Party vs All Other Sub Discussion.

[Pteryx]

It makes for nice support in the rather specific situation of an MP-heavy frontline, MP-bearing mobs, and no actual DNC. Lunaryn's player has been subbing it to good effect in our PLD & DRK & BLU trio while we've been fighting crabs; Aspir Samba is better than no Refresh at all. -- Pteryx

[Lunaryn]

Now if we actually had a proper refresher, I'd be better off with /WHM in our situation, I'd think (and I've used DRK/WHM to good effect when we've camped rabbits in Uleguerand, for instance), but the situational usefulness of Aspir Samba should not be discounted.

Trio calls for less vertical and more horizontal investment in ability, basically; you don't need nearly as much attack or accuracy to do good damage against the T-VT targets a trio will want to focus on, but you do need to do more to support the party to account for lack of dedicated job roles.

Also, casting spells doesn't slow down swinging enough to create a huge issue, but OTOH if I were casting enough to run down my MP as fast as the PLD and BLU, I'd be doing something wrong. I'm past the point where Swing > Nuke > Swing > Nuke is a good idea, but I do MB off both the SC I do with the PLD and the BLU's self-SC, and I get pretty decent results often enough to be worthwhile. I swap in INT gear and a Moldy for that, though. I'd say that DRK/BLM would be extremely situational, but it's not inconceivable you might find some situation somewhere where the MAB would come in handy. Just be careful if you're coming off something like /WAR; DRK defense is never good, but it really and truly sucks under /BLM: I went DRK/BLM once for skilling up in the 40s (I think) along with Pteryx on RDM75, who ended up having trouble keeping me alive.