Dispelling the myths...Follow

For today's "Topics By Sabo™", I want to address something that has been bothering me for some time now. Basically, I want to address the myths and misinformation floating around out there about different aspects of some jobs, and share my opinions on why these myths aren't true. A lot of jobs have a hard time in this game simply because people either don't understand their role in a party or are ignorant of certain details about their job.

After recently starting over as a hume WAR, I've run into this several times. I had one person ask me why I would spend 30k on a Neckchopper greataxe if I'm just going to change jobs at 30. "Why don't you just use a cheap weapon instead? It's not like anyone cares what the WAR does since they suck after 30 anyway." That kind of thinking, while relatively uncommon, ultimately hurts people playing those jobs. So, I'll throw out some of the "myths" I've heard, and explain why I don't believe in them.

WARs are useless at high levels. People who believe this usually explain that WAR is just a springboard job you use as a sub for your "real" job later on. I disagree. WARs can be fantastic damage-dealers and, unusual for damage-dealers, they have the potential to survive any aggro they might get. Great axe is one of the truly great weapon types in this game. All the Break weaponskills (Shield Break, Armour Break, Full Break etc.) are insanely useful, and Sturmwind is one of the most powerful attacks available to any class at any level. Additionally, WARs are rated pretty highly in several other weapon types, so their versatility are unmatched. Their main detractor is that they can't close Distortion (well, they can, but only with Iron Tempest which really isn't very good as a closer). However, they CAN close Fragmentation (thunder/wind), and Fragmentation is just as good as (and sometimes better than) Distortion on most enemies. I've done over 500 damage to an IT++ between Sturmwind and the Fragmentation damage it produces. I think people get the idea that "WAR sucks" from seeing all the WARs in the dunes LFG. Too many of them just play it as a "race to 30 so I can change jobs" and don't bother to put any effort into it. But trust me when I say from my own experience, very few jobs will be able to outdamage a well-equipped WAR and live.

DRK/THF replaces THFs at 60+ and RDM replaces WHM at 41. The fact of the matter is, no job ever gets replaced by any other. Yes, a DRK can sub THF at 60+ (ideally 65+ since Guillotine doesn't stack nearly as well with SATA as Spinning Slash) and gain the ability to run hate control, but he loses a lot of his damage potential by doing so. I would prefer to have a DRK/WAR and leave hate control to the THFs that do it so well. And yes, a RDM/WHM can effectively main-heal at 41+. But they don't do it as well as a WHM/XXX and you'll find that just because RDMs CAN main-heal doesn't mean they want to. Very few RDMs I've ever met became RDMs just so they could replace the WHM and spend all their time healing. Plus, WHMs get Erase any time after 32. RDM/WHMs don't get Erase til 64. WHMs get Raise II/III, Regen II/III, Teleports, etc. Each job has a purpose in this game, and while sometimes the jobs overlap, it's never enough to say that one job makes another worthless. If I need hate control and see a THF looking, I invite the THF. If I need hate control and there isn't a THF, I look for a DRK and ask if he has a /THF available. Same with healing... I'd much rather find a WHM and let him or her do the healing, freeing the RDM up to do what RDMs do best: Refresh and enfeeble like mad.

"DRGs suck, get a DRK instead." Nothing could be further from the truth, guys. A well-equipped DRG and his wyvern will outdamage pretty much everyone for the first 2/3 of the game, especially at lower levels when DRK doesn't get a whole lot to compete with. I won't go into the reasons that DRG have trouble at higher levels, but suffice it to say that once a DRG gets his AF helm at 60, he can sub WHM to be a decent damage-dealer and the most MP-efficient healer in the game. I don't know where this "DRGs suck" mentality came from... I expect this was due to that weaponskill TP change that occurred a while back, eliminating the effectiveness of /SAM. But Penta Spam was **never** that good to begin with. And the fact of the matter is, they changed the way TP on multi-hit weaponskills works due to monks and their Relic Knuckles. The amount of TP you get per hit is determined by the delay on your weapon. The MNK Relic Knuckles have a delay of 999. Between that long delay and the number of hits Asuran Fists does (each of which gave back like 14% TP because of the 999 Delay), a MNK could literally do nothing but spam back to back to back Asuran Fists. It was so overpowered that SE had to do something to fix it. This consequently made it impractical to spam Penta Thrust. But that "nerf" had nothing to do with DRGs whatsoever. So, whenever someone says that DRG are worthless, slap them for me. DRG is one of the jobs I usually look for first because I love the damage they put out so much for most of the game. And when that changes later and they stop being able to keep up with the other melees, they can sub WHM and totally change their role in the group. So no, DRG do not "suck".

RDM should never melee! Actually, RDM should consider the circumstances and melee as appropriate. Meleeing shouldn't probably be a main consideration for RDM, but a RDM with a fast weapon and Enelement spells can put out very respectable damage, especially if they're just auto-attacking between casting all their spells. Please don't underestimate meleeing RDMs like I used to. Being a bard, I'm usually pretty biased against the RDM meleeing since it means they lose the magical boost from my songs in favour of melee songs. However, having seen a RDM melee an IT at high level while doing all his other jobs, I'm comfortable saying that the amount of damage they can put out is enough to justify them swinging that sword. If you don't believe me, find a RDM with capped sword skills and have them go whacking on a mob, and see how much damage they do. Now, this doesn't mean I'm telling RDMs to melee. It simply means that if your RDM is keeping everyone Refreshed/Hasted and keeping the mob enfeebled while backup healing and magic-bursting, if his sword's out don't immediately jump down his throat. ^^

RDM > BRD or BRD > RDM This is one I've actually seen a few times as my BRD. The fact of the matter is, why have one or the other if you can have both? RDMs and BRDs aren't rivals, we actually work extremely well together. Our skills compliment each other beautifully. Refresh and Ballad stack for even faster MP refresh, and if I use Finale to dispel a mob's buffs and it immediately rebuffs, the RDM can hit it with Dispel while I'm waiting on the recast for Finale to come back up. My Elegy stacks with the RDM's Slow, and if my Lullaby gets resisted he can back me up with Sleep. I can make the mob weaker to elements and he can take advantage of that by casting the elemental enfeebles or magic-bursting. I generally like partying with RDMs since we're kinda "sharing the job responsibilities" and can play off each other really well. I can make the melees more accurate with Madrigal, he can make the mob's evasion drop with Gravity. Really, we're two sides of one very awesome coin! So, while a couple of our key abilities overlap, neither of us is "better" than the other class.

Advanced jobs are better than basic jobs because... I touched upon this one earlier, but I want to really emphasise my point on this. Just because they're called "advanced" or "basic" doesn't mean one's better than the other. And that usually applies to the players controlling them as well. Never assume that just because Person A chose to start over with an advanced job while Person B chose to continue in their basic role Person A is somehow more intelligent or experienced. I have a friend who has only ever been a WAR, THF and NIN. He got WAR to 18, THF to 30, NIN to 37 and he's resumed levelling his THF which he's taking all the way up. He's never touched another job, he had a very clear idea that he wanted to be a THF and only a THF, so he's levelled the bare minimum of what he needs to stay THF. He's also one of the best THFs I've ever seen in action. I've levelled every job in the game except for SAM and PLD, and I could NEVER touch his skill as a THF. What job you are or what jobs you've levelled are completely independent of your skill as a player in that job. If you see a high level WAR or MNK or whatever in AF, he should be respected just as much as that SMN or BST or RNG in their AF... He had to work just as hard to get there and he had to be just as good at his job as they are at theirs.

Tarus can't be damage-dealers or tanks! Galkas can't be mages! Elvaans can't be thieves! Any race can be any job... this I totally believe. Yes, certain races have to work harder to be effective at certain jobs, but the fact of the matter is that your race is the lowest common denominator in how effective you are at your job. Race has the least effect on your stats of any choice you can make. Your main job affects your stats the most, then what equipment you choose to wear, then what subjob you equip. Racial differences are only a few points in any direction. More important than antyhing else is player skill, and that's a factor that can't be expressed in numbers. Whatever racial deficits you have can be remedied by wearing good equipment, and often there IS some benefit or another to your race even if you pick a "bad" job for it. Taru tanks have more evasion than anyone. Galka mages can survive aggro for longer than tarus. Elvaan THFs hit harder than any other race while they're waiting on the recast for Sneak Attack/Trick Attack to come back up. Your race may not be the best choice for your job, but that does NOT mean you can't make it work. Never judge someone's skill as a player based on their race and job... judge their skill as a player by how well they make their combo of choice work.

Job XXX can't tank! Job YYY can't be the healer! Job ZZZ can't be puller! I've found that you can make just about anything work if you put your back into it and do your research. I've seen such unusual things as BLM main-healers, RDM tanks, MNK pullers, meleeing BRDs, BSTs that only chose to solo if they couldn't get a party, etc. Probably the most important lesson I think people need to learn about this game is that player skill is infinitely more important than game mechanics. I think the game is often much more flexible than we choose to allow it to be. We're very rigid in our definitions of what each job can do. SAMs are damage-dealers and only damage-dealers, but I've seen SAMs very effectively tank even to higher levels. BLMs are exclusively nukers, even though I myself have played BLM as a healer/enfeebler who only nuked on bursts (out of necessity of not having any healing classes available to invite). It's taken months now for people to even begin to accept that a DRG/WHM can play main-healer and still be a damage-dealer, even though the abilities and equipment have been in the game for some time. I wonder how long it took the JP general populace to accept that NINs could be effective tanks? My point is, if you see someone in an unusual job combo, rather than insulting them perhaps it would be worthwhile to find out what they see in that combo. I'm not saying that SMN/MNK is ever going to be a good combo, but I'm sure there are possibilities out there that nobody has discovered yet. SOMEONE had to say "I wonder if I could tank if I subbed WAR for Provoke and cast a lot of Utsusemis?" And I'm sure that person probably got laughed at and passed over until people started noticing that he was kicking *** as a tank and not taking any damage. My point is to never assume that you know everything to know about the game. People continue to come up with new innovations that surprise me, so I've learned never to pre-judge or underestimate any combo until I've seen for myself what it can do.

Now, I apologise for turning this into a novel. ^^;; I just really wanted to address these things, since they've been bothering me for a while now. I think a lot of times we hear one bad thing about a job and it sticks with us, so we start to form an (often incorrect) image in our minds of what that job does. For the longest time in history, I believed what I'd heard that RDMs should never melee and that MNKs sucked (because back in the day it was MNK, not DRG, that everyone picked on). I listened to the gossip instead of deciding for myself, and so for the longest time if a RDM meleed in my group I came up with a polite excuse and disbanded, and I never invited MNKs because I thought they would just be a waste of a slot. Because of that, it took several months for me to actually see that I was wrong to judge. I never partied with MNKs (because of what I'd been told) so I never saw how great they could be. I never allowed my RDMs to melee, so I never saw that they could do that and still keep up with their other responsibilities.

So please, don't make the mistakes I made and believe every piece of bad gossip you hear about a job. 99.999999% of the time that gossip is wrong, and you'll just be shorting yourself like I did if you listen to it without verifying it for yourself. I hope you guys take my words to heart, because I think it's really unfair how often jobs or race/job combos or job/subjob combos are hurt simply by bad press. There is probably a higher-level DRG on your server sitting there waiting for a group, being passed over because "OMG DRG sucks!" Go invite him and see what he can do! ^^

[Edited because now I know how to do ™ !! Thanks Febavas!]

Edited, Sat Oct 9 21:48:40 2004 by Saboruto

That's so cool, I didn't know you could do that. Thank you! /cheer

{/cheer} i can see some people think so highly of warriors i am one of those who wish to take warrior to aleast 60 ^.^

although finding a party is hard and i sorta feel that i do "gimp" party some times because there better dmg dealers or better tanks then me i try my hardest to have the best possible gear i carry around 2 +3 vit rings and 2 +3 dex rings it may have cost me 90k for all 4 of those rings but i wanted to be the best i could be..

the only problem i have is.. my Great axe skill is 10 O.O
i cant seem to find a good Weapon skill up party..
i plan going to dunes and raising to highest i can my Gs is at 80 some thing..

although i dont have a Great axe i do however have my axe skill maxed at 154 which i now have spinning axe and with my thief sub Sneak attack can do about 200-300+ damage combined food and beserk

i do around 30-60 normal damage and my crit hits are around 80-100
i do plan how ever to quit warrior and join the ranks of rng's but i plan to level my ninja to 25 before i do this..

thank you Saboruto for posting this ^.^


Edited, Sat Oct 9 21:58:28 2004 by LordCecil

Well... that just about covers it. I really can't think of anything to add besides a rate-up.

your posts are the best dude keep it up rate ups for all :)O

I'd like to second the notion that DRGs can be one of the best damage dealers for the first 2/3 of the game.

Just today, the DRG in my BCNM static did a 300%TP, Berserked Double Thrust for 520 damage, and that's not even counting his wyverns breath attack immediately following! That's capped at level 40!

Granted, his damage isn't consistently that high, but it just shows the potential of a DRG. And please please please don't forget the wyvern damage!

Very well thought out, definite rate up!

One thing I like is 'WHM should never melee (except in skillup parties)'

Honestly it's somewhat like the RDM melee debate, only, well, regarding WHMs. Look at the situation and mobs involved and melee as appropriate. The only 'unless' here is unless while doing so you cannot keep up with Haste, Regen, Cures, and Ailment cures (~na spells along the lines of Paralyna and Blindna, etc). While you may not do significant damage, it sure beats spending time in a skillup party when you honestly don't need to.

Man Sabo, you have alot of time, eh?

                                     ↓His opinion is ****.↓

Wow...It must be a dagger in Phraust's heart everytime he sees this...

Very nice, Sabo. I'm proud to agree with everything you said. I encourage you to edit in UberJerry's comment on BST and party xp. When i have to argue for 20 mintues (while we continue to fight) with a rank 6 BLM about whether or not i'm hurting his xp... you can see that the <<Censored>> Games Guide influence is far too strong. It's not even like you have to worry about "but what if the BST started charming toughs?" Because i can guarantee that in any normal situation, that just won't happen. So there, under no normal circumstance of partying will BST ever impact the party xp... Freaking <<Censored>> Games...

Alt Key Symbols
Those alt key things rule.

Definite rate-up! Very common-sense, informative, and helpful.

Weaselbreath casts Dispel on the game myths.

Someone had to say it in a nice organized way =P. Just some feedback.

: My static leader (lvl 52, if that's... kinda mid-high) is an old fashioned WAR/MNK and he is great at tanking and dd. WAR just gets better as it goes higher ^^.

: I have yet to see an RDM that could replace me =P. But I really don't know when this started, EVERY party I've seen around my lvl (that wasn't getting slaughtered) had both RDM and WHM. It is great how both work so well when they work together.

The only DRGs that suck are the ones who just wanted the job because they thought it looked cool. Think they do horrible damage? Just run a parser =P

: heavily debated, circumstantial just like Sabo said... don't ever tell an RDM to stop meleeing or start, you'll more than likely get socked in the nose.

: I'm lvling a taru WAR right now just to see how well it will work =P. SE has enough equipment in the game to make up for almost all weakness from race, so race is NEVER an issue. Early lvls you won't even notices a difference really. Elvaan can't be thieves though, who said that? If they can be rng, they certainly can be THF, just need some DEX rings and accuracy equipment.

My 2 gil ^^

Lol you'd be surprised, there's lvl 50+ and high ranks that don't have a clue (take me for exaomple) =P

And saying the DRG sucks cause it isn't as good as DRK myth is squashed is like a punch in the gut to all DRGs. They know more than anyone (even just look at their forum) that the myth is long from dead.