What Heavy DD Would You Pick And Why?

Simon I know you play a variety of jobs and you're very opinionated about your stances but I respectfully disagree. I know what thief is capable of because it's my main and I've taken the time to gear mine up to its fullest. It's peak potential is much closer to the rest of the field than you give it credit for. But any further discussion is pointless because you're not going to change your stance and it's counterproductive to the topic.



I think this is a more useful measure of job utility in an event. Especially since there are several events that cater more to X type of job over Y type of job because Z strategy is better than alternatives for that specific content.

Like Melphina has said, when you invest a good amount of time into THF, it's pretty crazy. One of our members has a pretty decked out THF and seeing it in action has changed my opinion on THF DD. This coming from a Calad DRK.

I will agree that THF can put up respectable numbers, biggest concern is survivability. Unless running some sort of hybrid/dt set, thf gets smashed but then you're into the x fight, y buffs, etc.

Ultimately I think dps comes down to survivability and the ability to resist debuffs/mitigate damage. If your dps is just debuffed constantly or getting killed it's just a worthless slot. Which is why I believe SAM/MNK to be solid options because the easy access to Kenda, or a RUNE because obvious reasons.

100% agree, but Malignance really leveled the playing field for a lot of the "light DD's".

Yes, sir! Just gotta be on that grind and farm it!

On war it is actually 50 SB 1 and 15 SB 2 and fairly easy to hit on war with a WHM. (57.5% SB) Never said 45. I assume you just added the two rings up and assumed that meant everything? I was just pointing out a good option for it.

No i dont, I zerg most things as RUN WAR COR BARD WHM GEO. so no on that. 1 cor. I feel like i have explained this to you on multiple threads now... I cant think of a scenario where it is 2 cors or bust on war. Maybe the frog month ambu? I seem to remember still not needing 2 cors on that though. This months ambu is nice with 2 cors, not neccessary though. A SCH is just as nice imo.


you are comparing the wrong numbers
You do realize war has access to other SB gear?

A scenario where whm is in an outside party is a scenario with a bunch of DD (most of the time, but please share your party builds, maybe i havnt thought of some.). Like Dynamis D where you have 4+ DD wailing on a mob. Subtle blow loses a lot of it's luster in that scenarion since it is still spamming TP moves because 5 melee are force feeding it TP even with capped Subtle Blow. And to get all DD capped on SB in that scenario they would all have to be mnk


I never made the argument that war has better SB builds, just that it has a good one. Not sure why you seem to be using the BEST Subtle blow build as the standard. It is the only one you compared it to. Is monk's Subtle blow build better? DUHHHHHHH. Kinda silly to point out something that blatantly obvious. A better comparison would have been sam, sam edges out war in that scenario, but not by much. Sam doesn't need to make any changes and war has to make mild changes to cap SBI and get our respective max on SBII.

War Subtle Blow vs MNK Subtle Blow is a silly comparison. Basically all other melee jobs would make a better comparison against War Subtle Blow.

I stand by my statement. Perhaps I'll clarify a bit. The argument against war because of Subtle Blow is meh.
ItemSet 370753

This is a war SB set. Mostly free and the only real downside is the neck swap. Body can be a pain, but they have been dropping like hot cakes since the AMAN event got implemented.

Malignance is a godsend for survivability and a downright amazing TP set on high level content. I specifically mentioned the current generation of equipment because s-e has given us so many options that the gaps between the different class's peak potential are heavily blurred, and I also mentioned that some jobs are more equipment intensive because in some cases grinding out a lot of the time consuming pieces like said malignance gear is all but necessary for end game content. The "heavy armor" classes tend to be more new player friendly and gear up easier and faster overall, and by default their survivability is higher. They also put out some really impressive numbers too. Warrior, dark knight, and samurai are all juggernaughts when they're geared up.

But with enough dedication and equipment grinding the light armor classes can put up very similar levels of performance and come with added utility. They aren't as new player friendly though, and tend to have a much slower progression curve, and that curve tends to have "critical mass" point if you will, where further equipment upgrades beyond that point multiply potential much faster than before it. Reaching that point takes longer and has a higher investment cost, but if you really want to play the job and have the drive to stick with it the potential is there.

I like drg. Working on bst malignance and beits grind for aymur. Once done ill post on the bst thread about some numbers of it in a woc melee zerg or something.

Silly comparison? Warrior doesnt have penance or can inflict plague. The difference between the two jobs is:monks main TP set is capped subtle blow. Warrior....show me one warrior that EVER goes into a fight with subtle blow.

jeez man, he's just saying if one chooses to focus on that kind of build, it can be done easier than mentioned.

I know a RDM who has a subtle blow build so he can melee w/ Croc on statues in dynamis- probably one of the few times he uses it, but its pretty damn awesome that he decided to do it- fun if nothing else.

He's just saying that its not "as bad" as was being made in comparison to MNK, which no one is arguing is the supreme leader in the clubhouse with a subtle blow setup that doesn't alter their damage output nearly as much as it does WAR....but it doesn't cripple WAR to do so.

how 'bout a little points for creativity vs all the disdain?

Yes, silly comparison. for the same reasons you gave. War doesnt have access to plague and Penance. Same is true for every other job. I suppose pup comes closest since they get shijin?

Basically mnk not even trying vs ANY OTHER job is a win for mnk in Subtle Blow. so not a good comparison.

If you actually read my post, everything you said was already answered.

What people generally do has no weight in the conversation. Only what they are capable of doing. capping SB I on war is easy to do. I even posted the set.


For future reference.... if you only have issues or plan to address part of someones post just quote that part instead of taking up that much space lol.

Also make sure you actually read the posts. Your concerns were already addressed. Reasons were given.


Celebrindal understood the point of the post. Not sure why you didnt.


IF you were trying to say mnk is a good Heavy DD option BECUASE it has best Subtle Blow? then ya sure. Mnk is good now. It is honestly good without Subtle Blow too. I just recommend war.

Every set basically caps SB for Monk. While getting full meva bonuses and incredible white damage and ws damage. TA huge HP pool also helps. Taken together, its an easy choice to suggest.

Monk is also tougher than warrior- more HP, more meva with high offense, Counter is very relevant again. I have started down the serious warrior path and it's great for the reasons Spaitin said (increases pt dps), also covers all damage types and WELL too, but monk is such a beast right now. Lots of offense and lots of defense, plus Inhibit TP and Plague.

Well to be fair that's one of Monks biggest benefits. The H2H WS update was the only thing Monk needed, and long overdue, to be in the heavy DD category. Remember this category is for jobs chosen specifically for their damage contribution. So now we got a heavy damage dealer with good survivability that just happens to give very little TP.

As for THF, it's not a heavy DD, it's damage output is tied to two annoying timers. It can hit very very hard on demand but those hits have large gaps in them. Best use is closing SCs. Honesty I wish SE would turn hide into an enmity dump with a one or two min timer. Combine that with enmity stealing and THF becomes every WAR/SAM/DRK best friend.

Drk or sam if you wanna be cool and stylish, drg if you need a friend.

War if you prefer to be a boring person without personality 8D.

Mnk suck because mnk has no hair, argh. Hair or bust :<

The best mnk ever would like a word with you

I'd be perfectly happy with this if that was all we got for the thief update, whenever it may eventually roll around. I'd love for them to make hate control more useful.

While I agree that mnk is more durable. I would say war takes the second spot pretty easy.
I tank most content on war these days (most helms and ambu). War is plenty durable. War also gets it's best DPS while tanking (unless the mob has some wierd mechanic)

I really like Mantra in a party though. makes things safer. Makes doing stuff like Kyou EXTREMELY easy. Granted Kyou is pretty easy in general.

So back to Subtle blow.
Being able to make a working subtle blow tp set on war is ok, but lets look at it in more practical way.

You build for SB, so the mob has bad tp moves, so you will want to switch to have dt/meva too (I guess you can setup react to switch you to dt/meva set, but not everyone use that), so you will need to now either put Subtle blow in your hybrid set, or change to hybrid without SB for spells and tp moves. So you will feed more tp then. Then you have WS set. WS set should also have Subtle blow if you focus on not feeding TP. You would need to make another sacrifices for that.

So while in theory, set like you posted Spaitin is good, in practice it's hard to use. Trying to close the gap to monk will require putting that SB everywhere, not just to tp set. Monk has that 75% SB in almost all sets without sacrificing anything.


Maybe vs undead or super dark resisting mobs otherwise DRK with 7000-9999 HP and pretty much immunity to melee hits via Dread Spikes (after good Drain III, Dread spikes can absorb like 7000+HP and you can recast them pretty frequently with haste buffs) is even more durable than MNK. Then there is also Apocalypse.

Remember when people were complaining about BLU having Cocoon, a level 8 spells since forever. Not once has it been brought up, yet we see how far behind it is compared to these "heavy DD" that can have 9999 HP, super powered WS and abilities. I honestly do just laugh at how everyone wanted it nerfed so badly on this forum only a few years ago, to now we are talking about such silly defensive qualities from jobs that are suppose to be considered glass cannons in most cases.

Yes, it is time to begin the buffs to BLU.

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Spamming Dread spikes kinda cripples dps on drk. The 9999 HP trick is kinda neat. But you also get the more extreme version of argosy "Ratri". Most times i see a dead drk is when they get caught in that set. So it is a bit different "durability" we are talking about. But yeah drk is very durable.

The set i posted is easy to use. I use it semi often and lol at needing to use react for it, it is literally 2 items different than a stand war TP set. I would say in practice, easy to use. Can also just go sam/mnk roll. Great combo and +7 geo and bard will cap your attack an anything you arnt using a 1 hour on for war..

Again, I am perplexed why you are comparing it to the 75% mnk gets. Yeah war loses hanily to mnk Subtle Blow builds.. . as well as every other job. AGAIN, better comparison would be ANY other heavy DD. MNK beats all DD about the same as it beats war in Subtle blow.




I mean... i have made that same point multiple times in this thread...

You can keep saying that or look up the facts. while THF dps is good and like Austar said DPS is not most important thing very often, saying that THF with enough dedication can even stand close to for example DRG dps is simply misleading.

Im a really dedicated THF. I have R15 Twashtar, Centovente, Full Malignance, JSE+2 neck etc. so I know how good THF is not only from theoretical but also practical point of view. THF has no build that has both amazing white and ws damage.


I might be controversial here, but I think Caladbolg DRK is actually not among top DPS jobs for events like Dynamis. Everyone keep saying Caladbolg is so good, because they have those 2000-3000tp Torcleaver numbers stuck in their head. Without WAR to support Caladbolg with Warcry, Torcleaver becomes a good but not amazing WS at 1000+ TP. Now in zergs with warcry and/or soul enslavement it's whole different story.

Why we suddenly talking about zergs? In zergs durability is usually a non issue anyway, because you are overbuffed to the roof, including defensive buffs. Durability is more a problem on long events like dynamis. Also even for zergs, prebuffing that include one spell is nothing hard, but really in most scenarios, you can just drain III your main target.


Apocalypse isnt popular. Most people who make one, do it for fun or because it's a relic, which is much cheaper than mythic or empy. In top LSs almost none is using Apocalypse outside of oh ***situations or some low man stuff.


Ratri makes you vulnerable in completely different way than argosy, because Argosy has negative evasion and no meva at all, while Ratri has good evasion and very high magic evasion, so even with all that DT+ spells and magic based TP moves will usually do less damage than in TP set (unless you tp in Volte) and you will also resist most debuffs. Ratri is mostly a problem against physical tp moves. Now Argosy makes you totally naked against magic damage and debuffs.



None is talking about spamming. Like I said, good Dread Spikes can absorb around 7000+ HP. 99% of the time they will last full duration. I was talking about being able to recast them fast in case of dispel.


You misunderstood. I was talking about using react to switch to hybrid/DT sets for tp moves and spells and use your SB set for TP. Most people just full time hybrid for fights against stuff with nasty TP moves (for which you would also want to use SB set). You can obviously do it manually, but my point was that that set you posted is only a subtle blow in TP set. You would need to have SB included also in hybrid/dt/ws sets or else you will still feed a lot of TP while switching to those sets.

I second this!
BLU is easily the best dd with minimal buffs, and still very good in a party situation. Plenty of spells to boost yourself, caps haste solo, etc. And can get by without a rema in about every scenario.

2020 and it's still here. 5 years.

Incoming another job discussion in 2030 then draylo randomly pop and complain about blu discussion back in 2015. Geez.

You know the THF update will be a mysterious Treasure Hunter function and they will tell you that it is explained in the Absolute Virtue video.

In a more serious note, I've seen many people here say WAR. That means a lot of people are doing it already so you may want to look for something less "bandwagon".

I don't exactly mean WAR is the current bandwagon job, but it was just a word I used to describe an oversupply of already highly geared WAR lurking around.

Good luck in the WARs ahead.

By now, everyone in this game should be able to tell all these differences without a hassle... but to make it short:

The concept of "Heavy DD" is ancient, the maximum DPS landscape shifted towards being tactical than anything else due to how endgame mechanics are currently designed. Literally, any DPS job can be great these days.

For the sake of argument, its only viable to differentiate between all these classes on the bases of (i) how gear intensive the class is (if you're Monica about inventory), (ii) your personal preference, and (iii) the level of investment (time and cost) that you're willing to put in.

As it was mentioned before, the balance that SE is trying to implement is actually getting somewhere with the player base, no need to really stress over it.

I'd go SAM or MNK or both if you can, all of the heavy DD are pretty close in Dynamis type content in terms of raw DPS but in today's day and age this is very limited and I'd much rather low man stuff with a SAM or MNK as my primary dps vs other jobs who don't have access to things like Kenda/Malignance.

It was mentioned few times. Just not discussed much. I think this is because most people agree that RUN is strong DD in max buff situation, but falls back when he is attack starved.