Yeah, forgot the pictures today. Not like there was anything that amazing, but I had some decent ones for practical application of how to be a WHM for melees. I don't think I am in any position to tell a mage how to play a mage job, but I can tell the melee about a thing or two about how they can sub in for a mage if necessary. I did my second run of Salvage as WHM, and I still have some issues with sharing responsibilities with the other mage, but I think I am doing pretty well with making sure my melee aren't dying. There were a couple of close calls but for the second run no one (well no one that I was directly responsible for) died. I could have saved our BRD on the first floor with a little faster action but I am not too concerned about that because it wasn't really my responsibility at the time and I need to focus a lot to make sure I am not forgetting my main role.
So here are my three main rules for melee that are subbing in for mage jobs:
1. Keep everyone Hasted.
2. Generous usage of Regen.
3. Don't be afraid to overcure.
I have had very few issues with MP using these three rules because the first two rules make is so that when I need to cure it wont happen as often and therefore wont be as much of an XP drain. This isn't everything that is important for being a WHM or any other mage in an XP situation but it will keep you going in a pinch. I have used it to at least some success in my recent runs as WHM.
Yesterday, I got to try out and parse MNK/WAR in an XP party, the party set up was WAR/SAM (full time Hasso), MNK/WAR (full time Counterstance and Berserk when up), THF/NIN, BRD, BRD, WHM/SCH. This is completely doable if you have a good healer that can manage the damage that you will be taking. The parse ended up being something like 40% for me, 31% for the THF/NIN and 29% for the WAR/SAM. I definitely wouldn't try this set up without two BRDs and a healer that I can trust, but if I can get that and I can get a bird camp there is very little risk. We were getting Madrigal, Minuet, and dual Marches which definitely favored me in this situation. But it just goes to show how much more a MNK can do when subbing WAR instead of NIN. I will post the results tomorrow probably. I got another 4 merits yesterday after capping my Enemy Critical Hit. It was fun.
I guess I will go over my thoughts on some of these dual-boxing soloing JPs I have seen recently. I am a bit concerned about this overall. It definitely appears that some JPs have a different play still that NAs or EUs. In general if an NA dual-boxes it is so that they can do something with someone else or they can solo something one time. The JPs have been doing something different, they have been creating pairs of characters that are always together and they basically duo to 75. I do not know if they do this to support themselves or just to have an alternative character but I believe it is the former. I do not really understand the mentality here, and I am not thinking of it as negatively as I am just confused by it. Why make two characters? What is the purpose that it serves? I think that there is a bit of a loner characteristic to some JP players. And this may be a similar drive to those that solicit for LSs to spawn gods for them. I don't really know what causes the isolation and why they don't just join a LS to get the gear that they want. I would be interested in knowing the reasoning and not just assuming the worst in people. Ah, well.
Another lame post because I don't have any screen shots, but this is what you get today. I need to get some work done anyway.
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Fuck, no pictures and playing end-game WHM for melee.
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7 comments:
Dual boxing has been around for a long time in MMOG. It's not necessarily a JP trait to solo mostly while dual boxing 2 characters. A lot of times it's justified by leveing a job that compliments the jobs of another character's jobs that you already have leveled (i.e. whm with nin).
By leveling a different character, it also opens new jobs that you can level with new equipment sets, and not have to worry about inventory space issues with all your melee/mage equipment from your other character. I personally don't think SE thought this through when they thought about people leveling all their jobs to 75. Because there's no chance at all that someone can hold equipment for all of them and have the "best" gear for all of them. Even with them storing armor in storage, there's not enough inventory space to hold it all.
ANYways, I see leveling a second character up more as an opening to be able to open up inventory space for better equipment for that job. As well as a partner with my current character to do things solo from time to time like you said.
I kind of get what you are saying but its kind of antithetical to the notion of an MMO and specifically to FFXI as it is based on working with others not just yourself.
I like doing ls events, but I also like having the freedom of dualboxing small activities on my own such as breaking weapon latents, some enms/bcnms, farming, without trying to find available people, waiting for them to gear up, providing them direction, etc. Having just 1 extra character greatly expands the efficiency and choice of things you can do on your own, if you want to play when most of your LS has headed to bed, haha.
I don't know if I would have taken the time to level a 2nd character from 1-75, but since I inherited one I am leveling whm 63-70+ for R3. ^^;
I don't think working on my own is antithetical to FF gaming, SE's been pretty good about offering options for different types of players.
-AK
Do you give up doing events just so you can always dual box on your own? That is the situation that concerns me the most.
Well, I understand what you mean about dual boxing kind of defeating the purpose of a MMOG. But as it's been stated, there are certain times, certain events, and things you just can't do solo in the game where with one extra person you can do it, but no one is available to help at the time.
Of course you don't just dual box 100% of the time. Maybe if you want to level a job up from 1-75 you "can" do that if that's what you want to do. That's not much different from bst choosing not to party for exp.
In some cases, you can even dual box to ls events. Vespasian was an example with Hudak, and me with Elwendriel for a short time. Of course it's not something everyone can do, and not something most can do well.
Nah, I like going to ls events. My ls holds events Sun-Thu evenings, so there is personal time if I wanna stay up late, or login on weekends.
The other thing I want to mention is, I like having a 2nd account to well, actually play the game. For example, last Baha2 took 2 hours to get everyone together and run to the BC. The wait was particularly bad since several regular members are attending to RL lately so we waited for more people to login. I got there early and would have just stood around. I logged onto 2nd account to do some crafting, join assaults, check AH, etc. I did a lot of PM's this way too, from PM4-2 to 8-2.
Waiting around is an FF fact of life, but it's hard not to feel resentful if I wasted an evening standing around for 2 hours for a 4 minute BC. This way I can still get my time's worth and look back to my main once in a while to keep up on the latest LS chatter and jokes. :)
Sometimes I just clean my apt... very rarely though.
-AK
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