What Heavy DD Would You Pick And Why?

I recently came back to the game about 2 months ago, and i've been progressing pretty quickly and getting caught back up.

I'm trying to round out my job repertoire to my standard i keep in all momos of 'one of every type'. Currently i've gotten RDM/COR/PLD/GEO all relatively geared up- enough to do Wave 2 Dyna with zero problems.

My next thing to start working on - is a heavy DD.

What would you pick and why?

What are the pros/contra?

I've been leaning towards WAR, since it will have A ton of overlap with paladin gear in the defensive and offensive departments with Souveran/Soulevian/flamma gear.

But i also had a love for samurai back in the day too.

Keep leaning towards War. It's a very good DD.

WAR and DRK will be your overlap with PLD

Doing SAM or MNK would mean an entire new set of stuff

I did WAR due to versatility and sharing gear with PLD. It's good and I'm currently only a decently geared WAR right now. Don't have a chango yet but shining one hasn't let me down. I do get bored playing it very quickly, but DD/DPS has never been fun for me.

DRK, why? because its the best DD job

Start with WAR and branch out to DRK and DRG. Tons of gear overlap.

BUT if I have to pick one of my DDs it would be 100% SAM.

^ so much versatility and gear capable.

mnk blu nin run because dps doesn't mean as much as people think

and pup

WAR is the safe and popular choice I agree with, but I'm going to say go for DRG. The job is in an extremely good place right now and whatever gear you collect for DRG will be useful for your WAR later. It's incredibly fun to dps on and you'll be everyone's favorite SC partner. You also have the safety in jumps which help control hate. Also doesn't require a REMA to pump out those crazy numbers, as Shining One is a very very fun toy.

If were going that route, I'd say just continue to gear cor.

Warrior and dragoon are the easiest/quickest DDs to gear for endgame. I'd go with one of them personally.

Warrior pros:
-flexible, with lots of different weapons being viable, covering all damage types
-best zerg DD due to Mighty Strikes
-very high levels of attack and multihit
-Retaliation is cool as hell

Warrior cons:
-harder to reach high magic evasion compared to some other DDs
-harder to cap haste than other DDs
-I personally don't love great axe

Dragoon pros:
-High Jump and Super Jump mean that dragoon is the safest DD
-great sustained dps, high WS frequency, due to enmity reset moves -DRG can go hard for longer than other dps
-wyvern gives a whole bunch of great benefits, with it up DRG has high atk, wsdmg bonus, and native multihit

Dragoon cons:
-only really good with piercing weapons, some niche staff or even sword builds I guess
-you lose a lot without your wyvern, Call Wyvern timer is too damn long
-not as good in zergs as some other jobs

Mnk life bro...

Wars start wars... and we all know war is bad... you saw what Germany did...

Sams use a huge can opener... borrrrinnnnggggg

Drgs use toothpicks... yuck are they dentists or something?

Drks are emos and cut themselves... nuff said


But mnk? Thats where its at... at peace with the world... punches things in the face (and kicks) so hard the mobs are scared to tp often (thats how it works right??) and literally uses gods *** hands...

very compelling arguments in favor of warrior. How up to date is the warrior thread?

Not gonna even lie, Monk is stupid easy to gear and play. You can buy a full set of gear and belt right off the AH that you can use for nearly every scenario

It's really between WAR/DRK/SAM/DRG/MNK with each having their own benefits, I play all except DRG and MNK, though I did play them long enough to get 2100.

WAR has the most versatility and can be extremely hard to kill, largely thanks to the gear overlap with PLD. It can use a wide variety of weapons with many strong weapon skill choices for both pure damage, skill-chain ability and stat enfeebles. It contains two abilities that not only give itself a huge damage boost but also boosts the damage of everyone else in the party. Think of Warrior as the "kitchen sink" of the heavy DD's, a tool for every conceivable situation. Serious on that one, I've done stupid damage with a club before.

After that the other heavy DD's each have their own specialty, SAM's unmatched multi-step capability, DRK's stupid HP levels and hard hitting WS's, MNK's big HP pool and monster TP control, then DRG's ability to deal massive damage and shed that hate instantly. Furthermore DRK's and DRG's can give the entire party a large damage bonus and damage resistance against Dragon / Demon monster types, which can be very potent situationally.



We keep it very update to date with a wide variety of sets and options.

If you want a heavy DD I would say Galka DRK. Easily the heaviest DD, especially with Caladbolg as this sword looks like it weighs a ton.

Gonna throw a curveball- Ranger.

Its still very niche, but I'm a believer that literally almost anything can be done with a ranged setup, or a Ranger-centric setup.

Ranger is truly the safest DD, when played properly. You can be out of range of 95% of the attacks of ANY mob while still consistently dealing damage. Add in Decoy Shot and weapon options like Annihilator and Armageddon, and it becomes almost impossible to pull hate. Even Gandiva can be changed from just a "Hate Machine" into a "Hate Transfer Tool" when that AM3 is paired with a properly used Decoy Shot. Fomalhaut and Gastraphetes still have the potential to get you and your entire backline killed, and several of their weapons can literally blow up in your face, but again, that's usually the result of bad rangers or bad preparation to properly use a Ranger.

You'll have a lot of crossover gear from your Corsair, so gearing it won't be difficult outside of JSE, but you'd face that on most jobs anyways. But all those herc pieces, adhemar, oshosi, and malignance gear will carry over.

Ability to deal excellent physical AND magical damage. This is something that the other heavy DD's just can't do. You've got the Dark Side covered by Corsair, so embrace the Light, trust your feelings, and learn to love Trueflight!

In all honesty in terms of traditional "Heavy" DDs, (which I always interpreted not as "the DD's capable of the heaviest damage" but rather "the DD's who wear heavy armor"), DRK and WAR will have the most common gear crossovers with your PLD. You're either reaching or have already reached the point of where gear space is becoming an issue based on the jobs you listed...from now on, adding new jobs is going to be a balance of group need, personal desire, and SPACE.

I lol'd.

hol up, leme go get my Havel gear so we can go for max weight.....
wait wrong game

I would go with WAR because sometimes you just need to Mighty Strikes and obliterate something.

I have both MNK and WAR, and I'm a huge fan of MNK, but honestly I think WAR is a lot easier/cheaper to gear from scratch, or at least you'll get more bang for your buck there, along with a quite a bit more flexibility. If I had to recommend one for someone in your situation, I'd say WAR for sure. It's just so versatile and good out of the box.

Ehhhh


Then do sam. It pumps out the most damage in non-MS situations anyway.

I don't play SAM, but I find it hard to believe in zerg situations without additional SC damage, a SAM would out-do a DRK. But I'm all for seeing some spreadsheets/etc if there is evidence they have a higher potential without skillchain damage than DRK does.

Now, if they're able to fully abuse their greatest gift, no doubt that's the case.

Cor sam mnk

Currently all five of the DD's I mentioned do about the same damage, Warrior gets a special nod because Mighty Strikes + party wide TP Bonus from Warcry.

As for DRK vs SAM, DRK will WS harder due to it's insane pDiff cap, SAM (and WAR) will WS more frequently due to it's built in Store TP. So think of weaker WS's but more of them, quantity vs quality. The two determiners of WS frequency are Multi-Attack (average swings per attack) and Store TP (TP gained per swing). DRK has neither of these naturally, instead it has a helluva lot higher damage cap. R15 Cal pumping out 45~70K (depending on TP) Torc's is no joke.

Believe it or not, SE has actually achieved "balance" among the heavy DD jobs for once.

I recently took up SAM, R15 Masa and almost BIS Gearsets (Omen Cards is all I’m missing.. damn time gates...) With NORMAL DD buffs.

Regal COR, usually SAM and DRK roll
Geomancy +7 GEO (I’ll take Idris seriously eventually)
3-Song GHorn BRD with +8 all songs(finishing Aeonic before Dardar)
WHM with... Boost STR and Auspice? *Shrugs*
Usually WAR Sub but DRG sub is growing on me

With this fairly basic setup, Tachi: Fudo very frequently pushes 50-65k. Not all the time, sometimes there will be a low number and sometimes you’ll crack right the *** out and hit an 80k from nowhere on Neak, but usually pretty high. Trying not to give an estimated average because that’s strongly frowned upon.

What I’m getting at is that SAM should perform solidly in a Zerg as well. WAR will probably always be king if 1-Hours are used or THF if the boss uses MS and THF Larceny’s that ***, but just overall haymakers? SAMs pretty good with a straight Fudo Spam. And of course *IF* a SC connects, it’ll get a nice boost from SAMs traits.

To the OP, WARs a great choice, nice power and outstanding Defense from Gear options. Low MEVA though as already pointed out.

SAM is the SC ***. Kinda Glassy though, lower HP and it’s Defense isn’t the greatest. WAR and MNK much safer defensively.

MNK is super good and you pretty much just need Kenda Set and Moonbow Belt and a weapon and you’re good to go.

BLU is an overlooked Heavy too but only when it’s maxed out. Expiacion Spam in DD Conditions with BIS gear and Thibron will have you dumping 50+ every WS (extremely consistent WS) but a lot of people seem to have forgotten about that BLUs a very strong DD and extremely useful as well. Utility and Hellraiser all in one.

There’s more too, but just throwing my two cents in on that for now.

I would put Sam or Mnk as the DD of choice. Primarily because of versatility.

War can deal a lot of damage but they are pretty much party bound. They don't work well outside of a party. War is especially bad because they feed a massive amount of TP to the mob from double attack. Still, it is probably the most powerful DD in a Zerg situation. Warcry and Mighty Strikes are very good.

Drk falls somewhere in the middle. They have really high attack so they can cap attack without the need for Idris Geo. This makes them pretty good as the sole DD in a party. Outside of the party, they tend to juggle with spells too much for my liking and they have very very bad multi-step skillchain.

Sam is good because they can do quick damage with skillchain without 1hr and they gain more TP than they feed.

I like Mnk the most because they give so much less TP that it is very noticeable and they still do a lot of damage on their own. Still, I think they probably rank near the bottom of the heavy DD list.

Has anyone tried to compare Drg? They seem to get a lot of buffs lately but haven't noticed them since I don't have Drg.

DRG is difficult... They excel more at lower buff situations, or longer fights. Neither which really seem to occur much nowadays.
They get +20% JA Haste through just wyvern + /SAM, additional DA, and then the instant damage/TP of Jumps. Hate shedding makes them awesome in situations with longer lasting mobs (like, both of them).

In Zerging, Fly High basically ensures that they can just Jump > WS > Jump > WS nonstop on loop until Fly High is over. However, you actually need to be careful doing this, because you can WS too fast and miss the opportunity to self SC.

Wyverns are a lot more survivable recently, especially with Spirit Bond (3 minute duration, 1 minute recast, like Majesty), which will cause the DRG to take some of the damage of the Wyvern, but also make healing breath heal the wyvern... and if you have a set for breaths, that will take it from dead to max in a single 50s CD breath. It's much more likely that if you find yourself without a wyvern, it's because the DRG died multiple times in the last few minutes, and less because the wyvern died on its own.

However, unlike other jobs, most DRG gear comes from drops. You can't just hit the AH for stuff. I can't recommend it at a first job, but definitely something that you'd need to work for. And spend longer augmenting stuff than anyone ever should ever.