New or Returning Players Discussion 2: SoA Homeless Veterans Edition

[Guitarman]

It's tied to the character, not the bird. I'm a capped digger no matter where I get my chocobo. And it's not unusual to not pull things up depending on your zone and skill level.

Generally, the higher level the monsters in the area, the higher skill you need to reliably have successful digs. Think of it as digging's version of craft tiers. You have to start in the beginner zones as you start out, before going into the higher level zones as your skill increases. Try digging in ronfaure/sartuabaruta/gustaberg and see if your results are better.

As an aside, you might try following around a goblin digger if you come across one. Every so often theyll stop and bury an item in the ground. There was a rumor going around that digging up what the goblin buries helps to raise skill. It seemed to push me to the next tier a few times when I was leveling years ago, but there's literally no way to tell for sure if it does anything, so grain of salt, etc.

[Rooney]

Almost forgot, definitely do chocobo hot & cold. It's a little hard til you get the hang of it, but worth it. I can't say how much for sure, but it definitely helps you level up faster compared to just regular digging.

[Silenka]

Try digging in ronfaure/sartuabaruta/gustaberg and see if your results are better.

Yeah, I only dig in East Saruta/Tahrongi/Buburimu right now. My rate of digging stuff up is about the same in all 3 zones (~20% lol). Well, it is supposed to take a long time to level it up. Interesting about the goblin digger, I wonder if it's true.

My bird's not an adult yet but I will definitely be doing hot&cold once it grows up. That was already around before I quit, I remember it being really fun.

Thanks for the answers.

[Guitarman]

Few things; a poster here explained how to solo yorica weild by using kirin to clear floor 1, then exiting out to get the gear piece. Problem is, I can't get snow- drops. Can the same strat work in Rala waterways U?

Also, is the Amchuchu trust locked behind alter ego extravagansas? Supposedly I need him for the last ROE fight. I'm getting curbstomped in there.

[Psion]

no, it cannot, because rala U is an entirely different battle system. That one involves random objectives like killing X number of normal weak mobs, x # of noetics, etc, then for a secondary killing a boss type mob. go up floor and repeat.

as for amchuchu, i've only seen him on as such, but honestly... my amchuchu got curbstomped on that too. that last fight is honestly ridiculously hard without a proper tank who knows how to kite or handle its supermoves. get a pld or pup with pettank set to help.

I actually nearly soled it as a half sparks pup before i knew automatons can tank now, basically flinging trusts at it, disengaging to kite it during it's crazy phase till it ended, and if my trusts started to get wiped i summoned a fresh automaton without engaging it, ventriloquyed my hate to my automaton, then deactivated him, allowing me to summon more trusts while the remaining ones tried to duke it out with CoD. closest i got with my bad gear was to around 20% though, haha.

[Guitarman]

Thanks for the response.

As for the last fight I kind of stumbled on that myself. Blackbeard Randy was tanking him like a champ, as long as I threw dawn mulsums at it. 8900 Razor Fangs are no joke. Considering my alt is leveling off those I could forseeably just mulsum my way to victory. Hmm.

[Silenka]

I-isn't Amchuchu a chick?

[Karbuncle]

Yes!

[Silenka]

Currently my digging chocobo is F/F/B/B and just reached adulthood today. I want its highest stats to be disc and recep (digging success and finding rare items), with endurance as high as possible. I think it can only be then C/B/SSS/A? But looking at the care plans, if I want to start raising its endurance it looks like I'll take a pretty hard hit to mental stats that I've already raised so high.

I know I could leave it in the stable for ages and acquire chocobucks with hot & cold game and free runs (assuming it could win anything with such shit physical stats, it's not a racing bird and came in dead last in the first official race today lol) and forcefeed it endurance tokens assuming I ever got enough chocobucks, but I don't know if that's possible, it looks like chocobucks are acquired very slowly, even with a good racing chocobo. Wat do? I'm no good at this stuff.

[CDF]

Days 30-128 you could use the 80-chocobuck programs for active chocobos (+5 for a particular attribute with no penalty). To get to 96 points (the bottom of C range), you would need to spend 1600 chocobucks (100 points).

100-chocobuck tokens are only +2 (for retired chocobos) so that would take forever.

I farmed most of my chocobucks through Chocobo Circuit.

[Raelia]

You can trade copper vouchers for chocobucks, no?

[Silenka]

No That would make my life so much easier, because my bird is too slow to win races and without winning races I can't get chocobucks to raise its physical stats XD

I've pretty much resigned myself to building my next bird to be a racer so it can acquire chocobucks and then just building another digger after that.

[Guitarman]

Do Selh'teus and Shantoto II's regular attacks proc red ! in dynamis? Since they're magical in nature? Trying to figure out the best way to do this while keeping subjob locked.

Only have Lilstette, so JA mobs are out. Figured magic might be easier.

[Psion]

as far as i know, they do not, only actual spells do. you COULD unlock galadar via the serpent general quests though. he likes to spam firaga (AoE, fairly low damage!) and salamanders flame (conal ws, fairly potent fire damage). shantotto II spams tier I spells though, so there's that, other than the fact her spells are going to hit mobs like trucks and magic procs are terrible in general.

you're better off with weaponskills if anything. those proc fairly often, like... 50%? and there's no shortage of trusts with shitty damage ws. ::cough, cough, darrcuiln, morimar, magical dojo girl iroha, IM LOOKING AT YOU IROHA, STOP RUINING MY SELF LIGHT SKILLCHAIN::

[Karbuncle]

From my experience they do not, and I've tried for extended periods of time (Plus, they do a LOT of damage with their melee attacks in Dynamis)

But if you want to proc magic, what Psion said is good advice... Gadalar casts Firaga and shit frequently and its not very strong, Shantotto II is far too powerful i think. Another good one is Ice guy from Campaign, I forgot his name, Great Sword, unique WS "Spine Chiller"... he spams Blizzaga III like Gadalar spams Firaga III (in fact, i timed it, they have identical A.I... He uses Ice Spikes and Gadalar Blaze Spikes, then they cast spells, same intervals).

Cleaned up mess.

Gadalar Is good
Ice Gadalar is also good

[Guitarman]

gotcha. Just got the elf with the summer trust campaign. Guess i'll go after gadalar. Arciela might be good too; she spams enfeebles, which procs(?).

Thanks guys.

[Psion]

like i said, magic proc is shit rate. like....5%? its pretty low at any rate.

You're likely better off trying for ws procs with weak weaponskills like circle blade or wasp sting, and trusts with weak ws as well, plus seltheus for tp restore.

[Damane]

Do Selh'teus and Shantoto II's regular attacks proc red ! in dynamis? Since they're magical in nature? Trying to figure out the best way to do this while keeping subjob locked.

Only have Lilstette, so JA mobs are out. Figured magic might be easier.

tank trusts with provoke work well too and deal usually shit dmg.

[Eldelphia]

Last logged in about 18 months ago and haven't played regularly for over 2.5 years. Popped in for the odd campaign and know a lot has changed. I have a bunch of jobs at 99. WHM was always my 'main' and I like mages but I also fell in love with THF.
WHM/BLM/THF/RDM/PLD/BRD/DRG/SMN/COR/SCH are all up there. Which would be the easiest/most useful to get back up and running? I have a bunch of trusts too. I had BST on another character so I'd be open to level that if needed.

Also, is there anything which might point me at decent WHM gear in the last couple of years? (Forum thread, blog post etc)

I see a lot of older guides and I've just read the returning guide on the wiki but some pointers would be helpful.

[tenkiki]

A good WHM is always valuable for groups, but BLM and SCH are decent for both solo and groups if you're unsure about jumping into the fray immediately. COR BRD and RDM have niche uses with COR being decent due to its unique abilities to reset JA timers and can double as your melee/physical job when magic damage isn't a viable option. Both WHM and SCH are probably your best options for getting back up and running as they are still functional with old gear. WHM is still the best healer while SCH is valued for being able to make skillchains safely from a distance with Immanence as magic bursts are the current meta of XI.

As for gear, the best and easiest option would be the new 119 marduk set and JSE capes from ambuscade. Unfortunately, the armor is going to get rotated out when the next update hits in 2 weeks, and you can only buy it with gallantry points obtained for doing ambuscade as a party. However, the next set will be 119 Morrigan's for blm and sch, so that will be nice for those jobs. The capes are always available each month, but only 1 per job per month, and can be augmented to be best in slot for a variety of situations.

Along with ambuscade gear, there's the augmentable gear from Reisenjima, new abjuration gear from Escha - Ru'aun, situational gear from Escha - Zitah, and you can 119 your old af/relic/empyrean armor. If you have friends to help you, try to unlock access to Reisenjima doing the Rhapsodies of Vana'diel missions and get at least 1 piece of gear from Reisenjima. The current campaign lets you augment them with dark matter for free 6 times everyday, which has a value of over 6 million gil per day, and can lead to some crazy augments such as refresh +2, TH +2, Quad attack +3, STR/DEX/etc. +20, attack/accuracy+50. You'll probably end up with shitty pet augments most of the time, but you might get lucky. For a full breakdown of whm gear, the ffxiah guide is still updated for whm luckily.

If you want a place to focus on first solo while friends are unavailable, start doing the intermediate quests in Records of Eminence. After doing all of them, you will end up with almost a full set of 119 gear. The only hard one would be doing a wildskeeper reive, but as long as you have that auto-reraise reive necklace from the Adoulin missions, you can grind it out slowly. Also, doing the Rhapsodies missions provides significant bonuses, allowing 4/5 trusts, more exp/cp, reduced event cooldown and costs, and decent trusts.