THFs, WHMs and BLMs, please read.Follow

Well, I've been going through my WAR for a little time now, and I ALWAYS run into this problem:

Holding hate on Warrior is easy. So easy infact, I perfer tanking on warrior over paladin. So why am I losing hate so freakin' easy? Let me give you a scenario:

I'm in Qufim on my WAR/MNK (you can check my gear in my profile down below) along with 2 BLMs, a WHM, a THF, and a MNK.

When the thf goes to pull, I lock onto the target, hit attack, provoke, and boost all right away. My damage per hit is 'roughly' 40dmg a hit with Fish Mithkabobs and 50dmg a hit with Meat mithkabobs. I'm doing more than my fair share of damage at this level, not to mention spamming boost and provoke every 15 and 30 seconds repeatidly. So I ask you, WHY am I losing hate when I'm hitting so hard and not giving my boost and provoke a rest? I'll tell you:

Orden uses Provoke
Orden uses Boost
THF uses Sneak Attack
THF hits for 100+dmg
BLM1 uses Thunder
BLM1 hits for 80dmg
BLM2 uses Thunder
BLM2 hits for 80dmg
Orden hits for 45dmg
Orden uses Boost
WHM uses CURE III (yes, Cure 3)
Pugil uses Water splashy type move
WHM uses Divine Seal
WHM uses Curaga

Okay, normally, I wouldn't have a problem with this, if you've partied with my WAR before, you know I can hold the mob from even looking at a power leveler. But when I ask you THREE times to hold off til my second voke before going out, for god's sake listen to me. T.T

I realize this is already a high damage team, and thankfully things evened back out when I got Sturmwind (I was nailing these things for 125dmg, which is awesome considering my lack of Sneak Attack) but I was still having a hell of a time with 2 BLMs chaincasting Blizzard and Thunder.

Now, this leads me to the point of my post. Am I spoiling these guys by going all out on my tanking? I know it sounds completely absurd, but I'm in a sense allowing these people to continue their hate sprees when they would normally learn by now from a one shot screwdriver NOT to chaincast, NOT to DS+Curaga, and NOT start the fight with Sneak Attack.

Any suggesstions?

Well, they WERE debuffing, but they were waiting until after Thunder to do it. I don't know about you, but when I got thunder and used it for the first time, I learned the hard way to back off on that spell. Thunder at level 21 might as well be provoke it does so much freakin' damage.

Actually, I never said he was provoking. =P

As for starting off the fight with sneak attack, until you get trick attack, it's generally better to save it for a TP attack to give the tank some time to gain hate because the THF can't pin it on anyone else (perferably me).

God help them if they're not the puller and hit SA 40 seconds before the mob arrives, to use another SA 10 seconds later. That's just outright cruel on the tank. lol

Edited, Wed Oct 13 12:23:15 2004 by Ordengate

The reason the THF is starting out the round with Sneak attack
(and i will presume this THF knows what he is doing) is because
if you time it correctly, You can get several sneak attacks in during a match, you will almost always see the THF start out with SA, typically they will use SA before the fight even begins
so the timer is running down, so it will be ready pretty soon again after the fight starts. Its just good playing.

As far as a warrior holding hate, in my experience a warrior should be able to hold hate for now, but as you get into the later levels, especially past 30 you might as well forget it.

I know there are warriors out there that do it, but overall if you are playing with competent people, with *good* gear, food, and etc, you are going to lose hate, or else they are really holding back on playing their job properly.

WHM doesn't have to use Cure III, Black mage doesnt have to power nuke. I understand all that, but even in the 40's, I have played with warriors who were boost/provoke/etc/etc as often as possible, and then one single nuke would take hate from them.

I feel like warriors improve later on as the get the enmity+ AF gear, but basically they become a damage dealing class post level 30, not a tanking class.

my 2 cents.

flames -> /dev/null

This goes off the main topic, but i made my BLM uber for the reason i made my RNG uber. I want to steal the tanks hate.

Call me what you will, i luv getting hit as a mage, cuz it lets me bust out my fav spell, DRAIN and as a hume im not gonna die like a taru.

Before you freak out i know this practice is gonna end real soon, cuz a gobby hit + bomb will end me. Still, i don't mind tanking as a non-tank job, hell as RNG i tanked from 25-40 anyway. =P

Much luv to Armaggeda, hes got the sickest gear (57+ WHM is his job) i've seen other than a lvl 75 RNG who left the game recently and wishes to remain unnamed.

EDIT - Misspelled LS mate's name DOH

Edited, Thu Oct 14 05:10:35 2004 by DarkRein

As a whm I was told very early on never ever to use curaga in battle cause I would die. Not I might die but I would. I didn't listen and low and behold guess what happened. That was all it took for me to stop doing that. And with benediction I have found the best time for that is when a pld can use their 2hr plus cover on you. The best way to get around the issue you had is just to ask nicely. "Could you please not use cure3?" and maybe explain why. Most of the time it works. The rest of the time you have to deal with ego's and such.

Of course! Who doesn't want to see pretty numbers fly on the screen (or in the log if you enjoy the spam) but what you're doing is very inconsiderate to the tank as well as the rest of the party. You're screwing up the hate mechanics of the game, and by making a tanks job harder or even impossible, it makes the WHMs job hard, and if they run low on MP, the BLM or RDM or SMN have to step up and then they gain additional hate though cures when they should be doing their job. See how it works now?

Now, I know every BLM and DRK loves to use Drain, but honestly, it's going to skill up your dark magic and do damage regardless of your HP count.

Now, going back to thieves and Sneak Attack. I recently had the pleasure of playing with a Katala last night, and the night before (we tend to get into the same parties, go figure. ~.^) and he was using it 3 times a fight. Twice in the beginning, and a third towards the end of the fight. Luckily he was a THF/NIN and would use Utsusemi at the beginning of the fight knowing full well he'd get hate. The Utsusemi doesn't do much good against Mandies, but hey, any bit of cushion is welcome. By the time I got my second voke off, hate was mine again through a simple Boost and Sturmwind. So, it ended up being a hate issue with two BLMs that caused that outburst against thieves in my original post.

Casting Cure III is generally a bad idea any time for the simple fact it doesn't cap at 180 for a long long time. I try explaining to a WHM about MP efficiency (esp. when they're Elvaan) as politely as possible, and it usually works. I think what happened there was she just got the spell and wanted to try it out. lol. I usually don't lose hate at all from white mages, but when you bust out a divine seal curaga, expect to die soon. I'm not a paladin, I can't hit invincible. lol

I get over 400 on my Cure IV, but that could be due to my Light Staff. XD

Divine Seal + Cure IV = {Yes, please} @.@

Whenever I play as a WHM, I take hate all the time. But, it's part of my regular routine. I'm Elvaan, so I'm all about MP efficiency, but Cure III and Curaga and Divine Seal are all in my regular bag of tricks.

If the tank gets hit by one of those lovely criticals that take him from not-quite-yellow down to not-quite-red, out comes the Cure III followed by a Cure II. Instant hate.

If that gob drops one those wonderful bombs and I for some unknown reason didn't have Barfira up, 7 times out of 10 every other voker out there start voking trying to save the tank. So I'm stuck guessing who's ending up with aggro so I know who to heal first, since everyone is at less than 50% HP. Well, no longer, I just hit my macro for DS+Curaga. Instant hate. So know they can all do their best to get the hate back (which is entirely possible, just takes diligence) and I don't have to worry about who's dying.

This isn't without preparation though. I always have Stoneskin and Blink up. I don't understand why more WHMs don't use it. With both of those I can take around 6 hits before I even take any damage. Which is enough time for those nice Regen spells to catch up. Once SS and Blink wear off, then I have my Elvaan constitution to back me up.

Mind you I don't need to do this every battle. But, even when I use these methods my MP hardly ever goes below 1/3, and usually hovers around 50%. When it comes to efficiency, if I'm taking 6-7 or sometimes 12-14 hits per battle, that's all the less I have to heal.

Note: This is not recommended for any Tarus out there. I've had Stoneskin get ripped away in a single hit from a Crawler and a Gob, not good times.

Anyway, that's just my take on pulling hate from the tank. I am by no means the best WHM out there, and I'm not even sure why I'm playing it, but oh well.

I do agree at those levels many players are a bit overzealous but there is a secret :p
I used it for 20 levels
I dont know if you have marksmanship leveled or not but a trick I used to tank valkurm-outside of kazham~LV 30
crossbow-*acid* bolts to start (HOLY bolts at 30<--crazy damage for level) that crossbow and a few beetle +1 rings with a gear swap macro with my balance and stamina ring is almost like having another provoke. Many times I would prefer to pull, it let me take control of the chains and ensure that we were ok on MP, at the same time giving me a free hit woth crossbow/skillup/damage, and a quicker voke, shoot it begin running back and voke it on the way back to camp.
more typically though :
X pulls
Rushifell Provokes
Rushifell's ranged attack hits X for 80 damage
additional effect defense down (EXTREMELY useful)
rushifell hits X for 30 damage
mnk hits for 24 damage
mnk hits for 21 damage
blm casts thunder
x takes 80 damage
rushifells ranged attack hits x for 85 damage
additional affect defense down
thief uses sneak attack!
crit blah blah takes 120 damage
whm uses cure 3
rushifell hits for 35 damage
rushifell uses provoke
whm uses cure 3

etc... I have had successful parties in qufim where I was tank using 1 hand sword and shield, whm using cure 3s, thf doing what he wants, blm not having to hold back in a significant way.
The only jobs that have ever given me significant hate problems are RNG.

It pretty much requires good/top notch gear and leveled marksmanship is a must, but the fights that I could not get a hit in with my crossbow/out of ammo were typically a LOT harder to hold hate through than those that I did hit with, and the defense down debuff made fights go more quickly as well (acid bolt > all crab, holy bolt > Bat, Gob. rips bats apart I have solod a DC bat in rolanberry with those things)

it became significantly more difficult to hold hate in yhoator
then I discovered holy bolts, /o m g
I actually subbed thf in one PT and used SA or SA+WS to get hate off of the puller first, then voked, then popped it with some holy bolts, never lost hate, kinda a "no thf in PT" trick buddy just set up my SA.

had an interesting PT setup outside of Kaz where holding hate was hopeless though, BLM, RNG, RNG, DRG, WHM, WAR<me
it bounced around like a pinball, but they died reallllly fast.


Edited, Thu Oct 14 15:53:27 2004 by Rushifell

Edited, Thu Oct 14 16:00:53 2004 by Rushifell

<< Emerges from the shadows<<


>"When they have Choke and Frost make sure they use them please"

Yes, you are correct, use elemental enfeebs, they are a good thing. However, to any BLM reading this please don't try to use these at the same time. Why? Look at your elemental chart, Frost is ice based while Choke is wind based. You can not have these active at the same time. Cast Frost then Choke and you will get a message that Choke had no effect. Cast Choke then Frost and Choke will deactivate. Remember Ice > Wind. Learn which elemental enfeebs work together, and what they do, it'll make your party, and MP management much more effecient.

>"Last thing is use lots of spells even if they are not the most powerful like a series of Aero,Blizzard,Thunder. Yes Aero might seems like a watse of Mp but that dmg that pulls little aggro.Which is better than no dmg and waiting for thunder and StoneII to be ready again."

Once again please don't do this. A good BLM learns to conserve MP, not waste it. By using MP inefficient spells you are hurting your party by increasing down time, waiting for your MP to regen. Also, check which mobs are weak to what, nad use this to your advantage.

Also, this gets back to the original point of this thread. DON'T OVER NUKE! By casting "lots" of spells you are building up hate for yourself, and it doesn't take much to bring the mob your way. Then, your tank is struggling to get hate back. Sometimes no damage is a good thing, it allows you to lose some hate (while your tank builds hate), so you can come back with an efficient high damage cast.


<<<Disappears into the advancing fog<<<