Newbie Guide 2014

Introduction
This guide is aimed at new players who know nothing about FFXI or the controls. FFXIclopedia and the official FFXI New Player Guide are ideal places for new players, however the player guide doesn't work in Chrome and doesn't seem to work too well in IE either, and FFXIclopedia is only useful if you know what you're looking for.

Classes
Each class has minor variances to their stats which scale with their level, making them ideal for certain types of jobs. Whilst it's not common to hear of Galka White Mages or Tarutaru Warriors they do exist and can perform quite well with some extremely expensive or difficult to obtain gear items, food and medicines to boost their weakest stats.


 * Galka - Highest health pool and lowest mana pool, ideal for tank or heavy melee jobs that rely on STR, terrible choice for mage jobs or jobs that rely on CHR
 * Tarutaru - Highest mana pool and lowest health pool, ideal for mage jobs that rely on INT, terrible choice for tank jobs or jobs that rely on STR
 * Mithra - Highest DEX, idea for heavy melee jobs such as Thief, terrible choice for jobs that rely on CHR
 * Elvaan - Highest STR and WHM, ideal as Monk, Warrior, White Mage or Red Mage, terrible choice for jobs that rely on INT or AGI
 * Hume - Well balanced stats for all jobs

Job Roles
In FFXI you are not limited to a single job. You can switch jobs at any time by entering your Mog House which is labelled as the Residential Area on your map. Obtaining a Subjob allows you to utilize more abilities and job traits that will help with your main job.

Standard Mage Jobs

 * Black Mage - Heavy damage dealer that does powerful nukes
 * Red Mage - Support class with reasonable healing and nuking spells, can also melee and use enhancement spells to improve melee damage, mostly used for MND based debuffs, enhancing other party members with buff spells, and to support with cures
 * White Mage - Powerful healing class with some useful buffing and mob debuffing spells

Standard Melee Jobs

 * Warrior - Heavy damage dealer with reasonable tanking capabilities, used early as a tank class but later as a damage dealing class
 * Monk - Heavy damage dealer that uses knuckles or bare hands to hit mobs twice per rounds, has many helpful survival abilities
 * Theif - Heavy damage dealer that relies on landing heavy crits and high survivability, mainly used for the Treasure Hunter trait to improve monster drops

Basic Controls
There are 2 different menus in the game. The simple mini menu allows you to interact with other targets and yourself. The main menu is brought up with the - key on the PC. If you're using a gamepad you can assign which buttons you want to use for menus/movement by running the Final Fantasy XI Config. Hitting the left or right arrow whilst the main menu is active opens up another page of commands. The main menu allows you to perform a mass range of actions such as macro making, viewing stored items, assigning controls, accessing quest/mission logs etc.

Character controls depend on what keyboard size you are using (found in Misc. 2 under Config.)


 * Full allows you to type straight away on a keyboard and use CTRL for accessing key assignments, is useful if you're using a gamepad for movement and menu interactions.
 * Compact1 uses WASD for movement and IJKL/arrow keys for camera/cursor movement, allows for a broader range of key assignments.
 * Compact2 same as Compact1 but also allows for mouse/key combinations.

You can designate key assignments for accessing some menu items or redefine character/camera controls, however there is a limitation on how many things you can reassign. Targetting keys for self and party members (F1-F6) cannot be reassigned.

Many other commands can be performed using the / key, for example /map brings up the game map for the zone you're currently in. You can even assign these and a combination of commands to a macro for easier use.

Skilling Up
Skilling up this is one of the longest drags in this game. As you take part in combat or crafting you'll gain anything from 0.1 to 0.5 every so often. Some items or food may help in speeding up the process but these can be expensive or take a long time to get. If you've joined in a level sync party and you've been synced to a lower level you won't be able to gain any more skill points once you've reached the cap for that level.

Learning New Spells
Being a mage is a very expensive job as you'll be required to purchase Scrolls every so often. Some can be quested or dropped by monsters and you may have to do some travelling around different places to find specific scrolls that can only be bought by certain vendors. If you are completely stuck you could try and buy them from the Auction House, but these can be pricey depending on how rare and how difficult they are to obtain.

Treasure Caskets
There's various types of caskets, coffers and chests scattered through various locations or dropped by monsters. Treasure caskets dropped by monsters vary their contents on the colour and location of the box. Brown caskets are an awesome way of getting gear and gil from selling the contents to vendors or on an auction house. These require unlocking by solving a number guessing minigame. Blue caskets give you temporary items you can use, but you can only use them in the area you got them from. Once you leave the zone you'll lose all temporary items. Other coffers and chests require finding a key to open them, or if you're a theif you can use a Skeleton Key to try to unlock it but these have a high chance of breaking and you could instead spawn a high level Mimic.

The Element System
Understanding the element system is a great help especially for mages or fights against elemental type mobs. The element wheel goes like this:

Fire > Ice > Wind > Earth > Thunder > Water > Fire

Light and Darkness are opposites of each other.

So if you're fighting against a wind-type mob then using ice will help you defeat it, whereas using wind or earth will do very little.

Skillchaining
Earlier I mentioned Skillchaining, as with the element system skillchaining is important when dealing against an element-type monster. Combining certain weapon skills results in an additional effect that gives additional damage based on the mobs' resistance to it. When your Tactical Points (TP) reaches over 1000 you'll be able to perform a weapon skill. If another player then performs a weapon skill 3-8 seconds after yours has finished its animation then it may result in a skillchain. If a mage then lands a nuke seconds after the skillchain effect which matches the same element it will result in a Magic Burst which increases the amount of damage done by the spell.

Records of Eminence
Records of Eminence are special quests you can obtain once you complete the first Tutorial quest First Step Forward. Completing a quest through the Records of Eminence list gives you experience points and a new currency called Sparks which can be used to buy new gear, items to upgrade relic and artifact gear, and skill-up scrolls.

Books
There have been many floating books added to the game to help with leveling and traveling.


 * Survival Guide - Allows you to teleport to other survival guide books you've located
 * Hunt Registry - Gives you choice of orders to hunt and defeat a Notorious Monster and rewards you with an Evolith for certain weapon upgrading
 * Field Manual - Gives you a choice of orders to hunt and defeat a set number of monsters within the zone for experience point bonus, also offers Elite Training for certain armor augments, and support bonuses such as temporary buffs or teleportation
 * Grounds Tome - Same as a Field Manual but found inside dungeon areas, completion of each order increments the amount of bonus experience points you receive to a certain cap providing you do not leave the dungeon

Quests
There are many quests throughout the game, most require a certain level of reputation or completion of a previous quest or mission before being offered and some may have a minimum level requirement. Quests generally don't give experience points when completed but may offer you gil and/or an item. Completion of quests increases your reputation with that city or affiliation. Repeatable quests give less reputation after being completed the first time.

Missions
Missions take you on a massive adventure related to the city and teaches you the lore related to that city. To obtain certain missions you'll need to either complete a number of repeatable missions or hand in crystals to a National Conquest Guard to increase your rank points. Completion of certain missions will increase your rank to the next level, allowing access to specific areas and purchases with Conquest Points, and also increases your reptution with that city.

Parties/Alliances
Getting involved in a party is a great way to share the experience. You can have a maximum of 6 players in a party (including adventuring fellows and trusts). An ideal party setup involves a tank, a healer, a support class, and 3 damage dealers, although you could pick 4 damage dealers instead of the support class if the healer is able to keep the party alive. Each member added reduces the amount of experience points earned and the level difference will also affect the amount of experience earned. To keep within the same levels it's advised to use Level Sync. This not only keeps you within the same level gap but also means higher level players can join you in the adventure without compromising your experience points and they too can earn rewards for being in the party.

Alliances are where more than one party joins forces with another for more difficult fights. Up to 3 parties can join forces as an alliance. Each leader of each party can add or remove players to their own party group but not to the other groups. Experience points earned in an alliance is also greatly reduced.

Fellows and Trusts
If you've come across a battle that's too difficult to manage and there's nobody around to assist you then having an Adventuring Fellow or a Trust can come in handy but only in areas they're allowed to be summoned.

Adventuring fellows are obtained at level 30 and behave exactly the same as a party member in that they need experience points to level up and to do a limit break quest every 5 levels after hitting level 50. The amount of experience points they earn is based on the mob level vs their own, so if you are a much higher level fighting a mob that checks as easy prey to you and only gives you 100 experience points they may get the maximum amount of experience points which could be 480. To obtain an adventuring fellow requires completing a quest where you're given a Signal Pearl. These can be used once per 6 real time hours. If you zone to a city, die, or your npc dies then your fellow will disappear and you'll have to wait until the pearl is usable again. You can also later obtain a Tactics Pearl after completing the quest for it which can be obtained once every Conquest Tally and has 3 charges to it. Adventuring fellows will also time out after a certain number of mobs defeated or time has passed.

Trusts are way better than adventuring fellows in which you can have up to 3 of them summoned. They behave more like party members in which they try to perform a skillchain with each other and they will buff/cure you and each other. Each time you zone they will be dismissed so you'll need to resummon them if you wish to use them again. They also have no time limit to how long you can have them with you. Trusts do not earn experience points and remain the level at which you summoned them, so if you summoned them at level 10 and then later you reached level 20 they will still remain level 10, so it's advisable every few levels to dismiss and resummon them. To dismiss a trust either target them and type /refa  or just type /refa trustname. You cannot summon or dismiss trusts during combat, unlike the adventuring fellow, and only the party leader is allowed to summon trusts.

Linkshells
Linkshells are a great way to get more involved in the game and to socialise with others and get help. To join a linkshell you need to ask someone nicely if they can give you a linkpearl. Then you equip the linkpearl through the menu system and you're ready to go! You can hold as many linkpearls to different linkshells as your bags can hold but it's advisable to only stick to a small number so you're not overwhelmed with linkpearls and running out of bag space. You can only talk in one linkshell at a time.

If you prefer you can purchase a linkshell and start your very own!

Magical Maps
The majority of maps are bought from vendors. Some can be quested or found in caskets. Maps can be a massive money sink but by purchasing maps you not only can work out where you're going but you can mark points of interest on the map and some npcs will offer to provide you with points of interest.

Chocobo License
Chocobos are a quick way of getting from one place to another, but before you can ride one you'll need a Chocobo License. Licenses can be obtained by a level 20 quest in Upper Jeuno. Getting there at level 20 can be tricky as there are numerous areas to Jeuno with mobs that will aggro anyone under level 40, so using sneak and invisible is advisable. Once you've obtained your license you can then hire a chocobo from any city or location with a Chocobo Stable, or you could even try your hand at Chocobo Raising!

Home Points/Outposts
Many areas have had a massive boost of Home Points added to them, allowing you to not only save at them but to travel between them. Outposts also act as a save point providing the region isn't under beastman control. You can only save to one home point at a time. Your moghouse can also be set to be your home point and you'll be prompted to save each time you switch job at a moghouse. If you become incapacitated and have to release you'll be teleported back to your home point, so unless you want to travel all the way back it's advisable to use Reraise or have someone who can cast Raise on you. If you are incapacitated you will not be able to ask for help except through party chat, tells, or linkshell chat.

Crafting
Crafting is a decent way to make gil, although eventually you'll end up spending way more than you're earning to level it up to a point where you can make some really good money. The further the level you are from the craft recipe the more likely you are to fail and lose most materials, however you may get some pretty big skill-ups. You can also take up more than 1 craft, however you can only take 1 craft beyond level 70 with the exception of fishing and synergy. Once you start taking more crafts past 70 you'll start losing levels on other skills that are past 70.

Fishing can be profitable depending on what you're fishing and what bait you're using. Fishing, cooking and alchemy go well together as you can make bait with cooking and fix broken rods with alchemy.