The dunesFollow

lol umi what i did at 17 was went to kor tunnel as war/rng or any melee can /rng and soloed worms easy xp just cost a bit of gil

I solo'd my BLM in the Maze at Lv10 ^^ sure fights did take about 15 mins each for 200exp but it was fun. (This was before SE nuked the forever claimed feature).

But you should be able to party in Kor.Tunnel til about 19-20... Who cares about crap exp, it's exp, it's coming in fast, they are safe kills, horrah for fast easy levels on squishy worms.

Same goes for the Maze, but I think the worms drop off around 16-17

Dunes can be ok if you know what to do. I, thankfully, was able to get from 17-20 in one night and in one party. The key is to make you own parties and try to find people that are rank 3 or higher for atleast 3 of the other 5 members.That way you have an overwhelming base of experience, and you are only mentoring (or rather you should only be mentoring) 2 people on the basics.

If you're the party leader it helps too. After 11k exp and i think 3 hours of partying, I was the only member of the original party, having switched out every other person atleast once. Just keep an eye out on whose avaiable and ask people to give you alot of lead time before leading. It also helps to have to alternative healers/tanks (like WHM and SMN/WHM and WAR and MNK) so that if one leaves you can still continue to party.

If you're the leader, you're in control and you can make your parties great and last as long as you need. I'm just glad I escaped dunes in one night. Now onto Quifim!!!

To be completely fair, before level 30, /WHM is definitely a contender for the best sub for DRK. Before you go biting my head off let me explain.

DRK gets an innate MP pool; small perhaps, but it is there, meaning that with a mage sub they would have considerably more MP than, say, a WAR/WHM would. However, at that early level, there's very little they can do with it with only DRK spells. In the dunes, even on magic bursts, you'd be lucky to do 2-digit damage most of the time.

/WHM gives them something to do with that MP, it allows them to act at least as a backup healer. They don't HAVE to use it, they can still DD just fine at that early level and not Cure, but when an emergency comes up it is something you can fall back on.

On the other hand, the typical sub for DRK early on, /WAR, does not offer DRK a single ability/trait that helps their damage until 30/15, when /WAR gains Berserk. About the only thing you get from subbing /WAR early is a point or two more STR than you'd get from /WHM.

All in all, it's probably folly to count on a DRK/WHM to main heal for a party, but their potential to at least help with the healing is definitely there at early levels.

Funny you should mention that cause I had the same experience with tanks. The best tank (in terms of damage taking ability) I had in the dunes that night was a rank 1 WAR/MNK who didn't know Red Lotus Blade was a Weapon Skill.

All the WAR/NIN weren't nearly as good, and I was thinking pre 20 what does /NIN get you anyway? I think alot of people are lazy about subs in the early levels and it should be mentioned that some combination can work in early levels but not in later levels and visa versa.

In all honesty you can get away with some pretty odd job combinations in the dunes. At this point in the game, your subjob offers you so little that it makes almost no difference.

I did DRK/WHM through the dunes because MP for cures always seems to run thin.