New or Returning Players Discussion 2: SoA Homeless Veterans Edition

[Fwahm]

ha didnt even know there were 3 levels of 119. dunno why they didnt just increase the level.

There's really only 2, since the 119-2 weapons are just the afterglow versions of the normal 119 weapons.

Anyway, they probably just left them at 119 becauase they didn't want to bother programming trusts to reach ilvl 120.

[Jutubyaa]

Looking at gearing up GEO since it's an easy way to gear other jobs, but wanted to learn gearswap along the way. Is it recommended to start with a certain job when getting your feet wet with gearswap/lua or just follow guides and pick away at it?

[Vandalhart]

Generic Question:

Does anyone know where might I find a decent picture (or even the .dat or textures) for the 3 Nations and Jueno's mog house flags? I wanted to see about creating real ones for decorations... Possibly for sale.

[Modoru]

Looking at gearing up GEO since it's an easy way to gear other jobs, but wanted to learn gearswap along the way. Is it recommended to start with a certain job when getting your feet wet with gearswap/lua or just follow guides and pick away at it?

The gearswap folder has some example files you can use to tweak into your liking. Any doubts you may have, I'm sure you can browse thru the gearswap help thread on here or on FFXIAH.

[Mayura]

Heya,

Returning player here in need of help.

Played FFXI non stop from the NA release until around 2010 or so ( stopped a bit after Abyssea release when max level was 85 or 90 i think ? ) and i'm a "bit" lost after all of the changes. After a few days of digging informations on what's new, i have to admit i still don't know where to begin with !

First of all and as far as i remember, i think i was up-to-date missions wise for the pre-abyssea content, unlocking new zones at the time and i got all the expansion registered up to "Seekers of Adoulin".

My main questions are as follow:

1- I've seen a lot of solo content has been released in the past years: Can we now solo "decently fast" to 99 ? If yes, an estimate time per level would be great ! :D
2- Where to begin with ? missions ? unlocking zones ? events ?
3- As a Mandau owner, i still need to be upgrade it to 80 ( and more ), did they change the quests or do we still need to do the "killshot 300 mandragores with MS" thing ?
4- Once 99, are there a lot of solo / low man content to gear up decently enough ? ( Events that need 3 to 6 persons max or something )
5- I've read the jobs disparities are a lot less noticeable @99 than it was @75. I suppose having a mage job for low man content is still a plus so what would you recommand as i can't/won't play a healer ? and what are the popular jobs these days ?

Thanks a lot for your answers and i'm sorry if i missed a specific questions thread. @____@

[arus2001]

1) It'll be job dependent, but just grab trusts, pick a good book area for you, then go. How fast you level per hour will depend on those conditions. Some might suggest Escha zones for late 50ish or so, but I don't have experience with that.
2) Start on the RoV to get more trust slots. I guess at the same time you're gonna want to get sparks gear from RoE to get you into ilvl territory. You'll definitely want it by the time you hit Ru'Aun, at least.
3) Trials are the same, but shouldn't be so bad now with trusts to buff/support while you do it. ADL is still a cocksucker.
4) Solo will take some luck and gil investment with Yorcia Skirmish and even that gear is maybe third or fourth rate relative to options that have come since. You'll get some better mileage out of group content, but that can be rough depending on how well you make friends or are coming back to any. Keep in mind the more hardcore have likely been done collecting whatever for a bit now short of the last tiers on RMEs, so you'll either be riding on their boredom or hoping others like you might be LFG.
5) GEO's kinda basic for the bubbles, but you'll want gear if you want to be good nuking with it, too. Game's kind of in a manaburn phase with harder mobs having high evasion, so BLM and SCH (for SCs) can shine. I wouldn't say THF is a terrible choice, but you're obviously gonna need it geared for harder group stuff.

[Modoru]

To add to arus's post, popular jobs are mostly BLU, BLM, GEO, PLD, SCH, BST and I guess SMN? If you're not interested in being full caster, you may consider BLU?

[Damane]

BLU for BC and EXP and lower tier stuff

GEO for eveyrithunh

BLM for EXP CP snd high tier stuff, same with sch

PLD is not that popular but doing fine, althougj RUN is catching up alot in popularity.

BST only if you do stuff with other BSTs

[Mayura]

Thx a lot for your answers. Guess i'll stick with BLU as it was my FOTM before stopping and loved it.

BLU, THF and... SAM or NIN i guess. Thx again for the help ! :D

[Isiolia]

1- As mentioned, really, really depends. I'd say a big factor here is the Trust system - you might be "solo", but you're still able to have a healer, buffer, and so on. XP/kill is higher, and goes up a lot with post-99 mobs. XP rings are a nice boost, and they often run XP campaigns now too, and there's one coming up this month (per the Return campaign announcement).

2- Open up the Records of Eminence system and the Trust system. Then, like arus said, get on Rhapsodies. Progressing those missions grants you key items that grant a ton of benefits and conveniences. You will also want to get in the habit of touching all the Home Points you come across for a while (and Survival Guides for that matter). You'll also probably want to start on doing Coalition stuff in Adoulin sooner rather than later, but that's not a huge rush. Mission progress just requires it at a couple points.

3- They did get reduced at one point, but they're still a thing. Trusts + mass pulls in Abyssea can make them go fast (at least, my Tizona ones didn't take long).

4- I would say it's possible to pull yourself up by your boot-straps, if it comes to that. The next version update looks to be adding i119 gear to RoE/Sparks, but it's hard to say what that'll look like. If you're coming back to an LS/friends, they could probably get you geared fairly decently in an evening or two. Otherwise...you can solo/lowman most of the game really, there's just kind of a progression to it. There's not much that actually needs more than 6 people, actually, and a lot of content will scale HP past 3 or 6, making low numbers desirable in a way.

5- They've rebalanced a lot since you last played, but it might depend on what you're considering a disparity. There are plenty of things that were real considerations then, like maintaining MP, that are barely an issue now. Outside of top-end content that not everyone does, I'd say most any job can be good, but most trends are towards those that require less support. In turn, in a lot of the not-top-tier content, you can also get away with trust healers and tanks. So you're not really looking at playing a dedicated healer unless you play WHM itself. GEO is likely your easiest option if you don't want to play WHM. As popular as SCH and BLM are, they're also often expected to have a fair amount of job points/gifts.
BLU is very popular though - it does take a lot of JPs as well, and a lot of other prep, but it's extremely self-reliant and potentially very strong on most anything it can stay in range for.

[Psion]

Pup is another viable job as well, if you're willing to spend the money and time investing in random taeon augments or rao gear, attachments, and preferably pet emnity gear too. valoredge got some serious love with emnity changes to strobe, a second teir, and enmity boost to flashbulb. combined with the wtfpotent regen of auto repair kits and pet DT gear, it makes an amazing low maintenance tank for anything that isn't a bunch of mobs or has death spell/hate reset spam. So far the only things i've had issue holding hate against were on VD dragon in ambuscade against 2 blus who were spamming 12k+ CdC and closing skillchains (lost hate right before voidsong hate reset) and a terpi dnc spamming 20k-30k ws and closing like 60k+ skillchains on it. (gods save any tank trying to deal with THAT. i STILL have no idea how she managed to hit that hard, dual geos or not. x-x)

That said, everything else i've not had issues holding hate, and even things like pazuzu were utter snoozefests to tank. I only have the first gift, and no pet +emnity gear either, so there's a lot of room for oni to improve on hate gain... I know theres at least +15 in pet enmity gear available for pups. ambuscade isn't very convenient for pup tank either, due to having to zone each time, losing extended maneuvers and resetting burden to high at the start. that means it's difficult to put up 3 fire maneuvers to open with without overloading or using cooldown (cause who wants a couple minutes on the tank every fight?), and maintaining 2 fire is nigh impossible without kenkonken because the fights are so short the dragons dead by the time maneuvers extend long enough for that. XD

at any rate, i wouldn't call pup popular, but it's not unpopular either. it's pretty flexible for content as well, if not so much as blu.

[dasva]

Death spells/moves generally aren't a problem for autos either. Only insta KO that I can remember working offhand was thar she blows.

As far as quick fights heatsink can help a lot if you got the room. Also full -overload set does wonders. Even if you don't do stats for good burden the -100 overload (most of that in midnights and af3 body) should allow you to do 2 fires a minute until cooldown is back up

[kittycatrag]

searchfail:
Anyone know of tests to see if reisenjima WSD applies to first vs all hits?
Also, if tenzen neck and ambushcade blm cape are part of 40% MB damage cap category?

[dasva]

Don't think anyone tested wsd because it's never been different. Tenzen neck is part of cap. I think blm cape was too but it's definitely in the thread for that or that update

[kittycatrag]

Some of my mule accounts are able to log in for free a few days early, so give it a try if you're unsubbed and curious.

[macross]

lol don't even remember my passwords

[arus2001]

I'm guessing they just have a process that slowly rolls through accounts to activate. Mine weren't up, but being told they were inactive took an unusually long time. Of course, my ID starts with a U so I'm probably way down the list.

[Anoat]

Apparently the free login started on the 10th with the May login campaign which is fucking retarded because everything on POL says the Return to Vanadiel campaign starts on May 13th and says nothing about free login starting on the 10th. But so it goes.

[arus2001]

Technically not the first time the free campaigns have started early. Though usually it's the day of, if not a bit earlier of the listed time.

[Imoq]

* Due to the fact that all eligible characters will need to be flagged to be able to log in for free when the campaign begins, characters will be processed sequentially, and there may be cases where it will be possible to login for free earlier than the campaign period.

http://www.playonline.com/ff11us/campaign/wcb/