Having A Bit Of A Hard Time With WHM Spells

[Snowball]

Doing some soloing as WHM/BLM every now and again, I'm having a bit of trouble trying to get my spells to work everytime. :worry:

It's rather like when you are interrupted by a mob hitting you, and its damage (whatever it is using) prevents you from casting successfully at times. But it just seems to happen to me a lot lately. :worry: I'm not sure about other mage jobs, but I know that WHM isn't really a practical damage dealer type of job, so in solo situations, I only go for EP mobs at the highest. (this is just for a bit of fun every now and again, just to gain a few exp while waiting for a party) But even then, I'm still having a problem getting succussful hits with my spells.

Can I just confirm that MND is used exclusively for healing? (a very helpful thing in parties)
If that is so.... then my healing is usually fine.

It's my other spells, such as Banish and Banish 2. Banishga and Banisga 2 e.t.c that I'm having trouble with. Could it be that I need to better my magic skills for those spells, and that maybe it isn't high enough?

And on that note.... which magic skill is used for those spells please? I can check ingame afterwards what level mine is at. I know that WHM can also use Aquaveil, (http://www.ffxispelldb.com/spells/Aquaveil) which does help a little bit for me sometimes too. (and I feel I have to stress "A LITTLE BIT" because although it's of some help, it's not brillant at what it does, but then again, that maybe my lack of skills or whatever it is)

I just need to try and work out why I'm having trouble casting these spells. /sigh! :worry:
Anyone got any ideas please?

[Mog]

Unless you have Spell Interruption Rate down gear, there's really not much you can do. It's pretty impressive that you can solo on whm/blm EP's. But really, unless you sub ninja for shadows, whm is not as reliable for soloing mobs.

[Neomage]

With WHM, BLM is one of the worst subjobs available. Really it only offers Spikes, and you shouldn't be getting hit anyway. You should also focus on MND, because that is the primary stat for Banish/Holy, but those run on Divine Magic, and unless you have it up-to-date you will have a really, really hard time not getting resisted.

[Icemage]

I think I'd rather have my fingernails pulled out with a pair of pliers than deliberately choose to solo on WHM for anything serious, at least not until level 74, when Utsusemi:Ni, various Haste gears, and Hexa Strike are available.

As for the Banish line of spells... don't even bother. They do pitiful damage against anything that isn't undead until you get access to Banish III (and even Banish III is only mediocre even if you're using a Black Mage subjob with an Apollo Staff and perhaps a Moldavite Earring). Holy is even more of a joke. For what it's worth, these spells are all Divine Magic.


Icemage

[Snowball]

Going on things being said from the 1st 2 replies here.... I was all for trying something different, and trying out /NIN as sub, to solo WHM, but then I get a third reply from ~Icemage~, and now I am left feeling somewhat confused! :worry:

Should I try out WHM/NIN or not?
The only answer I have personally, is that I guess there's no harm in trying, just to see what results I get out of it. And you DO learn from your own experiences.... right? Although, as you can see right now, my NIN isn't exactly up to the right job level to match with my WHM. (meaning that nin as sub, isn't half of my WHM's job level) But if I took the time to level it some more and get it to the right level, then maybe I could try out WHM/NIN, just every once in a while.
Also, I think MND is about 12 or something like that on my WHM at the moment. So I am trying to use up that too.

I'm not even sure that I should be soloing on WHM while waiting for a party really.

When other players do a check on my character profile and see that I have WHM/NIN, and I'm waiting around (doing some soloing) with my party flag up, wouldn't they think something along the lines of.....

"hey, I/we don't want her in the party, she has the wrong subjob!"

I'm not really sure what happens in that kind of a situation to be honest.

Has anyone here ever soloed on WHM while waiting for a party?
And if so... what have been your experiences over it?

[Mhurron]

First, capping skill can help with preventing interrupts. Second /NIN works as a good solo subjob for one ninjitsu spell, Utsusemi. Utsusemi is a lvl 12 NIN spell so if your character info is accurate /NIN won't give you much.

For searching though, all you would have to do is have a search comment stating what subjobs you have for partying, where your home point is and that you can warp there. This of course means you will need a way of warping there.

I'm with Icemage, I wouldn't try soloing WHM, (personally I'm not hot on the idea of soloing BLM either), but Icemage did say for anything serious. However soloing while waiting for an EXP party is, in my opinion, a good use of time. If you can pull it off, more power to you.

[Ellipses]

I wouldn't count on being able to solo many EP in a row regardless of your subjob. You're still going to end up spending a good deal of MP on cures. I never really attempted to solo for soloing's sake on WHM, but there were plenty of times when what I wanted to farm, or what I needed to kill for quests, was EP. It's easy enough if you don't do anything foolish (like wasting MP on Banish), it's just time consuming. Having an Adventuring Fellow helps.

Reasonable people are going to be able to guess that /NIN is not the only subjob you have available, and they'll either read your search comment or ask you. Or they'll just assume you have something more party-friendly and invite you anyway. The only people who'll see WHM/NIN, assume that's all you have, and not invite you are people you wouldn't want to party with anyway.

Edit: Y'know, another option is to pop into one of the Promies and kill the little mobs there. Always EP since it's level-capped, easy to kill, plenty of safe resting spots, gives you a familiar camp every time.

[Icemage]

Going to move this to WHM discussion since it's particularly around WHM.

---

I'll clarify and add to my earlier statement:

Solo on WHM before level 74 and getting access to Utsusemi: Ni with a fully levelled 37 Ninja support job is an exercise in futility.

Can you do it? Yes. Can you earn more than 1000 XP per hour doing it? Nope. If you have any other job choice available at a similar level range, it will outperform WHM in solo situations prior to level 74.

Now, with that said, I can take on things up to about Decent Challenge using WHM/RDM at level 75, using a combination of Phalanx, Stoneskin, lots of damage reduction, and Flash to cover my Stoneskin recasts. But I have unusually good gear for WHM, and a lot of playing experience on my side. Were my gear not up to snuff, I don't even think this would be manageable - and even this isn't possible until you get access to Phalanx at WHM66/RDM33. But it'll take me 5-10 minutes to kill that Decent Challenge.

If you want XP as a WHM, solo is not the answer you are looking for.


Icemage

[Celeal]

If you WHM/BLM for solo, have you try Ice Spikes (from /BLM)? Or maybe sleep the mob (/BLM) before the battle starts, and cast the all debuff (non-DoT) + buff 1st before waking the mob. It should work on EP mobs if your magic skill is capped. For recast during battle, you need to time you spell as how a NIN tank times it (even if you WHM/NIN).

[Lleo]

When you solo in a Conquest zone, be sure to have signet on. This gives you an evasion and defense boost against even match or lower. The difference was quite noticeable when I soloed EP mobs for club skill.

[Evion]

Mhurron took my idea. I bet your Divine Magic Skill isn't capped. Make sure to cap that for using banish as a DD spell. Also, I don't see your RDM level in your info, but at 44WHM/RDM, it can become pretty useful.

[eticket109]

Soloing on WHM is not viable for any kind of decent exp until 74+. Even then it can require some rather specific gear and skill. Once you hit 45, you can grab a holy/divine breastplate which will make things a lot easier. If you plan to try it then subbing /nin and using a club/shield is probably your best bet. Other then dia, flash and cures I wouldn't recommend using much magic. You could try para and slow as well but I doubt they'd stick.

[Mhurron]

Snowball says they've been playing with it while waiting for a party. It doesn't sound like they're trying to solo for real exp. If they can stay alive doing it it's a lot more fun then sitting around the Whitegate.

If you go /NIN, level it a little farther and get Utsusemi, otherwise it's useless as a sub. Dual Wield on it's own isn't enough. Not that at lvl9 you have either.

[WovenDarkness]

Snowball says they've been playing with it while waiting for a party. It doesn't sound like they're trying to solo for real exp. If they can stay alive doing it it's a lot more fun then sitting around the Whitegate.

If you go /NIN, level it a little farther and get Utsusemi, otherwise it's useless as a sub. Dual Wield on it's own isn't enough. Not that at lvl9 you have either.


That's the truth. Sitting around LFP can be a pain in the butt. I've done WHM/NIN sans shadows.....solo.... ....mistake. Mhurron is absolutely correct here. Your going to need more than dual wield. I ended up using a lot of MP just to keep up and running. I remember doing 1 and only 1 DC mob...and it took all of my MP and left me at about 10-15% HP IIRC, but that's been some time ago...

There really isn't any harm in trying it though. Level up your NIN for shadows, double up on the clubs and give it a try. Since your out killing time while LFP, what's the harm? It'll give you a better idea of what you can handle. ...and for me, learning that is part of the fun.

I didn't see this mentioned, so I'll put it out there. When you have your flag up and your /NIN, put your intended party subjob in your search comment. For me, if I were looking for a WHM, I'd check what was available, look at the subjob, notice the search comment, and check that. ....then I'd probably invite you.

Good Luck!!

[Samuzuki]

Soloing whm/nin is so viable before 75, my whm is only 38 but i rember going whm/nin with meat and hammers and chaining T and sometimes a VT mandy for xp, it was obviously long fights but stoneskin + utsemi makes you pretty damn good at lasting long, just gotta make sure your club skills are capped.

[Kafeen]

You only get interputed when you take damage so keeping Stoneskin up helps, this doesn't help get Stoneskin back up when you loose it though so if you're having trouble with that Aquaviel should help, although it isn't perfect. If you can land them you can also try turning you back on the enemy so you don't it then either sleeping it or binding it and moving out of range. That should give you enough time to get buffs back up and cure yourself if you need to.

As I think someone sadi earlier, keeping your magic skill levels as high as possible also helps, Banish spells are Divine Magic, something which is often overlooked since there are so few Divine magic spells, only the Banish spells, Holy and Flash I think.

MND isn't ONLY used for Cures, it also helps with WHM enfeebling spells such as Slow and Paralyze.

[Icemage]

You only get interputed when you take damage so keeping Stoneskin up helps, this doesn't help get Stoneskin back up when you loose it though so if you're having trouble with that Aquaviel should help, although it isn't perfect. If you can land them you can also try turning you back on the enemy so you don't it then either sleeping it or binding it and moving out of range. That should give you enough time to get buffs back up and cure yourself if you need to.
Aquaveil doesn't help "that" much, and takes an eternity to cast, though it does last a good long while so casting it before engaging works. The best method of not getting interrupted is not to get hit while casting a spell, using a combination of things like good timing (most monsters take 4 seconds between attacks, more if you cast Slow on them), Paralyze, and Flash.


As I think someone sadi earlier, keeping your magic skill levels as high as possible also helps, Banish spells are Divine Magic, something which is often overlooked since there are so few Divine magic spells, only the Banish spells, Holy and Flash I think.
There's tons of Divine Magic spells but only two that are worth the bother - and Snowball isn't high enough level to cast either one of the good ones.

Banish
Banishga
Banish II
Banighga II
Holy
Flash
Repose

MND isn't ONLY used for Cures, it also helps with WHM enfeebling spells such as Slow and Paralyze.
True, but if you're soloing, you've got much bigger priorities than bumping MND for those spells.


Icemage

[IfritnoItazura]

Bah. Banish and Holy are great fun in LS parties--it's terrific for Fusion MB. Also for good for relieving boredom for WHMs stuck in parties with overly eager PLs.

[Nuriko]

Eticket, I would expect that para and slow aren't too hard to stick against EP mobs, assuming the OP has near-capped enfeebling. It's the VT-IT mobs that can be really rough to stick it on, but there's a pretty big level gap between VT and EP...

[WovenDarkness]

Bah. Banish and Holy are great fun in LS parties--it's terrific for Fusion MB. Also for good for relieving boredom for WHMs stuck in parties with overly eager PLs.

Yeah, a friend and I have a lot of fun doing that. We target undead mobs and just let the fun begin. I've substituted Cure IV instead of Holy for the moment. It hits harder and uses less MP. ...though that could be my underleveled Divine skill... It will be interesting to compare Holy, Banish II, and Cure IV again when I get everything capped.

[Ketski]

Well, referring back to what you said before about mobs interrupting your spellcasting when soloing... one tip is to cast your spells right after the monster has attacked you. This way, it'll take some time for it to attack again, leaving you enough time to successfully cast your spell without interruptions.

As for soloing in general, I don't recommend it. >.< Its a pain to solo, and gets tiring very easily. Besides, parties are more fun :D Although LFPs can get on your nerves.

[Aksannyi]

Yeah, a friend and I have a lot of fun doing that. We target undead mobs and just let the fun begin. I've substituted Cure IV instead of Holy for the moment. It hits harder and uses less MP. ...though that could be my underleveled Divine skill... It will be interesting to compare Holy, Banish II, and Cure IV again when I get everything capped.
I do the Banish III, Holy, and Flash spam thing in Besieged. Since my Divine skill is actually pretty decent, I do a fair amount of damage with them, and I get tons of skill per Besieged.