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noobs understanding party dynamics
again i just made it more handy for odin members
The newbie guide to understanding Party dynamics.
If this is sticky-worthy, then by all means, moderators, please sticky it.
Ok guys, here we go:
Although you, as a player who is new to FFXI, can manage to play solo for a while in the beginning, you inevitably reach a point where you HAVE to start playing in parties (PT) to progress in the game and continue to level up. That milestone usually comes around level 15.
A lot of more experienced players complain about newbies who don't understand the concept of team work in a PT. It's a normal occurrence because there is so much to learn in this game that new players can't always be expected to know about the necessary skills needed to do a good job in a PT. If you link them to this site, they have to search through countless posts to finally get the gist of what stuff like pulling, macros, skill chains (SC), Magic Bursts (MB) and other PT concepts are. That's why I decided to create this post, yearning to cram together some of the more important concepts the newbies need to understand, so that they can quickly become efficient contributing members of any PT. Some would say: “To hell with the newbs! Let them learn it themselves the way we did”. I’m not concerned with that. The way I figure it, the more people know what to do in a PT, the less experience players will have trouble finding good PT members.
Basic party member functions
A typical party contains:
- Melee players
- Support players
Melee players tend to be monks, warriors and other job types that favor man-to-man close combat. The main function of these players is to deal damage, perform SCs and lure monsters to the PT (referred to as “Pulling”), but most importantly to take hits from monsters and keep them away from the support players. Among melee players, the warrior is particularly important because of his ability to “Provoke” monsters. In case a monsters decides to attack a support character, the warrior can provoke it into turning it’s attention away and back to himself and the other melee players. It is VERY IMPORTANT for all warriors to get acquainted with the “Provoke” job ability (JA). It is highly recommended that you create a macro for this JA. It would look like this:
/ja “Provoke” <t>
This will provoke the monster you are targeting. Warriors need to practice calling this JA till it becomes of second nature to them. They must cast Provoke every time a monster derives its attention towards a support player. If your PT has more than one warrior, the warrior with the highest defense and the most HP should be the one doing the provoking, unless his HP gets very low. In that case, another warrior with the Provoke JA could do the provoking until the tougher warrior’s HP is replenished. In case you are new to macros, those will be explained later.
Support players tend to be Mages and other job types that favor magic casting and long-range combat. The main functions of these players is to deal extra damage and perform MBs, but most importantly to support the melee players through healing, enhancing their abilities and debilitating monsters with status ailments. Among support players, the white mage is of particular importance, since he is the backbone of the PT, making sure that the melee players are healed as they take damage from monsters, also making sure they are ridden of any status ailment monsters can affect them with. The white mage, or any supporting character in charge of healing needs to be kept alive. That’s why it is important for warriors to provoke monsters.
A good party
The advantage of being in a good, well organized party is having the option to fight tough, very tough and incredibly tough monsters, therefore getting much more experience points (EXP) and leveling up faster. To fight the tougher monsters, it becomes imperative that all PT members understand and be proficient at using Skill Chains (SC) and Magic Bursts (MB).
Skill Chains and Magic Bursts
A SC is a succession of 2 or 3 different Melee players performing a Weapon Skill (WS) in roughly 3 second intervals. For a SC to succeed, you need to chain the right WSs together. To determine which WS can be chained after which other WS, you have to look at the WS’ elemental property. In This chart, you can reference any WS to it’s elemental property.
The list of elemental properties by color is:
Red ----------> Fire
Green -------> Wind
Light blue --> Ice
Dark blue --> Water
Grey ---------> Darkness
Purple-------->Lightning
Yellow-------->Light
Orange------->Earth
By using the arrows that link the different elemental groups of WSs, you can then determine the order in which the WSs can be chained. An example would be : Fast Blade --> Burning Blade (Liquefaction) --> Flat Blade (Fusion). Liquefaction and Fusion are the elemental effects that chaining the right WSs will create. Those effects are what deals extra damage.
Elemental effects such as Liquefaction can also be used to create MBs, which instead of being performed with WSs, are performed with spells. The idea is to combine the elemental effect created by a SC (such as Liquefaction) with the casting of a spell with the same elemental property. Since Liquefaction is a Fire elemental effect, combining it with a Fire type spell (such as Fire, duh) creates a Magic Burst! This can deal devastating damage, especially if the monster being affected is weak against the elemental property of the spell. You can perform up to 2 MBs in a SC, since you can have up to 2 elemental effects in a SC. The key to timing a MB is to cast the spell right after the elemental effect starts.
- In a 2 WS SC, you have a 4-5 second window of opportunity after the elemental effect to cast a spell for an MB.
- In a 3 WS SC, you have a 1 second window of opportunity after the first elemental effect to cast a spell for the first MB. You then have a 4-5 second window of opportunity after the last elemental effect to cast a spell for the last MB. The first MB in a 3 WS SC is hard to time and takes practice. If you can pull off a triple SC with a double MB, I don’t need to tell you that you are going to deal a great deal of damage to the enemy.
To completely understand the timing issues of SCs and MBs, I urge PT newbies to read the Renkei/Magic burst guide on www.gamefaqs.com (page won't link correctly). It might seem complicated, but it’s really not. Once you see it done in the game, it’ll become all too clear that anyone can do it and everyone should!
Macros
Now, you might say that all this having to time WSs and spells can be bothersome, and I would tend to agree with you. Thankfully, macros can help you with that. Having to time your “Burning Blade” exactly 3 seconds after another PT member’s “Fast blade” can be as easy as calling a macro right when you see “X readies Fast Blade” in the log window at the bottom of your screen. The macro would look like this:
/wait 3
/ws “Burning Blade” <t>
The key lies in the /wait command which allows you to insert a waiting period before the WS is called.
Macros can be used for a multitude of purposes:
- Timing WSs in SCs and spells in MBs.
- Casting misc job abilities and spells.
- Letting your PT members know how much TP you have for preparing SCs
- Telling your PT members you’re about to Pull a certain enemy to fight the PT.
- Making custom emotes
- Many many more uses.
Here are some examples of useful macros:
/p Initiating Skill Chain <call1>
/ws "Combo" <t>
This echoes the message "Initiating Skill Chain" and gives a sound cue to your party, then procedes to perform the "Combo" WS on the targeted monster. You PT members can base themselves on the sound cue if they want to SC after your "Combo".
/ja "Provoke" <t>
This will perform the "Provoke" JA on the targeted monster.
/p HP: <hp> TP: <tp> MP: <mp>
This will display your current HP, TP and MP to your party.
/p Get ready, I'm about to pull a <t> to the party
This will warn your party that you're luring the monster you're targeting to the party. The "<t>" will be replaced by the monster's name in te echoed text.
Hopefully by now, your mind is devising all kinds of ways macros could make your life easier. To learn more about them, check out the Macro guide for FFXI on www.gamefaqs.com (direct link doesn't work)
I hope this will help clear a few things up for the newcomers. I must say that I too was really confused about all of this until one particular player (Muyo, you rule!) took 15 minutes out of his time to explain some of it to me. From now on, every time I talk to someone who doesn’t know what a SC is, I will link them to this thread, so if there are any mistakes you guys want to point out, please do!
The newbie guide to understanding Party dynamics.
If this is sticky-worthy, then by all means, moderators, please sticky it.
Ok guys, here we go:
Although you, as a player who is new to FFXI, can manage to play solo for a while in the beginning, you inevitably reach a point where you HAVE to start playing in parties (PT) to progress in the game and continue to level up. That milestone usually comes around level 15.
A lot of more experienced players complain about newbies who don't understand the concept of team work in a PT. It's a normal occurrence because there is so much to learn in this game that new players can't always be expected to know about the necessary skills needed to do a good job in a PT. If you link them to this site, they have to search through countless posts to finally get the gist of what stuff like pulling, macros, skill chains (SC), Magic Bursts (MB) and other PT concepts are. That's why I decided to create this post, yearning to cram together some of the more important concepts the newbies need to understand, so that they can quickly become efficient contributing members of any PT. Some would say: “To hell with the newbs! Let them learn it themselves the way we did”. I’m not concerned with that. The way I figure it, the more people know what to do in a PT, the less experience players will have trouble finding good PT members.
Basic party member functions
A typical party contains:
- Melee players
- Support players
Melee players tend to be monks, warriors and other job types that favor man-to-man close combat. The main function of these players is to deal damage, perform SCs and lure monsters to the PT (referred to as “Pulling”), but most importantly to take hits from monsters and keep them away from the support players. Among melee players, the warrior is particularly important because of his ability to “Provoke” monsters. In case a monsters decides to attack a support character, the warrior can provoke it into turning it’s attention away and back to himself and the other melee players. It is VERY IMPORTANT for all warriors to get acquainted with the “Provoke” job ability (JA). It is highly recommended that you create a macro for this JA. It would look like this:
/ja “Provoke” <t>
This will provoke the monster you are targeting. Warriors need to practice calling this JA till it becomes of second nature to them. They must cast Provoke every time a monster derives its attention towards a support player. If your PT has more than one warrior, the warrior with the highest defense and the most HP should be the one doing the provoking, unless his HP gets very low. In that case, another warrior with the Provoke JA could do the provoking until the tougher warrior’s HP is replenished. In case you are new to macros, those will be explained later.
Support players tend to be Mages and other job types that favor magic casting and long-range combat. The main functions of these players is to deal extra damage and perform MBs, but most importantly to support the melee players through healing, enhancing their abilities and debilitating monsters with status ailments. Among support players, the white mage is of particular importance, since he is the backbone of the PT, making sure that the melee players are healed as they take damage from monsters, also making sure they are ridden of any status ailment monsters can affect them with. The white mage, or any supporting character in charge of healing needs to be kept alive. That’s why it is important for warriors to provoke monsters.
A good party
The advantage of being in a good, well organized party is having the option to fight tough, very tough and incredibly tough monsters, therefore getting much more experience points (EXP) and leveling up faster. To fight the tougher monsters, it becomes imperative that all PT members understand and be proficient at using Skill Chains (SC) and Magic Bursts (MB).
Skill Chains and Magic Bursts
A SC is a succession of 2 or 3 different Melee players performing a Weapon Skill (WS) in roughly 3 second intervals. For a SC to succeed, you need to chain the right WSs together. To determine which WS can be chained after which other WS, you have to look at the WS’ elemental property. In This chart, you can reference any WS to it’s elemental property.
The list of elemental properties by color is:
Red ----------> Fire
Green -------> Wind
Light blue --> Ice
Dark blue --> Water
Grey ---------> Darkness
Purple-------->Lightning
Yellow-------->Light
Orange------->Earth
By using the arrows that link the different elemental groups of WSs, you can then determine the order in which the WSs can be chained. An example would be : Fast Blade --> Burning Blade (Liquefaction) --> Flat Blade (Fusion). Liquefaction and Fusion are the elemental effects that chaining the right WSs will create. Those effects are what deals extra damage.
Elemental effects such as Liquefaction can also be used to create MBs, which instead of being performed with WSs, are performed with spells. The idea is to combine the elemental effect created by a SC (such as Liquefaction) with the casting of a spell with the same elemental property. Since Liquefaction is a Fire elemental effect, combining it with a Fire type spell (such as Fire, duh) creates a Magic Burst! This can deal devastating damage, especially if the monster being affected is weak against the elemental property of the spell. You can perform up to 2 MBs in a SC, since you can have up to 2 elemental effects in a SC. The key to timing a MB is to cast the spell right after the elemental effect starts.
- In a 2 WS SC, you have a 4-5 second window of opportunity after the elemental effect to cast a spell for an MB.
- In a 3 WS SC, you have a 1 second window of opportunity after the first elemental effect to cast a spell for the first MB. You then have a 4-5 second window of opportunity after the last elemental effect to cast a spell for the last MB. The first MB in a 3 WS SC is hard to time and takes practice. If you can pull off a triple SC with a double MB, I don’t need to tell you that you are going to deal a great deal of damage to the enemy.
To completely understand the timing issues of SCs and MBs, I urge PT newbies to read the Renkei/Magic burst guide on www.gamefaqs.com (page won't link correctly). It might seem complicated, but it’s really not. Once you see it done in the game, it’ll become all too clear that anyone can do it and everyone should!
Macros
Now, you might say that all this having to time WSs and spells can be bothersome, and I would tend to agree with you. Thankfully, macros can help you with that. Having to time your “Burning Blade” exactly 3 seconds after another PT member’s “Fast blade” can be as easy as calling a macro right when you see “X readies Fast Blade” in the log window at the bottom of your screen. The macro would look like this:
/wait 3
/ws “Burning Blade” <t>
The key lies in the /wait command which allows you to insert a waiting period before the WS is called.
Macros can be used for a multitude of purposes:
- Timing WSs in SCs and spells in MBs.
- Casting misc job abilities and spells.
- Letting your PT members know how much TP you have for preparing SCs
- Telling your PT members you’re about to Pull a certain enemy to fight the PT.
- Making custom emotes
- Many many more uses.
Here are some examples of useful macros:
/p Initiating Skill Chain <call1>
/ws "Combo" <t>
This echoes the message "Initiating Skill Chain" and gives a sound cue to your party, then procedes to perform the "Combo" WS on the targeted monster. You PT members can base themselves on the sound cue if they want to SC after your "Combo".
/ja "Provoke" <t>
This will perform the "Provoke" JA on the targeted monster.
/p HP: <hp> TP: <tp> MP: <mp>
This will display your current HP, TP and MP to your party.
/p Get ready, I'm about to pull a <t> to the party
This will warn your party that you're luring the monster you're targeting to the party. The "<t>" will be replaced by the monster's name in te echoed text.
Hopefully by now, your mind is devising all kinds of ways macros could make your life easier. To learn more about them, check out the Macro guide for FFXI on www.gamefaqs.com (direct link doesn't work)
I hope this will help clear a few things up for the newcomers. I must say that I too was really confused about all of this until one particular player (Muyo, you rule!) took 15 minutes out of his time to explain some of it to me. From now on, every time I talk to someone who doesn’t know what a SC is, I will link them to this thread, so if there are any mistakes you guys want to point out, please do!
