Tweet
I finally levelled to 20 and officially am done with WHM, more or less. I figured I'd post my experiences here in the hope that somone can learn from them, and also include my future plans in the hopes that someone can instruct me further if it looks like I made a(nother) gigantic mistake. So, with no further ado...
As I said, I hit level 20 WHM last night, and I celebrated the occassion by running to San d'Oria (from Selbina... god I hate doing that), selling all my stuff, stripping down to a 1 WAR/1 WHM, and running to Jeuno. As I only had 300-odd XP with my WHM job, while 4600 were required for the next level, I would've lost a level if I died en route to Jeuno, so to preserve my level 20-ness I ran there as a naked level one. Surprisingly, with some care, I made it the first time through, did the Chocobo quest, and am now happily levelling WAR.
General Hints
Perhaps the most important thing I learned during my days of levelling up is to have lots of friends. I mean, this may seem fairly obvious, but it was easy to make and keep friends as a WHM, and if you can you really should. Being consistently on the ball and talking to people will get you really far in this game. I grouped with almost the same party from 10-20, and now we have a linkshell. It's worked out quite nicely for everyone involved. Really, make friends early and make 'em good. You'll thank yourself constantly. I know I do.
In terms of more practical matters, though: macros are the best things ever. I had all my Cure's macroed, with a small party-notification at the same time the Cure was going off, and that helped improve my efficiency tons. There's an excellent macro guide on Gamefaqs.com -- go read it and love it. What also helped with efficiency, around levels 13-15, was stopping with the melee. First, it allowed me to target my party members much more easily (learn and love F1-F8), and second, it saved me and my party uncountable times.
You see, though with a mace my damage output could near a real tank's, we're intended to be healers, not damage-dealers, and I would rather have my Wand +1 anyday than a Bronze Maul. Additionally, and the primary reason I stopped getting up close, there are really nasty AoE's out there. Tons of damage and hideous status effects (including paralyze, sleep, or, god forbid, disease) weren't worth the small amount of melee damage I could do -- especially if, by staying out of AoE range, I could fix those status effects on my party members. Pretty easy decision there, eh? Finally, staying further away gives the WARs more time to taunt off of you, which, believe me, can be a life-saver.
You should use maces/shields, not staves. Staves only add to HP and MP, which is pretty worthless considering the amount they give: on the other hand, maces add to MND/INT, and shields have saved me before from 40-damage hits. It doesn't happen often, true, but it does happen.
As soon as you use Benediction, run to the zone. You'll save your party, but you might die, as Benediction will get you aggro quickly and permanently. Just hit the button, save everyone else's life, and start running your little heiny off.
Get a Justice Badge and Friar's Rope ASAP, you'll wonder how you survived without. And, finally, always try to be one of two WHMs. It's so much easier and more efficient to heal with a friendly WHM that it's almost ridiculous. Do NOT, however, split the party up between you two. Just agree to use Cure (or Cure II in emergencies) most of the time, and the two of you will probably do much less stepping on each other's toes than you might think.
Spell Thoughts
In my opinion, many WHM spells get a bad rap. It's true that Protect does not scale particularly well as you gain levels, but that defense boost is always nice to have -- and, in my opinion, Paralyze should be cast every battle. But I'm probably getting ahead of myself here.
In general, spell tactics should work thusly: while the monster is coming in and getting its first few hits on the tank, you should lay down the Enfeeblement on it, then work the tank's health back up to a more comfortable level. Rinse, repeat, and make sure Shellra and Protectra stay on your party. Don't bother recasting Enfeeblement spells unless the monster still has more than half life when they wear off. And if it does, consider retreating.
Specific-spell thoughts:
Cure: From 1-20, this is your staple cure spell. Only use Cure II if someone in your party is losing health rapidly, or someone got hit with Jet Stream or Hell Slash and needs their health out of the orange straight away. You should be spamming this spell on the main tank always. Or, at least, as long as he's losing HP.
Cure II: As I said, only in emergencies. A 30 heal from only 8 MP is far, far superior to a 60-80ish heal for 24 MP. While it's true I was getting about 90 on Light days from my Cure II towards the end of my WHM's life, at low levels CureII is simply not worth the MP investment.
Curaga: Do NOT use this spell during combat, unless the monster is almost dead and you want to get a slight jump on healing. Even if your entire party has taken seven Goblin Bombs and they're all in the orange, just cast Cure II a couple of times on the main tank. Do NOT use this spell. The hate it generates is truly astonishing -- only slightly better than Benediction. That said, Curaga -is- a great downtime saver, especially if your party has taken a few Goblin Bombs or other unpleasant AoEs. I consistently used Divine Seal with this spell after bad pulls to heal everyone for ~150 health with only a 60 mana outlay on my part. You don't want bad pulls, so you don't want to use this spell, but it is convenient to have around for when they happen.
Dia: Cast this on every mob your party fights. It is unresistable, and while it's true it does sucky damage, it does lower defense, and against snippers and the like, every little bit counts. Additionally, this spell is THE great way of raising your Enfeeblement.
Paralyze: Cast this on every mob your party fights. It can unfortunately be resisted a fair amount until your Enfeeblement skill is high (Dia is good for raising it), but when it lands it's quite nice. Only 6 mana outlay will save you 3-4 heals. So, 6 mana versus 24-32 mana. Clear winner, here.
Slow: Definitely cast this on every mob your party fights. You can't argue with increasing the monster's delay -- it means less damage for everyone.
Protect and Shell: At low levels, when Protect really makes a huge difference when compared to your natural defense, it's very nice to have around. At higher levels, it moves from 'very nice' to 'just nice.' Still, make sure everone has it on them at all times. Same with Shell, when you get it -- I haven't noticed it making a huge difference, but it can unexpectedly save your life, and costs a negligible amount to cast.
Bar-spells: I have had no luck with these. Even though I spent an inordinate amount of money acquiring Barsleepra, my entire party still goes to sleep when the Sheep do their AoE. I wouldn't waste money on this spell, if I had to do it again.
Banish & Attack Spells: I say 'Attack Spells,' as well, as I will be briefly discussing using Cure against undead monsters. In a word: don't. Don't use Banish, don't use Cure, don't attack. Banish takes a simply ludicrous amount of mana to do a pretty pathetic amount of damage. Cures versus undead are even worse -- if you cast Cure II on a tough ghoul, you'll do about 30 damage -- roughly equivalent to what a WAR gets for free. Save your mana for heals. I can't impress this on you enough: a group of mine died in Gusgen because an idiot insisted on casting Cure II on the ghouls, instead of on us. The only time I've even found Banish to be vaguely useful is against snippers and thickshells, after they cast metal body. If their HP is low, a Banish can finish them off, and that's generally worth it. You can also Banish to finish a Light-aspected skill chain, but those are harder to get than they sound at the levels we're talking about.
Quest Thoughts
Subjob Quest: Goddamn this quest was terrible. I can only reflect on the Selbina version of this, but it was easy enough to acquire a Crab Apron and Damselfly Worm -- and neigh unto impossible to get a Magicked Skull. In general, if you can, form a full alliance with 2-3 thieves and go hunt in the Gusgen Mines for a good 8 hours. You may find enough skulls for everyone, but I wouldn't hold my breath. The Ghouls in the Dunes seem to drop Magicked Skulls much more frequently, but they spawn only during the night, and very rarely at that. Gusgen is probably a better bet, as you'll get fair XP and have an okay shot at the Skull. Keep in mind it is a RARE DROP, though, and will take you FOREVER to get it, unless you are extremely lucky and in that case I hate you. =D
Chocobo Quest: This really wasn't so bad. Running to Jeuno is harrowing, but very possibly. The only annnoying part about this quest is that you have to wait 6 in-game days to do it, and as near as I can figure a day translates to about half an hour to an hour of real-time. It REALLY SUCKED being chained to my computer for that length of time, doing nothing but wandering around Jeuno and feeding a damn Chocobo.
In general, both these quests were almost more trouble than they were worth. I mean, the game is crazy fun, but why make such a rare drop so desperately important? Why force a player to sit in front of a computer for 6 hours for a quest? These elements should have been redesigned, in my opinion.
Continued...
As I said, I hit level 20 WHM last night, and I celebrated the occassion by running to San d'Oria (from Selbina... god I hate doing that), selling all my stuff, stripping down to a 1 WAR/1 WHM, and running to Jeuno. As I only had 300-odd XP with my WHM job, while 4600 were required for the next level, I would've lost a level if I died en route to Jeuno, so to preserve my level 20-ness I ran there as a naked level one. Surprisingly, with some care, I made it the first time through, did the Chocobo quest, and am now happily levelling WAR.
General Hints
Perhaps the most important thing I learned during my days of levelling up is to have lots of friends. I mean, this may seem fairly obvious, but it was easy to make and keep friends as a WHM, and if you can you really should. Being consistently on the ball and talking to people will get you really far in this game. I grouped with almost the same party from 10-20, and now we have a linkshell. It's worked out quite nicely for everyone involved. Really, make friends early and make 'em good. You'll thank yourself constantly. I know I do.
In terms of more practical matters, though: macros are the best things ever. I had all my Cure's macroed, with a small party-notification at the same time the Cure was going off, and that helped improve my efficiency tons. There's an excellent macro guide on Gamefaqs.com -- go read it and love it. What also helped with efficiency, around levels 13-15, was stopping with the melee. First, it allowed me to target my party members much more easily (learn and love F1-F8), and second, it saved me and my party uncountable times.
You see, though with a mace my damage output could near a real tank's, we're intended to be healers, not damage-dealers, and I would rather have my Wand +1 anyday than a Bronze Maul. Additionally, and the primary reason I stopped getting up close, there are really nasty AoE's out there. Tons of damage and hideous status effects (including paralyze, sleep, or, god forbid, disease) weren't worth the small amount of melee damage I could do -- especially if, by staying out of AoE range, I could fix those status effects on my party members. Pretty easy decision there, eh? Finally, staying further away gives the WARs more time to taunt off of you, which, believe me, can be a life-saver.
You should use maces/shields, not staves. Staves only add to HP and MP, which is pretty worthless considering the amount they give: on the other hand, maces add to MND/INT, and shields have saved me before from 40-damage hits. It doesn't happen often, true, but it does happen.
As soon as you use Benediction, run to the zone. You'll save your party, but you might die, as Benediction will get you aggro quickly and permanently. Just hit the button, save everyone else's life, and start running your little heiny off.
Get a Justice Badge and Friar's Rope ASAP, you'll wonder how you survived without. And, finally, always try to be one of two WHMs. It's so much easier and more efficient to heal with a friendly WHM that it's almost ridiculous. Do NOT, however, split the party up between you two. Just agree to use Cure (or Cure II in emergencies) most of the time, and the two of you will probably do much less stepping on each other's toes than you might think.
Spell Thoughts
In my opinion, many WHM spells get a bad rap. It's true that Protect does not scale particularly well as you gain levels, but that defense boost is always nice to have -- and, in my opinion, Paralyze should be cast every battle. But I'm probably getting ahead of myself here.
In general, spell tactics should work thusly: while the monster is coming in and getting its first few hits on the tank, you should lay down the Enfeeblement on it, then work the tank's health back up to a more comfortable level. Rinse, repeat, and make sure Shellra and Protectra stay on your party. Don't bother recasting Enfeeblement spells unless the monster still has more than half life when they wear off. And if it does, consider retreating.
Specific-spell thoughts:
Cure: From 1-20, this is your staple cure spell. Only use Cure II if someone in your party is losing health rapidly, or someone got hit with Jet Stream or Hell Slash and needs their health out of the orange straight away. You should be spamming this spell on the main tank always. Or, at least, as long as he's losing HP.
Cure II: As I said, only in emergencies. A 30 heal from only 8 MP is far, far superior to a 60-80ish heal for 24 MP. While it's true I was getting about 90 on Light days from my Cure II towards the end of my WHM's life, at low levels CureII is simply not worth the MP investment.
Curaga: Do NOT use this spell during combat, unless the monster is almost dead and you want to get a slight jump on healing. Even if your entire party has taken seven Goblin Bombs and they're all in the orange, just cast Cure II a couple of times on the main tank. Do NOT use this spell. The hate it generates is truly astonishing -- only slightly better than Benediction. That said, Curaga -is- a great downtime saver, especially if your party has taken a few Goblin Bombs or other unpleasant AoEs. I consistently used Divine Seal with this spell after bad pulls to heal everyone for ~150 health with only a 60 mana outlay on my part. You don't want bad pulls, so you don't want to use this spell, but it is convenient to have around for when they happen.
Dia: Cast this on every mob your party fights. It is unresistable, and while it's true it does sucky damage, it does lower defense, and against snippers and the like, every little bit counts. Additionally, this spell is THE great way of raising your Enfeeblement.
Paralyze: Cast this on every mob your party fights. It can unfortunately be resisted a fair amount until your Enfeeblement skill is high (Dia is good for raising it), but when it lands it's quite nice. Only 6 mana outlay will save you 3-4 heals. So, 6 mana versus 24-32 mana. Clear winner, here.
Slow: Definitely cast this on every mob your party fights. You can't argue with increasing the monster's delay -- it means less damage for everyone.
Protect and Shell: At low levels, when Protect really makes a huge difference when compared to your natural defense, it's very nice to have around. At higher levels, it moves from 'very nice' to 'just nice.' Still, make sure everone has it on them at all times. Same with Shell, when you get it -- I haven't noticed it making a huge difference, but it can unexpectedly save your life, and costs a negligible amount to cast.
Bar-spells: I have had no luck with these. Even though I spent an inordinate amount of money acquiring Barsleepra, my entire party still goes to sleep when the Sheep do their AoE. I wouldn't waste money on this spell, if I had to do it again.
Banish & Attack Spells: I say 'Attack Spells,' as well, as I will be briefly discussing using Cure against undead monsters. In a word: don't. Don't use Banish, don't use Cure, don't attack. Banish takes a simply ludicrous amount of mana to do a pretty pathetic amount of damage. Cures versus undead are even worse -- if you cast Cure II on a tough ghoul, you'll do about 30 damage -- roughly equivalent to what a WAR gets for free. Save your mana for heals. I can't impress this on you enough: a group of mine died in Gusgen because an idiot insisted on casting Cure II on the ghouls, instead of on us. The only time I've even found Banish to be vaguely useful is against snippers and thickshells, after they cast metal body. If their HP is low, a Banish can finish them off, and that's generally worth it. You can also Banish to finish a Light-aspected skill chain, but those are harder to get than they sound at the levels we're talking about.
Quest Thoughts
Subjob Quest: Goddamn this quest was terrible. I can only reflect on the Selbina version of this, but it was easy enough to acquire a Crab Apron and Damselfly Worm -- and neigh unto impossible to get a Magicked Skull. In general, if you can, form a full alliance with 2-3 thieves and go hunt in the Gusgen Mines for a good 8 hours. You may find enough skulls for everyone, but I wouldn't hold my breath. The Ghouls in the Dunes seem to drop Magicked Skulls much more frequently, but they spawn only during the night, and very rarely at that. Gusgen is probably a better bet, as you'll get fair XP and have an okay shot at the Skull. Keep in mind it is a RARE DROP, though, and will take you FOREVER to get it, unless you are extremely lucky and in that case I hate you. =D
Chocobo Quest: This really wasn't so bad. Running to Jeuno is harrowing, but very possibly. The only annnoying part about this quest is that you have to wait 6 in-game days to do it, and as near as I can figure a day translates to about half an hour to an hour of real-time. It REALLY SUCKED being chained to my computer for that length of time, doing nothing but wandering around Jeuno and feeding a damn Chocobo.
In general, both these quests were almost more trouble than they were worth. I mean, the game is crazy fun, but why make such a rare drop so desperately important? Why force a player to sit in front of a computer for 6 hours for a quest? These elements should have been redesigned, in my opinion.
Continued...
Comment