Endgame exp / merit parties for WHM

[Amele]

Re: Endgame exp / merit parties for WHM

I guess I should clarify why I recommended avoiding a rdm+brd+whm pt:

I don't really trust pickup parties to get three competent melee at the time I'm available to exp, so I usually pick up a fourth DD to hedge my bets. (I've seen 3-3 parties that couldn't get 6k/hr because one of the DD's might as well be an empty space) since most merits only last one or two hours it can be difficult to actually 'kick' the under-performing member and get a replacement.

if you can get 3 competent heavy DD, a 3 mage 3 DD party is usually a better setup.

another important consideration is if the target mobs require dispelling or not: if they buff frequently (trolls in zhayolm come to mind) and the bard is usually away pulling or might need to dispel more than 1-minute, it's usually worth bringing a second dispeller over a 4th DD.

to answer the speed question: pretty typically 13-15k/hr depending on location. when we had nyzul isle to ourselves once (talk about weird o.o) we were able to clear 18k/hr with a 4-2 setup. I track including random afk's etc. so actual kill rates are possibly comparable, depending on how you estimate your exp/hr

that said: I'll have to try a 3-3 with competent DD. what are your preferred jobs for the 2DD slot?

[Hankthetank]

Re: Endgame exp / merit parties for WHM

/shamless Plug

DD Pld/nin for your 4 melee setups. I find its a perfect fit for a 4 melee 2 mage setup. 80% the damage of a comparably equiped melee and 50% the healing power of a mage.

that said: I'll have to try a 3-3 with competent DD. what are your preferred jobs for the 2DD slot?

In order of my favorite DDs for a TPburn ignoring camp preferances:

1. War (That knows how to tank)
2. Nin (Unless I have at least 2 or more of the above)
3. Any smart DD that can bounce hate with the party without becoming a MP sink.
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136. Thf/nin that insists on TAing people at the start of the fight. These guys can single handedly ruin an XP party.

I really like good tankable Warriors for merits. Provoke makes bouncing hate a breeze. Pound for pound Warrior offers more damage output than nin, the only other job with both Voke and shadows, and in XP parties mobs die fast enough that nin offers little advantage in survivablilty over Warrior especially with three of them bouncing hate.

Biggest problem is finding 3 Warriors willing and able to tank, is incredibly hard. Most new age warirors are DD only, think they are gods gift to meritpos and end up becoming huge MP sinks when they dont recast shadows, don't know how to recast shadows, cast Ni only, and/or refuse to ever voke.

Really any melee who plays intelligently can be a party asset. There is a dark in my LS, (probably one of the least wanted classes for TP burning), and I'll XP with him anyday. In fact he is one of the only people I know who can /war, not have shadows, and still parse +/- 5% of me without becomming a MP sink. Incredible player.

/slight Derail

Out of curiosity, does anyone else have a job they absolutely HATE to see in their party? There is one job class I hate, I mean really hate. I rather go with 5 than have this job in the party and its a pretty popular job. It's a rather irrational hatred of the job, on paper they should be a job I welcome, but without exageration I can say I have never had a good experiance with one and I cringe anytime I see on in my party list.

Sincerely,
Hankthetank

[Raydeus]

Re: Endgame exp / merit parties for WHM

that said: I'll have to try a 3-3 with competent DD. what are your preferred jobs for the 2DD slot?

I think kinda the same as Hank, any competent DD who is capable at blink tanking is good, although NINs, WARs and MNKs tend to be the less likely to become an MP sponge for some reason.

There's 2 key points a succesful party of this type needs:

1) Location.- Since you really need enough mobs to kill as fast as you can without running out of them.

2) Competent players.- Specially BRD and RDM jobs.

If your BRD doesnt know how to pull fast enough while keeping songs up on melee to speed up kills then the xp rate will suffer. Keeping ballad up is very helpful but the BRD has some room to play with it because with a WHM in the party is unlikely you'll run out of MP.

And your RDM must be a good sleeper, debuffer etc. period. If the RDM is daydreaming and half-assing the job your xp rate not only will suffer but the BRD may die as a consecuence.

WHM and the DD have kinda an easier time but they still need to pay attention to what's going on, Utsusemi+WHM's ability to conserve MP while healing mean you'll never run into much troubles save for some status effects that may need to be removed.

The more skill players in your party have the more xp/hr you will get, that's one of the things I really like about this setup, no one can really go AFK or not pay attention and just leech xp because if anyone slacks in the party then the overall xp/hr suffers greatly, and those players never get invited again of course.

And because of the speed killing in this kinda of setup if anyone isn't paying attention you will really notice it.

[Vyuru]

Re: Endgame exp / merit parties for WHM

Lanih, I think my best suggestion would be to get a static party if you could with some of your ingame friends, or some new ones! There is nothing better than having fun with your friends like this one day in Kuftal:

Bah, didn't do what I wanted, see attachment.

Out of curiosity, does anyone else have a job they absolutely HATE to see in their party? There is one job class I hate, I mean really hate.

Hmm, one wonders which job it is for you?

General party setups I like, either 2 mage and 4 DD or 3 mage 3 melee.
For two mage and 4DD I'd really say that you typically cannot have a tank, unless it's a ninja or a couple of war/nin. It would be my expectation that a pld may need a little more magely support than 2 mages could offer if stuff hits the fan.

However I have been greatly intrigued for a long time at the notion of a paladin setup for DD. Since they have Auto Refresh, and a fairly decent damage output with the appropriate gear, and superb healing spells, I think that they would be a natural kinda backup/top off healer for a 4 DD/2mage party.

If I have a 4 melee/2 mage party, I tend to favor a whm/rdm, or smn/rdm, or cor/smn, or cor/whm combo. I really like the buffs that corsairs give, so I kinda favor them over bards, and while I would really rather a summoner summon, they do make good replacement whm and the good ones, in a good party setup, normally find time to still toss out a few well timed Bloodpacts. Of course those are the totally kickass summoners I especially wish could have just been left alone to summon, but regrettably that sometimes just isn't an option.

Melee I like thf, drk, bst, and sam. A good thief will be able to mixup thier SA and TA really well, and if hate on one person is an issue they can generally TA onto me and I can either High Jump or Super Jump it off, or else the mob is killed by the TA+WS.

A good dark knight can be invaluable for stunning the mob, or when they use their Absorb spells such as Absorb TP. I've run into alot that just don't use their mp though, which is a shame.

Samurai, well everyone knows what a samurai brings to the table Which reminds me that I need to see where Flavinear's samurai is at..... Maybe I could get another static going again! :D

I like all the other melee jobs as well, but it's just that they are so popular, some can be a tad bit arrogant and look down their noses at the other jobs, some are in the midst of logging off, and the rest are in parties, so I generally either can't or don't party with them that much.

Plus it can be fun setting up a more olde school party that gets like 10k/hour. It may not be the most efficient, but I'd rather have fun in my parties and get good exp rather than get godly amounts of exp and not have any fun.

For a 3 mage/DD party, I like smn/whm/cor, or blm/whm/cor, or rdm/whm/cor. Rdm I can do with or without for now, few of the mobs I have fought use anything beyond a def+ buff, if anything, and a thf with Acid bolts can take care of those.
It is the journey and not the end that matters to me.

[Amele]

Re: Endgame exp / merit parties for WHM

@hank

I love pld/nin DD for 4-2 setups. gives me someone to devote and let's me rest a little longer sometimes to manage mp more easily.

another thing I've heard was decently successful was a 4-2 setup without any /nin (whm+brd mage line) where the assumption was that the DD would literally kill it as quickly as humanly possible, while white mage just cured whichever DD took a bad hit while the mob was up. (curaga would probably be useful here too). the added damage vs say, colibri, would probably take the kill times down into the 15 second range so most mobs would likely only get two or three hits in.

seems a bit more risky, but I bet it'd be a blast too.

as for jobs I hate to see in merit: I like all the mainjobs, but some main/subs just grate on me (excluding the obviously lol ones like smn/drg etc).

sam/thf
cor/nin
drg/thf
drk/thf.. ok actually, pretty much anything /thf I don't like for exp at 75. (thf/x is good though!)

[Hankthetank]

Re: Endgame exp / merit parties for WHM

another thing I've heard was decently successful was a 4-2 setup without any /nin (whm+brd mage line) where the assumption was that the DD would literally kill it as quickly as humanly possible, while white mage just cured whichever DD took a bad hit while the mob was up. (curaga would probably be useful here too). the added damage vs say, colibri, would probably take the kill times down into the 15 second range so most mobs would likely only get two or three hits in.

seems a bit more risky, but I bet it'd be a blast too.

Thats like a good ole Monk burns in KTR. It's good stuff, but you need to really keep the kill speed up, and its dangerous on mobs with extremely nasty WSs. Mamools have Rushing Drag and Vorpal Blade which deal massive damage 800+, Pecking flurry can do 800+ and hurt alot, Wyverns with Fang Rush can one shot some people, Overthrow is only about 400-500 Damage but Trolls sometimes like to spam it, Demons have condemation, Weapons have AoE Stun which sucks with out Utsu and smite of rage which can do big damage. Aura Stats hit hella hard, and Heavy blow(?) Is nasty. While Utsu rarely makes a party take no damage, it does a fantastic job of usually eatting these nasty WSs. Other than puks I really can't think of too many mobs that dont have at least one WS that could kill a berserked DD from yellow HP.

It is alot of fun, but you are very right it can be very dangerous, and other than KTR I have not seen it work out well. Eventually the laws of averages kicks in and a Melee will tank a nasty WS with his face. Best case the Melee doesn't die but requires a huge chunk of MP to fix, worst case he dies and chain stops or you keep going only now with a slower pace and a higher chance of a another melee eating a WS.

Sincerely,
Hankthetank

[Amele]

Re: Endgame exp / merit parties for WHM

yeah, even most of the KRT parties I'd get before CoP/AU came out were still mostly mnk/nin or brought a 'real' tank. (at least as much as one can tank for monks against bones lol)

I think if I were to take a non-utsu setup, I'd probably consider preferencing at least some of the DD slots for jobs with 2h weapons and seigan (so dark/sam, dragoon/sam war/sam sam/x etc.) which would take the edge off a bit, since as each one took hate they'd be able to slap third eye up after taking (around) 1 hit during the seigan activation time, and /sam compares favorably to /nin for attack up traits (10% haste, etc) esp. for 2h jobs.

might be fun to see spammed demon-wards in uleg too {hmmm.}

and yeah, I mostly had puks and perhaps colibri in mind (although 800+ flurry could drop a non monk or war, pretty darn quick, yeah.)

[Vyuru]

Re: Endgame exp / merit parties for WHM

and yeah, I mostly had puks and perhaps colibri in mind (although 800+ flurry could drop a non monk or war, pretty darn quick, yeah.)

Most times when I exp'd off of Colibri I was invited to a party not of my own making. It was always made by the same guy and setup roughly:

bst/nin, war/nin, drg/war (me), cor/rng, smn/whm, other

The other was normally a war/nin, or a nin/war

The main problem with that party, no one wanted to hold hate, so hate went everywhere and more often than not to me. Having exp'd as drg/sam since then, I think that would have been better than drg/war for both lower hate and Third Eye, but I would have to say that even with Third Eye, you'd need your party to work together otherwise whoever takes hate will become a mp sponge rather quickly. This wouldn't be a problem, but it's more cooperation than I tend to see in a typical pickup party.

Probably the most notable party I had vs Puks was whm, rdm, nin, drg, thf, drk I think it was. I was the one drawing hate often, but the Puks seemed highly susceptible to my Dragon Killer trait. I also wore my AF legs and used Ancient Circle at the start as many fights as I could, and the Puks seemed to get intimidated quite often. I also seemed to parry alot more of the Puks special attacks than I would have thought possible, my parry skill was at 140 at the time, and I wouldn't have thought I could parry their AoE attacks, so I'm not sure what went on there.

Either way, I think Puks would be easier to do this with than Colibri, although Colibri would appear more natural to me since they cast magic back at you.

And after seeing how often Puks became intimidated, the melees, or tank, might want to look into those earrings with Dragon Killer on them, if they are fairly inexpensive then it might be worthwhile to pick up a pair.

[Lanih]

Re: Endgame exp / merit parties for WHM

Thank you for the responses, everyone.

I don't feel so miserable about meriting on WHM anymore ^^ I was getting a bit burnt out, I guess. Exping my lv20-something WAR the last couple of days gave me a nice breather :D

I also talked to my linkshell, and we decided to try out meriting together sometime ^^ Even though the exp might not be 20k/h, I'm sure it'll be a lot more fun than with strangers

[Amele]

Re: Endgame exp / merit parties for WHM

The main problem with that party, no one wanted to hold hate, so hate went everywhere and more often than not to me. Having exp'd as drg/sam since then, I think that would have been better than drg/war for both lower hate and Third Eye, but I would have to say that even with Third Eye, you'd need your party to work together otherwise whoever takes hate will become a mp sponge rather quickly. This wouldn't be a problem, but it's more cooperation than I tend to see in a typical pickup party.

yeah, hate going everywhere is good when there's a whm main healer (maximizing efficiency of mp with curaga line spells, assuming there's at least 3 melee taking hits) but hate ending up on one person is .. inconvenient.

also, while I haven't seen any definite comparisons of /sam vs. /war - it would not surprise me to see hasso + meditate come out on top over berserk / warcry for drg and dark. (which, excepting the hate gained from activating berserk/warcry, would lead to /sam generating more hate than /war over time) hasso is an 'all the time' +10% dot (+10 accuracy too!) with a (minor) +5 strength boost to help dps. and meditate is an extra 60 TP every 3 minutes (also minor).

berserk is +15% attack averaged (which will be slightly more or less than that dot, depending on your base attack and the mob in question) and warcry is a (minor) boost in attack for everyone as well.

so it's a question basically of whether +15% attack or +10% haste contributes more to your dot. (assuming that warcry and meditate wash and/or are too minor to make up a difference in either case).

and whether puks or colibri was better would largely depend on if you had a drg in your party or not, I think

[Icemage]

Re: Endgame exp / merit parties for WHM

It should be noted that the DDx3 + RDM + BRD + WHM backline, while very effective (one might go so far as to say marginally the most effective) setup in many merit party situations, it requires smart backline gameplay.

From personal experience (I have WHM, RDM and BRD at level 75), WHM fits fine into this setup as long as the melees are good and the RDM is at least average and the melees are not too lazy about keeping up Utsusemi.

Not to mention that Raise III gives people warm fuzzies when the chips are down and you accidentally pull 9 enemies, though I've rarely seen any issues with KOs of any sort with WHM in a merit party (either myself or others).


Icemage

[Amele]

Re: Endgame exp / merit parties for WHM

it occurs to me I missed 10% double attack as well on the /war. so I retract my statement that /sam is the 'better' dot sub. (although if you had sufficiently crunchy weaponskills, it might still be worth trying out) since 10% DA and 10% haste should just about even out, and then there's berserk on top of it.

[Vyuru]

Re: Endgame exp / merit parties for WHM

it occurs to me I missed 10% double attack as well on the /war. so I retract my statement that /sam is the 'better' dot sub. (although if you had sufficiently crunchy weaponskills, it might still be worth trying out) since 10% DA and 10% haste should just about even out, and then there's berserk on top of it.

Well, let's say that my base attack is about 300, might be higher I just don't remember and that's the number I last remember seeing it as while not under any buffs.

Hasso and Meditate are roughly equivilant to Double Attack, I'd actually say that they come out ahead due to Meditate's TP return which is greater than Double Attack's, and if you are waiting on a party in the exp zone you can be using Meditate while you wait.

Berserk though, using your averaged 15% attack, which is important, gives me +45 attack with 300 base attack. While active and unaveraged it gives me a boost of 75 attack. The downside is of course when you average it out you get +45 att from it.

Now this is mostly due to my food setup, but the extra +10 acc from Hasso is enough for me to feel comfortable switching from eating sushi with a War subjob to eating meat with a Sam subjob.

My food of choice is Meat Mithkabobs, once I upgrade my lance and get alot more +att I'll probably switch to Sis Kebabs, or go back to Yellow Curry or something like that.

However that's besides the point, Mithkabobs give me +22% which caps at +60 attack, and that is a constant +att boost.

So when you factor in the +att food, Meditate, Hasso, Third Eye and Seigan just plain beat Defender 99% of the time, I would expect /sam to be the better DoT sub. I have also noticed that ever since I switched to /sam I don't draw anywhere near as much hate, but my damage output seems to be a bit higher since I don't have Berserk cooling down and I have a constant source of +att.

Now granted, that's a rather long winded way of saying X sub is better dependant on gear, but I think that in general that is true. A constant source of +att should be more beneficial than Berserk. There is enough +Double Attack gear and food out there now that you can get at least +10% or so Double Attack. Although someone with a War sub could get +15% or so Double Attack.

Still, since you can get most of the benefits of a warrior subjob while subbing something else, or being able to eat another type of food, I don't think I'd sub warrior unless I had so much +acc I could eat meat and sub warrior at the same time.

At which point I'd really have to question my ability to survive and not pull hate constantly, but that's what meriting High Jump is for!

[Amele]

Re: Endgame exp / merit parties for WHM

oh definitely if the +acc allows you to change to meat food, then /sam would be the preferable sub.

I was making comparisons assuming that (for the most part) gear and food would be the same across the various sub combos.

(I do very much like to see drk/sam and drg/sam - it's a nice change of pace and provides much better survivability than /war for alot less dot loss than /nin would).

[Hankthetank]

Re: Endgame exp / merit parties for WHM

There is enough +Double Attack gear and food out there now that you can get at least +10% or so Double Attack.

Other than Brutal Earring what other DA gear is there? Tenticle sushi is the only other one I know of and it offers lower Acc and a very minimal DA bonus. I'd be very interested in getting 10% Da on my Paladin.

Sincerely,
Hank