Guard/Shield/Parry skilling

[Wintermute]

Doesn't have to be capped Phalanx II or even a skill setup. I suggest this because I was getting a solid 5-7 levels an hour doing it like this. Using some of the other solo methods you are lucky to get .5 /hr at times. get a friend to walk outside Whitegate for an hour is worth 5-10 times that in solo time.

I was speaking in general.

Whenever you see someone raving about levelling a bastardly skill half the time they omitt the fact that they also have access to a second account which happens to be a RDM/WHM/BRD.

Whilst on the subject, would SCH be any good a skillup buddy?
AoE Phalanx/Stoneskin looks nice. What's the recast timer on the AoE JA? No experience with the job personally.

[liefe]

In terms of shield skill raising on PLD, is shield from Adaman best due to supposed hidden block% up rate?

[Rags]

Doesn't have to be capped Phalanx II or even a skill setup. I suggest this because I was getting a solid 5-7 levels an hour doing it like this. Using some of the other solo methods you are lucky to get .5 /hr at times. get a friend to walk outside Whitegate for an hour is worth 5-10 times that in solo time.

I was speaking in general.

Whenever you see someone raving about levelling a bastardly skill half the time they omitt the fact that they also have access to a second account which happens to be a RDM/WHM/BRD.

Whilst on the subject, would SCH be any good a skillup buddy?
AoE Phalanx/Stoneskin looks nice. What's the recast timer on the AoE JA? No experience with the job personally.

True, An if they dont have a second account they aways have a bored Rdm who will spend the day with them...

God im so jealous...

[montijin]

X

[Cream Soda]

I personally find the best results with mobs near the level of my skill, though I've heard of those going successfully to the tree as early as that. What job are you skilling on? if its something with enhancing skill (whether rdm or subbing) try to find something weak enough to hit you 0-10 with phal on then you can get like 10 of them little fuckers. and not have to worry.

[montijin]

X

[Cream Soda]

Hmm 15. Could you show show me a screen? They have to be attacking from a front and when mobs usually group up over 3-5, they won't all stand right inf ront of you but try to like surround you or stand to your sides. So if that's the case, I'm willing to bet there were a shitload of mandies you weren't even eligible to get skill from due to positioning

[RKenshin]

You mean like this?

::digs up super old screen shots::
http://img156.imageshack.us/img156/1989/ffxi995yb6.jpg

Solved by doing this:

What I had to do was move slowly (like walk speed slow) so they would all be caught up behind me and bunched up. If you're always running they'll lag and fall behind, and either lose hate or cause the crowd to move/take wierd paths when they catch up. After they were all close to me I moved along a wall until I found a pathing glitch, which would basically force all of them to squish into a small space. There's a bunch of places you can do this, I've done it in 5 different spots along a wall so far. It only works near a wall though or they'll just circle around you.

Which ended up looking like this:
http://img92.imageshack.us/img92/3179/ffxi1011wy7.jpg

This has worked with as many as 32 mobs, which was the most I could manage to get at once before losing hate.

[Cream Soda]

Sheesh man how you get all those w/o dying? You have outside healing? or just that other person in ur pt? I could hardly do 4-5 and that was BEFORE /dnc nerf.

[Sylphet]

Sheesh man how you get all those w/o dying? You have outside healing? or just that other person in ur pt? I could hardly do 4-5 and that was BEFORE /dnc nerf.

I had fully meritted phalanx II. Combined with his defense gear and the low level of the mandys, he took 0 damage. The only way something like that works is if you don't take damage from them. Miruka (BRD) was just there for extra MP.

[Kabbalah]

Bah. Link's broken, Ruke. Care to go over the details again?

[RKenshin]

Sheesh man how you get all those w/o dying? You have outside healing? or just that other person in ur pt? I could hardly do 4-5 and that was BEFORE /dnc nerf.

Syl basically got it.

It was just me in defense gear with defense food + her capped phalanx II, about 2 years ago. I was also boxing a BRD there but it ended up being too laggy and not worth it, so for the most part it was just me on MNK/WAR and her on RDM. I also popped blind potions to reduce the chances of countering, which worked really well.

I actually was getting hit for 0-10 damage, so she had to do a bit of curing. But it was low enough to manage with just her healing.

Bah. Link's broken, Ruke. Care to go over the details again?

Yeah this is an old thread, I guess my original links don't work now. The KI one does still, but the other two for BG seem to be changed.

I just ran a search for it, farthest back I can find on the topic is this:
http://www.bluegartr.com/forum/showthread.php?t=57153

Unfortunately I think that the original posts were lost. However most of what I posted should be on KI, let me know if there's anything else you want to know.

EDIT: Found one:
http://www.bluegartr.com/forum/showthread.php?t=43637

[Kabbalah]

Well, I'm mostly interested in getting my parrying levels up. I think my NIN is up to 239 or something at the moment.

[Aleth]

If you wish to skill guard alone I highly suggest going mnk/dnc. You can sustain yourself easily on any DC to EM mobs with signet. Take your npc along for funsies.

After 223 I honestly don't think you have much choice but to go for steelshells and the Korrigan inside the tree. ToAU places you'll start getting mashed with no signet dmg reduction bonuses, wotg monsters are way more powerful for their level and Pucks in den of rancor hit WAY harder than korrigan even if they /check the samel!

The best spot for me was next to the waterfall that leads to the cloister for Ramuh. /dnc here and you can easily smash away and get some meirts/xp while you're at it. Pull the korrigan if you can (faster hits = more skillup chances), but if there's nothing grab a crab. You can also kill the goobers too if they don't rate T (DC ones are also are guarenteed to give skill 'til 74 cap).

Always have a scroll of instant warp on you as you will get a few horrific links if you spend weeks in there, no matter how vigilant you are. Also watch signet, if you're fighting an EM korrigan and it wears off, suddenly the little turnip will turn into a world champion heavyweight and you may have to flee! Watch out as you near your goal as above certain skill levels DC korrigans then eventually crabs/goobers will stop skilling you and you'll have to seek out only EMs.

The one thing you mustn't do is lose heart, even if you don't get a skillup in 3 hours of fighting, because the next one might give you sevral consecutive 0.3s! If you're there regularly, and getting poked at by a mob that can skill you, you will get skillups... eventually...

Good luck!

Edit: Listen to the radio/favourite TV shows whilst doing this with the FFXI music off... it helps.

[Cream Soda]

Thx Aleth, I'm a bit farther than what you read in the OP though. The thread has been necro'd xD because someone didn't want to make a new thread. I'm currently at 259. Reached a stopping point amongst the korrigan, except the EM ones, which are more rare than not. Started to slow down around 255 and I tanked for a skill up pt last week where i met a rdm. We've been duo'ing Puks every night since, but he just capped sword and broke trial weapon about 10 mins ago so I'll be back on my own again. 10 lvs to go though, wont' give up.

[Samot]

i'm at 266 parrying and, like aleth said, at the end it can get disheartening, just try and think of it as a "slow eventuality" and it makes it easy to ignore when you go long periods of time without a skillup.

On a more constructive note, near the high cap, just find Toughish mobs to tank either in a solo or duo (like catolepas in bibiki bay are my favorite) and get some merits, parry skill ups will be a secondary bonus. i hit a lucky streak ( or some kind of hidden skill up tier) on the dhamels and went from about 259 to 266 in just a few days, i was shocked.

remember, the difference between "pleasently surprised" and "consistently dissapointed" is all attitude.

[Cream Soda]

267 atm. Can't solo Pucks in den of rancor and getting tired of slow ass steelshells so sorry exp pts, but I'm taking your Sea Puks. Right in the middle. Faster than crabs, slower than mandies, but I can live on em

Edit: Thank you all for your help, done!

[gandorf]

Don't mean to necrobump but where is a good spot for a 72mnk to skill up 82ish guard skill? My dnc is only 20 so I would have to be /war /nin /thf or I could do /whm /pld or /rdm if it would help.

[Cream Soda]

I would personally find EVA to be a lot of trouble. If you would be able to get some help, I'd try a 30 cap zone like promy or something so that you don't dodge 80% of the time.

[Aleth]

I did a bit of promy skilling /dnc to begin with, you can solo non-stop in there (and you only need dnc 15).

Honestly the best place to get guard up fast from where you are is the chigoes in the past. vunkerlet inlet[s] and rolenberry fields[s] have these chiggers that are lower level than the ones you know from aht urgan. Pull a fly (only one!) and 1-2 chigoes at the same time, only attack the fly and use the tp to cure yourself, you'll have to get new chiggers periodically as you'll counter them to death eventually. The best spot is where you can zone into vunkerlet from a cave to the northwestish of rolanberry, there's a little nook there with flies and chigoes and a pixie visits about every 30 mins (good if you misjudge something and end up face-down). You can get to ~160ish there and it's the fastest guard skilling you'll see.

Naturally this only works if you level dancer and go mnk/dnc...

Honestly, unless you can dual-box or have a friend who is willing to spend hundreds of hours with you, give up skilling guard unless you are going to level dnc to sub. Before wotg I tried many meathods of trying to skill guard solo and frankly without /dnc it isn't worth your time! /Dnc lets you take hits without down-time and you can solo while paying minimum attention!

Hope this helps, just remember the only thing that works for sure is persevereance!

Good luck!

Edit: Grats Cream Soda! Do you think it was worth it? I find it pays off in campaign for sure! Also has saved me a few times outside of that but I wish it activated more!