Endgame and soloing questions

[Sanura~]

I gave my account to a friend 2 years ago and as much as I'd love to get all my BoP... (I guess "RA/EX"?) stuff back, but it's been long enough that it would seem like an unreasonable request and I don't wanna take that from them after so long.

So I plan to make a taru BLM or RDM, but first I'd like to know what endgame is like, and if that would be a wise choice. I've also wanted to try BRD out, never played it past 65 but it was pretty fun.
Is BLM still easy to solo? 'cause I hate LFG, I'll play pretty much anything as long as it doesn't mean unreasonable time spent LFG, which makes me think either LFG bard or solo BLM. Any ideas?

Curious what state the game is in, I really don't wanna have more than 1 job at 75 this time since I do vaguely remember all the work I'll need to put into all Maat's BS, unlocking all viable subjobs, I'll want rank10 again... so much stuff... I don't even want to think about where I'll get help with the Empty zones, let alone the rest of CoP. So I kinda want this planned out this time, cause last time I was just going for everything in every direction; I honestly think I can pull this off casually, despite the timesink it can become, I just need one goal. No more.

That said, what do people do endgame these days... last I left off it was all Sea and some off-nights in Sky with the occational world dragon, if you were lucky enough to get one instead of a room full of darters. People still run the daily ToAU... things? God I can't remember any of it, lol. Sorry for such a big question, I'm really just curious how far behind I'll be and how hard it'll be to get help with stuff in general, or if some of this is now obsolete content.

Edit: Another question I thought of, since I'm seeing in similar threads it sounds like Dynamis is still farmed... which concerns me because I can't speak for other servers but back when I played well... it seemed like 90% of the players didn't know what they were doing, and things could easily be done with less than half as many as you'd bring, if those people were competent. (Wow this is hard to explain, trying to remember FFXI lingo cause I keep falling back on WoW terms)

Do people use voice chat (like vent) for LS events that require more than 6 people? Or do you have to type... I understand that's a question that's quite specific to the LS itself, but in general? Surely any LS that takes itself seriously would... right? Maybe I'm still living in the time when the game was new and this was unheard of, lol.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Endgame and soloing questions

As with RoZ and CoP, ToA content requires a certain amount of mission progress to participate in its endgame content. You won't even be able to do most of this stuff for a while, so don't obsess too much over it. Its better to look up the details of Einherjar, Salvage, ZNMs, SNMs, CNMs, the newer HNMs (Hydra, Cerberus, Khimeria, Ixion and so on through FFXIclopedia than explain them here.

BLM can solo all the way to 75, yes, but having said that... BLM is expected to solo all the way to 75 these days. Don't expect anything in the way of party invites. BLM is still all-important in endgame as ever, but party trends have left them on the outs in EXP PTs. Its the same trickle-down mentality the community had in the RoZ days, people don't invite BLMs for intermediate and high level EXP, so now they don't at low level either.

Colibri are the new crabs and Colibri are very physically weak on defense and have low HP, making them popular burn prey for melees. They also mimic magic, making casting spells on them rather unpoplar.

Make sure BLM is what you want before jumping in, if BLM is all you have at endgame know this: You will be soloing a lot of your recouped EXP from your deaths, you will be soloing your merit points and occasionally joining manaburn PTs.

BRD... yeah, BRD is as popular as ever. But make absolutely sure you want to be BRD-only and that you can tolerate being treated like a piece of meat for it. Almost everyone that went BRD-only for a while has learned to regret it.

All that aside, I would advocate looking into Scholar and Corsair as potential alternatives for main jobs. Not only are they just as popular as BLM and BRD, they perform similar functions while having many fun unique ones as well. They also tend to see a bit more party variety than BLM and BRD do. They tend to fit well into many things, but I will admit they're a bit slow on the solo side, though they catch up at higher levels due to growth in gear and subjobs they're not good at it initially.

Whatever you do, don't settle on a job just yet, the game's changed quite a bit since you left and there are five new jobs to explore and changes to the previous 15 as well. I'd explore your options before settling on one job.

[ItazuraNhomango]

Re: Endgame and soloing questions

BRD... yeah, BRD is as popular as ever. But make absolutely sure you want to be BRD-only and that you can tolerate being treated like a piece of meat for it. Almost everyone that went BRD-only for a while has learned to regret it.

I keep coming across sentiments like this, but with BRD, PLD, and RDM at Lv.75, I'm RDM 60% of the time, PLD 35%, and BRD 5% for events. How likely you are stuck on any particular job really depends on what your LS's need.

Good people won't treat you like a piece of meat no matter which job you are on. In return, be mindful that you may have to use a job you don't particularly want to play at a given time, but should because it's the most helpful one to use for the event in question.

On that note, it's not a bad idea to get more than job to 75; the flexibility will be helpful for both the LS and yourself. Doubly helpful if the jobs are in different categories. BRD, RDM, and BLM are good choices.

[Aksannyi]

Re: Endgame and soloing questions

How likely you are stuck on any particular job really depends on what your LS's need.

This is true. Practically everyone in my linkshell had BLM, but few had WHM. And those that did have WHM, also had relics on other jobs. (Ghorn Bard, Aegis PLD, Bravura WAR, etc.) I'm not kidding, I never got to play anything but WHM because all of our WHMs upgraded relics elsewhere, and were therefore more useful elsewhere. Burned me out quickly. Being versatile is great, but if your linkshell only needs one of your jobs, you're only going to play that one job.

Good leaders will realize that even the best WHMs need a break from curing, even the best THFs need a break from being TH whore, even the best BLMs need a break from time nuking. WHM was my favorite job when I was playing, but it got pretty old when I didn't get to touch anything else. A good leader will realize that sometimes you need a break from playing the same thing constantly, even when you desperately need a certain job. He'll make arrangements for others to play different jobs so that some of the most "demanded upon" members get a break. Some of the most demanding jobs get you burned out really fast, and the good leadership will realize that in order to retain you.

Try to find one of those guys, lol.

But a little versatility will go a long way. Level some highly useful jobs (WHM PLD BRD RDM BLM) and some moderately useful jobs (DRK WAR RNG) and maybe a fun useless job (PUP DNC)* and in good linkshells, you will get to play even your most underused jobs from time to time.

Sorry about the tangent.

*Speaking strictly from an endgame perspective, not anything else.

[SenseiFF11]

Re: Endgame and soloing questions

Leveling RDM to solo seems good, don't worry about the whiner out there saying rdm is too strong.