Crow/Raven v. AF

[Icemage]

Re: Crow/Raven v. AF

In most standard XP situations, you're not going to rack up enough enmity for monsters to care unless you're addicted to casting either Curaga or Cure IV.

Where Enmity- stats really shine is in missions and end-game activities. Without -Enmity, big ugly things will want to take a little nibble out of you much sooner than usual, and you'll shed it much slower (for instance, Vrtra "nibbled" on me to the tune of 383 damage yesterday, with -25% physical damage in gear equipped)... and I've had much worse, such as Tiamat getting an automatic critical hit for 975 points of damage on me.

In such extended fights, keeping your enmity rating as low as possible is vital. I generally run about -30 or more enmity now, and HNMs still like to smack me every once in a long while. It used to be much more often when I used to run only about -10 many moons ago (once every 5-10 minutes instead of once every 30 minutes).


Icemage

[wunjo]

Re: Crow/Raven v. AF

Please remember that the following is my opinion only, and I am not claiming to know everything. These are simply the culmination of my experiences and observations. If you disagree, please be respectful. There is no need to flame or otherwise put down my opinion if yours is different.

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## OP

As other people have already stated, it looks like you're doing everything right.

## Kenki @ 05-04-2006, 07:30 AM

#1 You are doing something wrong. Over cures? Flash too much? Crow gear will help you on this but I think it'd be better to work on refining your healing tech.

The -enmity gear gives you time to do that refining.

#2 Your tank is having trouble tanking. If your tank is really bad at tanking or just being unfortunate then even your crow gear won't beable to help you much. Maybe, helping the tank with some tanking advice would be better. Crow gear will make your life easier though.

(Note: This happened to me about 16 months ago, so I don't know how the shield update would affect PLDs vs Processionaires.) Ever have a PLD tank in the tree leveling on Processionaires at lv64/65? Yeah, it's quite a shock to go from the easy xp in Onzozo to the dangerous xp in the Tree. All of a sudden, PLDs get hit for a lot more damage even with earth staff. The -enmity gear gives you time to adjust your technique, but it gives your PLD time to learn how to tank here as well.

#3 Your PT is doing something wrong. Fighting too tough monsters? Only 1 healer with no back up? PT adjustment time, I guess. No crow gear will be helping you here since it's a really big problem.

It will help you, unless you have a stubborn party. At least, you can survive a few fights and figure out, "hey, this stuff is way too hard." But if your party won't adjust, then yeah, no gear will make up for bad party decisions.

## Tirrock @ 05-05-2006, 11:06 PM

Enmity becomes less and less of an issue as WHM as you level up. I could probably exp my WHM with +enmity at 75 and the only difference I'd notice is a few MP missing because I'd be wearing +enmity gear.

That's because, at 75, almost everything you xp on is VT++ or lower. Also, your melees get access to a lot of very good gears at those higher levels. If anyone takes hate off the tank, it'll be the melees. Compared to them, your WHM will be very low on the hate list. This, of course, excludes mobs like Aura Statues with hate reset moves.

For example: I can spam flash/stun and cures in roaming parties and never get hate.

I did HNM with -2 to -8 enmity for a very very long time. >_>a Unless your tanks are having serious issues ...

I can confirm this. However, if you're up against something like Cerberus or CoP Wyrm and your LS decides to use SMN-burn/slow-nuke, I advise you to wear at least -10 enmity and be able to swap in more. The conglomerate LS that I am a part of is mage-heavy and likes to use the corresponding strategies for its longer fights.

For example: In our last Cerberus fight, it was my co-healer (a WHM) and my refresher (our BRD) that were taking hate, and yes, they were wearing very little to no -enmity gears.

If your end-game LS uses a high-dmg/melee strategy, then you can probably get away with using lower -enmity.

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I recommend:

1. Acquire the cheaper pieces of crow gear. 300K is not cheap.

2. You may want to make a macro for swapping in -enmity gears. I have three equip swap macros: +hmp, normal gear, and -enmity/other. They have served me very well for a very long time.

3. When you go to a new camp - ie. one where you've never xp-ed there before - I recommend for you to use those crow gears until you get used to that camp's mobs. You don't really need to do this until you leave Onzozo and go to Processionairies.

4. Crow is great for difficult BCs such as Moblin or Airship.

[avhmia]

Re: Crow/Raven v. AF

To be perfectly honest, -enmity is useful only in very specific situations for a WHM. Unlike other jobs, we don't (or at least shouldn't) deal much in hate spikes. We build a lot of hate over time, like a tank does, and given practice you learn to ride under the tank's hate curve.

Assuming you have an average or better tank, the -10 enmity on your AF should more than suffice. If you're having to wear a -enmity build to keep from pulling hate from a good tank, you might want to reconsider your methods. You're probably doing something too much or too fast.

[Kalina]

Re: Crow/Raven v. AF

Sounds to me like you are doing a good job as well. WHM AF is great. I used it until Blessed at 70 and still use my hands, until AFv2 Mitts drop O.o One note: even at 75, I stear away from cure 4 during battle do to the hate it generates. In my opinion, cure 3/5 are much better choices, combined with regen2/3 (all depending on your lvl at the time). I personally never used crow/raven gear until I started doing (as others have mentioned) CoP capped BCNMs, i.e. short fights, big cures, lots of *possible* hate for the whm, which is the last thing you need in that setting. If you are a cure4 type of whm, which alot are even at 75 (which dumbfounds me), then you may want to opt for crow/raven. What is key to a whm is knowing what lvl cure to cast and when to cast, its all about color curing to me ^.^ And Flash is great by the way; at your lvl, I would flash 10-15 secs after the pld flashed - why? hate is reduced at this point due to the pld's 1st flash (i.e. the mob won't come for the lil whm >.>) and it saves the pld a few hits ^.^ Hope my opinion helped, if not oh well ; ; I tried.

P.S. Just remembered, I used to macro in my silly whm hat (i wore a hairpin for more mp normally, then nobles crown at 68, until zenith crown) for the -enm if I was worried about how much hate I was going to draw from a cure.

[sevenpointflaw]

Re: Crow/Raven v. AF

Well, at 68ish now, even nin can hold hate through most cures; like was mentioned above sitcking with C3/C5 and Regen3/2 seems to be the trick. Using that tactic, I can't even pull hate of people 20 levels be low me some times when I try. Crows really does seem over rated as you near endgame.