Palace of the Dead is used as a method of leveling alt jobs in Final Fantasy 14, and is claimed to be one of the fastest ways of FFXIV leveling in 2021. I’ve decided to give it a try, and in this video would like to share my honest impressions as a WoW refugee and a FFXIV beginner.
My impressions are a little mixed so far, where I see both good and bad in using Palace of the Dead leveling method in FFXIV, and I’m sure that some players coming to Final Fantasy 14 from World of Warcraft will absolutely love it, while others will probably hate it…
It’s hard to produce a perfectly objective review and summary of any MMORPG feature that everyone would agree with, but I’ve done my best to focus on a few key points summarising a beginner’s experience in FFXIV and PotD specifically.
📑 Table of Contents
00:00 – Intro
01:00 – PotD for leveling
03:15 – Random matchmaking
05:14 – Time investment
07:30 – Content preview…
09:45 – Where it is bad?
11:00 – Final thoughts
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Palace of the dead has a story from floors 1-50 and upon completion you can re-enter from floor 50 which then has another story from there to the hundredth floor. 100-200 is just for bragging and unique items etc.
Most players will run floors 51-60 on repeat for levelling, buuuut the actual exp gain is less than running dungeons close to your current level.
The reason many choose palace is there's no group restrictions so you can enter as 4 DPS. So for DPS players depending entirely on the queue times for dungeons, Palace can be and regularly is faster.
But for Tanks and Healers dungeons are dramatically better for levelling.
You also should not just run POTD on repeat or you'll burn out so it's great to mix in your roulettes etc.
And it's not just exp rewards, you gain potsherds to exchange for a mount or items etc, trimmed sacks which you can get appraised to get potentially rare loot, and at higher levels of POTD you can even get one of the rarer mounts in the game.
Quick thing: PotD has more rewards than just exp. The hoard (I don't think you collected due to party) can give you glamour, minions, bardings…, the story is best enjoyed after you clear a certain lvl 50 dungeon or it will clash/make less sense and PotD is a challenge thing for premade parties as it goes to lvl 200 and can be very punishing
Okay there's a lot to correct here. POTD is mostly used by people to level their alt DPS jobs, because queue times for it bear out queue times for dungeons. Tanks and Healers have faster dungeon queue times so they don't tend to use POTD. This is why most of your groups were almost all DPS.
Secondly, the most efficient leveling is floors 51 to 60. Those are the floors that have a nearly instant queue for entry and reward more XP than earlier floors. Additionally you can queue into floors 51 to 60, the same way you can queue into floors 1 to 10, once you've gotten that far in POTD.
Some important notes for both you and any WoW veterans who are watching this for information.
1: As an alternative leveling tool PotD is generally best done at floors 51-60 until level 61 where the Stormblood version of Palace of the Dead is more efficient until level 71 (which is its own thing). That floor range is what the majority of people are queuing for. The rest of the usual 100 floors are less commonly queued by random people which might lead to slow queue times and might be what your issue was (if you can get 3 other people to queue with you for about an hour I'd recommend it). To do this more speedy method effectively all you do is once you finish your 51-60 run, you delete your save and then repeat from there. You can do floor 51-60 as much as you want as long as you've completed the first 50 floors. There's a power leveling video guide that can better explain how this all works, but it has some spoilers to content beyond ARR so you've been warned.
2: You may need to get your "aetherpool" (your equipment numbers within PotD) numbers up to a certain level to complete floors 1-50, think of this like the minimum item level, the fastest way to do this if you get stopped is to spam floors 1-10. So if you get stuck use your second save file to do a matched party run for floors 1-10, hunt for the silver chests for aetherpool boosts, and do that as much as you need in order to progress. I did this recently and it only took me maybe 2 additional queues beyond the queues for the remaining floors, but I might have gotten lucky. All these aetherpool levels work on any class/job so don't worry about stuff not carrying over. You only lose your aetherpool numbers if you try to get the glamour/trasmog version of your potd equipment (the shiny bright light weapons you use in there) to use outside of PotD. Again this is exclusively glamour/transmog, so you are free to ignore it and your aetherpool will just cap to +99 forever.
3: Your role while queuing generally doesn't matter as far as queue speeds go, I've gotten into many 4 dps groups in PotD. This is unlike normal 4 man dungeons which demand 1 tank, 1 healer, 2 dps.
4: This is an important note regarding repetition and potential boredom, dungeon spam (when you have dungeons) is competitive with PotD spam on an average time/exp scale as long as you go to a proper leveling dungeon for your level IF you are a Tank/Healer due to faster queues. So if you think PotD is boring and you are leveling a Tank or Healer you will level at comparable speeds in dungeons. DPS queues are obviously longer and thus PotD is faster than dungeon spam for them, but not so fast that dungeon leveling is impossible or insufferable (imo obviously).
5: Finally PotD while it is the best power leveling method for DPS, dungeons are perfectly adequate (especially if you at least do your leveling roulette every day). I'd only recommend totally devoting to PotD (and various other powerleveling methods) spam if you want to level the majority or all the dps classes, as PotD vs Dungeons this will save you a lot of time in the long run if you go for that accomplishment.
Quick note regarding just alt leveling in general, remember that alt jobs get a exp bonus (called the Armory Bonus) until they catch up with your main job. So if you are a level 50 White Mage you get a 100% exp boost for most things (main thing I remember not counting is side quests) until your Paladin/Gladiator also reaches level 50. I can say more, but this comment is long enough. Best of luck with your class comparison series.
To properly utilize PotD, for leveling, you first need to reach the check point at floor 51-60.
Then from here, under the finder, you try to make a PotD leveling party. You can also do a shout in the zone. Since you are constantly resetting making the objective known with a set group allows for a set goal to be in place.
If you queue with randoms it is understandable you'll meet people that, due to their own personal reasons, just can't help themselves from trying to get all the chests or look for the hidden chest reward.
Yet PotD isn't the only alt leveling method but it is one of the many that exists.
You got your dailies that give a lot of exp, you got your weekly Wonderous Tail, which you unlock in the first expansion. There are also exp earrings that give a lot of additional exp from killing mobs that make dungeon grinds more enjoyable especially if you want to try getting dungeon minion rewards and double dip with the exp.
I hope you aren't feeling limited. FFXIV allows for various ways to approach leveling with different goals if you have different goals in place.
Ayyyy!! Great to see you exploring more in POTD and there are still more to discover should you decide to get to floor 200. Nice to see the community being as helpful as it is. One advice I extremely recommend is to try to get to floor 50 which is a checkpoint where you can just redo 50-60 over and over again for faster job leveling. I do hope that you will run into some wonderful people on Siren as well as get into a welcoming fc 😀
Regarding alts, with how FFXIV is and how each character can just play and switch around all the jobs available in the game. Alts are generally made for the purpose of being able to do end game content/raids with other people that are not your main static due to a weekly reward drop per character or just being able to play with friends on other worlds/dc or just simply attending a wedding on another world. However, leveling an alt isn't a waste and it also gives you a chance to meet many other people on other worlds/dc.
From what I see its that Torghast is tied to progression and you NEED to grind it. PotD is optional, I did run a lot of PotD back in the day for my alt classes and the red glowy weapon (it was the highest ilvl for sometime). Surely I get burnt out of it, but now I'm looking to clear all 200 floors for loots and stuff. It's the beauty of FFXIV's contents, many of them still relevant and many people still running it, not because they need to, but because they want to.
If it just for leveling quicker then… If you have pre-order earring that boost 30% EXP (from pre-ordering Endwalker), deep dungeon will not worth your time. HoH maybe worth if you're DPS with a long queue time.
However, if you don't have the earring. this still is the best way to leveling alt jobs for time efficiency… with a burnout that would come pretty fast as well…
these are method of leveling I used before I got pre-order earring, all things beside daily roullette/Beast Tribe/ Mob hunt↓
Leveling from 1-30 : Hunt log / FATE / or get people help power leveling
Leveling from 30-61 : PotD repeat Floor 51-60
Leveling from 61-71 : HoH repeat Floor 21-30
Leveling from 71-80 : Bozja/Zadnor
If you got the earring it's gonna be like this↓
Leveling from 1-15 : Hunt log / FATE / or get people help power leveling to 30
Leveling from 15-71 : Dungeons (any highest you can go, don't do 50,60,70 ilvl synced dungeon as they don't give much XP for them being each expansion end-game non-leveling dungeon)
L(Leveling from 61-71 : HoH repeat Floor 21-30 if you find yourself having 15 minutes++ queue time for dungeon)
Leveling from 71-80 : Bozja/Zadnor
and don't forget food for +3% more exp buff 🙂
i dare u get to floor 200 in Potd or floor 100 in HoH , these are the most stressful and salt wounding experience i ever did . I beat Potd floor 200 once and beaten HoH floor 100 4 times . And holy shit i never raged so hard dying in Potd or HoH at a very high floor, 6 failure attempts on reaching Max floor. i even cried dying in floor 197/198 in potd . u have to spend about 4-8 hrs for each max floor attempts btw .
You want to get to Floor 51-60 as that becomes a new starting point (when you queue up, you can choose to start at Floors 1-20 or Floors 51-60 once reached). Floors 51-60 offer a lot more experience and you are level 60 when you do it. The experience gain is huge as well (one run for a level 1 class is something like 8 levels).
Hahaha. I understand your frustration so as a PotD vet let me clear up a few things for ya. Just the basic stuff.
1.potd has 200 floors. To reach past floor 100 you need to do a no death run from floor 51 or First floor.
2. There is a floor 51 check point when you beat the floor 50 boss.
3. The deeper you go in the more Exp you get from completing 10 floors. i.e. Floor 51-60 gives more exp than floor 11-21.
4. Potd has Hidden Hoarde. These are secret chests that can be found on floor 30+. The hoarde reward is random and can be valued from a couple gil to 100 of thousands of gil on marketboard.
5. Blue/silver chests boosts your offense or defense in palace of the dead. With 99 being max on each stat.
Have fun!
i give you one more month than you will Q FFXIV
Hey gyro, as a tank or healer I'd recommend just leveling spamming dungeons. Potd is great for dps jobs but it'll kill you in the long runb
<mo> on your character model will only work if you are self-clickable. The setting is in /characterconfig, Control Settings, Mouse, Enable clicking on self.
Because of how heals redirect when the target is invalid, <mo> will target yourself if your mouse is over an NPC or enemy. When soloing, it helps to put your mouse over your target frame or the party frame and just leave it there. Doing <mo>,<t> will do what you want it to do when soloing, but will exhibit some unwanted side effects in party play if you are acting just a bit too quickly, as when the <mo> line tries to execute just before the GCD finishes, it'll skip to the <t> line and you'll heal yourself. It's best to use <mo> only
/micon Cure
/ac Cure <mo>
/ac Cure <mo>
/ac Cure <tt>
/ac Cure <t>
One thing I haven't seen mentioned, and I don't know if you've done it yet or not so please forgive me if you have, but I believe you are on an EU data center, yes? If so, I would check multiple languages in your duty finder menu (can be found under the options I believe). This will broaden the scope of what DF looks for when matching you with parties and thanks to the auto-translate chat function is hardly an impediment to doing any casual content. It should speed up queue times for you significantly.
You run 1-10 couple times you wanna progress to higher floors. Floor 51-60 is the ideal place to be as you start the job at level 60
It depends on the individual. I myself prefer to level by doing dungeons and FATES for alt jobs and of course the Roulettes. POTD is not the most popular thing nowadays and you won't find it very enjoyable (rushing floors). If you are on your first job, just do the main quests, coz you need them anyway and their XP is super good.
when leveling a tank from lv 1, most ppl would only use potd to reach a high enough level to get to dungeons, then they abuse the tank almost insta que times.
tbh, we were playing in static group in PoTD and had a blast.
I'm very looking forward for the next match as worst part I did as a tank, was going too far forward and machinist was screaming for help as angry morbol was persuing her. This was a fail from my side, but it's more fun than going with complete randoms imo.
Repost since youtube ate my comment when I tried to make an edit.
Your idea for making videos mapping WoW classes to FFXIV jobs sounds great, I can't wait to watch them.
As other people have mentioned, there is a story to PotD that concludes at floor 50. HOWEVER, this 'story' is tied to the plot of Tam-Tara Deepcroft (HARD) and I recommend you complete that first if you are interested in the story.
As far as PotD exp goes, here's a quick chart of exp multipliers relative to the base amount you get from clearing floors 1-10 (which is also based on your job level and armoury bonus for having a higher level job).
1-10: 1x experience
11-20: 1.4x
21-40: 1.8x
41-50: 2.6x
51-60: 1.8x (This is a checkpoint floor, once you unlock it you can always start a new potd run here. This is the floor set used to powerlevel jobs once you reach it, and you should have much faster queue times, though it's been over a year since I've last run it so things may have changed)
61-90: 1.8x
91-100: 2.6x
101-200: 1.8x
Also, when leveling a new job from scratch, I recommend leveling up to 10 using your hunt log and FATEs first, those levels go by way faster in the overworld then they do in PotD.
Information sourced from a spreadsheet. If anyone wants a deeper dive on the matter: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1CG0xtc_p4o3XzLQxK0A6tXz1koZF11JKN4yCLEGjrFo/edit#gid=1379102985
another correction, you can actually do mouse over macros in FF14 for healers too.
/ac "Cure" <mo> as a macro will make it so you can just have your mouse hovering over someones name and hit a spell to heal them instead of having to click
🔥 Please read this before posting any further comments, TY: 🔥
1 – I appreciate your advice and pointing out what I'm doing "wrong". I never claimed to be a PRO, have I?
2 – Stop telling me to stop making "guides" before I reach level 80, it's rude, discouraging, and I'm tempted to block you, because I'm here to have fun and share my experience, not be told that I'm enjoying the game the "wrong way" all the time. Don't want to support and help? I'm sure there are better places for you to be – thank you.
3 – I get that the advice on spamming floors 1-10 was wrong. THIS WAS NEVER ADVERTISED AS A GUIDE – PAY ATTENTION PLEASE. It's IMPRESSIONS. Of a NEWBIE. For other NEWBIES, to prepare them for what they are about to experience, if they consider coming to the game.
4 – MASSIVE THANKS to anyone remaining respectful, non-toxic, and supportive, rather than discouraging new expats joining FFXIV by telling them how wrong they are at every turn.
Yes please on the guides in WoW terms! I'm very curious to hear something like that!
I love your videos! I did want to say about PoTD (Palace of the Dead) there are rewards in PoTD, they are the golden chests. You typically use the poms to find them. Most people do not farm items in PoTD more so for leveling and speed running. Also to do all 200 levels is challenging. Floors 150-200 get intense! The higher in floors you the better the rewards. Once again most people don't loot farm PoTD, they use it to power level.
I never use PoTD for leveling because you don't a chance to learn and experiment with your new abilities
btw gyrotex u can make mouse over macros in ff14 for healers
/ac "Cure" <mo>
hey, glad you're enjoying your experience so far. As far as early PotD, there's not much to it. The further you go down, the better chance you have to get better rewards from the sacks. One of the mounts that fetches the most gill on the market is from gold sacks from floor 150 and above. Also if clear you get achievements and you can get decorations to put in the yard of your house to flex your achievements
The best & fastest way to lvl alt job is actually in Grand Company Squadrons, that you unlock when you get to near max rank in your chosen GC. Best because you get all the loot (and can trade it them in for GC seals), and fastest, because high ranked NPC squads are insane dps.
As others have pointed out once you get to floor 100 I think it unlocks the ability to start at floor 51. This is extremely important because that is where all the people leveling alt jobs are sitting at. It is HYPER efficient as you start at lvl 60 on any job you play even if you go in at lvl 1 so you get a general idea of how it plays not with all the abilities but some.
It is also normally 1-2 levels in under 10 minutes as floors 51-60 are HYPER easy to run over and over again. You run…hit reset.. then restart a run from floor 51. ALSO on that floor most people have the red weapons which means they have opened 60?!? of those silver chest so they are hitting hard.
If you got in there with a group of Machinist you can nuke floor 51-60 in 5 minutes. White Mage is also a death god in there once you unlock Holy to AoE nuke down massive amounts of mobs.
honestly potd is really only worth it if your a dps or your looking to do the potd story at this point and the rewards that you can get from the coffers as well as the weapon glamours.
to be frank squads as dps tend to be better xp per hour up till 60 if youve got squads unlocked in your grand company.
queueing as a tank or healer for random dungeons is probably better xp per hour as well as better rewards with adventure in need bonuses.
now that being said, i like potd.
it breaks up the normal dungeon runs and can be fun and exciting since like old school diablo the dungeons floors, aside from bosses, are random each time you spawn on the floor.
almost never the same lay out and random monsters on the floor can be exciting after running something like copperbell mines for the hundredth time.
but as has been explained already probably, floors 51+ are where most of the community is since 51+ offer better xp, rewards from the treasure chests and ultimately are able to be cleared faster since everyone has most of their kits online by then. so probably better off for you to grind through them and experience the story as well up to that point and just lock there for future runs on that class/job.
but kudos on joining the game and hope you enjoy pld. pld is a solid tank, i used to main pld for my tank till gunbreaker came out.
keep at it and hope you continue to enjoy 14.
have a good one and may your drops be the ones you want.
You can create mouseover macros that are pretty decent with the built-in macro system.
There's also the xivlauncher add-on, which has tons of QoL options, including mouseover qol settings(like no delay).
yep, if you're starting at 1-10 you're going to get new ppl that are not going to keep up with your pace right away. They need to learn just like you did, so let them explore and have that joy of learning PotD and help them out if you see them struggle too much to find the exit. You'll need to go high in the floors to get the more exp ppl at your speed.
Seeing this content being reviewed like this by someone who has only the viewpoint of someone new and coming from a different game is super interesting, and very much helps me in better guiding the new players I know.
Thank you for continuing doing this, this is actually very helpful for those trying to help out new players.
Yeah, it can get pretty repetitive, but there are some cool rewards you can get from POTD. You can always mix it up with the daily roulettes going from 1-60. Heaven on High is the same thing for going from 60-70 and Bozja is currently a really great way to go from 70-80. They’re great places for levelling alt jobs, but the grind is real. The msq is definitely your best bet for your first job. That’s also not factoring in daily beast tribe quests and their xp rewards. You’re just scratching the surface and I can’t wait to see more of your FF journey! Cheers man. – Spud Murphy – Malboro
I love your videos! I don't like leveling in Palace of the Dead myself, personally I always do the Leveling Roulette every day, and maybe 1-2 runs of the highest level dungeon I have access to. That's obviously not quite as fast as PotD leveling though.
I'm a veteral player of FFXIV, but I'm still looking forward to seeing your job guides!
Honestly ive never used potd to lvl above first dungeon i think its lvl 15 or 16 dont remember
I mainly use it for gil lol or to try soloing it
I dont kno the mouse over macro but there is a way to do it i recommend looking up a macro guide for the commands
I play on console so when im healing i use for dps attacks /tt which is target of my target
Keep up the vids man ur doing a good job
there is hidden loot in potd that u either have to walk over or use a pomander of intuition that causes the hidden chest to have a gold beam on it. they can contain pets, mounts, even glam gear. it can be one reason that people do not run to the floor exit. or they might be completely lost XD. i see the latter quite often. the game doesnt explain the hidden chests very well.
I haven’t completed PotD myself, though I have done a bit of it. I do think that for your purposes, using the Party Finder advertising a PotD run for experience could be helpful. That way everyone is on the same page. Some people may be running to try and boost up their weapon and armour, which would be why some people could be wandering around and exploring for chests rather than moving straight to the next floor. Assuming Party Finder is available in the trial version, I’m actually not certain if it is or not.
after you hit lvl 60 you will need to move to heaven on high which is later in msq
The later levels of PotD should be done with a fixed party. The deeper you go, the more dangerous it can get. You will want a proper light party. There are good rewards, including the chance for a mount that sells for millions of gil. It's a significant challenge to get to floor 200. And it can be soloed for a rare title.
PotD can be monotonous, but it is, once you get to 51 to 60, very efficient. But yeah, don't hard grind it.
I normally just spam 50-60 floor for potd. Instant queues and quick exp. then I do heaven on high.
getting your aether pool filled will allow you to aquire a level 60 i255 weapon that can carry you up to rhalgers reach content in storm blood – meaning looking for blue and silver chests is a must if you plan on getting a weapon you dont have to swap out for a while and collect for glam in between. WARNING : players will be angry if you look for chests for your progression but they are not allowed to stand in your way . if you dismiss them or they dismiss you the option to report should be used explaine to the dev they did not want you to get chests and under the tos they will get a 9 day suspension . personal paitents does not dictate what the other people in your party can or cant do – if you simply wish to play a specific way then make a group before hand with agreed terms. BE CAREFUL HOW YOU TREAT OTHERS IN POTD YOU COULD FIND YOURSELF PERMA BANNED AFTER 3 STRIKES – reports/suspensions/bans do not clear off of accounts over time.
FUCK WOW
The experience is based on level the higher the level is the more exp you gain its to bridge 20-30s to 50-60s while throwing in duty roulette to hit the level of the day you can go 4 PotD and one duty for one level if you want the best exp out of potd you would want to speed run with a group in the party finder repeating 50-60. I was able to get to 50 as ninja in a week doing this but that was my highest level so alts get 50% increases in exp thats why they said doing this is a good option as well as others too. Good luck on your journey. (Also if you have a question like the comment and ill reply its the only way for me to see if anyone replied to me.)