Final Fantasy XIV’s Armoury Bonus is a simple buff to player experience, granted when playing a job below your highest job level.

XIV’s job system is considerably more freeform than other MMOs. You’ll pick your starting job from some simple options at the start, based on what you feel like doing at the time.

Tanks, healers, ranged DPS, melee DPS – it might seem a little on the basic side at first, especially for Final Fantasy.

From here you have two choices: stick with your starting job until it evolves into something cooler at level 30. Or, from level 10, swap to something new by picking up the quest from their guild or the relevant quest-giver.

Once you’ve unlocked the job, changing between them is as simple as changing the weapon you have equipped.

You’ll keep all the levels you gained on your previous one, so you really have the chance to experiment and see what you like playing the most without losing anything.

There is one caveat, though.

The most reliable way to level up a character between Duty Roulettes is pushing through Main Scenario Quests.

You’ll have completed all of the introductory ones by the time you can pick up a new job. You won’t be able to join the really worthwhile roulettes for leveling until level fifteen, so if you’re starting from scratch you might be at a loss at how to get there.

The Armoury Bonus is XIV’s way of making that process easier.

How Does The Armoury Bonus Work?

Let’s break it down with a quick example first.

You’re playing a level 30 Monk, it’s your highest level. No Armoury Bonus.

You switch from your Monk to a level 1 Lancer.

The Armoury Bonus is now active on your Lancer up to level 30.

You get your Lancer up to level 35, forgetting about your Monk for a little bit. When you swap back, your level 30 Monk now has the Armoury Bonus active until you get to level 35.

The Armoury Bonus offers a 100% EXP buff up to level 70, but it doesn’t apply to every source.

From levels 70 to 80, that bonus is reduced to 50%.

That may change with Endwalker. It’s raising the level cap to 90, so leveling through Shadowbringers will likely be made easier.

The Armoury Bonus basically doubles the experience you get from mob kills, FATEs, and Deep Dungeons: Palace of the Dead in A Realm Reborn, and Heaven-on-High in Stormblood.

It also stacks with other EXP buffs.

Servers will sometimes receive a world-wide “Road to 60” buff which increases XP gained on new characters.

Free Companies can offer a combat experience increase too, which will work alongside the Armoury Bonus. It also stacks with your Rested XP – the Rested XP bar buffs your experience by 50% until it’s expended.

There’s also certain accessories that buff your experience gain, like the Ala Mhigan Earrings and Brand New Ring.

These can be equipped at the same time, and you guessed it – these stack with the Armoury Bonus.

The Armoury Bonus also only applies to combat classes, so crafters and gatherers won’t benefit from it.

Leveling up a completely new job can seem like a huge task at first, but it’s actually not as long-winded as you might think.

You won’t have the steady, reliable stream of XP that the Main Scenario Quests offer. But there’s plenty of other ways to tear through those levels, all with stackable buffs.

Unlike the other XP buffs listed above, the Armoury Bonus is a constant baseline you can always rely on.

As long as you have a combat job higher than the one you want to level, you’ll always have a huge XP boost.

You can augment that with buffs from other sources for a dramatic increase to your leveling speed.

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