How much can be accomplished solo?

[Yeonan]

Hey all ^^

I'm a returning player of many years with a fresh start.

I know my way around (had multiple 99's and good gear in the past) but one thing I was really curious about now is how much can I attain as a solo player?

Sure getting to 99 will be easy enough, and it's not that I never want to get into CP parties but wheres the "bar" set for those types of parties?

Will I be able to garner good enough gear on my own to be up to par for the occasional CP party?

I know it'll be a long road and i'm not worried about that. I'm just curious if I should even consider being able to get in on the group action down the road or if i'll be relegated to solo play (which is fine)

Thanks in advance.

P.S. i'm not talking about being geared to the teeth but rather "decent"

[Sirmarki]

You will be able to get yourself to a good 'standard' solo, and ready for a CP party.

Just don't join a CP party in sparks gear :)

[Aysha]

From someone who just re-subbed in November, best I can tell, you can do the following solo:

1). Most Pre-Adoulin Endgame, except for Dynamis - Beucadine and above (basically anything that can cast Death or use Instant Death abilities). Be careful of mobs that have charm. Charm instantly unsummons your Trusts, but Trusts are immune to charm.

2). All Storylines except for maybe the last few of Adoulin. And I think maybe even that can be solo'd. I don't know, I can't find a wiki that says one way or the other.

3). Rhapsodies of Vana'diel. Assuming you don't mind being a tank job, you can solo clear up to the very end of RoV (and very well should ASAP!).

As for Current Content (anything yielding Item-Level):

Skirmish up to, and including Yorcia Weald (I don't know if Ra'Kaznar can be solo'd, haven't tried it yet). Yorcia Weald is much easier with a helper, though. I did that duo with a family member.

Yorcia Weald Alluvion Skirmish (use the Sash). I haven't tried this, but I've heard others say it is do-able.

Ambuscade Vol2 Very Easy (don't do this on a highly populated server; people will hate you). It's probably better to wait for a VD shout wanting a job you've got on 99. As long as you got 119 gear and have sushi you should be fine as long as you are the job they're asking for.

Escha/Reisenjima: You can solo the normal mobs there, but buy a mollifier. Without one, you will die the moment you get unlucky enough to pop an NM. I would not try this unless you are Lv119, the mobs in these places hurt (except for the <99 mobs in Zi'tah and the Z'dei in Ru'aun near the entrance, but those don't give enough xp/cp/silt to bother with).

If you haven't yet, do all the RoE objectives in Tutorial -> Basics and then Tutorial -> Intermediate to get yourself a suit of 119 gear. Even your AF+1 is miles better than the sparks crap you start with. I'd say from there, try to get into Ambuscade if you can, at least enough to get a suit of NQ that lets you do a little better. Unless of course you are able to get the HQ then by all means, go for that.

Weapons... eh, that's the bad part. You'll get one 119 weapon out of the RoE objective Kupons, and if you're a dual-wield, you will probably use the one bought with Bayld (Homestead) until you find something better. Probably use that until Su1 (Arasy). I would not suggest grinding CP until you get at least one of the CP Rhapsodies. The second CP Rhapsody I do not recommend attempting without at least 1 player to help you, or 119 gear + 119 weapon. Sempurne is not an easy solo, depending on your job.

Once you're in Ambuscade 119s, 119 Kupon weapon, and the RoV storyline done, you should be reasonably ready for CP groups assuming you're a melee or support. I read somewhere, that mages are expected to be geared better. If you're a melee, you just need to be able to hit the mobs and do skillchains (Ambuscade armor is loaded with accuracy which helps).

Doing CP parties without RoV done is kinda a waste of time, that 90% CP bonus is ridiculous. It'd be stupid to get into a group and get only half the CP you should be getting.

EDIT: Get the first Rhapsody ASAP. IIRC, it has no level requirement. The only requirement is being able to reach Selbina or Mhaura safely (and you need to farm/buy 3 mob drops). It also gives you a teleport to Norg at the beginning of the game which is helpful too for when you need to go there for other stuff later (job quests etc). But the first Rhapsody alone gives you +30% XP gains (among another huge list of stuff), so getting that ASAP should be your first priority. Second Rhapsody, solo that at Lv55-60. Another +30% bonus, lol.

[Yeonan]

@Aysha:

Wow thanks very much!! Very detailed.

I do have to say I love that you can solo so much these days, it makes the game so much more accessible but leaves top-tier stuff for groups.

[Sirmarki]

@Aysha:

Wow thanks very much!! Very detailed.

I do have to say I love that you can solo so much these days, it makes the game so much more accessible but leaves top-tier stuff for groups.

Yep. I think its a fair balance.

[xiozen]

@Aysha:

Wow thanks very much!! Very detailed.

I do have to say I love that you can solo so much these days, it makes the game so much more accessible but leaves top-tier stuff for groups.

Agreed. Nice contribution to the post.

[Aysha]

My thanks for the kind replies.

When I first came back in November, I was kinda stumbling around in the dark, because the two "main" wikis (bg-wiki and ffxiclopedia) are missing big chunks of information, especially like "Can I solo this?" and we had to either just try it, or try to figure out from reading on here or asking questions elsewhere, etc.

So I thought I'd post what little I know about FFXI's endgame lol.

Still a lot of things I don't know yet, so I'm no expert.