Category:Combat Skills

Combat Skills and Magic Skills are stats that are natural to a character's job—they both go hand-in-hand as they are all used to battle mobs in one way or another.

There is a cap to each skill depending on the class and their proficiency with said skill. As your job level goes up, the cap rises as well.

Certain jobs excel at some skills, while other jobs excel at others. Make sure you know what skills your job excels at and raise them to reach the maximum potential of your character.

The amount of attack and accuracy you gain by equipping a weapon using a particular skill is directly proportional to the Combat Skill level.

Job Skill Ranks

Skill Caps

There are 2 further skill ranks, although their existence is mostly trivial and can only be found on automatons.
G : caps 171 @ 75, and 201 @ 90.
H : caps 0 @ 75.
For instance, Valoredge Frame has a rank H Automaton Magic Skill. Soulsoother Head adds 2 ranks to Automaton Magic Skill, thus H > G > F. Stormwaker Head only adds one rank, thus H > G. (Note that Stormwaker Head also adds 1 Automaton Melee Skill rank.) For players the H and G ranks have little meaning, since there is no equipment or trait that increases ranks. Not having a skill is equal to rank H, and no player skill has rank G. Merits can be used to increase the actual skill level, but not the skill rank.

Combat Skill Level Chart

Click here for a larger picture

Skilling Up

Combat and magic skills are raised by using them on mobs of the appropriate level to your skill.

• With weapons, attacking or performing physical weapon skills
• With defensive combat skills, performing the defensive action, eg. blocking or parrying
• With offensive magic skills, casting it on the enemy
• With supportive/healing magic skills, casting it on yourself or other players (target level doesn't matter)
  • Healing magic can also be cast upon undead for skill ups, similar to offensive magic
• With summoning skill, summoning an avatar, or using Blood Pact: Rage and Blood Pact: Ward
• Some magic skills include both offensive and supportive/healing magics and thus can be skilled up in multiple ways

To work out the minimum level mobs required for skill ups, follow these steps:

• 1. Using the job skill ranks table, identify the rank of the skill for your job
• 2. Note your current skill level, and follow the appropriate rows in the skill caps tables for your rank, moving up in levels until you reach the level where the skill cap exceeds your current skill level
• 3. That level is the minimum level required of mobs for you to gain any skill ups with that particular job and particular skill

• 4. As of an update in 2011, this is not quite true anymore, as a mob 1-2 levels below the “even match” equivalent for levels less than level 85, and 1-7 levels below the “even match” equivalent for levels greater than level 85, will result in skill ups also.

Example 1:
Lv 70 RDM skilling up dagger, dagger skill is currently at 150

• Using the job skill ranks table, RDM's dagger rank is "B"
• Since the rank is B, we'll look at the B+/B/B- rows for Lv 1-60, and the B row for Lv 61-80 in the skill caps tables
• Moving along the B+/B/B- rows, skill level 150 is first exceeded at Lv 51 (which has a skill cap of 151)
• So a Lv 49 mob would give the RDM skill ups on dagger, but only until 151 skill, mobs higher than Lv 49 are needed to continue skill ups
• In order to cap off dagger skill at Lv 70 (which would be 228 for the Lv 70 RDM), he'll need to fight Lv 70 mobs or higher

Example 2:
Lv 70 BLM skilling up dagger, dagger skill is currently at 150

• Using the job skill ranks table, BLM's dagger rank is "D"
• Moving along the D rows, skill level 150 is first exceeded at Lv 54 (which has a skill cap of 154)
• So at minimum, a Lv 52 mob is needed for the BLM to skill up dagger
  • Note the same Lv 52 mob would allow the Lv 70 RDM to skill up dagger until 166, since RDM's dagger rank is B
• In order to cap off dagger skill at Lv 70 (which would be 201 for the Lv 70 BLM), he'll also need to fight Lv 68 mobs or higher

Example 3:
Lv 90 BST skilling up Axe, with current skill of 324

• Using the Job skill ranks table, BST axe skill is a “A-”
• Moveing along the A- rows, skill level of 324 is first capped for a lvl 85.
• So at the minimum a level 81 mob is required for skill ups (level 86 - 7 because Decent Challenge for a level 86 is 1-7 levels below)
• In order to cap off Axe at level 90 (skill of 354 without merits/gear), level 83+ mobs are required to skill up.

Note that:

• By fighting Decent Challenge or higher mobs, you can always cap any combat/magic skill
• Similarly, in order to cap any skill, you must fight Decent Challenge or higher mobs eventually (after lower level mobs stop giving skill ups)
• The maximum skill obtainable on a certain level mob differs between jobs and between skills, as it is determined by the rank of the particular skill for the particular job, as per the job skill ranks table.
• Similarly, the level of mobs needed to attain a certain skill level also differs between jobs and between skills

Special Consideration:

• Several jobs are capable of equipping weapons (or shields) while also not having access to that combat skill.
• Jobs that do not innately possess a skill are considered to have a 0 in that skill, even if they have that skill leveled on another job.

Skill Caps by Job

• Bard Skill Caps
• Beastmaster Skill Cap
• Black Mage Skill Caps
• Blue Mage Skill Caps
• Corsair Skill Caps
• Dancer Skill Caps
• Dark Knight Skill Caps
• Dragoon Skill Caps
• Monk Skill Caps
• Ninja Skill Caps
• Paladin Skill Caps
• Puppetmaster Skill Caps
• Ranger Skill Caps
• Red Mage Skill Caps
• Samurai Skill Caps
• Scholar Skill Caps
• Summoner Skill Caps
• Thief Skill Caps
• Warrior Skill Caps
• White Mage Skill Caps

See Also

• FFXI Skill Cap charts
• Skill Ups: A Guide by Kyrial Skillupmonsters and Places from Level 85-89
• Skill Up Guide by Crimsontonic Skillupmonsters and Places up to Level 83