Paladin job quest and my ruffled feathers

[Possum440]

Aside from the title this is more a general rant on what i am not liking being a gladiator, i have sadly found that magic users have incredible tanking/healing skills verse what i thought i chose, a paladin line, instead i see a fairly sad tank/fighter with no healing ability compared to mages, which is simply stupid, being buffed with stoneskin and taking no damage for the duration is something my class does not have access to unless i level the appropriate class to level 26 and switch to cast it on myself and then switch back, all of that is total bs in my eyes, how can you devoted fans keep doing this insane routine? Is there something i am not seeing? can my glad use the mage spells i have learned without the constant switching and loss of hp/waiting for them to rebuild etc or is switching and waiting for hp to level out the only way to use other skills, i do not like this.

First the paladin job quest, this requires 3 folks or a good healer, both of which have been unnavailable at my timezone, playing at night for an hour or two after i get off the night shift, thats the first problem, and a lingering one trying to get parties, i do not have time to spam tells and form parties. Seemingly a person that plays a couple three times a week for less than 1 hour on average, at early morning is pretty much screwed in this game as the devs leave us no options.

Second is this horrendous UI and lack of any continuity for placement of skills/setups the way i want (yes, yes, i have heard 2.0 is going to change the face of FF. Right now this is just painful solo, this game is not made for it, nor does it supply options for folks playing at odd times. I do very well getting things i need, optimizing leves, etc, but coupled with the lousy UI and movement/camera choices these folks made the game is not fun at all, its more like work, something i choose not to do when i come home from work (laugh).

It is a big choice to let my sub keep going as i really do not like working in a game, i would rather enjoy it, hearing about these exp parties and folks running dungeons are just dreams to me as i do not believe they exist (Laugh, sarcasm).

Played a beta game this past weekend and had a wildy fun time, FFXIV is going to need a miracle to keep my sub. As much as i love this series, really, this title is getting more bitter tasting by the week and i just do not see the point.

[Taika]

Hello Whisper!

instead i see a fairly sad tank/fighter with no healing ability compared to mages, which is simply stupid, being buffed with stoneskin and taking no damage for the duration is something my class does not have access to unless i level the appropriate class to level 26 and switch to cast it on myself and then switch back, all of that is total bs in my eyes, how can you devoted fans keep doing this insane routine? Is there something i am not seeing? can my glad use the mage spells i have learned without the constant switching and loss of hp/waiting for them to rebuild etc or is switching and waiting for hp to level out the only way to use other skills, i do not like this.

I'm not sure if I understood you correctly, but I hope I can answer your question. To get healing spells and abilities, you need to level classes which have them, for example Conjurer for cure. After you have received them on other classes, you will be able to equip them on your Gladiator (there are limits, though: you can only equip certain amount of abilities from other classes and some abilities can only be equiped on certain classes).

The abilities for jobs are limited to certain classes. For example, in addition to Gladiator abilities, Paladin is also able to use the abilities from Conjurer and Marauder. You do not have to switch to those other classes to use their abilities, you can just equip them on your Paladin.

As for your other issue (not finding a group to do things with), I suggest you get yourself a nice linkshell, help them achieve their goals and receive help in return. There should be groups available for all playing times since we're playing on international servers.

Good luck!

[REDace0]

Taika pointed you in the right direction, but since this is unfamiliar to you I think I should emphasize that cross-classing abilities are a big part of this game, which is not typical of MMOs from what I hear. If you want to play your main effectively, expect to level other classes as well, though typically not anywhere near cap.

The UI is different and can comes across as clunky, but you can make it work effectively. Once you're used to it it's not going to prevent you from playing well with a little preparation. I usually put my commonly-used skills (e.g. Phalanx, Fast Blade, Savage Blade, Aegis Boon, Flash) on my main bar, and put the rest on my other bars. Abilities on these second bars that have to be used quickly in emergencies I make macros for and make sure I have that macro palette selected when fighting. In theory you could bind all your skills to make them instantly available as 1-0, Crtl+1-0, and Alt+1-0. Here's the syntax for an ability line in a macro:

/ac "Sentinel" < me> (there are other values besides < me>, typing '/? action' should list them)

For long-cooldown skills, I usually put a message in party chat indicating that I'm using the skill so people know it'll be on cooldown, for example:

/p [Hallowed Ground] (use the auto-translate feature by typing 'hallowed' and hitting Tab)
/wait 1 (needed due to server lag)
/ac "Hallowed Ground" < me>

Hope some of that information helps. Oh, and yes, get a linkshell! FFXIV is not meant to be played alone! Even when you're crafting or gathering it's nice to have people to talk to. You might check the Ragnarok World Forum or xivpads' Linkshell Directory.

Good luck!

EDIT: forgot to mention, the UI for 2.0 is much more typical for an MMO and will be moddable. 2.0 begins beta testing this fall, I expect roughly 90 days after the end of the Welcome Back campaign.

[Absintheminded]

Played a beta game this past weekend and had a wildy fun time, FFXIV is going to need a miracle to keep my sub.

Hey, in case you forgot that game you played in Beta is F2P, so technically you could still justify a P2P game as well ; ) (that is, if you were referring to GW2)

[Estellios]

All the above information should help, but I also want to add another avenue that may help you find a linkshell. At the top of the Lodestone page is a "Community Search" option, clicking on the shield tab will help you look for Linkshells and you can filter by stuff like Language and Active Playtimes. A couple of LS's on my server have at the minimum stated their active playtimes so you can try doing that for your server and seeing if you get anything.

On cross-class abilities, your Gladiator can use any abilities that say "Required: Disciples of War", and your cross class slots go up as you increase in level. This is a major feature of the game and really opens up how you can approach solo and lowman fights. A good rule of thumb is to try out the various classes to around 10-16 not only to get a feel for what you like the best but also to expand your repertoire with various useful moves. You can check which Abilities are learned by what classes, at what level, and which are cross-class by looking at your actions menu.

Also, it was brought up but it should be reiterated: While the Gladiator class can use any of the available cross-class abilities it wants, Paladin can only use those learned by Conjurer and Marauder, so those are the two you will want to focus on if you stick with it.

[Possum440]

Taika, thank you much. after i hamfisted my way through the skills and traits i saw you could click on the box AFTER choosing another class a person had been working on, glad it only took me a month plus to figure that out after asking for help....helluva tutorial this game has (sneer).

since i am on a low pop server at the late early morning and groups are a nogo i ended up *cough* creativly doing the level 35 pally quest and killed the 4 one at a time, at level 39, still needing to heal at my special spot, a place the npcs would not approach, after i downed the ranged blob the rest was fairly simple, though i feel dirty now (have to excuse me on the exploit), with the next quest Ajax or artux or whatever the flying imp was, i was able to solo it after reading the replies and got my healing in place, thanks again.

And yes on the beta thing thing, it was GW2. As much as i love the lore and story of FF, this game is really taxing without groups to help with things and if 2.0 doesnt do it, well, i know which game i will be playing next. Here is to hoping they get their collective act together in a huge huge way.

Again, ty for all the help folks. Now i only feel slightly stupid, down from alot stupid. Grin.

[Possum440]

All the above information should help, but I also want to add another avenue that may help you find a linkshell. At the top of the Lodestone page is a "Community Search" option, clicking on the shield tab will help you look for Linkshells and you can filter by stuff like Language and Active Playtimes. A couple of LS's on my server have at the minimum stated their active playtimes so you can try doing that for your server and seeing if you get anything.

On cross-class abilities, your Gladiator can use any abilities that say "Required: Disciples of War", and your cross class slots go up as you increase in level. This is a major feature of the game and really opens up how you can approach solo and lowman fights. A good rule of thumb is to try out the various classes to around 10-16 not only to get a feel for what you like the best but also to expand your repertoire with various useful moves. You can check which Abilities are learned by what classes, at what level, and which are cross-class by looking at your actions menu.

Also, it was brought up but it should be reiterated: While the Gladiator class can use any of the available cross-class abilities it wants, Paladin can only use those learned by Conjurer and Marauder, so those are the two you will want to focus on if you stick with it.

Weird, because the pally quest says i can ONLY use conj as the second part (why i leveled it up to 15) in the instruction explicitly, and now that i do have the pally job crystal selected i can use my glad skills and conj skills and bow skills (just experimenting) with my pally skills, pretty much everything, did that yesterday morning for a while, though all the pally skills are purely group oriented and pretty useless to someone trying to solo. the only thing i saw was when pally wasnt active the pally skills were gone, which again was a zero loss to me in my situation, no grouping equals not missing any pally skills. But since pally lets me use everything, including my Glad skills i leave it engaged.

[Taika]

Hey again, and glad you could get those quests done!

Weird, because the pally quest says i can ONLY use conj as the second part (why i leveled it up to 15) in the instruction explicitly, and now that i do have the pally job crystal selected i can use my glad skills and conj skills and bow skills (just experimenting) with my pally skills, pretty much everything, did that yesterday morning for a while, though all the pally skills are purely group oriented and pretty useless to someone trying to solo. the only thing i saw was when pally wasnt active the pally skills were gone, which again was a zero loss to me in my situation, no grouping equals not missing any pally skills. But since pally lets me use everything, including my Glad skills i leave it engaged.

You need level 30 Gladiator and level 15 Conjurer to unlock the PLD quest but when you have PLD (the job stone) equiped, you can only use Conjurer and Marauder skills (in addition to Paladin and Gladiator, of course).

[Umo]

I think Possum440 is making himself/herself a mess with Classes and Jobs. Hope this helps:

1. "Base" professions are called Classes and they are mainly focused on solo/light party playing. For combat you have the following:

· Disciples of War
- Marauder
- Gladiator
- Lancer
- Pugilist
- Archer
· Disciples of Magic
- Conjurer
- Thaumaturge

2. Jobs are specializations of their correspondent Class, mainly focused on full party playing. Currently, each Class can unlock 1 Job when that Class reaches Lv.30 and the correspondent "subclass" reaches Lv.15. As you have already experienced, you have to level Gladiator (Main Class) up to 30 and Conjurer (Subclass) to 15 in order to unlock Paladin job.

3. Once a Job is unlocked, its level will be that of its Class. You strictly don't level up a Job - you level up its Class. This way you're getting Class' skills as you level up, regardless of what you're using for (Class or Job). You can enhance your Job doing Job quests in order to get Job Specific Equipment (commonly called Artifact Armor, AF) and skills.

4. Classes can equip a limited amount of cross-class skills, provided that those cross-class skills are allowed for that discipline. I.e. Thaumaturge (Class, Disciples of Magic) can equip Marauder's Provoke skill (Disciples of War & Magic), but cannot equip Brutal Swing (Disciples of War only). As Taika pointed out, you don't have to switch to Conjurer in order to cast Protect on you and then switch back to your current class/job. All you have to do is equip that spell on your current class/job (provided you fulfill all the required conditions).

5. A Job have all its Class' abilities (cannot be removed), its specific Job abilities (once they're unlocked by completing the correspondent Job quest) and can equip a limited amount of 2 certain Classes' abilities.

6. Classes cannot use their correspondent Job specific abilities.

You'll eventually get used to this Armoury System. Hope you have fun^^

[Possum440]

"I think Possum440 is making himself/herself a mess with Classes and Jobs. Hope this helps:"

Naw, i understood the first explanation, but thanks for the vote of confidence :P

Anyway, on top of the things you guys have told me now there is AF armor? When was the blowhard paladin giving me the job quests going to tell me?! Budget cutbacks? Still mad because i didnt kill the rogue paladin? Geez....


Lol, thanks again for all the help.