Skilling up!

[Shinoe]

Good afternoon!

I'm posting this because after about 6 hours skilling up i've only gone from 63 Staff to 79 Staff...which i think is pretty horrible. I found a skill up chart (it's actually 2 seperate images, listes the area, skill level for whatever rank your job has with that weapon, and what mobs to fight). Anyway, i hit 79 Staff last night, and i'm 83 Club right now. I'm trying to get Staff to 100 then take Club to 100.

My question is...
is there any food and/or debuff that affects the rate of skill up progression?
example: Does more accuracy or attack mean that i'll skill up more? Or does that mean since it's easier for me to hit and land damage, that i wont skill as often?
I've also heard that Dia is a no no, because it lowers Defense rating and thus, the mob is easier to hit...so no skillups.

personally, after tossing Dia to pull a tiger another player was about to snatch from in front of my face (i'm level 46, skilling in Batallia Downs), i got a few skillup sbut not many. It's slowed to a crawl. Luckily another SMN friend came out and hasted me and tossed up some buffs and heals so i didnt have to.

But other than Haste...is there any other food, item, buff, debuff that directly impacts the rate that you skill up?

[Armando]

Re: Skilling up!

Attack/Defense have no effect on skill-ups. As long as you land a hit for damage, you have a chance to skill-up. Therefor, accuracy food is usually the optimal choice, since it allows you to connect the most swings without upping your damage (the more swings it takes to kill mobs, the less mobs you have to go through.) Obviously, Evasion Down is also good.

Guides are nice and all, but it's also important to be able to make your own choices as well. Basically, the minimum level the mob has to be for it to grant skill-ups is based on the job level at which your job would reach the skill cap you're approaching. For example, your Club is currently at 89. This corresponds to SMN's cap for C+ skills at Lv.31. Level 32 mobs would take you to 91 club, Lv.33 mobs would take you to 94, and so on. Refer to this site for the caps; it's a bit outdated (lacks the new jobs) but it'll serve your purposes just fine. I believe Somepage also has the caps for the various jobs. Figure out the level mobs have to be to continue to skill up, and look for zones that have mobs of those levels. Obviously, some mobs are better than others - crabs have higher defense, most of their TP moves are defensive, lack double attack, etc. Hope that helped.

Edit: Oh, yeah - remember that the higher the mob, the better the skill ups; but if you bite off more than you can chew, you'll have downtime and/or accuracy issues, which'll hurt you more than help in the end.

[Jei]

Re: Skilling up!

when skilling up I go for haste and accuracy. There's nothing much you can do really, just make sure you land your hit, hit fast and keep hitting >.>
Blm is really slow to skill up due to their low weapon rating too.

[Shinoe]

Re: Skilling up!

Edit: Oh, yeah - remember that the higher the mob, the better the skill ups; but if you bite off more than you can chew, you'll have downtime and/or accuracy issues, which'll hurt you more than help in the end.

That's one of the reasons i made the post.

I land every single hit...it just takes about 30 of those swings for .1~.3 skillups. I've realised that the Stalking Saplings in Batallia no longer give skill ups. Ba do, but it's starting to slow down. The Tigers in the area still give some, but those guys hit just as hard as gobs do, not to mention the paralyze attack they have (which still lands sometimes). I tend to whack away on the Goblin Shaman(men) that path around, as i can silence/slow/paralyze and whack away. Great skillups there, but when i fight the melee type mobs, yes...double attack is the suck.

You basically answered what i wanted to know though...dia, attack + food/gear, accuracy + food/gear won't help me at all...i'm already landing every hit.

Oh well. Looks like i'll still be running around thumping random things over the head with Club/Staff.

[Feenicks]

Re: Skilling up!

How about finding some higher level monsters? Usually I find that if skillups have slowed to a crawl that's an indication to find something tougher. I skilled Dagger up past 110 on the bees in Lufaise Meadows on my BLM without too much difficulty.

[Davitron3000]

Re: Skilling up!

How about finding some higher level monsters? Usually I find that if skillups have slowed to a crawl that's an indication to find something tougher. I skilled Dagger up past 110 on the bees in Lufaise Meadows on my BLM without too much difficulty.

I would agree with this. I think you are approaching the cap on what tigers for you weapons so the skill ups have slowed down. Try fighting the stronger orcs there, or maybe the weapons. I think I usually kill tigers, then move on to those two when skilling up. @ around 100 skill I move to kuftal and crabs, crabs, crabs until I close in on 200 if I remember correctly.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Skilling up!

When I recently got my Joyeuse, I had 81 sword skill (I had been in line for Joy in my LS for a good long while, my original character had 221 sword skill, I just retired him so nyah to any naysayers on that).

Started out in Lufaise Meadows on Death Jackets and elementals there. Went from 81 to 121 in a relatively short time (well, Joyeuse does double attack quite a bit).

From there, I skilled on Worker Crawlers, Death Jackets and Lizards in CN, got about 25 levels out of that. From there I did Sahgins in Sea Serpent Grotto and will likely continue there. On my original character, I once skilled up on Robber Crabs, Lagoon and Delta Saghins from 150-190ish while camping Novv the Whitehearted down there.

From there I skilled on scorpion and undead mobs mobs in Toraimarai Canal or Steelshells in Boyohada Tree.

Its worth noting that elementals can yeild a lot of skillups. They're rather high on defense, but low on evasion, so if you have a mage sub or can sub Utsusemi: Ni at high level, i'd try those as they skew to your skillup level.

Also, take any opportunities to help people with coffer key hunts and testimony farming. Chances are you can grab some skillups from these as well.

[Skoal]

Re: Skilling up!

Armando touched on the idea of doing less damage and having to find less mobs to kill. I would try for a staff that swings fast and does as little damage as possible. You can get skill ups as long as the weapon does more than 0.

If you are subbing whm, maybe try to paralyze the mob. Also I wold throw up blink every once in a while to help reduce damage. If cooking is skilled then make some juices and get some regen drinks.

[Celeal]

Re: Skilling up!

I remember that at staff skill 80ish I switch skillup location from Qufim to Kazham to skill up (I was using my PLD to skill up). From Mandies -> Goblin -> Lizard in the Jungles, my staff skill reach close to 100. Then I switch skillup location to Norg, hitting the carb right outside of the zone, and run to Norg when necessary.

The advantage of skillup outside of Kazham and Norg is because the Moogle is there. Everytime after Job Change, your HP and MP recharge to 100%.

After my staff skill reach 130ish, I switch loaction to outpost of East Altpra Desert. However, those Goblin /check Easy Prey for my level 60ish PLD.

I don't have time to skill up my staff after it get close to 140. If I contnue to skillup, I would go to the hill in West Altpra Desert skill up from Beetles, then join skillup parties after staff reach 150+.

[Haggai]

Re: Skilling up!

Maybe I'm crazy for doing so, and it looks like you're SMN/WHM, but I toss Frost on them to lower their evasion, increasing my hit rate. If I had my RDM subjob, I'd probably toss a Gravity too.

[LyonheartLakshmi]

Re: Skilling up!

If in doubt, /check the mobs you are skilling up on. If the mob doesn't con as High Defense, you are less likely to get skill ups and should move on to tougher targets.

For your lvl, I would suggest skilling up on crabs just outside of Norg. You don't need to be able to kill the crabs. You just need to judge how much HP you need left to survive zoning back into Norg. From there, you can ghetto heal by job changing with the Nomad Moogle, and go right back to skilling up.

When the skill ups slow down there, you could do something similar just outside Rabao. However, spiders are a bit more dangerous, as Sickle Slash can lay down a ton of damage in a hurry.

[Saren]

Re: Skilling up!

Thnaks Armando, very helpful reply. I started to wonder just what was effecting skill up rates when I got Bio for my black mage and dark magic went up 3 points in less than half an hour on very easy prey bees I was killing between harvesting

[Shinoe]

Re: Skilling up!

@Saren: For skiling up dark magic, i heard it's really nice to find the worms in the Desert or other areas, silence them, and spam Bio, Bio 2, Aspir, Drain, repeat, and reapply Silence when needed.

@Lyonheart / Caleal: That's a good idea with those crabs, i never thought of that. I'll try it tonight...especially the /check as hi Def...

@Skoal: Yea, i fully debuff the mob with Paralyze and Slow and if i have a hard time hitting i toss Dia in there. I put Earthen Ward (Stoneskin), Blink, Aquaveil, Prot/Shell, and Regen up at the start of the fights, and reapply Regen as needed. Casting blink is pointless as you get hit 3 times while doing it, if you even get the spell off. I was using a Kingdom Signet Staff to skill up for a while

My main problem with skilling up is the fact that i can only go so high before i start getting eatten alive. The Norg Crab idea is nice though, i hadn't thought of that. If there's a moogle/house near by, i *always* go swap my subjob ->blm->whm for a quick restoring of hp/mp since regening mp takes much longer using /heal.

I'll have to try out some of these ideas tonight when i get bored of leveling my retarded WHM sub...grr

[BurningPanther]

Re: Skilling up!

BUMP FOR GREAT JUSTICE!

Does anyone have any insight as to whether or not lunar phases affect skillups? It always feels like I get crap for skill up during a full moon, but my returns are great on a new moon.

[Theyaden]

Re: Skilling up!

As whm I skilled up my club skill in Ordello's caves while getting my RSE. The spells I used were dia, paralyze, slow, haste, stoneskin. Once I no longer was getting good skillups there I moved on the Seaserpents Grotto where I've taken club and staff to about 110 (I think I know it was over 100) Also worked on devine using banish, banish II, and flash. Crabs and undead were what I used the undead are actually easier since their weak to light (Banish) and blugening. As a rule I try to find alternatives to standard xp areas since as a higher level I can go anywhere while an xp pt is more limited.

Besieged is a good place to level devine, healing, elemental, and enfeebling, but I don't sugest club there due to nasty aoe's. afraid I don't know on the lunar phases, but I'll have to check it out. My only observation is that mob xp value makes no differnce, but rather the difference between your weapons skill level and the mobs level.