Complete all quests up to Cranto Coast and Calculate if you’ll have enough EXP Cards. If not explore to 100% higher level maps for the EXP Cards.
Short answer, no sorry you will have to grind, quite alot to reach lv225 (rank7)
So i did my quests and stuff, a few dungeons and missions and decided to use all my cards at lvl 211. Reach level 223 with 70.8% in my job lvl 14. I was really expecting to hit rank 7 after like 40 lvl 8 cards, 200 lvl 9 cards, and 60 lvl 10 cards. -_-
i have NO cards at 215 or maps to get them from, cause next lvl 230+… so what’s the best way to get rank 7, i need 2 class lvls?
Sorry to resurrect a dead post, but I actually reached Rank 7 a day or two after making this post and have played at a more relaxed pace since. Didn’t even check the forums until today, because I was done with the game other than farming dungeons.
For those new players aiming only to get to Rank 7: there is a lot of fearmongering going on in this forum and the ToS community - particularly in regards to grinding (‘lel have to grind no choice but to grind 1 million hours’, ‘grind grind grind’ is something you will hear around here a lot from those classic MMO lovers). I suggest you take things into your own hands instead of giving up and grinding pointlessly.
The amount of grind needed to get to R7 isn’t anywhere near as bad as I thought, and it is manageable even for casual players. I grinded to about level 222 from 218, which only took 3~4 hours at Alemeth, and used cards to get to Rank 7 at level 224. Get an exp card calculator to plan out your card use, do your daily dungeons/missions, and you will be there without much effort at all. My total playtime at the time I reached R7 was about 90~100 hours, with only about 10 hours of grind.
However, if you aim to reach 280, you will definitely have to grind. There are no quests past Cranto Coast (I have also cleared all of these), so good luck to those who intend to proceed past this point.
My first lv 237 was made by not using any cards what so ever until lv 220. The training grounds from lv 140ish to 168-170ish are barren empty and easy to grind because every other player is too lazy and wastes all cards to skip the 160 no exp dungeon gap.
People will explain the lv 1 cards to not be worth saving but at lv 200 stuff dies A LOT slower. And seeing as everything always gives 100-300exp mainly regardless of level for most mobs its a lot easier to kill the lowbie trash and save your cards until they are actually needed.
This is highly subjective. Many dislike the grind or don’t have time for it due to RL obligations, and these are the groups of people I had in mind when I created this topic.
As I’ve said, for every person who says the grind is needed or more efficient, there is another person who says it is not. However, most veteran forum-goers default to tens of hours of grinding as advice for getting to Rank 7 instead of trying to get around it, and the ones who successfully got around it have a tendency not to share their secrets.
I personally did not save cards except for the 160 no-dungeon/dead zone (grinded in DP District 2 a bit and did my dungeons/missions to 163, saved all level 7 and 8) and the short Alameth Forest grind (218~222), and I still got to where I wanted to be.
All I am hoping is that this can help people whose goal is just to get to Dragoon, Plague Doctor, Musketeer and so on without being pressured to grind.
You may forge your own path. My first 237 was a swordsmen it took me two weeks five days no help from lv1 to 237 with the technique I had explained
best method is to get exp<3
Sounds like you know what your doing. 
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I wouldn’t say grinding is time efficient… but after daily dungeon and mission runs, there isn’t much else to do unless you have quests to complete.
Personally speaking, I only ever mob grinded once during Lv145-16x-ish and I’m currently Lv226 with plenty of Lv10+up cards left to collect. Though, my method is much more casual (because I’m an altaholic/duoing with a friend, and play more than one character a day) and thus, slower.
For Lv190-210 i just did the 190 dungeon and missions, and quested with my duoing friend. Kept all of my 9s and 10s w/ a few 8s along the way, and used all of them at Lv210 to get to r7.
So mob grinding to me, is just a thing you do when there’s nothing else to do for the day (aside from content toward 250-280). Makes me not really consider this game grindy at all, because it’s really only grindy if you make it that way.
Explore lots of high level maps and use em cards if you’re in a hurry 
shouldnt use cards til lv 246 that way if you havnt used any cards at all you’ll go strait to 280
i get most my exp by sitting in towns and afking