Axe vs GA a begginner's dilema

[bside]

Raging axe is aparently a decent alternitave to rampage but i never see any war use it durring exp.

It must be Raging Rush (RR) you meant. And as w/ the point repeatedly said here, Raging Rush is indeed a good option to use, depending on the party setup.


When I was WAR 61 or something I tried to start a party since BRD, WHM, and BLM were LFG, so I invited them all. But there was no NIN nor PLD LFG at that time, and even waited for 20 mins or so. It wasn't the "prime time" for neither Japan nor NA (EU version wasn't released yet at that time) so we couldn't hope any tanks to spawn. In stead of hoping for a tank, we picked 2 more WAR's, all /NIN including myself, and we decided to rotate the hate so that we all tank and help.

Now, since we had BLM, we wanted to SC so that he could MB for quicker kill. But using DW Axes pretty much meant spaming Rampage, and that was when I found out that every WAR in the party could use GAxe, which was kinda rare. We decided to do RR->RR for Fragmentation, w/ one of us spaming RR to finish off the mobs, or getting reday just in case one of us accidentaly lost TP. (One reason why we used GAxe was that we were all tired of using nothing but DW Axes back then, while we worked hard to keep the GAxe skills up to lvl.)

We were killing Raptors up in the Uleguerand Range, and when we SC and MB'ed at the beginning of the fight, they didn't last even 30 secs. Not to mention BRD went nuts that he couldn't put 2 songs onto us before the kill. Without NIN nor PLD, we were able to gain 6k/hr, which was more than acceptable at that time and lvl. But thinking of it now, we probably weren't able to achieve this number if we all spamed Rampage and didn't MB. One sad thing was this party only lasted for 2 hrs as everyone had to eat dinner.


Similarly, DRK's Guillotine->RR and SAM's Tachi: Yuki->RR also create Fragmentation, so depending on the party setup and mobs to fight, RR is indeed a good choice.

Just to give an example

[Kitalrez]

I've always been of the opinion that if you're the tank, you probably shouldn't be in the skillchain in the first place, you just end up building TP at such an odd rate depending on whether or not it hits you and you manage to get a few swings in too. So when I did WAR w/ GA, I usually went with Shield Break at the start, and maybe a 2nd WS later if I thought I could build up TP again before the next fight.

I dunno though, if I was playing as BLU with my fabulous taru melee dmg, I usually found myself hoping the WAR would use Shield Break instead of whatever he usually did. The huge spike I TP I got when I could suddenly land almost every hit was well worth it in terms of what I could then dish out in Stuns, Blinds, and Slows with 100% TP. I tend to think of WAR less as a Damage Dealer than a Damage Enabler. Those jobs who are pure DD, like say DRK or SAM, get much better with you around to pop Shield Break if it's hard to hit, or Armor Break if it's barely taking a scratch when you do hit it. You'll see a major spike in how fast a mob dies if you use Shield Break in party with a BST and his pet, too. The DoT from my BST/NIN and his TigerFamiliar just about doubled once the fights started with Shield Break.

As for cash, have you seen crawlers and bees yet? Or better yet funguars? Those were the major cash-cows of my lower levels. A few stacks of beehive chips, silk threads, or mushrooms on the AH is usually enough to kick start a synthing career if you decide to craft for money later on.

[pearlsea]

It must be Raging Rush (RR) you meant. And as w/ the point repeatedly said here, Raging Rush is indeed a good option to use, depending on the party setup.

Yes i ment raging rush, sorry about the mixup.