Greetings And Salutations!

I may not be from your server, but hopefully I can offer up my own share of advice. I remember being a newbie, and oftentimes I wanted to just quit. But there's a lot of good to this game, and once you really get into it, you'll realize that it's worth playing.

My own tips:

1. Level the job you want to level first. I don't care if it's not a 'popular EG job'. My job list for leveling was DRG (back when it was lolDRG and I had to solo a lot), then BLU, and then BRD. BRD was the first time that I really had a 'useful EG job' but I had plenty of EG experience anyway. The point of this game is to have fun, not to conform to everyone else.

2. As was stated above, please save your Beastman Seals. I spend hours trying to get a handful these days, it's really sad. I remember back when I was like 30ish and had a full stack of 99 Seals in my MH, and I didn't know what they were for so I just tossed them. I regret that to this day.

3. I don't recommend Astral burns on your first job, or really any job you plan on maining. Subjobs are fine. The dunes may suck, and suck hard, but they're your chance to really start to learn the roles of your job. A WHM jumping into Qufim might spam Cure III because it's the higher-tier cure, but they don't realize it's less MP-efficient at the time and that it draws a huge amount of emnity if you're curing in large bursts. That is the way to kill a WHM, not to play it.

4. See Des's points with the exception of what to level first. =)

I hope you enjoy yourself with this game!

If you want to level what you want first, more power to you. I won't argue. However, if you want to enjoy this game to its fullest potential, follow my advice and you'll be golden.

Best advice ever. Satchel ftw.

Seriously though, hit me up if you need help!

Yep, I quit BLU at 56, due to no Sea.. Don't wanna go any further if I can't get my end-gameish spells. Plus Blue Magic has no equip memory, you gotta reset spells if you swap just to warp, teleport, etc.

That aside, welcome to THE GAME, even though I'm not on Asura. Have fun. :D

Des's advice is pretty solid, but the most important thing is do whatever the hell you want, and have fun. If you do what everybody tells you to do, you'll become what everybody else has become... namely a grizzled old endgame pro that argues about the same crap into infinity and doesn't know what the ***. I can't count the number of broken LS leaders that told me to level bard.

Oh... and don't forget to activate your empress band. I think I hit level 15 before I realized you had to actually "turn it on". :)

{True Strike} Play your own way and don't let a LS force you to level anything.. like BLM.. lol.

Just level blm and brd!

Level whatever you want and play however you want, theres always going to be someone you'll run into that tries to tell you how to play, how to gear, how to do anything. Where's the fun in being told what to do? Endgame isn't always fun, so I wouldn't stress worrying about that too much just yet, as someone else said Empress band!

It is great to have, if you get in a good party, never be afraid to make your own parties for that matter, instead of spending forever looking for one and if you see someone with an M symbol on their name, they're a Mentor, usually we have that status up, because we're willing to help/answer any questions you may have or at least some are, some just forget to take it off.

IDK if that was speaking to Myst or me, but..

My BLM is 75, I was forced to lvl it. Good for meriting, though. BRD isn't my thing, sadly. I would lvl BRD, but I've always had the feeling that if I did, I'd be stuck as BRD for everything I did.

I was just playin haha. Honestly, have fun with ffxi. I leveled ninja then didt do ***but suck at the game for 4 years and I love it. I met alot of really really awesome people. To me that's the best part of ffxi. Make friends, try not to screw people over. Hater gon hate but in the end you will enjoy ffxi the most if you try to help out others and see them acheive their goals.

Despayn's advice is solid. (*** server-merge name-change thing right? ; -;)

BRD was the first job I leveled to 75.

WHM to 18, switched to BLM(/WHM) leveled to 18, switched to WHM/BLM, leveled to 37, unlocked BRD (you can do this at 30), leveled to 75.

It's not the most fun job, but it's enjoyable unless you've played it non-stop for about a year. It gets the job done, and gives you opportunities to get shinies for jobs you enjoy. Hopefully the job you enjoy is also a somewhat useful job for endgame (if you plan to go that route) so you don't have to be stuck with perma-BRD. It's really not that bad I'm just jaded, I guess. @_@;;

<3 Dancer, <3 Summoner.

Sounds like something I'll have to see about.

It's a good job, it's just tedious for longer events (Dynamis being the worst one). Most other things it's not too bad, and can be fun.

Edit: BRD at Jailer of Love sucks pretty badly too. /doze.

Any job that requires you to do the same ******over and over with little variety is boring as *** period, which is why I never got into BRD. Pulling on BRD is fun if your party doesn't suck.

Not to threadjack, but what are the songs I need specific instruments for? I know Lullaby and March, IDR if there's a harp for Ballad.

March, Minuet, Madrigal, Elegy, Lullaby Horn(Harp if you're OCD), Storm Fife (ballad) if you do salvage or Nyzul with any frequency. It's nice to have all of them, but those are the big ones. If you do weird things, getting a Mambo instrument is good too.

Edit: Angel Lyre is nice if you're a pullerBRD for a Haste macro... also hymnus.

Makes me want a G-horn, lol. Still lvling BRD seems like it might be a good thing to do.

The only Ballad instrument is the Storm Fife (Wind) and only works in Assault.

Any good bard will also have a Cornette +1 for Minute, and a Traversiere +1 for Madrigal. Also worth having is a Horn +1 for Elegy and a Angel Flute +1 is nice for Preludes. I also have a Hellish Bugle +1 for Mambo and a harp for Paeon in the mog house but I don't think I've had a chance to put them to use.

Question: Being that I have an e-crush on the Marduk's set, would it be acceptacle for a BRD to wear full Marduk's or just the head? I'm not sure I'd want to add stuff into my inventory, especially R/E, that I'd only have 'for looks'.

I have full marduks, and idle in it. It's pretty. Seriously though, Head's amazing for buffs/debuffs, body you can use for debuff/idle if you have gil to burn and like it that much, hands are nice for idle... that's it, legs are debuff or buff if you don't have AF+1, feet are hot for HARP HORDE LULLABYYY.... but you can use Relic feet.

Basic things you need for normal BRD usage are a Skill+ set for buffs (March/Madrigal)

and a Skill/CHR/Magic accuracy set for debuffs.

Everything else is icing. That being said I love my icing.

If you did all that work to get Marduk's I wouldn't hold it against you if you did. I don't do Salvage though so Bard's Roundlet is equally as nice. I think I've seen more people with the Roundlet.

Thx for the info.

NP~ I mostly use full Marduk as a substitute for Sha'ir's (or Yigit, etc) song spellcasting- in precast, but aside from merits and wanting more AFK time, it's not like songs really need to be sang any faster. Edit: Unless you're a swap ***, that'd suck, etc.

If full Marduk sucked gigantoid cockasaurus, I'd still fulltime it. Looks > everything else, FFFFFF

Clin always tells the truth. Might I just add, that play this with a free mind...and an open mind at that as well!. Make sure you keep farming ( Making money) and you should be alright). When he said about don't let ppl pick you down or rate you down about your job.. just like WOW ( never played it but I bet you get the same ***there).. just take it with a grain of salt, and enjoy yourself.

Yeah. Devoting a little time EACH DAY to farming = no gil problems, unless you have to buy something really expensive, which trust me, you won't for quite a while.

Camp Leaping Lizzy/Valkurm Emperor as soon as you can. Those two drop items that you'll be using for quite some time on almost all melee jobs for quite sometime.

I've had my bounding boots for 7 years now, and they still comes in handy :)

Wow thanks everyone its so awsome to see this kind of responce. I don't mind a little thread jacking I've done it befor also. I have sent out alot of friend requests to those of you and have gotten great responce thanks for taking the time to be my friend and put up with the questions. I hope to contenue to make new friends and join with some of you in parties. I just revenly got my subjob and have gone back to the starting area but its been so much fun so far.

/welcome

RDM is awesome as first job :P if you decide to level sth else at 30+, itll still be cool to have RDM as SJ =)

You can send me a friend request as well.

I'd be glad to solo any of your level cap or AF quests, so if you end up needing help with something like that and I happen to be on, feel free to send me a tell. :)