FFXI is an MMORPG released in 2002. Over the past two decades, its charm has always been there. There are still many fans, whether veterans or new beginners. So here is a guide to improving your gameplay in Final Fantasy 11.
Reisenjima Ingress #9
Number 9 ingress isn't on the map, so here is how to get there. Start from ingress #5 and go down the river bearing south on your compass.
If doing this at nighttime, you should be ready for aggro, or otherwise, conceal yourself or sneak, invisible. Eat following the river south, and after a few minutes, you'll find a mysterious ingress. Proceed through this, and you'll end up at a pond. This is where ingress #9 is. Ingress #9 is popular because there are three pop sites for NMS, and there's absolutely no aggro to get in your group’s way.
Macro Layout on Mage Jobs
Sometimes circumstances in a battle can change quickly, so we have to respond quickly. This is why we should have the bar spells on the same macro page, with the elemental bar spell on the control key and the corresponding ailment bar spell on the same number, but allocated to the Alt key. This way, we can hit the first spell and immediately follow with a proper second spell.
Scholar's Regen Trick
Regen V carries into battlefields like Ambuscade and High-Tier Mission Battlefields, so using it with a session and perpetuates before entering the instance can give your healer a greater margin for error. Simply cast it and then change back to your proper job. You will lose the Regen effect, but everyone else in your group will keep it.
Questing Weapon Skills
Be sure to quest all weapon skills you can use, even on secondary weapons. When you get to the endgame, forming skill chains can be an important part of battle strategy. The mythic weapon skills quested via Nyzul Isle are particularly important, as they tend to cover properties their respective weapon category would not usually have. If you're serious about being the best melee player you can possibly be, then you really should get all of these done. It might take a while, but ultimately it's worth it.
Do Not Use Fast Cast Ammo on Bard
Here's one thing that new players need to watch out for. Do not take out instruments for fast cast pieces in the ranged or the ammo slot. Even if how fast bard songs can cast, especially under Nightingale, you run the real risk of the instrument not swapping back in time. This will result in a significantly weaker song effect.
The animation for a song being sung without an instrument is also very distinct, so there's a pretty good chance that veteran players will spot it and call it out, so save yourself the embarrassing scene and keep an instrument in your hands.
TP Builds
TP sets are quite important for new players to keep in mind. Generally speaking, there is no such thing as an ultimate TP set a player stays in no matter what the situation. Some sets can come close, but it's important to have sets built around responding to situations. You could have top-of-the-range gear for damage output, but if you're being buried in ailments or taking massive damage with every other attack, it's not really the best set anymore.
The point here is that you need to switch to more defensive sets which retain valuable DPS stats. Don't just sit in one set and drown in ailments or get smashed into the dirt. A perpetually and feeble Melee is a substantial DPS loss, while a knocked-out Melee is a total DPS loss. Take the hit to your overall damage and put the group first, especially if your healer is a novice. Not all jobs are on the malignant set, but they can still use equipment to achieve the same ends.
Calculating Attack Speed
Keeping on the topic of TP sets, something that even some of the best players miss is the fact that you don't necessarily need to fully cap equipment haste and cap attack speed.
The absolute cap of haste contributing to attack speed from all sources is 80%. Three categories contribute to this 80% cap, and each of the three has its own respective caps. Equipment and job ability both cap at 25%. Magic haste cap is at 43% around. Atticus is easy enough to cap, but if you have enough job ability haste, you can use some other pieces which don't have a whole lot of haste on them but do have very good Melee stats like the Odin armor and the Dagon Breastplate.
Job Ability Haste (Dragoon)
A dragoon with a Samurai sub-job can maintain a 20% job ability haste value, meaning that with cap magic haste, it only needs to find 17% from equipment to reach the total cap. It achieves this from hasso. This is, of course, dependent on surviving, but that's not really hard to achieve.
Job Ability Haste (Dark Knight)
A Dark Knight fully caps job ability haste at 25% whenever last resort is active. With cap magic haste, it only needs 12% equipment haste to fully cap. This is very useful to know because whenever last resort goes up, the Dark Knight takes a major hit to their defense. So putting on armor with more defensive stats becomes essential.
Martial Arts Warning
For Monk Puppetmaster, Martial Arts can also be used to reach the attack speed cap, but it's not a very effective way. Martial Arts reduces your base delay, so it's both a positive and a negative since you'll be attacking faster with it, but if you overdo it, then you will really hurt your TP game per hit because you've lowered your base delay so much. In early speaking, you should not be stacking Martial Arts equipment whenever the attack speed cap.
Treasure Hunter: Mythbusting
Treasure hunter does not necessarily increase the chance of rare drops appearing when something has been defeated. Each monster in the game has a determined number of drop slots in which the items can appear when they are defeated. Some are guaranteed, while some have a chance of appearing. What treasure hunter does is increase the chances of those unguaranteed slots unlocking and appearing. This means that even if you have a high treasure hunter level, that does not guarantee that your desired items will drop.
External Resource: the BG Wiki
The BG Wiki is a great source of information if a player ever finds themselves lost and in need of answers in FFXI. For example, players being bold enough to set up groups for content can do some research on the BG wiki ahead of time and see what they're up against. So they can then build a group suited to tackling the task at hand.
Hope you find these tips helpful. If you want to know more tips, check Ruaumoko’s video, as all the tips come from his video. Lastly, have fun in Vana’diel!
