I originally wrote this post lost November when I had only just unlocked PLD and I have new info too add as well as a better layout so here goes.
1: What is Skillchain?
2: Why Skillchain?
3: The Three Levels
4: How do I do it?
5: What Skillchain can I do? (using a chart)
5.1: Level 1 Skillchains
5.2: Level 2 Skillchains
5.3: Level 3 Skillchains
5.4: Priority (a, b and c)
6. Bloodpacts
7: Ancient Magic
8: Ninjutsu and other magic bursts
1: What is a Skillchain?
A skill chain is when 2 or more weapon skills are used consecutively to create an additional elemental based damage. A skill chain is usually complimented by a magic burst provided by a “black magic” spell.
2: Why Skillchain?
Basically because they can deal a hell of a lot of extra damage to the mob. The skillchain itself does not cause that much damage, it is the magic burst afterwards that is damage dealer.
At earlier levels, a successful skillchain and magic burst can cause around 300 extra damage, leading up to in excess of 800+ extra damage when black mages get their Ancient Magic spells, and more powerful skillchains are used
3: The Three Levels
Skillchains comes in three levels
Level 1 Skillchains
These can be done very early on in the game but do only a little damage.
Level 2 Skillchains
These can also be done relatively early on in the game but do more damage than a level 1 skillchain.
Level 3 Skillchains
Light and dark skillchains are very damaging, but can only be done much later on in the game, as they require your weapon skill to be 200+
4: How do I do it?
The keys to a successful skillchain is timing, which depended mostly on communication.
Each player who is taking part in the skill chain should have a simple TP Report Macro.
I use the following macro
/p TP = <tp> <call10> {weapon skill}
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.
Routine
Player 1 weapon skill
Wait 3 seconds
Player 2 weapon skill
Wait 2 seconds
Player 3 weapon skill (optional)
Cast spell (the spell takes time to cast so there is no need to wait)
I would recommend keeping skillchains to only 2 members leaving any additional members out, or if their are 2 extra DD's have them do their own skillchain so as to avoid confusion and slip-ups.
It is not very hard to get used to, and the timing is not very hard to measure either, practice makes perfect.
5: What Skillchain can I do? (using a chart)
First, download the following skillchain chart, 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.
5.1: Level 1 Skillchains
*Ignore the chart in the top right had corner, this is for level 3 skillchains 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 skillchains (i.e. Liquefaction, Fusion Impaction etc)
To do the Impaction (Thunder) skillchain 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 Reverbation (Water) skillchain would be less effective than the Impaction (Thunder) skillchain as the snipper will be weak to Thunder. Choose your skillchains carefully and you will be able to do massive amounts of damage.
5.2: Level 2 Skillchains
*Ignore the chart in the top right had corner, this is for level 3 skillchains 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 skillchains (i.e. Gravitation, Fusion, Distortion and Fragmentation)
To do the Distortion (Ice or Water) skillchain 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 Fusion (Fire or Light) skillchain you could do Burning Blade > Shield Break. To magic bust the skill chain, the mage should cast either a fire or light spell.
5.3: Level 3 Skillchains
*Ignore the letters a, b and c.
The most powerful of the skillchains, these do a lot more damage than Level 2 skillchains, but also require you be a much higher level.
Look at the top right chart, this is where the Level 3 skillchains are. The top half show the skillchain Light and the bottom shows skillchain Dark. The other Skill Chain's shown in this small chart are level 2.
To do Light skillchain, you could do Dragon Kick > Minstral Axe. The magic burst would be either Fire, Light, Thunder or Wind
To do Dark skillchain, you could do Full Break > Swift Blade. The magic burst would be either Dark, Earth, Water or Ice
5.4: Priority (a, b and c)
Some weapon skills have 2 or 3 elements, i.e. Red Lotus has both fire and Wind elements. The a, b and c represent which element will be used in a particular skillchain. For example using the following skillchain
Fast Blade > Red Lotus Blade
This could either result in Detonation (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 skillchains 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 skillchain will not work.
6: Bloodpacts
Summoners have blood pact instead of Weapon skill. Bloodpact take longer to execute than a normal Weapon skill (~7 seconds) so the skillchain must be done differently. If the Summoner is first, then the second person must wait longer to execute their weapon skill
If the summoner is the second person in the skill chain, they should execute their bloodpact immediately before the first person does to ensure that the skillchain works
Summoner First Shock Strike > Gale Axe for Detonation (wind)
Summoner uses bloodpact
Wait 7 Seconds
Ramuha uses Shock Strikes
Wait 3 seconds
Warrior uses Gale Axe
Skillchain: detonation
Summoner Second Smash Axe > Rock Buster for Fragmentation (thunder, wind)
Summoner uses bloodpact
Warrior uses Smash Axe
Titan uses Rock Buster
Skillchain: fragmentation
7: 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 an additional effect (Freeze makes the mob weak to fire, Flood weak to lightning etc). If these are used in the skillchain 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 slightly different timing. Because of the huge cast time, the BLM should initiate the skillchain by casting the ancient spell. By the time the skillchain 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 Skill Chain)
/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.
8: Ninjitsu and other magic bursts
Ninjas can also take part in magic bursts using there Ichi and Ni spells, however the burst is very weak. If there is no BLM in the party, then you might as well use it for extra hate.
It is also possible to use spells such as “choke” and “shock” to magic burst, but again these are very weak.
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Please, if you think I have made a mistake, correct me and i will edit this post to reflect the correct information.
Thankyou