Old Skool a waste of time?Follow

Just started back up again after a 3-4 year hiatus from the game and have been focusing on BST because, well, I can't get a PT for my 63 PLD for the life of me and there are only so many 2 hour waits without a peep a man can take before he just gives up. Anywho, I had been running around Qufim doing the rape, pillage, burn thing on all of the EPs there scoring 100+ XP a critter on my run from 33 to 37 in about 4-5 hours play time. Needless to say, I was pretty fired up about the hike in XP on the lower difficulty mobs because I remember the serious grindage of BST back in the day where a T fight with a DC/EM got you 120 XP and a Hugh Jass bunch of downtime (I actually remember even earlier where a surviving pet cost you -20% XP).

I was looking at the Hunting Grounds 2.0 thread and decided to make a run for Altepa zones and see how I did there. So far all I've seen is that I'm gaining XP far slower, taking far bigger risks, doing far longer fights, and have about five times the downtime once I get done with a battle or two (if I don't have to run for my life in mid battle on the second one for...*drum roll* tons of downtime). I was using a single Dia per fight with a leach in Qufim that tanked the whole fight just dandy and now I'm taking 75% of the love during a battle unless I let my pet get beat darn near to death before I wade in with a high chance of it croaking on me with 1/3 of a T fight to go.

Is it just me or has it simply become too XP profitable with easier mobs to bother at all with the old method at all?

waste of time is subjective. I'd do whatever you enjoy more. If you actually want to gain levels fairly quickly - stick to easier mobs and then just do skill ups in a focused way later (I skilled up enough to hit crap in abyssea when I was about the right level, then got my axe capped by doing parties for merits after level cap)

If it is more fun to you to do it the old school way, then do that.

As for your PLD - what you need to do is go down to the basement of Bost. Oublette, flag up and shout "book burn party, can I have it?" - as long as the alliance that is almost always down there isn't full - you will get a spot. Then you'll get 100K exp an hour or so if the party is any good.

People almost never bother seeking players to fill the spots in their book burn alliances (I do but I am weird/want better exp) - so you could sit in Jueno with your flag up forever at that level and no one will look twice at you. Once you hit about 75-80 you will probably be able to get into an abyssea exp alliance but without atma you won't be much of an asset.

Edited, May 31st 2012 1:34pm by Olorinus

Thanks for the assist, y'all. It looks like the terminology has changed quite a bit since I quit playing.

GoV/FoV? Pages? Anyone? Bueller?

Thanks in advance.

Edited, May 31st 2012 3:01pm by psychophipps

Even MORE in-depth GoV explanation: Grounds of Valor (find the link in the post above)

Starts in Gusgen Mines doing Skeletons (Page 1, set to repeat). Usually there's a decent amount of people in there.
I level up my job to 15 before I go in for melee, you can go in earlier if you're a healer, BST was actually pretty fun to go in with. Couldn't call pet, but still decent damage with an Axe. Eventually you can Charm one of the Funguars and they'll make your dps skyrocket and skeles will die even faster because they're blunt dmg and no one cares about the xp from individual skeles, just from the pages.

Note on that: Page 1 says kill 6 skeles, then you get a reward and it restarts automatically. The reward builds each time to a capped amount of xp and gil per page. You also get a special little bonus trait each time a page is completed.

I stay there until I hit 36 or so for most melee, less if you're a healer/bard/smn/leecher, and then head to Cralwer's Nest. Page 1 again. Bees and Crawlers. Groups will do 3 of one mob type, then 3 of another, repeat, moving down the tunnel on the top floor, then heading all the way back to the entrance to start over. A lot more roaming, but BSTs are awesome here too, especially if you have a pet with piercing dmg moves.

This is as far as I've gotten. I've just got like 7 jobs to 50, then I start a new job. Eventually I'll take PUP all the way up. Not sure where to go after that. I think someone said Garliage.

Pretty damn fast XP, doesn't match Abyssea, but it's still GREAT.

Nothing is stopping you from soloing more challenging mobs for slower exp.