Lancer Tips

[RedFlare]

Hi all

Just got this game and I have started to really enjoy this. Defiantly going to be spending stupid hours on it!

My question is, are they any tips or things I should do or take notes of start of this game for the lancer class?

Thanks

[Anova]

I'm glad to hear you're enjoying it. I only have the usual advice to do story quests and class quests. At level 10, you will unlock the ability to grab other classes. Level your lancer to 15 and complete the story quest so you can airship travel to the other towns and unlock dungeons.

If you are playing lancer, remember that positioning is critical to many of your skillsets. You probably will not need to worry about it until level 15 when you're running dungeons in a party, but your best abilities require you to constantly move between the side and back of your enemies. Learn to look at the circular indicator that appears at the foot of the enemy when you target them. You will notice one red "arrow" that signifies where that enemy is facing. Use this to help you orient where you should be standing in a fight.

Lancer also has one of the more complex skill rotations because many of your moves will combo in to and synergize with each other. For now, simply work on acquiring those skills and learning how each individual combo works, which buffs and debuffs they apply, and the positioning you need to make the most of it. As you level, you can consider how to best combine everything in to a full rotation that maximizes your damage.

[ShadowDan]

Nothing you can't live without. I'd suggest you read your skills as you acquire them - some require you attack from the flank or back to produce their full effects, so you'll want to do that whenever possible. Good tanks will always turn the enemies so you have a clear access to the backs/sides once you get to 15 and start doing multiplayer dungeons.

Till then, just have fun and don't try to rush the content. There's pretty much a tutorial for everything in the game in one way or another so most of your questions will get answered by just playing. One thing to note is that to unlock Dragoon later on you'll have to level the Marauder class to 15, so you may want to get started on that sooner rather than later. You in no way have to before you reach Lancer level 30, but the cross class skills can come in handy. Just like picking up Cure or Physics from one of the healers.

Otherwise, if you have any specific questions, feel free to post them here.

[Adrian74]

I'm only a noob, so my tips may lack of interest content or useful information, but... I want to help you, so I'll tell you what I did for my lancer.

First of all, when you reach level 10 and with that gain the chance of taking other classes, you should go to Archer's guild and make an archer, is in Gridania too and won't take you too much for taking some skills you can use and are useful for the lancer such as straight shot (Gives you 20 seconds of 10% critical chance, it's something) and Raged Strikes (More attack, but the recast is too high). You have also the option of use Venomous Bite, a DoT skill but I don't like too much those and I think it's just better to increase your power of attack and doing combos.

Eventually you'll learn Impulsive Drive, Feint, and some skills you'll rarely use... I have not used impulsive drive yet, because the first skill + vorpal thrust is more worth of use. Feint is useful for slowing a boss of FATE or something, but notice that it won't be so effective, the first time the effect will last 20s, then it will last only 10s... Then... Don't even try feint again. Later you'll learn heavy thrust, this is a really important skill. It deals good damage is used by the flanks, but what is useful it's not really the attack itself, it will give you a buff of +15% damage during 12 seconds... I tried and yet nowadays I keep trying to maintain attack status such as the heavy tthrust + straight shot + internal release (another 10% + critical) when fighting.

Problem is that it's not easy to use heavy thrust sometimes because you have to deliver it from the flank to receive the +15% attack buff. Here you can do two things... Use legsweep, a skill that provokes stun in the enemies, so after stun them you fastly move to their side and use heavy thrust. Or Just change to another move that is not targeting you (Example: another mob other player is attacking, in case of FATEs, or another of the mobs that the tanker is taking, just a heavy thrust won't steal aggro.)

Always maintain heavy thrust nice. Also another thing, trying to heal using a lancer with cure spells and such can be a little annoying and painful... You'll have some ways to obtain HP. For example using Second Wind of the pugilist, Bloodbath of the Marauder (I love this one, you active internal release, raged strikes, straight shot, and... Well, everything you can and then use blood bath so you recover a lot of HP that way while dealing damage). When you are not using bloodbath or other heal ways you can active keen flurry and other defensive skills until charging again bloodbath.

Later you'll gain Life Surge that is another good way to recover HP, it will grant you a critical 100% prob the next hit and allow you to restore 50% damage dealt. I personally loved to play my own minigame "Let's do it critical" and try my best critical with heavy thrust effect, raged striks, and then vorpal thrust. (Later became Full Thrust). So in other words Life Surge is good to use before doing the best attack you have.

Another good way to recover HP I like to use with my lancer is Mercy Stroke, you can learn it from Marauder too. When an enemy is down of HP, if you kill him with that attack you'll receive a certain HP. I use it against boss when there appear adds, I kill adds and use Mercy Stroke in one of them for recovering HP...

Yeah... Pretty complicated to heal being a Disciple of War, in my opinion, but funny and worth of it ^^

I have to say that my lancer is only level 28 so I can't give you any more tips, only those starting tips that, of course, the opinion about it can differ from others.

Hope you enjoy the class, It is my third favorite, a good damage dealer and not so linked to the positions like PGL is, also full thrust combo is just awesome when you learn it, you have access to some items that are only for tankers and lancers (basically only for lancers, because tankers have even better only for them) that gives you more defense than the ones Pugilist and Archer use and you can take easy in dungeons. So far, this is actually my class that more damage deals, probably only thamaturge deals more damage but... While they are casting they are not attacking, and I mean, may they do a 200 critical with a spell while you do 160, but when you do that 160 you also can do 50 -70 critical with normal hit so.... So far the lack of the lancer I see is that has no AoE... But it's pretty the task of the lancer to kill enemies one by one, in my opinion.

PS: Sorry, sometimes I don't take the bothering to correct my English failures, not my native lang.

[Sisqi]

Is Impulse Drive pretty useless until level 38 then (when it becomes part of a combo)? It seems True Thrust/Vorpal Thrust/Full Thrust combo will always yield a higher damage, so then only positional attack I need to worry about is Heavy Shot every 10s.

[MrDiezel]

Is Impulse Drive pretty useless until level 38 then (when it becomes part of a combo)? It seems True Thrust/Vorpal Thrust/Full Thrust combo will always yield a higher damage, so then only positional attack I need to worry about is Heavy Shot every 10s.

I believed this to be true until I hit lvl 30

From lvl 30-37, you will want this rotation: Heavy thrust - Phlebotomize - True Thrust - Vorpal Thrust - Full Thrust - Impulse Drive.

This is a rotation that will run through your entire Heavy Thrust damage buff (not extended). You'll get a stronger DoT, and the reason you'll want to end with Impulse Drive is because it is your Single Strongest skill at this time. After ID, you will have to restart the rotation with Heavy Thrust. If you were to change out ID with True Thrust in hopes of starting the combo again, Heavy Thrust is going to reset your combo progress.

So, if you want to play your DRG to full potential (dmg buff always up, DoT always up) this should at least be your opening rotation

[Rusubandenwa]

I'm a new player and I've started with a Lancer as well. When would you recommend I take up a second class, be it a battle or crafting one, and which do you recommend? I was planning on waiting until I could become a Dragoon before playing with other play styles, but I see a lot of walk throughs recommend I also have the ability to heal myself.


The Summoner job seems really interesting to me as well since summons were always my favorite part of other Final Fantasy games (which is why IX is my favorite in the series, but X and XIII did it well for me too), but I'm worried that the two classes won't have the correct synergy to really work well together for just starting out.

[Naberrie]

I think one of the most important things you can do is to learn which skills are used in which positions. I see many LNCs & DRGs who simply stand in one spot. They're not using their full potential. (In all fairness I see MNKs do this, too.) You need to not only learn the most effective rotation for your level, but know where to position for each skill.

[Sisqi]

I believed this to be true until I hit lvl 30

From lvl 30-37, you will want this rotation: Heavy thrust - Phlebotomize - True Thrust - Vorpal Thrust - Full Thrust - Impulse Drive.

This is a rotation that will run through your entire Heavy Thrust damage buff (not extended). You'll get a stronger DoT, and the reason you'll want to end with Impulse Drive is because it is your Single Strongest skill at this time. After ID, you will have to restart the rotation with Heavy Thrust. If you were to change out ID with True Thrust in hopes of starting the combo again, Heavy Thrust is going to reset your combo progress.

So, if you want to play your DRG to full potential (dmg buff always up, DoT always up) this should at least be your opening rotation

Ahh, I understand. I was thinking about it more last night as well, and it seems ID might also be useful to pair with Life Surge, as it is the strongest non-combo attack I've got right now.

[Bixby]

Until you get Full Thrust, if you can reliably stay behind the mob, Impulse Drive spam is also more total damage than the True Thrust > Vorpal Thrust combo.

True > Vorpal = 150 + 200 = 350 / 2 = 175 average potency per GCD.
Impulse = 180 potency per GCD.