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All I have to say is that this thread is the funniest thing I've ever read in my life.
All the upper level people are trying to help noobs out, and they just won't listen.
I won't mention any names, but god damn, some of what they said just makes me laugh.
However, I've said this before, and I'll say it again. If you want to be truly helpful to the party, you would have to have several subjobs leveled to the appropriate level. In different situations, different subjobs shine. However, there are LIMITS to which subs are HELPFUL. So, yes, as a black mage, you have a choice between White Mage, Red Mage, and Summoner as viable subjobs. Subbing ANYTHING else will simply be a waste of your, and everyone in your party, 's time. All other jobs won't add mp, nor much int (your 2 main concerns), and won't add anything that you would WANT. I'll explain the viable subs below.
When you don't know that everyone in your party is good, and you fear that you may need to heal, or you're fighting a mob you know uses a lot of AoE attacks (Goblin's Bomb Toss, for example), or a mob that uses a lot of Status Effects (Raptors using that Disease attack (hurts paladins because they don't gain HP or MP while resting while diseased)::
White Mage is best. Since these conditions will be met MOST OF THE TIME, white mage makes the best sub. You'll be able to use the most effective spells to benefit your party.
Misconception: You'll never need to cast the bar line of spells. Your enhancing won't be good enough to make it worthwhile, and any white mage worth their salt will do it for you.
When you have a white mage AND a backup healer (brd/whm), and will be fighting mobs that aren't much higher than your level (like if you fight mandragoras in The Boyahda Tree when you're a little too high, but you can get chain 5s and 6s real easy):
Red Mage is best. You'll STILL be able to backup cure if you REALLY get in trouble, but with 2 people able to cure, you shouldn't ever have to. This will give you a better int boost, and fast cast, and things like Dispel and Gravity. You'll get less MP, but not by much. Not much different than a white mage sub, IMO.
When you have 2 healers (whm/smn, rdm/whm), won't be facing mobs that are very damaging (Mandras), don't do a lot of AoE attacks (Mandra's, crabs), are about an even IT to you (not too high, but not real close to VT rank), and take a lot of MP to kill (crabs, raptors, pugils):
Summoner can be more helpful. The extra mp (at lv58, I partied with a lv59 blm/smn who had about 150 more mp than I did) can be a good help, and when you don't have to heal alot, the added MP will be more useful than a white mage sub. However, saying things like Blinkga and Stoneskinga are added benefits is stupid. Why? Casting the both of them is like ~200 or so mp, which already negates the bonus MP you got from the smn sub in the first place. Autorefresh is a nice luxury, but it's not a big deal. If it was like 2 mp/tick, maybe it'd be a big deal, but 1 mp/tick is barely noticeable. This situation is the most rare, and hence, will be the least likely to be helpful.
One final note about sneak/invis-ing and curing being the sole responsibility of the White Mage. All I have to say is this: Try to keep 6 people sneak/invis'd by yourself and without aggro in ANY zone pack full of aggro monsters. It's not fun, and you can barely make any progress at all. Things will quickly degenerate to the point where you suddenly have like 6 mobs attack your party at once and you're all sprinting to the zone hoping you don't die. Expecting everyone you party with to bring sneak/invis (NOT BLINK...who the hell cares about blink?) potions is just silly, and will NEVER happen. Why would people want to pay 1-2k just to get to their leveling spot when they can get it for free?
Compare situations:
A well formed party takes a Teleport-Altep and meets up outside the entrance to Kuftal Tunnel. The party consists of (all 57-58):
1 Pld/War
1 Sam/War
1 Thf/Nin
1 Blm/Whm
1 Rdm/Whm
1 Brd/Whm
Before starting, note that this party has the potential to have Refresh, Ballad, and Ballad II preventing downtime from the mages, has the ability to renkei 2 or more times per battle, and kill the mobs of Cape Terrigan quickly and easily. Estimated exp/hour with good players is 3.5-4.5k.
The Black Mage says that he'll take care of himself and the Paladin. They zone, the blm casts sneak/invis on both of them, and they start off towards the Cape Terrigan Zoneline. Anytime one of their buffs drops, they find a safe spot (easy with 2 people) and recast Sneak/Invis, and continue. The rdm pairs up with the sam, and the brd pairs up with the thf. Everyone makes it to Cape Terrigan without any aggro, and they continue on to the Beach as planned, again, with no aggro. During their fighting, they fight an unusually tough Pugil (or Raptor..makes no difference) and the Pld, Rdm, and Brd are all a little low on MP, and both the RDM and the BRD have used their divine seals. Suddenly, the Pugil is about to use a special that will most likely kill the Paladin. The Black Mage quickly uses Divine Seal, and uses Cure III, restoring ~360 hp to the pld. The party manages to kill the Pugil, without zoning, and without wasting 2 hour abilities.
Let's take the same situation, but let's have everyone take a non-optimum job (however, not stupid combinations). Party consists of (all 57-58):
1 Pld/Whm
1 Sam/Thf
1 Thf/Mnk
1 Blm/Smn
1 Rdm/Smn
1 Brd/Bst
Note that here, the Samurai's ws's will do an average of 30-40% less damage than the Sam/War's, and the Thf/Mnk will do ~250 or so damage with SATA+Dancing Edge, as opposed to 500-800. Same renkei's, same MB's, this party already will be killing slower, causing more downtime, causing less chains, decreasing exp/hour output to ~1.5-2k.
Same situation as before. The group plans to go to the best spot for their level, Cape Terrigan. They meet up again before Kuftal. They suddenly realize that the only person that can cast sneak/invis is the Paladin (obviously, this is the only time that Pld/Whm would be better than Pld/War). So, they begin going through kuftal. Everyone starts off getting Sneak/Invis, but by the time all 6 have sneak/invis, the first person's sneak starts wearing. So the Pld pauses, while the other 4 continue, recasts sneak for the person who had it wear, and continues on. Suddenly, one of the 4 people that went foward says SNEAK OFF OMG!!!! and starts a beeline for the Terrigan zone. The Sam tries to help and attacks one of the crabs that aggro'd the thf, and suddenly he's running for the zone too, linking anything that already wasn't linked for the thf. Soon enough, the thf and the samurai are dead, as well as the blm and the rdm. So everyone has to wait for the PALADIN to be able to raise. One at a time, the 4 people that died are raised, sneaked, and finally, everyone makes it to cape terrigan, where the REAL hell happens.
Now, I'm sure you realize how bad this is already, but let's just say by SOME MIRACLE that with 2 buffs per person, as opposed to just 1 per person, our party makes it to that same beach.
Same situation as before - the PLD is getting beat on, the Sam and Thf are doing less damage, and the RDM and BRD are using more MP to heal per battle than the ones in our previous party. And what can our BLM do? Waste 200 mp to cast stoneskin and blink on everyone when only one person is getting hit. In this instance, 2 hours will most likely not even save everything. Chances are either everyone dies, or some people manage to live long enough to get to the Valley of Sorrows zoneline.
We're not trying to stifle your creativity, we're trying to tell you what's worked best and most often. When you invest 30 DAYS or more into a game, you tend to figure out what's good and what isn't fairly quickly. We're not being assholes, or elitists, or anything else you want to say so that you can try out that nifty idea. We're simply saying that it WILL NOT WORK. Say whatever you like, it won't.
That being said, just about anything will work from 0-20, because comparitively, these levels are SO EASY to attain, in comparison to just 55 to 56, that they're not even worth talking about. Sure, if you want to invest all the time to level a potential sub to 15, and another job at other-than-optimum to 30, be my guest. Anything will work, but you'll inevitably have to level a new job after you find out that your first sub is useless. We're just trying to save you some time.
READ OUR DAMN INFO. Notice, everyone 55+ has agreed with everything I've posted (and keep in mind I'm being optimistic about the uses of summoner sub), and the people that agreed with /smn sub are
0. Plan accordingly.
All the upper level people are trying to help noobs out, and they just won't listen.
I won't mention any names, but god damn, some of what they said just makes me laugh.
However, I've said this before, and I'll say it again. If you want to be truly helpful to the party, you would have to have several subjobs leveled to the appropriate level. In different situations, different subjobs shine. However, there are LIMITS to which subs are HELPFUL. So, yes, as a black mage, you have a choice between White Mage, Red Mage, and Summoner as viable subjobs. Subbing ANYTHING else will simply be a waste of your, and everyone in your party, 's time. All other jobs won't add mp, nor much int (your 2 main concerns), and won't add anything that you would WANT. I'll explain the viable subs below.
When you don't know that everyone in your party is good, and you fear that you may need to heal, or you're fighting a mob you know uses a lot of AoE attacks (Goblin's Bomb Toss, for example), or a mob that uses a lot of Status Effects (Raptors using that Disease attack (hurts paladins because they don't gain HP or MP while resting while diseased)::
White Mage is best. Since these conditions will be met MOST OF THE TIME, white mage makes the best sub. You'll be able to use the most effective spells to benefit your party.
Misconception: You'll never need to cast the bar line of spells. Your enhancing won't be good enough to make it worthwhile, and any white mage worth their salt will do it for you.
When you have a white mage AND a backup healer (brd/whm), and will be fighting mobs that aren't much higher than your level (like if you fight mandragoras in The Boyahda Tree when you're a little too high, but you can get chain 5s and 6s real easy):
Red Mage is best. You'll STILL be able to backup cure if you REALLY get in trouble, but with 2 people able to cure, you shouldn't ever have to. This will give you a better int boost, and fast cast, and things like Dispel and Gravity. You'll get less MP, but not by much. Not much different than a white mage sub, IMO.
When you have 2 healers (whm/smn, rdm/whm), won't be facing mobs that are very damaging (Mandras), don't do a lot of AoE attacks (Mandra's, crabs), are about an even IT to you (not too high, but not real close to VT rank), and take a lot of MP to kill (crabs, raptors, pugils):
Summoner can be more helpful. The extra mp (at lv58, I partied with a lv59 blm/smn who had about 150 more mp than I did) can be a good help, and when you don't have to heal alot, the added MP will be more useful than a white mage sub. However, saying things like Blinkga and Stoneskinga are added benefits is stupid. Why? Casting the both of them is like ~200 or so mp, which already negates the bonus MP you got from the smn sub in the first place. Autorefresh is a nice luxury, but it's not a big deal. If it was like 2 mp/tick, maybe it'd be a big deal, but 1 mp/tick is barely noticeable. This situation is the most rare, and hence, will be the least likely to be helpful.
One final note about sneak/invis-ing and curing being the sole responsibility of the White Mage. All I have to say is this: Try to keep 6 people sneak/invis'd by yourself and without aggro in ANY zone pack full of aggro monsters. It's not fun, and you can barely make any progress at all. Things will quickly degenerate to the point where you suddenly have like 6 mobs attack your party at once and you're all sprinting to the zone hoping you don't die. Expecting everyone you party with to bring sneak/invis (NOT BLINK...who the hell cares about blink?) potions is just silly, and will NEVER happen. Why would people want to pay 1-2k just to get to their leveling spot when they can get it for free?
Compare situations:
A well formed party takes a Teleport-Altep and meets up outside the entrance to Kuftal Tunnel. The party consists of (all 57-58):
1 Pld/War
1 Sam/War
1 Thf/Nin
1 Blm/Whm
1 Rdm/Whm
1 Brd/Whm
Before starting, note that this party has the potential to have Refresh, Ballad, and Ballad II preventing downtime from the mages, has the ability to renkei 2 or more times per battle, and kill the mobs of Cape Terrigan quickly and easily. Estimated exp/hour with good players is 3.5-4.5k.
The Black Mage says that he'll take care of himself and the Paladin. They zone, the blm casts sneak/invis on both of them, and they start off towards the Cape Terrigan Zoneline. Anytime one of their buffs drops, they find a safe spot (easy with 2 people) and recast Sneak/Invis, and continue. The rdm pairs up with the sam, and the brd pairs up with the thf. Everyone makes it to Cape Terrigan without any aggro, and they continue on to the Beach as planned, again, with no aggro. During their fighting, they fight an unusually tough Pugil (or Raptor..makes no difference) and the Pld, Rdm, and Brd are all a little low on MP, and both the RDM and the BRD have used their divine seals. Suddenly, the Pugil is about to use a special that will most likely kill the Paladin. The Black Mage quickly uses Divine Seal, and uses Cure III, restoring ~360 hp to the pld. The party manages to kill the Pugil, without zoning, and without wasting 2 hour abilities.
Let's take the same situation, but let's have everyone take a non-optimum job (however, not stupid combinations). Party consists of (all 57-58):
1 Pld/Whm
1 Sam/Thf
1 Thf/Mnk
1 Blm/Smn
1 Rdm/Smn
1 Brd/Bst
Note that here, the Samurai's ws's will do an average of 30-40% less damage than the Sam/War's, and the Thf/Mnk will do ~250 or so damage with SATA+Dancing Edge, as opposed to 500-800. Same renkei's, same MB's, this party already will be killing slower, causing more downtime, causing less chains, decreasing exp/hour output to ~1.5-2k.
Same situation as before. The group plans to go to the best spot for their level, Cape Terrigan. They meet up again before Kuftal. They suddenly realize that the only person that can cast sneak/invis is the Paladin (obviously, this is the only time that Pld/Whm would be better than Pld/War). So, they begin going through kuftal. Everyone starts off getting Sneak/Invis, but by the time all 6 have sneak/invis, the first person's sneak starts wearing. So the Pld pauses, while the other 4 continue, recasts sneak for the person who had it wear, and continues on. Suddenly, one of the 4 people that went foward says SNEAK OFF OMG!!!! and starts a beeline for the Terrigan zone. The Sam tries to help and attacks one of the crabs that aggro'd the thf, and suddenly he's running for the zone too, linking anything that already wasn't linked for the thf. Soon enough, the thf and the samurai are dead, as well as the blm and the rdm. So everyone has to wait for the PALADIN to be able to raise. One at a time, the 4 people that died are raised, sneaked, and finally, everyone makes it to cape terrigan, where the REAL hell happens.
Now, I'm sure you realize how bad this is already, but let's just say by SOME MIRACLE that with 2 buffs per person, as opposed to just 1 per person, our party makes it to that same beach.
Same situation as before - the PLD is getting beat on, the Sam and Thf are doing less damage, and the RDM and BRD are using more MP to heal per battle than the ones in our previous party. And what can our BLM do? Waste 200 mp to cast stoneskin and blink on everyone when only one person is getting hit. In this instance, 2 hours will most likely not even save everything. Chances are either everyone dies, or some people manage to live long enough to get to the Valley of Sorrows zoneline.
We're not trying to stifle your creativity, we're trying to tell you what's worked best and most often. When you invest 30 DAYS or more into a game, you tend to figure out what's good and what isn't fairly quickly. We're not being assholes, or elitists, or anything else you want to say so that you can try out that nifty idea. We're simply saying that it WILL NOT WORK. Say whatever you like, it won't.
That being said, just about anything will work from 0-20, because comparitively, these levels are SO EASY to attain, in comparison to just 55 to 56, that they're not even worth talking about. Sure, if you want to invest all the time to level a potential sub to 15, and another job at other-than-optimum to 30, be my guest. Anything will work, but you'll inevitably have to level a new job after you find out that your first sub is useless. We're just trying to save you some time.
READ OUR DAMN INFO. Notice, everyone 55+ has agreed with everything I've posted (and keep in mind I'm being optimistic about the uses of summoner sub), and the people that agreed with /smn sub are
0. Plan accordingly.
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