Dancer and Scholar as Monk Subjobs + New Missions and Quests Rewards
Dancer and Scholar as Monk Subjobs + New Missions and Quests RewardsI am writing this entry a bit in a hurry to get it ready while it's still more useful to people. I played around a bit with dancer and scholar in the couple of days since they have been added, and I have a decent idea of how they will play as subjobs to monk. I also added some tips on leveling them up and discuss briefly quests missions and rewards from them. MNK/SCH: Unfortunately, as sub for monk, scholar doesn't offer much, especially compared to other mage subs like WHM or RDM. All the cool unique SCH spells are above 37, and all the grimoire abilities (half cost or half casting speed) are not so useful given the spells available.
It only has low level cure spells and damage spells, but no enfeebles and minimal enhancing. RDM and WHM make better subs in terms of spells (erase &-na spells, teleports, reraise, bar-/stoneskin/blink/phalanx, dispel, bio2/dia2, etc). The only plus side is regen2.
MNK/DNC: This sub is more fun and practical. I didn't have much time to test it and I only got dancer to 18 in the couple of days since the expansion, but it definitely has its uses.
Dancer is a lot like a sort of erasing/curing bard job (while ordinary bard is more about enhancing). Just like bard, it uses no MP and can't be interrupted, but the moves use TP (small amounts) and are more instantaneous, which just adds a bit of a delay until the next attack, more like a WS.
Healing Waltz is like an erase/-na spell on a PT target.
You also get a Drain Samba which is very nice as dancer main (drains for 4-8hp per punch at lvl 5-10 which is a lot at that level),
but as main monk Drain Samba effect is half of that (just 2-4hp per punch) which is basically worthless at 75. You get a Drain Samba 2 as well which should be a bit stronger, but I think it'll still be too weak (since DNC main gets 4 levels of it before they get to 75).
It is nice because it sticks as an enfeeble effect on the enemy for a few seconds, so everyone in the PT can drain with each attack for the same amount, plus it lasts on you for several minutes so you can keep re -sticking it on the enemy, and only costs 10TP. But that's kinda useless as a subjob since it would be so much better to use the one of a dancer main instead (drain samba3) if you are in a PT, and again if you are soloing it's still too weak.
I was impressed by the Curing Waltz however. It restores 69 hp for 20TP as main dancer lvl 15, but it restores 100HP on my mnk75/dnc15 (it seems to be enhanced by VIT and CHR from the few swaps I did and 100 appears to be the cap). You get a higher level Curing Waltz as a subjob which appears to cure at least twice as much (so probalby at least 200hp for 35tp as mnk main). The recast is only a couple of seconds, I often couple it right before an asuran fist to minimize wasted tp and loss of punches.Updated from Nov. 25: I played a bit more with dancer and soloed it very quickly to lvl 25 (getting 300-480xp per kill it doesn't take long to level up).
There are a few other very nice abilities for subjob use.
Quickstep every 15 seconds reduces the enemy's evasion and stacks up to level 5 (usually I only got to stick 3 before they died). It works great with BST subjob for soloing, I basically charm a strong DC/EM pet, and then chain through Ts by lowering their evasion repeatedly until my pet can hit almost every time, using the provoke flourish move when my pet is low on HP (I have about +27 evasion in gear at level 25, plus an extra evasion bonus trait and capped parrying, so I take damage better than my pet).
The Aspir Samba of course is useless for soloing as mnk/dnc since you have no spells.
Spectral Jig is actually quite nice to have. It is a simultaneous sneak and invisible, but they are fairly short, usually they wear after just 30 seconds, but it's ready to be recast by then and it's free (no TP or MP cost), so it's still very nice to have. You can't recast it while it's active however just as for sneak, so you have to cancel it (at least the sneak part) before recasting and you can be detected at that point (differently from tonko which has a long fixed timer and can be recast right in front of an enemy without getting detected).
The Divine Waltz is a curaga version of the Curing Waltz (works on the entire party for 40TP instead of 20TP on 1 target), and cures for basically the same amount. A party of 6 MNK/DNC swapping hate and spamming this curaga for 600HP every 15-20 seconds could be nice (swapping hate in order would be important to get the most out of this).
Leveling up tips:
I already have an entry on how to level up subjobs solo quickly ( here). But since these jobs play a bit different and since a few things changed in the game mechanics since then, I will add a few tips here.
I recommend mostly atk food, lower level ones give a bit extra atk but even the usual mitkabobs will work.
For level 1-10, I recommend using /PUP, to get free dia, flash, range pulls, erase, extra melee damage (and enthunder), and after level 6 unlimited cures as well. Remember to dismiss and reactivate your pet every couple of levels so its stats and spells get updated.
After a while the level difference with the PUP pet will become a bit more noticeable. At this point I found that switching to /BST subjob was great. Since a few updates ago having a bst pet no longer hurts your xp, so I charmed DC/EM pets and used them for extra damage and pulls.
With dancer especially at level 15+ you can use 20tp (so every 2 swings) to cure about 1/3rd of your total HP, so staying alive is very easy, but doing damage faster is a bit more of the problem, but the pets take care of that and keep attacking while you dance. When a pet becomes uncharmed it's fairly easy for dancer to stay alive until it's recharmed, even while fighting a tough enemy at the same time (just spam waltz and charm).
With that setup I got a lot of chain#4s on Toughs and even some VTs, which give a lot of xp, both without xp rings:
and with them:
Learn how to play, people!!: One thing I noticed a lot leveling up the new jobs is that a lot of people carry around a level 75 zombie mage (or a really bored and overly subservient person) to help them level up.
The thing is, there is really no need for that if you know how to play! You can get the same xp/hr just by yourself with just a little skill.
It's kind of a waste of people's time if it's a real person, and don't give me that "we are having fun together and talking", because you could both be leveling up new jobs.
You don't get xp much faster than chain #5 solo, and while you could try to take on ITs with someone spamming high-level cures on you from outside, it would take you too long to kill it to be an efficient use of your time.
I guess part of what I find concerning about this is that people level up without really learning how to play or seeing what works and what doesn't and adjust accordingly.
At that point, you might as well do the trick of not xping at all and just going AFK as level 1 in an xp area, get your friends or servants to make a 5 person 75 melee-burn with your level 1 in it, and check back in 4 days when your character got from 1 to 75 by leeching all the XP., like some people have done...
Quests and missions + Rewards:
The missions and rewards so far are a bit disappointing. I mean they are really cool, and the new areas in the past look much better, but there is basically no reward for them. You can get some shoes that have 15 charges of a special variation of improved movement speed, but that is kinda useless because you basically can't use it in fights (it gets canceled if you get hit or attacked or you attack anything). So basically they are useful maybe to walk around town a little faster... and with all the teleports and ways to travel (chocobos, outposts, spells etc) I don't see much of a use for it. All the other rewards are not anything special and not really wearable by monk, except the cobra commando set which adds a minimal amount of INT, MND and mp (could be worth wearing for looks at best).
There are two quests that give a deathstone and an angelstone respectively, which is useful for the new gobbiebag quests, but even those are already becoming reasonably priced again. The gobiebag quests are a nice increase, but I think people get confused and forget that each only adds 5 spaces, not 10, so you get 10 spaces total from both.
This version update will give me something to do for a little bit, and I really like that pretty much everything is soloable and doable on your own schedule (so I don't have to rush through everything right away to avoid missing the boat), but it would have been nice to have some actual useful reward from all this.
