So where are we with Sub Jobs?Follow

Refresh > max MP.

If you don't have MP problems either way, then it doesn't matter, but you admitted that you do, so...



Apoc on WHM is awesome o_O

If there's anyone in the party that you want to have unlimited Reraise on, it's the WHM by far.



Personally, I love not needing another person to cast Dispel for me. Simple things like that.

Also, as stated, /RDM will last longer at sheer curespamming thanks to Convert.

Edited, Jun 24th 2011 11:09am by Fynlar

This doesn't happen anymore... and hasn't for some time.




If you're bringing 18 to everything then you have even less cause to need Apoc and MP in such a hurry. I run a large, successful linkshell and we have various people with empyreans/WoE weapons etc We've killed every mob in Abyssea (who hasn't) but I'm not trying to ePeen here I'm just saying in my experience /RDM doesn't come close to touching /SCH.



That's not what I'm doing either. Our playstyles are vastly different that's all. I'd rather have the extra skill, the extra cure efficiency, the charges, the conserve mp - although MP refresh is never a problem in Abyssea. Ever. I've done everything from 2-3 man to full alliances and we've wiped out everything in Aby also. Never once wanted /RDM. /shrug. Being in a shell like that I'm sure you have comparable gear too.

I can see what you're saying maybe for some fights outside of Abyssea, but I doubt it'll make enough difference for me to ever bother with /RDM - at least not at 90. I'd rather have the better barspells, the faster casting, the occasional conserve MP proc, the strategems and the not having to make yourself a freaking target every 10mins. You can keep your /RDM inside Abyssea. When we hit t4 in Voidwatch (not our currently priority) I'll check it out.

Many of the WHMs who still post on this forum have a wide experience of Abyssea. You're not the only person out there poking the nastier NMs. I totally get you're a production line for Emp. Weapons etc and so are probably popping several at once or spamming the higher tier NMs over and over. I don't get that MP is ever a problem in Abyssea with Minnikin, when you have MP abyssites/atma/other refresh atma.

And a WHM using Apoc is really a waste of a slot. If a WHM hasn't learnt to keep RR up or isn't prepared to HP inside Abyssea by now then they're a lost cause. Getting up weak in some of the tougher fights is inefficient and pointless.

Edited, Jun 25th 2011 7:07am by eldelphia

Why is anything living long enough in these "zergs" (in Abyssea, even?) to the point where MP can even remotely become an issue for *three* WHMs?

Sure, the frontline might be taking a lot of damage, but even with all the Cure guns blazing, MP can only be spent so quickly.



Even still,

1) Countless are the times that Reraise has dropped and I simply overlooked it; this is far more likely to happen to me nowadays due to the fact that I rarely stay in Abyssea for fewer than 8 hours at a time
2) It prevents the need to have to cast Reraise again (or risk getting subsequently killed again and then needing a Raise) after you get back up from a death, which is often invaluable because if it's just you that died, chances are you need to be throwing some Cures immediately after getting up, not wasting time with Reraise

Bottom line, WHM is one of the jobs on which auto RR makes sense to have.



WHM is actually one of the jobs best capable of continuing to perform their duty even while weak, so I have no idea why on earth you would even suggest that. Especially considering the fact that many WHMs operate alone and having them HP is basically the equivalent of a wipe...



I thought I already covered this, but the fact it needs Dark Arts + Addendum: Black means it doesn't count.

Mob does Annoying Dispellable Thing
WHM does Dark Arts, Addendum: Black, Dispel
WHM does Light Arts
Mob does Annoying Dispellable Thing Again
WHM does @#%^ YOU

The only real thing a /SCH Dispel is good for is hitting a grellow. I'm talking about using Dispel to, y'know, actually dispel things.

Edited, Jun 25th 2011 9:52am by Fynlar

Kind of surprised this debate is still raging, I guess it really is just /BLM vs. /SMN all over again, lol.

Fynlar wrote:


I suppose this is a fair argument, but frankly, I took it for granted that it would be assumed that we were performing similar tasks. For the sake of clarification, I always divide parties up so that the greater workload falls to me; I'm the linkshell leader, so I feel it's my responsibility to make the members of the linkshell have to cope with as little crap as possible.

Furthermore, her struggles with MP occasionally led me to cure her party as backup. Even managing that, I still rarely had any issues.

Perg, I'll admit that Aspirga is gimmicky, but when it came to Dynamis pre-patch, I used it -frequently-. It certainly is suicidal, but our Black Mages are really excellent at timing sleeps, so I was rarely concerned about it. Personally, I preferred the mobs coming after me for the Aspirga than worrying over the slight risk that they might interrupt a Sleepga casting Black Mage and cause something silly to happen.

Virtually all of this is strictly anecdotal at this point, since Dynamis has changed so dramatically, but whatever.

Dantedmc wrote:

I'm a little confused by the "trying to save as much mp as /rdm" portion of this. If /RDM saves MP by Converting, I suppose I understand what you're trying to say, but it's not exactly accurate. /RDM doesn't save MP, it restores it through active use of Refresh and Convert. However, /SCH passively *saves* MP via Light Arts. Certainly you can accentuate your efficiency with Penury, but with the exception of Cure VI and Curaga IV, it's rarely necessary, particularly for any White Mage with Orison Pantaloons +2.

I'll cede that this is a personal preference thing for the most part, I just really can't understand why anyone would hold the preference of /RDM. It just seems like a lot more work for less benefit. I will add one more small caveat to my argument: Phalanx. I've used /RDM for this a couple of times while soloing to cap Shield, and a couple other small things. Dispel has actually lost some ground as an argument for /RDM to me. I've won several fights where Dispel was a tremendous benefit by living in Dark Arts.

Sure, someone is going to say "well, there goes all of your MP efficiency that /SCH offers. Heck, you're actually WASTING MP by doing that." And they would be right, unarguably. But I have absolutely no interest in leaving a zone just to change my subjob, fight a single monster a couple times, then leave again to change it back. You can't get away with it all the time, but in a pinch, it works.

Jebus...huge poast is huge. I regret nothing!

Basic, 'on paper' efficiency values that I threw together.

Assumes:
MM atma (10/tick refresh)
That /rdm maintains Refresh 100% of the time, for an average +2.2 MP/tick
That one refresh tick (either 10 or 12.2 MP) occurs per cast (ie: avg of 3 seconds per spell cast, even though the spell itself won't take that long)
Close to max cure potency, either through gear or including Rescuer atma
AF3+2 legs
That all cures are hitting for near max potential (Cure4 & Curaga3 for 600, Cure5 and Curaga4 for 1100, Cure6 for 1500)
That MP pool is 2000 MP (may require Allure atma for non-Taru races)
That /sch gets two Penury uses and a 275 MP Sublimation when burning through their pool
That /rdm uses 100% of its pool before Convert. In practice it will lose about 5%-10% of that.

Cga3/3 is Curaga 3 hitting 3 people; Cga3/4 is Curaga 3 hitting 4 people. Same for Cga4/3 and Cga4/4 for Curaga 4.

Total HP curable with 2000MP Pool 
Sub     Cure4   Cure5   Cure6   Cga3/3  Cga3/4   Cga4/3   Cga4/4 
Base    25000   31429   21127   45000    96000    77647   293333 
Blm     28571   36066   23622   52941   126316    98507   733333 
Rdm     52402   64897   42918   92545   200837   159420   633094 
Sch     39600   52171   33693   82094   262400   177893     #INF

Cure 4: /rdm wins by 32%.
Cure 5: /rdm wins by 24%.
Cure 6: /rdm wins by 27%.

Curaga 3/3: /rdm wins by 13%.
Curaga 3/4: /sch wins by 31%.
Curaga 4/3: /sch wins by 12%.
Curaga 4/4: /sch wins by undefined amount (you actually gain back more MP than you spent, so you can do an infinite number of casts at this level).


So for single-target casting, /rdm wins. For multi-target casting, /sch wins. Given the scenario described in earlier posts, with large numbers of DDs on the mob, I would think that the whms would want to focus more on curagas than single-target cures, making /sch a better choice.

/sch gains a small advantage from other things being cast that don't gain the benefit of the AF3+2 pants (eg: Haste costing 36 MP instead of 40), plus the fact that it doesn't need to spend time casting Refresh. Curaga 3/3 probably ends up being about a tie between /sch and /rdm once other factors are accounted for, but /rdm should still have a 15%-20% edge with spamming Cure 5/6.

/sch has its greatest edge when using curagas on 4+ people. The flat cost reductions available to /sch, combined with AF3+2 legs, makes it so that there's almost no cost (or even an MP gain) in casting them, and they're the best spells to use for things like Gates of Hades, Acheron Flame, etc.

I've actually found that, aside from other conveniences (eg: Esuna), it's easiest for me to stand right in with the melee and spam Curaga 4 on mobs like Orthrus. Adding an extra person who took damage (me) to the cured list gives me that much more MP back, while at the same time I'll likely take less damage than anyone else anyway. If I expected to use Convert this would be a Bad Idea.

And of course if you're not actually using enough MP to require convert (such as by taking advantage of curaga efficiencies), /rdm loses its greatest advantage. For example, if you need to cure 100,000 total MP, it can't be done with one MP pool using single-target spells even for /rdm, but is easily manageable using most curagas for any sub.

If you needed to cure 60k HP, you'd want /rdm with Cure 5 since /sch couldn't manage that in one MP pool. However /rdm can't handle 70k on one pool; at that point you either need curagas or a second whm. A second whm means you're only curing 35k, using less than 10% of the Converted MP pool and swinging the advantage way back towards /sch. Curagas mean you're not needing the Converted MP pool at all, and /sch is more efficient for that.

Realistically, of course, you're going to have a mix of the two. With 3-4 Cure 5's per Curaga, advantage swings back towards /rdm. And the advantage of one or the other will swing back and forth based on exactly how much actually needs to be cured.


Edited, Jun 28th 2011 4:42pm by Kinematics

Kinematics, thanks for doing that but you've left out Conserve MP also. Not going to make a HUGE difference but its there.

This is another example of why /SCH works better in practice than on paper. Your test assumes zero time between casts during which refresh equipment is equipped, which prevents the /SCH from regaining any MP aside from Sublimation. In fact looking at your test, I'm not even sure if you included Sublimation. So the /SCH may not be recovering MP at all in that test.

In practice, /SCHs still regain MP from other sources like equipment, atmas, other party members, etc. Now yes, both jobs can regain that same MP from external sources, so you initially wouldn't think that should skew the test but it does. /SCH can take that same MP regained, and they can do more with it because of their MP savings. I save about 30% of my MP on average on /SCH, which means if /RDM and /SCH both gain 10 MP during a tick, then the /SCH can spend 10 MP and save 3, then spend 3 and save 1. So that 10 MP/tick is really more like 14 MP/tick for /SCH.

It's really hard to account for a lot of stuff that happens during a battle, and /SCH is very well-suited to help you out in those situations whereas /RDM is more of a "status quo" subjob. It just keeps the MP flowing at one rate regardless of what's going on in the battle. That's how /SCH loses pretty much every comparison on paper. Penury is another example, how do you account for it? You have to factor in too many unpredictable elements to really say "X+Y+Z = /SCH", whereas /RDM goes on paper very nicely to show how much MP it saves.

Oh oops, I missed the part where you mentioned Sublimation, my bad. However, I do think you missed something in my post as well regarding this:


/SCH actually gains more from equipment refresh than /RDM. That's why you can't ignore those things just because both subs get them; how much benefit they give each sub varies.

Hmm, some results this time were entirely expected and some were a bit of a surprise to me. Overall though, I think this is a better comparison and more in line with my personal experience.

Outside Abyssea is definitely where /RDM shines, in terms of pure longevity. Inside Abyssea, it's a toss-up and I think that's why /SCH is such a no-brainer because it provides so much more utility. Outside Abyssea, as much as I praise /SCH, I will admit to using /RDM almost as much.

It's funny because when I heard /RDM was getting Convert, I thought it was all over for /SCH. Now I've swung to the opposite side, generally favoring /SCH still.

Thanks for the correction. Still get infinite casts, though.

Oh, yeah it goes indefinitely. It's great. I just personally had thought it would do that until I tested. Penury Curaga IV would be huge. I just want people to know it's not truly recovering mp; rather it reduces the cost, to a minimum of 0.