Upgreading Gear Solo

Hello, I'm returning player. I stopped playing when SoA came out and the account I have now was by 2box support character, so I don't have much here, but at least I have some quests/missions done and also some gils for start.

I currently farm some abyssea and I used some Bayld to get myself a what believe can be called starter set. I still need to farm Epona ring, because Rani is a *** and refuse to drop it and also brutal earring. When I finish, my TP/WS gear will look like this ItemSet 354986

I read a lot of BG Wiki and forum here to catch up, but it's really hard to understand what is soloable and what's worth farming for rare/ex items.

Also which AF, AF2 and AF3 should I get and which have highest priority to be upgraded?

I will start working on Terpsi soon. I know it's better to focus on buying HQ gear instead of getting Terpsi first, but I mainly came back to FFXI because I wanted to farm some REME and have fun with them, so please don't start explaining to me that Terpsi and only good gear will result in lower DPS than some other top daggers and great gear. I know that.

I also started working toward Twashtar. Got 50 Itzpapalotl and 13 Orthrus this weekend. I mainly do it now to get access to Rudra. I know that I can buy items for 2.5M and make WoE weapon and unlock Rudra that way, but I decided to go harder way, because I won't need to spend gils on useless dagger and I will have 90 Twashtar ready for further upgrades in the future (even if that future wont come fast).

Like I have said, I would strongly prefer soloable content for upgrades, but I guess some easy group content that I can join from /shout would work too. I hope someone can push me towards the right direction.

Escha Zitah T1-2's would have alot of good upgrades for you

I would start with Ambuscade first and after gearing decently do daily Omen runs(1100+ acc with food) to farm cards for AF1 upgrades. I don't know much about Dnc but every set of AF1+3 has one 10% WS dmg gear which is worth getting. The NQ Meghanda or Mummu set which is easy to obtain is a huge upgrade for the least amount of work. You should be able to solo or duo Vol.1 very easy or easy difficulty. Also work on upgrading a JSE cape. Set your weekly win for a Abdhaljs Seal which triples the amount of points for one battle. You can also get one from total hallmarks from the Ambuscade NPC.

Do not use a tank NPC Pld or Run,(Nin Gessho or Ark Angel HM is ok to use), Drk, Blu, Geo, Bard, or Corsair rolls. You will set off quenching hammer if doing Vol.1 which will kill you instantly. The NPC I would suggest using is King of Hearts or Koru Moru for Dia 3, Apururu or Yoran-Oran, and any other NPC that don't interupt your skillchain.

A 3 step darkness SC should be able to kill or nearly kill on easier difficulty. Start doing box steps first to lower def and do a 3 step darkness SC after.(Evis > Rudra > Clim Rudra)

Why play an MMO if you want to play solo? You basically are playing like half a game. Make friends, kill things, get gear.

That being said, you can make functional sets for most things with a mix of Meghanada and Mummu gear from Ambuscade.

I would worry less about REMA, and more about doing what needs done so that when you complete your REMA of choice, you still don't do bad damage.

Hey there. I'm not newly returned or anything, but haven't really gotten into ambuscade at all. Regarding the advice you gave (quoted above), do you mean don't use the jobs: drk, blu, geo, or brd; or do you mean do not use their associated corsair rolls? Thanks in advance for any help. :) Not that I re-read it, I am betting you mean the jobs and corsair rolls.

I know this comment was directed toward the OP, but personally, I've run with a bunch of linkshells in the past. I loved it and miss that companionship while playing. Now, though, its just a time issue. I still enjoy playing, but I can't devote the time to an ls, so I just do what I can, say hi to friends when I see them, and enjoy the little bits I get to be on. There really is something for everyone in this game and it still feels good to be among real people, even though I may not always be running with them.

Just my $0.02. ;)

HQ armor and RMEA are nice long term goals, but you're getting (way) ahead of yourself here.

Focus on getting a good 119 main hand, that is going to make the biggest difference for you right off the bat. Ipetam might be the only one that's really soloable for you at this point (Alluvion Skirmish Yorcia). For offhand, 117-119 DNC should be able to solo Tchakka for Atoyac. It's not 119, but it's better than Homestead.

Some minor armor upgrades would make a world of difference for you, too. Taeon head, legs and feet should be your first priority. After that, Rawhide body. Field Delve NMs drop some nice accessories. You should be focused on building up multiattack in your TP sets. You also want to make sure you have the right amount of DW in your sets to cap delay reduction. The minute you're able to TP fast enough to constantly/reliably self-SC, a world of possibilities will open up to you as DNC.

Once your armor is better shape, you can try your hand at some T1 Escha Ru'Aun NMs for accessories and Adhemar pieces. Most should be soloable on DNC. You should also be geared well enough to really start accumulating CP -- all the cumulative bonuses and gifts make a big difference too.

Once you've done all that, you'll be able to farm gil/farm alex much faster than if you tried starting the process now. Eventually you will hit a wall of things you'll be able to get done by yourself, so you want to eventually build the confidence to participate in party play.

Edit: oh, make sure you unlock Rudra's Storm and Phyrric Kleos asap.

Hey Josi...thanks. I'll definitely give it a go. I tri-box, and have been doing so for years...not sure why I've been avoiding Ambuscade so much. Think I've just been too lazy to read up on it. But thanks to the OP for making the thread and for this reply. Definitely got me excited to do something "new." ;)

@Sidra I was in LS 5 years ago. I was first person on my server with 99 Empyrean (I did it 1 min into the patch that unlocked it because I had everything ready). I had few relics and Empyreans back then and I was parsing 36% on Provenance Watcher (was highest end game content when I played) with Ragnarok WAR. I was also running my own Salvage group for over a year. I was mercing Empyrean weapons with my friend playing 2x 2box and making 20M daily. I had 1500 days of playtime on my main. I know all about playing this game with people and on highest level. Now I'm a father of 6 month child with full time job and it's not a matter of "I don't want to play in group and do a lot of stuff with LS", but more of "Oh my son woke up and is crying. i'm going afk" which might happen like any time during my playtime now.

I just want to make one thing that I haven't done back then, which is Mythic (and maybe Spharai), then use it and have fun. I want good equip too, but I won't be waiting with doing mythic because I need to buy upgrades for 50m gils, because having them with normal daggers would be better DPS than having other stuff with mythic. Actually I will have the most fun with getting those harder to get upgrades after getting the Mythic, because I will be able to use Terpsi and see how it's getting stronger with better gear.

So I guess my options are:
Ambuscade, Skirmish and Geas Fate NM?

Can I solo Geas Fate NM with trusts? If I can I assume only those from tier 1? something like Strophadia for Skinflayer requires a group?

Yes, Jos, that's exactly what I meant. It's a weird system compared to what I'm used to, so I've been putting it off. Your comment helped me understand it much better. As always, much appreciated.

Answer to this question is indeed needed

Way to *** all the jobs I use (drk cor run +blm) guess that's the reason I only tried it once this go round since they fixed the gravity method

If I understand this right, I can get +1 equip from Ambuscade right away for +1 voucher? I ask because if that's the way, then maybe getting NQ for DNC for NQ voucher is bad idea. Assuming I reach HQ voucher I would then take Mummu +1 when I have mummu nq? Kinda pointless. Maybe I should get NQ for other job, like for example SMN and start getting HQ mummu. The only problem I see with this is that I only have like 5 days to get 14500 hellmarks needed for last HQ voucher.

You could probably do it on drk, you just have to use up your mp before the frog gets TP. A good time for consume mana!

Sweet. Nice little bonus there. Thanks for the tip.

Well I have little problem soloing frog, but I succeeded 2 times so it's doable. Dverg is easy tho. I plan to do both for at least 3000 helmarks daily, so I can get whole mummy +1 before the patch and reset.I will probably gear my SMN for next month and try to do higher difficulty with /shout. Thanks for suggesting Ambuscade.

Ok I need to share my joy :D

I was trying to get Epona's from Rani.
It's not easy solo, because I need to gather 2KI for it with only dagger as red !! so mainly just luck, but I managed to do it 6 times.

In the actual fight with Rani I tried to start the fight at 6am to have dagger as blue !!. If it wasn't dagger I deaggroed her and engaged again till it was dagger. I was /thf too.

1st time I couldn't force dagger for whole time between 6am and 2pm and finally get thrown from abyssea at 2% of her HP (I completely missed timer)

2nd time I procced blue !! and used brew. No drop.
3rd and 4th times I procced blue !! but got charmed at the end and proc reset. Killed it after but couldnt proc !! again. No drop
5th time I procced blue !! and killed it. No drop.

I was really angry and sad at this point.

6th time I procced it but... died from meteor spam and unressited Aeroaga IV. I was holding it till I lost weakness status, but it was after 2pm, so couldn't proc with dagger. I noticed Zeid II was doing Ground Strike, so I figured I could take Rahal too and count on some massive luck, that it would be great sword or sword proc and they would somehow manage to do their WS between Rani casting and ability spam (Maybe you don't remember but abyssea proc need to be done when mob is not casting and not doing any ability).

I couldn't believe my eyes when Rahal procced blue at 10% of Rani HP. I was like... "Holy ***it's happaning!".. Finished it and got Epona's Ring. Epic adventure :D

Congrats on the drop.


You will not be able to solo any of the tier1 nms at this point. Even Zitah tier 1 nms would be challenging. You could try soloing Zitah tier1 NM for Rawhide body after you get your ambuscade gear. You can get pops using the sparks npc(Holy Sword) provided you have enough escha silt to pop the NM. I remember it being a huge pain in the *** with him leveling up when I tried it for the first time. Once you are able to kill Zitah tier1 for Rawhide body, you can try for Herculean Feet since you can get pop items cheap with sparks. Then try for some Adhemar gear(hands and head) which requires more costly pop items.

As Arislan had suggested, getting a good main hand weapon would be a huge improvement. Not much good options on daggers you could solo right now. Taming Sari and Skinflayer would require you to group. There is also Ternion dagger from Unity but I don't know if that is soloable. You could buy a Raetic Kris from the AH but since it is a SU3 weapon, that would require 500 JP to equip.

Since I just started gearing a DNC from scratch, I can offer a bit of advice from what I've figured out.

First, do the RoE Tutorial Intermediate, there's a guide on the wiki, but it's pretty easy other than doing a Wildskeeper Reive which can be done solo if you pick an easy enough one like the shark, although he can randomly K.O. you, maybe the bee is better, try asking for people before you go in yell in town though(don't have to group, everyone can attack so you can have a bunch of defensive trusts). Anyway other than that it's pretty easy stuff and it'll give you one piece of Taeon, one piece of Iuitl and an Ipetam dagger and some other stuff(you'll have to +1 some of your AF, do it on chest+tiara since you need these anyway). Make sure to buy a few materials to augment these, don't need perfect rolls but at least something. The Ipetam will be a pretty big jump in power.

Other than that I'd heavily recommend buying VD V1 Ambuscade. Assuming you don't have some moral issue with buying runs, it's just very worth it especially since it resets at the end of the week and I believe the free gear set will change, and the current one Mummu is really good while the next one is more or less garbo other than the gloves for WS%.

You can buy a run for 2m to 4m depending on your luck, which sounds expensive, but if you use your Abdhalj Seal first(you'll have 3 seals, 1 from intermediate RoE objective, one from weekly clear RoE ambuscade in Content and one from the total hallmarks after the first run), you get 10500 hallmarks and 4500gallantry on VD in a full party.

You'll want to set some on the side for your JSE cape and some mats(I personally skipped the 800mats, it's 8000marks for 10dex, I'll do it later, the rest is like 6000marks for all the other mats and 500 for the cape).

Then spend everything else on whatever sellable currency, alexandrite or whatever makes sense just check the prices. Generally speaking, this will pay back your run in full even with the cloak eating some of these profits especially on cheap runs. On top of that you get a bunch of free stuff from the total hallmark.

I'd recommend doing 2 runs which will give you over 20k total hallmark, giving you every free reward besides the gobbie dial which is whatever, and it should cost you nothing/actually make money if you resell all the stuff while giving you full +1 mummu armor, a mummu ring and a JSE cape(and some mats going towards +2 mummu as well as NQ tickets for some other job or whatever). Takes like 10-15mins top too.

Apologies, but OCD in me needs to point at typing error in the name of the post, apologies in advance.
Now on the matter at hand, how are you ready for voidwatch? i mean how many stones you have, so when VW campaign kicks in, you can solo farm all needed metal plates, dross etc. etc. for Twashtar.
If I remember correctly need around 2k. stones to get all 1.5k metal plates + 300-500 for dross. Was doing Aello and Morta.
I totally get your point of having real life, but believe me, you will find similar people playing this game at this stage, so wish you to find a nice social ls. Best of wishes and happy hunting.

I believe I have like 4000+ voidwatch stones. Can't check now. How you solo VW? Not trying to proc lights or you do it on some job with many proc available?

Also thank you for advice. I was planning to mlgrind ambush ambuscade solo but maybe I will actually try to buy a run because I can't really solo gallantry. Now what's the best way to found group that offers that on Bahamut. EDIT: nvm I think I have found someone with merc LS.

During VW compaign lights are capped, so it is just straight up kill and do it as fast as you can :). Just bring trusts out and they are fairly easy to solo at this stage of game.

One more thing to note, with more and more finished crafting shields completed, HQ gear market is crashing and it is going down pretty fast (Check Jinxed gear (36 HQ bodies for sale) on Odin).
Won't take long, till it spills over rest of the servers.

Oh nice. Can't wait for VW campaign then:)