Where to start with "endgame"Follow

I don't play, but based on my experience Abyssea would likely be your first stop, the Empy Armor is all pretty good, even if just for set bonuses in macros alone. It is probably the easiest way to casually get yourself back into a routine, and meet people who may be interested in exploring other options for gear as well (such as Salvage or NNI.)

This is of course based on the assumption that you need at least moderate gear to get underway in Adoulin. It could be possible that you can start with minimal gear out of the gate, again I am not sure as I don't actually play.

The reason I state abyssea though, is because it is likely the easiest and quickest way to not only get gear, but get you back into the rhythm of the job you play, and the game in general.

This is biased information, but I recently came back to the game and I'd say that if you are new and hit 99 without the use of Abyssea, that you can safely skip Abyssea content for the time being and re-visit it at a later time. You will almost undoubtedly be lost and confused if you attempt to do anything in Abyssea on your own as it has a steep initial learning curve and is really hard to enjoy without good company or until you acquire a few Atma ( Atma are essentially Abyssea only super-buffs - there are many, look them up when you get time.) Regardless of your decision, be sure you at least start the "counter" for abyssal stones though! You'll want them later.

Click here for BG's Abyssea Info


Instead, in the current state of the game, I would recommend that you make a short trip to the nearest auction house and purchase the (full) starter "rare" set that comes from Abyssea, it won't be too pricey and will work well at 99 to get just about any job headed in the right direction. As long as you wear the full set, the bonuses are good enough to make the total stats quite good for someone who "Just hit 99", but if you wear just 4/5, your bonuses won't take effect and the gear becomes pretty sub-par.

These items are obtained from a Cruor_Prospector inside Abyssea, but are sold relatively cheap at the Auction house. A friend might have enough Cruor (Abyssea currency) to simply pick up the full sets for you if you are really broke.

Click here for a BG list of items sold by a Cruor_Prospector

More specifically, these are the sets:
Click here to see ffxiclopedia's Perle_Hauberk_Set
Click here to see ffxiclopedia's Aurore_Doublet_Set
Click here to see ffxiclopedia's Teal_Saio_Set


Once you have a full starter set you'll need a weapon. There are a plethora of options available to you straight away, but if you are relatively new to FFXI and just dredged your way to 99 through regular xp, campaign, book-quests etc, I'd recommend picking up:

For a casters (Jobs that use primarily magic to attack or support, but don't rely on physically hitting enemies):
Chatoyant_Staff
or
Iridal_Staff
(click on either staff name for more information from BG)

Those two staves will cover just about all your bases and are still more than acceptable to use at 99. You may want to read up on those and all other elemental staves, they have hidden bonuses not listed on the item that are very powerful, and while not every spell is effected equally, the staff provides boosts that are "more than meets the eye".


For a melee (Jobs that use physical damaging weapons as their primary form of attack):
There isn't a "one size fits all" weapon class for melee jobs, so instead I'd recommend one of the many good "as-close-to-99-as-you-can-find" weapons from the auction house. Every melee class has widely varying weapon choices, so visit each class forum and ask for help in making a "starter" choice, there are usually people who will lay out a few really good choices and point you in the right direction. If you really just can't find any guidance on which weapons are good, a visit to FFXIAH.com might reveal which weapons are the most expensive for your class (... and while not a "tell all" ...), you may be able to learn which weapons are the most desirable by examining their stats. In FFXI, often times there is a cheap alternative to the most expensive items with say, 1% less total stats or damage, largely because of how the crafting system works - so don't be afraid to take advantage of this!

Click here for ffxi.zam.com Job Forums
Click here to visit ffxiah.com - the "online" FFXI auction house viewing website
(fair warning, in the past people reported malware problems from ffxiah.com, personally I never experienced those issues, but just a heads up that some people feel that way so "enter at your own risk")


Normally I would recommend working on Magian trial weapons, but right now the usefulness of these weapons is "in limbo" because of a growing gap between Pre-Seekers-of-Adoulin weapon stats and newer Post-Seekers-of-Adoulin weapon stats (hop around the forums to read some interesting drama on the subject, just about every current RME topic touches on this). As a result I can't really place a strong recommendation on Magian weapon pursuit just now. In a month or so things will probably pan out and you'll know if they are worth getting or not. Many people (myself included) still place a great deal of value in Magian weapons as there are controllable benefits you can gain from these weapons that are difficult to acquire in any other way; but that may change in the very near future. My current recommendation is to hold off on these for right now unless you feel you really need certain pieces ( for example, I love my evasion daggers and wouldn't want to be without them ).

Click here for Trial of the Magians information


After you get your starter set and starter weapon, head to Ulbuka ( part of the new Seekers of Adoulin expansion ) by completing the starter missions, and then fumble your way to the city of Adoulin.
BG page for start of Seekers of Adoulin Missions

Once there, you'll want to register as a Pioneer so you can partake in the SoA expansion Reive events.
Pioneer_Registration

Once that's done, I would recommend completing these two Waypoint quests:
Click for BG info on quest Western_Waypoints,_Ho!
Click for BG info on quest Wes...Eastern_Waypoints,_Ho!

Waypoints allow you to warp around quickly and cheaply, so you'll want to get familiar with using them sooner than later.

In addition to acquainting you with Adoulin, those quests will also have provided you with a quick way to zip around town as well as will provide you enough Bayld to buy a couple starter SoA zone maps. You will want the maps for Reives as it can be very confusing when first navigating some of the SoA zones without them ( Bayld is the currency specific to Seekers of Adoulin content and reward systems, you can check your balance at any time by typing /colmap , it will be in the lower right hand corner ). For me, a couple maps were free, but I bought whatever I could afford after obtaining a few thousand Bayld and I'd really recommend it to others as well.
Click to visit the BG page for info on Bayld
Click to visit the BG page for info on Waypoints
Eastern Adoulin Map Vendor for SoA expansion areas


After acquiring a map for Ceizak Battlegrounds, you'll want to talk to all the coalitions in town to get familiar with them and decide what you'd like to do next, they offer a lot of information and options (personally I found all the NPC text pretty confusing... too much information at once). I recommend starting with the pioneer's coalition and using whatever Cezak Battlegrounds "Clear the Way" line of options they have to offer and use your Imprimaturs on them. Imprimatur use is important in general, as in you need to use a certain amount of them to move forward with things, so be sure to use them regardless, but right now you will primarily be concerned with using them because they will increase the Bayld you receive upon completing a Reive, and you'll want that Bayld to buy gear sets with. You can do whatever Reive you would like, but I chose to do the colonization reives as a start and it was an easy way for me to "get involved".

Click here for Reive Info
Click here for information on Imprimatur


You'll also want to pick up the Logging key item so you can do damage to the tree roots that appear during colonization Reives. Basically you talk to a guy right outside Adoulin at the encampment a couple times, and he'll get you started on acquiring that KI. You should probably also ask some friends or strangers for what other key items you should get for long-term participation in Reives, for example, a friend told me if I do a really easy quest I get extra buffs during Reives as well, but I only did this for one evening so I don't have details on it. For right now just the logging KI will be enough for you get started and not feel like "you have nothing to do" so you can get building Bayld as soon as possible.

Click here for ffxiclopedia Logging KI quest info


After starting the logging KI quest, head out to Cezak Battlegrounds and do a Colonization Reive. It's a lot like campaign if you've ever participated in that, just attack the "obstacles" (aka towers) and fend off the swarms (aka tower defenders). Periodically you'll get bayld and xp during the event, and a final evaluation after it's all said-and-done will give you a small bonus. When you see small numbers at the end, don't panic, since you will have received Bayld and xp throughout the battle and if you type /colmap afterwards, you'll see that you gained much more than the "final" evaluation bonus. Additionally, when you turn in your Imprimatur "clear the way" mission you'll receive additional bonus Bayld.

When the Reive completes, go turn in at the same NPC you accepted the quest from and accept more follow-up Reive missions if you have more Imprimaturs. Head out to do more Reives and missions as much as you can. You can easily get 10,000 Bayld in a short evening if you have enough Imprimaturs saved up, and if you don't, you can still rack up a nice stash. If you have a long weekend to spend playing, you can probably acquire a very large amount of points. If you are having a hard time finding Reives to do, you will want to just stand still and "Relax" for a little while, when one starts you'll get a notice on your chat log of where on the map it is, and you can head there to join in when it's time.

The purpose of doing Reives for Bayld initially will be to get a solid 99 armor set. The gear vendor in the Eastern Adoulin Peacekeepers Coalition sells pretty fantastic (on part with Abyssea +2 gear for most slots, better for some slots on some jobs, and worse for some slots on some jobs, but all around a VERY good 99 armor set). Unlike the "Abyssea auction house set" I told you to get earlier, this gear does not need to be worn as a set for any bonus because each individual piece will be solid enough upgrades for most slots to rationalize the loss of the Abyssea gear "set bonus". You can also augment the gear to improve it (which you will have to read into on your own, because I know very little about it).

Click here for Coalition Bayld Armor set vendor : Vesca
Click here for Karieyh_Armor_Set
Click here for Orvail_Armor_Set
Click here for Thurandaut_Armor_Set

Anyone who says those aren't good enough gear sets to participate in the immediate follow-up events that were recently released is ridiculous and you should avoid those a-holes anyhow... some people expect you to have gear better than you could possibly obtain even AFTER doing an event that they are requiring you to have the gear for... which is just ludicrous. After acquiring all this gear you'll be MORE than well off enough to participate in the new Delve or Skirmish content. When you get that far, start looking to join or create a Delve or Skirmish linkshell and work towards odd-end pieces of equipment that you need (belts/rings/earrings, etc) and most importantly, the new Weapons available which will be by far your largest potential stat jump by a large margin (at the time of this writing anyhow... until something better comes along). These events are too deep to get into at this point, but you can read up on them here:
Click to read up on Skirmish
Click to read up on Delve

If you have a hard time getting into either of those events, you can always revisit Abyssea to kill time, pick up odd-end pieces, chase desirable Atma, and work towards AF3+2. Oh, and while I know I've gone beyond "starting in endgame" at this point, I'd recommend you pick up whichever Dynamis items your job "can't live without". For example BST gets a great hand slot item for calling pets at higher levels, DNC gets some gear that extends duration of Jigs, and so on. You'll want those if you can find the time to get them, they help tremendously when macro'd in.

Hope this post helped someone! I only came back for a couple evenings recently so all of this is very new to me, I was trying to get my wife into the game and she just wasn't interested, so she left and I followed the next evening. I still wanted to give a shot at this new content to see what it was like, and I have to say I was pleasantly surprised at how accessible it was after you "figure out where you are supposed to go". The starter gear-set and direction the game is taking is really good, and if this were just a few years ago I'd be all over doing this super-gung-ho-style, but instead I'm now 30 years old and I'd rather spend my free-time with family, so I'm passing what little information I gained over the last 24 hours with the hopes of helping some new people out!

Good luck!

(P.S. thanks to Baddude of Phoenix for pointing me in the right direction when I bumped into him)

Edited, May 5th 2013 12:00pm by FUJILIVES

Agreed, I've been trying to wrap my head around where to start in Adoulin for a while now, and that outlines things pretty nicely.

Haste is definitely an important stat, no doubt, your point is taken but someone didn't ask where they should "end up" in endgame, they asked "where they should start" in endgame. Everyone has to start somewhere and it is silly to think that the outlined gear isn't "more than enough" to succeed when functioning as a group. Hitting that magical 24~26% haste figure isn't always going to happen right from the get go... but there are belts as rewards from these events that give a nice chunk of haste, and I imagine it wouldn't take long at all to get there by using the new sets as a starting point. Also remember that while sacraficing some haste in say, the Karieyh set, you gain things like double-attack and huge chunks of attack power. Granted, these are best used in WS macros if you aren't haste capped, but until then they should make due. So lets just say they TP in "what they have", a mix of Karieyh armor and Perle: that would put them at 14% haste and 2% double attack. After a week or so, you help them get the Zoran's belt from the event rewards via plasm and a single KI... now they are at what, 21% haste and some really nice stats? That's PLENTY to start out... and you barely have to work to help them get there.

Stop thinking as an individual limiter and start functioning as a cooperative group and the game will be a hell of a lot easier.

As someone who spent years leading a linkshell with friends, and guild leader in WoW, it is my opinion that as a linkshell leader (and ideally as a linkshell member as well), Your #1 goal should be to improve your group's overall performance, and attempt to keep everyone "satisfied". In FFXI part of that is done by helping people acquire gear a steady pace. It's often frustrating to hear, but your first priority should more-often-than-not be helping your weakest links become stronger.

I didn't say that once players had this gear they'd be godly, but they are plenty good to participate and contribute more than enough to succeed, you will just have to suck it up as someone who already potentially has the best gear for every slot and help them through the content so they too can be as well off.

Edited, May 5th 2013 12:27pm by FUJILIVES

I think you're overstating the importance of haste. Yes, haste is good, but what a new player needs is accuracy, especially if they're interested in delve NMs.

I did it for a while Erecia. It's hard work, but you enjoy it after a time. The issue was that the people have to be as giving to you as you are to them.

It's different a well organized linkshell, but in pick up groups which never have proper support, I'm seeing DDs with madrigals and sushi still parse below 60% accuracy even before the NMs go into rage mode. Sushi helps, but it isn't auto-cap accuracy even for well geared players on some of these NMs.

Yes, pick better geared players etc., but this is really the only way for new players to get into delve, which was the premise of the discussion.

Edited, May 6th 2013 1:54am by xypin