ProTip: /nin sucks for most jobs

[Crosis]

I'd be very interested in knowing how to get Stoneskin to last more than 1.5 hits (if even that) on Uleguerand demons. They hit *hard*, and don't have too much trouble eating through the Stoneskin on the first smack. And of course, Blink is thoroughly unreliable, so while it *can* stop 2 hits, it's quite possible (not only possible but likely, from my experience with the spell) that the mob will cheerfully whack you a few times and leave you still safely protected by both hits of that Blink that never kicked in.

I think I already stated earlier Tacos/Pro IV/Phalanx/Cheviot cape/Terras/Jelly ring can make Stoneskin last 2 hits, depending on the demon type. Now if its a War maybe not, but a Blm or Smn demon then yes. Also, Blink is unreliable yes but normally by the time my Stoneskin wears off Blink is either gone or on it's last shadow.

Older camps like Uleguerand or Ru'Avitau or Lufaise? NIN sub all the way. KRT, or supporting BLMs in manaburns, probably back to being better off with WHM sub.

I'd never sub Nin in Sky. Aura weapons have Diaga to worry about and Golems have too many Aoes. Not to mention back up Curaga for Whirl of Rages.

Basically it's situational. Pre-ToAU for example, a BRD puller would want, say, WHM sub in KRT but NIN sub in Uleguerand or Ru'Avitau. (The latter was more so Whirl of Rage wouldn't stun you, than any notable damage mitigation.) It's the same now, except with more camps. Flies and imps? Sub WHM so you can Curaga/2.

I will agree it's situational but of the three subs Nin is overrated and Rdm is underrated. Here is my break down of subs for these locations:

Range: Rdm > Nin > Whm
KRT: Whm > all
Sky Deco Weapons: Rdm > all
Sky Aura Statues/Weapons: Whm > all
Lufaise: Nin > Rdm > Whm <<< Only place I see Nin most useful.
TOAU Mire: Whm > Rdm > Nin
TOAU Thickets: Rdm > Whm > Nin

To write off BRD/WHM puller *or* BRD/NIN puller is silly. Some situations call for one, some call for another. Of the three subs mentioned, RDM is the sub you could most easily do away with - it's basically WHM with faster casting and fewer useful spells.

Let's not forget that /Rdm has Dispel which 9 of 10 times will not be resisted with Pluto's staff equipped. And there are many mobs that require multiple dispels that Finale just isn't enough for. Mamool Lurkers with Warm Up are the suck if you only Finale the ACC boost and are partied with a WHM. Also, Aura weapons come to mind.

Faster casting is useful if you need to get buffs back up and have a long pull ahead (if it's a short pull ahead or your buffs don't need recasting, faster casting isn't a priority), and generally such situations can be noticed and planned for in advance (i.e. recast buffs early when the next pull is short, so on the long pull you don't have to recast at all).

I don't think you can write off /Rdm so easily. Some places require backup healing but not so much that they need status cures to help that you get from /Whm. IE thickets and Sky deco weapons where /Rdm makes everything flow much easier for the Bard.

 

[Scaevola]

Plus I think your DMG on beetles is a little exaderated.

I would have thought it, too, which is why I remembered it.

 

[Vilurum]

Put up def buffs in prep for going out to pull, or take less time and put up "even Ichi", and certainly way less time if Ni's up. If you're gonna argue RDM sub in favor of omg must get buffs out must be out faster, must be fast fast fast fast fast ... then the loooooong time spent on Stoneskin/Blink kinda sorta majorly contradicts that.

As for sky, I was thinking more Decorative Weapons. (They're more reasonable targets for most melees, because let's face it, most cannons have reasonable but not omguber melees. Good for you that you have friends who fit the bill but that doesn't make it a reasonable expectation for making statements in general.)

Getting stunned slows me down more than Fast Cast would speed me up. Aura Weapons sure, Diaga eats shadows, and Aura Statues have that annoying bind move you want to be able to Erase, so NIN wouldn't shine on either, and WHM would be preferable. However, Decos are such pushovers damage-wise that a BRD doesn't need to help heal at all (I often find myself sitting on full MP despite trying to use it), and they're perfectly easy to keep chain on even without Fast Cast.

Aside from Sky and Range I agree with your relative subjob usefulness assessments (though Bhaflau's RDM sub is more for having to compete there due to its popularity, than actually needing it to get any pulls).

The Dispel argument only applies if:
- WHM main heal instead of RDM (it's about 50/50 in my experiences and both are equally effective in different ways).
- You're fighting Mamool Ja.
- The Mamool Ja uses that TP move at all.
- It uses that TP move early enough in the mob's life that it'll matter.
- It uses that TP move when you're actually close enough to camp to do anything about it.
- Finale gets the accuracy buff instead of the evasion buff.

That's quite a few qualifying if statements to justify subbing RDM *for* Dispel. That's not to say it's not useful in that clause of nested if's, but that's still quite a few nested if's.

 

[Caerloc]

Actually on birds which is mainly where most my exp has been coming from recently its about 12 per hit for mec kris where my mainhand is about 35 dmg.

Im gonna be generous in my assumptions here. Im gonna assume only 50% of your tp comes from the merc kris. Obviously its more, but more is just gonna hurt you even more, so we'll assume 50%. Im also gonna give you a generous straight up 5% tp/hit. So a total of 20 hits to reach 100% tp. Now we assume only 10 comes from merc kris, 10x12 = 120 and 10 from main hand, 10 x35 = 350. 350+120 = 470. Now onward, using decent daggers in both hands. 20 x 35 = 700. Thats a 230 damage difference in reaching 100% tp, while being very generous. To be able to do something THF's can already do, tripple attack. Only now you are doing it with a horrid Tp given / Damage dealt ratio.

 

[Ugotjacked]

Merc Kris Average Proc is 2 hits. 33% to do 1 hit 33% to do 2 hits and 33% to do three htis so its technically 2/3 thats 66% not 50% of my TP and in current parties thats 35 dmg from mainhand and 24 dmg from offhand with a 2 proc average. Hornetneedle would be my other option right now and thats does about the same dmg 20-24 in offhand. And Thief base proc rate at 55 on triple attack is 5% im not waiting for that anytime soon lol... Your math is horribly wrong because by lowballing my numbers you arent doing any justice to anything.

I do roughly the same dmg as Hornetneedle sub and if I were to sub a higher dmg dagger that was slower I would be doing 10 more dmg per round of swinging... Whereas with kris I can do a Dancing Edge 1/3 more often. So I get 15TP per round if i connect all hits with mec kris off hands that means I only have to do 7 rounds to get to 105% TP where as with any other dagger its 10 rounds. Thats at 100% acc all theoretical but either way its an advantage in TP.

Dancing edge on Colibris is normally 800-900 (With Triple Attack 1100ish) dmg with just SA or TA not both. So ill skip out on 10 dmg per round of swinging which is 70 dmg lost on the way to 100%. since I need 3 less rounds to get there with my mec kris. So in total I lose 210 dmg in DoT for every extra 800 DMG I get in WS. Not to mention sheer fun factor of being to out-tp any job and every now and then actually quite often 3 hits will proc a few times in a row and its non stop hitting for 10 seconds lol... The dagger makes the job alot more fun. Also I make TP nearly fast enough to keep up with WS on SA an WS on TA.

In all situations this dagger is not better but I promise you I out damage other thieves without it by a solid 6-7% on colibris and lesser birds which as of right now have been the last 4 levels of exp for me cept one raptor party where the Kris performed better than I had thought.

This is theoretical info 5TP isnt accurate for any of the daggers discussed here and 100% accuracy is also pretty rediculous. But in game its still roughly the same advantage just a little more complicated.

Good night. I already have to edit it... Stick to monk.

 

[Phraust]

I am only gonna say this...

I know other jobs and combinations work for other people...

I know there is a possible marginal increase to using any sub...

I know I enjoyed using /nin on thief. here's the reasons why:

The off hand dagger being usually quicker than the mainhand, gives you a decent increase in speed. Some daggers even give you a decent stat increase or two, flat out, sometimes the melee attack speed bonus form Dual Wield is enough.

Whatever the reason, I know I am yet to meet a Thf/War that can outparse me, and I am also yet to meet a Thf/War that wasn't an MP sink.

And to all you fuckwads saying "Oh a thief shouldn't get hit on a pull, you shouldn't need shadows..." etc... Go fuck yourselves. Seriously. Just pull out a dong and vigorously thrust it in and out of your butt. Sometimes it's not the pull that's the problem, it's the dipshits you're partying with that are. Yes, I can pull, and get to camp unharmed, but can the dumbfuck that's first voke, or the tank voke in a decent amount of time? I can tell you that 90% of the time i had shadows taken or took a hit, it was due to some moron that wasn't skilled enough to hit a macro on time.

As for Drk/Nin...
I love the job combo, even into the late 50's and the early 60's where I currently have the job on hold.
Keep in mind I am a fully sword merited, that may have a significant role in my perception, my lower level may too. But one thing is for sure, there's nothing like "curing the mob to death". Seriously.. you wanna complain about a good Drk being an MP sink? where else in the game can you toss out 88 MP and do 1,300 damage? Well that's not entirely true, it also requires an aditional flash, but I also didn't include my trailing hits. SE adds 10% of your HP to your Melee hits, wouldn't you rather take advantage of that with more hits?

Me  : SE >> LR >> Vorpal Blade >> Drain >> Stun 
Whm :                  Cure IV >> Flash

Sure you could do that with any sub, but my personal survivability is exceptionally higher. If the mob is 40-45% I can personally eliminate it, that makes me happy. If I pull hate, I can take a hit or two, and need no curing at all. Not to mention my DoT is nothing to scoff at... My Accuracy does fine as well. My normal Vorpals average 500-800 damage btw.

The party was a little skewed, which is my point... I had another WAR, a BRD and a COR. Double attack enhanced by having a War in the group made things different. That is my point in babbling off. You suit your entire playstyle to fit what you are doing. Saying nin is a bad sub is just down right ignorant. If somone needs the extra safty/attack speed, whatever, it's how they are geared to play, and they probably have a decent set of reasons for doing so. Maybe as simple as "I can't get invites" to "I been in a lot of shitty parties that I get killed in" to "I can't pull the numbers subbing anything else" to "I take too much damage form AoE's and I don't want to be an MP sink". And I wouldn't be so bold as to say I wouldn't sub anything else, but I need a damn good reason to do so... Sub war for Drk? So I can constantly be limiting myself so I don't get hate? Or have to click off SE/LR cause I will get rapes in 0.2 seconds if I don't? Sub thief and have to deal with either setting up for SATA, gimping my Dmg on a TA+WS, or bringing my danger level by risking a SA+WS (Which I would like to mention to you DRKs and your fucking BS when you do it at the end when the mob has only 100 HP and you cheer about your 1,500 WS...).

Simply put: Generally, if your 'A' class weapon can be dual wielded (and you're a melee class) then go for it.

Here's a "Pro Tip" Berserk = 25% more Attack, not 25% more damage. Dual Wield II last time I checked, was 15% more melee speed, more if you offhand a faster weapon; however since said offhand would likely have less damage, it should negate roughly back to the 15% increase in Damage, however it allows you to WS more frequenly. So, 25% attack 3 min out of 5, yields how much of a damage increase? How often does double attack process as a sub? 5%? 10%? Do all those things added together warrent the 15% gained through subbing Nin? Now... does the added bonus of getting three attacks directed at you or the occasional AoE move partially, or completely negated seem all that bad?

 

[Phraust]

Merc Kris Average Proc is 2 hits. 33% to do 1 hit 33% to do 2 hits and 33% to do three htis so its technically 2/3 thats 66% not 50% of my TP and in current parties thats 35 dmg from mainhand and 24 dmg from offhand with a 2 proc average. Hornetneedle would be my other option right now and thats does about the same dmg 20-24 in offhand. And Thief base proc rate at 55 on triple attack is 5% im not waiting for that anytime soon lol... Your math is horribly wrong because by lowballing my numbers you arent doing any justice to anything.

I do roughly the same dmg as Hornetneedle sub and if I were to sub a higher dmg dagger that was slower I would be doing 10 more dmg per round of swinging... Whereas with kris I can do a Dancing Edge 1/3 more often. So I get 15TP per round if i connect all hits with mec kris off hands that means I only have to do 7 rounds to get to 105% TP where as with any other dagger its 10 rounds. Thats at 100% acc all theoretical but either way its an advantage in TP.

Dancing edge on Colibris is normally 800-900 (With Triple Attack 1100ish) dmg with just SA or TA not both. So ill skip out on 10 dmg per round of swinging which is 70 dmg lost on the way to 100%. since I need 3 less rounds to get there with my mec kris. So in total I lose 210 dmg in DoT for every extra 800 DMG I get in WS. Not to mention sheer fun factor of being to out-tp any job and every now and then actually quite often 3 hits will proc a few times in a row and its non stop hitting for 10 seconds lol... The dagger makes the job alot more fun. Also I make TP nearly fast enough to keep up with WS on SA an WS on TA.

In all situations this dagger is not better but I promise you I out damage other thieves without it by a solid 6-7% on colibris and lesser birds which as of right now have been the last 4 levels of exp for me cept one raptor party where the Kris performed better than I had thought.

This is theoretical info 5TP isnt accurate for any of the daggers discussed here and 100% accuracy is also pretty rediculous. But in game its still roughly the same advantage just a little more complicated.

Good night. I already have to edit it... Stick to monk.

First: Merc Kis is 33% Triple, 33% Double, and a 33% Single. in 99 swings that's 33 triples I.E. 99 hits, 33 Doubles I.E. 66 hits, and 33 Singles that's 33 hits, all added together that's 198 hits in 99 swings averaging 2 hits a swing, period. In the meantime you cut/restrict your Triple attack to your mainhand only.

Mer Kris is like a 16 base dagger that returns 9 TP... That's really fucking shitty.

Second: You are seriously full of shit. Mer Kris, on Exp Mobs hits for 2's and maybe 4's and a few 0's don't tell me that you swing for 24 damage. I partied with a couple thieves using that cursed dagger........ Jesus F'ing Christ.. You wanna see how useless a Sam can be? Spam imps with TP and watch em use Amnesia every 10 seconds....

General statement: As a DD, Do as much Dmg as you can bringing you to the bring of pulling hate/wasting your shadows, let your group help too. And please understand your group, if you are doing shitloads of damage but your group is incapacitated due to over curing, or TP spam from the mobs, then adjust god damnit...

 

[Caerloc]

Merc Kris Average Proc is 2 hits. 33% to do 1 hit 33% to do 2 hits and 33% to do three htis so its technically 2/3 thats 66% not 50% of my TP and in current parties thats 35 dmg from mainhand and 24 dmg from offhand with a 2 proc average. Hornetneedle would be my other option right now and thats does about the same dmg 20-24 in offhand. And Thief base proc rate at 55 on triple attack is 5% im not waiting for that anytime soon lol... Your math is horribly wrong because by lowballing my numbers you arent doing any justice to anything.

I do roughly the same dmg as Hornetneedle sub and if I were to sub a higher dmg dagger that was slower I would be doing 10 more dmg per round of swinging... Whereas with kris I can do a Dancing Edge 1/3 more often. So I get 15TP per round if i connect all hits with mec kris off hands that means I only have to do 7 rounds to get to 105% TP where as with any other dagger its 10 rounds. Thats at 100% acc all theoretical but either way its an advantage in TP.

Dancing edge on Colibris is normally 800-900 (With Triple Attack 1100ish) dmg with just SA or TA not both. So ill skip out on 10 dmg per round of swinging which is 70 dmg lost on the way to 100%. since I need 3 less rounds to get there with my mec kris. So in total I lose 210 dmg in DoT for every extra 800 DMG I get in WS. Not to mention sheer fun factor of being to out-tp any job and every now and then actually quite often 3 hits will proc a few times in a row and its non stop hitting for 10 seconds lol... The dagger makes the job alot more fun. Also I make TP nearly fast enough to keep up with WS on SA an WS on TA.

In all situations this dagger is not better but I promise you I out damage other thieves without it by a solid 6-7% on colibris and lesser birds which as of right now have been the last 4 levels of exp for me cept one raptor party where the Kris performed better than I had thought.

This is theoretical info 5TP isnt accurate for any of the daggers discussed here and 100% accuracy is also pretty rediculous. But in game its still roughly the same advantage just a little more complicated.

Good night. I already have to edit it... Stick to monk.

Per hit damage is still 12, double procc or not. Meaning that you do 12 damage for every 5% you get. And if it is like you say, 66% of your tp comes from off-hand, thats 13 swings, wich would be 13*12 = 156 and only 7 swings from main wich is 7*35 = 245. Wich adds up to a grand total of 401 points of damage on your way to 100%. The math her is simple to follow. 5% tp per hit means you need 20 hits. You say the average from merc-kris is a double attack procc, meaning that for every mainhand swing, your offhand swings twice. Meaning 33% of your tp comes from main, 66% comes from procc. Meaning 13 swings, as you yourself said, for 12 points of damage. And 7 swings, as you yourself said, for 35 points.

Now, take a look at the hornet needle then. You say it averages 24 dmg/hit. With a non-multi hit weapon the number off attacks will be 10 per dagger on the way to 100% tp. 10 x 35 = 350, 10 x 24 = 240. 240+350 is 590. Thats 190 dmg lost per 100% tp.


And acc is irrelevant in this discussions since we are discussing the damage you do on your way to 100%. And at 100% acc or 65% acc you still need to connect 20 times, and on average 66% of those connects will be with the merc kris.

 

[Tride]

As for Drk/Nin...
I love the job combo, even into the late 50's and the early 60's where I currently have the job on hold.
Keep in mind I am a fully sword merited, that may have a significant role in my perception, my lower level may too. But one thing is for sure, there's nothing like "curing the mob to death". Seriously.. you wanna complain about a good Drk being an MP sink? where else in the game can you toss out 88 MP and do 1,300 damage? Well that's not entirely true, it also requires an aditional flash, but I also didn't include my trailing hits. SE adds 10% of your HP to your Melee hits, wouldn't you rather take advantage of that with more hits?

Me  : SE >> LR >> Vorpal Blade >> Drain >> Stun 
Whm :                  Cure IV >> Flash

Sure you could do that with any sub, but my personal survivability is exceptionally higher. If the mob is 40-45% I can personally eliminate it, that makes me happy. If I pull hate, I can take a hit or two, and need no curing at all. Not to mention my DoT is nothing to scoff at... My Accuracy does fine as well. My normal Vorpals average 500-800 damage btw.

The party was a little skewed, which is my point... I had another WAR, a BRD and a COR. Double attack enhanced by having a War in the group made things different. That is my point in babbling off. You suit your entire playstyle to fit what you are doing. Saying nin is a bad sub is just down right ignorant. If somone needs the extra safty/attack speed, whatever, it's how they are geared to play, and they probably have a decent set of reasons for doing so. Maybe as simple as "I can't get invites" to "I been in a lot of shitty parties that I get killed in" to "I can't pull the numbers subbing anything else" to "I take too much damage form AoE's and I don't want to be an MP sink". And I wouldn't be so bold as to say I wouldn't sub anything else, but I need a damn good reason to do so... Sub war for Drk? So I can constantly be limiting myself so I don't get hate? Or have to click off SE/LR cause I will get rapes in 0.2 seconds if I don't? Sub thief and have to deal with either setting up for SATA, gimping my Dmg on a TA+WS, or bringing my danger level by risking a SA+WS (Which I would like to mention to you DRKs and your fucking BS when you do it at the end when the mob has only 100 HP and you cheer about your 1,500 WS...).

Simply put: Generally, if your 'A' class weapon can be dual wielded (and you're a melee class) then go for it.

drk doesnt get an "A" in sword, so why dual wield it? when ur acc attk and over all dmg would be better with scythe /war. and its not that u have to really hold back as much as know when to use abilities. have an allaround better DoT with /war, with double attack berzerk and warcry added along with last resort, souleater and dont forget absorb-str, u can spread out ur abilites to where u are always going to have some kind of attk up ability to use, instead of if ur /nin when u have to basically use ever job ability u have to do a decent ws or whatever =x and for those saying well drk is an mp sink w/o /nin blah blah, thats part of the job... lol and as odd as it sounds i did drk/whm in exp b4 and it was actually good lol, do same types of dmg as /nin but can cure urself, eliminating the "drk are a waste on mages mp" shit. plus the mnd boost is nice for guillotine since STR_25%, MND_25%
anyway thats just what i think and sorry for the bad spelling and horrible gramar i fail at english

First: Merc Kis is 33% Triple, 33% Double, and a 33% Single. in 99 swings that's 33 triples I.E. 99 hits, 33 Doubles I.E. 66 hits, and 33 Singles that's 33 hits, all added together that's 198 hits in 99 swings averaging 2 hits a swing, period. In the meantime you cut/restrict your Triple attack to your mainhand only.

Mer Kris is like a 16 base dagger that returns 9 TP... That's really fucking shitty.

Second: You are seriously full of shit. Mer Kris, on Exp Mobs hits for 2's and maybe 4's and a few 0's don't tell me that you swing for 24 damage. I partied with a couple thieves using that cursed dagger........ Jesus F'ing Christ.. You wanna see how useless a Sam can be? Spam imps with TP and watch em use Amnesia every 10 seconds....

General statement: As a DD, Do as much Dmg as you can bringing you to the bring of pulling hate/wasting your shadows, let your group help too. And please understand your group, if you are doing shitloads of damage but your group is incapacitated due to over curing, or TP spam from the mobs, then adjust god damnit...

well said lol merc kris ftl

 

[Phraust]

Keep in mind Tride, at 61, my Sword skill is 212, that's 5 levels above an 'A' class weapon. The Swords also add 24 Attack, and with a nin sub, I swing both faster than a scythe, for more damage. (I had Vorpal Blade at 58 if i remember correctly, just to give you an idea.) And idk if you know much about corsairs, but they can give you a better double attack boost than subbing war can, and with a war in the group, they can apparently give up to like a 18% Double Attack rate to all members in range on a perfect role. Stack to that a rough 10% Crit Rate increase as well. My Settup was geared to that scenario. I wanted to take advantage of Numbers. More Swings = more double attacks = more swings = more crits. I tried Scythe, granted it was with a Nin sub, but it was almost 30% - 40% or so less damage than what I was dealing. (Going from 1100 - 1200 damage/round down to about 700 - 900). I went from being top DD to getting outparsed by a corsair... Granted the corsair was elite, and I was 8 levels behind on scythe... But that was a sting...

I seen how most drks play. They don't use thier spells... If they do, they do em every 6 minutes. Every single round I Ab-Tp once, Drain once, and Aspir twice.

And you missquoted, that was a quote from me, not Caerloc. -Fixed I see.

 

[Tride]

Keep in mind Tride, at 61, my Sword skill is 212, that's 5 levels above an 'A' class weapon. The Swords also add 24 Attack, and with a nin sub, I swing both faster than a scythe, for more damage. (I had Vorpal Blade at 58 if i remember correctly, just to give you an idea.) And idk if you know much about corsairs, but they can give you a better double attack boost than subbing war can, and with a war in the group, they can apparently give up to like a 18% Double Attack rate to all members in range on a perfect role. Stack to that a rough 10% Crit Rate increase as well. My Settup was geared to that scenario. I wanted to take advantage of Numbers. More Swings = more double attacks = more swings = more crits. I tried Scythe, granted it was with a Nin sub, but it was almost 30% - 40% or so less damage than what I was dealing. (Going from 1100 - 1200 damage/round down to about 700 - 900). I went from being top DD to getting outparsed by a corsair... Granted the corsair was elite, and I was 8 levels behind on scythe... But that was a sting...

I seen how most drks play. They don't use thier spells... If they do, they do em every 6 minutes. Every single round I Ab-Tp once, Drain once, and Aspir twice.

And you missquoted, that was a quote from me, not Caerloc. -Fixed I see.

well if ur sword skill i higher than scythe at 61 then i could see where it would be good, but not everyone has merits like that, and i see alot of people doing just cuz they see other people doing it, and it dumb imo to start doing things when u have no idea what the mechanics behind it are, and as for drks not using there spells, thats just sad :\ so much more to drk than just standing there mindlessly meleeing and now just spamming absorb-tp, hell i can do 200+ nukes as drk, and 400+ MBs lol, (really need to give drk auto-refresh ;

 

[neophytal]

But then you're making assumptions you're partying with skilled people which is often not the case. I think Neophytal can back me up that on my last party in Mire as BRD I was literally killed over a period of 4 hits in camp standing next to the melees with no other mob being fought even. That's an extreme case but that's what's been happening to me lately, in that I'm expected to pull but I'm left standing there in a Justacorpse+1 getting the shit kicked out of me.

yeah, it was bad. our tank , i think, was very lacking at best, and almost seemed like a gilseller who continually went afk. idk.

i just know i couldnt nuke for shit without pulling hate much either

 

[Tride]

yeah, it was bad. our tank , i think, was very lacking at best, and almost seemed like a gilseller who continually went afk. idk.

i just know i couldnt nuke for shit without pulling hate much either

/comfort~

 

[etchdog2000]

As for Drk/Nin...
I love the job combo, even into the late 50's and the early 60's where I currently have the job on hold.
Keep in mind I am a fully sword merited, that may have a significant role in my perception, my lower level may too. But one thing is for sure, there's nothing like "curing the mob to death". Seriously.. you wanna complain about a good Drk being an MP sink? where else in the game can you toss out 88 MP and do 1,300 damage? Well that's not entirely true, it also requires an aditional flash, but I also didn't include my trailing hits. SE adds 10% of your HP to your Melee hits, wouldn't you rather take advantage of that with more hits?

Me  : SE >> LR >> Vorpal Blade >> Drain >> Stun 
Whm :                  Cure IV >> Flash

Sure you could do that with any sub, but my personal survivability is exceptionally higher. If the mob is 40-45% I can personally eliminate it, that makes me happy. If I pull hate, I can take a hit or two, and need no curing at all. Not to mention my DoT is nothing to scoff at... My Accuracy does fine as well. My normal Vorpals average 500-800 damage btw.

The party was a little skewed, which is my point... I had another WAR, a BRD and a COR. Double attack enhanced by having a War in the group made things different. That is my point in babbling off. You suit your entire playstyle to fit what you are doing. Saying nin is a bad sub is just down right ignorant. If somone needs the extra safty/attack speed, whatever, it's how they are geared to play, and they probably have a decent set of reasons for doing so. Maybe as simple as "I can't get invites" to "I been in a lot of shitty parties that I get killed in" to "I can't pull the numbers subbing anything else" to "I take too much damage form AoE's and I don't want to be an MP sink". And I wouldn't be so bold as to say I wouldn't sub anything else, but I need a damn good reason to do so... Sub war for Drk? So I can constantly be limiting myself so I don't get hate? Or have to click off SE/LR cause I will get rapes in 0.2 seconds if I don't? Sub thief and have to deal with either setting up for SATA, gimping my Dmg on a TA+WS, or bringing my danger level by risking a SA+WS (Which I would like to mention to you DRKs and your fucking BS when you do it at the end when the mob has only 100 HP and you cheer about your 1,500 WS...).

Simply put: Generally, if your 'A' class weapon can be dual wielded (and you're a melee class) then go for it.

Here's a "Pro Tip" Berserk = 25% more Attack, not 25% more damage. Dual Wield II last time I checked, was 15% more melee speed, more if you offhand a faster weapon; however since said offhand would likely have less damage, it should negate roughly back to the 15% increase in Damage, however it allows you to WS more frequenly. So, 25% attack 3 min out of 5, yields how much of a damage increase? How often does double attack process as a sub? 5%? 10%? Do all those things added together warrent the 15% gained through subbing Nin? Now... does the added bonus of getting three attacks directed at you or the occasional AoE move partially, or completely negated seem all that bad?

I just wanted to speak to what you said about DRK/NIN.

Once you get Guillotine, any weapon you can use is now not going to do as much dmg. Maybe its still not a huge difference at low 60s, and 55-60 you may be better dual wielding but you talk about doing 1,300 dmg vorpal blades with SE well you can get higher with guillotine AND keep your /NIN.

I parsed at lvl 75 Tredicism Scythe vs. Woodvilles/Maneater vs. Maneater/Company Sword all /NIN.

The results were Scythe>>>>>>Maneater/Company Sword>Woody/Maneater. So even with /NIN giving NOTHING to a DRK except survivability, they are better off using scythe. Skill at that lvl is 276 vs 240 (both sword and axe). Scythe destroyed my maneater/company by 250-300ish dmg and maneater/company beat woody/maneater by about 100.

Now I know you have a Ridill. I have no way of testing to see if that will out parse scythe in EXP pts. If I were a DRK with full sword merits and had a ridill, I probably would roll with the Company/ridill combo and do the vorpal blade thing. But I cant really speak to that.

I still say /WAR with scythe is possible w/o being an MP sink. You just need skilled players. Hell you can even do it in a cannon if you got 2 WARs that are intelligent. I remember when I pulled my first 2k+ guillo in the thickets. After that I dont think I had any desire to /NIN ever again, but that is my own preference.

All that said I am willing to bet, at low 60s just using scythe, even /NIN would be comparable or better then sword, even with merits. And the gap will widen until you can equip your ridill. However as you said, its really about how you want your playstyle to be and how you have fun with the game.

 

[Khajit]

I have a tendency to open a fight with SAWS on my thf whenever tp is availiable. with /war I simply cant do that without becoming an mp sink. I have less def than a taru blm in my tp setup. a thf without shadows is a like a ninja without shadows. We may evade alot but when we get hit it hurts like a bitch. Opening a fight with a 800-1.3k WS WILL make me grab hate long enough to get hit with /war and sometimes /nin if certain people dont stand still for trick attack/an imp shoots off an aga/aoe silence. most wars dont voke often enough to me to even think of relying on them to grab back hate before the mages have to cure me. Not only that but most parties wont LET me sub /war even if I look at the setup and think its perfectly safe to do so.

/war isnt needed for pulling too much. If you get hit by an imp you deserve to die. you shoot them and they cast blaze spikes, aspir on you the melee with no MP, piosonaga which makes no difference between /war and /nin or some magic spell you will be out of range of if you arent a retard that waits for the spell to hit before running.

I don't open with a precharged TAWS because people have an annoying habit of moving around too damned much at the start of a fight and its easier to lineup Behind the mob after its voked. Some people have a tendency to move out the way when I move behind em to TA them. I dont know if its accidental or not but its fucking annoying when I cant sneak attack afterwards because i have hate.


OK lets look at pros and cons of /war and /nin
That attack bonus trait is 11 more atk to my recently deleved 74 thf.
OK so zerk is up 3/5 of the time so thats a 25%boost to ATK 60% of the time.
so an 15% increase if the 25% from zerk actually directly translated into 25% more damage during its duration which it doesn't. dual weilII+ suppo=20% increase in attack rate and therefore 20% more damage.

WS damage. ok zerk will obviously do more damage in theory but lets concentrate on double attack atm.
ws with /ninja adds an extra swing on offhand with 100% acc if you use TA or SA. The equivalent of this would be double attack on /war
So on /war its an extra attack that MIGHT proc if im lucky and has a chance of missing. DE is a 5 hit ws and the cap is 8 hits per ws so both you can't proc both at the same time.
Im not getting into double attack during the DOT phases since I've yet to see a specific % for how its proc rate.

The reason I use /nin... A thf is only as good as his/her pt and quite frankly there are tons of people I wouldnt trust with my life to voke a monster off me.
For those thf saying ignore thf dot for WS... Stop being stupid. THF dot isn't shit anymore and we WILL do a decent amount of damage.
If thf dot was SHIT still I wouldnt be able to grab hate if we start a fight with amnesia. I dont do this anymore than the average dd but the fact that a triple attack proc can grab hate speaks to how much improved thf dot is.
Im sorry ugotjacked. youre a good thf and all but merc kris isn't that good for a long stretch of levels with the current dagger selections availiable. Merc kris is great from 40-50. After that I'd have to parse to see which is better but greater dot might/probably will win out..
You like to use /war whenever possible so it obviously isn't doing THAT great for you if you offhand it for faster tp gain.

 

[Arkangel]

if one more noob 75 invite asks me to come as a sam/nin i will have a heart attack

 

[Crosis]

Put up def buffs in prep for going out to pull, or take less time and put up "even Ichi", and certainly way less time if Ni's up. If you're gonna argue RDM sub in favor of omg must get buffs out must be out faster, must be fast fast fast fast fast ... then the loooooong time spent on Stoneskin/Blink kinda sorta majorly contradicts that.

The only place you constantly would need to keep buffs on yourself that would merit using both Blink/Stoneskin would be Range and or lolLufaise. You aren't even getting hit because with /Rdm you can sleep the mob before it even gets one swing at you thus you don't need to constantly reapply said buffs. Range and Lufaise just have quick mobs, Thickets have Puks but they are very weak damage and Skoffins you don't have to pull very far unless you are in a gimp overcrowded spot, even then Lullaby is easy.

As for sky, I was thinking more Decorative Weapons. (They're more reasonable targets for most melees, because let's face it, most cannons have reasonable but not omguber melees. Good for you that you have friends who fit the bill but that doesn't make it a reasonable expectation for making statements in general.)

Getting stunned slows me down more than Fast Cast would speed me up. Aura Weapons sure, Diaga eats shadows, and Aura Statues have that annoying bind move you want to be able to Erase, so NIN wouldn't shine on either, and WHM would be preferable. However, Decos are such pushovers damage-wise that a BRD doesn't need to help heal at all (I often find myself sitting on full MP despite trying to use it), and they're perfectly easy to keep chain on even without Fast Cast.

Your right they are pushovers, and I've never lost chain because I was stunned by a Whirl. I can pretty much Dia 2 half the Decos on the chain with the extra MP I have thus benefiting the party, what does a /Nin contribute?. Getting stunned for 2 seconds occasionally, or 1 second shaved off every elegy, every minuet, every march, every ballad. You decide. It's not very hard to get a quick song in on the melee and get out of there before a Whirl anyway, especially with /Rdm. You don't even need to buff yourself.

The Dispel argument only applies if:
- WHM main heal instead of RDM (it's about 50/50 in my experiences and both are equally effective in different ways).
- You're fighting Mamool Ja.
- The Mamool Ja uses that TP move at all.
- It uses that TP move early enough in the mob's life that it'll matter.
- It uses that TP move when you're actually close enough to camp to do anything about it.
- Finale gets the accuracy buff instead of the evasion buff.

That's quite a few qualifying if statements to justify subbing RDM *for* Dispel. That's not to say it's not useful in that clause of nested if's, but that's still quite a few nested if's.

This happens quite more often then you would think D:

True, I'm not subbing /Rdm for Dispel, but it is an extra benefit of subbing it. /Nin has one use and one use only for the party.

 

[Sneakypants]

I am only gonna say this...

I know other jobs and combinations work for other people...

I know there is a possible marginal increase to using any sub...

I know I enjoyed using /nin on thief. here's the reasons why:

The off hand dagger being usually quicker than the mainhand, gives you a decent increase in speed. Some daggers even give you a decent stat increase or two, flat out, sometimes the melee attack speed bonus form Dual Wield is enough.

Whatever the reason, I know I am yet to meet a Thf/War that can outparse me, and I am also yet to meet a Thf/War that wasn't an MP sink.

And to all you fuckwads saying "Oh a thief shouldn't get hit on a pull, you shouldn't need shadows..." etc... Go fuck yourselves. Seriously. Just pull out a dong and vigorously thrust it in and out of your butt. Sometimes it's not the pull that's the problem, it's the dipshits you're partying with that are. Yes, I can pull, and get to camp unharmed, but can the dumbfuck that's first voke, or the tank voke in a decent amount of time? I can tell you that 90% of the time i had shadows taken or took a hit, it was due to some moron that wasn't skilled enough to hit a macro on time.

Thank God someone gets it. I was rapidly losing faith in many of the Quetzy THFs.

 

[Ugotjacked]

Phraust although I respect your opinion on thief. Colibri and lesser birds even ITs the dmg increase to piercing gives 10-12 12 is roughly when I get no resists. And Ill prove that to you next party im in. Hopefully meeze is in it so we can stop benchracing and see how well kris does compared to /war at this level.

Im done with this thread until someone can post proof that this dagger suck not jsut make general assumptions. And Ive said in all my posts thats on lesser birds, and colibris which for the past 4-5 levels its been almost 100% of my ecpirients points. Even 55-60 it was most of my exp.

This is gonna be expensive party gog Snatch Morsel!

AND Caerloc you act like I dont get to do those 3 swings after I WS... I still get the dmg from the last 3 swings who cares about my dmg on the way to 100% I still have the time to make those swings so my overall dmg per fight would only decrease by the lost dmg in my offhanddagger which is only 10ish or so so I lose 10 dmg per round and that is it. This dmg on the way to 100% is pointless because Im doing 100 less dmg on the way to 133%( just a guess lol) whereas your doing 100 more dmg on the way to 100%.

Here is my overall point lost dmg on the way to 100% for a larger TP gain to 133% in 10 rounds of attacks. I dont lose DoT because I didnt get it in the first 100%. And that TP is low because I would get WS TP more often with Mec kris so thats even more TP from it. Also as far as a PArser sees it If I wer to kill it with WS and didnt get the TP from the swings after WS then niether did anyone else. so DoT on the way to 100% is irrelevant when you have multihit weapons and you compare them to single hit. BTW DoT is Damage over Time, Damage over TP.

 

[Rappa]

Keep in mind Tride, at 61, my Sword skill is 212, that's 5 levels above an 'A' class weapon.

A lot of your post and your arguments are based upon your merits. Anyone in the game who merits sword without a ridill is a complete moron, so not many drks are going to have sword merited at the level that you are at. If you merited sword or axe to full, it's possible that you might occasionally do better subbing nin and dual wielding your weapon of choice. This is a rare exception though.