Welcome to Skylar Sixx. Any relation to Nicky Sixx? :D

Anyway, along with the new folks can come some interesting questions, so let's get right to some of them. First, there is no silver bullet way to level, and I'm giving you my perspective as someone who has several disciple of war, magic, gathering, and hand at level 50. Some of them are better geared than others, but all of them are sufficiently geared for the current content.

1. Should I do my relic weapon quest? Yes, and this answer flies in the face of everything you read elsewhere, but here's my logic: If you do your relic weapon quest, you can achieve a weapon of iLVL 135 and the only other way to do that is to beat Final Coil. It is my intent to get enough of us through Coil and Second Coil (SCoB) to create a static for Final Coil, but that's down the road a bit. That's not to say that you should disregard getting at least an iLVL 110 weapon with soldiery and sands of time or grind Shiva EX for an iLVL 115 weapon. She's your best bet as people are still trying to squeeze cards, mounts, and rare housing items from her. Why do I recommend this? They have told us that having the current relic will give you an advantage in the Heavensward relic quest. There's no harm in having a leg up when you enter the new content, and though we don't know what that is just yet, it's better than nothing.

2. How do I increase my iLVL? Frankly, run the higher level content. You can grind dungeons for a few days and get all the drops to get you to iLVL 100 without breaking a sweat. Heck, now that the restrictions have been removed from World of Darkness (WoD), you can get iLVL 120 gear down the left side in a couple of days. But what about jewelry? you ask. Well, that can be done a few different ways, and I'll be danged if they make it easy. You can hunt (boring) for a couple days and get all the Allied Seals to get Carboncoat and then use Poetics for jewelry. IMHO, that's a waste of your time. Run Coil 1 through 4 (skip 3!) to get iLVL 90 jewelry that kicks most of the stats on the weathered gear. Then we get a party together and beat 5. You can even luck into a weapon drop in 5. Then move on to SCoB and get even higher level jewelry. You also get sands and oils from SCoB and Syrcus Tower. Obtain and do your weekly quest! Gift of the Archmagie or something like that. It gives you your choice of a free Unencrypted Tomestone, Carboncoat, or Carbontwine. Geesh, they may as well lay an iLVL 130 weapon at your feet and kiss your tushy for you. :D

3. How do I make gil? Where there are a few ways. If you're like me, you hate to craft. I don't just hate it, I f-n hate it! I craft once a day, and it's called Ixal Beast Tribes. Anyone who's known me for a while will tell you that I don't put any effort into it, yet I have all of my crafters at iLVL 34 or above and 2 at 50! How? You ask. Well, by doing the quests as my highest level crafter and turning in the quests with a lower level. I'm a few days from finishing my 3rd level 50, and they are still in their iLVL 8 garb! That said, Yachiru can give you excellent pointers on crafting, and as the master crafter, he is your source for any and all information and items. Samantha is also an excellent crafter, so bug him as well for tips. I prefer doing the BT's daily and selling the sealant. I get about 100k gil per day. I gather one bearskin map per day, that's another 20k gil. Once a week, I get a bug up my butt and I run first Coil turn 4 and get silk, leather, and nuggets. These are drops, and sometimes you get dead air, but if you're persistent, you can make a few hundred thousand. Since each run only takes a few minutes, you can spam it for a couple hours and get complete 10-15 runs. I also send my ventures out daily and put all the stuff in the company chest so Yach can build all your gear. Get at least your botanist or miner to 50 so you can get maps and Clusters. Clusters sell for a lot, and you can watch tv while waiting for the nodes to pop and grab them. Mindless and easy gil.

4. How do I level quickly? I recommend doing the story line with one class/job to the end. Yes, all the way to the end, that means 2.0, 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, 2.4 and the new 2.5 quests. At the end of 2.0, you are level 50, so you're making gil, grabbing gear, and doing other stuff along the way. While you're leveling your character, remember that the FC keeps an XP buff up all the time, so if you don't see it, ask one of us to active it. Take potions and food from the 3rd page of the company chest! Even if it's not food/potions for the class you're in, you get a 3% boost. Finally, log out in a town or at the FC house. This gives you a resting boost of up to 100% XP! If you're leveling without one of those 3 things, you're not maximizing your potential.

5. How do I level my Companion Chocobo? Besides running quests and fates or generally killing stuff at your level, you can stable your chocobo. If stabled, people will feed it. If you need krakka root to feed your chocobo, ask, we have it, but we keep it under lock and key. Sorry, but the value is there, so we distribute it as requested. Make sure you ask for enough to feed all of the chocobos in the stable, not just yours. See, if you feed your chocobo, I can feed your chocobo, so there is the ability to feed him twice per hour, which can level them very fast. If you want to use him, just fetch him. The 'resting' indication is that he can't be fed in a stable for that amount of time, not because you can't use him for fates, quests, etc. [This is different from coloring. If you color your chocobo DO NOT remove him from the stable until the colors are finished. If you do, you lose your colors.] Once your chocobo reaches level 10, you will need a Thavnarian Onion for each level after. These do not actually level or give any XP to your chocobo. Look at it like a key to the next level. Because of that, do not feed the chocobo an onion until it reaches the maximum of the level that it is in. They DO NOT stack! Therefore, you can't feed him 10 and hope he will get to level 20. One at a time. Lastly, the chocobo cannot actually level in the stable. You have to remove him and do an action (like a quest, fate, or kill something at or near your level) in order to level him. Don't feed chocobos that have an orange level indicator, because they need to be removed from the stable to level, and you're just throwing away a perfectly good root.

6. What good is a free company? That's a good question. You get what you put into a free company. I see an FC as a way to work together towards common goals, so some days it's there to help me and others, I'm there to help it. It's a team, and that's why we're called the Knights of Synergy. If you don't feel you want to be part of a team that works cohesively, that's ok. There are plenty of FC's that will welcome you with open arms. This is not one of them. We want people to work together, because that's how you will attain your goals more quickly. Don't be afraid to ask us to run a dungeon, collect materials, craft gear, etc for you. That's why we invited you to the FC. If you log in, say /fc hi! Even if you don't intend to stay long. We've been where you are, and we wished we had people helping us along. But our intentions aren't entirely selfless. We hope that you will gear up and gather, craft or fight at high levels next to us. You can do all 3. You want to run end game content? Fish? Make tools? RPG? Those are all things we like to do.

To sum it up, the FC is a sum of its parts. Ask questions, be involved, let's take the Knights of Synergy to Heavensward as one of the companies that has the power to be at the top of the heap. We can do this.