prospector to get said Status (just use 1 Traverser Stone if you have multiple) so that you have time to browse their selection of items.
Do just that -- tell the NPC that you want to browse their items, and buy the entire Aurore Doublet Set. This gear will last you clear to Level 99.
Now, if you couldn't get the Cruor, you have two more options: you could either check the AH (It's Level 78; sort the list by level) or /yell in town asking for someone to buy the Aurore set for you (it's rather cheap cruor-wise, any experienced Level 99 player can get that kind of Cruor in minutes) for whatever they think is worth.
Hopefully, you were able to get your Aurore Set. I hope you like Pink, though. If not, you can use /lockstyle and a macro set (/lockstyleset 1 etc) to get rid of the look if you don't like it.
Either way, return the Zeruhn Mines and you should notice your character performing significantly better now that you have gear with actual combat stats other than Evasion (lol). That Haste in particular should be quite helpful!
Stay here until you are Level 85 + 1 shy of 86, but be warned the last few levels will be a little slow. It may take multiple sessions and Emperor Band charges.
== Level 86-90: Maze of Shakhrami, Genkai #8 and #9 ==
With 85+1 shy of 86, it's time for a couple Genkai Quests! Head up to your friendly Nomad Moogle friend, and accept the next quest. He will ask for yet more Seals and Merits (ugh..). Once you turn them in, you will then be faced with a mini-game (see Beyond the Stars for a walkthrough, though this really isn't necessary as the move the NPC chooses is entirely random and it all falls to luck and you can restart the match as many times as you need).
Once this business is done, take an RoE objective to ding yourself to 86 and talk to the Moogle Again. He will ask for a Random Item, so follow this walkthrough: Dormant Powers Dislodged. This walkthrough also explains the mini-game (it isn't too hard). If the moogle asks for the Dangruf Stone, just be careful of Tough goblins that you will find on the way to the objective.
Once you have this done, let's head to the Maze of Shakhrami. Despite the name of the zone, this isn't really all that mazy, and once you get used to the route, it's easy to memorize how to get here. Hopefully you grabbed that Survival Guide way back in the beginning as I advised, otherwise you'll have to use either the Buburimu Outpost, or the one way over by the Meriphataud zone. Either way, head on in.
Once inside, check the Grounds Tome as per usual, this time you want the page that asks for Crypterpillars and Warren Bats. Thankfully, you will not need Sneak and Invisible anywhere in here, as nothing will aggro you.
Starting from the entrance, go straight until you see the big room, and then head northeast. Continue all the way east, and then turn south (this passage will change your map), and once you get into the next room, take the south exit (which will change your map back to the first one). Once here, turn North, and you will see your targets in the next room. Both of these mobs link, but nothing in here will aggro you (except for Elementals if you are a magic user).
They might be a little difficult at first, try not to link anything and once you gain a level or two, they will quickly get easy. Thankfully, you should only need 4 levels here, as we'll be leaving here at 90.
== Level 90-95: Adoulin (finally!), Ceizak Battlegrounds ==
Once you're out, it's time to go to Adoulin! Remember that quest I asked you to do, all the way back at Level 50 in the Crawlers' Nest? Well, let's go back and talk to Darcia now (who has been waiting all this time!). She should hand you a shiny new Key Item and then mention something about Waypoints.
Exit the building she's in and look right next to the building, you should see a floating gold and blue contraption. Activate it and tell it that you're ready to go, and *whoosh*, enjoy the long cutscenes. When you are presented with the option, hold your ground and do not get aggressive.
Once you have control of your character, mount your Raptor and head North, and take each East possible until you see the beaches. Once you see those, keep heading North and you should see a tent and a large gate beyond. Enter the gate to zone into Western Adoulin, and you will also get a long cutscene. Once the cutscene is over, look for the building with the pickaxe emblem, enter there and talk to Brenton. After a cutscene, and some explanation, you will get another Key Item which opens a lot of stuff in Adoulin.
For now, though, talk to the Task Delegator for an explanation and some Imprimaturs. We won't be using those quite yet, though. Mainly, you're doing this to start the counter so that by the time you are ready, you'll have a full stack of 15 Imprimaturs ready to go.
Once you are done with that, check the Waypoint outside of the Pioneers' Coalition and also the nearby Home Point and then head East, past the fountain and along the long bridge to zone into Eastern Adoulin. Once there, take the second right and check the Waypoint there, and then head inside the Scouts' Coalition and talk to Sifa Alani and accept the free maps.
You can use the Waypoint to warp back to Western Adoulin (Pioneers' Coalition) and I suggest grabbing any other waypoints you see that you don't already have. Anyhow, walk on over towards the exit, but stop and talk to Fleuricette to ask her to cast Ionis on you (it will cost 10 Bayld, you should have 1,000 after talking to Brenton).
Ionis functions similarly to (and will overwrite) Signet, so you should always have it up while doing anything in Adoulin. Signet has no effect in Adoulin, and Ionis has no effect outside of Adoulin areas (Your Mog Garden is considered to be in Adoulin for purposes of Ionis, so its crafting bonuses apply there!).
With Ionis applied, step outside into Ceizak Battlegrounds once more. Continue straight, and get the Waypoint near the white tent, and then continue south some more (you do not need Sneak or Invisible in this area). Call your Trusts and start fighting Blanched Mandragora. These will be slow-ish kills at first, but they will yield mountains of XP when killed, much better than plucking away in Shakhrami or anywhere else for that matter. These mobs do not link, and do not aggro, so the only danger you have is Valaineral or Semih using an AoE to attract one.
Be warned, though, that this is a popular spot for just about everybody to level, so you may have some competition in pulling mobs, though they repop fast. You can go further south, just don't go into the woods, stay near the beach. Just avoid the Orobon along the waters (which will aggro) and you'll be fine.
Stay here until you are Level 95 (it isn't necessary to get 1 shy of 96 this time).
== Genkai #10: Kick a Little Shrimp to the Moon ==
First, go to Ru'Lude Gardens and talk to the Nomad Moogle once again to start the quest (Beyond Infinity). You'll get a cutscene with your favorite tarutaru who you should be quite familiar with by now. You'll be asked for a Seasoning Stone. Also talk to Maat before doing anything else, and he will mention Degenhard for training.
Usually, you can buy these with Login Points for 10 points each, or you can farm them from certain enemies (check the link above). I suggest getting at least two no matter what. If you know someone who is willing to help you, you will only need two. If you're doing this solo, get 5-6 of them.
You will also need 4-5 Fossilized Bone and 4-5 Fossilized Fang. Pick a mob that drops these (use the links, again). Once you have all of this stuff, go to Degenhard and trade them both to him. If he refuses to take them, it is because of a quest called The Bare Bones. You will need to complete that quest first (it's simple; you only need a Bone Chip to complete it.
Either way, you should get an Olde Rarab Tail each time you trade a Seasoning Stone, Fossilized Bone, and Fossilized Fang. If you have Lv99 help, you will want 1. If you're going in solo, get no less than 4-5. Five should be plenty.
Once you have these, trade the last Seasoning Stone (note how I told you to get 1 more than the Bones/Fangs) to the Nomad Moogle next to Maat. You should now get a choice of where to fight Atori. Ask for Qu'Bia Arena (that's the hardest one to get to) and you will be teleported there for free.
Before touching the Burning Circle, turn right around and exit the area. Right outside will be a Home Point. Grab it to save yourself mountains of time later!
Go back in, and check the Burning Circle and start the battle. Once inside, if you're in there with a Lv99, let them call their Trusts out (as they'll be stronger than yours and they'll likely have a better selection of Trusts than you do). If you're solo, you will definitely want your full usual crew including a tank and healer.
This guy is dangerous even to Item Level 119 players; do not by any means underestimate him. This isn't a repeat of the Maat fight. If you're in here with a 99, get ready to run up to Atori as soon as your friend engages him, and if you're in here solo, draw your weapons before getting close enough to aggro him.
Either way, immediately as soon as the battle starts, use an Olde Rarab Tail on him. This will freeze him in place for 90 seconds and will remove his damage taken cap (this helps loads for a Lv99 helper as they should be able to destroy him fast once you remove his damage taken cap).
If Atori should start moving again, immediately use another Rarab Tail on him, regardless of what you're doing. Prioritize keeping him frozen and just wail away on him. Pray you kill him before you run out of Rarab Tails, though 5 Tails will give you 7 and a half minutes with which to knock him off (the time limit of the entire fight is 10 minutes (which starts from the moment you enter the battlefield), so you can't even use more than 6).
Hopefully he isn't able to double-weaponskill the tank before you can get a Rarab Tail off, that's why you need to be as quick as you can. Atori will sometimes use two weaponskills in quick succession which will set off a skillchain (he can kill a I-level 119 tank like Valaineral or even Trion within 3 seconds with this). I do not recommend using Apururu (UC) as your healer; she has this nasty tendency to be in the middle of casting Haste or Stoneskin at the exact wrong time while Kupipi will like to cast Paralyze and Slow, but once she lands them she should be ready to do nothing but Cure, and since you're using Rarab Tails to try to keep him frozen the entire fight, you should not need to worry about her running out of MP unless things get really bad near the end if you run out of frozen time (but if this happens, you're probably less than 60 seconds from getting ejected anyways).
== A Clear Shot to Lv99 and a couple small things. ==
Once Atori is out of the way, congratulations! There's nothing standing between you and that sweet Level 99! Return to the Blanched Mandragora outside of Adoulin until you ding Level 99. I suggest also filling in the XP bar the whole way, so that if you should do something dangerous that causes you to die multiple times, you won't lose your level (which is crippling, because all of your good gear requires 99 obviously).
Once you get Level 99, we've got a good list of stuff to do, but let's start with basic prepwork for the rest of the game, shall we?
First, return to Ru'Lude Gardens... bet you thought you were done with your Genkai friends. Nope, not yet. Talk to the Nomad Moogle who should mention Job Points and give you a key item. Now, you will gain Capacity Points if you kill strong enough enemies, though unlike merits, these will come very slow at first, but will give you massive bonuses later. Don't worry about these until you've chosen a "main" job (assuming you don't want to continue as Thief). Talk to him again for another quest where he asks for 15 Merit Points.
Before charging off, however, open up your RoE quests, and go to Tutorial -> Intermediate. If you haven't done this already, check the "Attain Level 99" quest which should auto-complete because you're Lv99 already. You will then see a new quest called "An Eminent Scholar". Head to Windurst Woods and speak to the Sparks NPC as you should have far more sparks than you need for the quest. Finish the next several quests until you get to the one called "Always Stand on 117".
You will note that you got several Mog Kupons. Take a Home Point to Port Windurst #1 and head East, there will be a Dealer Moogle on the way. Trade the following to get the following:
* Mog Kupon W-EMI: Eminent Dagger
* Mog Kupon A-EMI: Espial Gambison
* Mog Kupon A-EMI: Espial Hose
* Mog Kupon A-PK109: Thurandaut Set (Optional, this is for Lockstyle if you don't like Espial's appearance)
Go back to the Sparks NPC and buy the following:
* Espial Cap
* Espial Bracers
* Espial Socks
* Allegro Earring
* Enlivened Ring
* Vehemence Ring
You may or may not have enough sparks for the earring and rings; you should get them as they are better than nearly anything else you have up to this point, but get the Espial stuff first, those are far higher priority.
Once we have this stuff, equip all of your gear (and set up an equipment set for Lockstyle if you decided to try Thurandaut) and head to the Blanched Mandragora. You should notice a night&day difference in your performance, you have basically gained the equivalents of 10-15 levelups just by equipping this gear, and your NPCs will also further levelup with you until you attain the Maximum of Item-Level 119. Note that your Item Level is calculated by using an average of the Item-Level on your main armor slots (Head/Body/Hands/Legs/Feet) plus your Main Hand/Off-Hand items (an average of both IIRC).
Get 30 Merits and then return to the Nomad Moogle and turn that quest in, and then go out and get at least 5 more Merits and go to your Mog House (or Garden) and open up the menu and go into Status->Merit Points->Categories->Weapon Skills.
In this category, you can buy Exenterator for 20 Merits. This will be your main go-to Weaponskill for quite some time as it will do significantly more damage than Dancing Edge or Sharkbite and is easier to get than Evisceration (which it will usually out-damage anyway). I suggest getting Evisceration (read the walkthrough as usual) when you get extra time, or are bored or what-not, just to have more skillchain options should you find yourself needing it, but it is a side-quest and isn't a priority just yet, so I won't go into more detail here.
I would not bother upgrading Exenterator just yet; you have a limited number of Merit Points you're allowed to spend in the Weapon Skill category and you likely haven't chosen a "Main Job" yet; you don't want to run out of points and having to lower points only to re-gain them to spend them on a new weapon skill. Just Rank 1 of this is good enough for now.
As for Merit Points, once you have Exenterator, I highly suggest starting to work on Maximum Merit Points (found in Categories -> HP/MP) first. Get that to 75 so that you don't have to go running back to the Mog House every time you get 30 merits, but it will take awhile. You may also want to do the Group 1 and Group 2 Merits for your chosen job (I'm going to assume you're going to continue on as Thief for at least a little while longer, but you can switch at any point from here forward; getting a second job to 99 is much easier now that you have all the Genkais out of the way, but you may wish to wait for a Rhapsody or two to increase your XP gains further).
Anywho, with that done, take the Always Stand on 117 quest if you haven't yet. This will give you a Cipher: Koru-Moru which you should turn into Wetata right away. He is a fairly nice support NPC who will serve you well in some fights/situations. Experiment around with him, you might like him!
Unfortunately, this is as far as you go in the quests for at least a little while; we're going to have to take a nice long journey through Adoulin to get the next one done (unless you know some friends). Either way, you can't even do the next part until you've had a bit of a romp through Adoulin first. The next quest (Taming the Wilds) will require you to buy a Key Item in Adoulin. First, you have no Bayld and second, it requires Adoulin fame which you don't have yet. So, with that in mind, let's set out on remedying that, shall we?
== Post-99: Introduction to Adoulin ==
Remember how I told you to begin your Imprimatur count earlier when you first arrived in Adoulin? I'm guessing at least a couple days passed. Go into Currencies 2 (under Status) and check your Imprimatur count. It is probably reading 15 (you get 1 Imprimatur per 3 hours). It's time to start spending those.
There are several Coalitions scattered throughout Western and Eastern Adoulin, and eventually you will want to rank all of them up, but this will take a colossal amount of time. For the purposes of getting your boots on the ground so-to-speak, we're going to choose the Inventors' Coalition first, for something simple and easy to begin with.
First off, head to F-5 in Western Adoulin to find the zone to Rala Waterways. Once inside, call Koru-Moru and Apururu (UC) only (you seriously don't need a full group for this. You will want time to tank and skill up your Evasion and Parry skill, and you can't do that if an NPC is always tanking for you). You want Koru-Moru for his Haste II and enfeebles, and Apururu will keep you healed so that you don't need to waste TP on Curing Waltz.
Anyways, kill the Pewter Diremites you see here (you can click on that wall in front of you to open the way), heading East as you do, all the way to the end of the passage. Turn around and head back west until you get back to the Sluice Gate and then turn around. Just keep going back-and-forth along this passageway; the mobs will respawn quickly. Don't worry about getting aggro or links, because they can't hurt you much whatsoever even if they do. Check one, they rate "Incredibly Easy Prey" but yet will give you nice XP and a few Capacity Points.
What we're really after, though, is Bloodthread. You will want 15 of these. This sounds daunting at first, but remember you are a Thief (or at least I hope you still are) with Treasure Hunter 3. It shouldn't take too long for 15 Bloodthreads to drop.
With Bloodthreads in hand, head to the Inventors' Coalition in Western Adoulin (marked on the map) and head inside and talk to the Task Delegator. Tell her you want to Gather Materials from Rala Waterways and she will tell you that she wants 3 Bloodthreads. Tell her you want to spend 3 Imprimaturs.
Now, before you trade her the Threads, if there are any other jobs you want to begin leveling, you may wish to switch to said job now, as you will receive some experience points when you turn them in, and you can turn them in on other jobs! Though you might want to get said job up to Lv10-15 first, as you can never gain more than 1 levelup at a time (you'll stop 1 shy of the 2nd levelup). So if you turn this in as a Lv1 job, you'll gain 500XP + 749 for a total of 1249 even though the Imprimatur turn-in should give you ~3000 normally. You'd be wasting XP.
Or, maybe you want to turn it in as Thief to gain some Merit Points, you can do that too. Just make sure you're not going to cap on Merits (spend your Merits first).
Anyhow, trade the NPC the 3 Bloodthreads, and then talk to her again and report a completed assignment. The Gather: Rala Waterways should have a star beside it, meaning it's done. Choose that and you'll get your reward: ~3000 XP and ... yay, Bayld!
Repeat this 4 more times (you have 15 Imprimaturs which lets you do this a total of 5 times). Not bad, 15k Bayld right off the bat! Remember to check your Imprimatur count every so often, and you might even want to farm some Bloodthread in advance, when you have extra time.
Now that we're done with that, let's get some more Bayld. You may notice that you are using a 117 main hand weapon, but a Lv80 something off-hand dagger. It's about time we fixed that, but we need more Bayld, and I doubt you want to several days to turn in more Imprimaturs, do you? So let's go get some Bayld.
== Post-99: Your first Reive ==
Exit out into Ceizak Battlegrounds, and call your usual crew of NPCs, though you might want to swap Semih for Koru-Moru... up to you. Either way, on your way out, remember that white tent that you've passed countless times by now? If for some reason you've never checked its waypoint, check it now, but more importantly, talk to Elmric who will ask you to participate in a Colonization Reive.
So now, we need to find a Colonization Reive. in Ceizak, these Reives can be found at I-8, G-8, F/G-7. They are also marked on the map on this wiki as well. Once you find one, dismount, pull your daggers out, and take a swing at a knotted root. You (and your NPCs) will do 0 damage, making the Reive impossible to clear (and you won't get credit if someone else comes in and clears it for you). Disengage and run out of the Reive's area (you will get ejected and can't participate in a Reive again for 5 minutes) and mount up and return to Elmric who will give you "Logging", which will allow you to participate in these Reives.
With this, open your RoE Quests and go to Content->Colonization Reives and take the one for Ceizak Battlegrounds, and then go into Content->Lair Reives and take the one for Ceizak as well. Go back to that Reive (hopefully it is still there) and then proceed to attack the Roots again and you should be able to damage them now. It will take a bit of pounding, but once it is down, proceed to the next root, and then the last root and you will clear the Reive, but most importantly, you should have gotten a chunk of Bayld from it too, along with some random items (which are probably almost worthless). If you get any Faithful's Parts I or any Visage I, I suggest keeping some of those (you will need a few later). The rest can be vendored or sold on the AH.
You will want to do at least 2 Colonization and Lair Reives here in Ceizak, because you will get 1250 Capacity Points out of each quest, and you will get a permanent 3% (2 from Colony, 1 from Lair) Bonus to Capacity Points Earned! Nice! I suggest going after even more Reives even once you complete the quest (though I suggest removing the quest from your log since it is repeatable; you will run out of maximum allowed quests if you keep taking these and not removing them once done).
Proceed to the Home Point here in Ceizak and grab it, and then continue north to Yahse Hunting Grounds. I suggest doing the same thing here -- take the Reive quests once you enter the zone (it will only display quests for zones you've entered before) and then check all of the reives on the map (this wiki's maps tell you where the Reives are).
Hopefully by now you have gotten at least 30,000 Bayld. With the 15 you got from the Imprimaturs and the 1,000 you started with, this should not be that hard unless all the Reives were down. If so, try again at off-peak hours; they respawn about an hour (Lair Reives respawn even faster than that) after they are completed.
Once you have the Bayld, proceed to Eastern Adoulin, and go to the Peacekeepers' Coalition and talk to Craggy Bluff therein to buy a Homestead Dagger. This should greatly improve your damage output, now that you have a proper weapon in your off-hand.
Note that after the October 2017 update, the Homestead Dagger and several armors sold by NPCs in the Peacekeepers' Coalition are now level 119 (instead of 117) and are now 10% of the price they once were! If you got 30k+ bayld as I suggested, you should have enough to buy yourself an entire suit of 119 armor, which will give you a much better and easier start. Sadly, the Homestead Dagger is Rare/EX which means you can only have one of them, so you will need to wield the Eminent Dagger in your off-hand until you get something better later.
== Post-99: Upgrading Your Mog Garden ==
Now that you have an off-hand weapon, you probably don't have a whole lot to spend Bayld on right now (other than Sifa Alani's maps which you should focus on getting for the next part, I'll remind you again just in case), so I suggest that once you have the maps, check Zenicca who is right next to the Home Point near the Auction House in Western Adoulin. She will sell you Key Items having to do with your Mog Garden for Bayld depending on how many times you've used each of your Mog Garden's features. Each Key Item will increase the rank of each feature (this happens automatically as soon as you buy the key item, no further action necessary), which will give you better stuff. A fully-ranked Mog Garden can easily give you 10-20k gil worth of vendorable items, and that's not even counting some of the things that actually sell on the AH. The items will start out cheap at 1k bayld each, and will increase 2k bayld for each rank. Just keep buying them until she won't sell any more, and then keep checking her a couple times a week to keep current. The last key item for each feature costs 11k Bayld and has "MHMU" in the name, just so you know when you're done.
== Post-99: A Grand Tour of Ulbuka ==
This is going to be a long, long trip and you may want to split this up into sections. We are basically going to visit almost every zone in Adoulin, picking up many waypoints, all the homepoints and important key items along the way, and by the time you get this done, you should have access to pretty much anywhere in Adoulin areas.
One thing I will note before going on, though, is that you may wish to beef up your Kinetic Units by trading crystals to any waypoint (one warp to an area from town costs 50!). Use cheap crystals like Earth or Water, and trade them in Cluster Form (more efficiency) rather than stacks of Crystals (give them to the Ephemeral Moogle and then ask for him to give you them back to get Clusters). Since you are Lv99 with 117 gear, you can easily handle elementals in many of the areas you leveled up in, such as Labyrinth of Onzozo, Maze of Shakhrami, Crawlers' Nest, etc. Elementals have high physical defense, but you can still kill them anyways, and they are guaranteed to drop 1 cluster of their element, and can sometimes drop up to 3 from the same kill. They only spawn while their corresponding weather is up, though. Later on, you'll get access to a place where elementals are always up, but until then you might want to gather a few thousand Units worth of crystals (one full cluster stack should do for now).
With that said, before setting out, you will want to get the following: 
* 1 Raaz Tusk (AH) 
* 3 Rabbit Hides (Leatherworkers' Guild) 
* 1 Umbril Ooze (AH) 
* 1 Twitherym Scale 
* 3 Dhalmel Leather (AH) 
* 12 Pickaxes
 Some of these items, depending on your server, might be difficult to come across. If there is no Dhalmel Leather on the AH, you can farm Dhalmel Hides from Dhalmels in either Tahrongi, Buburimu or Bibiki Bay and /yell for someone to craft them into leather for you. The Twitherym Scale might be problematic too; if so you can collect 2 Twitherym Wings from any Twitherym except for those found in Reives and then /yell for an Alchemist to make them into a Scale for you. If you can't find the Umbril Ooze or the Raaz Tusk, don't sweat it too much -- there are opportunities to farm those on your way through, but it is easier if you can get them now. Umbrils can be found at night in Ceizak, or in some caves at any time. The pickaxes can be bought from an NPC at the Frontier Station right outside of town in Ceizak.
Once you have procured this list of items, I highly suggest getting enough Bayld to buy all of the maps Sifa Alani in the Scouts' Coalition has. This might take awhile, but you will want to be prepared before you leave.
Once you're ready, go out into Ceizak Battlegrounds and proceed to H-11 to enter Sih Gates. From here on, I'm going to suggest that each time you enter a zone, that you take each zone's Lair and Colonization Reive RoE quests (the 'Gates' zones don't have Lair Reives) and complete 2 of each before moving on, to ensure you have the maximum Capacity Point Bonus. I won't mention this again, as I am assuming you are either doing the quests for the bonuses, or you are not interested in it (it'd be crazy not to, but I won't force you!). Another thing I am going to assume, is that you are going to call Trusts upon entering a new zone so that you have them ready for Reives, aggro, etc. Also, one more note, is that some zones will have "Apex" mobs. Do not attack these as they are incredibly powerful and will probably easily kill you and your trusts.
Once in Sih Gates, proceed south to H-11 to Foret de Hennetiel, and once there, talk to Choubollet who is found right near the Frontier Station. Trade him the Dhalmel Leathers, the Umbril Ooze, and the Twitherym Scale and he will make a boat for you and then tell you to try it out. To do this, head to I-7 and check the Castoff Point and attempt to use your watercraft (it will fail). Once you regain control of your character, head to the west part of J-9 and attempt to cast off (it will fail again). Now you can return to Choubollet who will give you the 2nd Key Item that you need to get through this zone.
Once you have these two key items, proceed to H-7, clear the Reive if needed and cross the river west. Proceed North, and cross another Reive at G-6 and then turn south and go to the Castoff Point at F-7 and go Downstream to arrive at G-7. Once there, proceed South and get the Home Point at G-10. Once you have it, go Northwest to E-8 for another Reive and river crossing and then proceed a bit more North to enter Dho Gates.
While in Dho Gates, do not attack anything in here; this stuff is too powerful for you. The exception are the two Colonization Reives which can be safely cleared. Head West, and you will likely hit a Reive at H/I-7, and if you want the 2nd Reive, it can be found further south. Once you have it, come back up H-7 and head further West to G-6 to exit into Marjami Ravine. Grab the Waypoint here, and use your Warp Ring, we're going to need to take a side-trip first.
Start by taking a Home Point to Ceizak Battlegrounds (don't use a Waypoint unless you need to; you're probably still low on Kinetic Units) and proceed North into Yahse Hunting Grounds. Enter Moh Gates at F-9 and then once there, proceed to G-5. Note that the Panopts that you will encounter along the way are True Sight.
Once there, zone into Morimar Basalt Fields and get your pickaxes ready. Talk to Apolliane at the Frontier Station to get a quest. She will ask for a Marble Nugget, and while you might find these on the AH, only ones you've dug up yourself will work for the quest (no cheating!). Proceed West to the larger area, and find mining points up and down (they are usually on the large rocks you will see, and they glow blue and should be easy to spot). These will move periodically, so if it disappears don't fret, just keep looking for more. Simply target it and use the pickaxe (/item pickaxe <t> while targeting it also works). It can take many attempts before you get a nugget, hopefully you get it within 12 pickaxes. If not, you can always buy more from the NPC at the Frontier Station. Once you get it, return to Apolliane to get your Key Item.
== Post-99: Climbing Our Way Through ==
Now we're ready to return to Marjami Ravine, this time you will sadly have to use Kinetic Units to return to the Frontier Station there. Once there, talk to Toppled Tree to get your next quest. You should have no problem getting the two Reives needed for your quest in here, as this quest alone will make you go through three possible spawns. You also seriously need to use NPCs in here; even the Reive Monsters can hurt a bit, even if previous Reives were easy. It isn't impossible by any stretch as I have personally done this with a 117 THF with no extra gear or NPCs that you don't have access to if you followed this guide.
Either way, this area is a bit mazy so I will provide more detailed directions as I had trouble with this area my first time through. Start by going all the way South to M-9, and you will see a downramp (similar to the ones you saw in Beaucedine Glacier), and these are all possible Colonization Reive spawns. If you didn't take the side quest above for Demolishing, you can't clear these Reives, so go and do that if you skipped it. Once through this Reive, proceed North to find another downramp (and Reive!) at K-7. After you get through this one, proceed south past Bivouac #1 to find another downramp nearby with yet another Reive (you should have tons of Bayld by now!).
Once you are through this one, get on your mount and proceed north (stick right along the wall) until you find the Velkk Camp (it's right near the pond on the map). The Key Item the NPC wants is near one of the tents (you can stay on your mount until you find it). It is called "Velkk Cache" when you target it and there's usually no enemies near it that should aggro, so you should be able to get it, then get back on your mount without any battles.
With that in hand, reverse your steps (or eat 50 Kinetic Unit cost to warp back to here if you're impatient; the Reives should stay gone for nearly an hour, so you should have time enough to ride back through them) to Toppled Tree (you can also use Bivouac #1 to warp to the Frontier Station for a mere 2 units). Once you speak with him, he will suggest you test it out, so take the southwest exit out of this area, to a large vine coming out of the ground ("Scalable Area" when targeted). Check this for an amusing cutscene and your Key Item.
Whew. Okay, now we're in for a confusing mess of twists and turns. Start by climbing down the vine near the Frontier Station (the one you just did the cutscene at) and then proceed all the way South to L-10 to another vine. Go down this one, and then proceed west. If the Reive in this area is up, you can skip it by taking the vine just north of the downramp if you wish. Either way, proceed to H-9 where there should be a log laying across the river. Go across this, and the other one just west of it, and head Southwest. If you look to your right, you should see another Reive and an upramp. Sadly, there are no vines to skip this one, so clear it and proceed up the ramp. Looking to your right, you should see another river crossing, proceed across that and head north to a vine. Take the vine down for some breath-taking views, but most importantly, this area's Home Point!
Take the Home Point to Ceizak Battlegrounds (yes, I know, again) and then head to Moh Gates via Yahse Hunting Grounds G-9. This time, instead of going to Morimar, we're going to head West to E-11 to arrive at Cirdas Caverns.
Once in here, proceed to the first big room (remember this room, it's a good leveling spot for you in the future) and head West, taking the northwest exit out of this room. Proceed northwest, taking the right path when you have a choice so that you end up at H-3. Check the Enigmatic Device there to attune to it. You can warp to here from Waypoints in Town, but it will cost you 150 so I would avoid doing this until you have a good amount of Kinetic Units to spend first.
Anyhow, with that, proceed back the way you came, but turn right at the fork and proceed sticking left until the intersection at G-6. Turn left here, stick along the left wall until the room at G-7 (there can be a Lair Reive here), face south and take the left passage in this room, which should lead to a climbing vine. Climb this, stay left, and you should run into an underground lake. Use your Watercraft to cross and then zone out into Yorcia Weald.
== Post-99: Forests and Snowdrifts ==
This next part is going to be extremely mazy. I will try to walk you through it, but it will not be easy. Thankfully, you can use your mount in this area and you have time to pause and read, and take it slow as to avoid taking a wrong turn. Your map will be almost useless, so you will have to rely on your compass and the coordinates displayed next to it. I wouldn't even bother with the /map command whatsoever; it really won't do you much good.
With that said, you will start in J-8 facing East, with only one way to go. Proceed forward and you will find a small area with the Frontier Station in J-7. After picking up the Waypoint, turn South. Skip the first left-hand turn and take the second left-hand turn at J-8.
Next, you will want to take the right-hand turn and proceed all the way South (which will force you to take a left turn). I know I said earlier I would not give you specific directions to Reives, but will make an exception for this area. The room that this leads to, has your first Lair Reive. I highly suggest turning the RoE quest on, and just doing it. If it isn't up, wait for it to spawn, due to how confusing this area is to get through.
Once the Lair Reive is done, exit the area it was in, and take the first left and proceed straight until a forced right turn. Take the first left, which should lead to a small room with another left turn, which should turn south again. There should be a Colonization Reive here (at I/J-9), and if it isn't there, I suggest waiting for it (after turning the RoE objective on). If you see a left-hand turn, you passed the Reive up and you should wait there for it to spawn. Once the Reive is cleared, proceed south and take that left-hand turn and proceed straight until you are forced to go either left or right; take a left.
Go all the way south, and take a left, which should lead into a dead-end room with a Lair Reive (at J-11). This Reive (assuming you also did the earlier one) should complete the RoE quest. Once done with it, exit this small area and continue northwest (pass up the first right at J-10; this is the way you came). Go all the way northwest until you see a second right-hand turn and immediately after that, there is a left turn. Take it, and you should see another Enigmatic Device. Touch it and then back out and turn north, then left to head all the way west, and take another left-hand turn. Bivouac #2 should be here with a waypoint (collect it!) and then back up east and take the first North which will bend back towards the west and then turn south, and then go west. At H-9 at this point, there should be a Colonization Reive, the 2nd one you needed for your RoE quest. Deal with it (I strongly recommend waiting for it to spawn if it's not there) and the proceed until you are forced to turn right (north).
Proceed all the way North to a forced right turn and take the first left, and then left again at the T-junction so that you are facing west. Go all the way west until you are forced to turn north and then go all the way north and then you will be forced to turn west again. This path will bend south a little, and eventually turn straight south (there's a small X-shaped area here, you will want to make sure you southwestern exit of this area, it should bend straight south into a T junction with a small circle area at G-9).
At the T-junction at G-9, head West all the way to the Home Point crystal. Whew. You're three-quarters of the way there! Get the Home Point crystal and head back to the 3-way at G-9 and turn North to go back to that "X" room just north of there. This time, you want to take the Northwest part of that X (you will be forced to take a right-hand turn to go North). When you get to the next T-junction, turn left (west) and go all the way West to find Bivouac #3. Then proceed all the way north, turn left (west), to zone into Woh Gates. Finally! You're done with Yorcia Weald.
Once in Woh Gates, it's pretty much a straight shot, but I will advise against attacking anything in here, as the stuff in here is nearly as powerful as the stuff in Doh Gates. Basically, follow the clear path (you'll go over a bridge at I-7, take care you don't fall or you'll have to warp back to #3 in Yorcia Weald to try again!) up North. Take the Kamihr Drifts exit at I-4.
Once in Kamihr Drifts, get the Waypoint at the Frontier Station and talk to Traiffeaux near there. Select the first option 4 times, then the second option, then the first option. He will ask for 3 Rabbit Hides and a Raaz Tusk, all of which will drop from the nearby enemies if you didn't get them before coming here. Once you have the items, trade them to Traiffeaux to complete the quest. Note that if you are running Windower, it will most likely lock the game up upon getting the cutscene (you'll be stuck with a blank screen). You will need to force-close the game and log back in, check your key items to make sure you have "Fragmenting" and Pair of fuzzy earmuffs.
Once you have those, proceed west and then north to the Colonization Reive at I/J-9, and then north and then turn west all the way to Bivouac #1 at H-9. Turn North there and proceed through another Colonization Reive at H-8 and then turn west in the next area, go a little north and then turn east into a cave (which goes off the map) at the very top-left corner of H-8. Bivouac #3 is in here (it should be marked on your map as a blue dot) and then proceed North from here (you will be forced to take a one-way drop-off). Turn right, head all the way east until forced to go north and the Home Point crystal is right here.
Once you have the Home Point, turn around and take the first south at H/I-7, which will lead into a cave and a one-way drop off just east of that that goes south. Take this and head back west to the 4-way at H/G-8. Go north here (which will lead a little Northwest), and continue that way until you reach a Colonization Reive at F-7 and then take a left turn to head South. You will eventually come to another one-way drop-off at F-8 and you will see the entrance to a large strange-looking building also in F-8 (it's also obvious on the map where it is). Take the entrance you see here to zone into Outer Ra'Kaznar. Once inside, there's an Enigmatic Device to your right (there are no aggressive mobs in this room, so don't worry about Sneak/Invisible). Attune and you're done!
There's more to do in Ra'Kaznar, but for now this is really all you need until a bit later.
== Post-99: Taming the Wilds, Skirmishes, etc ==
So now that you have all of the Home Point crystals, talk to Dimmian at E-6 in Eastern Adoulin, to see if he will sell you Key Items for Wildskeeper Reives. This takes some Adoulin Fame, which hopefully you've goten enough by now from turning in Imprimaturs (you've been doing those like I asked you to, right?). Once you can buy a Key Item, I suggest eventually trying to get the whole set, though this might be a little expensive Bayld-wise. Once you get a key item or three, pay attention to shouts on your server, or do some shouting yourself. Basically what you want to do, is do a Wildskeeper Reive (since that's what your next RoE quest in Tutorial->Intermediate is). Don't try to do this solo; once you leave the Reive area, you will need another Key Item to get back in.
Once you finish this, your next objectives will be Skirmishes in Rala, Cirdas, and Yorcia. Basically, you will need a Faithful's Legs I, a Faithful's Torso I, and a Rala/Cirdas/Yorcia Visage I. Go to Lola and Oston in Eastern Adoulin G-8 and talk to them about this. Have Oston assemble a Simulcra out of the parts, and then take said Simulcra to the Enigmatic Device in the next area you are supposed to go to (the one you have the RoE quest for). It doesn't matter if you win or lose the Skirmish, you merely need to kill 10 enemies in each, though you will get more rewards if you actually finish the Skirmish properly. You will get some Mog Kupons out of this, which will give you armor and weapons to start with, that are better that he 117s you've been using. Once you do these, you'll get another quest called "Repelling an Ambuscade". This one might be a bit harder, but you might be able to solo a Very Easy Volume 2 Ambuscade. To do this, take the quest (and "Stepping into an Ambuscade" from Tutorial-Basic), and then talk to Gorpa-Masorpa in Mhaura to learn about Ambuscade and you should get a free Volume Two Primer (which allows you to attempt said Ambuscade). You can try as many times as you like, and the Ambuscade itself will vary from month-to-month. You will not lose the Key Item or Experience Points if you die, so you feel free to keep trying until you win. Always choose Very Easy until you succeed at one.
Once you have that done, you will then get the Artifact Reforger lines, but sadly you will not be able to do these until you have done enough Chains of Promathia Missions to get access to Al'Taieu. Once you do get that far into CoP, though, you can do these quests for yet more coupons and equipment (note you will have to do your Level 40 Weapon, and Level 52-60 Artifact Quests first to get the pieces of Artifact needed). These are all easily solo-able at Lv99 with 117 gear.
Once you get the Artifact Reforger RoE quests done, you will then get three Alluvion Skirmish quests for Rala/Cirdas/Yorcia. To do these, you will need the same Faithful's Legs/Torso and the correct Visage, but you will also need a Eudaemon item (Ring, Cape, etc) which are usually sold by the Login Point Moogles during most months, or purchased from the Auction House. Turn the 4 items into Oston (you may have to talk to him a couple more times if he won't take them) to get a Key Item, and just like before, enter in and kill the prerequisite number of mobs. You probably will not be able to win these; just kill the 10 mobs needed for your RoE objective and warp out. You will get more Kupons.
With all of this done, you should have pretty much all 119's except for a piece or two and your off-hand weapon which should be a decent start on anything else from here on out.
== Post-99: What do I do now? ==
Now that you have pretty much everything open in Adoulin except for a couple things in Ra'Kaznar (which you won't need unless you actually get groups to do stuff in there, or until you get that far into the Adoulin questline, which by then you should be well-familiar with things that you don't need a newbie guide to tell you what to do), you're probably wondering what you should think about doing next. I will provide a general outline of some of the things you will want to do in a rough (but not set-in-stone!) order:
* Get Rank 10 in your home nation (this should be easy).
* Rise of the Zilart Missions (you need Rank 6 in your home nation first). Note that this opens "Sky" up, this is where you will find elementals that you can farm crystals from.
* Rhapsodies of Vana'diel Missions (you will come across occasional roadblocks that have to do with other expansion missions).
* Promathia/Aht Urghan/Wings of the Goddess Missions, especially those that are necessary to proceed with Rhapsodies of Vana'diel. Note that finishing Promathia yields a good starter ring for melee (Rajas Ring).
* Crafting (you can make a lot more profit from your Mog Garden if you can process some of the stuff you get from it)
* Merit Points (you will want your Group 1, Group 2, Combat Skill, HP/MP, Attributes, etc all taken care of)
* Get Rank 10 in the other two nations (each gives you +10% Capacity Point bonus)
* Abyssea (most, if not all of this, should be solo-able).
* Voidwatch. (at least the 3 nations, if nothing else, as this is a requirement for Walk of Echoes weaponskill trials)
* Try to find an Endgame Linkshell if you can, though you might wnat to make sure you've chosen a job to focus on, and have as good of gear as you can.
* Walk of Echoes (once you've gotten far enough in Wings of the Goddess Missions).
* Alter Ego Extravaganzas (don't miss these! You will want at the very least, Amchuchu, Shantotto II, Sakura, Moogle, Kupofried)
* Adoulin Missions (part of these will be a requirement for RoV, too)
* All Adoulin Quests and Coalitions (these are a requirement for the best Trust healer in the game, Ygnas)
Most of all, have fun!
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