The Many Uses of {Besieged}
For all those people who don't know what Besieged is... well, it's best to see it to believe it, and for that you need Aht Urghan access. For those who do know what it is, shouldn't need any explaining as to what it is.
This is what I know of besieged as a lvl 67 whm.
Besieged participation has the obvious uses: you get xp and Imperial Standing points, and of course you help protect the Astral Candescence (aka the "Candy" as it is too often called)
But putting all that aside, it is also a great place to skill up pretty much anything.
*Healing Magic:
-As anyone who leveled a job that has healing magic skill would know, although you do tend to get some levels in this skill, it's hardly enough to cap it, so it tends to fall behind if you don't make sure that you skill it up separately; here is the besieged way:
Although you keep spamming cure on the NPCs, I find that either due to me becoming a higher level, or because of some fix by SE, it doesn't work as well anymore, now I prefer to skill up healing magic during the Undead Swarm Besiegeds. there are plenty of skeletons, ghosts and Qutrubs that can be cure spammed for some fairly quick Healing Magic Skillups. It seems that although it isn't necessary to deal damage with the cure to get skillups, you tend to get more if you do.
*Divine Magic:
-This is pretty straight forward, it is skilled up like anything else that is mainly directed at causing harm to the monsters, however any paladin or White Mage should be able to easily cap this from normal Exp Parties, nonetheless (for Red Mages mostly), here is the Besieged way:
This is pretty straight-forward, all you have to do is sub something with Divine magic (since Red Mages don't have any) and spam Banish on anything you can, just make sure someone's fighting it first.
*Enhancing Magic:
-This may not be capped for some mages early on, but starting from the mid levels and on, it shouldn't be too far from the cap, with the Haste cycles and Regen spells that White Mages use, and all the Refresh that Red Mages are. Although this can be easily (however slowly) skilled up through the spamming of fast-casting low MP cost spells (casting on oneself) such as Protect or the bar-element spells, it is certainly faster the Besieged way:
All you have to do is find a Volunteer (the best spot is with the White Mage (cat) general by the gate to the Candescence ) and just spam Protect and/or Shell on them, just make sure that it's landing (if they have a higher-tier protect/shell, the lower level ones will not work)
Just continue and you will see very fast skillups, just make sure not to cast anything higher than the tier1 shell protect, as it wastes MP, and they will not need it (if they do get attacked, then you may want to do so, but otherwise you can be sure that they can survive standing there and doing nothing)
*Enfeebing/elemental/dark Magic:
-This is all quite a no-brainer for the most part, any job that need to use these spells will most likely have these capped from xp parties, but if you do need to do so, just follow the simple Besieged way:
Elemental magic will easily skill up when cast at anything you can sat it at there, so go out there and do so... preferably without dieing. now enfeebing and dark may be somewhat linked; I think you can still get enfeebing skill ups from spamming dia, but it seems to be a better idea to alternate between dia and bio, as you will get both skill ups. Don't have much experience in this area, just know that Dia is your best friend there for enfeebing skill ups.
*Evasion Skill:
-This is something that all jobs have to some degree, some will almost alway have it capped (I'm looking at you tanks!) and others... not so much (Mages, and the like). In any case, the Besieged way of Skilling up this Skill is quite simple and very fast (at least from a Whm's point of view):
Anyone can do this, easier with anything AOE at your disposal, Diaga works great. At the beginning of a Besieged, run to the gates where the beastmen come through and use the Fanatic's Drink as soon as they break through and try to get the attention of as many mobs as you can, you only have 20-30 or so seconds of invincibility, but in that time no matter how many hits you take they will all result in 0 Physical Damage, I get 3-5 Skillups until the drink's effect wears off and I die in a second or so. This is where it is important that you have your home point in Whitegate, as now you should HP and use the moghouse to quickly return to Besieged and try to get more skillups in a similar fashion.
NOTES
-- I did not include a section for any skill I have not gotten a skillup in besieged as either my or my brother's (60 rdm) character
-- Red Mages have a clear advantage in getting magical skillups due to their Fast Cast and especially Chainspell, which can be regained after use by using a Revitalizer... a Wizard's drink also helps.
-- Skilling up Magic tends to result in quite high (max or near max) XP/IS points gained.
-- A session of Evasion Skilling up will most likely leave you with little to no XP/IS gained at the end of Besieged
-- Please feel free to add your experiences, as this is quite limited to me and my Whm
