This Guide is from my own personal search for frame skill-ups since the addition of all the abyssea areas
I had a lvl 75 PUP (with all skills capped) and took a break from the game a few weeks before the addition of the 1st abyssea expansion, I returned to FFXI 7 months later and quickly came to realise that "Old school" partys were a thing of the past and I had no choice but to join a Abyssea party if i was to reach the new level cap of 90 along with my friends i didnt want to be the "Gimp" of the party when we went out to do stuff. This has not been the way I have ever leveled my jobs in game as 85% of my PUP and all other Pet jobs were solo EXP but after almost 2 weeks of constant shouting and only getting EXP partys far lower then me with almost no chance of skill-ups and which only made the situation worse I decided to reluctantly join an abyssea party.
Sadly the exp in all abyssea partys outstrips any skill-ups you can get for your level (Dominion ops will compound this problem) ESPECIALLY PUP as you have more then 1 jobs worth of skill-ups the think about
- 1:Hand to hand
- 2:Guard
- 3:Automaton ranged attack
- 4:Automaton Magic
- 5:Automaton Melle
I was @ lvl 90 in no time and all my skills were basicly level 78-79 if I was lucky, do not forget that all the abyssea NM's are IT to anyone under level 80 so skill-ups will be rare!! If you get some count yourself fortunate.
This meant that at lvl 90 I was a 10-12 levels behind with all my automaton skill-ups for all 3 main frames (this translated into my automaton being 40-60 levels behind in all its skills) then a few days later a friend told me he had paid for a EXP burn party from about level 53 (he was currently lvl 87)so his case was far worse then mine, this lead me to work out the following calculations for all PUP skill-ups across the board
Finding your current frame skill caps[]
For the next part to be accurate you must remove all your Armour (as master) and read your Automaton's current skill for what ever frame you have equipped and want to skill, then devide your current skill by 4 and that will give a level guide, with this you can back track to the camps for that level and skill-up
For example:Current Automaton Magic skill 264 with your current level level @ 90 True cap for a level 90 PUP with BLM frame is 354
(264 divided by 4 = 66) your Automaton has an approxamite magic skill of level of 66, Camp = Wajam woodlands - Target Colibri,Tigers lots of mobs between 64-70 here.
All frame caps @ level 90[]
*Harequin Automaton Frame cap @ 325 (all stats)
*Valouredge Automaton Frame cap @ 354 melle
*Sharpshot Automaton Frame cap @ 354 Ranged
*Stormwaker Automaton Frame cap @ 354 magic
There are depending on which frame you decide to use between 3 and 4 levels for you Automaton to acheive for its "Level up" before you gain 1 EXP level irrelevant of your current level
This formula works very very well I gained all my missing skill levels in 2-3 days,if you manage to find the right mobs with this guide then your automaton will skill-up with every move it uses, the last 15-20 levels I capped in abyssea ( I did use the correct atams to aid My PUP and this seemed to help with the last few "slow levels" my friend who was over 100+ skill levels down on all his frames used this method to cap all his skills to.
have fun hope this helps