My Way: A Solo's Strategy Guide

Introduction:
Why would I want to solo? There are a lot of reasons; time constraints, no one you know available to party, farming, weapons trials, antisocial personality disorder, it’s Tuesday, whatever. The question isn’t why to solo, you have your reasons, and you’ve paid your fee, that’s enough. The real question is “what do I want to accomplish solo?” As the answer to that question dictates everything you will do it’s kind of important.

The purpose of this guide is to cover soloing considerations in a general manner. I attempt to lay out the concerns you should address before you attempt to do whatever you plan to do. It is my hope that this guide and the guidelines I venture will allow you to plan a successful soloing strategy at any point from level 1 before you have earned a subjob all the way to the player who is currently level 90 in all 20 jobs. This is why I do NOT make a specific list of "at level 45 as a ninja you should be in Lufaise killing giants" as an example; you may not even want to solo for XP but for crafting materials or skill-ups or something else entirely. Read guides off an individual job's page here on Wiki if you want advice that is that specific; read this guide (or another, I'm not the jealous type) if you want to decide on your own how to solo whatever for your chosen goal.

Update Notes
The version update has come and two important changes have a major impact on soloing, both for the better.

The 1st is the doubling of XP outside Abyssea. Not many choose to Solo in Abyssea; it's difficult to begin with and the mobs respawn at higher levels the faster you kill them. Consequently, people usually do their soloing elsewhere. The greater XP yield simply makes taking the time away from Abyssea more palatable. Any soloing activity that isn't against Too Weak prey simply hurts less. While readily apparent at any level the rapid XP gain is frightfully apparent at low-levels (2 hours to go 0-10 on pup, most of it resting to recharge my pup's MP pool). The rapid XP means skill gaps will still occur, even solo. You will need to pause leveling to work on skills, but not AS often (switching to tougher prey, doing besieged, etc-you will get XP but the GOAL is the skill-ups).

The second major change is dropping the skill-up cap to DC, and (somewhat) increasing the rate at which skill-up occurs. This change has needed to happen for years. The current "level now, skill later" play style fostered by the SE changes to the game (level sync, Abyssea rapid XP from leeching, etc.) has only made the prevailing skill gaps worse. Some defensive skills have seen players hit cap in only a few cases across all servers (parry as an example). Personally, after about 8 years of play my parry skill is still below 200. This change means that players should finally be able to see the full extent of their character's capabilities.

Regardless, it does mean that the recommendations I make below as to level ranges for most jobs need to be revised. As a blanket recommendation ALL jobs may now solo down to DC without fear of not making progress; however in my observation the skill-up RATES-while higher across the board-are still much higher against more difficult opponents until you reach the point of diminishing returns (frequent misses, resists or hits for 0 damage). You should consider soloing even lower to be viable, but see the revisions to the skill-up section for special commentary post-update. Of course, for farming you could always go as low as you liked, and the only thing this update will change is that farming EP and up will yield greater XP.

The next version update is coming soon, and it is a major one. Most of the content announced so far is to alleviate network congestion, although it will be accompanied by a world merge to increase network congestion and lag in already overcrowded areas. So far, the elements that impact soloing are the fact they will be changing stack sizes for certain items which can be great for farmers. They are going to allow muling of EX items meaning your storage worries for your lesser-used jobs should get some help. Seals/"cards" for AF3 will both be made storable and another method of acquisition is on the way (no details as of this writing). In an upcoming update (not necessarily this one) all those crests are going to get a purpose, but in the next update they will also be storable. I have seen ambiguous hints that the next level cap may or may not be in the next major update. Dynamis is getting tweaked and looks like it might become a soloable activity, keep your eyes open. Finally, all that salvage, sky, limbus and the like gear you worked for (and hopefully haven't thrown away) is going to be augmentable-apparently via synergy-to levels comparable to AF3 augmented quality; like you didn't have enough on your "to-do" list.

No date certain, but they are also looking at the more difficult skills to raise that really haven't benefitted from the skill-up changes in the last update. You may have noticed that parry, shield, guard and some of the casting activities aren't rising anywhere near what your sword skill is. This I hope gets priority from SE, as these skills are a huge part of the job designs and yet can rarely be seen in action. Imagine how good my EVA tanking thief/ninja could be in Abyssea if I also parried the way my A- rating should process!

5/9/11-New update coming down the pipe today, a major one. Expect Updates here later this week after I've had a chance to see them in action a bit. Not a huge amount of content related to soloing expected, but Dynamis, Grounds of Valor and Voidwatch need some review. The biggest is the NPC level cap raise and longer deployment. We'll see what happens kiddies!

Ok, haven't done much of the new content yet. The NPC adjustments, easy, effective, just do it, you won't be sorry. Grounds of Valor-great addition! Even without getting the Skill-up Prowess yet the skill rates are remarkable (14 full levels of automaton range skill in 7 pages, 49 kills). Wiki needs to be updated with information on the new mobs so those working trial weaps can use GoV to satisfy them if possible. There is also an item called the Prousse Ring which is a must have item for every player not already level 90 on all 20 jobs with maxed skill in every category. I'm working on this big-time. The Dynamis changes, not good; repop time on mobs is too fast, they added that stupid !! proc system so expect jobs to again be marginalized as with Abyssea, only a single alliance can battle or get the rewards from it so larger LS's may need to split up. That's all so far.

6/8/11 Grounds of Valor-over all I really like this addition to the game. Certainly, much of the content is beyond most soloers (a soloer that doesn't want to blow most of their tabs on Reraise doesn't tackle content that is more than maybe 3 levels above their level, at least on purpose), but there is still a great deal available that is close to level 90, and it gives WONDERFUL skill-ups. One issue has to do with chests however. A zone can apparently only hold so many chests at a time, and players tend not to open or empty those with crap items. Unfortunately, those chests just lying around seem to keep anything other than crap from dropping, so Prousse Ring farmers as an example have a reduced chance of getting one. Please, empty your chests, and if you don't like what's in it just throw it away.

GoV also provides a viable means of leveling outside of abyssea for those that don't care for that system or its consequences to skill and the like. Level-wise it picks up about where FoV leaves off. The tabs are interchangeable (thank you SE). Chest rewards are of the decent sort (at least for dumping on an NPC for enough $ to keep you in business) and some of the R/EX rewards are really worth obtaining. If there is really anything to complain about it's the variety of mobs; I had hoped that this system would provide an FoVlike system that could be used with Magian trials, but most of the mobs so far don't fit. They did say they have plans to expand this system, so hopefully down the road...

The most recent update really didn't have much impact on soloers. If you don't know who processed the !! on your NM when you are soloing in Abyssea you should really consider professional help. The only real thing is that you can destroy crap chests in Aby for a small amount of cruor, and every little bit helps, especially if you've buried yourself in ruby to the point you are only getting crap chests.

Two (or more) birds with one stone
Soloing is an inefficient activity. To make up for this, I always try to accomplish more than one task when I solo. For example:


 * a. I’m after gil but don’t have a lot of inventory space and I also want XP; target level appropriate beastmen that check preferably EP- to EM only, preferably in an out of the way place. This will minimize competition for mobs (always important), beastmen drops tend to be R/EX or stackable, if crystals are available you can get conquest points as well, but if your inventory is full try to fight in a beastman controlled area to prevent crystal drops. The Enemy con choice is deliberate; if I need gil I would rather NOT have to use consumables and you don't generally need them against EM and lower.
 * b. I need 800 AoE Weapon Skills on X mob for trial weapon; go to an area where they spawn EP- to EM and find a camp you can safely pull to without fear of linking or hitting a 2nd mob with your AoE, bring lots of inventory space so you can sell drops from your prey. For a trial to count you must be able to get XP from your prey, if you are lagging on skill this should help so target the hardest mob you can handle and if you have to be there you might as well come away with some gil so have the inventory space to hold whatever drops. Whenever possible if you have Dual Wield and are working 2 trials try to take advantage of any overlaps in your trials.
 * c. I need to farm some “whatever” to sell/craft/satisfy a debt to Guido the Killer Pimp, etc. Farming is tricky and will be dealt with in its own section below.
 * d. I need to skill-up my X offensive skill; depending on the skill gap you are beginning with you may want to go to more than one camp-a massive skill gap can be satisfied easier by speed killing and you don’t need to get much XP until the skill gap narrows. Once it does narrow you need to find a camp that spawns lots of at least DC but preferably EM, maybe even T if you can handle them so you can reach cap. Either way, bring inventory space to make a little cash to off-set the food expense

As you can see, planning is VERY important to efficient soloing. Time is always a factor and there are many things you need to do to keep yourself going in the game at peak level.

Tools of the soloing trade
Soloing requires you to do it all. Every role that needs to be performed in a party you will have to do yourself so you need to be prepared with both gear and a proper attitude. Must-haves include:


 * a. Healing. Unless your main job is capable of keeping you alive you will need to find another means, either through your sub-job, your NPC fellow (which will limit your time), bloody bolts, pixies (not very reliable) or simply being resigned to downtime. Casters don’t forget your echo drops
 * b. Stealth. You have to be able to get to your camp safely and that means oils and powders or magic, ninjitsu, jigs, whatever. Plan for it.
 * c. Know your enemy. Note that I said enemy, not prey. The greatest camp in the world can be useless if there’s an impassable wall of True Sight agro mobs in the way. Once you get to your camp, you still need to know what your prey can do and plan accordingly, i.e. don’t wear a bomb queen ring if you are fighting enemies that spam allot of fire, undead are immune to drain, etc.
 * d. Have an exit strategy. With the cost of Instant Warp scrolls being so low now this isn’t as much of an issue, but I’m not just speaking of when you’re done. Sometimes you bite off more than you can chew for whatever reason and your choices are usually run or die. It’s too late to be looking for a safe, quick path to a zone line or river to lose agro then, so know it in advance
 * e. Distance pulling. Necessary in almost every situation is a means of pulling your prey from a distance. The preferred method is almost always a ranged weapon, but magic and job abilities have their place too, depending on prey. You don’t want your cycle broken because you have to wait for the Recast Timer on Chi blast after every kill. It sucks to get all the way to a difficult to reach camp only to realize you left your crossbow in your mog locker.
 * f. Inventory space. Ok, I know this seems like a stupid thing, but if you are out to farm you need it, and in the field you only have 3 options, transfer stuff to your satchel/sack if you have the room, throw it away or head back to town to sell/send to mule. MUCH better to take care of it before you go, no?
 * g. Gear/food. If you are using weapons with consumable ammo, make sure you have enough. If you will need food for whatever reason make sure you have enough of that. If you plan to craft drops on site make sure you have sufficient materials and crystals to do it. If you plan to level and new gear will be usable you may want that within reach, or your next spell scroll.
 * h. Signet. Ok, this is just a fundamental “don’t leave home without it”. That being said, we all do forget it. If you want to hold on to your TP, heal your HP/MP in a reasonable amount of time, get the points you are entitled to, crystals, XP bonuses and possibly buffs get signet, sanction, sigil or whatever works in your camp. Getting a Signet staff and keeping it in your satchel/sack at your earliest opportunity is advised.
 * i. Kupower. Not a must have so much as a “don’t miss an opportunity” thing. In other words, if Martial Master is up it’s a good time to skill-up, Treasure Hound/Artisan’s Advantage work well with farming, etc. Useless in Campaign, ToAU or Abyssea
 * j. Smoke ‘em if u got ‘em. XP rings should be used any chance you get, every little bit helps. Do not use ring if waiting for an Abyssea invite or planning to Dynamis or Campaign battle, you are wasting a charge.
 * k. Know your limitations. AKA know your job, this means that soloing is NOT the time to over (or under)estimate yourself. I don’t just mean the capability of your jobs, but your own skill as a player too. If you can’t be trusted to get a cure off in a timely manner you may need to rethink everything, etc. By the same token, if you’re killing everything in 5 minutes but there is a 16 minute re-pop timer you may want to move to either a harder or a more plentiful camp.
 * l. Death and Dismemberment Policy. This game is ultimately based on a random number generator that operates within a set pattern of restraints (the rules of the game) and no matter how well you plan or play eventually the game will eat your face. The important thing is how you choose to deal with it. Is it worth it to use a Reraise Item considering the expense? If you are using an Instant Reraise scroll (7 points) do you need to go back to town when it is gone (you can only carry one)? Is Fields of Valor Reraise available? Is it better to simply Home Point and run back out (taking into account a possible inventory dump/resupply run)?
 * m. Check your macros! A biggie that will help your efficiency-solo or group-is to get your macros organized, under control and to the point where they are second nature, simply because it improves your reaction speed, but only if the commands are appropriate. Example, normally you will want an on a sleep macro or something else, but fighting prey that can charm you will want to be able to hit your charmed PC, meaning an  is more appropriate then. Don't forget to put your macros back to normal after a level sync. For that matter, make sure you have the right set cued up. I've embarrassed myself a couple times in the past by changing to beast to solo, trying to charm a pet and having the game tell me that "no you can't cast Elegy right now you idiot, you're not a bard!" while my potential pet is gnawing my kneecaps off... It isn't often that you will need to modify your macros for solo play, just maybe your use of certain commands (outside of maybe pulling why would a solo warrior need to Provoke, etc.)
 * n. Wish you were here. Soloing is usually repetitive and boring; do you have someone to talk to, either in game or real life? Do you have the sheer stubbornness to just grind it out? Good tunes?

Your NPC Fellow
This thing can be a godsend to the soloer, as long as it's able to stay out. From level 5 onwards your NPC is going to be your soloing best friend. When set to Healer you can avoid having to use a healer sub-job. If you need to work on a mage job or a range damage job the tank version is excellent. If you want to do skill chains the attacker version is great with a little practice on your timing. The downside is that your NPC will need downtime to recover and that it can only be out for a certain number of kills; it also takes a 30% bite out of your XP. Nevertheless, a great tool to use when you can. DO get the enhanced version of each style; trade with friends for the Manuals. Also, use your fellow points to increase your NPC's time.

There have been major changes to this. Notably a level cap increase to 85, more kills (up to 100), a longer deployment and expanded areas for use (ToAU). This is not a complete upgrade, but it will help a ton. However, they are using Magian trials for the upgrades, the 70-75 is simple. The good news is that doing trials is an excellent time to work on skills, so it will fit in nicely with most players "to-do" list. Your NPC seems to level fast, at 71, doing 100 EP- kills with NPC and no XP boosts took my NPC half-way to 72.

Where Do We Go From Here?
Picking a camp is a very important part of soloing. What goes into a good camp though? That’s dictated primarily by your goal for soloing and your survivability. There are some important factors besides those, and here’s a list of a few:
 * a. Pick on someone your own size! Picking the right prey is very important. Some jobs stand up to things better than others, some mobs won’t satisfy what you are after, some mobs just gather together too tightly to be viable, some despite their con just take too long to kill to be worth the effort, and some you may just not like to fight.
 * Do you want Gil? You need to concentrate on mobs like beastmen that carry gil or else something that drops a reasonable value item in reasonable quantities, whether sold on the AH or straight to NPC.
 * Just fast XP? EP to DC prey that goes down fast to your job skills but that also leaves you with the least downtime should be your focus.
 * Farming for that special whatever? See Farming below.
 * Satisfy a Weapon Trial? There are basically 2 ways to go here IF SOLO that are any good and both take roughly the same amount of time. You can find the weakest mobs that satisfy the trial and speed kill them (bring room for drops, see section 2 above); concentrate on this method for Elemental Magian weapons. The other approach is to pick the toughest mob you can handle that will satisfy the trial and use the opportunity to work on your skill caps; concentrate on this method for your Weaponskill Magian trial. The XP works out about the same, although the 1st method is more likely to take full advantage of an XP ring. Obviously, if weather is a factor you will want to be in a zone that has both the weather and target that you need, see elsewhere on Wiki for that information. Weapons needing NM kills are separate, see the Camping NMs section of Farming.
 * Learning to Fly. See the skill-up section below.
 * b. Bad Company. It’s a very good idea to know the critters that surround your camp. Blood agro is an ugly thing, elementals can mess up your day, and having to pull through a pile of agro is no fun either. Figure out the layout before you go there.
 * c. Can’t find my way home. Do you have a secure place to pull to or are you roving and killing? Either way, you want to know where your safe place to run and/or rest is. This is why it is so important to know your zone, and have a map (but study it beforehand-if you have to look it up while running you are as good as dead). Don’t forget to factor in the all important “no agro when I run to the can” factor if you don’t log…
 * d. …Watching the Wheels Go Round. Know how to establish a cycle. In other words, how many mobs can I kill, factoring in the time to get to the next Mob and any necessary rest breaks during the re-pop timer? Which circular path will allow me to satisfy it? Killing in a cycle is the most efficient way to solo; once established the risk of a re-pop link/agro is minimized, the actions needed to make your kill with the least effort are established and your character’s needs in terms of recovery are addressed. The XP and/or income will be fairly constant, too.
 * e. The Golden Rule. Courtesy may in fact largely be a thing of the past in this game but there’s no reason YOU have to be one of the jackasses preventing its return. If somebody is already in your chosen camp see if they are willing to take you on, but if not move elsewhere. Hopefully, the zone has more than one camp that will satisfy your needs, but if not you need to go elsewhere. On the other hand, if you were there first then stand up for your rights to the camp even if the other guy is a higher level than you-he probably has more options than you anyway. If they refuse to move on, shift your camp slightly to mess up THEIR cycle as much as possible and make it clear you are NOT moving; if you don’t have the stomach for that then just acknowledge that you are a doormat, resign yourself to always deferring to that guy and find a different camp. Don’t bother complaining to a GM, the Terms of Service clearly state that any unclaimed Mob is fair game.
 * f. …Stand up for your rights. You basically have none. Referencing e. above, you are NOT entitled to a buff, heal, raise or someone grabbing the add you just got. If you are fighting an NM, they are even allowed to just stand by, watch you die, finish off the mob and keep the drop you wanted for themselves, all without the decency of even shouting for a raise once. That is actually part of the Terms of Service. Conversely, if they move in on your camp you are not obligated to do any of those things for THEM, and this is an excellent manner of getting them to leave. It does hurt your reputation and leave you open to a /tell Flame Festival but isn’t that what your /blacklist is for?
 * g. Man up! Whoever says that is an idiot. Don’t just stand there and let mobs consistently beat you down, even if your Reraise is minimizing your XP loss. Better idea, Brain Up! If you are consistently being beaten then you can’t handle that camp; leave and find another one or find some help. Sure you can regain XP in a hurry these days (at least at upper levels), but if you aren’t accomplishing anything why keep losing it? Honestly, the definition of insanity is to repeat the same action expecting a different outcome. Just move and save yourself the ulcer and psychotherapy bills.

What job should I use?
I hate to answer a question with a question, but what job have you got? Repeat after me—ANY JOB CAN SOLO! Yes, any job. That being said they all solo differently and some are better than others, both in general and against specific prey types. That’s where your decision-making skills come in.

I have only Leveled Beastmaster, Bard, Thief, Puppetmaster and Dancer past 50 so much of the information that follows on the job considerations is speculative. If you have more information to add, please use the Talk page for this article so I may find the best place to incorporate it. In addition, as the next stages of the level cap increase go into effect some of these considerations may be addressed, and of course you can use gear/food/meds to modify some of the considerations. Always remember that a job's abilities change by level and some are so profound that they change your game play entirely, like Release, Refresh, Shadowbind, etc. Read any job’s page here on Wiki for more specifics.

All of the following information is given under the assumption that you are familiar with the job, either by playing it or at least reading guides elsewhere on this Wiki. The following information is my opinion based on observations and my own reading of the guides and is given as a basis for the "con" range suggested for the jobs. For those jobs where a specific con is not specified (the NM option) assume I mean VT-IT range for normal mobs, if you research the mob before wasting a trip to see if it is strong to your form of damage or capable of blocking your defensive/survival/healing moves, i.e. has silence, amnesia, paralysis, resistance to "fill in the blank", etc. No matter what, always consider that it may be more economical to go after a lower level than those listed unless you have a specific need to go against the toughest prey you can handle. Soloing a VT for 180 XP in a 7 minute fight is not as efficient as killing 6 EP mobs for 40 XP each in the same amount of time since 180<240. Note that all recommendations given are on the basis of maximum rate of return on your time while minimizing the use of consumables (excepting ammo and ninja tools) and are NOT intended as a statement of a job's maximum capabilities; certain activities may be better at a different con, i.e. farming EP- or lower for maximum drops, fighting EM-T+ for maximum skill-ups, etc. Use your own discretion, keeping in mind you are accomplishing nothing if you are dead.
 * a. Bard One of the squishier jobs out there, but with the right sub-job is actually a fairly decent melee with daggers, sword and staves. It is Excellent against elementals or for fighting in areas where elementals are thick as songs are not aggroed, although magic from a sub-job is. Handles adds better than most jobs do because of the high-percentage sleep, Finale is potent against Spikes and buffs. Songs are not interrupted short of a TP move or a spell, either. Absolutely MUST have Echo Drops, does not take damage well and cannot kill fast unless fighting seriously weak mobs. Sub-jobs of choice for solo will be Dancer or Ninja if using daggers or swords, White or Red Mage if using staves; use any other subs and avoid anything over EP. Stick to DC or lower mobs in general and do your homework before going anywhere.
 * b. Beastmaster	Often considered the best soloing job in the game, it hasn’t been until the introduction of Abyssea that this job even started getting consideration for parties outside of specific missions from most non-beastmasters. Sub-job plays a major role in how the job is played, but there isn’t much that it can’t handle. 1-75 this job is usually able to make a living off of charming the surrounding critters and using them against the other critters in the area. In addition, the Beastmaster himself can dish out pretty decent damage with his axe(s). Healing is always an issue and the dreaded mis-charm is the usual means of death, the other being overconfidence. In the higher levels jug pets are the pets of choice (or necessity as everything so far in Abyssea is immune to charm). The most common and effective sub-jobs are dancer, ninja and white mage, with thief and red mage seeing occasional use. Fighting DC-T is where it’s at for this job for highest efficiency although the job is capable of handling IT+ with some luck and a good supply of pets. Unless you are using jugs, camp choice requires the consideration of available pets in addition to the right prey, and both ambient and jug pets should be chosen in consideration of the beast correlation chart.
 * c. Black Mage We’re all about the damage here. Black Mage is the second weakest job in terms of taking a hit but in the top tier in terms of dealing out the damage, if not the most effective. The biggest factor (assuming you have all the spells available at your level) is skill to overcome your prey’s resistance. It requires intelligence on the PLAYER’S part to maximize your performance through proper exploitation of your prey’s weaknesses and the proper management of your MP pool. Tactics vary widely depending on the strength of prey. Weak prey is frequently taken in groups (the train) and hopefully 1-shot by some type of –aga spell. Tougher prey is generally hit by heavier single target spells, then Bind, Sleep or stun are used to keep the prey away from you until you can unleash another nuke. Biggest problem for Black Mage is down-time to recover HP/MP. The most common subs are white and red mage or scholar, and considering that your entire defense is coming from them you should really keep those skills up too. With some means of MP recovery, skill, competence in play and a bit of luck even difficult NMs may be soloed, although the fight will be long. Concentrate on +hMP gear instead of food, or any means of refresh to save the consumables costs while still keeping down-time minimized.
 * d. Blue Mage This job is all about the spell list the player chooses. Having only a limited number of spells in the field, it is planning before you fight that will win the day. Spells are both offensive and defensive in nature and your choice of spells opens the door to additional effects like Auto-refresh-see the Blue Mage section of Wiki for information. Your Blue is also capable of significant damage with their swords and frequently uses them to self skillchain for major damage; with timing and skill they can even Burst on occasion. Blue Mage is mostly used with melee subs, particularly ninja although healer subs like white, red and scholar are common too. Tough and lower is going to be your best bet with this job.
 * e. Corsair This is one of the 3 most expensive jobs to solo in the game. Corsair is more dependent on luck than any other job in the game too. This isn’t to say that there is no skill involved-far from it-but much of the job’s power comes from random dice rolls and it IS a gamble. Their spell-like abilities require the ability to land a Quick Draw (so keeping Magic Acc and Agi at cap is crucial) and like other support role jobs you generally don’t take a hit too well. Melee damage is mediocre but that is what the gun is for. Downtime and expense are the killers here. Common subs are white mage, ninja and thief, warrior and dancer have their fans and a highly-skilled corsair/ranger is just evil… With luck (pun only half intended) this job can solo T and VT mobs and considering the expense/damage ratio it is well worth it to do so, as speed-killing just eats consumables for a loss.
 * f. Dancer The new beast! Seriously, one of the best soloing jobs in the game with nearly uninterruptible curing, self buffing, debuffing and the like abilities, this job can handle pretty-much any mob that can be soloed at all. About the only things that slow a dancer down are paralysis (avoid mobs with ice or shock spikes like the plague), blind and high auto-regen. The only drawback to dancer as a soloist is that for the prey it’s like being beaten to death in a pillow fight; damage is not a dancer’s forte’. Far and away the most common sub-job is ninja, but thief, samurai, Beastmaster, monk and warrior are common, even the healing mage jobs get some situational love here. Like Black Mage and Red Mage, even difficult NMs can be handled, and frequently are, but anything with Feather Tickle, Ice or Shock Spikes is best avoided.
 * g. Dark Knight	Although not often thought of as a great soloist, this job is actually able to do quite well against a lot of enemies. Dark is the weakest of the melees at taking a hit (well, tied for worst with ninja), but only Samurai rival it for damage on melee hits (Sam actually get the DPS nod). However, Dark also has spell abilities to augment their high melee damage output. The absorb spells even allow the dark to buff/debuff in 1 spell. At upper levels Dread Spikes is awesome too. The weakness of this job is undead since they are largely immune to Dark’s spells, have high damage considering Dark’s lousy defense, and resistance to slashing damage. All of the melee subs except dancer seem to be common using Drain to cure and from 82 on red mage can be awesome. A skilled Dark can work T and down fairly reliably as long as they lay off the undead and anything else with dark resistance.
 * h. Dragoon This is currently one of the more popular solo jobs, although over the years it has been off and on due to SE adjustments. Capable of very nice melee damage in itself, it also has a little flying lizard that likes to help out too. This job combo is all about the sub because it is your sub that determines your wyvern’s capabilities. For general soloing what you are after is Healing Breath and that means white, red or blue mage as a sub. Game play for Goons really doesn’t change solo, party or whatever, only the sub of choice to set offensive or defensive wyvern breath. Sub-jobs are as listed above. T and below are your soloing choice with an emphasis on anything weak to piercing weapons.
 * i. Monk If Samurai are the 1 punch KO of the game then Monk is the undisputed king of punches in bunches, killing by accumulation. Their defense isn’t very good, so they get a huge HP pool and the most fun defensive ability out there, Counter. That’s a good thing because their primary defensive ability-Guard-doesn’t seem to work much. Another fun part of playing Monk is spell interruption, hitting as often as they do they can frequently stop a mage or ninja from casting. Their greatest enemy is anything with Spikes damage-a Monk is quite literally able to punch herself to death! They also don’t have much to work with for pulling, and I have occasionally seen a level 90 carrying pebbles when solo (hey, it works). These days the solo sub seems to be dancer, with occasional ninja, warrior or healer mages. Monk is at its best powering through large numbers of weak enemies where its high attack speed keeps the goodies pouring in, or taking out black mages or bards having fun with their puny defense, although a skilled player can certainly handle EM and higher mobs. They also rock against skeletons with their rapid blunt damage, IF they can survive the spikes.
 * j. Ninja Another entry in the top 3 money pits, ninja is a strange mix of vulnerability and tanking power. The key is shadows. With their shadows up a ninja can’t be hit (for the most part) by direct damage; however, once their shadows are stripped, either by melee hits or a single AoE, they don’t take damage particularly well, comparable to a Dark. This is partially offset by some of the best evasion in the game. Like Dark, Ninja also possess some spell-casting ability, although it’s rare to see much ninjitsu outside Utsusemi and your stealth spells being cast. The money sink is that every cast costs you an item and that really adds up over time. Plan to farm and/or craft, ALOT to keep you in business. Your melee damage is only on the upper end of mediocre so don’t expect allot of speed kills either. Soloing is really the time to work on your casting skills and throwing, unless you get an invite to a party with a Pally tank where you can pull and/or DD. Solo sub is usually dancer these days, but warrior and thief see some use, mage subs are very rare. Skilled ninja can be almost as effective a solo as a dancer, but the expense really isn’t worth it; concentrate on EM and lower for a decent balance of speed and economy and don’t leave home without your Echoes.
 * k. Paladin Think of an M1A1 tank… with a BB gun where the cannon should be, that’s Paladin in a nutshell. Nothing takes a hit like a Pally, and they can heal themselves. Nothing pisses off the enemy like a Pally either. However, my bard without songs has been known to out-damage very good Pallys. In other words, don’t expect to be among the solo big boys even if the big boys do die more. Common subs for paladin solo are warrior, ninja and dancer. Paladin/dancer frequently solos stuff up to the VT range, maybe because they like to still be alive fighting the same mob 30 minutes later, but if you want to get anything done aim for DC and lower and just blow through, saving the VT mobs for skilling up.
 * l. Puppetmaster Solo this job is kind of a cross between Blue and Dragoon-it’s all about the spell list, your pet’s spell list to be specific (i.e. frame/head choice, attachments, maneuvers). Your puppet is really the “muscle” of your combo. After you choose your prey, equip your pup to either exploit your prey’s weaknesses or to keep you healthy (or use the “red mage” pup to satisfy both). There are solo Puppetmaster guides on the job’s page you may wish to consult for specifics. As to your job in soloing, you are kind of like a Monk, but without the HP to back it up, your gear choice sucks-especially your weapons choice-as you are confined to mage gear and the less efficient HTH weapons, and your job is to deal a bit of damage and give your puppet commands without overloading it. Your subjob should be chosen on the basis of your puppet set-up, i.e. if “Clank” isn’t healing you, you might want to do something about that, but /war, /nin, /dnc, /sch, /whm and /rdm are all clearly viable, the choice is situational. Pick your battles wisely, as the ability to change puppets allows you to tackle varied prey, and your sub choice can have a huge influence. Also, skill your Guard skill at every opportunity to maximize your tanking role. Most Puppetmasters handle T mobs fairly routinely.
 * m. Ranger This is another of those high damage/ultra squishy jobs; it is also the last member of the big 3 in terms of expense. As the name implies Ranger is at its best working from a distance, tricky to do when solo—excepting worms, Ranger’s bread and butter. Ranger also benefit more than most classes form your NPC, set it to Stalwart Shield and it opens up a whole new batch of prey while allowing you to work the "sweet spot", at least until you take hate from your fellow. Ranger is pretty self-explanatory solo, with the exception of NMs, another Ranger specialty. Ranger also has Wide Scan, so may solo widely separated targets without having to rely on luck to find them. Due to their lack of defense, Rangers almost exclusively solo with a ninja subjob for shadows AND due to the bonuses from a 2nd weapon, dancer is not as viable due to (hopefully) a LACK of melee contact. With skills at/near cap Ranger can solo quite powerful NMs, healing via Bloody Bolts, so undead need a bit of caution.
 * n. Red Mage This is another of the “big boy” jobs for soloing. Red is a jack of all trades job in that it can nuke (black mage are better), heal (white mage are better), enfeeble (nobody does it better), buff (arguably the best as well) and even melee if they feel like it. Advice-you may want to bring meds when you take on a big NM; that’s it. Sub-jobs are either ninja or any of the mage subs, primarily to boost MP, but also for either Reraise from white or Sleepaga from black, and dark at high levels for stun (at level 90 black works for that, too). Again, difficult NMs may be soloed by Red, if they suffer at anything it would be speed-killing weak stuff because they might die faster than Red can regain MP.
 * o. Samurai CHEESEBURGERKETCHUP—HI-YAH!!! The melee damage kings, mediocre defense. The general idea here is to kill SO quick that your prey doesn’t have a chance to swing back. Sam is another job that doesn’t alter their play much to solo (hack and slash until one of you dies), but gear may get tweaked a bit to boost defense or evasion, or you may just stick with a TP gain set. Sam lives and dies by the Weapon skill/skillchain, so study the Self skillchain possibilities (like I needed to tell a Sam that, yeah…). Solo subjobs are usually ninja or dancer, but I’ve also seen warrior, thief, ranger, dark and red mage used; adjust based on your prey. Generally EM and lower is where you want to go with Sam, but T is certainly not out of the question if you go into the fight with TP.
 * p. Scholar Weird job, sort of like changing jobs in the field between black or white mage as the need arises. This is another job that can be killed by a light sneeze. To be honest, I never really see this soloing-probably because everyone that has it has something else that works better as well. All that being said, it can’t nuke quite as well as a black mage or heal quite as well as a white mage or do both quite as well as a red mage. What they can do is target an enemy’s elemental weakness with their ability to simulate weather. Sub either a mage sub to boost MP or ninja to boost your survival. Concentrate on DC and lower.
 * q. Summoner Another pet job and potentially a great solo artist in the hands of a great player. Terrific damage from pets with additional spike damage, buffs or healing via Bloodpacts. This job has 3 major weaknesses; MP (luckily you start with a truckload); your pets are the weakest of the pet jobs in taking damage, with a long recast to pop the next one; and even a black mage takes a hit better than you do. That being said, Summoner solos very well, especially in higher levels as Avatar perpetuation gear becomes available. Solo subs are almost exclusively mage jobs to boost the MP, RARELY a ninja sub. Summoners that I see tend to solo in 2 ways, letting pet melee DC and lower, or dishing it out against T+ mobs via Bloodpacts, even IT with your 2hour.
 * r. Thief This one solos from greed, not need (well, that and the glut of thieves on the server makes it damn near impossible to get a party). About the only time a thief isn’t de facto farming is fighting Evil weapons, and that’s only because they don’t drop anything. Due to all of the farming thief is also in sort-of a constant skill-up. The biggest advice for a thief is to bring inventory space and know the markets. Thief generally subs ninja or dancer, they may sub ranger for NM camping. Unless they are targeting something specific or capping a skill, thief is usually better off speed killing DC and under and selling drops and beastmen are a personal favorite because they also drop Gil.
 * s. Warrior The disregarded job. This was the original tank job but it lost its job to paladin and ninja, lost DD to samurai and their ilk, and pulling is taken by thief, bard and dancer. In point of fact, they are usually treated like a placeholder DD job—nothing could be further from the truth. This is a melee DD with the widest choice of weapons and armor, dealing major damage and actually having the defense to deal with the consequences. Their ranged attacks are nothing to sneeze at either, and with a decent sub they make a very good soloer. No major changes to play solo, just pound stuff until one of you dies. The usual subs are either ninja or dancer; red mage is also a viable choice. Best used on EM and lower mobs via speed killing.
 * t. White Mage This is a good soloer. They have decent damage from clubs, can use shields and have defense 2nd only to a Paladin, a good thing considering all the hate a cure pulls. Reraise means that mistakes can be handled better than any other job, repose can handle a single add fairly easily, DD spells are generally not to be relied upon. They excel against undead, but their primary DD spell—banish—is wasted because it strips undead resistance to non-blunt damage and White only uses blunt damage; conversely, healing magic hurts undead (an excellent way to skill healing/divine). Subs are generally ninja for shadows/dual wield, a mage job for MP boost (and refresh) or dancer, especially after 50 against mobs that can be Aspired. EM or lower is your best bet, with the occasional T if you sub ninja; just pray the MP holds out.

A Word About Sub-Jobs
There are 4 sub-jobs that are probably the best for any solo, at least once you've got about 10-20 levels under your belt. Note that there is NEVER an excuse for using an under-leveled sub, but at least if you are solo you have no one to blame but yourself for the decision to play with a "gimped" sub-job:


 * Beastmaster Any non-tank melee job can use beast without much trouble, but laying in charisma+ or Light+ gear is highly advised. Your pet will probably hold hate most of the time. The worry is that you won't charm as well as a Beast main. The popular theory is that Beast needs to be at least as high level as your main job to be effective; personally, I have no idea but it can't hurt. Until level 70 you won't have Release, so you will probably be using your pet to the death or zoning to come back and charm its re-pop. This does mean wherever you decide to go needs viable pets, so undead and beastmen strongholds are generally out. You can't skill your defense very much with this sub-job as your pet will usually have hate. You also can't use jugs, but as they would more than likely pop at the level of your sub-job that's probably to the good.


 * Dancer This allows any job to heal itself in the field, both through Drain Samba and Waltzes, and short of paralysis there isn't much that can stop it, adding greatly to survivability (but you will never gain the survivability from ?/dnc as you have from dnc/?, so you will need to keep the reduced healing power in mind). You do sacrifice some weaponskill damage as your TP will be going to healing and such. Starting at 40 you also get access to Dual Wield and Steps, both of which can be a great help when solo, although there is nothing stopping you from still using two-handed weapons or a shield if that's better for your main job. The only Samba that affects undead is Haste Samba, but feel free to fight them, just don't waste TP on any other Samba. If you plan on doing your damage at a distance you may want to consider another sub-job, especially when playing mages as your TP is usually low.


 * Ninja This used to be the melee sub-job you had to have until Dancer came out and it still has its place; it is still a must-have to most people when NOT soloing. At 20 it will give any job Dual Wield (no benefit if using 2-hand weapons) and at 24 Utsusemi, increasing your melee damage output and your survivability a good deal. It will take a bite out of your wallet for the tools. As you rise in level you get access to some other ninjitsu as well, allowing you to stealth yourself and some enfeebling, but don't plan on doing much offensively with your ninjitsu as prey will generally resist it due to your halved ninjitsu skill. It is a viable means of pulling if you don't have ranged attacks on your main job. Not particularly good when skilling your defensive skills as the shadows will cost you opportunities.


 * Scholar For mages this is an awesome sub. The MP boost is excellent, and it opens up spells you wouldn't have from your main and increases the effectiveness of all spells. There is even an MP regain and it doesn't saddle you with a half-strength avatar like a summoner sub-job. Unfortunately, most players don't level scholar immediately when it becomes available-at least to the level cap on subjobs (currently 45, eventually 49), and have to depend on a different mage sub. It has utility for other jobs based on strategy, ex. Pup/sch using with your blm for a sleep/nuke strategy, because /sch your skill is still high enough to land without much resistance (if you have the skill in the 1st place).


 * Red Mage From level 80 onwards this sub seems to get the nod from most mages for 2 things, Convert and Refresh. The only downside is that the MP Pool is smaller than the other mage jobs (except maybe blue), but with keeping Refresh up pretty much constantly it tends to equal out. Just be VERY careful when you convert solo; dying is the greatest of all time wasters.

A Word About Gear, etc.
If you've read other guides you've no doubt seen a concentration on gear. If you've been paying attention so far you may notice a lack of emphasis on it here. Most authors tell you about all the gear that is an absolute must-have for your job. In my opinion, there is only 1 true must-have piece of gear in the game-a Puppetmaster must-have an animator. Everything else in the game is simply a matter of choice or personal preference.

This is not to say it's "NEKKID TIME" on all of the server (even if a naked day would be funny); but you need to address your gear and what-not by yourself. Now, how does soloing impact your gear choice? That depends on both your job/sub choice and your goal.

Obviously, anything that requires a specific piece of equipment means bring it (weapons trial, skill-up). You may need a means of pulling and this usually means a ranged weapon; skilling shield means a shield; doing parry means using a weapon. Beyond that, many things are debatable, ex. I've been leveling hand-to-hand and guard recently on my puppetmaster and my fastest skill-ups have occured with no weapons, most likely due to the higher attack rate, but some may argue that I'm better off with some claws that have +acc. See other parts of this guide or the individual pages for a specific activity or piece of equipment for more information.

As to the rest of your gear, for many players simply using your base gear set may be sufficient. Remember the "do-it-all" section above though. By that I mean that solo it may be more efficient to address your main job's shortcomings via a combination of your sub-job and appropriate gear and consumables. The need to do this increases as your level increases and the gap between your main and sub-job widens as this leaves a gap between job abilities-there is a huge difference between 1st having access to Cure III at level 21 versus 42 in terms of your survival and downtime as an example. Again, many people will say "you must do _____", but there is no "must" as far as I'm concerned, just "nice". There is no "you must sub ninja" if you haven't unlocked the job yet, and so you better think of something else.

There are a couple of items that do seem tailor-made for addressing these concerns however and you may want to look into getting them.
 * +HP/+HPP gear Nothing keeps you alive better than it taking an extra whack or 2 to kill you. Taking less time to get your health back doesn't hurt either.
 * +MP/+MPP gear If you need MP to stay alive and do the job then more is usually a good thing. Taking less time to get your power back is a good thing, and remember kids, MP heals faster than HP.
 * Your RSE gear All RSE gear (except the level 1 stuff) is designed to overcome weaknesses in your chosen race. Those weaknesses are generally more evident when you solo-a Taru black mage who fails to stick their bind spell is about to have to melee and that's usually not a good thing, for the Taru at least. You should consider putting in some or all of your RSE (if you have it) to overcome any deficiencies, but you don't want to weaken your main job to the point of being ineffective, so really think hard about this.
 * Your AF gear Alot of people have commented on hundreds of pages about how this is almost all crap; alot of people used to believe the earth was the center of the universe, and the same percentage is right about both. AF gear is specifically designed on a per job basis to either strengthen something a job is already designed to do or to counteract a weakness of the job in the same way RSE counteracts a racial weakness. Oh, it's free, too. What AF gear is NOT is the absolute best piece for that slot at that level. News Flash! No piece is! All the Attack+ in the world means precisely Squat when you need to survive a Self-Destruct for 3700 damage on a level 59 warrior. Your AF gear is a decent set to get you through some levels you are going to tear through as fast as you can to reach cap without ripping a 6,000,000 gil hole in your wallet to do so.
 * Emperyean Weapons You can augment these weapons (within the limits of the available choices) to boost your style of game play. In addition, they give you something to do, hopefully while accomplishing something else, too. Coupled with merits and choices amongst all the gear you have available to you, this is the best way to accomplish playing the game "Your Way".

A. Holy Cow, That’s Allot of Cabbage!
Farming doesn’t mean growing stuff to harvest in FFXI parlance, that’s Gardening and it’s handled elsewhere on Wiki; Farming means to kill for a drop. This doesn’t mean no XP, skill-ups, or trial progress, but your GOAL is the drop, and the income it provides.

Farming comes in 3 types, farming for Gil (killing beastmen), farming for saleables, and farming for crafting materials (possibly sold, possibly for your own use). Related is NM camping, which will be handled in a sub-section of this. This guide isn’t going to tell you WHAT you should farm (well, except beastmen for Gil), but questions you should be asking.

Farming is an exercise in math. There are 2 equations that need to be solved and then an average at the end. Even then, there are no rules, just some basic guidelines to look at. Much of the information you need to do this at the best rate of return is not publicly available. The VERY worst part is that someone else may arrive at the same answer as you, making farming your chosen item impossible, because they beat you to it.

The first equation is your effectiveness/prey’s strength=what is the most I can handle. This doesn’t mean that “it cons DC, therefore I can take it fairly quick” because con doesn’t cover everything. Your job’s capabilities vs. your prey’s capabilities are what we are actually talking about here. Say you are a ranger/ninja and you want bone chips to make arrowheads; you don’t want to be fighting EM skeletons if you can avoid it because they resist piercing damage and you can’t heal yourself, but spamming holy bolts against EP and lower is certainly viable (my apologies to any rangers out there if I’m wrong in that assessment). You actually need to do this calculation for every potential prey you consider.

The second equation is even more complex. Factoring in the item(s)’ price at sale (either NPC or AH), projected drop rate (how many whatever do I need to kill to see one), how quickly it sells (instant for NPC, to how often between sales on AH) vs. how fast can I kill whatever, how much is it going to cost me per kill in consumables (ammo, food and meds), and how often do I die in the process; the answer you arrive at should be “how much gil can I expect based on my time spent (or gil I can save if farming for self-consumption)”. So, if I’m farming X which NPCs for 500 (and less on AH), has a 20% drop rate, and sells immediately (1) vs. 3 minutes a kill (factoring in recovery time and travel) (20), a per kill cost of 43 (food and ammo) and 1 death every 60 kills we get (500 x .2 x1)/(20 x 43 x.016)=43.6 gil/hour. I know my math is wrong here but regardless it’s a lousy farm prey.

The averaging I was speaking of earlier is based on your best effort vs. your probable yield= is whatever worth your time? More often than not the answer will be no, UNLESS there is some other benefit to make it worth it. For example, if you can skill-up or satisfy trial kills and get within about 80% recoupment of your costs doing so it probably IS worth your time to farm whatever.

Now, what to farm? This is impossible for a guide like this to answer. Anything that NPCs well SE will kill the sales price on to keep RMT from homing in on it; necessary, but it doesn’t help those of us who are actually PLAYING in terms of income. Realism will keep some items from dropping too low however, so that’s the niche you need to exploit if going the NPC route. The AH is really your measure for good or bad for most things. Nothing on the AH should ever reach what an NPC will SELL the item for; if it does jump servers because you are playing with idiots. The exception is guild NPCs that might only sell 2 saruta cotton balls (as an example) in a week. Now, just because the item you have to sell goes for 1 million each doesn’t mean it’s a good item, it might only sell once every 3 months. By the same token something that only sells for 3k might be worth your time because 70 sell per day. Flooding the market and undercutting are huge factors, too. If beehive chips have climbed to 20k/stack it might be a great time to farm them unless the rest of the server realized it too. Conversely, if beehive chips have stabilized at 20k/stack you don’t want someone (including you) to sell them at 18k just to get a faster sale. Craftables are even more volatile; all the ground wasabi in the world is useless if there is no fish or rice to make sushi, behemoth hides are worthless if no one is leveling leather in that range, you get the idea.

What you need to do for any item is look up its sales history and its NPC sales price, and keep looking it up on occasion. Prices fluctuate all the time based on what people are selling, what they are using, what time of the week it is (prices frequently fall on weekend due to more farmers) and sometimes for no discernable reason at all. There are also advanced techniques to manipulate the market, but I think most violate the ToS according to SE. The only one I know is ok is hoarding (stockpiling stuff on a mule for sale when the supply drops or demand spikes), but if you pick wrong that stuff may be on your mule for years. You might also hoard to level crafting—buy whatever you need whenever it’s low so you can do a major crafting session on Firesday and the full moon as an example.

B. Doo-dah, Doo-dah.
NM camping is still a part of the game, even with SE doing all they can figure out to get rid of RMT. However, a lot of the market has died out and in other cases SE has killed the drop itself. Some Gil drops that used to be excellent are now Rare/Exclusive, the drop rate is miserable on others, and some are superseded by newer items. It still has its allure though and for some it’s simply about getting the title. You may also need the kill for an Empyreal Weapon trial. You need to ask “why do I want to kill this thing?” The answer is somewhat important.

First off, some common elements of NM hunting:
 * Patience is a virtue. NMs are only up when the rules for it say they can be up, and they are usually area spawns (excepting the Force Spawn NMs), so you may have to satisfy its pop conditions and then you still have to FIND it, one of the reasons Beastmaster or Ranger is so common camping NMs.
 * NMs are more powerful than other mobs in the area; they may have different behavior and different abilities so studying up on it is a VERY good idea.
 * Competition is a factor. Not every NM is in demand anymore, but for those that are getting claim is crucial. Have your fastest hate-generating ability ready at all times when camping; you may even need to claim it while you are already engaged if it pops because if you don’t you get to wait through its re-pop cycle.

The Title/bragging rights people don’t really need a lot of advice. Those killing for vengeance for an earlier defeat want to follow this advice as well. Unless your level gap is insanely huge the key to soloing an NM is usually your consumables. Food for boosts, meds for recovery during the fight and any available debuff item to make it manageable are your focus. Do your research as well. Now here’s the kicker; now that you’ve beaten whatever nobody is actually impressed and you may actually see your reputation go DOWN for doing it if it is an NM that people actually need.


 * "_______ NM is so easy to solo as a ___/___" but you keep dying to it. You probably aren't doing anything wrong. Most of the people who write in to say how easy it is to solo ANY NM aren't writing in for informational purposes but to brag about their character. If you read the lengthier posts you will see that they have 3 of the best Atmas, fully-capped skills, fully upgraded empyrean weapons and probably a top-flight gear set. They also often have a load of temp items. For MOST characters where building a character is a work in progress (getting gear, skill-ups, etc.) any "easy to solo" NM is going to be considerably more difficult than posted.

Killing for a drop is often frustrating. If you are killing to use it yourself the item is often useless by the time you are able to beat the NM that drops it, so be prepared to use a higher level job to kill it and do so in advance of leveling the job(s) you want the drop for. Whether killing for sale or your own use however, most desirable drops have a drop rate that is well below 100%; you may be getting to know your NM very well (I myself was 0/200+ on Jaggedy-Earred Jack’s drop before I gave up and bought it). Posted drop rates are a reflection of odds, they are not a guarantee. Either way, if an item is highly desired expect competition, some illegitimate (people camping Argus to force you to buy the one they have on AH for millions instead of a free Rare/Exclusive item, etc).

Lastly is killing NMs for your Empyrean Weapon trial. Most of these trials require you to kill the same NM multiple times, sometimes it simply keeps score, others you have to turn in a set number of drops from the NM. For the most part these are not the most in-demand NMs—except among people on the same trial. The same problems pertain as above, but you want guaranteed kills. First advice is team up with people needing the same NM whenever possible, turning competition into allies. Otherwise, come over-prepared in terms of your consumables and job choices i.e. you may never sub red mage with your main job, but for this particular NM it is the way to go, etc. Do whatever you have to do to minimize the number of attempts you need.

I Want to Fly Like an Eagle…
Well if you want to fly through this game you’re going to need skill, as much as you can manage. The game comes with a ton of different skills and they all level separately. Some you can combine in 1 session but for most there is no overlap for the solo player. You can also do some skilling up as part of your leveling but not that much the way the game is currently played—most people having to level via level sync until Abyssea levels (75+) and suddenly facing massive skill gaps.

Skill increases your chance of survival in several ways: offensive skills let you kill faster, lessening the hits you take; defensive skills lower the hits you take or the damage from them; offensive magic skills both increase damage and help overcome your target’s resistance; healing skill allows your spells to heal more damage, etc. The point is you want to close that skill gap as quickly as possible. A skill-up party is the preferred option, although it may not be viable for defensive skills unless you are skilling on a tank job or some other hate magnet, but they are rarely available these days, so you will frequently be soloing. There are guides to skilling MOST of the skills mentioned here on Wiki so I’m going to just summarize a few basic strategies.

A general note on skilling up is to keep careful track of your progress and rate of skill up. The two must be watched in tandem. In the face of a large skill gap you should see a very rapid rate of skill-up, even on EP mobs. When the frequency of skill-ups or the size falls off you will need to switch to more difficult prey. If you have looked up your skill cap at your level you will also know when to try to step up the difficulty (I would say within 10-15 levels of cap for offensive skills, 25 levels for defensive, but whatever you prefer). By the same token, if fighting more difficult prey in hopes of larger skill-ups there is a "point of diminishing returns". This is reached when you miss frequently, are resisted often, hit for very low damage, fail to evade often, etc. Based on your knowledge of your job you should have a sense of when that point is reached (and it does vary from job to job). While you can attempt to remedy this with food and/or some gear, the most economical way is generally to shift to weaker prey until that skill-gap narrows, especially if you have to burn consumables just to function or to use the skill (ammo, ninja tools, food, etc.).

In my opinion, skill is the most neglected area in the game by most players. Obviously, it is unrealistic to expect every player to have capped skill in every category available to them. When you literally have nothing better to do, skilling up should be your activity of choice, it will only benefit you and every party you ever enter. This is especially important with the introduction of Abyssea and the weakness targeting required for top-flight play there. Currently, a full alliance is less common than it was when abyssea rolled out; smaller parties or even soloers targeting seal NMs or farming pops for later are very common now. Hitting those weaknesses to increase your yields requires either a wide range of skills or a tremendous run of luck; you may even need to try to hit that weakness off of your sub-job! That is why skill is so important, even on your lesser used skills-it increases your chances of successfully landing it against tougher mobs even if the skill is halved by coming from your sub-job. Warriors are frequently asked to try a variety of weapons to process red !!, and personally when I am on my bard main I will use staff to take the load off the warriors. When beastmaster main I frequently /bard to process threnodies and I am in the process of practicing using my /ninja for ninjitsu yellow !! triggers. As skilling up can generally be combined with any other solo activity there really isn't an excuse NOT to skill up those lesser skills.

Grounds of Valor seems to have an adjusted skill-up rate that is amazing. There is a "Prowess" that adds to "combat skill-up" to further augment that skill-up rate (getting it is random, and the effects only last as long as you stay in zone) that would be well worth getting. There is also an item from caskets in Zehrun and probably other GoV areas that adds to skill-up rates even when not doing GoV called a Prousse Ring that is highly reccommended. Your NPC fellow can now be gotten to 85, making it a viable assistant during skill-up, see above. Finally, doing trial weaps is a wonderful time to work on skill gaps. The changes to Dynamis (not dreamlands) make this also a good place to work on skills.


 * a. Offensive weapon skills. Find EP- mobs and plow through, generally against the highest defense and evasion you can find. As the skill gap narrows seek out EM or even T mobs (if you can beat them) and just keep pounding away. Low-delay low-damage weapons let you concentrate on skills. Yes, you can reach cap on DC prey now, however my observation is that the rate of skill-up increase (while improved) is still better with tougher prey. Best to strike a balance between getting skill-ups and not being able to connect, which is why you want to avoid prey above T, but EM-T seems to yield the highest rate of skillups/attempt. I do still recommend if you have a LARGE skill gap that you power through EP until you narrow the gap. Sell the drops and use it to stockpile food/consumables to use when you have the gap narrowed. The exception is ranged attack; the ammo is expensive so you want the most skill-ups you can get at the lowest cost; burn your dog-bolts/arrows/free garbage you get from scavenge, and when you are out use the cheapest ammo your job allows until you've narrowed that gap, but always fight the tougher prey (worms if available using ranger tactics, or the T-zone line tactic). If you don't mind the expense, you can switch to easier prey using cheap ammo with low delay weapons, especially if the prey drops a sellable commodity or something that you can use, i.e. I like to garden so seeds/cuttings are a favorite, selling the treant bulbs unless I need to make acid bolts.
 * b. Defensive skills. Put on the worst gear you can find (yes, the worst) and still live, then go pick a fight with something with great accuracy that hits like a feather duster, monks are a great choice here. You also do NOT want to be dealing damage to your playmate so no good weapons please. Above all, don’t forget your shield if you are leveling shield (trust me, I’ve seen it….), and just forget you even have shadows, avoid pets too if they take hate (except puppets, as they need skill-ups too). This is actually the best way to skill defense if you are a job that can’t hold hate against a tank. Still being tested post update, but the skill-up rate still seems much slower than offensive skill-ups. A note about Evasion and defensive skills-Evasion seems to proc MUCH more often than the other skills, and when it procs it blocks any chance at skilling shield/parry/guard. For this reason, it is generally best when skilling the other defensive skills to focus on evasion down gear and food. I'm not a fan of Agility down as much because it may interfere with other things you are trying to skill.
 * c. Offensive magic. A lot like the offensive weapons with one exception, if you can find T+ mobs near a zone line run in and pop a spell then zone, rinse and repeat. Otherwise, use low-level spells and use them a lot. The prey of choice is worms, stepping into casting range to unload a spell and immediately stepping out to avoid a counter. You can also fight enemy black mages and rangers as they won’t approach until you’ve taken 30% HP off of them (then zone and repeat on the re-pop). Note that Beastmen usually pop in groups, so this is also an excellent chance to skill your sleep skill on the adds before you zone.
 * d. Healing magic skill. Nothing fancy here, step outside your MH and cast cure on yourself until your run out of MP, step in to refill your MP and repeat until the suicidal urges are almost irresistible. Enhancing is the same except use a bar-element spell. Any of these have the added advantage of annoying everyone passing through the Mog House zone. Note you can also level healing magic by casting cures OFFENSIVELY on undead, but be ready to zone because they will hit back; this is MUCH more effective post-update. If using the zone technique you can also skill divine this way, via repose or banish/holy
 * e. Dark skill. Sleep stuff. What, you want a novel here? Ok, see the next entry, too.
 * f. Enfeebling magic. Cast anything that doesn’t inflict damage on dolphins in sea (paralyze or slow or something). Repose will level divine this way too. Flash may work as well. Once past that level you are kind of stuck with whatever you can do while farming or in parties, so don't neglect to use it. I would also suggest using an enfeeble to pull when solo, rdm get to pull certain prey in Abyssea via silence.
 * g. Summoning skill. Step outside a town and just summon as in d. above. You get to rest MP to break-up the monotony, enjoy. Once you reach Abyssea levels equip a refresh or conserve MP Atma and do as above WITHOUT zoning, doing ops/ quests while summoning so as not to completely waste your time. Note that you can do this with the instant MP refill (when elemental siphon isn't up) by doing it in Al zabhi when Beseiged is not going on just outside the Mog House. Sub red mage at upper levels to extend time between ducking into the MH.
 * h. Ninjitsu. Cast elemental ninjitsu while farming. Either that or just cast Utsusemi allot, but you’re just wasting money that way. Ninjas are recommended to level their ninjitsu while farming, as every cast costs you money, farm for cash OR the materials to make more tools.
 * i. Bard skills. Sleep dolphins, 1st with a horn, then a harp until it doesn’t give skill no more. Then go stand like a lump anywhere with a lot of people, run through your Carols and relieve your boredom by telling the people who ask you to stop or take it elsewhere to get stuffed. Bard songs skill up VERY fast used offensively in end-game; sleep is still your primary skill-up method, but cycling Threnody to yellow "!!" in parties is good too. Solo this is not as effective, but can be adapted; as with ranged attack and the zone line pull you can cast at the range limit and flux out, or work on worms. You will lose XP, but you can also use RR songs followed by a Horde lullaby in bastion; if you have abyssites of lenity You might actually GAIN some XP if the NPCs are beating the attackers. DO NOT forget to switch between instruments to cap wind AND string.
 * j. Blue Magic. You get a crack at this on every cast, meaning no matter what you are doing you are in a skill-up state. If you don't want to fight (whatever, it's your character) then I suppose you can just follow the healing method, using a blue magic cure or buff on yourself outside the MH and zoning to replenish your MP. I really don't know that much about Blue, if any want to chime in on this, see the talk page.

Questing
This one is wide open, and there isn’t much advice to give other than BE FLEXIBLE! To be sure, not all quests can be soloed and this is by design. The good news is that for most quests you can take your level 90 job (if you have one) and beat them relatively easily, as SE removed MOST of the level-capped quest battles.

You may want to do some repeatable quests for gil or certain drops, possibly fame as well (Avatar Prime fights come to mind). Other quests are for progress in certain story arcs. With the advent of Synthetic Atma (see the Atma page) completion is being rewarded now with extra power in Abyssea. You may simply be doing them for the individual quest rewards (like access to Toramai Canal through Windhurst, a gear drop for a new job you wish to level, etc).

Of course, the big thing everyone is trying to complete would be their AF3 seals upgrade. This is best done in a group if at all possible as most jobs have difficulty soloing NMs in Abyssea, at least without a large number of temp items, but NMs is your best rate of return on a seals/attempt ratio. However, most of the quests that reward with seals CAN be soloed, including those requiring you to farm some item to complete. The biggest favor you can do yourself in this regard is to have more than 1 level 90 job completed to let you choose the job with the best chance of survival against a particular mob (low chance of getting a seal and then only a chance of that seal being what you need).

Abyssea
Abyssea is its own area with (somewhat) its own rules. Before you decide to just “saddle-up” and go beat on some Abyssea mobs you might want to think about it. People solo Abyssea for 3 reasons-maybe 4, or a combination of them, to straight XP, to farm, and to kill NMs (this is actually farming as well, but the play is so different it will be addressed separately), and maybe to work on a weapons trial.

XP
Abyssea XP is geared towards at a minimum the party and more often the alliance, it simply isn’t that fast solo. You need to build lights, in certain ways, to make for good XP. The chain is a huge part of the XP calculation in Abyssea, but the climb is actually quite small compared to what it is outside Abyssea-especially since they doubled the XP outside, and I have yet to see a job in Abyssea that can equal the kill rate of a decent party/alliance. If you do manage to get your speed up or if enough people are killing the same prey as you they will quickly start spawning at higher and higher levels, and can become very dangerous.

Your XP rings and other boosts don’t work here either. Personally, I wouldn’t even think of attempting it without at least relic/salvage quality gear, at/near cap empyrean weapons or the like, a substantial XP buffer, some of the better Atmas and decent abyssites. I also wouldn’t bother unless I had stones to burn; oh yeah, those things, you’re on a time limit here.

Time is going to be an issue for you at any time; partys often make special efforts to farm time extension chests to minimize stone usage, but this is much more difficult to do solo, especially as most jobs are not really capable of getting the right light balance to make these chests drop with any frequency. By frequency, I mean a percentage rate-if you can get 1/10 of blue chests to have them you are lucky, and solo you’ll be lucky to get blue chests on 50% of your kills. Just as an added kicker, every time you zone to reset your time you get to start all over on your lights.

All that being said, solo is a viable way to do both Bastion and Dominion Ops/fights. While Time will be a concern, the XP gain is so high that it off-sets burning stones (depending on how quick you are going through them outside soloing) making this justifiable. Bastion isn't that popular, not because it's a bad system, but because the XP rate in Dominion is so much faster that Bastion is largely abandoned. However, Bastion DOES give you the option of 1 Op per hour with a chance at a free seal (random); in addition, Bastion is the only way to get some AF3 gear, so you will need SOME points.

Farming, Aby-style
If you go into Abyssea to farm its going to be for pop items, quest items and the like. Regular drops can be achieved faster, easier and more efficiently elsewhere for anything that drops from that mob type and it won’t cost you stones. In fact, the only reasons I could see for farming regular drops in Abyssea is to use Atma of Dread to boost Treasure Hunter, or to combine it with another activity-XP, skill, etc-or to kill time between Bastion battles. However, there are a few items that drop only in abyssea because the mobs only exist there, and some of them are worth farming, either for personal consumption (like quests, etc.) or for sale.

Farming for pop and quest items is handled much the same as it is outside Abyssea, essentially you simply keep killing until you find your desired drop. Pop items generally only allow you to carry one, quest items can be carried in multiples. Note that I’m only speaking of what I would call tier 1 NMs, tier 2 NMs generally require pop items (whether real or key items) gained from tier 1 NMs. The advantage to farming in Abyssea is that you have access to your Atmas, which should-if chosen correctly-make you more efficient at killing. However, this is off-set by the fact that if you are having any success the mobs you are farming will repop at more difficult levels until they overcome this advantage.

Farming for gold chest drops is not something I personally would recommend solo, and most of the reasons are listed in the XP section. Lights, speed and the like are all extremely hard to achieve solo to even target gold chests. In addition, in my experience Treasure Hunter has no effect on frequency/quality of chest drops (but there are some abyssites that do). If you do get them, the distribution is random of what drops. You stand a very good chance of getting temp items-which you may already have or may be useless for your jobs, consumables, gear with random augments (generally NPCs for decent amounts), scrolls (which can be worth a ton), and the all-important AF3 feet. For things you don’t need, the non-exclusive are generally to sell (bazaar scrolls while in Abyssea, consider AH after you leave) but for AF3 feet it is simply good karma to /shout and offer them to whoever replies-you will need to invite them to party briefly BEFORE you pop the chest. The golden rule, they may /tell you if they get seals/feet YOU need.

NMs
This is where soloing in my opinion generally gets to be worth it. However, soloing NMs WILL NOT be as effective as a full party, PERIOD! The reason for this is the “!!” proc issue. Hitting the weakness of an NM increases the chances of drops/key items/Atma, and no job is capable of hitting every possible trigger, so luck will play a big part in your success or failure. In addition, different jobs will approach specific NMs in different ways-look up the specific NMs to see specific tactics for your job, check the talk/testimonials page, not the job’s page.

This being said, as drops are mostly known for all NMs, it is possible to target a narrower prize pool than general farming. The reason to solo (other than bragging rights and the occasional skill-up) is to have 1st choice on drops; if your usual Abyssea group is anything like mine there may be 8 people ahead of you in line for drops for thief feet as an example, but if you get them solo those 8 people don’t enter into the equation (if they do, find a different group because your leaders suck so bad they shouldn’t be in charge of a game of tic-tac-toe let alone an LS-what you do solo is your own risk, so it’s your own reward). Unfortunately unlike as in farming, if you get something Rare/Exclusive you can’t use you can't /shout for that whole karma thing because their drops are not from chests (although you may get a chest drop as well), for this to work you would need to be in at least a duo.

NMs are handled in 2 ways, a straight fight or a “brew”. Which you do depends on what you are after. The straight-up fight is generally the better option if you need something the NM has. You attempt to proc the appropriate “!!” weakness for the drop you are after with every option available to you on your job; once you are CERTAIN you can’t try anything else, you pull out the stops and try your kill-you may even “brew” if the mob is especially difficult. Don’t forget, it may be in your best interest to invite someone else to try other “!!” triggers if you were unable to hit them solo. Assuming you win, congratulations. General advice, stockpile temp items-you may not need them on this fight but you will eventually and you really can’t go shopping mid-fight solo.

However, you may just need the win-at least right now-so you may choose to “brew” right from the start. To “brew” is to use a Primeval Brew, a temp item that can be purchased for 2,000,000 (200,000 if you’ve completed the quest line) cruor that boosts everything you do by insane amounts, for a period of time. READ UP ON YOUR NM!!! Many NMs that are commonly brewed have the capacity to be healed by your attacks under certain conditions, and that usually means your death and reacquisition of whatever pops are needed. Even without getting the “!!” trigger it is possible-but not likely-to get worthwhile drops and the like from an NM, but mostly you brew to get a win.

Trials
Sometimes the best place to find prey that work for a trial is in Abyssea; for the NM trials it may be the only place. As always, the recommendation is to find a helpful group, but sometimes you just can’t. In that case the actual advice is as above in the farming or NM sections. For regular mobs, just kill, doing whatever you need to do to satisfy the trial, but be aware there IS no weather in Abyssea for elemental trials. For the NMs, treat them as NMs, but your success is paramount-do whatever you have to do to stay alive and see the monster dead. If that means popping a brew, so be it if you can’t wait for a group. Luckily, the drop needed to satisfy the trial condition is usually a high-if not 100%-drop. Weapon skill trials can-of course-be satisfied whether solo or in a group, as long as you are not the puller or healer for a group in which case you should simply be too busy if you are doing your job. Make sure your prey DOES satisfy your trial; I wasted a few minutes killing Eruca with no progress before I learned that only actual crawlers worked for one of my dagger trials.

Jobs
Ok, I’m going to step on some toes here again…; the good news is that I don’t actually care if I do. Write your own guide if you know so much! There are a lot of jobs that simply aren’t generally worth the trouble of soloing in Abyssea, with the only thing they really excel at being burning through your stones. Rather than list those, I’m going to list the ones that excel at soloing here, based on direct observation, my own play, and reliable testimonials throughout Wiki, with the occasional commentary. Most of the excluded jobs are right back in the mix with as little as a duo, and are generally not listed solo only because of an inability to heal fast enough to overcome big damage. High-end gear, Atma, and consumables can overcome those deficiencies but I leave it to you to decide if it’s enough to make it worth your stones.


 * The Casters, Red and Black Mage- these 2 like the NM circuit, generally via the kite-sleep-nuke method. Simply put, you lay the lumber with a nuke, do something to slow the mob down (sleep, gravity, stun, etc.), put some distance between you and the mob, nuke, slow the mob down, run, rinse and repeat until done. Sensing a theme here?


 * The Evasion Class, Monk, Ninja, Thief, and Dancer-These are the direct melee group and they frequently are used to evasion tank in Abyssea, a relatively new tactic compared to the classic blink and straight tank methods. They use anything they can to max their evasion, sub dancer-except dancer main which usually subs ninja (but /thief works too, especially if the NM is AoE spam happy)- and generally just fight straight-up.


 * The Pet Group, Beastmaster, Summoner, Puppetmaster, Dragoon-These jobs, as always, “sort of” solo. They function much as they do in any battle, using their pets to either do the damage or augment the damage they do themselves. Pup and Goon need to be careful because of the timer to recall their pets. I rarely see them soloing NMs. Beastmaster CAN solo some NMs, but it comes at a cost; the only pets available in Abyssea are jugs, which are on a timer, so tough fights are generally done by letting the timer cool down, engaging, spamming rewards and temps to keep pet alive, recalling as needed after pets are killed, and it can be quite expensive in terms of jugs and pet food. Summoners use their avatars, keep their distance and resummon as needed-if they are lucky and Intense Soothing Light chests are dropping they can 2-hour with Odin and clean-up, then renew and repeat.


 * The Multi-Purpose Jobs, Red Mage and Blue Mage-these are the only 2 jobs that are really suited to being able to get the right light balance solo. Certainly Ninja can try for azure kills, but their ninjitsu doesn't do much damage so hitting that kill shot is hard to do, but not impossible, so have at it if you like. Puppetmaster the issue is what if my auto dies, what if it casts when I'm trying to pearl, ruby, etc. Mages can try to get melee kills but their weaps realy aren't that good in the damage department. Summoner can do it, but realize melee-gained light is going to be quite slow AND the WS-gained lights will put you in harm's way considering your truly miserable durability. Paladin don't do much damage casting or melee and Dark need to worry about survival but if they have that they can certainly do lights solo. The rest of the jobs are simply missing the ability to target a light source. The only alternative then is to farm ruby and use the ruby chests to try to get your lights up, meaning you need alot of luck on chests. The other possibility, join a party and get your lights maxed out 1st, then drop party so you can solo; let them know that's the plan when you join so you don't seem like such a jerk when you leave. Because Red and Blue can get these lights fairly easily they can actually exploit normal mobs enough to be profitable in targeting chests. Address your job's needs via Atma and temps, especially those from blue chests since they won't cost cruor. You will need to watch your lights closely to make sure you do get that balance.

Closing:
this guide is a work in progress. I welcome any participation, directly editing the guide as to links, via the talk page as to content.

However, wholesale edits, deletions and the like WILL be removed. This is in an effort to maintain some degree of organization and flow, even (perish the thought) some internal consistency. There is a talk page and I actually want you to use it.

About the author:
I have been playing FFXI since shortly after the NA debut. My main character on Caitsith is Glamdring. I took a bit over 5 years getting Beastmaster to 75, entirely solo as Beastmaster/Bard. I currently have Beastmaster, Bard, Thief and Dancer at level 90; I intend to work on Ranger next, but I have much to do on Empyrean weapons, AF3 upgrades and skill-ups, first. For those that wonder, the delay in leveling jobs is because I haven't found a steady income stream in the game, not a lack of talent (although my beast/bard spent a great deal of time re-earning XP). I don’t claim to be an elite player, but I am competent. All of the above is from my personal observations and I am FAR from infallible. The one thing that has characterized my entire playing career is that I do not simply follow the tried and true safe path, nor do I accept that things can only be done in 1 way, although I do believe that people may not have figured out YET how to do them a different way; hence the title of this guide.

My blog: --Deadmeataru 20:09, January 13, 2011 (UTC)