User:Elwynn/Mage Skill-up Guide

Magic skill-ups depend on the level of your target. When comparing levels, you are comparing your skill point cap at your target's level with your current skill points. If the level of your target is too low, you simply don't get a skill-up. If the level of your target is much higher than you, you will see lots of 0.5 skill-ups. And if the level of your target is exactly the same as you (such as casting spells on yourself), then you can reach your cap, but the last few points will come very slowly.

Note that the level of the spell being cast does not matter. All that matters is that it is not resisted, and that it doesn't give the "no effect" message. You will get the same chance at the same amount of skill-ups whether you cast Cure I or Cure V. The only difference is how many magic points get used.

Weapon skill-ups also depend on the level of your target, but with the exception of ranged attacks (which basically don't matter for a mage job), you have to get right up to the target and /attack it. Also, you won't see 0.4 or 0.5 skill-ups because when you are that far from the cap, you won't be able to hit the target.

Shield and Evasion skills only raise when you get attacked directly, and you only get Shield skill-ups when you have a shield equipped. As for Evasion skill-ups, when not in direct combat, a white mage usually only sees them right before getting K.O.-ed.

Your cap in any skill is determined by your job's skill rating for that skill. The magic skill ratings for White Mage, Black Mage, and Red Mage are:

Look up the skill cap at your level for each skill. Know what the skill caps are at your current level so that you know when you've reached the cap and don't waste your time or magic points on a capped skill.

A source of Refresh will help reduce your downtime. Get one if you can.

• For Besieged and ToAU areas, Sanction with Refresh costs 100 Imperial Standing, which may be a bit costly if you haven't unlocked all your Mog Locker expansions yet. The best NPC to use is Asrahd, who doesn't go away when the battle starts.

If you have a need for Refresh in other areas:

• Sigil with latent Refresh costs 50 Allied Notes. This gives you 1MP/tick in WoTG areas when you have less than half MP. 1MP/tick will last you a long time when casting 8MP Cure spells.
• /SMN25 or /PLD35 will give you Auto Refresh for 1MP/tick.
• Subbing Black Mage of at least level 20 will give you the Conserve MP ability, letting you cast more spells with your MP.
• A Red Mage or Bard could be a good source of Refresh if you skill up in a group.
• The Fields of Valor field manuals offer a 90-minute Reraise for 10 tabs and a 60-minute 1MP/tick Refresh for 20 tabs.
• Make sure your Reraise is up!

• The generals in Besieged make great targets for Healing Magic skill-ups.
• It's okay if the NPC has full health. You still get skill-ups from 0HP heals.
• Just throw plain old 8MP Cure I spells on the NPC. There is no advantage to using higher level spells, and they drain your MP faster.
• You can heal players too, but they could get a bit annoyed if you heal them by spamming Cure I spells.
• Try casting Cure on Sprites (level 61-63) and Pixies (level 51-59) for healing skill-ups. Better yet, go to Witchfire Glen in the northwest corner of Grauberg (S) and try it on Sidhe, which are level 75-77. (Note: in actual testing, casting Cure on Pixies, etc. results in a "no effect" message. So this doesn't work after all.)
• If you are in a party with a level 75 player, you should be able to spam Cure spells and get quick skill-ups until the equivalent skill of level 70.

/ma Cure <t>

• In Besieged, attack PURPLE NAME MONSTERS ONLY! If the monster's name isn't purple, that means no other player is attacking it, which means that YOU will be the only player on its hate list, which means a quick death!
• Alternate between Dia (7MP) and Banish (15MP) spells.
• Cast Haste on yourself so that the recast time on Banish will be only a little more than the time to alternate with Dia. Re-cast Haste as necessary. Remember that Haste doesn't do anything when you are in Weakened state.
• Don't cast Banish if you've capped Divine Magic; don't cast Dia if you've capped Enfeebling.

/ma Haste <me>

/ma Dia <t>

/recast Banish
/ma Banish <t>

Tired of casting enhancing spells on yourself for infrequent 0.1 skill-ups? Try casting them on NPCs in Besieged!

Just find a General (at the start of the battle they are in known locations), and start casting Enhancing Magic spells on the General. Avoid the temptation to target someone else for a heal or raise, since the Generals can be very hard to re-target in the midst of battle. (But you can cast spells from menus or the command line without losing your target.) You can also cast Enhancing Magic spells on other Besieged NPCs such as the Qiqirn Freelancers and Volunteers.

• The best General for this is General Mihli, in the Hall of Binding area, because monsters tend to reach her last. Use Sprinter's Drink (if available) to reach her quickly at the start of Besieged.
• Protect and Shell are the best choices for speed and low MP cost, and will work as long as someone hasn't already stuck a higher tier Protect or Shell on your target. Some people do this because they mistakenly think that the higher tier spells provide faster skill-ups. They don't. They only make it impossible to use the most efficient spells. If you are high enough level you can use Protect IV and Shell IV instead, but please don't use them unless you are forced to by someone else using them first.
• When the Mamool Ja are attacking in Besieged, Puks tend to spam Dispelling Wind at the start of the battle. While it is annoying to lose your Wizard's Drink and Giant's Drink effects, they can dispel higher-tier Protect and Shell effects on the NPCs, allowing you to cast the tier-I spells.
• Casting Protect and Shell on an NPC apparently prevents that and other NPCs from casting a higher tier spell on the NPC.
• If you can't use Protect or Shell, you can use Haste instead. While Haste is slow to recast, and it costs 40MP, it will always overwrite an existing Haste. Unfortunately, Haste is a level 40 White Mage / level 48 Red Mage spell and thus can't be subbed to another job. If you don't have a sufficiently high-level White Mage or Red Mage, you may not be able to use this method to skill up Enhancing Magic.
• If you are in a party with a level 75 player, you should be able to spam Protect and Shell spells and get quick skill-ups until the equivalent skill of level 70.

/ma Haste <me>

/ma Haste <t>

The usual way to skill up Enhancing is to spam Bar- spells constantly for a few hours. This is typically done with a 3 Bar-spell macro while standing outside a Mog House entrance. Al Zahbi or a [S] area are good Mog House locations because you can get a latent Refresh effect with Sanction and Sigil, letting you go longer before you have to duck into the Mog House to recharge. Be polite and don't do this where lots of players go idle.

Here is the macro:

/wait 3
/ma Barstonra <me>
/wait 4
/ma Barwatera <me>
/wait 4
/ma Barfira <me>

Hit the macro again as the third casting time bar goes away, or listen for the third casting "whoosh" sound to start.

• The last few skill points will take a long time when casting spells on yourself.
• If you have a higher level friend who doesn't mind standing idle outside the Mog House for a while, make a party and try targeting the spells on him/her. Of course this won't work very well after you reach level 70 or so. This applies to Healing Magic as well.

Summoner uses a similar technique for Summoning Magic skill-ups by repeatedly summoning different avatars in rotation.

I haven't leveled Summoner, but I have been told that the best way to level Summoning Magic is to go into Besieged and repeatedly use Blood Pacts on the enemies. This gives you skill-ups at the level of your target, and should be much more effective than endlessly summoning and dismissing avatars when you are near your skill cap.

These principles should apply to Black Mage and Red Mage as well. For Black Mage you will want to level up Elemental and Dark skills, and possibly Enfeebling as well. Red Mage still needs Enfeebling and Enhancing skill-ups beyond Black Mage and White Mage.

• BLM and RDM need a source of Reraise. Either use a Reraise Earring (level 24) or /WHM (level 50). Or bring a WHM.
• A BLM/WHM in the high 20s can skill up Elemental and Dark magic in Besieged, then spam Cure II spells for the rest of the battle, and get up to 60% of the full battle XP, for as much as 10% of the experience needed to gain another level.
• BLM should spam Bio (15MP) and Stone (9MP). When possible, cast Aspir (10MP), which can get you a bit of MP back too, but its 60 second recast time keeps you from spamming it. If in a skill-up group, getting Haste will let you cast Aspir more often.
• BLM can use Poison (5MP) and Bind (9MP) for Enfeebling Magic skill-ups if Dia is not available, but unlike Dia, they can be resisted, which means no skill-ups. Also, Bind has a long recast time.
• RDM can make good use of Chainspell + Revitalizer in Besieged, especially for spells with long recast times such as Banish and Haste.

/ma Bio <t>

/ma Stone <t>

/ma Aspir <t>

/ma Bind <t>

A Black Mage really has no need for combat skills other than using weapon skills to recover MP, and a Red Mage can gain skills in the usual way by meleeing. White Mage is a special case, since while they are normally the main healer, with proper skills and gear they can solo decently, especially in Campaign Battles and Besieged. The main goal for a White Mage to work on combat skills is usually to get Hexa Strike.

Once you've got your magic skills capped, keep them capped. The further behind you get, the longer it takes to catch up. It should only take one Level 8 Besieged every time you gain a level to keep them capped.

You will notice a slowdown in skill-ups when you hit levels 60, 70, and 75. After level 70 you will probably have a hard time capping everything in one Besieged battle. At level 75, you may be better off using the 3-Barspell macro to get the last 3 or so points of Enhancing. Just remember that once you're done, you're done. With the exception of later reaching 75 in another mage job, you won't have to do this for your magic skills ever again.