[Takelli]

Originally Posted by IfritnoItazura

Think only one Samba (Daze on target) can be in effect at a time.

Yea... I kinda worded that badly... I mean when used correctly depending on the situational. My fualt.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

The superstition at work, especially in the case of BLU is that they will feed the mob tremendous TP. Spamming spells is what BLUs do and since most if it is counted as Physical damage, its calculated as such. Its not always a bad thing, but it can be at times because it tends to negate the benefits of Subtle Blow.

But why is it BST and PUP aren't allowed to participate in these little reindeer games? If its not the "feeds the mob TP" mumbo-jumbo, then what exactly is the reason. BST has same axe skill as WAR and a pet to supplant their damage over time. PUPs come with a free WHM. How are these negative things?

I do know it took a few years for the community to accept DRG/Mage as beneficial. If you played that combo anywhere outside of solo pre-ToA, you were decried a noob. Now people are fine with it.

The only place I can even see pet jobs being a bad thing is strategies that involve Bind. Those times you scream for all the melee to get off the mob for Shadowbind and such. I've cussed a SMN or two over Suzaku flubs, I know that, but aside from those kinds of strategies, I really don't see a problem with pet jobs.

DNC can do pretty well in Sky, only weakness being Kirin. DNC is fine in Dynamis, but not so much in Limbus and events where time is extremely limited. They're not a total wash at endgame, but I think there are also far too many aspiring DNCs in the game these days. It was the same way for BLUs at endgame when BLU was still fairly new. BLU was the passion, everyone wanted it to be their one-and-only for a while. Endgame shells didn't want to become saturated in BLU or DNC, so they tried to get their members to tone it down a bit.

[IfritnoItazura]

Originally Posted by Kailea

Dancer with Haste samba merited to atleast 3 is awsome, and food on birds? your NIN and DNC where crazy just for that ;p

I would say at exp level, tank shouldn't use food on Colibri since the bird should be facing the tank most of the time. But, all DDs should have crab sushi or something.

Helped out a friend with a Lv.57 Lesser Colibri party earlier; this was what the melee accuracy looked like:

SAM/WAR (polearm): 84.49%
WAR/NIN (1h axe x 2): 66.01%
DRK/WAR (scythe): 60.09%

Guess who was using crab sushi, and who was the strongest DD?

Merit party on Greater Colibriis a bit different, since the 'tank' wouldn't have the bird on him as soon as someone else uses WS, and people use WS a lot. In that case, I would say the first provoke person should strongly consider using some sort of food,while everyone else on the front line must use something.

Originally Posted by Kailea

a DNC can stack ACC like crazy, so by the time they hit 75, they really dont need ACC food.

It's not that easy to cap accuracy for one-handed weapons, especially if one is geared for haste. Pretty much the standard food for Colibri for one-handed weapon users should be crab sushi.

Originally Posted by Omgwtfbbqkitten

DNC can do pretty well in Sky, only weakness being Kirin.

Why would DNC be bad for Kirin? Haste Samba for zerg style, Stutter Step for kite/nuke style. Kirin stops a lot, too, so catching up to Kirin to land Step isn't hard.

* * *

Kind of a bummer; DNC friend wasn't online, so didn't get to see how DNC tank Gotoh Zha the Redolent. Grabed a bored BST (who was a friend of an LS member), though, so we weren't totally without 'minority' jobs.

Maybe I can find a bored PUP next time...

[Firewind]

Originally Posted by Omgwtfbbqkitten

The only place I can even see pet jobs being a bad thing is strategies that involve Bind. Those times you scream for all the melee to get off the mob for Shadowbind and such. I've cussed a SMN or two over Suzaku flubs, I know that, but aside from those kinds of strategies, I really don't see a problem with pet jobs.

This is actually why I generally dislike duoing/trioing with a pet job on something like BLM or SCH. I've died so many times on BLM because a BST or SMN wasn't calling off their pet when I needed to Bind/Sleep a mob it's just not funny anymore. Then you have the DRGs who Super Jump right after I nuke/stun/bind something...

Don't get me wrong, pet jobs are nice to duo with it's just they tend to get my BLM killed more often than I would like. And you're talking a White Mage with a PLD/BST/BLU's mentality towards death here.

[Lmnop]

Couple things, Itaz:

-You were pulling pretty much full time. I think your parse is accurate enough, but it should be mentioned for posterity's sake that you weren't around for all of your data. At whatever phase of fights you think you'd be away from the party, there's a chance that was roughly the time when WHMery suddenly became needed.

-Haste Samba? srsly? Well, in a standard burn party I suppose so. But with your layout, you could've traded your 3 melee in for all /sams. (Not that you would; that'd be mean. Just sayin'...) Drg/sam, war/sam, drk/sam. Full time Hasso (well, almost) with Drain Samba 3. That's roughly 80 hp cured/swing. With stacked up Haste, those swings come faster but cure for just as much. Not to mention how much the WAR (MEMEMEMEME!) would love getting to use Retaliation to its fullest effect.

So I don't think it's fair to say never use Drain Samba in merits.


Oh finally,

Originally Posted by Omgwtfbbqkitten

You're like RDM, its more like you're bullshitting the mob to death than soloing it.

I laughed.

[Mog]

There's no denying dnc doesn't perform well in merit parties. Buffs and daggers make all the difference. Doesn't surprise me that you guys got almost 20k per hour. However, I'd probably prefer other jobs for the optimal setup.

[IfritnoItazura]

Originally Posted by Lmnop

-You were pulling pretty much full time. I think your parse is accurate enough, but it should be mentioned for posterity's sake that you weren't around for all of your data. At whatever phase of fights you think you'd be away from the party, there's a chance that was roughly the time when WHMery suddenly became needed.

Yes, I should've mentioned it explicitly (though anyone should have realized what BRDs do in merit parties) ; I was the puller, so couldn't catch all the data with parser.

However, after 120+ fights never seeing the WHM's MP dip below 800 (and above 900 most of the time) while the DNC did 11 times more direct curing than the WHM when I'm around, it's pretty obvious who was the main healer. (Personally, I don't think it was a bad thing that the WHM's duty became a buffer more than a healer.)

Originally Posted by Lmnop

-Haste Samba? srsly? Well, in a standard burn party I suppose so. But with your layout, you could've traded your 3 melee in for all /sams. (Not that you would; that'd be mean. Just sayin'...) Drg/sam, war/sam, drk/sam. Full time Hasso (well, almost) with Drain Samba 3.

The setup was NIN/WAR, WAR/SAM, DRG/SAM, DNC/NIN, BRD/NIN, WHM/SCH. I actually wanted the NIN (a friend of the DNC) to come as SAM, but he wanted to go NIN instead.

If replacing the NIN with another DD/SAM or SAM, I would argue Haste Samba becomes even more valuable with more usage of Hasso. In a WS spam party, if the healers (counting DNC and whoever is doing Haste) can keep up with the curing, Drain Samba should be ignored and Haste Samba be full timed.

Originally Posted by Mog

Doesn't surprise me that you guys got almost 20k per hour. However, I'd probably prefer other jobs for the optimal setup.

I guess it would've been better to have a good COR instead of the NIN, but none was seeking. (As it was, we probably would have hit 20k/hr if I didn't d/c so much and if I was a better puller.)

[Armando]

The superstition at work, especially in the case of BLU is that they will feed the mob tremendous TP. Spamming spells is what BLUs do and since most if it is counted as Physical damage, its calculated as such. Its not always a bad thing, but it can be at times because it tends to negate the benefits of Subtle Blow.

Besides Cannonball, aren't all of BLU's better physical spells multi-hitters? Unrelated to the point but also, how does the fact that the damage is calculated physically negate the benefits of Subtle Blow?

As for pet jobs: I'm not endorsing this sort of cop-out excuse but the fact that the damage is spread over 2 people and thus they give twice the TP for the same performance as a different job is reason enough to be a douche over the TP feed issue. It's stupid and unbalanced but a SAM will do the same damage in much, much fewer hits, and thus give the mob much less TP for the damage it's doing.

[Grizzlebeard]

While 17-18k/hour is better than I've ever seen a party with DNC/NIN/WHM in perform, it still falls short of the 25-35k parties I'm used to with BRD/COR/RDM. I'm usually the first to cry foul when people min-max at the expense of enjoyment but merits are generally looked upon as a necessary evil and given the choice I'm always going to opt for 3 merits per hour over 1 or 2. However, that only highlights how much work those other jobs require in making them an attractive option for levelling/merit parties. Or how the current levelling mechanic favours buff and burn classes over all else.

[Lmnop]

And yet if we tolerated odd jobs in our merit parties and actually enjoyed them, the "quantified results for performing x chore" speech would have no merit.

But alas, we only play this game to be at the top, not to get there...

[Aksannyi]

Meriting is boring, anything that helps me do it less. If I can get 30k/hr over 15k/hr I'm all for it. Screw getting one merit in a merit party.

[IfritnoItazura]

Originally Posted by Grizzlebeard

While 17-18k/hour is better than I've ever seen a party with DNC/NIN/WHM in perform, it still falls short of the 25-35k parties I'm used to with BRD/COR/RDM.

Is that 25-35k base exp/hour or with ring? My actual exp/hour was over 19.9k/hour , but I subtracted ring bonus and came up with the 17.7k/hour figure for the party listed in the OP.

The best exp rate I've ever had was with a WAR/NIN x2, DRK/NIN, BRD/NIN, COR/WHM, RDM/WHM setup; it achieved either 22k exp/hr or 23k exp/hr (forgot if I only use Anniversary or if I also used Emperor's; 24.2k/hr with ring(s)). That was a bird-only party with two breaks (whose time were counted as part of the hours for calculating exp/hr), and also included the time one DD went back to Whitegate to use up his merit points before they fill up.

I can see that party doing 24-25k base exp/hour if not counting breaks and if all six people were there full time, but not 35k exp/hour. All the DDs were /NIN, but even if switched to /SAM, I don't think hitting 30k/hr base is that easy.

Then again, I was BRD, so I'm sure I've missed a few Corsair's Roll; maybe the others in party had better exp? *shrug* (Only COR has it worse than BRD when it comes to that roll... lol.)

* * *

To get best exp/hour, it's not just the party setup, but how well the players are geared and how attentive they are, and if the camp is free. It's hard enough to get the optimal setup for a pickup party (CORs are so rare...), but finding the top notch DDs and RDM isn't all that easy.

Add to that I only merit once in a while, so I don't really know the people seeking at 75 very well at all, not to mention I dislike rejecting any job for meriting (I've taken invites from PLD and non-mana burn BLM before), 17k+ per hour for base exp is really is pretty good already, as far as I'm concerned.

That said, I really want to try something like WAR x2, DNC, COR, BRD, RDM party and see how well that works. Either DNC or COR will need to have a great DD setup, though.

* * *

Well, I don't mind any job in a merit party, but the overall party setup must make sense. I also have a strong preference to have more curing power in party than a single RDM/WHM, even for Greater Colibri. Have a COR/DNC, COR/WHM, DNC, DRG/BLU, or PLD/NIN--whatever is fine, but seeing a lone RDM/WHM as the only source of cure in my party makes me wary.

[Grizzlebeard]

Originally Posted by IfritnoItazura

Is that 25-35k base exp/hour or with ring?

Highest I've reached without ring was just over the 31k/hour mark, the 35k was with Emp band. General setups usually follow along the lines of COR, BRD, RDM, WAR/SAM + 2 other DD either SAM or /SAM. Although I've had parties with DRG/WHMx5 with me on COR that have destroyed birds and given exp around the 28k/hour mark. You have to factor in that I'll generally run with Corsair's Roll though so that can boost the exp gain by up to 24%.

[Aylmer]

I wonder if DNC had a TP Draining Samba if it would be more likely to be invited to a Endgame or in a Merit party. I'm not saying anything too powerful. Maybe 5 to 10 tp per hit depending on certain factors like monster subtle blow vs ???.

[IfritnoItazura]

Originally Posted by Aylmer

I wonder if DNC had a TP Draining Samba if it would be more likely to be invited to a Merit/Endgame party.

Haste Samba and Quickstep already help with TP gain rate.

No clue what is an "Endgame party". lol.