Multi-Purpose Wyvern

[Greylynx]

I have been playing DRG/WAR with alot of success, but am interested in the multi-purpose wyvern. I know all the skills and such for it, but was interested in everyones opinion on it. For soloing and duoing, is it the way to go?

Also, I know the subjob question has been asked to death, but does anyone have an opinion on which subjob is the best if you want the multi-purpose wyvern?

[Ellipses]

Re: Multi-Purpose Wyvern

The multi-purpose wyvern is basically useless in a duo/trio/party. Its Healing Breath will only work on its own Dragoon, and its elemental breaths aren't as good as the Offensive Wyvern's. Unless you're in an full party (and probably a strange one overall) and subbing BRD or PLD or something for a specific spell/ability (like Ballad I), it's pretty much purely for soloing.

I haven't tried the other jobs that get multi-purpose, but /BRD can be a lot of fun if you have the right gear and food and aren't afraid of dying. Galka can pull DRG/BRD off a lot better than the other races, because HP and DEF/VIT are the most important stats, and MP doesn't matter (since there is none). It's a pain in the ass before 25 (Spirit Link), and doesn't really start to get at all comfortable until 28 (when you have four fast Healing Breath trigger songs). The main advantages are that songs don't take MP and can't be interrupted (except by stun/knockback/silence). The main disadvantage is that most songs take 8 seconds to sing, and they all have long recasts.

I've heard of people having some success with PLD and DRK, but have never tried them myself, as they're both level 7. I don't know whether they'd have many fast spells with low recasts and low MP cost, but that's what you're looking for. NIN doesn't work very well at all, from what I've heard. Ninjutsu takes too long to cast, is interruptable, and has long recast times. So you can't reliably spam Healing Breath, and with the multi-purpose wyvern, you'll need to do just that.

[Dekuseed]

Re: Multi-Purpose Wyvern

The wyvern's healing breath does work on other party members though. I was playing my extra character trying to get the key for rse in gusgen, and another person came along so we decided to help eachother. I was drg/blm and the other person was rdm, we got a link or two and the rdm ran out of mp but I hadn't so I just kept casting poison and my wyvern kept healing both myself and the rdm, we would have died without it. =D
I have never used any sub but war in an exp party though.

[Murphie]

Re: Multi-Purpose Wyvern

Yes, but that's not a hybrid wyvern. That's a healing wyvern.

[Dekuseed]

Re: Multi-Purpose Wyvern

Ooh k, now I know.

[Murphie]

Re: Multi-Purpose Wyvern

Ooh k, now I know.

Np.^^ They used to confuse me for the longest time too.

[Ellipses]

Re: Multi-Purpose Wyvern

Hmm. Looking over their spell list, I can't really imagine trying DRG/PLD. I didn't realize they got so few spells. You'd basically be looking at Cure, Protect, and Shell as HB triggers. Cure sucks as a trigger, because if it takes you over your HB threshold, HB doesn't activate.

What I mean is... let's say for simplicity's sake you have 400 HP total. With a multi-purpose wyvern, that makes your Healing Breath threshold 100. You get hit, and knocked down to 90 HP. You can't cast Cure yet to trigger HB, because it would take you over 100 HP. You have to wait til you're down to 70 HP or less to use Cure as an HB trigger. Soloing with a hybrid wyvern is scary enough without bringing in that level of danger.

DRK looks a little more feasible. Poison is actually a really nice HB trigger (low cost, fast cast time, not a horrible recast), and stuff like Stone and Water can work if you're timing's right. But Poison is the only spell they get that would be MP-efficient.

Really, with /PLD and /DRK... I'd only try them if I had them leveled anyway, and didn't have a mage job leveled. The hybrid wyvern's offensive breaths aren't really much of a selling point. If you're going to go with a job that takes MP, you might as well use a mage sub, since Healing Breath is so much better with the healing wyvern, and they'll have better spell lists and MP pool. /PLD might get more viable once auto-refresh kicks in.

And I'm not just saying all this to shamelessly plug DRG/BRD either. If you have BRD leveled enough, it might be worth a shot. Galka really are built for it. I've said this in another thread, but a Galka DRG/BRD without food, or with really cheap food, is equivalent to or better than my Hume DRG/BRD with really expensive food (Carbonara).

[Slip]

Re: Multi-Purpose Wyvern

I'd say don't feel bad at shamelessly plugging Drg/Brd at it - it's an amazing combo.

Solo'ing in Korroloka at 28 on Tough Combats, as an example, I counted 17 Healing Breaths for 72 hp+ a shot in one fairly standard fight. That's over 1,200 hp worth of healing and my downtime before attacking the next bat was 0 (literally, it linked just as the first one died).

No sweat though, where a Drg/Mage would be out over 100 mp for casting 17 hb triggers I still had endless songs to sing as Drg/Brd. Pretty much the only things that kill you as Drg/Brd are a.) taking more damage per hit than the Healing Breath or b.) your wyvren gaining hate. Of the two options "b" seems the more common, but comes with the side effect that you can make a break for it if you want to (I usually try to fight it out, foolishly).

[Skoal]

Re: Multi-Purpose Wyvern

The key to being a productive drg/mage or drg/brd, is knowing what to fight. You could have the best gear, best food then go fight a spider and get one shotted before you get a chance to even get to 50% hp. I prefer to kill eps and dcs to be safe and get more seals. As a drg/rdm I wouldn't want to use 17 heal breaths on one mob. Thats 102 mp of mine. I would rather use around 7-8 on 4 or 5 eps and get the same xp and more chance of seals. I will be trying out drg/brd when I get off my ass to level brd one of these days.

[Ellipses]

Re: Multi-Purpose Wyvern

Picking targets is pretty much the be-all end-all. Paralyze, Stun, Silence, Petrification at the wrong time and you're toast. I wouldn't be sure on the math, but a DRG/mage might not have to spam HB quite as much since they've got a higher threshold. So 17 HBs for a DRG/BRD might not be that many for a mage. But honestly, when you can do 17 in a row and keep a chain going, why not?

I've been trying to balance keeping my Polearm capped (fighting EM-T) with not bringing myself closer and closer to a heart attack (EP-DC). I think the strategy for me from here on out is going to be EP-DC to get an XP buffer, then EM-T to cap polearm, then whatever I find hanging around EP-T.

[Slip]

Re: Multi-Purpose Wyvern

/em nods in agreement with Skoal and Ellipses.

Careful mob selection is the biggest win / lose factor for Drg soloing. Good camp / hunting range selection is also a part of it too. It sucks to find some really choice mobs (like Crawlers in Rolanberry) being guarded by evil IT+ brutes (like Quads and Goobues).

For EP-DC mobs vs. EM-T ones, I wouldn't be surprised at all to learn that EP-DC yields better xps/hr than EM-T. I like EM-Ts for the thrill of it but they can also be really frustrating too.

[Ellipses]

Re: Multi-Purpose Wyvern

Depends on the mob, I think. It doesn't take me significantly longer to kill an EM crab than a DC one, and if I can chain three of them in a row... good times. If your camp doesn't allow easy chains, then EP-DC is likely the way to go.

[Greylynx]

Re: Multi-Purpose Wyvern

Wow thanks for all the help everyone. Seems like DRG/BRD is something I should try for myself. However, I didn't know that the multi-purpose wyverns breath attacks were weaker then the offensive wyverns. That has changed my mind about the usefullness of the multi-purpose wyvern, it no longers sounds quite as good.

[Ellipses]

Re: Multi-Purpose Wyvern

I don't have any hard data on the attack breaths being stronger or weaker. I think I've read the Offensive Wyvern is more likely to pick a breath the mob is weak to, and/or does more damage with them, but I'm not 100% on that. But really... the Offensive Wyvern wouldn't really have a lot of advantages if that weren't the case.

The main thing is that with a Multipurpose Wyvern, you're almost certainly going to be soloing. It's just not good enough to bring to a party. With that in mind, the breath attacks aren't terribly important; they help, but they're not a soloing DRG's bread and butter.

[Balodoth]

Re: Multi-Purpose Wyvern

Like any other sub choice, there's a difference between making use of your abilities and exploiting them. For instance, with DRG/BRD, you will usually be using Paeon. For some reason your survivability is noticeably improved with that song versus minuet, minne, and others. But to truly exploit the sub, you'll figure out how many HP you'll generate during a short song and a long song to ensure you don't needlessly sing only to finish just after you exit HB range. Another exploitation is finding the HP point where Spirit Link will put you in HB range, which incidentally heals for more HP than you just lost using Spirit Link.

Cycle Light Threnody -> Foe Lullaby -> Dark Threnody -> Light Threnody -> etc. as long as your timers keep up to minimize damage received. If your TP is ready, but you need HB first, then you threnody according to your WS or the enemy's weakness.

Then there's things like macroing +HP & +Wyvern HP equipment in just before triggering HB.

Food choice is important too, but I find that all +HP does is give you more breathing room. Unless you specifically plan your battles to be close calls. Then again, the +HP foods also give decent buffs besides that, so they're good however you look at it.