soloersFollow

VS Melee /NIN is excellent. I still think it's an inferior choice vs Mages.



/DNC is going to have a tough time accumulating TP vs RDM. Here is where /SCH and even /WHM shine. /SCH also provides Sleepga, so it's hard to pick /BLM over /SCH.


Edited, Mar 17th 2011 1:19pm by K1n371x

I have 4 sets of completed AF3+2 and a level 90 Armageddon, all of which was completed outside of LS.

I must be the best soloist evar!

Better than the clueless ~95%, at least.

And while I can appreciate your attempt at humor Chew, surely you must have seen the subtext in my comment and not taken it at face value? If not, the point is: Who gives a sh*t? The days of being genuinely impressed with someone's solo exploits died with the cap increase and Abyssea, sadly; the fact that most of the playerbase is behind on this particular bit of knowledge is simply par for the course.

Fixed.

Edited, Mar 22nd 2011 9:46am by Chewzer

Actually, I originally wrote "when pinning became popular" first! You'll notice I edited it right after posting; that's because it looked too long to fit the whole 'fixed' joke thing.

Heh right on, I was at work so I missed the initial post xD

On a slight tangent though... it has always struck me as odd that the general populace has such a high opinion of Kaeko (which, let it be said, I share), but mention pinning to the same people and you get a half-crazed, mouth-frothing diatribe on how pinning is the worst thing ever, cheating, requires zero skill, etc. Whether they are unaware that he played an integral part in popularizing the strategy, or choose to look the other way, I find it rather comical.

While I'm on the subject as well, I've never, ever seen a good, logical argument against pinning. It is, at its core, simply another form of damage mitigation. What do they think Utsusemi tanking is? Or stacking up Defense buffs? Or using PDT/MDT sets? Or using height differences on targets like Dark Ixion? Or how about, ionno, kiting? Instead of casting spells, or using specific gear, one merely uses movement to mitigate incoming damage and, just like any of the above methods, requires good reflexes, timing, and generally just thinking 3 moves ahead. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that, in some instances, it requires these qualities in greater quantity, as one wrong move can easily spell certain death. But yeah, that's just my two cents.

Well said, and for all the right reasons. I did this as well when i was farming Briareus Helms; sure, I could solo all 4 NMs easily, but /shouting for a few minutes to find a healer that needed the boss kill turned out to be the way to go, as it saved me the expense of cruor/bastion meds, while helping out someone else in need. (Not to mention 2 people = 2 sets ftw!) I definitely ran across a few players that were almost unbelievably bad in the process, but recruiting decent players for my later Sobek runs made up for it.

Personally I don't have nearly enough patience to shout for a full 18, or the requisite babysitting once inside the zone; but I'm with you on this one nonetheless.

Edit: All that being said, if they're looking for 18 cause they think the extra 15-17 players are actually necessary, I'll stick with my initial stance on the subject!

Edited, Mar 22nd 2011 8:10pm by LyltiaofLakshmi

You're right, there's nothing wrong with the concept, it's just not implemented well. Monster size is just a smaller factor that excaberates the larger one of generally poor pathing AI. I still think the other part (slowly building distance through obstructions that can at least logically hinder pathing temporarily) is a wash, though; if it's an obstacle, that means you have to run around it too, and if a monster of comparable size/movespeed takes any longer to get around it than you do, you're exploiting bad AI; no two ways about it.

One of the things I don't like about the entire discussion is the divorce of 'pinning' from 'kiting,' as pinning is simply taking kiting as present in FFXI to its logical conclusion. The only true kiting scenario is one in which you run forever in a straight, level line; if you deviate, you're starting to take advantage of the poor AI. In practice, even that scenario is impossible, as things as simple as a gradual incline in a path devoid of obstacles will cause the monster to deviate from its path. It's even possible (although difficult and rather pointless as stopping to cast breaks it) to pin a monster on a completely passable hill in certain places. There's probably a happy median somewhere in between, but as is, kiting primarily takes advantage of terrain, whether it's the Ix'MNK/DRK rooms in Sea, the numerous and awesome rock formations of Attohwa, or yes, that strangely epic fence in Ronfaure [S].

This is the primary reason why they will never ban people for, or otherwise disallow us from pinning; from a technical stanndpoint (and also from the standpoint that exploiting bad pathing AI is bad), it's the same damn thing that we've been doing since we figured out how to run away from sh*t intelligently. What are they going to do, ban us all retroactively? (I hope not!)

So, in other words, be careful what you wish for when you complain about bad pathing AI.



I was equally skeptical, so I just spammed GMs about it until they gave me an answer; GM showed up out of nowhere one day while I was killing a Krabkatoa, /waved, gave me the standard 'Good luck, Red Mage Lyltia" line, and peaced out. Was good enough for me.



I think Abyssea was kinda a step in that direction, with zone-wide systems you could influence like the Martello Cores, or Dominion making NMs more/less difficult based on the % of the lessers, etc., not to mention the Yellow/Blue proc rotations, all of which I think are pretty cool. Beyond that a lot of mobs since ToAU are affected by time/day/weather, which was also neat. I hope they take it further with whatever comes next.

As if you don't get pissed the %$@# off when a mob casts Flash on you?

Like you "just kinda" shrug that sh*t off, right?

I can't tell if you're kidding or what.

Sure, stupid is an opinion. I'm in it to win though, and if there's a SE-approved method that lets me avoid mouthbreathers to get things done, it has a place in my arsenal, simple as that. I think we covered everything else already, thanks for the debate; always good to refine your ideas by bouncing them off someone (intelligent) that doesn't agree.

Concerning Flash; I can say from experience that losing your eyesight, even temporarily, is extremely disorienting and sends you into panic mode immediately. I think it makes perfect sense as an enmity tool.

This game is $12.95 a month?!

Hmmm, I'll just leave the pinning to those who are...

quit being such a

When my little sister used to try and pull crap like that on me after doing something, I eventually just pushed the damn table at her so it literally pinned her against the cupboards. Then it was just a matter of holding it until she gave up. /ja "Rage Mode" <me>. :p

Best way to get a stubborn RDM to do something is to tell them I bet you can't.

It's situational, I use both in different situations. For example /nin is great in a 1on1 battle especially if your foe casts spells or hits very hard, / blu excels in multiple mob fights with /blu I have been able to tank, without support, an entire campaign battle group at once except the boss mob, and survive.

/THF isn't even all that imperative. How much TH is it? 10%? 15% at most?

You'd probably kill 20%+ faster with a DD sub.

I dual-box-leeched four jobs to 90 and got roughly a third of a set of 50 Briareus helms purely from gold boxes trying to get that @#%^ing thing.

Approaching 0/700ish on refresh subligar in Altepa.

Random augment systems can bite me.

No real point here, I'm just QQing like usual.

The only spells that are useful on their own are Cocoon, maybe Magic Fruit. For the most part, you choose your spells to gain Job Traits and stat increases.

Reference possible traits here.

Keep in mind that the traits gained from setting Blue Magic are the base level traits and do not stack with any existing traits you may have from your main job; ergo, setting Clear Mind or Magic Attack Bonus as RDM/BLU does nothing for you.

Reference stat bonuses here.

Wild Carrot*, whatever =p

Shows how much I bother setting /BLU cure spells I guess.

Healing Breeze used to be a reason for me to occasionally set /BLU in a group situation; it's basically a Curaga 2 for Curaga 1 price. Nowadays of course, it's not nearly as advantageous, but I'd still keep it set on /BLU anyway in case the opportunity ever came up where it would be useful.

Edited, Oct 7th 2011 3:11pm by Fynlar

? how is it countering sleepga? (since you would be asleep too, and more than likely not tanking.) or alternate question why are you /BLU standing on the backline?

Btw this is very nice. Now I'm finalizing my leveling and skilling up of /blu. At the very least I'll be able to solo most of the old 75 stuff without having to wait for utsusemi:ni...