Paths to obtaining level 119 armor

[Urthdigger]

You've got the basic strategy down for soloing it. Generally, you'll want a few worms as a "last line of defense" and then sic crabs and colibri while you go build enough Puissance to summon a Shijin. They can change the battle, and of them all I recommend you use a Eudaemon Sash for your statue to get the Kirin Shijin (if I am remembering this correctly), which will absolutely wreck things. Also note that the Valiants cannot destroy the enemy Stronghold; they can get it down to a single HP, but a player must deal the final blow to destroy it.

Keep at it.

One word of caution: Using sashes will mean you summon Kirin instead of the lesser shijin, but it also means you'll get more -orb stones than other kinds. Which is great if you want them, but if you're looking to make a melee set or something, you're gonna have a bad time.

[Kensagaku]

That is true, I forgot to mention the effects on the loot pool. Byakko with a Blade is good as well, if you plan on going for -slit stones.

[cheyrn]

I had read that and so was using a ring because my one lv99 job is rdm.

So, today, I found out that when you exchange shards with the Ars Monstrum book, you can only do it once. So, I had 15 minutes with level 1 segments and 1000 obsidian shards. I will try 4000 shards and a longer time. Left over puissance is lost at the end of the battle, I assume.

[Kensagaku]

I believe that there is a cap of 1000 fragments used, so you should probably aim to only solo 1-2 low-level floors (something like a 1/1/1 Ring statue) until you get a few pieces of Taeon gear to start augmenting, and then work your way up. There's nothing wrong with using your key early to obtain the 1-2 pieces of gear that dropped into your pool.

[cheyrn]

I shifted my focus to reforged artifact armor and now have atrophy +1 everything and my eminent dagger or eminent sword. Checkparam says my average is item level 118. With that, trying to defeat a level 119 Unity wanted NM with 5 trust npcs I manage to get the NM down to about 95% HP before wiping. It's hard for me to imagine that a player's skill could make much of a difference. I haven't tried the boring something to death technique of kiting and dot. Maybe that is something that can be done. There is a youtube video of a SCH kiting one of the Ark Angels on difficult mode. I think for me things like gravity get resisted but, maybe it is possible.

It could be that a different job than RDM could create greater damage and actually complete the first objective. I don't know what gear the THF soloing yorcia alluvian skirmish on youtube had.

I tried Yorcia alluvian again today and didn't manage to find even one escalent before the marchland was destroyed. But, what I need to increase my item level now is a weapon. So, I tried alluvian rala and got the Mistmaw Kroni down to about 98% HP before wiping.

Something I didn't read is that in rala alluvian skirmish you start out with something like a valiant that runs around killing the enemies and ultimately fighting the mistmaw NM. So, there are pets that fight with you in both rala and yorcia.

I'll try again and also try shouting for help.

My other option seems to be to obtain 100 job points and 2 million gil to be able to use blurred sword/knife. I get ~300 capacity points per battle that yields like 8000 limit points. So, I would need to finish something like 10,000 battles before being able to use the sword/knife. Optimistically, that is a couple of months of heavy game playing, I think.

Getting reforged artifact armor through sparks of eminence went much faster than I thought it would. Maybe the same is true of getting 100 job points.

If I were to do it again, I would not try doing limbus to limit the number of rem's tales needed because that was much slower.

Also: This is a game and FFXI being really hard is what makes it so much fun aside from the final fantasy stories being something that makes FFXI a work of art and more than a game.

[Collavoce]

I'm sure you can solo Alluvion Yorcia; it just sounds like you're going about it the wrong way (and I know because I've been doing it as a returning player with about the same gear when I went in lol).

The strategy that works for me requires trading some AMAN vouchers for obsidian fragments:
1- Trade a tier 1 visage/torso/leg/Eudaemon sash (eudaemon sash will get you Kirin, I haven't tried the other Shijin, so there might be other options that work well) to Oston to make the Key Item
2- Go to Yorcia
3- Convert 1,000 obsidian to puissance immediately
4- Use that to summon a Shijin Valient (it's below the crabs and colibri on the list; and it will only let you have one at a time - though I did notice that the thief in that video gets a second one on the third floor, so I assume you can respawn them if they die)
5- Shijin Kirin will be able to solo the flow of opponents
6- Go grab noetic ascensions and use the option to get boosts (I think that they might affect the valiants since I noticed a run where I go multiple boosts and the fight was faster - might've been a fluke though)
7- Kill mobs (prioritize flutterini if you see any that may path close by to minimize add potential as they are aggressive)
8- Keep going up floors, but keep an eye on timer and use the key to end the encounter if it looks like you'll lose; or if you see you're running out of time.
9- Profit (and pray to RNGeesus for the drops you need)

Good to know for the Limbus thing, as that was going to be my strategy. Seeing how it didn't really help that much, I'll start grabbing some REM chapters for BLU right now.

Not sure what to tell you for weapons. I'm at the same point you are in terms of progression; and am faced with many of the same interrogation. Sadly, the playerbase who've remained in game have progressed in era; so the few of us at the bottom don't necessarily have as many guides as before. Just sign of a game in its waning phase, I guess (which is too bad because I feel like game design-wise; this product is superior to the alternative). The only thing I did notice is that homestead weapons seem to be slightly better than the eminent ones, though that might depend on weapon types.

One thing I'm starting to look at as well is improving my accessory slots. Some of them can really impact your performance; and alot of them are from older content that, though potentially annoying, should be soloable. For sure I would look at getting stuff like Suppanomimi, which is a good boost to your dual wield in a slot that's hard to fill. Divine Might was easy for me to solo with trusts.

Good luck! You are not alone in your struggles, for what it's worth! lol

[Nyarlko]

I am a returned player who played from PS2 launchday > late '08, and came back this past August. It was a rather shocking how much of the game had changed, and I also had a bit of trouble early on regarding 119 gearing. Here's my advice for you:

* Find a linkshell! This is one of the first, and still one of the best, multiplayer games out there. Most of the game was designed with non-soloers in mind, so take that into account. Even if you have an irregular login/playtime schedule, there are bound to be linkshells who are willing to take you in anyway. This is probably the best way to find people who can give you advice (faster than here at least) and/or direct help. Soloing Skirmishes can be rather nerve-wracking, but if you have even one more person with you, it can become fun instead. Try shouting in Adoulin for a linkshell that accepts returning players. There are also NPCs in each city called "Linkshell Concierge" that linkshells can store pearls on for anyone interested to take. You will get far more done with help than without. FFXI has always had a rather uniquely strong sense of community on each server compared to other games, so take advantage of it.

* Weapons: Personally, I discourage you from buying any of the Blurred weapons. Unsure what the economy is like on your server, but I am sure that that gil could be stretched much farther if used in other ways. You may want to look into the JSE weapons sold by Oboro. There are some roadblocks to gain access to them, and the price is not exactly cheap if you buy all the materials, but they are all solid choices and should last you until you do reach endgame type content. Another option would be the Escha Tier2 NMs, which drop some really nice weapons, but you will definitely need help with any of them. I recently duoed some of them as a moderately geared GEO with a moderately geared BLU, and successfully took down all of the ones we attempted.

* Armor: Again, personally, I don't actually like Skirmish gear for the most part. Mainly due to the randomness of the augmentation system. Escha-Zitah armor has set augment paths so you at least know what you are going to get in the end, pop items are cheap, and most of the Tier1 NMs are soloable by a player in "good" gear. That means you only need to find one person who is willing to help you and you have a solid chance to get gear equal/better than the majority of Skirmish gear. I have personally soloed 9/12 with BST, which I used to gear all my other jobs, as well as get at least a dozen new/returner LS-mates some decent starter gear to cut down on the time needed before they could join in on LS events.

* Missions: If you don't have enough time to gather groups together for gearing events, then at least work on the mission storylines when you do log in. You will need to have progress made in all of the past expansions in order to progress thru Rhapsodies, which gives too many perks to list and is totally worth the effort. Each mission storyline you complete also grants a permanent CP+10% bonus to your character which adds up fast. There are zone-buffs that get unlocked for purchase by completing a lot of them as well (Vorseals in Escha, Atmas in Abyssea as examples) which make other activities easier. There are also a large number of useful Trusts locked behind them, such as Gessho who needs ToAU progress to unlock. More trusts to choose from = Easier to solo when you have to. None of the missions prior to Wings should pose any direct challenge to a 99RDM in 117 gear, so knock out what you can, when you can.

* Get every Trust you can! It really does make a huge difference in how hard soloing will be for you if you have a large selection to choose from. Keep an eye on the monthly campaigns, especially the login campaign, for any trusts you don't have and make sure you don't miss them because it can be quite a long time between availability windows. They are not all powerful, and rapidly lose usefulness in upper endgame content, but are solid allies who will never afk or dc on you in the middle of something.

Hope something here helps at least a little bit. ^^

[cheyrn]

Your post made me think of unequipping my 1 person link pearl (sightseers) to make it more likely that someone might invite me. I didn't know that about the linkshell concierge's all take a look. Actually, I looked and there are no linkshells available that I meet the requirements of..., says the concierge. And, I don't wish to meet anyone's "requirements" anyway.

I wouldn't go for the blurred sword/knife if there were another option. I've tried rala alluvian skirmish a couple of more times and the last time got the mistmaw NM alone and me and the trust npcs at full health and we can barely hit the thing. I don't think any amount of player skill could change things if you can't cause damage to the NM.

Maybe tarutaru rdm with level 119 armor and level 117 sword, simply can't cause enough damage fast enough to survive. So another idea is to level up my lvl 41 bst until I can do skirmish with a more survivable job and see if I can get a level 119 rdm weapon that way. People post about using Kirin as shijin which makes me think they are playing as something for which pet augments would be useful.

An odd thing about rala is that Krabakelevu acted like a pet (using eudaemon ring). But, shambling matamata (using cape) attacks us. I didn't realize what was happening at first. I wonder if I have some sort of matamata hate that can be reset.

Another idea is to see if I can get someone in Unity chat to help with higher level wanted NMs if they drop level 119 weapons.

I need to go further in WoG before I can get further in Rhapsody before I can go further in Escha, I think.

Upgrading weapons from Oboro would require me to have finished an SKCNM on "difficult" mode or other things beyond my ability.

In "easy mode" trust npcs and I get killed pretty quickly and my enfeebling magic is mostly resisted. I completed the skcnms on "very easy" mode. I supposed I should check if I can kite something in one of those battlefields, I think I can't land any magic on them at that level, though and it wouldn't work.