When should I Sub Nin?

[Lmnop]

Re: When should I Sub Nin?

on the one hand, these are forums meant to discuss things that'll make people talk and respond, and listen to their responses...

... on the other hand, we've seen this topic far too many times. I guess there's not a whole lot we can tell you except listen to Armando. He knows what he's talking about. Even if your axes can keep up with a greataxe hit-for-hit, your weapon skills suck ass. I'm stealing someone's quote when I say that the fact that many Dark Knights use Greataxe over their A rank weapons should say a lot for the power of Greataxe.

sooo yea, Sturmwind is way better than anything your dual axes could ever do, and break weapon skills are better than anything Sturmwind could bring to a party... I'll let it slide when you're subbing THF though.

[pearlsea]

Re: When should I Sub Nin?

I go war/nin using a neckchopper at lvl 26, while people say to sub mnk i dont see anything benifital frop /mnk other than boost which is only nice if you chain boost a WS and counter which is not that useful since war realy shouldent tank, they can in the earlyer levels but its no where as efficient as a nin or pld tank. Plus shadows can be realy usefull like backup tanking for a nin pre 37 or dual tanking with another war.

[Armando]

Re: When should I Sub Nin?

Haha, don't say "listen to Armando," one day I might screw up and embarass myself XD

I go war/nin using a neckchopper at lvl 26, while people say to sub mnk i dont see anything benifital frop /mnk other than boost which is only nice if you chain boost a WS and counter which is not that useful since war realy shouldent tank, they can in the earlyer levels but its no where as efficient as a nin or pld tank. Plus shadows can be realy usefull like backup tanking for a nin pre 37 or dual tanking with another war.

WAR can and should tank, especially pre-37 when PLD and NIN still don't have their most powerful spell (Flash and Utsusemi: Ni respectively.) There's no logical reason why WAR can't tank pre-37 even through with oldschool /MNK tanking, and they do more than fine enough to tank if there is no PLD or NIN to at least 50. Also, a single Counter a every 1:00-1:30 minutes with a weapon as slow as Great Axe translates to a very large ammount of imaginary haste, which would give it an absolute advantage over even dual wielded axes.

Oh, yeah, and I still insist that a WAR/BLU should be able to tank and DD at the same time. I'm going to be doing CoP 2-5 Mammets soon, I have big plans >3 I'm gonna go WAR/BLU, get an I.Wing, eat Meat (unless the mammets are actually evasive, which I doubt,) pop Berserk and Cocoon, and go Mighty Strikes -> Armor Break -> Blue magic spam with melee swings in between spells. I'm expecting to obliterate at least one Mammet that way, while taking low damage.

[ValisOfValefor]

Re: When should I Sub Nin?

Warrior shouldn't be tanking? Thats like saying Dark Knight shouldnt be Damage dealing. Or White Mage not healing, and using banish to cause damage.

I did it quite fine from 10-30 /monk, hell it was just as easy as Paladin.

Shadows really aren't usefull till the later 40s, when enemies really have a large jump in their amount of damage they can do. But thats in my own opinion.

And even then its easy to pop defender, and it makes you take less damamge, by sacrificing your damage.

Mandies in the 25-30s range have to be the best enemies to blood tank ever. And in my preference /monk is better on those, becuase they don't excactly hit that hard (hell at 29 those things where a pityance to me bearly hitting me for anything).

Counter too can be a life saving job trait, which they get at 20.

Then at 30, all 3 subs have something very useful and special about them

/ninja has shadows, and duel military picks (but those are for those who have deep pockets, and these are about the only reason to use duel axes and /ninja at 30 for this reason).
/monk has dodge and a max hp boost. Boost is still good for WS's.
/thief has sneak attack, which will beef up your WS damage by a lot.

I'm in a real large hassle for money for right now, but after I go out and farm more I hope to test out all three jobs, just to see in my own experience.

And for those who have the job open, right now Armando is looking into /blue mage.

I'd actually like to test that too, if I ever get the chance ^^

[Murphie]

Re: When should I Sub Nin?

I go war/nin using a neckchopper at lvl 26, while people say to sub mnk i dont see anything benifital frop /mnk other than boost which is only nice if you chain boost a WS and counter which is not that useful since war realy shouldent tank, they can in the earlyer levels but its no where as efficient as a nin or pld tank. Plus shadows can be realy usefull like backup tanking for a nin pre 37 or dual tanking with another war.

Boost is a lot more useful than that. If a WAR/MNK uses Boost every time it's up (every 15 seconds) and alternates that with their provokes, they will have no trouble glueing the mob to them throughout those early levels. A WAR/MNK can and does (occasionally tank) until at least 30 if not beyond. I know I did, and it worked out really well.

[pearlsea]

Re: When should I Sub Nin?

Counter will not do enough for you to replace shadows imo, avoiding 6+ attacks is alot more then having an extra gaxe swing or 2 a fight, also i play taru so i prefer not to tank, not that i have a problem with tarus tanking cause i have a 39 pld but as pld i have a whole lot of mp to spam cure, shield to absorb damage and allowed to stack as much VIT and DEF as i possibly can, most war can do is defender which is not fun or effective.

[pearlsea]

Re: When should I Sub Nin?

Boost is a lot more useful than that. If a WAR/MNK uses Boost every time it's up (every 15 seconds) and alternates that with their provokes, they will have no trouble glueing the mob to them throughout those early levels. A WAR/MNK can and does (occasionally tank) until at least 30 if not beyond. I know I did, and it worked out really well.

Thats what i did in the dunes and most of the time you could not get the mob off me if you tryed, i died a few times because of that >.>; and war is more then cappable then keeping hate without boost.

[Murphie]

Re: When should I Sub Nin?

Well, that's what White and Red Mages are for. You know, those times that you take damage rather than avoiding it altogether. WAR/MNK can tank. Yes, they will get hit, but it's not the end of the world if that happens.

And it's entirely fun and effective if you do it right. I don't know anything about how you play, but I do know that WAR/MNK main tanking is possible and in many ways better than NIN or WAR/NIN tanking for certain stretches.

edit: But having Boost doesn't hurt. If you're doing good damage because your skills are capped and you are geared adequately, and you are provoking and boosting regularly, you will have a much easier time holding hate than a NIN (who can't really hold hate that great until later) or a PLD (who often doesn't have enough tools just yet to hold hate as well as they could).

Remember, we're talking about pre-30/37. Worlds different from later on. What works for one level stretch doesn't necessarily work for others. That's not really so difficult to grasp.

[dirtyclown]

Re: When should I Sub Nin?

Counter will not do enough for you to replace shadows imo, avoiding 6+ attacks is alot more then having an extra gaxe swing or 2 a fight, also i play taru so i prefer not to tank, not that i have a problem with tarus tanking cause i have a 39 pld but as pld i have a whole lot of mp to spam cure, shield to absorb damage and allowed to stack as much VIT and DEF as i possibly can, most war can do is defender which is not fun or effective.

Before 37? Counter more than makes up for the loss of shadows if you ask me. You get the added damage from counter coupled with boost +voke spam, and Defender if things start looking bad. It sucks when you have to actually use it, but it really helps with damage reduction. I'd only consider subbing Ninja after getting to 37+ when a better tank comes along that can replace Warrior/Monk. IMO, Warrior/Monk is the best tank in the game pre-37, although I've yet to try Armando's Warrior/Blue Mage idea. It's mostly just personal preference though.

[ValisOfValefor]

Re: When should I Sub Nin?

Counter will not do enough for you to replace shadows imo, avoiding 6+ attacks is alot more then having an extra gaxe swing or 2 a fight, also i play taru so i prefer not to tank, not that i have a problem with tarus tanking cause i have a 39 pld but as pld i have a whole lot of mp to spam cure, shield to absorb damage and allowed to stack as much VIT and DEF as i possibly can, most war can do is defender which is not fun or effective.

You think counter won't do enough, when enemies in the 25-30 range absolutly kill shadows.

Defender is not worthless, if your the tank of the party in those level ranges you should not really care about your damage. What you should be caring about is tanking the monster, and helping out the party (with break moves). Especially if you are main tanking (which can happen very often, if you aren't staticing)

And using /monk after 20 offers a replacement for the loss of a shield with a great axe, no matter how small it may be.

(and besides most enemies in those level ranges are so weak if your dieing, your healer(s) is at fault)

[pearlsea]

Re: When should I Sub Nin?

I never ment for my post to be a anti warrior/monk tank post but just saying that /monk is not the low level tanking god your making it out to be. Sure /monk situationaly is better then /ninja but when you have another war/nin or nin/war in your party it its alot more efficient to dual shadow tank it, and even if you dont 60% of pre lvl 30 partys are powerleveled anyways so it dossent make too much of a differance anyways since the pl is tanking it and even if you dont have a pl boost will create more hate then you will even need and counter dosent activate enough to make /nin totaly worthless, id imagen counter is 10%, just like DW1 is 10% delay reduction, both give a 10% attack boost.

Plus /nin is nifty and fun too, while not realy a benefital factor to the party it does make grinding more enjoyable.

EDIT:

You think counter won't do enough, when enemies in the 25-30 range absolutly kill shadows.

Mandys right? well actualy they are the most friendly :ichi only tanking monster in the game, while they do double attack(or whatever you call mnks 2 punches) they have a large enough delay to cast shadows up if you time it right which allows you to get more shadows up per fight, but its not like they hit for too much anyways.

[Murphie]

Re: When should I Sub Nin?

Not everyone thinks that /NIN is nifty and fun though. That's kind of the point. Plus, if you haven't reached 30 yet on another job, you don't really have NIN as an option anyway.

You don't have to join powerlevel parties, and you don't have to join parties where everyone subs NIN in order to avoid taking damage. People have been tanking as WAR/MNK during that range for years and it works rather well. That's what healers are for, for crying out loud.

[ValisOfValefor]

Re: When should I Sub Nin?

Well pearlsea, pre-30 I really do believe that /mnk really is the tanking god. Besides, if you need a Power level, at 25-30..... well we won't get into what I think about that >.>

Now when I play monk, it doesn't matter how much I hold back, anything with ninja in the job description is gonna lose hate to me. I'm not meaning to sound like I'm gloating, but from 25-30 that was the same sad story every party except for one with a warrior/monk main tank.

And as for counter being 10% i don't really know the proc amount, I'll have to test it when i get more money.

(and note of the after edit) You also forget about Smithies, with goblin rush, double attack, and low delay attacks they usually obliterate most inept tanks and healers at that level. And if mandies don't hit that hard why do you need shadows in the first place?

[Murphie]

Re: When should I Sub Nin?

I'll never understand why anyone would want to NIN or /NIN tank Mandies. Unless you enjoy just throwing money away it's a pretty frustrating endeavor.

[Caspian]

Re: When should I Sub Nin?

I'll never understand why anyone would want to NIN or /NIN tank Mandies. Unless you enjoy just throwing money away it's a pretty frustrating endeavor.

Seriously, and yet I was always asked to sub /NIN in that lvl range. (Good since I didn't lvl MNK that far, I know, I know, do as I say not as I do.)
Actually part of the reason I didn't lvl mnk was b/c I knew /nin was preferred for some odd reason. It was harder getting a party as /mnk than /nin, and I wasn't up for lvling a subjob just to be asked to use something else.
Now, I am all for /MNK for quite a while, but the only thing I actually prefer about /nin in the lower levels is that I feel more comfortable using berserk. I wasn't usually main tanking, and I could keep it up and not worry about anything more than the occasional hit getting through the shadows. With /MNK w/ GA, it can be scary to use berserk constantly if you're main tanking. If you're not main tanking and you put up Berserk, well, you soon will be.