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Leveling an Arcanist, right? Why else would you be here! You (and Carbuncle) have found the right guide to help out! Hopefully our Arcanist Leveling Guide will show you the way past the early game! Luckily, Arcanists are one of the easiest classes to solo with! 2v1 is so unfair, after all!
WAAAAIIIT! this Arcanist Leveling Guide is designed to be used with FFXIV General Leveling Guide. Of course, if this is your first character – follow your story quest! Need some reminding on: basics of an Arcanist, check that out.
Don’t know where the ACN guild is? It’s in Limsa. Have some Accuracy Food? good. Is your battle chocobo (+Gyashl Greens) ready? Good.
Wait a sec, I’m above L30 – I’m a SCH/SMN! Then check out the Scholar Leveling Guide OR the Summoner Leveling Guide.
Arcanist: the early levels.
Just got them Arcanist robes ey? Start off by wiping up your hunting log. A level one character doing hunting logs + participating in level appropriate FATES is the most efficient EXP source early on. For you (Arcanist), you’ll find yourself up and about Lower and Middle La Noscea often. Your goal right now is to blaze through the early levels. If you’ve got a surplus of leves, you can gain more EXP by doing levequests in Red Rooster Stead (Level 1 & Level 5), which is a west of Tempest Gate from Limsa (Lower La Noscea). Do all nearby FATES if they pop!
protip: You got some cross-class skills? Protect (CNJ 8) is the most helpful. Also Aero (CNJ 4) is AMAZING. Trust me… spamming ruin sucks. Second Wind (PGL 8) isn’t the best but might serve in a pinch. It might be worth getting a level 4 CNJ just for Aero…
Level 2 skill reminder – Bio: Your first DoT (Damage over time), but not your last. (Hopefully you have Aero, too) DoT’s need time for it to reach passable value. Do NOT DoT enemies that will die quickly, or enemies with extremely low HP.
Level 4 skill reminder – Summon I: Well, this is why you’re an Arcanist right! Always and I mean ALWAYS have good ‘ol Carbuncle up. It’s literally FREE damage.
Level 6 skill reminder – Aetherflow: The most important skill in any Arcanists toolbox. Restores mana and gives you Aether flow stacks to use on certain skills like….
Level 8 skill reminder – Energy Drain: In terms of soloing – use this to nuke enemies OFTEN. Many times, you’ll just have aetherflow stacks sitting around doing nothing. There’s no reason to save these while soloing! Energy Drain is an off-gcd skill, to boot.
You’ll hit level 10 in no time using the above methods.Got to 10? Grats! Finish up your hunting log if you haven’t already. You’ve also gained some stat points to use – place them all to INT. Don’t forget, Go back to the Arcanist guildmaster every 5 levels – level 1 5 and 10 in this case – always you do your class quests! Get this done ASAP for every 5 level interval in the future!
Level 10 skill reminder – Miasma: Your second DoT. Open every fight with Miasma>Bio>Aero. This also applies heavy on enemies!
Why INT as arcanist? Well, since you can’t queue up as healer until level 30, and you can’t use Cleric Stance either… leveling up with points in INT is just more sensible. You can always respec cheaply when you hit 30!
Arcanist Level 10 to 16
Upon getting level 10 get right to doing Guildhests. You haven’t unlocked them? Check out almost any nearby town (likely Moraby Drydocks) and unlock it. Completing a Guildhest gives a large first-time completion bonus with ANY class. IN ADDITION you can queue up for Daily Roulette: Guildhests, to get bonus exp once every day! For now, queue up the guildhests Under the Armor and Basic Training: Enemy Parties. I’LL SAY IT AGAIN: First time EXP bonus for completion is for ALL CLASSES!
Make the trip (hopefully not walking) to Aleport in Western La Noscea. As the dothraki would say “Leveling in aleport at this level is best. It is known”. A cluster of fates and a clusterf*ck of people mean lots of EXP! FATEs dried up? You can take Levequests from Aleport. Too easy? Rank it up to +4! Too hard? Do Levequests (10-14) in Swiftperch! Now grind it up in this manner until your Arcanist reaches level 16.
Reminder Level 15: Queue up for the two new Guildhests – Basic Training: Enemy Strongholds, and Hero on the Halfshell.
Level 15 Skill Reminder – Summon II: A ‘Tank’ summon. This little guy can be useful if you’re fighting harder enemies. Try it out! Some people like this guy over our little blue friend. (This is obtained via ACN class quest L15)
Level 16 – the turning point: At last! Arcanist level 16! You’ve unlocked Duty Roulette: Low level dungeon. Completing this successfully gives you a SHOCKING EXP BONUS ONCE A DAY. Have you got Challenge Log Unlocked? Do it if you haven’t! (It initially unlocks at level 16) See how you can unlock the Challenge Log in the General Leveling Guide. Once you’ve reached level 16, the rest of the journey is considerably easier!
Dungeons as a ACN: Simply DoT every enemy in the pack BEFORE ruin spamming. If you pull aggro doing this, then it is your tanks fault. Take it easy on low level tanks, though… they might actually be NEW PLAYERS, so adjust if needed. It’s never cool to pull from your tank as dps.
Skill reminder level 18 – Sustain: A massive heal over time to your pet. Yep, if it wasn’t easy enough already… In the end-game this skill isn’t used often but you would be best served not to forget it exists.
Arcanist: finishing up to level 20: Seek and destroy any unfinished logs! Sick of Aleport? I dont blame you! Check out: Bentbranch Meadows (East Shroud) and Camp Drybone (Eastern Thanalan). They’re are also 15+~ FATE and Levequests zones. Make sure you’ve done all ACN quests (head to your guildmaster), and if you have stat points – put them in INT!
Arcanist Level 20 – 30
By now you know the drill on grinding: hunt logs, FATES, Daily Guildhest, Daily Low Level Roulette, Leves… By now you can test out Quarrymill (South Shroud) and continue FATE grinding and Levequest there. If your gear is massively outdated you’re going to start feeling it badly NOW… but you’ve been doing daily Dungeon Roulette – right…RIGHT?!?! I’ll remind you yet again… Accuracy Food is much more helpful that you think!
Reminder Level 20: Queue up for the two new Guildhests – Pulling Poison Posies & Stinging Back.
protip: If you have the cross-class skil Swiftcast, you can use it with Resurrection in tandem for dungeons. A useful combo until the endgame!
Alternate FATE spot mid 20’s: Often looked over and quite underrated, the Highbridge Area in Eastern Thanalan (Like this). This place is chock full of FATE’s and there’s like 5 in ONE CHAIN! This chain is great to camp while AFK or waiting for your dungeon queue (Waiting for queue is second nature to melee DPS like ACN).
Reminder Level 25: Queue up for the two new Guildhests – All’s Well that Ends in the Well & Flicking Sticks and Taking Names.
Level 26 Skill Reminder – Bio II: Your third DoT. At this point you should change your opener to Bio II -> Miasma -> Bio I. I don’t know if other people do it differently, but this order seems most practical (lines up the refreshing time).
At Level 28: Get your suntan lotion and visit the beaches of Costa Del Sol, Eastern La Noscea. Do the usual levequesting and FATE-grinding until you get to 30. Reached 30? For the millionth time – place unused attribute points into INT, finish your hunting log if you haven’t already, and head back to your guildmaster in Limsa for any unfinished class quests.
Skill reminder Level 30 – Bane: One of your few AoE skills… this one’s pretty deadly in small groups (exactly 4 is best). It spreads all your existing DoT’s on target to 3 other guys. Extremely powerful!
Arcanist 30 onwards: What to do?
If you’ve completed with the (final) L30 ACN class quest (Bane learned? You’re good to go). From here you have two main choices:
If you’re going Scholar – continue with our Scholar Leveling Guide. If you still need Conjurer 15, go ahead and use the Conjurer Leveling Guide.
If you’re going straight to summoner – continue with our Summoner Leveling Guide. You might still need to level up THM. In that case use the Thaumaturge Leveling Guide.
Good luck with your journey from here on and thanks for using our Arcanist Leveling Guide! Time to catch ‘em all with either SCH or SMN! For more awesome FFXIV updates, go ahead and Like us on Facebook – and if you need to drop a line, follow us on Twitter!
good guide but its outdated for Endwalker. You don’t have Bio or Miasma anymore in Endwalker.
Aye, these guides are due for an overhaul for Endwalker, I haven’t touched pretty much anything here since EW release but I’ll get back into it very soon :)
This is THE most helpful page for Arcanist I have found yet. Thanks –
Thank you soo much! I’m a newbie in this game and ACN is my favourite class. This guide really helped me out :)
Hi, nice guide! A bit late here :D. I was wondering what’s the best job choice to go for if I’m with a friend in a party that has a MRD/WAR ?
You can’t go wrong with a healer, I suppose..? White Mage is the more upfront one. Avoid tanks since he is one. DPS ain’t bad either, maybe a Black Mage for AoE dungeoning (but requires some patience to master for raiding)
I’m new to this awesome game and arcanist so this has realy helped me out.ThankyouI’m also a blackmage which I’m also loving!
thank you! very useful