SC suggestions (aden are you here?)Follow

Hey all (or aden if hes here hehe), i am making a static party.

Line up might be

2 WAR/NIN (for DD tanks), RDM, MNK, and 2 BLM.

I cant seem to find any SC's WAR's can do with 1 hand axes. And whats worse, with 2 BLM, i would love to be able to do double burst on distortion or induration for the extreme fast kills.

All members are 55-56, anyone have suggestions?

Rampage > Spinning Axe = FIRE + Raging Fists = Fusion


5 Damage Dealers and 1 healer.
I would suggest dropping a BLM for a BRD or rdm or whm.

Edit: Orignal made useless. You guys are quick posters.

But S. Axe -> R. Fists is a very powerfull SC. Starting it with rampage for a Three step SC is the best way to to pop off the mob ASAP. If you're looking for distortion you're not going to get it till your monk hits 60.

Just fight mobs weak to fire and you will rock.


Edited, Thu Mar 17 12:34:13 2005 by tarekthedestroyer

H2H can't close Distortion ever (It can open with Howling fist at 200 skill at level 60)

1 Hand Axe can't open Distortion

You're kind of stuck there.



Shoulder Tackle -> Raging Axe (Impaction) -> Raging Axe (Detonation)

Or

(Edit) Removed, Missed the heirarchy of smash axe ><


Sorry, i'm not too familiar with the damage output for various skillchain elements, but if you use the two links below (Adens chart and skill limit chart) you should be able to put them together. My suggestion would be to print out a couple of copies of Adens (in black and white), and highlight all the available skills for your level (and for a couple of levels in advance). That should make it a bit easier to see what's available to you so you can make an informed descision.

http://www.adennak.com/renkei10.pdf

http://www.ausystem.org/~aushacho/gbox/ff/skill-e.html





Edited, Thu Mar 17 13:42:48 2005 by Bigkillian

Well, there is good news and bad news. The bad news is that MNK can't really do much of anything in terms of Ice Renkei until L60, with Howling Fist. At that point, you can have MNK open:

Howling Fist > Calamity = Distortion (L60)
Howling Fist > Rampage = Distortion (L60)

Now, the good news is that there are other options. One thing I would suggest is to have your WARs keep Great Axe leveled. Great Axe has some outstanding Weaponskills, both in terms of placement and effect. If you have Great Axes at the ready as well as normal Axes once you hit L60, you can hit:

Sturmwind > Raging Rush = Induration (L60)

Sadly for your Distortion desires, almost all of the "A" properties for Axe and Great Axe are in the Ice attribute, so most combinations will produce Fragmentation. However, this can be good news, since Fragmentation is a nice L2 Renkei. But it does also limit your capacity for Induration. About the only way to make Induration pre-60 is going to be:

Shoulder Tackle > Smash Axe = Induration

Though the damage you lose on the actual WS might not make up for the burst. However, the good news is that if you want Ice bursts for use on MOBs like Crabs, Crawlers and Beetles, you will find that Thunder does almost as much damage. And with the use of Fragmentation, an L2 Renkei, you can likely get damage just as high:

Smash Axe > Smash Axe = Fragmentation
Smash Axe > Sturmwind = Fragmentation
Raging Rush > Raging Rush = Fragmentation (L60)

However, if you want to include the MNK, there are a variety of combinations that you can close into Impaction, so don't overlook them.

Smash Axe > Raging Fists = Impaction
Sturmwind > Raging Fists = Impaction
Smash Axe > Howling Fist = Impaction (L60)
Sturmwind > Howling Fist = Impaction (L60)
Raging Rush > Raging Fists = Impaction (L60)
Raging Rush > Howing Fist = Impaction (L60)

There is one more point I would like to make in favor of leveling Great Axe. With the combination of Hand to Hand, Axe and Great Axe, you will be able to make both L3 Light and L3 Darkness after L70. You will acquire L3 Light at L65 with single Axe, and L3 Light is commonly the more useful Renkei. However, L3 Darkness should not be overlooked (for its burst potential), and you CANNOT make L3 Darkness with Hand to Hand and single Axe. You will need Hand to Hand and Great Axe.

Just a few thoughts.

Edited, Thu Mar 17 15:59:03 2005 by adennak

Thank you everyone for your imput, although brutal seems to have rated me down becausen i disagree wiht him :(

I am not "Stuck" on an ice SC if you will, but i know from experience, that an induration or distortion SC, with double freeze burst, will drop a mob pretty much 3/4 of the way at my lvl. Since we are heavy on the damage, and light on the healing, this would be the ideal way to go about it.

I like the idea of 3 man SC's, but since im not totally familiar with BLM spells +lvl 50, i should see if they have any big spells (AM i guess), that will go nicely with fusion or fragmentation ect.

Kiyokatsu, you mentioned 3 man SC's, and being more open minded about them. Would you possibly provide me with some examples of these? I still have a hard time figuring out aden's chart when it comes to 3 man sc's, although i am getting better, i want to plan this out before starting the static, and a few suggestions with results would make me more comfortable in seeing all my options.

I see from aden, that Shoulder Tackle > Smash Axe = Induration, even a low DMG SC from 2 of the members, will give 1000+ freeze burst for each BLM(this seems to depend soley on the BLM INT, as me and a THF were doing shadowstich + smash axe for very low SC DMG, but freeze was 1092-1150 with one BLM, and 1120-1400 with the other BLM).
Doing even a low DMG SC with 1100 average burst DMG X's 2, will take the mobs out pretty darn quick.

Anyways, as usual, thank you everyone for your imput, and i look forward to your replies :)


Edit:
OK i see BLM gets Tornado @ 52 Quake @ 54 Burst @56 Flood @ 58 and Flare @ 60. Has anyone tried these out for MB's, and how good are they? Woudl a fire 2, or Water 3 be better?



Edited, Thu Mar 17 13:00:30 2005 by acepod

To be honest, I would say that Freeze isn't that great for MBing. By level 55 or so, I had gone back to using Blizzard II. Probably better damage overall (one freeze burst is a disaster, one BlizzII burst is nothing to worry about), similar damage (You can cast 4 Blizzard IIs for the same MP and do the same damage if you MB one of them), and it spread my hate over a greater amount of time.

Even if you disagree with me on that, BLMs get Blizzaga II at 57 which is way better than Freeze for bursting, assuming you're in a safe camp.

Dual AM bursts will NOT kill an IT mob (you'd need 3-4 or more AM casts).

With your set up you want to optimize your damage, if you're going to take this pt allong the "normal" xp track you're going to have a hard time. I would suggest you take into consideration working as seperate teams.

Your melee optimize their damage and your mages treat it like quasi mana burn pt. But you're not going to be able to pull off distortion till 60 no matter how you cut it.

With that in mind I'd like to remind you that Spinning Axe is an good WS, and S.Axe -> Raging Fists is powerful (Also your blm's should also have access to Firaga 2).

I acctually rated you defaut(which I suppose could be down) because what you said was incorrect.




The 3 man Skillchain that I suggested is only one way to go about it but it allows 2 out your 3 melee DD's to use their best Weaponskills. Not only that but if your BLM's are good its MB numbers will be great due to the fact that there are 2 MB opportunities.

Rampage > Spinning Axe = FIRE (Both BLM's and RDM can MB here)
Then the MNK uses Raging Fists and turns it into Fusion. At which point the BLM's and RDM can MB again. Thats a possible 6 Magic Bursts. Add all the damage from the GOOD WS's and the MB's and then tell me its not a big number. Or you can sacrifice everyone elses good skills just so the BLM's can use all their mana for a light show and 2 big numbers.

One of my good friends is a BLM and from what he tells me MBing with AM is a waist of mana in an XP situation. To drive that point further.. You also stated that you expent these 2 BLM's to be backup healers.

Acctually I only rated 1 post down, acepod's 2nd post.

I know, that's what you said I was just clairfing tat Ace wasn't calling you the Troll.


Edited, Thu Mar 17 13:47:47 2005 by tarekthedestroyer

A War should only care about the kill, not karma, the brotherhood of the axe shouldn't be tarnished with frivolity leave that to the buttersheep.

One other thing to note when talking about 3-way SCs is that they increase the damage cap of the final effect. I believe a L2 SC on its own, when completely unresisted, will do 60% of the damage of the final weaponskill. Preceding this with an L1 SC, however, ups this cap to (iirc) 75%. Not a huge difference, but static parties tend to tweak themselves to maximum efficiency.

Partying with a WAR and DRK in Gustav at ~58, we did Rampage > Shadow of Death > Raging Fists. I believe the first SC was reverbation? (too lazy to look it up**), and the second was Impaction. Add up the numbers of the WSes (~400 + ~200 + ~400), and you rival an AM burst with melee damage alone. I believe this is the kind of damage you could do with Rampage > Spinning Axe > Raging Fists. Add on a double Firaga II and you have ~2400 damage from the SC + MBs. This is almost the same damage as a crappy SC -> big AM burst at a fraction of the MP cost. As a disclaimer, these numbers are on "low IT" mobs that give 160-180 exp each. WSes like RF and Rampage tend to do much lower numbers on IT++.

In addition, I have found that WAR/NIN and MNK/WAR tend to get TP at very similar rates. Doing a 3-WS chain would be relatively easy for this set-up since you all have roughly the same TP gain, assuming you are equipped similarly.

...can you tell yet that I am jealous of your static? >.<;;

** edit - ok, so i did look it up, and it was reverb. Which led me to see that you could also go Rampage > Smash Axe > Raging Fists for the same effects, and burst with, uh, Burst. If you doubled this MB, I would almost wager that you could start the SC at 90% of the mobs HP and kill it... O.O

Also, if you guys take turns level Great Axe, you could replace Smash Axe with Sturmwind for even more damage. /em faints.

Edited, Thu Mar 17 14:08:37 2005 by Minaku