Abyssea Guide

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V2- This is a heavy edit and redo of the old (Pre-iLevel) Abyssea guide.



Abyssea

Abyssea is a set of 10 zones connected to Bizarro-Vana'diel by Cavernous Maws. The storyline is started here --> Abyssea Storyline. While some things, like mechanics, still apply, the majority of the content and items are not relevant. The main reasons people go into Abyssea in the current era is for the purchasing and upgrading of the Empyrean Armor and to farm the items for the Empyrean Weapons. In some rare cases people will go to get some items that were never rolled over into the iLevel era like Epona's Ring. Gone are the days of the worm XP Parties. With the addition of trusts and the new Escha areas from Rhapsodies of Vana'diel, Abyssea has been almost completely abandoned.

Starting in Abyssea

The first thing you want to do is to start your Abyssea Traverser stone counter. You buy half-hours of time in Abyssea zones using Traverser stones, which are stored on an NPC in Port Jeuno named Joachim and will automatically collect and be held for you after you advance a short way into the Abyssea quest line. You have to carry these stones from him to the zones, but this system is very different from Assault Tags or other systems where there's a chance of wasting unused potential by not playing. Once you start your stone timer going, it will continue to build up whether you're playing daily or deactivate for a year. Starting this timer should be your number one priority when you return, as this will allow you to stay longer to farm Empyrean Armor, +1/+2 Seals and Empyrean Weapon upgrade items. With the Key Item "Rhapsody in Mauve" the amount of time that may be spent in Abyssea per Traverser stone goes from 30 to 60 minutes (Earth time).

Starting the Timer

Confluxes

Tranport around Abyssea zones is made easy by Conflux system, which allows players to warp between 8-9 confluxes at the cost of a (typically minor) amount of Cruor. You will need to pay an initial cruor fee (100-1000 cruor each, I think) to activate each Conflux. It is wise to take a trip around and activate these whenever possible, except for maybe #3 in Abyssea - Uleguerand, which is difficult to get to and totally worthless. You will want to take a wander around each zone after you've built up some cruor and unlock these.

Help and Friends

While needing to have friends and help was a necessity in the past, with the introduction of Trusts you can easily solo 99% of all content in Abyssea. The 1% come from the occasional instant death attacks and Assholes like Rani who like to charm you @1% HP.

Key Items

Abyssea offers two kinds of Key Items that dramatically enhance your experiences there, Atma and Abyssite. You will want to quickly collect the important ones of each, which are listed below. Top to bottom is order of importance and left to right is approximate order of ease of obtainment. The ones you should gun for first are in bold. Building Cruor is going to be a little bit slow, so as I mentioned you can do a few Voidwatches using Yellow boost items to get yourself a good stock of curor that way. Even if you don't do Voidwatch during a campaign you can still make a large amount of cruor in a very short time. Doing the 3 main nation routes so should get you a great starting amount for most of everything you'll need in Abyssea, plus you'll have everything ready for the Empyrean Weapon Skill unlock... a Win-Win!

Key Items that come from monsters do not drop 100% of the time, but you can raise the drop rate a lot (to almost 100%) by proccing Red once as explained here. You will always want be able to proc Red for Atma (~10% without) and Abyssites (~30% without). Your best choices here are WAR/NIN or THF/WAR. THF/WAR has less than WAR/NIN but the Treasure Hunter supplements this by increasing the above mentioned non-proc drop rate I have found. I did 80% of all my Abyssea as THF/WAR and only lacked for 5 procs (2 procs were because I didn't have a Pitchfork or Great Sword at the time.) The TH will help you get the normal pop items quicker but chances at a KI are lower than that of a WAR/NIN so YMMV.

Lists that you'll want

Important Abyssite

There are five important classes of Abyssites. You should prioritize the first two above everything else, as they will determine how quickly you can collect the others. However, it is easier to obtain more the more abyssites you have. There is a more specific guide below.

  • Abyssites of Celerity : Decrease the time it takes to receive one more stone by 4 hours, down to a minimum of 8 hours/stone : Ivory, Azure, and Crimson
  • Abyssites of Sojourn : Increase the value of each stone by 3 minutes, up to a maximum of 48 minutes/stone : Ivory, Emerald, Indigo, Scarlet, Jade, and Sapphire
  • Abyssites of Merit : Increases your HP/MP by 10%/5% in Abyssea per Abyssite. : Indigo, Jade, Viridian, Sapphire, Ivory, and Azure.
  • Abyssites of Furtherance : Increases your base stats by 10 (VIT/STR/DEX/etc.) in Abyssea per Abyssite. : Ivory, Sapphire, and Scarlet.
  • Lunar Abyssite : You can infuse one Atma per Lunar abyssite. One of these is purchasable with 100,000 Cruor, but the other two are rewards for killing one and then seven zone bosses. Buy the other important Cruor-buyable abyssites first.

Other Abyssites beyond this should be collected as convenient, but these are the ones that will have the largest impact on your enjoyment of Abyssea, especially as someone freshly starting it.

Important Atma

There are a few easy-to-obtain Atma that will make Abyssea dramatically easier once you have a Lunar Abyssite or two. One of the keys to obtaining these Atma as a recent returner is to simply ask for them. People fight some of the monsters below very frequently, and they may not mind Red proccing one so that you can have the Atma if you simply ask for it.

Mages : Mages have it somewhat easy in that they really only need one Atma to be nearly fully functional in Abyssea. Several other passable ones are mission rewards, so if you already have access to them than that's great but they really aren't worth going out of your way for. If you feel you need more Refresh, Turul offers another option.


Melee : Melee have one absolutely required Atma, but unlike mages they continue to see substantial improvement from adding more Atma.

Zone Bosses

There are nine zone bosses, and 6 Caturae that are needed to access Shinryu to complete the Abyssea Storyline. You will not need to get friends to help you for almost all of them and are easily soloable in i117 Sparks Gear.

What are you doing in Abyssea?

Post-Abyssea era, the main purpose of the content is to obtain Empyrean Armor. Base pieces are still purchased with Cruor, and it is still common to grind armor seals for the +1 upgrade. This being said, the most efficient way of upgrading Empyrean Armor is via the use of Kupon I-Seals. These seals are sometimes available from Login Campaigns and Monthly Adventurer Campaigns. When redeemed, the Kupon provides all seals needed to upgrade a piece of base Empyrean armor to the +1 variant.

  • To determine which zones to go to for your job's Armor, please see: Empyrean Armor
  • To determine which NMs to hunt for your Weapon, please see: Empyrean Weapon

Obtaining your Base Empyrean Armor

What you need to obtain/purchase your base Empyrean Armor is broken down as such:

  • Base hand and head armor is purchased for

5,000 Cruor (each) from Cruor Prospectors.

    • How you get cruor is obvious but the best way if you are low on cruor is as I mentioned earlier, doing voidwatch. You'll earn a ton of cruor.
  • Base body armor is purchased for 1,500 Dominion Notes from Dominion Tacticians.
    • If you don't want to do the Dominion quests you earn Notes from all NMs in Uleguerand, Altepa and Grauberg. So while farming things in those areas you'll be racking up those Notes and have more than enough for all the bodies for all the jobs.
  • Base leg armor is purchased for 300 Resistance Credits from Bastion Prefects.
    • You can exchange A.M.A.N. copper vouchers with the Sparks vendor NPC at a rate of 1000 Credits for 1 voucher.
  • Base feet armor is found in Gold Sturdy Pyxides.
    • In the next section I detail the best way to get these. So keep reading.

What are these newfangled boxes?

Sturdy Pyxis are boxes in Abyssea that appear after defeating monsters and can be opened after a(n often simple) minigame for a variety of rewards. What drops and how frequently they drop is dependent on your Abyssea Lights. I strongly recommend familiarizing yourself with this light system and these boxes before you venture too much further down this section, or nothing I'm saying will make sense. If you want to save time just buy a bunch of Forbidden Keys from the Cruor Prospector and use it to open only the ones that have anything useful inside.

Basically:

  • If you're planning to stay in the zone without using stones, you will need >128 Azure light and a moderate killspeed.
  • If you're planning to get good items or key items from the gold boxes, you will need >128 Amber light.
  • Ruby light (and silver, gold, and ebony) are useful when you're going for Experience Points, but not if you're mostly focusing on the above two goals.
  • The more pearl light you have, the more of all boxes you get. You always want to try and cap pearl.

Lighting the way to find your Feeting

While the huge focus of this guide is on getting the upgrade items for your Empyrean Armor and Empyrean Weapon, one Empyrean Armor item can be elusive if you don't know what you're doing. The feet as mentioned on the Empyrean Armor page (and above) can be frustrating for many people to obtain. Here's where I break it down for you.

The zones for which the feet will appear in Gold Chests are in the following zones:

To get these you will need to focus on building Amber Lights. The most efficient way to do this, using past experiences, is to kill enemies using an elemental weapon skill. Commonly this was Aeolian Edge.

The best strategy is the following:

The 1 enemy that's common to each zone above that will give you lots of Amber Lights is the Ephemeral Amoeban and Ephemeral Murex which will give you 16 added to your light. The problem with hunting these is that they are spread out throughout the zone and not bunched up like most others are.

So for each zone below I have listed the ones that will give you Amber Lights. The amount of light from these is 16 so it's best to build TP to 3000 and gather a bunch up and cleave them with Aeolian Edge. To maximize the damage of this WS you'll need to equip as much gear with Magic Attack as you can, as well as equip any Atmas that can increase Magic Attack, primarily Atma of the Minikin Monstrosity as mentioned above for mages. Int and DEX are modifiers for this WS so MAB, INT and DEX should boost the power conciderably.

My recommendation is to use the ability to gather 3 feet for any job and trade them to Lame Deer (A) in Abyssea - Misareaux @(K-7). So since Lame Deer (A) is in that area let's build lights and farm there for 3 random feet. The enemies to focus on that have large numbers and give 16 Amber Lights are Overking Apkallu @(H/I-6/7) Via Conflux #00 and Abyssobugard @(J/K-10/11) via conflux #08. The Apkallu only give off Amber but the Bugard can give off 8 Azure or 8 Ruby. The choice is yours.

If you don't want to use my advise then here ya go:

Seal/+2 item Farming

While people use to form parties to farm these, nowadays the Kupon I-Seal is the best way to make your Base Empyrean Armor into Empyrean Armor +1. **AGAIN I STRONGLY ENCOURAGE YOU TO FARM THE KUPON FOR I-SEALS, THIS WILL SAVE YOU INVENTORY SPACE AND FRUSTRATION!!** The Kupons stack in stacks of 99 and and saves you having to look for what NM drops what. The only exception is MAYBE the feet since you'll get 4 of the 8 needed through Records of Eminence. From there you can farm the +2 items to make them Empyrean Armor +2 or go right to Reforged Empyrean Armor. The difference is the REM Chapter costs (10 for +1 to Reforge or 5 for +2 to Reforge). You will need to collect 6 (or 9, for bodies) +2 items and trade them for the Empyrean Armor +2. While Yellow Procing is probably the most ideal way to farm these doing this solo presents a problem since you can't be a BLM/WHM/BRD/NIN AND a BLU all at the same time. As such the drop rate on these are not terrible without Procing so going THF/ANYTHINGYOUWANT is almost as good as Yellow Procing.

Preparing for Red Procs The chance of seeing drop is increased after procing red abilities on the monster.

With Seal farming out of the way the majority of the focus will usually be on Red Procs. For this typically people will go WAR/NIN or NIN/WAR (and as I mentioned above THF/WAR works too.) NIN/WAR is the only job combination that has every weaponskill for making The chance of seeing drop is increased after procing red abilities on the monster. proc. Other /WAR Combos are possible but you drop more Proc possibilities. Since I am assuming you are doing this as a 99 in iLevel gear let's cover some basics:

  • While trying to Proc you don't want to kill the target too quickly. This is easy to do since the design was to get players from 75-99 and you are now 18-20 levels over that.
    • To do this it's best to have a variety of low level weapons to proc with. Some of the best are those event items. some examples include:
      • Dagger: Trainee Knife and Trainee's Needle are common easy to aquire ones.
      • Sword: Firetongue/Firetongue +1, Excalipoor/Excalipoor II, Trainee Sword and Ibushi Shinai/Ibushi Shinai +1. SE keeps adding more so check the monthly campaigns and login rewards. Me I use the Excalipoor II since it looks funny.
      • Great Sword: Only 3 are all jobs and that's Irradiance Blade obtained from the Master Trial (Yuck) and more recently the Brave Blade II obtained from Mogbonanza (Double Yuck!) and Lament from the Shadow Lord event in August/September 2018... so yeah as a non WAR job you'll lose this proc unless you have one of those. If you're a WAR just pick up a Claymore for 60 Sparks. It is only 1 proc and is obvious when you see it. (Hint: you use it to cool your drink.)
      • Scythe: Both of these suck to use as the Ark Scythe and Hoe are All Jobs but have a delay of 999 so can be painfully slow. However a new Lost Sickle was added to the login rewards in December 2018 and has a much more reasonable 528 delay. I'd also recommend NOT using the +1 version as it has an additional effect of "death" so that's counter to what you're trying to do. If you can't get these (although the Hoe is super easy to get from the Mog Garden questline) then if you are going WAR then you can use a Bronze Zaghnal. It's cheap for 50 Sparks.
      • Polearm: The easiest weapon for all jobs is the Pitchfork/Pitchfork +1. SE has added a couple more recently so check the login rewards and Ambuscade rewards each month. It gives 1 proc that is obvious when you see it in the dialogue. (Hint: it has to do with Thor)
      • Katana: The 1 proc here is only really available if you are NIN/ANYTHING. You CAN unlock Blade: Ei as /NIN but that'll require 25 Levels over the 150 you have as a base. So you may have to live without this one. There is 1 All jobs Weapon and it's Trainee Burin which is easy to get from an easy and quick quest.
      • Great Katana: The easiest All Jobs ones to obtain are Hardwood Katana, Wooden Katana, Shinai, Melon Slicer and Lotus Katana. As a /SAM (or /NIN with +11 GK Skill gear) you'll have access to Tachi: Jinpu. Tachi: Koki is sadly in the same boat as Blade: Ei. So you'll probably be without this one.
      • Club: Lots and lots of All jobs clubs available. They keep adding more all the time! You'll have access to Seraph Strike.
      • Staff: Think there's a lot of All Jobs Clubs? There's 2-3 times as many Staves (or Staffs if you prefer)! It has the one and only Earth Proc (Shell Crusher) and a Light Proc (Sunburst).

So instead of copying the chart from the main page I thought I'd reorganize them in Elemental order instead of Weapon order. Assuming you have the Abyssite of discernment your chat log will be telling you the element and NOT the weapon to use for Red Procing.

Element Weapon skill - (Weapon)
Wind Element: Wind Cyclone - (Dagger) Tachi: Jinpu - (Great Katana)
Fire Element: Fire Red Lotus Blade - (Sword)
Ice Element: Ice Freezebite - (Great Sword)
Thunder Element: Thunder Raiden Thrust - (Polearm)
Earth Element: Earth Earth Crusher - (Staff)
Dark Element: Dark Shadow of Death (Scythe) Energy Drain - (Dagger) Blade: Ei - (Katana)
Light Element: Light Seraph Blade - (Sword) Tachi: Koki - (Great Katana) Seraph Strike - (Club) Sunburst - (Staff)

The additional effect of triggering Red !! is that monsters are guaranteed to bestow their Atma, if they have one, to all of the members in the alliance provided that the person who triggered the effect is still in the alliance and in the zone, as well as guarantee the receipt of a key item used to pop further Notorious Monsters, if the monster can drop one, to the person who claimed or force-popped the monster.

Farming Empyrean Items

Empyrean Weapons require 50/50/75 drop from Abyssea NMs to go from the level 75 to the level 90 version (50/75/75 for Shield and Harp). Empyrean NMs typically also drop +2 items and can also be used in storyline quests/etc., as noted above, but when people farm these they generally do so without the capability of proccing Yellow. It's typically a Warrior, Ninja or Thief with Trusts. The items are also used in reforging the +1/+2 Empyrean Armor to i109.

Farming Still Relevant Misc. Items

In addition to the Empyrean Armor +2 sets you'll obtain (for Reforging to i109-i119), there are some pieces of equipment from Abyssea that are still useful, although the list is shrinking. While armor pieces are for the 76-89 range some accessories (like Epona's Ring) are still incomparable to newer items. When going for an item read up and be fully prepared to Blue Proc.

Added Effect

An additional effect of progressing in Abyssea is unlocking Vorseals in the Escha areas. The following are unlocked from Abyssea:

Requirement Unlock
Completion of the Abyssea Storyline quest: Dawn of Death
New vorseal doesn't appear when Dawn of Death moves to completed quest list.
Something more is necessary. 		Rare Enemy+
Completion of the Abyssea Storyline quest: Tenuous Existence Rare Enemy+
Completion of all Abyssea - Altepa quests

Note that only the zone-specific quests are required. Dominion Ops and the like, are not.

DEX/AGI
Completion of all Abyssea - Grauberg quests

Note that only the zone-specific quests are required. Dominion Ops and the like, are not.

INT/MND/CHR
Completion of all Abyssea - Uleguerand quests

Note that only the zone-specific quests are required. Dominion Ops and the like, are not.

STR/VIT

Zone by Zone breakdown

In this section I'll go over only the relevant NMs to go after. The focus here is on the NMs that drop Weapon items and +1/+2 upgrade items as well as i109 reforge items.

What follows is rather in depth however if you want a more quick reference the user Yunamahoutsukai has made a great list for +2 items. https://www.bg-wiki.com/bg/User:Yunamahoutsukai

Abyssea - Konschtat

Abyssea - La Theine

Abyssea - Tahrongi

Abyssea - Vunkerl

Here is where the Empyrean Armor +1 items for the Feet are farmed. Since you'll get 4 from Records of Eminence you'll just need to farm 4 more to +1 them. Most (if not all) are just single item pops. So you'd just have to farm the pop item, pop the NM and repeat until you got the 4 you need. As for the other body pieces it's better to do the KCNM/HKCNM fights to get a Kupon for the Whole set you want. Saves time, and you make money! It's a Win-Win. I'll add the +1 at the end since the +2 items and Empyrean Weapon upgrades are more important.


If you wanna Farm the +1 items here you go:

Abyssea - Misareaux

Here is where the Empyrean Armor +1 items for the Legs are farmed. To be honest unless you're in a hurry it's better to do the KCNM/HKCNM fights to get a Kupon for the Whole set you want. Stockpile them, it saves you time, and you make money! It's a Win-Win. I'll add the +1 at the end since the +2 items and Empyrean Weapon upgrades are more important.


If you wanna Farm the +1 items here you go:

Abyssea - Attohwa

Here is where the Empyrean Armor +1 items for the Head are farmed. To be honest unless you're in a hurry it's better to do the KCNM/HKCNM fights to get a Kupon for the Whole set you want. Stockpile them, it saves you time, and you make money! It's a Win-Win. I'll add the +1 at the end since the +2 items and Empyrean Weapon upgrades are more important.


If you wanna Farm the +1 items here you go:

Abyssea - Altepa

Here is where the Empyrean Armor +1 items for the Body and Hands are farmed. To be honest unless you're in a hurry it's better to do the KCNM/HKCNM fights to get a Kupon for the Whole set you want. Stockpile them, it saves you time, and you make money! It's a Win-Win. I'll add the +1 at the end since the +2 items and Empyrean Weapon upgrades are more important.


If you wanna Farm the +1 items here you go:

Abyssea - Grauberg

Here is where the Empyrean Armor +1 items for the Body and Hands are farmed. To be honest unless you're in a hurry it's better to do the KCNM/HKCNM fights to get a Kupon for the Whole set you want. Stockpile them, it saves you time, and you make money! It's a Win-Win. I'll add the +1 at the end since the +2 items and Empyrean Weapon upgrades are more important.


If you wanna Farm the +1 items here you go:

Abyssea - Uleguerand

Here is where the Empyrean Armor +1 items for the Body and Hands are farmed. To be honest unless you're in a hurry it's better to do the KCNM/HKCNM fights to get a Kupon I-Seal for the Whole set you want. Stockpile them, it saves you time, and you make money! It's a Win-Win. I'll add the +1 at the end since the +2 items and Empyrean Weapon upgrades are more important.


If you wanna Farm the +1 items here you go:

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