Journey To Cap Skills

[WishMaster3K]

Ok, I might as well post this since it'll help out the RDM community and give me a bit more insight.

Below, I have comprised a chart. Firstly, this chart shows the skill RDMs have in certain combat areas, the level minimum level of the monster we need to fight to cap it, my skill/max skill possible and the weapon.

B 70 247/250 Sword
B 70 159/250 Dagger
E 60 085/200 Club
D 62 095/210 Archery
D 62 210/210 Evasion (capped)
F 58 138/189 Shield
E 60 114/200 Parrying

Ok, to date, I only have 1 merit to sword and 3 to evasion. Thus, for reference, my Sword skill is 249/252 and my Evasion is 216/216.

The easiest way to cap a skill, in my view, would be to fight enemies of the level you'd be if that skill capped. So for instance, our 250 sword skill is 1 less than the A+ cap for lvl 70. This means the most efficient way to ultimately cap our sword would be to fight lvl 70 monsters.

I suppose I should start on sword since it is closest to being capped, but I fight Steelshells (73-76) and they're boring as all shit to fight.

Mourioche (62-68) are more than efficient to cap Shield and parrying, and they can be harassed quite simply, so I decided to fight them today. For the sake of coherancy, I'll go back to them, since I got a few skill levels off of them. :)

I went as RDM75/WAR35 (I knoes, I'm gimp, but, gdi, raising WAR 2 more levels sucks all types of ass. . . )

This is my gear

Sword: Joyeuse
Shield: Genbu
Ammo: Phantum
Head: AF
Neck: Merman's Gorget
Ear1: Drone
Ear2: Drone
Body: Narasimha
Hand: AF
Ring1: Ruby Ring
Ring2: Shikaree
Back: Amemet
Waist: Warwolf
Legs: JSE
Feet: AF

Nothing spectacular, and my stats are:

STR 61+13
DEX 64+9
VIT 57+8
AGI 64+9
INT 71+5
MND 61
CHR 62

Attack 314
Defense 309

HP 939
MP 747

Evidently, I am outstandously mediocre, so it's due to this I had to be more intuitive in my methods. I'll highlight what happens today after about 2 hours of skilling up on White Mandies in the lower tree.

Double Post Edited:
Tactics Before Fighting.

First thing first, I've learned, twice, that buffing before hand is important ._. Died two times because I got a little presumptuous. ANYWAY, I don't have any videos, but I have a system that never fails me when I apply my buffs. I don't feel like getting into it, and it's easier to see than for me to explain, so when I feel like making a video, you can see.

Buffs: Refresh, Stoneskin, Phalanx, Ice Spikes, Defender, Bream Sushi (too poor for anything else ;;), Protect4, and Regen at times.

I've found (again, the hard way) that I can comfortably take on 7 mandies. I took on like, 20, and it was fun, but dangerous. As soon as Stoneskin was resisted, It was Game Over /sulk.

Moving on, I simply arrange them in the open U formation, make sure that I can target and attack the mandies on the end (if not, I rearrange my position) and I just reapply stoneskin and buffs when necessary. I'll post my DEF with Defender and Bream on, but it's 455 . . In addition, even w/o Stoneskin, they go down from hitting 43-50 to 0-12. So most of the time, unless I lose attention, I can go w/o Stoneskin.

Ok, Just had to add that, I'll post my results later, I swear!

Double Post Edited:
Ok, started out at 4:20EST. Started with 7 of them on me.

After the first fight:

Shield 142
Parry 114

My AF feet and Hands raise those by +10, but it's interesting to see that Shield got more of an increase. I'm guessing it's because it's higher, so it procs more. I guess the only thing I can do is to try fighting w/o shield. Since I'll be losing DEF and damage reduction from unequipping Genbu, I'll try taking on 4-5 mandies and seeing how that works. I'll also try equipping my RGF. More later

Edit: PArry is impossible to raise -.- 4 Mandies and only one skill even tho i parried a kajillion times.

[WishMaster3K]

At end of night, Shield was 154 and Parry was 119. Fighting w/o shield wasn't dangerous, but noticeable. On 3 mobs, I was losing Stoneskin very fast. I'm going to try subbing NIN so I can dual-wield. I'll see if that lets parry go up faster.

I've been shield blocking and parrying a lot more, and skillups are getting faster.

More tomorrow.

[mithy]

Interesting

[Jei]

/look at my own skil
shield 180 parry 134 o.O
I went to Davoi when I train shield, pull a monk type orc and let it punch me without engaging ^^ pretty slow, but easy hehe.

[Balodoth]

Ummmmm, I think I read something on this before. I believe there is only one check to parry with or without dual-wielding.

[Bothari]

K i have a shield of 172 and a parry of 162. Sword and dagger are at 245 club 190 archery at 140 and evasion capped.. ofcourse. Parrying skill up is a nightmare but this is how I do it.

Gear:

Main: Earth Staff (http://ffxi.somepage.com/itemdb/634) (-20% dmg reduction)
Body: Darksteel Harness (http://ffxi.somepage.com/itemdb/1196) (-3% dmg reduction)
Legs: Darksteel Subligar (http://ffxi.somepage.com/itemdb/1235) (-2% dmg reduction)
Ring: Jelly Ring (http://ffxi.somepage.com/itemdb/2882) (-5% dmg reduction)
Ring: Topaz Ring (http://ffxi.somepage.com/itemdb/2039)
Back: Cheviot Cape (http://ffxi.somepage.com/itemdb/1910) (-5% dmg reduction)
Waist: Warwolf's belt
Neck: Memento Muffler (http://ffxi.somepage.com/itemdb/6195) (Vitality +7 for emergencies)

Here's (http://ffxi.allakhazam.com/profile.xml?145392) the char.

Using a war sub (/war35) and Shallop tropicale (http://ffxi.somepage.com/itemdb/3857) I got -35% damage reduction and about 500 defence and 78ish vitality. Get about 15 of those things.. (i know i can take more.. but very hard to arrange them.. i'm too lazy.. and dont think its really worth the trouble) and no matter what dont let defender and phalanx fall (How I did phalanx was to cast phalanx whenever refresh dropped and then cast refresh. Phalanx stays on about 30 seconds more than refresh so even tho you lose 30 seconds on it.. it keeps u safe). I have a feeling that there's a hard cap on the amount of skill you can get in one day.. I never seem to get more than 5 parrying what ever I do.. But ya.. this way u'll get 5 in about an hour or 2.
What I normally do is start out with a club and genbu, Skill parrying shield and club for an hour. In this time, i keep moving between the mobs and distribute damage. By the end of an hour most of the mobs are about 3/4th dead.. i move to staff.. This way If i ever need to kill them off fast I can. Also .. i have about -15 evasion.. just so those onion heads can hit me.

Oh and this is my first post here..

Note: If i really felt like going all out i guess i could spend about a mil on a stumbling boots a dusk mask and Light Gauntlets (http://ffxi.somepage.com/itemdb/1546) for about 8 more vit and a -10 agi/dex so they could miss even less.. but right now.. i'm too poor...

[Alucath]

I'm sure this'll be nerfed and I can't tell you at what level it caps but I did the first {Halvung Staging Point} assault (ToAU) mission, otherwise known as {Lebros Cavern} tonight. It's fun, We didn't win with our setup but anyway.. You have to destroy these rocks, and the first one you have to melee to death. Everyone's damage is gimped so.. it takes 9+ minutes to kill. I got a few sword skillups. I'm 71 in an uncapped zone at the time, the 'rock' cons as impossible to gauge but doesn't attack you. Might wanna do some testing signing up for assault in that area, warping there, spending a half an hour meleeing a rock that never attacks back.. And getting 100 assault points for that staging point for losing. Not bad for a test anyway right?

My few gil.


[EDIT] Ah, wasn't paying attention thought you were trying to cap all melee skills and might use some information on sword as well. Oh well ;P.

[Zafire]

My parry hit 200 yesterday on NIN ^_^ So exciting! Capped parry on rdm finally!

[Aeni]

I'm sure this'll be nerfed and I can't tell you at what level it caps but I did the first {Halvung Staging Point} assault (ToAU) mission, otherwise known as {Lebros Cavern} tonight. It's fun, We didn't win with our setup but anyway.. You have to destroy these rocks, and the first one you have to melee to death. Everyone's damage is gimped so.. it takes 9+ minutes to kill. I got a few sword skillups. I'm 71 in an uncapped zone at the time, the 'rock' cons as impossible to gauge but doesn't attack you. Might wanna do some testing signing up for assault in that area, warping there, spending a half an hour meleeing a rock that never attacks back.. And getting 100 assault points for that staging point for losing. Not bad for a test anyway right?

My few gil.


[EDIT] Ah, wasn't paying attention thought you were trying to cap all melee skills and might use some information on sword as well. Oh well ;P.

LOL ... the most painless way to cap melee skills! Good find :) I will go and cap off everything on both characters then :p

On a side note, the only real sure fire way to eventually cap your skills is to at least keep it not too far behind. This means a lot of soloing until your skill levels are on par with exp mobs you fight about 6-8 levels below your level. Eventually at 75, you have lots more opportunities to solo and if properly geared up, might be able to take on EM mobs without issues to finally cap out everything.

Will take time ... but sorry, I don't have the Cliff Notes version on capping skills as a RDM :huh:

[WishMaster3K]

I soloed my Jelly Ring tonight. If anyone cares for the story, I can explain it. Otherwise, I'll go back to skilling up tomorrow. With this, I can go /NIN and see the difference with two swords and some other things I've been thinking of.

[BurningPanther]

I'm sure this'll be nerfed and I can't tell you at what level it caps but I did the first {Halvung Staging Point} assault (ToAU) mission, otherwise known as {Lebros Cavern} tonight. It's fun, We didn't win with our setup but anyway.. You have to destroy these rocks, and the first one you have to melee to death. Everyone's damage is gimped so.. it takes 9+ minutes to kill. I got a few sword skillups. I'm 71 in an uncapped zone at the time, the 'rock' cons as impossible to gauge but doesn't attack you. Might wanna do some testing signing up for assault in that area, warping there, spending a half an hour meleeing a rock that never attacks back.. And getting 100 assault points for that staging point for losing. Not bad for a test anyway right?

My few gil.


[EDIT] Ah, wasn't paying attention thought you were trying to cap all melee skills and might use some information on sword as well. Oh well ;P.
What level is your sword skill? I'm trying to determine if it might be worth it at 230 sword skill to give it a go.

[rheya]

Rumor has it that shield and parry skills level much more quickly off of ToAU mobs. I'm not sure if this is true or not, but I did notice a great deal of both shield and parry skill ups when fighting the EP Lesser Colibri right outside of Al Zahbi. My shield skill is ~160. Parry is ~135.

[Bothari]

I soloed my Jelly Ring tonight. If anyone cares for the story, I can explain it. Otherwise, I'll go back to skilling up tomorrow. With this, I can go /NIN and see the difference with two swords and some other things I've been thinking of.

Hey wish. Nice to know u solo'd it.. kinda like an RDM right of passage thing (jelly ring for meelee and maat of sleep nuke). On parry skill, If u're using ninja sub its gonna be very expensive and you can fight way fewer mobs at once since u dont get defender and are going to rely on images. War or now BLU are the best sub jobs for parrying/shield skill up. Without one of those 2 you lose about 130 def which will make your SS last way less (translate as "you can fight less mobs"). Secondly if u're using images then the jelly ring is kinda pointless. Well whatever you do.. have fun.

----------------------

[Aeni]

I soloed my Jelly Ring tonight. If anyone cares for the story, I can explain it. Otherwise, I'll go back to skilling up tomorrow. With this, I can go /NIN and see the difference with two swords and some other things I've been thinking of.

Oooh ... I want to hear your story. :eek:

[WishMaster3K]

Story later, and i meant subbing NIN so that I could have two swords to parry off of instead of 1. I'm still trying to raise PLD so I at least have Shield mastery, so I'll try soon. TY for the input :)

[Aeni]

Story later, and i meant subbing NIN so that I could have two swords to parry off of instead of 1. I'm still trying to raise PLD so I at least have Shield mastery, so I'll try soon. TY for the input :)

Beetles in E. Altepa was giving me mad shield skills (I'm almost to 90 from 81 in just one hour of fighting them) Insane and I really love the new shield skill system. I just hope SE doesn't see this as too good and start to nerf off the shield skillups.

[WishMaster3K]

Alright. Well, I decided that if I started getting more gear that was -%Damage Taken, I would be able to solo easier. Darksteel gear looks very menial to me, and I can't afford the HQ. So I was looking at the most coveted items on my "Want List."

Topping the list were Cheviot Cape and Jelly Ring.

I did the research, Cheviot Cloth is dropped from two hard-ass mobs, so I decided to eff that. And I moved onto Jelly. Jelly was soloed by many people, so I deiced to give it a shot.

Ok, went there, went to room with Haunts and started fighting the two placeholders. I started calculating their killtime and relative recast time, so I would have something to do.

After about, maybe, and hour, as RDM/NIN with my nuke gear, he popped. So I buff, and pull him. Keep in mind, Haunts are nearby. The Werebats don't aggro at my level (or at all, not sure. But they didn't aggro to 75) so I was comfortably fighting around them for an hour. In any case, things went bad, fast.

I'm not the type of person to nuke/sleep NMs, and I don't really practice it on mobs that can't be slept. So needless to say, Sewer Syrup raped me 8 ways from Iceday. So I HP to JEUNO (arg) and I regroup. I deposit my nuking gear and my staves, and I go back.

Conversation with my friend:
>>Zexx : Does Sewer Syrup depop?
Zexx>> No
Zexx>> Why, he rape you?
>>Zexx : ._.
Zexx>> LoL

Anyway, I run back, and this mofo is still there, minding his own business, silently mocking me. Haha, 3k exp. That's real funny, you dirty bastard. So I Bind him, Sneak up, and run for the exit. I pass a few mobs, pass a few bats and hit the steps. According to the online map, the zone was around the corner, but I get to the top of the second and a Zone.

"SHIT!"

Ok, SS doesn't depop, so I figure he'll just roam back. I re-enter, Sneak up and I run back, and he is chilling in between some EP dogs. So it's all good, I wait for him to get near the bat in the water, and I bind and resneak. As soon as I reach the steps and turn around, he comes ROARING around the corner.

Ha.

Bring it on, bitch.

Renarudo the Red has some gifts for you.

Anyway, He wasn't too hard. His AOE takes 2 shadows and his other TP move takes 1. He hit slow, he missed often and I was parrying and shielding him when he didn't (Ty skill ups :) )

Fight took maybe 12-14 minutes. I didn't need to convert, and my debuffs stuck. Enspells were doing 27 damage, so I'm guessing that he has the same stats as the ring.

So I get him to 1%, and out of principle, I do a Thunder 3 on hum, which does 890 damage.

Bastard.

Eat that.

Oh yes, thank you. I WOULD like 12k and a 100% drop.

So that's how I got raped by SS and retalliated.

[swingfly]

It's kinda hard to solo to get Cheviot Cloths for a cape. Ixtab in Upper Delfkutt isn't that hard to kill but the droprate is abysmal. You can solo it either as /Nin and just melee away (remember to try to turn away and dispel when he casts Ice Spikes) or you could Bind/Grav and pull it down to where Porfyrion spawns and fight him there. Nuking or meleeing should both work.

Baoban Sith in Gustav is a whole different story......En-terror sucks pretty bad. However, the worst part here is not defeating it but rather pulling it. It spawns deep down in Gustav, past all the skeletons so you can't fight it there. The best place is where Bune spawns. Gravity and a Silent Oil should be enough, or at least you'd think so. He loses aggro really, really easy and trying to reclaim is kinda tricky. If you can stick Dia or Poison on him when you pull it should be a bit easier. When you have him up in the Bune area, kiting/nuking with /Nin is the best way.

I'm 0/10-15 on Ixtab and 1/2 on Baoban Sith (the latter always drops 1-3 cloths but I died one time during the pull and a party grabbed it).


For skilling shield/parry I also did the mandragora-thing but I was /Blm so I could sleepga when Stoneskin was interrupted too often. Now I've capped shield and parry is at 182 or so and I'm looking for a good place to get the last points in parry. Equipping Earth Staff, grabbing a DC mnk-type mob in one of the beastmen strongholds and letting it beat on me seems like the best way to go at the moment.

[WishMaster3K]

Thank you for the feedback, swingfly. I'll see if I can try the things you mentioned in your post.

Ok, May 11th, I fished for like an hour and turned in some Moaties in Sandy (I'm up to 36! yay! I'm going to fish for at least 3 hours a day this summer. I'm getting LuShangs before lvl 50 >.>) (that means I also have to level wood, but fishing should keep me funded :-D )

So I decided it was SkillTime. I felt Mandies in the lower level of Boyahda were too weak, although fun, so I decided to fight some Orc Champs.

Awsome, they weren't spawning. At least not near the Zone I go to. The only spawns were the god damned Orc Farkillers. Booo.

Ok, I go to the sealed offsection where I need the Crimson Orb. No Champs there either, just a bunch of DC Dragoons and Farkillers.

I'm RDM/WAR, so I'm like "what the hey." and I buff and take em.

Now, this is interesting to me, what happened. RDM75/WAR35.
309 Base defense.
364 with Protect 4.
455 with Defender.
572 with Tavnazian Taco.

So needless to say, I was able to tank DCs with just Phalanx >.> tooke 0-20 damage. Only TP moves were a danger, but the most I got hit for was 80. Stoneskin stook for like, forever.

Now I'm going to go fight the Korrigans in Boyadha (72-75) and see what's really hood.

[swingfly]

Got Parry to 184 yesterday killing random Yagudos while camping Tzee Xicu, I was there as /War because Warcry + Berserk -> Vorpal Blade is too much fun, even when you forget to bring food :P

Korrigans should be good too but remember to not grab more than 3 or so, also try to recast Stoneskin before it actually drops because (at least in my experience) they can be annoying and interrupt you quite a lot.

[WishMaster3K]

I'm going to start with 2. They're VERY high DCs, even at lowest levels, so I'll take care. I'm going to them now, so I'll have feedback in 30 mins or so.

Double Post Edited:
160 Shield
121 Parry

I started at 11am EST. Decided to take 1 Korrigan at a time. They yield 86 exp per kill *_* and actually hit very hard. Yeah, I'll stick with just one, thank you very much. I'll do this for 30mins then report back.

Double Post Edited:
Add:
Ok, uhm. Wow. I have a low tolerance for things I can't get conistency out of, so after 15 minutes, there is less consistency with the Korrigans atm than I get from Mourioche.

I parries 8 times in a fight against an EM, but only got .5 Parry, and that was only on the last time. I get WAY more results with mobs closer to my level, so I'll hit the lower level again. Going to get ganged by Mourioches again. :( bbl

Add:
@ 1730 EST after 30 minutes
164 Shield
123 Parry

Slow but steady skill, and it's the best I've ever been. I've noticed I've been parrying and blocking more and more. Can't wait to actually try Korrigans.

[swingfly]

Mourioches is good until level 170 or so When you get up to 150-ish you'll see more frequent skill-ups and when you reach 170 they will start to be fewer again.

[Aeni]

Baoban Sith in Gustav is a whole different story......En-terror sucks pretty bad. However, the worst part here is not defeating it but rather pulling it. It spawns deep down in Gustav, past all the skeletons so you can't fight it there. The best place is where Bune spawns.

Have you tried to ask a BRD to pull? Horde Lullaby might work (But then again, I'm not sure if Ghost types resist sleep) and thus garnering helluva lot aggro and allowing the BRD to sneak up and pull to you. The BRD need not stick around (Only as a curious bystander) if you wish to solo the monster.

(We tried to pull amikiri with this method, but the level 66 BRD ... was insufficient to the job ... needless to say, after a wipe, we offered the gods our 75 THF as sacrafice and pulled amikiri to be kited in the above levels ... www)

[swingfly]

I've had a Bst pull once, he sent a pet on it and I cast Dia then sneak up and run back. That was really easy. I actually never tried sleeping it, I've just assumed it doesn't work :P

For Amikiri you want to (ES) Bind and then sneak/invis back up to the Bune-area as well. Then just Bind -> Nuke back and forth between where Bune spawns and the goblin NM (not the O-bow one but the lower level gob)-