I love newbies!

[Eye_Gore]

give me some good advice...all help is welkom.

Don't worry too much you're playing as a DPS so at first you shouldn't have too many issues other than que time. Some people will try and help you along the way but you do get that occasional wanna be hero that thinks they own the game. I started out as a tank class not knowing anything about it, have caught mostly grief from in game players not much help, tanks we are a love hate kinda breed.

Let the tanks grab aggro first in the dungeons, don't be a hero and rush into mobs, that's the tanks job. They should position the mobs away from you so you can deal out damage and they take the damage. Watch the aggro bars up in the left corner of the party members if yours is getting full, back off and let the tank grab more before attacking again. These are the basics.

[purley]

Don't worry too much you're playing as a DPS so at first you shouldn't have too many issues other than que time. Some people will try and help you along the way but you do get that occasional wanna be hero that thinks they own the game. I started out as a tank class not knowing anything about it, have caught mostly grief from in game players not much help, tanks we are a love hate kinda breed.

Let the tanks grab aggro first in the dungeons, don't be a hero and rush into mobs, that's the tanks job. They should position the mobs away from you so you can deal out damage and they take the damage. Watch the aggro bars up in the left corner of the party members if yours is getting full, back off and let the tank grab more before attacking again. These are the basics.

I'll keep that in mind...do i attack the same mob as the tank? Or take other mobs?
Who pulls the mobs to the party?
Can i choose any proffesion for my karakter?

[Eye_Gore]

snip

Some tanks will mark targets as to what they want the group to attack first, they will have a number above them as to what to attack, 1, 2,3 and so on. I wouldn't go after any mob that the tank is not currently working on. Because the party healer will usually stay close to the tank, and if you go off on another mob, you will most likely die, as there will be no one to heal you

The tank is the one who should be doing all the pulling, though ranged DPS's can attack before the tank ( tank only has a few options at ranged attacks) can and then the tank has to work a little harder to get the aggro off them.

You can change your class, but most people will level the one they chose as their main first. Once you reach level 30, you can then level archer to 15 and choose a Job class as a Black Mage. The leveling goes quickly once you figure out more of the game.

[Niwashi]

is it normal for others to be hanging around summoning bells trying to entice you to join up their FC? Felt like I was in a cheap $2 brothel and was going to get robbed, lol. Are those who hang around directly asking legitimate or just trying to get you to join up so you'll 'contribute' financially to their coffers? On the Phoenix server.

They're mostly legitimate. It's not a good way to find out what their FC is like, so it's a matter of random luck whether you'll like the people in that FC or not. But if they are just hoping for more bodies to contribute, the contributions they're hoping for are (mostly) not financial. Every time an FC member completes a quest, or a FATE, or turns in a GC supply mission, etc. their FC gets points that help it rank up and gain more privileges. So players can contribute just by doing the normal things they'd be doing anyway.

They're usually also trying to get more people in hopes that at least a few of those people will be talkative, active, willing to help FC-mates, etc. Some FCs are more particular about finding people they like and explicitly inviting just those players, others just invite lots of people in hopes that at least some of them will be the sort they like.

do i attack the same mob as the tank? Or take other mobs?

If the tank has marked mobs in priority order, attack the highest numbered priority. If they haven't marked them in a group of similar mobs, attack the one the tank is attacking. (This is a bit trickier for Arcanists/Summoners, since their attacks involve a lot of damage over time, which is more efficient if they spread out their attacks across all the mobs, but doing so makes it harder for the tank to maintain aggro on all of them. If you branch out to ACN/SMN, you'll need to pay attention to how well-geared the tank is and whether he/she is cycling attacks against multiple mobs. Spread out damage only if the tank is good enough to handle it.)

That holds true when you're facing a bunch of similar-level mobs. During boss fights, however, there are a lot of cases where the tank needs to keep focus on the main boss, but DPS classes need to prioritize eliminating any additional mobs that show up. Focus on the adds and attack the boss only when there are no adds is a good general rule of thumb for DPS classes during most boss fights, but it's somewhat situational. It helps to know the particular fight and which adds are (or are not) top priorities.

Who pulls the mobs to the party?

The tank should do the pulling. Whoever initially pulls a mob gets quite a bit of initial aggro, and if it's not the tank, it can be hard for the tank to take aggro from whoever got it initially.

Can i choose any proffesion for my karakter?

Any or all of them. This game is very flexible with letting you advance whatever classes/jobs you want, all on the same character. (Personally, I'm going for maxing out all 19 classes and all 9 jobs eventually, though that's going to take a long time. For that matter, there will probably be another class/job before then, so maybe it's 20 and 10 once Rogue/Ninja are in the game.)

[Kydi]

Is there any benefit to using different characters for different jobs (raid lockouts at end game etc) or do most just have one character who can do anything? Presumably equipment would become a nightmare like that.

[stupiddog]

Is there any benefit to using different characters for different jobs (raid lockouts at end game etc) or do most just have one character who can do anything? Presumably equipment would become a nightmare like that.

There are not that many drawbacks of having everything in one char, but a problem is that Arcanist branches into Summoner (DPS) and Scholar (Heal). For Summoner, you need your free stat points on intelligence, for Scholar on mind (IIRC). You can reassign them, but each time, it costs a lot of in-game currency.

[Kydi]

Ah OK. So perhaps one character to do melee roles and one to do magic. I guess there's no disadvantages to spread get across lots of characters, except perhaps money being earned on a selection (but then I guess less respec so less cost?)?

[stupiddog]

As for the arcanist, if you absolute want to play summoner and scholar at the same time, you could try some of the alternative healer/DPS roles. summoner/white mage or black mage/scholar is a popular combination, too, and it does not have the problem I mentioned.

[Garlyle]

Ah OK. So perhaps one character to do melee roles and one to do magic. I guess there's no disadvantages to spread get across lots of characters, except perhaps money being earned on a selection (but then I guess less respec so less cost?)?

The stat points you assign are memorized separately per class - so you can go 30 STR on Lancer and 30 INT on Thaumaturge, all on the same character. The difficulty is specific to Arcanist, the only class with two jobs - Scholar and Summoner. But one wants 30 MND and the other wants 30 INT, in order to be played 'optimally'.

That said, you can still do pretty well if you just go 15 INT/15 MND as your stat points for Arcanist - a loss of 15 points isn't actually that much when you'll be sitting at 500+ mainstat anyway at high levels, and that way you are pretty effective in both.

There's not much reason to level multiple characters - in fact, given that each class will eventually want to be levelling other classes for job requirements and cross-class skills eventually, and they all eventually start bleeding into one another at one point or another, even across lines of physical vs magical (Gladiator eventually needs some Conjurer to become a Paladin; Thaumaturge needs Archer in order to become a Black Mage), welp. If you were to play one character per job, for instance, you'd spend a lot of time on redundant levelling! The only real benefit I can see to having multiple characters is if you're playing with people on multiple different servers, in which case, go nuts!