My beta experience: Lancer skillsFollow

I started a Lancer in phase 2 of the Beta, and I plan on leveling all DoW jobs to rank 10 in phase 3 to give people in my LS an idea of what classes they may want to take in the future. Since I plan on Lancer being my DoW class of choice, I wanted to start a thread discussing Lancer abilities I've encountered so far. If this thread violates the NDA in any way at this point, I fully expect an admin to nuke it or ask me to take it down.

On with the discussion!

For those that don't already know, adding skills and abilities is similar to setting Blue Magic skills in FFXI. Each action has a certain amount of Action Points associated with it, but you can only have a particular amount of Action Points allowed per rank; six at rank one, and usually goes up by anywhere from 1-3 per rank.

Lancers start with a Weathered Spear and two abilities at Rank 1, Light Thrust and Heavy Thrust (added effect: bind). It's my understanding at this point that your second ability is unavailable until after you've progressed to a certain point with the opening storyline. These abilities cost 0 AP, which means you can use both of them. I tend to alternate using them in battle.

Rank 2 gives you your first weapon skill, Skewer. As stated on the FFXIV website, it deals damage to all enemies between you and your target. It's 3 AP, 1000 TP, with a short cooldown (i.e. you can't use two Skewers back-to-back).

Rank 4 grants Ferocity, an ability that increases the damage of your next attack at the expense of 20 HP. I tend to use it with Skewer, but it will work on any attack. Another 3 AP skill, and also has a short cooldown. Some people may want to take Lancer far enough to get this so they can use it on another DoW class, although Archer gets a similar ability as their rank 4 skill as well.

Rank 6 brings Trammel, a weapon skill that reduces your target's movement speed. I didn't get much chance to play around with this one, as I obtained it shortly before the end of phase 2, and characters were wiped. Again, 3 AP, and 500 TP.

Rank 8: Moonrise, another weapon skill. Like Skewer, 3 AP & 1000 TP. It deals slashing damage (all our other attacks to this point have been piercing) and reduces the target's TP generation.

Rank 10 brings what I think is going to be an invaluable ability: Speed Surge. It's a 3 AP ability that increases your stamina generation, and inflicts the target with an enfeeble that allows you & your party members to regain HP. For you FFXI players, it's pretty much Drain Samba & Haste Samba in one move. The only drawback is that it requires a polearm, so you won't be able to use it on another class.

As I progress more in phase 3 of the beta, I will add more abilities as I find them.

Edited, Aug 14th 2010 3:58pm by Ralrra

Nice, thanks. I was hoping that we'd start hearing from some beta folks about how Lancer works. Speed surge sounds awesome.

I'm going to take a break from Lancer to work on the other DoW jobs. If anyone wishes to continue where I left off, feel free. Otherwise, I'll continue working on Lancer later.

Sounds like fun! Thanks for the info.

You my friend, have not done enough leves on Legion.

You're probably not going to accuracy cap yourself until max level and endgame gear. You're going to see misses alot.

Let me stop you right there. You do NOT have to complete Treasures of the Main to get Heavy Thrust. All you have to do is go to Camp Bearded Rock, attune yourself to the Aetheryte, and go back to the Drowning Wench to talk to Baderon. It does not matter whether or not you do the guildleve he gives you.

Well, Trammel slows movement speed. It's Heavy Thrust that binds, though I haven't personally noticed any increased accuracy after using it.