Diffence of War/Nin and War/thf

[korosu]

I was wondering what are the big diffences in war/nin and war/thf. I was told that war/thf uses gaxes where you dw with war/nin. But besides that what else, does one tank better then the other? Does one do better dmg? any and all information would be great.

Thank you in advance

[neighbortaru]

Re: Diffence of War/Nin and War/thf

WAR/nin will definately tank better due to utsusemi. But the play styles are quite similar, both DD roles. /thf gives you larger spike damage and hate control abilites a la sneak attack + trick attack, but /nin gives you faster TP build up and WS spammage (though not sure how this is now with the TP change).

[arkaine23]

Re: Diffence of War/Nin and War/thf

Also of note, because this bugs me, and you have not mentioned a level range:

/nin: DW gives you no benefit other than looking cool and the stats you might get from your second weapon until you hit lvl 50/25. Until that point it is just as fast as single weilding, but lacks the defensive benefit of a shield (and shields were recently upgraded to proc more and reduce damage more for all who use them). After 50 DW offers a small haste on melee attack speed bonus- it is .9 x2 the delay of weapon1 + delay of weapon 2. Also recently low delay weapon TP gain was adjusted vs high delay weapon TP gain, such that very fast weapons might give less TP per hit than before this adjustment, while high delay weapons give more TP per hit. Utsusemi breaks the game. Spam it as needed and take very little damage.

/thf: Good for SA Sturmwind in the 20's. Situationally good post 60 if you've got a bad (at keeping hate) tank and no thf or /thf in the party to help him out.

/mnk: Pretty good throughout all lvl ranges but mostly neglected due to the ungodly combo of DW and Utsusemi provided by /nin. Acc + from focus ability, best vit and hp, dodge ability, and boost ability are all useful to a WAR.

[bside]

Re: Diffence of War/Nin and War/thf

DW gives you no benefit other than looking cool and the stats you might get from your second weapon until you hit lvl 50/25. Until that point it is just as fast as single weilding, but lacks the defensive benefit of a shield (and shields were recently upgraded to proc more and reduce damage more for all who use them). After 50 DW offers a small haste on melee attack speed bonus- it is .9 x2 the delay of weapon1 + delay of weapon 2.

wrong. the deduction in delay already starts at lvl 10, or 20 if subbed. the equation u gave above is of lvl 10, and 0.9 turns 0.85 at 25, not 1 to 0.9. thus, there indeed is a benefit w/ DW in all level ranges.

fyi, the next "upgrade" happens at lvl 45, so for /NIN 0.85 is the best u can naturally have, while main NIN can go up to 0.7 at 65. of course, that's not counting any "enhance DW" items, such as Suppa.


EDIT: corrected the multipliers.

[Shifty]

Re: Diffence of War/Nin and War/thf

not to mention with war having dual wield at higher lvls, you can equip weapons that occasionally attack 1-2 times (aka joyuse and others) in sub weapon to boost tp output and eventually damage output, as well as supp to boost it more like bside said. and at 40 rdm gets haste, making dual wield quicker

[Omni]

Re: Diffence of War/Nin and War/thf

wtf? utsusemi breaks the game?
seriously... where do people come up with this crap.

YOU break the game. players like you break the game for people w/ comments like that.

just because people dont use /mnk or /thf as much doesnt mean utsusemi breaks the game. it's ultimately up to the player to choose waht he wants to sub. i get the feeling youre bitter b/c while you play mnk and dish out some crazy dmg and gain tp like a mad lady, you actually take some dmg to that 1500 hp pool of yours. dont spew crap b/c mnk prefers to use war sub while other jobs like nin sub. that's just how the cookie crumbles.

edit: what bside said is also correct. dual wield always provide a delay bonus. however, it will no longer provide a tp bonus for low delay weapons now.

[Armando]

Re: Diffence of War/Nin and War/thf

wrong. the deduction in delay already starts at lvl 10, or 20 if subbed. the equation u gave above is of lvl 10, and 0.9 turns 0.8 at 25, not 1 to 0.9. thus, there indeed is a benefit w/ DW in all level ranges.

fyi, the next "upgrade" happens at lvl 45, so for /NIN 0.8 is the best u can naturally have, while main NIN can go up to 0.6 at 65. of course, that's not counting any "enhance DW" items, such as Suppa.

Bside, your multipliers are off too.

L.10 NIN | Dual Weild I | 10% reduction in Delay
L.25 NIN | Dual Weild II | 15% reduction in Delay
L.45 NIN | Dual Weild III | 25% reduction in Delay
L.65 NIN | Dual Weild IV | 30% reduction in Delay

Ninja Chainmail adds 5%, Suppanomimi adds 5% (though I have reason to believe it adds less for NIN mains.)

The most you can have when subbed is DWII (15%) + Suppanomimi to bring it up to 20%. There's also Sarashi, but Sarashi sucks (1%).

Dual Weild doesn't increase TP gain in any way. It simply increases attack speed (and therefore, if you fight long enough, you get an extra attack round or two) but it decreases your TP-per-hit proportionally so that you reach 100 TP at roughly the same time as you would've single-weilding. It also adds an extra hit to your Weapon Skills (with the sub hand weapon.)

Contrary to popular belief, WAR/NIN does not have to dual weild, and dual weild doesn't always perform better. Great Axe will definetely perform better until a series of benefits (Viking Axe, Dual Weild II, and Rampage) come into play at L.48, 50, and 55. Simply put, one-handed axes in the 20-47 level range don't have any of the obscene bonuses you see on endgame axes (+4 Accuracy and +18 Attack from Maneater, +3 STR and +30 Attack from Juggernaut, for example) that for some reason endgame Great Axes seem to lack. With just Dual Weild I, two axes are only just as fast as a Great Axe, but not faster. What really tips the scale in favor of Great Axe during this level range are the Weapon Skills. In particular, these two:

L.10 Great Axe skill: Shield Break
You can use this one as early as Level 5 (there aren't any Great Axes before then.) Its damage is a bit higher than a normal Great Axe swing (and therefore, on par with Raging Axe, a bit weaker if Raging Axe is dual-weilded). However, what really makes it shine is that it gives -40 Accuracy to the mob for 1:30 minutes (twice as long if the mob is weak to ice, doesn't work if it's strong to ice, base duration increases with TP up to 3:00 minutes at 300 TP.) Even without the doubled duration, that's still long enough to get another 100 TP - a standard 504 Delay Great Axe requires 8 hits to reach 100 TP; 8 hits take 67.2 seconds. After the first WS, you'll already be starting with one hit's worth of TP, so you'd only need 6 hits (58.8 seconds.) Double Attack can usually shave off one more hit at least every other set of attacks required to reach 100 TP. The accuracy your entire party gains from this WS is so huge, it allows everyone to go all-out with Berserk and meat food and STR/Attack equipment and beat anything to death without having to worry about their Accuracy. Sneak Attack can give this WS a nice boost in damage, making it outshine even Dual Weilded/Sneak Attacked Raging Axe. Shield Break can also close Fusion (Fire/Light) and Impaction (Thunder).

L.70 Great Axe skill: Sturmwind
Useable as early as Level 23, Sturmwind is the king of damaging WS (Thief is of course, the exception, since they use Sneak Attack/Trick Attack to amplify WS damage) for quite a while. When not using Shield Break for whatever reason, you should be using Sturmwind. The raw damage of it is more than enough to leave Axe trailing behind; the Skillchain damage you can do with it will further seal the deal. If you can close Fragmentation with it and burst Thunder, even better. If you use Sneak Attack with it, the damage will be huge (be careful though! Don't use it early in the fight or you'll pull hate.) An SA Sturmwind closing a skillchain with Fragmentation, followed by a Thunder MB will take down most IT mobs down to an inch of their lives.

As for WAR/NIN vs WAR/THF, it's quite simple. WAR/THF definetely does more damage, but WAR/NIN can avoid damage. WAR/NIN gets access to Utsusemi, which is a 4-second spell with a 30 second recast timer that'll give its user 3 shadows that absorb a single attack or spell each. Utsusemi can be used to save the tank some damage (Provoke it off of him, keep your shadows up as long as possible, then have the tank Provoke it back) or you can trade hate back and forth with another WAR/NIN to take very little damage. Which one is better is highly situational - in some parties, you already have more than enough damage mitigation and/or too much healing, and you want more offensive power. WAR/THF shines there. In other parties, you may be going after tougher mobs, or you have too little healing power. WAR/NIN's ability to buy time and absorb hits shine there. WAR/NIN can solo tank, but they WILL take hits, and they don't have as many hate tools compared to WAR/MNK. Also, if you don't have the timing down, you won't be able to recast after the first 6 shadows are gone. WAR/NIN also makes a good SATA partner if your THF is slow >.>

P.S. Don't bother with Iron Tempest. It does the same damage as Shield Break at 100 TP, yet doesn't give the mob -40 Evasion. I guess if you're REALLY desperate for Distortion...but meh, you can just settle with a Level 1 Skillchain and do Shield Break and do almost as much damage.

[arkaine23]

Re: Diffence of War/Nin and War/thf

Try not to be offended by my comment on ninja magic lol . I take advantage of Utsusemi the same as everyone else, but even moreso with uber Fast Cast. What I was really trying to express is just a commonly held opinion that Utsusemi is an overpowered ability- it leaves pld tanks on the sidelines more often than not and prompted an upgrade to how shields work. Its also because of utsusemi that people complain Red Mages are overpowered. But (Um...} Utsusemi is not a red mage ability, its a ninja ability, so who's job is overpowered exactly? Anyway...

I concede I did have my haste % for DW a bit off (haven't looked at the numbers since well before I got my Suppanomimi), but the main point was still on target, that for warrior, other weapons besides DW Axe, like G Axe and maybe Centurion's swords (for a few levels in the 30's) are better weapon choices overall up to around lvl 50ish, when DW Axes become a more productive option.

By the way, RDM gets haste at 48, not 40- you must be thinking of WHM.

[neighbortaru]

Re: Diffence of War/Nin and War/thf

off-topic:

What I was really trying to express is just a commonly held opinion that Utsusemi is an overpowered ability- it leaves pld tanks on the sidelines more often than not and prompted an upgrade to how shields work.

not in ToA areas it seems. those little flea buggers eat through shadows and murder NIN tanks, but PLDs have been relatively unphased.

[arkaine23]

Re: Diffence of War/Nin and War/thf

I'm inclined to agree about Shield Break. Once its used the mob gets pwned by the melees for the next minute as the evasion down slowy fades. But in my experience, a lot of players seem to love high damage spikes more than assisting the party kill faster or improving their own damage over time, go figure.

I kinda don't personally like /thf unless its needed for hate transfer, or like with higher level drks, where /war can and does them killed sometimes. And as for my personal playing as monk, meh I've subbed nin when it was needed for long/tough BC fights or PM's, but generally love what /war offers even if it means I have to back off when I pull hate in order to keep from tanking most of the fight.

[Armando]

Re: Diffence of War/Nin and War/thf

Actually, I'm pretty sure the -Evasion doesn't fade out gradually. It stays at full strength until the effect wears off completely, much like -Defense or -Attack abilities mobs use.

While we're at it, Armor Break (Lv.33 WAR, 100 Great Axe skill) is the equivalent of Berserkga. It gives the mob -25% Defense (but it doesn't stack with Acid Bolts.) If your party members are already whoring out sushi, that's yet another reason not to go Axe-Axe yet.

[Omni]

Re: Diffence of War/Nin and War/thf

off-topic:
not in ToA areas it seems. those little flea buggers eat through shadows and murder NIN tanks, but PLDs have been relatively unphased.

yes those fleas are ep-- to me at 75. however, they have nearly 100% accuracy with my full evasion gear on. they hit for roughly 20-50 dmg each time but attack at lightning speed. shadows are as good as gone if you get aggro. the only good thing about it is, they have really low hp. usually 1 blade: jin and they're dead.

arkaine23: i didnt take offense to it just hardly see how it breaks the game but i wont further elaborate since itll just lead to another lame nin vs pld bitch fest. excuse my lack of consideration in my reply. we just had one of those recently, since apparently its such a novel subject that we need to discuss every so often just to remind us how retarded it is. hey, some people feel compelled to vent their 'struggles' anyhow, go figure.

[Aeni]

Re: Diffence of War/Nin and War/thf

yes those fleas are ep-- to me at 75. however, they have nearly 100% accuracy with my full evasion gear on. they hit for roughly 20-50 dmg each time but attack at lightning speed. shadows are as good as gone if you get aggro. the only good thing about it is, they have really low hp. usually 1 blade: jin and they're dead.

arkaine23: i didnt take offense to it just hardly see how it breaks the game but i wont further elaborate since itll just lead to another lame nin vs pld bitch fest. excuse my lack of consideration in my reply. we just had one of those recently, since apparently its such a novel subject that we need to discuss every so often just to remind us how retarded it is. hey, some people feel compelled to vent their 'struggles' anyhow, go figure.

You're pretty much the only one in this thread that takes offense to it. You should just cool your jets, laugh it off and go back to ToA.

Anyway...

I said it before and I'll say it again. WAR/MNK does not suck as DD or Defensively. Just the common misconception that is somehow perpetuated to near blind-sidedness at this point. The thing I find offensive about this is the discrimination from just about everyone against players who do like to go about their business as a WAR/MNK.

Can the community just give these players a fucking break and go about playing their own job just as effectively? Thanks.

[Omni]

Re: Diffence of War/Nin and War/thf

right aeni, you're the most level headed guy here btw. lets not get started about drk or you might blow a circuit. but hey, if you say so.

[Muu Yi]

Re: Diffence of War/Nin and War/thf

A Linkshell member recently asked me what skillchain a level 62 Dark Knight and Warior/Ninja can do because I'm the resident linkshell skillchain guru apparently. <.<; And I told him to do Guillotine > Raging Rush for Fragmentation. There was a pause and then... "Nope, can't do it, Great Axe is at level 0." Doh! >_< I really hope that the new updates encourage Warriors to go back to skilling their A+ weapon. I miss seeing those Sturmwind and Shield Break at low levels too. :D