Choosing Weapons and Armor  

Weapons and Armor

The various weapons and armor pieces available in Vana'diel give adventurers countless ways to gear up for battle. In some cases, gear can be used to enhance a jobs strengths, leading to job specialization. Sometimes, adventurers can use the stat bonuses from armor and weapons to shore up weaknesses -- such as protecting themselves against a certain elemental spell, or boosting evasion for soloing easy preys.

Whatever the case, choosing the proper gear for the tough road ahead is perhaps the most crucial -- and enjoyable -- dilemmas that adventurers face.

Weapon Skill Caps By Job

Different jobs are better at wielding different types of weapons. This graph shows the grades of each job class in each area of combat.

Optimal Weapons for Melee Jobs

Generally speaking, the most optimal weapon for melee jobs is their highest rated weapon. See the bolded skill caps above for reference.

Reason being that weapon will have more accuracy and attack then any other weapon the job can use. This especially becomes important at endgame where mobs defense and evasion are considerably high.

One-handed or Two-handed Weapons?

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Weapons for Mages

Low And Mid Levels

Mages can equip a variety of weapons in the early and mid levels depending on their specific jobs and styles of play.

• White mages and jobs acting as primary healers can benefit from clubs, poles or other weapons that add MP.
• Black mages and jobs that cast elemental nukes can equip weapons that add MP or INT, which has a slight benefit to magic accuracy and potency.
• Red mages and other jobs that cast enfeebling spells can also equip MIND or INT weapons -- usually clubs in the low and mid levels -- depending on the types of enfeebles being cast.
• Blue mages equip swords for meleeing. Red mages can also melee with swords effectively in the low and mid levels of the game.

Post 51: Elemental Staves

With the exception of blue mages, most mages switch to using the Elemental Staves upon hitting level 51. These staves are virtually unrivaled in most situations because they contain several hidden effects for spells and avatar perpetuation that correspond with each staff's element:

• 10 percent magic damage boost
• Added magic accuracy
• 10 percent damage reduction
• -2 avatar perpetuation cost
• +2 avatar perpetuation cost

Armor for DDs

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Armor for Tanks

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Armor for Mages

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The Art of Macro Swaps

Macro swapping is as easy as /equip slot "Item Name" Slot can be any one of the armor slots on your character. Here is a list of slots that can be swapped:

• main
• sub
• ranged
• ammo
• head
• neck
• ear1
• ear2
• body
• hands
• ring1
• ring2
• back
• waist
• legs
• feet

Note that swapping out main, sub, or ranged will cause you to lose your tp. So say for example you would like to swap out your head slot for weapon skills you would use the following:

/equip head "Optical Hat"

This macro would swap whatever gear your currently wearing for the Optical Hat. It's as easy as that, enjoy gear swapping to your heart's content.