[Aeni]

One key issue here is Flash. Here's my biggest pet peeve with most PLDs I've PT'd with so far.

If I cast haste on you, it's not because you can dodge the monsters better /endsarcasm It's so that your flash can come around that much more quicker. Use it. Yet most PLDs only use it once and that's at the beginning of fights.

If MP was a concern, I always refresh them... even if their mp pool is sitting at 80%. So ... I see no reason why they'd be chintzy with their MP either...

[Slip]

Pld/Rdm sounds pretty cool - given the spells that you were using them I'm curious how viable you think Pld/Blm would be? Granted you lose out on Blink, but you gain more MP out of the deal and, I think, better Int which brings a (slightly) greater chance of the debuffs sticking. Also there's Clear Mind and Conserve MP which could help with the mp situation a bit.

I've got Blm high enough to try it myself but after legitmately forgetting that I was Pld/Blm a hand full of times now I think my static might string me up for suggesting I try it for real

[Omniblast]

I hope with the new patch comming up, you also get that new ability Enrage for PLD. That should help you keep hate as well as provoke (well maybe not the same, but it's another ability to generate hate for you.)

[Lmnop]

Originally Posted by IfritnoItazura

Hmm. I thought Blink is randomly absorbing two hits?

Quite sure it's 3 random hits and Aerial Armor from Garuda is only 2 hits. Could be wrong. Regardless, even if it's randomly absorbed, the chances of an attack hitting a shadow are much higher than the chances of -say- paralyze kicking in. In a way, Blink is to Paralyze as Flash is to Blind. It's a much shorter duration, higher mp cost, but more potent effect.

Originally Posted by Armando

Also note it seems to have some non-meaningless ammount of hate attributed to it - whenever I'd lose hate just as I started casting it, the mob would turn back to me when the spell was completed.

Disclosure: I will state the following as fact, but it is indeed my testing and casual observations over the last 80+ levels of tanking and mostly experiences with Utsusemi. So it could be incorrect or just not "the whole picture."

I may have spoken about this elsewhere on these boards, but every spell apparently has 2 hate spikes.

Just starting to cast gets the mob's attention. You can see this when you're a war/nin and you've gotten the crap beat out of you, mob turns back to the tank, hasn't swung yet, and you start casting Utsusemi:Ichi. The mob turns back to you just long enough to take a chomp out of you (which lowers your enmity enough that it turns to the tank again).

The 2nd hate spike is completing the casting. Before the update that made it so hate was lost from taking shadows, I would be duo-tanking with another nin (pre-Ni). the other nin would have hate while I'm casting utsusemi. As soon as I complete casting, the mob turns to me (despite the fact that I'm not hitting him, meanwhile the other nin IS hitting him and isn't losing hate via damage).

I believe that this dual hate spike is part of the reason that Dark Knight's ABS spells pull so much hate, and why BLMs who do the same amount of damage as a War actually get more hate (and why their AF has some limited amount of -enmity while other DDs do not have the luxury). This also makes me think about how Flash works with basically both hate spikes occuring practically simultaneously. I would assume that the first spike is a set amount while the 2nd is an "effect" spike. Thus, I'm betting that pld/rdm would basically be getting one of the 2 hate spikes out of a spell since the spell is always getting resisted.

At any rate, it's mp-efficient enough for a means of sustaining hate, while the bulk of the work is being performed by defensive maneuvers (namely: flash and blink).

[Armando]

Sorry for the late replies! I've been busy.

This is so interesting to see!

Keeping hate all the time without Provoke is a dream of pld, I'm sure - imagine a pld/blu! +50% defense on top of PLD's already insane numbers in that stat....

The Nasty IT+ McSpider uses sickle slash. Pldguy takes 15 damage. Pldguy giggles happily.

Mm, I don't think /BLU has any exploitable spells that generate a significant ammount of hate just from being cast. Either way, I blinked/flashed off a lot of Sickle Slashes, which is even better than taking them even with high defense (if it criticals, you're going to take a sizeable chunk of damage no matter what.)

I don't think Armando stressed how important refresh was for this success. I've talked to him about it, and he says it's "crucial." That made me feel pretty damn useful.

Yeah, I don't think I covered that. Since I'm constantly spamming spells for hate, I don't see this being as worth it without a source of Refresh outside of Auto Refresh. Even just a Ballad I would help out (2 MP/3 secs means Blinds, Binds, Flashes are still free, and Sleeps would be almost free as well; Blink may or may not be free depending on wether or not you have a second Flasher to help you recast.) Having Refresh on me for 4 MP/3 secs basically meant I could spam Flash/Blind/Bind/Blink/Sleep all day long and not lose MP; I'd have to toss out Cures to lower my MP pool.

Highest hate level spells from /RDM are Bind, Sleep and Dispel.

Gravity seems to pull about as much as Blind. For 30MP, I don't think it's worth using as PLD/RDM when you have so many better choices.

Ah, I see. I'll try giving Sleep and Bind priority over Blind in terms of what to cast. After I read that, and re-read Karinya's suggestion to use Sleep, I realized Sleep technically doesn't cost me any more than Blind would since I'll still get back all the MP by the time it's ready again.

sup Armando XD so u tried tanking pld/rdm w/o phalanx and stoneskin? those r the two spells that r the best for tanking that rdm has to offer. then again u wouldnt b able to use phalanx til lvl64 (i think) it makes u wonder how amazing pld would b if they got provoke. vit+dfs+enmity gear, flash, cures, phalanx, blink, stoneskin = invinsible useless??

if a pld can hold hate as /rdm, there is no reason for it not to b a usual subjob. id luv to try this out

Yo Treth, long time no see. Yeah, I don't use Phalanx and Stoneskin because they're not available yet >.> Though, if PLD got Provoke everyone would just sub /NIN.

Hmm. I thought Blink is randomly absorbing two hits? Anyway, with amount of enmity+ gear you likely have, you can probably sneeze and add non-trivial amount of enmity. ^_^

I mentioned Jingy (PLD/BLM) before; he said he liked using Dorado Sushi for added enmity. Makes sense, I think; as RDM, I would spam enfeebs when they don't stick, and I can only recall monster coming over to wack me for that once or twice. Usually, my bane is Curing NIN's when they can't get Utsusemi back up.

Blink randomly absorbs 3 hits. The fact that it's random doesn't change the fact that it'll end up absorbing 3, though. So it's 3 hits avoided for 20 MP, comparable to Flash's 12-13 second blind (usually covers 3 attack rounds) for 24 MP. In terms of damage avoidance, it's basically a second Flash. I don't think I'd want to use sushi, though; the main advantage of /RDM is that I take less damage. If I'm going to raise how much damage I take again just to generate more hate, I may as well just sub /WAR. Either way, I've made it to 55 (unfortunately the party forced me to sub /WAR,) so with my Gallant Gauntlets I'm sitting at Enmity +9, and I have Spirits Within now.

One key issue here is Flash. Here's my biggest pet peeve with most PLDs I've PT'd with so far.

If I cast haste on you, it's not because you can dodge the monsters better /endsarcasm It's so that your flash can come around that much more quicker. Use it. Yet most PLDs only use it once and that's at the beginning of fights.

If MP was a concern, I always refresh them... even if their mp pool is sitting at 80%. So ... I see no reason why they'd be chintzy with their MP either...

I always Flash as soon as it's up (with some special exceptions, of course) regardless of my sub. It's just too efficient a spell when fighting IT mobs to not spam constantly. If I could, I'd cast Flash every 13 seconds. Of course, then I wouldn't take any damage at all, lol.

Pld/Rdm sounds pretty cool - given the spells that you were using them I'm curious how viable you think Pld/Blm would be? Granted you lose out on Blink, but you gain more MP out of the deal and, I think, better Int which brings a (slightly) greater chance of the debuffs sticking. Also there's Clear Mind and Conserve MP which could help with the mp situation a bit.

I've got Blm high enough to try it myself but after legitmately forgetting that I was Pld/Blm a hand full of times now I think my static might string me up for suggesting I try it for real

PLD/BLM would generate similar hate, but would take more damage (no Blink, and later on no Phalanx/Stoneskin). I don't see it being worth it, even with Ice Spikes. /RDM offers better damage reduction, Enspells, your own barspells, Aquaveil (it helps plenty if you get an unlucky hit though Flash, or if you're laggy), Magic Defense Bonus, Fast Cast, and earlier WS (with a Rapier Belt.)

I hope with the new patch comming up, you also get that new ability Enrage for PLD. That should help you keep hate as well as provoke (well maybe not the same, but it's another ability to generate hate for you.)

Personally, I'm pretty skeptical about Enrage, nor do I think PLD needs it.

Anyways, update on the situation: as I mentioned earlier, I'm level 55 now, and I'm sporting my Gallant Gauntlets. I made it from 53 to 55 in a single party. It was mainly a meleeburn in KRT on Dire Bats and the occasional scorpion - me, Zaphier, a BRD, and three meritted melees (DRK/NIN, WAR/NIN, MNK/WAR.) Unfortunately, they didn't let me sub /RDM, so no new experiences to share. The melees did put up some impressive numbers, with the MNK's Raging Fists peaking at 400-500, plenty of Rampages for 300-500, and every 6 minutes the DRK/NIN would throw out Souleater'd Rampage for 600-1000 (yes, he did break 1000.) The kills were fast and the pulls were even faster, to the point that we'd often have to wait for respawns.

I managed to hold hate the great majority of the way. Once I hit 54, hate holding got even easier - there were times that the WAR/NIN or DRK/NIN would Rampage for 500-600 damage, and the mob wouldn't turn. There were also occasions where the WAR would Provoke and the mob wouldn't turn. It's a pity that I couldn't find out if I could've held hate off of all that as /RDM; however, it did boost my confidence in my ability to hold hate, and if I could hold hate off of those high WS numbers without having to use my TP, then I think I'll do more than fine as /RDM. I don't think I'll be seeing 500+ WS damage frequently so early, and I can easily use Spirits Within to help guarantee hate if something does happen. I'm only 8k EXP away from being able to use Gallant Coronet, which would put me at Enmity +11, too.

I didn't take particularly higher damage in this party than I did against the spiders, but this was mainly due to the fact that single bats don't have physical TP moves (at best Blood Drain, which only does around 100 damage) and how quickly the melees could mow down the mobs. Logically, since I have the same Defense as /RDM, and I would've had access to Blink, I should've taken less hits (and thus less damage) as /RDM.

I'll keep you all updated on any new /RDM experiences.

[Lmnop]

Don't forget the nice boost Red Lotus Blade and Seraph Blade will get from Magic Attack Bonus (though if you've already forsaken those in favor of Spirits Within, then I fear this is no longer a benefit).

[Armando]

Hehe, I haven't forgotten. I mentioned it quickly in my first post.

Originally Posted by Armando

Things to consider: I had +7 enmity. This may not work as well without it. Then again, at lower levels you won't get as many people pulling crazily high numbers. The sub is highly effective, but TP gain is slow; a lot of time is spent casting. /WAR allows me to keep up with melee TP for Skillchains, so /WAR still has its uses.Some form of Refresh aside from Auto Refresh is recommendable. Blink and Flash are not substitutes for Defense, or an excuse to not use a shield; they complement each other very nicely. Having a WHM Flash between your own Flashes will work wonders for how many hits you can evade; not only do you get twice as many Flashes, you also get twice as many chances to recast Blink. Aquaveil also helped plenty (my internet was lagging, so I couldn't always time things with 100% accuracy.) Magic Attack Bonus had a very noticeable effect on Seraph Blade. Magic Defense Bonus always comes in handy. Fast Cast really helps for casting spells in between hits.

To be more specific, it's a 20% damage increase. Without MAB, I never break 300 damage even with 300 TP. With it, though, I generally do ~130 damage at 100 TP, ~250 damage at 200 TP and about ~300-330 at 300 TP. However, at 1087 HP (my current max with my -HP +MP macro on) Spirits Within would do 135 damage at 100 TP, 203 damage at 200 TP, and 507 damage at 300 TP. At 100 TP, Seraph Blade and Spirits Within will do roughly the same, except that Spirits Within is guaranteed (as opposed to possible resists on Seraph Blade.) At 200 TP, Seraph Blade would do more damage, but if I need it to turn the mob, I'd be willing to give up that extra probable (but not guaranteed) ~50 damage for Spirits Within's guaranteed damage. At 300 TP it's just no contest.

[Armando]

Bump! I made it from 56 to 58 in the same party as PLD/RDM. The up-and-honest way wasn't working, so this time, I went /anon as soon as I got my invite, and refrained from using RDM spells 'til the first pull came in. We were EXP'ing in Wajaom Woodlands, off of Lesser Colibris. The inital party setup was PLD/RDM, WAR/NIN, BLU/WAR, COR/RNG, RDM/BLM, and SMN/WHM. It was my first speedkill party, so I was pretty nervous. Hate was pretty solid, although the WAR/NIN did turn the mob plenty of times with 500 damage Rampages. After a couple of tries I concluded that it was best just to Cover him, and that did the trick; by the time he did another high-damage Rampage that turned the mob, Cover was up and ready again. Due to Morsel Snatch, I was tanking foodless, and due to Feather Tickle, I generally didn't have TP to use as a hate tool. I had Haste and Refresh on me most of the time, and about Evoker's Roll about half the time (8 MP/3 secs is freaking amazing, by the way.)

I'll be honest - the pulls were coming in so fast I didn't have time to buff. After a couple of fights I just decided to go Blinkless. That said, I really wasn't gaining much of a defensive benefit from /RDM in this party. Also, those little bastards attack fast. After a while I worked out a routine that pretty much did the trick. Flash -> Bind -> Sleep -> Cure III and Blind, in no particular order -> repeat. Flash first because of its longer recast and near-instant cast and great hate; Bind second because it has the second longest recast, casts faster than Sleep, and is one of my highest hate spells after Flash; Sleep third because it's got the lowest recast out of the top three hate spells, and because it takes longer than the others to cast (thus bigger chances of interrupt); Cure III because it's good solid hate, and by then I've lost enough HP; Blind simply to make hate while I wait for the last seconds on the Flash timer to count down. By the end of that little chain, all the spells are just about ready to start over.

After a while, the WAR/NIN left, and got replaced by a THF/NIN. THEN things got...messy. We tried SATAing on me early, but the BLU couldn't hold hate long enough and someone would pull hate and move the mob away, ruining SATA (and the Skillchain; they were doing Chain Affinity Screwdriver -> SATA Viper Bite for Distortion.) After a few fights we decided to just let me build hate right off the bat, and that the BLU would turn it mid-fight. Problem is, I'd have so much hate the BLU couldn't turn it without Provoke! Then I tried easing up on the hate...bad idea. Then someone else would pull hate. There was no way around it, I had to stay on top of my casting. After a lot of trial and error, they decided to do the Skillchain early in the fight so the BLU could actually turn it. During the last hour we finally worked out all the little details, and hate was rock solid again (of course, there are always a few mishaps when it comes to SATA.)

The WS damages were great. The WAR was tossing out 500 damage Rampages, the COR was tossing out 600 damage Slug Shots (which usually killed the mob,) and the THF was tossing out 600-700 damage Viper Bites.

There was no downtime. At all. It was nonstop killing for like, 4 hours (with some minor AFK breaks, and a run back to town for Sanction.) Noone died in those 4 hours, either, not even once. Despite all the trial and error we had to do to make everything work well, the whole experience was smooth and enjoyable. At the end of the day, they said I did great, and that it was an interesting thing to see.

I have the whole thing parsed, I'll upload later, I still have some stuff to do in-game (M5-2!) As a bonus, I also recorded a couple of videos of our fights. I'll compress them and upload a few later on as well. Oh yeah, Gluttony Sword = <3 I also forgot to mention that I'm currently wearing Enmity +11. Sadly, I didn't really expect to hit 58 today, so I don't have Gallant Breeches yet for +13 enmity.

This is the most fun I've had in a party in a long time, and boosted my confidence like no tomorrow. Granted, the real test is yet to come - how will I fare against Dancing Edges, Guillotines, Spinning Slashes, Dragon Kicks, and Level 3 Skillchains? Hopefully, I'll find out soon.

Oh yeah, and I need to level my sub. I levelled much faster than I expected. My RDM is still only 27 ; ;

[Murphie]

I can't wait to see the parses, Armando. Sounds like you had a lot of fun for the most part, and you were still useful to the party, so that's all that matters to me.^^

[Armando]

I can't wait to see the parses, Armando. Sounds like you had a lot of fun for the most part, and you were still useful to the party, so that's all that matters to me.^^

Hell yes I did. By the way, I just got a Rapier Belt. I'll be getting Vorpal Blade a level early >3 Anyways...

Parses attached in this post.

Avy = WAR/NIN
Ranian = BLU/WAR
Zimaras = COR/RNG
Soulshadow = RDM/BLM
Yamaki = SMN/WHM
Urich = THF/NIN

Like mentioned earlier, I was tanking foodless and without Blink, so the damage taken number doesn't hold much weight in this parse. I pretty much took the hits to the face except when Flash was up.

I've also uploaded one video. It's one of the last fights (if not the last) with the WAR/NIN before he was replaced by Urich. I have more, though (and Lionx recorded a fight for me as well :D) Here you go: http://files.filefront.com/pol_2006_.../fileinfo.html

Edit: Just checked, it's Avy's last fight in the video, Colibri #55.

[Slip]

The dead sexiest thing about this whole idea is that it sounds like you're never at a point where you're waiting on a hate tool timer to refresh right? With the recast on the debuff spells it seems like you always have something to throw at the mob which has gotta be nice. Seeing a mob turn with 10 seconds on Provoke, 15 on Flash and 1+ minutes on all other JAs is not a happy thing usually.

As for issues with SATA, I wouldn't fault /rdm for that at all. Leaving hate loose enough for a mob to turn in the middle of a fight is a pain even with /War. It's doable but it makes things a lot less secure overall. Sounds ike you worked through it well though so {Good Job!}.

[Armando]

The dead sexiest thing about this whole idea is that it sounds like you're never at a point where you're waiting on a hate tool timer to refresh right? With the recast on the debuff spells it seems like you always have something to throw at the mob which has gotta be nice. Seeing a mob turn with 10 seconds on Provoke, 15 on Flash and 1+ minutes on all other JAs is not a happy thing usually.

You're correct. With Haste + Fast Cast I, I have a 20% recast timer reduction. Although, as you can see from my video, while I never really had to wait much if at all for the next spell, I also had to be constantly casting. However, I hardly had to throw out any JAs (except when Avy was there; he didn't hessitate to Rampage early. After a while I decided to screw throwing out Shield Bashes/Sentinels and just Cover him - that did the trick.) Oh, and thanks :3

Here's another video, it's the one Lionx recorded ^^ Avy's already been replaced by Urich, and you can see that the BLU failed to turn it in this one XD Also, I didn't start the fight with Flash because it was down, that's why I tossed out Bind first.http://files.filefront.com/ArmandoSu.../fileinfo.html

[Lmnop]

woot! Evasion skill up in 1st video!

P.S. Good work, dude

[lionx]

Lol i saw that XDD He was like "Provoke"...and no it didnt turn. X3 That was especially funny to see for myself. Keep going at it bro ^^ Its working better than what most of us thought, i cant wait to see what will happen around the uber WS stages of the game.

[dirtyclown]

If I had the fortitude to level Red Mage once again, I'd give this a try. Glad to see you're still being innovative, Armando. :D