Been awhile since the WHM's had a discussion

[Irisjir Callard]

Re: Been awhile since the WHM's had a discussion

Often overlooked fact about shield mastery: it only kicks in when you block if you would've gained TP without it. Meaning you have to take damage while blocking to get any extra TP. So if Stoneskin absorbs the damage or a shadow takes the hit it can't have any effect. That alone makes it not worth considering as a bonus when soloing as rdm or whm.

So what you're saying is Sheild Mastery won't protect your Stoneskin?


If that's the gist of it, whoever came up with that is a doodoo head. Artificial hit points have feelings too!

[WishMaster3K]

Re: Been awhile since the WHM's had a discussion

My Numbers

Sorry for the confusion, but it makes sense to me, lol.

Subbing PLD for Shield Mastery is... nevermind, it's not even "meh." 1 TP if you DO block, and as we all know, WHM have awesome shield skill, lol.. But then again, so do RDMs... so I'll stop laughing ; ; /endsarcasm

If you're concerned about DamageReduction%, it'd be better to macro in Cheviot, Jelly Ring and Earth/Terra Staff. Especially if you're Staff-Swapping anyway.

PLD don't have AOE Defense abilities until Rampart, which is 62..

Sentinel + Cover is an opti- No nvm, it's not. WHM shouldn't be that close to the melee anyway. And if you have time to do it for another mage, you're right, a Wipe is already in motion, and you should be making sure you have reraise up.

Oh, and TM, about your comment, if I'm subbing PLD, I'm intending to Blood Solo anyway. The only time I cast Stoneskin is if the mob is so much higher than me that I need to cast Utsu so safely solo.

On EM or lower (UNLESS it's Demons, because those effers hit HARD..) I can sub either WAR or PLD and just use Phalanx + defensive capabilities to mitigate damage and Cure III when necessary. This doesn't apply to WHMs (lol.. WHM solo via blood tanking w/o refresh..) but just stating that for my method of soloing, I either don't bother with Stoneskin most of the time, and if I do, I'm subbing NIN anyway.

Don't feel bad, Iris. Mobs also know when you have TP and are going to WS, that's why they wait till the SC starts to do Sleepga, Whirl or Rage, or some thing else. And no, that's not sarcasm, because mobs are friggin douchebags like that. >

Edit:
LoL. "Artificial Hitpoints".

I can get a good minute of no damage on EM lower mobs if I start with Stoneskin up. Unless they're Demons.

Fuck Demons. -_-

[Armando]

Re: Been awhile since the WHM's had a discussion

If you resist something normally, the log will say something like "No effect on Lago." or "Lago evades." If a status resistance trait contributes to the resist, or if you have something like Ebullient Ring that enhances a resist trait, the log will read "Resist! Lago resists the effects of the spell."

On thier own, resist traits are not very effective, especially on mobs higher than EM, but if you stack them with other resistances, Resist Petrify+Barstone+Barpetrify in Dynamis Bastok for instance, the combined effect is noticably greater than if you did not have the resist trait. With that combination I often full resist breakga or have a petrify that wears off in a couple seconds. Ebullient Ring+drk sub+Barblizzard+Parparalyze means I don't have to bother to turn around to avoid Hex Eye when farming hakutaku eyes on the mobs that are lower than VT. Most of the time the effect doesn't stick.

To be honest I think the traits are just a fixed % chance to avoid the status. I don't think it contributes towards your chances of resisting normally; it'll just back you up every now and then when your normal resistance fails you.

[Kirsteena]

Re: Been awhile since the WHM's had a discussion

The only trait I have ever seen kick in regularly is pld's resist sleep - if you have a charmed pld they are SODS to sleep.

Resist petrify kicks in on occasion for me, but I do put barpetrify on before I know we are coming up to scorps.

[Amele]

Re: Been awhile since the WHM's had a discussion

Blessed Briault (for the record) is M.Def+5 vs. the appropriate element,

this is like putting a dalmatica on every single member of your party when you cast a barspell with it.

genbu's is more popular because of templar mace now, yeah. most whm melee whm/nin now.

I've gone whm/sam for some chigoe-related assaults before, it's kinda clever but not really that good. you need to use a staff to gain the benefit of hasso or seigan and, frankly. hammers are better.

haste order for me:
in exp: best DD, second best DD, third best DD, etc. (specific job varies. a BB mnk is better than a non-ridill war, but a ridill war with all the other gear is better than a BB monk, etc.)
in events: nin/drk or pld/nin , other tanks, DD
in zergs: kclub/BZ darks, others.

I haste myself in dynamis, otherwise, not usually.

I enfeeble in salvage, exp, assaults, limbus, and anywhere else where there aren't redmages to do it and the mob isn't level 90+. get some enfeebling merits, get some enfeebling gear, and wear lots of +mnd.

[Olorin401]

Re: Been awhile since the WHM's had a discussion

On a slightly off note for these JT Resists...do they ever work?
You say in that post, Task, that once in a while....how can you be sure that it isnt a natural resist, as opposed to a JT?
Take, for example, RDM Resist Petrify.
I have never once known it to work. Ever. The desciption of a Job Traist is something that is always in effect, so I would sum it up as a permenant Barspell if you like.
Breakga in Dynamis. Gaze attacks. etc. I always "unpetrify" the same as other people, I'll be damned if Iv ever resisted it from EM mob+.
Food for thought.
NB: At least we know that Mob JT's work, trying to sleep PLD mobs is a bish lol.

My Resist Silence trait on my BRD must kick in at LEAST 50% of the time. It's awesome!

[Olorin401]

Re: Been awhile since the WHM's had a discussion

The only trait I have ever seen kick in regularly is pld's resist sleep - if you have a charmed pld they are SODS to sleep.
Resist petrify kicks in on occasion for me, but I do put barpetrify on before I know we are coming up to scorps.

I've also found that Barstonra helps a bunch with preventing Petrify, especially when you have your barspells merited.

[Icemage]

Re: Been awhile since the WHM's had a discussion

Blessed Briault: Worth the inventory or not? I already have noble's tunic and cleric's briault for cures and regens, and errant for resting. Is increased barspell potency really worth ANOTHER piece of inventory occupied?

As noted above, absolutely necessary for endgame. Completely worthless otherwise.

Genbu's Sheild: Why does everyone love this thing? Yes, damage -10%. I can see that being pretty nice. Is it worth sacrificing attk+12? Obviously, since I'm using healing and dark staff in pt, I'm not going be using a shield unless I'm soloing. As a melee/solo whm, should I make an attempt to get a genbu's?

It's not bad if you solo a lot, but seriously, go level RDM if you want to solo at 75. It's SO much better solo in 99% of circumstances.

Do any whms use /pld, especially in place of /smn for auto-refresh and job ability buffs? Dynamis applications come to mind for this combonation.

/SMN and /PLD are about the same nowadays for WHM. You get Auto-Refresh at the same level, and you get some questionable side abilities which basically never get used.[/quote]

The only place I see /PLD being a serious boon for /WHM is when you're anchoring the main healing slot in a King Ranperre's Tomb monk-burn. Tossing out the odd Holy Circle gives you at least one more thing to do in between cures, status removal, and Banish IIIs.

Have any whms ever experimented with /sam? This is off the wall and random, I'd like to try it out someday as a melee sub along similar lines as /nin (but without utsuemi and dual-weild, ofcourse)

No way. /NIN is strictly better. I suppose you can use Hasso to increase offensive output with a staff or something... but penalty to spell recast rate sucks big donkey doodle. Won't even go into how worthless Seigan is. WHMs make great use of /NIN since our best weapon type is one-handed (dual wielded clubs) and we have a slew of Haste gears that make Utsusemi much more potent.

What is the job priority for hastes? I know I have my own priority based on things like tp gain and other random stuffs, but I'd be interested to see in what order OTHER whm's haste people, especially DD. I don't want to see something like "I hate the tank then the dd then someone else" I want a specific order, like NIN > PLD > DRK > THF > etc etc down to SAM > RNG > BLM > SMN
As a sub-question here, do you commonly haste yourself?

Job priority:

Tier 1: Ninja and WAR/NIN tanks. Absolutely must have Haste, always.

Tier 2: Paladin. Gets a nice boost in enmity from attacks, decreases Flash timer, and auto-defends against most Slow effects other than from Spiders.

Tier 3: Heavy hate-gainers using /NIN. Typically this is MNK/NINs, but can also include non-tanking WAR/NINs. Bards that are pulling with /NIN fall into this category as well, since it helps their Utsusemi and Lullaby recast times.

Tier 4: Slow melees/high damage weapons. This tier includes Dark Knights and Dragoons mostly. Samurai makes the cut here as well if in a TP-burn. PUP fall into this category out of my personal pity because of their lower melee accuracy. WARs using Great Axes also fall into this category.

Tier 5: Fast hitters/Fast TP gainers that are primary melees. THF, DRG, SAM, MNK, and BST usually fall into this tier.

Tier 6: Non-primary melees. Blue mage is really the only job that falls into this category. Note that some BLUs prefer to use Refueling on themselves, though Haste is actually more effective than Refueling.

Tier 7: Everyone else who doesn't get much of anything from Haste. This category catches SMN, WHM, BLM, RDM, RNG, COR, and non-pulling BRDs.

Do you use enfeebling, IE, paralize and slow, in pts? And at what levels and situations do you enfeeble?

Paralyze and Slow I'll only use if there's no RDM available or if the RDM happens to be incompetent and the situation warrants it. In TP-burns, Slow is meaningless; Paralyze is simply more effective since enemies die too fast for Slow's higher MP cost and lesser overall effect to be worthwhile.

I also like using Sleep and Sleepga as a panic button in Dynamis (but don't try this at home kids unless you're like me and have accumulated a LOT of +Enfeebling skill gears and merits). This requires you to use a /BLM sub however.

Silence is ALWAYS worth trying in Dynamis and other special locations where you know the enemy can be Silenced within reason and has nasty spells (particularly those accursed scorpions in Dynamis-Bastok that like to cast Breakga, and the birds in Dynamis-Windurst that cast Silencega).

WHM/RDM also has access to Dispel, which is 100% useful. Almost never fails except against enemies heavily resistant to Dark magic such as Imps.


Icemage

[ItazuraNhomango]

Re: Been awhile since the WHM's had a discussion

I'm suprised more people don't see the applications of /pld. Sure the MP is low, and the defense might help if the whm takes hate, but if a whm has hate in Dynamis a wipe is in process anyway from what I've seen.

But a whm/pld with a hMP build like mine shouldn't be bothered by the lack of MP, right? As is I usually reserve the bottom 300 of my MP for emergency use only anyway, I don't think it would be that much of a cramp on my style. And aren't some of the pld defense buffs (that are subbable, at least) AOE? That would be like an extra Protect for my pt, imho, to be used with the same frequency...whenever it wears off if possible. This is why I'm thinking of dynamis, especially for nin pt's, OR, in conjunction with either a rdm or blm sub healer. Imagine the devotion you would get with 1200 HP to fuel it!!! I'm seeing 300+

Just one, I think: Holy Circle.

From /PLD:
Lv.5 Holy Circle
Lv.5 Undead Killer
Lv.10 Defense Bonus
Lv.15 Shield Bash
Lv.20 Resist Sleep
Lv.25 Shield Mastery I
Lv.30 Sentinel
Lv.30 Defense Bonus II
Lv.35 Cover
Lv.35 Auto Refresh

Defense Bonus all together is Def+22. Nice, but not exactly earth shattering. Holy Circle... Good for bones party, I guess, once every 10 minutes. (Not sure if Undead Killer and Resist Sleep are even worth mentioning.)

Shiled Mastery: only if you're engaged and getting hit (and need TP). Sentinel? Greatly reduces damage you receive, but monsters will treat that like a Provoke, except every action you do would produce more enmity than usual while it's up. Cover is like Sentinel; only good if you want to tank.

Auto-Refresh is the same one you'd get from /SMN.

Looks like /PLD is for WHM's who wants monsters to swing at them.

[Irisjir Callard]

Re: Been awhile since the WHM's had a discussion

Alot of good points, unfortunately where subjobs are concerned I have a lot of ideas but I don't really know what abilities I see 75 players using that date all the way back from the pre-40's. I see something that I think would be useful, but find it's not available...and that what is available isn't very useful. It makes me wonder if I'm ever REALLY going to level any subs outside of /blm and /smn and possibly possibly /brd.



I've never hasted myself in any pt situation, and I was wondering if I was missing out on some great secret of advanced whm lore. On the same key, I virtually never bother with enfeebles either, even when I don't have a rdm...and a big selling point of my whm is the mindset of refresh optional. Since I'm willing to go without refresh, I almost always land in a pt without rdm or brd (And the cor population on midgard is negligible)

[Icemage]

Re: Been awhile since the WHM's had a discussion

Alot of good points, unfortunately where subjobs are concerned I have a lot of ideas but I don't really know what abilities I see 75 players using that date all the way back from the pre-40's. I see something that I think would be useful, but find it's not available...and that what is available isn't very useful. It makes me wonder if I'm ever REALLY going to level any subs outside of /blm and /smn and possibly possibly /brd.

/RDM is a worthwhile subjob, speaking from personal experience. It's useful in a number of light solo scenarios like helping people get ancient papyrus and other situations where you need to be able to negate lots of little tiny hits (AoE farming, for instance).

Fast Cast, Phalanx and Dispel are a very nice list of perks.

Strangely enough, /DRG is a useful subjob if you're at endgame and fighting Wyrms. Not just for the circle ability, but the ability to shed enmity via High Jump is particularly useful for extended battles sometimes.

I've never hasted myself in any pt situation, and I was wondering if I was missing out on some great secret of advanced whm lore.

There's one case where Haste on yourself is a good idea, and that's recovering from a wipe. Haste helps a lot with reducing recast timers when you're Weakened, and since the recast on Raise II/III is so long, this can buy you precious time in Dynamis, Limbus or other group activities.

On the same key, I virtually never bother with enfeebles either, even when I don't have a rdm...and a big selling point of my whm is the mindset of refresh optional. Since I'm willing to go without refresh, I almost always land in a pt without rdm or brd (And the cor population on midgard is negligible)

I would never go XP at level 75 without some form of Refresh. It's just not practical. There's other ways to spend your time than grinding out mediocre amounts of XP because you don't have enough support. These days, on the rare occasions when I actually play, I don't even bother meriting on WHM anymore. It's much easier and faster to use BRD or RDM since I don't have to worry about the refresh aspect since I'm carrying that load myself.


Icemage

[Irisjir Callard]

Re: Been awhile since the WHM's had a discussion

/RDM

...lol the only reason I didn't restate the reason I don't level rdm in my last post is I figured people were sick of me saying the same thing over and over and over again. I don't plan to level rdm because I live with a career rdm, blah blah blah, very militant in his views, blah blah blah, me having my own opinion of the rdm job starts enough fights already without me actually playing it, etc etc etc. Wait till I move out, then I might level rdm. I agree it sounds very useful but I'm not going to wreck my pusedo-marriage over a job in a videogame.

Strangely enough, /DRG is a useful subjob if you're at endgame and fighting Wyrms. Not just for the circle ability, but the ability to shed enmity via High Jump is particularly useful for extended battles sometimes.

I've heard this from a number of sources, unfortunately, since I do CoP with pick-up groups anyway, they're usually not picky about my subjob and I'm not expecting particularly fantabulous performaces from them either. IF I get drg leveled to 30~ish before I finish CoP, I'll be glad to use it, but I'm not considering it on my list of top 5 subs I need to level. XD

There's one case where Haste on yourself is a good idea, and that's recovering from a wipe. Haste helps a lot with reducing recast timers when you're Weakened, and since the recast on Raise II/III is so long, this can buy you precious time in Dynamis, Limbus or other group activities.

Usually I raise the rdm-brd if I have one, and they get to haste me, since Raise II/III is such a huge spell for my MP pool. Weakened I only have about 500 and even though I PERSONALLY think Conserve MP procs more often and for a larger % of spell cast cost while weakened (Raise III for 8 MP? Come on, that's completely unprecidented for R3 by everything I know about conserve mp, and SHOULD be impossible by the formula I was told way long ago.) But still, can't gamble on that, and 40 MP can very definitely be the difference between r1 and r2.

I would never go XP at level 75 without some form of Refresh. It's just not practical. There's other ways to spend your time than grinding out mediocre amounts of XP because you don't have enough support. These days, on the rare occasions when I actually play, I don't even bother meriting on WHM anymore. It's much easier and faster to use BRD or RDM since I don't have to worry about the refresh aspect since I'm carrying that load myself.
Icemage

A lot of whm's wouldn't.

That's what makes me different and, for endgame shells running low on rdm and brd, incredibly valuable.

While everyone else was telling me the myriad benefits of putting max merits in cure cast time, I was putting them into regen potency anyway. While everyone else was telling me about aristocrat's cloak onry, I was up in Beaudicine farming myself up a cleric's briault. Sure, I probably look like a clown on these forums, taking the majority opinion's good advice and throwing it merrily out the window. I stayed away from this forum for a long while because I realized, until I could say I was 75 with maxed merits 5/5 relic all jobs at least leveled to 40 if not 60+, no-one here would believe I had a method that worked.

Meh, oh well.

What's my method? hMP. Not neccesarily every piece I can get, but as much as I can comfortably fit in a macro, or on items I don't mind wearing all the time. hMP food. hMP earrings.

Mind? Not so much. I find the effects of it as negligible when I'm backlining as I found the effects of strength negligible when I was meleeing. If a piece has it, that's good. I don't 'stack' it. I don't shop for it.

Raw MP+? Meh. Use it once and it's gone. The piece better have some other worthwhile stat besides MP, or once I've used that MP there's no reason to have it. (hint, this is where the mind part kicks in)

Haste%? This is a relatively new stat for me. I like it when I'm soloing, that's for sure, but in pt? Meh.

Cure potency? This is wonderful to have...for an emergency. I try not to use cure spells. If you see me in a noble's tunic, it means something's gone haywire already anyway.

Regen potency? OH GOD WHY ISNT THERE MORE GEAR WITH THIS!!! To my knowledge, it's JUST the AF briault. Come ON!!! MOAR!! Could at least have put it on Mjollnir too, the hammer's hard enough to get it wouldn't unbalance everything >.< /endrant

Basically, it boils down to thus, for me:

Use the minimum amount of MP to the maximum amount of effect. Cure spells are inefficent. Regen is NAUTURALLY 150% of the effect of Cure, MP for MP. And Regens can be merited to enhance that effect even farther. Even pre-endgame, before augmented regens and cures, it's obvious that party upkeep should be done with regens. At my level, I've almost completely thrown the curaga palette out the window (Except for dynamis-jeuno...bombtossbombtossbombtossbombtoss (2.5 hours later) bombtossbombtossbombtoss....).
Keep a PLD on a constant regen III and you can forget about them. Wait until a nin's shadows are down and, with Flash, you might not even need to tack on a regen.

And the "over time" constraint that everyone thinks is such a drawback? That SCREAMS "/heal time!" to me. Even when I don't have sanction refresh (And it's really amazing how often between sanction and briault refresh I don't have to pause to rest for an hour or more. Heck, on Midgard, sometimes an hour is the length of the entire party! And with a hMP build even one or two ticks of resting is enough mp recovery to make up for the occasional emergency cure IV.

And yah I know, 4 is the worst of the cure spells, but I don't like letting people get down to where they need 5, and if they only need 3 they're not out of regen territory yet.

It sounds kind of foggy on paper because it's not flashy or involve a lot of fancy equations, just good sense and a heavy prefrence for regens, and yes, I can maintain a 3-man haste cycle with this method with no serious MP depletion.

But the bottom line is, if I have an outside refresh source, I usually use the MP for nuking, flash-frenzy, or just being lazy and curing instead of regening. (Cure skill still hasn't gone over 250 <.<;; need to skill that one hardcore.)

But it's a method that's worked for me for a good 25 levels through just about anything the game can throw at me. Sure, I run out of MP once in a while, but so do all the other whm's I know, and when I do it, regens are up and people will be fine until I heal up some MP, even if they do take damage while I'm resting.

It's basically a system of many interlocking parts, instead of straight up "When da number turns da yellow use de curez!"

[Icemage]

Re: Been awhile since the WHM's had a discussion

Depends on what you're doing and who you're doing it with too, Iris. If you were at endgame killing HNMs, you'd soon see that your heavy dependence on Regen starts to hurt you more than help you. I like Regen too, but there's no way to keep a tank alive with just Regen when the monsters hit once every few seconds for 200-500+ points of damage.

That's also why your focus hasn't been on stats like MND (only really useful for cures and debuffs) and instead focuses on hMP and Regen potency, incidentally. That's what works for you.

If I tried that setup, I'd hate myself. Cure speed is king at end-game, followed by Cure potency and enmity reduction. hMP is still important, but pales heavily in the very common situation of having a Bard AND a RDM in your party providing anywhere from 6-10 additional MP per tick.

It's just a matter of priorities.


Icemage

[Amele]

Re: Been awhile since the WHM's had a discussion

Depends on what you're doing and who you're doing it with too, Iris. If you were at endgame killing HNMs, you'd soon see that your heavy dependence on Regen starts to hurt you more than help you. I like Regen too, but there's no way to keep a tank alive with just Regen when the monsters hit once every few seconds for 200-500+ points of damage.
That's also why your focus hasn't been on stats like MND (only really useful for cures and debuffs) and instead focuses on hMP and Regen potency, incidentally. That's what works for you.
If I tried that setup, I'd hate myself. Cure speed is king at end-game, followed by Cure potency and enmity reduction. hMP is still important, but pales heavily in the very common situation of having a Bard AND a RDM in your party providing anywhere from 6-10 additional MP per tick.
It's just a matter of priorities.
Icemage

cure speed isn't king. neither is regen; -especially- in alliance situations

all cure speed does is make sure your cure lands instead of some other healer's cure - you still collectively overcured.

all regen does is auto-tick periodically until someone overcures anyway.


(ok, seriously speaking) after barspell effect, which is the only CAT I merit you *should* have for endgame (and even then you could spec differently if enough whitemages in your hnm have it) either cure speed or regen is acceptable.

just get the rest of the gear to back it up.

(for the record, regen III full spec is 28hp/tick: which is a cure pot+20% cure III every 25 seconds)

[Kirsteena]

Re: Been awhile since the WHM's had a discussion

If I was still in my old HNMLS, fighting the mobs we were, cure speed WOULD be king. Our whm were rotated a lot for fights, in order to give us time to shed hate. Therefore there wouldn't be that many whm in the ally. If you have a tank hit by say, off the top of my head, para, then s/he was crit hit, you need that cure speed to help them have a chance to stay alive. Clogs, plus merits, mean you cast nice and fast, also then, you have a chance to max out mnd and get the benefits.

Now, I dunno so much. In my current shell, my whm is used mainly in sea. I'm maxing out barspells (hello thar JoFaith), but I really don't know whether to go regen or cast time - I'll probably end up cast time. Our main pld like to get hit a little too much!