Abyssea Exp

[Areya]

Since there's a few people that have heard about the ridiculous rates of exp in Abyssea but don't really understand how it works, thought I'd post some info on it that might answer some questions.

Requirements
Obviously, you need the battlefield addon Visions of Abyssea, for starters.  After doing the initial cutscenes you get a Traverser Stone.  After your first visit into Abyssea, you can get up to three of these at once.  They refresh one every 20 hours.  Each one gives you (base) 30 minutes in Abyssea.  It's highly recommended to have at least 90 minutes of time for an exp party.

If you leave Abyssea early (teleport, warp, use the maw..   Logout or Connection Lost doesn't stop the timer!) you keep the time you had.  And you can store up to 120 minutes this way.

Group Setup
You want a full alliance for experience points.  Jobs that do well in meripo work fine in Abyssea as well, however of particular note is the need for magic damage.  Therefore, having several BLMs, SCHs, and BLUs is very useful.  BRDs are of course useful as ever, especially for dark-resistant mobs like bats.

Also, you'll want 1-2 people doing nothing but chest duty.  These can be low level jobs (30+), they don't actively fight but use keys and work the locks on chests.

Lights
The key to success in Abyssea exp is light management.  Lights can be received from killing enemies or from red chests.

Azure Lights come from scoring magic kills on opponents.  These increase the yields of blue chests, which house such benefits as +10 minute Time Extensions, bonus exp, bonus cruor, hp/mp refill, or temporary items.

Pearlescent Lights come from scoring melee kills (Auto-Attack, not WS) on opponents.  These increase the rate of chests appearing.

Ruby Lights come from scoring physical WS kills on opponents, but not all mob types seem to yield them.  These increase the rate of red chests, which can contain any type of light.

Amber Lights come from scoring magical WS kills on opponents.  These increase the rate of golden chests which have augmented items or other items like scrolls, money items, etc.

Silver Lights increase the cruor that kills yield.

Golden Lights increase the exp that kills yield.

Ebon Lights are the rarest and boost all the others!

The max aura for a single color tends to occur somewhere in the 25-30 range.

Strategy
Strategy can vary slightly but this seems to work the best:

First, the empahsis is on building up Azure Light energy, as this improves the yield of blue chests.  This helps Time Extensions show up more often.

After a sufficient amount is accumulated (15-25), then Pearlescent Light is increased so that the chests pop more often.  Once this is sufficiently strong so that chests appear very often, then there's usually an emphasis on Time Extensions.  (By this point, some people may be running low on time.)

Then, the buildup of Golden and Ebon Light can commence, as the exp/kill starts climbing to high levels.

Is It Worth It?
Abyssea allows neither Experience Bonuses nor Exp Chains.  However, once a group is sufficiently established, exp/kill can climb up to 600, and the enemies drop fairly quickly.  It starts off sluggish, but the longer you stay, the faster the exp rolls in.  Personally I've went 76->80 on several jobs in a single session.

Not to mention, you also gain ridiculous amounts of cruor in the process, which can buy the lv 78 sets, among other things.

Targets
There are a few camps that are popular.  Here's ones that I've seen:

Abyssea-Konschtat:  Lizards

Abyssea-La Theine:  Vultures,  Frogs (not Poroggos), Pixies

Abyssea-Tahrongi:  Giant Bats, Mandragoras (these particular ones don't use a sleep move)

Hope this is insightful.