Job Vision: Watch paint dry

[Neonii]

I'll tell you exactly why this is the case and yes, admittedly it's a fault of FFXI's game design.

From /WHM you get Cure I through Cure IV. That's the same amount of healing prowess that any non-WHM Main gets. You also get more than enough Healing skill from the sub, and base MND, to hit the soft cap on all four of those cures. So with a /WHM sub on any job that has native MP, you're basically a mini RDM/SCH/PLD, and if you wear any compatible +MP or +Cure potency or +MND gear, your cures can stack up pretty well. Your cures will never "miss", either.

Melee wise, though, you are very much bound by your main job's prowess. You cannot feasibly, say, go WHM/MNK, equip Trainee Scissors, and expect to hit anything let alone deal relevant damage, since your combat skill is so incredibly significant to your ability to wield and swing the weapon. Even among main jobs, you don't see competent Warriors trying to main Dagger or Polearm instead of axes because the skill deficit just plain hurts too much (that and the severely nerfed weapon selection of course).

Even more relevant example: you never see Dragoons maining Staff. Dragoons are infinitely more capable of wielding a staff well than a Summoner - they get Accuracy Bonus job traits, and their combat skill at 90 is only 10 points below Summoner's. It's just not worth the severe cut to your attack and accuracy compared to a primary weapon.

Puppetmasters are permanently hobbled by their weak h2h skill cap, and it's 6 points higher than SMN's final Staff cap. Even when PUP's skill cap was raised from ~C to B+ it was still considered a bit of a slap in the face, since B+ is still a whopping 13 points behind an A- weapon - that's 13 attack and ~12 accuracy lost.

And that's all before even considering the actual Melee jobs' exclusive gear (SMN maxes out at 23 haste from gear, EVERY dedicated melee can hit 26 comfortably alongside other relevant stats) and job abilities/traits which can't be subbed.


Oh, and if you want to play a real healer, play WHM. Cure V&VI really are THAT important. Just thought I'd throw that out there.

Why bother even having a smn or any variety of jobs for that matter? Just level whm and call it a day.

[Tagrineth]

Why bother even having a smn or any variety of jobs for that matter? Just level whm and call it a day.

I dunno. Blame Abyssea with its 2-3k HP totals and NMs that can thwack players for 1-3k damage on a whim. Keep up with that damage using only Cure IV and don't die in the process from all the enmity!

[Babekeke]

I dunno. Blame Abyssea with its 2-3k HP totals and NMs that can thwack players for 1-3k damage on a whim. Keep up with that damage using only Cure IV and don't die in the process from all the enmity!

However, SMN CAN hit the 50% cure potency cap, and if you're there INSTEAD of a WHM (which is the only time you'll be spamming cure 4s enough for enmity to be a problem), you can pop Allure atma for -enmity and +MND too. So now you're popping a 6-700hp cure4, with much less enmity from doing so, whilst supplementing this with Healing Ruby 2 or whispering wind.

I've duo'd several Abby NMs as THF with a SMN friend for support/occasional hate steals so I can pop sneak attack, or they run in so I can trick attack (for TH+ only). They never took hate and the avatar did probably as much damage as me from BP alone (it didn't melee because we didn't want to feed tp - so obviously neither did the smn).
For the record, he has lvl 90 whm too, but even as a Taru THF, I got by just fine with cure 4s. BPs sped the fight up a load though
I'm almost certain that at no point could he have turned around and said "This is like watching paint dry".

If you're there to help proc staff/club as well, and healing is already covered, sub war. You have the choice of war, whm, pld, mnk. War offers aggressor to help our sucky acc; berserk to add a little damage if you want to speed things up; defender if it's taking a while to proc and you want to deal as little damage as possible; double attack to get tp faster.

Yes SAM is a better sub for melee, but you lose the proc ws. WHM is better if extra healing is required. SCH or RDM are better if mp might be an issue, but again you lose procs.