<Grfiter sets his eyes on his target>
Grifter: Death from above!
<Grifter springs forth, the ground craters beneath him!>
<Grifter uses High Jump, hits the Fluffy White Baby Bunny for 0 points of damage>
<Grifter looks at Nanaja and sighs dejectedly>
<Fluffy White Bunny hits Grifter for 9999 damage!>
<Nanaja has been defeated by Fluffy White Baby Bunny>
<Grifter has been defeated by Fluffy White Baby Bunny>
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<LEVEL DOWN>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

<<<<<Tactics for the Battle Oriented Dragoon in YOU!>>>>>

Dragoons at high levels have the potential to be in the top 5 damage dealing classes in the game, and with the right talent can rank right up there with Dark Knight. I’d like to first point out one outstanding fact… Dragoons do NOT do heavy damage with every strike! They are NOT meant to! Dragoons hit fast, and along with your wyvern and the right subjob, you can dish out PLENTY of damage.

I want to also emphesize the fact that ALL classes have their weaknesses, and their strengths, and in the end if you play your toon right, you will be just as valuable to a group as the next guy in line. Play whats fun to you and you will have fun and do well. Striving to play the game searching endlessly for the BEST class, you will drive yourself crazy and end up with a lot of low level characters and not one high level, and thus miss out on most of the greater things in FFXI. Find a job and subjob that suit you well and stick with it, through its strengths, and its weaknesses. With that said, lets get started.

RACE and SUBJOB.

"What race and sub should I pick, oh mighty dragoon?" You ask? Thats simple oh noobish one. Races symbolize to me what kind of a challenge you want in the game. The main attributes are HP, DEX, STR, AGI, and VIT. Earlier on in the game your are going to want to concentrate your equipment to make up for DEX, HP AND STR, but later on AGI and VIT will play a big role in your survival.

With that said, I leave the race choice to you. All races are self explanitory and like I said, in the end you are going to be just as valuable as the next guy. Wether you want to die more often (taru), hit faster (mithra), hit harder (elvaan), live longer (Galka), or be a jack of all stats (Hume), the choice is yours.

Personally I picked hume, but that decision was based on the fact that I will eventually want to accomplish, and do exceptional at all jobs, with the same character. The cold hard truth however, is that I will only be the "Jack of all trades master of none". I can guarantee however that being hume isnt going to keep you from getting in great groups at ANY level. As for subjob, Warrior till your dragoon is 60, sub samurai after that.

Make sure your sam is 30 for "Meditate". Warrior is vital at lower levels for provoke, defense, and HP. 60DRG/30SAM is a power house later on for weapon skills and fast damage!!! Super jump, high jump, jump, meditate, store tp, Your TP will hardly ever fall below 100% and with penta thrust you will be a huge damage dealer. You will constantly be doing damage and being able to dodge an attack every 60 seconds with third eye doesnt hurt either, not to mention your wyvern following your every weapon skill with an elemental breath!

JOB ABILITIES:

Active Job Abilities

Name Level Charge Time Duration Effect
Call Wyvern 2hr Till Wyvern dies Wyvern is called to fight by your side
Ancient Circle 5 5:00 2:30 Dragon resistance up
Jump 10 1:30 Jump attack
Heavy Jump 35 3:00 Better Jump attack
Super Jump 50 5:00 Better Jump attack, plus land away from enemy

Passive Job Abilities

Name Level Effect
Attack Up 10 Physical attack up
Dragon Slayer 25 Do more damage to dragons
Accuracy up 30 Hit ratio up

***SIDE NOTE***
– A common misconception is that many people think there are only 3 dragons in this game. There are MANY dragons in this game, two that come to mind are "Fafnir", a huge really cool looking named dragon that takes a lot of high level people to kill, and "Ash Dragon" This mob drops the infamous great katana "Murasame" The same Murasame from the old FF games. There are also plenty of non-NM dragons in some of the later, high-level zones.

- Your Wyvern should not be underestimated!!! Wyvern is one of the most valuable comodities of the dragoon not to mention the main advantage the class has! Ok so the damn thing is weak to Goblins Bomb Toss, AoE’s are like the only problem ive ever had with them. All the other times it has saved me and helped me do great damage. Also, people say, "Oh, the wyverns are weak, they dont do any damage." they arent MEANT to hit for a lot! They hit fast and count as a part of you, add your damage and the wyverns damage and youll see it works out better than most people think! PLUS, dont forget their specials!![

this is more of a quick over view of what a dragoon is capable of and some of things it can do, if you have any specific questions, just post them and I can help you out.

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The ninja depends on his speed and agility instead of flying into head on combat. Despite not being able to use heavy armor, the ninja uses evasion skills to escape a blow instead of trying to absorb it. In his arsenal are abilities that allow a character to move undetected past mobs of all kinds.

I highly recommend a ninja choose an Elvaan or Hume as a starting race. This will give your character a nice boost in agility and dexterity. For the ninja, he only has 1 active ability. It is called Self Sacrifice. It is attained at level 1 with a 2h our reuse timer. This skill will inflict an amazing amount of damage to the target, but at the cost of your own life. Only use it if it means saving a healer’s life in the heat of combat.

As a Ninja, the player is able to dual wield combat weapons. He can strike quickly and accurately. Apart from this skill, a Ninja learns Ninjutsu. These skills are often magical, but can not be attained through levels. They must be learned through scrolls instead.

Several of these scrolls include the ability to become invisible to a target and slow down your enemy. There are also elemental attacks and the skill to evade an enemy’s physical blows.

The ninja is extremely useful in groups due to his ability to become fully invisible. Never forget to use it when you need it. Stealth and Duel-Wielding can only be useful if the Ninja isn’t getting beaten down on by the opposing force. While grouped, one can avoid damage and concentrate on dealing it himself.

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Macros
Been over this several times but this wouldn’t be complete without stressing the importance of macros once again. Your brain and the time restrictions on casting, lag, recasting and healing back MP and avoiding agro are the ONLY things that should come into play. If you are loosing ANY time at all maneuvering thru the interface to execute an action odds are you need better macros. I’m not going into specifics because by now that should be a dead horse if you have read any of the other guides myself and others have written on the subject.

Managing rest time
At low levels resting during combat is not much of a concern but as you go up in levels it becomes the difference between a good party and a bad party, if not a dead party. In a sticky situation the time it takes to stand from a resting position and begin casting can seem like an eternity. By the time you stand it may be too late to save the person you were going to heal. Standing around waiting for someone to get damaged enough to warrant a heal when you could have been resting means potentially not having enough MP to finish the fight or needing too much time to rest between fights preventing exp chains. Balancing these two extremes takes a lot of practice. Regardless of the reality of group synergy if you don’t do this job, up to the standards of your group, you will be blamed for any and all failures. Learn to shrug this off or learn to be perfect.

If a single person is tanking and there aren’t any or few AE effects you are better off doing your highest efficient cure spell in most cases. Sometimes you are better off doing the higher spell even if it’s not as efficient. I know this sounds strange but if you can sit and rest a tick or two of healing time and recover more than you lost by using a “less efficient” cure…you just came out ahead of the game. Proper use of resting up whenever possible can give you a lot of extra room for error in other methods of being an optimal healer.

Healing (resting) to recover MP is more effective the longer you can do it. From the point you hit the button to sit down until you get your first “tick” of MP is approximately 15 seconds and gives 15 MP. Subsequent ticks come every 10 seconds and give 1 + the previous tick in MP. At 15 seconds you have 15, at 25 seconds you have 31 (15+16), at 35 seconds you have 48 (15+16=17) and so on.

Here are five examples of resting and healing combinations to use Cure 7 times. None are either right or wrong methods. The situation may demand any combination of resting and curing. This just demonstrates the speed at which you can do each method and the MP you go thru in the process.

1.) You are at 0 MP, rest for one tick (15 MP), stand, cast Cure (7 MP), rest for one tick (22 MP), cast Cure twice (6 MP), rest for one tick (21 MP) cast Cure two times (5 MP), rest for one tick (20 MP), stand and cast Cure two times (4 MP).
It took around 100 seconds.
2.) If you are at 0 MP and rest for 2 ticks (31 MP), stand cast Cure three times (7 MP), rest for one tick (22 MP), stand, Cure two times (6 MP), rest for one tick (21 MP), stand, Cure two times (5 MP).
It took around 96 seconds.
3.) If you are at 0 MP and rest for two ticks (31 MP), stand cast Cure three times (7 MP), rest for two tick (38 MP), stand, Cure four times (6 MP)
It took around 93 seconds.
4.) If you are at 0 MP and rest for three ticks (48 MP), stand cast Cure six times (0 MP), rest for one tick (15 MP), stand, Cure one time (7 MP)
It took around 93 seconds.
5.) If you are at 0 MP and rest for four ticks (66 MP), stand cast Cure seven times (10 MP)
It took around 86 seconds.

With the exception of #3 and #4 you can see there is defiantly a time savings the longer you can rest between casting cures. Even in this demonstration #4 is better than #3 it’s just harder to see results in such a small time frame. Determining when you must stand and when you can wait 10 more seconds for an additional tick of MP is a very important skill for any primary healer in a party.

Now this example used only Cure 1 and had to wait for the recast timer before casting the spell again. If you mix and match different level Cure spells you can negate or minimize the impact of the recast timer and heal someone even faster. More on this later.

MP conservation and threat assessment
There will be times when you can’t sit and rest at all or need to switch targets often. It’s times like these that being efficient you’re your heals should be your primary consideration. You also need to learn threat assessment tactics. Do you really NEED to heal that party member who just got hit by a fluke attack or can you save that MP for the main tank? Are they in danger of getting killed right away or can they afford another hit or two before you have to take action? Are the odds good that the tank will keep it off them for the remainder of the fight? This is where the true art of being a primary healer comes into play. Mashing cure buttons and calculating up time, down time, MP : HP healed ratios is nice and all but tactics is what it’s all about. Knowing the capabilities of your team and your enemy can matter a lot more than your max MP.

If you are getting low on MP this skill becomes even more critical. You may not want to use the remainder of your MP healing the main tank to full just incase someone else gets hurt. Perhaps a lower heal may be enough to keep them safe and still hold some MP in reserve. These situations have way too many variables to give any cookie cutter answers or guides but hopefully some of this information will help you make an educated decision.

Managing casting time
Casting time and recast time of a spell are both very important, and very separate, things to learn. When you understand how these two things work you can save players lives with more reliability in bad situations, allow yourself to rest enough to win fights where a full MP bar is not enough and even allow your group to get chain exp on the next target because you didn’t need any (or as much) time to rest. At first glance this seems like an exaggeration but in a hard fight(s) every second counts.

My testing showed the following results and I based a lot of my tactics off of them. WARNING annoying math ahead.

*Any Cure spell takes approximately 4 seconds to heal your target from the time you press the button to start casting.
*It takes approximately 6.5 seconds from the time you hit the button to start casting a Cure spell until the refresh time is up and you can hit it again to begin casting the same spell.
*It takes approximately 5.75 seconds from the time you hit the button to start casting a Cure spell until you can hit the button to cast a different Cure spell.

*C1 (Cure I) costs 8 MP and caps at 30HP +/- modifiers. (1 MP : 3.75 HP ratio)
*C2 (Cure II) costs 24 MP and caps at 90HP +/- modifiers. (1 MP : 3.75 HP ratio)
*C3 (Cure III) costs 46 MP and caps at 176 HP +/- modifiers. (1 MP : 3.826 HP ratio)
Can someone verify max healing?
*First tick of MP recovered by /heal takes 15 seconds and gives 15 MP.
*Subsequent ticks come every 10 seconds and give 1 + the previous tick in MP.

For our example we will use a short period of time outside of combat. A fight has just ended and using the information above our goal is to cure at least 300 HP of damage to one target using any combination of C1, C2 and C3 then rest having as much MP as possible at the end of 90 seconds. We will not use divine seal or regen for this example. Here are some of our options.

a.) C1 + C1 + C1 + C1 + C1 + C1 + C1 + C1 + C1 + C1 = 65 seconds 80 MP and healed 300 HP.
Allowing for 25 seconds of resting to gain 31 MP. This leaves us at -49 MP from the start of healing.
b.) C2 + C2 + C1 + C1 + C1 + C1 = 39 seconds 80 MP and healed 300 HP.
Allowing for 51 seconds of resting to gain 66 MP. This leaves us at -14 MPfrom the start of healing.
c.) C2 + C1 + C2 + C1 + C2 = 27 seconds 88 MP and healed 330 HP.
Allowing for 63 seconds of resting to gain 85 MP. This leaves us at -3 MP from the start of healing.
d.) C1 + C2 + C1 + C2 + C1 + C1 = 35 seconds 80 MP and healed 300 HP.
Allowing for 55 seconds of resting to gain 85 MP. This leaves us at +5 MP from the start of healing.
e.) C3 + C2 + C2 = 17 seconds 94 MP and healed 356 HP.
Allowing for 73 seconds of resting to gain 105 MP. This leaves us at +9 MP from the start of healing.
f.) C2 + C3 + C2 = 16 seconds 94 MP and healed 356 HP.
Allowing for 74 seconds of resting to gain 105 MP. This leaves us at +9 MP from the start of healing.
g.) C3 + C2 + C1 + C1 = 22 seconds 86 MP and healed 326 HP.
Allowing for 68 seconds of resting to gain 105 MP. This leaves us at +19 MP from the start of healing.
h.) C1 + C3 + C2 + C1 = 21 seconds 86 MP and healed 326 HP.
Allowing for 69 seconds of resting to gain 105 MP. This leaves us at +19 MP from the start of healing.
i.) C2 + C2 + C2 + C1 = 24 seconds 80 MP and healed 300 HP.
Allowing for 66 seconds of resting to gain 105 MP. This leaves us at +25 MP from the start of healing.
j.) C2 + C1 + C2 + C2 = 22 seconds 80 MP and healed 300 HP.
Allowing for 68 seconds of resting to gain 105 MP. This leaves us at +25 MP from the start of healing.
k.) C3 + C3 = 11 seconds 92 MP and healed 352 HP.
Allowing for 79 seconds of resting to gain 126 MP. This leaves us at +34 MP from the start of healing.

If you can sift thru all the information here a few key points become apparent. With few exceptions it is best to cure using the least amount of spells possible. The sooner you are done casting the sooner you can start resting. Over-healing can sometimes be more efficient than casting more lesser heals to come closer to the target number. Rotating between different levels of Cure spells is faster than casting the same level repeatedly giving you more time to rest.

In a perfect situation we would always use the most efficient combination but much like our casting and resting exercise there is no single correct answer. Often times the most efficient method is also the least flexible. An AE effect, a crit or a random party member (or even yourself) gaining agro can all throw a wrench into your well oiled machine. At first glance a.) looks like a horrible choice compared to the others but if the entire party is getting hit for smaller amounts of damage instead of one person getting hit a lot it can be the correct choice.

Secondary healers
Now we need to step away from the math a bit. Working with another healer defiantly makes things more, shall we say, interesting for the primary healer. Sometimes it is necessary to communicate carefully with the other healer and develop strategies and define roles. Other times nothing needs to be said and things go off without a hitch. More often than not I rarely need to nothing but what debuffs if any they are casting and what if any that I need to cast. After that I normally just adapt to them.

One of the first thing to determine is what is the role of the secondary healer. Are they roughly equal to you and you will be sharing healing duty? Are they just there for backup if you need a break or for emergencies? After a little experimenting you also need to find out how much you can trust them to cover for you. What you could do with that 200 MP the other healer has doesn’t mean squat while you sit and rest. It’s what THEY can do with that 200 MP until you need to stand up.

Avoiding doubling up on heals shouldn’t be an issue but it can happen. It should not happen often though and some better planning may be necessary to avoid it. The only time this is really acceptable is when the enemy has someone in enough danger that they will die in a matter of 1 or 2 hits. Both healers casting a Cure II on the mage who just got agro doing 90 HP then 20 HP is wasteful. If they had however both cast Cure 1 and done 30 and 30 HP only to see the poor mage die to a 80 HP attack then the healers have failed. The phrase better safe than sorry is an important mantra to the healer. Now having one healer use Cure II and the other doing Cure I would be best in this situation but planning like that is difficult to say the least. Don’t let an obsession with perfection conflict with doing your job properly.

Aside from situations like the one outlined above a simple method to prevent overlapping heals is to wait until 2 heals would not put the target over their max. If a tank has enough HP to safely wait until they are down 180 or more HP then don’t cast your Cure II when he is just under 90. If you do you risk the other healer casting at the same time and partially or totally wasting one of the spells. If you can hold off until 180 or so neither of the spells will be wasted even if you both cast at the same time. The only risk is if the other healer is not paying attention and doesn’t heal when you do. Then the target is still down 90 and you must cast again. Maybe you can wait till they are down 180 again or maybe you needed the time to rest. Use your best judgment when employing this strategy.

Most healers past 20 or so require little prodding when working with other healers. If you notice them sitting with full or near full MP and you are starting to get low sit and rest. Sometimes you need to notify them you are doing so but most will take the hint they need to cover the heals while you rest up as soon as they see you sit down. I strongly suggest against running one healer dry of MP then switching to the backup while the first rests. Whenever possible try to hold some MP in reserves for emergencies and rest up before empty.

You never know when you will spend all your MP only to notice the secondary healer is AFK, their connection just dropped, the enemy may hit with a surprisingly large AE or critical hit or maybe they just aren’t up to the task. For these reasons and many more it’s nice to have a reserve of MP. Other times you may in fact need both healers casting Cures at the same time to out pace the damage the enemy is doing. If you are fighting at the very edge of the parties limits (and that’s where everyone wants to be) the random element is ever present and it can often surprise you with dangerous results. It’s best to have at least one ace up your sleeve.

Conclusion
Now hopefully we understand a little better when we can rest, who we need to cure, when we need to cure them and what combination of spells to cast. Tiny little net gains in MP is what keeps exp chains going longer or lets you avoid those nasty “We would have won if only I could have healed one more time…” These are all tough decisions to make, in the heat of battle, and you need to remember you are gambling with everyone’s exp and time, not just your own.

Regen spell, the Curaga line of spells, proper use of Divine Seal and how much you can heal without gaining agro can all complicate matters even more but a lot of this is difficult to present in a guide format. Coordinating these with a second healer is even more difficult. As they say practice makes perfect. And your group is counting on just that.

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I will list NM’s and there level and Location in zone ( IE : F8 ) As I see alot of people seem to have trouble finding the creatures, and well As most of you are not on Shiva I worry not about having my NM’s stolen from me =) hehe

I will organize it a little better when I get the time as FFXI comes back up soon =)

Ghelsba Outpost
————–
Cyranuce M Cutauleon ( Top right of F10 ) ( atleast lvl 30 Presumed HP: 2500 )
Extra Job: Dragoon
Orcish Barricader ( Top left of I5 ) ( Level : 17-18 )
Lantern Shield
Orcish Wallbreacher (Top left of I5 )( Level : 15-18 )
Strike Baghnakhs
Thousandarm Deshuglesh ( Middle of J6-J7 line )( Level : 11-13 )
Obelisk
Plate Belt
————-
East Ronfaure
————-
Bigmouth Billy ( Along River of I8-I9 ) ( Level 9-10 )
Red Stone, Black Stone, White Stone, Clear Stone, Steel Ore, Mysril Ore
Gold Ore (You can get it if you use ability: Steal)
————-
West Ronfaure
————-
Jaggedy-Eared Jack (In G9 – H9) (Level 9-10 )
Rabbit Charm
————-
North Gustaberg
————-
Stinging Sophie ( Located Middle & Top Right of I-7 ) (Level 9-10)
————-
South Gustaberg
————-
Leaping Lizzy ( F8 and a lil into F9 E8 and E9 ) Most notably in F8 only though ) (Level 10-11)
Leaping Boots ( duh=P )
Bubbling Bernie ( M-10 ) ( Spawn by trading quus to the person inside? ) (Level 9-10)
Steamclock, ClabMeat, Water Crystal
————-
East Sarutabaruta
————-
Spiny Spipi ( ALL of H and I 7 ) (Level 9-10)
Mist Silk Cape
————-
West Sarutabaruta
————-
Tom Tit Tat ( all of I6 ) (Level 9-10)
Fruit Punch
————-
Tahrongi Canyon
————-
Serpopard Ishtar ( H6 and H/I8 ) (Level 19-20)
————-
Inner Horutoto Ruins
————-
Balloon (H-8) ( Yes the Balloon here is named, check it =P ) ( Second Floor ) (Level 14-17)
Asbestos Mitts
————-
Buburimu Peninsura
————-
Helldiver (Near K-9 – L-9) (Level 29-30)
Wingedge
Buburimboo ( Beach )(K-7) (Level 30-31)
Buburimu Gorget
————-
Valkurm Dunes
————-
Golden Bat (Near B-8) or (Near C-6) (Level 26-27)
Night Cape
Valkurm Emperor ( Bottom Left F8 )(Level 29-30)
Emporers Hairpin
————-
Konschtat Highlands
————-
Rampaging Ram/Battering Ram ( H-7 Area ) ( Unknown level 30+ )
Frenzy Horn
Ram Horn
Ram Fur
————-
Steamship Route
————-
Sea Horror ( Fishing or Pop ) ( LVL 60+ Hits for 500+ on lvl 30 person )
falling rain necklace
Cross Bones ( Random Event )
Protection sign of sand
————-

I will Add more as time goes by Until then hopefully this will suffice, If theres a specific zone or NM you have seen throw a followup reply and ill find out what I can on the mob. I didnt want to post to many past lvl 30 cause well, once you hit lvl 30 theres a ton more and im REALLLLLY lazy right now cause im tired, IF you have any questions feel free to reply with them.

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Final Fantasy XI Gil.

Rangers in FFXI

Rangers, inside and out

Monday, October 27, 2003
All trademarks and copyrights contained in this document are owned by their respective trademark and copyright holders.

Rangers in this game are not what you’re typically used to. Unlike other games, a ranger does not mean a master of wilderness and what not. The name actually means quite literally…a ranger. One who attacks with range. They are highly skilled in combat with bows and firearms with perfect accuracy. Rangers have an extreme amount of damage to dish out. Unfortunately, as most people know, every ARROW or every BULLET costs a whole Gil. Get ready to have to make money.

Dexterity is important as a ranger. Because of this I recommend a Mithra as the preferred race to pick. The high dexterity will serve you well, and agility will also help. Rangers are not hand to hand combatants, so don’t plan to solo. In a group, you must stand back and fire from a distance instead of going tooth and nail. On to abilities:

Eagle Eye – Level 1 – Increase accuracy and damage
Sharp Shooting – 1 – Increase accuracy of ranged damage
Scan – 5 –Reveals all mobs on map in range
Scavenger – 10 – Scan ground for items
Camouflage – 20 – Unable to be detected by mobs
Continuous Shot – 30 – Attack multiple targets
Shadow Sewing – 40 – Forces enemy to stop moving

A ranger’s passive abilities include several increased resistances and accuracy. An unique passive ability is that a ranger becomes harder to be seen by aggressive mobs. This may not seem like much, but when you’re surrounded by 10 giant demons, you’ll be happy like a clown that you have it. Never forget your active abilities in case of an emergency. Shadow Sewing may not seem like much, but when your healer is getting chased, it’ll save his life (Or even yours).

Since it may be hard to get groups as a ranger, being that you’re not much of a tank, I recommend picking up white mage as a sub-job. This will allow you to heal group members in case they need it.

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Here is my money making mining tutorial, dont know if there are any around like this one but this method works good for me in making money besides doing the boring making and remaking characters in windurst.

First off you need some gil, preferably 2-5k Gil would be the nicest.

Create a Character In Bastok, you can create it on our server without a world pass for those of you that do not know, all you have to do is type in the server name under world. You can make any race, or whatever it does not matter at all. Go through the blah blah blah intro and /logout from that character.

Next Step log on to your character that has the money and Send it to your new character. /logout of that character.

Next log back onto your new character go get your money.

Goto the Bastok Mine Area on the Map, and Goto the Store that has the little bag on it. Your going to have to cross a bridge to get there, its not too hard to find, go into the back of the store and find the owner, the name starts with B dont remember what it is right now. Buy as many mining picks as possible, and go ahead and drop all of your equipment that you have, you will not need weapons or armor or any of the sort as only one thing aggro’s you, and it doesnt really matter if you die.

Next step go into the Zeph Mines and goto the rough area. Run around the mines pressing TAB looking for mining spots, when you reach one go into your inventory and select the pickaxe to use. Some spots you can use inbetween 1-7 times from my experience thus far. Keep only ZINC, STEEL, and ESPECIALLY DARKSTEEL ORE. Zinc goes for around 300 gil a pop, the steel for 600 gil, and darksteel a whopping 8000 Gil! You also can keep Silver Ore, which goes for around 300-400 Gil. For each mining pick you can at sometimes get around 1k gil for it, which is not shoddy at all, especially when they only cost 208 gil at the store. Just keep on going around til your out of inventory or picks. NOTE: There is only 1 monster that aggro’s that I have found as of yet and it was the Giant Amoeba, so try to keep back a little from it. So now your inventory is full, you will want to goto the auction house, the quickest way ive found is to just get yourself killed in the mines by attacking monsters heh, that way you dont have to waste a run after your fingers might be sore already. Goto the Auction House and set up First Darksteel, then Steel, then Zinc or Silver. You can either wait around like 15 mins or so, or deposit your ore in your completely new open mog house and go back out. But the ore sells FAST so you might want to just stick around. I have found up to around 15 or more Steel, and around 10 or more Zinc. thats 10k right there. If your lucky you might even get inbetween 1-2 Darksteel per 1 or 2 hours, which is an enormous money boost. This may take some time from your leveling but this way you can fund your Advancement

Hope this guide is helpful to those who use it, if it is used, please tell me how it goes for you and if you like it.

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Final Fantasy XI Gil.

FFXI Countries

Quick details on the 3 major player areas in FFXI

Monday, October 27, 2003
All trademarks and copyrights contained in this document are owned by their respective trademark and copyright holders.

There are three major countries in Final Fantasy XI, Bastok, San d’Oria, and Windurst. There are specific advantages/disadvantages to living in the areas depending on your race. Here’s how it breaks down.

Bastok
Humes and Galkas populate the city of Bastok by default.

This means that if you pick Hume or Galka as your character’s race, and choose to settle down in Bastok…..the locals will bestow you with a special ring. The Bastok ring gives you +3 to Hit Points, +1 to Vit, and +1 to Dex. Vitality and Dexterity are extremely important for the Warrior class, as Vitality determines how much damage you will take, and Dexterity determines how often you will connect an attack.

Bastok also offeres conquest point (CP) items that you can buy when you kill enough enemies. Compared to Windurst, both Bastok and San d’Oria have superior armories which produce higher quality items for Warriors, Paladins, and Dark Knight using CP. The reason why Bastok CP items are superior to Windurst CP items because Bastok CP items boost stats such as Vitality, Dexterity, and Strength.

Bastok also specializes in different guilds. If you decide to join a guild, can use materials dropped by monsters which you’ve defeated to create useful items to market/sell. The famous guilds in Bastok are Alchemy, which specializes in making potions, Blacksmithing, which forges weapons and armors, and Goldsmithing, which specializes in making accessories.

Therefore, if you plan on playing as a Warrior related job class, Bastok is a great choice due to the CP items that you can buy, as well as the guilds that you can join as soon as you begin the game.

San d’Oria
San d’Oria, north of Bastok is the city of Elves. If you decide to pick Elvaan as your character’s race, you will receive a San d’Oria ring. That ring will give you +2 to defense, as well as +1 Strength to and +1 to Mind. Interestingly enough, Elves have a high stats in Mind, which contributes to White Magic. In other words, the high you character’s Mind is, the higher HP you will be able to cure. The Elvaan race also makes good warriors due to their high STR. Because the strength of your character contributes to the damage of the damage from your sword, Elvaans can hit harder than Humes. San d’Oria’s CP items are very similar to Bastok although not identical.

The guilds that San d’Oria specializes in are Woodworking, and Tanner. Woodworkers can synthesize useful items such as bow and arrows, while the Tanners can synthesize items such as capes, and gloves.

Windurst
Mithras and Tarutarus share the city of Windurst. Because Tarutarus excel in magic, it is not surprising that Windurst itself revolves around magic. In contrast to the warrior natured cities such as Bastok, and San d’Oria, Windurst is the ideal city to start in because of the easy access to magic scrolls, and mage equipment. The Windurst ring that you will receive if you start as either a Mithra or Tarutaru adds 3 to MP, + 1 to Intelligence, and +1 to Agility. In terms of CP items, Windurst has items, which benefits Mithras. For example, nearly every piece of the Mercenary Captain set armor increase Dex or Agility (which contributes to Evasion). If you plan on being a mage, in which the Tarutarus excel as because of their high amount of Magic Points. Needless to say, the more MP you have, the more spells you can cast before resting. Windurst is also an ideal place to start if you decide to be a Mithra because the job classes that Mithras play as generally wear light armor such as robes and doublets.

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As a warrior or even sub warrior your “provoke” job ability is your meal ticket.
If your gear is up to snuff and you know when to use provoke you know 75% of what you need to know to be a great tank. The other 25% is knowing what the rest of your team can do and then the fun stuff, weapon skill chains.

The most important thing to do is learn how to provoke. A player with primary job of warrior gets provoke at 5. A player with their secondary job as warrior won’t have access to provoke until at least level 10 for their main. Since many people don’t group at all until around 10 this isn’t much of a concern.

Since you will be doing so very often a macro for the ability will be your first priority. There are a few options when doing so. One method is to just have the macro activate the ability. The other is to have it do this and report to the party what you are doing. Both have their good points and bad.

Doing so silently does not create as much clutter in the chat channel for your party. In a battle, especially in crowded areas, it can be hard to see important messages as they scroll by. If you are saying “I shall not let you harm my friends you evil (enemyname)!” every 30 or so seconds when you provoke it just fills up the chat window that much more and has the very probable possibility of ticking off your party once they read it for the 100th time. Most people will recognize the visual and sound effects accompanied by the use of provoke anyway.

Prov
Line1: /ja “Provoke” <t>

The above macro simply uses the provoke ability on your current target.

On the other hand there will be those who don’t know you are provoking. For no other reason than to avoid someone in your party accusing you of not provoking when you should it can be a good reason to let the party know what you are doing. While I trust people to do their job you will find there are a lot of people who think they could do a better job than you and aren’t afraid to tell the party so. Because of this I can’t suggest you don’t have any chat lines in your macro. That’s up to you. In general the higher in levels you get the fewer clueless people you should find. If you are in a solid group of people who know what they are doing then they don’t need to be informed when you are provoking. The choice is up to you. If you do decide to do a chat line I highly suggest you keep it simple and short. Flavorful little catch phrases are nice and all until you do them so many times even your party who thinks you do an awesome job are ready to put you on ignore.

Prov
Line1: /ja “Provoke” <t>
Line2: /p Provoke > <t>!

If for instance you were targeting a snipper, the above macro would use the provoke ability on the snipper, then it would tell the party, “Provoke > snipper!” This keeps it short and simple. If you use the auto-translate feature for “provoke” then even a Japanese player would be clued in on what you are doing.

The second component of your provoke macro is a timer. Provoke has a refresh time of 30 seconds. Unless you go into the menu and select provoke you have no way of knowing if it’s ready to activate. With a little work in your macro you can know when it’s ready. This is where /wait comes into play. Much like the above section some people like to let the party know when it’s ready and some don’t. It’s up to you. If someone keeps accusing you of not provoking off them, and you know it’s only because the skill wasn’t ready to use, then maybe broadcasting to the party, the time remaining till provoke is ready, is a good idea. We’ll use the above examples and just add onto it.

Prov
Line1: /ja “Provoke” <t>
Line2: /wait 20
Line3: /echo Provoke in 10 sec
Line4: /wait 10
Line5: /echo Provoke ready

The above macro will use the provoke ability on your target, wait 20 seconds then will echo (a message only you see) “Provoke in 10 sec”. It then waits another 10 seconds then echoes “Provoke ready”.

Prov
Line1: /ja “Provoke” <t>
Line2: /p Provoke > <t>!
Line3: /wait 20
Line4: /p Provoke ready in 10 sec.
Line5: /wait 10
Line6: /p Provoke ready.

This is just like the previous macro accept it keeps your party informed at every step.

Now you have your macro ready the next trick is learning when to use it. I play as a WHM so better tactics by actual warriors may benefit you more but I’ll take a shot. There are many variables in play here so there is not simple formula for success. The first thing to remember is it is your job to keep the attention of the enemy. The second thing to remember is if you can’t manage to do so it’s not necessarily your fault. If a BLM is casting attack spells non stop and you can’t keep the enemies off of him let him know. Explain to him that there are limitations to what provoke can do and let him know he needs to hold back some. If they don’t listen well they are probably going to get themselves killed off. If they yell at you too much for your tastes find another group. If you did everything you could then don’t let others make you feel bad about it. Now if it’s a WHM who keeps drawing agro by healing I’ll leave it up to you if you want to suggest they cast fewer or less powerful spells. If both the provoker and the WHM are doing as best they can and you can’t keep the enemies off the WHM odds are you need to fight something else or get more provokers.

There are a few questions you need to go thru when acting as a provoker in a group. Are you the one bringing the enemies to the party? If so is there another provoker in the party with you? If there are multiple provokers then setting up a provoke order can help a lot.

If you are not the one bringing the enemies then you will stay with the part and wait for that person to bring an enemy. If possible they should be someone using a ranged weapon. Unless this is a ranger, ranged attacks typically generate very little agro. I haven’t dealt with high level rangers but I would assume that a provoke when the enemy arrives would still draw the attention of the enemy after an attack by them. When it arrives you use provoke and begin attacking. Any additional provokers should not use their ability unless they need to pull the enemy off of you because you are in danger or if the enemy attacks someone else in the group before your provoke is ready again.

If you are the main provoker and the person bringing the enemies to the party you have 2 options. I’m not sure which tends to work better so you may want to ask other warriors. You can attack with a ranged weapon, bring it back and begin fighting, or you can draw them in with provoke from a distance and begin fighting.

If you draw them in with an attack and your party doesn’t immediately pull it off of you then you have your provoke ready as soon as it turns to attack someone else. If you draw them in with a provoke then there will be 30 seconds when you can’t do anything if it turns against someone else. If you are far enough away from the group that provoke will almost be ready by the time you get to them then by all means save the cost of your ranged weapon and just use it. Also I think the range on provoke tends to be shorter than most ranged weapons though I’m not certain. If this is the case then by using a ranged weapon there is less chance you will be hurt when you get to the party. From a WHM stand point it’s always better if you don’t have to use a cure spell the second the puller gets back to the party. That tends to get the WHM smacked by the enemy.

A provoke order is very handy when there is more than one person in the party with the ability. This prevents one party member drawing agro, having both warriors provoking at the same time, then immediately having someone else (or the same person) get agro and have nobody to get it off them for 30 seconds. If you alternate who provokes then you can keep things off the more fragile party members easier. Party members are often classified as primary and secondary tanks. The primary tank is ideally the person best suited for taking constant attacks from the enemy. They may have the most HP and or the best defenses. The secondary tank is someone with provoke better suited to take hits than any but the primary tank. If the primary tank can’t provoke something off someone then it is the job of the secondary to do so. Then when able the primary will provoke the enemy off the secondary. This method can also be used with more than just 2 provokers.

Over time you will learn what tends to draw agro onto other party members. Hopefully they will as well and learn to avoid this as much as possible. Big heals, big damage spells and special attacks are the main things to look out for. If you can try to have the rest of the party stand on the opposite side as the primary tank. A rogue in the group may need a different setup but as a general rule it’s easier to see the enemy turn and hit someone else than it is to realize it is attacking the person standing along side you. It makes realizing when you need to hit the provoke key that much faster.

Right before your party begins a skill chain I would suggest at least one of the tanks provokes. It can be very frustrating to be mid skill chain and have the monster run out of range to attack the WHM who needed to heal or the BLM who was adding magic bursts. If you can hold him in place long enough to finish the chain it is well worth it.

As the primary tank your gear is very important. It does no good to be able to hold the enemies attention if you have too few HP or too low of a defense for the party to keep you alive. It can be very expensive but if your gear is not of high enough quality it could easily cost you a spot in a party.

That’s about all the input I can offer on provoke and a warrior’s role. I’ll have to let you track down info on weapon skills somewhere else. I’ve already churned out a novel on provoke. Good luck.

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Dark Knights Unveiled

The Sith Lords of FFXI…umm I mean Dark Knights

Monday, October 27, 2003
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If the Paladin is Ying, the Dark Knight is Yang. They are the direct opposite of each other. The Dark Knight (Will refer to Dark Knight as DK) focuses on offensive other then defensive traits. Learning from the black arts from Black Mages, the DK’s are a mix between a warrior and a mage. They use hand to hand weaponry while not forgetting to neglect their spells. To begin with, I recommend the Galka as the race for a DK. Their amazing HP and vitality pays off for the offensive powers already included in the DK job.

Active Abilities
Blood Weapon – Level 1 – Drain HP from enemy with all attacks
Arcane Circle – 5 – Increase defense in party
Last Resort – 15 – Increase attack and lowers defense
Weapon Bash – 20 – Strong damaging 2 handed attack
Darkness – 30 – Give up HP for more powerful blows

Passive Abilities
Physical Attack Buff – 10 –Buff attack damage
Resist Paralyzing attacks – 20 – increase resistance to such said skill
Arcana Killer – 25 – Increase damage against magical mobs
Physical Attack Buff (2) – 30 – Buff attack damage
Resist Paralyzing attacks (2) – 40 – increase resistance to such said skill
Physical Attack Buff – 50 –Buff attack damage

As you can see, the DK’s attack is geared towards defense. In a party, if a DK is not the main tank, he can unleash Darkness and use Weapon Bash, dealing an incredible amount of damage. I highly recommend teaming up with a Thief or Warrior job as your sub. The warrior job will give DK’s the taunt skills to drive mobs away from healers and casters. The thief job will help give a nice boost to agility and dexterity. Unfortunately there is no HP buff for this combo. So the choice is yours in the end.

One of the DK’s most noticeable traits is its vampirism abilities. Skills such as stat absorption or HP/MP leeching, makes them a powerful foe. These abilities take away the given factor from your target and give it to the character that casted the spell. For example, using Drain will take HP from the target and refill the caster’s health.

Combat wise, alike the Paladin, the DK is geared towards grouping. Most of his or her skills are only mostly useful if they are not being beaten down on by the target at hand. The Dark Knights have elemental attacks which cause a considerable amount of damage, but is only mainly useful to support other tanks or casters. Also, a DK has a range of DoT spells. DoT stands for damage over time. If the character is soloing, and getting beaten down hard, a DoT is useless, since it won’t have enough time to be useful before your dead. Lastly, the DK has a stun spell, a sleep spell, and the ability to transfer the corpse of another player to the caster who posted it.

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Crafting in FFXI is quite expensive to start, but the long term gains make it well worth the effort and expense. Crafting is divided up into 8 guilds: black smith, gold smith, weaver, carpenter, alchemist, boneworker, tanner and culinarian. Fishing is also a guild you can join but there is no crafting involved with it so I will not be covering it here.

You can craft anything without officially joining a guild. However, joining a guild does have it’s benefits. When you are a guild member you can buy crafting materials from the guild, get training, and even receive assistance with whatever projects you may undertake. Joining a guild is quite easy and anyone who decides to take up crafting should definitely join the guilds.

You are able to join any number (or all) of the crafting guilds at once and there is no cost associated with sign up. All you have to do is go to the correct location during the correct time (in game time) and join. The shop locations are as follows along with their hours of operation:

Bastok:
Alchemist – Bastok Mines (K7) – 08:00 to 23:00
Blacksmith – Bastok Metalwork (E7) – 08:00 to 23:00
Goldsmith – Bastok Market (H8) – 08:00 to 23:00
Weaver – Selbina (E12) – 06:00 to 21:00
Fisherman – Selbina (H9) – 03:00 to 18:00

San d’Oria:
Blacksmith – Northern San d’Oria (E5) – 08:00 to 23:00
Carpenter – Northern San d’Oria (E3) – 06:00 to 21:00
Tanner – Southern San d’Oria (D8) – 03:00 to 18:00
Weaver – Selbina (H9) – 03:00 to 18:00
Fisherman – Selbina (H9) – 03:00 to 18:00

Windurst:
Blacksmith – Mhaura (G9) – 08:00 to 23:00
Boneworker – Windurst Woods (H13) – 08:00 to 23:00
Culinarian – Windurst Waters (E8) – 05:00 to 20:00
Goldsmith – Mhaura (G8) – 08:00 to 23:00
Weaver – Windurst Woods (F12) – 06:00 to 21:00
Fisherman – Port Windurst (C8) – 03:00 to 18:00

Once you have joined a guild it’s time to start crafting. In order to begin crafting you will need to collect some basic components. You can get these components from monster drops, or from searching in the wilds. If you talk to a border guard in the wilds he will give you a signet which will allow you to find crystals more effectively for a short period of time. You can also buy some of the components from your guild as well as the auction house if other players are selling them.

Once you have the needed components you can start your crafting. It is recommended that you begin with crafting easy to make items, since you will succeed more and your skill will go up faster. You can sell some of these items at the auction house, but more than likely you will not make much money off of them until you start reaching the higher levels.

Each guild can make different types of items. Blacksmiths can make arms and armor, culinarians can make food, alchemists can make potions. Each guild has it’s strong points and each is useful in a different way.

Alchemist
A very powerful, and expensive, guild. Alchemy allows you to not only make potions and salves, but a good alchemist can also make very strong elemental weapons. If you plan on just sticking to the potions you will not need to worry too much about joining any other guilds. However, if you want to make the elemental weapons then you are going to need to find friends in other guilds or join them yourself. Blacksmithing, carpentry, and goldsmithing are the three you will find needed the most.

Blacksmith
Blacksmiths are able to make weapons, armor, and other metal tools from raw materials. As you reach the higher levels you will find that there are components needed which you can not make. For this reason it’s best to find a friend who can make these items or take up the corresponding guild on your own. Most of these items come from carpentry, goldsmithing, and tanning.

Boneworking
When working with bone you are able to make a wide array of jewelry for other players (or yourself) to wear. Boneworking doesn’t stop there however, if you are more battle oriented boneworkers can make an array of weapons, shields, and armor. In order to make the best stuff you are going to need to find a tanner to help you with some of the components.

Carpenter
It’s a shame that carpenters can’t build houses in this game, but they are not totally useless either. Carpenter’s can make a number of furniture items to warm any mog house as well as fishing poles, staves, bows, and arrows. Taking up tanning and bone working on the side could prove very useful to any carpenter.

Culinarian
Cooking is overlooked in many games but in FFXI it can be very powerfull. At high levels of cooking you are able to produce foods that will increase your stats for a short duration. For example, if you are a warrior and take up cooking you could make yourself a bunch of vitality food and eat it before going into battle. This would increase your vitality for a short period making you take significantly less damage from attacks. Luckily, culinarian is one of the few guilds which don’t really require the support of any other guilds.

Goldsmithing
Gold smithing is one of the most expensive guilds to level up in, but it does have it’s advantages. The main one being, it doesn’t require knowledge of any other guilds to make it’s best items. Goldsmith made items tend to be mostly jewelry, but there is rumor that high level gold smith items can have magical properties.

Tanner
Tanning is the art of working with hides. As a tanner you will be able to make a very wide array of light armor for use by other players. Tanning isn’t the most expensive guild to start up in but it is also not the cheapest. At high levels you will find that having a friend or two in goldsmithing and weaving may come in handy.

Weaver
Weaving, as you may have guessed, is used to make cloths of all types. This guild is mainly used to make clothing for players to wear. The best part about this guild though is it’s ability to make capes. Everyone should have a cape. Goldsmithing is the main secondary guild you will need for this but boneworking and carpentry could also come in handy.

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