Class Popularity and Questions...

[Serenityxx]

Okie I'll start with the Q's...

I'm totally new to FFXI (should be recieving it from the us pretty soon) and I'm wondering a few things...

a) When you change your jobs from one to another, do you lose all stat/job bonuses you had as that job?

b) Can you only level one job at a time? And do you switch at will when you want to?

c) Is there a Party EXP Share range in terms of levels, i.e. you need to be within 5 levels of each other to share the EXP from a kill?

d) On an offshoot, I hear you get 1 Free Month's trial before you pay on FFXI, but I'm guessing you need to enter CC Details?

e) Would a Debit card with Delta Visa support work on FFXI? Or does it accept only the Visa, Mastercard etc?

f) Is there a site with detailed descriptions, pictures and ideal equip (basically a guide) for each job?

g) Are the Advanced jobs always better than normal ones, i.e would a high Paladin be better than a high Warrior?

And the other, please point me to a topic if it's been done, but what is the most popular class'? In a scale from one to whatever?

Thankies for any help you can provide, I know it's lengthy but I appreciate the help

[Cymmina]

a. Yes. All stats are dependant on your current job/subjob. The only thing you keep are skills. However, the level of the skills is subject to a temporary "cap" or may not even be available, depending on your job and its level.

b. Yes. You can only change jobs at a mog house moogle (including nomad moogles in expansion towns).

c. Not entirely. The ideal party is with everyone the same level, but recommended no more than 2 level spread (ie. 13, 14, 15). The exp gained is dependant on the highest leveled person in the party. Everyone else gets the same percentage of exp for leveling (lowest level gets the least, highest level gets the most), so the lowest leveled person will never have a chance of bridging the exp gap with the highest leveled person.

d. Yes.

e. I use a debit/check card from my bank, so yes.

f. A complete list? No. The closest you'll get is ffxi.allakazham.com. But that only gives you a listing of stats/level and where to buy/make it, and even it is very incomplete. Usually, there's only one option available at a given level for that job. Each job excells at a particular weapon, but can generally use a few other weapon types. Don't know the site that shows this off the top of my head.

g. Depends on what you mean by "better". Each class has a job that it is designed to do. The basic positions are tank, damage dealer, support, and healer. Paladins make the best tanks, white mages make the best healers, bards make the best support, etc.

[Socrates]

each job has a purpose.

either:
-healer: white mage
-backup/support: bard, redmage, summoner
-nuker:ranger, blackmage
-melee type: dragoon, samurai, darkknight, warrior, thief, ninja
-def tank type: war, ninja, paladin

each one is important in a party, and usually one character only plays one role.

adv jobs aren't better, they're just "cooler"

[Serenityxx]

And popularity?

[Hattori Hanzo]

http://www.shadow-dragons.com has pictures and descriptions of each job I believe.

Popularity varies per World, but I can tell you the least popular jobs:

Summoner: Difficult and glitchy.

Ranger: Expensive as all hell

Beastmaster: The solo class

Bard: Awesome job which hardly anyone plays

That's about it, all the rest are spread out fairly well. I'd rank popularity as follows:

Abundant: Dark Knights, Warriors, Dragoons

Common: Thief, White Mage, Red Mage, Ninja, Samurai, Black Mage, Monk, Paladin

Uncommon: Ranger, Bard

Rare: Beastmaster, Summoner

[Serenityxx]

What's good to sub with RNG?

[Hattori Hanzo]

Warrior/Ninja/Thief/Money

Ninja is popular, since you can dual wield archer knives and blink your way out of death when aggro gets too high.

Just be rich.

So, if you go that route, I'd push a Thief to 30-40 and farm, craft, whatever to get mad money, and do many, many quests so you can go and do the Blink scroll quest instead of buying it. All you'll really need is blink bags and arrows. Lots of arrows.

Edit: And about the popularity thing, that's just from my experience between the levels 1-35; I don't know how the tables turn come 60+.

[Serenityxx]

Are Arrows very expensive? And what is Blink?

[Hattori Hanzo]

Blink

Arrows aren't terribly expensive in the low levels, but considering how many you go through they add up.

I have no clue what the going rate of Iron Arrows are (just an example), maybe 600-900 in Sandoria? Haven't bought since Samurai. Regardless, I go through 99 easy in an evening of playing if I'm pulling, and I'm just using them to pull.

Rangers? What do you go through an average per night? I typically hear 500 arrows on average, from the rangers I've partied with. Varies per playing style, what mobs you're fighting, etc.

Check the ranger boards here; you'll get more info.

EDIT: 600-900 gil for a stack of 99; not each.

[Serenityxx]

So, what would an ideal way to build a Ranger be, from level 1 through to 30 where I actually become Ranger? What armour, weapons and items are best for me?

I'm a big believer in forward planning :D And you'll see topics like this from me in a few of the forums

[Hattori Hanzo]

I'd start as a thief, work on the following crafts to make arrows:

Clothcraft: Fletchings
Goldsmiths: Arrowheads
Woodcraft: Arrow (probably has a name)

Real expensive at first, but you'll need the skills later on in the game if you want to save money in the long run.

Save a good portion of you money while being THF while working on those crafts, and gil farm/harvest whatever.

If you plan on subbing Ninja, do the quests specific for the Blink quest fame, pretty sure gathering Zinc ore is a way to do this for the fellow in a warehouse in Bastok (forget which, check ninja forums).

That's about it. Also focus on anything that boosts ranged accuracy equipment wise.

This is just common sense stuff; I'd check the Ranger/Ninja forums for more info. I haven't dabbled in either job myself.

[Niexist]

Originally posted by Hattori Hanzo

That's about it, all the rest are spread out fairly well. I'd rank popularity as follows:

Abundant: Dark Knights, Warriors, Dragoons

Common: Thief, White Mage, Red Mage, Ninja, Samurai, Black Mage, Monk, Paladin

Uncommon: Ranger, Bard

Rare: Beastmaster, Summoner

uh are you serious, or ignorant? There are TONS more paladins, black mage, white mage, and red mage than either dark knight or dragoon, hell probably even put together.

[Cymmina]

Originally posted by Niexist
uh are you serious, or ignorant? There are TONS more paladins, black mage, white mage, and red mage than either dark knight or dragoon, hell probably even put together.

Maybe you should think a little before you speak instead of flat out calling someone ignorant. Job popularity varies widely from server to server. White, red, and black mages are all basic jobs and therefore available to everyone. Dark knight and dragoon require a minimum level 30 to unlock. And since you're on the youngest and least populated server (Asura), you're more likely to see tons of newer players all the time that haven't met that 30 level quota.

On Leviathan, every time I turn around, there's dragoons everywhere. Dragoons for every party. I spent 2 hours today looking for a level 14-16 paladin, hell I tried 13-17 and found only 2 on the *entire* server: one partied and one that was "logging off soon". I'd like to know where all those "abundant" paladins you talk about are hiding.

I would say in the 1-30 range, among the basic jobs on my server, there are 2-3 times as many warriors as any other job, since many of them want to go advanced job melee (dragoon, samurai, paladin, dark knight). I would estimate that there's as many red mages as there are white and black combined, with white a little more abundant than black. And bards... well, everyone says they're going bard that ive spoke to with a white basic job.

[Osir]

next time /tell me cymmina.

Ill be glad to tank for ya.

[Serenityxx]

So, Rangers only use arrows to pull things, not to directly damage? So what do they do?