[Richie]

Originally Posted by Electricity Gone Human

So Auto-Regen (from Healing Breeze + Sheep Song set together) stacked with normal Regen doesn't fill in for the very-needed Cure III after a Cure IV after Converting to get back to near-full health, while conserving MP at the same time? {Hmmm.}

As for Healing Breeze, It may not do as much as Curaga/Curaga II, but if you're in a situation where the party's not going to take a lot of damage, I say go for it and stack on some +MND and use it with a Light Staff near-end or after a battle so there won't be as much curing to go around.

/WHM also gets auto-regen. I can't figure out if you're trying to say you will also get Conserve MP, which you won't. That is only accessible at lvl65 as BLU main.
So what is the advantage to /blu over /whm?

[Electricity Gone Human]

Originally Posted by Richie

/WHM also gets auto-regen. I can't figure out if you're trying to say you will also get Conserve MP, which you won't. That is only accessible at lvl65 as BLU main.
So what is the advantage to /blu over /whm?

I wasn't saying you will get the actual Conserve MP Trait with /BLU. I was saying that you can save MP by casting regen on yourself after a convert+cure 4 and rest with Auto-Regen trait set.

Also, the only advantage I can think of for /BLU over /WHM is setting spells with +MND or +INT stat bonuses.

[arkaine23]

Juice stacks with food. You can have the effect of both simultaneously. The real problem is juice doesn't "stack" in your inventory. So you can only carry a few and have to constantly synth them between pulls, which with signet patch is when you'd want to rest also.
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Originally Posted by Electricity Gone Human

I wasn't saying you will get the actual Conserve MP Trait with /BLU. I was saying that you can save MP by casting regen on yourself after a convert+cure 4 and rest with Auto-Regen trait set.

Also, the only advantage I can think of for /BLU over /WHM is setting spells with +MND or +INT stat bonuses.

I usually do the regen with the last bit of mp before converting.

/BLU is very good for solo. I can take down level 79 Marids and their chigoe adds with it, no problem. In a party is also has some usefulness, but there are the standard caveats:

Need to be able to not /whm as in status curing is not neded or well-covered by others. Also, of course you shouldn't be main-healing with /BLU though it can give more mp than /WHM, auto-regen, and more efficient Cure 3 and Curaga 1.5... just not the status cures and erase.

Need to be prepared for melee- food, gear, macros, merits

Need to have support covered or split so that your duties are light. The more haste/refresh you can offload to somebody else, the more time you have to DD.

The sub becomes decent for melee around 62 when you get Vorpal Blade. It can set some nice STR/DEX boosts, or mp, hp, some vit/agi, and a little mnd and int. All depends on spell selection. It is naturally much better if you're pre-merited from another job with sword skill crit rate, and mp 62-74, or level 75 with those same merits. Preferably 74+ parties anyway as they avoid a lot of damage from /NIN, are more uber in general, and the playstlye doesn't usually include enfeebles. Although I can enfeeble just fine with a sword in hand with 320 skill... once again going back to the merited level 75 recommendation.

Basically you melee between casting, and in fast TP burn type parties, you still may be sleeping adds for the puller, Dia'ing the current mob, a few hastes and refreshes, enspell, stoneskin, and backup curing with Wild Carrot/Healing Breeze. Think RDM + WHM or RDM + RDM in the party with DDs that don't take much damage... that's when /BLU can work, of course so can /NIN, and /NIN lets you mainhand a dagger for Evisceration/Energy Drain and exploiting piercing weakness, also faster swinging from DW & Suppa. Some camps it may not be advisable no matter what your subjob since you still need to cast a lot. You'd want to not be around aoe paralyze or silence for instance.

The TP arguement is old, and certainly doesn't hold water in merits with 4 hasted, marched, haste-geared, DW melee DD's beating a mob to death in 20-40 seconds. Damage is damage. Those times where there's no BRD in a party, are often times where a melee RDM can increase the exp/hour a bit thanks to their melee damage.

Ideal gear for solo will be mostly defense-oriented as your target mobs' level increases, with some accuracy added in to kill faster. Vs lower level stuff you can stick to heavy DD orientation and rely on cocoon stoneskin for your defense. In a party it would be heavily offense-oriented with loads of accuracy.

Joyeuse is going to be your best DPS weapon usually. Mensur Epee actually comes pretty close if you're solo (D47 hidden effect), but sort of needs /WAR and a Brutal Earring to help it out, and will give you some screenshot worthy Vorpal Blades. Haste gear and and magic effects do quite well for you if wielding a Joyeuse. Because of the DA rate its average delay is about 150 single-wielded, and enspell is acting like an attack buff in regards to your per-hit damage.

Just some notes:
/NIN in DD gear I have around 620-650 mp but can energy drain things like Colibri to keep going between converts if I need to. /BLU I have more like 770-850 mp in melee gear. Converts are close to 1000 on /BLU, 900 on /NIN.


Also, this is a lot more fun than main-healing IMO, even if the XP is lower if you're BRDless. With a BRD (ie 3 support jobs, with you meleeing as much as you can, xp is fairly good).

[Electricity Gone Human]

Wow. Some of what's been said I have never thought of before, mainly due to not having a lot of in-action experience since my Red Mage is only 65. I'll have to keep all that in mind if I decide to go /BLU in situations such as the ones addressed in the future.

The only experience I've had with /BLU in EXP is with my static a long time ago in Bibiki Bay against Tragopans (also before the new EXP Camp standards set in). We did quite nicely, especially with a four-man refresh cycle. Kept using Healing Breeze when AoEs hit, WHM handled the status cures, the DDs were great, my friend playing PLD was doing an excellent job. I end up wishing for another EXP Party like that every time I think about it. The only thing I would've liked to improve upon was that I could've worked on having some more DD gear ready for when I went ahead to melee. Either way, It was worthwhile testing out /BLU while I could.

[Truece]

I had a chance to try /SCH the other night (merit party vs. Trolls). Despite my high hopes, I was slightly disappointed by it but would like to give it another shot. I was unexpectedly asked to pull, and I didn't have all of my macros tweaked that way I would have liked. Here are my observations:

I had Light Arts active most of the time. It seemed that I was able to alternate Haste & Refresh with only a second left on the timers. I cannot complain about the flat 10% reduction in spell cost, either. I had no trouble making my MP last from convert to convert. Regen II would have been useful, if we hadn't had a WHM using Regen III (I love when WHMs use Regen!).

The only time I used Penury was when I buffed myself prior to making the run to camp. I think Parsimony would be much more useful for the occasional nuke, since the most expensive white magic spell that I cast is Cure IV.

Despite the boost from Dark Arts, I found the potency of some of my spells to be lacking, specifically Aspir and Gravity. The first time I Aspir'd a mob and got 125 MP back, I was psyched. However, more often than not, I would regain 10-20 MP instead. The few nukes that I tossed out seemed to do a decent amount of damage. I think the mid to low 400s was where they landed. I had tweaked my nuking set a bit before going to camp, however, and don't know which had a greater impact on the potency of the nukes (the last time I remember nuking in a merit party, resists landed for 160-200ish against imps and I remember a couple of nukes hitting Mamool Ja for mid 300s, but I'm not certain). Again, I think that Parsimony would be really useful when I'm more actively nuking.

I look forward to trying /SCH again, but only if I can remain in the back line. Perhaps if I rework my macros to accommodate /SCH it would work as a pulling sub, but I think that /DRK would be much more useful in that situation.

Anyone else have any comments on /SCH? I'd like to know what the rest of the community thinks.

[SukiYomi]

Would it be smart to just level both BLM and WHM to just fit any situation?

[Clever Ninja]

You're gonna need more than BLM and WHM to fit any situation realistically as a RDM, but I'd consider those 2 the minimum for a RDM.

[Phanex]

Originally Posted by Truece

Despite the boost from Dark Arts, I found the potency of some of my spells to be lacking, specifically Aspir and Gravity. The first time I Aspir'd a mob and got 125 MP back, I was psyched. However, more often than not, I would regain 10-20 MP instead. The few nukes that I tossed out seemed to do a decent amount of damage. I think the mid to low 400s was where they landed. I had tweaked my nuking set a bit before going to camp, however, and don't know which had a greater impact on the potency of the nukes (the last time I remember nuking in a merit party, resists landed for 160-200ish against imps and I remember a couple of nukes hitting Mamool Ja for mid 300s, but I'm not certain). Again, I think that Parsimony would be really useful when I'm more actively nuking.

I look forward to trying /SCH again, but only if I can remain in the back line. Perhaps if I rework my macros to accommodate /SCH it would work as a pulling sub, but I think that /DRK would be much more useful in that situation.

Anyone else have any comments on /SCH? I'd like to know what the rest of the community thinks.

I've never Merited on the Trolls, but when i'm just out and about messing around /sch seems to increase my spells a bit higher than the norm. Over all i liked using it to merit the birds, i just miss out on the curagas.

As for your aspir returns, is your Drk skill or Elemental skills capped out? My blm and Drk are both 75, so they helped me to tap out at A/+ skill lvl, since the /shc allows you have access to the B Skill lvl, it dosn't give you the skill unless your cappedout already. So that might be why your numbers arint' as high as you hoped. /shrug

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Originally Posted by Phanex

My blm and Drk are both 75, so they helped me to tap out at A/+ skill lvl, since the /shc allows you have access to the B Skill lvl, it dosn't give you the skill unless your cappedout already.

This is a misleading statement.

Since my Dark skill is capped over 200 right now, I'll use my Divine skill as an example.

My Divine skill sucks. Its at 67

I use Light Arts, its now at 246 on my BRD. /SCH gave me 179 skill that wasn't there before.

So capping it on another job isn't a must, capping out Dark skill on your RDM, however, would indeed get you the full benefit from using Dark Arts as /SCH.