Paths to obtaining level 119 armor

[cheyrn]

My one lv99 character is a RDM. I want to get level 119 armor of any kind so that I can experience more of the game content. Beyond that I want various armor because of it's appearance, like the rdm atrophy armor. But, there is a limit to what I would go through in order to get the armor.

I am in the early parts of rhapsodies of vanadiel and adoulin missions and abyssea. I have done no assault missions yet. Windurst, Zilart and CoP are done.

Atrophy armor is both a goal in itself and a way to get level 119 armor. 5 trust npcs and I with wayfarer armor level 117, tried to fight the Ark Angel HM on very easy mode and didn't make the slightest dip in his HP before wiping.

Is there just something I didn't do that would make the fight possible? Also, if I had other level 119 gear would that be a big enough difference to make the fight possible? Finding people to spend 15 merit points to do the fight with me seems unlikely.

I can get some of the rem's tales chapters 6+ from the login campaign and the chapters 2-5 from SKCNM and sparks of eminence, and more limbus, I guess.

Do you have advice about either getting 119 gear or the atrophy +1 gear in particular?

[Vashkoda]

Your armor is wayfarer 117, but what is your weapon? That will determine the level of your trust npcs (so ideally, get a 119 weapon first). Buying one off the ah might be the fastest and easiest, but ah-bought gear is quickly beaten by augmentable gear you can get from endgame events. Assuming you are far enough in SoA to have explored Yorcia, you can shout for a alluvion skirmish run, which drops decent basic 119 gear. Hopefully you have friends or lsmates who can at least guide you through a run. If not, or you are hell-bent on soloing everything yourself, merit bcnms like you are doing drop a few ok basic 119 items, but these items are scattered over multiple different bcnms, each with horrible drop rates at anything below "normal" difficulty settings. You should also be sure your trust setup is optimized with the best trusts for each job, and the right job for what you need. Alternatively, you can level a job other than rdm. Rdm can be very powerful, but it requires a lot of skill and specialized gear. Leveling from 0 to 99 on any job is a matter of a few hours or a few days, depending on whether you have any help. Once you have a job that has an easier time with soloing stuff, like bst or blu, you can use them to collect gear for the jobs you actually want to play. If you choose to only play rdm, you will have a difficult time finding a spot in the "cookie cutter" setups most people like to use for endgame events.

Also, make sure you optimize your character. Since it sounds like you are a returning player, or starting from scratch, you may or may not be aware of merits and job points. Make sure you cap those ASAP, and your performance should get a lot better. Food and elixirs are also very helpful if you need that extra boost, and with the curio moogles selling most items you might need, there's really no excuse not to use them.

[cheyrn]

My sword is an emminent saber level 117. I am collecting merit points in kamhir drifts. Getting there involved going through yorcia weald which involved other things. Doh gates is slightly tough so I get merit points more slowly there. I don't have a single job point yet.

RDM is what I wanted to play from the start. It's always been disliked except during the period when we were the only way to get refresh. I have an unpredictable schedule and pretty much have to play solo for the most part. And, I've assumed RDM is not wanted.

I've been staying way from things referred to as end-game because I'm not there yet. But, I'll look into jumping ahead to participating in skirmish for armor/weapon.

I'm also interested to know if anyone else has pursued reforged artifact armor +1 and if it was done using the BCNM's and limbus alone, or for example accumulating an huge number of sparks of eminence, etc.

[Vashkoda]

There is no way you could be getting experience/merit points in SoA zones and not be getting job points, as those are gained from even killing the most basic mobs in those areas (however, you will not gain them from killing mobs in old zones, as the mobs are too low level, even if you still gain exp from them). My guess is that you forgot (or didn't know) to unlock the ability to accumulate job points by talking to Maat's moogle in Jueno. All you need is to talk to the moogle on a lev 99 job, and you're good to go (you will only accumulate them on 99 jobs, and only for the job you happen to be on when you kill the right mobs, but since you seem to only play rdm anyway, that won't be a problem for you).

If you are lucky to be around when events first get released, you have no problem finding willing participants, and so most people who were around when merit bcnms were first released got to spam them to death and accumulate more REM chapters than they knew what to do with. So for your question on how people reforged their artifact gear, I would say it wasn't even an issue back in the day. I had done a ton of limbus and had all my artifact gear +1 already, so I went directly from that to 109 using whatever REM chapters I had lying around. Nowadays I accumulate so many sparks from repeating basic RoEs while farming or doing regular activities that just for the hell of it, sometimes I convert some to REM chapters to keep from overflowing past the limit and losing them (it is much easier now that you can store them with the upgrade npc instead of having the chapters take up precious inventory space). If I were you, I would be sure that those pieces are really what you want to spend time and money upgrading. For rdm af, the hands are nice for enhancing duration and the legs for enh/cure potency, but the rest of the set is kind of 'meh'. Relic head and feet are good for enfeebles, for instance. Empyrean hand, legs and feet are ok, but being able to upgrade those will require that you beat Vagary, which you don't seem ready to do.

Also, you said your weapon was a single saber. Keep in mind that dual-wielding by subbing /dnc, for example, might allow you to kill things faster than single wielding a sword (assuming that's what you're doing). Also, make sure you do coalition assignments, as those offer quite a bit of merits and bayld (I believe 13,200 for turning in one vanadium ore using 3 imprimateurs is the highest rate, but the courrier's assignment for warping to kamhir drift outposts probably requires the least amount of effort). I've leveled quite a few of my mule's jobs to 99 this way.

[cheyrn]

Actually, I do have 1 job point now and almost 10000 capacity points. I accumulate limit points at something like 4000 per fight but around 300 capacity points for that same fight.

For using /dnc I would have eminent dagger on one hand and same vastly lower dagger for the right hand. Right now there is one dagger for lvl99 rdm in the AH and it is going for many millions of gil, which I don't have. But, I am planning to explore that.

Spending sparks of eminence on rem's tales would take me a long time the way things are now. 80,000 sparks for one piece of reforged af +1 armor. Most quests result in 100 sparks.

Atrophy armor is a goal in itself because it looks like the original RDM AF gear and it looks like I could actually wear it while playing. I am also doing abyssea and dynamis for the game content so might shift my attention away to relic or empyrean armor depending on how things go.

[Urthdigger]

Probably your best bet for getting level 119 would be Alluvion Skirmish. Obtain copper vouchers by doing daily objectives, and convert them into obsidian fragments. Then when doing alluvion skirmish, turn them into puissance to summon your army. This lets you avoid needing to actually fight while obtaining a set of decent ilvl 119 gear.

[cheyrn]

Thank you. Can you elaborate a little? How do I turn the obsidian fragments into puissance? I read a description of alluvian skirmish referring to summoning pets. How do I do that? I entered skirmish approached the cantonment and was then swarmed and died after a couple of minutes. Clicking on the cantonment seems to do nothing.

[Urthdigger]

Cantonments are in regular Yorcia skirmish, not Alluvion Yorcia Skirmish. The difference is you turn in a eudaemon item alongside your simulacrum pieces when making the entry item to create a different KI called a "Yorcia Eudaemon". While both focus on defending a base, the regular Yorcia skirmish requires you to run out there and fight them yourself, while alluvion's version has you using a book to summon various Valiant monsters to fight for you. It costs Puissance to do so, which you earn by either defeating certain twitherym and fluterini mobs within the skirmish, or by using the book to convert obsidian fragments into puissance.

You'll probably use a couple thousand puissance per floor in my experience, so come prepared with plenty of fragments (you can do multiple floors a run, and should to increase rewards). I generally find upgrading the book to access higher tier monsters to be a waste, just make do with crabs, colibri, and the shijin (which one you get depends on the eudaemon item used)

[cheyrn]

Since writing the text below, I got further. On the first floor, at least, there is a book that is behind and to your left when you enter. If you choose exchange, you can exchange obsidian shards for "motes of puissance". A worm Valiant is 80 puissance and a crab was the same I think. I spent the 1000 puissance exchanged from obsisian shards.

The worms don't move and protect the marchland. The crabs attack the malicious enemies and then switch to attacking the stronghold when they can. I guess, you run around trying to find the escalents to kill, get more puissance and run back to the book to buy more valiants. This later part I didn't figure out until the marchland was almost gone.

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I got into alluvian skirmish this time, but didn't figure out how to summon valiants. After entering from the augural conveyor, there is a book and another waypoint. The book describes the objectives and what valiants are. But, I did not see a way to summon valiants. Going onto the first floor, I did not see a book. There is a marchland standing totem thingy and near by there is a noetic ascension. At the noetic ascension I purchased 20 motes of puissance. Essentially, that is what got as a result of clicking the menu item about puissance. But, then what do I do? How do I summon valiants? I fought one escalent and then the marchland was destroyed and that was the end of that.

For anyone reading who doesn't know this, to get the Yorcia eudaemon you have to talk to Lola then Oston back and forth many times (not Lola twice), the key being that Oston eventually asks for the 3 segments and the 4th item.

[Kensagaku]

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. :)

[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.