Hi, I'm A Noob Who Doesn't Want To Be A Noob!

Hi peoples, I've been playing Final Fantasy XI off and on for about the last two years or so, joined a bit after aby came out, have taken massive breaks here and there, and just recently came back since some friends play it as well. While my first 99 was SMN and I love it a lot, I played when SMN was considered that weak class that was an inferior solo to BST, and an inferior support/dps to literally anything else (obviously buffs have helped it but yeah). I never ever touched endgame content, never found a group that would put up with me and help me get through all the content I missed, so I put the game down for a while but now I'm back.

I've recently taken my SAM to 99, capped G. Katana, and now I actually want to play some of that fancy stuff I see everyone doing. Problem is, I'm sitting on a full outrider set with the sparks katana and that's probably not good enough for anything >.>. So I want to look for a linkshell that actually does fancy stuff like skirmish/delves/high level bcnms or something, people who wouldn't mind molding someone who has utterly no idea what they're doing into a DD that actually can help not wipe everyone. With how little people XI has now and this server in particular I'm not holding out for much, but hey, you never know.

I currently have PLD/SMN/SAM at 99 and subs leveled for each, SMN sitting at full empy+2, PLD is underskilled and undergeared in outrider and SAM is not much better >.>. But anyone who has the patience to help me not suck, please teach me, and I promise to be the best noob I can be! I might even one day actually be good enough for actual recent content (which seems like a distant dream now).

Come join me. I have no problem building people up.

Sadly, I don't have the money to server swap, and I've got friends on my current server who originally swapped over to join me.

I also want to mention that while I have SMN/PLD, I would prefer gearing and learning SAM more than anything else, since I have a lot more fun than the other two. SMN is mainly for me to solo things, and while I got PLD to 99 I don't know if I'll ever get to play it since it's Aegis/Ochain only or GTFO.

You could use one job to gear the other, to make it more playable.

That's the approach I went with when I returned to the game after a year off.

The Sparks Great Katana, Ichimonji-yofusa, is a pretty solid base weapon. The Outrider gear, not so much. But never fear! If you have a solid method of income, such as crafting, then you can easily upgrade samurai AF and relic armors. Just need those pesky chapters, and I believe access to Sea at the bare minimum, since Monisette won't bother with adventurers unless Sagheera tells her about you being a worthy adventurer.

Going from noob to not noob, isn't as far away a dream as you might imagine.

Working on all that fun stuff so far, but as for a solid method of income.... yeah :c

Crafting is a no go since the time and gil investment required in leveling it is more than I can probably invest, though farming early dynamis for currency to sell is an option I suppose.

Need to work on sea access and I'm plugging away at CoP, easy enough to do myself, then I can farm limbus and get all that fun stuff, and begin working on getting the relic and artifact reforged pieces that I need. The only possible thing to stop me are the difficulty in getting Rem's Tales, since sparks only go so far with how expensive they are and I don't feel comfortable enough to join any groups for SKCNMs, especially with the gear I've got now.

There's also probably no way I'm going to see delve for a looooong time, so that gear is out of the question. I'm just really hoping for a linkshell that wouldn't mind helping me gear out for the chance to acquire a DD that might not potentially suck (by that I mean leeching me through delve so I can get a shiny Tsurumaru and other fun armor pieces). Still good to see I'm on track, and will continue working to start getting those reforged pieces.

At this point in the game I would suggest you gear up the best you can before asking people to hold your hand. There are a lot of forum post on Sam and you can learn a lot by reading them. As for gear you can obtain a lot of good gear on your own. If I was you I would level Thf and start doing dynamis and farm as much as you can. Use that Gil for upgrade items and AH gear. Obtain your AF and relic gear and upgrade as soon as you can. The
Pages you can get from sparks or do some Sknm 20. If you go on normal and make your own groups no one will care how your Sam is geared since they are so easy. Join wildskeepers and get some upgrades like Otomi helm and things will fall into place.

I am a firm believer you can't help someone that can't help themselves. With some patience you could have a top end Sam with little help from others. Make a relic GK and you can separate yourself from 80 percent of the noob SAMs.

Generating sparks for Rem's Tale chapters 1-5 isn't really hard, in fact, it's pretty easy, and can be done at your own pace, which gets easier with things like repeatable sparks trials that offer copper A.M.A.N. vouchers.

Or you could use accumulated sparks to buy NPC-able weapons/armor, use Abyssea cruor to sell rubicund cells, or do Voidwatch in general.

There are also low level crafting items that can generate some good income as well.

This post is more of a PSA but,

***Level a mage (WHM BRD SCH primarily) if you don't want your hand held. Your DDs will get geared faster in a shorter period of time, then you can actually contribute instead of pretending the only thing you need is a eminent TP + WS set to be a DD for even delve 1.0.

Please level a mage!

Chapters are easy to get. Getting AF to 119 is actually cheap now.

If you don't want to craft, then either farm in dynamis or farm synthing items, like food or materials. Sky is a viable option for "more" expensive items, but you can always farm more gil with little stuff nobody farms anymore, like wild onions or *** meat.

You can also farm your mythic (mostly) solo now, but that will be a very long term commitment, meaning that it might take you up to a year to do so (300 days for alexs, plus getting all the missions, Captain rank, and Nyzul Isle tokens, plus ichor and doing all of the assaults...twice) if you want to go the cheap route.

There are other ways to pimp out your character, but it requires a lot of time, a few good friends, and probably more commitment than you want to show.

I couldn't disagree with you more. It takes a lot more gear to be a good Mage and if you are newish to the game being a Mage will be the fastest way to canceling your subscription.

Let's not pretend that any avg Mage can jump into delve and stun effectively with avg gear or keep cures up or be fast enough after a big TP move. The only time I ever lose pug delve shouts are from bad mages... DD don't have a hard job.

Thanks for all the advice so far ^_^

So the majority of gearing myself is on me, I totally understand, but what would you all consider a reasonable baseline to actually join and do things successfully with groups? I'm not saying I'm going to just jump in delve right away and pretend I'm helping because I know better, but being able to party in this game would be a lot funner than the soloing I've done so far.

Blood, do those cells really make such a profit? While I have a lot of cruor I'm not using, sure, they only sell on the AH at 1k gil my server which does not seem like profit to me. As for general VW, are there any that I can solo that would make a decent profit? I've only completed the Windy VW line so far duoing with a friend, I don't know how well I could perform it solo.

Ikariiii, while leveling a mage might not be out of question, why do you say that I wouldn't need my hand held? While I see shouts wanting bards/sch/whm all the time, as far as I know most people only want bards with the gear to 3/4 song, or a sch who can stun and has the experience to do so already, whereas I dont. And for WHM, it would need to be geared just as much as anything else I want to play, and would probably be a lot harder to play as well, not to mention I don't find healing fun.

Ravenn, a new player like myself just building a relic is probably a tad bit out of the question, though you're right in that I should do most everything myself rather than having my hand held. But FFXI does not seem to me to be a new player friendly game, and having people to assist me and help me make choices so I can figure out how to not suck would be a great help. I know you all want to yell at the people who mess up and tell them how not to be bad, well I want to hear it from you how not to be bad so I'm not one of those people.

You could easily shout and join the windy T4 Voidwatch for some cashflow items. Making money isn't necessarily limited to solo activities.

Have you checked those cells individually, or in a stack? I would also check sales history of any items you plan on crafting/selling, to see how quick they sell.

Depending on your summoner, and if you have the item level 115 sachet for it, and a decent staff, soloing some of the T1/2 mobs in VW shouldn't be too difficult. Same applies to Paladin.

Sadly I've yet to once see a shout for windy T4 though making one isn't out of the question, I don't ever shout for groups as I feel it'll be one of those "You're an undergeared noob, I'm not gonna party with you, /pcmd leave".

I didn't check stack prices, now I did, they sell for a lot and often so I'll gladly throw some stacks on there as I have quite a lot of cruor to throw around, thanks for that tip Blood!

Josiahfk, while I see the merits in having a class like WHM leveled, it's not something that interests me, either in playing or leveling it to 99, and while you might recommend I get it to get into groups easier, I don't think someone wanting to play and main a class like SAM should be required to have WHM leveled as a prerequisite just to do endgame. It's not a bad suggestion, but for me it's off the table as something I want to do.

The job might not be hard as a DD, that I'll agree with.

But DPS is a significant factor in many of the delve fights at least, with stun resistance increasing the longer the fight goes on.

I've been in many situations where even with excellent WHM BRD SCH in the party, we fall short of the win due to the 2 pick-up-eminent-baghnakh MNKs doing pitiful damage.

It takes a lot more to gear a DD effectively than it does to gear a mage. For another example aside from what Josiah said, mages hardly -need- airlixir augmented gear to be effective, yet DDs require a large amount of it to even be considered decent.

It's not a prerequisite to do endgame, its a prerequisite to allow your SAM to play in endgame and actually contribute, instead of pretending like having weak equipment+tsurumaru is fine because DDing is easy.

There's a huge difference between wanting to do something, and having utility jobs to gear ones that are your main.

I don't like to play whm either, but I keep it geared up and play it when required, just to obtain armor I want or need for my main jobs.

Need to have some flexibility there, buddy.

I was honestly under the impression that a mage needed more gearsets and thus more gear to be effective, not as much a DD. Is that not the case? If so, if you all feel I should level and play WHM, then I suppose that's what I'll do.

So now, it becomes what I need to have and what's required to be a good WHM that actually contributes? Because I don't heal, never really have, and I wouldn't know how, what's required of me in party situations, what gear I need to be effective, etc, etc. There's some stuff I can gleam from reading forum posts on it, and there's that sticky as well, but it's now another job I have to gear and know and more work on me to try and enjoy the game. Yet you all hath spoken, and if it's what I have to do, then I'll try it so I can actually play the game I've put so many hours into already and want to put even more into.

Think for SCH you only need a Fast Cast and Stun set then can afk between stun CDs cause that's all you will be there for.

Quick WHM play style guide:

Afflatus Solace + empyrean body +2 provides a small stoneskin when you cure someone (cure1,2,3,4,5 all get stoneskin bonuses).

In abyssea it was ok to wait til someone was low HP and Cure5 to recover a huge chunk of HP, but in real endgame, you need to react more often with lower tier cures to keep people buffed with stoneskin.

If a DD got hit with a melee attack from an enemy and the rest of your party is fine HP-wise, you want to counter that melee attack with a quick cure2 (remember, they get stoneskin) or cure3 to buffer them from the next attack. I don't recommend using cure4 often because it generates a lot more enmity than cure 2, 3 or 5. Cure 5 is in dire situations (DD got taken from 100% hp to 10% in one shot), but it really eats up MP so use it wisely. Cure 6 you should never use honestly.

If your group got hit with an AoE, you want to change that single target cure to a curaga2 or 3, and then go back to keeping up stoneskin on your DDs via single target cures.

Use BGwiki and read up on mob moves so you know what they do, and you can paralyna/viruna/erase+haste/blindna at a much higher speed.

Always carry medicine with you as well. Echo drops + vile elixir/+1, coalition ethers are very handy in a pinch.

In terms of gear, check out the WHM guide in the WHM forums here (WHM GUIDE). It might be a little outdated but its a good enough framework to begin from. Sets you want to pay attention to for delve 1.0: cure potency (caps at 50%), fast cast (caps at 40%), enfeebling magic/magic accuracy, and idle set

sch's should have a nuking set, stun set, 50% cure set, 50% pdt idle set for straight tanking mata without kiting it(also pulling), mag acc sets, enhancing magic sets ect

VW shouts to look for, Pil, Kaggen, Akvan, Hahava, Calaeno, Uptala, Qilin. You don't have to have clears to join these, just need a voidstone to participate. For each time your party pops the NM, trade x3 Rubicund cells to the planar rift to maximize your chance at getting the drops you want. Pils Tuille, Kaggan Cuticle, Akvan Pennen all sell for 1Mil + (varies by server) and also they drop heavy metal plates that sell 125k+ (varies by server). Uptala/Qilin drop heavy metal pouches that sell well and fast. This is a great source of income and if you have to, it will allow you to buy a delve win from solid groups who may be selling. This way you can get the KI to allow you to purchase the delve gear for that path with the plasm you recieved. Or you could take the gil you made from VW and start a craft to make more gil in the future. Remember, there always options but getting into higher endgame content will require you to be well geared for said content.

That's actually really helpful, too often I see guides on what abilities do and what gear to get, but never anything on what to actually do in battle. But I feel this bears repeating, since I feel everyone seems to be forgetting this: I am NOT planning on jumping straight into delve or any hardcore endgame content. I am looking at what to get and do as a baseline for my jobs so that I can be useful to groups doing content that will allow me to gear for endgame.

I never had any intentions of going into anything undergeared, but at the same time I am a new player, and don't have the gil income or ability to get a lot of incredibly expensive or hard to get pieces.

The reason I was so adamant about only playing SAM was that I have limited playtime of XI during the week, and it will be a task just to gear one job, and having to gear something else and build multiple sets and learn something else and spend a lot of gil is a lot of effort. XI is currently fun to me and I want to keep it fun.


This is pretty much the perfect response. This helps immensely, I wasn't aware VW drops were going for those prices, and I believe at the current moment my classes should be able to handle joining groups like these, since drops are individualized and VW (afaik) isn't the hardest of contents. This is what I was looking for, not how to gear for endgame, but how to prep myself to gear for endgame, so thank you very much.

(I also would like to point out that I originally wanted this to be a "looking for ls" topic but didn't have enough room in the title, while this thread grew to be very informative and I'm glad for everyone's advice and input, I'm still looking for that slightly more than pure casual ls to find people who are aware I'm a noob and would like to help teach me things. Still, the more advice the better!)

This is pretty much the perfect response. This helps immensely, I wasn't aware VW drops were going for those prices, and I believe at the current moment my classes should be able to handle joining groups like these, since drops are individualized and VW (afaik) isn't the hardest of contents. This is what I was looking for, not how to gear for endgame, but how to prep myself to gear for endgame, so thank you very much.

(I also would like to point out that I originally wanted this to be a "looking for ls" topic but didn't have enough room in the title, while this thread grew to be very informative and I'm glad for everyone's advice and input, I'm still looking for that slightly more than pure casual ls to find people who are aware I'm a noob and would like to help teach me things. Still, the more advice the better!)[/quote]
Just remember, For the love of God.... Please clear the chest after the kill. You don't want to be that guy...

What chest? I thought the items were added to my inventory already (/sarcasm, cause I know this sort of thing has most likely happened before XD)

Don't worry, I will not, now it's just waiting for such a shout to actually appear...

I totally failed on that quote >< /sigh, carry on!

I ninja fixed it when I requoted, everything is k

Embrace your noobiness and come play 14!!!