Submitted by sam on Mon, 03/07/2005 - 14:24.

Welcome, mes amis to Chez Vana'Diel! My name is François, and I will be your guide to the wonderful world of tasty Vana'Diel delectables! Need that perfect cuisine to maximize your Warrior's strength? Or perhaps that divine dish for boosting your Ranger's accuracy? What is that, mon ami, you say your Mage is thirsty for some mana regeneration? Well, stick with François, and I will feed you right!

The Food Patch

Before the food patch of December 2004 there were very few foods that you could eat to really boost your character's performance. For melee attackers you had to eat the Mithkabobs and Cheifkabobs. For melee defenders you had to eat the Fishkabobs. Mages ate a few pies and drank some juices, and ranged attackers consumed Rice Balls. Even though there were many other foods to eat, these was all you should have eaten. Your poor Galka was sick of Mithkabobs, and your poor Taru was tired of Melon Juices. The food patch brought us a radical redesign in the general food system of Vana'Diel, and now we have many more choices in the food we eat.




The changes to the food system are detailed here, but one of the most significant ones was the introduction of level caps for given foods. Certain foods will provide boosts to various stats (attack, accuracy, etc) but will cap at a specific level. This means that, for example, Meat Mithkabobs no longer are the end-all be-all food for melee attackers. At certain levels, Dhalmel Steaks are far better than the Mithkabobs, and at other levels Bison Steaks beat them all.

Food for Soloing

The first type of food I'd like to look at is the ideal food for people Soloing. If you solo, there are a few certain things you'd like from your food.

• HP, Defense, and/or VIT boosts (so you can take more hits to your girlish frame)
• HP Regeneration (to reduce your downtime from healing, possibly allow you to chain)
• MP Regeneration (if you are a mage)

HP, Defense, and VIT Boosts

For your base food, start with Dragon Soup. Which gives the following stat boosts:

• HP +20
• Strength +6
• Agility +2
• Vitality +2
• Intelligence -1
• Attack +11%
• HP Regeneration While Healing +8

This is the ideal food for soloing. It is a cooking synth level 98, and will probably be rather expensive. Something that should be cheaper is Turtle Soup which provides the following stats:

• HP +10%
• Dexterity +4
• Vitality +6
• Mind -3
• HP Regeneration While Healing +5

If Turtle Soup is still too much and you need an economic alternative, try Egg Soup which gives you the following boosts:

• HP +30
• MP +5
• Vitality +1
• HP Regeneration While Healing +5

Egg Soup is only level 55 cooking, and sells for not much money. It is a waste to cook for profit, but to cook for yourself it can be quite useful.

HP Regeneration

For your HP regeneration, you do have several foods to choose from. What you want to do is to get a food that stacks with the above soups. This means you can get the benefits from both the soup and the HP regen. Because it must stack, we focus on the drinks that provide HP regen.



Depending on your level, and how much HP you will need to regen, you have the following drinks available:

Apple au Lait Duration: 3 mins 2 HP Regen every 3 seconds for 3 minutes, 120 total HP Regeneration Over Time +2

Pear au Lait Duration: 5 mins 3 HP Regen every 3 seconds for 5 minutes, 300 total HP Regeneration Over Time +3

Pamama au Lait Duration: 10 mins 2 HP Regen every 3 seconds for 10 minutes, 400 total HP Regeneration Over Time +2

Persikos au Lait Duration: 10 mins 4 HP Regen every 3 seconds for 10 minutes, 800 total HP Regeneration Over Time +4

MP Regeneration

For MP regeneration, there are many other choices. But realistically, the best options are as follows:

Grape Juice Duration: 1.5 mins 2 MP Regen every 3 seconds for 90 seconds, 60 total MP Regeneration Over Time +2

Melon Juice Duration: 2.25 mins 2 MP Regen every 3 seconds for 135 seconds, 90 total MP Regeneration Over Time +2

Yagudo Drink Duration: 3 mins 2 MP Regen every 3 seconds for 180 seconds, 120 total MP Regeneration Over Time +2

Foods for Partying

There are so many foods to use when you party, it is obscene. I have no intention of covering all of the foods here. What we will look at, instead, is specific foods for specific jobs or purposes that you may have overlooked before.



If you want a more in-depth guide, then I would suggest this link.

Basic Melee Attack Foods

The basic melee attack foods still include the classic Mith- and Cheifkabobs. But now the kabobs should only be used when your base attack is at certain levels (between 205 and 270 for the Mithkabobs, and 271 and 325 for the Cheifkabobs).



But for lower levels, one of the best foods is now Dhalmel Steaks with the following stats:

• Strength +4
• Intelligence -2
• Attack +25% (Cap: 45@180 Base Attack)

At higher levels, Royal Omelette is a sublime food which gives you the following enhancements:

• Strength +5
• Dexterity +2
• Intelligence -2
• Mind +4
• Attack +20% (Cap: 75@375 Base Attack)
• Ranged Attack +32%

Basic Melee Defense Foods

The old standard Fishkabobs for defense still hold sway in the middle ground, but now we have more options for those low and high level defenders.



For low levels, one of the very best foods is Steamed Crab with the following boosts:

• Vitality +3
• Defense +27% (Cap: 55@203 Base Defense)

Steamed Crab is the HQ result of Boiled Crab, but is one of the rare exceptions where the HQ is genuinely worth the extra money or effort. The great thing about Boiled and Steamed Crab is that you can start making these as early as cooking 27!



For high levels, an excellent defense food is Seafood Stew which gives you the following staggering stats:

• HP +20
• Dexterity +1
• Vitality +5
• Defense +25% (Cap: 120@480 Base Defense)

Ninja Foods

Ninja's need Evasion for their Blink-tanking. If they can get some Dexterity to boot, they will be able to hold hate all the better. For low levels, a great food for Ninja is the Eel Kabob with the following stats:

• Dexterity +4
• Mind -3
• Evasion +5

At higher levels, a great food for Ninja is the Jack-o'-Lantern that not only boosts Evasion but also Accuracy:

• Charisma -10
• Resist vs. Dark +25
• Accuracy +10
• Evasion +10
• Arcana Killer

The great thing about Jack-o'-Lanterns is that they are only cooking level 38 synth! This means you can easily get to the level necessary to cook them.

Samurai Foods

Samurais really had some great food boosts since the patch. The Samurai needs to have both high Agility for ranged accuracy as well as high Dexterity for normal accuracy. Thus, one of the great Samurai foods for low levels is Roast Pipira which adds the following boosts:

• Dexterity +3
• Mind -1
• Attack +14% (Cap: 50@357 Base Attack)
• Ranged Attack +20%
• Ranged Accuracy +10%

Later on, if the Samurai has equipment that enhances the effect of rice balls, they will want to check out the Rice Ball foods available to them for extra boosts.

Thief Foods

Thieves should be using the standard fare melee attack foods for the most part. However, the Roast Pipira and the Eel Kabobs mentioned for the Samurai and the Ninja also apply for the Thief.

Ranger Foods

The Ranger needs Agility, Ranged Accuracy, and Ranged Attack. Once again, the Roast Pipira mentioned for Samurai's and Thieves works very well for Rangers. But at higher levels, they may want to switch to Yellow Curry:

• HP +20
• Strength +5
• Agility +2
• Intelligence -4
• HP Regeneration While Healing +2
• MP Regeneration While Healing +1
• Resist Stun
• Resist Sleep
• Attack +20% (Cap: 75@375 Base Attack)
• Ranged Attack +32%

for the Ranged Attack boosts, or a ranged accuracy food like Sole Sushi:

• HP +20
• Strength +5
• Dexterity +6
• Resist Sleep
• Accuracy +15%
• Ranged Accuracy

General Mage Foods

Don't think François has left my mage friends out of this discussion! The truth is, mages, as before, have a lot of choice in their foods. Pies like Melon Pies are still very appealing for their MP boosts:

• MP +25
• Agility -1
• Intelligence +4

but we now also have great Mind boosting foods for our enfeebling and enhancing compadres like Mushroom Stew:

• MP +40
• Strength -1
• Mind +4
• MP Regeneration While Healing +4

A wonderful thing about mage food is there are so many candies and juices that offer more mage boosts. These candies and juices generally stack and give the mage even more bang for their buck.



The Ginger Cookie is a wonderful little candy that provides +5 MP Regen while healing (excellent for reducing downtime between battles) and drinks like Yagudo Drink provide constant MP regen:

• 2 MP Regen every 3 seconds for 180 seconds, 120 total
• MP Regeneration Over Time +2

Until next time...

What was that, mon amis? Could not eat another bite? Not even a wafer-thin mint? Non? Well, perhaps next time, mon amis?



In parting remember to always keep yourself fed. A player without food is not living up to their full potential. Take a look at what your job needs, and find the food that gives you exactly what you want.