Crowbar for certain has pointed out the biggest advantage being the tournament scene.

I'm not sure if the math works in your favor but leveling faster also allows you to get more pearls to invest quicker.

Keel D. Haul said:

I'm not sure if the math works in your favor but leveling faster also allows you to get more pearls to invest quicker.

I don't think so. Combat experience takes 40 pearls and not every level gives them. That's a looot of levels until you at least break even.

Can't do the exact math, because I don't know which levels give pearls and how many of them, nor how much exp. they require, but I'm fairly certain that - only in terms of pearls gained by levelling up - you lose, simply because each level takes significantly more exp. than the last one.

Lets be utter optimists and assume that each level up gives 2 pearls. So, for 20% more exp. you spent 40 pearls, i.e., 20 levels. Let us also assume that each new level takes only 10% more exp. than the previous one (which is, IMO, waaay too optimistic). So, when you jump 20 levels, you gain exp. 20% faster, but your levelling requirement has jumped 1.1^20 = 6.7275 times, i.e., 572.75% more. Not a good deal.

Actually, if exp. requirement jump is over 0.92%, you're losing here, and I think we can agree that it's much higher than that. And that is still assuming 2 pearls for each level up.

Might be worth noting that I did this upgrade only after I upgraded everything else I deemed useful for me. It's just not worth it in terms of payback, IMO.

You get more experience, i.e., your level raises faster. Almost* no real advantage, but many see the level as a merit badge.

* When I said "almost", here is an exception: you gain more points for "experience" tournaments (like "Experience Hunt"). Note that this does not affect PvP and other tournaments that do not explicitly depend on gained experience.