I’m going to teach you how to level up in Island Sanctuary, including some mistakes to avoid.

If you’re just starting Island Sanctuary, it’s probably because you’ve heard or even seen of some of the really cool rewards. You can get like mounts, minions, Glamours, Furnishing, dyes and Materia. Or maybe you heard about the fact that you can actually decorate your Island Sanctuary with outdoor furnishings. It’s pretty cool, right?

Don’t Use Your Cowries

At lower levels, you’ll receive a few thousand Cowries by completing the quest given to you by the Felicitous Furball. You must not use these Cowries.

These are given to you purposefully, as you will need them to pay the Mammoths to clear other areas of the island so that you can build Workshops and Granaries. Using these Cowries will absolutely stall your progress and make things a lot harder for you.

Quests

With this quests warning aside, let’s talk about how you can actually gain exp and rank up.

At lower levels, you will get the most exp from doing any quests that pop up on the island. These will usually come from Felicitous Furball or mamas, asking if you want a clear part of the island.

Crafting Tools & Restraints

Usually, to clear a section of the island, you need to craft tools. You will also get exp for crafting the tools.

In fact, you get exp the first time you craft anything, so look through that log and see if there’s anything else you could craft.

You’ll also get a small amount of exp for repeatable crafts, like Restraints. So, if you happen to have any extra masks that you don’t need for the workshop, craft away.

Also Read: What Should You Do While Waiting For Queue To Pop In FFXIV? - 10 Tips

Building & Renovating Buildings

At any rank, you will gain exp by building new Granaries, Workshops, or Landmarks. Of course, the spots for these are limited, so you can only build so many.

You will also get exp for renovating the Workshops and Granaries. The max level you can renovate them to is four. Make sure to do this not just for the exp but also for the bonus in rewards. For example, each renovation of the Workshop will increase the Workshop Cowries output.

Setting The Workshop

Speaking of the Workshop, you can also get exp from making stuff in there. So, you should be setting your Workshop every week.

For those who are happy with leveling up casually or slowly, once you’ve done all the quests and renovated all your buildings, the Workshop is pretty much the only passive way to level.

Gathering

For those that want to level up a bit faster or who made the mistake, I mentioned earlier of using up all your Cowries. Unfortunately, all that’s really left for you to do is just gather things on the island.

Now, the most optimal way to do this would either be to gather in an area where you don’t have to run very far, such as on the top of the mountain if you’re past rank 10 and have unlocked flying. Or, if you’re below 10, this spot along the stream is also good.

Macro For Gathering

There is actually a macro you can use that will target and auto run you to the nearest Gathering mode.

Gathering Macro:

/merror off

/targetnpc

/lockon on

/automove on

Once it does that, you need to hit the confirm button, which on the keyboard is defaulted to the number pad to zero. I like to set the macro to 1 and the confirm button to two, so I can just hit one and two and watch something on my second monitor while I do this. This macro works best if you can gather on top of the mountain since it’ll keep you in your small circle.

But I don’t see why you couldn’t use it elsewhere if you really wanted to. Just make sure to look at your screen every now and then to prevent your character from getting stuck. And while this method of gathering will level you up, unfortunately, it’s not going to be able to get you the Cowries that you need to pay the Mammoths. You will have to just be working on your Workshop in order to get those. This is why it’s a really big deal and why you should not spend your Cowries until you have cleared some of those areas that need to be cleared and have Cowries in excess.

Gathering Heavily Used Items

But back to gathering, something else to consider would be to gather some of the items. Otherwise, you need to spend a lot of FFXIV Gil.

You will need a lot of for your Workshop, such as Island Laver, Island Sap, Island Cotton Bolls, Island Sugarcane and Island Tinsand. Those are the items I find myself running out of the most.

Even though gathering these is not the most optimal way to gain exp because they’re more spread out, doing so will still give you exp and it will be helpful to you later. It’s kind of like killing two birds with one stone.

Gathering Crops & Leavings

It’s also worth noting that you can get exp from gathering your crops and gathering the leavings from any animals you have. It’s 120 exp per crop and 50 exp per animal. When these are automated by the Mammoths, they don’t give any exp at all. So, just be aware of that.

Personally, I find this amount to be so negligible that it isn’t really worth the extra effort you have to put into the island. Because this means, of course, feeding the animals and watering the crops yourself. But it’s up to you whether you want to do this for a little extra exp or not.

Troubleshooting

Finally, I want to share a couple of troubleshooting items because I remember them happening to me.

First of all, you have to craft the tools in the crafting log before you’ll be able to take new quests. If they’re showing up red, that could be why.

Another reason they might be read, and this was the most confusing for me, is because you’re not actually a high enough rank to take them. I remember having quests I couldn’t do and I had no idea why because I crafted all my tools and did anything else the Felicitous Furball told me to do, but nothing unlocked the quest.

Once I ranked up to the appropriate level, the quest would unlock. I don’t know if they’ve patched this or not. But if you see a red quest and it doesn’t change color even after you’ve crafted the most recent set of available tools, you probably need to level up.