Support Job preferences

[Babekeke]

I've had a chance to try RUN out in a few different situations now, and I'm starting to get a feel for it, but I wondered what others have found.

For Tanking:

I've fought Arch Omega and Arch Ultima that are of note so far, and I D/C'd half way through Omega so couldn't get a brilliant idea of hate/resist/damage mitigation etc. however, I think that /NIN is definately the way to go. Sure the PLDs had hate for the most of the fight, but Omega has colossal blow and pile pitch which reset hate, and Ultima has Citadel Siege which is insta-death (never tried to use CS on me, so not sure if Pflug would help).

I only did them once each so far as well, and I was trying to get a feel for damage output as well as party buffing, dodging attacks etc. so I wasn't full-timing flash and/or foil, which (certainly post foil enmity update) will be required if you want to tank.

What I found: it seemed fairly easy to keep shadows up, even despite the fact that I'm our group's Empy bard, so we had no march and no elegy. Though on Ultima, after the 2nd of the 2 PLDs died and I started tanking full-time, he did seem to have 100% accuracy on me even in eva gear and swordplay, so maybe I just got lucky that by the time I lost 9 shadows he went into countdown.

Speaking of countdown: This was used 3 times during the fight. The first one, the WHM Sacrosanctity'd and we all took almost 0 damage. 2nd one, I used One For All (recently got Dissipationed so I didn't have 3 runes up) And we all seemed to take ~500 damage. 3rd one I used Valliance with 3 dark runes and again we all seemed to take ~500 damage. I was just eyeballing the damage, mind and had filters on for that fight so I would assume that I actually took less damage than the others, but I'm Taru so maybe we all ended with a similar HP, rather than took similar damage. After all, I had +96 light resist.

For the Omega fight, before I had been D/Cd, I didn't have filters on and I could see that AOE damage TP moves were doing double digit damage to me, but ~250-300 to the 2 Ochain PLDs. I can't remember which TP moves they were, or whether they were breath-like as I was stood slightly off to the side, so that might have affacted it. From what I remember, I was using barblizzard, barparalyze and 3 x wind runes on Omega, to avoid paralysis.

Ok, on to DDing: I've only tried /SAM for DDing and it seems fine for when you're in a situation where you're not going to need to re-appy buffs while being attacked, or need to ride recast timers. I also use this for soloing EP mobs for weapon trials, riding hasso and phalanx. As long as you re-cast phalanx before it wears off (and maybe use -PDT gear while casting to ensure you get hit for 0) then this isn't an issue.

If you are really definately never going to get hit, or are in VW full-timing fanatics, then /WAR has got to be better, but RUN being so squishy, you need some form of damage mitigation against anything worth-while that might face you, or has physical AOEs.

Soloing: As I said, SAM for EP mobs, but against T mobs I'm still unsure. I tried /DNC in adoulin, and that sucked. I then tried /SCH and that was better, but still too much casting, and without designated macros for the fast cast stratagem, I was dead before I could get SS or blink up again. /SCH was nice for paralyna though. Other options are /NIN or /RDM or even /WHM, but I've not got around to any of these yet.

Wow, that was a long post, so I spoiler'd it for those that just want to reply and not read it all.

Please post here your preferences, your experiences, anything you've tanked successfully, particularly if anyone's managed to tank /WAR and turtle up.

[Volarione]

I have been using white mage but I feel squishy.

[Drybones]

I use whm alot for run, using dnc as a sub would be a bit useless cause sambas effect would not work because the added effect of the runes overight the samba effect, ninja is suppose to be good because of dial wield swords and shadows. I would also think that rdm would be usless because run has its own en spell due to the runes and run also has phalanx and refresh, using convert wouldnt also be a good idea as it is a dd, the j/a of run pulls enough hate so using convert could lead to death. Using sam could be ideal if u just wan pure dmg through weapon skills, war would just be there for provoke, defender and beserk

[Drybones]

Run dose have an high eva, using /nin could boost it up

[Zagen]

On "easy" stuff I tend to use /WHM or /RDM depending on how much I value Reraise/Repose over Fast Cast and Magic Attack Bonus II for a given event.

I tried out /DNC but it loses a lot without sambas and watlz wasn't needed, the evasion bonus was nice but overall I didn't find this to be better than /WHM or /RDM.

If I'm more DD than "tank" I use /WAR.

I've played around with /NIN a bit and it's helpful with the shadows but that's only true against targets that don't have aoe type melee attacks. I found dealing with those /NIN is more of a handicap than a boost due to focusing on spamming Usu over other things.


Subs on my "to experiment with" list are /PUP, /DRK, and /SAM.

• At face value /PUP doesn't seem to add much but the Evasion Bonus II and the cures/buffs from the puppet might be of benefit on easier targets. Not sure if that would really be much of a boost compared to other subs but it's on there either way.
• /SAM on the other hand seems straight forward high buff situations where I'd be more support/DD and less dedicated tank.
• /DRK shows potential well once they adjust Last Resort it will in my book be worth trying out.

Run dose have an high eva, using /nin could boost it up

Just pointing out to prevent confusion, as I'm sure it was just poor wording, /NIN only provides Utsusemi in the context of evasion, while that prevents from taking hits similar to how evasion works it's actually only consumed when evasion fails. So it doesn't directly boost RUN's evasion, only /THF, /PUP, or /DNC's Evasion Bonus traits actually does that.

[Babekeke]

If I'm more DD than "tank" I use /WAR.

How does that work out? Do you take extreme damage from AOE phys attacks? Can you keep up with other DDs at all? When fighting Ultima I found that my Resolutions were doing ~50% of the damage that I would do as DRG/SAM. Gear for both gives similar att/STR boosts, and aside from a little STR from hasso, some acc, and acc2 and att2 traits the WS are pretty similar. Damage on my polearm is only 5 higher than the GS I was using. Other than that it's just the difference in base stats for run/nin compared with drg/sam, and the att penalty of resolution. Unless there's something I missed, like maybe we had a brd when I went drg, idk.

I've played around with /NIN a bit and it's helpful with the shadows but that's only true against targets that don't have aoe type melee attacks. I found dealing with those /NIN is more of a handicap than a boost due to focusing on spamming Usu over other things.

I found it handy as a backup tank for the AOE phys spells, as that was the main time that shadows were consumed, and it meant I took very little damage the whole fight. Also reducing the CE lost from being hit, of course.

Just pointing out to prevent confusion, as I'm sure it was just poor wording, /NIN only provides Utsusemi in the context of evasion, while that prevents from taking hits similar to how evasion works it's actually only consumed when evasion fails. So it doesn't directly boost RUN's evasion, only /THF, /PUP, or /DNC's Evasion Bonus traits actually does that.

And a bit more agi from /nin rather than /war or /sam, but yeah basically shadows to prolong your eva. Remember too that the agi helps with the all important parrying for RUN.

[Zagen]

How does that work out? Do you take extreme damage from AOE phys attacks? Can you keep up with other DDs at all? When fighting Ultima I found that my Resolutions were doing ~50% of the damage that I would do as DRG/SAM. Gear for both gives similar att/STR boosts, and aside from a little STR from hasso, some acc, and acc2 and att2 traits the WS are pretty similar. Damage on my polearm is only 5 higher than the GS I was using. Other than that it's just the difference in base stats for run/nin compared with drg/sam, and the att penalty of resolution. Unless there's something I missed, like maybe we had a brd when I went drg, idk.

Keep in mind I'm going off eyeball memory so take my statements with a grain of salt. At some point I'll get around to my planned parsing to see how much I'm actually doing based on subs, I could just math it out but I don't know the stats on some of the targets and it I'd like to know what I'm capable of doing as a player not just my optimal potential.

With /WAR overall I noticed a 100-500 boost in WS damage. The damage taken while Berserk was up 50~300 more.

I found it handy as a backup tank for the AOE phys spells, as that was the main time that shadows were consumed, and it meant I took very little damage the whole fight. Also reducing the CE lost from being hit, of course.

For AoE TP moves I definitely like shadows and honestly I'm leaning toward /NIN being the go to sub option unless I'm just a DD/Support then it'll be /WAR and maybe /DRK. My only issue with the shadows was on stuff like Iron Giants, Mantis, Naraka, etc. (AoE melee hits) I found I was wasting my time (and damage potential) trying to put/keep up shadows instead of just eating the damage and working on killing faster.

Heh I forgot about the few extra AGI from /NIN so I guess it can potentially boost evasion 1-2 points depending on what you're comparing it with.

[Cljader1]

/blu is the sub for run, you SHOULD be using that sub and you can solo VT's. Cacoon, phalanx, stoneskin, Aquaveil, icespikes are your tanking buffs, along with tacos. Icespikes, flash then aquaveil will allow you to reapply any buff mid fight. I would love to see blink II, aquaveil II, or stoneskin II but we all know how SE hates adding new magic.

Foil is pathetic btw, is cost to much and its affects and duration is way too low, hope SE fix it.

[Babekeke]

along with tacos.

No no no, Rabbit Pie FTW!

But I'll give /BLU a go. It just pains me to have to re-do my spell list every time I /BLU when I've been BLU/ or vice versa /fume

[Tennotsukai]

/blu is the sub for run, you SHOULD be using that sub and you can solo VT's. Cacoon, phalanx, stoneskin, Aquaveil, icespikes are your tanking buffs, along with tacos. Icespikes, flash then aquaveil will allow you to reapply any buff mid fight. I would love to see blink II, aquaveil II, or stoneskin II but we all know how SE hates adding new magic.

Foil is pathetic btw, is cost to much and its affects and duration is way too low, hope SE fix it.

subbing blu? sounds pretty interesting. definitely trying this tonight. embolden protect 4 would be even more def as well.