When should I Sub Nin?

[Murphie]

Re: When should I Sub Nin?

What I would do is use Berserk, use my WS, and then cancel Berserk. It worked out pretty well. I'd do the same thing with Defender from time to time (not with a WS, just in general) if I needed something to grab a bit of hate with, but didn't want to affect my damage.

[Armando]

Re: When should I Sub Nin?

Don't use Defender just to grab hate, its activation is so small it may as well not be there. Save it for when you actually need its effects. A far better use for it would be: 1) use Berserk 2) WS 3) use Defender to cancel out Berserk's effect 4) get TP again 5) cancel Defender to "reactivate" Berserk 5) WS again. That way you get off 2 berserked WS instead of just one. You can use Warcry for a third if you really want to, but considering the big hate it gets and its pitiful attack bonus, I'd rather save it for an emergency.

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.

Doesn't change the fact that they still hit at a faster rate than normal mobs. They'll strip more shadows in the same ammount of time, and normal mobs already strip off shadows quickly enough to make Ichi tanking an iffy concept to begin with. Also, it's still possible to recast on normal mobs. The timing is far more strict but it's still entirely possible (especially if you take Slow into account.) MNKs in general are just bad mobs to try to blink tank.

[Murphie]

Re: When should I Sub Nin?

I wasn't honestly sure how much hate it gave, but when the chips are down, I'll pull out any tool that I have. Including Defender.

Kind of a moot point for me at least, since my WAR days are long over. The important point in my post was how I used Berserk.

[Thrasher]

Re: When should I Sub Nin?

What I would do is use Berserk, use my WS, and then cancel Berserk. It worked out pretty well. I'd do the same thing with Defender from time to time (not with a WS, just in general) if I needed something to grab a bit of hate with, but didn't want to affect my damage.

Yes this is also how I used Berserk when I was main tanking. If I was sub tanking when I needed to pull emnity for more then a few seconds I always took Berserk down and used Defender. I think where people get this war/nin pwnz all BS is partly due to inproper use of Berserk, Defender and a large % of new players level warror as there first class so there skills are slightly lacking.

[Celeal]

Re: When should I Sub Nin?

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.

That is the reason why ppl use war/mnk in the old days. Provoke -> Boost -> Boost -> Porvoke -> Boost.... using Great Axe, have counter, WS, Beserk and Defender as additional hate too, the DD in the rest of the party can go all out, Skillchain and MB and kill the mob very efficiently.

When geared correctly, in the Jungles WAR/MNK w/ G.Axe is Tank + DD at the same time. A war/mnk tank party require proper debuff on the mob (slow, paralyze, bio...), a healer that knows how to spend and conserve his mp (regen, bar-spells, know when to sit for mp during the battle...), DD that actually can deal damage (not the gimp ones, SC + MB is the norm). Meanwhile DD can truly unleash on the mob while war/mnk holding hate and dealing damage at the same time. This kind of party requires teamwork, and everyone in the party trust each other, support each other, doing their jobs.

I guess today, the art of war/mnk tank is lost... the art of traditional party setup is fading out...

[ItazuraNhomango]

Re: When should I Sub Nin?

I guess today, the art of war/mnk tank is lost... the art of traditional party setup is fading out...

Not sure about other servers, but on Ifrit, you can still find plenty of WAR/MNK's in the lower levels. However, they seem to prefer the sword and shield combination, for some odd reason. >_> I can only recall one tanking WAR/MNK with great axe (Twicer) in the jungles within the last few months...

[Murphie]

Re: When should I Sub Nin?

Not sure about other servers, but on Ifrit, you can still find plenty of WAR/MNK's in the lower levels. However, they seem to prefer the sword and shield combination, for some odd reason. >_> I can only recall one tanking WAR/MNK with great axe (Twicer) in the jungles within the last few months...

I blame SE for this. Heck, I was a Sword/Shield WAR until 30 on my first character. I just didn't know any better.

(Onion Axe) (Can I have it?)

[Lmnop]

Re: When should I Sub Nin?

I think this will be the first time I've ever said anything *gasp* counter Armando's beliefs.

I agree with Pearlsea about the mandies. As nin/war tanking them, what I would do is engage mob with fresh shadows and then: mandy takes 2 shadows >> mandy takes 1 shadow and hits. Since I had around a 1/5 or 1/6 chance of evading/parrying, I often would just lose 3 shadows and not take any damage. The great thing about this is that by taking one hit, I'm making sure my healer is earning his exp. :D It may be easy healing for him/her, but at least they're doing what they're supposed to do. At any rate, right as the 2nd attack round is starting I mash the Shadow macro and get shadows up for the next couple attack rounds. Also, the large attack rounds (close to 7 second delay with slow, I think) mean that when my shadows go down again, my shadow recast timer is closer to being ready.

In practice, I often would miss my window for macro mashing and wait for the next attack round, thus taking up to 3 consecutive hits before putting shadows back up. This doesn't hurt since up 'til 29, nin/war technically has better defense than a non-shield-using Warrior (same defense bonus, higher VIT growth, and same Chainmail set) and as detailed above, it keeps my healer awake. Seriously, that's 60 points of damage tops from those 3 swings. That's... stupid pitiful.

-----------------------------------------

With all that said, nin/war is a better tank than a war/nin for pretty much the entirety of the first 60 levels of the game. As of 30, damage output isn't too far off, except that a nin/war will keep shadows up much longer due to certain A ranked skills. And even with that said, keeping hate against mandies wasn't incredibly easy. I always kept them off the healers, but dragoons made my life miserable.

I believe there is no better tank than a war/mnk pre-37. That is opinion.

I know that war/mnk will generate the more hate than pld or nin pre-37. I'd like to think that's a fact, not an opinion. Perfect for early level manaburn and Thf-heavy parties (4x thf, 1 war, 1 whm between levels 15 and 30 is pretty fun).

[Armando]

Re: When should I Sub Nin?

XD See, this is why I don't like people saying "listen to Armando!" I CAN be wrong. While I still don't like the idea of blink tanking mandies (faster attacks PLUS counters, which I forgot to mention...granted, they'll counter you at a slower rate when using Great Axe, but meh, it's still a guaranteed shadow lost.) Plus, since they do more hits over time than the average mob, that means that many more counters when going /MNK. Then again, the fights do tend to drag on pretty damned long against those little sonsabitches, so I could easily see someone blinking off 12 hits.

I know that war/mnk will generate the more hate than pld or nin pre-37. I'd like to think that's a fact, not an opinion.

Bah, go ahead and call it a fact. The only one of the two that has the same hate potential pre-37 is PLD, but in practice they can't do it without using more MP than they should.

You know what would've been fun as hell? WAR/RNG in the Jungles pre-patch.

[Lmnop]

Re: When should I Sub Nin?

XD See, this is why I don't like people saying "listen to Armando!"

Does it frighten you more that people would mindlessly follow whatever you say, or that I actually pay attention to everything you write and make sure it's right* and still agree with almost everything you type?

You know what would've been fun as hell? WAR/RNG in the Jungles pre-patch.

I always wanted to do this. In fact, I still think it'd be fun, but just a lot harder. Xbow doesn't suffer too much accuracy-wise from being in the melee so Holy bolts would still be damn effective and you could use it to open Distortion for THFs while still using Greataxe. The biggest problem would be that even with the world's greatest R.acc gear, you'd still need sushi. This also has me thinking a line of thought that was probably looked at years ago, but I wanna look at it again: changing weapons during WS. In this case: /ws "Piercing Arrow" and then on the next line: /equip main "Archer's Knife". Basically, I'm thinking of Maneater logic (the latent activates on Weapon Skill because tp already reset to 0, yet you gain the stat boosts to the WS itself). This is a really dumb idea now that I think about it but I'm not going to delete this. Oh well, it'd be interesting if it'd work for an extra +10 r. acc on WS.

*not the math. I usually check your math for your first example and then just skim your numbers. Unlike you, I'm not a math teacher (bwuahahahahahahaha).