[Tomato_Kai]

So, I'm going to be level war soon, and I've always wanted to be nifty and level war with some adv job subs. I've thought about /nin, and I've thought about /dnc, and of course /mnk is nifty, but what interests me the most is /blu. The biggest problem here is that I, frankly, have no clue how blue spells work as a sub.

This could be considered a small problem.

Any ideas, or helpful hints?

Also: This thread can be used to chastise me and glorify whatever your favorite war /sub is.

And before you say it Armando; Yes. I know. Use shield break. XD

[Yellow Mage]

Actually, what Armando was going to say was that they aren't "Advanced" jobs; just "Extra" ones.

[eticket109]

/NIN is great for damage 50+ (after Dual Wield II kicks in). It can be useful before then, but that's when it starts to shine.

/MNK is pretty solid and has a couple decent benefits at lower levels like Boost.

/DNC seems like it could be nice for solo though I haven't seen it in action.

/BLU doesn't seem all that useful to me.Cocoon and Head Butt have uses, as do the attributes from the set spells, but the Blue Magic skill would be too low to make any solid use out of it.

Two you didn't mention:

/THF great for DD, especially 30+ when SA comes into play.

/DRG in high levels, there is a lot of Haste that can be earned from this combination and certain gear. I've heard it works well in Ballista but beyond that it's not suited well to much else.

This is just my basic impression of a few choices. Other people here can, and will, go into more details.

[DakAttack]

Just /Mnk.


Unless you can go War/War, but not everybody can.

[Klumps]

1-23: /MNK
24-29: /MNK if solo tanking, /NIN if dual-tanking (with another war/nin or nin/war or whatever). /NIN for DD (but use a Great Axe)
30-39: /MNK if solo tanking, /NIN if dual-tanking. /THF for DD (use a great axe)
40-54: You probably won't be tanking (and probably shouldn't be...). /THF for DD (use a great axe...)
55+: /NIN. If you have to use a great axe (party REALLY needs breaks, or whatever), then break out the /THF.

From level 3 to at least the mid-40s, Shield Break is the most powerful WS in the game for the effect it has on kill speed. -40 evasion doesn't shine as much in the later levels (I'm already at +35 accuracy at level 56 as a paladin), but it will always be useful in at least some situations. You'll spend a great amount of time switching back and forth between weapon types, but you are obligated to have great axe available at all levels when the PT needs it, and equally you're expected to start using rampage within 10-12 fights of hitting level 55.

WAR/THF is a sick, sick DD in the 30s - don't miss out on the opportunity to kick some major ass. Feel free to attribute 20-30% of the other melees' damage to yourself, since they would've been whiffing without you.

[Armando]

I've lost faith in /MNK. All it really had going for it was Counter, but with a max proc rate of 10%, Utsusemi far outweighs its defensive capabilities past Level 24. Cocoon also rips its defensive capabilities to shreds starting at Level 16, before /MNK even gets Counter in the first place.

Rundown on BLU magic mechanics for Tomato Kai, if he wants to know

the accuracy of magical spells is in all likelihood tied to Blue Magic Skill. Haven't seen any organized tests to prove that, but all observations support that. In any case, what's definitely true is that you won't be able to get off unresisted magical spells when they're subbed.

As for physical spells, they're calculated as if they were WS. They don't really lose power when subbed EXCEPT for the little fact that for physical blue magic, your Blue Magic Skill is compared to the mob's Defense instead of Attack. Because of that, they can do "ok" damage against EP mobs and the likes but will be fairly poor against EXP mobs. Even then they're not particularly MP-inefficient, but WAR doesn't have an MP pool to support casting them anyways. However, Mighty Strikes WILL force all physical blue magic to crit, which can get some good numbers in a pinch.

The added effects on spells also seems to be tied to Blue Magic Skill; Head Butt will still stun, but against EXP mobs it'll happen infrequently - in other words, don't bother trying to stun, it'll probably fail.

Anyways, on to subs.
/BLU - The main use of this is to tank. Generally PLD tanks only need decent armor and a ~25% Defense bonus from food. Anything more is overkill. So what do you do with the other 25% Cocoon gives you? You use it as a buffer so you can have Berserk on while still having a 25% Defense bonus. With Shield Break covering your Accuracy needs and eating meat, this essentially means you can tank with +25% Defense and ~+50% Attack. Main downside is that I've never actually seen this done, so people probably won't be keen on the idea.
Effective: Lv.16-~50

/NIN - The main use of this is Utsusemi. Before the 2-hander weapon update, Great Axe was superior to dual wield until at least 50. With the update, that holds true even more so, and Dual Wield is no longer the only effective option past 50. So it basically boils down to Utsusemi. If you're going to sub /NIN, you HAVE to use your shadows. If you're not already doing some tanking, then make sure you periodically draw the mob's attention (preferably through damage) - saving the tank from taking 3 hits every so often means the healer saves plenty of MP if it's a PLD tank, or he has a wider margin of error if it's another blink tank. This rule holds true at all levels.
Effective: Lv.24-75

/THF - Mainly for SA Shield Break for good (yet not "oh nos I turned the mob and now I can't get it off me") damage, plus making sure Shield Break never misses. Doing SA Sturmwind will often invoke the afore-mentioned "oh nos I turned the mob and now I can't get it off me" situation, which is bad since /THF offers no defensive boosts, and Shield Break is better anyways. You can close some mean skillchains with this, if your party is actually built for skillchains, as well. In the event that you find such a party post-60, then you can use TA to dump all the hate from your SAWS skillchain on the tank.
Effective: 30-75

/SAM - pretty straightforward. Gives you Hasso at Lv.50 for extra STR (which translates quite well into Attack), 10% "haste" and +10 Acc, then you get Seigan at 70 for Third Eye pseudo-blink tanking. Wouldn't recommend it 'til 70; Utsusemi's safety net allowing you to pull hate through damage and live is too good.

/DRG is also fun for Levels 20-29, giving you Attack Bonus 10 levels sooner and also giving you Jump. /RNG offers similar things, giving you Accuracy Bonus (+10 Acc) and Widescan for pulling (speaking of which, WARs should be prepared to pull in the event that there's no THF, RNG, COR or SAM.)

That's my take on things. Take that with a grain of salt.

[Silent Howler]

Originally Posted by Yellow Mage

Actually, what Armando was going to say was that they aren't "Advanced" jobs; just "Extra" ones.

Haha. It's funny, one time I was in Qufim Island soloing worms as BLU/BLM when I came across a Black Mage, who seemed to be trying to solo and asked if I wanted to duo. He then went on about how Blue Mage is an advanced job and thus makes it better. I tried to assure him that Black Mage gets quite powerful at higher levels but he wouldn't believe me.

[Saren]

Originally Posted by Armando

/BLU - The main use of this is to tank. Generally PLD tanks only need decent armor and a ~25% Defense bonus from food. Anything more is overkill. So what do you do with the other 25% Cocoon gives you? You use it as a buffer so you can have Berserk on while still having a 25% Defense bonus. With Shield Break covering your Accuracy needs and eating meat, this essentially means you can tank with +25% Defense and ~+50% Attack. Main downside is that I've never actually seen this done, so people probably won't be keen on the idea.
Effective: Lv.16-~50

I've been looking into this /blu or /mnk for low level and cocoon looks really nice but I'm still not decided because I went to look at Kanicans Enmity table.

Provoke (just for reference) - 1800 VE every 30 seconds
Boost - 300 VE every 15 seconds

Blue just doesn't seem to have anything comparable to boost. You get Metallic body which equals boosts VE but you can only use it once a minute and it has a long cast time which is going to make it difficult to use and stop probably two swings which is bad.

I have no idea if the increase in damage you will get from the cocoon and food combination would be enough to make up for the lack of boost and its the only thing worrying me a bit about the combination.

I was going to try it out if I can get anyone to take me war/blu when I hit 16 though (if I can ever get the damn bees in Saru to give me Pollen).

[Kurb]

i remember the pain of lvling warrior.At thetime i didn't have nin unlocked so my first sj was mnk and instead of a GS/GA I oppted for sword/shield combo.
Itook war/mnk to 40 by that time sadly invites only wanted /nin for blink tanking and wouldn't touch me some called me a noob even though i had ll VIT+ GEAR AND A good GA.WAR/MNK great VIT boosts does decent damage..
as always I was unlucky with ppl

[Ellipses]

/DNC isn't really anything to write home about until 30. It's okay against Easy Prey, since Drain Samba will be enough to keep you alive without having to rest for a long while, but Curing Waltz is what really makes it worthwhile at all. I've gone from 38 to 40 on /DNC solo, but I've only taken on a handful of Even Matches in that time. Mostly I just happened to be farming EP/DC. It is handy (after 30) when you've got five or six EP/DC beating on you at once.

It seems like it makes for a decent tank, but I'd imagine that doesn't start to become a serious possibility until 40, when you get Quickstep and Animated Flourish. And of course all that means significantly fewer weaponskills (if any).

[Lmnop]

/dnc has almost no hate tools (actually, Drain Samba has a decent amount of hate attached to it but that's once/fight at best) at the levels you're looking at.

Due to updates, Axes are only really a must-have for Rampage. Levels 55-59 are really the only time it matters. Nice for skillchains, I suppose. I mean, I'll call you a gimp WAR if you get to 75 w/out axes leveled (just like before the updates, I'd call you a gimp WAR for being 75 w/out GA leveled).

Even when you're /nin, Great axe is your best bet... this was true pre-updates, it has only become more true.


/DRG (and /RNG I imagine) in the 20s are incredibly fun.


===============

Armando, I feel compelled to once again point out that I never used /mnk for Counter. You make a fine point in that it doesn't really do much of anything to negate damage (though Max HP boost gives a nice safety net for pre-Refresh mages). But /mnk was golden because the mob stayed put.

[Tomato_Kai]

I love how Armando snuck in like, 3 comments to use shield break in his awesome post. XD

So, I'm not seeing anything specifically against blu other than that it's got fewer (or maybe just weaker) hate tools than mnk, but more than say... /nin or /dnc. I think I can live with that. If I were to gear a war/blu, would the greatest combination be to max out stats (I have access to bounding boots, emp pin, and a few other nifty things) or max out defense? I understand that food can be well balanced with berserk - for example, but... what else could I do?

Also: Do Cocoon and Defender stack?

[Truece]

Originally Posted by Lmnop

/dnc has almost no hate tools (actually, Drain Samba has a decent amount of hate attached to it but that's once/fight at best) at the levels you're looking at.

/DNC is a great sub for the tanking WAR. Use Axe + Shield for shield blocks, parries, Curing Waltz (post-30), Animated Flourish (post-40). Combine that with the WAR's native hate tools ('voke and warcry) and you've got a hate-generating machine! You won't parse as a top DD in the PT, but you will have the mobs attention from start to finish (assuming your weapon skill is high enough so that you can land steps to build finishing moves for Animated Flourish).

I have used /DNC to tank in PTs from 48-55. I have also used it to tank campaign mobs at 59. I found myself wishing I was /DNC when our PLD d/c'd in a PT and I was tanking in his absence. /NIN just isn't good enough to solo tank (pre-74, at least). I'm looking forward to trying again post-60 for Curing Waltz II and Retaliation!

Be warned that /DNC tanking requires a bit more healing support, however. You'll want at least 1 1/2 healers (WHM and backup healer). The perfect combination of healers is WHM + DNC, imho. Getting Regen II from your WHM and Drain Samba II from the DNC makes for quite a bit of HP recovered over time.

[Armando]

@Saren: I know what you're saying, but if my pseudo-DD PLD tanking experiences have taught me anything, it's that damage counts for a LOT when we're talking about hate. Having no shield, and unable to cure itself, a WAR/MNK main tank can't really afford to eat meat unless you're fighting extremely easy mobs. /BLU gives you a +25% Attack advantage 2/5ths of the time, and a +50% (well, more like 56% if you want to get specific) advantage the other 3/5ths of the time. That should more than exceed the hate from Boost, and kills mobs faster.

@Lmnop: That's very true, but the discussion assumes that advanced jobs are an option, and I'd rather recommend /BLU over /MNK in that case. If advanced jobs weren't an option I'd definitely be recommending /MNK, since the only other useful sub would be /THF, but that's not even useful 'til 30.

@Tomato Kai: They stack, but it's an absolute Defense overkill. It'll barely make a difference compared to having Cocoon up on its own AND it'll totally kill your damage. Let me put it to you this way: PLDs don't stack Defense food with Defender because it doesn't make a big enough difference compared to Defense food alone and it kills their damage.

EDIT: Regarding /DNC: I haven't tried it myself but my gripe with /DNC is that it turns you into a gimp PLD. Yeah, you can cure, you can probably hold hate, but you also lost the ability to use your TP for damage (or better yet, Shield Break). A PLD takes hits better, avoids more hits (Flash), cures himself every bit as well (probably better) than you, and can still use TP for extra damage or opening skillchains, all without taking into account the broken damage mitigation and hate holding ability of Sentinel, and the wonderful Cover JA. A PLD also does so much better with WHM support than a WAR/DNC because double Flashes are just that broken.

[Truece]

Originally Posted by Armando

EDIT: Regarding /DNC: I haven't tried it myself but my gripe with /DNC is that it turns you into a gimp PLD. Yeah, you can cure, you can probably hold hate, but you also lost the ability to use your TP for damage (or better yet, Shield Break). A PLD takes hits better, avoids more hits (Flash), cures himself every bit as well (probably better) than you, and can still use TP for extra damage or opening skillchains, all without taking into account the broken damage mitigation and hate holding ability of Sentinel, and the wonderful Cover JA. A PLD also does so much better with WHM support than a WAR/DNC because double Flashes are just that broken.

The point isn't to compare PLD to WAR tanks, it's to discuss advanced subjobs for WAR. I'll be the first to say that PLD tanks better than WAR, but using all of the tools available, WAR/DNC is a capable tank which should allow a PT to function until a 'better' tank is available.