Arg!!!

[Arkamil]

Hey everyone, im a level 7 white mage and its driving me nuts. The xp when i group sucks and i cant solo anything besides an easy/decent con(when i manage to find one) its really driving me nuts anyone have some advice on what to do. Im in San D'oria.

[Icemage]

All I can suggest is to have patience. Playing conservatively is the best way to progress in FFXI, particularly as a WHM.

If you are solo (most likely at level 7), just spend the time to kill decent challenge enemies for 50 or 72 xp. You won't have the offensive power to take down a even match or tougher - that's not how WHM fight when they're by themselves.

If you're in a group, again, stay away from Tough enemies until you learn how to fight them effectively, and even then I'd be cautious.

Best of luck to you.


Icemage

[mlwolfinger]

Yeah, Icemage makes some great points. Patience is key. ALWAYS have protect casted on yourself when hunting. ALWAYS check your enemies (other than rabbits/hares and worms) before you fight them! If it says "even match" or "tough" then run the other way! If it says "decent challenge" or "easy prey" then make sure you're at full or very close to full HP/MP, start with paralyze to "pull" the monster too you and then follow with dia. Watch your TP meter and use Shining Strike when you need it. Also use banish if you're not doing much damage with your weapon. Just make sure that you leave yourself enough MP to cast several Cures. As a WHM Cure is your greatest asset. Period. :thumbsup:

[jspix]

I've changed up my tactics a little bit last night. At level 9 I just ran around the noobie area outside Bastok and killed anything I saw. Granted I only got 10-18 xp on each hit, I racked up alot of killing with pratically NO downtime.

Before I'd run around looking conning everything, kill it for 25-50xp, then haveto rest after 1 or 2 kills. So I'd do about 50xp in 10 minutes this way or kill 10 lowbies in a few hits for over 100xp in the same time. Also won't haveto waste the time coning everything.

Going to try it again tonight, the only problem is at my level the other low levels get pissed because I killed everything. So I'll try and not stay in one place for long.

Spread out my destruction.

Also, anyone have the same exp. as me with groups? I was at the mines last night and turned down offers to group. I seem to always die in group. I lost lvl 9 4 times and died over 8 times because of group mistakes. Seems someone makes a mistake and poof, whm dead. I might switch to BLM as main, not sure I can handle idiot tanks not knowing how to keep agro. Is it so hard to find a good group?

[Navia]

I spent 90percent of my time soloing and all I hunt is easy prey/decents. Leveling fast does you no good when you have no gil for all your spells/armor and your shield/evasion/spellcasting skills are horrible :o.

Stick to killing tons of easys and you should have enough Gil to buy spells/armor when you need it. Also if you solo easys, getting an accidental link or spawn near you wont kill you.

If you dont have paralyze, get it- like mlwolfinger says this is the first spell you want to cast on a monster and makes your life so much easier solo and grouping.

[Navia]

-jspix
Good group seem to be impossible to come by before 12 or so. Having cure 2 really helps save those overzealous taru BLM that get hate and have a monster use their TP move on them :sweat:

I usually duo with a black mage and we both melee goblin thug/weavers/magickedbones inside ruins outside windhurst area that give 15-20xp nonstop.
We usually run around killing easy to build TP then kill 1 tough or even monster quickly.

Only doing harder ones isnt worth the downtime,and not killing harder stuff fast lets it pull off their specials = more healing. The little fire bomb monsters being a good example.

[Phaint]

What is Shining Strike? I thought TP was useless for mages since they can't use weapon skills?

[Zagreus]

White mages can't use weapon skills? False.

At Club level 10 you get Shining Strike, at Staff level 10 you get Heavy Blow. There are more after that too. A white mage has a very high club rating, so they can eventualy get all (or close to all) of the club weapon skills. They'e staff skill is slightly lower, so you won't be getting many of those unless your a summoner or soemthing.

Of course, at later levels you hopefuly won't be getting hit enough to have TP. But when you first start out and play solo, weapon skills are an important part of battle.