Considering playing, but would like more info on jobs and how they work.

drucygoddess

Hello,

Me and my boyfriend are considering playing FFXI with the coming new expansion, but we are a little confused on how jobs work. So if someone could be kind enough to help out, it will be highly apreaciated. We are looking for a good Duo set-up, as we will allways be playing together (My man is considering playing a Red Mage).

 

Firstly, I have read that you choose 2 jobs overall, yet some are only avalible from doing a quest at level 30.

I am considering the following job combos Ninja/Dancer, Dancer/Summoner, Ninja/Summoner, Ninja/White Mage or Dancer/White Mage.

Can someone tell me which would be a good combination?

I understand that Dancer has yet to be released, but if anyone has any info on what they can do, like for instance if they can tank/healer/buff/etc. All I know is what is listed on the website, that dancers dance on the battlefield to distract enemys and help allys (aka buff and debuff). Also anyone know if you need to complete a level 30 quest to unlock the dancer job?

 

Secondly,

What base jobs do I have to choose from at the start? At level 30 when I unlock a new job with the special quest, could I then restart with a new character and choose my newly unlocked job as a primary job? or are these unlockable jobs only avaliable as a secondry jobs?

 

The expansion releases here in 2 days, and it would be nice to have an idea on what to choose before it releases.

Dippy11

Heya, 

Don't worry too much about making your job decisions ahead of time.  You can switch your job at any time with no penalty.  There's not much of a point to creating multiple characters, other then storage or using a different race for a certain job.  You can't unlock most jobs until level 30 anyway, including Dancer, so you'll have plenty of time to see what you might like.  A good description of each job, with guides at the bottom of each page, is listed here.   The Standard jobs are the ones that you can start with. 

 

As for what two jobs best compliment each other, it's really hard to say.  As long as you're not both the same job, you should be fine.  If you plan on making your own groups, it would probably be best to be a tank and a healer as damage jobs are plentiful.  But really it's all situational and depends on what jobs people are playing at that time.  In case you didn't know yet, FFXI is a very group-oriented game and solo leveling (or even duo) is almost impossible for most jobs, post level 15 or so.  Most people start grouping at about 10 or 11.  Full parties consist of six members. 

 

The ability to use a sub job is available through a quest when you get your first job to 18.  Your sub job needs to be leveled separately and is cut down to half of your main level while it is 'subbed'.  You can choose any combination of main job and sub job, but as you can imagine many combinations don't work very well.  Mage classes tend to go with other mage classes, while melee tend to go with melee.  There are at least a couple best sub job choices for each job, depending on your style of play. 

 

I don't think anyone can tell you any job combinations for dancer yet, but it looks to be a purely melee class.  Dancer / White Mage might be viable support though, I really don't know at this point.  I think that Dancer / Warrior, Dancer / Thief, Dancer / Monk, or Dancer / Ninja are the most likely to be useful, but it's just my guess. 

Ninja is a melee job that was intended to be damage but turned out to be a blink / evasion tank.  It is rarely ever accepted as damage and is a very expensive job to start and level in any case.  It does make a very good sub though for many jobs. 

 

This is a good game to play as a couple, considering the fact that once you get passed those first levels it's much harder to do almost anything solo. 

 

ChrisMattern

I don't wish to throw cold water on your plans, but I will say one thing: mage/non-mage job combos rarely work. If the non-mage job is the support job, you don't have access to its equipment, and the subjob's offensive skills will be at half-level (because the support job is capped at half-level) and thus largely useless. If the mage job is the support job, you will have so few mana points that you will have difficulty casting more than a handful of spells before having to rest.

I don't say it *never* works, but such combos require long and hard thought in order to find setups that overcome their basic shortcomings. Dragoon/White Mage is sometimes mentioned, as the the wyvern gets Healing Breath. Anything/Ninja is sometimes used (some would say overused) because Utsusemi (spell creates shadows that negate being hit) is so damn useful.

Chris Mattern