How are you preparing for the release of RDM/SAM? Collective Tips and Suggestions

[Rawrz]

One week until StormBlood's release! RDM has me completely won over and I know allot of people are dying to be a long sword weilding DPS as SAM. Out of boredom/anticipation, I've been passing the time by doing things, I feel will make my leveling faster and more convenient.

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• Obtain a level 50 i130 set. You can do this by farming poetics and then farming Carboncoat/Carbontwine from one of the poetics ladies is Mor Dhona. Its about 5,000 poetics if you start from scratch from never leveling a caster/monk. Doing the final coil will also drop i130 peices as well as the EXPENSIVE upgrade cost of Carbontwine. World of Darkness also drops it and its part of the Tower Weekly reward.
  
  
• Obtain a level 50 i130 weapon proactively. Exchange 1,000 Poetics for 10 Rowens Tokens of Poetics. You will also need an Encryped Tomestone, which you can buy from one of the poetics ladies, do Final Coil, do World of Darkness, or do the weekly Tower quest.
  
  
• Level up your Palace of the Dead Weapon/Gear. Do palace until you're close to or become 99 on weapon and 99 on gear. This will help you to have faster clears. RDM especially will have a great time in Palace of the dead, with its potent vercure and later verraise, in the 50+ floors at least. Crafting some Echo Drops if RDM and some Spine Drops wouldn't be a bad idea.
  
  
• Craft a 56 set or Farm the Vault. Your i130 set starts to wear out after 56. If you're bored and a crafter, make yourself a 56 HQ set. No dungeon before it beats the stats at an ilevel of 139. The Vault is another option, equipable at level 57. You cannot unsync the Vault, so this choice of insanity is up to you, since you'll be competing against others rolling. I am currently stock piling, Crit IV and some other materia, but not melding them into my sets, since Accuracy is being removed we don't know what exactly is going to be in its place on each individual peice. I'll meld it at an NPC when I hit the level, personally.
  
  
• Obtain a a level 60 i260/i270 set. Use Alex savage, Scripture tomestones, Ultima Jewelry or Dun Scaith to obtain a high ilevel set. With every completion of The Void Ark, Weeping City of Mhach and Dun Scaith you will receive a token. One of each token can be traded for one upgrade item to upgrade you i260 shire peices to i270. Always upgrade you left side first, then move to jewelry. I chose again not to meld until i reach 60.
  
  
• Obtain a level 60 i255/i265/i270/i275 weapon proactively. Doing Alexander Savage, if you have it on farm, is one way to get the best starting weapon from the get go. 8 pages should get you started at 275. The most convenient starting weapon will be an upgraded Shire weapon. Trading in 1,000 scripture tomestones for 10 Scripture tokens with a Microtomestone, which can be obtained by beating a12 normal 4 times for Alexander Gears or winning the roll in a10s, will give you an i260 scripture weapon. Just like the gear, doing one of each of the 24 man Void Raids will allow you to trade in for an Illuminati Darkest Gobcoat, which will then make your wep i270. Successfully completing Zuravan 10 times, should let you exchange for a Rapier/Katana at an ilevel i265 from the starting gates fairly easily. Lastly, at i255, you can materialize your palace of the dead weapon for 30 armor/weapon and then upgrade it for 60 more, requiring at least 90 to do so.
  
  
• Stockpile on supplies. Craft a cheap but good food. For RDM I crafted 99 Sohm Al Tarts. HQ/NM Hi-Elixers for level 50 content and Max Ethers for level 60 content. Who knows when you'll need to clutch mass raise?! If you do palace of the dead, you'll be sure to get 50+ Max-Pots for your Sam. Save up some mateira if you choose not to meld until after patch. Crit is never wrong.
  
  
• Get a head start on leveling. Pick up as many Large Leves as you can. I picked up 10, a week ago and 5 more this week, so that I'm maxed out on the number of leves I can do. Start from the 60 leves and work down. This will help you to have access to easy EXP without being punish by the leve allowance by already having them in your journal. Don't forget to pick up a stack of Ghysal Greens for your Choco!
  
  
• Get another head start on leveling. You really have two choices here. I chose to do, but not turn in all the level 50 quests from Falcon's nest, Foundation, Sea of Clouds and a couple 52 quests in Tailfeather. Doing about 26 of these will leave your journal open to accept a few new quests, but giving you about half a level of dirt easy exp. One quest i did, took less than 10 seconds in Falcon's nest. You can also, do 58 quests in Idylshire, since leveling those last two levels, escaping from The Vault can take a bit.
  
  
• Get your Glamour on. Use WT or your modest wad of cash to get the core materials for the weapon glamour of your choice. Kingly Whisker prices are probably going to soar into the millions for a short time and Large Levin orbs are probably going to go around the same price as kingly whiskers now. Stockpile similar item for each recipe. If you don't like what they look like, just sell the mats, You'll make a profit. New content ALWAYS increases the general prices of the market board for a time.
  
  
• Set you hotbar up. This one is for the crazies. I am a crazy. By now, you've researched RDM and SAM and know all of its skills and how they interact with each other. Use macros to label the skills and place them on an existing class to simulate how it will look. Don't forget to put INT/STR pots somewhere in your core hotbars, so that you start with them as a skill, instead of relearning them later. I used THM to hold my skills and gear. You can easily transfer the template to the new class with the following command. This one will transfer crosshotbar or hotbar one to the new RDM from THM.
  PS4: /chotbar copy thm 1 rdm 1
  PC: /hotbar copy thm 1 rdm 1

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If anyone else has any other crazy ways they are preparing for the release of RDM/SAM I'm all ears. xD

[Zephanoa]

From what I gather RDM is more casting vs melee. I have prepped myself for RDM by being comfortable with the current (3.x) Bard/BLM/SMN. I think its going to function as a BLM with a few weapon skills. I currently use repelling shot as a Bard for a part of my rotation for additional DPS.

[Blueyes]

Whoops. I spent the last hour typing everything I have done to prepare, but seeing your edit it won't be necessary for me to put it all into writing.

Yes I have done most of what you have listed, including having farmed both The Aery and The Vault for complete sets that have already been glamoured. For macros, the use of "placeholder" macros is what I use to get accustomed to a new layout for existing jobs, but for Red Mage and Samurai I created different macros.

Example:

/hotbar action Jolt 1 1
/hotbar action Verthunder 1 2
etc.

With those, it takes just a couple macros to get those hotbars fully organized. It should work fine as long as the names of actions remain unchanged.

[Arkenne]

Personally I've emulted the allocation of SAM/RDM skills in my controller hotbars on excel... cuz I don't need to be in the game to board the hype train >:|!!

[RhaegarFFXIFenrir]

Don't forget the primal weeklies in Mor Dhona for glamour. I'd imagine SAM/RDM is being added in to those as well, and could be cool looking. It's taking a shot in the dark, but the DRK i90 primal sword was pretty cool looking, maybe SAM/RDM could be cool as well. I crafted up sets for each job at 54, 56, and 58. I've also got mats on standby for weapons at the same level, assuming BSM will craft them both. The gear is also already pre-glamoured. Dont forget save up for a fully rested xp bar if you don't already have everything to 60. Also.......leave bad attitudes at the door. You're going to probably be running content with other SAM/RDMs who are just as new to the job and perhaps with less (or more) player skill. Be patient. I'd also farm up the scripture for tokens, but DO NOT PURCHASE yet. There's a chance the price for those drop when the expansion hits. Also, try to cap out all your tomes if you can.

[Anastacy]

Doesn't PotD leveling nullify the first 3 points?

Yeah, I'm mentally preparing for that...by not running PotD until early access.

[Rawrz]

Doesn't PotD leveling nullify the first 3 points?

Yeah, I'm mentally preparing for that...by not running PotD until early access.

I want options. Sure I'll do POTD for a few levels, but eventually, I'm going to stop and do a roulette.

[RezWolf]

I have both my lvl50 (i130) sets ready (and glamoured lol) along with enough tokens and twine to get both ironworks weapons and their upgrades. lvl60 caster stuff is done, not too worried on the striker stuff (I plan on leveling SAM at some point just not right away).

Probably going to do a mixture of Roulettes, PotD, Hunts, and Beast Tribes (don't have Vath or Vundu 100% capped) to level. Hoping to have RDM leveled to 60 by launch day.

My FC has tons of XP buffs ready to go and will probably be running leveling groups like crazy. Got some of those XP scrolls from squadrons (do they stack with FC buffs or not? Some say yes, others say no).

Why can't next friday come fast enough...

[Arkenne]

Well at least I already have all my i130 gear ready, including the mats for the i130 tome-weapons!!

Why can't next friday come fast enough...

Lets try kicking the ground at the same time to see if we can make the planet it spin faster, on my mark, 1, 2, 3!!

[Okamimaru]

I was under the impression that rdm and sam start at level 30