WAR Advice Please

[Zempten]

Hello

I'm going to start working on my WAR once more ^^ As a subjob for my NIN. There are a few questions that comes into my mind and I hope you could spare the time to answer them.

I plan on leveling my WAR as WAR/MNK to perhaps only 18, 20 at most.

1) I'm not sure what type of gear I should be getting. Does it matter? I mean I am going to be basically a DD and/or a tank, so could anyone mind having a list for me on what I should wear until 16?
I have Bone +1 gear for when I hit 16
I have a Traveler's Mantle for 12
I have Balance Rings or Reflex Rings for when I hit 14

But before all that I'm not sure what to wear. I want to be the best if I can.

2) Weapon choice for me is kind of crazy. I'm not sure if I should be using one hand weapons or two handed weapons. If so which type of which? Like should i use Axe? Sword? Great Axe? Polearm? Scyth? Great Sword? I already have Sword and Great Sword and Scyth skilled up to at least lvl 30 from my DRK and RDM. I was thinking maybe I will use one type of weapon for when I am tanking and one type of weapon when I'm a damage dealer, but I don't know which one

3) I heard of getting a Power Bow because it is going to help me deal damage and also keep hate. I already have Archery skilled up as well so I was thinking about more advice on using a Bow.

Thanks for all the help and if you could shed a bit more light for me I would appreciate it ^^

[Sheng]

1) Solo 1-10, use whatever armor you want, Bronze then Leather, HQ versions if you find it cool. At 10 grab a set of Scalemail, Legionary Gloves, and get a PT.

If you sub MNK you won't be a DD. You'll be a tank. And it's a good thing since you'll be asked to tank in 90% of your PTs until 30.

2) As a WAR/MNK, use Greataxe. Skillup Axe/shield if you want, but keep you Greataxe capped. Shield Break and Sturmwind are king.

3) I never used a bow myself, you won't have any problem keeping hate with Provoke+Boost, you're an experienced player, should be allright

[Armando]

WAR's A-rank weapons are Axe and Great Axe. Bring both with you, but stick to Great Axe whenever possible. Great Axe = heavier damage = more hate. And like Mel said, Shield Break is too useful and Sturmwind is much too powerful to pass up. Axe does have a Stun WS at 13 (Smash Axe) though, so if you're exp'ing primarily off of Goblins, it's good to be able to stop Bomb Toss. Spam Boost every 15 seconds, hate is cumulative, and with such a short recast timer, Boost can really build up hate. Eat Meat Mithkabobs if you aren't taking critical damage (you're constantly in the red, dying often, etc.) if not, then eat Fish Mithkabob instead.

Regarding Melusine's /MNK comment: /MNK can DD, for the simple reason that up until 20 no sub will increase your physical attacks anyways. All /THF gives you is Evasion Bonus. 20-30, optimal DD sub would be /RNG though, because of its +10 Accuracy/Ranged Accuracy job trait. Even so, post-20 /MNK can still be an effective damage dealer while tanking, because Great Axe + Meat Mithkabob + Counter + Double Attack at 25 + Boost = You're doing more damage than the DRK, Berserk or not. A counter or double attack with a great axe is nothing to scoff at :3 Post-30, /THF is a better DD of course.

Level 1-9: Sub WHM for Cure, the anti-downtime. Wear Bronze or RSE from 1-7, and Leather from 7-10. As for weapons, 1-5 use Bronze Axe, 5-8 use Butterfly Axe (Great Axe), at 8 Hellfire Axe is available. It'll definetely help a lot, but it won't kill you to continue using Butterfly Axe up 'til 12.

Level 10-20: Sub /MNK. Hands-down best sub for tanking at least until 30, and the other subs don't have anything important to offer. At 10 use Royal Footman's/Legionnaire's/Scale. They all have the same defense, but Royal Footman's and Legionnaire's armor adds some bonuses. The CP hands (either one works) are important, because they add +3 attack with no drawbacks. Royal Footman's Bandana is another piece that you should get if you can, +1 AGI. The CP body and feet are optional, they just add elemental resistances, which are helpful, but not imperative; scale will do the job all the same. At 12 upgrade your GA to Greataxe, and at 16 Moth Axe (this one's extra nice because of its +1 DEX.) At 15 you can get Kingdom armor, each piece has the same defense as lizard except for the vest, and each piece has the same bonuses as the Royal Footman's set, if not more, and +HP in each piece. If you don't want to shell out 60-80k for this, skip it and wait for Lizard at 17. Alternatively there's also Bone at 16, but Lizard is just one level away and has higher defense. Like I said, spam boost and provoke and you'll never have hate issues.

And in case you're taking it further...

Level 20-30: Get a Neckchopper. With 39 DMG and +5 Accuracy, this is the ultimate weapon at 20. Sub /MNK and tank, at this point you have Counter which helps your damage output, and at 25 you're the king of melees with Double Attack and Sturmwind (incredibly powerful WS.) Upgrade to Plantbane at 25 (Weapon DMG > Accuracy) and Chainmail set at 24. If you want, you can get Steam Scale Mail at 27, a bit more def than Chainmail body and some elemental resists. This'll take you to 30.

Added comments:
Buy a Power Bow +1 and Bone Rings +1 at 16. The damage from the bow is incredible. Of course, try to cap your archery on a higher level job. For parties, use a crossbow and like with the bow, swap into Bone Rings temporarily with your ranged attack macro and use Acid Bolts to lower the mob's defense. In effect, it's like using warcry: everyone's damage goes up. At 20 you get Sleep Bolts, too. Very useful.

EDIT: Oh yeah, almost forgot. Get a Warrior's Belt (+1 if possible) at 14. You won't need any other belt for a while. Bomb Ring is pretty handy too, adding to your already high HP and some extra defense (Bomb Ring Lv15 Def:2 HP+15 Fire-5.) If the fire penalty concerns you, just macro a macro that'll remove it during bomb toss casting time. You should have more than enough time to remove it this way. As for Rings...VIT+2 x2 rings can shave off 4 damage per hit, AGI+2 x2 rings will help your parry rate and not have criticals scored on your, DEX+2 x2 rings will increase your accuracy and critical hits. They all work well, go with whichever you want, even mix and match. Earrings...nothing real useful until Shield Earrings at 20 (HP+10 MP-10) unless you consider elemental resists all that important.

Hope this helped ^^

[Zempten]

Helps a ton ^^ Thanks once more ^^

My Great Axe is a bit underleveled, I'll guess tonight I will just solo a bit to raise as I don't want to be a penalty on my PT.

Ah, I completely forgot about swapping between Power Bow and Cross Bolt, hehehe stupid me.

I alwasy thought going with Shield + Weapon was the way to go as tanking as Shield would offer another method of defense, but I can completely understand what you guys mean by keeping hate thru high damage as a Great Axe.

Yes, last night I found out how good I made WAR look ^^ In between Provoke and Boost not even a WHM and BLM going all out took aggro from me ^^ Well maybe once or twice, but Provoke was always ready to go or I had a WS saved up to help get the mobs attention for a bit so I could then provoke.

Well, playing as best as I can is what I want, the money isn't an issue since I can always farm ^^ It doesn't get too tedious for me as most mobs I fight people would considered retarded for farming hahaha ^^ RDM can make farming fun ^^

Thanks again for all the awesome advice ^^

[Zempten]

Oh damn! Sheng! We're on the same server!

[Sheng]

Heh gimme a tell if you need some advice. Glad to help.

[ZQM]

Originally posted by Armando
Upgrade to Plantbane at 25 (Weapon DMG > Accuracy)

I have to disagree with this.

[Base Damage] = [Your STR] ï¼? [Mobs VIT]
[Maximum] = 24 + 3 x floor( [D] / 9 )
[Minimum] = Unknown

Where [D] is weapon's damage.

39/9=4.33
43/9=4.77

Considering almost every calculation is based off of integers, both would round down to 4. And if not, Maximum difference between the two would still only be 1 point. And considering the multiplier for Struwmwind (1.0), it would only add ~4 extra damage to your WS. That deffinatly does not outweigh the +5 accuracy at that level, when there are no other raw accuracy pieces.

I personally wouldn't upgrade until Voulge/Twicer. Centurion's Axe is better then Neckchopper, but Voulge/Twicer is only one level off, so might as well just keep it for that one level until you can upgrade to Voulge.

[rant]
Speaking of Twicer, I'm so pissed that wasn't in the game when I was that level. :mad: Such a beast of a weapon. I really hope they add a level 75 Great Axe like it in the next update.
[/rant]

[Armando]

Hm...but isn't the full damage formula
[Damage] ï¼? [Base Damage] + [D] x [Damage Rate]?

That's only taking into account the fact that you can increase your base damage by 1 more point through STR What about your Weapon's D x the rate? The higher the rate, the bigger a difference between both weapons. My reference is this, by the way: http://www.moonlight.gr.jp/~el/ffxi/ab_calc.html.en

EDIT: Yeah, I'm dying to use Twicer myself.

[kuu]

If you go DD

I personally recomend not going war/thf and thus gaxe til 60

berserk+SA +Surmwind+ is crazy, but you'll only get your rear handed to you.

The uncontrolled hate is nerve wrecking even with a pal tank.

If you do want to go that route a possible alternate is SA + breaks and sturmwind without SA when possible.

War/nin is the better DD route IMO, though you can't really do distortion much till rampage. I never really found that a problem with fusion more often then not. With full DD gear raging will do 100-300 damage, and if you spike hate, you have 3 shadows .

There is also low need to ever cancel your berserk, and acc becomes a non issue with dual viking. Then comes rampage...

I don't see any real reason for war/mnk besides trying to sliter your way into groups that need tanks. You have to equip differenty,lowering damage and you have very little tricks up your sleeve. The no damage of nin shadows, and the cover and flash of pal's far outstrips any of your powers in a well honed pt.

[ZQM]

Originally posted by Armando
Hm...but isn't the full damage formula
[Damage] ï¼? [Base Damage] + [D] x [Damage Rate]?

That's only taking into account the fact that you can increase your base damage by 1 more point through STR What about your Weapon's D x the rate? The higher the rate, the bigger a difference between both weapons. My reference is this, by the way: http://www.moonlight.gr.jp/~el/ffxi/ab_calc.html.en

EDIT: Yeah, I'm dying to use Twicer myself.

Bah, was reading wrong part. :sweat:

Even as so though, I'd still pick Neckchopper at that level. ACC is hard to come by until 30.

[Zempten]

Hi again guys, just going to revive this old thread since it's basically about the same thing.........advice ^^

Well anyways my WAR is 19 and I've leveled my NIN to 40 so it's time to go back to WAR. Currently as my equipment stand I am using Moth Axe, Lizard Gear, Traveler's Mantle, Warrior's Belt, Bone Earrings +1, and either DEX or AGI rings (I'm not sure which to go ; ; ). Oh and i use a Crossbow +1 now ^^

I think I'm going to be taking my WAR to 25 for my NIN and I think this is how I'm going to setup my WAR from 19 on.

19 - 24
WAR/MNK, with Neckchopper and I'll get some upgarded Armor at 21 namely beetle, or should I just wait till 24 and get the Chain?

24+
WAR/NIN
The only reason I am suggesting this is because I am leveling with another WAR and at 24 we can both cast Utsusemi so we could kind of fuction like 2 NINs, would this be viable? Oh and we both have Emp Hairpin and I think we're both going to be eatting Jack-O-Lanterns for the +10 to accuracy and evasion. Since me and this other WAR have leveled our NINs together like this ,I figured why not level like this with our WAR, but I realize that our evasion isn't going to be as awesome as our NINs, but for some crazy reason I get the feeling that a NINs evasion rate is about the same as a WARs parrying rate (BTW, both will be capped until I hit 37 on WAR), but again that is just speculation and I know it is probably not true.

So any comments? or advice? please I appreciate it very much about jobs that I have little understanding ^^

[Kalvin Klien]

Warrior is way too underated. If I was going for damage I'd choose a Dark Knight, if I was going for a tank I'd choose a Paladin, so being in the middle is kind of a handicap for Wars. :sweat:

[Zempten]

Um...........well I have to level WAR as a SJ for my NIN so I'm not really left with a choice of leveling PLD or DRK to SJ for my NIN.

[Kalvin Klien]

Well I mean, lol, its good for lower levels like up to level 37 and all, but leveling it to higher levels is a gamble because you wont be and efficent damage dealer or a awsome tank. -.-;

[XenoType-X]

Originally posted by Kalvin Klien
or a awsome tank. -.-;

Ice do I smell that weed again?:3

Actually you have one chance at making a high lvl WAR. If ya sub Ninja you could be like a blink tank and personally, I'd have to say a war/nin might be better than a nin/war since originally SE designed wars to be tanks, but then of course you cant learn high ninjutsus.
Besides, if more people though like that I'd never get invites :p