Advice on how to lvl new whm?

[MDenham]

Originally posted by Rones
If you are serious about being whm ignore MDenham advice on how to act in a party. That kind of stuff might cut it in the terrible parties you get in valkurm and sometimes qufim, but that horrendous playstyle gets you a quick boot later.


Sorry, you can't call time out whenever you please. Say something extremely ignorant and you will get flamed.

Funny, there are a fair number of WHMs who have had fair success meleeing as well as performing their usual healing duties.

And I only asked for no flames because I know most people don't like their WHMs up in front, even when the WHM is hitting for decent damage. I only suggested the idea because some people have gotten into decent parties where this has worked (these parties have NOT been going after stuff that has any sort of AoE damage/nasty status, BTW - a white mage meleeing around an AoE is an idiot).

Next time, why don't you do a little research and see that I've actually looked into this on other forums. (And no, I don't personally plan on meleeing as a WHM anyway, beyond soloing out to 10. While it's definitely interesting, it's also a pain in the ass.)

I still stand by the equipment I suggested at lower levels for those people who want to melee as a WHM - and the only difference I'd suggest for people who don't want to melee as far as armor goes is that you can throw on a bit more HP->MP equipment.

Final note: are you under some kind of mistaken impression that your penis gets larger when you call someone who pays attention to what other people say (despite their lack of practical experience) "ignorant"?

[RuneGrey]

Its actually pretty obvious that Square wanted to give White Mages the option of being able to get stuck in and melee with the rest of the party if they wanted to - the entire hammer line of weapons is designed to give White Mages a decent melee capability, and they have a great skill with those weapons. Not to mention White Mages also get a hammer weapon skill unique to their class as well - Hexa Strike is rather neat, the times that I've seen it used.

It does take some planning, knowing your monsters, and more than a little bit of craziness for a White Mage to get in there and help out. But keep in mind, a meleeing white mage can also help tip the balance of a battle, ending it faster and thus making their curing duties easier. The main risk is that you may get hate easier - but with a good tank, this shouldn't be a problem.

[Icemage]

WHM do not do much damage, have mediocre (at best) accuracy even with clubs, and rack up enmity like nobody's business without the extra from meleeing. If your group is doing well on a monster that is relatively safe to melee, it's "ok" to melee, but bear a few things in mind:

- WHM have very low STR, mediocre accuracy even with clubs, and deal very little damage in melee (or with magic, for that matter) beyond level 35 or so.

- Every time a monster is hit, the monster gains TP at the rate of Player TP Gained + 3. If a WHM hits a monster for 3 damage with a wand, and gains 5 TP, the monster just gained 8 TP for using its own special attacks.

- Some monsters simply should never be melee'd by mages(Antica, Mandragora, Rabbit, Weapon, etc.) due to nasty area effect attacks.


Icemage

[Rones]

Sure, give the monster more tp, which means more ws and curing needed which causes more downtime than is saved by you doing a tiny amount of dmg.

As well, if you are busy meleeing you are not resting back mp to cut down time. The most efficient (also most difficult) whm style is the rest, big cure, rest, big cure style instead of just standing up/meleeing the entire fight. That extra resting during the fight makes a big difference in mp the higher you get with higher clear mind lvls and dark staff. I can usually finish a fight with only 50-100 mp loss by resting effectively during the fight (and with good use of cure V). If I had been standing the whole fight, it would have been 300-350+ mp loss and prevent me from getting past a chain 2. Sure, melee in valkurm if you want, but eventually you will have to learn how to be an efficient whm.

Also, if you are meleeing you have to use macros with <stpc> feature which are slower than the simple <t> cures. I've used <stpc> when meleeing as brd, and its frustrating and slow to say the least. Compare using these two macros and the buttons that must be pushed (the <stpc> one is being used while meleeing).
/ma "Cure III" <stpc>
/ma "Cure III" <t>
For the <stpc> macro you will be forced to push once to activate it, then f1-f6 to target, and finally press enter to confirm/fire the spell. That's three buttons, and if the spell wasn't done cooling down from a previous cast you have to do it all over again. Ever tried spamming cure 3 when the tank is in the red with an <stpc> macro and your cooldown time is messing you up?

Meanwhile, the whm who isn't meleeing and is using the <t> macro can have his target already aimed on the tank the entire fight. He only has to press one button to cast his spell and its off, compared the three buttons required while using <stpc> macro. This also allows him to just spam the macro in case he's stuck waiting for the spell's cooldown, but that's not a problem for this style like it is when using <stpc>.

If you want more reasons on why you shouldn't be meleeing as a whm I'll be happy to provide.

[Tifa]

Originally posted by MDenham
Having leveled WHM to 9 on my other character, and NOT being of the opinion that WHMs should sit out entirely...

At level 1, go with a Maple Wand, just for the hell of it - the extra little bit of MND will help, but not a whole lot. In addition, pick up a shield as well (since there are BLM shields out there now, it's worth leveling up your shield skill JUST IN CASE).

At level 5, invest in both an Ash Pole and a Bronze Hammer, and start leveling up your staff skill if necessary. The difference in damage between the two of these is relatively small (on Easy Prey, it averages about 3 more damage with the pole), but it's a good idea to have both of these capped if possible.

At level 10, make your decision - do you want to be one of the more typical "sit in the back" WHMs, or do you want to melee for the rest of your foreseeable WHM career? If you want to melee, invest in +1 MND+ rings every time a new set becomes available, and stick with poles and hammers, along with the highest-end mage armor (+1 tunics, shields, etc. - do NOT invest in 1:1 HP->MP conversion equipment unless you're either Elvaan or Galka, as +1 hairpins and Energy Earrings/Rings +1 will give you more effective MP boosts for less HP spent, and meleeing WHMs will need the extra HP for the hits they take). Otherwise, stick with the wands with good MND+ (you can now go with the regular MND+ rings if you want to save some money) and go with armor that gives MND+ and MP+ bonuses in general.

No flames about this, please - I know most people don't think WHMs are meant to melee, but they're quite capable of pulling off damage on a par with some of the lower-end melees (Dragoon comes to mind here, heh) with slightly less risk on their own, and slightly more risk in EXP parties (hint: you'll need to find a tank who's willing to let you take a few hits as well so you know whether or not it's actually *safe* to melee against what you're EXPing on).

No offense guy, but you have a level 9 white mage. You've completed about 1.37% of the exp it takes to reach level 75. Your credibility is extremely low.

White mages, don't melee in your exp parties. Don't take armor over MP items. MP and MND are your most important stats, enhance them any way you can. Stay back in battle.
And yeah, dragoons complain a lot, but white mage is not on par with them for melee damage. Try again.

k.

[Zaleshea]

No flames about this, please - I know most people don't think WHMs are meant to melee, but they're quite capable of pulling off damage on a par with some of the lower-end melees (Dragoon comes to mind here, heh) with slightly less risk on their own, and slightly more risk in EXP parties (hint: you'll need to find a tank who's willing to let you take a few hits as well so you know whether or not it's actually *safe* to melee against what you're EXPing on).

I wish I could do the same damage as a dragoon. That's the most foolish thing I ever heard since some lv8 BLM newbie with no sub tells me that killing lots of stuff minus THF 15 for a high level player yields faster drops, and it accurate because her make believe lv60 friends told her, when everyone knows a lv30 can kill 10,000 crawlers without THF and probably only get 2 drops.

Now this....

Lv9 WHM... >_>

And.. Icemage always says everything I want to point out...

Oh good gosh.. I wish I didnt miss this topic the day it was created. When I first oplayed whm, even I knew meleeing in pt was a bad thing. I mean you learn this through your hard days trying to solo to 10-12, that whm melee completely sucks.

We can solo...damn good... the suck part comes as it takes us NEARLY FOREVER to beat something close to our levels. I can own an even match(just even, no even+ or ++, those ones kill me)gob gambler in dunes, but I better hope there are no other gobs around, because this will be a 20min fight with cure II's flying everywhere. Trust me people, meleeing as a whm in pt's blow. During my short RDM days, I played with a whm that meleed in Yuthunga Jungle. She was excellent of course, but still all the meleeing caused many many many sleep attacks. Plus she kept 'forgetting' what her duties were *hint to why you should not melee in the first place*.

WHM cannot be compared to any melee job.. we are healers, soft healers, the door swings both ways between healer and melee. They deal the damage and thus keep hate off us, and we keep them healthy while not becoming a burden(whm dont melee hint) to them while doing it.

WHM on par with Drgs.... . . .right.


Please dear sweet pineapple pie, never listen to crazy advice from a person who's only 9 levels in the job.

[DrSerpico]

Here's the advice

Most useful tip for low/semilow people:

Learn how to rest in battle.
Keep cures midlvl, then after provoke, dump a large cure almost to full then /heal

Use regen A LOT!
Every chance you have, smack regen on ppl. It's the most mp-efficient cure there is, but needs to be applied before the tank hit's red. ^^. In yuhtunga, I cured over 60% of all hp with regen.

Use macros
A nobrainer, but keys one to three should be cures. At the start, cure, cure II and regen did it for me.. I have divseal on ctrl+4, but I'm just freaky like that. I prefer the F1-F6 route in curing, you may not.

This is derived from playing whm to 32.... And Rdm to 64. ^^
(levelling subs is informative!)

[Zaleshea]

Not to mention it's a nice easy method to raise enhance.

[modnar]

Answer to Raise WHM...?

Ok, this may be out there, but I have done this for all the mage jobs that I have.

Sub MONK for the 1st 5 lvls or so.
As a Mage/Mnk, you get the Martial Art skill which gives you good damage and fast killing. And if you need an extra Boost (no pun!), eat a Kabob. When you have only 10 or STR, +5 STR is ALOT.

Because of this I usualy breeze SO fast for the 1st few lvls just punching stuff.

After that the 1/2 H2H skill will start making a difference. That is when you shoud just get a hammer and say "Hammer Time"!

[Zaleshea]

Yea. "Hammer Time" "Solo!" "Cant touch this!".

[Target_Master]

Sub Monk??

I think Subbing Black Mage is best. Level 1-5 wasn't that bad, just use stone from your black mage sub. It'll be your strongest attack. Stone is so strong you can literally power level yourself up to level 5 with no downtime if you manage your mp effectively.

After level 5 get banish, it won't be as strong but you need to raise your divine skill and you can use the hammer and shield like the other's suggested.

Then at lvl 9/10 start partying because soloing will get dangerious and slow for you... although I still solo from time to time as a lvl 15 White Mage, lol.

[White Materia]

Well, RDM is my main job so I subbed it to my WHM which will be my subjob for 22 levels or so before I switch to BM to level that as my sub.

[cavill]

just use a hammer or club to lvl from 1-10.
Also, killing lots of Easy Prey and Decent Challenge is good, Easy Prey is what you need to lvl on, just kill lots and fast and u can watch your exp fly up so fast, its amazing. At lvl 10 you can head to Valkurm Dunes and wait to be invited to an exp group party, White Mages there get invites very fast.

Good luck with your White mage.

[Akiro]

i actually carry 2 weapons with me 1 is my lvl 12 melee hammer so when i cant get a group i just head out and solo while searching and another is my MND+ wand so I can always be busy and have xp coming in at all times and it helps to get you outta the dunes faster