Hume: WHM/SMN vs. WHM/BLM

[Manatra]

Originally posted by Icemage
Ok. Point by point.

- Extra MP from /BLM is meaningless to me. I have roughly equal max MP as a Taru WHM/BRD as a Mithra WHM/BLM at my level, and usually have extra MP left over even at the end of Chain #5. MP pool is not an issue with sufficient MP recovery.

- Ballad I offsets the lack of Conserve MP. Yes, I lose some extra MP this way, but with other spellcasters in the group, this always results in more MP total for the party. Tried, tested, proven. I compensate by using MP recovery food (Hobgoblin Chocolate) and a Dark Staff (+15 hMP). I have zero MP problems doing this, and usually have more MP than an otherwise normal WHM/BLM at my level towards the end of an XP chain. So where am I losing out, here?

- Aerial Armor is not as sexy as it seems. It doesn't work against non-physical AoE, and doesn't do anything against -ga spells (all -ga spell effects immediately nullify blink-type effects and hit all players anyway). The only AoE effects Aerial Armor will absorb (sometimes) are things like Battle Dance from Orcs, Spinning Fin from Sahagin, and Whirl of Rage from Weapons. Tack on the fact that it costs well over 100MP and over 10 seconds to summon Garuda and activate the Blood Pact/Aerial Armor ability before dismissing Garuda. How is this better than spending 8 seconds singing a song which costs 0 MP? I don't see parties at 50+ lining up to kill these sorts of enemies for XP, except perhaps for Weapons in Ro'Maeve around level 72-74.

Main bards are rarer than gold on my server, and I'm sure pretty rare on the other servers as well. I've partied with a Bard main less than 10 times between level 50 and level 70.

You suggest that /BRD songs are weaker than BRD main. Of course they are. That is not the point - they still give me the ability to provide a party with things that would not otherwise be possible with /BLM.

I've been using /BRD virtually exclusively since level 60, except the handful of times when I actually had a main bard in the party, and not once have I had someone say "man, you should be subbing BLM, that Bard subjob isn't doing anything."

Instead I get comments like "Wow, WHM/BRD is better than I thought. We had a WHM/SMN before but our downtime is lower with WHM/BRD." Do you really think I would continue to use my "useless" bard subjob if I thought it wasn't worth the extra effort involved to play?


Icemage

If your PT is without a BRD then your backline should be something similar to RDM, WHM, BLM, or maybe RDM, SMN, WHM. In EITHER case the effect of ballad is minimal. If your BLM is nuking to the point of being out of MP, then there is something wrong, a RDM will rarely, if ever be out of MP as well, which leaves the WHM, the WHM in most PT setups is what slows the PT down, this is because of our horrible MP recovery, we rely on other people, equip, and subjobs to give MP recovery to us. By subbing BLM or SMN you give yourself an extra boost in MP AND MP recovery, by subbing BRD you bring nothing to the PT, madrigal is basically ineffective (see Rones comments) and what's the point of ballad? Wow, you have this small group spell that's sortof helping it out, you're wasting 8 seconds at a time casting it, and guess what, you're STILL lagging behind the BLM and RDM in terms of keeping up your MP. SMN or BLM is far more effective for their MP recovery. The only reason you have more MP than a WHM/BLM at the end of an exp chain is because you are sitting there taking these 8 second breaks casting a song. I repeat what I said earlier, if you are SJing BRD, something is fundamentally wrong with your PT setup if it were actually useful I'd see people in my search bar with WHM/BRD, instead it's all WHM/SMN and WHM/BLM.

[Rones]

Congrats Manatra on repeating your flawed logic that we already countered. You even counterdict yourself in your own post:

In EITHER case the effect of ballad is minimal.

SMN...is far more effective for their MP recovery.

Last I checked, both ballad and smn were 1mp every 3 seconds. So that's a bad rate when its from subbing /brd, but its 'far more effective' when its from smn? On top of that, it would be 3-5mp every 3 seconds with brd when you consider it being on 3 mages +1-2 melees. So how is 1 mp every 3 seconds 'far more effective' than 3-5 mp every 3 seconds? Or perhaps like this will make it more clear: 40 mp every 2 min fight from smn or 120-200mp every 2 min fight with brd? Please explain your reasoning, I can't wait to see your explanantion.

If your BLM is nuking to the point of being out of MP

That's because they save some for emergencies, but if they had more they could nuke more before reaching that safety net line (usually 200-300 mp they save). As well, ballad would mean they could refill their mp faster since ballad is basically 1/3 a dark staff (you can get 3-4 mp from ballad for every tick you get while resting).

the WHM in most PT setups is what slows the PT down, this is because of our horrible MP recovery

That's news to me. I haven't been the cause of downtime since I got my dark staff. The only one who ever causes downtime anymore is the pld who has to burn up half their mp to keep the hate or whenever someone makes a mistake (mistargets or d/c). Especially now with cure V, I find it exceptionally easy to keep my mp within 100-200 mp of max after every fight. As well, with cure V and my excess of mp, I find I have a lot of spare time during fights, more than enough to throw a ballad at the least.

madrigal is basically ineffective (see Rones comments)

While I do agree you should see my comments, I never said anything about it being ineffective. Madrigal 1 feels like it gives +10 accu from experiments while playing mnk with a brd and switching in tropical punches (+10 accu) while madrigal is off. +10 accu is the equivalent of 2 sniper rings which everyone praises makes a huge difference for a drk. So why is +10 accu the best thing ever in one case, but utterly dismisable in another?

what's the point of ballad?

What's the point of a vermillion cloak? :p Really now, you are downplaying this spell too much. Even main brds still use it at 75 in conjunction with ballad 2. Why? Because that little bit is what makes a difference.

if it were actually useful I'd see people in my search bar with WHM/BRD, instead it's all WHM/SMN and WHM/BLM.

If people weren't so stubburn and unwilling to see the advantages of another possible subjob, then you would see more /brd.

In conclusion, I will give to the argument that blm > brd in some party configurations, but brd > smn in every exp situation that has been brought up. If you want to say otherwise about smn, feel free to disprove what has been stated.

[Laehn]

You people dont understand, ive subbed brd. I know what it does.

Subbing brd is the weakest subjob in the game because you dont get ACCESS to all of its abilities. You can still access ALL of a rdm or blms magic abilities, ALL of them in ALL of their glory. Last time i checked, i could use divine magic with my whm sub, even if it sucks kitty litter. Youre not able to use any instrument skill, thats 2/3 bard skills you dont get access too. Youre also limited to one song, another limiting factor. And anotehr thing to even further gimpify the subjob, youre missing out on bonuses from instruments. Youre not able to use those skills. Nobody but a brd can use string or wind instrument skills, nobody. This is what makes the job the WEAKEST in the game to sub.

With a blm sub, you might not be able to nuke many IT monsters, but you could still pretty effectively nuke more difficult weak monsters. Not to mention, many of those rdm and blm spells can take advantage of your current whm skills. For example, dispel uses enfeebling magic, whm has an enfeebling skill, however weak it is, and dispel isnt resisted too frequent even when being subbed by a whm or blm. Elemental debuffs, now youre not gonna be able to use these in exp parties, but skill up parties (if you want hexastrike) its nice to have frost on the mob. How about phalanx? Phalanx is an enhancing magic multiplier. As a whm, you get a pretty nice enhancing magic skill, so full power there. How about all those en spells too? Cant forget about those fun spikes spells either, for when youre soloing.

That fact is what makes it the WEAKEST subjob in the game. No matter what subjob you have (except for brd) you get access to all of the jobs abilities, skills, and stat bonuses up to half your main jobs lvl, minus their 2hr. Bard subjob, you get access to 1 out of 3 of the jobs skills.

You also didnt even touch on the fact of how much MP conserve mp saves. Blm is the single best subjob for caster type jobs, which excludes smn (they summon, they dont cast) and bards (they sing), because of this ability, if youre casting a lot of spells back to back, conserve mp has a lot of chances to kick in and save you lots and lots of mp. Why do you think almost every rdm and whm uses blm sub? You think they havent considered other subjobs? Also, why do you think blms have less of an MP problem than whms or rdms? Their spells cost a bunch of mp, and even if theyre not casting nukes back to back, that conserve mp trait really saves them hundreds of mp with their nukes.

Its kinda arrogant to say "If people weren't so stubburn and unwilling to see the advantages of another possible subjob, then you would see more /brd." You honestly think all these other whms around havent seriously considered subbing rdm, smn, or even brd?

Manatra makes a good point in saying that ALL the whms in his/her search bar sub smn or blm. No matter how strong you may think your argument is, there are still all those whms that think that blm is the superior subjob. It may not be real substantial argument, but its still a very powerful argument. Youre going against close to the entire whm population on every server saying brd is advantageous in all pt situations over smn.

Now, im giving you my opinion, as a bard. No matter how much you think you know about bard as a job or subjob, i can give you an honest, unbiased, tried and tested testimony to its advantages and disadvantages.

And, sorry to say, but you yourself brought up a few instances where smn subjob would be far better than brd. Fighting weapons, fighting orcs, fighting tigers (their claw attack thingy can be absorbed by blink) fighting yagudos, magic dolls, giants, rabbits, saplings, and other mobs i probably cant think of all have AOE that can be easily absorbed by blink saving massive mp. Granted most parties are too scared of fighting these since most pts arent coordinated enough to fight them. But there are obvious advantages to fighting these types of mobs. Many of them are weak to PC (all beastmen) and theyre often rarely hunted, easy targets, offer good exp, and quite often, nice drops. Just because youre too insecure to fight these mobs since you dont have a smn subjob doesnt mean that the argument isnt valid or that other people shouldnt take it into consideration. Aerial armor is VERY useful, but, just like brd subjob, it's situational. But the benefits of smn subjob augment the natural duties of a whm since whm rely so heavily on their mp pool.

[Zaleshea]

Long time ago, I wanted to sub RDM, til I found out, refresh is out of reach. However, I can if I want dispel. But I digress... /BLM all the way for me.

[Icemage]

Originally posted by Laehn
You people dont understand, ive subbed brd. I know what it does.

No, apparently you really weren't trying very hard to make /BRD work. It's very potent (for a sub) when used correctly, much more so than /SMN, and arguably more so than /BLM when the party conditions are favorable.

Originally posted by Laehn
Subbing brd is the weakest subjob in the game because you dont get ACCESS to all of its abilities. You can still access ALL of a rdm or blms magic abilities, ALL of them in ALL of their glory. Last time i checked, i could use divine magic with my whm sub, even if it sucks kitty litter. Youre not able to use any instrument skill, thats 2/3 bard skills you dont get access too. Youre also limited to one song, another limiting factor. And anotehr thing to even further gimpify the subjob, youre missing out on bonuses from instruments. Youre not able to use those skills. Nobody but a brd can use string or wind instrument skills, nobody. This is what makes the job the WEAKEST in the game to sub.

Umm.... ok. You talk about the limitations, but are unwilling to see that there are ways to be effective WITHIN those limitations.

Only one song? Darn. Ballad on mages, Madrigal on melees, Prelude on Rangers. All for 0 MP.

Your argument that /BRD is a terrible sub specifically because it has limitations would be the same as saying /BLM is a terrible sub because elemental nukes suck lemons when your Elemental skill is too low when subbed. It makes absolutely no sense. You don't use a /BLM sub to nuke, and you don't use a /BRD sub to sing Minuet.

Originally posted by Laehn
With a blm sub, you might not be able to nuke many IT monsters, but you could still pretty effectively nuke more difficult weak monsters. Not to mention, many of those rdm and blm spells can take advantage of your current whm skills. For example, dispel uses enfeebling magic, whm has an enfeebling skill, however weak it is, and dispel isnt resisted too frequent even when being subbed by a whm or blm. Elemental debuffs, now youre not gonna be able to use these in exp parties, but skill up parties (if you want hexastrike) its nice to have frost on the mob. How about phalanx? Phalanx is an enhancing magic multiplier. As a whm, you get a pretty nice enhancing magic skill, so full power there. How about all those en spells too? Cant forget about those fun spikes spells either, for when youre soloing.

- Dispel is great as /RDM. However, more often than not there is already a RDM present in my XP parties, so a WHM with Dispel is generally not needed (exception made if there's a Bard in the party and no RDM, in which case /RDM is a valid choice as a backup dispel in case Magic Finale is resisted). If anything, I find that against skeleton spellcasters like Doom Warlocks, my subbed Magic Finale is MORE effective at wiping away Ice Spikes (read: 99% effective) than even a main RDM's Dispel, since their Dark resistance is so high.

Originally posted by Laehn
That fact is what makes it the WEAKEST subjob in the game. No matter what subjob you have (except for brd) you get access to all of the jobs abilities, skills, and stat bonuses up to half your main jobs lvl, minus their 2hr. Bard subjob, you get access to 1 out of 3 of the jobs skills.

Actually, no, you get access to one song every level. Not all of them are usable, but there are still enough to make it a worthwhile subjob. So what if I only have 10 usable songs? I barely have enough spare time to sing 2-3, so what you see as a limitation, I see as no lost opportunities. I use my Bard subjob to give me something worthwhile to do in between my other WHM duties.
I'm not THERE in a party to sing songs the whole time and toss a cure now and then - if a party really wants that, they'll go get a main bard (if they can). I certainly think that I bring more to a party with a RDM + BLM backline than a WHM/BLM does, and that's good enough for me.

And correction - /DRG is the weakest subjob in the game. /BRD doesn't even come close.

Originally posted by Laehn
You also didnt even touch on the fact of how much MP conserve mp saves.

Actually, yes I did. Read carefully.

Originally posted by Laehn
Blm is the single best subjob for caster type jobs, which excludes smn (they summon, they dont cast) and bards (they sing), because of this ability, if youre casting a lot of spells back to back, conserve mp has a lot of chances to kick in and save you lots and lots of mp. Why do you think almost every rdm and whm uses blm sub? You think they havent considered other subjobs? Also, why do you think blms have less of an MP problem than whms or rdms? Their spells cost a bunch of mp, and even if theyre not casting nukes back to back, that conserve mp trait really saves them hundreds of mp with their nukes.

BLM have less of an MP problem than WHM and RDM for several reasons, most important of which is that they can rest more than WHM or RDM. This is especially true at higher levels, when the only things they're usually casting are opening elemental enfeebles, Bio II, and Magic Bursting. Duh.

Originally posted by Laehn
Its kinda arrogant to say "If people weren't so stubburn and unwilling to see the advantages of another possible subjob, then you would see more /brd." You honestly think all these other whms around havent seriously considered subbing rdm, smn, or even brd?

I know from first-hand experience that /BRD is equally, if not more effective than /BLM. I used /BLM from level 40 to level 60. You think I don't know the difference? I do.

Originally posted by Laehn
Manatra makes a good point in saying that ALL the whms in his/her search bar sub smn or blm. No matter how strong you may think your argument is, there are still all those whms that think that blm is the superior subjob. It may not be real substantial argument, but its still a very powerful argument. Youre going against close to the entire whm population on every server saying brd is advantageous in all pt situations over smn.

Now, im giving you my opinion, as a bard. No matter how much you think you know about bard as a job or subjob, i can give you an honest, unbiased, tried and tested testimony to its advantages and disadvantages.

I played WHM/RDM until level 40. WHM/BLM until level 60. WHM/BRD until level 70. The only reason people don't use WHM/BRD more often is that it takes a lot of energy and is hard to play; most people are too lazy to put forth the effort. It has nothing to do with the relative effectiveness - only perception and capability.

Originally posted by Laehn
And, sorry to say, but you yourself brought up a few instances where smn subjob would be far better than brd. Fighting weapons, fighting orcs, fighting tigers (their claw attack thingy can be absorbed by blink) fighting yagudos, magic dolls, giants, rabbits, saplings, and other mobs i probably cant think of all have AOE that can be easily absorbed by blink saving massive mp. Granted most parties are too scared of fighting these since most pts arent coordinated enough to fight them. But there are obvious advantages to fighting these types of mobs. Many of them are weak to PC (all beastmen) and theyre often rarely hunted, easy targets, offer good exp, and quite often, nice drops. Just because youre too insecure to fight these mobs since you dont have a smn subjob doesnt mean that the argument isnt valid or that other people shouldnt take it into consideration. Aerial armor is VERY useful, but, just like brd subjob, it's situational. But the benefits of smn subjob augment the natural duties of a whm since whm rely so heavily on their mp pool.

Wrong. People avoid XPing on these monsters as a whole because they involve huge downtime, even with Aerial Armor. Big AoE attacks drain MP from healers, increase chance of death, and hence lower your overall XP gain - Aerial Armor mitigates this, but does not remove it. That's why people avoid these monsters unless there are no other alternatives.


Icemage

[Rones]

No matter what subjob you have (except for brd) you get access to all of the jobs abilities,

Well actually we do get access to all the brd abilties (minus the 2 hour). Problem is there is none. :p Blm only provides 1 job ability (elemental seal) and smn provides 0 job abilities. Job abilities isn't much a factor for whms when looking for a sub.

With a blm sub, you might not be able to nuke many IT monsters, but you could still pretty effectively nuke more difficult weak monsters.

LMAO, I can't nuke anything above lvl 30 with any kind of effectiveness with my blm sub mainly because my sub is capped at half my main at 32. Even then, those nukes are only semi-effective outside an exp situation (where whm/blm rules for questing, etc.).

For example, dispel uses enfeebling magic, whm has an enfeebling skill, however weak it is, and dispel isnt resisted too frequent even when being subbed by a whm or blm.

Now you're talking about subbing rdm at high lvls. I will give you credit for finding a sub worse than sum to use at upper lvls. Not only are you missing blms conserve mp, but also any kind of mp regen whatsover from smn or brd. And when was the last time someone went exping 60+ without a brd or rdm main?

Elemental debuffs, now youre not gonna be able to use these in exp parties,

I always leave that to the parties blm or rdm since my elemental skills are to weak to ever hope of landing those (not enfeebling class spell). Outside an exp situation those might be useful, but utterly unusable against IT. And this entire argument is about subbing brd in an exp situation against IT mobs, so you're really getting off subject.

How about phalanx? Phalanx is an enhancing magic multiplier. As a whm, you get a pretty nice enhancing magic skill, so full power there. How about all those en spells too? Cant forget about those fun spikes spells either, for when youre soloing.

More non-applicable facts. Those would never be used by a whm/rdm in an exp situation.

You honestly think all these other whms around havent seriously considered subbing rdm, smn, or even brd?

I have no idea why they would consider subbing rdm at 50+, but I do think most whms never considered subbing brd past 50. Just check Icemage's origonal thread about it. Many commented they had never considered it.

And, sorry to say, but you yourself brought up a few instances where smn subjob would be far better than brd.

I wasn't the one that mentioned those btw.

Youre going against close to the entire whm population on every server saying brd is advantageous in all pt situations over smn.

Let's see if I can find your reasons and counter them...

Reason 1:

Manatra makes a good point in saying that ALL the whms in his/her search bar sub smn or blm.

Counter 1:

It may not be real substantial argument

That was a an easy one.

Reason 2:

Fighting weapons, fighting orcs, fighting tigers (their claw attack thingy can be absorbed by blink) fighting yagudos, magic dolls, giants, rabbits, saplings, and other mobs i probably cant think of all have AOE that can be easily absorbed by blink saving massive mp.

Counter 1: No one exps on those.
Counter 2: Most of those aoe's could be patched by a simple curaga or curaga 2 (60 or 120 mp) each. Compare that to the 100 mp for aerial armor. I'm not seeing a large difference in mp conserved, plus those things do that attack 2-3 times a fight. So are you going to burn 300 mp casting 3 aerial armors or curagas? No, because it causes giant downtime and is further reason why no one exps against those type of mobs.'
Counter 3: Aerial armor would save you extremely little mp in reality. Consider a normal party, tank, 2 melees, 3 mages. The mages aren't getting hit by the aoe anyway, and the tanks aerial armor is taken off by normal hits. So aerial armor is only blocking 2 hits from the aoe, one for each of the dmg dealer melees. How does that warrent 100 mp? Also, as Icemage said, aerial armor doesn't even work on all aoes.

Reason 3:

But the benefits of smn subjob augment the natural duties of a whm since whm rely so heavily on their mp pool.

Counter 1: I love it when people pull the mp pool reason for smn sub job. A taru whm/brd has more mp than a hume whm/smn. So according your own argument, it would be better to go with the taru.
Counter 2: Mp tank size really isn't a factor 51+. Its not how big your gas tank is, but how fast you can refill it. Brd not only refills it just as fast as smn, but increases the refill speed for everyone in the party.

That's all the arguments I found in your post about smn being better than brd. So I will stand by my previous statement until you come up with some better reasons.

[Manatra]

Reason 2:

quote:
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Fighting weapons, fighting orcs, fighting tigers (their claw attack thingy can be absorbed by blink) fighting yagudos, magic dolls, giants, rabbits, saplings, and other mobs i probably cant think of all have AOE that can be easily absorbed by blink saving massive mp.
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Counter 1: No one exps on those.
Counter 2: Most of those aoe's could be patched by a simple curaga or curaga 2 (60 or 120 mp) each. Compare that to the 100 mp for aerial armor. I'm not seeing a large difference in mp conserved, plus those things do that attack 2-3 times a fight. So are you going to burn 300 mp casting 3 aerial armors or curagas? No, because it causes giant downtime and is further reason why no one exps against those type of mobs.'
Counter 3: Aerial armor would save you extremely little mp in reality. Consider a normal party, tank, 2 melees, 3 mages. The mages aren't getting hit by the aoe anyway, and the tanks aerial armor is taken off by normal hits. So aerial armor is only blocking 2 hits from the aoe, one for each of the dmg dealer melees. How does that warrent 100 mp? Also, as Icemage said, aerial armor doesn't even work on all aoes.

People regularly get experience on weapons (Shrine of Ru'Avitau and Ro'Maeve), tigers (Ovnnik in Kuftal), wyverns (Ladon in Kuftal).

And at around 60 killing Orcs in Davoi is nice as well as killing giants in upper delkfutts tower.

Aerial armor is also quite effective when you have a RNG/WAR or other job that pulls massive hate, it's also quite useful with NIN tanks who sometimes have the monster turn to someone else.

[Rones]

I haven't experienced fighting against the first few you mentioned yet, but I have gone against the orcs and giants. I found regular curaga 1 + 2 to easily handle those aoes. Like I said before, going off a normal party formation that 100 mp is only preventing 2 hits anyway since the mages should be outside aoe range and the aerial armor will be gone off tank before aoe comes up.

Aerial armor is also quite effective when you have a RNG/WAR or other job that pulls massive hate,

100 mp to block a couple hits? Cure IV is 88 mp and recovers 400+ for me. Most rngs I party with take ~150-200 a hit, so 300-400 dmg for those two hits. Meaning its better for me to just cure 3 or 4 on them than aerial armor. As well, you risk casting aerial armor and not even having the rng pull the hate while its up meaning you just wasted 100 mp.

[Icemage]

Regarding Ovinnik(tigers): The downtime associated with Ovinnik is NOT due to their AoE Claw Cyclone attacks. Proper party positioning fixes that problem so that only the tank gets hit usually. The major problem with these things is Roar, their AoE Paralyze attack. It's extremely irritating, and ... ta-da... can't be blocked by Aerial Armor.

Regarding Ladon:
The most annoying thing about Ladon is their Dispelling Wind attack, which wipes out the most recent status effect applied to everyone in range. Yes, that means it will wipe out your 100MP Aerial Armor. I cover my melees with Madrigal, which is a 0 MP counter to Dispelling Wind. MUCH better solution, I assure you.

Regarding Weapons in RuAuvitau:
This is one of the only times where I think Aerial Armor really shines, since it can (sometimes) stop Whirl of Rage's AoE damage/stun effect. For these, I do recommend using /SMN25+ if you have it available.

Orc's Battle Dance attack doesn't usually deal enough damage to make Aerial Armor all that effective. Giants in Upper Delkfut's have 2 attacks that can be blocked by Aerial Armor - Grand Slam and Lightning Roar. Of those, Lightning Roar is a line of sight attack - proper party positioning negates its ability to hit multiple players. Grand Slam deals minimal damage, you're better off patching melees with Regen I/II than using Aerial Armor.


Icemage

[Miriamel]

Roar is easily countered by Barblizzara. It'll save you 1-3 paralyna's per Roar.

[Icemage]

Barblizzara helps, but you still end up spending time wiping off Paralyze effects more than half the time, and because they Roar so often (about twice per fight unless you kill it fast with a skillchain), you still end up casting Paralyna at least 3 times per battle on average with 3 people in melee range. If you get one of those melee-happy RDM (ugh...) it makes it VERY annoying to cast Paralyna, with 4 people in Roar range.

Really, though, the main issue with Roar isn't really the MP cost of Paralyna or Barblizzara, which is pretty much negligible, but that it makes melees miss attacks and other actions which extend the fight an extra 5-15 seconds each time it happens, which can ruin an XP chain. You can only cast Paralyna so fast even if you weren't in the middle of casting something like Regen III when it happens, and that, more than anything, is what I find produces the most downtime on Ovinnik.

The damage attacks like Razor Fang and Claw Cyclone just make me spend a bit more MP, which is acceptable even if you don't manage to Flash them away. If your tank is a PLD, alternating Flash can nullify at least 1/3-1/2 of these attacks if your timing is good.


Icemage

[Tifa]

She meant Barblizzara + Barparalyzra. I just finished an exp session there fighting the cockatrices and tigers, and when I had both those buffs up, 1 or less people would get paralyzed from the tiger's move, out of 3 melee, and sometimes the RDM was up there. I think only one time did I see more than 1 person get paralyzed from that move, provided I had the 2 buffs up. It's pretty solid, not guaranteed but saved me bunch of annoying paralyna's.

edit: Barparalyzra does have a rather long cast time, and I'm not sure a whm/brd would have time for this between songs and initial spells. Up to the player i guess.

[Icemage]

I've never noticed Barparalyzra (or any bar-status, actually) to actually prevent the effect, it just seems to shorten the duration of affliction. If it does, its so rare that I can't tell the difference. I'd REALLY like to see Square-Enix take the initiative on these spells and make them actually make you resist the effect instead of just shortening the duration.

Barblizzara, on the other hand, is pretty effective against Roar, but still not foolproof.


Icemage

[Tifa]

That's just the thing. With only Barparalyzra, you will never resist it, only shorten the effect's duration on you. However by adding the corresponding element Barblizzara, you will see some resists. I sugges you try it over a few battles, if anything you will at least see that it works. Whether or not it's worth it, is up to each player.

[Miriamel]

I have found if you cast Barblizzara on its own or Barblizzara + Barparalyzra doesn't make a difference in terms of complete resists.

But yes, on average I have to paralyna one or two people at most with using Barblizzara, and I *hardly ever* get the "xxx is paralyzed." notice, because I can usually remove the paralysis from one or at most two people before it kicks in. Hence I find it's definitely worth casting and at the same time saves you the 'longer fights'. Japanese parties usually insist on having two Paralyze-removers, anyway. Usually the BLM watches one person and I keep track of the other two.

Also, I'm not faced with Roar all that often - I find Odin's Ovinniks prefer Razor Fang.

All in all, I find my job keeps me busy enough as it is, specially on mobs such as Toramas, Cockatrice, Goobbues, Golems and bones where I can actually MB.

PS has anyone else found that Cure IV MB's higher than Cure V does? I'm thinking the MB damage on Undead is dependent on the hate gained by the Cure spell, and we all know Cure IV gets you more hate than Cure V.