Abyssea Guide

Abyssea

Abyssea is a set of 10 zones connected to Bizarro-Vana'diel by Cavernous Maws. There's not actually much more to the story than that, so I'll cut to the chase. It has some F A N T A S T I C (and relatively easy to get) equipment in it and offers the fastest, easiest XP in the game. So what do you need to get started?

Starting in Abyssea

The first thing you want to do when you return to the game 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 Abyssea is your quickest and easiest route to XP and up-to-date gear.

Starting the Timer

• Go to Port Jeuno and watch the Cutscene(s). (A Journey Begins)
• Talk to Joachim at the top of the stairs down to the Auction House and receive your first Traverser stone. (The Truth Beckons)
• Visit an Abyssea Cavernous Maw with your stone. Do not spend the stone at the Conflux Surveyor. (The Truth Beckons)
• Return to Port Jeuno and talk to Joachim again. At this point, you are collecting stones and can proceed with other parts of the guide. (Dawn of Death)
  • Entering a Cavernous Maw with a Traverser stone in your Temporary Key Items menu will give you the ability to warp there from several locations (Port Jeuno, Ru'Lude Gardens, Port Windurst, Port Bastok, Port San d'Oria) in the future. You can take this opportunity to run around and unlock all nine Cavernous Maws
  • At this point, it would be wise to jump over to the Voidwatch Guide and start its analogous 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

As you may have figured out from the previous section, Abyssea is best done with 2-5 people. Doing it solo is generally not ideal, and doing it with more than 5 is generally not ideal (nothing for the 6th+ to do). That said, you will need to pace yourself as far as asking for help. It gets old to have someone come back to your linkshell and beg for help for two weeks. I will try to note below the places where you should bug friends for help and places where you can probably receive your help from benevolent strangers. The bolded ones below are the ones that are worth bugging people for assistance with. You can hammer most (if not all) of the bolded ones out in a night.

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. Obviously the ease of obtainment rating will depend a lot on whether you have friends available, but I have made the list assuming you will have at least one or two friends to help you get started. The ones you should gun for in the first week are in bold. Building Cruor is going to be a little bit slow, so I have prioritized those as fairly low.

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 to bring someone to proc Red for Atma (~10% without), and generally it's a good idea for Abyssites as well (~30% without).

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.

• Atma of the Minikin Monstrosity - Durinn <-- Important, required for mages - Farmed
• Atma of the Rescuer - Dynamis Lord clear
• Atma of Ambition - A Shantotto Ascension missions
• Atma of the Stormbird - Turul

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

• Atma of the Razed Ruins - Ironclad Pulverizer <-- Important, required for melee - Farmed
• Atma of the Gnarled Horn - Sobek <-- Commonly fought by strangers.
• Atma of the Stout Arm - Briareus <-- Easy key items and plenty of people fight him. He's also a zone boss, so two for one.
• Atma of the Sanguine Scythe - Bukhis <-- Difficult fight and 3x key items. Commonly fought, though.
• Atma of the Voracious Violet - Eccentric Eve <-- Requires a lot of key items, minorly better than Stout Arm and not commonly fought.
• Atma of the Apocalypse - Shinryu <-- Requires complete the Abyssea quest line. (Kill all 9 zone bosses and 7 Caturae (another type of monster in zone) for fight access).

Zone Bosses

There are nine zone bosses, listed below approximately in order of increasing difficulty. You will not need to get friends to help you on the first few, but will likely need to recruit friends for the last few. Flit around zones asking people if you can join for the win until you have three and get a free Lunar abyssite, then come back to this after you're pretty well set up otherwise.

• Briareus - Often popped by people working on Empyrean Weapons. Not hard.
• Glavoid - Often popped by people working on Empyrean Weapons. Hardish fight, but not your problem.
• Cirein-croin - Often popped by people working on Empyrean Weapons. Not hard.
• Itzpapalotl - Often popped by people working on Empyrean Weapons. Not very difficult.
• Bennu - Easy fight. One KI that your friends may already have
• Resheph - Easy fight. One KI that your friends probably already have
• Kukulkan - Need to farm it, but friends may have sets from farming Dark Rings in Abyssea - Konschtat. Ask around.
• Sedna - Need to farm his pop and he's an annoying fight with crappy drops.
• Amphitrite - Only one KI that your friends probably have it, but he's an annoying fight.

What you can do in Abyssea

There are four fundamental things people do in Abyssea, but before we go into that it will be necessary to get something else out of the way...

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.

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 boxes you get. You always want to try and cap pearl.

Experience Points Party

This is the most common. People get together and kill the same monster type (same name) over and over for Experience Points. The more consecutive times you kill the same monster name in Abyssea, the higher your XP chain goes, typically capping between 600 and 660 EXP per kill, depending on the monster type. There's no time dependency to it, unlike old chains, and there's also no chat log notification of it. In this situation, you want to cap all the lights except amber. It doesn't really matter whether or not you cap amber. As monsters of a certain type are killed quickly, they respawn at higher levels up to a certain cap. If the kill speed slows or stops, the monsters will despawn and respawn at a lower level. Note that if anyone in the party/alliance within EXP range kills any type of monster other than the one currently being killed, it will reset this invisible EXP chain.

Cruor Party

You will want to hit one of these pretty shortly after coming back (perhaps you should see if you can make it your second favor from your friends) so that you can buy Abyssites and open Confluxes. This is similar to an XP party, except that you have to alternate killing monsters with DIFFERENT names. So you kill one of Monster A and then one of Monster B. A common spot for this is the North-West part of Abyssea - Misareaux with two populations of crabs, flies, Orobon, Frogs, and Apkallu to choose from. You can work this up to 400 Cruor per kill with capped lights. Similar to an XP party, you don't really care about amber here but want to cap the rest. Note that killing a monster of the same type twice in a row will reset the invisible cruor chain.

Seal/+2 item NM Parties

These typically form in Port Jeuno and go out for a single seal monsters for the Empyrean Armor +1 quests. You collect 8 (or 10, for bodies) of a given seal and trade it for the +1 piece. Then you collect 6 (or 9, for bodies) +2 items and trade them for the +2 armor. The ideal party for these is one Black Mage/Bard, one White Mage/Thief, one Ninja or Warrior, and one Blue Mage. If you are not doing +2 dropping monsters, you typically don't need the Ninja or Warrior, but people tend to bring 4 players just so there's one person per drop.

You are bringing the mages so that you can "Grellow" proc the monsters, and the melee are for "Red" procs. You can read more about the proc system here.

Farming Empyrean Items

Empyrean Weapons require 225 drop from Abyssea NMs to get to the level 90 version, and people are constantly farming these NMs. 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 Grellow. It's typically a Warrior or Ninja with a White Mage (often dualboxed.)

If you know a +2 item you want, see someone fighting an Empyrean NM, and have Black Mage, you might consider asking them if you can proc their monster in exchange for the +2 materials. I certainly agreed to deals like that several times in the course of making my Empyrean weapons.

Farming random NMs/Atmas/Bosses/etc.

In addition to the excellent Empyrean Armor +2 sets, there are many other pieces of equipment from Abyssea that are quite useful. People typically gun for these using whatever proc team they want (Blue for NMs, Red for Atma or boss KI farming, etc.) and just make small groups to go do things. These are what you normally go to your social for. Once again, I'll caution you against bugging your social for too much help. Most people who played through Abyssea have had quite enough of it.

Zone by Zone breakdown

Abyssea - Konschtat

• Azure abyssite of celerity - Kill Tonberries in the North-east of the map, by Conflux #8. You will need to pull the tonberry to get the abyssite.
• Kukulkan - Collect KIs from large gold chests.
• Dark Rings - Come from gold chests with augments on them like Physical Damage Taken -6%. Very nice as idle gear for mages or damage taken gear for any job
• Wivre Hairpins - Come from gold chests potentially with Refresh on them. Duelist's Chapeau for WHM? Don't mind if I do!

So the plan for this zone would be to recruit a few friends and use AoE abilities to kill Tonberries. They will probably know what you're talking about if you say, "Anyone want to go farm some Dark Rings/Refresh Pins in Konschtat?" A byproduct of farming these items will be Kukulkan pop sets and a modest amount of XP/Cruor. After you get the Abyssite off the Tonberries (and enough cruor to open the Conflux/capped lights), you might consider moving to Funguars by Conflux 4. This will allow you to collect Purple Polypore mushrooms for easy Konschtat fame. Konschtat fame sucks.

Abyssea - La Theine

• Briareus - See if anyone is fighting him and ask if you can get in on the action. There should be no need to farm this set yourself.
• Scarlet abyssite of sojourn - Red proc Ovni. This may be somewhat difficult due to competition.
• Scarlet abyssite of furtherance - Build some fame and complete An Eye for Revenge. This isn't very difficult if you have some gil to blow, but can be time consuming if you don't.
• Tarutaru Sashes - Come from large gold crates, potentially augmented with Treasure Hunter +1. Not relevant for Thief because they can't wear it, but useful for other jobs.

My plan for this zone would basically be to check for people killing Briareus (by Conflux 4) to see if you can pick up an easy win and get some fame built up and ready for a night when your friends are available. For fame in this zone, you'll want to either do The Angling Armorer (if you have gil to blow) or Unbreak His Heart (if you don't). For the first quest, you would basically go to the AH and buy all the level 60 "Rusty" items that you can and go turn them in. The second quest requires that you buy Yew Fishing Rods, which are considerably less expensive. However, you have to zone between quest repeats so this takes a lot of leg work. Collect 2 Lambent Scales (ask people killing Pixies near Conflux 4), complete Lost Memories, and start An Eye for Revenge. When you have friends willing to help you out for a night, gun for Red proccing (and Blue if possible for Bullwhip Belt) Ovni and then go kill Lugarhoo.

Abyssea - Tahrongi

• Glavoid - See if anyone is fighting him. There's no need to farm a set yourself and it's a hard set to farm anyway.
• Viridian abyssite of merit - Bhumi wanders throughout the zone (he looks like Titan). Just pull/kill him and don't worry about red proc. If you do it a few times, you'll get the Abyssite. He was an easy solo for most jobs at 90, let alone 99.
• Iratham - Caturae fight for Abyssea - Empyreal Paradox access. Spawns at pretty random times and has a large wander range. Wide Scan recommended.

Getting fame in this zone is less than easy, but it also is less than important! I would simply enter the zone and kill Bhumis while you check for people killing Glavoid. They typically do this between Conflux 5 and 8. Bhumi roams throughout the zone, so using a job with Wide Scan may help.

Abyssea - Vunkerl

• Atma of the Minikin Monstrosity - Durinn is killed frequently for Empyrean Armor +2 upgrade items, but not frequently with the Red proc you need. You will need to rely on your friends for this.
• Atma of the Sanguine Scythe - Bukhis is also killed frequently for Empyrean Armor +2 and Empyrean Weapon upgrade items, but also only rarely with Red proc. This Atma is good, but isn't really a priority until you have some other ones. I'd ignore it until the opportunity to obtain it arises.
• Sedna - Infrequently fought. You will have to burn some friend-cred to get this kill probably.
• Crimson abyssite of celerity - Obtained from Whither the Whisker, which is an easy quest but requires some fame.
• Sippoy - Caturae for Abyssea - Empyreal Paradox access. Not a very difficult fight. Melee + WHM should be fine.

The first thing I would do in this zone is build fame for the Abyssite of Celerity. The easiest way to do this costs a nominal amount of gil, but is also fast. Buy parts of Abyssea monsters from the Auction House -> Other -> Misc. section and trade them in for A Ward to End All Wards. I recommend Avian Remex, Mocking Beak, Gnarled Taurus Horn, Djinn Ashes, Opaque Wing, High-Quality Rabbit Hide, and Transparent Insect Wing. If you trade in about 10-15 of those (you'll need to make multiple trips), you will have enough fame to do the Celerity quest. The other objectives in this zone require assistance from your friends, but Durinn is really the highest priority of those things. I would make sure you hit him and then feel free to move on to another zone.

Abyssea - Misareaux

• Atma of the Razed Ruins - Ironclad Pulverizer is almost exclusively killed for this Atma. You will need to get your friends to help you farm it (or make a shout group), but it will be worth almost any amount of trouble to do so. This is the strongest melee Atma in Abyssea.
• Atma of the Gnarled Horn - Sobek is commonly fought by Ninjas, who have built in red-proccing mechanisms. You can try asking one if they will red proc their Sobek so you can have the Atma.
• Cirein-croin - Commonly fought and a very easy fight. Ask whoever is killing it (near Conflux 6) if you can have the win and I'm sure they'll invite you.
• Kutharei - Easiest caturae for Abyssea - Empyreal Paradox access. Also drops Raider's Boomerang 100% of the time, a good ranged weapon for Thief. Also, Red proc him if you can for the strongest Regen Atma in Abyssea.
• Sapphire abyssite of furtherance - Flame Skimmer is highly evasive and somewhat annoying, but he isn't really that difficult of a fight. Red proc him and bring him down!
• Sapphire abyssite of merit - Wanted: Medical Supplies is an easy quest.
• Sapphire abyssite of sojourn - Destiny Odyssey requires a Sanguine Spike from Gukumatz, who is killed frequently for Sobek pop sets. Just ask for one.

I would recommend getting Atma of the Razed Ruins absolutely as quickly as possible. It will take a small team of friends, but this is probably the best Atma in all of Abyssea. It's worth blowing some friend-cred on. You need to time your WSs between his swings, because his swings count as TP moves and you cannot proc Abyssea monsters if they're using TP moves or casting. I aim for the very end of one swing animation to use a WS. Slow helps.
Also, this zone has some of the best fame rewards of any abyssea zone. In order to build Fame here quickly, I recommend buying a stack of Galkan Sausage +3s and completing Smoke Over The Coast 12 times. You will need to zone between repeats. This should get you enough fame to complete almost any other quest in the zone.

Abyssea - Attohwa

• Itzpapalotl - Zone boss. Commonly fought and an easy fight, but the pop set is annoying. Ask if you can leech a win. His pop spot is somewhat difficult to get to. See below.
• Yaanei - Hardest to get to caturae for Abyssea - Empyreal Paradox access. Blue it if you can for Aias Bonnet.
• Jade abyssite of sojourn - Mielikki is a pretty easy fight with a healer and DD or two, but I've always had trouble getting his pop item (Great Root) to drop. Buy it if you can.
• Jade abyssite of merit - Warbler is an annoying fight. I wouldn't really waste friend-cred on it unless other people need it too.

There's no compelling reason to build fame in this zone, and most of the things you need here (until you're gunning for Abyssea - Empyreal Paradox access) can be obtained just by asking.

Abyssea - Altepa

• Emerald abyssite of sojourn - Waugyl is an easy fight. Start Proof of the Lion beforehand and Red proc it. Pop item is Puppet's Blood.
• Atheling Mantle - Orthrus is killed frequently for Empyrean Weapons and this mantle is a 100% drop off him. Go ask for one!
• Bennu - Very easy monster. Very easy popset (that your friends probably already have).
• Rani - This is a Caturae fight that people generally blow some high-level friend-cred on. It is not impossible to beat this without a Primeval Brew, but having a brew makes it a much more simple fight. Blue proc it too for a chance at Epona's Ring. Hecate's Earring is 100%.
• Fear Dearg - High level agroing black mandragora. Common target for pay-cleave parties. This is by Conflux #06, and you may spend some time AFK here letting other people level you.
• Sand Sweeper - A common XP target. They're by Conflux #08.
• Waugyl should be your highest priority and Bennu is a very easy zone boss.

Abyssea - Grauberg

• Indigo abyssite of sojourn - Red proc Assailer Chariot. This is going to require some friends.
• Indigo abyssite of merit - Red proc Xibalba. Again, a few friends.
• Raja - Caturae for Abyssea - Empyreal Paradox access. Melee + Mage. Don't bother with shadows.
• Amphitrite - Probably the hardest zone boss to lowman, but your friends likely have pops for it.

No need to build fame in this zone! Just two red procs and you're good until you gun for Abyssea - Empyreal Paradox access.

Abyssea - Uleguerand

• Resheph - Very easy zone boss. Duoable without much issue and his pop key item is very common.
• Bluffalo - A common XP monster target. They're by Conflux #05.
• Pantokrator - This monster drops Zelus Tiara, Torero Torque (TH), and Pan's Horn (100%). You may want to kill him. He is difficult, but there is no need to brew.

No real reason to build fame in this zone and no high priority Abyssites/Atmas. This might be the least essential abyssea zone for a returner, but Resheph is good for an easy boss win. Also, feel free to ignore Conflux #02 in this zone.