Returning RDM75/Nin37 - Solo at 99?

[Aethon]

Can we stop the pissing contest common among us RDMs long enough to help this guy out please?
I said Dux for the reasons i've stated. People may not agree. That's fine. Haste is very important to damage output. -PDT and VIT are important to outlasting the enemy.
OP please take all things into account such as what you're fighting and tactics which may need more damage for fast kills(haste build) or slower kills because it hits harder (-pdt/cure potency).
I love this job and it's really the only thing i play. My main problem is that since it can do so much the community has widely varying opinions and gets rather vocal about it.
Take what you want from what we've said and play however you please. THAT is they joy of being a Red Mage.

[SpankWustler]

The main thing I'd stress for anybody playing any job nowadays is just to equip for whatever action you're taking, even if that equipment isn't so great, but that goes double for Red Mage. Ideally, one's character should be the invisible man while playing Red Mage.

Make sure you have whatever Cure Potency stuff you can obtain equipped while curing. Make sure you have whatever Magic Attack Bonus stuff you can obtain equipping while using Elemental Magic. Make sure you have whatever melee stuff you can obtain on while engaged in melee. Make sure you have whatever -DT% stuff you can obtain on whenever things are about to go bad. And so on and so forth for every single action, forever and ever.

This principle has always been important, but the amount of easily obtainable specialized equipment has skyrocketed over the past few years, so it is now more important than ever.

[ManaKing]

All of your posts lead people to believe that you are one of the below:

a)too lazy to macro in/out gear
b)ignorant as to the function of "/equip" macros
c)a special snowflake who don't need no man

Yes, let's listen to the PLD and WHM main in the RDM forums instead of the people that actually leveled a RDM as their main from 75 to 99 as their only main. Geniuses.

[Arcon]

Yes, let's listen to the PLD and WHM main in the RDM forums instead of the people that actually leveled a RDM as their main from 75 to 99 as their only main. Geniuses.

So because I set PLD as my "main" job, you can't be wrong? So the Lv.99 THF who doesn't know what TA does is to be believed over the smart non-THF who actually knows? And the term "main" job is completely retarded in itself because I don't have one main job, neither do most people, and it's certainly not PLD. I only chose to display PLD for nostalgia because it was the first job I played and loved, I didn't even play it in about a year or so. Yet that's your defining argument for why people should not listen to me, instead of actually saying why I'm wrong or why you're right, neither of which you tried to contend so far?

To all the newbies, you will come to find that, sadly, even at 99 some people have no idea what they're talking about, no matter how long they've played the job or how much they love it. Whom you should listen to is a very simple decision, though. Don't listen to either PLD or RDM, listen to the one who's right. And it's certainly not that nutter butter over there. None of what I said is a secret, every claim I made I can back up:
http://www.ffxiah.com/search/item?&jobs[]=32&stat=19
http://www.ffxiah.com/search/item?&jobs[]=32&stat=93
http://wiki.bluegartr.com/bg/Attack_speed
http://wiki.bluegartr.com/bg/Damage_Taken

To get back on topic, Haste will help you in a lot of different ways, and is very easy to come by. PDT will also help, but sadly it's not as easily obtainable. You should get as much of both as you can afford though, either will help you out noticeably. If you maintain you want to be RDM/NIN, MDT will be even more important, since the ratio of magic damage taken compared to physical damage taken shifts significantly if you have shadows to absorb melee hits. MDT also has some certain cheap to obtain items, but like PDT, not very much. Every bit helps though, and you should try to get as much of it as possible.

Like the monkey said, the importance of gearing for the moment is significant if trying to solo. Even if you don't have much gear for different categories yet, setting up proper macros and getting accustomed to switching gear around is very important and may save your life. Just start out with sparse sets for various purposes, and include new items as you obtain them.

[Eice]

Hey, sorry I haven't posted in a little while even though y'all were. I was reading and trying to take everyone's opinions into consideration. So, my head is officially swimming at the moment. I got my RDM to 99 ... I still have no idea how in the world I did that in just a few days. I only went to altepa, but everything felt like it was on fastforward mode. Crap ton of people, crap ton of exp, next thing I knew I had to go back and do the next limit. I went ahead and got my nin,sch,whm,blm subs up to.

Given that, since it was a subject of some people's thoughts ... I've decided to level another job to 99. I have not quite decided what job, but I've decided with how obnoxiously fast this was, that I can do it again. If it only took a few days to get 75-99, then it shouldn't take much more than like ... maybe a week to get a second job to 99?

Thoughts on what a good next job would be appreciated. I was -thinking- either Dragoon or Ninja. Dragoon could I use my Nin and Rdm as subs for it? Ninja I would need to level my war and dnc subs (dnc is at like level one). Those seem like two fun jobs and they're a DD job, so they're very different from my Red Mage job. Thoughts?

So, I'd still like to solo a lot of the old-world content since that's my major reason for coming back was doing that stuff. However ... I've come to realize that there are a few things that intrigue me in the new stuff, but I have absolutely no clue how to go about starting it.

I got the Estoqueur body and hands from one of the npc people in altepa. They're the normal ones, so now I just need to do those quest things to get them to +1 then +2. I have an absolute crap ton of cruor (at least I think ... it's in the six digits, is that normal?) so I can also buy the hat when I get another travel stone thing.

I only went to Altepa and haven't been to any of the others (I plan on traveling to each one to get the teleport, I found the guy in Jeuno that teleports and the moogle that gives you a warp scroll everyday ... crazy), but I don't know enough I don't think. I just sort of followed people and tried to keep up and by the time I could sort of stretch my knees everything was essentially over.


Given that, I think I might level another job to 99 since perhaps I could do it in a week time? Or is that too optimistic. I was thinking Ninja since it's already at 50, but I'd have to level my War and Dnc subs too. So Nin 50-99 + War up to 50 + Dnc up to 50. I was also thinking Dragoon since I could use my nin and rdm subs for that maybe? So that would be Drg 11-99. I'm not familiar with subs for drg, but the class seems pretty cool especially with the pet dragon. I'm just trying to think which of these two would be quicker to do.


Also given that ... are there any good linkshells that would accept a very old and very rusty player? Yea, I know people want the max of everything, but it would be nice to have a group of people that could just sort of help point me in the right direction (in regards to the new stuff and what's changed). I don't need hand holding for anything old, I just need a little help with all the new stuff and how to deal with what's changed (apparently Rdm is no longer a good main heal? Well, on one hand oh well, but on the other hand at least I don't have to be a pink mage anymore?).


I still have the following things to do before I am back to the swing of things:

1. Redo all of my macros - There is so much that is new and obviously I don't have my macros from years ago, so it is going to take some time. Also, there are still only 6 spaces for the macros and I forget how to make longer ones for when you need to gear in large sums of equipment (i.e. a full set of equipment and also a spell). Luckily the book system is there so I can make macros for different job combinations, which should help a little there

2. Sort out all of my inventories and sell the now useless old equipment. I've got so much crap now just from years ago when I had subpar stuff before quitting that are now useless ... and worthless. I only have about 200k gil left though and all the stuff I used to synth from Clothcraft is dead (Vermy is only like 20k now?? Well, guess that sort of makes sense given level cap)

3. Skill-up ... this is the only real part that makes me feel bad. My skills are bad. I don't recall them being that bad, but even going from 75-99 they are still very subpar. It's embarrassing where they're at, so I'm going to refrain from stating here.

4. Solo some things to get back in the swing of job management. I was usually main healer on parties back in '07, but still I knew how to main heal and still keep all enfeebles up and also toss a nuke or two here and there to help finish the mob. I usually rode my convert timer, but that was mostly by choice. Soon as I would get near the timer, the next few mobs I would nuke a bit at the end, convert, fully cure, and get back to business. I'd like to think that I was pretty good at it, but I feel much slower (I guess that's to be expected though).

5. Find a linkshell for social or fun things. Even though I feel like I was more a leech (metaphorically) in the abyssea thing, I enjoyed it. I don't usually have the time to a "dedicated life"/"hard core" style of ffxi, but I still would like to do some party things on some of the new stuff.



So ... given how long this post probably is by now, to sum it up, is there any linkshell that y'all know of (or are in) that would be willing to open the door for an returning player?

To reiterate, I do intend to level a second job to 99. I thought it was going to be like a year like with old ffxi leveling (to get a new job from 1-99), but after seeing what happened with my rdm ... I'm thinking I can bear the leveling. Maybe I can get a new job to 99 in a week?? That would make my laugh so hard if that was possible ... in that case I might even level a couple jobs to 99 .....



Oh yea, I'm on Leviathan server ... guess that would make a big difference.

[SpankWustler]

I'd highly recommend Ninja as a job to level to 99 early on, because it will be very useful for farming stuff you need from Abyssea. Having the second largest selection of red !! procs, with high evasion and a few green/yellow !! procs as a bonus, makes the job very useful there.

[Eice]

Alright, that was one of the ones I was thinking. Are War and Dnc still the best subs? I'm wondering how fast the leveling will be to get my War and Dnc each up to 50 and then Ninja to 99. I've never been a major blink tank past how I do it for Rdm, so hopefully it won't be too much different when main Ninja. It took a few days for me to get Rdm 75-99. So, it should take Ninja at least like ... 5-6 days for 50-99? And I guess the same for the two subs. So, it'll probably take 2 weeks to get my Ninja 99, War 50, Dnc 50.

That may or may not be accurate ... I have no idea if I was in good or bad parties before.

[Aethon]

War is a good sub for a lot of things in game. So is SAM if you go for 2 handed weapons. Hasso and Seigan/ third eye are pretty much a must in things end game anymore.
DRG can be a fun job. That's my wife's main job and she really doesn't play anything else. /SAM is her sub of choice for the damage output You'll here a lot about how drg is falling behind(or fell behind years ago) as a DD and while it may be true it boils down to "do you enjoy it?"
My nin is lvl 14 and i plan on it staying there so i can't give any input on that other than i've seen some damn good ninjas out there taking on all sorts of things by themselves. NIN in abyssea is what RDM was back in the day.

[ManaKing]

I'd highly recommend Ninja as a job to level to 99 early on, because it will be very useful for farming stuff you need from Abyssea. Having the second largest selection of red !! procs, with high evasion and a few green/yellow !! procs as a bonus, makes the job very useful there.

The yellow procs for /NIN will help you get your +1s. /DNC is mostly for Dynamis. If you want a relic. You can make one in a couple of months. Things have changed drastically.

I can't recommend subbing BLM WHM or SCH unless you know the situation you are going to walk into and need the specific bonuses they give for solo work. For low man, they all have their perks, but you are giving up a significant chunk of your DPS for it.

Also, if you don't have 26% Haste and instead have 25% in gear then you effectively have 250/1024 haste which means you are 0.6 or 6/1024 Haste short of the cap. At 26% Haste you have 260/1024, but you still only have 256/1024 Haste because that is the cap. It's impossible to be exactly on the cap, only over or under.

Horribly sorry that people have assumptions on game mechanics instead of actually knowing how they work. It's like someone didn't understand the pages they posted to back up their knowledge and passed on to you their inability to read.

[SpankWustler]

A couple of things that might be helpful.

Generally, enemy melee attacks are way less of an issue than they were at 75. Players are many levels above old content and have tons of evasion for that reason, as well as more favorable level correction when hit. Even on new content, due to a lot of factors, the danger of being slowly smacked into oblivion because the healer is out of MP is near-gone.

This is balanced by TP moves being worse. Much worse. Even Sobek, a resident of Abyssea-Misareaux who is a complete joke in every way and frequently soloed, has a TP move with a chance of inflicting instant death. In high tier Voidwatch and onward, there are AoE attacks with such vigor that they would engulf all Vana'diel and kill that dude creeping on a manthra back in Port Jeuno, if game mechanics only allowed them.

Obviously, that's painting in VERY, VERY broad strokes, but maybe that will give the returning solo-bro some idea why there is all this talk about -PDT% and -MDT% rather than Utsusemi shadows.

Also:

If nobody has mentioned it yet, the augmented Dark Rings from Abyssea-Konschat are a very large and entirely free source of -DT%. You'll be gaining merits and key items while you try for the rings, and you can sell all the sub-par rings for a very decent amount of gil.

They're good for any idle or OH NO! set from the moment they're obtained until eternity, on any job.

. . .

Sorry about derailing the topic with this, but it's not like I'm the first and I can not resist! The pull of the dark side is too strong!

Horribly sorry that people have assumptions on game mechanics instead of actually knowing how they work. It's like someone didn't understand the pages they posted to back up their knowledge and passed on to you their inability to read.

Out of just stuff I can remember clearly from this past week, you've been overtly wrong about paralyze's effect on weaponskills. So, is this really the attitude you want to adopt when you think someone else is wrong?

Also, I associate your name with somebody arguing "my testing is my playing" pertaining to Excalibur's additional effect and Enspell priority for a week, but I'm pretty much insane so that could have been anybody or maybe the argument never existed. Still, odds are pretty good it was at least in this forum being that it was an argument and very pointless.

Oh, Christ cavorting with midget-nuns, if I'm having hallucinations about banal internet arguments that don't actually exist...Somebody should go start the argument to make me feel better. It's the Red Mage forum; I know somebody wants to start a pointless argument!

I guess the point of this half of my post, if it has any, is that every new or returning player should be aware that everyone providing advice is liable to be misinformed, stone-drunk, or insane.