The Pirates' Lair: A Guide To Corsair

I finished leveling cor to 75 a little before aby came out, so it went up "the old way" for me, so skilling up marks just went on naturally. Price was a very huge issue at the time, I was a player with no crafts, that did no profitable activity at all and struggled to get to the next party trying to afford cards and bullets x_x In the modern world where you can farm money quite easily(I see you have bst and blu, very good dyna jobs)this shouldn't cause problems anymore, unless you're dumping gil into a relic, mythic or 95 empy. In an average x6VW run I'd say at least one stack of orichalcum is consumed and half stack of oberon(varies depending on how fast the kills are done), so keep in mind that as an example.

Sooo tips..QD is a cheap, but slow way to skillup marksmanship, and can't miss; otherwise grab an Awilda gun and bronze bullets and go hunt things according to your skill level. With some food hopefully it won't take too long, but it's gonna cost.

In aby cor was never desired aside from epic brews, so that's not likely to be the place where you'll use it. On the other side cor is highly requested for almost any other endgame activity like VW, Legion, Odin, etc.
Wildfire is a very awesome tool for cor, I highly recommend making an Armageddon(it's easy, Carabosse and CC are pussies), even working slowly on it, I suggest to get it done.

And..what else?

Marksmanship is fairly easy to lvl on cor, if you get the gun that sehachan suggested and making a snapshot build ul be shooting very fast. If you exchange trophys in abyssea altepa / Grauberg / Ule you can get a snapshot +5 body for free. Also Triple Shot JA will be your friend here if your using Bronze bullets. Also the appropiate skill up food ring and earring makes it alot faster.

I got last stand first while I was making armageddon and I still use last stand even now depending on the mob. The ws is strong with correct gear and appropiate sub. Wildfire is a requirement pretty much if your going to move into endgame ever.

I would suggest focus on the skillin up and gear. Get +2 hands asap for increased roll duration (they also have good rng acc on em), and if you merit winning streak (which I did but im not telling you to) the relic +2 hat xp'd will further increase roll duration 7mins 48 seconds.

Oh snap(pun)didn't know it could go that high, time to dump more trophies for me too. I stopped at +3!

Short (and very cliche) ans: Don't give up, as long as you have passion you can succeed.



Long wall of text ans: I played this job for a little bit over 3 years now, not a very long time player, but not abby burned either....lv it in traditional EXP pt style. I'm not best geared COR around cuz I'm pretty NQ, and probably don't play it as much as many others, but I've spent quite a bit of effort/gil on it. I have a lv 99 empy, and currently close to 14k alex into Death Penalty(Although I haven't play a lot recently and kinda stopped)

This job was my 2nd job 75, and I started lving it immediately after my 1st job ding 75, before I get into endgame or finished old CoP etc. so it wasn't exactly easy task either.

I was already interested in this job before I started FFXI, although the 1st 75 job I picked BLU, but after I met a friend who played COR, and asked the community about this job I decided to lv it as 2nd job. Some friend warned me this job is pretty expensive to play well and better don't play it because it wasn't a noob friendly job, but I'm usually very stubborn and just told myself "I'll show you I can do it ;< ;< ;<"

It was pretty expensive(gear wise and bullet wise), also being new means I didn't have shark gun/luzaf ring access, although I semi solve the luzaf ring problem when I lv it by moving around. I also couldn't afford expensive gears such as martial gun. I had no craft, so all my income came from ISNM or selling IS or even doing tele and 2hr reset service(I was just that broke at that time!). I got pretty lucky though, had some nice friends help me with gears such as joyeuse/martial gun etc(although most of my gears were still AF1 only and pretty gimp) Eventually I was able to save up enough gil for some items such as PCC etc.

After that it was quite a lot of AN grind for melee set, on top of lving every necessary SJ for it. When magian was out I started high dmg gun, which later turned out to be empy gun path.

The fact is, I'm still pretty broke most of the time now and had to grind for gil, and probably played this job 5% of time in my FFXI life. Partially it's because it's most useful in higher lv content such as prov/legion and I rarely do those. But also because I can't always afford it. However, I was also pretty stubborn....I told everyone that it's going to be my "main job" when I started lv it(although it ended up I don't play it as much atm), and I'm going to prove that COR can DD too(that was also one of the reason I lv it to begin with), so the cost wouldn't scare me away since I already told everyone my goal and gonna stick with that goal. And my personality is just that if I'm dead set on something I don't change my mind.

My stubbornness eventually crashed me, when Abyssea came it was pretty useless most of the time, and doesn't really help a ton in terms of gear farm. I tried to lv Abyssea jobs such as WHM and couldn't take it(just damn hate to play as mages!) But eventually I got through it with lots of help and completed AF3+2 and empy 90.

Even then I have to admit, I have strong love/hate relationship with this job. A lot of times I hate it, to a point to even quit this job several times. Mainly because I spent too much gil/effort on a job that doesn't really make relevant difference in majority of content, and yet I wasn't able to put gil/effort into another job because it's literally the only reason why I keep playing FFXI....every time when I feel like quitting FFXI due to wanting to play another game or want to spend more time irl, I ended up coming back, always, simply because I miss this job. That's where the love/hate relationship came from, I can't stand myself playing the job imperfect, and yet I will never play it perfect.

A lot of times I wonder if I'd have better life in FFXI if the gil I spent is on WAR or BRD etc, but I know that I can never do it. I always joked that I'm (unhealthily) obsessed with this job, even after log off I just have to keep thinking about it and try to come up with better ways to play it, ways that nobody thought of and could potentially improve pt and job efficiency. And I'd probably accomplish a bit more irl if I love a job irl as much as this.(sadly I don't ;( )

I had most fun with this job in VW and old pink bird merit pt, that's when this job parsed closest to real DD and closest to my original goal to prove that the job can DD. But a lot of times I don't see very huge difference. I'm usually not a very hardcore gamer, often spend 1~2 month to finish 1 RPG, and never do any grinding, and never stick in ANY MMO long enough except FFXI. But I can totally do all the gil grinding for it just to play it as perfect as possible. This is probably one of the 1st "job" that I take it seriously and aim for perfection that I know I can never reach.

I have no idea why I can be obsessed with a job in a video game this much, I guess it's because it's theme:

You live for your companion, and gamble for a brighter future.

This is something I wish I can do irl, but never able to accomplish, maybe that's why I'm obsessed with it. There are certainly a lot of times I feel it's daunting, discouraged, frustrated and just damn hate FFXI, Corsair, and my "perfect on this job or gtfo" attitude(note that I don't have such attitude on every other job I played in this game and other games), which makes my life hard. But I also know that as long as I keep playing FFXI, I'd keep dumping gil and spend time on this job.

I hope that ans your question, it's certainly "normal" to feel daunting in FFXI for majority of players for any jobs. And there are really no tips except just keep doing what you love, and nothing is impossible to overcome if you love it enough.

Money wise, it's not as bad as it used to be. Trump Cards have gone a long way to lowering the overall expenditure on Cards and if you get an Armageddon you can get away with using Bronze Bullets for weapon skills. The rolls were, and still are, the main gil sink on Corsair but they're one time only investment. With the current climate of the game you're also unlikely to use a lot of them, unlike 'the good old days' when you would actively cycle between loads of rolls in different situations.

Example: Nobody uses BST roll anymore but it used to be amazing for Summoner parties. Nobody bothers with BLU roll for tank magic defense either. You could get away with not buying half of the rolls available which will easily save you 1-2m gil.

Wouldn't BLU roll useful for PLD if they're kiting mobs that nukes a lot(such as legion NM etc)?

Complaining about spending 2mil on JA at this stage of the game is stupid. BLM spells cost 4.2mil for one spell so your excuse to be half arsed is not justified

Ahh, Thank you for all the responses!
I guess the gil IS still a little daunting because I really don't have much in terms of.... Anything. Lol.

My BST is my "main" but really, i have no gear or anything on it. I have one +1 and virtually nothing else. only two atma slots opened and not ducal guard yet. (will be getting that soon-ish).
BLU is retired. I got it to 99, and i like it, but it's not the job for me.
and my WHM is only leveled to help my friends and myself with things... though i guess that doesn't matter.
I haven't even done dynamis once in my FFXI life (i've been playing for 7 years too, shameful.)
so i have to go unlock the ability to do so as well.

I guess my biggest fear is having no gil. I'm generally pretty poor, but... after last night, i bought a few die, and i instantly went poor lol.
(Started with 700k, had like 60k)

I'll continue to evaluate my situation and really see where i want to go with COR. I really admire the people who play it, and i've had a long time interest in the job, but i feel like right now the low amount of gil would constantly make me anxious and not want to play as much :c
(Unlike Afania, i'm VERY easily discouraged u_u)

i really appreciate the responses. If i feel that COR may be too big of a money leap right now, i'll try maybe looking into ways to make gil before i really get into it.

If BST is your main & you have no money, let me tell you Dynamis is the place to be! It is pretty crazy for you to have no tried it at all, but yeah once you have access just going in there for bits & pieces at a time will help your wallet a lot. Dont have to worry about gear as a bst, but after you get access you should probably read up a bit on how it works. You'll have more than enough money to pay for your rolls/cards/bullets for a long time after you get the hang of how it works

Looking a bit through the new added items, and some look like nice upgrates. (mostly only listing RA stats can look full items currently on BG Wiki)

Elanid Belt looks nice for Cor RA. (STR+5 AGI+7 Ranged Accuracy+7 Ranged Attack+7 Enmity-3)

Skadi's Visor +1 is a more RA orientated Store TP Head (13 AGI/DEX, 4STP 10 RATT)

Skadi's Cuirie +1 i am not sure, it looks nice (especially if you dont have Tessera Saio) True Shot+1 on RNG pants give 2% more dmg so maybe this is the same, but i dont know how much more/or less dmg this body would do :x Saio has 13STR/DEX/AGI 17 RATT, This body will give DEX/AGI12 RACC/RATT14 Trueshot+1, could it be better? For sure if you need RACC, but what if not?

Sigyn's Bazubands looks like pure RA-Sex. STR+8 AGI+8 Ranged Accuracy+12 Ranged Attack+12 Marksmanship skill +6 Enmity-5

Skadi's Chausses +1 looks awsome as replace for af3+2 for STP and even for RA DMG - Ranged Accuracy+7 Ranged Attack+17 "Store TP"+8

Maybe some of the pieces are even better for Melee TP.. but tbh i dont melee on COR unless i am bored in Dynamis :x and there i dont care to much.. i just equip NNI stuff and the feather head lol

Those hands (barring the str/agi) don't look any better than Blood gauntlets for TPing. At the very least BFG have a good snapshot bonus on them (or mine do), and the same thing applies to the pants in regards to snapshot on the AF3+2, no? You'd still use AF3+2 for snapshot build and you'd still need BFG for snapshot hands (unless you use some other)

You equip Snapshot at start, better stuff at the end, so Snapshot is no excuse :)

Well is that str/agi REALLY helping your tp shot dmg? Blood Gauntlets rock a pretty strong r.acc r.att build in addition to decent marks skill as well through augments AND they have the snap. It's a two-fer.

you kinda need perfect augmented Blood Finger gauntlets like 4 Snapshot, 6Marks, -5Enmity(if you count that), those hands give it to you like they are, -snapshot +5more Racc +5more Ratt (counting AGI/STR) so yes, they are better. If one cares to get them for it.. dont know, i would.

When did they adjust ratt/racc to such a split? 8:5 is a pretty big boost, I thought the formula was 3:1 3 agi:racc. *shrug* ok. I withdraw my point then, if that's what the formula actually is these days.

thats atleast what i allways thought the past.. i forgot lets call it 4 years, since i 1st touched COR.. that 2AGI=1RACC, 2STR=1RATT someone can corrct me if i am wrong :x the 5th RATT/RACC come from the +1 more on the new hands, Blood has 11/11, those hands have 12/12

yea seha the max is 5 I currently have +4 on mine... still hoping for dat +5.....

I have a snap+5 trophy body, so I can personally confirm that it does go up to 5.

Guide updated~

Best thing out of the new items are Sigyn's bazubands which are boss ranged tp and LastStand gloves.

Skadi's chausses+1 and visor+1 also make for solid tp pieces both for damage or for store tp builds.

Skadi's cuirie+1 is a peculiar piece: it will be the best non-abjuration body for Last Stand whenever you need accuracy(something Saio doesn't give you), and likely when you are in the sweet spot. Also great tp body.

Also, from the soon to come meebles update we have Elanid belt which is a sexy tp belt that can throw our commodore to the porter moogle, and Matanki earring which is a nice replacement if you use a +3 agi earring for Last Stand.

Um..I think that is all.

awesome stuff Seha!! ty again for all u've done/continue to do for the Cormunity! i thought the same thing about finally putting my comm. belt to rest, with the Elanid. the skadi +1s are all awesome additions and the visor especially seems like a steady piece for all fazes.

According to spreadsheet Sigyn head seems have higher DPS than Oce+1 or Khepri head for melee TP if accuracy capped and you're using Thaumas body.

Oh that's nice, I thought about it but was hesitant. I'll add it.

This word hurts what's left of my black pirate soul.

That is all. Carry on.

I have a question. I know sub jobs were covered in this thread. But like I still get a few VW's asking me why cor subs sch or blm?

How should I reply?

Like they all tell me "no no you should be subbing sam in VW"

Just tell them /BLM or /SCH parse higher? lol

Tell them so you can warp without a scroll after annd to proc magic since 99% of mages in vw don't know what a proc is or can't land a spell....but seriously /SCH's Firestorm will boost damage substantially with an obi. /BLM is very strong too if you can get another mage to Firestorm you. With dusty wings, monarchs, Tactician's Roll, Quick Draw, and Triple Shot procs, getting 100tp shouldn't be a problem.

I perfer /sch myself. relying on others to keep me firestorm'd never works out

Actually I just mess around with spreadsheet more and got better result from Skadi +1 if mob is something like Ig-alima and acc capped. I didn't try other pieces for set bonus, getting kinda complicated - -.


There are certain set up that Skadi+1 got better number(mostly VW tier mob with capped acc), some situations favors sigyn(mostly dyna DC/fodder, maybe cuz dDEX capped), and khepri pulls ahead when you need acc, but the difference between all 3 is very, very small.

Meeeeh skadi...I would use Khepri over that anytime tbh :/ unless we wanna use skadi hands too, but still Khepri stats are so nice.

Capping accuracy on Ig-Alima (or in Legion) sounds highly suspect given corsair's weapon grades. Even with sushi. Haven't run the numbers to tell you it's impossible, but it does make me raise an eyebrow.