Out of what has become an interest to learn how to play various jobs to their potential, and the amount of idle time I find myself with whilst completing Final Fantasy XI's Trial of the Magian series, I have created this page in order to try voice my opinions, findings and try to get some feedback from the FFXI community.
I hope that this blog, whilst being a reflection of my own experiences during playing FFXI, may be of some interest to others too.
My background to FFXI is far from the hardcore. I started playing in 2009, primarily taking White Mage to what was the 75 level cap. I touched in assaults, limbus and sky only within a low-man environment. Being an EU player, I'm not able to join large Linkshells in order to participate in end-game events on what would need to be a regular basis in order to get any real benefits - however, playing alongside real life friends who introduced me to the game, I have been able to partake in such encounters.
Now, several years and many experience points later, I have WHM, RDM, SCH and COR above level 75, and the Linkshell I'm part of [TheSecretSociety] has more than started clearing through the newer content inside of Abyssea. Currently the Linkshell stands at around 12 people, and as of 29th January we are currently at 9/9 zone boss kills, and 1/6 Caturae kills before we can go on to the notable encounter of current content, Shinryu.
As a player I've come quite a long way, but still find myself quite dependant on others in order to accomplish personal goals. Whilst people I play with are more than willing to help should I ask, there's always a sence of pride at stake by which I feel I've always been 'carried' by the people I play with. Whilst I've never really seen this as an issue before, I find myself deep into the Trial of the Magian series, with no real intention in asking for help completing it - other than perhaps getting coins from Walk of Echoes :)
The trials I'm working on are for the Corsair/Ranger Marksmanship gun, Bedlam +2. Currently I'm at the Hovering Hotpot stage and haven't had any issue so far with just killing the NMs to this point with my Joyeuse. Looking further down the list, it's becoming more apparent that I'll actually need to take a more active role in playing the job in order to continue progression.
I've solo'ed NMs before, mostly on Red Mage. I'm also aware that Corsair can hold its own when soloing NMs. However, I've never had any experience in soloing on my Corsair. To me, its always been a luxury job, and when I can afford the ammo, I'll take it out to play around with. Gear wise, my Corsair is slightly lack luster, and an ongoing project. My Quick Draw damage now stands at ~300 outside of Abyssea. Bearing in mind that I've heard people hitting upwards of 500damage outside of Abyssea, it's fair to say I'm pretty undergeared. However, the general concept of the solo Corsair is to refrain from being hit whilst firing off Quick Draw, keeping the target away from you with use of terrain and the monster's pathing. So whilst I may not hit as hard, it should still be more than possible to kill NMs, it will just take longer and be more expensive.
I guess in closing, before I go more into depth into the subject, I should give a mention to a useful blog article on the art of solo pinning by Kanican - http://kanican.livejournal.com/47080.html#cutid2.
