New or Returning Players Discussion 2: SoA Homeless Veterans Edition

[Byrthnoth]

And abandon such a perfect opportunity to troll their customers? You damned well know they wouldn't!

[bungiefan]

It's still broken as far as the official forums indicate. The last posts in the thread there were people talking about what other game they were going to play instead of FFXI, and how they decided they just didn't want to come back after going back to offline games, or an online game by another company.

[solracht]

Funnily enough they just posted this on the XIV forums:

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...=1#post2710451

I don't know if there's a similar post on the XI ones, but either way you can now avoid the bullshit card issues.

[ClarkSammich]

Is there a server with a strong (and large, if such a thing still exists) NA population?
I'm on Bahamut atm and just tried to do Ceizak delve with a shout group and nearly cut my own dick off in rage at how bad these people were.
I told a DNC to make light with me for fiteen minutes straight on unfettered twitherym, all the while hitting for 15 damage. I've been through some shit today.

[Byrthnoth]

Did you realize that dancer can't make self-light?

[ClarkSammich]

I told him to shark bite so I could close w/ mandalic stab, he even said "sorry I wasn't reading chat log" 10min in, then still didn't do it.

edit: also, worth noting

I told a DNC to make light with me

[Lyramion]

Is there a server with a strong (and large, if such a thing still exists) NA population?
I'm on Bahamut atm and just tried to do Ceizak delve with a shout group and nearly cut my own dick off in rage at how bad these people were.
I told a DNC to make light with me for fiteen minutes straight on unfettered twitherym, all the while hitting for 15 damage. I've been through some shit today.

Sadly the answer is... Bahamut, too. People coming here because their servers dont have shouts at all.

Ceizak Delve always been iffy, normal riffraff has no practise in it whatsoever. One thing might be the THF not even having shark bite unlocked and playing dumb. We also have our fair share of "typical shout fail people" that are pretty well known. But you most likely wont find a much higher pop server but Bahamut and.. what was the 2nd one.. Asura? I remember Odin being huge years ago.

[ClarkSammich]

That's discouraging, oh well. Thanks for the info.

[FaeQueenCory]

Odin gets plenty of shout action.
And still has a large size. (Though it would seem that Odin players have lives since population drops heavily during M-W.)
But there's a large JP playerbase, so if you're xenophobic...
Though it's not like there's no English speakers. They're just outnumbered by the JPs. (and in a Japanese game no less! The nerve!?)

[Francisco]

Few more questions to clear up some vagueness about certain content:

- I was going to look at working on a Glanzfaust, but wound up getting turned off by the amount of Einherjar and Zeni farming I'd need to do on top of the Alexandrite farming. Has there been any changes to these requirements to make them not as bad as they seem (kinda feels like "good luck getting people do do Einherjar these days"). Nyzul probably isn't so bad, but I recall Zeni farming being horrendously tedious.

- Soloed Arrapago Remnants I the other day and got 34 Alexandrites, good for around 250,000 gil, but not nearly good enough to support building a mythic. Plus I may have been lucky on pouches (I got 3 cotton pouches from I think 8 NMs). Drop rate from gears seemed much lower than what I remembered. I'm a lot less familiar with Salvage II, but suspect they may be lamp floors. Can a person reasonably expect to farm Salvage II solo? How big is Treasure Hunter for farming Alexandrites? (Currently, MNK is my only 99 (i116-119 depending on gear choices), I can sub /THF but /DNC is probably needed, working on THF to 99 for farming purposes).

- What's an "average haul" on Alexandrites in Salvage II with appropriate TH?

- What's an average haul" on dynamis currency from either Bubu or Qufim with appropriate TH (because perhaps, more realistically, I might just go for a Spharai)?

- I hadn't realized Delve has been scaled to alliance size. How are the bosses with a group of 6? I see a lot of shouts for very specific setups. Can one deviate (either slightly or heavily) from these setups and expect success?

- Can all Delve Field NM Key Items be obtained with a group of 4-6?

[Karizo]

Few more questions to clear up some vagueness about certain content:

- I was going to look at working on a Glanzfaust, but wound up getting turned off by the amount of Einherjar and Zeni farming I'd need to do on top of the Alexandrite farming. Has there been any changes to these requirements to make them not as bad as they seem (kinda feels like "good luck getting people do do Einherjar these days"). Nyzul probably isn't so bad, but I recall Zeni farming being horrendously tedious.

- Soloed Arrapago Remnants I the other day and got 34 Alexandrites, good for around 250,000 gil, but not nearly good enough to support building a mythic. Plus I may have been lucky on pouches (I got 3 cotton pouches from I think 8 NMs). Drop rate from gears seemed much lower than what I remembered. I'm a lot less familiar with Salvage II, but suspect they may be lamp floors. Can a person reasonably expect to farm Salvage II solo? How big is Treasure Hunter for farming Alexandrites? (Currently, MNK is my only 99 (i116-119 depending on gear choices), I can sub /THF but /DNC is probably needed, working on THF to 99 for farming purposes).

- What's an "average haul" on Alexandrites in Salvage II with appropriate TH?

- What's an average haul" on dynamis currency from either Bubu or Qufim with appropriate TH (because perhaps, more realistically, I might just go for a Spharai)?

- I hadn't realized Delve has been scaled to alliance size. How are the bosses with a group of 6? I see a lot of shouts for very specific setups. Can one deviate (either slightly or heavily) from these setups and expect success?

- Can all Delve Field NM Key Items be obtained with a group of 4-6?

1. Mythic is a long term goal, not something you accomplish in a day or two. If you break it down, the limiting factor is really achieving Captain's Rank (if you haven't already), redo all 50 assaults, and farming the Nyzul tokens with additoinal assault tags. If you're starting from scratch, that's 100 days (assuming no failed assaults) + however many you need to obtain 150k Nyzul Tokens. If you can do that, you can do everything else. Einjeriar T3 chamber yields 1920 ichors a run, that's easily achievable if you do it everyday while doing assaults/nyzul. Yes, you need 30k Alexandrites, but split among 100+days, thats 300 Alex a day, or around 2.1-2.4mil a day. There are many ways to achieve this, Salvage 2 averages around 100 Alex or more, VW drops are around 1mil each, spam a few runs and you got your gil. You get the picture, just break down the math yourself and it won't seem overwhelming on a day-to-day basis, though you need to be CONSISTENT.

2. You're mixing up Salvage with Nyzul when it comes to lamp floors. "Lamps" in Salvage II is just for removing pathos. TH helps, but results vary. If you're doing it with MNK, might as well do it with THF, the amount of times it takes will shorten and yield on average better results. In my experience BLU clears it the fastest, and can have TH2. And yes, Salvage II is soloable in sparks gear at 99.

3. Salvage II should yield at least 100 alex, + potential 2nd linen pouch and cotton pouches.

4. Dynamis runs vary with the amount of people in them, whether you know what you're doing, and slightly depends on your gear. If you're familiar with the zone and no one is contesting you, 700 is the bare minimum you should be able to achieve, 750 is very good. I've seen 800+, but that's for you to discover on how to do.

5. Yes. It also depends on the zone. Some zones have mechanics that requrie some gimmicks, like matamata or urganite. Well, assuming you're not bringing any idiots. Idiots ruin the runs pretty quickly.

6. All Delve I field NMs are low-mannable, if not soloable. Delve II takes a little more work, but nothing a full 6man group can't handle, assuming you're doing it correctly.

[Mercilessturtle]

turned off by the amount of Einherjar and Zeni farming I'd need to do on top of the Alexandrite farming. Has there been any changes to these requirements to make them not as bad as they seem (kinda feels like "good luck getting people do do Einherjar these days"). Nyzul probably isn't so bad, but I recall Zeni farming being horrendously tedious.

They made it so you get 1500 zeni per picture, the whole ZNM part takes no time at all now. There's plenty enough people doing mythics that there's always a few shouts a day for einherjar farming. Even if you miss them, you can easily duo wing 3s as a healer+cleaver. Blu can probably solo aoe burn them even.

- What's an "average haul" on Alexandrites in Salvage II with appropriate TH?

Anyone can solo salvage 2, mnk/dnc is fine just get a TH belt. Pup or blu are way faster since they can haste 2 themselves. You pull ~125 on average plus the occasional second linen. Ffxidb thinks the linen drop rate is 10%, but I only got 2 in 50 runs before I stopped bothering killing the NQ. Maybe the drop rate is higher when you fail to spawn the HQ. Don't bother wasting time on the cotton purse NMs, they are an average of ~1.25 alex. You are better off exiting faster and doing pretty much anything else for gil with the time saved.

What's an average haul" on dynamis currency from either Bubu or Qufim with appropriate TH (because perhaps, more realistically, I might just go for a Spharai)?

Qufim sucks shit, it doesn't have a single camp big enough for one person, so you need the entire zone to yourself so you can pos hack back and forth doing two camps at a time. I don't know what karizo is doing (aoe WS mobs? NMs for 100s?), but I just started dynamis again and if I have no competition I pull in 500-550 per run doing the normal /dnc JA spam on DC nightmare mobs in bubu. That is clearing the entire camp and waiting on respawn.

I hadn't realized Delve has been scaled to alliance size. How are the bosses with a group of 6? I see a lot of shouts for very specific setups. Can one deviate (either slightly or heavily) from these setups and expect success?

Shouts still insist on using the strats from when there was no ilvl gear. You can ignore those specific setups. Pretty much any reasonable setup is fine, just make sure you have some way to deal with each gimmick.

[Francisco]

Thanks for the answers, I have a few more assorted questions.

Dynamis: Seem to be getting more drops from DC mobs. Do they just drop better, or do they proc easier? Seems like a little of both to me, but I'm not quite sure. Haven't broke 450 currency in the first few runs I did, except one run I got a fluke 100 Byne from a wandering dragon.

Another question: I ran into Davoi today to trade in some bronze for silver, and figured "what the hell, I'll see if Bakgodek is up". Was alone in the zone, but someone managed to get ahead of me into Monastic Cavern. Searched that player a couple of times to gauge if they were killing the NM or not. And somehow they went directly to Beadeaux from Monastic. And then from Qulun they went directly to Oztroja. Is this in anyway at all possible under legit methods, or were they just doing some sort of crazy cheating? Can't see why anyone would want to cheat their way to the beastman kings in 2015, but if there's a legit way to teleport to these zones, I'd like to be able to do it.

Also regarding NMs, there are RoE missions for certain older HNMs, like Roc, Simurgh, etc... I've managed to find those two and Serket up basically any time I checked, but have not been able to find King Arthro or Lumber Jack. Seems they changed the pop timers on some of these NMs, but not others?

Finally, a question on Rudra's Storm. While it's a great WS overall, why am I getting random shitty numbers from it? I'll get 15,000 on one mob, and then get something stupid like 250~1000 damage on an incredibly easy prey. My dagger skill is capped, and I'm using two i119 daggers. That alone should say enough. Is it just the nature of the WS, or is there some weird property to it? Is it controllable?

[ClarkSammich]

4. Dynamis runs vary with the amount of people in them, whether you know what you're doing, and slightly depends on your gear. If you're familiar with the zone and no one is contesting you, 700 is the bare minimum you should be able to achieve, 750 is very good. I've seen 800+, but that's for you to discover on how to do.

700+ completely solo? Is there some special technique, because I get ~400 fairly consistently. 700 "bare minimum" seems improbable unless I'm missing something really big.

[Hyriu]

Another question: I ran into Davoi today to trade in some bronze for silver, and figured "what the hell, I'll see if Bakgodek is up". Was alone in the zone, but someone managed to get ahead of me into Monastic Cavern. Searched that player a couple of times to gauge if they were killing the NM or not. And somehow they went directly to Beadeaux from Monastic. And then from Qulun they went directly to Oztroja. Is this in anyway at all possible under legit methods, or were they just doing some sort of crazy cheating? Can't see why anyone would want to cheat their way to the beastman kings in 2015, but if there's a legit way to teleport to these zones, I'd like to be able to do it.

There are teleport points in Beaudeaux, Oztroja and Davoi(and a lot of other zones), you get there by talking to the NPC in Rulude

https://www.bg-wiki.com/bg/Waypoint#Proto-Waypoints

[Mercilessturtle]

Yes, DC mobs definitely have a higher chance of staggering. I don't remember if they also drop more on top of that. But considering how even with the recast reduction to steps you still end up with DC mobs dying from autoattacks before being staggered, there's no reason to do EPs other than competition. As a blu/dnc with shit gear I stagger ~200 mobs per run without cheating, which gets me 500+ currency. Are you guys going as thf with shit gear or something? I find treasure hunter level makes almost no difference at all, so TH1 with improved kill speed is way better than TH10 with slower kills.

[grover]

Back after a break, and curious what Skirmish +1 armor is generally considered good pieces these days. Would assume BLM can get away with augmented +1. Also, thinking of leveling MNK. What is the hierarchy of H2H. Are there decent non REM options?

[Sechs]

Tinhaspa is an excellent H2H weapon for MNK and PUP. Can augment it two ways to your liking, one focusing on STR/ATT, the other focusing on DEX/ACC. Can even take 2 and get both augments if you want.
The other basic option is Oatixur, drops from Tojil in Delve1.
Another excellent option for low level content is the 115 weapon from Achuka (Maochinoli?) augmented with OAT.

The Alluvion Skirmish H2H has an excellent model but bad stats. It's getting a third augment slot in the february patch but I doubt it's gonna make it competitive with the other options, plus it could require an insane amount of gil/stones to get decent augments.


Haven't looked at the Oboro H2H for Monk but I seem to recall it wasn't anything particularly good.

[Francisco]

Yes, DC mobs definitely have a higher chance of staggering. I don't remember if they also drop more on top of that. But considering how even with the recast reduction to steps you still end up with DC mobs dying from autoattacks before being staggered, there's no reason to do EPs other than competition. As a blu/dnc with shit gear I stagger ~200 mobs per run without cheating, which gets me 500+ currency. Are you guys going as thf with shit gear or something? I find treasure hunter level makes almost no difference at all, so TH1 with improved kill speed is way better than TH10 with slower kills.

I'm not totally tricked out on THF, but I'm still going in with i117 gear, including Izhi and Jugo+1. So far I've topped out at 450-460 currency. Biggest deterrents to getting more seem to be mobs occasionally simply not wanting to proc at all (and I'm stubborn about making them proc), and zone specific. In Buburimu, there's time wasted between DC mobs if you insist on fighting strictly DCs (Efts and Rabbits are really far from Scorps/Crabs/Dhalmels, Mandragoras are a bit closer, but they suck, etc). Only did Valkurm farming once, but the TE situation seemed more annoying (found the Quadav one chilling in the middle of a bunch of Nightmare Flies, had to clear lots of adds to kill it), camps seem sloppier in general and overlap a bit, so random shit you don't want may aggro you (i.e. Yagudo at sheep, Goblins at Manticores), Hippogryphs are in the most direct path to most of the TEs, but have true sight, so they need to be avoided early - but the proximity of the camps make it so you can probably get more kills overall if the zone is empty. I think my first ever run was 370, and my most recent was 450, so maybe I can improve to 500+, but I'm still not sure I could pull it in consistently due to random bouts of bad luck with procs or stingy 1-2 coin drops.

[Francisco]

Tinhaspa is an excellent H2H weapon for MNK and PUP. Can augment it two ways to your liking, one focusing on STR/ATT, the other focusing on DEX/ACC. Can even take 2 and get both augments if you want.
The other basic option is Oatixur, drops from Tojil in Delve1.
Another excellent option for low level content is the 115 weapon from Achuka (Maochinoli?) augmented with OAT.

The Alluvion Skirmish H2H has an excellent model but bad stats. It's getting a third augment slot in the february patch but I doubt it's gonna make it competitive with the other options, plus it could require an insane amount of gil/stones to get decent augments.


Haven't looked at the Oboro H2H for Monk but I seem to recall it wasn't anything particularly good.

Is Spharai still worth it over Tinhaspa/Oatixur? I really like it for the Counter/tanking possibilities.