Elvaan White Mages

[Synbios]

Originally posted by IhsanShade
My WHM is now 28, Elvaan, in a GOOD group it doesn't matter that I have less MP than a taru when infact I have had Countless situations where I lived through a battle with 20-70hp where a Taru would be dead.

Don't let Icemage fool you, Elvaan's can make good WHM's, if you base it purely on Healing power alone then yes they aren't nearly as good, but survivability is also a factor in the equasion. I've seen Fish use Screwdriver on a Taru and insta kill before a war could get a provoke off, lets face it people, even at lvl 30+ your not going to get in an OMGuber group everytime, your going to get into groups where people don't have twitch reaction skills and your going to take aggro and hits. Being elvaan has made my leveling days much easier in qufim, where not everyone provokes fast, and I take a few hits here and there. I also like to grab my Hammer and do some whacks too, sure 10 damage isn't a ton but I can add a Seraph to continue a Renkei for over 100 damage on Clippers if I'm at 120%TP only.

It comes down to more resting, slightly more downtime, less panic mode to protect the WHM and a fun playstyle that I enjoy.

That taru died because he didn't use blink/stoneskin. Nowadays when I party, if the monster just whack a BLM, I would just throw off a cure 3 to make him hate me, while waiting for the war's provoke to recharge, and usually I can take up to 4/5 hits, with 0 dmg dealt on me, with paralyze/slow/blind, it gives the war more than enough time to get his provoke back.

[Millie]

Also, it's virtually impossible for a Elvaan to be the only healer in a group, .

I know you said virtually but.....

I've been the only healer in Qufim and we made it to xp chain #5 on many many occassions. We had a pretty decent group granted but we were making a nice lot of xp.

I was the only healer at the time. I was debuffing, healing etc...

You haven't mentioned throughout this post the use of juices, I've yet to be able to make my own but using (currently use pineapple), juices greatly helps with MP.

Also MP management helps alot too. I'm sure I don't need to teach you to suck eggs so needless to say that being an Elvaan WHM you do , by nature, tend to concentrate alot more on managing and making best use of your MP pool. Because if you don't then you will indeed suffer as an Elvaan WHM.

For the record I'm currently lvl 26. I shall be continuing on the path of WHM for the entireity of my life,and I shall report back any changes in opinion on higher levels just to justify my claims!!

Elvaan Power *^.^*

[felpa_de_osa]

So Elvaan wouldn't make a good white mage? I am curious because when the game releases for the playstation 2 I don't want to spend hours leveling a white mage/black mage Elvaan. I would have picked taru taru but since one race can be all jobs I want a race that can be close or some what blanced in jobs that I want to work with.

[Miriamel]

It doesn't exactly take longer to level an Elvaan whm.. in fact, at early levels it speeds leveling up big time. You'll have to be able to deal with much less mana than other races get, though. If you want to have a balanced character, go for a Hume or Mithra.

[Icemage]

There's nothing wrong with an Elvaan WHM "juicing" to make up for lost ground, but it's not always practical.

First off, most people visiting these forums are using WHM as their primary, and thus at level 20-ish, they don't have the consistent income to support a juice habit. If you've got gil to burn, it'll work just fine, but I'd advise against making the juice in the field. While this saves inventory space, it takes a good 15 seconds or so to make a bottle of juice - time which you could just as soon be using to rest.

Speaking of inventory space, you probably have around 10 slots available at most in your inventory when you start, so you're going to be running out of juice in an awful hurry since juices only last a couple of minutes each.

I'd actually recommend eating a pie over juicing. More stats, more MP, etc, and pies are stackable (plus they last 30 minutes each).

Just to put some perspective on this, when I was level 27 in Delkfut's Tower/Qufim, I was in a party with 5 WAR + myself(Taru WHM/RDM) and we were doing consistent XP chain 4-5, limited only by spawn rates usually. Not the most optimal group, perhaps, but it functioned OK, and we were netting around 2.5-3K xp per hour. There's no way I could have done it as an Elvaan, unless I had a huge stack of juice.

Icemage

[bakasan]

eh, it's been said before and it'll be said again...

Just play it as you see fit...I personally am a Elvaan whm primarily, but do like to dabble w/ other classes on occasion for a change of pace (mostly thf and drk), so Elvaan worked great for me.

You just have to recognize that certain combos of jobs, subjobs, and races are the ideal. Ideal doesn't mean required. I've seen Taru paly tanks hold their own just as I've seen Galka Blm/whm's do just fine. For any given weakness of a job or race, there are counter measures--be it food like pies and juices or equipment like accuracy rings for rangers, various neck pieces, earrings, etc. for MP.

Lest we not forget RSE (race specific equipment) to help accomodate for each race's weaknesses as well. Vitality buffs for Taru, MP buffs for Elvaan and Galka (my full elvaan RSE was +60 mp...coupled w/ the rings, earings, neck pieces I use, I'm at about +90 mp).

In the end, play it how you see fit, just do it knowing full well you're not using an ideal set up.

[Icemage]

Quite correct. ^^

You can play race with any job, but some combinations just are harder/more challenging, and simply less efficient than others. Elvaan WHM is one of them - you can make up a lot of the shortcomings with good equipment/food to make it a bit easier, and as long as you're aware of the shortfalls and are willing to compensate with items/gameplay/extra time investment, that's ok.

Again, putting stuff in perspective again, had I been an Elvaan WHM in my above example, if I'd been eating pies during that period (not terribly expensive, though the price will probably range a bit depending on the server you're on), and knowing how I like to play (ultra-conservative on MP), I could probably have made it to XP chain 3 or 4... probably not XP chain 5 in that group though. Overall I'd guess I would have been gaining XP about 70% of the speed as I did as a Tarutaru since my downtime would be higher, and with a smaller margin for error since I'd have less MP in reserve towards the end of XP chains.

I should also note that the difference in XP gain speed becomes less noticeable after level 30-35 or so, as RSE equipment evens the odds for a good stretch of time (though again, as you drift upwards around 45+, the MP gap widens again).


Icemage

[IhsanShade]

The worst part of leveling an Elvaan WHM, have fun trying to level your BLM sub.


Most ideal groups have 2 whm's or 1 whm, 1 rdm.. It would be great to run on 1 WHM but things click so much smoother with 2, best group i've been in past 30 was;

1rdm/blm
1whm/blm
1blm/whm
1PLD/war
1DRG/war
1RNG/nin

I must admit the palading was amazing, he lost the aggro maybe twice in 2 hours, smart PLD's can make life so easy, we let the RNG pull and PLD would voke off and would heal himself till he was half MP, giving time for WHM's to debuff then regen and med a bit. After 2-3 Cure II's or III's and 2 vokes nothing peeled off him :D. Was making over 3k an hour in Citadel.

[Millie]

I'm going to agree to disagree with you on this one.

As I say when I get higher I'll make sure I feedback.

I plan to go Bard in the future anyway as it is however I do enjoy WHM so will no doubt continue down that path also.

Pies vs Juices /shrug I find that a constant tick that the juice gives you even while standing is > than the +mp of a pie but thats just me.

As for taking 15 secs to make in the field, again I'm regenning the whole time, if your group are skillchaining/bursting then the mobs die real quick, then generally the mob is dead before juice wears out, your MP is at 75%ish and ticking and you can make more juice and still be regenning.

As for the expense.... again take time out and build some gil up if needs be but thats just me :D

And the group I was in in Qufim we regularly chained to #5 and only our group was 3 Thieves 1 War 1 BLM and 1 WHM...me, hardly ideal but it worked and was nice regular fast xp. And was IT mobs pretty much all the way with a few VT's.

I play for fun and so far having lots of fun as an Elvaan WHM , and had no complaints about my performance even when grouped with Taru WHM's who do indeed have 100+more MP than me.... When it stops being fun I'll go chop down trees or something

[Icemage]

I find that in a well-paced group, I can generally recover anywhere around between 100-150MP by resting between fights on average during an XP chain (somewhat more at the beginning, somewhat less at the end).

I've played with a number of mages who juice in the field, and it takes roughly 2 healing ticks to make a juice, which means you sacrifice ~40-50 MP from normal resting to do so. If you're making something like Grape, Melon, or Pineapple Juice... sure, you'll net some MP out of it. If you're making Apple or Orange juice though, you're actually losing time and MP, and that's only if you don't fail on synthesis.

As for gilfarming... If you're one of the people stuck in Qufim at level 20-30, you have 0 opportunity to make much money - there are no decent cash sources in or near Jueno/Qufim Island at level 2X., which means you have to spend a fair amount of time travelling around to gilfarm.

I'm not saying you shouldn't juice in the field - what I'm saying is the payoffs are a lot more marginal than you think they are if you're a mage who has to rest most of the time anyhow.

For PLD and DRK, who shouldn't be resting, juicing fits like a glove. For mages, your net MP profit is a lot lower because of how long it takes to synth.


Icemage

[bakasan]

Regarding food for mages---

Try roasted mushrooms--

+3 mp per tick (while healing)
+10 mp
+4 mind (?)
+4 int (?)
-1 vit

The mind/int bonuses are a bit fuzzy to me off the top of my head. The other nice thing is that these stack. So if I know I'll be XP pt'ing awhile, I'll usually take a stack of shrooms with me...this combined w/ the mp refresh of a bard keeps me good to go with very brief downtime.

You can synth your own--1x distilled water, 1x fire crystal, 1x rock salt, 2 shrooms--takes like level 10-15 cooking or so.