Melee job roles, pros and cons

[neighbortaru]

Re: Melee job roles, pros and cons

fyi, something from my posting past that you might find an interesting read:
http://www.ffxionline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=44336

[bikkebakke]

Re: Melee job roles, pros and cons

Neighbour, most of your posts are interesting reads >.>

[Wiseman40]

Re: Melee job roles, pros and cons

fyi, something from my posting past that you might find an interesting read:
http://www.ffxionline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=44336

Haha yeah... I almost asked the bard solo question one day, but decided to read a guide instead...

It gets a little difficult, though. Many of the people responding to my questions are extremely well-informed, but havn't actually played the job combinations I'm talking about. Also, many of the guides I've read are from 2003 -_- .... So I'm never exactly sure how to react.

I feel like I won't know until I try, but that takes a very, very long time.

I've decided to level monk, warrior, and ninja to see how they all work. If I can't figure out a way of doing what I need with a combination of those three jobs I'll just not solo easy prey. I'll farm instead for no experience, which in the end is very, very similar to the little experience I'd be getting solo, and then party the rest of the time.

I also feel that talking about ways to solo, either with little downtime against easy prey, or against NMs etc is where some of the best discussion comes from.

[Armando]

Re: Melee job roles, pros and cons

Too tired/lazy right now to give my own analysis to each job, but just thought I'd point this out - post 30 you can quest for an "Adventuring Fellow." It's an NPC you can call daily that fights alongside you at a cost of 30% EXP per kill. My NPC greatly helps me solo things, even when she's 8 levels lower than me; the Cures and Haste are invaluable. I think you should look into these NPCs. Not many people are willing to devote time to theirs, but I think it's just the thing for you.

[Jei]

Re: Melee job roles, pros and cons

well I only have RDM 75 too. But I've been in this game for 4 years, I get to know and see how other jobs are doing. All the time :D
So what we said are not just opinion based, you can be assured they are facts ^^b.

[bikkebakke]

Re: Melee job roles, pros and cons

The only thing about the NPC is that it doesn't start out healing you. It starts out tanking. So you have to keep it alive. As you level more with him/her, your friendship will increase so you can do quests to unlock new fighting styles for it.

[Caspian]

Re: Melee job roles, pros and cons

The only thing about the NPC is that it doesn't start out healing you. It starts out tanking. So you have to keep it alive. As you level more with him/her, your friendship will increase so you can do quests to unlock new fighting styles for it.

Really? Man that blows, so I can't even get an NPC until I get a mage job hi lvl now. So even though SE claims that there are too many mages (specifically blm's) they still create large parts of the game that absolutely require you to be a mage. (And I mean absolutely require, not like some of the CoP missions and such that are just much easier with mana burn.)

[Wiseman40]

Re: Melee job roles, pros and cons

I don't think you have to be a mage to unlock the mage fighting styles on the NPC. You just have to use it a certain amount, and then it will have options available...

[Caspian]

Re: Melee job roles, pros and cons

You have to have a mage job lvl'd enough to keep the little guy alive long enough to get to do the quests to change him to a mage though. It won't let you just pick either mage or tank when you first get 'em.

[Wiseman40]

Re: Melee job roles, pros and cons

Well that's true but I was under the impression that you could level your NPC by killing things their level. So if you're level 50 and your NPC is level 30 you could level him by easily soloing th level 30 stuff. The NPC could then level without getting hurt.

[Armando]

Re: Melee job roles, pros and cons

The only thing about the NPC is that it doesn't start out healing you. It starts out tanking. So you have to keep it alive. As you level more with him/her, your friendship will increase so you can do quests to unlock new fighting styles for it.

It only takes like 5 calls to get the option to change its job, I believe. Plus, you can use Provoke too to stay on par with its hate. Or simply just call it once a day every day even if you're gonna level it 'til you get the style change option. And yes, if your NPC is 30 you can just fight level 34 mobs and it'll get 200 EXP per kill as if it had soloed a high T mob.

[Kaickul]

Re: Melee job roles, pros and cons

Just a quick side note, since you are just coming into this game. I would suggest leveling a spellcaster job on the side, even if its just for subbing. Eventually you may want to level it past 37 to 75. Reason being is, end game dynamics seem to favor spellcastor and ninja jobs.

There is nothing wrong with what you are picking for soloing etc, but if you are interested in doing Gods/HNMs/Sky/Sea etc, many groups that setup these things seem to favor SNM, BLM, RDM, WHM, and NIN tanks.

I tell this to newcomers, because like myself, many melee who level up to 75 find that for these events the SNMs and BLMs are prefered over melee recently. Good example is one of my good friends is easily one of the top 3 SAM on our server, but after joining a new HNMLS, he was asked to bring his 63 WHM or 75 NIN over his SAM to most HNM/God events, because they would rather have SMN, BLM, RDM doing damage than melee.

[Wiseman40]

Re: Melee job roles, pros and cons

Just a quick side note, since you are just coming into this game. I would suggest leveling a spellcaster job on the side, even if its just for subbing. Eventually you may want to level it past 37 to 75. Reason being is, end game dynamics seem to favor spellcastor and ninja jobs.

There is nothing wrong with what you are picking for soloing etc, but if you are interested in doing Gods/HNMs/Sky/Sea etc, many groups that setup these things seem to favor SNM, BLM, RDM, WHM, and NIN tanks.

I tell this to newcomers, because like myself, many melee who level up to 75 find that for these events the SNMs and BLMs are prefered over melee recently. Good example is one of my good friends is easily one of the top 3 SAM on our server, but after joining a new HNMLS, he was asked to bring his 63 WHM or 75 NIN over his SAM to most HNM/God events, because they would rather have SMN, BLM, RDM doing damage than melee.

Well that's unfortunate.

I have been leveling whm on the side... I hope I don't have to use it in HNM events, though. The idea I have for that currently is to use mnk/whm, wear mnd gear and use chi attack. People still do that, right?

[Karinya]

Re: Melee job roles, pros and cons

Yes, mnks are still used at HNM (at least in some LS, I don't know if it's all or not). In fact any job can be used somewhat, but some are more useful than others, mainly because:

1. Several HNMs absolutely need to be kited, most of the rest are much easier when kited, making jobs that rely on being at close range much less useful.

2. Almost all HNMs have very high physical defense and/or evasion but are quite weak to magical damage. Individual unbursted nukes doing more damage than weaponskills is pretty typical, and it's *much* harder to gain TP on them than to gain MP.

3. Most HNMs attack slowly for very large amounts of damage, and/or use very high damage spells or special attacks that can be blocked by utsusemi. This is why NIN and WAR/NIN are overwhelmingly favored as tanks - they can stop 1000+ damage for 0 mp, twice every 45 seconds. PLD can take 900 damage instead of 1000, which is far less impressive.

It's possible that SE will fix these problems sometime, but I wouldn't hold your breath, since they've been around unfixed since RoZ at least. So for the foreseeable future, NIN, BLM and WHM (and occasionally RNG) are all you really need, SMN, RDM and BRD are convenient to have, and anything else is an inferior substitute that most LS probably have as many as they need (if not more) already.

Dynamis is a bit different (NIN tanking doesn't work so well against a bunch of mobs at once), but BLM are still the rockstars that everyone can't wait to line up and worship (for the same reason - lots of mobs that are very strong against physical attack and super weak to magic make them the *only* real DD for 1/3 or more of targets).


At any rate, one other consideration that hasn't been mentioned much on this thread: for most jobs, the subjobs, gear, food and tactics that are most effective soloing are quite different than those that are most effective in a party. I think a lot of the people complaining about the vulnerability of drk are soloing with sniper rings and sushi (or maybe an attack food).

You hardly ever need any +accuracy while soloing because you are fighting EP-DC instead of IT - a 15+ level difference in monster level. If your job is not normally a tank, you are probably used to completely ignoring defense in gear selection for a party; it's not a good idea to ignore defense when soloing. A subjob that can provide healing is very useful in reducing downtime and sometimes in winning fights you might otherwise lose, too. These seem like simple and obvious principles but you'd be surprised how many people ignore them and try to play solo like they had a tank and healer with them.

[Lmnop]

Re: Melee job roles, pros and cons

sorta building on what Karinya was saying:

I have been working on a pretty dandy solo outfit for my warrior. Basically, it's evasion, evasion, AGI, AGI, evasion. and defense where I can't get evasion. I don't solo exp with my war, and I haven't tried targeting DCs that I think I could win against (I really don't think I could until I can reliably hit them with xbow bolts) but /nin does pretty well on any sort of EP. On certain EP, and pretty much everything weaker than EP, /thf is really better with evasion bonus 2. It gets hit less and I kill faster instead of wasting time on shadows. Anyway, the point is: there is no need to focus on DD stats when it's your HP on the line.

About thf though, I really do solo exp with it. One day, in the early 30s, I soloed 3 Tough mobs in a row without resting in between. >.< Directly after that, I died 3 times in a row w/out a single kill. One of those deaths was against a Decent Challenge too! So yea, you win some you lose some. I don't fight Ts anymore.

Most monks I know have this tendancy to not think before they act. They see something and go punch it. It's because of this that I find it hard to pin down their soloability (not having taken mine beyond lower-to-mid levels). I think if they're shrewd, they can kill Decent Challenges which is quite the feat. As someone else stated though, their downtime is rediculous.

as for ninja: they have rediculous kill-power. unfortunately, it can't manifest fully 'til the 70s and the only real reason it doesn't make ninja grossly overpowered is because most ninja suck at making DD builds. And yea, as someone also stated, they solo extremely well. To my knowledge, the 3 best soloers are bst, nin, and rdm (not in that order). Damnit, my posts are too long.