WAR Advice for early levels... (lvl 12 right now)

[01blacksnake]

Hey everyone... love the site.

Wanted to ask for a bit of advice on the WAR...

I'm currently lvl 12 and using a butterfly Axe (looking to get an great axe!). I have some scale armor with solid armor for the body and feet. I also have a leather belt, no cape, and two rings.

I wanted advice on gear through out the teen levels and into the 20s (armor and weapons).

I want my WAR to be a combination of TANK and Damage Dealer.

For a subjob... i'm not sure yet, but thinking Monk is probably best for these levels.

thanks!

(PS, I play on Carbuncle)

[tdh]

I used a Great Axe from Lv.12-20. Then moved to Axe. Which was probably ass-backwards. At the lower levels, a weapon with a large delay will help make my Elvaan accuracy look even worse. However an Axe would have allowed me to hold hate better and land more hits.

For me, I was leveling WAR "late in the game." I'd already leveled a number of jobs, and decided I was going to need WAR and just get it over with. So I went WAR/MNK with Great Axe to Lv.20. Headed to Qufim as WAR/NIN with Duel Axes.

In the Dunes, I found that holding hate wasn't that hard. I dislike tanking, but turned out I was good at it. However I was doing the pulling and the tanking. Not sure if that helped at all, but I did a pretty good job, to the point that other Rank 5 and up people commented that I did a pretty good job for the Dunes. Having Boost really helped honestly. I always doubted how effective it would be for tanking until I was using it myself.

[LadyPeorth]

After level 30, be prepared to start facing some tanking woes. Around 37, a NIN or PLD tank starts to be better. Still, you can tank pretty good. Because you want to be an everything Warrior, be prepared to start gathering up extra gear: one set for DD, and one set for tanking. Take it from me...if you're going to tank, have tanking gear. Otherwise...it's not pretty.

[Aelith]

Hey. I'm a whm and know almost nothing about tanking (except when mine is doing a great or awful job) :p. Still, I'll wandered into this forum and i'm going to toss in my two cents.

I've heard that shield/something (axe for warrior) is the best tanking combo. However, I was wondering if that's really as true for early levels (dunes time), when most of the hate is simply kept by boost/provoke +damage. A great axe would really let you land hits for more, and the mobs in the dunes don't hit you for that much. Also, the early level shields are really weak defense. While blocking is nice, it barely ever seems to happen (although I honestly don't know how that changed during the last patch that made shields work differently). So, I'm sort of thinking that great axe might be flat out better for dunes tanking or otherwise.

A gear swap is an ideal solution, but if this is your first job and you haven't done the inventory expansion quests, I really couldn't blame you for refuseing to fill up every last bit of your inventory carrying around two sets of gear.

Apart from that, the only general advice I can give is to make sure you voke as fast as humanly possible, not once the mob gets to the camp, but while it's still on your way. And eat food, it helps more than you realize until you've tried it. And try to stay still if you're tanking, instead of moveing around. That helps the thief with his/her SATA, If you're the kind of person who's going to go to forums to ask for advice though, I'm sure you'll end up makeing a great warrior ^^. Just keep an open mind and listen to criticisms/advice from other gamers. Even if they are/seem rude. I've learned some of my most interesting things from an incredibly good (but rude :-( ) Paladin.

[Armando]

In terms of sub jobs, MNK is definetely the way to go from 10-30. The extra HP, VIT, and Boost are just too good to pass up. THF is fairly useless, the Evasion Bonus is probably noticeable on solo mobs but I doubt you'll be able to dodge an IT all that much either way. MNK also provides another good means of avoiding damage indirectly at level 20 - Counter.

Gear-wise, your tank-DD build is feasable up 'til 30. I just hit 34, and I've found it's getting a lot rougher. I was able to tank Beetles in Altepa at 32 fairly well with Defender and Boiled Crabs, but the Bats and Beetles in Garlaige Citadel were overwhelmingly strong - even with my VIT+16 (2 of which come from food) and my 50% Defense bonus (Defender+Boiled Crab) they were beating me up so bad it wasn't funny, to the point that after that party I picked up a shield for the first time in over 10 levels. The party was WAR/MNK THF/NIN RNG/NIN SMN/WHM WHM/BLM BLM/WHM, and even with all that it was still an uphill battle for me. I hear it only gets worse, too. What I'm getting at is that post-30, whenever you party, you'll want to go as a fully-blown tank or a fully-blown DD.

Post-patch, shields are actually worth using in terms of mitigating damage, but if you don't want to compromise your attack power, you'll want to use a Great Axe. However, some mobs are notoriously deadly, (see: Pugils) and you'll probably want to use a shield on those, both for your sake and your mage's MP. If you want to boost up your offense, get STR rings - each point in STR is one more damage you do per hit. If you want to boost up your defense, get VIT - each point in VIT is one less damage you take. Also note that Spike Necklace is more efficient than Tiger Stole 99% of the time. Get all the major armor upgrades - scale, bone/lizard (they're one level apart, you can skip bone altogether, but if you can wear it during that one level, even better,) beetle, then chainmail. Use either VIT or STR rings depending on your interests. I used Shield Earrings after 20 for the HP bonuses, but you can also use the Attack+ Evasion- Earrings. You might notice the Evasion penalty on solo mobs, but you won't be dodging an IT much. For weapons, GA ranks first offensively (unless you can dual weild axes and you load up on +STR to boost up your Damage over Time, but other than that...) with Axe being the secondary choice, usually when you're forced to use a shield. A Great Sword is nice to have in case you have a THF and noone to open Distortion skillchains (use Power Slash) but other than that, use either GA or Axe. Up until 30 you'll be able to get away with using Attack food and offensive accessories (except probably pugils unless you have a really good party.) As for foods, you can get Meat Jerky for ~100g apiece in the Inn at Windurst Waters, it probably won't be too expensive at the AH either. That'll give you STR+3 INT-1 Attack+25%. You'll be able to use that for a while. If you want Def food, I can't think of any cheap ones off of the top of my head - I use boiled crab.

Also, a few basic guidelines for tanking:
- NEVER use Berserk unless you want to do it right before WS, cancel it immediately afterwards.
- Provoke every 30 seconds.
- Boost every 15 seconds.
- Don't use Defender unless you REALLY have to in order to tank; your attack will go out the window if you do.

Do that and you'll be fine. Hope that helped ^^

[01blacksnake]

Wow... a lot of really great advice that I will take into consideration. Thanks a bunch!

I'm currently in the Dunes on the carbuncle server trying to level past 13. The mobs there are hard at my level!

[Ariesknight]

Someone mentioned it getting a lot rougher at 34. I was tanking well into level 55 without any problems. I had leveled PLD to 56 so I knew how to tank but I have never used a Shield as a WAR. If you intend to take WAR past 30 I recommend unlocking and leveling NIN as a sub since Utsusemi and Food can make you a viable tank post 30 without having to sacrifice ATK points. However I just hit 58 and I am finding it easy to hold hate (enmity + from AF) but I am taking MUCH more damage than before and Utsusemi can't keep up with the fast Raptors. I think it is at this point that without Carnage Elegy that tanking ends for WARs. It all depends if you are taking WAR all the way.

[Armando]

Someone mentioned it getting a lot rougher at 34. I was tanking well into level 55 without any problems. I had leveled PLD to 56 so I knew how to tank but I have never used a Shield as a WAR. If you intend to take WAR past 30 I recommend unlocking and leveling NIN as a sub since Utsusemi and Food can make you a viable tank post 30 without having to sacrifice ATK points. However I just hit 58 and I am finding it easy to hold hate (enmity + from AF) but I am taking MUCH more damage than before and Utsusemi can't keep up with the fast Raptors. I think it is at this point that without Carnage Elegy that tanking ends for WARs. It all depends if you are taking WAR all the way.

Without a backup tank, I don't think I would've been able to recast Utsusemi after the second set of shadows wore off. That's why I chose to go as /MNK. How do you keep your shadows up? I'd definetely go /NIN if I could

[Eurynomus]

while it does suck waiting for the timer once shadows are gone from the second cast, it's still quite possible to cast without a backup. you can still have a successful cast without being interrupted as long as you don't get hit after (i think) 20-25% into the cast. i usually try to time my cast so that the mob hits just a bit after the utsusemi animation starts, it seems to work most of the time. there are problems with this method when fighting mobs that double attack or are faster than your casting. for double attack there isn't much you can do to help, but for speed you have haste for you and/or slow on the mob.

[Ariesknight]

My experience was against crabs in Bohayda (sp?) Tree. Once my second set went down I took a couple of hits (probably around 70 damage per hit since I ate Fish Mithkabobs to boost DEF) then re-cast Utsusemi. I found I didn't need a back-up tank at all. It helped that I had a bard for Paeon III and IV which meant I healed damn fast between battles and was ready to go. However versus Raptors in the Valley of Sorrow at 58 now they run fast, attack fast and double attack every other hit. Now them I tried, but could not tank at all.

[lionx]

Unfortunetly at lvl 34 there is no Haste of any sort besides March...which isnt as good as regular Haste. Theres only Slow to help you, not even Elegy is availible at this level for BRDs...

I generally find a WAR/NIN tanking around lvl 30 to be bad at holding hate...not sure if its just the WAR/NINs i pted with here before but..they really cant hold hate as well as they should and required a backup voker...or maybe its just because he was dual wielding Sword and Axe.. I did notice that although MP was used more, i can hold hate fine after the second voke with MNK sub. I honestly dont know what else a WAR/NIN can do to hold hate at the lower levels with only Utsusemi, damage, and Provoke.

Why is Spike Necklace better than Tiger Stole? ATK +5 is pretty good..i did some ok damage with it... i didnt use the Neckalce though but i didnt like the more damage magic mobs might give me with it which is why i dont see the difference besides DEX.

As a WAR/MNK tanking in Garliage, i Defender 24/7 except on Weapon Skills where i Berserk.

And no Army, it was just our crappy gilbuying RNG that sucked ;x

[Ryan0617]

I am a level 10 WAR. Just played it for a week on/off. I was wondering. When you unlock the advance jobs, say NIN. Once this is unlocked, using this as a main job, could i have paladin as my subjob?
What i mean is, when u unlock a advance job, do you unlock them all or just the one? Also, if you unlock them all, can i start as a paladin and immediately start sub jobbing a NIN?
(Please do not go into questions why i would do PLD/NIN, this is just an example) Thanks.

[Machera]

You need to unlock the one by one, and yes, you can sub advanced jobs with advanced jobs.