Duo - An army of two

[subcombo]

Cool titles aside, my question is what are great two man teams?
neither of us want to be beast master and he wants to be a dark knight.
what goes with dark knight as a duo? (he will sub thief to put hate on me).
Btw i dont want to be a paladin.

[Mog]

Nothing. You need to join xp parties in this game if you want to effectively get good xp. Otherwise, choose beastmaster.

[silentsteel]

You know thats not entirely true, Drg teams can duo quite well, along with pup =p

[Neomage]

You can't do that.

It.
Just.
Does.
Not.
Work.

Well it does, but you'll make like 1k EXP in an hour. Which sucks.

If you have to duo, try WoW or RO.

EDIT: Like Silentsteel said, some good combinations are 2 BLM and 2 DRG, but Dark Knight + Anything Else doesn't work. Not even Paladin. x2 Ninja/Red Mage mabye. Thats kindasorta like DRK except it's more THFey and WHMey.

[Mog]

You know thats not entirely true, Drg teams can duo quite well, along with pup =p

Drg and dark knight though? I don't think so.

Don't even get me started on pup. :p

and FYI, it will take you guys years to get 75 if you played everyday and duoed. Not sure how much longer FFXI is going to stay, so...

[subcombo]

fine fine if we both choose a new job what are good duo combinations which work? i hear beast-beast are good..

[Mog]

fine fine if we both choose a new job what are good duo combinations which work? i hear beast-beast are good..

Definitely. Beastmasters can solo, as well as duo.

[silentsteel]

well, mog, like onion said, I meant drg x2 and Sub, beast-beast is imo the best duo available (with drgx2 in a close second ;p)

[neighbortaru]

course you'll have to party to 30 before any of those options (2xDRG, 2xBST) become available to you...

[Spiritbear]

First off OP don't listen to anyone telling you that you shouldn't duo, just play to have fun it's not a race to 75 so don't worry about getting there fast. If you and your friend want to duo then do it. My recommendations though are try to keep it balanced. I've done lots of Duo combinations. I'm a 30 bst and have duoed with a bst, smn, drg, pup, whm, rdm, pld, war, and thf. The best combos so far for me are for me as bst/whm and my partners were bst/whm, drg/war, smn/whm, pup/thf, and pld/war. Another good duo was me bst/war and partner was whm/blm (if you do this make sure you use jugs and you have high def cause you are going to have to act as tank. Not easy but definately fun). I have also at from lvls 3-7 duoed me as thf/whm and partner pld/war. It was fun and we were able to take down about 12-15 orcs in Ghelsba before we would have to rest and were getting better exp then playing solo. Not sure how well that combo would work at higher lvls though. I've also duoed as 50whm/blm with partner being 50 bst/whm (Better exp then being in a full pt).

Best advice like I said before is to have fun, find a good balance between the two of you, and learn to enjoy the taste of death. It happens alot when you aren't in a full pt. Good luck and if you have any questions you can send them my way.

[Jugil]

The best way to duo 1-75 is to go BST-BST. It is my understanding that you can effectively duo with all the pet classes (BST/DRG/SMN/PUP). Personally, I've soloed BST to 60 and SMN to 23.

There are other jobs that can get pretty decent exp solo (and I assume duo); BLU comes to mind (on/off solo to 30).

Personally, on my BST, I have doued (though not frequently) with BST, SMN, BLM, and RDM. BST-BST and BST-SMN exp was nice. Duo with RDM and BLM were pretty break-even vs. solo BST.

I need to qualify this by saying EXP/hr is definitely faster in a party.

[Clever Ninja]

Soloing IS possible, but please note that the exp will never be as good as a traditional party setup. Soloing can be extremely fun though, as certain job combinations like RDM/PLD, PLD/BLU, BLM/NIN and RDM/NIN that don't have a place in party setups work well in solo. If you only have an hour or 2 of play at higher levels and don't wanna farm or craft, soloing is an alternative. Plus soloing helps getting skillups easier :3

[Aksannyi]

My husband and I duo sometimes, I'm RDM/BLM and he's DRK/THF. We have a little fun knocking around T's when neither of us wants to join an XP party. The experience points are very slow, mind you, but we have a good time and that's all that really matters.

If you're looking for a quick way to level, though, this isn't it. Soloing for quick XP is very difficult and you can only use a few jobs.

Word of advice - if you use DRK and you sub THF, don't SATA on your RDM spouse. It's not a good idea. Trust me. :D

[Omni]

lets be realistic. the whole 'its not a race' argument is kind of not valid here.

you're right, its not a race to 75 but at the same time i highly doubt anyone will find soloing/duoing with inappropriate jobs enjoyable past 30, if that.

picture this. you're a lvl 48drk and 49mnk. you decide to duo in crawlers nest on some soldier crawlers (which are em-vt in this range) yea you might be able to get through 1 battle alive. then you need to rest about 5minutes after the fight to regain hp. go back at it again, you take on another crawler, it does cocoon and poison breath, you manage to kill it but now the drk cant heal because he's poisoned. the mnk is poisoned too, ok np he'll use chakra to take off poison. drk dies. for good measure, you have reraise on because you're prepared to duo properly right? ok reraise... you take a ~600xp loss. you just net -400xp. get back on your feet and try again right? sure get to it, it goes well for a bit, gain 2k xp or so after about 2hrs of fighting, you get comfortable and you get aggro by an exoray.

exoray beats both of you into a pulp, u both have reraise because you guys came prepared as usual. so u lose another 600 xp. you're about 1400xp on the day in 2 hrs of fighting. at lv. 48 its about a 7K or so a level? great, not so bad right? when you reach lv. 60, its 20k each level. and lv. 74? 42k each level.

bst solos and duos face this kind of thing all the time. i've died 9 times in 1 night before and bst is the most effective solo xping job out there too. if believing that 2 non-solo minded jobs can xp effectively to 75 AND still keep it enjoyable, then i would like for someone to show me how to have that sort of optimism.

other jobs that are solo xp minded are pup, smn and drg. mainly because they have a pet to aide them. the pet either absorbs all the dmg or is effective enough to keep their master alive. any other job out there does not have that ability. blm does have the ability to solo xp but at a very large risk. if bind/sleep/gravity do not work as intended, they will go down very fast.

this is different from soloing jobs. a nin, rdm, thf and etc. these jobs can solo mobs say 1 at a time where xp and time really isnt a factor.

its sort of like saying that you can walk from san francisco to la. yea im sure its possible, but does that make it a good idea? does possibly getting caught in the elements or getting hit by truckers or suffer from exhaustion make it enjoyable and worthwhile? i dont think it does.

if by chance you do find it enjoyable in some way, then by all means go for it. but you have to understand that many of us have played this game for quite some time now and know what works and what doesnt. these sorts of things just dont work. the game just isnt built with the soloist in mind.

[Karinya]

Where in the OP's post does it say he wants to reach level 75? At all, let alone in under a year?

If you want to level quickly, duoing is not a good way to do it, that's true (possible exceptions for BST). But if you want to hang out with your friend and kill stuff, and possibly make some money, duoing works just fine with lots of combinations. If you choose the right camps and monsters for your job combo you'll make maybe half the exp/hr of a party. But a static duo means never having to spend hours LFP and not finding one, and less people to split whatever loot you get (and a static anything allows you to go to non-crowded camps) - which in turn may mean you don't have to spend as much time farming as you do exping (a problem for some new players).

Most people are unwilling to try a duo (as you can see from this thread). But why would you think that they are therefore good authorities on how it works? People do know how to get the best XP/hr and duoing isn't it, but it's possible that your enjoyment of the game may not be about XP/hr.


If you do intend to try in spite of the naysayers, probably the best duo partner for a drk would be a rdm. The drk will have to completely ignore the conventional wisdom on subjobs and gear and get real armor, because he's going to be the tank. Don't worry - while drk is lousy at tanking ITs, they can handle Ts just fine with appropriate gear. (Defense food might be a good idea too. You have plenty of acc and atk to hit toughs.) The rdm should also pretty much ignore conventional party tactics - in addition to healing they should expect to provide some damage to speed up kills.

P.S. Omni's scenario is so contrived it's silly. Not only are the hypothetical characters using a particularly bad duo setup (two primary DD), but in addition to that neither of them bothered to sub whm, even the drk who already has a manapool? And given that they have no whm or /whm they don't bring antidotes to fight poison spamming mobs? And even *then* he has to invent unwanted aggro for them to make it come out really bad. Like any duo is going to make it to 48 without at least one of them knowing how to select camp spots and pull. This story is more typical of how people who have never been outside a 6-person party try to duo without thinking about how they should change their tactics for the situation of having to provide their own tanking, healing and pulling.

It's a good example of a few things not to do, but it's hardly a realistic prediction of what's going to happen with people who know what they're doing. You'll have to develop that skill for yourself because it isn't available in predigested lists of exp camps and what gear you should use at level X.

[Aksannyi]

Let me just add on to Karin's post there, and mention what my husband and I do whenever we decide to duo together.

At first, we tried this thing where I would attack the mob and then he'd SATA for some extra damage, but that ended up making me lose WAY too much HP all at once, so we nixed that really quickly. Don't even bother with that. He'd continue to SA, but he saved TA for parties with an actual tank.

I kept the usual buffs and debuffs up - highest protect and shell for both of us, refresh for both of us, haste for him absolutely, and sometimes for me if I felt like I had the MP. Debuffs - Dia II, Paralyze, Slow were my responsibility, and I'd let Tauro throw in a Blind or a Poison because hey, DRKs need to skill up Enfeebling Magic, too. :)

We would both engage the mob. There was no reason for me to be a {Back line job.} when there was only two of us, and my sword skill is reasonably high enough for me to hit quite well. As a melee, of course, I tried to remember to keep an En-spell up, particularly the one that the mob we are fighting is weak to, for maximum damage.

Nuking was something we both would do, although his lower-tier nukes weren't doing a lot, but hey, he was getting Elemental skillups, too, so all was not lost. I was conservative on the nukes just based on the "OMG WHAT IF" factor. (OMG WHAT IF I NEED A LOT OF MP FOR CURING?!?!)

ABS-Spells are awesome. Any DRK who has these spells and does not use them is a sucky DRK, unless specific circumstances dictate otherwise. Tauro would use them quite frequently. We worked well together as a team, because I could easily handle keeping up buffs for the both of us, including the all-important Refresh. Drainable and Aspirable mobs are a MUST if you're going to duo as DRK. Also RDM/BLM can make use of these two wonderful spells, and I did, as often as I could spam them.

He is also rather adept at using Stun, which is a nice way to keep from getting smacked with a WS from time to time. :)

We could probably fight two to three mobs without resting if we timed it right and managed our MP right. Fighting against Toughs is a long battle for two people at our level (63-ish last time we duo'ed together), so the Convert timer would be back up after a few fights. As long as we were doing well with both our MP and HP, we could have fought virtually forever, however, I liked to rest after a few fights just to be on the safe side. You never know when you're going to steal hate just at the moment of Convert.

Duoing is tough. If one of you dies, you're pretty much both dead, unless your RDM Chainspell + Warps the hell out of dodge. If you have a partner you trust and you are both skilled at your job, there's no reason you should die, though. Tauro only died once while we were duoing, and it was because I disconnected mid-battle. X.X

Okay, so this is a VERY long post, but I just wanted to give insight into what kind of things work really well for DRK and RDM to duo together, since I've done it many times, and quite successfully. I think the XP was like 60-ish per mob, which isn't a lot, but when you figure in the difficulty of soloing a DC for that much experience, it definitely makes more sense to duo a Tough with a good friend.

Well, at any rate, if you decide that DRK and RDM are your duo, good luck, and you can always hit me up via PM if you've got some questions about it.

[Clever Ninja]

Just curious aksannyi, at that level what was your exp per hour? As my sig depicts, i'm not high enough to really know how soloing works as you go higher.

On my Hume I've actually been able to solo quite well on my RDM/WHM so far. Granted its not as good as party xp, but when your in the Dunes and almost EVERY party looking for members is basically retarded and wants to pul IT++ only and rest every fight, I'll take the slower xp and just solo in the highlands. Although now I'm basically sticking to EP -> DC, I was able to fight Even Matches relatively easy from 14-18 without curing much once I stacked all my enfeebs on. Soloing is alot of fun and a relaxing break from the tensions of party, which are present in all the lower level zones now apparently -_-.

What sucks even more is its not easy to try and set duo/trios up since so many people just want to party all the time, even if it means 1 hour+ downtimes in the process ;_;.

[Theyaden]

What sucks even more is its not easy to try and set duo/trios up since so many people just want to party all the time, even if it means 1 hour+ downtimes in the process ;_;.

Generally that is because pting is faster and more efficient. Not to mention more margin for error. The advantage of solo or duo is less people you have to put up with, but at the cost of higher downtime. With both a duo and a traditional party you shouldn't be face down very often asuming in both cases that the people involved are reasonably competent. (parties and duo partners have equal affliction for people needing to learn). The difference is a full party has more slack for error than a duo. You have 6 emergency 2hours along with other abilites if things get tight vs 2 as well as 6 people to draw on for advise/critism. Usually a pt downtime is when a replacement is needed but the kill speed is enough to make it up after a couple fights.

In some cases I will solo some things or even partner up instead of just sitting, but I prefer the full pt setup. Conversation I've found varies more on the people involved there are more people to talk to in a traditional pt but in any evemnt it's hit or miss being able to chat while xping.

[Clever Ninja]

While I do agree, I'm referring to situations where getting a pt is nigh impossible, but I know people who will either Disband and wait for a invite themselves or just sit around in the party, replacing those who leave after an hour long wait rather than either A) go crafting, B) go level another ob or C) solo/duo/trio/farm whatever.

A prime example is this weekend, where trying to level my RDM in Qufim was practically not gonna happen cause the whole area plus Lower Delfukk's Tower was overcamped. I suggested to a new player who I was seeking with that we should probably hit up the Dunes to get some xp until the pt started then warp back, and was quickly answered with a 'lol no thanks noob i'm not BST'. After an hour of standing around in Jeuno doing nothing mind you. Needless to say 10 minutes after he got 'tired of waiting', left the party and I still saw him seeking in Jeuno 2 hours later when my party was looking for replacements. Needless to say I skipped him over.

So while yes, party xp is superior, we could have xp'd in the Dunes for nearly an hour before the party leader finally found a tank, and little xp is certainly better than no xp at all.

[Aksannyi]

Well to be honest with you, I couldn't tell you what our xp/hour was. I never really took track of it. It was more of a "Well, we're not going to party tonight but we want to do something so let's join up and whack on some T's for a bit," kind of thing.

It wasn't very high, I don't think, but I can't even begin to estimate what it was. There's a plugin on windower that lets you see that, isn't there? I don't even use the windower function so I'd have to do the math myself. {No thanks.}

[Effedup]

I'm far from a veteran in FFXI (only been playing a year, and my high job is 33.5 MNK), but at lower levels duoing seemed just fine to me. Me and an ls-mate pretty much duo all new jobs to 16 in La Theine...after about 14 it gets slow, but with /whm and proper foods there isn't too much downtime. Once we hit 16, we generally pick up another ls-mate and trio from there. We're not trying to duo or trio to 75, mind you, but if I can avoid the Dune's at the cost of a little time, I'm all for it. An hour spent killing mobs for 15 XP a piece is much more fun for me than spending an hour sitting in selbina with my flag up.

Like has already been said, BST is a soloable job, and BST duo's rule. We're only 10 with our BST's, but the few times we've played was pretty fun. We've been off it for a month (been focused on mining lately, hitting the point where my next level MNK gear is going to cost me a frigging fortune, so I need the gil), but if you wanna duo, BST is definitely the way to go.

[LyonheartLakshmi]

I'd suggest picking a duo combo that will not only work decently with just you two, but will also fit into a traditional 6 man party. If you go BST/NIN + BST/WHM, you will probably be forced to duo, pretty much eliminating any chance to form pick up parties around your duo (which you might want to do just for a change of pace).

If you pick a duo like BLU + SMN, or NIN + RDM, you keep the option open to do 6 man pick up parties without too much of a hassle.

[Omni]

P.S. Omni's scenario is so contrived it's silly. Not only are the hypothetical characters using a particularly bad duo setup (two primary DD), but in addition to that neither of them bothered to sub whm, even the drk who already has a manapool? And given that they have no whm or /whm they don't bring antidotes to fight poison spamming mobs? And even *then* he has to invent unwanted aggro for them to make it come out really bad. Like any duo is going to make it to 48 without at least one of them knowing how to select camp spots and pull.
let's look at the OP:

Cool titles aside, my question is what are great two man teams?
neither of us want to be beast master and he wants to be a dark knight.
what goes with dark knight as a duo? (he will sub thief to put hate on me).
Btw i dont want to be a paladin.

sure let's sub whm to make this a bit more viable for you. lets take a look at some general numbers now:

a hume drk/whm has 806hp/256mp at 48 with no equip. a mnk/whm has 963hp/91mp with no equip. however, the OP stated his buddy wants to play drk and SATA hate onto him. (even if he didnt use /thf, and used /whm) the drk would have 5 Cure III's at his disposal before mp ran out. the mnk would have almost 2 Cure IIIs (let's just say 2 for good measure). it's pretty scarce on the mp dont you say? the point of the example was to show that this game is not a solo minded game. you have to be built to solo. the feeling i get from the OP is that he would like to take whichever job and go solo/duo XP as you would in other games. this example was to tell you, no, that sort of thing doesnt work.

lets go with aksannyi's setup. a rdm+drk duo. a much better combo for survivabilty for sure. you have a stronger set up in terms of dealing with those 'oh crap' moments as well as mp refresh/downtime. she said that she can go 2-3 without rest for 60 xp each. thats 180 xp in about 10min right? you'll need close to 6.5 hrs to get 7000 xp. if you die and (re)raise you'll lose 420xp (for a tnl of 7000xp). every time you die, you put yourself back about 20minutes or so. there's a lot that go wrong in 6.5 hrs and this is given the fact that you dont have competition, deaths or any other hiccups. it's awesome that aksannyi duos with her husband but even as she said, its something to kill time while staying productive. its not something to do full time to 75.

The thing is, its not that people dont know how to pull at lv. 48, ya for the most part people do fine but for a second try to imagine a scenario where you do get aggro. you know people do get aggro even at 75 right? have you been aggro free ever since you've played past 30? no i doubt it. the point of the scenario is: shit happens.

if you want to tell me that you can solo/duo and not have anything unfortunate happen then you are absolutely delusional.

these sorts of things wear down a bst trying to solo/duo their xp, how much more severe and impacting do you think itll be for any other non-solo minded job?

This story is more typical of how people who have never been outside a 6-person party try to duo without thinking about how they should change their tactics for the situation of having to provide their own tanking, healing and pulling.

would this include yourself? it's not meant to be rude however, i'm sure you've tried to solo/duo with your drg from the stance you're taking on this topic right? i've solo/duo'd my bst to 61 and no matter how careful i am and how good your camp is, you die. it wears you down. it burns you out. theres no denying that and to say it's not a race or dont let anyone tell you that you cant duo for xp is simply naive let alone misleading.

[Karinya]

I have, in fact, soloed DRG (although not exclusively). And every time I died I could clearly identify how I had screwed up (usually camping in the wrong place) and how to fix it. Deaths don't just "happen".

Well, I guess you could say that the time sanction wore in the middle of a fight wasn't exactly me screwing up, because there's no way to see before pulling how much time you have left on it. But that was a freak occurrence - sanction lasts hours - and most jobs aren't as reliant on sanction refresh as solo drg/mage anyway. (And even then, if I had had one yagudo drink - hell, even a pineapple juice - with me I would easily have survived.)

I'm pretty sure that the last time I got unwanted aggro was while soloing my Ru'Hmet map. It's really not hard to avoid aggro from non-TS mobs when you're not fighting, but those Zdeis are a bitch. (DRK and anything can do the sleep and log out trick too if they have to, in many cases.)

The time before that was a link from Marsh Murres west of Nashmau, caused by camping out in the middle of their wandering around area; since I shifted camp to the NPC at Alzadaal Ruins entrance zone, it hasn't happened again.

If you're dying more than once every 2-3 hours soloing on BST, I have to wonder if maybe it isn't such a great soloing job after all...


As for the hypothetical drk and mnk again... you conveniently put them just below the level of Parade Gorget, but there's no law preventing them from using juice for crunch situations, or having some MP gear, or even one of them using a club for Moonlight (although this definitely has some downsides, I don't know off the top of my head if it would end up being worthwhile or not.) Their ungeared MP is already enough to heal a total of 1400ish HP (not counting Regens or the DRK's Drain) - that's a lot of hits from EM-Ts. And they definitely won't be spending 5 minutes resting their HP as you suggested, or dying of poison.

I don't think anyone is claiming that you can duo for fast and trouble free exp. Certainly I'm not. But you can duo for some exp, if you know what you're doing and are careful. If that's what you enjoy, go ahead. Unrealistically high expectations aren't good, but neither are unrealistically low ones.

[Spiritbear]

would this include yourself? it's not meant to be rude however, i'm sure you've tried to solo/duo with your drg from the stance you're taking on this topic right? i've solo/duo'd my bst to 61 and no matter how careful i am and how good your camp is, you die. it wears you down. it burns you out. theres no denying that and to say it's not a race or dont let anyone tell you that you cant duo for xp is simply naive let alone misleading.

It isn't a race to 75 for everyone. I for one don't care if it takes me 6 months or 6 years as long as I enjoy the game. And yes I and everyone else know that shit happens (Forrest Gump made that abundantly clear), what we are all saying that he can do whatever he wants. If he wants to do with his friend being drk/pld and him as a rng/whm then he can. We are giving him the suggestions on how to do it as effectively as possible instead of trying to tell him that he can't or shouldn't do it. I would rather see him duo with jobs that could work together and make it to 75, it would be slow and it could run into problems but it could also be alot of fun for him and his friend. Why does everyone have to do things the same as everyone else. I am planning on solo/duoing most of my jobs to 37 at the least (unless I can get a static pt for a job or two). I like to solo, duo and trio more then I like to party and maybe he will too. Just because you don't think it should be done doesn't mean it shouldn't. I will admit that along the way he will have to join a few parties to progress in the game (i.e. missions and quest) but I have know a few people that have solo their jobs to 75 (and not just bst either). SE did design this game to be geared more towards playing in a party but you don't have to. So to the OP once again if you want to duo with your buddy by all means duo but try to find jobs that would work together take the advice that everyone here has given and find something that works for the two of you.

[Omni]

I have, in fact, soloed DRG (although not exclusively). And every time I died I could clearly identify how I had screwed up (usually camping in the wrong place) and how to fix it. Deaths don't just "happen".
Well, I guess you could say that the time sanction wore in the middle of a fight wasn't exactly me screwing up, because there's no way to see before pulling how much time you have left on it. But that was a freak occurrence - sanction lasts hours - and most jobs aren't as reliant on sanction refresh as solo drg/mage anyway. (And even then, if I had had one yagudo drink - hell, even a pineapple juice - with me I would easily have survived.)
I'm pretty sure that the last time I got unwanted aggro was while soloing my Ru'Hmet map. It's really not hard to avoid aggro from non-TS mobs when you're not fighting, but those Zdeis are a bitch. (DRK and anything can do the sleep and log out trick too if they have to, in many cases.)
The time before that was a link from Marsh Murres west of Nashmau, caused by camping out in the middle of their wandering around area; since I shifted camp to the NPC at Alzadaal Ruins entrance zone, it hasn't happened again.
If you're dying more than once every 2-3 hours soloing on BST, I have to wonder if maybe it isn't such a great soloing job after all...
As for the hypothetical drk and mnk again... you conveniently put them just below the level of Parade Gorget, but there's no law preventing them from using juice for crunch situations, or having some MP gear, or even one of them using a club for Moonlight (although this definitely has some downsides, I don't know off the top of my head if it would end up being worthwhile or not.) Their ungeared MP is already enough to heal a total of 1400ish HP (not counting Regens or the DRK's Drain) - that's a lot of hits from EM-Ts. And they definitely won't be spending 5 minutes resting their HP as you suggested, or dying of poison.
I don't think anyone is claiming that you can duo for fast and trouble free exp. Certainly I'm not. But you can duo for some exp, if you know what you're doing and are careful. If that's what you enjoy, go ahead. Unrealistically high expectations aren't good, but neither are unrealistically low ones.

you're right. unrealistic expectations are not good. given the OP hasnt taken 2 jobs to 75 and experienced most of the game as you or I have, do you really think duo'ing is a realistic experience for them? im sure you remember as a new player the first time around, you wanted to experience things right? you cant assume this isnt the same for the OP.

as far as aggro goes, you have 2 jobs at 75 and lots of playing hours. I agree, I dont get aggro either unless its a place where you need to sacrifice to get past something. yet again, the OP is not where we are at in the game. I would assume he doesnt know vanadiel as well as you or i. so aggro IS a concern. its apart of the learning curve and it'll be a big part of their duo'ing experience.

bst soloing takes you to places where you dont have safe havens. its not like XP camps where you have a zone near by or a big safe area to camp. as a bst, especially since the depop patch, you are roaming. searching for prospective pets and mobs. its not like a duo like akysanni's where they might be able to just stay in 1 area all night long because their kill speed its slow enough to allow repops to occur.

@ spiritbear: soloing/duoing to 37 isnt really much of a feat tbh. it's easily doable. you're levels here are around 4-7k a level. very quick and very easy considering the lack of dangerous mobs. even faster if you have a job that can use bloody bolts because the drain to your dmg taken ratio is a lot larger than it would be at say lv. 65. not to mention XP ring would give you a boost for more than half of that level.

If he wants to do with his friend being drk/pld and him as a rng/whm then he can
i think you're just making a point to just disagree. its sorta like that southpark episode about WoW. if you kill millions and millions of boars for 2xp each, you'll eventually make it to level cap and therefore leveling to 75 is possible.

I have know a few people that have solo their jobs to 75 (and not just bst either).
can you tell me which job, other than bst, drg, pup and possibly smn that has soloed to 75? I'd really like to know and perhaps talk to these people. I'd love to know what they did and how they did it because I work a lot and my play time is shakey at best. I would be nice if I could level a job like COR solo to 75.

In my first post, I ended it with telling the OP if you can stomach this sort of thing, go for it. I also warned him that from previous experiences, this isnt an enjoyable way to level, especially with not choosing a solo minded job. I still stand by this. If you can do it for 6 years, more power to you. I just think as most people would like to experience other aspects of the game (missions, quests, etc) and being at the appropriate level allows you to take part in the best of what FFXI has to offer: its story.

[Spiritbear]

can you tell me which job, other than bst, drg, pup and possibly smn that has soloed to 75? I'd really like to know and perhaps talk to these people. I'd love to know what they did and how they did it because I work a lot and my play time is shakey at best. I would be nice if I could level a job like COR solo to 75.

I have a friend that soloed pld to 70 so far, his name is Sionn, he only gets on game once a month since he started college back up. I've also had a friend lvl Thief 75 and Ninja to 65 then he lost his account while taking a break. Both of them leveled in areas where the mobs checked EP-DC. They would just log in that area and when they came back on they would just start killing. Scionn would join parties only when he needed help with a quest or mission or he was helping someone with something other then that he was soloing.

[Hearshot]

I'm almost done lvling a second acct to 75brd. I'll be having fun with my THF+BRD duo. I plan to take down Charybdis first.

[Khei]

Had to pipe up here because Since October, When I started playign again, My mother and myself have been duoing quite well.

EXP partys IMO aren't all they're cracked up to be. and I'll elaborate..

First off Both of us have Three characters each.. Mine are as follows...

Khei - Mithra
lvl 4 BLM
lvl 11 RDM
lvl 20 MNK

Pehn - Taru
lvl 7 WAR

Ashven - Hume
lvl 30 THF
lvl 17 BLM
lvl 14 WAR
lvl 7 DRG
lvl 7 BLU
lvl 7 BRD
lvl 6 SMN
lvl 3 DRK

Now everything I've lvled was either Solo or Duo. I've EXp parties once and I've done the math.. EXP partys aren't as great as everyone makes them out to be and here's why..

at lvl 27 THF sub WAR ( Mom was 27 RDM sub WHM ) we took a ship over to Kazham.. Tried to get a Party.. wasted 2 hours just sitting around trying to find parties.. finally we got a party.. spent the next 30 minutes riding out the camp. Spent 30 mins killing two of the Yoaht Mandragorias that's 15 mins per fight got 200 EXP per fight for a total of 400 exp then the party split so we headed back to Valkurm Where duoing we were spending 1 min per fight killing pugils for 32 - 40 exp each

Figurign low at 32 exp per min that equals out to 480exp every 15 mins

So in the same amount of tiem it took for us to get 400 exp in an exp party we got 960+ exp each duoing in Valkurm.

That's not even including the 2 hours wasted trying to FIND the stupid party. Doesn't incluse use of a chariot or empress band either.

Exp parties are fine if you wanna waste your time just powering through the game Anothe rthing everyone forgets is that duoing with a RDm or WHM a duo party is alot eaier to keep track of and heal than a 6 man party.

For us Duoing and soloing is a much more rewarding and fullfilling not to mention more economic way to play. So anyone who tells you duoing is stupid is a moron. It can be done and has been done. exp parties are just one way to play.. It's an MMO people there's no right or wrong way to play.

[IfritnoItazura]

Well, to be perfectly fair, you're not really comparing duo'ing to full party--you're comparing a static duo party to a one-time experience attempting a pickup group party.

I don't think my static 6/6 party ever dropped below 3k exp/hour, even on the worst days when we have multiple deaths. No hours of seeking involved either--at most it's a 30 min wait for someone who's late.

Of course, if it's fun, who cares if it's 1.6k exp/hour or 6.1k exp/hour? ^_^

[Pawkeshup]

Wow, let loose the dogs of opinion!

Ok, let me try to tidy up what I've read and add in my experiences.

Basically the general consensus was that the duo combination you chose was bad. I'd agree. From a strategic sense, the best way to duo is to have one melee and one healer. That way, if the stuff hits the fan, you can survive.

As for duoing, my wife and I have done it with multiple combinations. Currently we were messing around with SMN/WHM and SAM/WAR. As Tarutarus no less. That means she has very little HP in comparison to other races. The EXP was slow, and we had plenty of downtime.

I do keep the statistics in mind, and Khei, I'm afraid you've just been soured by a bad experience. A good party, well balanced and prepared, can grind out 5-10k an hour even in the range you discussed. You did not provide a set-up for that party you joined. Most likely it was thrown together. Had you partied in Yuhtunga, you'd have made better EXP, being on the bubble between zones.

A duo cannot even match an EXP party, pound for pound. Duos are fun ways to play with someone who you'd normally not get the chance to consistantly party with in a relaxed environment. When planning a Duo, you have to consider how viable the jobs are. DRK is very physically weak, and as such will take a lot of damage. You would need the best possible armor to mitigate that, and a lot of MP to keep your partner alive.

The people duoing DRK/THF and RDM/WHM are experienced players, most likely with some bank for at least decent if not very good gear. If this is you and your friend's first time around, you will need to do a lot more work to get yourselves established.

My personal suggestion is to either do the good old BST-BST or DRG-DRG duo since they can both duo well AND cheaply. The best part about BST-BST is that it opens up NM camping and BCNM possibilities to fund your daily grinding.

IF you want to go for a melee/mage combo, my personal suggestion is WAR and RDM. Why? Well WAR can still do some hefty damage without sacrificing much armor. If you do PLD-mage, you will find it takes far too long to kill mobs. PLDs aren't DD's, and if you don't wield sword-shield holding hate early on can be hard. So you wind up with one of the lowest damage weapon classes for DoT. With WAR, you ca sub MNK to toughen yourself up some, wield an axe/shield combo, and have some decent DoT.

As for RDM, RDM has Refresh and Convert, two very crucial skills as your get higher in level. They can both mitigate downtime and keep you prepared for those OMG WTF moments.

Also realize as you level, you will progressively have a harder time making the next level. EM at 30 and EM at 60 are worlds apart for difficulty. Ever hear of 75's biting it to an EP bunny? Well, bunnies are just evil... But it's meant to reference the fact that the con you see is a RANGE not a fixed value. Jumping some visibly low mob at a higher level will show you how much different that can be.

Non-optimal duo setups will not be fun. You will die a lot, have long downtimes, and become frustrated with the grind.

Regardless of the posts here, of our OPINION of your situation, try it out. Just remember the good advise here in this thread and understand that your choices might not be the most optimal available.

[KalemLyco]

Me and my friend duoed the other day in Qufim Island. I was 21NIN/10WAR and he was 19RDM/9WHM or BLM can't remember which but either way we were duoing IT Worms just out of the cave enterance. I told him it was impossible but he proved me wrong getting 200xp per kill and if it got tough we'd run out of range had to be carefull not to get aggro and of other parties.

[Lmnop]

I think a lot more jobs are capable of duo'ing than people give them credit for. DRK, for instance, has most of the same gear options as WAR, as well as having slightly higher VIT. They also have the same evasion, though lower Parrying it seems (not that Parrying comes in terribly frequently).

Big thing to remember is that on EM-T stuff, you don't need much - if any - accuracy gear. And while you have like a 3% chance of avoiding attacks from VT-IT mobs, you actually have a decent chance on lower mobs. My Warrior uses an evasion/agi set that I bring with me when I expect easy fights. Fighting T Robber Crabs in Kuftal, I was around 20-30% evasion rate. My friend and I duo'd those a lot with him as WHM using Lilith's rod (skill up, naturally). His rod and my damage negation made us able to kill them nearly indefinately - even considering that I was using a level 20 Spear for my weapon. Also, +attack gear seems to still have an effect on lower level mobs, but it's not -as obvious.- Berserk just doesn't seem to do as much for me on those guys (meanwhile, the -defense is certainly noticeable). So yeah, I think drk (particularly drk/nin, though drk/thf does give you Evasion Bonus traits) on an aspir-able mob that's been blinded, slowed and being shot at by acid/bloody bolts should work pretty decently.

On the flip side of DD tanking, PLD are actually meaty fellas. I hate to be a contrary kind of guy, but sword is actually quite potent. Additionally, Pld have a very nice STR growth. With a shield, their damage mitigation is nice enough that they can focus on some +attack (if, once again, it actually makes a difference for you).

I did a trio once with Pld, Sam(me), and Whm in Rolanberry fields. I don't remember what level we were but T-VT Quadav were our targets. If we were in a situation where we had a "camp" and could pull things to it, I think we could've done so safely for a good 3k/hour. That's not bad. Of course, we all split up and went hunting for potential targets and spent more time looking than killing so... yeah the exp sucked.

All the jobs that work well solo work even better duoing (except the primary pet jobs e.g. smn & bst). Drg, Nin, Rdm, Thf, even Pld. Mnk is also great. If guard is somwhat high, then that + counter + chakra + B rank evasion + Dodge amounts to something worth taking a beating. High HP to outlast is nice, but the fact that they kill so damn fast means you won't usually have to worry about "outlasting."
Brd/whm is an incredible compliment to most of those jobs.