What Heavy DD Would You Pick And Why?

"Heavy DD" has a meaning though originally it got that name because the pure DD jobs used heavy armor. Now it's just a short hand for jobs who's specific purpose is offensive in nature and they actually success at that purpose. This is importing in game balance because Hybrid jobs, jobs with multiple facets, suffer from spreading themselves out too much. It's a question of damage ceilings in common melee DPS orientated setups.

A few months back the "Heavy DD" jobs were WAR/DRK/SAM. Other jobs "could" do damage, but those three consistently had the highest damage ceiling for group content we actually care about. DRG was almost there but didn't provide enough damage volume to fit in. MNK sucked *** hard, not because the job itself was bad, to the contrary the job was quite good, but the weapon categories it had access to were the absolute worst in the game. H2H, Club and Staff were bottom tier without resorting to a gimmick. Then SE buffed H2H and made it not bottom tier while also giving DRG a blanket WS damage increase, both of these changes resulted in DRG and MNK being elevated to the "Heavy DD" category.

"Heavy DD" are exchangeable with each other, you can swap them around with very little consideration to buffs or strategies. Jobs like DNC,THF,NIN,BLU require special considerations to optimize their damage due to how extremely situational they are. Sure you can force them to do good damage via buffs, but with that same logic "Heavy DD" would do even more. Of course fans of those jobs are going to rage, stamp their feet and scream at the community to recognize them, the MNK's did the same and were generally laughed at for it.

To the OP, WAR is suggested so much not because it's "the best" but because it has a huge amount of versatility and will be successful in whatever situation it finds itself in. Warrior has never been a "weak" job because it has an answer to whatever the meta ends up being, while the other heavy DD jobs historically tended to be reliant on SE's capricious judgement for winners and losers. Assault Jerkin vs Hauby, Kitty Pants, Argosy, stuff like that. SE has gotta way better at not arbitrarily disadvantaging jobs for no reason.

Nitpicking but I wouldn't call BLU an "extremely situational" job, nor does it need special considerations. Like WAR, it can excel in just about any situation due to its extreme versatility and customizability. Also if we're assuming everything maxed out, Tiz BLU can keep up DPS wise.

This is less a function of anything particular to this or that job than the sheer insanity one can build any given job up to in a game with broad lateral progression and very little vertical over the past few years.

This leads to the other question posed just before your post of "what is the DPS requirement for X and what does Y job need to do to meet it", the answers to which are "fairly low" and "a relatively modest investment of time and gil over a few weeks to a few months." I'm just repeating myself here, but DPS really doesn't matter in the current meta beyond the binary question of "do I need to kill this target before my-or-somebody-else's SP ability wears off?"

I'd like to muddy the waters for a 4th time in this thread:

SE is moving the game away from traditional roles of "DD, Tank, Support" and encouraging more hybrid roles by increasing the damage mitigating abilities of pure DDs and improving the DD capabilities of support jobs and tanks.

WAR/DRK/SAM/MNK/DRG have better survivability today than ever before- many people in this thread have mentioned "tanking" on WAR, MNK,SAM....even DRK with the proper environment.

Malignance gear has given some jobs that same survivability to come into the thick of the battle safely and DPS better. For other support jobs, it has given both that safety net as well as much need accuracy boosts and other DD stats to become competitive. Think of all the changes made to RDM in the past year. BRD and COR now DD better than ever in their existence.

Tanks (ok, really just RUN but we'll pretend PLD is getting it too) now are able to DPS at such a high level they're like 3/4ths of a dedicated DD with the ability to keep a dangerous mob's attention.

About the only category of job that still maintains "one" role is the healer. And even then, SCH has seen such improvements that it can still be a viable part of dealing damage while keeping the party alive.

I firmly believe this is deliberate as the game population decreases. If you can have a job do TWO jobs rather than one, lowmanning content becomes easier. If you can have a MNK tank/DD, RDM support/DD, COR support/DD, all of a sudden you can shrink that party size to fit who you can find to do things.

We don't have 64 man Dynamis any more, we have 18 man Dynamis-D. The game is working towards being still enjoyable with 6-10 character setups vs 18+setups.

So what to do with this? Play jobs that are flexible and versatile, capable in various roles, and can be pushed to different limits in different ways. Super-gearing 1 job for two roles often takes less space than gearing two jobs for 1 role each. Maybe you don't need both a Tank and a "heavy DD" any more because your DD is "tanky" enough, or your Tank "can DD". Or you can push your COR to crazy DPS possibilities with a variety of builds to fit magical and physical damage, vs just being a leaden/roll ***. The options are endless.

Anything a BLU can do those other jobs can do even better. I happen to have all the above and have used BLU as a "Heavy DD" on real fights, it falla behind all the rest. Sword SCs kinda suck and BLUs best spam option is overshadowed by the options of the other jobs.



No, SE doesn't really get a choice in the matter. They can try to design systems to force players to use a certain model, and ultimately it's the player base that makes these decisions. The whole "trinity" system wasn't something a game designer created but rather the results of optimization. Multiple people optimizing in a single role leads to better results then those same people playing generic multi-role characters.

Example right here,

Party 1
RUN/PLD
WAR/SAM/DRK/DRG/MNK
DD COR
DD BRD
GEO
WHM

Party 2
BLU
DNC
THF
NIN
BST
RDM

Party 1 would absolutely destroy Party 2 in every way possible. This is because party 1 can capitalize on each of those jobs specializations which results in multiplying the overall power of the party. This is known as a Force Multiplier. Multi-role hybrid jobs will, by definition, never be as effective as single role jobs because of Force Multipliers.

This isn't a video game concept, it's actually the critical event that resulted in human civilization. Humans naturally will gravitate towards combining specializations on a team.

Completely agree with you, and no matter what SE does going in this direction they're trying to push (which I truly believe they are), well manned groups that have the ability to specialize like this certainly will win out. But I do think SE is worried about overall playerbase attrition due to isolated players and small groups feeling like "we can't accomplish anything except getting it merc'ed by the REAL groups". And as such, is increasing the capabilities of jobs to be more hybrid and allow smaller groups to have success.

Not to mention that your "winning" party of group 1 uses two of the things I mention- DD COR and DD BRD...things that 5 years ago were anemic compared to what they can do now. Your 2nd group, by the way, is just a conglomeration of "weak" DDs/support, not a properly formed hybrid concept party. I'd still rank your first group as stronger, but here's what I'd compare it to:

WAR
DD COR
BLU
THF
RDM
SCH

Both parties have capped haste, a dedicated healer and attack buffs. The 1st party has a dedicated Tank(and if a RUN, one could argue that's a DD Tank), a Dedicated DD, and a Dedicated Healer. The 2nd party has a hybrid tank/DD and 2 hybrid DDs/support(in BLU and RDM). Again, your 1st setup is still stronger and more capable than my suggestion, but I do believe its a more "fair" comparison.

I'm curious what you're considering a "real fight" that BLU falls behind the rest considering all it has. As an aside, if you're worried about sword SC damage, pair a Tiz BLU with a Trish DRG. It's a good time with constant darkness/umbra even if just spamming WS. JA wise I'll agree that BLU is limited, but I'd say the job traits it gets from spells makes up for that part and can sub DRG now for some minor hate control and extra WSD on expiacion.

Well this thread got out of hand quickly

No GEO = instant fail.
No BRD = instant fail.
Neither RDM nor SCH can replace WHM, especially with that many people in range. That group you posted would be fail sauce in any real fight.

Both BRD and COR are invited for their specialization, damage is just a nice aide side benefit.

This is fundamentally about specialization and it's effect as a Force Multiplier. Extra haste and pDiff really make that big a difference.

They all do.

It's the "Why isn't my favorite job included!!!" from insecure players.

The problem with RUN to me, as a DD, is that it's hard to cap attack in Dyna-D, but for Resolution, you have to *overcap*, so that's not ideal. RUN doesn't natively have high attack like DRK/DRG/WAR, either. For Omen, aeonic farm, a lot of Ambuscade months, DD/hybrid RUN is really good. You can play it like a tougher WAR and just spam Reso to hold hate.

BLU to me is the great "Band-Aid" for a party. Able to fix things that a party setup is lacking, and do so "good enough" but not quite to the extent that a dedicated job can fill that role. No Bard? Go BLU+another source of haste. Need extra cures, but not a main healer? Set those spells for AoE curing spam and hurt your dps a little. Need a stun gun, but can't give up a DD? Bring a BLU to do a little of both.

Sword WSs are by comparison weaker than 2hander or ranged counterparts-even weaker than some dagger weaponskills. They work well with other jobs, certainly, but if talking raw damage and you don't "need" the other tools that a BLU brings, you'd be better to bring a true dedicated DD job and SC between two strong DDs.

Saevel is rightfully arguing that job specialization leads to the strongest groups. This is without a doubt true if you can cover all the needs of that group- healing, support, tank role, DD role. I am arguing that if you can't, jobs like BLU can make things work out "ok" because you can still reach those thresholds of haste, attack buffs, and debuffs to allow respectable DPS numbers to accomplish the task.

But try taking out a specialized party that can't find a 4 song bard, so has to change bubble and song setup to reach that haste cap, reducing buffs/debuffs. That "specialized" group gets weaker, and noticeably so. So sometimes, smaller groups of friends/people have to make concessions to be successful, and that's where these more hybrid jobs can shine.

Trying to put a "hybrid" job into a specialized setup and it will perform at a lower level. You're restricting the usage of that job to one role, and it was never designed to do that singular role as well because its capable of doing a LOT.

-A WHM is a dedicated healer, so of course it can heal better than a RDM. But a RDM can debuff, nuke, and melee better than a WHM...but it does 2 of those things WEAKER than other specialized jobs (in my example, nukes weaker than a BLM and DD's weaker than our traditional "heavy" DDs- no crocea+sanguine arguments in dynamis- I'm talking standard environments).

-A DRK is a dedicated DPS job. Its certainly a better DD in that specialized setup than a BLU. But that DRK can't toss an emergency AoE cure to wake a sleeping party, or throw out a Mighty Guard because you only have a 3song bard. Get some, lose some.


**EDIT**
And @Saevel- no GEO doesn't equal insta-fail. Its CERTAINLY harder, and some fights become almost impossible without them, but there are huge swaths of content where you can function without them.

No GEO+No BRD? Yeah pretty rough, and the setup I posted does put that party into that situation. Won't argue that one.

Three biggest force multipliers.

GEO - capped attack multiplier / extra defense/ pretty much a huge bonus to anything the group needs.
BRD - fulltime capped attack speed / bonus acc and atk / bonus resistance / scherzo.
WHM - everyone is alive and kept that way / bonus resistance / fast status ailment removal. Curaga III is the best response heal in the game.

Fourth would be COR because Samurai's Roll is that big a DPS booster.

Notice that each of those things stacks with each other and results in the players being many times stronger then they were normally. Hybrid DPS are useful because they add a specific function for specific situations.

We also just spent a few pages talking about kits, total alliance setup, synergies, etc. BLU brings unique buffs, unique debuffs, stunning potential, while also incredibly good DPS and SC potential. Just like on page 2 when someone was declaring that WAR brings a lot of DPS party buffs to the table. What I haven't seen explicitly stated here is that SAM offers DEF down with Ageha, DRG also offers a DEF down with Angon and healing with their wyvern, and DRK offers a steady breeze as their huge weapons pass by the mobs they're fighting (DRK missing joke circa 2005).

The reality is that we've seen an astronomical amount of gear and buff potency inflation where we're now almost exclusively talking about ATT capped scenarios, and then adding 50 more buffs. Dual Wielders tend to excel more in these situations, because of their ATT starved nature. So maybe it's only 200 to cap a DRK, or 600 to cap a DRG, but if you're getting 1000 from the 4 REMA BRDs swapping with 5 CORs with 129 GEO bubbles, that's going to continue to benefit a BLU, but not the heavier DDs. Concurrently, BLUs do not have positional requirements of THF and NIN, which is important in a scenario like D-D when mobs may not consistently be locked down until much later.


You don't think SE has an active choice to allow things to persist? Really? This may be calling the sky blue, but in the end, this is their game. They can nerfbat to ***whatever they want whenever they want if they don't like it. Or strategically pivot to make NIN crappier tanks, or RDMs not main healers anymore.

Unfortunately for any real content it does. Frailty is just that powerfull. No BRD means haste is going to be a real issue as diffusion is on a 10 minute timer. WHM is needed because neither RDM nor SCH have decent aoe heals, which is a requirement in real content. PLD as a main healer is the only replacement for WHM, and people are still experimenting with that.

I am the biggest proponent for Curaga III to be made level 49 to address the healer issue.

We're so off target in this thread now it ain't even funny, but this could be said until the end of the universe and it won't stop being brilliant.

This right here is why the DD landscape is so homgenized nowadays. I agree with everything you just said Saevel. Buffs really ARE that potent. It's specifically because of that potency that the lines between top and middling DD are so minimal. You can take your bard, geo, whm cor DD Tank setup and exchange that DD slot with any of the major or secondary DD's and they'll perform similarly. The trio of cor/bard/geo buffs work just as well on the dual wielding classes as the 1 handed classes, and over the past few years s-e has really leveled the playing field between the 1 and 2 handed jobs.

--1 handed jobs calculate accuracy and attack off dex and str the same as 1 handers since 2013 (offhand attack is still old formula but it's a minor thing).

--Weaponskill formulas have been reworked and 1 handers have some really good options

--The gear landscape has been vastly improved so the light armor jobs have competitively viable options

Like it or not, FFXI 2020 is not FFXI abyssea, or ffxi lvl 75 cap and things have changed. S-E has clearly gone out of their way to accomodate us with gear that defies previous era logic. The 2 handed jobs hit harder on a per hit basis with higher max pDIF caps and better sTP X hit build synergies, but the 1 handed jobs attack far more often and gain proportionately larger benefits from those bard/cor/geo buffs because they tend to be more attack starved. You buff the 1 handers to capped attack and sudddenly their attack speed levels the playing field. I have 58% triple attack on my thief FFS.... that's beyond absurd and I never would have imagined that would be a thing a mere 4 or 5 years ago. And with every incremental gear increase the power line blurs between 'heavy DD" and "utility DD'.

Yes, the max potential of the "heavy" dd's is still a bit higher than the utility dd's, I won't argue that. But the difference is meager compared to eras past. The sheer power of fury/frailty, march march min min and cor/chaos roll makes everything it touches a gods damned juggernaut. It doesn't matter WHAT job it is, so long as the player is competent and geared to the peak of their class's potential they WILL perform exceptionally well. Capping haste and attack and giving all those absurd buffs just breaks the game. That's not an individual job call. It's a meta call. And the gear standards across the board can sustain that performance for every class.

Dual wield white mage with 2 k clubs !

No they don't. The playerbase determines how they play, end of story.


None of this is relevant to the OP's question or to the discussion behind heavy DD's. It's just you seeking affirmation and support for wanting to use BLU as a DD.

I've said in many threads that Hyrbid / Utility DD's bring lessor DPS but more utility to the table, and that can justify a spot for them depending on the content. It's the "depending" part that makes them not a "Heavy/Pure DD", whom's presence will always be justified based on their damage contribution alone.

Fun thing here, I've actually proved this before in practice. Here is our usual Dynamis farming setup

Tank PT

DD PT (look familiar)
Heavy DD
Heavy DD
COR
BRD
GEO
WHM

BLU PT
BLU (as /WAR)
BLU (as /WAR)
COR
BRD
GEO
WHM

First two waves the BLU's are in magic mode with magic buffs AoEing everything. Prior to the wave 2 boss the order is given for them to switch modes, they rearrange their spell sets and gear to melee mode, are given melee buffs and transform into a melee party. We then crush the Wave2 boss and farm Wave2 mobs for the remaining time, usually 5~7 fetters cleared along with everything in wave 1 and 2. This all while people are getting RP / clears on various jobs. The BLU DD party deals noticeably less damage then the heavy DD party.

This highlights the difference between Heavy DD and Utility DD, the heavies hit the hardest but aren't nearly as versatile . The BLU's on the other hand are able to, quite literally, completely switch roles in the middle of a run. That is a very powerful capability. Dancer is another strong utility DD, especially in fights where Frailty is nerfed by 75% like it is on Dynamis mobs. That extra defense down stacks and really boosts the heavy DD's damage.

Also this thread has potential.

Also what about the medium or light weight DD ?

Did you stop and think about their feelings ?

That party has BLU. You played BLU and you don't know it has AoE heal that is probably more potent than curaga III?

Unfortunately they don't perform similarly, they do noticeably less damage.

Damage in FFXI is a result of the following
WS Frequency = Attack Speed * Attacks per Round * TP Gained from Attacks

WS Damage = Frequency * Damage * Attack Multipier

Total Damage = Melee Damage + WS Damage

In today's FFXI WS damage dominates everything with melee damage being a footnote. This is why MNK sucked so bad before, they had the best melee damage in the game but the shittiest WS damage.

Notice all the Heavy DD jobs are two handers with MNK being a special category? That is because two handers have a higher attack cap. SE further enhanced this by introducing PDL to those jobs.

https://www.bg-wiki.com/bg/PDIF

https://www.bg-wiki.com/bg/Damage_Limit%2B

Innate Multi-Attack, Store TP, Attack Bonus, PDL, Weapon Selection and a little bit of gear selection (Utu Grip) resulted in certain jobs having a large advantage in dealing damage.

Now take those base components and look at our force multipliers, Frailty / Fury, March / Madrigal / Minute, Samurai's Roll / Fighter's Roll / Chaos Roll and so forth. Those multipliers quite literally multiply that base benefit.

No matter how much you wish it, from the deepest part of your heart and soul, a THF will not compete with a WAR/SAM/DRK/DRG/MNK in damage. Neither will a NIN, a DNC or a BLU. RUN's get a special node because while they can't directly compete with those aforementioned jobs, they can compete indirectly via resisting crippling status effects via their built in MEVD, Runes and status resistances. BST we don't know about yet, still experimenting with them but looks promising in the right situation.

Instead those utility jobs contribute via adding some utility or secondary benefit to the group while still dealing enough damage not to be a waste of a slot.

This is true if we only consider max dps and exclude specific scenarios that are weakened/punished for using said jobs. SE has included certain ambu fights that punish players for using certain job combinations, or that weaken buffs (dispel spam)/debuffs/immunize things like Geomancy. Which then requires party 2 to utilize their niche to accomplish the goal. SE wouldn't have created these mechanics/gimmicks if they didn't want people thinking outside the same old "bash it's head in with DD" meta. They clearly want people to use other jobs and not always think about things in terms of max possible damage, they've even come out and said so themselves. So while I do agree that party 1 is generally going to give you a better speed outcome, it is not always true. Other factors need to be considered at times.

That is all we're talking about. It's literally the point of the thread.

Should we talk about Pizza now, how I firmly believe Italian sausage is better then Pepperoni. Your post failed to address this.


They feel left out of the discussion and are crying in a corner.

I would totally make a jab at the softies here but gotta go to lunch.

People just want the easy "just do this 1 things and it'll always be good all the time"...

The thread is titled "What Heavy DD Would you Pick and Why?", the only answer is "Well, that depends..." what's the context?

We're playing Situational Fantasy XI. Without context, pick WAR, it's versatile and easier to gear than most and fits in most strategies.

Damn, I forgot BLU doesn't get any job traits or equipment that allows it to generate more damage. It also definitely doesn't use a weapon that increases WS frequency with low execution time in endgame content either.

I'll let a lot of ***slide, but Pepperoni is like cheese and sauce on a pizza, its a required element. Add sausage if you must...but I will *** cut you for that take on pepperoni.

Insult our utility DD love all you want. Talk down to hybrid jobs. Insist on specialization like the parts of a car not the emotions of snowflakes playing DNC. But *** with pepperoni....