Debating if I should come back...Follow

Don't need Dharp for bard now. There are new level 119 JSE weapons for every job. The one for BRD is a 3 song harp. It will never become a 4 song harp, but will more than do (especially considering how few 4 song bards there are AND the new 1 hour job ability that allows an extra song, giving you 4). This harp costs around 3 million for all the items on my server now (Asura). That's totally not too hard to raise if you do some dynamis and/or voidwatch. You do need a clear of a macrocosmic orb battlefield on difficult (or a few other options for clears) but its not insurmountable.

There is also a new bard horn available from sparks (just out this update) that gives +2 to all songs. While there are better instruments for some songs, it will certainly get you started.

Other than that you need AF3+2 (not too hard to get) and song casting time reduction gear (most of it is not too hard to come by). With that you can competently bard.

Now is actually a good time to come back because there are new augments for wildskeeper items so people will be doing those regularly again for awhile. Wildskeepers are great cause they are open to the server - no invites needed - no one needs to complain about your gear!

Honestly though, a lot of people (me included) have pretty much only level 117 gear, all of which is available from soloing points of one kind or another. It's not hard to get up to speed. It's not really any good for BRD for the most part though.

People are constantly doing battlefields for papers for AF and Relic upgrades, often on Normal level - very very easy for anyone to join (though some are ***** and ask for 119 DD only or w/e but that's just stupid).

PUP is in a pretty crappy place at the moment since they just did an update to weaponskills which makes them stronger but didn't up the power of pets at all. That means pet jobs fall even farther behind than before.

The key is really to find a nice LS. Whether you want to come back or not is up to you, but I play in an EU LS and even though folks are not on all the time I never have much trouble finding things to do - either solo or with pick ups.

Edited, Jun 18th 2014 3:54pm by Olorinus

Eh, probably not. Can get full 117 gear probably in 10 hours of play? Easily even. Probably less cause you can get a whole whack of sparks for the stuff you've already done (they have intro sparks quests for stuff like "unlock beastmaster" etc) and there are a whole lot of 1 time only quests which reward very decent sparks. They also reward things like boulder boxes etc, so you could save boulders or beitesu towards your 3 song harp (you need 150 of them) and sell the ones you aren't collecting.

It takes a bit longer to get bayld worked up but just do your dailies with the coalitions and it will grow. I'd save the bayld for wildskeeper rieve KIs though.

In terms of your bard... do you not already have a bunch of AF3 etc for it? I mean, if you played it at all seriously before you quit, you probably have all the gear you need minus the harp... or close to it since Adoulin has added very little that is of use to bard.

The login campaign currently has kupons that give you a full set of seals for any AF1 so that would also probably help you if you're missing any of that.

In terms of gil, you could easily make 3 million on a single weekend day with a bit of luck in voidwatch and a half-decent farm of a dynamis dream zone (assuming you have access)... anyway it's not insurmountable. I am super casual player and I already have 3 JSE weapons...

Honestly 3/4 shouts I see for current content have nothing to do with Adoulin. Will it take a bit of time to get up to speed in Adoulin, sure, but if it didn't the rest of us who have been playing for the last 10 months would have had nothing to do. I mean, I think the point of playing a game is to spend time on it, so yeah it will take time. That's sort of the idea. If you don't want to spend time playing games ... playing games may not be the right hobby for you.

I am super casual, and while no one would peg me as the best geared/best anything on the server, I only have any trouble keeping up when there are massive changes (beginning of Adoulin I was behind for awhile). I don't think FFXI actually takes unnecessarily grindy long for anything anymore except perhaps getting specific voidwatch drops (FU AKVAN) and doing mission completions (I still need to complete a LOT of missions.) Oh, and getting a mythic etc (but nowadays the difference between REM and other 119 options is generally a lot smaller except with specific jobs)

If you're worried you won't be able to do anything with anyone, you have nothing to worry about. There is tons of stuff you can do with groups as soon as you log in, provided you find some folks who are not going to be ridiculous with requirements. Like anyone doing anything on Normal difficulty doesn't need a 3 song bard (for starters)...



Edited, Jun 19th 2014 10:42am by Olorinus

Yes, "used to be" for sure, I don't think so that much now. I guess it all depends. If you need to be able to do all events people are doing to feel like you're part of the game, then yeah you might have to spend some time on it. But like people are regularly shouting for voidwatch still (for example) which requires zero gear, usually gets going in 30 minutes or less and wraps up pretty quickly.

Abyssea era didn't really require that much time, but I guess that's all relative... I guess if you don't have anyone to play with it could be? Now if you subscribe long enough you can get all the AF3+2 from abyssea from just login in points from campaigns, so basically only the time it takes to log in and log out.

I mean yeah before abyssea the game was bloody grindy but I don't feel that so much anymore, but I am A OK if I can't (say) do every event people are shouting for. I just accept I'll have to miss that content or do it later cause it's for people who have more time than me.

I find all MMOs require a lot of time... FFXI used to be worse but it's probably one of the more casual friendly (in terms of time needed to enjoy it, not mechanics maybe) now...

You could have a full set of 117 gear for your PUP after one weekend playing. I don't really think that's excessive in terms of time commitment... but that's just me. Will you be the best, no... but if you could be the best after a weekend playing no one would ever play because they would be done with it...

I mean, yesterday, I played for 2 hours or so, made 35K bayld, bought a new pair of 117 hand gear for my thf, did a wildskeeper rieve, upgraded a knife I had with an augment for Occasionally attacks twice and +15 accuracy and finished off my level 119 BST axe... (That last was the culmination of a bunch of gil farming)...

I don't think that's an unreasonable amount of progress to make in an evening.


Edited, Jun 19th 2014 12:41pm by Olorinus

well the current login campaign offers seal kupons for 500 points. That's a full set of seals to +1 any peice of empy armor. You can get that in 5 logins. They often do the +2 items as well, though you may have to wait a bit for that. With level 117 gear most NMs in abyssea are a joke to solo now as well - and lots of them you can get pop KIs from gold chests so you don't even need to proc red.

That said, empy gear is not as useful for most jobs right now because the ilevel gear is just way better (except for macroing)

Edited, Jun 20th 2014 11:16am by Olorinus