Duo - An army of two

[subcombo]

Cool titles aside, my question is what are great two man teams?
neither of us want to be beast master and he wants to be a dark knight.
what goes with dark knight as a duo? (he will sub thief to put hate on me).
Btw i dont want to be a paladin.

[Mog]

Re: Duo - An army of two

Nothing. You need to join xp parties in this game if you want to effectively get good xp. Otherwise, choose beastmaster.

[silentsteel]

Re: Duo - An army of two

You know thats not entirely true, Drg teams can duo quite well, along with pup =p

[Neomage]

Re: Duo - An army of two

You can't do that.

It.
Just.
Does.
Not.
Work.

Well it does, but you'll make like 1k EXP in an hour. Which sucks.

If you have to duo, try WoW or RO.

EDIT: Like Silentsteel said, some good combinations are 2 BLM and 2 DRG, but Dark Knight + Anything Else doesn't work. Not even Paladin. x2 Ninja/Red Mage mabye. Thats kindasorta like DRK except it's more THFey and WHMey.

[Mog]

Re: Duo - An army of two

You know thats not entirely true, Drg teams can duo quite well, along with pup =p

Drg and dark knight though? I don't think so.

Don't even get me started on pup. :p

and FYI, it will take you guys years to get 75 if you played everyday and duoed. Not sure how much longer FFXI is going to stay, so...

[subcombo]

Re: Duo - An army of two

fine fine if we both choose a new job what are good duo combinations which work? i hear beast-beast are good..

[Mog]

Re: Duo - An army of two

fine fine if we both choose a new job what are good duo combinations which work? i hear beast-beast are good..

Definitely. Beastmasters can solo, as well as duo.

[silentsteel]

Re: Duo - An army of two

well, mog, like onion said, I meant drg x2 and Sub, beast-beast is imo the best duo available (with drgx2 in a close second ;p)

[neighbortaru]

Re: Duo - An army of two

course you'll have to party to 30 before any of those options (2xDRG, 2xBST) become available to you...

[Spiritbear]

Re: Duo - An army of two

First off OP don't listen to anyone telling you that you shouldn't duo, just play to have fun it's not a race to 75 so don't worry about getting there fast. If you and your friend want to duo then do it. My recommendations though are try to keep it balanced. I've done lots of Duo combinations. I'm a 30 bst and have duoed with a bst, smn, drg, pup, whm, rdm, pld, war, and thf. The best combos so far for me are for me as bst/whm and my partners were bst/whm, drg/war, smn/whm, pup/thf, and pld/war. Another good duo was me bst/war and partner was whm/blm (if you do this make sure you use jugs and you have high def cause you are going to have to act as tank. Not easy but definately fun). I have also at from lvls 3-7 duoed me as thf/whm and partner pld/war. It was fun and we were able to take down about 12-15 orcs in Ghelsba before we would have to rest and were getting better exp then playing solo. Not sure how well that combo would work at higher lvls though. I've also duoed as 50whm/blm with partner being 50 bst/whm (Better exp then being in a full pt).

Best advice like I said before is to have fun, find a good balance between the two of you, and learn to enjoy the taste of death. It happens alot when you aren't in a full pt. Good luck and if you have any questions you can send them my way.

[Jugil]

Re: Duo - An army of two

The best way to duo 1-75 is to go BST-BST. It is my understanding that you can effectively duo with all the pet classes (BST/DRG/SMN/PUP). Personally, I've soloed BST to 60 and SMN to 23.

There are other jobs that can get pretty decent exp solo (and I assume duo); BLU comes to mind (on/off solo to 30).

Personally, on my BST, I have doued (though not frequently) with BST, SMN, BLM, and RDM. BST-BST and BST-SMN exp was nice. Duo with RDM and BLM were pretty break-even vs. solo BST.

I need to qualify this by saying EXP/hr is definitely faster in a party.

[Clever Ninja]

Re: Duo - An army of two

Soloing IS possible, but please note that the exp will never be as good as a traditional party setup. Soloing can be extremely fun though, as certain job combinations like RDM/PLD, PLD/BLU, BLM/NIN and RDM/NIN that don't have a place in party setups work well in solo. If you only have an hour or 2 of play at higher levels and don't wanna farm or craft, soloing is an alternative. Plus soloing helps getting skillups easier :3

[Aksannyi]

Re: Duo - An army of two

My husband and I duo sometimes, I'm RDM/BLM and he's DRK/THF. We have a little fun knocking around T's when neither of us wants to join an XP party. The experience points are very slow, mind you, but we have a good time and that's all that really matters.

If you're looking for a quick way to level, though, this isn't it. Soloing for quick XP is very difficult and you can only use a few jobs.

Word of advice - if you use DRK and you sub THF, don't SATA on your RDM spouse. It's not a good idea. Trust me. :D

[Omni]

Re: Duo - An army of two

lets be realistic. the whole 'its not a race' argument is kind of not valid here.

you're right, its not a race to 75 but at the same time i highly doubt anyone will find soloing/duoing with inappropriate jobs enjoyable past 30, if that.

picture this. you're a lvl 48drk and 49mnk. you decide to duo in crawlers nest on some soldier crawlers (which are em-vt in this range) yea you might be able to get through 1 battle alive. then you need to rest about 5minutes after the fight to regain hp. go back at it again, you take on another crawler, it does cocoon and poison breath, you manage to kill it but now the drk cant heal because he's poisoned. the mnk is poisoned too, ok np he'll use chakra to take off poison. drk dies. for good measure, you have reraise on because you're prepared to duo properly right? ok reraise... you take a ~600xp loss. you just net -400xp. get back on your feet and try again right? sure get to it, it goes well for a bit, gain 2k xp or so after about 2hrs of fighting, you get comfortable and you get aggro by an exoray.

exoray beats both of you into a pulp, u both have reraise because you guys came prepared as usual. so u lose another 600 xp. you're about 1400xp on the day in 2 hrs of fighting. at lv. 48 its about a 7K or so a level? great, not so bad right? when you reach lv. 60, its 20k each level. and lv. 74? 42k each level.

bst solos and duos face this kind of thing all the time. i've died 9 times in 1 night before and bst is the most effective solo xping job out there too. if believing that 2 non-solo minded jobs can xp effectively to 75 AND still keep it enjoyable, then i would like for someone to show me how to have that sort of optimism.

other jobs that are solo xp minded are pup, smn and drg. mainly because they have a pet to aide them. the pet either absorbs all the dmg or is effective enough to keep their master alive. any other job out there does not have that ability. blm does have the ability to solo xp but at a very large risk. if bind/sleep/gravity do not work as intended, they will go down very fast.

this is different from soloing jobs. a nin, rdm, thf and etc. these jobs can solo mobs say 1 at a time where xp and time really isnt a factor.

its sort of like saying that you can walk from san francisco to la. yea im sure its possible, but does that make it a good idea? does possibly getting caught in the elements or getting hit by truckers or suffer from exhaustion make it enjoyable and worthwhile? i dont think it does.

if by chance you do find it enjoyable in some way, then by all means go for it. but you have to understand that many of us have played this game for quite some time now and know what works and what doesnt. these sorts of things just dont work. the game just isnt built with the soloist in mind.

[Karinya]

Re: Duo - An army of two

Where in the OP's post does it say he wants to reach level 75? At all, let alone in under a year?

If you want to level quickly, duoing is not a good way to do it, that's true (possible exceptions for BST). But if you want to hang out with your friend and kill stuff, and possibly make some money, duoing works just fine with lots of combinations. If you choose the right camps and monsters for your job combo you'll make maybe half the exp/hr of a party. But a static duo means never having to spend hours LFP and not finding one, and less people to split whatever loot you get (and a static anything allows you to go to non-crowded camps) - which in turn may mean you don't have to spend as much time farming as you do exping (a problem for some new players).

Most people are unwilling to try a duo (as you can see from this thread). But why would you think that they are therefore good authorities on how it works? People do know how to get the best XP/hr and duoing isn't it, but it's possible that your enjoyment of the game may not be about XP/hr.


If you do intend to try in spite of the naysayers, probably the best duo partner for a drk would be a rdm. The drk will have to completely ignore the conventional wisdom on subjobs and gear and get real armor, because he's going to be the tank. Don't worry - while drk is lousy at tanking ITs, they can handle Ts just fine with appropriate gear. (Defense food might be a good idea too. You have plenty of acc and atk to hit toughs.) The rdm should also pretty much ignore conventional party tactics - in addition to healing they should expect to provide some damage to speed up kills.

P.S. Omni's scenario is so contrived it's silly. Not only are the hypothetical characters using a particularly bad duo setup (two primary DD), but in addition to that neither of them bothered to sub whm, even the drk who already has a manapool? And given that they have no whm or /whm they don't bring antidotes to fight poison spamming mobs? And even *then* he has to invent unwanted aggro for them to make it come out really bad. Like any duo is going to make it to 48 without at least one of them knowing how to select camp spots and pull. This story is more typical of how people who have never been outside a 6-person party try to duo without thinking about how they should change their tactics for the situation of having to provide their own tanking, healing and pulling.

It's a good example of a few things not to do, but it's hardly a realistic prediction of what's going to happen with people who know what they're doing. You'll have to develop that skill for yourself because it isn't available in predigested lists of exp camps and what gear you should use at level X.