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I hope others will add to this thread with their experiences. I would like to start with my credentials:
I have the following classes so far, all levelled in the Dunes to some extent:
RDM-30, SMN-30, WHM-20, BLM-15, THF-15, RNG-15, COR-15
Very Early Dunes Party (10~13): Hill Lizards and Eastern Goblins
This is a Milk Run party, and they're fairly easy to assemble. You need a healer or two (not necessarily a good one), and some stalwart warriors. BLMs are not required, but they're always nice. This party is totally unnecessary as almost everyone (including WHM) can get to 12-13 without too much difficulty soloing (unless you're a subless WHM).
For the healer requirement, 1 WHM can usually fit the bill and you can fill the rest with DD if you have to, but your downtime will be high. Adding someone subbing WHM or a nice PLD is excellent here.
Early Dunes Party (13~15): Snippers
This is where parties really start to form in the Dunes. It is crucial to have some high-end DD here. Snippers are fairly low damage but their armor is incredible. Daggers, light swords, light axes, etc. will just ping off their tough hides and you'll get lots of 0's and occasional 1-3's. The Black Mage is almost a necessity here. I say almost because a RDM is still a fairly competent Nuker at this level and if you haven't tried Spark or Gust weapons, here is where they'll show you their power. A RDM with a Spark Dagger, Enthunder, and a few well-placed nukes will show you up in this party. You'll most likely be looking for a combination of 2-3 RDM/BLM with a minimum of 1 BLM because the RDM will run out of mana more quickly. A healer is nice, but optional as your mage group will be able to heal--White Mages should keep Barwatera up to defend against the Snipper's Water-based AoE attack, Bubble Shower. You'll want the remaining positions to be filled with well-armored fighters. The "Great" weapons are excellent choices for melees here as they will be able to pierce the crab's armor (just like a chef usually takes a giant cleaver to a crab when he's cooking, so should you follow his example). Note, however, that I said well-armored, not well-armed. It is crucial that your tanks have good armor especially if your party does not include a White Mage. The Summoner also appears to have a good time in these parties--carby seemed unaffected by the Snippers' armor when I was doing this PT, but he can't hold a candle to a nuker--good alternate healer though.
Mid Dunes Party (15~17): Snippers, Damselflies and Western Goblins
This party needs a WHM... Damselflies have Cursed Sphere which is a Water-based attack. Barwatera and Barfira will be your best friends during this party; it will significantly reduce damage from Goblin Bombs and Cursed Spheres. BLMs are always welcome, but if you lay off the Snippers, they aren't a necessity. When you start killing the Damselflies and Goblins you must have a competent puller (see Pulling below) because these monsters link. A back-up healer is the single best addition you can make to this party and I will recommend it as a necessity--backup healers are so easy to find out here, too--there is rarely a shortage. This is another place where you'll see RDM as a weapon-of-choice (in fact RDMs are are like Superman in the dunes at all levels, though I may be biased).
Elite Dunes Party (17~21): Western Goblins, Pugils and "Secret Beach"
Congratulations, this will be your last dunes party as whatever class you happen to be. This one is also a bit tougher than the rest. You will be in the far western section of Valkurm or you'll be hunting the beach pugils on Whitebone Sands beach. It is not recommended that you travel to the Secret Beach until your party is primarily composed of 18th or higher level characters. When you travel to secret beach, travel as a group with the melees leading. The melees will need to draw any Giant Bats out of the tunnel before the mages come through because these bats will shred mages at this level. Getting aggro from Goblins at the tunnel entrance is also an all-too-often occurance. If a mage gets aggro from one or more Goblins you will need to Provoke it off of them and then have the party zone into Gustav Tunnel or kill the Goblin (if there is only one), so don't trickle through in a stream, go together--it prevents death. Pugils hit hard, and they have an Area of Effect Water based attack so keep that Barwatera up. A White Mage is required and you'll want a backup healer too. Black Mage will speed things up considerably and is your recommended choice for DD against Pugils. Most DD's won't have trouble with pugils, but you will want to limit your exposure to their heavy-handed attacks as best as you can.
What I've said that is "Required" is not required, as such--I've been in a lot of dunes parties; it doesn't mean that you can't do different setups, it means that your party has a very low chance of suckiness with this setup. Of course there are always ways to muck up the front line too; for example, never set a THF/COR/MNK as your main tank just because you can't find a WAR. MNK have lots of hit points, yes, but what will happen is that your WHM will be constantly refilling them with high-level cures, and he'll draw hate from your mob and end up deep fried. Be considerate of your healers; if you're a front-liner and your WHM dies, it may have been your fault. Are you wearing at least the highest class of armor for your level? Are you faithfully provoking every 30 seconds? Are you accurate and strong enough to cause adequate damage? These are all the front line's responsibilty. Hate should be focused on the front line or, occasionally, on the Black Mage. Black Mages in this area often do not know how to control their awesome power and will unleash too much fury upon their foes causing them to occasionally be attacked .
Hint to Aspiring Black Mages: Wear good armor; I see a lot of Black Mages coming out with minimal gear. This may be good for old-hat people who know how to control themselves, but if you've never nuked before, you better spend that little extra for some nice magely gear because the monster will attack you--no other DD will be able to compete with nuke-spam damage.
Hint to Aspiring White Mages: A little goes a long way. You will be learning how to control your cure rate here. Your party will most likely have a "main tank" and a "secondary tank". These are where your cures should fall 80% of the time because they will be taking most of the damage. Don't feel the need to "White Line" everyone all the time during a battle. If a non-tank is in the upper yellow, leave him alone--you can heal him later. Drawing hate to yourself may get you killed and if you die, the party may be doomed since it should take a while for you to garner enough hate, the nukers may well be low on mana and unable to keep up the cure rate; with the loss of the nuking damage, the monster will die a lot slower and you'll probably not be the only corpse on the beach. Heal the tank taking damage first, your back-up healer should be healing the other one to take the heat off of you.
Hint for Backup Healers: Summoners, Red Mages, and Bards should focus cures on people who are damaged, but not -taking- damage. This way, the White Mage can focus his/her more potent magic on the one who needs it the most. If the tank takes heavy damage, of course, you'll want to drop everything and /assist the white mage.
Hint for Tanks: The best tank I ever partied with in Valkurm dunes was a Hume Paladin with two Astral Rings. His cure spam was, at the same time, godly at holding hate and efficient at controlling damage. If you are a #1 tank, you must provoke every 30 seconds unless you need to do something crucial (Utsusemi, emergency Cure II). If you are a back-up tank, you should provoke whenever the main tank requests it. Most of the time Provoke requests come from Ninja tanks in the form of "Utsusemi Down Please Provoke <call>" requests. You should save your Provoke for these moments; if you use it frivolously, you won't have it when you most need it and your main tank may die. If there is another WAR or /WAR in the party, they can handle special circumstances with their Provoke--yours belongs to the tank. Obviously special circumstances annul this relationship (e.g. White Mage is going to bite it).
Pulling
I saved an entire section just for one of the most important members of any party-the puller. It is your job to shop for monsters and bring back kills of appropriate power for the party to kill and to do so in an efficient and effective manner. Thieves, Corsairs, Rangers, and any class with a pet are excellent for filling this position. As a puller, you should try to always be one of the highest level members of your party. This way, you can easily distinguish good prey (IT/VT mobs) from bad prey (T/EM). If you are of the lowest level (e.g. Highest Level Member - 2), you may wish to consider a different party, and if you are a party leader, you should try to find a puller who fits the bill. It is sometimes difficult to distinguish /checks to the highest level player because they will all be IT of some variety. With IT's, as a lower-level puller, you may not be able to distinguish which mobs are too powerful from ones that are just right and ones that are a little too weak as they might all /check as IT to you--pulling IT++ mobs is dangerous business as you don't know just how much more powerful the monster is than you.
Linking is going to be your biggest threat when you reach mid and elite level parties, so you should practice Link Prevention on Snippers when you're young and you should consider practicing on Hill Lizards as well. Hill Lizards link, but since you're usually camped near the zone boundary, they are easier to zone. If you get a link, you should zone. Don't return to camp unless you have a PL (...shudder...) who can take out the link for you. Another nearby party will occasionally snag your link for themselves if you're lucky--run near them if you can and give them the opportunity. Try to pull only close mobs; if you can shop for more than one type of mob, you might occasionally settle for a nearby VT Snipper rather than a far-away IT Damselfly. The farther you travel for a monster, the more likely you are to encounter one of the same type on your way back. Most pullers who don't have a specialization in a particular ranged weapon will want to equip themselves with Darts that are cheap and readily available in Selbina. The Dart is the fastest weapon out here and will 9 times out of 10 ensure that no one is going to steal your prey--you won't be winning any Ranged Attacker of the Year awards, but no one will beat you to the punch. Please don't pull with the low-level guns... It takes 5-6 seconds to fire.... Crossbow is a very nice choice as well. If you're feeling saucy and you are a THF you can go and hunt the two NMs with another class you have at level 20+ that live in Konschtat Highlands to find a lovely Rogetsurin (100% drop rate from Haty and Bendigeit Vran).
Summoners are very effective pullers. A summoner pulls in this manner:
1. Summon Carbuncle before you go hunting.
2. Tell Carbuncle to Assault your prey--you do not have to worry about nearby monsters linking unlike other pullers.
3. Run a short distance toward camp.
4. Tell Carbuncle to Retreat.
5. When Carbuncle gets close to camp, and there are no linkable monsters between him and your camp, Release him. All of the linked monsters he has accumulated (provided you did not draw any aggro yourself on the way back) will unlink and the monster you selected will follow you back to camp.
Thats... Summon, Assault, Run, Retreat, Release.
You shouldn't take any damage pulling in this manner. If you do, it will not be until you're safely back at camp.
Food
Everyone should be eating something in the dunes. There are many food guides out there, and this Food Guide is one of the best. I like Sausages and Boiled crab for melees and of course cookies for mages. Now a White Mage would be hard-pressed to find a better low-level food than the Mushroom group; this will allow you to throw more cures around and get a nice Enmity- effect. I always recommend Juice, but search the forums for that--I've probably mentioned it a dozen times. If you can make potions, bring some supplies for them (Lizard Tails, Sage, and Distilled Water), and offer to share with the tank--this gives him another Hate control mechanism and takes a lot of heat off of the White Mage. If you are high-level, be courteous to the poor newbies and bring some extra food (of a different type) with you for them as most new characters cannot afford to buy stacks of Boiled Crab (they should be able to afford a little Meat Jerky though). I like Sausage and Sausage Rolls here. The former for people who are going to be primarily DD and the latter for people who are going to be Secondary tanks. Primary tanks should eat a defense food. I've seen people bust out the Sushi here, but you'll probably have better luck with a Jack-O-Lantern (180 minute food). Snippers usually don't have great evasion, so you're going to be primarily focused on boosting your damage high enough that your hits don't dink off of them. The lower defense mobs is where you'll want to switch to accuracy food if you find you're "whiffing" a lot. If you're a cook, bringing a stack of Bay Leaves and maybe some Fire Crystals will allow you to make Boiled Crab cheaply in the field (Crabs are nice enough to drop both Salt and Meat for you).
The biggest lesson of the Food section is if you can make it or afford it, Bring Food to Share. You shouldn't be expected to share food with older characters, but be kind to the newbies... There are a lot of them here. The earlier they find out the value of good nutrition the better.
Cheers,
Sabaron
I have the following classes so far, all levelled in the Dunes to some extent:
RDM-30, SMN-30, WHM-20, BLM-15, THF-15, RNG-15, COR-15
Very Early Dunes Party (10~13): Hill Lizards and Eastern Goblins
This is a Milk Run party, and they're fairly easy to assemble. You need a healer or two (not necessarily a good one), and some stalwart warriors. BLMs are not required, but they're always nice. This party is totally unnecessary as almost everyone (including WHM) can get to 12-13 without too much difficulty soloing (unless you're a subless WHM).
For the healer requirement, 1 WHM can usually fit the bill and you can fill the rest with DD if you have to, but your downtime will be high. Adding someone subbing WHM or a nice PLD is excellent here.
Early Dunes Party (13~15): Snippers
This is where parties really start to form in the Dunes. It is crucial to have some high-end DD here. Snippers are fairly low damage but their armor is incredible. Daggers, light swords, light axes, etc. will just ping off their tough hides and you'll get lots of 0's and occasional 1-3's. The Black Mage is almost a necessity here. I say almost because a RDM is still a fairly competent Nuker at this level and if you haven't tried Spark or Gust weapons, here is where they'll show you their power. A RDM with a Spark Dagger, Enthunder, and a few well-placed nukes will show you up in this party. You'll most likely be looking for a combination of 2-3 RDM/BLM with a minimum of 1 BLM because the RDM will run out of mana more quickly. A healer is nice, but optional as your mage group will be able to heal--White Mages should keep Barwatera up to defend against the Snipper's Water-based AoE attack, Bubble Shower. You'll want the remaining positions to be filled with well-armored fighters. The "Great" weapons are excellent choices for melees here as they will be able to pierce the crab's armor (just like a chef usually takes a giant cleaver to a crab when he's cooking, so should you follow his example). Note, however, that I said well-armored, not well-armed. It is crucial that your tanks have good armor especially if your party does not include a White Mage. The Summoner also appears to have a good time in these parties--carby seemed unaffected by the Snippers' armor when I was doing this PT, but he can't hold a candle to a nuker--good alternate healer though.
Mid Dunes Party (15~17): Snippers, Damselflies and Western Goblins
This party needs a WHM... Damselflies have Cursed Sphere which is a Water-based attack. Barwatera and Barfira will be your best friends during this party; it will significantly reduce damage from Goblin Bombs and Cursed Spheres. BLMs are always welcome, but if you lay off the Snippers, they aren't a necessity. When you start killing the Damselflies and Goblins you must have a competent puller (see Pulling below) because these monsters link. A back-up healer is the single best addition you can make to this party and I will recommend it as a necessity--backup healers are so easy to find out here, too--there is rarely a shortage. This is another place where you'll see RDM as a weapon-of-choice (in fact RDMs are are like Superman in the dunes at all levels, though I may be biased).
Elite Dunes Party (17~21): Western Goblins, Pugils and "Secret Beach"
Congratulations, this will be your last dunes party as whatever class you happen to be. This one is also a bit tougher than the rest. You will be in the far western section of Valkurm or you'll be hunting the beach pugils on Whitebone Sands beach. It is not recommended that you travel to the Secret Beach until your party is primarily composed of 18th or higher level characters. When you travel to secret beach, travel as a group with the melees leading. The melees will need to draw any Giant Bats out of the tunnel before the mages come through because these bats will shred mages at this level. Getting aggro from Goblins at the tunnel entrance is also an all-too-often occurance. If a mage gets aggro from one or more Goblins you will need to Provoke it off of them and then have the party zone into Gustav Tunnel or kill the Goblin (if there is only one), so don't trickle through in a stream, go together--it prevents death. Pugils hit hard, and they have an Area of Effect Water based attack so keep that Barwatera up. A White Mage is required and you'll want a backup healer too. Black Mage will speed things up considerably and is your recommended choice for DD against Pugils. Most DD's won't have trouble with pugils, but you will want to limit your exposure to their heavy-handed attacks as best as you can.
What I've said that is "Required" is not required, as such--I've been in a lot of dunes parties; it doesn't mean that you can't do different setups, it means that your party has a very low chance of suckiness with this setup. Of course there are always ways to muck up the front line too; for example, never set a THF/COR/MNK as your main tank just because you can't find a WAR. MNK have lots of hit points, yes, but what will happen is that your WHM will be constantly refilling them with high-level cures, and he'll draw hate from your mob and end up deep fried. Be considerate of your healers; if you're a front-liner and your WHM dies, it may have been your fault. Are you wearing at least the highest class of armor for your level? Are you faithfully provoking every 30 seconds? Are you accurate and strong enough to cause adequate damage? These are all the front line's responsibilty. Hate should be focused on the front line or, occasionally, on the Black Mage. Black Mages in this area often do not know how to control their awesome power and will unleash too much fury upon their foes causing them to occasionally be attacked .
Hint to Aspiring Black Mages: Wear good armor; I see a lot of Black Mages coming out with minimal gear. This may be good for old-hat people who know how to control themselves, but if you've never nuked before, you better spend that little extra for some nice magely gear because the monster will attack you--no other DD will be able to compete with nuke-spam damage.
Hint to Aspiring White Mages: A little goes a long way. You will be learning how to control your cure rate here. Your party will most likely have a "main tank" and a "secondary tank". These are where your cures should fall 80% of the time because they will be taking most of the damage. Don't feel the need to "White Line" everyone all the time during a battle. If a non-tank is in the upper yellow, leave him alone--you can heal him later. Drawing hate to yourself may get you killed and if you die, the party may be doomed since it should take a while for you to garner enough hate, the nukers may well be low on mana and unable to keep up the cure rate; with the loss of the nuking damage, the monster will die a lot slower and you'll probably not be the only corpse on the beach. Heal the tank taking damage first, your back-up healer should be healing the other one to take the heat off of you.
Hint for Backup Healers: Summoners, Red Mages, and Bards should focus cures on people who are damaged, but not -taking- damage. This way, the White Mage can focus his/her more potent magic on the one who needs it the most. If the tank takes heavy damage, of course, you'll want to drop everything and /assist the white mage.
Hint for Tanks: The best tank I ever partied with in Valkurm dunes was a Hume Paladin with two Astral Rings. His cure spam was, at the same time, godly at holding hate and efficient at controlling damage. If you are a #1 tank, you must provoke every 30 seconds unless you need to do something crucial (Utsusemi, emergency Cure II). If you are a back-up tank, you should provoke whenever the main tank requests it. Most of the time Provoke requests come from Ninja tanks in the form of "Utsusemi Down Please Provoke <call>" requests. You should save your Provoke for these moments; if you use it frivolously, you won't have it when you most need it and your main tank may die. If there is another WAR or /WAR in the party, they can handle special circumstances with their Provoke--yours belongs to the tank. Obviously special circumstances annul this relationship (e.g. White Mage is going to bite it).
Pulling
I saved an entire section just for one of the most important members of any party-the puller. It is your job to shop for monsters and bring back kills of appropriate power for the party to kill and to do so in an efficient and effective manner. Thieves, Corsairs, Rangers, and any class with a pet are excellent for filling this position. As a puller, you should try to always be one of the highest level members of your party. This way, you can easily distinguish good prey (IT/VT mobs) from bad prey (T/EM). If you are of the lowest level (e.g. Highest Level Member - 2), you may wish to consider a different party, and if you are a party leader, you should try to find a puller who fits the bill. It is sometimes difficult to distinguish /checks to the highest level player because they will all be IT of some variety. With IT's, as a lower-level puller, you may not be able to distinguish which mobs are too powerful from ones that are just right and ones that are a little too weak as they might all /check as IT to you--pulling IT++ mobs is dangerous business as you don't know just how much more powerful the monster is than you.
Linking is going to be your biggest threat when you reach mid and elite level parties, so you should practice Link Prevention on Snippers when you're young and you should consider practicing on Hill Lizards as well. Hill Lizards link, but since you're usually camped near the zone boundary, they are easier to zone. If you get a link, you should zone. Don't return to camp unless you have a PL (...shudder...) who can take out the link for you. Another nearby party will occasionally snag your link for themselves if you're lucky--run near them if you can and give them the opportunity. Try to pull only close mobs; if you can shop for more than one type of mob, you might occasionally settle for a nearby VT Snipper rather than a far-away IT Damselfly. The farther you travel for a monster, the more likely you are to encounter one of the same type on your way back. Most pullers who don't have a specialization in a particular ranged weapon will want to equip themselves with Darts that are cheap and readily available in Selbina. The Dart is the fastest weapon out here and will 9 times out of 10 ensure that no one is going to steal your prey--you won't be winning any Ranged Attacker of the Year awards, but no one will beat you to the punch. Please don't pull with the low-level guns... It takes 5-6 seconds to fire.... Crossbow is a very nice choice as well. If you're feeling saucy and you are a THF you can go and hunt the two NMs with another class you have at level 20+ that live in Konschtat Highlands to find a lovely Rogetsurin (100% drop rate from Haty and Bendigeit Vran).
Summoners are very effective pullers. A summoner pulls in this manner:
1. Summon Carbuncle before you go hunting.
2. Tell Carbuncle to Assault your prey--you do not have to worry about nearby monsters linking unlike other pullers.
3. Run a short distance toward camp.
4. Tell Carbuncle to Retreat.
5. When Carbuncle gets close to camp, and there are no linkable monsters between him and your camp, Release him. All of the linked monsters he has accumulated (provided you did not draw any aggro yourself on the way back) will unlink and the monster you selected will follow you back to camp.
Thats... Summon, Assault, Run, Retreat, Release.
You shouldn't take any damage pulling in this manner. If you do, it will not be until you're safely back at camp.
Food
Everyone should be eating something in the dunes. There are many food guides out there, and this Food Guide is one of the best. I like Sausages and Boiled crab for melees and of course cookies for mages. Now a White Mage would be hard-pressed to find a better low-level food than the Mushroom group; this will allow you to throw more cures around and get a nice Enmity- effect. I always recommend Juice, but search the forums for that--I've probably mentioned it a dozen times. If you can make potions, bring some supplies for them (Lizard Tails, Sage, and Distilled Water), and offer to share with the tank--this gives him another Hate control mechanism and takes a lot of heat off of the White Mage. If you are high-level, be courteous to the poor newbies and bring some extra food (of a different type) with you for them as most new characters cannot afford to buy stacks of Boiled Crab (they should be able to afford a little Meat Jerky though). I like Sausage and Sausage Rolls here. The former for people who are going to be primarily DD and the latter for people who are going to be Secondary tanks. Primary tanks should eat a defense food. I've seen people bust out the Sushi here, but you'll probably have better luck with a Jack-O-Lantern (180 minute food). Snippers usually don't have great evasion, so you're going to be primarily focused on boosting your damage high enough that your hits don't dink off of them. The lower defense mobs is where you'll want to switch to accuracy food if you find you're "whiffing" a lot. If you're a cook, bringing a stack of Bay Leaves and maybe some Fire Crystals will allow you to make Boiled Crab cheaply in the field (Crabs are nice enough to drop both Salt and Meat for you).
The biggest lesson of the Food section is if you can make it or afford it, Bring Food to Share. You shouldn't be expected to share food with older characters, but be kind to the newbies... There are a lot of them here. The earlier they find out the value of good nutrition the better.
Cheers,
Sabaron
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