Welcome, welcome, players of Final Fantasy XI! This guide is my humble attempt to gather all the notes and strategies I discovered on my long road throughout the Chains of Promathia missions. I designed this guide for players of all jobs, ranks, levels, and mindsets. From someone who just turned level 30 and wants to try out a promyvion mission to someone who's been in the game for a year or more and has killed Kirin so many times that the poor beast runs in terror, this guide is for you. If you’re desperately stuck on a mission, want to look ahead at some things you’ll be fighting in the future, have a strategy and want to compare notes, beat all the missions and are looking for a little nostalgia, or even have no interest in CoP at all and just want to see some pretty pictures, you’ve come to the right place.

This guide is not an end-all blueprint to effortlessly breeze through all the missions. Rather, it’s just the beginning. CoP missions can be frustratingly difficult at times. Your skills will be capped for most of the journey and your success will depend on people you may or may not know very well. Because the parties you take into the battles can vary so drastically, and the strategies vary just as much, I cannot tell you what to do with every possible combination of party members. Nor will I try. Instead, this guide attempts to equip you with as much knowledge of the enemies and dangers you will face, with a few universal tips, so you can form your own strategies based on the skill and jobs of your party members. You'll have to do some thinking of your own.

General Chains of Promathia Facts of Life

Before going down this road, there are a few things you should know. If any of these bother you, you might want to make arrangements to solve problems before they start.

• CoP missions are long. Even the shortest will take a few hours. I’ve tried to list average completion time, assuming that things go badly a few times but you keep pressing on. Some parties will take longer, some shorter, but no matter what the missions WILL take up significant time.
  
• CoP missions are expensive. In addition to needing to buy low-level gear, you will want medicines. I say want because, especially later on, it becomes obvious they will help you survive and you’ll get tired of losing. These things cost gil you will never get back. Have a source of income in mind.
• You’re going to die. A lot. A whole friggin lot. Your whole party will wipe. YES, even after years of CoP being out and multiple nerfs, people still lose missons! Be comfortable with this fact early it will help you later. Just remember you’re learning more than you think you are from your failures. Luckily for you, you won't lose a single point of experience in mission battlegrounds and, in fact, will gain exp rewards for completing them. However you will lose exp as normal doing portions of the missions outside the BC fights, such as running through Promyvion on the way to the spire.
  
• Your skills will be level-capped often. You will need to remember how to fight at lower levels. What gear you have, what weapons skills or spells you use, that sort of thing. Don’t skimp out too much on that old gear. You don’t need high-quality everything, but running around half naked because you’re too lazy to get a few essentials off the AH is inexcusable. Especially for people that have beaten the missions and are just helping. Shame on you! Setting a bad example!
• You’ll need knowledge. That’s mainly what this guide is here for. Talk to your friends too. Forewarned is forearmed, or some such thing. Know what the enemies will do and you can better help stop it.

Preferred Jobs and Useless Jobs

I’m going to get this out of the way early.

ANY REASONABLY BALANCED PARTY CAN BEAT EVERY SINGLE COP MISSION IF THEIR MEMBERS ARE DEDICATED!

And I mean it! There is a big myth about CoP that the only useful jobs are things like black mage and summoner and ranger. While it is true that those jobs ARE very useful for the first few CoP missions, but no means will they walk through CoP easily while all other jobs are useless. To illustrate this point, I’ve prepared the following list: 

Job	Mission	Enemies	Why
Black Mage	8-3	Xi’zeid ("pots")	black magic hurts them greatly
White Mage	6-4	Omega and Ultima	long battle requires a lot of healing
Red Mage	2-5	Mammets	can kite mobs easily
Warrior	1-2	Promyvion bosses	tanks and does good damage
Monk	5-3	Snoll Tzar	Hundred Fists very useful in this timed fight
Thief	5-3	doors	thief tools make this mission very easy
Paladin	5-3	Snoll Tzar	Invincible important for hate control
Dark Knight	3-5	Diabolos	can Stun very annoying moves
Ranger	5-2	empty mobs	easily picks off spawning strays
Bard	4-2	Ouryu	carol and debuffs strong here
Beastmaster	2-3	Aqueducts mobs	can charm powerful native monsters
Samurai	7-5	Tenzen	skillchains strong against this enemy
Ninja	6-4	all mobs	can blink many powerful attacks
Dragoon	6-4	all mobs	solid melee very useful in this long battle
Summoner	5-3	Mithra	Astral Flow strongly damages all enemies

 
A few observations here. One, in no way am I saying this is the ONLY mission that these jobs are good at. Two, I’m not saying that having this job makes the battle effortless. Three, I am not saying that if you don’t have that job for that mission you’re totally screwed. This list just illustrates, in my opinion, where each job excels the most and parties that have a competent player with that job will have an extra edge. Note that some jobs have their “excellent” mission later than others. It happens. They all get their chances to shine by the end.

It should also be obvious that some skills jobs bring to the missions are useful in other missions too. Thieves excel in places where you need drops from enemies. White mages will always be busy healing, black mages blowing things up. Ninjas and Paladins have lots of tanking to do. There are many enemies that a melee job can chew up.

This leads to my second all-caps mythbust:

JUST BECAUSE YOU ARE A MELEE JOB DOESN’T MEAN THAT YOU ARE USELESS IN COP AND SHOULD START LEVEING A MAGE JOB!

If you really WANT to level a mage job, sure, go ahead. But it’s not necessary by any means. Some missions have mage focuses, others have melee focuses. Your job isn’t useless. It isn’t, okay? Slap whoever told you it was. Since this guide came out I’ve heard numerous stories of melee-heavy parties going all the way to sea. Those dragoons that have a horrible repuation? I've seen them with CoP rings on. It’s possible. Don’t give up. You're bringing more than just your weapon and magic to a party. Knowledge, patience, tactics, and enthusiasm are all highly valuable resources too. The best mage is useless if he doesn't know how to use his skills properly and not every mission is an all-out nuke fest.

My guide contains a “recommended jobs” section for parties that can be choosy and pick jobs that have their skills excel in certain situations. If you can’t, don’t stress it too much.


Static Parties

Because of the level-capped nature and difficulty of CoP, going back to help others is a massive hassle. As such, people that want to do the missions are much better off forgetting about all the people that beat the missions and forming their own statics. You can be “escorted” until about 4-2, but after that increasing difficulty means you’ll likely be left on your own.

Event in 2007, years upon years after CoP's release, I STILL recomend having a static party, if only one or two people you go with. Every person that you know needs the mission you're on is one less person you'll have to badger into helping you.


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