[Spiritbear]

Originally Posted by Jei

Your avatar is so cute I thought you'd enjoy Whm

spiritbreaker. That's not so productive yelling at us after asking us for advice heh. If you think you're fine the way you are then why ask us question in the first place and object everything we're trying to tell you?

Peace man. Play the way you want. We can leave you alone if that's what you want.

The name is Spiritbear and I was yelling cause everyone was saying the same thing. Even though I had already said that I play backline main healer. I was becoming counter productive. I shouldn't have to justify myself to get a simple, "/nin would be a good choice for you to melee with." And I still haven't gotten a complete answer to all of the question I have asked. I try my best to help everyone with any knowledge I have about the game (while ingame, since most of the topics I have knowledge of are covered in here). I'm just not sure as to why it is so difficult to not persecute somone and just help answer their questions.

I appologize for yelling but I was getting extremely frustrated with the lack of answers to the posted questions. I don't need people to tell me how bad of an idea it is for a whm to melee when I have already said that I only do it when the pt I'm in okays it. If I was looking for advice on whether or not to melee as whm I would have asked for it. I just don't understand how a group of adults (I'm assuming everyone here is either an adult or close to being an adult and has some concept how to answer a question pertinently), I guess that's what I get for assuming.

Side note: I don't understand how I read so many post by the Moderators when I first joined this forum about staying on topics and not posting random threads, so this forum will not end up like Allakazham. But, what happened in this thread is the same thing that happened at Allakazham when I asked a similar quest. I was persecuted for the way I wanted to play and the question I asked went unanswered for 7 pages worth of posts.

And again I say thank you to those of you that have attempted to answer my questions with viable information.

[Nazo]

Originally Posted by Spiritbear

The name is Spiritbear and I was yelling cause everyone was saying the same thing. Even though I had already said that I play backline main healer.

No, to be fair you started out with:

I usually play frontline whm when I pt, but would like to know what job would be better for a sub to do that.

Which conflicts with your later statements.

If one of your questions is "which sub-job should I use to melee in a party" which appears to be the case from this quote, then the answer is none, because meleeing in a party isn't a good idea and you certainly shouldn't be choosing a sub-job to enhance it because that isn't your main role. Which is basically what everyone has said.

Regarding soloing, at your level I'm not sure if /nin is really such a great choice, you'll only have utsusemi-ichi which takes an age to cast and if you can't get it back up before stoneskin dies you never will. From memory when I tried it before 74 I spent more time trying to cast defensive spells than actually hitting the mob. Perhaps /pld or something with more defensive stats and abilities with some def food might be worth thinking about. If you're using staff then an earth staff at 51 is a good buy as it decreases physical damage taken considerably (20%? Can't remember off hand).

[Celeal]

Maybe it works at level 75 in merit parties. I think I had seen posts about WHM/NIN with Hexastrike (spelling?) in merit TP-burn parties.

However, WHM melee in exp. parties at level 50 is such a rare practice that... it can be possible there is no one can answer your question. From my experience, I have never seen or heard any successful stories of WHM melee while main healing in exp. parties at level 50.

At level 50 ~ 60, based on the common parties setup that I joined, or party setup that I known of, I don't see it works in theory, I never seen this concept put into practice, or any actual proves that it works.

If there really is an advantage or value for a WHM to melee in exp. parties at level 50, there should be WHM already done it, and there should be a common practice for today. But the fact is, it is not common.

If there is any strong reason to backup why you would like to be at the frontline, I am sure people will listen.

[massaranger]

im a frontline rdm but i do respect the party and when they dont like it i just use my elm staff macros and stand back im lv 72 rdm i like to skill up my sword till i get to cap and stand back which takes mostly 1/3 to a half a lv and soloing spirts within is ok but a whm i never have heard that before that dose sound obserd.

[Mog]

Originally Posted by massaranger

im a frontline rdm but i do respect the party and when they dont like it i just use my elm staff macros and stand back im lv 72 rdm i like to skill up my sword till i get to cap and stand back which takes mostly 1/3 to a half a lv and soloing spirts within is ok but a whm i never have heard that before that dose sound obserd.

[Kirsteena]

Ok a gear suggestion if you are serious about this - get sniper rings and a lifebelt to start off with - that's 20 acc. AF hands are good as I recall, they have str.

Just remember that any sub other than a mage sub will leave you (as an Elvaan) far too short of mp to perform your job. I have mp merits, and a ton of mp gear for when I start casting, loads of hmp gear, and I still need more at times. You can't predict every party, and sometimes just the slightest things can go wrong and you won't be ready. Those are the situations where you being up front at all will wipe you. And if you can predict them, you are the best player ever. You are partying with 5 other unknown quantities.

[Mog]

Originally Posted by Kirsteena

Just remember that any sub other than a mage sub will leave you (as an Elvaan) far too short of mp to perform your job. I have mp merits, and a ton of mp gear for when I start casting, loads of hmp gear, and I still need more at times. You can't predict every party, and sometimes just the slightest things can go wrong and you won't be ready. Those are the situations where you being up front at all will wipe you. And if you can predict them, you are the best player ever. You are partying with 5 other unknown quantities.

Very, very true Kirsteena.

[Icemage]

First off, no one has been off-topic in this thread. You talked specifically about advice on what you could do to improve your melee damage as a front-line WHM, and no discussion about that topic can be made until it is pointed out that front-lining as WHM usually isn't very effective, even in the cases where it does not hurt your performance as a mage.

There is, of course, a plethora of gear that you can acquire to improve that marginal performance slightly; stuff like Life Belt (+10 ACC), Venerer Ring(+3 ACC), WHM AF gloves (+5 STR), and such can help you a bit, but using such items will by their nature reduce your effectiveness at your primary duty, which is keeping the party healthy.

By the same token, you could use a non-standard sub like /NIN, /THF, or /DRK to improve your melee performance, but you'll lose out on your spellcasting potency.

---

Coming back to the original question, level 51 is really the break point for WHM. There is no other weapon to replace Light/Apollo/Healing Staff's +10% Cure Potency, and all three of those staves have dismally low damage ratings.

This, as they say, causes a problem, since you're now forced to either swap in a halfway decent weapon to melee with in between spells (extremely tedious), or melee with just those low-damage staves (which means you're not making any visible dent on the enemies).

Even if you do the weapon swap, you lose your TP every time you swap weapons, and you also blink visibly on-screen, which makes anyone who is trying to target you with spells lose their targetting and have to start anew (such as your friendly neighborhood RDM who is trying to help you keep up with Refresh).

The point really is that, once you get high enough to use elemental staves, you really don't have much in terms of damage options without serious tradeoffs - if you're wondering why so much of the playerbase looks down on WHM melee, this is the reason.

P.S. Earth Staff is 20% damage resistance, in addition to +4 Vitality.

EDIT: P.P.S. I should note that I played melee WHM all the way to level 50 back in the NA beta 3 years ago. From level 40-50, my accuracy fell steadily, and by level 50 I think I was landing maybe 1 hit in 3. There's more accuracy boost gear and food available now, so you might have slightly better results, but that's still a pretty dismal result since I was seeing hits for 0 damage depressingly often.


Icemage

[Spiritbear]

Well anyone that plays whm thinking it is designed to melee will learn rather quickly that you can't do much dmg to the mobs. I learned that in the very first pt I was in as a whm. It isn't going to stop the fact that I would like to max out all the stats I can on my whm. I don't attack the mobs with the facade that I am going to make a huge difference I do it to max out my stats, and would like to use my whm to farm in some of the higher areas when I get up in lvls, why I want to do that is because I use to hate being alone somewhere as my war and get agroed by something, die and there was no whm near me that could fight there way there and raise me. I am the guy in the ls that will usually go out of my way if I'm not doing anything to help raise someone in my ls. I also intend to pl as my whm and I will need to be able to handle anything that links to the pt. I like to do things that are out of the norm for everyone else. I don't plan on being a serious dd with my whm, nor do I plan on being a frontline much after 50, but I would like to be able to go somewhere and lvl by myself if I feel the need to do so, even if it is only a small amount of exp per fight. Thank you all again for the advice.

[Mog]

Originally Posted by Spiritbear

Well anyone that plays whm thinking it is designed to melee will learn rather quickly that you can't do much dmg to the mobs. I learned that in the very first pt I was in as a whm. It isn't going to stop the fact that I would like to max out all the stats I can on my whm. I don't attack the mobs with the facade that I am going to make a huge difference I do it to max out my stats, and would like to use my whm to farm in some of the higher areas when I get up in lvls, why I want to do that is because I use to hate being alone somewhere as my war and get agroed by something, die and there was no whm near me that could fight there way there and raise me. I am the guy in the ls that will usually go out of my way if I'm not doing anything to help raise someone in my ls. I also intend to pl as my whm and I will need to be able to handle anything that links to the pt. I like to do things that are out of the norm for everyone else. I don't plan on being a serious dd with my whm, nor do I plan on being a frontline much after 50, but I would like to be able to go somewhere and lvl by myself if I feel the need to do so, even if it is only a small amount of exp per fight. Thank you all again for the advice.

Here' s a bit of advice. If you want to be more productive with getting xp with your whm, don't ever melee. On the side, you should skill up your whm clubs and other weapons. However, if you don't mind going at a slower pace, do what you want to.

I just think that you'll enjoy skilling up and getting good xp, so that you may solo in the higher levels.

[Icemage]

If your point was that you wanted to just keep up with combat skills, you should have simply stated so at the beginning. This conversation would have taken a much different turn if so.

At 50+, if you must bring up your weapon skills, your best bet is to join skillup parties. Meleeing in XP parties is not the answer, since you won't really have time or energy to actually swing your weapon very often, even if what you're fighting isn't going to punish your party with nasty TP or AoE moves.

For PL, level difference plays a much larger role than combat skills since things will be much lower level than you if you're PLing. If you're a level 50 WHM, I guarantee you will have no problem guarding a party out in Qufim, for instance.

As for solo XP... no way. Go do a Chocobo travel quest for an XP scroll once a week when you have spare time. That's way more XP, in a much safer fashion, than you will otherwise earn solo. WHM is one of the worst solo jobs prior to level 74. Even Easy Prey enemies will decimate you unless you are WHM/RDM at 64+ with Phalanx and capped Enhancing Magic, or if you're WHM/NIN at 74+.


Icemage

[Feenicks]

A WHM who melees? You shouldn't do that. It's so much better if you play as a backline healer. You're letting your party down by trying to melee all the time.

[Caspian]

Originally Posted by Spiritbear

I shouldn't have to justify myself to get a simple, "/nin would be a good choice for you to melee with."

Just so we're clear:

Originally Posted by Caspian's post on the first page, 3 post of the thread

/NIN might work alright, just dual wield hammers. Later on darksteel mauls are actually fairly useful in doing damage solo.

Also, when, where, and what jobs were you pt'ing with when you were outdamaging everyone else in the party?
I hunt coffer mobs and have been farming Eyes lately with my lvl 75 whm friend, and even with him being 7 lvl's higher, having capped club, and me with a very underleveled axe skill and -acc. rings, I still do more damage than he does and hit more often as well.

Very near endgame, you'll want to look into getting Reverend mail and an Optical hat too.

[Icemage]

LOL @ Reverend Mail.

It's easier to raise RDM or BLU to 75 and actually have some damage capability than it is to get people to go fight Shen for Reverend Mail (and still have your damage mostly suck in comparison).


Icemage

[Caspian]

Originally Posted by Icemage

LOL @ Reverend Mail.
It's easier to raise RDM or BLU to 75 and actually have some damage capability than it is to get people to go fight Shen for Reverend Mail (and still have your damage mostly suck in comparison).
Icemage

Lol, true, but it is attack centered WHM equipment.