Staff Skill

[Kaiser]

Ok, my red mage class is at level 10 and my dagger and club skills are at 20 and my sword is at 17. Well i changed to a black mage and after quite a while of fighting my staff skill is still only at 5 and isnt leveling up at all. Is there a skill cap for low levels or is there somethign about the staff im not aware of?

Thanks in advance

[IfritnoItazura]

Every swing of a weapon gives you a chance to skill up, provided the monster you're attacking is high enough of level, and that you haven't capped the skill, yet. So, when using a slow swinging weapon like a staff, you get fewer chances to skill up per hour, and thus slower skill ups on average.

A bit out of date, but this will tell you exactly what is the cap for each weapon at each level for BLM: http://home.comcast.net/~themanii/skill.html

(The Japanese version is the source, and it's up-to-date--but it's in Japanese: http://www.ausystem.org/~aushacho/gbox/ff/skill.html )

[Icemage]

Are you actually fighting on black mage? Red Mages have no inherent Staff skill whatsoever, so if you're using a staff on a red mage in combat - stop immediately.

Also, you can only skill up if you (a) land a hit and (b) deal more than 0 damage. If your skill is too low to hit what you're fighting, you won't gain much, if any skill, and if your Attack and Skill levels aren't high enough to deal any damage, you won't gain any either.


Icemage

[Kaiser]

Yes im actually on black mage and im dealing damage and killing the monsters. IM only level 5 black mage and im killing bumble bees and tiny mandragoras right outside windurst

[Neomage]

That is the problem. You stop getting weapon skillups when your level exceeds that of the monster. Those monsters are to weak, you need to fight stronger ones. Although I would reccomend just sticking to magic and skilling up staff later when you can fight stronger monsters without dieing, you need to look for some high Decent Challenge/Even Match and severely weaken them with magic before ewnganing in combat.

[Lunaryn]

That is the problem. You stop getting weapon skillups when your level exceeds that of the monster. Those monsters are to weak, you need to fight stronger ones. Although I would reccomend just sticking to magic and skilling up staff later when you can fight stronger monsters without dieing, you need to look for some high Decent Challenge/Even Match and severely weaken them with magic before ewnganing in combat.
This should read "when your weapon skill rating exceeds the relative level of the monster" or something like that. At 5 skill, you're basically at the cap for level 1, so level 0 and level 1 mobs aren't going to do that much for you, but a level 2 mob will. When you hit 7 skill, level 2 mobs aren't enough and you'll want to go after level 3 mobs at a minimum. At 10 skill, level 3 isn't enough and you'll need level 4, and so on.

Wiki (http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Category:Combat_Skills)