Viper and Pictomancer Leveling Guide (2024)

Last updated on Apr 14, 2024 at 00:00by Laille1 comment

This page offers players the most efficient way to level both Viper andPictomancer in Dawntrail. This will include how to prep your character beforeDawntrail is available, as well as which activities will be the quickestin order to get the two new jobs from level 80 to 100, with or withouta party.

With the launch of Dawntrail's early access on June 28th, 2024,two new jobs will become available to players who've purchased the newest expansion forFinal Fantasy 14 -- the magical ranged DPS class Pictomancer, andthe melee DPS class Viper. For those looking to immediately level these classes to thelevel required to start the 7.0 main scenario quests, there are a fewsteps you can take to prepare for the launch of the jobs, as well as a few things tokeep in mind once you do start playing to make the leveling process asefficient as possible.

• Wonderous Tails can be prepared starting Tuesday, June 18th,a week and a half before early access goes live. These only stay valid for a certainperiod of time, so you can't prepare these too far in advance, but you willwant to pick these up in Idyllshire and complete all nine seals and have nine second chancepoints prepared before the expansion goes live. Once servers do go live, youcan drop by Idyllshire to turn these in and get roughly half a level right off of the bat.
• Azeyma's Earrings grant an additional 30% EXP to any combat classunder level 90 when equipped and can be obtained by pre-ordering Dawntrail. As thesewill passively increase the amount of experience you gain from other tasks onthese list once the servers go live, it's worth checking to make sure you have theseequipped once you log in before doing anything else.
• Hunt marks are another thing you can prepare for a good chunk ofexperience very quickly after the launch of the expansion. Unlike Wonderous Tails,these don't have an expiration date on them, so you can prepare these as far inadvance of the expansion launch as you'd like. These can be picked up fromOld Sharlayan, near the Scholar's Harbor Aethernet Shard at the Guildship HuntBoard. A full stack of junior, associate, senior and elite guildship marksshould net players roughly a third of a level. Make sure to leave one monster ofeach left to kill for when the server goes up. You can use hunt tracking websitessuch as FFXIVHunt to better plan your hunt routes as well, should you want tofurther optimize your time.
• Bloodsworn rank Arkasodara tribal quests will net players roughly a thirdof a level as well. Given that these Tribal quests take roughly a month tomax out from scratch, it's best to start these ahead of time, as higher rank questsgive more experience. You can't complete these quests to store ahead of time, so keep inmind that what you're doing here is simply making sure you're the proper rank beforethe expansion launches. We'll get into what to do on the day of Dawntrail's launchlater on!
• Challenge logs are yet another source of roughly a third of a level. Yourchallenge logs reset each Tuesday, so these can't be prepared more than a fewdays in advance of the launch. On June 25th, you can prepare by doing two dungeonsvia Duty Roulette, four dungeons (be careful not to do the additional two viaDuty Roulette, as this will complete the aforementioned challenge early), giving fourcommendations to other players and completing four FATEs in the open world.Once the servers go live on June 28th, you can complete the final step for each ofthese to get a quick boost of EXP.
• Free Company buffs, such as The Heat of Battle can be prepared ahead of time, andgrant between 10% to 15% bonus EXP depending on which tier of the buff youprepare ahead of time. These can be prepared via the Aetherial Wheel of your FreeCompany, or by buying them through your Grand Company through seals, if yourFree Company doesn't have access to them.
• Leveling food is also an easy way to increase EXP gains through combat by 3%.Making sure you have an adequate stock of Boiled Eggs ahead of time willhelp you to avoid having to buy price gouged food once the servers go up.
• Finally, the well-rested bonus is another way to get a 50% bonus on any experience earned throughcombat (that is, enemies defeated). This isn't a bonus on all experience, but it's still worthwhileto make sure you have a proper amount saved going into the expansion. Well-rested bonus is earned by goingidle or logging out in a sanctuary, which is indicated by a crescent moon next to the experience bar. Thiscaps after seven days, so you'll want to make sure you have your leveling finished a week in advance of thebeginning of early access to make sure you aren't consuming it ahead of time. This bonus works passively, sothere's nothing special you need to do to utilize it once the server go live.

Having a gear set lined up for the classes you intend to level with the launch ofDawntrail can save a fair bit of time as well, avoiding the need to sift through yourinventory and find the gear pieces that fit each class. In addition, by ensuring you havethe pieces you want ready to go and the currencies needed to buy others ahead of timehelps to avoid having to spend time grinding out tomestones after launch. As such,attempt to do the following in preparation for the expansion launch.

1. Make sure you are capped on all forms of tomes going into the expansion so youcan buy the relevant pieces of gear. You can prepare the gear before the expansion with the exceptionof the weapon, as the weapons won't be obtainable until the servers have gone live.Any tomes that may become retired have traditionally been able to be traded in for another form oftomestone, and it's likely that pattern will hold in Dawntrail.
2. Having all dungeon gear from the leveling dungeons from level 81-89 for the rolewill ensure that you will receive the weapon as a drop from that dungeon as you are leveling. This isn'tas big of a deal if you plan on leveling to 90 purely through Deep Dungeons, but ifqueuing with others for a dungeon, it's still best practice to keep your weapon somewhat updated. In addition,having a stock of potential crafting materials to make crafted weapons for the newjobs will help fill in the gaps if you're unable to do this. Example sets for level80 Pictomancer and Viper canbe found by clicking the name of their respective job, but keep in mind that without the job'sskills from the Media Tour information that these are likely to change in some way as we get better insightinto how they interact with Skill Speed and Spell Speed. Check back regularly if you plan onusing these. These sets do not include earrings, as they assume you will be using Azeyma's Earrings forthe bonus EXP. You can click the "Show marked items only" option to make these pages easier to read as well.
3. You can use websites such as XIVBars to make your hotbars ahead of time,which you can export to a macro ahead of launch to run once the servers go up. If no sites addnative support for Pictomancer or Viper ahead of the launch of the expansion, you can easily replace theaction names from another job with the action names we get from the Media Tour to accomplish the same thing.
4. It is very likely that the new weapons will be purchasable in Eulmore once servers go live, so you canopt to log out there or where the job is unlocked before servers go down for Patch 7.0 maintenance.

The following is a loose idea of what you should do once the servers go live for the earlyaccess period of Dawntrail. If any are time-sensitive, their bullet point will mention this.Pay attention to this, as in some cases, if you don't complete the task in time, you'll missout on a sizeable amount of EXP.

• Unlock the job you wish to play first, either in Gridania for Pictomancer, or in Ul'dah for Viper.
• Purchase the level 80 tomestone weapon for the corresponding job (or both, if you've got extra!) in Eulmore.
• Start your queue for the following activities. These are ordered from most efficient from an EXP to timeperspective to least. You can continue down this list while waiting for you queue to pop.
  1. Duty Roulette: Leveling
  2. Duty Roulette: Frontline
  3. Duty Roulette: Main Scenario
  4. Duty Roulette: Trial
  5. Duty Roulette: Alliance Raid (note that you can no longer guarantee which raid you get through item level here, so queue at your own peril)
  6. The highest level 81-89 dungeon you're able to access
• Turn in your Wonderous Tails from the previous week and then pick up another book from the week thatDawntrail begins. Since Wonderous Tails resets on Tuesdays, you can start a second set to do as youdo the rest of these tasks and turn in another fully-completed set after finishing it for another large EXP boost.
• Time sensitive: Teleport to Thavnair and complete your daily Arkasodara tribal quests. This must bedone before the next daily reset to allow you to pick up another set once the daily reset occurs.
• Time sensitive: Finish the hunt bills you picked up by killing the last of each monster, then pick upyour new bills from the day before. Once again, this must be done before daily reset, and you can usea site such as FFXIVHunt to plan your pathing more efficiently if need be.
• Complete any remaining challenge log entries you haven't finished. This includes one more roulette, anotherdungeon, one more player commendation, and one more FATE in the open world.
• Once you've completed all of the above, you can fill the remaining time by completing FATEs in the zonematching your current level while awaiting your next queue to pop.

If you don't have a pre-made group, or don't intend on leveling through dungeons to level 90,you have a few options. For level 80 to 81, Bozja is still a viable way to complete the first level for each job. Afterhitting level 81, however, the experience gained sharply falls off, so it's best to hop to the nextoption, which is spamming floors 21-30 of Eureka: Orthos. This set of floors can be queued for in Mor Dhona and can eitherbe done solo (not advised) or through Duty Finder. If doing this method, it's advisable to rememberthat others are likely going to be trying to move between floors as quickly as they're able so that they can level quickly andmove on to the new main scenario quests, so don't go in expecting others to frequently want to stop to collect chests.

Finally, as mentioned above, this article should be considered in flux we're still somewhat early in thelaunch information window, and as we get additional information from the Media Tour and other places, it's possible(and even likely) that information contained herein will change, especially when it comes to the gearsets linked.Check back frequently leading up to launch and keep an eye on the changelog on the page to make sure you're up to datewith any changes that may be made.