The Sub Jobs

[Omecle]

Well, as with any job I level, I want to get all the good and usefull subjobs up to level 40 (I like that number). The sub jobs I currently have at level 40 are WAR, THF, NIN, and WHM (have a few at level 20 and 75PLD).

Okay, so that's all good. But I've started leveling RNG and DRG in hopes that they are still good subjobs for SAM. So what can anyone tell me about these two subjobs? Are they worth leveling to 40?

My SAM is only level 20, but I like to be prepared (I'm really weird like that). =P

[LilithAngel]

As far as Dragoon goes, it is really a viable subjob for Samurai for a good portion of the early game, as it helps Samurai focus on the DD aspect of the job without sacrificing too much in terms of defense. With this subjob, skilling up Polearm as much as Great Katana is not that hard to do, as both jobs make excellent use of the weapon class (as a matter of fact, as a Dragoon, Polearm is your main weapon, and pretty much your *only* weapon you want to use in most cases).

First off, no, no matter how much you beg and plead, SE said "No, you cannot have Call Wyvern for Dragoon sub." Sorry.

At level 10 Samurai, a Dragoon subjob will grant access to Ancient Circle (hurray for Circles). Not that amazing, but nice if you like pretty lights, and like having lots of them. Meh.

Level 20 is when Dragoon really starts to be noticed as a sub, and makes its influence felt (and in a big way). You get the dual combo of Attack Bonus (the earliest availiable in the game as a sub besides Dark Knight), and Jump. Attack Bonus really starts to ramp up the amount of damage you can do, and the difference with and without it can be easily seen. Jump is an extra attack once every minute and a half, and in comparison to how long fights usually last at those levels, the recast isn't that long. Jump is easily ready just about every fight, and is nice for that sudden boost of TP if you need it (sort of a prototype Meditate, if you will).

At 30, you can start to become a DD/TP churning factory. By this point you've had some time with Hasso, and you thought the damage and the speed with which you did it was fast? Let me introduce you to the /DRG items: Lance Belt, Wyvern Earring, and Wyvern Mantle. The Lance Belt is nice for when you use Polearms, as the increase in skill is a boost in both Attack and Accuracy with that weapon. The earring stacks with Hasso's speed boost to help you reel out those attacks faster, and the Mantle is yet another Attack boost (and honestly, who doesn't like Attack as a melee DD?)

The base STR for /WAR and /DRG is roughly the same, and the better /WAR abilities such as Double Attack, Warcry, and Defender do not come into play until at least level 50. Berserk, while usefull to increase your overall Attack, might not be in constant use if you plan on doing any Seigan/TE tanking starting at level 35 due to the loss of Defense (unless one can reliably anticipate enough attacks that it's essentially like a nin tanking with Utsu. In that case, Berserk away!).

Dragoon as a subjob is more of a focused melee DD that relys on fast, hard-hitting melee strikes. Don't be surprised to pull hate easily with this combo without even trying.

Now, SAM/RNG is truly a Ranged Attacking beast, but I'll leave that discourse for a dedicated Ranger to give.

[greydaze]

As a RNG, I'll do my best to answer on the /RNG portion.

I don't think SAM gets too much from RNG till later in the game. Sure, you get ACC Bonus +10 at 20, but I'm not convinced that this outweighs the benefit of other subjobs.

Now, at level 60, SAM/RNG starts to shine. You get barrage (Which, if all 5 arrows hit, is an instant 60 or so TP) and Acuuracy Bonus 2 (+22). With dual snipers, a PCC, and some sushi (plus RACC gear swapped in/equipped, depending on how much you plan on range attacking), you might be geting that 60 TP every 5 min when Barrage is up. (Although it is still possible to mis them all even with great gear, as any RNG will tell you.) You will also have access to Sidewinder at Archery Skill 175. (I did 1250+ on an IT Skimmer in Boyhada last night, woot!) You will also have access to Arching Arrow at 225 (near level 75), but the damage there isn't as impressive, as it's a lower multiplier.

[Armando]

I'm not a RNG, or a SAM for that matter, but I think I've read enough to know how SAM/RNG. Aside from being useful from 20 to 30 because of Accuracy Bonus, SAM/RNG really becomes a damage fiend at 60+ when you get access to Barrage, Accuracy Bonus II, and most importantly, Sidewinder. The strategy is simple: build TP with your Great Katana, then fire high-damage Sidewinders (your Sidewinders should do more damage than your Great Katana WS.) What REALLY brings out the full potential of this combo and turns it into an insane DD is Soboro Sukehiro, though. If you're not familiar with it, think of it as a (watered down) Ridill Great Katana. Because all your WS are coming from your bow, Soboro Sukehiro greatly decreases the time it takes you to reach 100 TP, without sacrificing any Sidewinder damage whatsoever - it's a direct increase to your ability to do damage.

P.S. /DRG loses some usefulness during the mid-level range, though it gets it back at 70 when you get High Jump. It's also a popular sub for SAMs that want to take up the challenge of self-skillchaining, as is /RNG.

[Haggai]

My SAM is only level 20, but I like to be prepared (I'm really weird like that). =P

Doesn't sound weird to me. My main is Black Mage, but I got White Mage to 38 before my BLM hit Qufim. I'm very happy that I don't have to go back and level my sub anymore.

Though, I wish I had done the same with Red Mage, too.

[LilithAngel]

P.S. /DRG loses some usefulness during the mid-level range, though it gets it back at 70 when you get High Jump.

Honestly, I do believe that's what the /DRG items attempt to allevieate in the 30-40 section, while Penta Thrust and Vorpal Thrust, and at 60, Accuracy Bonus, help bridge the gap from there to 70. It may not be the "best" subjob compared to what most people like, but it's solid and reliable all the way though; it won't disappoint.

[Lmnop]

-thought Barrage was only 3 arrows when subbed

-I don't really feel like thinking too hard about this, but in general, /war is better for sam than /drg levels 30-70. Shit, Hasso -- I'm going to have to think about this anyway. 450 Delay GK swings every 7.5 seconds. That's exactly 8 swings/minute. 10% Haste puts that at 6.75 seconds, which is close to 9 swings/minute. But not quite. 382.5 delay (dunno if FFXI follows normal rounding rules or if it'd truncate that delay) comes from 15% haste which is 6.375 second swing time or around 9.5 swings/minute. 18% Haste = swing every 6.15 seconds. That's 9.75 swings/minute. What this means is that if your fights all lasted exactly 60 seconds, all haste beyond Hasso would be useless (3% feet and 5% earring). However, fights will last longer. I don't know the point at which the 5% Haste would give you a 2nd extra swing.

However, it's hard to compare anything to +25% attack, especially when you consider how many Samurai breath sushi. @50, I don't remember the math but I think Double Attack works out to be better for tp than 5% haste + jump every 1:30. 10% double attack rate basically equals 10% higher tp.

-I think if you have snipers, PCC, and are still eating sushi, you're deluding yourself. I could see how PCC would be great for C rank Archery, but this sort of combo will destroy your melee. And if you're not going to melee at all, I don't see why you're playing Samurai. While I believe Delequinox or whatever from KI is prolly a smart guy, I don't think everyone should mindlessly follow his example when the fact is, he's put so much into sam/rng that his standard Samurai gear lacks compared to many sam/wars. Sure, he does awesome damage but I can't help but wonder where his damage would be with all that money put into an obsession with Sam/war. Then you look at people like Nodachi and his belief in Shikoku and other stat-balanced GKs which is that his DoT is important. He's taken the time to think about all his bases before giving into OMFG 1500 sidewinderz.

Honestly, the biggest reason I never really liked sam/rng was because it kinda kills the Skillchain versatility of a Samurai. A Sam/war and even most Sam/thfs, you can convince to use just about any WS. A Sam/rng is only going to use Sidewinder.

A good Sam/rng would play to his strengths: +22 Acc added to his melee. This means his melee set should be 15-20ish lower on acc than a Sam/war's, but have that much more str/attack gear. You'll need this to offset the lack of Attack Bonus and to put a band-aid over your absense of Berserk. He (sorry female SAMs, example SAM/rng is a dude today) must have some good equip swap macros and great equipment set up and at the ready. He'd ideally pull as often as possible, for a chance to land a nicely powered arrow from ideal range as often as possible (in full R.acc equip swap, of course). He should still seek to put +STR equips in his WS macros, and should SC with other melee (yes, Samurai should still SC, even in this day and age ._.) and use Meditate as a means of firing off Sidewinders in-between. If he can get comfortable enough with his ranged accuracy, some Store TP + gear could be quite handy since it increases TP gain by a %. that set % would mean an actual higher amount returned from arrows. Also, slow bows and arrows are ideal, as they abuse Barrage for more TP than their faster counterparts. This is true for RNG mains, but since /ra DoT is more important to them, they may seek faster shooters anyway.

Um... I think I had a bunch of other stuff to say but this post got 6x as big as I wanted it.

/drg 20-30 is great, but Provoke cannot be undersold.

[Lmnop]

Honestly, I do believe that's what the /DRG items attempt to allevieate in the 30-40 section, while Penta Thrust and Vorpal Thrust, and at 60, Accuracy Bonus, help bridge the gap from there to 70. It may not be the "best" subjob compared to what most people like, but it's solid and reliable all the way though; it won't disappoint.

It's true. /drg will never disappoint. It'll be solid through all levels. At least as good as all these Thf/nins, afterall.

I don't know how you could ever live w/out Provoke ready though (Career Warrior shows).

[Omni]

With regards to dmg.
One of the sams in my ls last night was /rng during dynamis.

His sidewinders were hitting for around ~400-500. Mine would hit for 600+
This is due to lower skill rating for bow sam has but, considering that the sam can fire off more sidewinders than I can in any given amount of time, more tha makes up for the lower dmg.

In addition, the lv. 70 jse has a few weaponskill acc traits. very very helpful for the naturally inaccurate sidewinder.

[IfritnoItazura]

I leveled SAM from Lv.20 to 32 using /RNG, /DRG, and /WAR.

Lv.20-28: used /RNG. Range attack was about 30%-40% of my damage output. My archery was capped or near capped, and everytime sharpshot is up, I moved far away from the monster and fired off arrows as fast as I could. This was very damaging and most tanks had trouble keeping the mobs at a distance from me, especially when fighting mandies and crabs.

Only DRG's out damaged me; but there aren't that many DRG's anyway and they rarely get invited. Didn't play with DRG's after getting Hasso, so not sure how that would have changed the picture. If I have to guess, I'd say DRG will still out damage SAM's easily before Lv.30.

I think RNG's and THF's can outdamage SAM/RNG's, too, but parties rarely set up perfectly for THF's and most of them gimped themselves by using only daggers.

Didn't see rangers in parties at all, except the fools who were melee'ing the mobs and firing at point blank range before the October update, so can't say for sure how much better a RNG could've been vs. SAM/RNG.

Lv.28-31: used /DRG. Jump helped out with TP building and damage. The October update broke the parser I was using, so not sure how I compared with others in party. It's a fun combo, though; it kinda forced my SC partner (SAM/WAR) in one party to use sushi to keep up with TP.

Lv.31-32: used /WAR. Not as exciting as /RNG or /DRG, but Berserk nicely added to damage when I could use it. Was SC'ing with two non-SAM's, and drove them crazy with how fast I was getting TP with Hasso and Meditate, so /DRG or /RNG for faster TP gain wouldn't have helped much more.

I keep accidentally peel off the monster from the NIN tank, so couldn't keep up Berserk full time... (Not sure why the leader only had a single NIN tanking...) Was a MP sponge because of that, and kinda wished I use /NIN instead...

YMMV.

[Lmnop]

I keep accidentally peel off the monster from the NIN tank, so couldn't keep up Berserk full time... (Not sure why the leader only had a single NIN tanking...) Was a MP sponge because of that, and kinda wished I use /NIN instead...
YMMV.

sorry to digress, but that's not terrible. Technically, if you were sam/war, you should've been voking it off him so he could recast shadows when he needed. Third eye will take a hit, and it's ok for you to lose some HP every once in a while. true MP-spongery is hard to pull off.

[Kitalrez]

Well, from a roleplaying standpoint, the Samurai did start out as horse archers. They were deadly from 50 meters at a full gallop. The History channel did a great piece on this. I have trouble drinking from a canteen on horseback at a trot, these guys could nock, aim, draw, fire, and pick a new target at a gallop. I envy that level of control. Also, you'll notice that spearmen in ancient Japan were sometimes referred to as "double pay" troops. The katana really didn't gain prominence in the samurai mystique until around the time of Miyamoto Musashi. Musashi himself dedicated part of "The Book of Five Rings" to railing against schools that taught the use of one big sword, (Great Katana), in favor of his own two-blade style. So if anyone does give you grief about this, just paraphrase the second section of "The Book of Wind" and tell them the "Sword Saint of Japan" thinks they're a moron.

From a practical standpoint, going /RNG or /DRG on SAM gets you a number of things others have already pointed out. You are going to be equipping yourself differently than a normal SAM for /RNG, so plan on choosing different gear if you go that route. I have healed both of these combos in a party before, and been pleasantly surprised by each. As Omni said on SAM/RNG, you get to do sidewinders for a little less damage, but much more often. This will translate out to giving you a smaller "Burst Damage" footprint, but a more consistent one over time, making it slightly easier for a tank to hold hate consistently. On this one, either your tank is able to keep up with you, or he's not. You don't have situations like with a non-TA'd THF where you come out of nowhere with a massive Dancing Edge, and hate is all over the place for a bit until the tank can reestablish.

Giving up /WAR means you gain the benefits of /RNG or /DRG, but lose out on things like Provoke, Berserk, DEF Bonus, etc. Later on, this really hasn't struck me in a party as a major disadvantage. Stuff did not seem to die noticably slower because the SAM used a different sub. I really don't see the need for a 2nd voke in the 60 or 70 range with any major consistency, unless tanking has really gone downhill in that range. We usually have a backup heal, so if all else fails we can keep that NIN standing just fine when his shadows are down. If we're going after something we shouldn't with a NIN tank, (Spiders come to mind), then yeah that 2nd voke would be useful. In most cases, though, your back row is pretty much going to leave you alone. We're not going to start spamming you with /tells of: "You picked the wrong subjob, booger-face!" At least not if you know how to make the combo work for you.

Now, were you to lose your mind and start subbing /PLD or /RDM and try that: I would probably expect your back row players to start speculating on whether your parents ever married, how often you were dropped as a child, and whether or not you wear velcro gloves every time you visit the petting zoo. We're a forgiving bunch, by and large, but if the job combo's really odd and might be unworkable in a given party dynamic, expect to hear about it.

[Omecle]

That's pretty interesting Kitalrez. A lot of the samurai history is pretty damn awesome, imo.

Thanks everyone for your comments. I think I may as well level up RNG and DRG to 40, it won't really take all that long, pretty used to leveling those areas.

[IfritnoItazura]

sorry to digress, but that's not terrible. Technically, if you were sam/war, you should've been voking it off him so he could recast shadows when he needed. Third eye will take a hit, and it's ok for you to lose some HP every once in a while. true MP-spongery is hard to pull off.

>_>;

Well, if the tank's provoke sometimes fail to take the mob back after you use a weapon skill, and, to have that happen while wearing Federation Gi (forgot to upgrade to Centurion Scale Mail)...

Let's just say Third Eye won't keep you from becoming an MP sponge under those conditions. (Especially since that was before Seigan levels.)