Valoran said:
Are the people who are saying all DD play alike only playing mage jobs?
I'm a monk main and I wouldn't play a drk for any money. One miss and you're out twelve tp and you've just gone 13 seconds without touching the mob? Not for me . . .
Anyway, nothing against dark knights; I just like a different job whose damage output also happens to be melee (and those 150-450 chi blasts on inc IT mobs).
Some people don't enjoy using certain weapons, too. I loved the idea of a hand-to-hand fighter. When I'm prioritizing gear, one thing I consider for the feet slot is kick attacks damage -- no other melee uses that. I'm not particularly interested in store tp gear, since I rely on kick attacks and double attack from sub to get me ready for the skillchain in time, but a boost to subtle blow can be very appealing, depending on what kind of mob we're fighting.
Someone mentioned a few pages back that DD's only need to know basic gameplay. I kind of beg to differ. Or rather, I'm not convinced that a rdm (often martyred as the "busiest" job in a party), needs to know more than I do. A rdm, after all, doesn't need to be able to produce a skillchain at the start of a party. Refresh and haste cycles may take some time to execute, but they hardly require more knowledge of game dynamics. As for business, there are moments in a party when I don't see my character for around 5-10 seconds because my gear is constantly being changed. The other day I partied with a samurai who wanted to use the skillchain at the beginning of the fight. I was two levels above both him and our pld, and I consistently pulled hate with howling fist (he didn't have Tachi: Gekko yet -- the melee will know what I mean). This meant swapping on -enmity gear (raven pieces), counter gear, and evasion gear until the tank got hate back, then swapping back to damage gear (attack/str or acc/str depending on whether berserk or focus was up at the time). That was after switching from chi blast gear to weaponskill gear.
I know mages are busy, and I know you swap gear a lot too. I'm just not convinced that you know more about the game than I do. I've played a few mage jobs to 20 or 30, and it's way more relaxing. As a melee DD, I'm constantly tinkering with my gear -- an acc ring here, a weapon change there -- trying to make sure I'm hitting the mob and my numbers are as high as I can get them. It's like solving for the best fit in real time. I carry something on the order of 51-52 pieces when I have all the gear I like to carry to parties with me -- not counting food (attack or acc) and oils/powders.
And I still consider myself something of a melee noob at the low level of 65.
And frankly, if I started dark knight or samurai, I think I'd have to rethink the way I equip my character and deal damage altogether. Using a crossbow for status effects and tp gain comes to mind . . .
Anyway, just some thoughts.
It was me who said melee only needed basic knowledge of game play, and for the book I've played a pletora of mage and melee classes as I've been around since pc release. Samurai was my first advanced job.
On a side note, DD do the same thing different ways is what I meant. Picking up a penny by bending down and grabbing it and picking one up by swooping upside down on an airplane are different, but you're still doing the same thing. Thats how DD are. They doing varying ways of damage at varying amounts, like sam through fast WSing and drk through raw power.
I still think you're wrong, doing a SC (saying this as a samurai, master of SC) is as difficult as being able to count once you get down the concept of how it works. Magic bursting is harder. Not much harder, but harder. Different spells have different casting time, and you have to adapt constantly each time the melee decide to change their SC element. Also, WS can be done in the middle of an attack, while mages have to be prepared that they are not midcasting while the SC goes off, because of the small delay timer before being able to recast spells and/or the time it takes cancel the current spell.
Your "gear changing" experimation isn't a point to the complexity of your class, you just like experimenting. It isn't hard, back when the game came out and we knew little I had little problem logically seeing what gear best benifited my samurai. If I missed a little more often, I get some accu rings ons (and these days I can just pop sushi, it's too expensive to each regualarly imo.) and if I'm hitting fine I'll pop some str rings ect ect.
I plan my gear out ahead for melee or mage, and most classes have superficial needs for gear changing, that is you don't need that gear change but it makes you better. Your example, it happens sometimes I know, but that doesn't justify you having a counter and evasion gear set. Maybe for solo, but if it happens often enough that you actually use it a lot you are either taking too much hate (not a good thing, takes a while for melee to learn this) or your tank sucks. Does it hurt to have? No. In fact, it helps. There's just no real need for it.
I still DO agree mages and non DD need more knowledge of the game then DD, I've played as all three, DD you can just sit there and whack away until one of your abilities is up or your tp is up. If you're a puller in those rare cases, you can go and pull.
Since I'm also a 75 rdm, I'll use your rdm example. Rdm don't have to SC at begging at the fight, true. (Although thats hardly hard or takes much knowledge.) Rdm DO have to watch for dispel, make sure their debuffs land and stay landed, help cure, keep everyone refreshed, help the whm haste and MB on SC. It's hardly relaxed, the only mage class I'd call relaxed would be smn and whm because healing is pretty simple. (also talking from experience) Most mages also constantly switch gear, much more then you do, and for a reason, blm constantly switch staves with each spell they cast and as rdm I had a resting gear set and staves for casting different spells.
I'm not debasing DD, I love melee and I love to play them, but it's the simple truth, DD require less effort, if even bit a smigit, to play play then most of the other classes. One reason(or a cause, I guess) is because they're gear dependent as hell. Read your own post, you're agreeing with me on that lol. (not saying you weren't) Most DD just sit there and whack away, when their abilitie is up they use it, when they have TP they SC. Not that difficult. And there's really not much else DD can do aside from that. Granted, being a mage isn't a whole lot harder, but if anything have to constantly press a macro for our "default" attack and managing our mp makes it harder, even if only by a tining smigit.
And honestly, we're all crazy. The only real work we are doing is moving fingers across the keyboard, so it feels weird to take about how much work a class is. Oh well.
EDITED: To make what I meant a bit clearer, sorry.
