A Few Questions Before Returning

Hello, and thank you in advance for taking the time to read over this. After being away since right after the launch of Adoulin, I've grown a bit nostalgic and decided to give XI another go. The crux of the matter is that I no longer have the info to my old account and am stuck starting from scratch unless SE is cooperative and willing to retrieve my account info for me (fingers crossed, but not holding my breath).

That said, I'm left with a few questions about the state of things as they are now.

1. How relevant is Abyssea content at present? Are the weapon upgrade paths that require farming Carabosse Gems, Plates, etc still better than alternatives from Adoulin?

2. Are there still jobs that are pretty much dead? If so, which?

3. I've read that several new areas allow the use of Trusts; is this the case with Aby? If not yet, is it intended to be in the future?

I believe that covers the biggest part of what I am hoping to find out. If I think of anything else, I'll add it later.

As far as "dead" jobs, I would actually say job variety is at one of the best places the game has ever been at. It's not one job fits all situations, but almost every job can get an invite for majority of content. PUP and NIN would be the only 2 jobs I can think of that would be low priority for group content.

BST and BLU are more popular now then ever.

Thanks for the quick replies. I am actually hoping to play PLD, DNC and BST predominantly. Sort of disappointed to hear that I'll have to remake the blasted shield, but oh well. Hopefully there are enough helpful people around that I'll be able to accomplish it without too much difficulty.

PLD is more desired than ever with the recent enmity changes, so you should have no problem being included if you invest time into that. As others have said, BST is tremendously powerful right now, as well. DNC is also quite strong, as Pyrrhic was the only main dagger WS not to be nerfed a few months ago. A mythic DNC, BST, and BLU are probably the strongest DDs in the game right now, in no particular order.