Best job for soloing/low manning pre-Abyssea content Follow

Or you can have... you know... friends?

Ones that let you in on a Worm run while they grind merits or skill weapons or whatever. The same ones that should first take you to Konschtat for the Celerity abyssite from the tonberries.

I'm too kind to noobs, farming Eve pops to get them VV and tooling about one-shotting worms on SAM to drive some exp for them. F*ck me, right?

Do you play FFXI? The majority of the population has multiple 99 jobs and merit parties run constantly. I have taken several low level jobs to Abyssea to leech and never paid a dime. You make it sound like brain surgery when it is, in fact, pretty common practice.

Edit: To clarify- I find that the population is actually very kind and helpful to returning players as long as they aren't arrogant or downright stupid. Show manners and be patient - don't expect people to do things for you within 2 minutes of you asking- but honestly, ask and you will probably get help. That was my experience anyway when I returned 2 months ago...

Edited, Feb 16th 2013 10:34am by ChaChaJaJa

This is where big friendly linkshells make all the difference.

Big, friendly LS are hard to come by, sadly. I've been looking for a big, friendly LS ever since I returned the first time and I've yet to find one. The main reason I keep leaving is because I can't find one and the game gets very boring and lonely if you don't have one... especially if you're EU.

Once you get a few people to let you leech long enough in Aby you will have gained enoug Cruor to purchase "Forbidden Keys" then you can provide a useful service by opening chests for Aby exp parties.

If you're still on Phoenix, look me up. I'm in Japan as well so time zone wouldn't be an issue.

Also on your question about JP and NA clients/accounts. Yes you can use your NA account on a JP client. I use my JP PS3 (original 60GB model) to run the JP PS2 version if either a) wife playing or b) dual-boxing/XP. My PC has the NA client and I use that for both NA and JP accounts, JP account if I'm doing quests/missions that don't need any /assist. so I can actually read the chat log...lots of kanji The reverse holds true as well, my NA account loaded up fine on the JP PS2 client.

One thing I haven't looked into is running both PC clients on 1 machine. I wouldn't think it's possible as its going to want to install to the same location. But decent laptops are cheap these days, so you could always go that route if you wanted.

No GoV area will skill you much past 200, and skills below 200 go up like friggin' rockets. 'Skill up as you level' doesn't actually save you any time, and the opportunity cost is taking longer to level.

To say: Time not spent skilling up externally is too minimal to make up for the longer leveling period if you go the GoV route.

But let's make something perfectly clear too: If you go this mystical low-sociality-necessary save-yourself-20-minutes-of-skilling-up, you'll hit 99 in two or three weeks. If you jump in an Abyssea group and hit 99 in two or three days, just think of how much time you can now spend actually playing the game now.

Leveling up isn't the game anymore people. Get over it.

Must be the same people that at level 30 ask me to lead them to Norg... after I farm their Kazham keys... and then look up which NPCs they need to talk to for SAM quest... and teleport them.... because they're still level 30 and nobody will run a CN GoV party for them while they haven't talked to Joachim to get Abyssea stones rolling yet "because somebody told me I couldn't go to Abyssea at 30 anyway."

Yesterday's true story.

I give this advice, take this position, because I'm paying $12.95 a month too and I enjoy helping people who are proactive and actually take interest in advancement. It's not a matter of 'play my way or else', but 'pay attention to my advice and more will follow, with free help inclusive'.

Just be sure it's established and generating TEs (time extensions) before you go in. Be wary of groups still forming in Jeuno, because usually they show up mostly full and there's already a group there of 6-8 people and not everybody makes it into the merger.

Also, make sure it's Latheine. Some people still wanna go to Altepa and other places and it just isn't as safe or consistent despite Dominion pages (which really just slow the whole show down when everybody takes a mini-break every five mobs).

Personally I only abyssea leech jobs for which I have most of the skills levelled already. If you leech a job for which you have no skills, you are going to spend more time skilling up than you saved leeching.

A GOV alliance is a better way to go since you can interact, skill up and gain xp at only a modestly slower pace than an Abyssea leech party.

If you'd just rather play a more active role while leveling, that's a perfectly legitimate choice. But rationalizing that you're saving time by having to do less skilling up just isn't true.

It really doesn't take that long to skill up most skills. Pick a skill level appropriate crab and swing away (Kuftal > Boyahda > Abyssea is the basics). Skills come easy, and once you're at Abyssea level skill it's even more mindless with Abyssea and regen/triple attack atmas. Total time expenditure to leech/level more quickly and then skill up is not going to exceed the total time to level more slowly in GoV (and then still need to skill up, but a little less).

You also need to remember that for most jobs it's going to be impossible to keep up all your skills while leveling anyway, so you're going to have to suck it up and go out specifically for skillups regardless.

Think of a WAR - there's no way you can keep even one weapon capped with the speed xp rolls in, much less multiple weapons.

RNG or COR? Even a fairly slow rate of party XP far outstrips your ability to keep up Marksmanship/Archery (and yes, those can be a real pain to skill up later but that's how it goes - at least you get level correction on your side at lv99 instead of having more misses against comparatively closer level mobs while you level).

PUP? No way you will be able to keep PUP's automaton skills anywhere near capped.

Even NIN, a job with one primary weapon and fast dual wield for skillups, is going to need extra skill. You can keep katana fairly close to cap, but you're still gonna need to level other weapon skills for procs if you don't already have them from other jobs (GK, dagger, sword, etc) and there's no way you'll come anywhere close to capping ninjutsu just through leveling.

Mages? Good luck keeping all your magic skills capped in FoV, that's simply not possible. It was hard enough to do at 75 in old style slow exp, and it's silly to expect any mage leveling in today's FFXI would be close to cap just from exping.

I stay in Tree til roughly 260 on top level. There are more mobs, 98-105 I think, in the tree. I don't see skill ups often but I am not in a huge rush to have everything capped. I can red proc everything but staff which I need to work on, and my gaxe is 418 axe 337.

Sorry forget about Kuftal. I was told at 200 to move to tree. I left at 210 axe/gaxe though. Get acc gear and go to tree til you can hit often enough in Aby zones.

Edited, Feb 18th 2013 5:18pm by Zymunn

If anyone's interested I soloed 24-33 in Maze of Shakhrami, grouped for CN GoV page 1 for 33-56, then grouped for BO page 4 for 56-72 (3 days total). My axe is near cap currently.

Question for klausneck or anyone else who knows the answer: By the way, do you know of a way to download the most recent Japanese Vana Diel collection (Collection 3)? I know they do a digital download on the SE store but that seems to require purchasing it first. There's Collection 2 floating about, but this doesn't include Abyssea.

Edited, Feb 19th 2013 9:59am by Dizmo