Warrior

[Armando]

Re: Warrior

Mandatory "don't be a bad Warrior" post.

When you level WAR, you want to use Great Axe, always. In parties, don't use any Weapon Skill except the first one you get, "Shield Break." It lowers the enemy's Evasion by an insane amount. Try to manage your TP so that you have a Shield Break ready at the start of each fight. Completely ignore the second WS, "Iron Tempest." It does the same damage as Shield Break without the debuff. You can toy around a bit with the third one, "Sturmwind." It does great damage when soloing, but in a party you still want to Shield Break the mob.

Just by doing that one thing you serve your party far more than 90% of the WARs levelling from 10-50.

[Ryoii/Nonomii]

Re: Warrior

Same thing goes for DRK to a lesser extent since they will also want to work on Scythe and Great Sword skill. I know I look a little funny as a Lv20 DRK/RNG (Attack Bonus, Accuracy Bonus, and Sharpshot), but when you see my Acid Bolts and Shield Break debuff the enemy you'll be amazed.

[Delhart]

Re: Warrior

Alright, how much do starter great axes go for anyway? I've checked the rest of the level 10 gear and it kinda makes my head spin looking at the price

[Ryoii/Nonomii]

Re: Warrior

I went for the cheaper ones on my DRK since I was also buying a scythe and great sword.

Lv5 Butterfly - 3k
Lv8 Inferno - 2k
Lv12 Great Axe - 5k
Lv16 Moth Axe - 8k
Lv20 Neckchopper - 40k (I don't plan to get this even though it is really nice.)
Lv25 Plantbane - 10k

Armor will certainly be your greater expense (Scale > Bone > Beetle > Chain). Just make sure to keep Signet on as much as possible and sell your drops on the AH.

[Delhart]

Re: Warrior

Inferno was much more expensive on my server, but I guess that makes sense. How often should the axes be interchanged? And does their elemental attribute make a huge difference either way?

[ItazuraNhomango]

Re: Warrior

When it comes to weapons for DDs, the basic rules is upgrade when you can use something better. Not expecting +1 weapons for newbies (or even veterans), but you shouldn't be using Butterfly at Lv.12--if you don't have the Gil to upgrade to Great Axe, you should stop leveling and farm for it.

By the way, in case you don't know, there are four auction house systems in FFXI. One for each starter cities; Windurst, San d'Oria, Bastok; and, one for Jeuno. Typically, prices for equipement are lower in Jeuno, so it's well worth your time to shop in Jeuno even if it means a long trip. You can use this to research the prices in Jeuno: Final Fantasy XI Auction House - FFXIAH.com

Just set it to your world/server, and you can get a history of sale price for any item on Jeuno AH.

* * *

Inferno Axe is about 2-4k Gil on Ifrit's Jeuno AH. (Buy at Jeuno because it's likely cheaper there.) Water Crystal is about 1-1.5k Gil a stack at Windurst. (Sell at a starter nation because it's more expensive there, and less AH fee.) So, it's about 4 stacks of water crystals in the worst case scenario. Depending on which World you are on, the prices (and amount of sticker shock) may differ, but shouldn't be by a huge amount.

At Lv.7 most melees should use the Leather Vest Set, which is typically cheaper from NPCs instead of auction houses. At Lv.10, though, WARs, SAMs, DRKs, and many others should switch to the Scale Mail set, which I believe is cheaper from Jeuno AH than from NPC? (Check the FFXIAH site and cross reference FFXIClopedia if you want to know.)

[Ellipses]

Re: Warrior

When deciding if a new weapon within a class (such as Great Axe) is better, the stat you are generally looking for is DPS, which isn't listed in the game. You can do the DPS calculation yourself, or you can just compare weapons on the wiki or compare them on ffxiah. There are exceptions, such as the Accuracy boost on Neckchopper, which makes it stand out a bit even against G.Axes with higher DPS (I didn't replace it until Military Axe).

If you don't think you can make it to Jeuno yourself yet, or don't think it's worth the difference in cost to make the trip, you might be able to find someone willing to buy it for you. Shout around town, ask on forums, maybe even search for a mentor in-game. Some people are annoyed by random /tells like that from strangers, but I've helped someone out like that before, and it's not unheard of.

[Silent Howler]

Re: Warrior

Mandatory "don't be a bad Warrior" post.

When you level WAR, you want to use Great Axe, always.

Um, okay personally I chose not to go that route. I leveled Warrior with the intent on tanking and went WAR/DNC with axe/shield combo. You aren't a "bad Warrior" if you choose not to use a great axe. It all depends on how you want to play the job. That's just my two gil.

[Armando]

Re: Warrior

OP can't use /DNC. And I would wager that giving everyone +20% hit rate saves more damage than using a shield. You know what I meant, anyways. Great Axe is the best thing in 99.9% of the situations, the fact that you might've leveled being in the remaining 0.1% doesn't make what I said less true. Besides tossing on a shield for tanking (which I already addressed) there isn't any way you can "play the job" that's going to make something else more efficient than Great Axe.

[Malacite]

Re: Warrior

The only thing that matches a GAX toting WAR is a good RNG in the early levels. GAX is just that damned good.

[ItazuraNhomango]

Re: Warrior

The only thing that matches a GAX toting WAR is a good RNG in the early levels. GAX is just that damned good.

I thought the strongest DD in early levels is Dragoon?

[Celeal]

Re: Warrior

I thought the strongest DD in early levels is Dragoon?

Does BLU or BLM also count as *strongest DD in early levels*?

Define *strongest* ... keke~ that meaning can be different between each player.

[Armando]

Re: Warrior

I thought the strongest DD in early levels is Dragoon?

Not that I've ever done a comparative parse at such a low level but I highly doubt that. A WAR can go Berserk starting at 15 which already gives it a huge advantage over the other DDs on top of being able to Shield Break the mob. And if advanced jobs are an option, the WAR can go /DRG from 20 to 30.

EDIT: WAR can also slap on Acid Bolts starting at 15. So you're looking at a DD job that at level 15 can provide its party with +14% to their Attack/Def ratios, +20% hit rate, and can Berserk 15 levels before the other jobs.

[Malacite]

Re: Warrior

WAR's good for one thing, and it does it very well; Kicking Ass

[ItazuraNhomango]

Re: Warrior

Well, completely off topic now...

On paper, WAR does look stronger with Berserk and higher DPS weapons, and Shield Break is more useful than anything DRG can do. However, in practice, I held critters' attention better tanking on DRG/WAR in Valkurm Dunes than on WAR/MNK when I forget boost. That, and I parsed my DRG through Lv.30 (or 31?), and never been out damaged, led me to think maybe DRG out do WAR damage wise in early levels, especially if adding in Wyvern's output. (DRG's DD output is that good; I remember commenting to my LS that S-E may want to consider nerfing DRG at those levels. )

Also, Berserk is overrated at lower levels, since pulling speed is typically slow to allow for MP recovery; you can easily spend half of your Berserk time waiting for stuff to kill. Not that well geared WARs are weak, mind you; they definitely out did my DRK at Dunes levels and beyond.

My RNG did pretty well, but that's a lot of constant range attack macro pressing and minding the Sharpshot timer. To get higher output out of my SAM at Quifim/Dunes, I played it like a 20% Ranger; melee 80% of the time on SAM/RNG, but pretend I'm a Ranger when Sharpshot is up.

DRG, by contrast, is just "Engage, try Jump every so often, hit WS macro when TP's good, and let it auto-attack." Easy to get high output; I can almost browse the web while I was playing it. XD