Fast exp, slow skillups.

[Landar]

So, exp gain has gotten pretty crazy since I last played 8 years ago. ...I have mixed feeling about that but it's not what I want to rant about.

... it's the fact that, after 8 years, with the exp gain faster, skill gain has not gotten any better. For a melee job like samurai or dragoon it's not as daunting with one weapon skill to focus on, but with a mage job...oh god! When you're leveling in alliances, there is no time to nuke a mob. Because enemies get killed so fast, nobody needs healing, and there is little time to drop enfeebles. If you're a dark knight, you pretty much exclusively have to use dark magic, or it'll be underleveled like nobody's business. I guess of all the mage jobs, Black and Blue have it the easiest since their main skills are always used, and t1 nukes grant skillup all the way to max. ...if there's time to cast more than 1 per mob. ...And don't even get me started on enhancing magic.

My point is, mages spend more time out of parties and events skilling up magic than a melee will on weapons. Something needs to be done to buff magic skill gains. This is very very painful and making me not want to play a mage job, even more than when I played so long ago. At least back then My magic skills would be capped through exp parties. Please consider buffing magic skill gains, or at least make martial master count for magic as well...

[RAIST]

Others have tested Martial Master with magic and claim it does work. Seemed to work for me when capping Summoning and Enhancing, at least I can find no explanation why it took virtually no time to cap them considering all the people complaining about how slow it is. I would hazard a guess some may not be seeing the influence because they aren't making sure to trigger the latent, who knows.

There is also the skillup enhancement attached to Ionis now if you want to go that route as well.

If you want to go the "old school" route though, Dangruf now has some crabs that are good for getting a nice bump into the 90's (or higher if you are patient) In addition to maybe getting Martial Master there, you can also get the skillup prowess if you do the pages as well. Just be prepared for it to maybe start sloping off once you get past the 90 caps. After that, abyssea is a good place for capping the rest of the way--glen crabs in Grauberg(A) are very manageable for most jobs. If you're after divine it can get a bit trickier. Undead Besieged can still get you a little past 80 or so with level 8 captains and NM's, then there are several good undead camps in abyssea zones that work well (or you could just do the worms thing I guess...bleh).

Just a few examples off the top of my head. Others can likely provide more. It really isn't as bad as everyone makes it out to be--just have to pick your targets/methods properly to optimize things. If you do it right, you don't even need the food they added a while back.

[Rustic]

I've rarely found skillups to be rough on most casting classes. Healing skillups? Fight some undead. Gusgen mines has L86-89 skeletons that are perfect for this kinda thing at the top, but there's plenty to be had on the way up. Enfeebles? Worms. I can walk into Dangruf Wadi, Silence a Witchetty Grub and just cycle debuffs on it while it sits there, harmless.

A system that rewards slapping EP's around from 15th or so to 99 is always going to have skillup issues. The solution for mages is easier than it looks, though.

[RushLynx]

They actually have buffed skill gain rates in recent years but personally I still think enhancing and healing in particular are way too slow... I know healing will level faster if you go spam on undead mobs but I don't feel like wasting a friend's time getting them to hold a skeleton so I can cure it to death... I'm on WHM more than I could ever want to be these days and healing skill ups feel like parrying use to before they updated it...

[Rustic]

They actually have buffed skill gain rates in recent years but personally I still think enhancing and healing in particular are way too slow... I know healing will level faster if you go spam on undead mobs but I don't feel like wasting a friend's time getting them to hold a skeleton so I can cure it to death... I'm on WHM more than I could ever want to be these days and healing skill ups feel like parrying use to before they updated it...

Don't even do it as "holding a mob".

Walk into Gusgen. Grab page 1 off the book. Go down to the L86-89 mobs together. Kill with abandon, pile up skillups healnuking the undead and merit points out the wazoo for you. It's the big boy version of how most people skilled their healing up 10-30 in Gusgen Skeleton Warrior/Ghoul exp alliances, and you're not going to run out of bones to blast.

[Sarick]

The only 2 things that really made me cringe was SNM skill, guard skill and parry skill. other then those it was all casual fighting over and over. Slow but there was progress. The above 3 where NUTS at at one point I think SNM is still nuts but guard and parry got fixed a while back.

I suggested something a long time ago that would've soothed the skill up problem. My suggestion was that if a players skill is less then 80% capped on level up the game would give automatic bonuses to put that job at a a minimal skill level.

Example.

If a player is level level 9, the skill cap for level 10 is 10 skill. When the player reaches level 10 if they don't have the minimal skill of at least 70% (or 7 skill) or D class skill. the game brings it up to 7/D class skill. This allows them to keep up as they increase in levels even though they don't skill up directly. Even A player who leeched would never be totally useless because they'd have at least D class skill rating. They would ever be fully capped from this but it'd keep them close enough.

If this is giving away to much, then the minimums could be like minimal adjustments that aren't permanent but always active for the job at hand. This way if someone rushed leeched war to level 99 they'd have all minimal combat skills at minimal levels posted as RED. This is much like merited skills don't represent the real skills. When they switched to a another job of another level the minimums would revert to that job unless they actually skilled them up on the 99 job making them cap out.

On SCH there are abilities called dark arts and light arts. These when activated bring up the magic skill to near B class on any job even one that doesn't have the skill at all link MNK. Whrn the player activates these skills they aren't really gaining permanent skill they're skills are just being augmented toward a temporary level. The same could be utilized on all jobs to make it easier to skill up. The player wouldn't need to use an ability they'd just have a minimal set of skill related to their job. This could even be done with the skill up foods.