Make combat and magic skill gains a little easier.

[Zarchery]

This is a serious anachronism. Lowering the requirements so that you could skill up on decent challenge mobs was a good start. However, the system as is only made sense back when XP rates were so slow, and level sync was nonexistent, so you could actually keep your skills up as you levelled. As it is now, skills lag way behind even if you DON'T leech all your levels. I recently took WAR from 50-77 in level synced GOV pages in Garlaige and Crawler's Nest and my axe and great are so far behind that if I try to fight anything in Abyssea, I miss constantly.

I've been training on the fortalices in Castle Zvahl, but even that takes forever and I have to keep checking back every 45 minutes after destroying one of the things. I guess it beats staying at the keyboard fighting monsters that can fight back, but it still sucks.

So I dunno, maybe ease up on combat and magic skill ups so that it's less of a grind, the way XP is less of a grind? An easy solution would be to make them come as quickly as they do in the 1-100 skill range. I noticed when I took up a new weapon when I was levelling jobs for job emotes that the skillups came very quickly.

[Soranika]

New skill up food + new skill up accessories + martial mastery (for combat skills)= profit

Seriously, cap skills should STILL mean something for people who take the time to master their jobs instead of having every thing done in a few days, if not a few hours tops. FFXI hasn't even gotten to that point yet. It's not as if skilling up past the original 75 skill cap is even that hard. You just go to all the places that's been there for skilling up for years now.

[Ophannus]

I capped all my skills from 90-95 in a few days. Magic is super easy to cap with the right macros. Combat skills are fine. EVen defensive skills I capped in 2-3 days on PLD using mandies that hit for 0 damage with the right atma, capped shield/sword/parry/evasion/divine magic/ in 3 days.

[Zarchery]

I'm trying to do great axe from 200 to 280 on fortalices and getting about 3-6 points per hour, and that's with Elchenas. Either I'm doing something wrong or it's the game.

I'm open for suggestions really, if there's a decent way to do this.

[Raksha]

I'm trying to do great axe from 200 to 280 on fortalices and getting about 3-6 points per hour, and that's with Elchenas. Either I'm doing something wrong or it's the game.

I'm open for suggestions really, if there's a decent way to do this.

I went from 101 g.axe to 132 in about 45 minutes this morning just meleeing madies in abyssea tahrongi with regen atmas.

If you have a dual box you can toss up accesion + phalanx (or phalanx2) and use counter+ atma and round up every mandy you can find and just counter them to death for good skillups. I lvled staff from ~200 to whichever lvl cataclysm is in about an hour (maybe 1.5 hours) (using elshena)

[Soranika]

Why at 101 in abyssea. >.< You could skill that up faster at Zi'tah then head to Kuftal tunnal and got much higher than that in 45 mins.
I guess the atmas help, but skilling up is better and faster by taking on monsters 1/3 the level of your skill level (if I remember correctly)

Zachery, The boyada tree... everyone should remember and not forget that place. At 280 now though, abyssea is as good as any place now. I spent a good deal skilling up dagger naturally at abby-konschtat on leeches when I was amber farming for KI and wirve hairpin... that I've YET to get. ; ;

[Raksha]

Why at 101 in abyssea. >.< You could skill that up faster at Zi'tah then head to Kuftal tunnal and got much higher than that in 45 mins.
I guess the atmas help, but skilling up is better and faster by taking on monsters 1/3 the level of your skill level (if I remember correctly)

Zachery, The boyada tree... everyone should remember and not forget that place. At 280 now though, abyssea is as good as any place now. I spent a good deal skilling up dagger naturally at abby-konschtat on leeches when I was amber farming for KI and wirve hairpin... that I've YET to get. ; ;

well i'm ~240 now, and that only took like 3 hours.

100% zanshin helps.

[Zarchery]

Maybe I'm just beating my head against a wall on these fortalices. By now they're only lasting about 20 minutes when I'm wearing nothing but a Butterfly Axe, and getting maybe 1.5 points of skill each.

Come to think of it, I had H2H capped for 90 on MNK. After the level cap was raised I got to 95 fairly quickly and my H2H was still lagging behind. Managed to close the gap reasonably quickly by going MNK/DNC and just pounding on Duriumshell crabs in regular Vunkerl for a while.

Yesterday I went from 77 to 78 on Bluffalos in Uleguerand. Didn't even do the Dominion Op just so that XP would slow a little. Still, in the whole experience, only got 2 levels of great axe. It bothers me that it's just about impossible to keep combat and magic skills even with XP level growth, whereas it used to be pretty much guaranteed.

[SMD111]

i wish we could get a training zone that we could battle dummys for a while to skill up(even if it under limited time for each day)

[Ihnako]

Why does everybody request for a special zone just to recap it's skills cause he leveled faster that expected?
There are plenty hints how you can recap your skills. Just AFKing is for certain spells only.
Do something for your skill!

[SMD111]

thats why i included the (even if it under limited time for each day)

hell it could be 1 hr for each Earth day and each strike will only give you .01 for skill

the reason i ask is because the way it is right now if your not 95 you can not get a party unless you go to aby or book burn (which you can only skill up to the max of the level of your lvlsync)

[saevel]

Maybe I'm just beating my head against a wall on these fortalices. By now they're only lasting about 20 minutes when I'm wearing nothing but a Butterfly Axe, and getting maybe 1.5 points of skill each.

Come to think of it, I had H2H capped for 90 on MNK. After the level cap was raised I got to 95 fairly quickly and my H2H was still lagging behind. Managed to close the gap reasonably quickly by going MNK/DNC and just pounding on Duriumshell crabs in regular Vunkerl for a while.

Yesterday I went from 77 to 78 on Bluffalos in Uleguerand. Didn't even do the Dominion Op just so that XP would slow a little. Still, in the whole experience, only got 2 levels of great axe. It bothers me that it's just about impossible to keep combat and magic skills even with XP level growth, whereas it used to be pretty much guaranteed.

Ok you are missing something, most ppl in this thread are missing it. Skill up rates are determined by your current skill level vs the level of the monster. What it means is that if your skill is 200 and your fighting a level 98 monster, your skill is too low and you won't get many skill ups proced. Best thing to do is figure out what level your skill is at, not the raw number but what job level that would be capped at, then fight monsters 2~5 levels above that level. Using this method you'll skillup must faster then using level 70 skill vs a level 100+ monster (Buffalo).

[Kennx]

Skills need to be increased.... I think they should start at 0.1 then slowly increase by the hour skilling to 0.5. After say 5-10mins with out combating will reset the time.
Hour 1: 0.1 > 0.2 at about 20-30 swings / casts.
Hour 2: 0.2 > 0.3 at about 15-20 swings / casts.
Hour 3: 0.4 > 0.5 every 10-15 swings/casts.
Hour 4+: 0.5 every 7 swings / casts.

Something like this .... We really need a Little bit faster rate on skilling... I spent 7+ hours on Great Axe tonight to test some things and was only able to snag like 5-7 skill ups.... at that rate ill be cap around this time next year give or take.

[Ihnako]

Yesterday I made 25 SkillUps (Blue Magic and around 30 Sword) as a BLU just by spaming some spells. As RDM or BLM I could easily double it.
Today as a BST I gained 40 with axes within 3h.

So the rate is fine. You just have to find a good mob.

[Registeel]

2 handed weapons really are the only things I find a chore to skill. /SAM makes it go faster but, usually if you are skilling it's alone, meaning you are most likely /DNC, so lose out on that benefit. Even then, it's not 'horrible' I think. Yeah it's a bit zombifying to just be skilling all day, but I definitely see progress every time I go out to skill. Hell I took my shield from like 123 to 99 cap in less than 3 days. 320-ish -> cap in about an hour session as well in abyssea altepa haha.

Oh, guard is a whole different can of worms (parry too, but I have come to feel parry is just something you work on over the course of your FFXI career), but that's been touched upon in other threads already.

[Ihnako]

There is wa way to skill 2h-weapons faster, but the day you get the weapon done, your skill should be cap.
2-4 times weapons from Trial of the magians or regular multihit weapons like the sea version or NM drops (Soboro) or the Mercurical weapons.

But it's still pain in the ass...

[Sarick]

Two suggestions.

#1 Why not allow merits to be converted to skill ups? This is one way to use that FAST experience towards skill and balance things out. This is provided the main job has at least E skill. With the option to earn 1-3 skill ups per merit depending on current job skill rank. My guess is this wouldn't be game breaking.

#2 Skills like Parry and Guard should be more like evasion. Failures count towards skill up experience provided you're facing the enemy and engaged. Of all the skills only these two are broken without the use of tricks and long training.

[Rosalie]

I'm trying to do great axe from 200 to 280 on fortalices and getting about 3-6 points per hour, and that's with Elchenas. Either I'm doing something wrong or it's the game.

I'm open for suggestions really, if there's a decent way to do this.

Elshena is the wrong food for this tier--use Montagna.

[RAIST]

Elshena is the wrong food for this tier--use Montagna.

Think Elshina still appears to work at the higher tiers--at least it still seemed to apply with the oddballs I had leftover when I got on SMN to work on staff from 90 to 95 caps. While food was in effect it certainly seemed like I hit each point at a faster rate--only to have it slow down when it wore off and pick up again after taking another. I'm not the first to experience this either.

These are likely just different strength effects within the formula that affects the % chance to get a skillup and/or the quality of the skillup, not something designed to only affect your skillup rates within specific tiers of skill. Granted...the wiki is stating Montagna is for 300+ range specifically....but the other foods don't say that, and there is no source given to back up that claim either. It's kinda hard to nail it down because your skill is a constantly changing variable against a variably changing target, and under variable conditions that may affect it (in/out of abyssea, fluctuation in cruor buffs due to resistance activity, martial mastery applying or not, your own stats changing because you leveled up...). You can't necessarily reset your specific weapon to 250 skill and always duplicate the additional factors to try it again with the same target/conditions with a different food. Without specific controls for testing like that, short of a direct statement from SE it is all kind of open to speculation. But so far, it would seem that all of them MAY have an effect on the skillup progress, just to varying degrees of influence.

[Tsukino_Kaji]

Elshena dose work to cap, but it's for defencive skills only. I just used it to get shield from 220 to cap today.

[Sarick]

Yesterday I made 25 SkillUps (Blue Magic and around 30 Sword) as a BLU just by spaming some spells. As RDM or BLM I could easily double it.
Today as a BST I gained 40 with axes within 3h.

So the rate is fine. You just have to find a good mob.

I donno, my WHM has been stuck at 391 uncapped fighting decent challenge 92-93 mobs for 3 days. I'm talking 80% accuracy + WS WS WS Spirit Taker. This is with MAXED merits in staff skill. I honestly think it's broken because it's not blue yet after 42 man hours fighting DC mobs it's still 291!

The fact that my NPC fellow has leveled 81 > 87 in this time proves my failure to skill up on DC mobs isn't just my imagination. perhaps I need to find DC mobs with higher evasion skill to correct the failure to skill up. My main checks 92-93 crabs as having low evasion and high defense. Still decent challenge should be giving skill ups unless it's based VS evasion skill more then mob level.

[RAIST]

the DC tweak is against the level cap of our current skill level. 291 club skill is approaching level 82 caps for WHM. If you are trying to exploit that tweak, need to be looking for lower level mobs.

As always, finding level appropriate mobs is usually the biggest "tweak" you can do.

[Zarchery]

What about Healing Magic? As WHM it's up there, but nowhere near cap. And curing is practically all I do. I haven't really bothered trying, since, does higher healing actually DO anything? I guess it boosts cure potency, but my cures seem to be doing okay and the skill is somewhere around 290.

I did recently skill up hand to hand on MNK (capped at 95 in October on Duriumshell crabs in Vunkerl Inlet and recently capped for 99 on mandragoras in Abyssea Miseareaux). Also capped axe for BST. Most of the skilling was done on fortalices until around 270, then went the rest of the way a bit on Abyssea partying but mostly, again, on the mandragoras. Used about 3 stacks of Saltenas for the whole thing.

Way I figure it, the time to cap each of these skills was about the same amount of time it would have taken to get from 70-75 in the olden days. Which I guess isn't too bad.

[Sarick]

the DC tweak is against the level cap of our current skill level. 291 club skill is approaching level 82 caps for WHM. If you are trying to exploit that tweak, need to be looking for lower level mobs.

As always, finding level appropriate mobs is usually the biggest "tweak" you can do.

I made a mistake in the type, I'm stuck at 391 not 291..

It's still stuck at 391 after getting another NPC fellow level.

[Sarick]

What about Healing Magic? As WHM it's up there, but nowhere near cap. And curing is practically all I do. I haven't really bothered trying, since, does higher healing actually DO anything? I guess it boosts cure potency, but my cures seem to be doing okay and the skill is somewhere around 290.

I did recently skill up hand to hand on MNK (capped at 95 in October on Duriumshell crabs in Vunkerl Inlet and recently capped for 99 on mandragoras in Abyssea Miseareaux). Also capped axe for BST. Most of the skilling was done on fortalices until around 270, then went the rest of the way a bit on Abyssea partying but mostly, again, on the mandragoras. Used about 3 stacks of Saltenas for the whole thing.

Way I figure it, the time to cap each of these skills was about the same amount of time it would have taken to get from 70-75 in the olden days. Which I guess isn't too bad.


THESE are the mobs I'm skilling on now with that WHM stuck at 391.

Unfortunately, I think you are overlooking the key element to skilling up.

Dedication.

I skilled up both my magics 2 separate characters in 3 days from 95 caps to 99 caps. I did this without the skillup foods or GoV benefits.

RDM > Enfeebling, Enhancing, divine, elemental, dark and healing.

WHM > Healing, Enhancing, Enfeebling and Divine.


Here's how..

Enhancing spam barspells 20 hours.
Healing spam cure 1 on yourself 20 hours.

The next 3 work best with someone else tanking.
Enfeebling spam dia 5 hours on IT mobs.
Elemental spam stone 5 hours on IT mobs.
Dark Spam bio and bio 2 on IT mobs 5 hours.
Divine, Alternate Flash and Banish or just banish every 15 seconds for 10 hours on IT mobs if the tank loses hate easy.

Add all these times together comes too 65 man hours or 2.7 days. If you dedicate a bit of time to each skill by training instead of casually using skills in parties they will cap easily in a few hours. The times I listed are well beyond the time it took for me to get each skill 95 > 99. I used the hours as a baseline reference your results may very however, if spammed these skills should cap before the hours listed.

Best advice ever "Work smarter not harder"

[RAIST]

I made a mistake in the type, I'm stuck at 391 not 291..

It's still stuck at 391 after getting another NPC fellow level.

Kinda the same principal applies. 391 club is 1 point bast 97 caps for WHM, so you are working towards level 98. A 92-93 level target at that point is leaning more towards the EP end of the spectrum (esp. if you are gearing a little for melee, subbing a job that may give any ACC/ATT bonus, etc.) . The concept is basically that your target needs to have some level of difficulty to hit it consistently for a decent amount of damage to get a decent skillup rate. Otherwise you may thwack forever to get a louzy .1 skillup.

If you are 99, might want to move to something a little closer to your level or higher if you can take them on. For example, I had no problem hitting 99 caps on the dhalmels in Aby Altep on DRG....I left shortly after capping it and I'm still about 20k from capping xp on that job. I was soloing it the last few levels to 99 and consistently recapped PA before dinging the next level. Kinda sorta doing that now on SMN too. Capped staff at 97 and got club within 6 points of cap today in just under 2 hours, still about 10k from hitting 98...thwacking nothing but crabs that were running DC to VT at 97 (mostly EM/T). It was actually skilling quite nicely with NO SKILLLUP FOOD (used the candy ring from my dream platter, 4 DEX/4AGL, only swapping to DD gears for WS, otherwise in backline gears). I got 16k into 97 from Bastion before heading to Aby Grauberg, so I got 7 points on staff and almost 8 on club within roughly 27k worth of xp solo (2280 xp per page every 5 kills, so it wasn't a whole lot of fighting). Granted, mobs that reach T/VT level may be a bit rough solo on WHM (remember doing Aby-Uly Raptors on WHM for a trial at 90...that was a lot of fun). But, you should be able to find something more along the EM lines to work with--especially if you hit abyssea mobs.

[Sarick]

Kinda the same principal applies. 391 club is 1 point bast 97 caps for WHM, so you are working towards level 98. A 92-93 level target at that point is leaning more towards the EP end of the spectrum (esp. if you are gearing a little for melee, subbing a job that may give any ACC/ATT bonus, etc.) . The concept is basically that your target needs to have some level of difficulty to hit it consistently for a decent amount of damage to get a decent skillup rate. Otherwise you may thwack forever to get a louzy .1 skillup.
.

I think I'm going to go fight the IT's again I'm tough enough to duo them as RDM/WHM + WHM/SCH straight tank as I did this farming LB items and skilling up magics as listed above. I'm going to point this out a second time, I'm talking "staff" not club. Club was capped on these same mobs a few days ago so I assumed staff would raise at the same rate. last night I did get 0.4 skill up and staff (unmodified by merits) reported a 1 point skill up to 372. Basically, it now says on the skills 392 staff instead of 391 :) I think I need those VT-IT's mobs again :mad:

[RAIST]

Ahhhh... now I see some of the confusion....you are reporting adjusted skill after merits/gear. WHM natural cap for staff at 99 is 378, club is 404. The numbers combined with my blondeness and I was jumping straight to what sounded more like the proper weapon type for the different numbers I was seeing (the WHM's I know worry more about clubs than staff, and it didn't dawn on me that 291 might be a typo).

So yeah...if your Natural skill on staff is at 372 on WHM, than you are in the last tier to 99 caps already (371 is 98 cap), so you will probably want at least a high-end DC or higher for any kind of decent skillup rate to happen.

[Sarick]

Ahhhh... now I see some of the confusion....you are reporting adjusted skill after merits/gear. WHM natural cap for staff at 99 is 378, club is 404. The numbers combined with my blondeness and I was jumping straight to what sounded more like the proper weapon type for the different numbers I was seeing (the WHM's I know worry more about clubs than staff, and it didn't dawn on me that 291 might be a typo).

So yeah...if your Natural skill on staff is at 372 on WHM, than you are in the last tier to 99 caps already (371 is 98 cap), so you will probably want at least a high-end DC or higher for any kind of decent skillup rate to happen.

I capped it on the VT and IT mobs in under 2 hours. The higher level mobs (102-105) raised it fast.

[Zarchery]

THESE are the mobs I'm skilling on now with that WHM stuck at 391.
The next 3 work best with someone else tanking.
Enfeebling spam dia 5 hours on IT mobs.
Elemental spam stone 5 hours on IT mobs.
Dark Spam bio and bio 2 on IT mobs 5 hours.
Divine, Alternate Flash and Banish or just banish every 15 seconds for 10 hours on IT mobs if the tank loses hate easy.


Well I did do many hours of dedicated training about a year ago to cap Dark, Enfeebling, Divine, and Elemental magic for WHM and BLM, to level 90. Did that by spamming spells on worms in Abyssea Uleguerand for a while. Maybe took 20 hours total for all of them. When they raised the cap to 95 then later to 99, I just didn't have the patience for it (I tend to look at a lot of things in this game in a frame of mind of "is it fun and if not is it worth the effort?). I capped Elemental Magic for 95 quite by accident when I was nuking mobs to do Darkness staff magian trials. It's still not capped for 99 though, and the other skills are all somewhere slightly above the cap for 90 I guess.

But the part where you suggested spamming spells on IT mobs is troubling. You said you'd need a tank, but that's someone to stand around and hold hate for hours upon hours while I spam spells. I have some very helpful friends who would drop everything to help me some times, but even they have limits.

Still, I might mosey on up to Uleguerand again and try those worms once more. I managed to cap H2H for MNK and Axe for BST up to level 99 in a not terribly long time (maybe 6-8 hours). Though those jobs had the luxury of being able to skill against mobs that could fight back. WHM and BLM are a lot squishier.

[Kristal]

No amount of dedication is going to help you skill up Guard though... you need some epic patience to see that get anywhere near 75 cap, let alone 99...

[saevel]

No amount of dedication is going to help you skill up Guard though... you need some epic patience to see that get anywhere near 75 cap, let alone 99...

Guard and Parry are things SE needs to fix, and fix asap.

[Ihnako]

Parry levels it self and I don't know any PLD that hasn't caped parry.
Guard is a topic for it self.