Gear progression at 99 and duo limits?Follow

Been playing for two days... my wife for one and both of us are having a blast. We know this because we both have stayed up far later than we should have...

What should we be working towards for end game gear? I have nin@85 and she has dnc@84. We plan to get those to 99 first and then start working on other jobs and stuff. I need to know realistically what content will we be unable to do as a duo because we only need enough gear to be able to do things up to that point.

Well I was looking at our options and decided to start over on Asura. I saw more people in 5 minutes on Asura than I have in two days on Lakshimi... so if/when we need help we can probably find some people.

Since we are starting fresh I need to figure out which job I want to level first. Trusts change so much...

I haven't encountered a battlefield fight that hasn't been beatable with trusts yet. I understand the last RoV fight is tough with trusts unless you're a tank (the boss does some kind of horrible frontal cone aoe that your trusts will hug unless you can turn the boss away).

In my recent level-a-palooza I've just done I've found that leveling with trusts is easier if you're the tank or a magic dd. The healing is pretty competent most of the time (though Kupipi has some kind of hate-hate relationship with her MP pool). The trust BLMs are f'ing dangerous. They MB pretty well and pretty reliably.... with -ga spells.... which y'know... not always an amazing idea.

Unity Accolades. They're the currency for the Unity Concord system. For leveling it's worth putting yourself in a unity because it gets you access to extra records of eminence that reset daily as well as another trust NPC related to the unity you pick (I like Apururu, but you should look them all up to see which one would be most useful to you).

I've found him to be super unreliable. I've literally gotten hit with a big aoe, everybody's at orange hp, he's sitting on 3000 tp .... and then he casts Revelation for 350 damage... because that's what I needed right there. It's really nice when he uses Rejuvenation like not-an-idiot, but he can't be counted on for that.

Apururu really gets going in later levels too when she picks up Convert and basically never runs out of mp again.

Trusts in general are rather unreliable :p It's just that usually without him backing up a trust healer, they will run themselves dry on MP very, very quickly because they don't have any of the spiffy gear (looking mainly at WHM empyrean legs) that saves them tons of MP. Not to mention the trust WHMs rely far too much on the extremely-MP-inefficient Cure 6. I have had many, many solo fights that would have simply not have been winnable without him, but you do have to keep in mind he's not meant for every kind of fight. It's a strange world when you find yourself having more MP problems because the enemy you're fighting doesn't do AoEs, but it is a strange world indeed nowadays.

The king of "oh god, why are you casting *that* *now*" still has to be Koru-Moru, in my eyes. If this were FF12 and we were able to see his gambit list, it would probably be far longer than most of the other caster trusts.

Edited, Aug 19th 2016 9:13pm by Fynlar

What is the best way to setup groups with trusts? At low levels the black magic users seem to be doing a lot more damage than the melee.

Not sure if I should aim for a standard party like tank, healer, support, a couple melee and a mage... I tried Tank, healer, brd and the rest melee and that just didn't work very good (lvl 13ish). I tried tank, heals, brd, 2x melee and a mage but it seemed the bard is doing nothing at all for the mage.

I haven't tried dropping a tank yet. Maybe with no tank and more melee it would work out ok? Got into the habbit of having a tank because the Blm always seems to get pounded on a lot if there isn't one.

So looking at Nin(probably), Rdm, or BLU for myself and DNC for her. Would it be best to run a tank trust or do it myself if I am on ninja? I like nin/rdm/blu because they can all melee and buff, debuf and deal magic damage if needed.

With those setups the only thing I am sure of is wanting a WHM. Is the BRD trust smart enough to give melee songs to melee and casters to casters or does he just give everyone the same songs? I assume that players are generally better at any role because we are not going to stand in fire... not sure if a DD/support role is more important than a tank.

I'll be "that guy" in the assertion that NIN isn't really a tank before 37, and even now it's fallen from grace with it shifting more toward a DPS role. I'll also readily suggest that you don't try to tackle this like oldschool parties and try to fight ITs. Mow through EPs-EMs, take advantage of manual and RoE bonuses. With the right camps, you're usually never going to run out of mobs, though there may be a bit of running between them.

Being a BLU, my general soloing party looks like: Valaineral, Iroha II, Joachim, Koru-Moru, and Apururu. For longer fights, odds are my DPS winds up making it impossible for Val to tank, but I still keep him around for the mix of utility with Flash, Uriel Blade (Flash), and Cures. Joachim will elegy, buff, and sometimes help with (status) curing. Iroha, like Sel'theus (whose name I can never spell right), does have an AoE heal, but she usually winds up more of a DPS/SC enabler even though I really would prefer if she opened for me more often. KM is for additional debuffs while Apururu is the healing backbone. Do I change things periodically? Depends on the encounter. Odds are if another person enters the picture, Iroha would be the first cut. Don't underestimate an intelligently geared mage's damage potential, or more accurately, RDM or WHM. This group only really falters for me in a mix of heavy AoE and status spam, but I'm pretty sure that's an issue for all trusts in part due to pathing/positioning.

Anyway, I'd level the following:
1-15: Starter zone, you'll probably want to change book objectives around level 7.
15-30: Buburimu. Start with Mandies south of the OP and northish of the Bibiki zone. There's a passive mandy NM you don't want to **** off, but most other threats tend to relate to night time or bomb weather. Once these start conning TW, change to the pugil/goblins page. Could actually go past 30, but it may feel sluggish.
30-42: Qufim on crabs/pugils page. Just work along the north coast, being careful of banshees at night and maybe a giant if you move between the beaches. Another level or two is possible, but you'll start getting TW crabs.
42-50: CN doing bees/crawlers. Added bonus here of the book EXP accumulating per repeat. Having some form of dispel or defense down is handy for crawlers and using a trust tank mitigates part of the risk of final sting from bees.
50-61: West Altepa doing beetles and 1 cactuar at Revelation Rock. You might need to do a couple levels of Anticans near Raboa first, but I did this /BST before trusts were even a thing. And if you can /BST, it goes a lot more quickly once you can reliably charm the scorpions.

At this point, you could technically go to 99 in a few zones like Kuftal and Boyahda, though each have their pros and cons (fk Guivre). Oubliette leeches are also a thing in the 70s, or Zeruhn Mines once you're 75 or higher. Some might suggest just getting someone to burn you, and while that'd definitely be faster, it'll probably never happen. Especially for new players (to a server) unless you luck upon some cool people. Either way, this process shouldn't take more than a few days, with the initial limit breaks being the only real roadblocks. And as always, set RoE objectives relative to the zone you're in and the crystals the target mobs drop. That'll also help guarantee you have enough sparks for a 99 set once you hit it.

Where to exp isn't an issue for us... We leveled BST duo back when pets still stole exp. We also duoed DRG/mage up into the 40s for royal jelly. Finding camps and exploring is part of why we enjoy duo so much. Trusts really open up our options.

So far I have found (at least under 25) that EM-VT are the best targets. I stay away from mandies/sheep because of sleep. I also find that ITs take too long. Trusts use a lot of MP fighting the bigger stuff but at this level range I level so fast (1k-1.3k per kill in a chain with all the bonuses going right now) that I often level before the trust timer is up. Haven't even been using my exp rings. I did find that the big bonus from RoE for 200 kils (I think) at low levels doens't seem to work. I went from level 2 to level 3capped so that sucked.

One of the reasons I like nin/rdm/blu is they keep me busy but not in a way that is too mindless (I haven't played pup since Wotg and I still hate that job). Doesn't make much sense because I love MNK which has got to be the most passive job in the game. The main thing keeping me away from BLU is having to learn all the spells again... unless they made that suck less. I really enjoyed BST and DRG but I think that had more to do with not having look for a group.

EDIT: I guess the money spent on tools and time spent getting ninja scrolls probably evens out time learning spells with BLU. BLU is just more mind numbing during the learning process.

Edited, Aug 20th 2016 8:20pm by Rochetm

EDIT 2: Is MNK really that bad off now? When I left all I heard about was how great MNK + WHM was and now it seems people really don't like that job. I did notice it doesn't look like much has changed while a few other jobs have gotten some nice upgrades.

Edited, Aug 20th 2016 9:40pm by Rochetm

EDIT again... Wtf did they do to magic burst? I did almost 300 damage on a fire burst when I rarely break 40 damage as a nearly naked rdm. That is crazy.

Edited, Aug 20th 2016 11:50pm by Rochetm

MNK isn't really *bad* now, it's just that BLU is so much better ;)

It's "MMO logic" at work, really. If it's not the best, it "sucks"

Also, both skillchain and magic burst damage were greatly upped some time back. I don't know as much about the skillchain changes but MBs now do double the damage they did before.

Edited, Aug 21st 2016 1:38am by Fynlar

BLU is pretty much a one-man army at this point in the game.

- It's acquired Subduction, which is one of, if not the most, MP-efficient AoE nuke in the game; it's quick to cast, it's quick to recast, and it also inflicts an extremely potent Gravity effect so if the BLU bit off a bit more than he can chew, he can either kite around or beat a hasty retreat. Pretty much anything before Adoulin that involved a lot of mobs can be easily curbstomped by just having at least a remotely competently geared BLU train everything together and casting this spell a couple times, and even some post-Adoulin stuff works too as long as they exercise some caution. If the BLU actually tries hard enough gear-wise, you can get numbers out of this spell that you really wouldn't expect to see for 27 MP.

- If AoE spells with more punch are needed, they have that too, one of each element, from the "hybrid elementals" that were introduced in Abyssea but given proper TP attacks in Adoulin areas that can be learned as blue magic.

- If MP expenditure is actually ever a problem for some reason, as long as they can find a target with MP that doesn't resist light, Magic Hammer is pretty much a complete MP refill whenever it's used.

- It's acquired Mighty Guard, which allows it to cap its own spell haste without needing any assistance from anyone (not even trusts) thanks to its own innate Haste 2 spell in the form of Erratic Flutter, not to mention MG grants a nice defense, magic defense, and Regen buff on top of that.

- Every job gets a special gift at 100, 550, and 1200 job points earned, usually adding to the job's specialty in some way or granting it new magic spells in the case of mages. BLU's 100 and 1200 gifts are extremely potent -- they boost the tier of almost any job traits acquired through set blue magic by one. What this means is that at 1200+ job points, a BLU can set a single spell (Molting Plumage) to gain Dual Wield 1, but will actually be getting Dual Wield 3, for instance. Same with almost any other trait, barring Double/Triple Attack, Treasure Hunter and Auto Refresh. At this point BLU can set up a bunch of traits using minimal spells and actually be getting up to level 3 of all of those traits. With these gifts, BLU is actually capable of reaching Dual Wield 6, which is something not even ninjas get. Not every BLU even needs to set their DW trait that high depending on gear, but the fact remains that they can. As a result of this, they are easily capable of capping their attack speed with zero support, and not even very much in the way of gear.



I have seen countless MNKs in 14 just doing 1-2-3 (if that) and never moving at all during a fight, which I already know it means they're paying no heed to their sweetspots, which means that I know they're doing crap for damage and they would be better suited on a job like BRD that has no sweetspot reliance. Bandwagoning did not serve that job well at all. Neither did it for BLM (ice mages and Fire 3 spammers ahoy) and now MCH (OMG GUNZ LOL)

I've also recently seen a PGL in Haukke recently that did nothing but spam Bootshine over and over. While that was terrible, I can't really fault their choice of job there because someone who still does something like that by level 30 would literally suck at every job, so there's no saving a player like that.

Edited, Aug 21st 2016 8:47am by Fynlar

Edited, Aug 21st 2016 9:10am by Fynlar

I just got Lion II so haven't had a chance to try her out yet. At my levels (50 and under) I have had a lot of trouble with the mages. First few levels they do great but later on they seem to want to stand around a lot. Semih Lafihna appears to be broken... skill chains everywhere... huge sidewinders. I pretty much always use Semih now because of that.

I am enjoying Apururu since of the three healers I have Apururu is the only one smart enough to stand back.