Few questions from a new White Mage

[Firewind]

Re: Few questions from a new White Mage

May need to do some farming. To unlock SCH, a stack of Vellum (18-19k on Kujata, Jeuno AH) is needed.

I can get that quite easily by taking a day of fishing. 7 stacks of moat carp can fetch 15-20k in the Sandy AH's.

Currently I'm trying to get into parties at Qufim which means because everything outside of Jueno can kill me very quickly I'm stuck running around Jueno with my exp party flag up. It seems that now most parties leave the Dunes at 18 and go straight to Qufim at that level. Only problem is that there are rarely enough people at 18-19 in Jueno to actually go partying there. Last night 3 of us were waiting for a couple of hours with no luck. I did eventually find of party of people at about Lv20 but because they had a PL they weren't really interested.

Does Qufim have the same PL problem as the Dunes had? It was always very difficult to get into a party at the Dunes because of them and for that reason I'm in the position where my enfeebling skills are constantly capped but my healing skills are nowhere near half of the cap. It is tempting me to level Red Mage purely so I can put that high enfeebling skill to some use.


Anyway my main question is this: is waiting around for long lengths of time for a party normal? I have noticed that it is very easy to get into a party at about 1am GMT when all of the American players get on or at about 10am GMT when the Japanese players are on but as you can imagine, playing at these specific times as an absolute nightmare especially when I hardly ever get to play at these times.

Oh and a question, how do you raise reputation in Jueno? I have been doing the quests while waiting for a party but since I can only do the Rep 1 quests I finished them very quickly. Do you raise it in Jueno itself or is it like Selbina where you have to raise rep in another country too?

[ItazuraNhomango]

Re: Few questions from a new White Mage

I can get that quite easily by taking a day of fishing. 7 stacks of moat carp can fetch 15-20k in the Sandy AH's.

That's good!

It seems that now most parties leave the Dunes at 18 and go straight to Qufim at that level. Only problem is that there are rarely enough people at 18-19 in Jueno to actually go partying there. Last night 3 of us were waiting for a couple of hours with no luck.

If you complete the Supply Run Mission for the Zulkheim region, you'd be able to utilize Outpost Teleportation to reach there from your home nation.

For example, at Lv.18 I would set home point in home nation, but go to Jeuno to seek. If I get an invite to Qufim Island party, then I set home point to Jeuno before heading out. If I get an invite to Valkurm Dunes, I'd warp back to Windurst (my home), then take outpost teleport to Valkurm Dunes.

No one would would expect a newbie player like you to have that kind of transportation savvy--but that doesn't mean you can't manage it.

Does Qufim have the same PL problem as the Dunes had? It was always very difficult to get into a party at the Dunes because of them

Pretty much. I just expect some (most?) NA parties to have PL all the way to (and past?!) Lv.30 these days.

I'm in the position where my enfeebling skills are constantly capped but my healing skills are nowhere near half of the cap. It is tempting me to level Red Mage purely so I can put that high enfeebling skill to some use.

heh. Sure, level RDM. BTW, healing magic skill isn't that important, and eventually would cap anyway. I was no where near cap when I stopped leveling WHM at Lv.44. It started to come closer to cap for me when I leveled RDM fairly high (forgot when exactly). (Cam closer to RDM's cap, anyway.) That happened because it takes more exp to go up each level, so more opportunity to cast cures.

When I obtained Regen, the already slow healing magic skill rate up took a nose dive--and I couldn't have cared less. Also, if I recall correctly, my sister's WHM didn't cap Healing Magic when she reached Lv.75, but that didn't get in the way of anything.

So, again, no worries; keep doing what a WHM is suppose to do, and the healing magic will skill will take care of itself--and probably cap sometime after you hit Lv.75, if you're smart with Regen.

Anyway my main question is this: is waiting around for long lengths of time for a party normal? I have noticed that it is very easy to get into a party at about 1am GMT when all of the American players get on or at about 10am GMT when the Japanese players are on but as you can imagine, playing at these specific times as an absolute nightmare especially when I hardly ever get to play at these times.

In short, the two largest player sub-populations are:
1. Japanese players.
2. North American players.

Everyone else is more or less a round-off error. >_> <_<;

You may have to do a bit of soloing to supplement parting at your level range, if you are unable to fit into NA players' prime time. Buy a high damage club (unless there's a good hammer?), aim for low, low EPs--creatures 5 or 6 levels below you. Consider it a chance to farm Beastmen's Seals.

Oh and a question, how do you raise reputation in Jueno? I have been doing the quests while waiting for a party but since I can only do the Rep 1 quests I finished them very quickly. Do you raise it in Jueno itself or is it like Selbina where you have to raise rep in another country too?

The easiest way to raise Jeuno fame is to raise Selbina fame, via the repeatable quest Only the Best. (Which, incidentally, also help your reputation in Bastok and San d'Oria.) The cheap but slow way is to buy Miliioncorn from regional merchants and turn them in for the quest. Takes quite a few trips, so try to clear out inventory and fill your mind with patience.

[Nuriko]

Re: Few questions from a new White Mage

Of course, if you're just sitting around Jeuno anyway, you can try to do the lamp-lighting quest once per game day. Note that only one person can get this quest, so take it right at 18:00 if you can.

[Firewind]

Re: Few questions from a new White Mage

Thanks for the great post IfritnoItazura. My main intention is to get to lv20 so I can obtain my Chocobo license. It would be very useful as teleporting to OP's often leaves me in an area with monsters that can easily kill me (Dunes, Buburimu and Jugner Forest are the main culprits) which leaves me with playing Metal Gear Solid with the mobs until I can get into a safer area. At least you can't get aggro'd on a chocobo so travelling instantly becomes much, much safer for me.

I have been talking to a few people in my LS and I may well start levelling Red Mage as a sub instead. The solo capabilities and the option to carry on main healing does appeal to me a lot so I may go and level that instead of Black Mage.

[Aksannyi]

Re: Few questions from a new White Mage

playing Metal Gear Solid with the mobs until I can get into a safer area.

You might as well get used to it though, you will be doing it a lot for pretty much the rest of the game, though it gets easier with Sneak and Invis spells/items.

Then you get to play with true sight/true sound mobs.

[Firewind]

Re: Few questions from a new White Mage

And I solved my lack of invites problem. The second I put up the exp party flag (instead of just seeking normally) and put in a message I was swarmed with invites from all over. Feel free to laugh at my mistake if you want but I genuinely belived that it didn't make a huge difference. Oh how wrong I was. Thanks to realising my mistake I hit Lv22 today and I have 3 words:

Regen is awesome

I would have added a certain fourth word before awesome but it would be a TOS violation so I will refrain from that. I am in love with that spell. 150HP for 15MP is enough to make me cry with joy. Having Sneak also means that I don't have to shell out 10k a time for stacks of Silent Oil (so that money can go into spells and gear) and Blink makes soloing quests that much easier. I can't wait until I hit 25 and get to play around with Raise ^^

I've also switched to using the wired pad from my XBox 360. I would have prefered to use a PS3 pad (since I only have that one wired padd for my 360) but XBox pads are much easier to setup and have noticed just how much easier things have become. I don't have any more mistargets and viewing my surroundings is also much easier. And I have vibration, while I usually don't care about it, it does tell me when I'm too close to an AOE spell or if a mob had just sneaked up on me and hit me from behind.

Qufim is a bit of a nightmare. Especially due to the number of undead. I died twice in a row (Died once then HP aggro'd an Undead the second i was raised. My party thought it was hilarious. I obviously did not) because several undead popped near out camp. Still I find it more manageable as it seems to be a bit smaller than the dunes and you only really need Sneak to get through so getting back to the camp if you have to Home Point isn't a huge issue.

[Murphie]

Re: Few questions from a new White Mage

You can say super here. "Regen is super awesome!"

You'll still want to keep some silent oils on you for those times when you're near mobs that aggro to magic, but you won't have to use them nearly as often you did.

[Firewind]

Re: Few questions from a new White Mage

Could someone offer any advice for levelling Black Mage past 15? I don't have WotG yet so I can't level Scholar yet and I'm at the point where I can't level White Mage any more without being gimped. Currently there are rarely any parties at the dunes; all I seem to come across are soloing Lv20+ people and Japanese parties that gathered outside the dunes. My only options seem to be sitting around bored for several hours while praying that a party needs a replacement or stay up until 4am and get about 3 hours of sleep for the night.

I have tried soloing at both Konschtat and La Theine but it seems pretty useless. EP mobs rarely give me more then 20 exp a kill and surviving the encounter is even more rare. If I go for Worms at La Theine I rarely get more than 15-20 exp (17-25 with the Empress band) so levelling up would literally take an entire day. That is assuming that I don't get aggrod from a passing crab or gob as that has happened multiple times and has dropped my level to as low as 13 on occasions. I've even tried going to Maze of Shakrami with very unsatisfying results. I would rather risk a level down to gain 200-300 exp a battle at the Dunes than risk levelling down to gain of 20-30 exp soloing EP mobs. If I die it the Dunes it takes minutes to regain the exp, if I die solo it can take hours unless I bring a PL.

It's getting to the point where my second character (Elvaan MNK used for HELM and fishing to support my main character) is actually at risk of taking over my main character in terms of level which is why I'm so frustrated about this.

I'm not asking for a magic wand wave for an insta-fix here (Even if I would like that to happen so I can party with my high level friends ^_^; ). Just advice on how I can get my subjob out of the Dunes ASAP so I can start playing a class that I actually like playing as again.

[Ellipses]

Re: Few questions from a new White Mage

There really isn't much more to it at that level, unless you want to learn EM-T worm soloing (personally, I couldn't stand it at level 16ish).

Grab a good staff (Bastokan/Republic, or wait til 16 for the Holly Pole), and either cast a few nukes per fight or save all your MP for cures, while going through Easy Prey. It's slow, but that's just how it is at that level. Keep your flag up in case a party wants you. You might consider eating Meat Jerky while soloing. It's stupid food for a mage in a party, but if part of your soloing strategy is swinging your staff (and unless you're worm-soloing, it almost certainly is), it'll help.

And aggro is just something to learn to avoid. Hang out in an area enough and you should learn where some safe spots are, and where the beastmen wander. You're not getting aggro from crabs. Don't know if that was sarcasm or not, but crabs at that level don't aggro, so if you have them attacking you, it's because you did something to piss them off, and you should stop doing that.
______________________________
Personally, the way I look at it is: This is going to be slow anyway, so screw it, I'm leveling my Dark Magic (since I'm not about to cast Bio in most parties). I just cast Bio and Drain on everything, and nuke a few times. My MP pool only lasts a couple mobs, but I treat it more like a skill-up/farming run than an exp run.

Also, obviously, keep Blaze Spikes up at all times.

[Icemage]

Re: Few questions from a new White Mage

Could someone offer any advice for levelling Black Mage past 15? I don't have WotG yet so I can't level Scholar yet and I'm at the point where I can't level White Mage any more without being gimped. Currently there are rarely any parties at the dunes; all I seem to come across are soloing Lv20+ people and Japanese parties that gathered outside the dunes. My only options seem to be sitting around bored for several hours while praying that a party needs a replacement or stay up until 4am and get about 3 hours of sleep for the night.

I'm not asking for a magic wand wave for an insta-fix here (Even if I would like that to happen so I can party with my high level friends ^_^; ). Just advice on how I can get my subjob out of the Dunes ASAP so I can start playing a class that I actually like playing as again.

It's not a magic wand, but I can give you some help.

I'll give you a big hint: Worms.

Worms are Black Mage's best friends in the early levels (and Scholar, and Red Mage). Aero kicks the stuffing out of them, since they're weak to Wind magic, and unlike most other enemies in the game, they can not move once they are engaged in combat.

The main impediment you have is that worms like to cast Stonega and Rasp, but there is a special technique to avoid both. Stonega does all kinds of big damage. Rasp keeps you from resting. I'll try to teach you how to get away from both of these effects while still be able to pummel a worm into submission.

So the first thing you'll want to do is find a worm (see end of this post). It can be any level - Very Tough to Tough is recommended, but if you have nothing else around, Incredibly Tough can be managed with a little resting.

All spells have a maximum casting distance; this is true for enemies as well as players. Your personal casting distance on black magic is just a little over 2/3 the range of a Worm's.

Start off by finding two places to stand. The first is just within your casting range. Use a macro and set a relatively long casting spell on it, like Aero (which you'll need anyway). Slowly approach the worm until the red "not within range" message disappears, but do NOT finish casting - you just want to find the spot where you can successfully nuke from. The moment the spell starts casting - MOVE to interrupt the casting, because you aren't done.

The second location you want to find is a spot at least half again (150%) as far away from the Worm as the spot you can cast from. That location should be your "home base" for the fight. This takes a little practice to find, and may be very difficult in some spots due to tunnels or other terrain. If you don't think you can find such a safe spot, leave that worm alone and go find another one until this one moves to a spot you can safely attack.

Ok, so now you've found the two important spots, move to the first spot (the "attack spot"). Cast Dia on the worm (Bio works too, but is more often resisted), and IMMEDIATELY run to/past your "home base". The worm will immediately attempt to cast a spell on you; either Stone, Rasp, or Stonega. You have enough time (with some margin) to get out of range of that first spell for anything except Stone, which will "probably" hit you for a little damage, but isn't that big a deal.

You have about fifteen seconds from the moment the Worm first tries casting a spell on you until it can try again. Once you're back at "home base", turn around and run right back to your "attack spot". You now have time to cast up to one to two spells. On this first pass, you only have time for one spell, since you used up a lot of time running away at the start.

Once you've finished casting one or two spells, move almost all the way back to "home base" - but not all the way. You want to be just within casting range of the Worm. Stay inside range until it initiates another spell on you; then run to "home base" and get out of the way, leaving enough time for the spell to "fizzle", then repeat. Since you're now not running away as far, you can now repeat the above steps over and over. If you do it perfectly, with no mistakes, you won't take any damage at all except perhaps the odd Stone. If you hose up and get slammed by Stonega or Rasp... don't worry, just chalk it up to experience. It's easy to mess up even after you learn how to do it right, but it's not fatal.

The best part about this is that any time you want, you can just run past "home base" and be 100% safe.

Things to watch out for:

- Running out of MP. This is a problem for non-Tarutaru mages with this approach. Juices help, ginger/wizard cookies/HQ pies help, but chances are you'll still need to rest once in a while in the middle of a fight because you're low on MP. This is how you do it:

Monsters don't regenerate while they are taking damage. So - if you know you're going to need to rest - wait for Dia to fade on the Worm, then cast it again. Run past "home base" and rest in safety. You have 60 seconds (about 5 ticks of rest) before the effect wears off. Use it to get more MP to blast the worm with.

- Worm loses aggro. Sometimes the worm will change from red to unclaimed after failing a spell. Take this opportunity to slam it with a spell.

- Worms LINK. Do not attack worms which are close together; the other(s) will attack you as well, making this tactic very difficult to pull off against two enemies with different spell timers.

- Try to keep Dia on the worm at all times (recast it after it wears, since you can't "reset" it by recasting); it should last for maybe 60 seconds, and has a pretty good unresistable damage-to-MP ratio.

That's really all you need. With this tactic, you can, as a solo BLM, RDM, or SCH, take down any worm solo for 100-200 XP per kill (even WHMs can do it, though Banish isn't nearly as good as Aero in terms of damage, and has a very long recast timer).

Level 14-17:
Maze of Shakrami (northeast corner of Tahrongi Canyon)
Stand inside the main tunnels and nuke Aero on worms from your extreme casting range. Watch out for multiple worms inside the tunnels, and watch out for Ghouls and Goblins - avoid these at all costs, as you can not fight either.

Level 17-22:
Korroloka Tunnel
A Worm paradise! This zone has numerous worms scattered at both ends of the zone. The easiest one to get to is near Bastok -> Zeruhn Mines -> Korroloka Tunnel. Lots of open areas to nuke from, and lots of worms, but also a higher chance of linked enemies, so watch yourself here.

One last note: This tactic works VERY well with multiple ranged attackers. Scholars, Red Mages, Black Mages, and Rangers can all do this trick successfully, while other jobs with decent ranged skills and appropriate weaponry, like Thief, Warrior, and Samurai, can also pitch in with sufficient ammunition. Grouping together in duos/trios is very effective and fast levelling.


Icemage

[Firewind]

Re: Few questions from a new White Mage

I managed to get into a party. Well when I say party it was 3-4 people (including my character) just killing IT Damselfliies and the odd Goblin or Leech. Levelling went of at about the same pace as normal because while stuff was actually being killed faster, the mages would often run out of Mp after 1 or 2 battles so downtime was frequent. Still using Manafont to pretty much solo an IT+ Gob was highly satisfying. Although duoing with a BST/WAR after was more hilarious.

Basically he would pull an IT mob and I would nuke it until I gained hate. Then I would fall back behind him and rest for some MP while he voked and whacked it for a bit. When Provoke was charged I would nuke it untill gained hate, fall back and let him voke it. Repeat this from the Selbina entrance to the Outpost and you will get the idea. We managed to keep a Ghoul constantly moving so it only ever got off about 3 or 4 attacks on us in total. Has anyone else tried anything like this when duoing? We were pretty surprised at how quickly we were able to kill this thing by simply alternating DDing and resting while keeping the mob moving and unable to properly attack. Although I do remember using a similar strategy in a Lv19-20 party when our puller went a did a Leeroy Jenkins and charged in at a Bogy. Although Slow, Paralyse and Poison actually sticking also helped out a lot

As soon as I find out where I can actually get warp from (The AH's never seem t have it for sale) I think I'll be able to get my subjob out of the dunes and take a break by going back to my main for a little while.

Edit: Hmm looks like it's a quest reward item. And I need 2 rep in Bastok. I guess I'm lucky I have several stacks of Zeruhn Power in my MH.

[Firewind]

Re: Few questions from a new White Mage

Does anyone know if there is a place other than the jungles around Kazham that people go to at Lv25? I've been stuck at that level since last Friday and I'm pretty bored and ridiculously fed up of trying to find help to get the keys. Soling the quest as a 25WHM is pretty laughable since I can barely damage the mobs I need to kill for the keys. Basically Decurion's Hammer and Seraph Strike seem to be the only way to cause any damage at all. But at 25WHm even EP mobs can kill me quite easily. I must have died at least 5 times trying to get those keys and I have no keys are I'm close to levelling down to boot.

I have tried asking people for help but I rarely get a response and I can never find anyone trying to do the same quest. I can enlist the help of high level friends but they are usually heavily engaged in merit parties and so rarely get the time to offer anything but the odd bit of advice.

I have tried soloing but being Lv25 it can take anything from 2-15 minutes to kill an EP mob for 15-20exp depending on what it is. And most of the time said EP mob stands a pretty good chance at killing me. And well I would rather stick to my "I would rather party and risk levelling down for 1kgil per hour then solo and risk levelling down for 100exp per hour" mantra

What makes this more depressing as that during the week I've been spending trying to find someone to help, a freind I made who was my level when I hit 25 got his third SAM AF piece today which would put him at about 50*something IIRC.

So my question is this: Are there any other places to party at 25 or am I doomed to being stuck at Lv25 forever?

[Aksannyi]

Re: Few questions from a new White Mage

Generally no one ever goes anywhere but Kazham at that level, so you are pretty screwed there, but I wouldn't give up just yet. You can try going to the zones where the keys drop and shouting for the key, sometimes higher level people there won't mind inviting you and killing the mobs for you as you sit safely at the zone. I've done that on occasion to help people.

You can also try shouting around Jeuno, there may be a few other 25's who need the keys as well, hopefully someone with a DD job leveled. When I did this key farming we had 3 RDMs and a WHM, all level 25.

[Icemage]

Re: Few questions from a new White Mage

Does anyone know if there is a place other than the jungles around Kazham that people go to at Lv25? I've been stuck at that level since last Friday and I'm pretty bored and ridiculously fed up of trying to find help to get the keys. Soling the quest as a 25WHM is pretty laughable since I can barely damage the mobs I need to kill for the keys. Basically Decurion's Hammer and Seraph Strike seem to be the only way to cause any damage at all. But at 25WHm even EP mobs can kill me quite easily. I must have died at least 5 times trying to get those keys and I have no keys are I'm close to levelling down to boot.

I have tried asking people for help but I rarely get a response and I can never find anyone trying to do the same quest. I can enlist the help of high level friends but they are usually heavily engaged in merit parties and so rarely get the time to offer anything but the odd bit of advice.

I have tried soloing but being Lv25 it can take anything from 2-15 minutes to kill an EP mob for 15-20exp depending on what it is. And most of the time said EP mob stands a pretty good chance at killing me. And well I would rather stick to my "I would rather party and risk levelling down for 1kgil per hour then solo and risk levelling down for 100exp per hour" mantra

What makes this more depressing as that during the week I've been spending trying to find someone to help, a freind I made who was my level when I hit 25 got his third SAM AF piece today which would put him at about 50*something IIRC.

So my question is this: Are there any other places to party at 25 or am I doomed to being stuck at Lv25 forever?

Kazham has become a "firewall" against newbies ever since since Rise of the Zilart was introduced back in 2003. There are some alternate camps but hardly anyone goes to them except for static parties who talk about it ahead of time.

At this point, I would try leaning on some friends (like aforementioned Samurai at 50+) to get the necessary keys for the airship pass. Any player at 50+ can obtain the keys with ease, but it does take a little time investment.

If you were on my server, I'd offer to help you myself; it doesn't really take that long with Teleports and a chocobo.

By the by, the keys aren't terribly common drops. Without a Thief around, I'd guess the drop rate on the keys is about 5% on average. Sometimes you'll get lucky and get the key fast... other times it can take as much as an hour+, especially if you have competition splitting the potential targets with you.


Icemage

[ItazuraNhomango]

Re: Few questions from a new White Mage

Sorry to hear you're having such difficult time.

I'm surprised that no one from your LS would help; meriting all the time can easily become monotonous, and I for one would gladly help out lowbie LS members instead (especially with something as simple as Kazham Airship Pass), unless I'm already in party.

You can probably pass the time farming in the zone (Giddeus has good drop rate for Beehive Chips, for example) while doing a once-every-15-minute shout for help.