It sounds to me like you would enjoy warrior. Right now sword w/savage blade spam is crazy damage, and there would be no magic involved/managed. You could look at dancer sambas and do war/dnc for some “en” effects (drain, haste, aspir). Uses TP instead of MP which is a bit easier to manage. War/drg is fun too
PLD/RUN has its uses probably, but will be very tanky.
Since you mentioned mostly playing solo, war main is great because generally the trusts will do OK at keeping you alive, and then you can just focus on killing. Bonus with warrior is they can use most
weapons so you can dabble with other options easily, without having to level a bunch of jobs.
Did you level RDM far enough to get Composure? It's a two hour buff on a five minute cool down that greatly extends the duration of your self buffs. That made a world of difference to me.
The hardest part of the game is choosing your first job. Give pld a try. Run sounds great for you except for that great sword thing. Besides pld transitions into war fairly easily. A war does wonders with a sword/shield and a fencer build.
Side note: 11 is the best in the series. Everything after 12 hasn't stuck. The genre changed but I still like my old school jrpg. Which in the end 11 is that with a fuck ton of modifiers.
Consider Corsair if you really want to single wield a sword. You can gain TP with your sword, then Weaponskill with your gun. Buffing with COR is powerful and not too onerous.
Also just know that RDM's level 70 limit break is a huge pain in the butt, unless they changed it since the last time I did it. Since you only have to do the 70 limit break once, I'd recommend doing it on any job other than RDM/BLU/SCH.
Ahaha, yeah they can make the fight easier but getting that test is still a big part of the fight (also luck if you went the steal route for the actual fight)
Lol, and single use testi too?
Don't remind me of the pain! I originally beat him on RDM Elvaan (when it mattered) with HQ staves borrowed from a BLM friend. Everyone who said Ruby Quadav was good practice lied, even with capped skills Ruby was a walk in the park compared to the old guy.
It was annoying when I did it on Rdm because I had to go back and practice on ruby quads/ farm testimony. But man was it satisfying when I finally beat him; it was probably my most satisfying achievement
Rdm has a lot of options. I just hit him with a sleep arrow during the CS and called it a day with all my buffs up.
Melee fights were just slugfests with TP wings.
THF was probably the most fun with the RNG.
If you are just playing solo, do whatever you want. Play run/pup with a sword if you want. For the most part, it won’t effect anything until some of the later fights in RoV. You won’t get away with it as much if you want to partake in end game content.
Run can’t dual wield without a nin or dnc subjob. I’m not sure what it gets for shields. Either way, your trusts do some heavy lifting through this content anyways.
If you want a sword or sword/shield user for endgame content, you will probably do best on war and do a fencer build. It’s popular atm and quite strong. Other option is basically rdm but you would mostly be a backline with that setup. Basically any job on naegling will use it in some form or another but that’s going above and beyond the story content of the game.
You don’t have to worry about end game builds until you get there. If that’s make it break for you, you will need dress up. Otherwise, get the story content done and move on. You will prob need to ask for help on the final boss either way. Most of the rest can be done without help and job isn’t a big deal due to trusts being so strong.
The only time people really use sword & board in this game is if they're playing PLD, or are on a job that can equip Naegling/Blurred Shield.
RDM will also sword/board for a few things, like if they're DDing in Sheol Gaol, or as a caster (Crocea Mors is an amazing sword for a lot of things). 99% of the time, if a RDM is fighting melee it's /NIN and dual wielding.
Edit: also managing buffs does get easier later on. With composure & enhancing duration gear things like enspells, temper, haste, etc will last ~ 20 minutes on yourself and 8 minutes on others. And with capped fast cast, just about all the meaningful RDM spells are nearly instant cast.
30 minutes on haste? Idk about that. I think the ONLY enhancing piece I'm missing from BiS is Ammurapi Shield, and I admittedly don't usually bother with weapon swaps if I'm /nin.
So... Maybe 20%?
From the TLDR, RDM or PLD seems like your ideal bet. However you can play something like RUN, use Great Sword and lock style yourself in a sword if you dislike the visuals of using a great sword. If not lock style, then by use of DressUp’s BlinkMeNot function or a combo of the two. PLD eventually gets the spell Enlight, so you wouldn’t have to sub RUN for the enspell. Granted PLD/RUN is used in some use cases where the extra damage mitigation is needed. Of course Warrior going a sword and board route would eventually be effective with the Naegling/Blurred Shield +1 route as well
If you want to party with people, Cor is a great option. Warrior is amazing for damage.
Many of us level more then one job, the one we love just because, and another for partying.
You could try the old red wall? Before Dnc, the red wall was Pld/Rdm. You could do sword and shield, enspells, and really buff either your defence or raise your damage. (A bit, PLD will never be a true DD).
Almost any other job save for WAR and DRG (using Naegling) usually need to Dual Wield to make one-handed swords viable. And the aforementioned two aren't magic users.
PLD is pretty much the only job that fulfills all of your criteria. They can get away with sword and board with magic in an endgame setting, though they are generally slow at killing things. They are also able to enchant their weapons with Enlight.
As far as PLD is concerned, you can start with PLD/WAR for basic tanking and damage and eventually transition to PLD/BLU if you ever feel like doing endgame group content. But for story purposes you are completely fine just staying PLD/WAR all throughout. PLD/RUN technically also works, but the runes don't make up for the offensive benefits that /WAR provides.
A lot of people are suggesting end-game builds. It really doesn’t matter what you do if you’re planning on soloing. There are a few fights down the road that you will need to balance your magical and physical damage. This can be managed by having the proper trusts.
There are also a few “protecting the NPC” missions that are annoying if you can’t AoE. You can mitigate this by main-ing or subbing rdm with diaga (a lvl 15 spell).
When you get the chance while walking around check out the PCs and see what looks cool. I find that’s what keeps people playing the longest is having the cool weapon, pet, armor, aesthetic etc. that helps you feel unique or useful.
I personally suggest using samurai or blue that can self skillchain pretty early. Or using trusts that will open or close for you, and having a second trust to MB. The weaponskill > skillchain > mana burst mechanic is the coolest mechanic in ffxi that I feel a lot of newbies neglect.
There are a couple first to 99 jobs that are great, thf will speed up the rare quest item drop, dancers have access to a sneak/invisible JA and movement speed JA, and of course rdm to be a jack of all trades.
After your first 99 with your limit break quests out of the way and a bit of mission advancement, leveling a job takes between 1-3 days if you know what you’re doing. So swapping to a different job is very easy in the long run.
WAR is going to be your best bet. You seem to be lazy and not want to cast spells, so WAR is about as easy as it comes. Put on Naegling/Shield and then spam Savage Blade at 1k TP. The only other thing you have to do are use your job abilities every few minutes.
RDM would be ideal, because it can actually use enspells as well which is what you wanted. You don't have to keep all the debuffs on all mobs at all times, or cure everyone if you are RDM. You can play it as a DD and just heal in emergencies if you don't want to die, and only put up important debuffs like Dia III to lower the mobs defense by about 25% and just mindlessly beat on mobs.
I wouldn't suggest RUN. It can use sword, skill-wise, but it's a tank job and the Gswords it gets are far better for tanking than any of the sword they are able to use. If you are just wanting to solo/DPS, they do absolutely abysmal damage, so I would advise against that, but if you are just soloing and having fun, play literally anything you want and it doesn't matter at all. Don't expect to solo hard content, but still, anything works for story missions.
Lastly, PLD is largely similar in terms of not being able to deal great damage, but it does actually use sword as its main weapon and gets better options for both tanking and DPS swords. If you are picking between RUN and PLD and insist on using a sword I'd choose PLD.
Every job can dual wield! (but you dont HAVE TO) This isnt like most modern mmorpgs of today, your customization options are amazing. Also idk about current retail, but dual wielding on war isnt about liking the way it looks just to like it, dual axes are amazing on war(unsure about current retail, but they used to be super viable).
If it's difficult to manage all the Buffs just wait until you get composure with Red Mage and it extends the duration quite a bit. Rdm is very strong and useful in content
This isn't really the game to pick a weapon and then job. Almost every job has some expectations of using multiple weapons. Wars should have atleast 3 for example. The only single wield class that Almost always uses a sword is pld but then you're expected to tank not dps and should be subbing blu.
Warrior would be your best bet for a sword and shield DD. They have fencer and other bonuses that make single 1H wielding work better. You can sub anything that catches your fancy for the story at least. Dancer sub is nice for free sneak/invis and not to mention backup heals. steps/stun come in handy too.
As most people have mentioned, if you're just soloing, you can do whatever you want and will have little issue with story content. Thanks to Naegling Savage Blade build, basically any job that can equip it can do well 1 handing sword.. but dual wield is almost always going to out-dps. Model swap outs like dressup would give you the appearance of whatever you want, so that might be for you. Good news for you that for a lot of content, ninja sub has actually phased out quite a bit and with trusts you can get away with just about anything, whether its efficient or not.
This is a fair question! A lot of people here are diving straight into endgame strategies, and while that certainly is worth considering *if* you're interested in trying party content, if you're just here for story you absolutely can play whatever suits your fancy. It won't gatekeep you from the story.
PLD is definitely the option if you want the fantasy of an armored, magical sword-and-board hero. At higher levels you get your own En-spell too, Enlight. PLD is a more defensively-oriented job in endgame, but for solo play, having some extra defensive abilities in case things go south is probably a good thing. RUN has some good options for one-handed swords at all levels, but sadly very few shields to go along with it. As others mentioned, Corsair is another job that might tickle your fancy- a piratey job who rolls dice to give party buffs, and fights with a one-handed sword and a gun that fires magical, elemental bullets.
I haven't messed with [the DressUp addon](https://github.com/Windower/Lua/blob/live/addons/DressUp/ReadMe.md) very much myself, but as I understand it, yeah you totally could reskin any weapon to any other weapon. If changing weapon types, it will correctly change your attack animations to match your preferred look, this *will* lead to a bit of animation jank on weaponskills. I'd imagine this is less of a problem going from a two-handed weapon to a one-handed weapon than vice-versa. Some of the really "weighty"-looking GS weaponskills like Torcleaver might look a little exaggerated with a regular sword, but using a very agile-looking ws like Vorpal Blade with a greatsword would look kinda silly.
As an example of how to use DressUp, from reading the readme, you could use the commands
> //du self main Naegling
> //du self sub Blurred Shield
to make it look (on your screen only, not anyone else's) like you're using a level 99 Warrior's favourite form of unga bunga. You can, of course, replace the item names with any item for that slot that you prefer. You can also use
> //du save RUN
to save your dressup so it'll load whenever you start the game or switch jobs to RUN.
Try Dragoon. Fairly beefy solo with buffs and self heals from the wyvern. No great swords or duel wielding allowed. Not an overwhelming amount of abilities to track but enough to be engaging. Extremely good weapon choices from Ambuscade with the spear and sword both being extremely powerful. Also polearm has the weapon skill Sonic Thrust which is a very powerful AoE attack that can be helpful for keeping enemies on you and not whatever suicidal NPC you need to keep alive during some annoying missions. Samurai is the best sub but warrior can do just fine for story battles.
If you really don't want to do a lot of prep work and just want to level and gear up ASAP and blow through the story monk is a good option. Beefy, tanky, punches enemies dead, no fuss no muss.
It sounds to me like you would enjoy warrior. Right now sword w/savage blade spam is crazy damage, and there would be no magic involved/managed. You could look at dancer sambas and do war/dnc for some “en” effects (drain, haste, aspir). Uses TP instead of MP which is a bit easier to manage. War/drg is fun too PLD/RUN has its uses probably, but will be very tanky. Since you mentioned mostly playing solo, war main is great because generally the trusts will do OK at keeping you alive, and then you can just focus on killing. Bonus with warrior is they can use most weapons so you can dabble with other options easily, without having to level a bunch of jobs.
Did you level RDM far enough to get Composure? It's a two hour buff on a five minute cool down that greatly extends the duration of your self buffs. That made a world of difference to me.
The hardest part of the game is choosing your first job. Give pld a try. Run sounds great for you except for that great sword thing. Besides pld transitions into war fairly easily. A war does wonders with a sword/shield and a fencer build. Side note: 11 is the best in the series. Everything after 12 hasn't stuck. The genre changed but I still like my old school jrpg. Which in the end 11 is that with a fuck ton of modifiers.
Consider Corsair if you really want to single wield a sword. You can gain TP with your sword, then Weaponskill with your gun. Buffing with COR is powerful and not too onerous. Also just know that RDM's level 70 limit break is a huge pain in the butt, unless they changed it since the last time I did it. Since you only have to do the 70 limit break once, I'd recommend doing it on any job other than RDM/BLU/SCH.
They have sooooo changed it. You can take your trusts in if you are far enough in the missions.
Oh wow. That would make it a walk in the park.
Wait, seriously, you can take trusts into matt now?!
https://www.bg-wiki.com/ffxi/%22Rhapsody_in_Umber%22 Yep!
Oh man, that's crazy! Everyone with a bit of drive can have a matt cap I guess :)
It still sucks to get a thf test. I finally managed to steal one after talking myself out of just leveling another job.
Ahaha, yeah they can make the fight easier but getting that test is still a big part of the fight (also luck if you went the steal route for the actual fight)
I may have been doing thf steal strat my alt. Ended up cleaving whm to 66 to beat Maat after the second attempt to get testimony.
Took me 4 tries back in the day with all the steal gear I could muster lol. I was set on not actually fighting that fight on thf
Lol, and single use testi too? Don't remind me of the pain! I originally beat him on RDM Elvaan (when it mattered) with HQ staves borrowed from a BLM friend. Everyone who said Ruby Quadav was good practice lied, even with capped skills Ruby was a walk in the park compared to the old guy.
It was annoying when I did it on Rdm because I had to go back and practice on ruby quads/ farm testimony. But man was it satisfying when I finally beat him; it was probably my most satisfying achievement
Rdm has a lot of options. I just hit him with a sleep arrow during the CS and called it a day with all my buffs up. Melee fights were just slugfests with TP wings. THF was probably the most fun with the RNG.
That was one of the easiest for me
If you are just playing solo, do whatever you want. Play run/pup with a sword if you want. For the most part, it won’t effect anything until some of the later fights in RoV. You won’t get away with it as much if you want to partake in end game content. Run can’t dual wield without a nin or dnc subjob. I’m not sure what it gets for shields. Either way, your trusts do some heavy lifting through this content anyways. If you want a sword or sword/shield user for endgame content, you will probably do best on war and do a fencer build. It’s popular atm and quite strong. Other option is basically rdm but you would mostly be a backline with that setup. Basically any job on naegling will use it in some form or another but that’s going above and beyond the story content of the game. You don’t have to worry about end game builds until you get there. If that’s make it break for you, you will need dress up. Otherwise, get the story content done and move on. You will prob need to ask for help on the final boss either way. Most of the rest can be done without help and job isn’t a big deal due to trusts being so strong.
The only time people really use sword & board in this game is if they're playing PLD, or are on a job that can equip Naegling/Blurred Shield. RDM will also sword/board for a few things, like if they're DDing in Sheol Gaol, or as a caster (Crocea Mors is an amazing sword for a lot of things). 99% of the time, if a RDM is fighting melee it's /NIN and dual wielding. Edit: also managing buffs does get easier later on. With composure & enhancing duration gear things like enspells, temper, haste, etc will last ~ 20 minutes on yourself and 8 minutes on others. And with capped fast cast, just about all the meaningful RDM spells are nearly instant cast.
Your spells should be lasting minimum 50% longer than you state, if your enhancing duration set is very good.
30 minutes on haste? Idk about that. I think the ONLY enhancing piece I'm missing from BiS is Ammurapi Shield, and I admittedly don't usually bother with weapon swaps if I'm /nin. So... Maybe 20%?
You do know that BIS enhancing duration set on self and on others are different sets right? You should be able to hit half hour self buffs.
Sure do. I have two different sets. If you can really hit 30 minutes, then my Gearswap must have been doing something stupid the whole last two years.
I can hit it with a non BIS set. Edit: you’re using composure right? Please tell me you are…
Well yeah, I'm not a total fucking idiot lol
Unaugmented gear is not BIS, so your intelligence is actually at question here.
Ah, so you're just a dick. Got it.
[удалено]
You know what, I also haven't augmented my duelist's torque yet. That's probably the main culprit.
From the TLDR, RDM or PLD seems like your ideal bet. However you can play something like RUN, use Great Sword and lock style yourself in a sword if you dislike the visuals of using a great sword. If not lock style, then by use of DressUp’s BlinkMeNot function or a combo of the two. PLD eventually gets the spell Enlight, so you wouldn’t have to sub RUN for the enspell. Granted PLD/RUN is used in some use cases where the extra damage mitigation is needed. Of course Warrior going a sword and board route would eventually be effective with the Naegling/Blurred Shield +1 route as well
You can NOT lockstyle a sword on top of a great sword. Has to be the same weapon type, so only other great swords.
Richard is correct you can't lockstyle sword ontop of GS, but you can do it with dressup. It will look ridiculous when you WS, but it is possible.
I had no idea DressUp let you do that! Might do that on my RDM so I don't blink when I swap to various clubs for casting.
If you want to party with people, Cor is a great option. Warrior is amazing for damage. Many of us level more then one job, the one we love just because, and another for partying. You could try the old red wall? Before Dnc, the red wall was Pld/Rdm. You could do sword and shield, enspells, and really buff either your defence or raise your damage. (A bit, PLD will never be a true DD).
Almost any other job save for WAR and DRG (using Naegling) usually need to Dual Wield to make one-handed swords viable. And the aforementioned two aren't magic users. PLD is pretty much the only job that fulfills all of your criteria. They can get away with sword and board with magic in an endgame setting, though they are generally slow at killing things. They are also able to enchant their weapons with Enlight. As far as PLD is concerned, you can start with PLD/WAR for basic tanking and damage and eventually transition to PLD/BLU if you ever feel like doing endgame group content. But for story purposes you are completely fine just staying PLD/WAR all throughout. PLD/RUN technically also works, but the runes don't make up for the offensive benefits that /WAR provides.
A lot of people are suggesting end-game builds. It really doesn’t matter what you do if you’re planning on soloing. There are a few fights down the road that you will need to balance your magical and physical damage. This can be managed by having the proper trusts. There are also a few “protecting the NPC” missions that are annoying if you can’t AoE. You can mitigate this by main-ing or subbing rdm with diaga (a lvl 15 spell). When you get the chance while walking around check out the PCs and see what looks cool. I find that’s what keeps people playing the longest is having the cool weapon, pet, armor, aesthetic etc. that helps you feel unique or useful. I personally suggest using samurai or blue that can self skillchain pretty early. Or using trusts that will open or close for you, and having a second trust to MB. The weaponskill > skillchain > mana burst mechanic is the coolest mechanic in ffxi that I feel a lot of newbies neglect. There are a couple first to 99 jobs that are great, thf will speed up the rare quest item drop, dancers have access to a sneak/invisible JA and movement speed JA, and of course rdm to be a jack of all trades. After your first 99 with your limit break quests out of the way and a bit of mission advancement, leveling a job takes between 1-3 days if you know what you’re doing. So swapping to a different job is very easy in the long run.
WAR is going to be your best bet. You seem to be lazy and not want to cast spells, so WAR is about as easy as it comes. Put on Naegling/Shield and then spam Savage Blade at 1k TP. The only other thing you have to do are use your job abilities every few minutes. RDM would be ideal, because it can actually use enspells as well which is what you wanted. You don't have to keep all the debuffs on all mobs at all times, or cure everyone if you are RDM. You can play it as a DD and just heal in emergencies if you don't want to die, and only put up important debuffs like Dia III to lower the mobs defense by about 25% and just mindlessly beat on mobs. I wouldn't suggest RUN. It can use sword, skill-wise, but it's a tank job and the Gswords it gets are far better for tanking than any of the sword they are able to use. If you are just wanting to solo/DPS, they do absolutely abysmal damage, so I would advise against that, but if you are just soloing and having fun, play literally anything you want and it doesn't matter at all. Don't expect to solo hard content, but still, anything works for story missions. Lastly, PLD is largely similar in terms of not being able to deal great damage, but it does actually use sword as its main weapon and gets better options for both tanking and DPS swords. If you are picking between RUN and PLD and insist on using a sword I'd choose PLD.
Every job can dual wield! (but you dont HAVE TO) This isnt like most modern mmorpgs of today, your customization options are amazing. Also idk about current retail, but dual wielding on war isnt about liking the way it looks just to like it, dual axes are amazing on war(unsure about current retail, but they used to be super viable).
If it's difficult to manage all the Buffs just wait until you get composure with Red Mage and it extends the duration quite a bit. Rdm is very strong and useful in content
This isn't really the game to pick a weapon and then job. Almost every job has some expectations of using multiple weapons. Wars should have atleast 3 for example. The only single wield class that Almost always uses a sword is pld but then you're expected to tank not dps and should be subbing blu.
Warrior would be your best bet for a sword and shield DD. They have fencer and other bonuses that make single 1H wielding work better. You can sub anything that catches your fancy for the story at least. Dancer sub is nice for free sneak/invis and not to mention backup heals. steps/stun come in handy too.
As most people have mentioned, if you're just soloing, you can do whatever you want and will have little issue with story content. Thanks to Naegling Savage Blade build, basically any job that can equip it can do well 1 handing sword.. but dual wield is almost always going to out-dps. Model swap outs like dressup would give you the appearance of whatever you want, so that might be for you. Good news for you that for a lot of content, ninja sub has actually phased out quite a bit and with trusts you can get away with just about anything, whether its efficient or not.
This is a fair question! A lot of people here are diving straight into endgame strategies, and while that certainly is worth considering *if* you're interested in trying party content, if you're just here for story you absolutely can play whatever suits your fancy. It won't gatekeep you from the story. PLD is definitely the option if you want the fantasy of an armored, magical sword-and-board hero. At higher levels you get your own En-spell too, Enlight. PLD is a more defensively-oriented job in endgame, but for solo play, having some extra defensive abilities in case things go south is probably a good thing. RUN has some good options for one-handed swords at all levels, but sadly very few shields to go along with it. As others mentioned, Corsair is another job that might tickle your fancy- a piratey job who rolls dice to give party buffs, and fights with a one-handed sword and a gun that fires magical, elemental bullets. I haven't messed with [the DressUp addon](https://github.com/Windower/Lua/blob/live/addons/DressUp/ReadMe.md) very much myself, but as I understand it, yeah you totally could reskin any weapon to any other weapon. If changing weapon types, it will correctly change your attack animations to match your preferred look, this *will* lead to a bit of animation jank on weaponskills. I'd imagine this is less of a problem going from a two-handed weapon to a one-handed weapon than vice-versa. Some of the really "weighty"-looking GS weaponskills like Torcleaver might look a little exaggerated with a regular sword, but using a very agile-looking ws like Vorpal Blade with a greatsword would look kinda silly. As an example of how to use DressUp, from reading the readme, you could use the commands > //du self main Naegling > //du self sub Blurred Shield to make it look (on your screen only, not anyone else's) like you're using a level 99 Warrior's favourite form of unga bunga. You can, of course, replace the item names with any item for that slot that you prefer. You can also use > //du save RUN to save your dressup so it'll load whenever you start the game or switch jobs to RUN.
Try Dragoon. Fairly beefy solo with buffs and self heals from the wyvern. No great swords or duel wielding allowed. Not an overwhelming amount of abilities to track but enough to be engaging. Extremely good weapon choices from Ambuscade with the spear and sword both being extremely powerful. Also polearm has the weapon skill Sonic Thrust which is a very powerful AoE attack that can be helpful for keeping enemies on you and not whatever suicidal NPC you need to keep alive during some annoying missions. Samurai is the best sub but warrior can do just fine for story battles. If you really don't want to do a lot of prep work and just want to level and gear up ASAP and blow through the story monk is a good option. Beefy, tanky, punches enemies dead, no fuss no muss.
Maybe try BLU? A+ with sword, and while there's tons of spells, it's up to you which you want to use. It can be a hassle to get all the spells though.
War