A Beginner's Guide to Final Fantasy XI

How to Get from Levels 1-13 as Painlessly as Possible

Final Fantasy XI is one of the most popular massive multi-player online role playing games (MMORPG) currently on the market. The most frustrating part of FFXI is starting out, especially if a new player does not already have friends playing the game. However, once a few hurdles are passed, Final Fantasy one of the most satisfying games to play.

The Jobs

Final Fantasy XI is based on a job and a subjob system. The starting jobs include warrior, monk, thief, white mage, black mage, and red mage. These jobs are essentially broken into two groups, front line and back line jobs. Warrior, monk and thief are front line jobs and white mage, black mage, and red mage are back line jobs. Here are some key job differences to help you decide what job you want to start with:

Warrior - Warriors in FFXI are your basic damage dealers (DD). If something needs bashed, they bash it! They excel at most weapons in the game, one drawback to this is that they may need to keep many different weapons skilled up simultaneously. They can also serve as a tank job in earlier levels.

Monk - Monks are also excellent DD. If there's something to smash, they smash it! Unlike warriors, monks specialize in one type of combat which is hand-to-hand. They specialize in undead, against which their damage is truly staggering, but they are excellent DD for any mob.