April 2017 Version Update

2 Set of Meghanada is 3Regen/Tick

It's actually a nice bonus since it's amazing idle PDT gear anyway.

How is it implied when someone says a general statement, "I wonder how they would react to back in the day when it took a year to level a job to 75."

Did you happen to play with a bunch of people who leveled a job to 75 then never leveled anything again? Every single person I played with had multiple jobs at 75.

I admit the first job you level is quiet an adventure. Still didn't take me a year, but I can see how some people it could when you start to factor in all the stuff outside of leveling.

I based the hourly rate off of someone arguing against it being so fast. Don't get mad at me.

Because 'back in the day' means all of that is true. Waiting for party, farming gear, praying everyone actually has access to the zone, actually making it to camp and hoping it lasts longer than 5 kills. The more you post, the more you show that you're too young to be talking right now.

Because your first job is your first experience leveling a job to 75, and thus the one that's going to cause you to call back to it the most.

Ad hominems at it's best I suppose.

Can't remember the amount of times I spent more time getting in a pt and to xp spot then actual xping and that was on rdm where I'd get random invites so often I had to be anon for the weeks I'd have to spend farming gear/spells every few lvls. Then feeling super glad if I got a full level. Taking time to lvl subs etc. Doing content just to get access to higher xp areas etc. With little higher level help around

2nd 75 was like maybe 1/3 the time at most as my first and 3rd even though it got no invites hardly took a couple of months

No, when someone talks about leveling to 75. I recall all the jobs I leveled to 75.

Back in the days.

When someone mentions how "tough it was back in the day" that means the first job, as that's when it was toughest.

Your forgetting LFP time and building parties, it easily took 40 ~ 60 min to build a single party and then another 15~20 min to get to camp (if your *** lucky). This was before ToAU and those easy *** warps with squishy pink birds with 5min respawns. Try to figure out how long it takes to chocobo from Port Jeuno to the Tree at The Sanctuary of Zi'Tah to do crabs, since that was a super popular camp for two different level ranges. From early levels it was running from home city to the Dunes and hoping you didn't die on the way, then later from Lower Jeuno to Crawlers nest and down a few levels, thankfully close camp. Taking the boat from Jeuno to Kazaam for Jungle parties. Chocoboing from Port Jeuno to Bibiki Bay for Dhamels and Goblins at the appropriate ranges. Raboa into Quicksand caves, another closish camp, or the Tunnels. Of course if your higher level then you need to wait at that damn rock to actually get to the higher camp down there. Then you had Deco's in Moon or Sky, another long *** chocobo ride followed by running a gauntlet of aggroing monsters. And lets not mention Nival raptors in the Range, great camp but a long *** journey to get there.

All the modern modes of instant travel have people extremely spoiled about how long it used to take to do stuff. They just assume they log in and instantly are in a party of five others and instantly at a level appropriate camp, must be people who joined after ToAU. Leveling SAM from 1 to 75, with appropriate subjobs starting in 2003 took me a solid year of work. Leveling RDM was a bit faster, and then BLU and WAR was much faster as ToAU had been released.

If someone hasn't had to set up a SC to Burst Blizzard on Beatles then they don't know ***about leveling in FFXI.

You also have to consider that people who were brand spankin' new needed to do a lot of running around, missions, gil farming, etc. just to be able to LOOk for a party.


A fresh new character back then had to level their job to ~12/13 just to get to Dunes. Then subjob quest which, at the time, was a big thing.

Then you had to go on a tangent doing some nation missions, get an airship pass, which required at least a little bit of gil. Brand new characters were constantly short on gil, so you needed to farm.

Then you leveled to ~25, and then had to do some Zilart to get Kazham access because that's where people xp'd. More time, more gil, more farming. You're not even level 30 yet.

Then advanced jobs. More time, more running. If you picked something like NIN or RNG you needed gil to fund those jobs.


Not to mention that coming to parties under geared was really frowned upon. People spent significant time camping NMs for cash/drops and just farming in general to buy equipment.


Somewhere between 50-60 you started your AF quests, and most likely tried to get full sets. That took a lot of time with coffers being camped all over the place, trying to get help, traveling to locations, etc.


Then limit breaks. I remember getting a papyrus was a pretty big accomplishment. All the limit breaks took time.


Then at 70, most parties xp'd in sky. Guess what? Go finish Zilart, and at that period of time that took quite a bit of effort.


Oh yea, then you needed to do weapon skill quests because if you couldn't make Light/Dark SCs you were screwed. More time, more effort, and breaking latents at that point was another grind.



tl;dr A fresh character starting out took a ton of time to get their first 75. Second and third jobs are a completely different story, but I agree. A year after starting the game is a pretty decent estimate give or take 2-3 months for myself and a lot of people I played with.

I know we're having a little thing right now, but I'm getting a major surge of nostalgia right now. It was frustrating at times, but still, good times.

Getting 6 random people together and having the right people line up to successfully SATAWS to close distortion + MB freeze was a complete work of art.

Anyways, sorry, everyone, for derailing the thread.


That's actually really good for me, since I still idle in pre-ilvl gear for the regen. That's, what, 15 regen with 5/5 and ring + tons of pdt + movement speed

Absolutely, I had a little leveling static and just managing Slug Shot to Viper Bite with Freeze in that was pretty damn beautiful to see.


I still idle in the Incursion body that has sphere refresh, lol. So I'm thinking idle set will now be 4/5 Ambuskadi+2, run speed boots and regen in other slots, I can dig it. This only further replaces what usage I have for Chirich+1 though, I'm using it in my melee sets but I think that's kinda weighted on the gil I spent on it...

I did read responses. You kept on making it more apparent you had no idea wtf you were talking about.
You had to:

Hope you were in the right nation to start at since if the gear wasn't available via npc the nation's AH would never stock it which would further gimp your ability to kill the clearly not that easy prey
Level enough to be invited to dunes, then get to dunes without dying.
Get ignored if you weren't healer blm rng or war
Get passed over more often because you don't have a bloody subjob yet
LFP for hours
Hope the party you joined doesn't give you negative xp or fight IT++ mobs you shouldn't be attacking.
It seems the puller just claimed Valkurm Emperor
Everyone is dead. Hope for a passing lv 50+ whm to raise.
Finish SJ quest.
Repeat everything above
Somehow navigate to Jeuno without dying and get your chocobo license
And that's just to get past the first party leveling area.

There's still all of the other stuff to deal with like lower xp/kill, higher stats, less +stats in your gear, skilling your weapon/magic up unless you're that gimp *** everyone hates, unlocking the mandragora extravaganza, Gob train to zone, Crawler train to zone, bat train to zone, undead train to zone, who the *** dragged serket to zone, lfp while outside of the city but the only people to send an invite for the whole day changed their minds after you accepted because they didn't want to wait 30 seconds on your warp cudgel and if we're lucky we made it to genkai 1.

These also require assumptions like people being focused on only the leveling aspect of the game and not deciding to do quests, explore, misc missions, crafting, unlocking advanced jobs,having with with lsmates or even generally messing around with other jobs for fun.

Yeah, from a RNG perspective I want all of the Meghanada+2 gear.

- Head is killer Racc/Ratk/Dead Aim (great for ranged overall and ranged crit sets, like for my Empy Aftermath up /ra set)
- Body is again great Racc/Ratk/crit damage, even if it loses out to AF+3 for TP building (but Meg+2 is in the same ballpark as Orion+2)
- Hands are very solid ranged gear and great WSD piece (and OMG good for my THF DNC WS).
- Legs are again good ranged gear, and strong melee gear for all of the jobs on it.
- Feet are tied for BiS snapshot without needing augments, and very good for ranged.
- Oh, AND the whole set has nice PDT plus a regen set effect.

This is far from entry level gear, it's on par with some of the absolute best pieces in the game. Obviously different sets and pieces vary, and some jobs get more out of it than others, but all of the sets have some nice stuff. Hizamaru legs for WS and feet are one of the better NIN DW options, Refresh+4 Jhakri body... I'm not going to run out of things to upgrade any time in the very near future.

And when I do get through the best upgrades... will be time another wave of upgrading for the "round 2" Ambuscade sets.

I still remember that GM trying to clear the crawlers one time, so he took out his sword and started swinging, at least until he died to them.

Yeah, my COR is going to have to suffer not having the head until next month, as I always prioritize THF and a few DEX and 1% more crit on body means that's first. I just wish I had a proper xbow/gun/ammo on THF so I could actually swap over to ranged on THF like I used to back in the day.

Def took me over a year for my first 75. Not to mention leveling subjobs alongside it.

Man, I didn't even see people mention having to level subjobs. Almost all jobs had multiple subs you should have leveled, and some were quite hard to kit out. For example all melee DD had to have /nin, you had to quest to get Utsu:Ichi and then farm up all that gil for Ni...and the tools to cast them. You weren't truly level 75 until you had all that accomplished.

I'm not people :(

Still a bonus for anything you actually midcast using the set...even if it ends up being pretty marginal.

My money's on 5% FC per additional piece, so marginal is probably a good way to describe it. 10% would be a pleasant surprise, but I'm not holding my breath.

Clearly, you're a mule.

I am only giving it a 2% per a level....

Still no word on the inyanga set bonus per peice? i woulda thought some mules would have the 2 +2 peices with ring already.

5% would actually be very substantial, in terms of a per piece bonus. That would mean 30%with full set+ring... meaning with Weatherspoon,a Fast Cast amboop cape, loq. earring and a fast cast neck,anyone could cap Fast Cast on RDM or /RDM on that set. And that's just counting the set bonus FC, not any FC on the Jhakri. Way too easy for my money.

Probably follows the pattern we saw with AF set bonuses (x5 not x6).
Set is low haste so High FC is needed to offset recast.
RDM already has insane easy to get FC pieces.

First Lv75 was COR back at Aht Urhgan release. I leveled Smithing/Goldsmithing/Alchemy specifically for it. I beat Breaking the Bonds of Fate (GK5) after my 7th attempt, back when the entire fight hinged on you rolling IV on Wild Card to get 300% TP so Slug Shot would not miss.

Second Lv75 was DRG, which I pretty much solo'd from Lv60 to Lv75 when I got the Drachen Armet which opened up Colibri soloing.

Third Lv75 was PUP, because apparently leveling DRG wasn't punishment enough back then.

I was only talking about LFP / forming times and travel times, when you include missions, gear and gil then the time can easily balloon out to 18 months or more. Once someone has a stable base then its quicker but still not super fast. ToAU made everything easier that's for sure.