What does food do to your character?

[Blitz15]

What does food do to your character? I am guessing it brings your stats up.

[Netrus]

indeed dependin on what u eat. of course ud want to eat whatever benefits your job :D

[Blitz15]

ok... if i am a hume, then what kind of food will be good for me? also, I heard you can grow a garden in your mog house. can you eat food grown from your mog house? if you don't eat food, then do you die? Well, probably not lol.

[Netrus]

naw naw u wont die if u dont eat it :D...but yeah you have to be a specific job in order for the food to take effect. like a blm would want to eat apple pie and other foods that build INT and other stats that benefit the blm. so a hume in general wouldnt need the food it would be the job that the hume has for the food to benefit. ya know what i mean?..lets say u went warrior then you would want the food that would benefit warrior. and if u arent playin but have the game i got a WP with a few more uses on it if u need a server. just thought id throw that in there.

[Blitz15]

ahh i c. what if i was a hume warrior and ate good things for it and then i changed to a monk or something else, i will have to change my eating habits, right? then, if i switch back to warrior, it will still have good stats? Hah, i just thought of something. What if i never kill monsters and never gain experience, but i eat lots of food. will i still become strong? not that i'm gonna do that, but i'm just wondering. lol

[yuukei]

It works like this. ^^ Food gives your character different boosts for a limited amount of time. The boosts are temporary, not permanent, so yes you still have to exp if you want to be strong. ^^;; You can eat any kind of food you want, but you can't eat two foods at the same time. Like Meat Mithkabobs have a 30 minute duration, and you can't eat anything during that time. The game will just tell you that you're full. Once that 30 minutes is over your character goes back to normal and you'll have to eat again.

Different kinds of foods have different benefits. Meat usually increases str and attack. Fish usually increases defense and dex. Sweets usually increase int and mp. And drinks regen mp and hp. You have to decide which food will benefit you the best for a particular situation or job. But usually you'd want meat for melee and sweets for a magic user.

[Zafron]

Blitz your questions are a very refreshing improvement on the traditional noob questions of:

What race should i choose if i'm gonna be a _____?

or

What is the best subjob for_____?

and my personal fav:

What is the most l337 job to do teh damage of pwn?

Anyway, yes food does boosts your stats. How long the food effect lasts and what stats they boost depend on the food item.

generally most food items last about 1/2 hour. And the stat boosts are noticably significant. A party where everyone uses the correct food for their job will be significantly improved over one that doesn't. I recently got in a dunes group where everyone was rank 4-6 and we were all using food. We tore the place up. As opposed to general dunes groups where i am the only one using food, noobs are constantly trying to tell me how i should be doing my job, and its a slow plodding process to earn xp.

Most beginning players don't use food because they can't afford it. A shame really, when i started DRK i went from level 1-8 on 3 meat mithkabobs. I was 1-shotting Decent challenges from lv1-4.

If you really want to impress the high level players you are grouping with show up with a stack of whatever your job requires, dont act like you know everything, and for the love of god do not beg.

For melee dmg dealer use Meat Mithkabobs
For BLM use Apple Pies
For WHM use roast mushrooms
For melee tank use Fish mithkabobs or boiled crab

there are other items for these classes but you can't go wrong with these choices. Very experienced mages will also drink juice that regens their mp, but if you are just using pies that is plenty sufficient.

for a comprehesive list:click here (http://ffxi.killvoid.com/page.php?id=69)

Edit:

LOL 4 posts just while i was typing this oh well.
/sigh

[Blitz15]

oh ok. so you would really only eat if ur leaving to battle or if you are battling.

[yuukei]

Yup that's right. Unless you're actually fighting mobs you'd be wasting your food.

[Macht]

As extra info with eating. There are certain ingredient or raw foods that classes can eat without any preperations. The only two I ever payed attention to are that Galka's are able to eat any meat type food raw, the rest of the classes have to have it cooked first before they can eat. Also the Mithra are able to eat any fish type foods raw, and again the other classes need it prepared first.

Some food types you can eat in combination with another. Basically it's any eatible ingredient by itself or meal and a drink you can have in combination. Drinks mostly act as a HP regen or an MP regen depending on the drink you have.

So if you are really trying to boost so you get incredible amount of HP back from regen basically you'd be stacking a meal that recovers HP, a drink that regens HP, a RDM Regen, and the BRD Paeon's then you'd bee looking at around 20 hp+ per 3 seconds regenerated. This usually isn't done though because it's not to often you'll find a RDM and a BRD in the same party and it's can be a lot of money to be using on foods for an effect that'll last around 1 min.

The meat mithkabobs are popular with melee's because it gives a % increase to their Attack.

One thing you may notice too is when you eat ingredients indiviually compared to in a meal, the ingredients will tend to give little gain to 1 stat and have a heavy loss to another. For example eating an Onion by itself will give you a +4 AGI but will also do a -6 VIT the effect from it lasts about 1 Earth Hr.

EDIT:
Also with the HP regen theory forgot to mention that the drink HP regen and the RDM's regen might actually overwite the other. Never bothered to try it, so can't really tell you if they actually do.

[Blitz15]

oh i get it now. only one more question. what is the range of cost for food? is it hard to buy? And this is an opinion question: do you think it is worth it to buy food?

[Macht]

Well depends on what you buy, some ingredients you can get for 15 gil and others will go at much 5,000 gil or more. Meat Mithkabobs I've seen sold for 200 gil - 300 gil for 1. The Meat Mithkabobs definatly seem to be worth it, but more so at higher levels don't really need to spend your money on it at lower levels.

[Zafron]

I assume the price will of course depend on the server, on Fairy meat mithkabobs go for about 3,000 gil for a stack of 12 in jeuno and about 2400gil for a stack of 12 in the nation cities. Apple pies go for about 1700 gil for a stack of 12.

Is food worth it? Absolutely.

Food makes a very noticable difference at all levels, and since many of the items are percentage based the effectiveness actually improves as you get higher.

As a beginning player you probably will not have enough cash flow income to maintain a constant use of food, but as you progress you will. Because most beginners either can't afford food or don't know about it they don't use it well into the game. This is common at the lower levels, but at higher levels the use off food is expected. I carry ingredients for the food that is best for my job at all times and i never xp without it.

Using food maximizes your characters potential, improves your performance and will help develop you a good reputation. I still get random tells as i'm playing from people asking me if i want to group with them even if i'm not looking for one, and i'm not exactly a BRD.