Farm PT Seal R.I.P.

[Waldrich]

IMO, Something need to be done about Farming seals. everyone have their seals... 1-2 hours to get a party together isn't fun or it isn't acceptable for players that plays only 1-5 hours per day, (this isn't my case), but I'll keep saying now and forever, we need "MORE PLAYERS" nor "LESS"

This is an issue in the game, all hardcore or semi-hardcore players will say farming seal is too easy, if I had 1 or 2 mules yes >.> I'd say it's too easy/too fast.

Square Enix, please plan better their events. time sink isn't fun it's time wasted with boreness.

[Komori]

Making friends is an easy way to get around making two mules.

A friend with a BLM and a second friend with a NIN and your WHM, your suddenly good to go.

[Godofgods]

Making friends is an easy way to get around making two mules.

Thats true. We all no that ffxi players are the most helpful bunch in to world! They are always so kind, generous, and so selfless. Its truly amazing.

Actually, making a seal pt is rather annoying, because most ppl don't need them any more. Even getting a pt of three ppl is a hardship in its self. I am usually very lucky if i can ever get a single person to reply to a seal pt.
And most ppl don't wanna help either. Partly because their so self indulging, and part because it can take so very long. Their are times iv been fighting a nm for seals for like 2 hours (with procs) and still couldn't get my seal to drop. Helping might be one thing, but noone wants to with that kind of uncertainty.

[Komori]

LS member yesterday needed to gear his COR, we did Borer for an hour and a half, then Pasperpot for another hour. No one else needed seals.

I know it's hard to shout these days, but that's why I said friends; not strangers. Seal NMs are not that hard and typically with a good group can go down within sixty seconds after proccing yellow or finding you don't have proc.

[Luvbunny]

How many other members you need to make seal party? Just one actually. Blue/Ninja and Blm/whm can pretty much duo most of the hand, head, leg, feet seals and some NMs for body seals. Dual box it all the time. Covering almost all 4 procs spell with exception of bard. What other duo set up jobs can you make? Oh plenty actually. For tank, any of these jobs will do: ninja, dancer, thief, blue, puppet master, mnk. And for the second player, you will need blm for sure, with a whm to round up the third or bard/whm. As Komori mentioned, grab a few shell members before you grab randoms. These seals NMs are not that hard to solo - duo, more players better proc and better drop rate, plus faster kill.

[Mirage]

blu/nin + blm/brd covers most bases. Add a whm/whatever if you really want.

Personally, I didn't care about covering every single spell, and just went with somethingevasive/nin and blm/somethingwithcure. In the rare cases that we bothered waiting for a third, we'd get a blu or whm.

-edit-
forgot to mention that dnc/nin is good, because then the blm can sub brd instead of something with healing spells. That leaves out only blu and whm spells. Farming seals on days where you can't get light elemental weaknesses eliminates the possibility of the weakness being a whm spell.

This was relatively easy for me when I was at level 90-95 (haven't played since that was the cap), with pretty average gear. Now at 99, it should be practically impossible to die to most seal NMs if you know more than half of your job's capabilities.

[Godofgods]

And all of that is assuming every player has blu or blm and are fully geared and capable of solo/duoing their nms. A lot of ppl dont have either of those jobs. Or maybe dont get to play often enough to be able to solo mobs.

[Mirage]

No, it assumes that you know one or two out of the 1500 people online that has blm or blu leveled. You can do it with pretty basic gear, at least at level 99. A THF (or dnc) tank can deal with most NMs with a mix of SH(or alcide's) aurore gear, the lv50 JSE body, swift belt and a few (relatively) cheap AH evasion pieces like blur mantle, scouter's rope and evasion torque. And of course high evasion skill. Clearly, you're not gonna get anywhere with 150 evasion skill because you bookburned/keywhored.

[Meyi]

Yep. All you need is BLU/NIN and BLM/BRD to proc all spells provided it's not Lightningsday, Lightsday, or Darksday. Bring a tank (THF or NIN) and you're good to go. BLU can cure the tank or if the tank subs DNC, can usually cure themselves. I've duoed a lot of seals for people as BLM and them as a tank, and it usually went okay. Took hours, but was okay.

If you want fast kills, I'd suggest a THF, BLU/NIN, BLM/BRD, and WHM/RDM. Find yellow, proc it, and zerg it down.

Edit: Just realized, it'd be nice if there was a way to lock onto seals that the party is after. Some sort of item that persuades the monster to have an affinity towards one job. Not that it'll always drop that seal, but that that seal is more likely to fall would be awesome. :) A lot of times my groups just want one kind of seal and it's usually the one seal that doesn't drop.

[Komori]

Just last night my friend Arch needed Paladin Body. So I shouted once for Blanga; not only did I get three people who needed seals. But two friends of mine joined for the sake of just helping me out. Eventually when we got to Blanga; there was another party there, but they only needed the one seal we didn't. So we had 12 people collecting pops/procing Blanga/bringing him down.

I really don't see what people mean by seal party are dead.

[Glamdring]

Just last night my friend Arch needed Paladin Body. So I shouted once for Blanga; not only did I get three people who needed seals. But two friends of mine joined for the sake of just helping me out. Eventually when we got to Blanga; there was another party there, but they only needed the one seal we didn't. So we had 12 people collecting pops/procing Blanga/bringing him down.

I really don't see what people mean by seal party are dead.

true enough, if you go at a time the server is populated you would be amazed at the number of people available that just need that 1-2 odds and ends seal to finish a set. Now the only problem you have is the usual PUG issue: have you "picked up" a batch of blithering idiots?

[Komori]

We had two or three empyreans in the seal group because my friend was coming along with his 90 Masa and the other's group was a LS party so they also had Masa and Kannagi.

Of course not every PUG short will be empy and 12+ people. But it shouldn't be this long.

[Godofgods]

While the overall seal process sucks now with lack of people, i don't see how they would really be able to reduce that aspect anymore. However what they could do is alter the drops both on NM's and quests.

For quests, sometimes you get a seal, some times your don't. If you do get one, you should be able to chose which one you want. The utter randomness is why almost noone bothers doing quests for seals.

And as for nms, the randomness factor can be just as much of a pain. Their have times iv gone 10 nms in a row (that were proced) and still not get a single seal i wanted. I would suggest altering it to: if proced, mobs drops 1 of each of the four seals he carries. At least that way, you know you would get some of what you need, and you know exactly how many mobs it would take (assuming u can proc)

[Luvbunny]

There is also quests and dominion page rewards, yes these are ridiculously random and not very reliable, but it's good to do every vana game day just to try your luck. I can see how newer players find it hard to make seal farming party, but as many have mentioned, this is a rather social game, your attitude, niceness, and kindness go a long way to make a relationship with your other players. If all you do is "help me help me help me" then you wont get far at all, instead you should also ask "what can I do for you - does anyone needs seal xyz - does anyone need help". Make friends, it should be easier here than in real life, unless you are selfish ignorant person who thinks all about what you want and need.

I don't think they need to change the way seal farming is done. At least not now. It is one of the few ways to encourage you meet random strangers and force you to make a party, remember that old school thing called "make a party"? Fighting seal NMs is also a great way to max your skill ups btw, in case people wonder how to do it.