Equips and spells..

[cavill]

Ok i have quite a few spells and a really CRAP equip!
Im lvl 25 and cant afford Raise, Cure III or Regen, i cant even afford a shield, i got White mitts, Tunic, Staff, leggings and THATS IT! Then i see all these people around with practically ALL There equip slots filled up with something AND they have all the spells like Regen, Raise and Cure III at lvl 25. How do ya'll get ya money? Is it quests etc? Because i hate doing quests and dont have the time to do them.

[Miriamel]

Heh, I'm one of those people you're talking about I guess.

I have relatively new equipment (all slots but sub-weapon filled), all the spells I need (except for Curaga II, cause I figure I would not get a chance to use it at my level), bought reraise and two of the level 36 teleports in advance and still have about 50k in the bank.

How that works, you ask? I don't do straight leveling. I had my main job on halt for about a week now. I've done various missions, quests, crafting and farming. You don't have the time for this, you say? That's untrue. You have time for leveling, right? So just stop leveling for a while and invest the time in farming etc. There's no other trick to it. Sometimes you just have to stop leveling to be able to keep your character up-to-date and functional.

If you don't want to invest that time, I suggest you go for a slightly less expensive job - most melee classes don't have to spend as much money as mages do.

XI doesn't only consist of straightforward leveling, though, there is so much more to do. And imo, you miss out if you don't halt to see that aspect.

You might also want to do some missions. The story thickens the higher your rank gets. =)

A 25 whm without raise and regen is no whm to me. Those are just essential spells you should even have gotten in advance. That's what I did, and I anticipated finally leveling to be able to use them.
Cure III isn't that essential at your level, you won't get to use it at all for a couple more levels.

[Tobold]

I'm level 22 Whm, and I have ALL spells, including Regen and Cure III. I got the scroll of Raise in my Mog safe. I'm wearing great equipment, and got the money to upgrade it next level (I think there is a new tunic at 23).

The secret I found is that if you level, you earn next to no money. And if you don't have your spells, you will find that you get less and less invites. Who wants a level 25 Whm that can't Regen nor Raise? Equipment is a bit less important for Whm than for War, but you still can't totally neglect it.

Quests are one way to make money, but if you "hate" them, try something else. Farming low level mobs for gil and items. Fishing. Logging. Crafting. FFXI is a broad game, you are hurting yourself if you just limit yourself to the narrow slice of leveling.

[fate_of_fantasy]

I find that at low levels i didn't like crafting because when i had to go to a guild that was in bastok or sandoria i was almost weary of the travel... once you get to about level 20 you really can start to delve in crafting heavily... a chocobo makes it so much easier to travel faster... And what the other people are saying is right... if you dont stop and farm/craft then you wont have enough money to buy stuff with... I actually have an extra character around level 10 that i kill crawlers with for silk and every day i get like 2 stacks of 12 and sell them thats about 24k a day on my server...

[gasan]

Fish Moat Carp.

[mlwolfinger]

I found a great way to make money for my level 25 WHM was to solo Battering Rams in La Theine. You should be able to take them pretty easy at that level. I beat one with half a MP bar and my WHM is elvaan so I didn't have too many MP to begin with plus I was using a wand and hitting for about 10 damage each swing so you really should have no trouble. Just use your enfeebles and start whacking away. When you kill them you'll usually get a couple of ram skins, ram horns and earth crystals to drop. The skins and horns sell for 800-1000 gil each at the auction house (on Seraph anyway) and it really adds up quick. Good, easy way to make money!

[Tekktrina]

Well Im only level 18 at this point but I always have about 10k at least on my whm. I have about the best equipment I can have and all slots filled and all the spells up to level 18.

I also have a level 15 thief on the same server for mainly the reason I will give below.

The way I have been making money is in 2 ways..... first the obvious selling of crystals. Everyone does that.

The other way is I have my thief's fishing skill up to 7 and I fishing in Bastok on the bridge that goes between Bastok Market and Bastok mines. Using insect balls for bait you can catch Moat Carp pretty easy there once your skill goes up and you stop breaking poles. (fish in the sewer moat in Bastok mines catching little crabs until you get up to about level 4 fishing then go for carp in market)

A dozen Moat Carp on my server sell for 4000 gil. I can catch a dozen in about 30-45 minutes maybe a bit longer if I get crappy day cycles. One night I played I basically just spent the whole night fishing with my thief. I caught 3 dozen carp and made 12k that I then transferred over to my WHM.

[Neehai]

Wow, you guys work hard!

I have all my spells and decent gear for my level, but all I did was harvest some Gil Seeds and then have my Moogle grow me a Gil Tree. I harvest about 10k a day from the tree.

Sometime I take of all my clothes and roll my naked Taru body around in all my money!

Seriously though...

Do quests. Farm items.

One of the best things about levelling my subjob was being able to do all the low level cash quests again while levelling.

I never buy anything from the AH that I could quest myself. I am just cheap that way.

I would say I spend less than half my time in game levelling. For me, that works out well. Whenever I attempt something I have people say, "Yea but you are going to have to raise your fame a lot for that."

Well, as luck would have it, I am already famous!

Neehai

[Calianeri]

I've started farming in small time periods after I'm done leveling for the day. I Teleport-Dem or Holla and farm for 30 minutes, then Warp back to Jeuno to distribute the loot to my mules in the 3 other cities. Rams, air elementals, sheep, bees, whatever... and to make it faster I use magic as little as possible. The amount I make varies, but bringing in 2-5k gil a day adds up. (Obviously the teleports and warps make this doable only after level 36.) It doesn't eliminate the need for dedicated farming though. At earlier levels I took a couple full days and hunted dhalmels and bees, easy goblins and other stuff in Sarutabaruta, and quadavs in Palborough.

Having another character(s) to sell stuff with makes a big difference. But I know not everyone can afford that, or wants to make the effort to log in to another char and do auctions.

Also, quests end up giving you A LOT of good equipment and gil. They are really worth doing. There's around 10k to be made with easy and repeatable Windurst quests alone.