DNC as a viable subjobFollow

Hello there my name is Pookalu, 65THF,33NIN,29DNC. Now as THF has always been one of my favorite jobs since I have played for many years (new account ; ;) I thought that with the new update I would write up a small thread to hopefully give THF a proper place in a pt, especially since we fight for pt invites all the time.

1.Version Update Changes to DNC and what they mean for your THF

DNC has now been given the ability to Dual Wield at level 20. I do not know if they will get DW2 at a later level since NIN goes all the way to 3 I believe, but that we'll have to wait and see. What this does now mean is you no longer have to use /NIN with THF all the time now!

2.Utsusemi vs. Dancing

Now i realise what some of you might say to No.1 so let me start by saying /NIN will most likely still be the premier sub for THF as a whole. Utsusemi does assist in pulling without damage, helps when you mess up that SATA and turn the mob on yourself, and even offers a chance for some light off-tanking if the mob really seems to hate on you for a few seconds. Now with all that said /NINs you have my support cause I've been right there with you many times before, but let's take a sec to work outside the status quo. /DNC not only gives you the ability to DW with the best of them, but it also give THF the ability to debuff, voke, cure, and still sneak/invis iteself. DNC Accuracy Bonus trait is also another fine reason to sub onto your THF. What THF here has never had that horrible string of misses against high evasion mobs such as colibris?

3.The World needs more Tanks and Healers!

Now as a rule most tanks are using shadows to avoid damage and save on downtime. While this is the norm let us not forget our prefered tanks the PLD! They tank from having a high defense and the ability to cure themselves for hate. Now I'm not saying a THF is anywhere close to a PLD but think for a minute if you will. The party is running low on HP/MP from an unfortunate link and Sleep has just not wanted to stick. Your THF/DNC has a high enough evasion plus Animated Flourish, and Waltzs to make a passable off-tank til things start going your way. Your pt will end up bieng grateful as well as the PLD who may be used to dying, but still doesn't like it anymore than the rest of us.

As far as being a healer goes I think personally THF/DNC will find alot of use in pt's cause there are just those nights that you can't seem to find any healers seeking. With /DNC Accuracy Bonus, THFs and DNCs natural dexterity and agility, and decent accuracy gear (Scorp Harness, Life Belt, etc...) THF will be able to tp with the best of them and usually have plenty left over to at least be a backup if not main healer for their party. The wonderful thing about this setup is at the same time you are healing you are also doing damage with each strike while building your tp. Healers that can do some light DD are better than ones that just stand ther imo.

4.Buffing and Debuffing

Another thing that always comes in handy is a party member that can buff and debuff. /DNC opens the door for THF to fill one of those roles. Drain Samba, Aspir Samba are extremely useful in reducing downtime since you are draining hp/mp with every hit. Steps I think are even better though. THF 60+ will prolly benifit from these more than lower for the following reason. Before 60 you have to stack SATA together so you won't wanna waste that on a Quickstep you'll want to be putting some hurt on a mob. However at 60 you get Assassin and you can now split your SATA macro in two. Trick Attack your tank from the front, then walk around back and Sneak Attack/Quickstep or Boxstep to ensure a debuff that will hit. Which step you use is kinda situational (Boxstep on high def mobs like Crawlers, Quickstep on high eva mobs like Colibris), but being able to add that extra debuff along with whatever rest of your pt is using results in faster kills and more xp/hour.

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Well at the moment that's all I have to say but I hope you will reply and give me your thoughts on the new possibilities and how they might finally give THF a proper place in pt's

Pookalu Shiva Server
THF65,NIN33,DNC29,COR15,RNG10

Yes that is a very good point and as I said I'm not saying /NIN will be forgotten overnight just that it will no longer be the mainstay bandwagon must-have sub.

Please try to keep replies to the main topic here. I created this thread to hear people's opinions on the main point. If you wanna talk about what /nin doesn't get please go to "I literally raged when i read this" on this same forum please

DNC gets DW3 now, possibly DW4 by 99. And they get a LOT more "enhances Dual Wield" gear than THF.

/rage

Edited, Jun 22nd 2010 7:50pm by Lobivopis

I have three questions for those who want to complain about how DNC is THF+1:

1) How many DNCs does your LS bring to HNM fights?
2) Which events do you participate in that do not benefit from TH4?
3) How does DNC make up for Collaborator on fights that matter?

Anyone that is complaining about DNC with a straight face must be completely ignoring HNM.

1) None. But why is that important? HNM is a small part of endgame.
2) Einherjar, Sky farming, KS99, Ultima/Omega, Vrtra
3) What fights do you even need collaborator on? You shouldn't need to use it if your LS isn't sh*t.


Now.
Firstly, You do realise when people are saying Dnc is Thf+1 it's not because of their non-DD utility. Personally, when I say I'd rather be dnc over thief it's because of the DD potential. The two are comparable because they are similar, what with the whole daggers and sh*t. Dnc however now is stronger than thief.
And not only is it stronger, it's also more desirable.

Outside of feint for zergs, thief's role can be filled by a naked mule, dual boxed, with th4.
You also never need more than one thief.

Dancer on the otherhand, for every DD party you have, it's worth taking a dancer. It can't be replaced by some naked mule, dualboxed in the corner.

A great OP, but this is the only point I find disagreeable. I can definitely see thf/dnc in this light, but the light I would prefer to see it in is not a healer that can do damage, but a damage dealer that can heal.

Of course if we ignore 'holding back' and take death out of the equation, /dnc should win as the superior DD sub based on the acc bonus alone, not to mention the other utility. Also, does 'box step' (or any step) when stacked with SA not only stick the buff guaranteed, but also cause the SA to go off as critical damage? I would quite like this for SA/TA.

I think though, that I'm going to find little situational use for the sub. The damage that I cure from /dnc, would be more than made up for by the damage I would not take at all when /nin. And not only that, but when mitigating equal amounts of dmg on my thf/nin vs thf/dnc, I'd think that my /nin will be doing more dmg, as I won't be consuming TP for my damage mitigation.



Also I think the main draw to picking Dnc for DD situations is haste samba. But this isn't just what causes it to replace thief, but other jobs as well. I've got two really decked out friends that I've done 35-40k/hr with camping in the Skoffin pit and double pulling at Mamool Ja Staging Point. But every time we brought a dancer instead of my thief, we made more consistent exp/hr and I'd deem it better. Let's assume the Thf and Dnc are roughly equal in dmg output, and also that the Dnc's heals are not necessary. Various utility is brought to the table; Thf has TA and collab, aura steal, and feint. Dnc has animated fluorish, steps, backup emergency healing. I feel that these roughly balance out. But it's the big 5/5 Haste Samba that seems to be the tie breaker. I think this is the draw, the niche that Dnc has in single party burn setups, over other jobs.

But HNM, I really don't feel Thf is terrible on. It's situational though.. essentially comes down to if/how-often you can (are allowed to) SA and TA. When I fight HNM level mobs, I just throw on my heavy acc set and pizza and go to town. And feint seems to help my dmg more than anyone else's since I know when it's coming and have a high haste%/dmg feint set. TP gain isn't a huge issue. And when you do get TP, your WS's are ensured to do a lot of damage when you can SA/TA. I may have Mandau, but Mandalic and Shark Bite are certainly not bad for this role either.

Edited, Jun 23rd 2010 3:53am by Shamaya

What does it matter? Discussions are dynamic.

You do not own a thread just because you are the OP, no one cares what you are trying to do with a thread. It is what it is, and the topics discussed are what people care about.

/DNC has always been viable in some situations, especially against mobs that either tore through shadows with low per-hit damage or mobs that spammed shadow wiping moves, the only difference now is that you can DW with /DNC.

/NIN gives you the exact same benefit as it did before the update. You get DW2 and Utsusemi. That's it.

/DNC gives you Accuracy Bonus and DW2. I could mention Steps/Sambas/Waltzes/Flourishes, but in very few instances would this be relevant to the benefit of DNC as a subjob. Sambas are canceled by any other additional effect and do not stack (which would be detrimental if you have a DNC in the party). Steps take time away from melee DoT and TP gain (even with RF you should be able to TP faster than using steps and RF) and in longer fights could mess with a DNC's TP gain (considering if you're stacking a Step the DNC is also using it could reduce his accumulation of FMs). Waltzes are marginally beneficial (with Healing Waltz having the most utility), but in any situation where you are weighing /NIN vs. /DNC, you are more than likely going to have a dedicated healer. As for Flourishes, while VF may be useful at 90, very few situations will benefit from you gaining FMs for Animated/Desperate Flourish instead of meleeing (RF having been covered earlier).

So is it viable? Yes, in situations where you're not going to be worrying about needing shadows, /DNC surpasses /NIN because of Accuracy Bonus, with all of the DNC non-melee aspects being a marginal (if minor) boost.

No, it only guarantees the Step will land. No damage at all.

nevermind, misunderstood.



I think potentially dnc has much more damage capabilities, however, it greatly depends on what they are using their TP for. The dagger issue has largely been equalized, and to some extent gear as well, so in terms of pure DD potential they have more acc than us, but even lower attack due to less skill. We still have an advantage in that we get large amounts of Haste+Acc on some key pieces (Homam hands/feet/legs, skadi legs), but they now have options for body and head that equal us. If they are in a healing role, definately thf would win in the DD category. If they are in a debuff role, we would probably still win, because of so much JA pause, but it would be close. If they are in a pure DD role, it would be really freaking close, and they might have a slight edge. The only problem is, if they are using their abilities to raise their DD potential, they are also raising ours.

So if I understand you correctly, RoZ kings, sky gods, jailers, CoP wyrms, Cerb/Hydra/Khim, ZNM, and VNM are a "small part" of endgame?


You farm water and diorite without TH4?


...do you understand what Collaborator does? Asking what fights we "need" Collaborator for is like asking what fights we "need" Wizard's Roll for. Collaborator increases your DDs' output. It's useful on every non-zerg fight.


Prove it.

Those "things" are still swap in for TH and depending on mob Feint. The complaint has never been "thf is never USED in endgame" it was always "We're TH/Feint whores and nothing else".

I really dont give 2 sh*ts about who parses 2% more in a merit party. SE did not address the primary complaint thf has had for years. As noodles has said and most agree with, 90% of the use of thf in endgame can be replaced by a TH4+feint mule. That is discouraging as a thf. Seeing dnc get DD buffs thf has desired is just salt in the wound, but mostly irrelivant except for the mental sting of it. People are just taking out their frustration on the dnc update because we didnt really get sh*t to help our situation.

Lay off the dancers. They needed what they got. Thf just needed something that cant be replaced by a mule.

I'm not claiming to own the thread but I would like to keep it open to discussion that is relevant to it. You wanna talk about other things go find another thread that relates to what you are interested in

Use of /dnc is covered. The rest of this thread has taken on its own path. You, nor anyone else can change that.

It is great to want things, but keep them rational. Trying to govern the internets is doomed to fail. This thread relates to what people are interested in. DNC and its implications for THF. If you don't like it, feel free to post something that spurns thought and posts in that direction. If you keep up the "do what i say" posts, just watch out for the sub-defaults from whoever it is that gets to vote on this thing. (Is that a pay thing?)

Yilbegan. Tank pt. Cor does his rolls, drops, THF gets invited to collaborate the healers. Drops after 4 collaborators, cor gets invited. Repeat. It can be a long fight, and a Yilbegan running around is not something you want. This ensures that there isn't even a chance of him looking towards the mages. Go Thf/drg to jump off the hate yourself.

Odin. THF should at least be able to keep up with conventional DDs, so sticking a THF in there won't harm anything. Not only can we tank it relatively well, not only do we have less hate than the other DDs because we're TA'ing some of our WSs away anyways, but we can collaborate those dd/sam and dd/war so they can do more damage, more quickly. Dying does matter in that fight and will hinder one's DD output greatly.

JOL, if you happen to be using RNGs. They aren't eating TP moves, they aren't getting charmga'ed, they will pull hate, they will eat -gaIII's. Considering how much room there is around Jol, there's a chance it'll hit more than just the RNGs.

And so forth.

It's less the fact hate management isn't useful nowadays, but rather, those kinds of precaution aren't taken because most things in the game aren't hard enough to take that extra step. Against harder fights where you have a designated tank and pulling hate away from the tank is a bad, bad idea, sticking a THF in there here and there isn't a bad idea.

I'll DD where I should DD. I'll be TH whore, feint whore, collaborator whore where I should be. What's the point about complaining about not being able to DD all the time against other jobs that are designed to, and can only, DD all the time. Speaking of which, there seems to be a lot of complaining in this thread, which is strange because none of the roles of the jobs in this game was changed by the update and the main source of the complaining seems to be the fact that we didn't get the biggest boost among all the jobs. Rather childish and cliche, if you don't mind me saying.

From all your discussions comparing THF and DNC. I don't see a point of Dagger Skill grade?
I'm sure this is where THF shine on top of DNC with dagger skill over damage.
I'm 75 on both jobs, I had been wanting to sub DNC for DW! I'm happy with such update.
/DNC mainly for solo CB to get best benefit from it.
Other than that, farming and camping on low level NMs are now better and easier.
For exp wise, if you are pulling, hell yea, /NIN is better without doubt. Why would you want to be MP sponge in burn pt?
If you got BRD/nin to pull, /DNC will bring in the benefit such as Haste Samba and support cure if you got a crappy healer or mp- sponging-I-just-want-to-show-off-my-damage idiots.

HNM wise hmm... Not in any at the moment.
But Dnc stun machine works really well in Ultima Limbus, dynamis stun on 2hrs or w/e situation.
Thf is always TH whore no doubt, and accept the fact!