I recently came back to the game and had to start on a fresh account, and I know there are a lot of other people in my situation. It's very easy to get to 99, but once you're there, you'll find yourself almost useless if you don't find a way to skill up your relevant combat and magic skills. The method you choose to cap these skills can range anywhere from wildly inefficient to 10+ times faster.
Here are my suggestions for powerleveling skills as fast as possible.
**DISCLAIMER:** Use spellcast xmls / automation at your own risk. Although I have never gotten in trouble for this, and noone I know has ever gotten in trouble for this, I've heard at least one tangential account of someone being jailed for it. What this means is, don't leave it running for 24 hours, don't leave it unattended / keep an eye on it if at all possible. Have it in the background while you watch TV. Then it's entirely safe.
* **Combat Skills**
* **Prequisites**
**NEW 4/1/2014** Go to any Fields of Valor book (for instance outside of any starter city) and under field support, spend 300 tabs to get Cipher of Sakura's alter ego. It's a new trust which, when summoned, increases the rate of your **combat** skill ups.
Get the weakest weapon you can find for each weapon type(Low DMG), with the exception of staff which should be Earth Staff or Terra's Staff.
At level 230-250 for each weapon type, consider picking up the [weapon of trials](http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Trial_Weapon) and continuing skillup with that weapon. These weaponskills are used for Abyssea blue !! procs, and Voidwatch blue !! procs. Some of them are also the best weaponskills for certain jobs.
Level WAR to 99.
Level DNC to 49.
Unlock Abyssea-Altepa, and get basic Atmas from the event chests that appear every few months in Port Jeuno. If the event isn't currently running (Blue Box next to Joachim) then I would recommend taking the time to get any relevant Atma that you need before beginning skillup, because of how much faster this method is than others.
Level from **0-100** combat skill in Eastern/Western Altepa Desert, on the enemies near the Altepa gate crystal, outside of Rabao, and in front of the Kuftal Tunnel Entrance. Fight single enemies, this won't take you long, and we're doing this to build enough basic accuracy so that we can do the next part.
Level from **100-200** inside Kuftal tunnel. Equip yourself with the full Outrider set, which gives a set bonus of Physical Damage Taken-10% when all 5 pieces are equipped. I also recommend starting this with staff, and using Earth/Terra's Staff for your staff skillup. The extra -20% Physical Damage Taken acts as a nice set of training wheels to figure out a comfortable rotation for this method.
You will want to use either a few macros and a lot of button mashing, or a windower plugin called Spellcast.
You should be spamming all of these abilities every time their cooldown is up:
3 minute cooldown, 3 minute duration. Increases defense by 25% for survivability. Lowers your attack by 25% so that your enemies last longer without you having to constantly go grab more.
3 minute cooldown, 3 minute duration. Gives you a 100% chance to counterattack every physical attack that is taken from the front. You will only see the attack animations for swings of yours that accurately hit, so if your accuracy is too low, it may seem like you're not countering very much. You get full TP from every swing, and full TP from all the damage you take from the enemies. This leads to massive TP generation, which is then used for…
Optional: If you are going to be using spellcast, here's an [example skillup xml](http://pastebin.com/grPhJ0Xg).
Optional: Food. You can use defense food (Tavnazian Taco) or skillup food (Elshena, etc) but I personally did this without any food, and I think they're unnecessary with how fast this happens with just Temachtiani gear.
Now that we have all of that out of the way, this is what you do. Train a bunch of Robber Crabs and Lizards. Be respectful of anyone else trying to skill up or level up, leave their enemies alone, there's plenty in the zone to share. Start with just a few at a time and work your way up to more as you become more comfortable. Gradually change in less PDT gear for Temachtiani skillup gear when you're sure you can stay alive.
Once you have a bunch of enemies, walk up next to a wall and try to move so that all of the enemies stack up in front of you. Go to first person view and move the camera left and right without moving your character so that the enemies don't move once you're in correct position. Try to make it so you're facing as many of them at once as possible. I usually have it so I'm facing every last enemy I've pulled.
Activate Defender, Retaliation, and spam Curing Waltz III every time it's on cooldown. Watch the skillup fly.
Use Regen/Defense atmas, and Regain atmas. Personally I used Stronghold(Defense+40 and 15HP/tick Regen) and Voracious Violet(Double Attack 10% isn't very useful, tp regain 2/tick is.)
Pull a bunch of mandragoras into a corner and use the same method as you did in Kuftal tunnel.
This should cap evasion and parrying, and whatever weapon you have equipped. I do not recommend going to the Abyssea camp until you have at least 200 skill to ensure you can even hit the enemies with your counterattacks. If you don't have enough accuracy, you won't gain enough TP to keep yourself healed. Start slow until you've got the right mixture of defensive combat skills, PDT gear, comfort with the technique, and accuracy with your weapon. Then you can likely pull every single mandragora, assuming there isn't competition.
But knowing the popularity of reddit, this camp will probably get congested. That's ok, this method works anywhere else too, mandragoras are just the most efficient because they attack twice in each attack round, and they're easy to aggro en masse.
I recommend crab targets at low levels so they survive longer. At high levels you can use any target, but I can't stress the importance of the lowest damage weapon possible. If you try to do this with eminent weapons, you will kill all of your enemies in a few minutes, even without any combat skill.
Level **1-100** in Eastern/Western Altepa Desert, on mobs near Rabao, near the Atlepa Gate Crystal, and by the entrance to Kuftal Tunnel. Single mobs are fine.
Level **100-200** in Kuftal Tunnel or in The Boyahda Tree on single Robber Crabs.
Level **200-250** in the upper level of The Boyahda Tree, on Steelshells.
Level **250-350~** just go hit things in an Abyssea La Theine worms party. Soboro makes this probably the fastest way you could get it done, regardless of what you're hitting. Use accuracy gear, and I recommend using [Atma of the Apocalypse](http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Atma_of_the_Apocalypse) and anything with a lot of DEX or Accuracy.
Activate the Records of Eminence quest for "Deal 500+ Damage" (repeatable.)
Punch everything. Watch as you get ridiculously fast sparks, rapid skillup, fast merits, and you carry the alliance by doing a third of the damage. Even with 0 Hand to hand skill. Even with no other gear on but the sparks h2h. They're really that good. No lower zones necessary.
* **Guard**
The Mandragora camp in Abyssea - Altepa is good for rapidly getting yourself to a very high level of guard. I'm not sure if it will take you all the way to cap, but it's definitely going to ungimp you within an hour or two, from 0 skill.
MNK99/DNC49 with Espial(sparks) body and hands, and Temachtiani hat, pants and shoes.
Curing Waltz III spam. Pretty straightforward.
* **Shield**
You guessed it. Same place. Same everything, really, except PLD is probably the best job to do this with. Onion dagger, Eminent shield, Outrider/Temachtiani. PLD99/DNC49.
As with all of these jobs, the 2 pieces of Eminent, Wayfarer, or Outrider gear are primarily used for their VIT, HP, Evasion, and Magic Evasion.
* **Combat skills continued**
* **NEW 4/1/2014** Go to any Fields of Valor book (for instance outside of any starter city) and under field support, spend 300 tabs to get Cipher of Sakura's alter ego. It's a new trust which, when summoned, increases the rate of your **combat** skill ups.
* **Dagger, Sword, Axe, Katana, Club**
The best jobs to skill up 1 handed weapons are either THF, WAR, or NIN, depending on weapon type.
For Axe, use something with low damage, or use [Fendoir](http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Fendoir). Barring that, there's an Occ. Atk. 2-3x axe that you can make through magian trials, but you would realistically have axe most of the way leveled by the time you finished it, so it's not worth pursuing just for skillup.
For Katana, obviously you're just going to have to use NIN. Your gearset should include Temachtiani hat, pants and shoes, and all of your other pieces should focus on dual wield speed, haste, and accuracy. I don't have any specific recommendations for Katanas. Fast, low damage at low skill levels, sparks mainhand once you're fighting EXP mobs.
For Club, you're probably going to be stuck with whatever low damage club you can find. If you're lucky or rich, you can skill up with [Kraken Club](http://www.ffxiah.com/item/17440/kraken-club). If you're like most people, that's unrealistic.
Level from **0-100** on single target enemies in Eastern/Western Altepa Desert. Enemies near the Altepa Gate Crystal, enemies near the entrance to Rabao, enemies near the entrance to Kuftal Tunnel. Use either THF/DNC, WAR/DNC, or NIN/DNC. You can also use RDM sub on NIN or THF if you prefer to Haste yourself. WAR has to keep DNC sub if you want to retain Dual Wield.
Level from **100-200** on single target crabs in Kuftal Tunnel, or in the lower floors of The Boyahda Tree. Pretty much identical advice to what you did for level 0-100. It's possible to use WAR and the retaliation method with 1 handed weapons, but I've found that you can get skill nearly as fast with a good haste gear set and single mobs when using one handed weapons.
Level from **200-250** on Steelshells in the upper floors of The Boyahda Tree. Make sure to pick up your quest weapons at 230~250. At this point, the investment in an offhand weapon that has multi-attack is most worth it. Ridill, Mercurial Kris, Kraken Club, Fendoir, or barring any of those Joyeuse should be in your offhand. Although you'll miss out on the skill you would have gained from your offhand weapon being the same type you're skilling up, you can make up for it with rapid TP gain and multi-hit weaponskill spam if you're using Sword(Vorpal Blade), Axe(Rampage), Dagger(Dancing Edge), Katana(Blade: Jin), etc. This also vastly speeds up the process of gaining weaponskill points for your trial weapons.
Level from **250-350~** on either worms in an Abyssea La Theine worm party, or mobs in the new Seekers of Adoulin zones. For one handed weapons, you will see nice results from a combination of Temachtiani gear, Eminent mainhand, a multi-attack offhand, and use of a multi-hit WS every time you hit 100 TP.
You're going to want gear with as much ranged accuracy as you can fit, while also wearing Temachtiani hat, pants and shoes. RNG can't use Espial or Outrider, so if you have nothing else to wear for gear, you should put Wayfarer body and gloves on. They will keep you alive longer.
Level **0-100** shoot enemies in Western/Eastern Altepa Desert near the Altepa Gate Crystal, outside of Rabao, and in front of the Kuftal Tunnel entrance.
Level **100-200** shoot crabs inside Kuftal Tunnel, or crabs in the lower floors of The Boyahda Tree.
Level **200-250** shoot Steelshells in the upper level of The Boyahda Tree.
Level **250-350~** Go to a colonization reive, stand at max range and spam cheap low damage ammo on the wall/vine/etc. Not much to say about skilling up ranged skills, other than to use cheap ammo, use Spellcast to auto-shoot, and use Temachtiani gear.
WHM99/RDM49, BLM49, SCH49. Probably ideally RDM sub for this. (Convert, Fast Cast)
Use Temachtiani body and gloves, and Wayfarer hat, pants and shoes. [Cure Clogs](http://www.ffxiah.com/item/15323/cure-clogs) may speed this up, but they're optional. Bring an Eminent Staff and an Earth Staff/Terra's Staff.
Use [Stronghold](http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Atma_of_the_Stronghold), Minikin Monstrosity and Stormbird. These are all available from the blue chest near Joachim during the appropriate events. If you don't have these, use a combination of either 2 Regen atmas and 1 Refresh atma, or 1 Regen atma and 2 Refresh atmas. If you end up with 1 Regen/2 Refresh, make sure you compensate for the lack of healing by curing yourself more than if you had 2 Regen atmas.
Turn your back to him and spam cure 1 on him, slowing down often enough to refresh Afflatus Solace and Cure 4/5 yourself when you get to yellow HP. Don't worry about any other buffs, he uses dispelga and will remove them. You should be wearing your Earth/Terra's Staff, and any other PDT gear you can fit in with your Temachtiani and Wayfarer.
If you have two people, you can stand about 20' apart from each other and bounce the NM between both of you, lowering his damage over time.
Optional: [Example XML](http://pastebin.com/FipFgQQM). Very rough, needs tweaking. I still died a few times while using this xml, but it was the best I could get it working by the time I capped healing on both of my WHMs.
* **Enfeebling Magic**
RDM99 is best for this, and has the highest skill cap of A+(424@99). You can do this method with other jobs that have enfeebling, but the fast cast makes RDM a little faster at this.
Temachtiani body and gloves, Wayfarer hat, pants, and boots. Earth staff or Terra's staff. The rest of your gear doesn't matter, you could wear just those pieces and be fine.
Even if you're starting from 0 skill, it doesn't matter. Dia can't be resisted. You can start skilling up on high level targets immediately.
As of a recent patch, you can get skill ups inside of colonization and lair reives.
This means that the fastest/easiest way to cap a few skills, Enfeebling included, is to go to one of the Adoulin zones, walk within range of a Colonization reive, and spam spells on the wall/root/block of ice/etc. Your target should be anywhere from level 100 to 115, giving faster skill than any older content.
For Enfeebling, spam Dia. Stand at 20" yards away and you should avoid having any of the enemies attack you. Enemies from outside the reive can't attack you when you have the Reive Mark status. Enemies inside the reive typically stand about 10 yards away from the wall/rock/root, so if you stand at max range you can cast safely.
When you run out of MP, convert and do it again. Still gave me .5s even when I was one level from cap.
From levels 0-225 (but it'd be really hard to land spells at levels too low) you can also go to [Sea](http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Al'Taieu) and "fight" [these enemies](http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Ul%27hpemde). They have a quirk, they'll "aggro" you and follow you around without attacking you. They also don't attack you when you do non damaging moves to them, like debuffs. This means that you can spam (or set up a script to spam) slow, paralyze, blind, gravity, sleep, bind, or any other non damaging debuff and reap free skill. This caps at level 225 though, and it's more useful for something like BRD skills than enfeebling which doesn't need accuracy to work on Abyssea mobs. Auto-refresh from atma makes Abyssea a better idea even from level 0 in this case.
* **Dark Magic**
Exactly the same method as Enfeebling Magic, but use a BLM99/RDM49 with the same gear and spam Bio. Like Dia, Bio can't be resisted.
* **Elemental Magic**
Same method. BLM, same gear as the last 2 magic skills. Spam tier 1 nukes(Stone,Aero,etc) for fast skillup.
Consider enfeebling, dark, and elemental to be freebies. They're all very painless to level. Most people would probably consider healing to be the most tedious magic skill to raise, but with the skeleton method it's just as easy as these 3.
* **Ninjutsu**
NIN99 obviously.
Temachtiani body and gloves, Outrider hat, pants and shoes. For the purposes of skillup, I would recommend temporarily meriting Ninja Tool Expertise and wearing any gear you might have with it. Every time it procs, it saves you one tool. Adds up over time.
Spam tier 2 (Ni) elemental damage nukes on enemies. Haste gear is recommended to lower your recast timers. Subbing RDM gives you access to Haste(spell) + Refresh. This works basically the same way that skilling up Elemental magic did, except you're going to have to rotate through the spells because of a slower recast timer.
Johnnyderp Officer replied
562 weeks ago