Hume: WHM/SMN vs. WHM/BLM

[Manatra]

I MB Cure IV about 300-330ish on skeletons, and MB Cure V about 400-440ish. So Cure V is more powerful (and I believe is comparable to BLM spell of the sam MP cost for MP damage ratio. I remember in Gustav my RDM Chainspelled + Cure IV to get us Chain 6 hehe.

When I hit 73 I'll see what affect Cleric's Pantaloons have on the Barblizzara spell. It'll be interesting to see. But anyway I think the general consensus right now for SJ is in exp PT

BLM > SMN > BRD > RDM

[Icemage]

BLM > SMN > BRD > RDM

That seems to be public opinion, yes.

Realistic XP parties at level 60+, on the other hand, favor /BLM(when a Bard is present) and /BRD(when a RDM is present but no BRD) much more than /SMN(situationally good, but only for specific enemies) or RDM(basically only useful if BRD main is present and you're fighting things that use lots of buffs like Crabs or Crawlers).


Icemage

[Iyanden]

Wouldn't SMN be a better sub for races low on mps?

As an Elvaan WHM with summoner subbed I still run out near the end of an IT fight at level 26. Equipping the RSE from 27 to 31 will help with this, but I have also invested in the Magicians earring for level 30, the +30mps will be great

Can any other Elvaan WHM comment on this?
I'd like to switch to BLM sub as SMN is painful to level, I've got to 21 but with only cure 1 and avatars that can't hit an easy prey (with maxed summoning skill) I feel like I'm letting parties down.:sweat:

[Miriamel]

I'm Elvaan WHM lvl70 and going strong, I've posted my opinion on some earlier page. My MP Pool at lvl70 with BLM sub is at 867MP, which is more than most Hume/Mithra WHM I know.

[Tifa]

well you have a healing staff 3095q3u4pheqrgoq34t[q3h0hg[eron;v

nice. you do give up -4 enmity by wearing RSE gloves, but at level 70 theres not much need for it anyways. also giving up another -1 enmity on headpiece, but who cares i guess. nice equip.

[Miriamel]

Thanks.

So far, I didn't really need the -enmity from the hand piece, even with NIN tank. I always keep it handy though, in case the tank is a little wavey. What bummed me most about switching to RSE2 was giving up on the +15 Healing Skill, but oh well. It doesn't seem to make that big of a difference.

I sometimes use the headpiece... if there is no RDM in my party and hence I have to enfeeble. I find the +MND helps quite a bit with that.

[sylvanas]

Originally posted by Iyanden
Wouldn't SMN be a better sub for races low on mps?

As an Elvaan WHM with summoner subbed I still run out near the end of an IT fight at level 26. Equipping the RSE from 27 to 31 will help with this, but I have also invested in the Magicians earring for level 30, the +30mps will be great

Can any other Elvaan WHM comment on this?
I'd like to switch to BLM sub as SMN is painful to level, I've got to 21 but with only cure 1 and avatars that can't hit an easy prey (with maxed summoning skill) I feel like I'm letting parties down.:sweat:

ive never bothered with a blm sub. for exp it has its uses, but for endgame activities the support spells you get are useless/self convenience only. a smn sub gives you a bit more base mp/autorefresh/more mnd/aerial armor, imo more useful than anything /blm gives you. theres something to be said for the convenience of a blm sub, but i feel that /smn supports the job of a whm better.

if youre concerned about early level mp concerns with /blm versus /smn, ive heard some people say conserve mp is better, and yet some people swear by autorefresh...most /blms i know complain that conserve mp doesnt kick in enough however. i think either or will work just fine, youll learn to deal with your mp.

[Sadeira]

there's a taru in port windurst that explains how bar spells affect status effects.

bar-element has a chance of completely (not 100%) blocking the effect in question.

for example, paralyze is ice so barblizzard will block anything that causes paralysis. poison is water so barwater will block any poison type attacks.

bar-status definitely shortens the duration of the effect but does not have a chance of blocking it.

if you don't believe me, just ask the taru, he hangs out on in front of the orastery in front on the water.

sometimes i think the npcs have more information about the game than we believe them to have. i guess we're all too busy exping to take the time to talk to them

[Icemage]

Originally posted by Iyanden
Wouldn't SMN be a better sub for races low on mps?

As an Elvaan WHM with summoner subbed I still run out near the end of an IT fight at level 26. Equipping the RSE from 27 to 31 will help with this, but I have also invested in the Magicians earring for level 30, the +30mps will be great

Can any other Elvaan WHM comment on this?
I'd like to switch to BLM sub as SMN is painful to level, I've got to 21 but with only cure 1 and avatars that can't hit an easy prey (with maxed summoning skill) I feel like I'm letting parties down.:sweat:

The common misconception is that max MP pool is vastly more important than any other benefits. It's not true at low levels, and it's even less true at high levels.

Use gear and food to make up for MP shortfalls. It's a lot less painful. /SMN is simply terrible until you get to 50/25, you literally get nothing useful other than MP and a very marginal Shell/Protect from Shining Ruby until then.

Eat a pie and save yourself the trouble.


Icemage

[Stolin]

I agree with ice mage here big time. Max MP pool means moot. Yea Garuda is a PLDs best friend sometimes but not really in EXP. If you are playing smn SJ all the way to 75 just for those few moments you are gimping your party just from your own lazyness. WHM/BRD is really nice if there isn't a bard in your party. WHM/BLM is a lot safer and has more useful abilities than /SMN in EXP. This game is not all about the end game. You shouldn't be gimped in any part of it.

As for resists i think its proven that barparalyzra lessens the paralyze time (or does it decrease the chance of paralyze kicking in?) whatever it doesn't matter the melees will be paralynaed almost the 2nd after the kitties use raor.

As for downtime on them. I wouldn't know, never had downtime on my bard since level 55.

[SonikU4ia]

The way I see it, there isn't a real definitive answer to this question, unless you consider the XP Party you're in.

We could list the pro's and con's all day long, but it won't do any good unless you know what kind of situation you're getting into joining an XP Party.

In my own situation, I am in a static party with a PLD/WAR, THF/NIN, RNG/NIN, RNG/WAR(working his NIN sub), BLM/RDM, and I am the WHM/SMN. (Party was formed by a group of friends because we enjoyed partying together so much from 55-60 and not for complete UBERness. I've found its possible to still play and play well, without having to be UBER. UBER is really only icing on the cake to me.)

At first glance, one would observe that our party has no refresher whatsoever, save my SMN subjob which is next to the lowest type of refresh that you could go. (Save, I carry juice on me for emergencies, an act all WHM should do IMO [and if you can afford it! xD])

However, this party set up is all about offense that we have determined. So we like to think we go quite nicely along with the saying, "sometimes, the best defense is a great offense."

I have learned, being a WHM in this party setup, to know who gets aggro and when to slap the corresponding heal spells on them (a.k.a the RNGs.) 98% of the time, I am able to keep everyone healed and the Paladin gets hate back from a DD or the monster dies. I also know to keep up all my Bar spells at all times, my buffs, and my Haste/Regens, as well as Flash where appropriate. We work out quite solidly. We can chain 5 and usually make 3.5k an hour on average.

Anyway, I have BRD, BLM, & SMN subjobs at my disposal. I've tried them all in this party setup. (Post 50 WHM all subs leveled.)

BRD did nothing for me. I lost quite a bit of MP and had the task of having to keep songs up. (Very challenging to do when you have to do everything else a WHM is responsible for.) We could still chain but it was simply messy, IMO. But in this situation, if a DD goes white to orange and I'm in the middle of singing a song, then I have a problem. (Either I drop the song and have wasted the past few seconds or I continue and have to dart around to bring the situation on HP and Cures back to normal, something I hated doing.) The minor MP REGEN helped out the casters and tank some, but, like I mentioned, simply was not effective during an emergency. We already have a Dispeller so that further limited my use of the BRD. I think Sword Madgrial is not effective post 50, or rather, I didn't see much of a difference. The RNGs like Hunter's Prelude and noticed it help, but that's alot of singing to do to keep it on them. In the end, it left me a tired and irritiable WHM. So I dropped it. ( ;-; I'll use it for BCNM's now.)

BLM was very good. If our THF got an add that was beyond the party's control, then either WHM or BLM could cast escape. In addition, Elemental Seal + Sleep was invaluable to assist the BLM. I liked that tremendously. Warp was simply pure luxury to me and didn't make our BLM waste mp on casting Warp 2 on me. MP Conserve kicked in sometimes, which is really nice on Cure V or Reraise and buffs. However, it seems to be an average rate of speed as far as kicking in is concerned, imo. I never used any BLM nukes of debuffs, they are a complete waste of time, nor did I ever use Drain or Aspir. I felt the same way about those spells. BLM is a very good sub. I don't mind using it when needs be and I don't see an average difference between it and SMN SJ, in this PT setup.

SMN is excellent. Post 50 WHM, casting Aerial Armor costs 92 MP and has the potential to hit 6 members and lasts "many" minutes. (SMN skill maxxed.) For 92 MP, I actually save myself much more MP for casting cures on my party, especially if we're in an emergency. Because the Blinkga blocks several attacks for people, saves me gobs(no pun intended) of time in a crisis, and keeps me from having to cast cures, I really enjoy this skill. The situation really depends, but usually, the Blink blocks almost everything, even high damaging attacks like from giants or manticores or birds. I could easily spend casting several cure 2's or cure 3's on my party for damage they take versus blinkga shielding my party from damage and me not having to cast several cure's. Or having to cast a Cure V to get back 600HP from a big hit versus a Blinkga eating that big hit up. I think it saves MP for me and I need that being a Mithra. Carbuncle's Shining Ruby, to me, seems effective too. If you got a mob droping wind, water, fire AoE's on you and you've already got Bar-element up, (plus Shell X of course), dropping a Shining Ruby only lesses the damage even more. I've had instances where I will get 0 damage from an AoE while my party usually gets less than 100 versus no defense and they can easily take 100-300 depending. I think the little extra bit helps and Shining Ruby lasts 3 minutes. I'm looking forward to seeing how Whispering Wind with Garuda will come into play. Its a Curaga that costs 119MP to cast, but from a distance, it looks probably inconsistent and unusable. Anyway, Auto-refresh is nice. I really enjoy it. I don't think its any different than having MP Conserve, though. I believe the two are equal, from what I could gather from mp usage. Otherwise, the MAX MP Up is wonderful as well.

At any rate, pre-50, SMN might have been nice too, but I honestly can't say, but speculate at this point. I was WHM/BLM up til I hit 55 and then I decided I wanted to become WHM/SMN because a friend of mine in my LS was doing it and I was really only concerned about having more MP. However, I find that in my static party, the SMN sub works out quite nicely and is opitmal to my party's format.

Like I mentioned before, its uncommon that "we don't" chain 5. In addition, we can hit just nearly 250 xp if we pull just right and hit a chain 5. (That's when the RNGs & BLM unload, its really neat to watch!)

My best advice would be "try everything." Research, research, research!

[sylvanas]

post 50 i consider /smn to be better than /blm for nearly all situations including exp. granted its not from personal experience, but from comparison and comments from other /blms.

although its not a widely held view, personally i think /rdm is a better sub than /blm for whm...in fact im considering switching to it from /smn. in dire situations im thankful for the larger mp base and autorefresh from /smn, but fast cast would be invaluable at any time.

[Icemage]

As I'm approaching level 75 I am considering switching back to /RDM (something which I haven't used since level 39), but lately my XP parties have been 4-5 MP users with no BRD main, which makes /BRD the obvious winner for me in those cases.

I can see why SonikU4ia's experience is different with /SMN though - lack of significant MP usage makes /BRD suck, especially if you have to be the one casting all the enfeebles too (all I can say is Ouch!)

Replace one of the melees in that party with a RDM, though, and I think the experience would be radically different.


Icemage

[Lynsy]

As a few others have mentioned, the "ideal subjob" is vastly situational. Personally, I am working towards having BLM, RDM, SMN and BRD capped out, though I use SMN and is the only one that is fully leveled ATM. I have used SMN since level 30, though many would dispute the effectiveness pre-50, for one simple reason--I am a complete MP whore. I have 1113 at level 70 without food and will have more once I rebuy some more old equips (long story--I quit the game, gave stuff away/sold stuff, am trying to reaquire it now that Ive come back). My strength as a WHM comes predominately from my ability to handle emergency situations more than normal stuff. I am good with MP conservation (rarely, if ever, dropping below 800-900 MP even in the most straining of PTs unless some specific emergency is happening). I know that conserve MP ends up running about even or at an advantage over SMN sub, however, I like the fact that it is impossible for me to be out of MP. With BLM sub, once its gone, its gone, no matter how much you saved along the way. That fact is reassuring enough to me to be worthwhile. SMN SJ, for its increased MP pool and refresh, is good for large group (alliance, HNMs, etc) activities whereas the other SJs are better suited for PT or partner type activities IMO. Bottom line, though, is learn how you play and what situations you are in most and go with that...

[Brayden]

So far ive /rdm since i had the ability to sub anything. Its proven to be very useful for multitues of reasons. Since i have just recently capped that job (aka 37 for subbing) im currently working on /smn so i can try that out at lvl 50. I find farming with /rdm is a breeze (parry, sheild, en spells, enfeebles) and Im interested to see if i have such ease with /smn when the time arrives. Either way, from what ive been reading haveing the option to sub something given different situations seems like a wise route.