Just a quick question...

[Ithaqua]

I have started to come into the zone I feel the need to get all my skills and sub jobs and what not maxed... Yet, i'm having a problem. My sword is very under leveled, or 127. Thus, because I never melee in EXP pts. My eva is low, but I can probably just skill up with a tank, a bard, and a melee. He'd do def + and let me tank while the pld or nin waited. Would this work? I heard kuftal is good and it probably wouldn't be too hard...

[leii]

you could probably just go to crawlers nest and skill up on them for a while.

[Patchinko]

For evasion, just wait until you're 64 and can solo the Orcish Champions in Davoi. They can cap it very quickly, apparently, and as we know, MNK class mobs are one of our specialties. This is my plan, at least.^^

I'm glad I'm not the only one who kind of feels obligated to bring up my useful subjobs at this point.

[DrSerpico]

Hmmm

At level 60, if you've gotten the hat, just bring trusty blm sub and solo crabs for hours. I don't remember where the weakest Robber Crabs are, but they start at level 60....

I started capping skills as lvl 62 rdm in kuftal, found EM's there, and some DC's I think, not entirely sure.

Very important for you tho is to bring defense food, since you'll evade very little in the beginning, and also hit rather infrequently.

At level 60, you will find EM crabs, which are the easiest mob (imho) that you can cap all your skills versus.

With blm sub, you can aspir every 45 seconds for mp galore, and drain as well. If you get into trouble, or start going low, just sleep the mob, stoneskin up, convert, heal, ref, haste and go again.

There has been tons of help on how to solo crabs, but phalanx and stoneskin are a must, and make sure you keep the mob debuffed properly. para-slow-blind should be on all the time, and gravity will help you hit it, and thus give you those sword skillups.

Haste hightens your dmg output, so that you'll be able to kill the mob before you run out of mp totally. After I capped sword and dark magic and evasion, I no longer needed to convert midfight vs EM's, whereas at the start of my soloing, I had to convert AND sleep/rest a while.

Some use sleep - Aspir - Stoneskin - Phalanx - Drain method, others just spam mage blink. I'm with the stoneskin method. I promise you, it'll be great, + you'll feel like a "real" red mage, soloing those 100 exp crabs, and higher. ^^

If you need more guidance, you can always turn towards the curious and very informative guru of the red mage forums, Apple Pie... ForumWhore chips in good advice here and there, but with Apple it's gold almost every time.

Good luck in skilling! Take care!
(Bring that whm friend with you/have him stand by for raising purposes the first few times if you're unsure of you're "solo wings". I went in, buffed, gravi - debuffed, and started swinging. Really intense, and very satisfying to beat the thing.)

[Ithaqua]

Thanks for the help everyone. I plan to log on tommorow, go offer to help the magicite and spam my dark magic skill up. I didn't think we could solo EM crabs, that will be great. Give me a true experience before 75 when I go try solo things that people say I cant.

Another quick question, what do you all think of solo equip. Our eva skill seems so pathetic, I feel it's not worth getting any equip. Yet, there are some things that appeal to me... I'm wondering what people have thoughts on solo equip. Another thing is I was also thinking about amemit mantle and a sniper ring, with a serket ring, maybe? Many mixed thoughts on this...

Should I go for eva...
Should I go for acc...
Should I go for attk...
Should I go for a mixture...
Should I stick to the exp equip I use and grab a better sword?

Thanks, i'd like to be prepared for later levels.

[Patchinko]

I agree with you about our evasion. Even with as much as it can be raised with the best gear, the cost would be other gear that would probably serve you more. It's a lot easier for RDM to pump DEF anyhow, and since phalanx and stoneskin are more intuitive to increased DEF and not increased evasion, I'd do DEF as opposed to evasion in those situations where I'm expecting to take damage, such as soloing XP or capping combat skills.

I anxiously await Grendal's thoughts, since he's an experienced soloer.

I've been wondering about which subjobs would be most suitable for various solo activities (WAR vs. NIN vs. DRK vs. THF subs).

[Ashn]

Ithaqua:

I'm a lv 61 Taru RDM. I was soloing Kuftal robber crabs, Crawlers Nest Knight Crawlers and Helm Beetles at lv 60 for skillups. If I can do it, you ought to be able to also. They con'd Tough, and admittedly it is somewhat dangerous to solo them.. but you can skill up quite a few things that way. Dark, Dagger, Sword, Club, Parry, Shield, Evasion, Enhancing (finally capped it doing this), and Elemental..

However, since your weapon skills are kinda low, I'd recommend going to CN and killing Blazer Beetles and Rumble Crawlers to get your weapon skills to about 150-155 before starting on the Tough mobs. In the process of trying to get my weapon skills capped on these mobs, I have gotten my evasion, enhancing, dark and elemental magic capped, and have raised my parry/shield skills about 15-20 points. I've gotten my Dagger skill from 160-182, and my sword skill from 180-189 (been working more on dagger since it was farthest behind).

I sub BLM for it. You just have to be really careful and don't let your HP get too low.. if you need a breather, turn away from the mob and sleep II it.

I usually have to convert fighting a Tough mob. My battle strategy works like this: Refresh, Stoneskin, Aquaveil, Blink (since these buffs last the longest.. +mnd for Stoneskin), then Phalanx, Spikes, Haste, Enspell. Then start fighting the mob. You'll have to reapply Stoneskin pretty frequently, but it's important to keep it up. Once Phalanx wears off, re-cast it, and follow it with Spikes > Haste > Enspell again, because they will wear off at about the same time. Drain/Aspir as often as you can. Keep Refresh up. Get Aquaveil back up as soon as you can, if it falls. I notice a big difference in the amount that I am interrupted with Aquaveil up. Once you start running out of MP, just sleep2, convert, rebuff, and continue. Oh, I also keep blind/para/slow up. No DOT spells.. never know when you'll want that Sleep to stick..

That's about it.. it's a challenge to solo a Tough mob, but it's really exciting when you can do it. And once you do it once, it just gets easier ^^ Good luck on the skillups.

[Ashn]

As far as equip goes... I don't have top of the line anything, really. When I solo I wield either hornetneedle, ryl grd fleuret, or wizard's anelace, depending on whether i want dagger, accuracy or attack. I have a balance & darksteel buckler. Morion talthum, coral gorget/tiger stole, morion earrings, balance/tiger/fencer rings, red cape +1, life belt/sword belt, and all my AF. That's pretty much what I wear for soloing.

Eat +def foods, as someone has already mentioned. If I felt like spending the money, I'd buy a dodge cape and 2 dodge earrings and maybe 2 +def rings for soloing. But as far as soloing crabs and crawlers is concerned, they're not really neccessary.. they probably make it easier though.