Speculation: War/Whm sub lvl 30?

[Voyager]

I've been doing tanking as both War/Mnk and Mnk/War through lvl 20, and I'm really begining to notice shortcomings in their hate control when multiple White or Black Mages are in the party. I've been reading through the Paladin forum, and I've noticed that a significant part of the Paladin's hate control ability comes from their use of Cures, and Flash, to attract the mobs attention to them.

This leads me to wonder, if perhapse subbing White mage, pre lvl 30, may allow me to control mob hate better, without getting me perpetually killed.

Pros are: White Magic, for better hate control, and self cures.
Cons: No Subtle Blow, no Max HP boost, no stat boost from the Mnk sub, and no Boost.

At lvl 30, the extra benefits from Dodge, clearly outweigh the benefits from subbing Whm, but for the hate control nightmare that is Quiffim, I'm not so certain. I would, of course, be using juices to keep my mana up, and def boosting food, to help cover the weaknesses in my def, but losing the stats from /Mnk are bound to hurt.

I'm probably going to have to go ask this over in the Paladin forum too, considering they're the ones who actually use this sort of thing.

Harry Voyager

[modnar]

I did not try it, but here is an educated guess.

Subbing White Mage gives you CURE, but does not give you alot of MP. So you would be curing only so many times before you rest, and therefore lose TP which can be used to gain hate (by hitting you WS HARD).

As a White mage sub, you white magic would be HALF of its maximum (at most) and therefore you are not healing as much as you would if you were white mage main. And since hate is based on the AMOUNT you cure, you are not gaining as much hate because you are not curing as much as you would if you were a white mage or paladin main.

Subbing Monk on the other hand gives you more hate control abilities (imho). You get to do more damage because of +STR from the monk sub, which in turn gives you more hate.

Also, a useful ability called "Boost" every 15 seconds. Boost is widely known as a 1/3 or 1/4 Provoke. Doing that every 15 seconds gets you more hate. In my opinion it is getting you more hate than casting CURE on yourself as a sub white mage. In addition, you get to keep you TP and therfore can do more damage, which means MORE hate.

I don't know if all this is true. I am a Monk/War and LOVE to tank. That is why I know about tanking as a Monk/War and a War/Mnk. However I did not try /WHM... but I think this guess is correct.

[Ridill]

Only races with decent MP (Taru, Mithra, Hume) are able to sub a Mage job when they are Melee.

As a Galka, you would have to compensate a lot of equipment, food, and money to have sufficient mp if you plan to sub WHM.

However, it is true that, with enough mp, you'll be able to control hate better.

I suggest that you raise your WHM and list it as a possible sub in your Exp Comment, mainly because several people frown upon the idea of WAR/WHM.

[Taurius]

A WAR's ability to tank well doesn't shine until lvl 35. That's when you get Warcry. Warcry is like Cure3 for hate control that a PLD uses. Subing MNK, you'll have Boost, Provoke, Warcry, Defender, and Dodge to help maintain hate control. If you can cycle these skills on time, you'll rarely lose hate.
Just last night, I was in a PT of WAR(me), DRK, DRK, MNK, BLM, WHM. I had defender on the whole time, spamming shield breaks on Crawlers. The only time I lost hate was when I forgot to cycle my skills on time. Even when the DRKs used Souleater, I never lost hate. The key is to cycle the skill right on time, never let up when the time comes for you to use them. I was using Gaxe so I was doing decent damage and Defender gave me the same damage taken a PLD would of recieved.
My cycle was this: Pull mob with range weapon. Provoke when at camp. Defender>>Dodge>>Boost. Provoke>>Boost>>Boost>>Provoke>>Boost>>Boost>>Provoke. Warcry when everyone is ready for Skill chains, or lost hate.

Of course the PT needs to work with you well enough so they don't take the hate away at the beginning of the battle. Don't have the DRKs and BLMs nuking away from the start. Give about 2 cycles of your skills before they go all out.

Having high AGI really helps with Parry if you're using 2 handed weapons. I currently have +11 AGI. WAR's can't wear Evade equipment, but can rack up on AGI for Parry skills.

As for subbing WHM....don't for lvling PTs. Subbing WHMs are only useful when your main is 50 and whm sub is 25. And that's only for questing, NM hunting, and farming.

[Voyager]

Well, from looking at the online stats, War/Whm seems to have about the same MP as Pal/War does.

I'm not talking about playing this the way one would a Warrior, nor am I trying to be a White Mage, rather I am talking about playing this char the way one would a Paladin. That means sitting out of skill chains, resting between battles, wearing Def+ gear and eating Def+ food, instead of attack gear and food (that means no Spike Necklace too), and drinking juice frequently. With that set up, my attack will be completely and utterly gimped, but I am gambling that it will give me enough def and hate to firmly control the mob while tanking from lvl 20 to lvl 30.

In short, this would play *nothing* like the conventional Warrior/Monk.

One must consider that with this Job/Subjob combination.

Harry Voyager

As for people disaproving of the combination just on general principle, if it works well, I don't really care if people don't believe it. My main is Monk; I'm already persona-non-grata.

Final Addendum: This is *Pre-Level 30 Only* I understand that once you have Dodge, and Warcry, Warrior/Monk is the better tank, but at lvl 20 all I have is Provoke, Boost, Berzerk, and damage, and those are just not enough in Quiffim. Tactics, by necessity, change dramatically as one progresses in levels. Tactics that worked wonderfully at level 20 will get you killed at level 40, and tactics that are excellent at level 40 will get you equally dead at level 20. People must remember that.

[Taurius]

One last thing. This is coming from a Beta Tester who was WAR/WHM 55/25 So don't take what I say as someone who never tried it. The only reason I stayed that combo was I was one of the first to get the game, and had no one to really lvl with. The only times when my WHM sub helped was when hate control from the PLD was lost and neither my Warcry could pull off the hate from the blm or whm. I used Devine Seal Curaga. That Always get the hate back to me, and healed everyone that was damaged. But in all seriousness, I was a gimped melee As for tanking....forget it. Only time I got less damage than a PLD was on magic attacks. My higher MND helped But mainly the fact that as a tanking WAR, you'll get disrupted with curing from every hit. A pld can take a hit sometime and still cast cures. A WAR/WHM can't....
That's about it. I still recommend you lvl up your whm so you can solo like mad on quests and farming when you get to lvl 50/25. I was able to solo Mimas at lvl 43 as WAR/WHM. Devine Seal cure3 sure makes thing easy.

[Voyager]

I still get the impression that noones actually reading what I wrote, but I'll take your word for it.

On a side note, how would a Paladin get interupted any less than a War? They have nothing that reduces their spell casting interrupt rate until well past lvl 30, and from what I've read on their forums, avoiding the interupts is entirely in timing the cast so that the first mob hit lands before the first 15% of the spell, and the next hit lands in the last 15%.

I probably won't lvl Whm until I'm a much higher lvl then, as I plan to take Paladin to lvl 75. Their cure magic will be quite sufficent for farming, allowing me to farm with Pld/Theif. Though I'll probably take Whm to lvl 37 at some point, for HNM hunts. AoE Partysquishergra V + Divine Seal + Curagra II == *massive* hate, healthy party, and a happy Whm.

Harry Voyager

[Shann_Phoenix]

For the sam race, pld/war will have at least 1.5 or 2x the amount of mp a war/whm would have.

Sure the cure can be usefull in some situation, but overall war/mnk will be a much better tanker and will kill stuff faster with the higher dmg output coming from boost and counter.

On hate control pre-30, a lot of casters will over nuke/heal because they are still getting used to the hate control, so that's why it's better to have 2 player with provoke. Also most groups will need a back up tank in case your healer can't keep up like in crit-special-crit.

War/whm is viewed as wanna-be pld, you can act like one but you will never be one.

[Sasarai]

Harry, I am reading what you're saying, but I've never had a problem holding agro in ANY party 24-30. Even at that level I didn't know about the boost (mini voke)

Most of my agro came from damage, I voked but a couple of fights I designated other warriors to voke and I would pull agro off them from damage alone.

Tarutaru WAR/MNK with Plantbane

Just stick with war/mnk, getting to 30 is a joke, I've taken 5 jobs to 30.

[Kenki]

I really think that War/mnk control hate much better than ANY other tank from lv 10 to lv 30 (lets not count the fact that others can't tank from lv 1~9 without Provoke). I'm not saying that they tank better, i just say that they can hold hate best at these levels.

Provoke > boost > boost > Provoke.... most of the time, the mob will stick to you after the 2nd provoke. However, you #1 must have the lastest armor on you, #2 only use berserk when you really have to use it but cancel it as soon as possible, #3 use defender, #4 don't forget number 1~3.

War/Whm can be a decent choice if you are willing to pay for the Astral rings and some other expensive items that boost your MP. You must also use food (from lv 20+) to have a better defence.

[Ixaera]

No way does a pld/war have the same mp as a war/whm. Whatever stat counter told you that was kidding you. Let's put it this way. I have a level 13 pld. Subbing war, she has something over 60 mp. I have partied with level 27 or so war/whms (with fully leveled whm subs) that had a measly 50 or so mp. That's enough for 2 cure II's...if you're lucky. As a galka, you wouldn't even have tat much.

You'd be better off with war/mnk. Use provoke every 30 seconds, boost (dodge when you get it). The extra HP from mnk and the job trait counter are worth WAY more to a warrior tank than a few measly cures. Plds get enough mp to really take advantage of aggro-control through healing. War/whms do not.

(To clarify, I have partied with at least 2 war/whms who did their BEST to control hate with voke+cures. At their best they were a gimped pld.) Some of the problem is that, at least on Bismarck, there's a DISTURBING trend of newer players leveling warrior with a woefully underleveled whm sub. I've partied with several recently that did not understand the concept of hate control and wore poor, cheap armor. So there is already an underlying assumption that a war/whm is not as good a player in general (that I've noticed, at least). If you're voking every 30 seconds like clockwork, using boost and dodge and STILL losing hate...you've got other problems. If your whm is generating the hate...are you taking too much damage? Check into your armor. If it's the blm...make sure he or she is waiting until the battle is half over to use heavy nukes (tell them to enfeeb until then).

[Ungerpurr]

I can speak from experience in the level range you're talking about that war/mnk completely owns anything else for aggro control. Spamming provoke and boost is pretty much aggro lock starting from the second provoke / third boost (assuming you keep on doing it...). Even as a mithra war/mnk (horrible vit, so I take more damage than galka by far), it's incredibly easy to hold aggro like this.

Subbing whm sounds like a good idea on paper, but in reality it's, quite simply, moronic. Trust me, I've grouped with war/whms before. At that level range, all you get are a few cure 2s and then you have to rest after every battle, unless of course you're grouping with a bard (25+), which is pretty much like winning the lottery. When you can sturmwind for 100-180 damage (depending on berserk, defender, etc.), or raging axe for a decent amount of damage (usually around 75ish for me), you're doing your group a disservice by having to rest your MP.

Do yourself and your groups a favor, and level your monk sub to 18 (to sub under war to 37, to sub under pld to 75). There's a reason most (good) warriors sub monk up until level 60.

[rathi692000]

When i was in Qufim as a war i subbed whm and used +MP items and FishKabobs for the added defense and usually held hate nicely. Also most of the groups i was with liked the fact that whm was my sub because it helped keep the group alive and lowered downtime. Keep in mind that im a Hume so i had decent mp but as a Galka you would need some nice mp stuff for war/whm to help. And dont take this subjob past lv 30 unless u like playing alone

[Funguwari]

Provoke is enough for holding hate pre-30.

Unless you got some moron mages.

/WHM gives you a Cure... and a Cure II... and that's it. You won't have MP to cast it to get hate, your DPS (damager per second) will be lower, you will be hit harder, you will build TP slower, you will cause more downtime, your WSs will do less damage...

[DrMrLordX]

Just a thought, but below level 30, you're also going to have to think about resting to regain MP in a party if you are war/whm. This means you get less TP for renkei. That is a BAD thing. You might have the benefit of Ballad from 25-30, if you have a bard.

My favorite tanks below 30 were always ninjas and paladins, in that order. Smart mages make it easy for the melees to hold/manage hate, and if I caught any of my fellow mages overcasting or doing stupid things that complicated hate mangement, I'd do my best to snap them into line ASAP.

Whenever I looked for warriors as party leader, I usually picked them out for damage output more than tanking ability, even in the event that they wound up being main tank. The warriors that impressed me the most and contibuted the most to my parties were the ones that had good equipment and would dish out tons of damage with polearms, great axes, or great swords(scythes to a lesser extent). Double Thrust can do a TON of damage coming from a well-equipped elvaan warrior. The exception to this proved to be war/nin which I would pick if I couldn't find a paladin or ninja tank. War/nin is surprisingly effective in capable hands, both for damage and tanking ability(hooray for utsusemi ichi).

War/whm I would ignore completely. To me, they made shoddy tanks and lousy damage-dealers. They'd waste TP resting for MP. They'd increase downtime. They'd do insultingly stupid things like cast Protectra when the WHM or RDM/WHM or even BLM/WHM should be doing it instead. They'd do less-than-impressive damage. War/whm is unique among warriors in that the whm sub actually manages to be a liability.