PLD/BLU - Early testing and theories

[Shinhiryu_Kage]

Re: PLD/BLU - Early testing and theories

I have a silly question and you'll have to forgive me.

Did we ever answer or establish whether PLD/BLU had the JAs, spells, or scope and breadth abilities to match that of Provoke and be able to hold hate in regular xp pt?

I think that, just by eyeballing figures and job classes.... its safe to say PLD/BLU can mitigate damage, and quite possibly, much better than PLD/WAR. I don't see that to be an issue any really.

But, will it be able to throw out enough blu magic spells to keep up damage and keep hate, including +enmity attachments, and PLD jas..... to match and thwart the hate generated by melee? What about when BLMs throw AM?

If blu magic hits well and does good dmg and the pld isn't required to manaburn a fight just to keep hate... then it seems to me it would work fine for keeping hate. In addition, I mean, if you have a THF w/SATA, then we're -really- in business.

Sorting through the posts and the "politicial rhetoric" of the thread, I didn't see anything stated yet. Let me push my glasses up on the bridge of my nose if I'm blind though.

Anyway... I think its viable... why wouldn't it be?

[Lmnop]

Re: PLD/BLU - Early testing and theories

Doing good damage and not taking much in return is the best thing you can do for hate (but taking some damage is nice, as you are still a PLD and self-cure for hate).

I think what this combo really comes down to is a Rune Ridill. You'll be attacking a lot between swing cycles (each spell cast - success or failure - is still a hate generator that's even better with +enmity).

Nothing will ever compare to the hate generation of a pld/war... but maybe we could compare it to a nin/war. Maybe. Not sure how far doubled damage output will take you.

[Armando]

Re: PLD/BLU - Early testing and theories

Nope, still have nothing on that yet, I'm sorry. On the bright side, I finally took RDM to 37 and my BLU is at 34 and counting. Once I hit 37 BLU I'm going back to PLD pretty much full-time until 70 (then I'll have to beat Maat, try to get a Joyeuse, work on ZMs if I still haven't gotten far at that point, finish my NIN sub...)

Anyways, I *think* that I'll be able to hold hate as PLD/BLU through damage, enmity, and Cures/Flash. With the setup I plan on using, my stats should be close to the DDs', but I'll have a lot more enmity and I can toss out Bludgeon for 30-80 damage every 10 seconds or so. The biggest catch is that if it does work, I wouldn't have anything to spike hate that isn't on a 2+ minute timer, except for Vorpal Blade (speaking of which, I anticipate that I'll get TP very fast, what with Shield Mastery II, getting hit, and Sushi.) When things get crazy, I won't have any low-recast hate spikes to fall back on. Going PLD/BLU will require smart usage of my JAs and good timing with my WS.

Now, if you throw in a THF into the equation that's completely different >.> That should be a walk in the park. I held hate so easily on PLD/RDM when I had a THF SATA'ing on me that I hardly used RDM spells at all and still held hate - I could've used practically any sub and still gotten away with it. Also, if fighting mobs with AoEs, suddenly Healing Breeze becomes a terrific hate tool.

The setup I plan on using is this:
Main: Bastard Sword +1
Sub: R.K. Army Shield
Ammo: Bibiki Seashell, hoping to get a Tiphia Sting soon, but might settle for Lightning Bow
Head: Gallant Coronet
Neck: Ryl.Grd. Collar/Parade Gorget
Earrings: Fang x2, will upgrade to Spike/Assault after I do a couple of BCNM runs.
Body: Haubergeon (Gallant Surcoat for Cures and Flashes.)
Hands: Gallant Gauntlets
Rings: Venerer/Woodsman, have plans to upgrade to double Woodsman rings.
Back: High Breath Mantle, maybe NQ Amemet if I'm holding hate well enough, but I'm not counting on having that big of a leeway with hate.
Waist: Life Belt
Legs: Gallant Cuisses
Feet: Gallant Leggings

Food: Sushi, I'm thinking Dorado for the Enmity +3.
Total +stats (current gear, not upgraded): VIT+4 (lol), DEX+13 (sushi included), STR+7, Attack +25.5 (STR included), Accuracy +38.5 (DEX included), Enmity +14

EDIT: Bah, Lmnop posted while I was typing XD Rune Ridill...now there's an interesting term, but it's probably the best way to describe it (aside from the fact that Ridill is godly.) Speaking of rune weapons, I'm actually considering trying to beat Maat with a Rune Blade. I feel kinda spoiled in comparison to the oldschool PLDs with all these newfangled traits and gear. But, yeah, back to the point, I agree - this won't even touch PLD/WAR's hate, but people are willing to settle for NIN/WAR hate in exchange for more damage output and mitigation, so that's a much closer comparison.

EDIT2: Man, I really hope this does work, 'cuz lying about my sub and then failing at it won't be pretty

[Lmnop]

Re: PLD/BLU - Early testing and theories

I was thinking about the new Sentinel. I'm going to say 95% sure that a Pld/blu under the effects of Sentinel will generate more hate than a Pld/war in those 30 seconds. I don't really have any numbers or figures or even experience for that, just... seems right I guess. Flash incoming mob, when flash wears off, Sentinel and start dumping Blu spam on it.

This in turn, makes me think about Pld/blu for small NMs or BCNMs. Basically, things that you "dump your load" on w/out regards to performance over time. It seems that in things like that, Pld/blu could do a lot since they'd for sure be able to generate the hate just on PLD abilities alone. But then add on the extremely hightened damage output... good stuff.

For exp, it'll be a very delicate balance as we really have no way to judge how well you'll be able to hold hate. I think your best bet for balancing hate and mp is to do bludgeon+ head butt in the start all the time like you said earlier. But instead of waiting 'til you're low on mp to start cutting back to just Bludgeon, just wait 'til the mob reaches a certain % of HP. I'd say 50%. Maybe you could push it back to around 25% (right above the tp threshold, so that you're choosing to limit your tp feeding as well).

It kinda goes w/out saying, but the idea is to spam your hate high in the beginning and then just ride it out with minimal upkeep for the rest of the fight.

Also, you say that Flash "pays for itself" but it doesn't really pay for itself if that "cash" is spent on other things instead. I.e. every bit of Bludgeoning you do is cutting into Flash mp. Though I haven't done the math to see your total expected mp-usage.

[Celeal]

Re: PLD/BLU - Early testing and theories

With the current trend of hunting VT ~ low IT mobs in exp. parties, I think mp recovery has higher priority over defense for PLD. From level 66 ~ 67, used attack+ food without Defender when main tanking as PLD/WAR. I already used one and a half stack of Coeurl Sub, and I had better performance than Taco: The Taco does not really have much impact on VT ~ low IT mobs, but Coeurl Sub provides higher damage output for hate control and reduce the time of each battle.

The way I see PLD/BLU works if the mob is hitting the PLD/BLU with zero damage or extremely low damage when Cocoon is active, just like what the VT or IT Crawlers does when they use Cocoon. However, to me, Def+ seems broken in this game.

[Armando]

Re: PLD/BLU - Early testing and theories

was thinking about the new Sentinel. I'm going to say 95% sure that a Pld/blu under the effects of Sentinel will generate more hate than a Pld/war in those 30 seconds. I don't really have any numbers or figures or even experience for that, just... seems right I guess. Flash incoming mob, when flash wears off, Sentinel and start dumping Blu spam on it.

This in turn, makes me think about Pld/blu for small NMs or BCNMs. Basically, things that you "dump your load" on w/out regards to performance over time. It seems that in things like that, Pld/blu could do a lot since they'd for sure be able to generate the hate just on PLD abilities alone. But then add on the extremely hightened damage output... good stuff.

Totally agree there. PLD/BLU on BCNM/Mission fights has a lot of potential if you ask me. Kinda makes you wonder what happens if you put a PLD/BLU, DRK/BLU, and DRG/BLU together in any BCNM where you're willing to pull out all the stops.

Also, you say that Flash "pays for itself" but it doesn't really pay for itself if that "cash" is spent on other things instead. I.e. every bit of Bludgeoning you do is cutting into Flash mp. Though I haven't done the math to see your total expected mp-usage.

Yeah, in retrospect, you're right on that. Now I realize that it only pays for itself if I don't use anything else in the same time frame it takes for it to pay its casting cost back with Refresh XD

With the current trend of hunting VT ~ low IT mobs in exp. parties, I think mp recovery has higher priority over defense for PLD. From level 66 ~ 67, used attack+ food without Defender when main tanking as PLD/WAR. I already used one and a half stack of Coeurl Sub, and I had better performance than Taco: The Taco does not really have much impact on VT ~ low IT mobs, but Coeurl Sub provides higher damage output for hate control and reduce the time of each battle.

The way I see PLD/BLU works if the mob is hitting the PLD/BLU with zero damage or extremely low damage when Cocoon is active, just like what the VT or IT Crawlers does when they use Cocoon. However, to me, Def+ seems broken in this game.

Defense is broken, yeah. But the aim of PLD/BLU for me isn't to overload my Defense, it's to get all the Defense I need and free myself up for eating meat and sushi without suffering any losses. It could be done on VT and low IT mobs as PLD/WAR, but PLD/BLU raises your Defense bar so much that you could eat Sushi on IT+ mobs and not suffer any extra damage as a result.

[Shinhiryu_Kage]

Re: PLD/BLU - Early testing and theories

Defense is broken? Did I miss a memo again? lol.

I do like the idea of building up defense in a way that will free you up to DD more in party; Cocoon being the godsend of damage mitigation and Shield Mastery + excellent sword + meat sounding like a viable option to accomplish all this. That's the cool thing about Shield Mastery. It's a great help to build up TP in party where you're own usual failing acc on PLD would not.

I just hope if an idea like this caught on, you suddenly wouldn't get a bunch of noobs equiping alot of ATT/STR gear and then saying "what.... I got Cocoon?" I could see someone potentially thinking as long as they had Cocoon, they would just get away with damage mitigation and be able to "RAMPAGE LIKE THA WARZ dEw lawlz."

I know Cocoon is hawt stuff, but jeez lol.

Anyway, this may be insubstantial, but was in PT last night on my THF w/a little Taru DRK/BLU at LV11. He wouldn't have been so memorable if he wasn't running around with an ice pick and the halloween pumpkin hat on, following me while I pull, and dropping all the debuffs he could muster for his level. He was so funny and cute about it, because, I'd pull a Gob that would be IT+ to the party.... and there he was, throwing Sandspin, Wild Oats, and something else lol. And it actually all stuck from what I gathered. And stuck with good accuracy. The duration, I assume, lasted pretty well and long. Because I did notice our tank, a WAR/MNK, taking hits well.

So, I was impressed by that aspect of /BLU. w

[Armando]

Re: PLD/BLU - Early testing and theories

Defense is broken? Did I miss a memo again? lol.

Yes, yes it is, sadly. There's a certain ammount we need over the enemy's Attack, and anything over that ammount is essentially wasted, because we start seeing very poor increases to our damage mitigation as you add more defense. Basically, it stops doing much.

I do like the idea of building up defense in a way that will free you up to DD more in party; Cocoon being the godsend of damage mitigation and Shield Mastery + excellent sword + meat sounding like a viable option to accomplish all this. That's the cool thing about Shield Mastery. It's a great help to build up TP in party where you're own usual failing acc on PLD would not.

I just hope if an idea like this caught on, you suddenly wouldn't get a bunch of noobs equiping alot of ATT/STR gear and then saying "what.... I got Cocoon?" I could see someone potentially thinking as long as they had Cocoon, they would just get away with damage mitigation and be able to "RAMPAGE LIKE THA WARZ dEw lawlz."

I seriously doubt this will catch on, but even if it does, it wouldn't be a problem. At the high levels it doesn't really take that much Defense to reach the "critical point," and as Celeal pointed out you can actually tank without eating defense food (instead using meat to increase your damage) and still have a decent level of damage mitigation against VT/low IT mobs. Cocoon takes us far past the critical point, and I can't really imagine any DD gear worth equipping that would cost you so much defense that you're getting hit hard with Cocoon up. I mean, it's Defense +50%, you'd have to be DD'ing naked or something.

Anyway, this may be insubstantial, but was in PT last night on my THF w/a little Taru DRK/BLU at LV11. He wouldn't have been so memorable if he wasn't running around with an ice pick and the halloween pumpkin hat on, following me while I pull, and dropping all the debuffs he could muster for his level. He was so funny and cute about it, because, I'd pull a Gob that would be IT+ to the party.... and there he was, throwing Sandspin, Wild Oats, and something else lol. And it actually all stuck from what I gathered. And stuck with good accuracy. The duration, I assume, lasted pretty well and long. Because I did notice our tank, a WAR/MNK, taking hits well.

So, I was impressed by that aspect of /BLU. w

The other spell was probably Sprout Smack. You can land the spells with /BLU sub alright, but as you go higher up the added effects will get resisted very often against EXP mobs, because magic accuracy is tied to your Blue skill. Still, it's not like there's much else to sub at those levels, so I imagine it's a pretty cool sub for a lowbie DRK.

[Hankthetank]

Re: PLD/BLU - Early testing and theories

I like this discussion.

I have 75 War and Pld and my Blu is currently 51. When Blu first came out I was very excited about it’s possibilities as a tanking sub, but all my testing as left me very disappointed with it.

The main advantages I see from a /Blu are: Cocoon, Metallic Shell, Bludgeon, and Head Butt.

Cocoon

The sad truth of the matter is Defense very quickly hits a point of dimishing returns. As a Paladin it’s fairly easy for me to hit this point. The fact of the matter is difference between 999 Def and 500 defense on any type of XP mob (especially VTs we tend to XP on at endgame) is minor. This is the primary reason that Utsu is so powerful, taking 0 damage even if only some of the time will provide better damage reduction overall than maximizing your Def and blood tanking.

There is more potential for a War using cocoon since it allows them to use Berserk (which increases DoT which is a wars main source of hate holding potential) while still maintaining a solid amount of defense. In a solo War tanking situation pre Utsu ni I can see this being viable. That being said, two /nin wars bouncing hate is better Damage and damage mitigation over all, and a Paladin is going to take the same damage overall and hold hate better. So its feasible but hardly ideal, and generally there are better options.

Metallic Skin

As mentioned by someone before this spell is a waste even as a Blu main I rarely cast it, it doesn’t absorb a significant amount of damage, has a very long cast time, and is fairly high MP cost for the little protection it offers.

Bludgeon

The Acc of Bludgeon is based of the acc of your main hand weapon. So as both a War and a Pld landing Bludgeon would not be a problem. However the damage is 70-100 at most and both jobs can match that DoT with their main hand weapons on XP mobs. That’s 1-2 Axe hits, and even as my turtled up Paladin that’s only 2-3 sword hits. For Raw damage potential we’re better off using our main hand weapon rather than trying to use these spells to deal damage.

Head Butt

This spell was my main reason for wanting to try out this sub. However, while the Acc of Head Butt like Bludgeon is based off our main weapon Acc, the Stun effect is based off our Blu magic skill, which is extremely low and thus the Stun effect very, very rarely procs even on EP mobs, from eyeballing it its well under a 10% proc rate on EPs and its practically none existent on anything higher. At this time given the lack of Blu Magic Skill enhancing items I don’t think stun locking mobs is viable for anything other than a Blu Main. The hate gain from Head Butt is minimal and not worth the MP.

Overall, I think /blu as a tanking sub is very lacking. Def is overrated, the nifty spells we get from a 37 sub rarely proc and end up being simply damage spells that can very easily be out classed by our main weapon damage at no MP cost.

From a Paladin Standpoint

Solo or small party work, /rdm trumps /blu in ever way I think. Phalanx offers better damage reduction than any amount of Defense will provide. Paladin has innate Enhancing skill and with a few pieces of gear can get a 20 damage Phalanx, 999 defense won’t reduce every hit by 20 damage. Rdm Stoneskin is 10 times better than metallic shell, both from a MP>HP ratio and from a cast time standpoint. Flash > Stoneskin works, Flash > Metallic shield needs a shield block and a prayer. Blind, sleep, bind all generate more hate than any spells Blu has to offer. /Rdm also gives more MP than /Blu does. Dispel rocks, and due to the nature of the spell I have no problem landing it even on VT Sharks in sea. I solo these all the time and I can count on one hand the number of times I have been resisted.

For Tanking Big stuff, post Utsu: Ni nothing else comes close to the Damage reduction offered by /nin. Pre Utsu Ni Cocoon will make no difference in the damage we take compared to defender and /Blu offers nothing in the way of hate generating abilities.

For XP parties, /Blu doesn’t offer quick and large hate spikes which are so needed in XP parties. /Nin can work for big stuff because over long fights Paladin can build up significant amounts of hate, lose very little due to shadows and not getting hit and easily surpass the hate production of /war. For shorter fights nothing compares to Voke for steady, reliable, quick hate production.

From a Warrior Standpoint

For solo/small party work Cocoon is nice, but the MP cost is high considering a Wars small MP pool and its ntohing that cannot be duplicated thur gear or food.

Pre Ni the damage reduction is pretty good when berserk is up, but in addition to needing refresh I don’t think its large enough to warrant not using another of Wars many subs.

Once Wars get rampage, /nin not only offers shadows but increased DoT thru delay reduction. Despite the lowered TP return from dual wield traits, the increase in attack innings results in more opportunities for Double attack which will result in faster TP gain overall which means more Rampages and a significant boost to overall damage.

Post Ni:

With a proper setup War/nin can tank nearly anything with pretty standard support. I tank XP parties/Limbus/Dynamis quite often and while I may not completely avoid taking damage I can avoid the vast majority of it and not be anymore of a burden on my healers than other tanking classes. (Just keep me hasted please)

For tanking big stuff, like Paladin no amount of defense can compare to the damage reduction of shadows.

For XP parties, I can actually see some viability here pre Ni. With Cocoon more than making up for the loss of defense from berserk, it has potential. The only negatives are:

• the War would need refresh, the MP gained from a Blu sub is minimal.
• Nin/Sam/Drg all offer better damage potential

In a clutch situation where there are no other tanks seeking, I guess I can see this working ok. A war could deal decent damage while taking as much damage as a Paladin. The biggest advantage to this combo is it doesn’t need any significant gear changes. You can wear your standard DD gear and have cocoon bring your Def up to tankable levels. While it may work, I can’t see it being as effective as a dedicated career tank.

Also regarding /mnk. There is a lot of hate for this combo, but I will say I think it has more to do with the players than the job class. It needs to gear itself differently than a DD war which is what 99% of the player population is. If geared properly I think it is a very solid tank and better than /blu. Personally I am a pretty big fan of the combo for solo tanking situations. Voke > Boost > Boost > Voke works just as well at later levels as it does in dunes. Aggressor + Focus allows a War to have an Acc buff up all times and with a bit of gear tweaking can replace Sushi as the food of choice. While def foods don’t offer the same Def increase as Cocoon they can get your Defense high enough to take very similar damage if not identical.


Since we are speaking of tanking, I wanna note that Blu as a XP party tank is extremely viable up to mid levels at the very least. I have tanked my way to 51 Blu and I notice very little difference between playing as him and playing paladin at his level. Blu/war can act very much like a Paladin with a touch less hate control and bit more Damage output. The hardest part was prior to SE giving Blu magic carrot was the lack of a suitable healing spell for that level range. By 45 Pollen is outliving its usefulness and Healing breeze is an MP intensive spell and not efficient to use constantly. Perhaps one day I’ll pick it back up. But if push came to shove I rather take a Blu/War over a War/blu or a Pld/Blu.


I see alot of speculation regarding /blu. If anyone has anything they would like tested please let me know, while I am statisfied with my findings I am always open to new ideas. For testing purposes I have a pretty wide selection of gear setups and some very adventurous friends willing to try just about anything.


Sincerely,
Hank

[Celeal]

Re: PLD/BLU - Early testing and theories

Very informative post from Hankthetank

Since PLD/RDM, WAR/BLU, PLD/NIN, WAR/NIN, BLU/WAR is mentioned for comparing to PLD/BLU tanking, I would like to include level 35+ SAM/WAR and level 70+ PLD/SAM into the comparsion (sorry for off topic ):

With Seigan + Third Eye for SAM post level 30, Third Eye can last 30 seconds with /recast cut down to 30 seconds if Seigan is active. For soaking damage, SAM has high parrying skill, decent evasion, decent amount of HP, have access to decent defensive armor and a lot of evasion gear. For hate control SAM have lot of TP, access to DD gear, Enmity+ from AF, option for Riceball, great WS, etc. For my exerience, Seigan + Third Eye is as potent as Utsusemi: Ichi or Ni; it can easily anticipate 3 to 4 attack from exp. mob before Third Eye wears off.

Compare SAM/WAR to WAR/NIN pre level 74, Third Eye cannot be interrupted like Utsusemi: Ichi. However Utsusemi can be influenced by Haste. SAM has high cap evasion skill and parrying skill compare to WAR.

------------

I know it sound stupid, but how about level 70+ PLD/SAM tanking with staff? Will Seigan + Third Eye, Flash + Cure, and Spirit Taker make PLD/SAM tank self-sufficient?

Assuming the PLD/SAM go all out DD with gear and DD food, 60TP every 3 minute from Mediate, and Store TP should allow PLD/SAM to use Spirit Taker often (let say for every 1 minute, Hasso + Spirit Taker, then Seigan + Third Eye). PLD's JA, Cure, Flash for Hate control.

Third Eye + Seigan + Flash should negate a lot of damage from the mob, and also should negate a large portion of mp usage over time. On top of that the level 70+ PLD/SAM has
Auto-Refresh, Spirit Taker backed by rank A staff skill, Mediate (/sam version) and Store TP, in theory it looks good for TP-burn parties.

I know level 70+ PLD/WAR can generate more hate compare to level 70+ PLD/SAM, but I think in theory the PLD/SAM keep the chain flowing better. In the worst case the PLD/SAM can still back up heal + support DD the party while self-sufficient for MP recovery.

[Lmnop]

OMG the title!

Re: Hank

You should read earlier in the thread (I think page 2?) about Armando's damage output on a VT mob as pld/blu. He gave up maybe one sword swing to cast enough blue magic to almost double his damage output. The power of .5 second castings is right there. In fact, all potential of pld/blu lies in that fact. Oh dear, think of what a Refreshed Drk/blu could be doing in normal parties (levels 40-60, I'm thinking mainly).

For War/blu, it could actually end up being exceedingly boring, methinks. You use Cocoon when mob comes in, you voke and engage. You use Bludgeon after your first GA swing for extra hate. You um... DD and use provoke every 30 'til fight's over? I guess that's it. I would feel obliged to cast something to try to hit close to 60 mp/minute. >.>

Re: Pld/sam

You'll have to remember that hasso/seigan increase recast timers. It'd be hard to get around that.

I guess ideally, you'd develop a rythm of only using Flash when Third Eye was down, so you could cancel Seigan first. This is why i wish S-E would put a /cancel "Buff name" command into the game. Would help blink tanking so much. I could see how to make a nice cycle like that, since both stances are on 1 minute timers and the typical fight will last 1 minute, but I don't see how to apply that cycle to gaining hate. You'll end up opening yourself up for some solid blows in the process of trying to attain hate. Of course, if this is with a Kinkobo, you're gonna have the MP to spare. Dunno.

Re: Sam tanking

I honestly don't see why not. They lack consistent hate tools, and they lack consistent damage mitigation. These are the turn offs. The turn ons: An insta-use Utsusemi: Ni that can also increase damage output via the (very frequent) counters. The best Parrying, very good evasion, 2nd best HP. You say they get decent gear? They get to wear many heavy armor types, but they also get access to Rasetsu and Arhat's gear! that stuff is amazing! That's already more Damage Taken -% gear than a PLD can get their hands on along with various combinations to increase Agi/evasion to acceptable levels, or just shoot Enmity through the roof.

All of this is good, but then there's Rice balls. Riceballs with the AF gloves will effectively give you attack food and defense food at the same time. This is wonderful for gaining hate and holding hate. If a Sam can try to have tp at the start of every fight, he can use the DD no-no to make sure he's tank. It could be very interesting. I would actually like to try (right around level 70 when a lot of this gear is available) a layout with a Sam and a war/nin duo tanking. I think it could be pretty swell.

And damnit, S-E needs to make Dodge say "Enhances evasion, as well as Guard and Parrying rate." gogo more damage mitigation.

[Hankthetank]

Re: PLD/BLU - Early testing and theories

Lmnop, where you referring to this?

"However, I couldn't land a single Feather Storm for reasons that still escape me, and halfway through the fight I decided that I had to kill it faster. So, I started alternating Bludgeon and Head Butt instead. Total melee damage: 1958. Total spell damage: 978."

Damage done to the mob: 1958 + 978 = 2936

"And so, I tried a VT colibri. Since I pretty much gave up on Feather Storm, I decided to just spam Head Butt/Bludgeon all the way. The damage came out much closer: 1595 melee damage, 1471 spell damage. You could almost say that the blue spells doubled my DoT."

Damage done to the mob 1595 + 1471 = 3066

Those numbers don’t really support an increase in DoT. Since the total damage dealt is about the same, Damage didn’t increase (it was merely redistributed between Melee damage and spell damage), and since we have no idea of the time factor I don’t think we can make any comments on DoT. To truly comment on DoT when you are the sole DD you don’t need a parser as much as you need a stopwatch, and use Time as your standard for comparison. If the first fight took 2 minutes and the second fight took 1 minute then that would be doubling your DoT.

Or where you referring to these calculations?:

"My average sword swing was 37.3 damage. My Bastard Sword +1 has a Delay of 258. That means that, barring Accuracy (which, save for Feather Storm, is roughly the same in my melee swings and blue spells, and thus the ratio of melee damage to magic damage will remain proportional whether we take Acc into account or not; let's not complicate the math more than we should) my sword would do 37.3 damage every 4.3 seconds. In other words, if I don't cast, I'll do roughly 8.67 damage per second. Now let's take spells - the average damage of all Head Butts and Bludgeon casts was 42.5 damage (this includes spells that landed for 0.) I can repeat a Bludgeon -> Head Butt cycle every 11.75 seconds (less if I have Haste, but then again my sword swings would also be that much faster so once again they'd stay proportional.) This means that I do 85 damage every 11.75 seconds through spells - 7.23 damage per second. Of course, there's casting time to take into account. Using sword swings only, I should've done 101.87 damage during those 11.75 seconds (8.67 * 11.75). If I do my Bludgeon -> Head Butt cycle, I add 85 damage but subtract one second's worth of melee swing damage (since each spell has a 0.5 second casting time.) The melee swing damage would then be 8.67 * (11.75 - 1) = 93.20. So, the total melee + magic damage is 85 + 93.2 = 178.2 damage in those 11.75 seconds. There's a big difference between doing 101.87 damage just meleeing and doing 178.20 damage with melee + magic - in this case, it represents a 75% increase in damage, at the expense of 28 MP every 11.75 seconds (of which I get back about 19 from Auto Refresh + Refresh during the same length of time.) The increase in efficiency is fairly drastic, and if you were to compare that damage to that of a traditional blood tank (WAR/MNK or PLD/WAR) who needs to sacrifice offense via Defense food or Defender, the increase in efficiency is astronomical."

I’ll play with this later when I get home, but I have no recollections of ever swinging during the Bludgeon animation either thru an interrupted animation or via sword damage in the log, I am very aware of seeing sword swings consistently interrupt the Utsu Animation. I tend to actually try and time in Utsu casts so that I will always swing during the beginning of the animation and normally swing again immediately after. I really cannot recall every being able to this as a Blu main or with /blu. If I am wrong, and there is a fairly good chance I am, spell spamming is still impractical due to MP restrictions which I’ll get into later.

I will try to get a RDM friend to duo some Marids with me again. They are T-VT to me at 75. He can melee as well to give me a some form of a standard, and by nuking the chigoes only, I’ll just discount his Magic damage from the parser results and should be able to compare the overall increase/decrease in my damage when focusing on pure Melee Vs. Magic Spamming. However I say I will have two main issues.

First, my Blu sub was 37 before my Rdm sub was, and back when Marid hairs where 500K each my and my friend duoed these a lot. I tried Blu sub and found it ineffective as a tanking sub. I was unable to hold hate without constant spamming which resulted in me running out of MP. I would then lose hate to the RDM due to him having to cure the majority of the damage I took.

This isn’t conclusive to show that /blu doesn’t deal more damage, and I don’t want to come off as say such. Given how little we know about enmity, in theory I could be dealing a lot more damage via blu spells and they just might not be affected by or minimally effected by enmity (similar to enspell damage). It was however conclusive evidence to me that /blu is not an effective tanking sub.

Second, even if I hold hate consistently, (I could bring in another DD to TA me), in the interests of fairness I have to acknowledge that any results I get can easily be discounted because it will biased towards melee for a few reasons.

• I am an avid user of a Joyeuse and the DoT of this sword is fantastic. Time permitting I could try and use an alternative sword, and attempt to compare but I do have concerns in regards to holding hate as stated above.
• I have full sword merits. While this should effect ACC for both spells and melee hits, melee hits also benefit from the added attack.
• I have 18% haste in gear and a fairly strong melee build. Given the fact that I find MP to be a limiting factor on Blu spells not Recast times, haste gear will favor melee and have no effect on spell damage.

Another thing to consider is the low Blu skill is for more pronounced at 75 than it is as say 20. Subbing Blu to my Bst I can stun fairly often on EM-T stuff. On Paladin it is little more than a rare fluke occurrence even on EP.

Getting back to my MP consumption concern, assuming we spam Blu spells like in the OP’s example, and they do in fact increase damage significantly enough that they result in acceptable hate levels and can replace provoke:

Cocoon is 10mp for 2min duration = 5MP/Min
Head butt is 10mp recast 10 seconds = 60 Mp/Min
Bludgeon is 16mp recast 11.75 Seconds = 81.7 Mp/Min
Flash 25 is Mp recast 45 seconds = 33.3 Mp/Min
Total Mp/Min Expenditures = 180 Mp/Min

Parade Gorget = 1 Mp every 3 seconds = 20Mp/Min
Auto-Refresh = 1 Mp every 3 seconds = 20Mp/Min
Sanction Refresh = 1 Mp every 3 seconds = 20Mp/Min
Double Ballad = 3 Mp every 3 seconds = 60Mp/Min
Refresh = 3 Mp every 3 seconds = 60Mp/Min
Total Mp gain = 180Mp/Min

I am going to ignore a V Cloak since I don’t think I would wear one full time while tanking, but even if wearing one, you could only get a Cure II every minute.

Even factoring my fully merited Chivalry that’s still only another 500MP ever 15 minutes or about 1 cure 4 every 3 minutes.

By my numbers spamming spells just isn’t a feasibly sustainable method of hate production. Blu and /blu can very easily burn thru mp. Ignoring cure spells, and assuming you have the max refresh available short of a Rdm, Brd AND a Cor party or a Relic Horn bard you are running at breakeven.

Even with 9mp a tic refresh we don’t have room to cure ourselves. Pld/Wars in most situations are running at a MP in/MP out ratio of about 1 as it is, adding more Blu spells to our casting list is going to create a MP deficit and/or result in us curing less and our mages having to cure more.

From an enmity standpoint the question is “Is 3 bludgeons (48 MP) more hate than a Cure III (48MP)?” And if it is “Is it enough of an increase to warrant me making the mages handle all the curing?”

I view Blu Mages as MP intensive but high utility and very middle of the road as far as DPS is concerned. Its not a DoT job, but offers excellent burst Damage and some very useful spells. What we get from it as a sub is very minimal.

Since my Paladin really isn’t swimming in enough MP to trade it for damage (Bludgeon), and the utility spells are all either ineffective (Head butt doesn’t stun) or not as very useful at my level (Cocoon) Blue Mage sub has very little to offer me.

A Wars MP pool is even smaller than a Paladins and its pretty easy to spend 60mp a Minute. 3 Bludgeons and a Head Butt for a War will spend 58MP and thats 1 spell every 15 seconds hardly spamming.

For a Paladin Flash is 25 Mp every 45 seconds, and you will want to cast this as often as possible for it’s hate production and it makes a mob miss two to three hits. Flash alone is going to comsume more than half of the 60mp a min you are pulling in from refresh.

Re: Pld/Sam

Good stuff I didn’t know about increased recast timers. That I think hurts Pld/Sam a lot.

At higher levels its all about max hate. Once DDs get there marquee WSs my focus switched from trying to minimize the damage I took to doing what ever I had to do to hold hate. And this was all before everyone having merits. I can’t help but feel bad for younger Paladins having to tank for 2nd /3rd job Monks/Wars who have already merited weapons and capped their crit hits merits.

As a tank our first job is to hold hate, our second job is to minimize the damage we take. Considering how difficult it can be to tank over the Tier 1 DDs of the world, I think /war will still be the highest performing sub in main tank XP situations. Even if /Sam saves us from taking more damage, unless it can generate more hate than War it’s probably not worth using.

If fights that are lasting only 1 min, then WSs are going to be going off at the start of the fight. If weapons skills are firing at the start of fights, you are going to need the fast, high spiking hate of Provoke to even attempt to hold that mob.

Re: Sam Tanking

Sounds fun love to see it .

How strong is overwhelm? That could be a key difference it sounds awesome.

I do think the reliability of Utsu is deciding factor. Third eye isn’t nearly as reliable sometimes only absorbing 1 hit and sometimes considerably more. Reliability in the end may prove to more effective, and is even more important in a dual tanking situation. The ability to count shadows and know exactly how long before you will take damage allows a good dual war team to pass hate without ever taking damage. Not sure Sam could do this as effectivly.

Its definitely doable, I guess the question is it efficient enough to be on par with our current accepted methods of tanking or is it more of a gear intensive situational role only?

Sincerely,
Hank

[Lmnop]

Re: PLD/BLU - Early testing and theories

wow, nice MP break down. First off, yes I was talking about the section where Armando's math was showing that he went from 101 damage to 178. Also, his first test was kinda screwed up, since he spent so much time failing feather storm. So while he was doing that, his character continued to auto-attack and deal more than it's fair portion of damage.

The idea is that that alone would be the enmity trick. It really is very iffy though. You still need -something- right off the bat to grab initial hate. Typically, Flash + high enmity outfit results in a Provoke effect so you could do that right off the bat to hit near-Ninja levels of initial hate. From there, you should be able to use your BLU spells to keep up in damage (and keep up in the hate list). If this is a burn party, you probably won't be using Flash again (as you'd need it for the next mob) unless you have a decent amount of Haste (or the spell on you which you better). Once it's near 35 seconds I guess you wouldn't have a problem doing it twice - though I know lots of AU mobs go down in 12 seconds when the stars align and more than one person has a damage spike ready.

I think ideally, you'd use your Haste gear to your advantage and cast Flash every chance you get and maybe take 4 head butts and 4 bludgeons a fight instead of pushing it to the max so you could conserve mp. But then of course, you're not increasing your damage as much so your hate becomes shakey.

I would like to see pld/blu on AoE happy mobs with Healing Breeze...

-----

The Sam stances increase recast of all spells by 50%, I think. That sucks a lot. I feel the best use of a Pld/Sam would be DD/main healer, actually. When you're not using Spirit Taker, you can be casually DDing with Hasso and dropping it for Flash occasionally, while using /ma Cure <stpc> macros to support the party. If you could keep the team alive, you should theoretically never run out of mp? This may also be the best use for it since as I stated above, I don't think it's hate generation abilities will be good enough. But if you're playing healer with +enmity instead of -enmity, you could very well take hate halfway through the fights. At which point, you pop Seigan/Third Eye.

As far as Samurai goes... I think it could be considered gear intensive but honestly, I carry a full set of defense gear on my Warrior every time I go exping. I have since it was 40 and there started to be reason to have 2 sets. Arhat's NQ is cheap, Rasetsu isn't far behind (last I knew). I would take a Samurai with woodsman + venerer and a "meh" defense swap over a samurai that simply has 2x woodsmans. It's true that not getting hit at all is ideal, but getting hit once isn't horrifying. If a Sam gets hit, then the war vokes. I'm lazy so that's usually how I dual tank these days anyway (I'd like to take this chance to note that I used to dual tank on NIN and early days of WAR/nin flawlessly with some of the better NINs I encountered and it was glorious - I just don't think the mp loss of getting chomped once is so incredible that I can't wait for my own recast timers that extra swing). So yeah, I think war/nin + sam would be hot stuff.

Things I wish S-E would change about Seigan: Activating Seigan should also attempt to activate Third Eye automatically. i.e. you see both animations firing simultaneously, so that your character only has to suffer through one animation lock (as you may be aware, sometimes you can activate 2 JAs on top of each other, whereas sometimes the game won't let you because lag let you get to caught in one animation so you can't start the next 'til it's finished - that's retarded). In the instance that Third Eye is still down, then you'd get normal Seigan effect. I would also like to see the first Anticipate upped to 100% chance of not dissolving. i.e. Third Eye with Seigan should result in at least 2 free swings, not 1.

[Armando]

Re: PLD/BLU - Early testing and theories

Those numbers don’t really support an increase in DoT. Since the total damage dealt is about the same, Damage didn’t increase (it was merely redistributed between Melee damage and spell damage), and since we have no idea of the time factor I don’t think we can make any comments on DoT. To truly comment on DoT when you are the sole DD you don’t need a parser as much as you need a stopwatch, and use Time as your standard for comparison. If the first fight took 2 minutes and the second fight took 1 minute then that would be doubling your DoT.

Yes and no to the bolded part. While it's true that I redistributed my damage, my autoattack is always running. I can't redistribute my damage as I see fit unless I stop attacking. Because of that, how close my total blue magic damage is to my physical damage IS in a way indicative of how much damage it's adding; if it weren't doing much, then most of the damage would've come from meleeing.

Given how little we know about enmity, in theory I could be dealing a lot more damage via blu spells and they just might not be affected by or minimally effected by enmity (similar to enspell damage).

That's dubious if you ask me. Without testing it there's no way I can say "No, it just doesn't work that way" with 100% certainty, but there's no reason to suspect that enmity doesn't affect Blue Magic as much as it does other things (in fact, that's a second questionable claim - you'd also have to prove that enmity can affect some things less than others.) The only reason enspell damage is excluded from enmity is because it's an additional effect, so it doesn't really have anything in common with Blue Magic damage.

By my numbers spamming spells just isn’t a feasibly sustainable method of hate production. Blu and /blu can very easily burn thru mp. Ignoring cure spells, and assuming you have the max refresh available short of a Rdm, Brd AND a Cor party or a Relic Horn bard you are running at breakeven.
Even with 9mp a tic refresh we don’t have room to cure ourselves. Pld/Wars in most situations are running at a MP in/MP out ratio of about 1 as it is, adding more Blu spells to our casting list is going to create a MP deficit and/or result in us curing less and our mages having to cure more.

It's true that in the end I'm blowing through as much MP as a PLD/WAR would, but the big difference lies in that a PLD/BLU should kill the mob faster. That, in my opinion, makes it worth it.
The big question really is "can I hold hate?" My plan is to start every fight with a chunk of HP missing and close to 100 TP. The idea is to use Flash -> Bludgeon -> Cure III -> Vorpal Blade to cement hate quickly. I can't really see myself losing hate "spontaneously" in the length of time that'll follow unless they also do a WS. After that, my damage and enmity should keep my hate-over-time generation close to that of the DD's (or at least that's what I'm hoping.)

[Hankthetank]

Re: PLD/BLU - Early testing and theories

Have you gotten the chance to try this in an XP party yet?

Sincerely,
Hankthetank