Which Job Should I Play?

[Amele]

Re: Which Job Should I Play?

BRDs only have Ballad on themselves half the time and, again, are generally busier than DRGs, if there's an MP heavy frontline (and I seldom see a DRG w/o a PLD far off) the frontline can easily get Ballad/Evoker's. You're not generally going to have BRD or COR+ RDM in the same PT, so the BRD or COR has to refresh the frontline, they have no choice if there's no RDM. Its actually easier for a COR since they can occasionally double up for the frontline if the backline gets a 5 (pretty common).
So I gotta call BS on this statement, because seldom do I ever leave a BLU, PLD, DRG/Mage or DRK hanging. BRD can do that same.
Oh, and that whole sanction thing. If you're going /mage, kinda best you also bring your own refresh to begin with. And seasoned mage, DRK, BLU or PLD would already know this.
I misread, but even then Bar-spells are a waste of MP for the sake of a fast trigger.

First, our definition of busy is pretty different I think. Dragoon is busy killing stuff faster, and every spell he casts (especially curaga hah) is going to directly reduce how quickly that next mob is killed.

If the bard does it, it (should be) because he's already staged the next one and finished his songs - so he is, quite literally, not busy at the time.


If you really think that a dragoon wants to see ballad from a bard over march/mad/minuet in some combination, you're nuts. That said, if the pt really has 3 front line mp users, go for it if they care that much about their mp. (Pld has auto-refresh at 2/tick in AU, dark has A+ dark magic and aspir. etc, so I think it unlikely they'll want ballad.)

A skilled bard will have ballad as much as their back line healer does, minus the 10 second travel+cast time after doing the mad+march for the front line. That's much more than 'half time'.

Sanction should apply equally to the bard, so I don't know why you even mention it as a way for the dragoon to close the ballad gap.

As for not generally seeing a bard or cor and rdm in the same pt, you have some strange pt standards on your server.

All of the above is even more true when you do have a redmage in the pt (the gap for the bard and the dragoon is the same, especially since there's *no way in hell* that the drg is gonna want 6mp/tick over real songs.)

Barspells are a waste of mp? Baraero costs 6. hardly 'too expensive'.

Re: White Mage's invite rate

Support, Tanks = fast invites.
Most DD's = slower invites.
Pet jobs = very slow invites.

White Mage is between "fast invites" and "slower invites", so it gets stuck with "average" label from me. It's not a bad label, really.

I guess my confusion stemmed from how you were using average. (since if you were to actually take average seek times, whitemage is pretty far above it.) I would probably agree that whitemage is close to median seek times at 75, (pre 50 it's as fast as redmage, and pre 41 it's the fastest invite of all save maybe tanks, hence my reasoning for why it should probably be listed as a faster invite.) the confusion also stems from not being sure how much we're talking about 75 vs. exp.

Let me clarify why I included /WHM in parenthesis; PLD is sometimes called upon to be a healer (I've seen this in JP parties), and /WHM is the best support job for that role. By no means does /WHM compare with /WAR and /NIN.

There's no similar situation for BLM with /NIN, as far as I can tell, though it is good for a BLM with plenty of MP and hMP, and can be used to lower resistance for nukes using the Ichi line of elemental Ninjutsu enfeebs.

you did, however, include /drk for rdm, which is used exclusively for events (basically the same as blm/nin) which is why I mentioned it, it's very much a subpar exp sub.

Not saying WHM can't; it's just not expected of them to be major enfeebler. It's not needed, either, with the number of RDM75's I see running around. BTW, the role targed is support, not enfeebler.

oh. lol. yeah I meant that enfeebling should be mentioned -in the text- of whitemage and blackmage, I agree that blm shouldn't be on the support list (whitemage should be because of -ra spells and haste)

I really do like DRG/RDM, but it is just a more specialized version of DRG/WHM for a niche role which isn't greatly in demand outside of solo'ing and small parties. =/ Despite the length of the guide, I very to avoid the "everything and the kitchen sink" attitude, so /WHM with its more versatile arsenal stays in the guide, but no /RDM. Sorry...

I'll defer to Vyuru here, since (s)he's the actual dragoon. all I know is that every dragoon I've played with prefers redmage for fast cast barspell over whm (I realize you get -na spells, outside of solo-trio a drg shouldn't really need them to support the pt.)

To be a Tank(↘), a Job doesn't have to be the most efficient, but the player's party must be given a reasonable chance at chaining at least VT's, and special fights shouldn't be a dice toss with "lesser" tanks.

war/mnk is a tank out to 72, and mnk/war is the same job ability list, more hp, more vit, and with better damage mitigation (counterstance isn't available subbed) I guess I don't see what the issue is, unless you don't really consider war/mnk a tank - also, you listed pup(arrow) and frankly, I have a hard time believing that the automaton really tanks better than a monk could, except that the automaton isn't a party member (you could make an argument for bst tank if you allowed an EM pet, for instance.)

as for chaining VT, I can do that on my sam/war as solo tank in the 40's and 50's (before enmity gear, scorpion harness, etc. etc.) so I'd have no reason to think that monk couldn't do it at earlier levels (see also: duo chaining IT birds at 75 mnk/war + whm) so I've got direct experience with monk tanks pre-30 and post 70, and anecdotal evidence that mnk should work in between. basically - I think it should get a down arrow because monk *can* tank, if the monk wishes to. (especially for events)

I guess maybe some of the confusion is that I'm not certain how much endgame and events should be in consideration for what to list, and how much this is just (pre-merit) exp.

[Vyuru]

Re: Which Job Should I Play?

While I don't know the exact cut off, tanking on damage and Provoke alone gets dicy somewhere in the Qufim levels.

The cutoff is more or less on crabs I think, pugils and goblins and all the other nasties either tend to hit too hard or have very nasty TP attacks. However if the dragoon is a level or two above the level when people normally first start exping on those monsters you could probably tank them. I'm not sure how +def food would affect this because most of my tanking as drg in these levels was either by accident or because the tank died/things went bad. Mandragora might be possible to tank as drg, I tanked them at about lvl 28/29 in Yhoarter with +def food and the Brass Scale Mail set. Goblins are a big nono though for drg tanking.

While I don't see /SAM as "you have to have it!" for Hasso or even Seigan

It's not so much as you have to have it, but Hasso and Meditate offer very comparable numbers to Double Attack and Berserk, however Samurai doesn't really fully come into play until, lvl 50 at least, lvl 60 for sure. This is more of an endgame exp sub much like Thief is.

Not saying WHM can't; it's just not expected of them to be major enfeebler.

It's not, but there are some enfeebles whose potency is related to Mind, and some enfeebles whose potency is related to Intelligence. A Rdm may be able to stick an enfeeblement easier on a mob due to a higher enfeebling skill, but a Whm or Blm may actually have stronger enfeebles than a Rdm does. It's been too long since I last really played Rdm though so I don't remember all the details and just how Mnd/Int/Enfeebling skill contributes to the enfeeblement landing and potency.

I'll defer to Vyuru here, since (s)he's the actual dragoon. all I know is that every dragoon I've played with prefers redmage for fast cast barspell over whm

It's not so much for the fast cast + barspell, it's more for the fact that while /rdm has a smaller manapool than /whm does, /rdm has more spells that don't cost alot of mp that not only can be spammed if needed but you wind up being able to use more Healing Breaths than with /whm.

The drg/whm vs drg/rdm and drg/mage in a party discussion might be best continued in the drg forum however, if IfritnoItazura has no problems with it being held here I've got a few things to say, otherwise I think we should move it to the Dragoon forums if you guys want to continue it.

And as far as monk tanks go, I have never seen one in action, but I do know that it can be done and done rather well from what I have heard, and in fact a LS friend of mine has his, lvl 30-36ish I think, monk setup for tanking. Once this quarter is over I'll see if I can exp with him, or else get him to post here

[Amele]

Re: Which Job Should I Play?

It's not, but there are some enfeebles whose potency is related to Mind, and some enfeebles whose potency is related to Intelligence. A Rdm may be able to stick an enfeeblement easier on a mob due to a higher enfeebling skill, but a Whm or Blm may actually have stronger enfeebles than a Rdm does. It's been too long since I last really played Rdm though so I don't remember all the details and just how Mnd/Int/Enfeebling skill contributes to the enfeeblement landing and potency.

I can help: enfeebling skill is just accuracy (i.e. resist rate) and likelihood of interruption. MND is potency for white magic debuffs, INT is potency for black magic debuffs.

the general rule of thumb is to stack just as much enfeebling skill as you need to consistently land the spell in question, and then load mnd or int into the other slots.

( I don't remember off hand if MAB has any effect on enfeebling, I suspect it doesn't but I wouldn't make a bet either way.)

[ItazuraNhomango]

Re: Which Job Should I Play?

The drg/whm vs drg/rdm and drg/mage in a party discussion might be best continued in the drg forum however, if IfritnoItazura has no problems with it being held here I've got a few things to say, otherwise I think we should move it to the Dragoon forums if you guys want to continue it.

I don't mind at all; this way I don't have to go to multiple places to track this issue.

For MNK tanking, I'm told that it works (here and in my LS), and that MNK were often used as a tank before PLD. Still, everytime I see it in action, it sucked unless the player is many level above the monster. None of the LS MNK's seem to be inclined to tank, either.

I can see Counterstance work with Utusemi: Ni + Ichi, especially with a strong Trick Attack at the at the start of every fight, or if fighting pots or skeletons.

Inputs from tanking MNK's at this point would be really helpful...

[Vyuru]

Re: Which Job Should I Play?

I don't mind at all; this way I don't have to go to multiple places to track this issue.

Ok, I'll get into it then

Oh, and once I hit level 72 I will run a parser test between drg/war and drg/sam. At that point I have access to gear that I think would be optimal for both jobs. Since I don't have a static party I'll probably just cancel any important buffs that may sway the numbers. Keep in mind though I have alot of Assaults to do before I have that gear, so it may take me awhile to get there.

This may take me a little while to write up, so give me a bit. I need to do some research on mob TP moves and stuff.

[ItazuraNhomango]

Re: Which Job Should I Play?

I guess my confusion stemmed from how you were using average. (since if you were to actually take average seek times, whitemage is pretty far above it.) I would probably agree that whitemage is close to median seek times at 75, (pre 50 it's as fast as redmage, and pre 41 it's the fastest invite of all save maybe tanks, hence my reasoning for why it should probably be listed as a faster invite.) the confusion also stems from not being sure how much we're talking about 75 vs. exp.

I guess I'm shaped by personal experience; I got more unsolicited invites on RDM than WHM, before Lv.41. >_>; NIN was even more popular, though, between 37 to 41.

Even now, whenever I hop on my NIN41 for BCNM40, I get invites... No one bothers my WHM44 when I'm tele-taxi'ing on it... They don't even ask for tele's... T_T

you did, however, include /drk for rdm, which is used exclusively for events (basically the same as blm/nin) which is why I mentioned it, it's very much a subpar exp sub.

If it's needed for end game plays, I'll add it.

BTW, I've never heard of anyone leveling /NIN for BLM before, but plenty of RDM's have grumbled about being asked to get /DRK by Dynamis and Sky LS leaders.

Right now, it seems to me that /NIN can be useful to BLM, but /DRK is necessary to RDM75. That's why RDM/DRK gets the thumbs up.

war/mnk is a tank out to 72, and mnk/war is the same job ability list, more hp, more vit, and with better damage mitigation (counterstance isn't available subbed) I guess I don't see what the issue is, unless you don't really consider war/mnk a tank

Fewer defense gear, and multiple personal experience of seeing them trying to tank and fail--including myself. Counterstance doesn't seem to work well on Tough or higher. (Guard seems to have plenty of potential, if only someone can cap it.)

I need testimonies from presently tanking Monk players to change my mind on MNK tanking.

Once upon a time, MNK's may have been tanks, but is its performance acceptable these days? (I don't even see WAR/MNK's tanking past Qufim much anymore... Kinda tempted to drop them from the Tank list.) Damage mitigation is the king now--NIN tops the game at that, and PLD's can get HP back after getting hit via cures, trading MP for enmity.

We have responsibility not to mislead newbies who read this guide down the wrong paths--don't want someone to read this, goes out and tries MNK/WAR tanking, gets bad reputation, ends up with no invites, and dies lot's of times in those rare parties, and finally returns to blame me (and I point to you) for quitting the game.

The hazard of making a guide is that someone impressionable may actually read it and believe you...

you listed pup(arrow) and frankly, I have a hard time believing that the automaton really tanks better than a monk could, except that the automaton isn't a party member (you could make an argument for bst tank if you allowed an EM pet, for instance.)

Automaton doesn't tank; the PUP does. Automaton is the cure bot.

• Pre Lv.50
• Post Lv. 50
• Collection of tanking testimonies

(There's also a video of a PUP solo'ing VT Colibri or something, but I didn't bookmark that.)

Truthfully, I see PUP's as better solo'er than tank, and MNK can definitely generate more enmity than PUP's--but, PUP's cure bot is too nice to ignore...

as for chaining VT, I can do that on my sam/war as solo tank in the 40's and 50's (before enmity gear, scorpion harness, etc. etc.) so I'd have no reason to think that monk couldn't do it at earlier levels

That's pretty impressive. How were you holding the monsters? Just damage and Provoke?

Too bad SAM such a lousy tank at lower levels, otherwise I'd be tempted to add SAM to the tank list...

I guess maybe some of the confusion is that I'm not certain how much endgame and events should be in consideration for what to list, and how much this is just (pre-merit) exp.

For "Tank(↘)", pretty much able to tank in exp party for the vast majority of Lv.10 to Lv.72 range, and more than a handful of special fights would be sufficient.
It's pretty lax, really, except for the "all level range" requirement.

[Amele]

Re: Which Job Should I Play?

I guess I'm shaped by personal experience; I got more unsolicited invites on RDM than WHM, before Lv.41. >_>; NIN was even more popular, though, between 37 to 41.

Even now, whenever I hop on my NIN41 for BCNM40, I get invites... No one bothers my WHM44 when I'm tele-taxi'ing on it... They don't even ask for tele's... T_T

see, it's been the reverse in my experience (I frequently had to go anon as I was leveling whitemage, and still do, honestly.) although I leveled whitemage first and in the initial two waves of NA to 75 (back when the general thought was that a party *must* have two full healers (whm rdm smn/whm) and at least one whitemage, at all levels.) server variation may matter too.

I got many more invites on whitemage unsolicited than either ninja or paladin (I'm working on redmage, I'll let you know) but I've gotten unsolicited invites on thf and war and sam with some regularity too (sam the most frequently of these three DD actually o.o; I blame my shorter name and early alphabet listing) so I may not be representative of the 'normal' case.

how much players go anon has alot to do with frequency of unsolicited invites, as does whether or not they tend to accept unsolicited invites. which is part of why I was including seek times into the discussion- there's a lot more that goes into whether you get invites without seeking or not than just what job you are.

BTW, I've never heard of anyone leveling /NIN for BLM before, but plenty of RDM's have grumbled about being asked to get /DRK by Dynamis and Sky LS leaders.

sky? that's a relatively new one for me actually, lol. (the only things I've ever used rdm/drk on extensively are hnms like cerberus for GoH prevention - especially if low-manning it - and DL for oblivion smash) bind / silence / etc usually work better for the relevant sky 2hours in my experience. anyway: blm/nin gets used in limbus and salvage somewhat, and sometimes for low manning certain hnm when the blackmages may need to kite and/or should expect to take some hate.

That's pretty impressive. How were you holding the monsters? Just damage and Provoke?

Too bad SAM such a lousy tank at lower levels, otherwise I'd be tempted to add SAM to the tank list...

without getting into too much detail, pretty much just damage and provoke yes. you mitigate damage with seigan / third eye, which is functionally an utsusemi: ichi (there's some nuance here but it's the simplest way to think about it) so you have basically the same tools that a war/nin has to tank with - with faster tp gain for more weaponskills as secondary hate generation. (and meditate to balance the loss of warcry) post 50 sam gains soboro sukehiro which is functionally a (slightly) slow ridill - with this taking and keeping hate is almost too easy :x

I'm also not sure what you consider the 'good' tanks in lower levels (in dunes I consider pretty much every melee capable of wearing harness or scale or lizard as a 'tank'; and in qufim I consider any job capable of wearing harness or scale a tank) in kazham mandragora's are a joke to tank if you can wear chainmail (which is all the traditional tanks as well as sam and dark and bst) unless you're discussing the 30-40 range, where it's admittedly very dependent on what and where you hunt who can tank or not.

all that said, I'm not sure that sam should be put on the list as a tank(arrow) simply because it's not really a good use of a samurai (you lose out on close to 10% dot output from the sam in the process) I mentioned monk because monk doesn't particularly sacrifice anything to tank at higher levels (most go mnk/nin already anyway for aoe-absorbing shadows) but I'll defer to your decision on getting a monk who tanks regularly in here instead. (I've got a long list of credentials from level 75 monk tanks, but that's not very useful for an all levels test.)

[ItazuraNhomango]

Re: Which Job Should I Play?

see, it's been the reverse in my experience (I frequently had to go anon as I was leveling whitemage, and still do, honestly.) although I leveled whitemage first and in the initial two waves of NA to 75 (back when the general thought was that a party *must* have two full healers (whm rdm smn/whm) and at least one whitemage, at all levels.) server variation may matter too.

Hmm. Too bad other WHM's who also level 10+ other jobs have not chimed in. It'd be interesting to know if my or your experience is the the anomaly.

sky? that's a relatively new one for me actually, lol. (the only things I've ever used rdm/drk on extensively are hnms like cerberus for GoH prevention - especially if low-manning it - and DL for oblivion smash) bind / silence / etc usually work better for the relevant sky 2hours in my experience.

*shrug* My sister is old school RDM, and she was asked to bring RDM/DRK to Sky at times in the past, though I forgot for what. (But, it was for Dynamis Lord which she originally leveled DRK for--that's 37 levels of DRK/RDM... ^_^;;; )

anyway: blm/nin gets used in limbus and salvage somewhat, and sometimes for low manning certain hnm when the blackmages may need to kite and/or should expect to take some hate.

Interesting.

I'm also not sure what you consider the 'good' tanks in lower levels (in dunes I consider pretty much every melee capable of wearing harness or scale or lizard as a 'tank'; and in qufim I consider any job capable of wearing harness or scale a tank) in kazham mandragora's are a joke to tank if you can wear chainmail (which is all the traditional tanks as well as sam and dark and bst) unless you're discussing the 30-40 range, where it's admittedly very dependent on what and where you hunt who can tank or not.

At the very low levels, damage mitigation is not that much of a problem except for Pugils and maybe Giants--if only people would keep up with the armor and the party has two people who can cure. The problem is enmity.

WAR/MNK is almost ideal, with Provoke and Boost x2 every 30 seconds. Great Axe is stronger than almost every weapon except Polearm, to boot. PLD can secure monsters just as well, and lighten the curing load on mages, but needs to rest between battles. DRG's damage output relative to other DD's is impressive enough to be called broken, and can easily tank on that during Valkurum Dunes levels.

Although SAM/WAR and other jobs can wear the same armor as WAR all the way to Chainmail, they can't generate enough enmity. Never mind spike damage like THF's SA or WAR's Sturmwind, DoT damage from DRG, WAR, DRK, RNG, and SAM/RNG can easily make these pretend tanks lose the monsters. (Every one of those from personal experiences...)

BTW, I tanked Yuhtunga Mandagora on DRK/WAR, and they were not jokes. I was using (mostly HQ) equipment I had from leveling PLD. I hold them well enough, can even get them back after the THF's SA Fast Blade, but my HP dipped below 25% in more than half of the battles.

As a PLD, it irks me to think a monster running back and forth between mages and melee, or if the monster is spinning like mad whacking melees left and right is somehow tanking at work. "No one died" while someone is playing tank really isn't good enough to be call tanking.

Maybe my standard for low level tanking is a bit higher than most people's?

I mentioned monk because monk doesn't particularly sacrifice anything to tank at higher levels (most go mnk/nin already anyway for aoe-absorbing shadows) but I'll defer to your decision on getting a monk who tanks regularly in here instead. (I've got a long list of credentials from level 75 monk tanks, but that's not very useful for an all levels test.)

Yeah, I can really use input from MNK's who recently tanked in the Lv.10-72 range, or currently in that range and tank regularly.

There was "Jingy" from Ifrit who was working on MNK tanking, and evangelized MNK tanking. I haven't seen new posts from him in the longest time, and his work was heavily criticized. He tended to operate as a "believer", and came up with many "conclusions" not directly supported by solid testing methodology and logic/math.

My own personal take is that he wasn't lying about doing a passable job (though likely exaggerated a bit). However, he took extraordinary measures to keep his Guard skill up, which in my opinion is why his MNK can tank where as everyone else I witnessed did a poor job or failed entirely.

An aside:

Jingy was the first person I know of who advocated PLD/BLM tanking. This was before PLD/RDM testing, I think. The two methods shared a good deal of similarities, but Jingy was laughed at, while Armando was praised. Obviously Armando presents his ideas much better than Jingy and grounds his speculations in facts and reasonings, but the ideas behind both methods are nearly the same: use spells between provokes to increase frequency of high enmity actions.

As forgetful cat who often show up to perma as PLD/BLM by accident, I know first hand that PLD/BLM can tank (after getting over the initial panic)--just too damn busy, and would require changes to my macros--I always warp back to switch to PLD/WAR after one fight.

[Amele]

Re: Which Job Should I Play?

WAR/MNK is almost ideal, with Provoke and Boost x2 every 30 seconds. Great Axe is stronger than almost every weapon except Polearm, to boot. PLD can secure monsters just as well, and lighten the curing load on mages, but needs to rest between battles. DRG's damage output relative to other DD's is impressive enough to be called broken, and can easily tank on that during Valkurum Dunes levels.

Although SAM/WAR and other jobs can wear the same armor as WAR all the way to Chainmail, they can't generate enough enmity. Never mind spike damage like THF's SA or WAR's Sturmwind, DoT damage from DRG, WAR, DRK, RNG, and SAM/RNG can easily make these pretend tanks lose the monsters. (Every one of those from personal experiences...)

I guess the biggest difference in our approaches to lower level tanking is I always get at least two of the *pseudo-tank or tank melee jobs, basically two x/war or war/x etc. the one exception being if I get a paladin, at which point I just make sure I have one other provoke in the party, even if it's on a soft-target (like a cloth wearing sam)

I generally consider tanking successful if the tank(s) can keep it off the backline. frontline hate control has always been a cooperative effort (perhaps my personal experience has influenced this as well, since I used to think that a good tank would hate off everything short of benediction 20-75.. then I started leveling a melee job with close to four years of gear/gil accumulation behind it o.o; ) If the goal was a solo tank (I think this is your preferred tank style?) then I think you'd perhaps be limited to war/mnk, pld/war, and perhaps drg/war in qufim and kazham, with a few more choices (mostly mnk/war, the other boost+provoke combo) for valkurm.

BTW, I tanked Yuhtunga Mandagora on DRK/WAR, and they were not jokes. I was using (mostly HQ) equipment I had from leveling PLD. I hold them well enough, can even get them back after the THF's SA Fast Blade, but my HP dipped below 25% in more than half of the battles.

that almost sounds more like a mage issue ^.~

speaking from experience, they killed me a couple times tanking my way through (first on warrior, then again on ninja) but pre-30 I've come to expect the occasional death as a standard aspect of early party play (it's rare you get a group of six players who all bring their A-game to a lowbie party; and rarer still that they all want to hunt stuff that's the right level range!)

[Vyuru]

Re: Which Job Should I Play?

My own personal take is that he wasn't lying about doing a passable job (though likely exaggerated a bit). However, he took extraordinary measures to keep his Guard skill up

Out of curiosity, what do you mean extraordinary measures to keep his Guard skill up? Been thinking about leveling monk and that's something I'd like to do, it looks to be a very useful skill.

I don't have much time, so this will probably be added to later tonight.

As for drg/mage in parties:

It kinda depends, there are the parties where the people are depending on your Healing Breaths and ability to backup heal, and then there are the parties where you are there just as an emergency healer.

If you really think that a dragoon wants to see ballad from a bard over march/mad/minuet in some combination, you're nuts.

If my healing is important to the party, I want that refresh. Refresh does more for me as drg/rdm than it ever will for any other mage or pseudo mage.

A skilled bard will have ballad as much as their back line healer does, minus the 10 second travel+cast time after doing the mad+march for the front line. That's much more than 'half time'.

Sanction should apply equally to the bard, so I don't know why you even mention it as a way for the dragoon to close the ballad gap.

More or less agree with you here. Drg is not Brd, they are played differently and have different roles in a party. The main difference is that most of the low level status curing spells cast 12+ mp to use, that is about 10% of a drg/whm's max mp, add to that fewer Healing Breaths available due to higher mp cost spells, and that is just too dangerous, IF you are needed for Healing Breaths in that party. 95% of the time you will be there for Healing Breaths, so I would honestly say that White Mage is a useless subjob for a main/backup healing dragoon most of the time.

Arguements I hear in favor of /whm:

You can Divine Seal + Curaga II in the middle of a fight/after the fight!

See math done in a previous post, you can restore far more HP with Healing Breaths than with Divine Seal + Curaga without blowing all of your mp in one go, takes longer, but that is the trade off, which I think more than worthwhile.

You can remove status effects!

Depends on the status effect, but removing anything that requires Erase (str down, drown, att down, acc down, etc) these moves are normally AoE in effect and as such are far too costly for a drg/whm's mp pool, unless that is what the drg/whm was specifically brought along to deal with. These moves are also normally spammed, so the arguement of Divine Seal + Erase is only valid every 10 minutes.

You can use Protectga II!

If you've got a real tank, protectga won't matter, /rdm still gives you good protects and you don't need to protect every member of the party, if you have anyone /whm, such as smn/whm, blm/whm, rdm/whm, or *gasp* whm main, they have access to it, can use a Dark Staff without loosing TP, and more often than not have Clear Mind traits and can eat +hmp cookies, so they can provide the more costly spells and not the drg/whm.

Quite frankly, for any poison/paralyze/blind single target special attack that the tank gets hit with he can wait for a WS from me normally, unless I just used one I am under, probably 20 seconds away from using a WS, from which my wyvern will use a status cure breath, so those I wouldn't bother with, normally.

Most of my arguement on the second page still stands, and goes into straight up mp reasons why you don't want to go /whm as main/backup healer.

Perhaps we never learned how to /WHM effectively?

To put this into perspective, drg/whm has it's place, but I equate it's usefulness as to how you view Cor/Brd more or less. It is not a matter of learning how to /Whm effectively, it is what you are in that party to do, REGARDLESS of how much refresh you have. More Refresh just makes /rdm that much better and let's them handle more.

And gotta run, might add more to this later.

[ItazuraNhomango]

Re: Which Job Should I Play?

Out of curiosity, what do you mean extraordinary measures to keep his Guard skill up? Been thinking about leveling monk and that's something I'd like to do, it looks to be a very useful skill.

I think Jingy deleveled his MNK, tens of levels.

And, said something about he won't allow his MNK to level without capping Guard for each level--every time his MNK levels, he delevels it again unless Guard was blue before he leveled. At least, I think that was him...

Crazy...

[Amele]

Re: Which Job Should I Play?

If my healing is important to the party, I want that refresh. Refresh does more for me as drg/rdm than it ever will for any other mage or pseudo mage.

I maybe have a tainted sample then ^^: (I've only merited with drg/mage on whitemage, usually in a pt with brd+whm + 4 DD where I was the primary haste/debuff) and most of the DD I party with have access to stuff like apoc nigh so it's not uncommon for a dragoon/mage in my pt to have an ethereal earring, which combined with my devotion largely negates the need to lose a song slot.

in a rdm+brd party, I would imagine that refresh alone will be enough.

so I guess, short of a 2x bard(or cor) party, I would think that at least at 75 a drg/mage would want the non-bard covering their mp requirements (either with devotion or refresh) rather than losing the attack, accuracy, or haste bonus they could get with a second song slot.

I imagine it could be very different on the way up, but again: it's rare past 40 to have a bard but not a redmage in pt in my experience.

[Vyuru]

Re: Which Job Should I Play?

in a rdm+brd party, I would imagine that refresh alone will be enough.

so I guess, short of a 2x bard(or cor) party, I would think that at least at 75 a drg/mage would want the non-bard covering their mp requirements (either with devotion or refresh) rather than losing the attack, accuracy, or haste bonus they could get with a second song slot.

In an ideal world, yeah I'd prefer Refresh over Ballad. Ideally I'd have the Ares body and Sanction Refresh

But to be honest, I haven't been able to find any refreshers for my last 7 parties or so, I just can't get a brd/rdm, or any other 2x refresher combo.

[Saren]

Re: Which Job Should I Play?

Hmm. Too bad other WHM's who also level 10+ other jobs have not chimed in. It'd be interesting to know if my or your experience is the the anomaly.

People were saying that blm was very low invite too but not really my experience so far.

blm - from 10-32 I average a party request when I don't have my flag up every other dayish
whm - from 10-34 say......just over one party request when I am flag down a day, last night during american peak time I got 3 requests which isn't all that unusual for that kind of time of day.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Which Job Should I Play?

Drg is not Brd, they are played differently and have different roles in a party. The main difference is that most of the low level status curing spells cast 12+ mp to use, that is about 10% of a drg/whm's max mp, add to that fewer Healing Breaths available due to higher mp cost spells, and that is just too dangerous, IF you are needed for Healing Breaths in that party. 95% of the time you will be there for Healing Breaths, so I would honestly say that White Mage is a useless subjob for a main/backup healing dragoon most of the time.

Uh, weren't you just making the argument that using Bar-spells - which cost more MP than the common HB triggers - were what made /RDM better than /WHM because they cast more quickly.

Arguements I hear in favor of /whm:

You can Divine Seal + Curaga II in the middle of a fight/after the fight!

See math done in a previous post, you can restore far more HP with Healing Breaths than with Divine Seal + Curaga without blowing all of your mp in one go, takes longer, but that is the trade off, which I think more than worthwhile.

You can remove status effects!

Depends on the status effect, but removing anything that requires Erase (str down, drown, att down, acc down, etc) these moves are normally AoE in effect and as such are far too costly for a drg/whm's mp pool, unless that is what the drg/whm was specifically brought along to deal with. These moves are also normally spammed, so the arguement of Divine Seal + Erase is only valid every 10 minutes.

You can use Protectga II!

If you've got a real tank, protectga won't matter, /rdm still gives you good protects and you don't need to protect every member of the party, if you have anyone /whm, such as smn/whm, blm/whm, rdm/whm, or *gasp* whm main, they have access to it, can use a Dark Staff without loosing TP, and more often than not have Clear Mind traits and can eat +hmp cookies, so they can provide the more costly spells and not the drg/whm.

Quite frankly, for any poison/paralyze/blind single target special attack that the tank gets hit with he can wait for a WS from me normally, unless I just used one I am under, probably 20 seconds away from using a WS, from which my wyvern will use a status cure breath, so those I wouldn't bother with, normally.

Most of my arguement on the second page still stands, and goes into straight up mp reasons why you don't want to go /whm as main/backup healer.

Might as well have called this, "Arguements I'm making against /WHM because I haven't levelled it or don't want to." All that stuff's more useful that en-spelling your lance or barspelling yourself.

Yes, wyvern will status cure on a WS, but it prioritizes its master first, so waiting another minute to build more TP isn't isn't as effective as casting the actual spell. Poison takes away HP, but paralyze can proc against your job abilities and spells and cause them to fail. That's rather deadly to tanking ability, I'd think.

I know things like Paralyze damage my ability to buff, so paralyna has its place for me over Barparalyze, which wouldn't even be used for a HB trigger because it's a Bar-status, a longer cast than Bar-Element.