So, you’ve finally hit level 12, and just aren’t happy with experience you’re earning on your own anymore. What do you do now? Keep killing easy prey for 20-30 experience a pop? No my friend, it’s about time you got yourself a party. A party can consist of anywhere from 2-6 people (up to 18 with an alliance, but we’ll get there in a bit). There are absolutely no restrictions as far as job, level, and race go - anyone and everyone can be in the same party. That said, you won’t want just anyone in your party. The most important aspect of a party is experience, and because of this, there are many factors you’ll have to take into account when building your party.
 

This is #1 on your priority list. Optimally, everyone in your party will have the exact same amount of experience points. Unfortunately, this is pretty much never the case, and you’ll have to settle for worse. Again, you’ll want to keep your experience as close as possible, and preferably all your party members should be the same level.

Unfortunately, this isn’t always possible, and you’ll have to have a bit of a level spread. The important thing to remember here is that you’ll get experience based on the monster’s level, as compared to the level of your highest level party member.

Let’s take an example, shall we? Say you’re a level 10 BLM, and you have a friend, who just happens to be a level 50 WAR. If you two party up, now a level 50 monster is considered an even match to your party. In the end, you would not be able to put a dent in it, and your poor friend would be, essentially, all alone in the battle. For this reason, you’ll want to keep your levels as close as possible. It is advised to keep your party members within 2 levels of each other, unless you absolutely can not avoid it.
 

Alright, so you know what levels you’re looking for, but now what jobs do you want in your party? Every job can essentially be placed into at least one of four categories: Tank, Damage Dealer, Support, Healer.

Tank – The tank serves one main purpose, and that is to hold the monster’s attention. This makes it easier for your healer to heal, as there is only one person who needs healing.

Damage Dealer – The name says it all. This is the guy who’s going to beat the crap out of your enemy. This is not limited to only melee classes either, Black Mages are the biggest damage dealers in the game, and chances are you’ll want that extra damage.

Support – Your support is there only to, as you may have guessed, support the other party members. This may come in the form of buffs for you, or debuffs for the enemy. Essentially, the only class that is truly 100% support, is the Bard.

Healer – While technically, healers should go under the support category, I list them separately because healers are usually much more important then your average support job. Having a healer generally makes everyone’s life easier, and vastly shortens downtime between monsters.

The key to a good party is having at least one each of these job types, however, there is a lot of flexibility as far as the types go. Several jobs fit into multiple categories, and sub jobs can bring a character from one group to another. A party of 6 Warriors may not go too far, too fast, but if each one of them had White Mage as their sub, things would go a little more smoothly (since now, instead of just 6 tanks, you have a little bit of healer thrown in too).

Of course, the combinations are endless, and it can be a little overwhelming to try and think of them all. Unfortunately, chances are you won’t have your pick of every job/sub combination there is, and as such, you’ll have to take what you can get. One thing to keep in mind, is that you should know what it is you’re looking for. A Warrior/Monk will be a better Tank then a Warrior/White Mage, but you gain the benefit of a little bit of healing ability as a trade off.

As such, you have to decide whether you need say, a pure damage dealer, or a damage dealer/support. You get less damage, but you get support in its place. In general, you will want a tank and a healer who are “pure” so to speak, and have subjobs that complement their purpose in a party. Support and damage dealers have a little more leeway with their job/sub combinations.

Don’t forget, sometimes you won’t get all of the job types in your party, but you should always try to work with what you have. If you can’t find that elusive healer or support member, go out and fight some easier enemies while you look for someone to fill that last spot. Remember, sitting around Jeuno looking for party members is not why you play this game
 

So you know what levels you’re looking for, and what jobs you need. It’s time to open up your Find Members menu and look around. It is always a good idea to check your region, since it gives you more options then just your current zone, and everyone is fairly close by. You can do this quickly by typing /sea region invite 25-27 (where 25-27 is your level range).

Make sure you send a /tell to whoever you’re inviting, it’s proper etiquette. No one likes just getting an invite, and nothing else. Communication is the key to a good party. Also, make sure to read any comments people leave, as they will most likely contain important information about the player. Likewise, you should put a comment up that you’re looking for party members if you can.

If you still can’t find what you need, you have two options, scour the earth, or search for people without their invite flag up. Both of these are not desirable situations, but sometimes you can find someone willing to party, who just happens to not have their flag up. always send a /tell before you invite, chances are they won’t want to party with you if you’re rude about it. If you’re going to invite people from further areas, make sure that they have a way to get there, you don’t want to be waiting for an hour for someone to get from San d’Oria to Windurst. (One good indicator is if they are Rank 5 or above, then you know they can take an Airship)

Last but not least, the Translator is your friend. Don’t be afraid to invite Japanese players, they can be just as effective as you, and you can effectively communicate with them. You may not strike up a conversation on politics, but you can work out skillchains and delegate roles well.

Note: It is always recommended to use the auto-translation (tab) feature for words that you know are in the database. This can aid when trying to PT with non-English speaking players.

An alliance is simply two or three parties grouped into one. (You can ally by choosing the leader of another party. The alliance option should come up on your menu). Besides the lower experience due to more members in the group, alliances have one other problem, and that is that they’re not considered party members sometimes, depending on the circumstances.

For instance, “-ra” style spells will only affect your immediate party. This means you’ll need a White Mage in each group to cast the spell on them. The other issue is targeting. There is no quick and easy way to target alliance members (although you can use <a10> - <a15> and <a20> - a<25> for the first and second allied party members, respectively. The end result is that you will either need 3 separate healers, or 1-2 really good ones.

Of course, on the other hand, the upside is that you now have up to 18 people to fight one monster. Inevitably, it’s up to you whether you want to form an alliance or stick with a single party, but keep in mind that for many missions and quests, you may be forced to make an alliance to defeat certain boss monsters or various other difficult enemies