Dual weild

[scaevola]

Counterstance a horrible ability?

I really don't know what to say....

Yes, an ability that stops half of all incoming hits in a game with a spell like Utsusemi available to all classes via easy customization is terrible design.

Sorry that you somehow managed to read that wrong, but I'm not sure how anybody could not think Counterstance is broken just from looking at the help text.

b-b-b-but monks

counterstance is a terribly-designed ability and while we're at it H2H damage calculation is pretty messed up, too, but i have never claimed every other job in the game is not pretty bad compared to MNK


also, if you're feeling saucy you could sub MNK yourself to tank


(it is actually pretty good for aga-heavy NMs with lots of debuffs, like Fuath, for instance)

math that leaves out weapon skills so as to ignore how much better Twashtar is for THF than DNC, and also assumes a Twashtar THF or DNC has any reason to bother doing anything meaningful without WHM or BRD support, making up the delay reduction deficit as they both hit the cap

oh and also i guess that either of these hypothetical dudes WILL be tanking whatever they fight (the DNC, who can't TA/Rudra's, will be doing so immediately) and the THF's higher evasion makes him less likely to have to worry about taking AO out for GH, but whatever

Three things.

1) I said initially I believed the solution was an increased utility for SA/TA, so that they could be used more readily.

2) In any real-world situation, you are not endlessly swinging in perpetuity. The less your time on target, the better SA and TA become; downtime between pulls while meriting is less an issue now and Abyssea lets you be lazy about endlessly TPing on NMs, but we'll be leaving there soon and will be back in a world where you actually have to try not to feed TP or get drilled by AoEs. This is why X's/blau was better than blau/sirocco, even though the latter was mathematically more DPS with the added effect factored in, as somebody on alla figured out a few years ago and no, I won't go dig up that thread, because holy crap waste of time.

3) Perhaps more importantly, if either THF or DNC, hell, if ANYONE is doing around 200 DPS, which is enough to solo down Raja, iirc the highest health mob in Abyssea at 150k, in 12 and a half minutes, does it really matter who is doing more? It's like arguing whether level 99 Steiner is better than level 99 Amarant when they can both kill Ozma in like 3 turns.