White Warriors

[Lyonesse]

Lyonesse, it is painfully obvious to me that you've never fought anything at level 51+.

How about you, and everyone else bother reading what I say before responding?

All the while, because I'm wearing +attack/damage gear instead of +MP/MND, my Cures are less effective, my Enfeebles like Slow/Paralyze/Silence aren't sticking at all, and I've got a lot less MP to work with because I'm losing 25-100MP more per fight to make up for the extra WS I just handed the monster.

Sounds like a winning combination to me.

How about referring to what I said above and read what I actually posted?

I'm going to direct this to you Icemage and everyone else.

If you're going to bother trying to trump my arguments or anyone else's, do so with actual basis on what I or they have said. I'm tired of this ridiculously moronic trend.

It's painfully obvious that I expect too much of people on the internet, even from the ones that are "well-respected" like you Icemage.

I'm very happy to have someone like StarvingArtist around who takes the time to read what I've said carefully and engage me in a debate on the entirety of what I've actually said and not some pre-concieved notion that I don't know what the hell I'm talking about. Thank you StarvingArtist, for being here and reaffirming that I haven't gone insane.

I'd normally leave forums when I'm tired of the population but I'm going to stay. You know why? It's because I want to be the person that will speak on behalf of the "other side." The "other side" being the side that realizes that there are ways of playing the game without sacrificing fun or efficiency. The side that realizes that you can play this game, play it with the designer's purpose in mind, and not become the cookie that others all follow.

With that said, I'll finally make use of the ignore list on this forum.

[Synbios]

Originally posted by Icemage


All the while, because I'm wearing +attack/damage gear instead of +MP/MND, my Cures are less effective, my Enfeebles like Slow/Paralyze/Silence aren't sticking at all, and I've got a lot less MP to work with because I'm losing 25-100MP more per fight to make up for the extra WS I just handed the monster.

Are you using Cure IVs every Cure? How is it possible for your cures to be less effective when you don't wear +MND gear? Your IIs and IIIs would probably be capped some time ago. And enfeebling post 50, great job.

[aszid]

well...
i don't wanna delve too deep into this thread, however these are the points that i see.

Fact: whm is not near as effective in melee as melee characters are.

Fact: the more you hit a monster, regardless of damage, the more TP the monster will get, and therefor the more skills the monster will use.

Fact: Hexa strike is cool

Fact: a WHM can not be depended on for a primary skill chain, due to resting away TP.

Fact: most parties don't want the whm to melee.

Fact: there is a way to set your search comment specifically to find Skill up parties, with the same goal in mind as you have.


now, aside from the facts, here's my opinions.

If you are in a static party with a backup healer, and your party doesn't mind if you melee then by all means do it. However, if you are joining random parties, be sure that it is ok with the party if you want to melee.

If you are meleeing, then in all likelyness if you did not melee, and concentrated solely on healing and debuffing, you could be killing harder mobs for more xp, without signifigantly increasing your downtime. therefor helping your party advance faster.

i'm all for everyone enjoying the game, however i would never put one persons enjoyment over anothers. you enjoy the meleeing, and that is your right, however if you are in a party with 5 people who's enjoyment is being impared by you meleeing, then you are the one in the wrong, not everyone else.

As far as equipment goes, i wouldn't do more than just a hammer to increase your damage. even if you could get +str or +atk it most likely would not be worth the effort. even if you did do a few extra points of damage, in the end your boost would not make a real difference in the time it takes to kill a mob. +acc or +dex would not be that bad though. i would recommend trying to balance out magic and melee gear though, get +mnd in every slot that you could, and get +acc or +dex in any other slots that you can't get +mnd in.


All i want to stress is that you shouldn't put your enjoyment of the game above anyone elses. if you party with a group of friends that doesn't mind you meleeing, then by all means continue!

[Jei]

Ice mage - does enemy build TPthe same way players do? Just wondering because when I fight crawlers for example, I often see them use a second cocoon right after i dispel their first one, sometimes they do 3 in a row non stop :sweat:

Or is cocoon a TP move at all?

[Icemage]

Are you using Cure IVs every Cure? How is it possible for your cures to be less effective when you don't wear +MND gear? Your IIs and IIIs would probably be capped some time ago. And enfeebling post 50, great job.

I certainly don't like using Cure IV due to its huge enmity factor, but as I get higher and higher level I find myself using it (and I'm sure, Cure V once I get it) on a semi-regular basis due to higher MP efficiency, and the fact that monsters are starting to use common specials that hit tanks for 400+ damage. But even on the soft capped Cures...

At level 58, with capped Healing skill:

With my +MND gear on:

I get 33 HP from Cure instead of 32(never used, though)
I get 93 HP from Cure II instead of 92(again, never used)
I get 193 HP from Cure III instead of 191(staple usage)

A small difference, I'll agree, but this entire discussion revolves around efficiency.

More to the point, I also see a significant difference in the potency of Cure IV with a wand equipped vs. a hammer (roughly +1MND = +1HP per cast) since it isn't capped for me yet.

Also, with respect to Enfeebles, with capped Enfeeble skill, while I would be the last to claim that I can stick Slow or Paralyze better than a Red Mage at my level, I can still land them about 85% of the time on VT, and better than 70% of the time against IT enemies when I have my +MND boosted by my equipment. As monsters get tougher, I'm sure this percentage will continue to degrade - but that just means I'm going to have to work harder to find +MND gear to make up for it.

Why bother?

Sometimes you don't have a Red Mage in the support slot(i.e. you have a Bard in the support slot) to cast Slow/Paralyze/Silence. So who's going to be casting them? The BLM, who has even less MND and only marginally higher Enfeebling Magic? I'm sure my party tank will be thrilled to know that I won't bother to cast Silence because I have no chance of success when a monster starts casting some Ancient Magic, Aeroga III, or Water IV or some other happy-fun damage spell. ^^


Icemage

P.S. to Lyonesse :
There is a phrase that's used to descibe people who aren't willing to deal with facts and numbers in logical debate. It's called "closed-minded". e.g. The Flat Earth Society

[Icemage]

Ice mage - does enemy build TPthe same way players do? Just wondering because when I fight crawlers for example, I often see them use a second cocoon right after i dispel their first one, sometimes they do 3 in a row non stop

Monsters seem to have different types of abilities, just like players do. In the case of Cocoon, I'm fairly certain it is a TP move. Some abilities seem to be innate, however, such as Hundred Fists by Mimas or Poisonhand. Probably what you are seeing is very fast TP accumulation by the monster. I don't know what their rate of TP gain is when they are hit, but it is definitely faster than we get as players (i.e. players get 2% per hit, very rarely 3%... I'd guess that monsters get at LEAST 5% per hit, and maybe as much as 10%, though I haven't tested it extensively).

Keep in mind that under normal circumstances, most parties have 3-4 players attacking a monster, so it can get TP very, very quickly. All it would take is a single 5-hit WS like Raging Fists plus a Triple Attack from a Thief and the monster pretty much has all it needs to WS again.

You don't have to take my word for it, though - its really, really easy to test:

Go to Sarutabaruta (east or west) as a high level job and cast a non-damage spell like Blind on a Crawler. Watch how long it takes before it uses ANY special attacks. It's very obvious once you start looking for the signs.

If you want more proof, join a Genkai 2 party and watch how quickly the NMs use their WS... it's like one every few seconds because they have 8+ frontline players beating on them.


Icemage

[Apple Pie]

Ice mage - does enemy build TPthe same way players do?

I'm not Icemage but I'm sure what he's saying is correct. Here's what I know.

---------------------------------------------------------------------
1) Mobs' HP > 25/100%:
They randomly use their WS once they have 100% TP.

1) Mobs' HP =< 25/100%:
They use it whenever they store 100% TP.
---------------------------------------------------------------------

They get their TP up in the same way as we do.

1) By hitting us
2) By being attacked by us

Imagine why we don't see any MNK when we see some HNMLS fight against some strong HNMs.

By the way, I'm tired of looking at armchair theories like a fielder is pitching instead of a pitcher in a baseball game. If it's already established or proved to work great in a real world, it's worth trying but almost all of them are just theories. No proof shown like some of those shouting "RDM is a god of melee."

Dudes, run FFRep and bring us your logs.

[locus]

Just to give an opinion (from a higher level viewpoint):

White mage can attack if you want at high levels as long as you remember that that really isn't your job. The problem isn't so much that you do bad damage or give 2 tp to the monster, the problem is that you won't hit half the time unless you bothered to max your club skill all the way (the reason why most other white mages I've seen miss like heck is because they have low low low club skill). You can safely go with a maul, not a wand, unless you need the wand for special occasions - 2 points of mind = 1 point of healing skill, cap clears early and Cure 3 is your base-cast spell for most of the latter part of the game (194 hp currently).

Icemage - correction: White mage has B+ skill in clubs, not A. Highest club skill is paladin with A-, no class has higher than that. Hexa may do terrible damage to enemies but with close to maxed skill I really don't miss noticeably more often than the other attackers. After a fight - it's entirely possible to get up to 72 tp without trying. The fact that you give your monsters more tp is moot because you aren't doing insignificant damage with a maul. Damage output over time is about the same as a dagger (and you'll give the monster less tp than the dagger, may I add). If the damage is making the monster get too much tp and use it's WS more often, I will be curing and hence NOT hitting the monster (and giving it TP). You can either hit the monster for damage and give it TP or prolong the fight and give it the same amount of TP over a longer period of time anyway.

After you get Cure 5 you should almost never get hate, so hate is almost irrelevant.

The most fun I've ever had in a party was as whm melee trying to pull off RDM Circle Blade >> WHM Skullbreaker >> DRK Nightmare Scythe >> RNG Sidewinder >> THF Dancing Edge >> PLD Swift Blade. (it didn't work, the Processionaire died by the time we got to dancing because the RDM insisted on mbing every step). Considering we got 16000 exp in that party, I don't think it was very bad. The trick is to place major downtime after 5 chain, not 1 chain, downtime till full mp, 2 chain, downtime till full mp, 3 chain downtime etc. It's chain 1-5 with common sense (i.e. don't pull at ridiculously low mp), then rest a few minutes - you'll have to use this to get exp effectively later (Clear mind gets stronger the longer you rest) and you definitely need a red mage for this. (I don't recommend meleeing in a bard party unless the monsters are braindead easy. Play a bard and you'll see why.) There usually isn't enough time to restore 1 tick of mp before you need to cure again, so sitting for one tick and casting cure is usually a bad idea.

It's also funny, because we were doing Maledictors in the Den of Rancor once with a PLD, THF and DRK. We couldnt' pull of a light renkei which the blm needed to MB effectively(for Aeroga 3) so we couldn't get higher than chain #3... until I pulled out my club and we started doing Hexa >> Shark bite on the 4th chain (I'd have enough TP by then). Damage on renkei is determined by the LAST Ws used, so it did well over 1400 damage + burst.

You have a few points, Icemage, but don't forget that hitting a monster with 18 people also means you have 3 times the curing power. With 6 people, 2% more from you per hit will not make a significant difference, as much as I know of. Since I'm not 13 people in one, I've never noticed "omg, this monster is using it's WS a lot more" - well, maybe only if I equipped a kraken club.

Lyonesse isn't being close-minded. In fact, it's rather the opposite. You have to realize she's probably playing a white mage that bothered to keep her weapon skills up to date (which is NOT necessary to play a white mage. This is not an accusation of you being a bad white mage.) and hence her attack relative to her level will be higher than yours. 1 WS point = 1 attack = 1 accuracy. I've never hit an enemy for 0 damage before unless it used Cocoon (in which case everyone starts hitting for 0 damage and it doesn't get TP when you hit for 0 damage) If anything, I'd think she answered the first post with helpful advice rather than saying "Don't do that! Do this!". There are Japanese people out there on my server with level 75 jobs with NO support job. I respect that and certainly don't think people should've tell them "don't do that, do this!". Your reputation is what you make of it - you can be a "powergamer" (rolls eyes) or you can just try to have fun.

Apple Pie, it's not nice to solicit people to run third-party programs and threated S-E's Privacy Policy just to satisfy your skepticism (and who can say if they were digitally manipulated?). The best way to check anything is to see it for yourself, Mr. lazybones~

[Icemage]

Great points, Locus (and thanks for the correction on club skill - at level 58 I'm still not quite at a level where I see the huge differences in skill level ranks, but I'm sure I'll start feeling it more in a few levels at 61+).

I should note that I DO melee when possible and reasonable, when the situation is favorable (my club skill is, and always has been maxed shortly after I level), so its not like I don't know what its like to attack as a WHM. While its true that I rarely hit for 0 against enemies who have moderate to low defense(VT and lower), versus some enemy types have naturally high defense (beetle, scorpion, antican), I've noticed that I get 0 damage regularly, even with max club skill for my level. This is also true against IT++ enemies who outclass me in Defense vs. my Attack - I hit for 0 a lot against Velociraptors and Perytons in Valley of Sorrows, and they have mostly offensive abilities.

Generally speaking, if I don't think I have a chance to get to 100%+ TP, I don't bother unless I'm trying to gain skill, or I'm just a bit bored and want to hear the combat music - and even then the only WS I almost ever use lately is Moonlight (since I don't have Hexa yet - things may change once I do though). ^^

I am curious as to how often you still use Slow/Paralyze/Silence at your level, Locus... I know that within the last 5-10 levels it has gotten harder for me to land these spells without majorly beefing up my MND stat, and I'm concerned that I'm going to hit a point where even huge amounts of +MND won't help me anymore.


Icemage

P.S. About the whole 18 people thing - the reason I used Genkai 2 as an example was not to suggest that the TP contributed by a WHM in melee was significant (it isn't), but only as a very conclusive illustration of how the enemy TP buildup works (of course, there are other great reasons for WHM to keep their distance in that fight... namely, that the Boreal NMs tend to Roar for area effect paralysis at least once every 30 seconds or so). My apologies, I should have made the context clearer.

[Apple Pie]

After you get Cure 5 you should almost never get hate, so hate is almost irrelevant.

True but if mages melee at the frontline while they throw Cure III, they generate more hate than usual. In fact, Hexa doesn't do bad when we fast-chain VT - IT(easy ones). It often outperforms Swift Blade.

Whenever they are targetted by accident (I've seen they are actually after they shoot HS) and get something like 120 damage, they may annoy the rest.

with a PLD, THF and DRK. We couldnt' pull of a light renkei which the blm needed to MB

I don't think you're trying to say white mages should melee because of this but it's not something always happening but just a rare case, I believe. If leaders of the PT wants LV3 Light effect for MB, they usually invite proper attackers like MNK to get it instead.

I'm not trying to stand against "White Worrior" theory but I've seen no white mage eating Meat Mithkabobs, subbing melee jobs, and so forth. I don't feel it's worth trying either because I know getting MP Conserve and healing MP+ foods help myself contribute to the PT much better. I don't say I never melee. I'll do whenever I have chance but I'm afraid if it even doesn't shorten even 15 seconds to beat each mob.

Bringing new ideas that break some stereotypes sounds pretty cool - only if it is proved to work. However, then, how come we don't (never) see something like WHM/DRK, WHM/WAR at all above LV65? (Nothing like these exist around LV50 - 60 as well) Are they all Mr. and Mrs. lazybones like me?

Well, how often do you think we have chance to melee? - Especially after LV60. Even among red mages, most of them recommend we sub BLM/WHM because they know this combo works in ANY situation.

Making generalization is something like that, isn't it? Otherwise we impress new players with full of misunderstanding like S-E does on their website.

best way to check anything is to see it for yourself

Definitely. I already kicked one of them out of my PT and I had one leader kick another one out of his PT. I was sorry to see the PT with WHM killed at first from Sickle Slash from Bark Tarantula (We can melee against them because of no dangerous AOE? That's BS!) in Dragon's Aery.

From what I've experienced, there've been only a few white mages (Let's say, 3% of all) dealing with both tasks perfect - They are all WHM/BLM eating Witch Kebobs, btw. 95% of them always stay back and concentrate on their primary job. Other 2% like the one I kicked out cast almost no debuff/haste but only stoneskin and a few Cure III. They gave other two mages a lot of burden and iventually made some downtime.

Being efficient isn't something we can't sense unless we take some statistics. In certain situations, resting for three ticks (restore more than 100MP with some gears above LV65) while asking other two mages to work sometimes does better overall.

Well, sorry about my long post. I just wanna conclude being flexible isn't easy even though it will benefit your PT a lot if we do it correct. Sticking to our primary job is a lot easier and safe although it often makes us bored.

[Synbios]

Originally posted by Icemage


I certainly don't like using Cure IV due to its huge enmity factor, but as I get higher and higher level I find myself using it (and I'm sure, Cure V once I get it) on a semi-regular basis due to higher MP efficiency, and the fact that monsters are starting to use common specials that hit tanks for 400+ damage. But even on the soft capped Cures...

At level 58, with capped Healing skill:

With my +MND gear on:

I get 33 HP from Cure instead of 32(never used, though)
I get 93 HP from Cure II instead of 92(again, never used)
I get 193 HP from Cure III instead of 191(staple usage)

A small difference, I'll agree, but this entire discussion revolves around efficiency.

More to the point, I also see a significant difference in the potency of Cure IV with a wand equipped vs. a hammer (roughly +1MND = +1HP per cast) since it isn't capped for me yet.

Also, with respect to Enfeebles, with capped Enfeeble skill, while I would be the last to claim that I can stick Slow or Paralyze better than a Red Mage at my level, I can still land them about 85% of the time on VT, and better than 70% of the time against IT enemies when I have my +MND boosted by my equipment. As monsters get tougher, I'm sure this percentage will continue to degrade - but that just means I'm going to have to work harder to find +MND gear to make up for it.

Why bother?

Sometimes you don't have a Red Mage in the support slot(i.e. you have a Bard in the support slot) to cast Slow/Paralyze/Silence. So who's going to be casting them? The BLM, who has even less MND and only marginally higher Enfeebling Magic? I'm sure my party tank will be thrilled to know that I won't bother to cast Silence because I have no chance of success when a monster starts casting some Ancient Magic, Aeroga III, or Water IV or some other happy-fun damage spell. ^^


Icemage

P.S. to Lyonesse :
There is a phrase that's used to descibe people who aren't willing to deal with facts and numbers in logical debate. It's called "closed-minded". e.g. The Flat Earth Society

During my whole levelling phase, the only mobs that I need to silence are worms, and a few anticans/goblins at level 60-61, and they're like 1 out of 4 pulls, and in cases like this, your E.Seal should be used for silencing, not to Aspir back like 20 MP, then again, whenever I make a levelling party, the first job I'd look for is a RDM, if there's no RDM I'll just wait for one to pop, no point levelling without a RDM. Maybe it's because of personal preferences like this boosting stats to stick a few enfeebles never crossed my mind, BTW, if your party actually wanna level on BLM types without a RDM, you better leave the party. ^^ I had to silence the anticans not because we didn't have a RDM, but he had a problem understanding what is |Silence| <t>.

[Synbios]

Originally posted by Apple Pie


I don't think you're trying to say white mages should melee because of this but it's not something always happening but just a rare case, I believe. If leaders of the PT wants LV3 Light effect for MB, they usually invite proper attackers like MNK to get it instead.

Shark Bite = Fragmentation
Spinning Slash = Fragmentation
Dragon Kick = Fragmentation

A MNK would just replace the THF and DRK. Unless you wanna put the PLD into renkei.. (Do you really want to do this?)

[locus]

Icemage
Slow, Paralyze and Silence I can land about 2 out of three castings. AF armor helps a lot and so does max enfeebling (use dia repeatedly in skill up parties). I generally only bother if the enemy isn't strong against ice, air or earth (for the corresponding elements). When I wear my +mind gear, I frankly don't... see... a single difference in my effectiveness as a white mage. I heal for the same amount with 14 more mind. For that reason, lately I've concluded that +mp is better than +mind - I'd recommend saving +Mind gear for things where you can't muck up like BCNM. But even in BCNM +mp is probably better...

Apple Pie
I was about to ask you when the heck you ever saw a monk do fusion, but Synbios took the words right out of my mouth... unless you wanted us to do something incredibly stupid like fast blade >> burning blade >> combo >> shark bite (ooh a drk using a 1handed sword!)

And since when has thf and drk not been a "proper attacker"?

I suppose you always have the exact class you want available (rolls eyes).

You're missing the point entirely. I've seen Japanese people with a level 75 white mage, bard and beastmaster WITHOUT a subjob. They don't do this because they CAN'T get a subjob, they do it to make the game a challenge. The reason you don't see white mage/combat job is primarily because people with the patience/money/skill to perform well in such cases are few and far between.

Kicking people out of your party is often the silliest way of resolving matters because it gives you a terrible reputation. The next time your entire party dies and needs a Raise 2, it may be him you have to call for help. Resting in-battle is perfectly fine if you are SURE your party can continue without you. For Bark tarantulae though, sickle can easily wipe out 75% of the paladin's life in one hit. You need to be able to counter it FAST. And yet you'd want to rest? You can't cast spells when you rest, but you can cast spells any time you want in auto combat.

[Apple Pie]

Unless you wanna put the PLD into renkei.. (Do you really want to do this?)

Synby, I don't think we had problem with this.

Red Lotus Blade => Howling Fist => Spinning Slash + AerogaIII or Thunder III.

Our PT (All LV68) consisted of BLM, BRD, DRK, MNK, PLD, and myself as WHM (I wish this were my account).

We weren't able to skillchain every fights but did one every two fights. Our PLD never needed to rest because she was always drinking Melon Juices, wearing Vermillion Cloak while resting and have always Ballad II (mostly due to great BRD) on her.

Not sure if we did great amount of xp but I believe we didn't do bad.

[Jei]

All fighters can create a level 3 skillchain with their Lv65+ WS which includes Pld too. I'm not an expert about high level skillchain so i can't elaborate further.

The way I see is that, every jobs, I mean EVERY jobs will need to farm and support themselves for their needed items. So I can understand if a Whm wants to attack to increase their soloabilities.

At higher level you know how specific each jobs' roles are. Tanks tank, attackers attack, healers heal, nukers nuke, which in a sense you CAN expect what your PT members are going to do that will be best to the group.

Leaving the skillchain aspect aside, if I have a PLD in the group, I expect that, ok, now I can comfortably trust the tanking part to him and that I can get more attackers without worrying about their defense now. What will happen if we invite drk and rng into the group and turns out that the Pld is using /nin or /thf and use +attack gear instead of defensive gear which he was expected to use? It's basicly ruining the group as a whole, not just individuals.

Same thing apply to Whm in my view. You invite Whm, you expect him to concentrate on healing right? Do you expect the Whm to give you extra damage? I guess not.

I don't mind a Whm attacking as long as they hold true to their identity. People are relying on you to heal and so that should be your first and top most priority. Not gearing yourself towards that direction is like denying the true self of what you are, and trying to be something else.

A cow can't sing like a cricket even if she eats what a cricket eats ;o that will only hurts the cow herself.