Is soloing viable anymore?

[Neela]

Housing helps for chocobo exp but not necessarily - the most exp u'll get for your bird are the two chocobo agendas (kill 10 mobs and kill 100 mobs with your chocobo in party). Sadly they patched the agenda requirements - only fate mobs are taken for the killcount now but that still works fine.

If you are more the "soloist" you should give your bird some serious love - he'll be a great help. Jupp. :3

[Ryaz]

I will look more carefully at using the chocobo in combat. What I read about "training" the chocobo seemed like a huge hassle and frankly I didn\\'t need the assistance, but I may have to revisit that idea.

Chocobo training isn\\'t really a hassle unless you\\'re tying to get a specific color or something. It does take a LONG time to level it, though. However, they made it easier to use now because you can have them out while in dungeon queues and don\\'t have to dimiss them to ride a mount, both of which you originally had to do.

My chocobo is only Rank 7, but with all points put in healing and set to healing stance, I can solo most FATES my level unless its one of the super bosses.

You don't need housing to get a chocobo. You got them before housing was even introduced. There's quests in Bentbranch Meadows once you hit a certain level (15-20 I think).

[Neela]

Well I thought chocobo leveling takes long too - but I wanted to get my to max lvl (20) before SB and tried that daily/weekly agenda stuff. The 100 kill agenda provides 300k+ exp compared to the housing feeting which provides just 18k (36k if a buddy helps out) per hour on lvl 19 it's a very hugh plus. You should do this agenda everytime it's available to speed it up by far. ^^

If you main caster or range I would recommend healing skills > tank skills > atk skills but after all thats just a personal opinion. ^^

[Vallhallix]

lol I never used sustain when soloing most things. Titan could tank most things without it with the exception of mini bosses. I usually burned down everything before he got low health, and still do.

[Neela]

try a boss mob now... there you go.

[Xiozen]

but seems like SWITFCAST new pet might work pretty well when pet gets over whelmed.

Thanks for your honest and sincere post about a REAL over nerf to the SMN Job... I agree completely with you. As a level 70 smn, I can honestly say, its problematic; whereas before you could pretty much solo (using appropriate job abilities such as Sustain on Titan-egi) NM Fates with minimum problems... now, it's not reasonable to expect to Physik your way through since it would seriously drain your MP, while at the same time trying to compensate for the DPS drop in dots... your suggestion to "swiftcast a new pet when the first is overwhelmed" sounds solid, except for the aggo you'd generate during your heal spam/dps phases and Titan-egi apparently has a serious handicap when it comes to getting aggro back... never noticed this PRE-4.0...so I'm assuming this was another ninja-nerf...resulting in a dead pet, and you furiously kiting mobs while hoping you don't die before/if your new pet gets aggo off you... so yea.

[jackass1203]

I don't know if it was removed but if you're fighting a lot of melee you can use Tri-Bind and focus down one at a time. I do that sometimes when I play my Red Mage it tends to help mitigate the damage you take.