Raising your Weapon Skill: A GuideFollow

Many of us find ourselves with a vital weapon underleveled. Now, you can say to yourself

"Yourself, that's not so bad. It won't hurt."

But you'd be wrong. Using an underleveled weapon could be considered more harmful than having an underleveled subjob. And we know how bad that is, don't we?

Your current combat skill for any weapon is a measure of your proficiency with that weapon. It is based on your experience using that form of weapon and determines the strength and accuracy of your attacks. Having an underleveled weapon means you will do less damage and you will miss the mob far more. IT+ mobs (you know, the kind you kill for experience points in parties) can be nearly impossible to hit if your weapon is drastically underleveled.

Now, let's see why you may have an underleveled weapon. This is usually due to one of two reasons:

1) Your job has a high rating for two or more weapons

Some jobs excel with more than one weapon. Players, however, tend to concentrate on one of those weapons as they level. Only later will they come to find that having all your best weapons leveled makes you a better party member. You are then stuck with the duty of leveling up that forgotten weapon.

Example: Warriors have a high skill rating in both 1 Handed Axes (A-) and Great Axes (A+). Many warriors may opt for one weapon when they begin and never level p the other. It is, however, very helpful to have both leveled.

2) You used the wrong weapon for your job

This actually happens far more than you might think. Just as each class has weapons they excel in, they also have weapons they have low skill using. It sometimes happens, though, that people will still use that low rated weapon. Many players think using a weapon for an advanced job when they start will help them in the future. This is a mistake that has been propagated by misinformation.

Example: Warriors have a relatively low skill rating with Polearms (B-). Many future Dragoons, however, think it is beneficial to start using a polearm from the very beginning. This actually appears in several beginner's guides. This practice, though, is fairly useless as you would gain the same skill starting with polearm when your DRG is level 1. Stick with your best weapons.

In order to find out your job classes weapon ratings go to www.ausystem.org/~aushacho/gbox/ff/skill-e.html. You will find some great information about what weapons each class should use and how to figure out the skill cap for each level.

What's a skill cap you say?

Above I stated that your comabt skill with a weapon influences the strength of your attack. Now would it be fair to attack a poor Wild Rabbit if you had a combat skill of 255 on your weapon? Of course not.

Your job level affects your total possible combat skill level for any weapon. When you have gained all the skill possible for your level, it is considered capped or fully leveled. Weapons with a higher skill rating have a higher skill cap per level. This is another reason why using your A weapons is very important.

Now how do I raise my skill?

Ask any mage how they raise their magic skill. They'll tell you to use the magic and you will gain skill points. Experience counts towards proficiency. The more you use a skill in this game, the better you'll be at it.

In order to raise your combat skill with a weapon, you have to use that weapon. To gain combat skill points, you must fight mobs that have moderate to high defense. If you check a mob and it reads

"It seems to have low defense"

then you will not gain any skill from fighting it. If this is missing from the check message, you will gain combat skill.

HOLD ON?! You mean we can gain skill from Too Weak To Be Worthwhile mobs?

Yes, you can. As long as that mob has moderate to high defense compared to your current combat skill for the weapon you are using, you will still gain skill. This actually leads us into the best way to level your skill.

Low level:
In order to gain skill, I suggest taking two versions of the weapon you have to raise: the lowest possible level weapon of that type and the highest that you can equip. You then find an area in which mobs check as having moderate to high defense, but are still low level enough for you to easily solo. Equip the low level weapon and start attacking. The low damage will mean many more swings per battle which will translate to more skill ups. If you run into trouble, equip the high level weapon and slaughter away.

High level:
Now, as you get higher in level, it gets harder and harder to solo mobs. This is when a skill up party is essential. Find a group of players who all want to raise their skill with a weapon and you can work together. You will often see shouts in Jeuno that read

"Skill Up Party. Can I have it?"

or something similar. Find a group around your level, and work together to find mobs that will help you raise your skill.

It gets more and more difficult to raise skill as you near your skill cap. This is due to the fact that the mob's defense is related to your attack. Your attack raises as your comabt skill does. Therefore, skilling up will mean the mobs in the area will have a lower RELATIVE defense. You will literally outgrow mobs and have to find a new area to raise skill.

Don't worry though. If your weapon is only slightly underleveled (3-5 points) you should gain this fairly quickly in a normal experience party.

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Now why would I write this?

When I first started, I intended to become a DRK. I leveled WAR using a scythe because that's what several guides suggested. I did it and it worked fine. My damage was high in pts. I now, however, find myself wanting to level WAR again, but I had 0 skill in both Axe and GAxe. I had to go back and start over skilling up each weapon. It only took a couple of days and it was well worth it.

Good luck to you. I hope this helps.

One little annoyance that isn't mentioned is that the /check message (High/low defense) always applies to the melee weapon you're holding. For ranged weapons, you just have to estimate the level of the mob you're facing and make sure it's at least a third of your current skill level with your ranged weapon.

High Defense isnt needed. The skill level is compared to the mobs level. As a DRK almost no exp mobs have high defense to me, yet i still get high skill ups from them, even .5s (2 levels under cap too).

At level 1, your skill cap for an A+ is 6, so anything you get decent exp from at that level will raise your skills slightly above 6. At levels 35-45, you would want to fight early valkurm mobs for levels, like lizards and gobs. Think about what weapon skills you gained at what level, then what level they are, then where you leveled at. So if i got shadowstich in yuhtunga jungle, and shadow stich is a level 70 skill, I should be able to level to at least 70 in yutuhnga jungle.

That's an interesting idea on using a low level weapon against TW mobs to skill up without leveling up. I may have to try that.

I think you can still get skill ups from low def mobs, if and only if their evasion isn't stated.

I seem to get more skill ups from mobs that have high evasion than high def.

So, basically, if I'm a 18 WAR and I wanted to raise my GA skill, I could get a Butterfly Axe, go into La Theine, and pick a fight with just about any EP and TW that doesn't check as low defense?

For those of you who do not want to use the check system, here are place I went to skill my weapons.

< 80

Outside of Jeuno. I took my Dagger from 25 - ~80 with a bronze dagger on gobs.

<120-140

I went to the CN and did bees and some basic crawlers.

<140-160

Quicksand Cave Beetles and if your courageous enough the spiders.

<200-210

Kuftal Tunnel Robber Crabs

<210-225

Cape Terrigan Robber Crabs

230+

Boyahada SteelShells.

I'd recommend parties starting with the Kuftal Tunnel Crabs. I can solo them as a 75 taru RDM but its not very efficient.

Tips on getting the most weapon skill

1.) Get Accuracy. Life Belt, weapons with inherant accuracy, or other + accuracy items are useful

2.) If your weapon has +accuracy ignore this. Otherwise get the lowest delay weapon you can find. Damage does not matter since you only want skill.

3.) Find a safe camp spot. Sounds stupid but remember. Guivre walks around Kuftal Tunnel and he can end your skill up party rather quickly.

Reason I added a range of skills is that with your different grade weapons, these monsters will stop giving you skill. Different monsters in the same area will also have their own difficulty but its usually within 1-2 weapon skill levels.

I got to 190 with club skill in Kuftal tunnel (used Kraken so I know I had maxed it out there) but got to 205 with my sword (Amemet camping so its not maxed).

I did intend to do a more detailed approach to specific areas, but I just wanted to get a basic guide out there for players.

I went to Ghelsba at level 20 to raise my skill. Orcs just outside the Wallbreacher/Barricader spawn are really nice if your skill is below 40. After that, try Rarabs in the dunes.

Remember, your goal here is to find mobs that can be very easily soloed, but that will still give you skill ups.

If you're leveling one-handed weapons, sub NIN. You get skillups for each weapon you're dual weilding. Plus, with Dual Weild II, your attack speed is sped up by 15%. You can even level two types of one-handed weapon at the same time.

All the (skill)(up)/key/testimony shouts in jeuno are good up to about 200 skill lvl for the common places. (Garlaige, Eldieme, Beastman HQs etc).

The hardest non-NM beastmans in the Beastman HQs can go up to about 230, ie those mobs near the LB3 crest points.

I join those skill up PTs until 180-ish. Then do kuftal crabs to 200. Then terrigan crabs, then boyahda crabs. Finally Hexa Strike learnt at lvl 67 ^_^ (club is now 225).

Well, I tried this last night. I got a Butterfly Axe and went to La Thiene with my levle 18 WAR. My GA skill is only 44 and I've been wanting to raise it because I've been bothered by my "whiffs." I went after EP low evasion or just EP Akbabas. They were the only thing I could find that didn't have low DEF. Didn't get a single skillup.

I'm guessing Butterfly Axe was too low a weapon, so I'm going to try again with an Inferno Axe. Sucks running around with a gimpy axe killing EPs and TWs, though, gotta tell you. I'm thinking of going in starting RSE and /anon, just so people can't tell what level I am. Kinda embarrassing.