Hello - New here :) mind helping me up with some questions?

[Aerthalas]

I'd figure I'd post in here instead of a new thread. I bought the game when it was released and didn't really like it. After SWTOR being rather disappointing I figured I'd might as well give FFXIV a try. So far I'm really enjoying it. It's a lot different than the usual MMO though

Anyway, on topic, I've got a couple of questions that I hope someone can answer for me:

1. When out of combat and standing still my HP and MP seems to regen to full in about a minute, I've used some food items but they only seem to give a buff which says you're full (or something along those lines), but it doesn't seem to affect my regen. Are there also consumables in game that increase your regen out of combat (or even in combat besides the one spell I can use for it)?

2. I've seen that you can spend points on attributes, is it possible to reset your points after spending them? I've only spend one point so far but because I couldn't get it back I'd figure I'd hold off on spending anymore until I knew how to get them back

3. There seems to be a levequest allowance system which won't let me pick up more than 8 battle leves per day. I know those regen after 12 hours per 4 leves. Is there any other way to get leves or missions besides crafting leves, behests and normal quests? Or is this the part where you are supposed to grind a lot?

4. I seem to get random exp chains after killing monsters. Sometimes I get one immediately and sometimes I don't get one at all, how does this work exactly?

5. Items, I've got about 100 items now but I don't know what to sell or what to keep. For example in WoW you are supposed to sell grey items and everything else is useful somehow. How do I know what I'm supposed to keep in FFXIV and what I'm supposed to sell to a vendor?

6. I seem to get TP while battling, I've seen gladiators use TP for some skills, do Conjurers also get TP spells or is that a melee exclusive resource?

7. I've bought some new gear from the bar at Limsa Lominsa (not sure if I spelled that right), but it doesn't seem to increase my stats that much, is gear not such a big factor in this game or did I just buy the wrong items?

8. Lastly, I'm looking for an EU Linkshell to join, it gets kind of lonely out there sometimes

Thanks in advance,

Aerthalas Depthless

[REDace0]

(1) It won't affect your regen rate while resting. Food currently only has a stat-boosting effect. http://mooglebox.com/item/food.php has a nice list of what food boosts which stat. The game does have potions for instant healing in-combat, but they aren't very powerful. There are revamps of the food and medicine recipes in the works, so this may change when those are released.

(2) It will be possible, but you may have to wait until the next patch. The ability to reset them didn't make it into 1.20. If you look at dev1228 in the 1.20 Patch Notes, you can see what the primary stats do. For CNJ I put mine in VIT and MND.

(3) That's pretty much it. When you join a Grand Company you do get access to additional activities like company leves and caravan escort. A good way to improve the grind is to party with other players.

(4) Only monsters at your current level or higher contribute to a chain. This is another reason for leveling in a party, since it's easier to take on large numbers of mobs at or above your level in a group.

(5) This requires some knowledge of the crafting system. Raw materials like logs, fibers, skins, and ores should most likely be sold in the wards. If you set the price right someone will eventually want to grind that crafting class and will buy the cheapest ones, hopefully yours. If it's not raw material or gear, you can probably sell it, but you might as well wait until your inventory is getting full.

(6) CNJ and THM do not get any TP abilities currently. However, they can use TP through cross-class abilities. For example, many CNJs use the PGL skill Second Wind to heal themselves while conserving MP.

(7) That could be because your level is too low for the gear. If you equip an item above your level, it provides significantly reduced defense and none of the bonus stats listed in the box. All gear has an effect, and people spend a lot of time and effort getting the gear they want, but the most important piece of gear is definitely your main hand weapon or tool. For example, when I upgraded to the Cobalt Winglet (Attack 90) from the Cobalt Katzbalger (Attack 68), my damage went up on my GLA by at least 50%.

(8) Good luck! You might try the Cornelia world forums or try searching for one that you can tell is still active on the Internet.

[syntaxlies]

until you get your chocobo, you can get the goobbue mount in LL at the camp south of cederwoood. all you have to do is be lvl 30 and talk to the bard npc.

[Conradus]

(6) CNJ and THM do not get any TP abilities currently. However, they can use TP through cross-class abilities. For example, many CNJs use the PGL skill Second Wind to heal themselves while conserving MP.

To be exact, you can use two TP cross-class abilities. Second Wind, which you get by leveling Pugilist to level 6 and is HIGHLY recommanded. And Shield Bash, which you get by leveling Gladiator to level 18 and isn't bad if you're meleeing (which you generally only do while soloing) and using a one-handed weapon + shield.

[ThugHunter]

8. Lastly, I'm looking for an EU Linkshell to join, it gets kind of lonely out there sometimes

Thanks in advance,

Aerthalas Depthless

I won't bother to answer the questions as they have been answered, but i can point you to www.kotr.eu, were an EU linkshell on Cornelia, recruitments open and will consider any application submitted, feel free to drop by and apply, come join us in a party, if we like you, your in, we're a very laid back social LS, we do end game stuff but theres no pressure to join in if you don't want to, we have an alliance of sorts with Kweh, another EU LS and do events together, we usually have a core of 15 - 20 players online at most EU prime times, more on weekends.

[Estellios]

Aerthalas: Concerning attribute points, it was already brought up that for the time being they are permanent, but next patch we should be able to redistribute. In either case, if you don't know what the stats do, here is some information (note that this only pertains to how that stat helps out Conjurer):

STR: Physical attack power. EXTREMELY not worth it for Conjurer.
DEX: Accuracy, Shield block or Parry rate. Again, extremely not worth it for Conjurer. Apparently the Block Rate or Parry rate increase is not very large.
VIT: Physical Defense, HP, Enhancing Magic Potency. If you want to play Conjurer more as a support and healer class, you can invest some points into VIT as it's currently the only way to increase the strength of your Protect and Stoneskin spells.
INT: Magic Attack. Contrary to what some people seem to believe, Conjurer's attack spells are quite strong, especially with Cleric Stance. If you solo or group up in small parties often, or find yourself in any other situations where you need to nuke often, it might be useful to invest some points into INT.
MND: Magic Accuracy and Healing Magic Potency. This is probably the only stat that you should definitely put some points into. More Magic Accuracy means more reliable Sleep spells and your combos will be successful more often (they get broken if your spell gets resisted at all). The only case against putting points into MND is that CNJ gets a lot of access to MND through gear and materia.
PIE: Enfeebling Magic Potency and Magic Evasion. This is essentially your chance at landing secondary debuff effects (such as Aero's Damage over Time and Stone's Magic Evasion down) as well as your chance at resisting debuff effects. edit: also boosts Max MP!

Personally, I put points equally into INT, MND, and PIE as I try to play my CNJ in a balanced fashion. It's really up to your choice and personal playstyle as long as you avoid putting points into STR and DEX.

Also if you ever forget what stats do, if you have popup help turned on mousing over the stats in the Attributes section of your menu will give you a little description on what the stat does.

[Conradus]

PIE: Enfeebling Magic Potency and Magic Evasion. This is essentially your chance at landing secondary debuff effects (such as Aero's Damage over Time and Stone's Magic Evasion down) as well as your chance at resisting debuff effects.

PIE also increases your MP pool, which makes it important there, too. A nuker who runs out of MPs has to regen for a while before resuming killing the monster. A healer runs out of MPs and people die.

[Estellios]

Dang, right. I always forget about the MP boost...

[mbncd]

[SNIP]

3. There seems to be a levequest allowance system which won't let me pick up more than 8 battle leves per day. I know those regen after 12 hours per 4 leves. Is there any other way to get leves or missions besides crafting leves, behests and normal quests? Or is this the part where you are supposed to grind a lot?

[SNIP]

5. Items, I've got about 100 items now but I don't know what to sell or what to keep. For example in WoW you are supposed to sell grey items and everything else is useful somehow. How do I know what I'm supposed to keep in FFXIV and what I'm supposed to sell to a vendor?

6. I seem to get TP while battling, I've seen gladiators use TP for some skills, do Conjurers also get TP spells or is that a melee exclusive resource?

7. I've bought some new gear from the bar at Limsa Lominsa (not sure if I spelled that right), but it doesn't seem to increase my stats that much, is gear not such a big factor in this game or did I just buy the wrong items?

[SNIP]

I just wanted to add in a couple of notes that I don't see mentioned by the others.

For Q3, remember that leve allowances now max at 99 so you can skip leves for a few days and then do much more than 8. You can only HOLD 8 leves at once though so be prepared for multiple trips back to the adventurers guild if you do stockpile them. You also have to rely on the same leve allowance if you do any other sort of leve so consider what you want to do before spending them all on one thing. For example, there are crafting and gathering leves, and GC leves for higher levels. If you can get a party together for this, I highly recommend leve linking. It takes the time of a single leve but in the end gives the same amount of experience as doing the leve as many times as there are people who've linked it within the party at that time. To link leves, you just have to be in the same party as others who have the same leve and everyone with the leve has to touch the aetherite crystal (one person starts the leve and the others all have to choose to link it in the crystal's menu just afterwards).

As far as grinding goes, it isn't too bad if you can get a good, fast paced party. This is where your exp chains really shine. If you can get kills close enough in time to each other and if the levels of the mobs are appropriate to continue the chain, you can get 100% bonus exp on some kills. That really speeds things up. As a CNJ (especially if you're the only CNJ in the group), make sure you do all you can to manage your MP effectively though, and make sure your party mates wait for you if you need to rest for MP. Try not to move around when getting your MP back either, it slows it down a lot.

Q5. Plan ahead. If you see yourself wanting to go into any trade skills like ARM or LTW or CUL in the near future, plan ahead for that. There's nothing quite like realising you just sold all the mats you needed for the next week. Farming your own materials helps you level up and it is significantly cheaper, leaving you money to buy better equipment and mats from classes you don't want to level up right then (lots of items contain ingredients from multiple classes, like ARM and LTW or GSM). That doesn't mean hoard for a month something that you MIGHT use down the line (we have limited space after all), it just means think about how you want to play the game before you NPC something you'll need tomorrow.

Q6. Get Glad to level 6 for Second Wind. I know you already have cure, but sometimes you'll be out of MP and need to heal yourself, and you can get to level 6 in no time flat ;P

Q7. The stuff you can buy in the bar is low level stuff only. Check the stats and then go compare with something in the market wards for a level 50. Gear is important, the stats they give are important, and they can be further improved with materia (not really important for you any time soon but very important later on).

As someone else said though, you must be an appropriate level for the gear in question. Once you put on a piece of gear that has an Optimal Level (instead of a Required Level) that is a higher level than you, you'll see some odd things: an orange - number beside stats and any stats mentioned lower will be greyed out. That means that you aren't getting the full benefit of the gear. Say you're a level 10 and wear something optimal to a level 15. It might say something like "Defence 15 - 12", which means you're getting about 3 defence from that item. Whereas a level 10 item might give 10 defence, so would be the better choice. Once you get up to level 14 it might change to "Defence 15 - 3" (giving 12 defence, making it a better option than level 10 gear) but it's generally a bad idea to go for something too high above your own level. Keep in mind that I just made up all of those numbers, I wasn't referring to any particular item, was just trying to demonstrate the point.


Lastly, welcome back and good luck!


PS. Just a side point for Q5: check prices in the Uldahn wards for anything you're thinking of NPC'ing or selling to other players. You can see the 20 most recent sell prices and the 20 cheapest current prices for the item in the item search menu. Sometimes you'll come across a drop or harvest that is unexpectedly profitable ^_^