It's coming

[Del Murder]

In less than a month we will see the first level cap raise in about 6 years. They haven't released what the cap will be, but I'm guessing 80 since that makes the most sense.

So how many of your level 75 jobs are you going to take to 80 and beyond? What subjobs are you most looking forward to using with your new high level job? What new features do you think your job will get at the high levels?

I'm taking BLU up first, no doubt. It's easy to know what I'll get, more monster spells, but which ones are hard to say since there are so damn many. I'm really hoping for Battery Charge, since with /RDM we can refresh ourselves anyway, so giving us a spell for it shouldn't be too bad.

Not sure how far I will take PLD. Depends on what it gets at high levels and how long it takes to level it. Most merit style parties don't use a tank, though my DD PLD gear is pretty decent since BLU uses many of the same things.

As for subjobs, I already got NIN to 49 since that's the sub I use 90% of the time. If Innin doesn't get nerfed in some way it will be pretty sweet, especially if it affects BLU physical spells, but I have my doubts. The other sub I'm working on is RDM since Convert and Refresh are pretty nice (assuming they aren't nerfed either).

[Ouch!]

Level 80 was confirmed quite some time ago in an interview; no details on how the level caps will proceed from there. It was also confirmed at Vanafest that Yonin/Innin will not be available at all when NIN is used as a support job. Yonin/Innin for NIN and WHM's Afflatus "stances" were identified as staples for the jobs and will not carry over, similar to how DRG's Call Wyvern is exclusive. Certainly this is subject to change, but they seemed pretty adamant about it).

I'll be taking RDM up first with SCH up second. As far as RDM support jobs go, WHM is sitting at 41. Without Afflatus, /WHM offers very little of use in comparison to /SCH, and probably not enough to justify leveling it. BLM is currently at level 45; I'll finish soloing it later. SCH is 75 already, so no need to worry there. BLU is at 38 and NIN at 37. Since these are melee subs, and hardly priorities, I'm sure I'll get around to them later.

[Del Murder]

No Innin...that sucks. So really /NIN adds nothing except DWIII, which is pretty good but not what I was looking forward to once I was a DD NIN in a party and saw how great Innin was. Oh well.

[Rostum]

I'll probably take PLD up first, but WAR and BLM might be easier... We'll see.

[Ouch!]

No Innin...that sucks. So really /NIN adds nothing except DWIII, which is pretty good but not what I was looking forward to once I was a DD NIN in a party and saw how great Innin was. Oh well.

It is a bit disappointing that when NIN finally offers something useful other than utsusemi spam as a support job (dual wield is all but dead for most melees anyway), they rip it away from us. I understand that PLD/NIN with yonin would be potentially broken, but Square Enix has adjusted abilities for support jobs before (Sneak and Trick Attack only granting a critical hit without the natural DEX/AGI multipliers that main job gets, for instance). Why not do the same for yonin and innin?

[Del Murder]

The level 76-80 job abilities and spells have been released! Also some pre-75 stuff gets added as well:

FINAL FANTASY XI Official Web Site (http://www.playonline.com/pcd/topics/ff11us/detail/5561/detail.html)

Did your job(s) get anything good? Looks like PLD is getting some stuff to help it take physical damage better. Phalanx will be a tremendous help. A return of /war sub might be in the mix.

It sucks that all the jobs get all these new things and all BLU gets is 'new spells will be added'. Gee thanks SE we couldn't figure that out already. That's what they always do for BLU in the update notes though. I hope Battery Charge is good.

[Rostum]

I don't know if I have it in me to level even just one of my 75 jobs to 80...

[Ouch!]

It's here and everything ever is completely fucking useless. Well, almost everything.
http://juliandev.com/juneupdate/armor.txt

[Del Murder]

I was wondering what the hell you were talking about and then I remembered this is Ouch! so it's probably about gear. Gear shmear. What about the new BLU spells!?

[Rostum]

Gear shmear.

I don't think you understand. Everything is replaced by a huge margin. Though, personally I probably won't be playing much longer if I need to grind heap and replace all my gear.

Btw, here you go:

Acrid Stream - Deals water damage to enemies within a fan-shaped area originating from the caster. Additional effect: Lowers target's magic defense.

Blazing Bound - Deals fire damage to an enemy.

Plenilune Embrace - Restores target party member's HP and enhances attack and magic attack.

Demoralizing Roar - Weakens the attack of enemies within range.

Cimicine Discharge - Reduces the attack speed of enemies within range.

Animating Wail - Increases attack speed.

Battery Charge - Gradually restores MP.

Leafstorm - Deals wind damage to enemies within area of effect.

Regenration - Gradually restores HP.

[Del Murder]

REFRESH! No new physical spells, but that's ok, lots of other good stuff.

Also, and I'll have to check once I finally get to log in, but once I do I'm pretty sure everything I had in my inventory will still be there and won't be replaced. What was good yesterday will still be good today.

[Ouch!]

If you like being gimp, sure. Level 76-80 stuff is better than anything we have right now save for a few pieces. Sure, it'll last to 80 and do well, but they just outright killed a lot of formerly top-tier gear. If they're doing that with only level 80 out, imagine everything from 81-99.

[Del Murder]

I looked at your list and only saw a few things I would want, to be honest. There is some good stuff to be sure, but to say it replaces everything is an overstatement. We don't even know how to get this junk. If it requires hunting some level 99 NM then I'm perfectly fine with my slightly less elite equipment.

[Rostum]

Except that all the new gear is a huge improvement of anything currently in the game, and to say otherwise pretty much shows you either don't know anything about end-game gear or you're just in denial because you don't want to make the effort to get more gear.

I can not imagine sticking with our current gear at level 99 or even 80+ for that matter. You'll gimp out majorly, and I'm not saying that because I'm an elitist snob (because I'm far from it). It'll pretty much equate to being level 30 and saying "Why should I get new gear when this level 16 gear worked fine when I was level 16?".

That said, I can't be assed to get more gear. ><; Probably be the end of me on FFXI. Also tried out Walk of Echos and it was complete trash.

[Ouch!]

While Walk of Echoes is apparently trash (nobody knows what the fuck is up, as I understand it), Abyssea is some of the most fun I've had in Final Fantasy XI in years.

[Del Murder]

It'll pretty much equate to being level 30 and saying "Why should I get new gear when this level 16 gear worked fine when I was level 16?".
Peacock charm was level 30 and it is awesome all the way to level 75. So that proves your statement wrong. I know there is some new neck piece with accuracy +12, but as I said before we don't know the time or money required to get that stuff so it's entirely possible that PCC is still the best economic solution. And +2 accuracy really isn't going to make or break you. That's just one example.

I guess I really only care about stuff for Blue Mage so that's what I focused on. And from the list I only saw a couple things that I would consider an upgrade. Weapon, Str rings, a leg piece that probably beats Homam, that's about it. Nothing will beat BLU AF+1 body for casting spells in, for example, unless it has BLU skill +20 or something. But I don't see anything like that. I'll have to wait and see what the AF3 looks like.

[Del Murder]

Yeah, from everything I've heard and read, Abyssea looks pretty cool. I still don't know if I'm going to buy it, though, since I'm trying to phase this game out of my life now. I love it but it's such a time sink, especially going to level 80. Not only do we need to exp for hours and hours to get to 80 but even the limit break quest requires 30k exp. Such a blow.

When I signed on yesterday I was all ready to get into a party and hardcore grind out as much as I could, but I just couldn't do it. Parties require at least 2 hours of nonstop paying attention to what you're doing to be worthwhile and I don't know if I have the time for that anymore. So now the only option is Campaign or soloing, which you can do at your own pace, but will take forever. I tried soloing some floating skulls and got 350exp on a chain 3 but then I got one shot by a Thundaga III and had to HP. :(

I did learn Battery Charge though! Too bad it's level 79. =/ Learning spells is still fun. I missed it.

Best part of the update so far: Utsusemi tells you how many shadows you have left. Hell yeah!

[Rostum]

Except for the most part there are better pieces than the PCC. I thought you'd be looking at PLD gear, which is pretty much forcing PLD to be a turtle tank again (yes!) and is a huge improvement on anything you get at level 75 (lots of enmity and -damage gear).

Apparently Abyssea is fun, but I'll let Ouch cover that one.

All I can say is, if you plan to even play the game for a few more months just pay the $10 to get it, because people are saying it's a lot of fun (unlike that Walk of Echos :bou::bou::bou::bou:).

Oh I'll also add, someone reached level 80 withiin 6-8 hours of the content being released. The exp curve only goes up in incriments of 500exp, and apparently people are reporting the soft cap on exp being lifted (getting 400+exp per mob in Abyssea I believe?).

[Del Murder]

It's a long shot that I'll take more than one job past 75, or even one for that matter. So I'm going with BLU since it's tons more fun. I will say that I do like a lot of the blood tanking gear PLD is getting. PLD/NIN always pissed me off. I wonder if it will be enough, though.

[Rostum]

PLD/NIN always pissed me off. I wonder if it will be enough, though.

Yeah, it does for me too. Well the only time I've ever liked it is when tanking Ultima and Omega in Limbus.

[Ouch!]

Not sure if the 400 exp. mobs in Abyssea are because of an increase in the exp. soft cap or if that mob type has an innate exp. modifier. I'm currently leaning towards the latter.

I'll comment more about Abyssea as soon as I know what the hell we were even supposed to be doing in there. Wandering aimlessly with some friends for half an hour killing mobs for exp. and crour was pretty damn fun though.

[Miriel]

I can't believe people already reached 80. They're nuts! NUTS!

[Del Murder]

Last night I went online and did a /sea all linkshell. The highest level I saw was one level 77. So I said over LS chat, "Looks like everyone here has a life since I see no level 80s yet." To which the level 77 person said, "I'm already level 80 MNK." o_O

[Miriel]

Ahhhhhhhhhhhh, WTF?! xD

[Ouch!]

There was a guy on our server who hit level 80 the first night.

[Rostum]

I'm still only level 76 on one of my jobs and that was capped before the update! :p

[Del Murder]

I'm still at 0/3 merits to even break the limit.

[Ouch!]

I'm about 10k into level 78?

[Del Murder]

Question mark?

[Ouch!]

I left room for interpretation.

What the fuck happened to my avatar?

[Del Murder]

Haha what the smurf indeed.

Anyway, BLU 77 now. Not sure if I can keep this up for three more levels, let alone 22 more...