whats the best subjob for DD at 90?

[Prothscar]

That's what I usually did, now I don't even bother using MM at all though since I finished Almace for obvious reasons. I can amend a previous post and say SS > GH.

[renasci]

Rules were:
1)No Soothing Lights or Temp Item boxes because there was no way for me to keep them consistent.
2)Same Spell Set.
3)Utususemi was used as needed.
4)Stoneskin was only used every 5 min.
5)Atma: RR/VV/MM
6)1 hour.
7)Solo all mobs.

I find your rules... odd.

1)Temp/and SL's, sure, for parity, that should be that way.

2)Why should different /subs have the same spell set? Different /subs obviously provide different strengths and weaknesses... And an identical spell set will not produce even results for that reason. You should be playing with a spell set tailored to what you're doing and what you're subbing, As you naturally would, keeping them the same will skew.

3&4) Utsu 'as needed' is vague, and style dependant, especially when you're arbitrarily limiting how often you cast stoneskin... If stoneskin is an argument to offset /Nin viability, you should be using it as often as viable.... Or rather, 'as needed' Cast times add up after all.

7) OP asked for DD. That implies you are filling a DD role in a pt, and Solo is not the same environment. SO, if you had better results solo as /rdm than you did /nin... I don't know that this bears any relevance to results you would have in a PT setting.

Tangentially, I find it really annoying that when people downplay /NIN they say it's because you can set DW2 natively... When you you can set Fast Cast and MAB natively too. IN the current era of so many valid DD spells, being able to cast a .5 second cast spell 5% faster (and .7 seconds sooner!) seems asinine as an argument for damage augmentation.

Edit: additionally, In your parse you cast fewer spells by a significant margin on /nin... which you could explain away by virtue of Convert.... Now tell me why you have more WS on /rdm? Or why your Vorpal is 200 points Avg higher on your /rdm ?

Or why Damage taken/Healed is absent from the parse. /RDM proponents talk endlessly of convert, but -especially- since you're solo, that additional damage taken has to be recovered, and that's MP spent. Sanguine won't soak that much damage alone (from experience since my my avg SB /nin is 300 higher than your parse data /rdm)

[Zagen]

I find your rules... odd.

1)Temp/and SL's, sure, for parity, that should be that way.

Because getting Temps every 10 seconds in a group or going 2 minutes in between temp chests popping can happen thus skewing either sub would likely happen.

2)Why should different /subs have the same spell set? Different /subs obviously provide different strengths and weaknesses... And an identical spell set will not produce even results for that reason. You should be playing with a spell set tailored to what you're doing and what you're subbing, As you naturally would, keeping them the same will skew.

Because I didn't see the point at the time in swapping spell sets for MAB/Fast Cast with /NIN and DW2 with /RDM at the cost of the stats from other spells.

3&4) Utsu 'as needed' is vague, and style dependant, especially when you're arbitrarily limiting how often you cast stoneskin... If stoneskin is an argument to offset /Nin viability, you should be using it as often as viable.... Or rather, 'as needed' Cast times add up after all.

If a mob dies in 1 shadow I didn't recast Ni unless it ate my last shadow.

7) OP asked for DD. That implies you are filling a DD role in a pt, and Solo is not the same environment. SO, if you had better results solo as /rdm than you did /nin... I don't know that this bears any relevance to results you would have in a PT setting.

When I used to use my BLU as a DD in groups there was no difference than soloing other than there were people in the party. I still soloed mobs for azure kills.

Edit: additionally, In your parse you cast fewer spells by a significant margin on /nin... which you could explain away by virtue of Convert.... Now tell me why you have more WS on /rdm? Or why your Vorpal is 200 points Avg higher on your /rdm ?

Less down time on kills as to more WS. As to the 200 higher on /RDM I honestly don't know.

Or why Damage taken/Healed is absent from the parse. /RDM proponents talk endlessly of convert, but -especially- since you're solo, that additional damage taken has to be recovered, and that's MP spent. Sanguine won't soak that much damage alone (from experience since my my avg SB /nin is 300 higher than your parse data /rdm)

The parse was an old one and only cared about the damage at the time so didn't think to save all of it. Though I remember I stayed around 60% HP on /RDM so Converts weren't wasted since I didn't have an MP build.

[renasci]

To clarify, I was agreeing with you on your SL/Temps rule.

Less down time on kills as to more WS. As to the 200 higher on /RDM I honestly don't know.

I don't follow what you mean by this; there should not have been any downtime at all, between shadows/sanguine/minikin, you will always have enough MP for headbutt and HP to survive, and... I don't see another reason for not being engaged. Since /nin has increased survivability and melee DoT, It seems to me that the entire point of parsing /nin vs. /rdm would be to continue on regardless of MP level.

[Zagen]

To clarify, I was agreeing with you on your SL/Temps rule.



I don't follow what you mean by this; there should not have been any downtime at all, between shadows/sanguine/minikin, you will always have enough MP for headbutt and HP to survive, and... I don't see another reason for not being engaged. Since /nin has increased survivability and melee DoT, It seems to me that the entire point of parsing /nin vs. /rdm would be to continue on regardless of MP level.

Miss reading on my part, I read parity as party and didn't understand what you wrote due to that.

Edit: Downtime in the sense that with /NIN I was doing slower kills due to lower MP. For the most part doing a slower kill with just melee/ws was enough to allow MM/battery to restore MP but the ladybugs had crazy triple attack rate if I remember correctly which left me needing to /heal more with /nin than /rdm.

Edit 2: I'm assuming the crazy triple attack rate tbh the parse was old and I haven't really done testing lately as my BLU is a whisker whore now.

[Scuro]

lol did this topic seriously get necro'd?

[Prothscar]

Is this still an issue? I simply don't see how you can adamantly say that /RDM offers anything to the offensive power of BLU over /NIN to where /RDM is head and shoulders above the competition. You should not be having enough MP troubles to say that Convert adds so much to your overall damage that it causes /RDM to beat out /NIN in almost any conceivable situation. I'm not saying you're one of these BLUs, Zagen, although proof remains to be seen to the contrary: I've seen more and more Blue Mages that believe melee damage is not a part of a Blue Mage's damage spread. I simply don't understand this mindset. You don't need an Almace to have your melee DoT and weaponskill damage contribute to your overall damage output.

/NIN offers more to this part of your damage than /RDM does. Period. You shouldn't be using Sanguine Blade on anything that matters, in fact, you shouldn't be using it for pure damage purposes to begin with. Vorpal Blade will outperform it every time.

/RDM offers a slight advantage in the magical portion of your damage. Fast Cast is a moot point. Every offensive physicla blue magic spell casts so quickly that fast cast will not be providing any readily discernible advantage over the settable fast cast trait, or no fast cast trait at all. The recast reduction, while welcome, is also miniscule. It's basic math and simple to comprehend.

[Zagen]

Prothscar I agree with what you're saying to a degree. When I looked at it on paper I got the same results /NIN should be better than /RDM. The thing is on paper is one thing in practice is another. I always looked at "on paper" results as the best you could possibly be after all when I math things out on paper there is nothing taken into account for uncontrollable variables (lag, player reaction time, monsters getting odd triple attack rounds, etc.) That's why I run parses to let me know what is actually better for me as a player who makes errors who is affected by random variables.

That said this should only apply to EXP/trash mobs, our blink spells are "nice" but blink is crap compared to Utsusemi on Anything that doesn't just plain wipe shadows 100% of the time NM wise.

Although I do have a question that was sort of a curiosity I haven't had time to math out maybe you've already tested it. Under the assumption Utsusemi isn't needed are Warcry and Berserk a substantial boost to damage for an Almace BLU to go /WAR over /NIN?

[Prothscar]

I can't really justify /WAR over /NIN, you lose a bit too much. I'm sure there's a situation where it could be useful, but... :X

[Scuro]

Oh christ here we go again with the /RDM /NIN debate, lets just all agree to disagree and drop it. People are still going to sub /RDM, and some people will still sub /NIN, hell some people will even sub /DNC. Really I think this topic met its end when people stopped posting in it like a month ago.