The Chain300 Guide! [Tsunade]
Posted in Exp/Merit (Party), Final Fantasy XI, RDM Chatter on December 1, 2006 
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The Art of Exping (a simple guide from a taru to a taru)
Before we begin, let me (Maiev) introduce the writer below :) I didn’t write this, Tsunade (Fenrir server) did. So what’s Tsunade doing here? For all those that have been an exp whore when ToAU came out, I’m sure you would have party with Tsunade & Chidorii before, and what’s so special? These two tarus makes 200+ Chain parties like -all the time-. Tsunade also a very good teamates, a great soloist (Yes, I spy on him =P), and also very knowledgable in RDM. So I had to beg Tsundae to write you a simple guide to getting high chains in parties :).
You might ask, why don’t I know him? :o For one thing he is not in any LS atm due to academic workload. Also, a soloist don’t spend time AFKing @ Whitegate. They go out solo and solo more, so you don’t see this Taru @ town.
Some of the tip he gives, is actually VERY simple stuff that we missed on a day to day basis. On our 1st party, he notice I spend a lot of mp on Sleep ONE. Well they do addup, but that’s learning to “trust your teamates” eg, the Bard’s sleep. I always take it all up to myself and don’t trust others. 19mp Sleep 1 can add up to 100mp if you sleep 5 times when a Bard already slept it :). Also, I learn how to cure effectively, like get a grasp on other healer’s style, and adjust to it. Most of the MP wasted in party is OVER curing, not lack of mp. So imo, they are like the Exp master :) Ok I’ll let Tsunade do the talking now. Btw, Tsunade is also going for Maat’s cap :)
The Tsunade {secret}
Hello everyone, I am Tsunade (75 rdm, whm, rng, smn). As you might have guessed, I too am a taru! With Maiev’s help, you might see a picture of my character. So who is this taru and why is he trying to give advice on how to exp? I am not the best mage on the server, but I hope that my guide will shed some light on the tricky art of exping. Before you can master your own job, you must understand how other jobs work.
I started my little taru life as a WHM. By level 61, I thought I had seen it all. I knew what I was doing. I was very wrong. I took a break and hit 75 RNG, along the way, Being the nice squishy taru that I am… I learned more about hate control and the importance of keeping my HP fully cured. Then, I adventured out and tried the RDM job. It is more powerful than a WHM, more durable. With two level 75 jobs under my belt, I finally returned to my WHM. I was no longer the fragile little taru. I no longer feared the mobs around me. I used flash whenever the timer was up! I used flash on links, so that it does not beat up the RDM or BLM trying to cast sleep. But anyway, enough about my silly adventures on the road to level 75. This guide is for merit partying, which is a very different pace from pre-75 leveling. I specialize in playing RDM and WHM in KRT setups, ie 3x MNK, RDM, WHM, and BRD. (4x WAR, RDM, and BRD parties kill faster, but there is much more stress on the RDM)
Keeping it simple (Cliffnotes)
WHM: use Cure V, Regen III, and haste one melee
RDM: use Curaga, Curaga II, Cure III, haste 2 melee (use Cure IV only when WHM is resting)
BRD: Curaga II whenever possible.
WHM� A fragile taru, its abilities and full potential are easily overlooked
WHM have so many options for curing that there isn’t always a clear answer for which one to use. In general, stick with what is most efficient. Cast Regen 3 on the two MNKs that tank most often. Believe it or not, I don not have Cure 4 macro’d. That is riiiight! My WHM only has Cure 3 and Cure 5 macro’d. Save and wait until the MNK’s HP is lower for the more efficient cure 5. If a mob is about to use a weapon skill, but it is till not efficient to use cure 5, then toss out a cure 3, wait for the weapon skill to go off, and cure 5. Use flash whenever you can, especially if you know a weapon skill is coming up (it makes Decorative weapon’s AOE stun miss!!!). WHM should rest whenever possible, squeezing in as much MP out of each tick. Do not use Noble’s Tunic to rest! WHM do not have convert so for an infinite chain party, you have to squeeze in rest breaks. Cure everyone, toss on some Regen 3s, stick a fresh Haste cast, and make sure that you are resting during an easy fight/mob. Rest for as long as you can before standing up.
A side note on my playstyle (it depends on Benediction): I am often a bit risky with people’s HP, leaving it yellow, waiting for the cure 5. I push the MP curing efficiency to the max. If something were to happen and I don’t have time to cure 5, I’d use benediction. After that, my playstyle is a little bit safer, curing a little bit more, until my 2 hr is ready again.
Use Devotion merits! Pump the RDM with MP whenever possible. The tiny bit of MP doesn’t seem like much to a WHM, since WHMs rest MP back left and right, but for the RDM who’s stressing out about keeping up enough MP / 10 min convert cycle, your additional 200 MP is huge (roughly 20% more MP!).
What a RDM should do
Haste {Who?}
This is highly dependant on who the mages are, but no mage should ever be handling all three hastes. In the perfect world, WHM should haste one player: the second best MNK. This gives the WHM time to rest. Cast order can be worked in for the WHM: Regen III > Haste > Cure 5 > Regen III > rest MP. The RDM would have two MNKs to haste, which is ok because the RDM doesn’t rest as often. If MP is short or something goes wrong, the RDM can skip hasting the 3rd MNK and only haste the best MNK.
To make the most out of refresh, make sure to have Refresh on the BRD at all times, and watch his/her MP. Remind them to use Curaga II whenever possible.
Trust and team work
The most important part of playing a mage is teamwork. WHM, RDM, and BRD have to work together to keep the team healed. To be most efficient, you should trust your teammates to heal, while you rest MP. Fight any urges to stand up until the other mage needs to rest MP. As a RDM playing with this rest cycle, you can easily go past the 1000ish MP / 10 min expenditure, possibly hitting 2,000 (excluding refresh). During the exp party, keep an eye on the other mage’s play style. Adapt your play style to match theirs. For example, you don’t want to overcure a WHM spamming Cure V, but you do want to spam Cure IVs if the WHM is inconsistent or slow. Perfecting teamwork (or predicting what the other mage does) is more important for healing than any equipment.
Happy Meritpo!
—
Imo, the best part is probably the teamwork part, reading people’s mind of what cure they will be doing, and quickly compute not to overcure, playing with your convert cycle (use it to the maximum), and perfect teamwork. I really learned a lot from Exping with these two tarus, believe it or not :). I really think what he wrote above is some good stuff. So I hope you learn from his guide too and able to replicate it.
6 Responses to “The Chain300 Guide! [Tsunade]”
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When I XP as BRD outside of KRT, I sub NIN (unless @ Trolls). I find that Stoneskin and/or Blink takes up to much time. I know Curaga II does help out a lot everynow and than but the downtime from those two buff spells kill me time wise.
If I eat a Tav. Taco, equip Terra’s Staff, and Kirin’s Osode, and all my shadows drop, Sea Puk’s will hit me for 50~60 dmg. Wyvern’s hit me for 70~90+.
The other night Smac asked me to XP my BRD, was WAR/NIN WAR/NIN WAR/NIN WAR/NIN WHM/SMN BRD/NIN. The WHM (Missash) never ran out of MP, and we got to chain 60 very easily only to lose it cause of a dc and another party (- -;; If I would have went BRD/WHM, I don’t think we would have chained that quickly.
To go along with what Mikedee said, there are fewer and fewer places I’ll go to /whm as as a bard, and more and more /nin to keep chains faster, and to keep me from taking too much damage and sapping the WHM(or SMN or RDM)’s MP.
In some situations, subbing WHM can be just as fast a subbing nin, but in places like Mamool Staging Point, that’s usually only if there’s only one other party there and you’re never running out of mobs. 9 times out of 10 that hardly ever happens, and you need to pull fast and run back again to look for the next mob. The less damage I wind up taking, the less MP the healer is dropping on me, the more MP they have for everyone else and to keep the chain going.
Places I’ll sub WHM:
– KRT: the ability to -na/erase/cure 3 myself is immensely valuable here
– Halvung (Trolls and Flans): RNG trolls shots go through shadows, and Flans are slow enough you don’t have to worry about Utsusemi. Trolls are also very, very slow.
– Mire (Imps and Flies): I refuse to exp here because, well, I hate it, but with Cursed Sphere and annoying imps, and HP aggro mobs… slightly similar situation to KRT.
– Mire (mummy guys whose name escapes me): Blood aggro mobs means curing yourself quickly before the next pull is important.
Places I’ll sub NIN:
– Mamool Ja Staging Point: my survivablity factor is NOTICABLY higher with shadows, and my pulling much faster as well. Plus, there’s always a lot ofpeople here, pulling fast > all.
– Mire (trees): They run slow, but they hit hard- being able to blink some of those hits away is very, very useful.
– sky (weapons): Whirling rage sucks. Shadows absorb it. Win.
Undecided:
– Lufaise: never exp’d there ever. Heard preferences on both sides, but won’t have an opinion until I try it myself.
Anyplace that’s not listed there, I’ll most likely go as /whm the first time to gage how much damage I’ll take, how fast the mob smacks me on the way back, etc. The less the healer has to cure me as I come back to camp, the better off everyone else is.
From forum discussions, there’s apparently a school of bard who think subbing nin means you never have to keep songs up. I call these people lazy bastards. It’s much easier subbing nin to keep songs up (in some situations), in my experience.
My $0.02. (‘_^v)
Meadows should be BRD/WHM, Erase is needed for HP Down attack by rams.
Sub Job selection on Bard is prefrence and opinion ;3 (I’m gonna go to KRT with yellow hp and /NIN!)
My post focuses on RDM and WHM teamwork to share the healing role in a nonstop chain party. However, since the BRD’s choice of subs was brought up, I’ll explain why my post uses BRD/WHM over BRD/NIN.
1. I party (almost exclusively) with Chidorii’s bard. The two of us work very well together, so that might lead to discrepancies from the usual party experience.
2. My post is was intended for 3x MNK/WAR melee, so Curaga can be spammed efficiently anytime. The RDM or WHM can spam Curaga when the BRD is returning from a pull, negating the damage taken from the pull. In addition, the bard can chip in whenever there is a chance.
3. The mobs *only* hit you for 60 damage, on average, 2 hit per fight. That is covered by Curaga, so there is no need to waste time on Stoneskin or Blink.
4. BRD/WHM adds another MP body into the mix, so Refresh benefits more people. Over time, BRD/WHM adds more MP to the overall party, even if it does cost the RDM an occasional Cure III.
Maybe I’m just spoiled with having Chidorii as a bard, but I’ve never had MP problems because of long pulls. If anything, I squeeze in rest time while Chidorii main heals. This setup is the traditional KRT setup; we don’t see a need to change the setup. Should the need arise, we are fully prepared to use BRD/NIN. Heck, maybe I’ll ask Chidorii to sub nin next time, just for the hell of it.
The MP cost of /nin vs /whm is more debatable in a party with 4x melee/nin. Curaga cannot be spammed efficiently because damage taken is usually limited to a single target when everyone has /nin. As the lone healer, there is very little time to rest in between hasting 4 melee. Ironically, by hasting all four melee, the party kills faster, and so forcing the bard to pull faster. The bard has to sacrifice Ballads and HP to maintain pulls. My only recent experience with this setup was without Chidorii: mnk/nin x2, war/nin x2, brd/whm, rdm/whm. I was low on MP occasionally from Dia II and Haste x4 spam, but MP was never low enough to stop the party.
The /whm adds the ability to support the party with cures and –na, while /nin minimizes damage taken when pulling. It is up to you to determine when to sacrifice /whm in order to reduce damage taken while pulling. (/nin doesn’t save time between pulls, assuming that your rdm or whm cures you while you are at camp). Either way, let’s not argue further about BRD’s choice of subs. Both choices can get the BRD’s primary task done: Buffing and pulling for the party.
Hi!
I’d like to say, first off, that these comments are pretty damned helpful. I’ve got a 75 bard, but I never leveled nin until ToAU came out. Truthfully, I was a bit stumped on what jobs I should level for subs. I don’t consider myself a bad bard, but I’m not going to say I’m amazing either… Mostly because I stopped leveling my bard and created a hume blm. I’m hoping after doing more research I’ll be able to figure out what I want to merit and what subjob I’ll be using primarily.
Thanks for the bit of help, and if you ever show up on Remora, send me a tell. ^^
ps – dont really have a blog url, so i’m sending you to my dA, I check it all the time, so drop a line if you’d like.