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Re: WHM Hints and Tips
As a lot of people who know a lot more about this than I do have said, by far the most important things are knowledge (your job, other party members jobs, the mob you are fighting etc), managing your mp and being well prepared. Playing with your chat Filters and font colours as Icemage suggests is also one of the biggest things that has helped my partying.
Few really basic things that I am sure most non new people know but have helped me a lot and I don’t think people went into so much.
Gear (no it’s not as important as having your spells, yes it’s still important):
Personally speaking, gear wise I make sure I have all the +hmp gear (hmp = mp regenerated while healing) I can get before I look at anything else, it’s always top of my purchase list. Even if it’s 20 levels old and I am not going to be wearing it while I am standing up casting anymore, I can still macro swap it on for while I am resting. As whm the one thing you will be very aware of is that your downtime = party downtime, if you have no mp the party HAS to stop for you to get some, so the more you can do to speed up your mp recovery and mp efficiency the better.
Yes having mp+ gear is nice and I have quite a lot of it, it gives you a bigger safety net but in most parties you will probably find that 9 times out of 10 you will run through roughly the same amount of mp every fight (how much that is depends on the party members jobs, how you play, what mobs you are fighting etc). Once you have that much mp in your mp pool and a nice reserve for emergencies on top of that then being able to recover mp as fast as possible so you can use that much mp again without running out in the next fight is much more useful than extra mp.
The early pieces of +hmp to look out for are Pilgrim’s wand (nm drop but don’t be put off by that, level 10, great piece), Baron’s Slops (expensive but nice if you can afford them, level 20), Mohbwa Sash (new I think but really nice, level 20), Seer’s Tunic (NQ is very cheap and very good, level 29).
With no hmp+ gear and using pie for the boost to max mp, at level 20 you can get +15mp on your first tick of resting (Clear Mind 1 at level 20 for whm) and so your first 30 seconds resting gets you +31mp. If you just get the Wand and the NQ sash, and use cookies you can get +8hmp at level 20 from gear and food. That means +23mp on your first tick of resting and +47mp for your first 30 seconds. That means any time you can squeeze two ticks of rest in, you get nearly 50mp back as opposed to just over 30 if you concentrate on +hmp gear and food. Going all out on +hmp and wizards cookies, at level 20 you can get your first tick up to 27mp and so +55mp for your first 30 seconds.
Cooking:
Getting my cooking to 25 and being able to make my own pineapple juice without too many blow up synths was a huge milestone for me and took a lot of the stress out of partying. I would advise everyone who wants to play a job where they will be using mp, especially whm to get cooking at least to 25 as soon as you can afford to, it’s not really very expensive if you are careful and research, having some fishing skill helps. It saves you inventory space, money and gives a huge boost to your playing. Had to cast a couple of extra spells last fight? Bad pull but not bad enough to run from? Thought you hit your rest macro when you hadn’t? Juice is good for all these and pretty much any time you are going to need more mp soon and can’t really rest for it.
Just to make the juice thing more concrete, 1mp ever 3 seconds on pineapple juice doesn’t sound much but if you think of it as an extra 80mp every 3 minutes (or 2-3 fights), that you don’t have to rest for. What’s more, once you hit 30 cooking you are only 5 levels off 35 where you can start making melon juice without too many blow ups. Melon juice is 2mp every 3 seconds for a total of 90mp in a little over 2 minutes which is even nicer.
Enfeebling:
People have mentioned enfeebling but I wanted to add to it. Early on in parties I found a lot of the time there was no rdm or there was a rdm who refused to enfeeble. If no one else is casting enfeebles then they are your responsibility and dia, paralyze (personally this seemed to have the most effect for me) and slow on the mob as soon as you can will save you mp. Obviously keeping everyone alive comes first and there was a range where I was finding I just could not get both paralyze and slow on the mob without putting the tank in serious danger or waiting to cast the second enfeeble till the mob was too close to dead for it to be worth it. Try and keep your enfeebling skill maxed, it helps a lot as do a couple of good +mnd pieces.
As a lot of people who know a lot more about this than I do have said, by far the most important things are knowledge (your job, other party members jobs, the mob you are fighting etc), managing your mp and being well prepared. Playing with your chat Filters and font colours as Icemage suggests is also one of the biggest things that has helped my partying.
Few really basic things that I am sure most non new people know but have helped me a lot and I don’t think people went into so much.
Gear (no it’s not as important as having your spells, yes it’s still important):
Personally speaking, gear wise I make sure I have all the +hmp gear (hmp = mp regenerated while healing) I can get before I look at anything else, it’s always top of my purchase list. Even if it’s 20 levels old and I am not going to be wearing it while I am standing up casting anymore, I can still macro swap it on for while I am resting. As whm the one thing you will be very aware of is that your downtime = party downtime, if you have no mp the party HAS to stop for you to get some, so the more you can do to speed up your mp recovery and mp efficiency the better.
Yes having mp+ gear is nice and I have quite a lot of it, it gives you a bigger safety net but in most parties you will probably find that 9 times out of 10 you will run through roughly the same amount of mp every fight (how much that is depends on the party members jobs, how you play, what mobs you are fighting etc). Once you have that much mp in your mp pool and a nice reserve for emergencies on top of that then being able to recover mp as fast as possible so you can use that much mp again without running out in the next fight is much more useful than extra mp.
The early pieces of +hmp to look out for are Pilgrim’s wand (nm drop but don’t be put off by that, level 10, great piece), Baron’s Slops (expensive but nice if you can afford them, level 20), Mohbwa Sash (new I think but really nice, level 20), Seer’s Tunic (NQ is very cheap and very good, level 29).
With no hmp+ gear and using pie for the boost to max mp, at level 20 you can get +15mp on your first tick of resting (Clear Mind 1 at level 20 for whm) and so your first 30 seconds resting gets you +31mp. If you just get the Wand and the NQ sash, and use cookies you can get +8hmp at level 20 from gear and food. That means +23mp on your first tick of resting and +47mp for your first 30 seconds. That means any time you can squeeze two ticks of rest in, you get nearly 50mp back as opposed to just over 30 if you concentrate on +hmp gear and food. Going all out on +hmp and wizards cookies, at level 20 you can get your first tick up to 27mp and so +55mp for your first 30 seconds.
Cooking:
Getting my cooking to 25 and being able to make my own pineapple juice without too many blow up synths was a huge milestone for me and took a lot of the stress out of partying. I would advise everyone who wants to play a job where they will be using mp, especially whm to get cooking at least to 25 as soon as you can afford to, it’s not really very expensive if you are careful and research, having some fishing skill helps. It saves you inventory space, money and gives a huge boost to your playing. Had to cast a couple of extra spells last fight? Bad pull but not bad enough to run from? Thought you hit your rest macro when you hadn’t? Juice is good for all these and pretty much any time you are going to need more mp soon and can’t really rest for it.
Just to make the juice thing more concrete, 1mp ever 3 seconds on pineapple juice doesn’t sound much but if you think of it as an extra 80mp every 3 minutes (or 2-3 fights), that you don’t have to rest for. What’s more, once you hit 30 cooking you are only 5 levels off 35 where you can start making melon juice without too many blow ups. Melon juice is 2mp every 3 seconds for a total of 90mp in a little over 2 minutes which is even nicer.
Enfeebling:
People have mentioned enfeebling but I wanted to add to it. Early on in parties I found a lot of the time there was no rdm or there was a rdm who refused to enfeeble. If no one else is casting enfeebles then they are your responsibility and dia, paralyze (personally this seemed to have the most effect for me) and slow on the mob as soon as you can will save you mp. Obviously keeping everyone alive comes first and there was a range where I was finding I just could not get both paralyze and slow on the mob without putting the tank in serious danger or waiting to cast the second enfeeble till the mob was too close to dead for it to be worth it. Try and keep your enfeebling skill maxed, it helps a lot as do a couple of good +mnd pieces.
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