What is the most self-sufficient single Job/Subjob combination (all gameplay)?

[Eice]

Hello! I'm coming back to FFXI from a two or three year hiatus. It'll be about 8 hours before the updating is done, so I'm having fun thinking of what to do when I get back in.

I have rdm75,nin40,sch40,whm38,blm37 as my main jobs that I had leveled (I quit before the level cap increased, before abyssea or however you call it).

Still, I'm curious ... what would y'all say is the best single Job/Sub combination to be the most self-sufficient in as many aspects of gameplay as possible? Not just fighting, but also traveling and things of that nature.

/whm49 is the only way to be self-sufficient with all of the teleports (very attractive to me)

/blm is the only way to have warp (unless there is a new way for infinite "go home" ability?)


So, what do y'all think is the best single combination? I'm thinking of keeping my RDM as my main (I solo mostly) and seeing how much I can solo as RDM99/WHM49.

The only thing I would be missing would be a "warp" feature/spell (unless there is a new way to do that which won't run out of "charges" or uses?)

[katz]

Dont know how long you been away but people rarely use teleports to get about these days. Abyssea maws make it possible to get to most places or voidwatch officers.

[Eice]

I started July 25 of 2006. I stopped sometime in 2008, about midway through the year. I was gone long before abyssea. Pardon my ignorance, what's an abyssea maw and how does that make it possible to get to most places?

If maws are the new travel thing to where I can go almost anywhere with them, I'll probably just stay rdm99/nin49 (when I get there).


I was reading a lot of different topics and now I'm wondering ... is FFXI more solo-friendly now than it was before? When I left you could solo -some- things, but you still had to be careful walking around some parts of the world because you could still die fairly easily.


If it's more solo-friendly, that kind of negates my hypothetical haha!

[Alpheus]

Abyssea Maws are basically WotG Maws except they lead to the Abyssea Add on areas. Since you unlock direct warps to the maws you also unlock direct warps to the areas they are located in.

Since VW is basically a series of fights rather than entrances to areas, it also offers direct warps to areas in which those fights take place.

[Eice]

Abyssea Maws are basically WotG Maws except they lead to the Abyssea Add on areas. Since you unlock direct warps to the maws you also unlock direct warps to the areas they are located in.

Since VW is basically a series of fights rather than entrances to areas, it also offers direct warps to areas in which those fights take place.

I'm sorry, could you clarify that a little? I bought WotG, but I didn't actually play any of it before I quit. I know there are "maws" or something, but I have no idea what they are for and never entered one.

What do you mean "you unlock direct warps to the maws"? Do you mean you get abilities that work like the teleport and warp spells that allow you to go to those areas whenever you want regardless of job?

Also, what is "VW" and is "direct warps" the same idea?


For instance, if I'm standing in the middle of Valkurm ... could I "direct warp" to one of the maws or something? How many different maws are there/are they close to cities?

I know you can raise a chocobo, so I assume it won't be too hard to use that once you've gotten to a maw?

[Mirage]

No. You can warp from cities to the entrances to various abyssea and voidwatch areas, but not back via the same method.

[Alpheus]

Apologies VW = Voidwatch a endgame event that was added recently-ish.

By direct warps I meant that for VW you pop NMs in zones and SE has added zone warps for ease of access to these zones.

[Motenten]

Abyssea:

An NPC in each city can warp you to the maw for each of the 9 zones for the cost of 200 cruor (a sort of currency you get by doing stuff in Abyssea or Voidwatch; 200 cruor is cheap). You gain access to them by visiting the maw manually once and getting a cutscene. The locations of the maws are:

La Theine, near the zone to Ronfaure
Konschat, near the zone to Gustaberg
Tahrongi, near the zone to Sarutabaruta
Buburimu, a bit east of the outpost
Valkurm, on the beach east of Selbina
Jugner, a bit east of the outpost
North Gustaberg, upper level, north/west end
South Gustaberg, south end
Xarcabard, a bit east of the telepoint

Since several of those are near outposts, even though you can't directly go from the maw back to a city, you can usually warp back to your home nation. So if you set your homepoint in Jeuno, between warps, outposts and maw teleports, you can get to most common areas fairly quickly.


Voidwatch:

Voidwatch expands that further, providing about a half dozen teleport points per 'region' (eg: zones for the Windurst mob path, zones for the Bastok mob path, etc), with the regions being: Windurst, Bastok, San d'Oria, Jeuno, Zilart, TAU, COP. You gain access to these as you progress through the storyline. In this case, the NPC will teleport you for 1000 cruor.

And as a final bonus, the cost of Warp Scrolls was dropped dramatically, now only costing 10 conquest points instead of 750 or whatever it was before, so there's no reason not to always have a warp scroll on you.


Altogether, it's very easy to quickly get to most places in the game now. It's still useful to have whm or blm, though, for Recall- teleports and Retrace (lvl 53-55 for these things) to quickly get to the past, though admittedly there's not a lot you need to go to the past for nowadays.


As for the original question, rdm would be good, as would dnc and nin/dnc. Nin gets its 25% movement at night, dnc gets Chocobo Jig for faster movement, all of them get good sneak/invis options, rdm and dnc can heal well, nin/dnc can heal adequately and gets better shadows, etc. Aside from maybe bst, those three seem the best general "I can get anywhere I need and get whatever I need done, done" jobs, though they're hardly the only options, just what came to mind most easily.

[Arcon]

Like in your previous thread, I think you put a little too much merit on warping/teleing. It is still useful at times, but like many people pointed out, there are alternatives. There are few places left that teleing will get you to faster than VW warps or Horst warps, and as for getting back, death warp is almost always an option unless you're stuck in a low-level zone, for which case you should have a warp cudgel ready (or a Treat Staff II, if you have one).

As for content, it's a lot solo friendlier now. Like I said, the majority of old content can be done solo now, due to the level cap increase, even on jobs less suited for it than RDM is. RDM will have no problem with most of it, until it gets to the very end of mission lines which still require a party (as in two or three people).

[Economizer]

Game is way more solo friendly. But while a WHM/DNC or a WHM/NIN would be incredibly self sufficient and able to travel most anywhere easily (the books by the teles make it easy to get home without Instant-Warp, although Instant-Warp is only 10 CP now) you can't easily or efficiently solo things like Dynamis that a BST/DNC would favor.

The only thing I would be missing would be a "warp" feature/spell (unless there is a new way to do that which won't run out of "charges" or uses?)

Every warp bar spells like what White Mage can cast has a cost or has a long cooldown. So while you can do Outpost Warps (Conquest/Gil), Maw Warp or Voidwatch Warp (cruor), Book Warp (Tabs), they'd cost resources just the same as Warp Cudgel (AH or Crafting) or Waystone Earrings (Synergy, Silver Earring + ~10k gil Waystone from NPC for 30 charges).

Moving around isn't hard at all in this game, and if you do need to do running, 12% extra movement speed is almost always easier to get (unless you happen to be a White Mage or Black Mage... seriously SE, did NQ Hexed boots really have to have 8% movement speed, weren't they gimp enough?). Plus you can use a Chocobo Whistle if you've taken the time to raise a Chocobo.