Hit level 50 tonight in MNK, MIN, and BTN. I just finished up the Stone Vigil quest in ARR.
Seems like a lot of the game is opening up (new job quest lines, beast tribe quests, Grand Company stuff, housing, etc.). Is there any point in fucking with any of that right now or should I just be laser focused on the MSQ?
When you hit the capstone of the quest chain in each expac (i.e. beat the quest named after the expansion) there'll be multiple quest chains unlocked. Most important are the normal raids (8 man raids mostly consisting of 1-on-1 battles in sets of 4), the alliance raids (24 man raids as a big mob of idiots), and for heavensward-on, the Trial trio (a series of three cool trial fights revolving around a theme, with some of the best music and extra birds/doggos/dragons to ride).
I'd recommend doing those as you go, finishing them before you finish the MSQ. So far, one of those has been made mandatory (the ARR alliance raid) and the others significantly enhance the story of future expacs if you do them when appropriate. I'd quite reasonably expect the Stormblood Normal raid to become mandatory later, too.
Exception timing-wise is ARR's normal raid, coils of Bahamut. I recommend postponing that until you've cleared Shadowbringers and doing it undersized with a buddy.
Also as many of the side 4 man dungeons you can squeeze in. Many of them will come back later or tie in with later quest lines/class quest lines.
As for what you can do now...
- If you haven't done them yet, now's a great time to do your Grand Company Logs. You can go to one of the grand company staff (I think it's the quartermaster?) and turn dungeon loot in you don't need for extra credits to rank up quicker. What you want is squadron - and then Command - missions, which can be a huge boon while you're levelling a DPS class.
- Beast tribe quests have a nice reward for doing all of them for an expac, and you can get a themed mount from each one you clear - the Kobolds have a palanquin carried by Bombs, for example - but they dont give a lot of exp in the ARR cases. Do them for mount grinding. The HUGE exception is the Ixal, who gives
great exp for crafters right from level 1.
- The Gold saucer is always there for you.
- Housing, well, it's hard to grind the necessary money unless you have a crafting class levelled near-max.
- The jobs which start at 50-onwards generally feel complete right out the gate, which is nice. Good for trying out alternate playstyles.
