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. Please make sure to visit the links included in this page as they'll offer you invaluable information.

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, ideal 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. At level 18 or level 20 depending which fishing town you visit you can pick up a quest to learn about Subjobs which help improve your main job, and at level 30 you'll be able to quest for more advanced jobs such as Paladin, Blue Mage, Geomancer etc.

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

After reaching level 50 you will no longer be able to proceed to the next level until you complete your first Limit Break quest, and for every 5 levels after. Once you've completed a limit break quest you won't need to do it on another job, however you can choose to replay the level 70 limit break quest on any other job if you wish in order to obtain Trust: Maat and Maat's Cap rewards. Certain advanced jobs such as Blue Mage have a different level 70 quest.

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.

Levelling and Skilling Up
The basic way of levelling is by fighting monsters within your difficulty range. When checking a monster you're not presented with its level but its difficulty. To earn experience points you will need to defeat a monster that is Easy Prey or tougher. Experience points are dependant on the monsters' difficulty level vs yours or the highest level member in your party. Experience points may also be affected by how many players are in your party, beastmaster pets, and being in an alliance.

Beware when fighting monsters that are extremely difficult or when fighting more than one at a time. Death imposes a number of penalties. After level 30 every death will cost you a small percentage of your experience points required for that level. There is also the risk of deleveling and not being able to wear certain items of equipment. You will have 60 minutes to either release back to your home point or wait for someone to raise you. Being raised restores a certain amount of lost experience points depending on the raise level but then inflicts you with a 5 minute Weakness which cannot be removed and greatly reduces your hit points and mana points until it wears off. Dying whilst already weakened then causes you to suffer with a double weakness which not only affects your hit points and mana points but also your attack and magic attack damage. Should you choose to release back to your home point you will not be afflicted by weakness and you'll be instantly teleported back to your home point and suffering the whole experience point penalty.

As you take part in combat or crafting you'll sometimes gain skill points 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. The rate of skilling up depends on your skill level and the level of what you're trying to skill up with. 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.

Monster Weaknesses
Most monsters have a specific weakness to certain Damage Types, whether it be elemental, weapon type, or even beast type. Understanding the Element system is advisory especially for mages or fights against elementals, and knowing which beast is strong against another is advisory for beastmasters and monikers.

Skillchaining is also important when dealing against an element-type monster. Combining certain weapon skills results in an additional effect that gives additional damage based on the monsters 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.

PVP
Whilst PVP isn't very common in this game there are a number of types should you decide to get involved.


 * Ballista - open PVP which takes place at specific times in certain zones, the goal simply being slaughter as many people of the opposing side as possible. Since it's not a common engagement most often Ballistas are cancelled due to lack of players registered.
 * Brenner - level restricted organised PVP matches in a pass-the-flag style PVP.
 * Belligerency - monster vs monster PVP which requires you to have unlocked Monstrosity to level up as a monster, known as a Moniker, and gives various rewards for defeating other monikers.

It's worth noting that leveling as a moniker does not affect any of your main jobs, you cannot wear equipment whilst as a moniker, you cannot join a party as a moniker, and you cannot obtain loot or gil whilst leveling as a moniker.

Battlefields and Garrison
There is a massive range of Battlefields which players can get involved in for a chance at special rewards. Most battlefields require more than 1 player and some apply a level restriction to them.

Garrison is a level restricted battle vs waves of NMs which takes place at an outpost and requires at least a full party to participate. These can be pretty tough depending on how many parties are involved.

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. Some RoE quests are repeatable and offer rewards on first time completion, and every few hours a new challenge is issued which can be completed only once per challenge and rewards players with both sparks and a Copper Voucher.

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.

When you first start a new character you are already presented with your first quest to deliver an Adventurer Coupon to a specific NPC. After completing this quest you'll then be advised to speak to another NPC (you'll also be prompted to speak with this NPC when attempting to leave the city) who'll offer you some basic advice and introductory quests to get you started. These are highly recommended to follow as they'll give you useful items after completing such as a Reraise Earring and a coupon to purchase a free experience point boosting ring from a Conquest Overseer.

Missions
Missions take you on a massive adventure and teaches you the lore related to that nation. To obtain certain missions from your nation you'll need to either complete a number of repeatable missions or hand in crystals to a Conquest Overseer 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 reputation with that nation. You can only do missions for the nation that you are registered to. If you wish to participate in missions with the other nations you'll be able to switch nations once per Conquest Tally, however changing nations will cost gil depending whether it's 1st, 2nd or 3rd in the tallies.

Other nations not related to the 3 starter cities or expansions can offer missions providing you have installed the expansion packs for them and allows access to certain locations, quests and rewards. These do not affect your nation's standing nor do they require you to switch nation for them, however Wings of the Goddess missions behave similarly to the 3 cities and only offer missions related to the past nation you've registered yourself with. As with the 3 cities you can switch past nations.

RSE and JSE
RSE, or Race Specific Equipment, is armor that can only be worn by your race. All new characters come equipped with their level 1 RSE, but starting from level 27 you can obtain parts of the level 27-33 RSE via the quest The Goblin Tailor. This is a very good low level set which helps balance out your stats. If it's not your race week or you don't want to spend time running around dungeons hunting for patterns you can buy the RSE from the auction house providing someone else has already quested it, but it will not be cheap.

At level 30 you can obtain a job specific neck item and a special emote by talking to a Magian Moogle in Ru'Lude Gardens and taking on a small quest.

JSE or Job Specific Equipment begins at level 40 by taking on a quest for a level 39-42 weapon. This is vital if you wish to later obtain the level 52-60 equipment items, also known as Artifact Armor.

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, and you don't have to wait until level 30 to obtain one. 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.

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.

Selling/Buying
The Auction House is a good way of buying and selling things you've made or found, depending on its demand. A good place to check the current value of items without visiting the auction house is FFXIAH.com. You can only upload a maximum of 7 items on the auction house and you will be charged taxes based on the value you auction it at. Take note however that despite being unable to see how much each person has put their items up for if you attempt to auction an item at a very low value to avoid tax someone may try to buy it at a low price, so putting up an item worth 300k gil for only 1 gil is a very bad idea!

Often you'll find with some items they're worth more sold to a vendor NPC such as a General Goods Merchant, Regional Merchant, or a Guild Merchant. How much NPCs will give you depends on your reputation with that city or affiliation, and whilst general goods merchants will buy anything a regional merchant will only trade with you if the region is under their affiliations' control, and guild merchants will only accept goods related to their crafting affiliation. Sometimes goods can be cheaper bought from NPCs, but items such as weapons and armor do not contain any extra stats on them.

Other methods of buying and selling are use of the Bazaar system. This is only really useful if you're AFK in cities for long periods where people can browse you bazaar, and items will take up inventory space. Characters with a bag icon next to their name indicates they are selling something in their bazaar. To browse it use the small menu to examine them.

Transportation
There's many methods of Transportation to get around Vana'diel besides books. Some will require obtaining passes via quests to use them such as chocobos and airships or visiting a location to receive a Key Item. If you complete the tutorial quests back at your nation's city you'll be given 3 Chocopasses which you can use at any of the chocobo stables at one of the 3 nation's cities and allows access to a temporary chocobo which will disappear after 2 mins riding or until you enter a new zone.

Q&A

 * Why won't this monster leave me alone?
 * Monsters that have aggro'd or that you've engaged in combat rarely ever give up chasing their prey, especially those in dungeon areas and notorious monsters. Some monsters stalk their prey by scent and can relentlessly chase after you from the other side of a map.  The only true way to make a monster stop chasing you is to enter the next zone.


 * I tried zoning to stop myself dying in a party but after casting only one spell I got aggro again, why?
 * Threat is only reset after either all party members die or the monster dies. Zoning doesn't reset aggro.