Coming back soon; need advice.Follow

I haven't played in about a year and a half, and I know the game has changed. I'll try to keep my questions short and to the point, but the answers can be as concise or as detailed as you guys feel is necessary. I did ask a few friends, but I'm not sure if any of them play PLD, so I wanted to go straight to the guys & gals who play the job.

1. EXP first, or merits first? I'm guessing the stat boosts will outweigh whatever I get from merits, but I'm wondering if there's anything I can merit that will help me gain that EXP. Please note that I did have capped shield merits when I quit, and I believe I was 3/8 on sword. Also had one each in Chivalry/Fealty/Guardian.

2. What subjobs do I need now? WAR was early 40's, NIN/SAM/DNC were all 37. I'll probably level them all to 50 (I like round numbers) in preparation for the cap going up to 99. I'd just like to know which would be the most useful.

3. What gear should I be working towards? Basically, is the new Creed set worth getting? What should I have until then? How about sword & shield?

4. Should I bother skilling up other weapons? When I quit, I had staff skill around 240, club was over 200, and great sword was about 180. Would it be worth capping these to increase my versatility?

5. What about food? I used to love me some Tavnazian tacos. However, I've been hearing that MNK is the new tank for Abyssea, so I'm wondering if I should just concentrate on DD food instead.

Thanks in advance for your help. Hope to maybe run into a few of you on Lakshmi when I come back in early June.

I'm just getting back into the game myself, so I'll only comment on the "stopgap" stuff for getting to 90 and starting to work on "real" gear and content.


Focus on getting to 90, then worry about maxing out your merits. Keep in mind you need to "spend" a few merits for Genkai 6-8 (3, 4, and 5, respectively, I think), so you'll want to bank a few (or 20) before you do your next Genkai.


Since coming back I've only used DNC (for most stuff; I love me some /DNC), NIN (when I'm allowed to tank), and SCH (during the level 50-80 stretch where I couldn't actually contribute as a melee). Oh, and /BRD once because my group needed to land a song on a NM to get it to drop something, and I was the only one with it leveled at all. That doesn't count, though.


Perle armor is amazing stuff for the cost, as it's dirt cheap to buy with cruor (Abyssean money) and not unreasonable from the AH. I don't see anything wrong with fulltiming that until you can get a full set of Creed +1 (or even +2) put together. Personally I don't think the +1 is worth it, but I'm not a numbers monkey, either. There are a handful of AH swords that are decent and cheap. I'm currently using a Skeld Sword, but there are a few others that are solid enough to use until you can work on something better. Shields and accessories don't seem to be as immediately upgradable. There are better pieces out there, but they're incremental upgrades to existing pieces rather than obviously-better ones.

Really, though, atmas are the new must-have "gear". They're basically key items that drop from NMs in Abyssea (if you get an atma to drop, everyone in the alliance gets their own copy) that you can equip while in Abyssea to gain some stupid-powerful stat boosts.


I'm worrying about getting sword and shield capped first, but I'm working on skilling every weapon available to PLD. The way NMs in Abyssea work, you need to hit them with specific WSs to get certain stuff to drop from them, so having all your job's available WSs is a huge boon to your group. PLD can cover a decent number of them, too, which is nice.


I carry 3 types of food; +ACC (marinara pizza) for most XP stuff, +ATK (coeurl subs) for mobs I can actually hit, and Tavnazian tacos for crazy solo work, BCNMs, etc. (stuff where I'm actually getting hit, and it's hard enough to matter). Once you get a solid set of atmas you can probably forgo food inside Abyssea, and I haven't actually looked into what I should be using at 90 outside Abyssea, but I'm not at the point yet where either is a concern.

You can use one atma for every Luner Abyssite key item you own. There are three Lunar Abyssites in the game.

Atmas I commonly used (not necessarily for PLD):

Alpha and Omega
Voracious Violet
Impregnable Tower
Gnarled Horn
Mounted Champion
Razed Ruins
Sanguine Scythe
Minikin Monstrosity
Merciless Matriarch
Roaring Laughter
Apocalypse
Ambition
Perfect Attendance

...ok, I got lazy because the list goes on. Critical hit rate+% and Critical Damage+% are good to use because of Vorpal Blade. Counter+ atma useful for tanking.


No one really makes skill up parties. They either just join an xp party or if you're me, you use regen atmas and skill up solo. You'll find a lot of things that were unacceptable before are standard now (though skilling up sword in a party on PLD was never a bad thing). It is for some reason acceptable to join an exp party at level 70+, half-naked, make an attempt to deal a total of 500 damage in 30 minutes, then hide in a corner and go to sleep for the next few hours. There are some party leaders that won't put up with this kind of sh*t, but in general, lv70-90 xp parties is nothing but a cesspool of extreme gimpness.

Sorry, I got off track. Yes, people in Abyssea xp parties will allow you to skill up sword, shield, club, staff, hand-to-hand, and whatever else you want on your PLD. Shield might be tough to do in parties though since xp mobs die incredibly fast.

You've never had a WHM run in and cast Auspice immediately after casting Enlight? Recasting is one thing, losing your buff after 3 seconds is another.

That drives me bugs about Abyssea parties. Don't be that guy. Don't get in the group, fight for 15 minutes, then AFK until you get booted. I was in one party where the leader did a periodic AFK check and booted anyone who didn't respond or had cleared an AFK first. Coincidentally, it was the best party I've been in.

On the "PLD is an unacceptable job" thing: I'm gimpy as all hell and I've never been asked to leave or been booted. Given the percentage of people who are actually playing (I'd be surprised if it's 60% in a typical Abyssea party), a PLD who's spot healing, pulling mobs off the fisherman, holding the next target so the DDs can auto-engage rather than waiting for the "put your weapon away/get your weapon out" animation, etc. is contributing more to the group than a lot of people do.

Depends on who the leaders are as well as the caliber of the other players running/joining. I no longer join "EXP Groups" only Curor parties where kill speed is king(so ruby is ok). When monsters die in less than 10 seconds you alone won't be holding monsters off a puller. Any of the "DD"s can /WAR or WAR main and help "hold" monsters on top of deal a lot more damage than a PLD. This knowledge is what leads to a PLD being shunned away from these groups I've seen a few PLDs in these groups but they either end up being the puller or happen to have an Almace and are very well geared.

It wasn't meant as a PLD is always unacceptable it was more of if you get in as PLD don't gimp yourself further by skilling up instead of going for the best possible damage you can do.

Edit:



Sorry that annoys me, 4/5 Emp+2, the head does nothing for your TP gain if you don't have Zelus, Turban go! Or anything else with Haste +5 or more...

Edited, May 23rd 2011 2:53pm by Zagen

I have no fear about skilling up solo. I spent many an hour up at the top of the Boyahda Tree skilling up shield all alone. However, doing it with other people will just make it that much more fun.