Odd Subjobs

[Shantar]

I've read through the forum quite a bit.
I'm trying to pick a subjob right now I have Thief which I plan to stick with Warrior doesn't appeal to me as much, i'm not into tanking and I just enjoy subbing thief more.

My question is about anyone using a sub not normally used, I have tried whitemage, which is nice for soloing party wise I doubt it would be very useful. What about redmage or ninja??

Has anyone tried either of those two with any luck.

Just curious

[sourjirou]

rdm sux as a sub because u would have no MP. u would have half of the rdm s mp wihch is half ur lvl. nin is nt that great either dual weilding would be useless and u would have ustemei but u would nt be able to tank in the party since u wouldnt have voke.might be good for soloin though.

monk/theif is all that great sneak attack hardly makes a diference with raging fists, i can do jus as much dmg if i jus focus+beserk+boost.

monk/war isnt neccesarily for tankin. u would get double attack,beserk, and a passive attack bonus. also u would have def bonus and defender jus in case u have to tank for the party. i dont think anything would beat war sub.

[Shantar]

I haven't had a chance to use sneak with monk yet as a thief sub, some I know swear by it, even more so when you get Trick attack so i'd like to give it a shot. I know a lot of output depends on your equipment.
Thanks for the opinon though, I think I'll try mnk/thief to 30 so I'll have sneak and if I really don't like it try out warrior or pick up samurai eventually.

[Kent]

Obviously the reason to sub RDM for MNK is for the En- spells. People who say the combo is bad because you'll have low MP don't know what they're talking about. It takes 12 MP to cast any of the En- spells, which is exatly how much MP you'll gain from one healing tick. then, of course, if there's a Bard in your party, you could just let them put Mage's Ballad on you between fights.

It works out, or, at least, it has for me.

[Shantar]

I was thinking of trying that out, just to be different or monk/ninja
I think I'll stick with monk/thief for now though I might grap warrior till I hit level 30 as a sub so I can get a party since I usually can't play longer than 2 hours at a time. Which sucked last night on Bahamut because that's how long it too to get an active party.

I'd like to here more from the mnk/thief's of the world, everyone who posts here seems to swear by monk/warrior no matter what.
I noticed last night that I do decent damage to Crabs out in Quifim but that's with mithkabobs and equipment equal to my level, but I did more than either warrior in my group but I still think people would rather have me sub war until 30 since I'd have Provoke for aggro management and thief doesn't add much till level 15.

[Frarinalga]

En-spells would not be worth losing the awesome advantages warriors offer (attack up, defense up, beserk, defender, double attack, war cry, provoke)
I wouldn't suggest thief either. Monk weapon skills that are most often used are generally multi-hitters, and sneak attack would only go off on the first hit. Beserk would cause the whole weapon skill to deal more damage.
I've heard thief is nice above 60 when aggro is tough to handle.

[antony]

Japesne will always get the NM drop before you do. They are closer to the server (obviously, all FFXI servers are hosted in Japan.) However, there are a few methods to remedy this situation:

1) Use this macro: /targetnpc /provoke <t> : the speed of this macro will sometimes let you snag the notorious monster before the japanese campers.
2) Quit FFXI: The game will ALWAYS favor the japanese, and there is nothing you can do about it. You will always lose the NM race.
3) Shout "Hiroshima." This is proven to scatter the clumps of japesne camping your drop.
4)
5) Buy an OC-48 overseas connection. Although it costs $3,000 a month, surely the gil you make in-game will be worth the price.

[antony]

Japesne will always get the NM drop before you do. They are closer to the server (obviously, all FFXI servers are hosted in Japan.) However, there are a few methods to remedy this situation:

1) Use this macro: /targetnpc /provoke <t> : the speed of this macro will sometimes let you snag the notorious monster before the japanese campers.
2) Quit FFXI: The game will ALWAYS favor the japanese, and there is nothing you can do about it. You will always lose the NM race.
3) Shout "Hiroshima." This is proven to scatter the clumps of japesne camping your drop.
4)
5) Buy an OC-48 overseas connection. Although it costs $3,000 a month, surely the gil you make in-game will be worth the price.

[Cobalt Katze]

Antony, two options
1) Stop posting off-topic
2) Stop breathing.

Anyways, back to the main question. Berserk with WAR sub rapes and maims anything other subjobs have to offer. At 70/35, Warcry should be very helpful as well. Defender at 50/25 will also help if you end up grabbing hate.

So many people (including me at one point) disreguard WAR sub, but really it is so much better than most people would like to believe.

[Sohjai]

First off, subbing a war doesn't mean your going to or you want to be a tank. Provoke can be used in other ways as to saving other's lives when the tanks timer isn't up yet. Anyhow sub war doesn't mean you need to provoke.

Well sneak + combo is breat for thf but no great for Mnk, they don't get the extra dmg that Thf get with sneak. When you hit 30mnk/15thf you going to find it pretty boring. Sneak will give you a critcal hit for one punch every so often which isn't even 1/2 as appealing as the extra dmg you get from berserk. Sneak Attack is usually good to stack with huge weapon WS, works really good with Sturnwind.

The dmg difference you get from a /thf is not even 1/2 as much difference you get with a /war. At lvl 42 I tried /thf for fun to test it out, I do 5-10dmg less per punch, I lose about 100 dmg per Raging fist without berserk. The only only thing I see as an advantage would be steal to get coins from goblins, but that would be a selfish act and totally not team spirit.

As read /thf is really good with dragon kick when you'll have Sneak + Trick.

Anyways that's just what I think, you should try them both out and see what you like. Why I ask you to try is b/c berserk really awesome! You will love the difference guarenteed!

[JexIntrepid]

I totally agree that subbing war SHOULDN"t mean that you have ot provoke, but you have no idea how often a party will pick up a monk/war and say "ok, so you're tanking or you're secondary tank"

I chose thief sub mainly cuz i didn't like the idea of tanking, and although berserk is a good asset, it doesn't really do sooo much dmg as so many ppl claim it does. Alot of times i'll invite a mnk/war and i'll be mnk/thf of the same lvl. /thief gives you a better dex i believe, because i always find myself having higher accuracy than /wars. They don't always hit harder too.
I do hate the fact that Sneak Attack is nerfed, but so far with my +dex, and + str items, and food, my WS would stun some of the party members when we would do skillchains.

Sneak Attack is also really fun b/c when u fight IT mobs, you at least pull off 2 sneak attacks in one fight, and i always gain TP so fast, i can at least pull out 2 Sneak Atk+ Combo. Really good dmg. Dunno about Raging Fists. I also always use focus before my ws, so that i have less chances of missing.

But like above poster said, try both out and see what you like best. I'll tell you what though, with /thf i find myself pulling aggro from IT mobs alot more than i ever expected. Could be my equipment, or the fact that i use food, but i usually find myself being able to pull aggro for quite a bit, esp. after a skillchain with me as last renkei ws.

Also thief sub with dragon kick i hear is awesome, with trick attack, but i plan on subbing samurai soon, to pull out more weaponskills, and see how that goes for me.

[Ungerpurr]

At my level, berserk bumps raging fists up from a ~350-380 damage WS (against IT, exp mobs) to ~450-500 damage, assuming all 5 hits land in both cases.

Subbing thf is really only worth it for monks at 60+, at which point you're still doing less damage overall than someone with war sub, but you can fulfill the hate placement role in a PT, which can be crucial. The only class I feel /thf is good for (that I've seen) pre-60 is samurai. Since several of their WS are one-hit and can be stacked with sneak attack, they're a natural choice for /thf...as well as the fact that close to 1/6 of their attacks are WS, when you take meditate into account. 300-400 damage tachi: kagero is not uncommon from a sam/thf, which seems very worth it, to me.

Thf sub instead of war sub at 45 would give me (/drumroll):

-10 DEF
-22 HP
-2 STR
+1 DEX
= VIT
= AGI
+3 INT
= MND
-1 CHR

Thf sub does NOT give you a huge dex bonus. Warriors already have a fair rating for dex, thf is not much better. Losing 2 STR to gain 1 dex (4 str to gain 2 dex at level 75) doesn't seem like a great offer to me; perhaps it's worth it an elvaan, I can't say. One nice thing about sneak attack that I will say is that, if used properly, you'll never miss your WS (sneak attack is guaranteed hit). Overall, though, I'll take the +50 ATK bonus (currently @ 200 ATK exactly without food/buffs) that berserk gives me 60% of the time over 1 more crit every minute (I already crit like a machine).

I'm not saying /thf is a BAD sub to have, as there are obviously worse choices, but it doesn't bring much to the table, you lose a role (backup voker / help thf trick on the main tank) that you have with /war without gaining a new one with /thf, and most importantly at 41+, you lose a considerable amount of damage on your WS - multi-hit WS are all about two things, pumping your accuracy as high as possible, and pumping your attack as high as possible.

[Aneyeisuponyou]

Thf is situational level wise. Good if you are using single attacks like Backhand Blow / Howling Fists / Dragon Kick. Combo type WS such as Combo / Raging Fists / Asruan Fists Warrior is better for. Truth be told I thought the same about warrior sub, was like no thx... till about lvl 40 ish. Then warrior sub really started to shine and you might not be the "tank" But very often as a monk you are the "trick tank" which you need provoke to start off. Weigh your opitions think things through. But odd subjobs? They're odd because they are not useful, not wanting to be "one of the crowd" or trying to be orginial is one thing. Being useless is another. As a monk your job is to do melee dmg, 1 purpose. Things like /rdm /whm /nin /drg any other that you can think of that aren't /war , /sam, /thf, and maybe /drk ( so~so questionable on drk) is wrong. Plain and simple maybe for soloing but in a PT role anything else is determental to your purpose. It's not rocket sience , it's common sense.

[TMPikachu]

mnk/drk

100 soul eating fists= Instant death (for you too)

I gotta do that someday...



/war is generally great for every melee other than warrior itself
/thf I haven't seen as often (then again there's generally less thief players)

At lvl 51, double attack+kick seems too much fun to pass up for sneak attack.

[Voyager]

100 fists with a Scyth?

Imitating a lawnmower.

Though the weirdest hundred fists I've heard of was Mnk/Nin, dual wielding clubs. I'm going to have to see that, just once.

On a more on topic note, War has actually worked pretty well for me, but I am the sort of player who actually gets rather frustrated when the rest of the party is nearly dead, but the mob hasn't even touched me. Though, War is good for more than just letting you quick tank. War has the highest H2H skill of any class except Monk, so you get a decent bonus there, I believe, and high strength and other melee related abilities.

Samurai, with its TP building abilities should also work very well with Monk, as H2H actually has a nice variety of useful weapon skills. Even the generally ignored Shoulder Bash is quite handy when used as an interrupt skill.

Theif I haven't worked with much as a subjob yet, but I've already discovered that one has to have Theif leveled anyways, if only to keep up with equipment costs. I'm already expecting to have to spend about 50-80k gill to get decent lvl 30 equipment, and the good stuff is just unbelievably expensive. So, if you are interested in running a Monk Theif, you might as well try it out and see just how well it works for yourself. Worse case senario is that it completely bombs, and gets you killed a couple of times, but since you need to have theif lvled anyways, it won't cost you much else.

Harry Voyager