WAR/DNC Lv.41PartyFollow

As an informativo post,i succesfully main tanked in a level 41 pt in altepa on beetles as war/dnc.We had a dual boxer but only cured me once in a while.

Given that i have some enmity merits and shield merits i had little problems keeping hate and surviving,actually it was like playing PLD without having to worry about MP.

My setup was:

Main:CC Axe
Sub:Light Buckler(Size 1 +something shield skill,Size 2 would have been better but some genius were overly overpricing strike shield)
Head,Hands,Feets:Iron Musketeer for the defense,since for DD i use different gear with less to no defense)

Everything else was pretty much DD oriented like every other DD.

Ranged and Ammo was : Power Crossbow + Acid Bolts and Bloody bolts.

Usually i'd try to acid bolt the beetle a few times,bloody bolts a few times to get some HP back(Iron musketeer gives some Ranged accuracy which is not bad for bloody bolting).

All around the first fight is a bit hard because you start with 0 TP.
It won't take long to make TP if you gear with accuracy gear where you can,even with meat i still had enough tp to keep pulling(and i usually try to gear always for accuracy to eat Meat).

Key skills:Shield is a must,since it's natively low rated for war,due to our low shield skill size 3 shields are just bad,i'd go with a size 2 for best results(i had a size 1 and i think size 2 just is the best for war).

Mob was hitting me for 50-80 hit so 1 waltz was barely enough to recover HP lost.TP was getting up quickly so what i did was trade 10 tp for quickstep and THEN i'd land acid bolts or/and blood bolts(30 resisted drain,60 clean drain)cause with quickstep i'd lower evasion,so i thought that my bad rated marksmanship skill could be used effectively only after quickstep.

3 Levels acquired in 1 afternoon.

Would have been less without PL of course,idk how it would have been with a size 2 shield.

Anyway I was amazed at the performance of war/dnc.Even though i proposed it i would have never thought it would work so well,i lost hate sometimes but i think that's normal,nothing i would worry about anyway.

I wouldn't suggest using it for later levels until Curing waltz II is available.

Best range to use it would be 30-51 60+ but cannot say for sure.

Oh...pt setup was:

WAR/DNC
MNK/WAR
DRG/WAR
BLU/NIN
RDM/THF(he forgot to change sub,later he hped and changed sub)
BLM/something or SCH/something...he/she was nuking.




It's just an informative post to bring another experience as war/dnc

I used a G.axe at some point because i REALLY had to keep it skilled.

I cannot use WS because i need to constantly spam waltz while sneaking hits with 1h axe(2h in this case,which is just bad for delay,you cannot keep up with tp).


I found out using G.axe that i would require a lot more attention from the PL.

Besides,using /dnc and using Shield Break is not good,because you can lower evasion with quick step,and you neet TP to cure yourself.

Plus Tanking without a shield in my opinion and experience is pretty much an MP sponge for healers unless you have means of recovering HP or negating damage like utsu.

With G.axe i would take FULL damage and waltz would not keep you healed enough,you'll run out of TP and you'll become a Sponge for healers.

More over you'll bleed hate all over,you cannot block criticals too.


No,i'd say Axe+Shield is the way to go,i was dealing 33-45 dmg per hit of axe,not bad.

Plus i don't need to enfeeble the enemy with g.axe WS since i can enfeeble it with /dnc,namely quickstep.

You'd block more often with shield,reducing dmg taken.The idea is being a pld with some more damage.


Plus you have bolts after quickstep for enfeebling,so you don't need GA WS

Well in this level range it's more or less even.

Still it's true, great axe would serve you better. Try it next time.

I think this works very well, but you have to think of it as a different kind of war tanking. Act more like a pld, turtle a little more than you would /nin or /mnk and it gets very nice results for the pt. You wont be on top of the parse, but exp will be awesome.

I synced down to the mid 30s a while ago and went war/dnc. The set up was 3DDs a brd and a whm, and we raped colibri in Ronfaure [S]. It really was very nice.

You will take full damage from normal attacks and criticals........you'll not take less damage because you kill faster...you don't kill faster because you'll bleed HATE all over the party,healers will cure bomb you to keep you alive and more MP will be spent healing lesser armored pt members simply because you'll lose so much hate per round that your G.axe will not simply keep it up(and you won't have enough TP to spam waltzes).

Now if you only knew why people invite NIN and PLD to pts you'd notice that both jobs will have their own methods of tanking,NIN relies on shadows and damage,PLD relies on SHIELD blocking and damage.

Now i think warrior is closer to pld in terms of dmg mitigation,probably because Ni is not available at 37 but at 74 for WAR.So your only method of tanking is acting like a PLD,you rely on your SHIELD to mitigate damage and on your AXE+Meat to do damage.And you'll also cure yourself for free without straining the healers MP.

Keep in mind also that a size 2 shield will reduce around 30% of damage,more or less(you choose),also a size 2 shield is perfect for our low shield skill allowing you to block very often,thus reducing dmg taken by a fair amount,critical hits hover around 100+ per hit,so you're looking at 30 dmg reduced on criticals while around 15 dmg reduced per hit.

This reduction will allow you to conserve more MP than a G.axe because you'll have to heal less.

Moreover your Axe coupled with your native offensive traits,good gear and meat will allow you to deal considerable damage,could be less than a G.axe,but it's more efficient.




Yes,sadly curing waltz 1 will cost you 20 TP,sadly since you're not reducing damage your waltz will not cover your hp loss,sadly if you're healing you're stopping the delay timer of your g.axe,sadly healing more will make you swing less.

On the other side Axe+Shield will require you to heal less,allowing you to swing more.

Sorry G.axe is for DD and i think it's better than 1h Axe,but for tanking as War/Dnc it's a no-go,unless you can prove that you gain more than 3k exp/h with that technique,without a pl of course.

We were getting 4k/h without powerlevels years before the Dancer job was even suggested, so saying 3k/h with powerlevel hurts your argument. What we used was Monk and Great Axe, and it worked damn well.

Not too dissimilar to six DRG/mage, I'd assume. Constant barrage of (relatively) free* high-HP cures FTW.


*The MP cost of Healing Breath trigger spells is a pittance, and for multiple /DNC, if you're intelligent you won't run low on TP (and still be able to fire off the odd WS here or there if you're comfortable).

If you did you'd never say tanking with a 2h is better than axe+shield.





I don't understand,why would you fight VTs when you're actually mowing down ITs with no problems?

When you kill ITs to the point that you run out of mobs what would be the vantage of killing VTs ?

If you're in a sucky pt then yes,go for VT,exp will be better,but not better against a good pt mowing down ITs.




No sorry,you did not understand or i didn't explain myself well,we didnt get 3k/hour with powerlevel,3k/hour was my estimate as to what you would get by using war/dnc with a great axe without a PL.

I got 3 levels in 4 hours(switch of sub from the rdm included in the time).
The PL was throwing in the occasional cure since the healing department suffered a bit on the healing skill.

I switched to G.axe since i could do it with the pl,and i can tell you that you will run out of TP soon,you'll have your mages spam cure 3..that's it.

It went better when i got back on axe+shield.

Maybe it depends on pt setup,but seriously,i doubt it will net you so much exp than axe+shield





It does when it drains your healers MP so much that you have to wait.I was the puller too,once the mob died i went get another,NO downtime at all.
Also as /dnc you need to control your TP....no TP means MP sponge,no dmg mitigation means that you're taking full damage,you need to wait on a 502 delay weapon to get 14 tp and you need 20tp for curing walts 1.

Do you realize that you cannot sneak so many hits with a g.axe than with an axe?




I sincerely hope you don't rely on healing others as PLD,that is a way of getting more hate due to AOE mostly.Plus it's better if the healer handles the AOE,usually a PLD that knows how to play cannot handle getting tics of rest because the next mob is usually at camp before 20 secs(this is why we get parade gorget and sanction refresh).An healer can stay down and rest enough to get mp back,we tanks don't.




You should REALLY re-read my first post,i stated i went DD oriented,i just replaced 3 pieces to get more def.

My abilities to maintain hate as WAR/DNC are Voke,Damage,Warcry,Animated Fluorish,Curing Waltz 1.
Maybe i overexceeded in saying that i was spamming waltzes but i was using them very often.

Now if you were to go WAR/DNC with a Great Axe you'd have trouble getting TPs at the right time,if you use a waltz,like a ranged attack,you stop the delay timer,so you must wait the next round to swing the axe(you don't swing slower,you just have to wait more when you waltz or RA).

You'll face some problems:

1)Your healers are hard pressed to keep you alive since you're taking FULL damage,no way of mitigating it

2)You'll bleed a lot of hate,since you're not mitigating any of it

3)Getting TP in a manner that won't compromise the healer mp bar can be problematic and can lead to more downtime,mess hate list and slower killings since the mob will roam in the party back and forth.

4)Waltz cost you 20TP,it means that with a 502 delay GA you have to swing twice to get 20TP,the mob hits you for 2TP,even with that,you'd have to wait to swing the second time.With Axe+Shield you'll swing Two times in a smaller time window,plus with the mob hits you'll be in a safe situation where you hover with 20TP in less than 2 GA swings.

Somehow,i still think Axe+Shield = More Efficiency than G.Axe with a /dnc sub.

I don't recall using the word GOOD...It was simply my estimate on the outcome of going WAR/DNC with a G.AXE on that setup.


Actually 3k or 4k is sh*tty exp nowadays,exping is easier than ever today.

No Lucinus, you have it backwards, he's saying that if you use gaxe as the tank you will lessen the exp/hour to only 3-4k compared to whatever beastly amount he was getting.

No. What I mean is, a PLD doesnt take sole responsibility for his HP. A good pld uses his mp to keep hate, whether that be through self curing or flash. If he is dangerously low of course he pulls out a cure 3 or two, but that shouldn't happen often if your healer is on top of things.

You're right, we don't get to rest between battles on pld, which is why this is even more important. If you try to main heal yourself in the early 40s you WILL run out of mp.

And again, this relates back to war/dnc in that war/dnc is good because you get drain samba, you get quickstep and IN EMERGENCY AND FOR HATE BUILDING you get Waltz. You shouldn't spam waltz unless you want to be a turtle tank which isn't what war is built for. Sure you could Defender up, but where's the fun in that?

And one other thing.

Don't be puller and tank.

Even if you can get one tic of /heal while you wait for a mob to pop it can make a difference.

ftfy. compare with, not to, unless a summer's day

Thx for sharing the experience aylard, hopefully it will be informative for other War/Dnc's out there trying to assembly a party.

However as others have said it's still necessary to nitpick your strategy, the first fundamental flaw I see here is that you were holding hate from another 2~3DD's with curing waltz, provoke, the occasional warcry, animated flourish but w/o using any weapon skills.

In short the other DD's were doing sub par damage, as simply as that, why? cuz you could get more hate using that tp for ws instead of curing yourself, and also they had some form of extra damage coming from the sub job or at least one sub job which doesn't consume tp like dancer, hence in the described conditions they should be generating more hate than you.

GAxe is the way to go, cuz dancer should be only a secondary provoke, drain samba and eva down for the mob, shield break increase party damage greatly and also other DD's hate leaving more room for the healer to cure them, also consider that the time you spend curing yourself is time that you are not swinging your axe, resulting in less damage and less hate.

Curing waltz isn't the way to go because you can't generate enough hate with competent DD's, besides even if shield size 2 block more often it blocks for less damage and Axe weapon skills are pretty much useless at that level, and remeber every time your shield doesn't block the only benefit you get from it it's a bit of extra defense, nothing else.

Sincerely.

Ken.

P.D. at best War/Dnc is only suboptimal tank, it demands and extra effort from everyone in the party, including the healer of course.

Yeah the strategy could be improved.

The whole focus of going war/dnc was because we needed a main tank and we didn't have an off-tank.

Still,going with a g.axe gave me more problems than going axe+shield,as i said i was bleeding all over the place and this required more healing from the PL,to the point that i lost hate more times with a g.axe to his healing than with axe and shield.

I believe there are 2 ways of tanking:Blood tanking and blink tanking.

If you blood tank you must devise a strategy to effectively eliminate downtime,i was the puller too as you can guess from the pt setup,when i pull i accept no downtime unless that means wipe,i'm a fast puller,slow pulling annoys me.

To this extent i cannot allow the mob to dent the HP and MP of the party.
To address this problem i cannot jump with a G.Axe,even if it does more damage(i didn't notice that much of a difference,usually 1 hit of g.axe would equal to 2 swings of Axe,which it's delay is around 280x2 against 506x1,less damage but not by much) because i'd drain the healer would be hard pressed with healing.

I'm not saying it doesn't work,i just say it's less efficient.

Now there are many things that could be improved.

First is the PT setup.

Healer
3DDs or 2DDs+Brd/Cor
1Dnc dedicated to support healing
1War/Dnc

This is optimal for g.axe tanking,dancer can land box step and waltz you+drain samba 2 which is VERY good.
You can quickstep and waltz yourself once in a while
Healer will heal while not having mp problems.
DDs can drain HP after AOE

I think this would do wonders with a G.axe but i'd have to try it out,what worries me it's hate.

Healer
Support/Whm
3DDs
1War/Dnc with Axe+Shield

This would suit best axe+shield war


Gear

Surely Size 2 shield in war is best,i know size 3 is the best combo but i can assure you that with an A+ rating on shield with my pld i FEEL the difference between having AF feets on and off.

I'm looking at shield size 2 because it will block more often,especially with low rated skill and it allows to control damage more easily than randomly hope to proc on a size 3.We're looking at damage containment,if you can fix a common number of damage taken you can manage healing better.

DD gear that won't trash your DEF.

Bloody bolt and acid bolts are your best friend so i'd say: do anything to make them land(after quickstep usually they land after 2-3 tries).

Food selection goes in favor of Meat for both combos.

Size 2 shield could be either strike shield or viking shield(depending on level)

I could give it a try for size 3 when my warrior reaches the appropriate level for the first size 3.


Note that my goal is to be on par with pld and nin tanking,not some second choice tank for 4k exp :D


Oh i totally forgot,mnk was ripping hate after his ws,i'd usually make voke rdy+2 finishing move to use animated fluorish

Edited, May 26th 2009 5:42am by aylard

MNK FTW.

it absolutely matter what your shield skill is. Think of it like accuracy and haste. Haste will yield worse results if your accuracy is low. Shield skill increases the number of times your shield will kick in to block damage. If you have bad shield skill, and a large shield, your shield will never (or rarely) block because you are using a lower proc rate shield with an already low proc rate.

Bucklers are for Warriors. The size of your shield does not matter if you cannot block.

I actually think this is part of the disconnect people here are having with the OP, other than that he is making bad arguments. His theory is sound... his execution is poor. People here play Warrior to be a DD-Tank. I doubt many of us if we have ever used shield, use it with capped skill or the proper size. A lot of the older warriors who tanked with /mnk and GA did so before shields were actually good. You will get a ton of damage mitigation from a lower size shield with capped shield skill as Warrior.

I am not trying to say that axe/shield is the best you can do in the particular situation, but it isn't necessarily bad either if you can block a lot. Some of you also forget that Raging Axe really is a pretty decent WS, and you can afford to eat meat just fine if you are fighting the mobs this is effective on.

/dnc is a whole different post, I just wanted to try to help offer some clarity. I am not personally going to vouch for its success at 75. At 75 you have to consider Fortitude Axe and Retaliation, and that makes axe/sword/shield a little bit silly for /dnc. /pld though is also another matter.