This is a "tutorial" of how to Renkei/skill chain and how it works.
What is Renkei?
Renkei is also known as skill chaining is something that you will be required to take part as you progress though the game. Tanks and Healers don't have to worry about skill chains, as they have en ought to worry about with tanking and healing respectively. DD's (both melee and mages) on the other hand should use Renkei all the time, as
a) they deal extra damage to the mob
b) i think they give you xp (correct me if I am wrong)
c) they look cool
Generally, you are expected to start doing Renkei's around the level 25 stage as this is when you get your next weapon skills/spells.
Melees do the actual Renkei. It takes at least 2 Melees to do a Renkei (unless you are a high level SAM, in which case you can do them all by yourself). After the actual Renkei has been performed, the mage in the party should use the right elemental spell to do a "Magic Burst" and do even more damage.
The Three Levels
Renkei comes in three levels
Level 1 Renkei
Level 2 Renkei
Level 3 Renkei
Each Renkei is elemental. The mage must cast the corresponding spell to do the magic bust. E.g. if the Renkei done is Detonation (which is Wind Elemental), then the mage should use a elemental wind spell, like aero, do the magic burst
How do I do it?
The key to successful Renkei is timing.
Each player who is taking part in the skill chain should have a simple TP Report Macro.
My macros follow the following template
/p {Weapon Skill} TP = <tp>
This is very simple, but it also conveys the message across very quickly and doesn't take time to read. I also use auto-translate for as many words as possible because it makes it stand out more and Japanese players can understand it.
When each player taking part in the skill chain reports their tp as 100% (or more depending on how you want to play) its a good idea to have a macro along the lines of
/p {Weapon Skill} in 3 Seconds
This will give your Party members enough time to get ready.
The first member pulls off their weapon skill, then about 2-3 seconds later, the second member does theirs and about 3 seconds later the final member does theirs (you only need 2 members to skill chain, I would recommend leaving any additional members out, letting them do weapons skills like Shield Break to help the party, or if their are 2 extra DD's have them do their own Skill Chain so as to avoid confusion and slip-ups). Finally, the mage does the correct spell to magic burst the Renkei.
It is not very hard to get used to, and the timing is not very hard to measure either, practice makes perfect.
What Renkei can I do?
First, download the following Renkei charts, provided by www.adennak.com. The PDF chart is easier to print out as you don't have to resize it, unlike the jpg)
PDF: http://www.adennak.com/renkei09.pdf
JPG: http://www.adennak.com/renkei09.jpg
It all looks a bit confusing right? Not for long. The Renkei are split into 3 levels. level 1 is the simplest and the one you can do very early on (As soon as you get your first Weapon Skill), Level 2 does more damage but you might have to wait until level 20 or so to be able to do these. Finally level 3 does the most damage and are much more powerful that level 2 Renkei, but these require you to have your Combat Skill for that weapon around the ~200 mark.
Level 1
*Ignore the chart in the top right had corner, this is for level 3 skill chains which we will come to later
*Ignore the letters a, b and c.
All the boxes with just 1 elemental attribute in them are level 1 Renkei (i.e. Liquefaction, Fusion Impaction etc)
To do the Renkei's Impaction (Thunder) you could do Dark Harvest > Shield Break. You could also do Balde:Teki > Combo to get Impaction. There are loads of possibilities. To magic bust the skill chain, the mage should cast a thunder spell.
similarly to do the Renke Revelation (Water) you could do Powerslash > Shadowstich. To magic bust the skill chain, the mage should cast a water spell.
Obviously, against a water mob (like a snipper) the Renkei Reverbation (Water) would be less effective than the Renkei Impaction (Thunder) as the snipper will be weak to Thunder. Choose your skill chains carefully and you will be able to do massive amounts of damage.
Level 2
*Ignore the chart in the top right had corner, this is for level 3 skill chains which we will come to later
*Ignore the letters a, b and c.
All the boxes with 2 elemental attribute in them are level 2 Renkei (i.e. Gravitation, Fusion, Distortion and Fragmentation)
To do the Renkei Distortion (Ice or Water) you could do Power Slash > Iron Tempest. To magic bust the skill chain, the mage should cast either a Ice or Water spell.
similarly to do the Renkei Fusion (Fire or Light) you could do Burning Blade > Shield Break. To magic bust the skill chain, the mage should cast either a fire or light spell.
Level 3
*Ignore the letters a, b and c.
The most powerful of the Renkei, these do a lot more damage than Renkei 2, but also require you be a much higher level.
Look at the top right chart, this is where the Level 3 Renkei's are. The top half show the Renkei Light and the bottom shows Renkei Dark. The other Renkei's shown in this small chart are level 2.
To do Renkei Light, you could do Dragon Kick > Minstral Axe. The magic burst would be either Fire, Light,Thunder or Wind
To do Renkei Dark, you could do Full Break > Swift Blade. The magic burst would be either Dark, Earth, Water or Ice
Priority
Some weapon skills have 2 or 3 element, i.e. Red Lotus has both fire and Wind elements. The a,b and c represent which element will be used. For example Using the following Renkei
Fast Blade > Red Lotus Blade
This could either result in Dentonation (Wind) or Liquefaction (Fire)
When this happens, the element with the highest priority will be chosen. So, as the Fire has priority A for red lotus, it will always be chosen over Wind, which has priority b. Therefore Fast Blade > Red Lotus Blade will always result in Liquefaction.
The reason for having this second elemental attribute is so that more skill chain are possible. For example red lotus (wind) can also chain to one inch punch (dark) and cause Gravitation. When the game cannot use element A, it will use Element B, and if it cannot use Element B it will use Element C, and if there is no element C, the Skill Chain will not work.
Information for Summoners
Summoners have blood pact instead of Weapon skill. Blood pact take longer to execute than a normal Weapon skill (~7 seconds) so the Renkei must be done differently. If the Summoner is first, then the second person must wait longer (~4-5 seconds) to execute their weapon skill
If the summoner is the second person in the skill chain, they should execute their bloodpact immediately after the first person does to ensure that the Renkei works
Information for Black Mages (Ancient Magic)
When a BLM hits level 50+ they can get a new set of spells, know as ancient magic. These spells are Freeze, Tornado, Quake, Burst, Flood, and Flare. These spells do extreme damage, as well as having a debuff effect (Freeze makes thw mob weak to fire, Flood weak to lighning etc). If these are used in the renkei to Magic Burst, then the extra damage will be amazingly high.
The only problem with the ancient spells is that they take ~19 seconds to cast and require a slighty different timing. Because of the huge cast time, the BLM should initiate the renkei by casting the ancient spell. By the time the renkei has been performed, the spell will lend of the mob to add the magic burst.
An example of a macro (based upon a 2-man renkei)
/magic "Flare" <t>
/p Casting Flare in 19 seconds.
/wait 6
/p Start Skillchain Now!
However, magic bursting with Ancient spells is very difficult, as it requires the melee's to time their part almost exactly, else the magic burst will easily happen too early or too late. I suggest that you only attempt to do these in static parties, so that the you can get a feel for the melee's timings. In normal parties, the time it takes to teach the melee's about this and perfecting the timing (which could take more than a few practice runs) might not be worth it.
Please, if you think I have made a mistake, correct me and i will edit this post to reflect the correct information.
Thankyou
Galactiko
Kujata
30 WAR | 15 MNK | 1 PLD
Cooking 14a
Edited to include Ancient Spells
Edited, Wed Nov 3 19:05:26 2004 by Galacktio
Edited, Wed Nov 3 19:09:45 2004 by Galacktio
Edited, Thu Nov 4 05:42:41 2004 by Galacktio
Edited, Thu Nov 4 05:41:19 2004 by Galacktio