Final Fantasy XI - Back to the Noob Dunes

Hope everyone had a nice long holiday. I'm back at work today, sadly.

I've recently been logging back on FFXI but still stuck at level 70 since I can't beat Maat and get past the level cap to get to level 75. I'm 0/2 now. He always uses 2 hour and pounds me to oblivion whenever invincible wears off. I need to get a better sword so I can increase damage output and defeat him before the 8 min mark.

Since some people from my Linkshell (Kupoknights on Valefor) came back to FFXI, we decided to level our lowbie jobs using the level synch tool. I'm leveling my Ninja to 25 so my Warrior wouldn't be gimped when I'm subbing NIN. SO far it's been pretty good since we have someone Duo-boxing to heal us or raise us if we're in trouble. Current camps are at the Oasis and white-bone beach. level synching really helps and we get great EXP from doing skill chains. I forgot how annoying figuring out the Weapon skill order. x.x; I was looking at the chart and it didn't make sense to me..I haven't done a real EXP party in a long, long time so I've done some noob things like accidentally hitting the wrong macro or getting aggro from not being careful. I'm also too cheap to buy a ranged weapon to pull with my Ninja ;). I seriously have just 80k gil. The Avatar battles and Maat fights are costing me a pretty gil.