Leveling spots 63+

[stray]

I tried manticores in terrigan at 66-67 :x actually went quite well just long kills.

I'm not a huge fan of Bibiki Bay but it's nice xp... being 67 now I'd have to say it'd probably hold til 68 or 69. Skimmers are nice around 63-65... Darters are a pain in the ass tho... so link heavy ;;

Sadly I think there's no good alternate xp spot for us 59-63 or so... Davoi monks will make you cry, and I've heard Quicksands has a good camp but I never tried.

[Gryff]

gustav is good up to and including 62. just bring some strong melee and camp on the right hand side near skeles as well, and you can consistently hit chain 6-8, which makes up for the smaller base exp.

Manticores in teriggan are great so long as you have a strong SC and a blm.

[stray]

Speaking of Arhat's I'm one of the many that despises it. Aside from being ugly the minimal gains on all of it are just... not worth it. I bought the full set of the standard gear... sold it for a loss. I do however use the gloves in XP. If I really need the extra +enmity I have a pair of Eris' Earrings and a Mermaid's Ring to swap in... the extra recasts of Utsusemi with less +evasion gear will make more hate anyway. Not that it's really *that* noticable but anyway.

Actually tho the one part of Arhat's I kind of liked statwise was the pants. Agi +3 is always nice during the day... but... I'll go back to AF and holding out for Nozariku Hakama

[Melkor]

I love the Arhats Hakama +1, the Nozariku Hakama give +3 Enmity & +3 Agility dont they? Might as well go for the Arhats.

Cant really add anything for other Lvling places, but I do love those Crawlers in Boyahda, Nin, Rng, Drk, Smn, Blm, Rdm~ Doing Frag SC with Guill > SW for 500 Renkei Dmg with 1k+ Thundaga Bursts, great stuff ^^

[imac2much]

You guys are kidding me o_o
Flamingos til 67?? We were doing those at 60 and xp kinda died at 61-62..

Skimmers and steelshells at 61, against xp died a bit at 62, probably crap at 63.

Thinking of doing darters now.

I'm thinking darters are good for you Navia at 63 with a good PT. The best thing about NIN tank is to take adantage of the new xp caps, so you should fight things that give 250+ xp IMO.

If this was a PLD thread then maybe your suggestions would work... but for NIN shouldn't you be fighting IT+++ anyway?

[Gryff]

whatever gives a good exp/hour is good.

If your party setup allows you to get 4k/hour chaining 100exp/kill and theres enough mobs per kill, fine.

If your party setup allows you to get 4k/hour chaining 300-400/kill, also fine.

[imac2much]

Well I was talking about chaining IT++ (250+xp each) for chain4-5, usually 7-10k xp/hr depending on competition and spawn. NIN can achieve this, IMO PLD can't really since they take too much damage from IT++... best to play to your strengths?

[Navia]

We initially tried Monastic Cavern because everywhere else was packed, but theres no good place to camp there and Orcish Champions (mnk type) are about the worst thing i've ever tried to tank since mandies, they attack like they have hundredfist+haste, eating shadows too fast and asking for seconds.

So I got 64 last night doing toramas in onzozo with nin,rng,rng,thf,rdm,whm. xp was decent (chain4 for 230-240ish) considering the amount of competition, we had to get chain4 or 5 by grabbing an occasional manticore or goblin.

Xp takes an absolute nosedive once you get 64. Killed Ose twice but no jerkin dropped ; ; I was kinda worried about tanking him but omg what a wimpy little kittycat he is.

[ZQM]

Originally posted by imac2much
Well I was talking about chaining IT++ (250+xp each) for chain4-5, usually 7-10k xp/hr depending on competition and spawn. NIN can achieve this, IMO PLD can't really since they take too much damage from IT++... best to play to your strengths?

Eh, I can't stand fighting IT++ mobs. I'm happy chaining VT-IT when it's rare to miss and you hit for good damage.

[Navia]

Originally posted by ZQM
Eh, I can't stand fighting IT++ mobs. I'm happy chaining VT-IT when it's rare to miss and you hit for good damage.

Most rangers i've partied with dont care too much for IT++ stuff because they hate missing their weaponskills or saving up 300%tp+sharpshot so they don't miss.
I see alot more sidewinder/slugshots getting thrown out at just over 100%tp and not missing if you stick with chaining VT-IT monster definitely.
I don't know about other servers but there's alot of rangers leveling up and no bards around to give them prelude which may explain the shift away from solely IT++ stuff that was hunted during earlier levels(and much easier).

[Navia]

Originally posted by kisada
I wear the HQ versions of arhat's feet/armor/hands, and they're very good. Some people like switching legs for AF at night, but I prefer the enmity+, and I'm too lazy really.

While just +1 more evasion on each piece isn't all that great, +1 enmity from each piece is a big deal. If you can grab all 3 of those and wear them full time, they will make your life easier for sure. Very nice equipment if you can afford them.

Yeah I am definitely going to pick up the legs tonight, maybe try out gloves. When darksday came around last night, it was so much easier to keep the hate on me (Sairen added +1enmity) when the rangers wanted to chain sidewinders at the fight start, so I think getting more enmity past just arhat legs may be too much.
Mitsu posted awhile ago that too much +enmity can kill a ninja, which I agree with, you eventually have shadows run out and end up taking the inevitable beating for 1-2 rounds. I don't want such a large hate lead that it won't turn to another melee after taking half my hitpoints or more
I try to keep hate somewhat loose so any melee can turn it their direction if they need to for a SATA or to just give me breathing room. Sometimes the monster gets a run of double attacks on me and i'm standing there waiting on my utsusemi timers even with haste and 30+ evade .
Nobody's perfect :sweat:

[kisada]

Yeah unfortunately the problem with 3 HQ arhat pieces is just that. An initial provoke and a couple spells and it becomes incredibly difficult for the monster to come off. In my pt today the only way the warrior in my pt could turn the monster was with provoke/warcry/ws, and even then sometimes that wasn't enough. I had to reduce my actions to auto-attack, one provoke, and one kurayami for her to have any chance at all. I hit 70 a little later in that pt, with Fudos, Optical hat, and Warcry, so after that you can imagine how much harder it was for her lol.

You can look at it both ways, and I'd rather have the most hate out of anybody in the group, but you're right in that sometimes it can screw things up.

[stray]

I set with a Bard and I'm not a big fan of IT++ our Ranger switches about 50/50 gun/bow and has trouble with Prelude at times.

As far as the new level caps they're kind of nifty but... generally the speed of kill reflects the 320 or however much you get. Not worth it unless you have a pure damage setup... and we have Nin/Rng/Thf/Brd/Whm and usually a pick up blm until we can find one. Not slouches in any sense. Darters can be quick however, Cockatrice have far too much def and hp, as do Manticores, and Crawlers just suck.

As an aside Monastic Cavern is hell on earth for a Ninja. I was begging the one pick up pt I went with there to replace me with a pld. Definitely an all time low ; ;

[Navia]

I made a macro to swap in arhats gi when I want to provoke, does anyone know if you need a /wait 1 before using a /ja for it to count? I'm wondering if any ninjas use any equipment swaps like this:

/equip Body "Arhat's Gi"
/ja provoke <bt>

or maybe:

/equip Body "Arhat's Gi"
/ja provoke <bt>
/wait 1
/equip Body "Scorpion Harness"
/wait 29
/p Provoke Ready

I should probably just take out equipment swaps of a provoke macro and use 2 different hotkeys to swap body armor between arhats/scorp harness. I love how i look in arhats, its quite sad I have to wear the butt ugly scorp armor to not be considered a slacker in the gear department.