[errorrrr]

Been playing for a while, and has seen some subjobs come and go... so I guess I want to know what the sub job trend across servers. These are based on what I've seen and experienced in Ballista. I'll keep the main job discussion short...

Warrior and its subjobs
What more can I say... the job isn't exactly a power house like when they are in a Colibri merit...
Ninja: used mostly by those who doesn't come to Ballista often, and often the type of War just come on a spur of moment from my shotus... Ninja usually wont' save a War from a group fight at all... last maybe couple seconds longer, but is all right in a -ga less match...
SAM: Obviously a choice for any job that could use 2 hand weapons. Seigan + 3rd Eye is quite powerful especially against melee fights. medidate can't hurt either.
PLD: Lately, I've seen more and more subbing PLD. Flash, and Sentinel is very very powerful... I can't stress enough how many times Flash worked better than 3rd Eye and Shadow.... it's often a suprise tactic.

Monk
Higher survivability than most melee jobs with its large HP, and above average Evasion plus evasion boost.
Ninja: hardly see any more monk /NIN in ballista anymore... it's just not that good...
Drg: quite interesting sub, i've seen couple monk use it... obvious SAM could arguably utilize it better but the Jump could provide you the needed damage
PLD: see Warrior. Very popular in Bahamut.
DNC: VERY HIGH Survivalbility to the point of annoyance especially in low number matches...

White Mage
A surprisingly durable job in Ballista (in some situations...)
RDM: obivously for en-spells, phalanx, and gravity. Would only recommend for Kclub though... WHM Don't really hit fast enough to utilize it...
BLM: Sleepga actually lands quite nicely on most occasions. and -ga spell actually does *enough* dmg to make them worthwhile. Especially making the sure dead hit.
NIN: more of a subjob of the past... not very good in today's bahamut ballista enviroment at all...

Black Mage
Strong nuker, but dead after running out of MP...
RDM: Phalanx and Stoneskin etc. and Fast cast.
NIN: Actually ok when it's mostly melee dominated match.

Red Mage
Bit of everything...
BLM: For nuking mostly, and sleepga... pretty good for back line support.
NIN: There are two types of /NIN RDM in bahamut... Ones that knows what they are doing and uses Staff... and ones that doesnt' know what they are doing and uses two swords... Unless you have Excalibur or something of that sort... stick with a Staff and nuke... it'd be much better than the two swords...
DRK, WAR, PLD, BLU: Obviously for Vorpal Blade... DRK and WAR more offensive oriented, with DRK getting Stun, and War getting Defender. PLD and BLU are a lot more defensive with Flash + Sentinel, and Blu with Cocoon.
RNG: Rare, but quite powerful killer... I'll really only recommend this if you have Joyeuse at the very least, or to fully utilize /RNG, a Kraken Club... with a kraken club, a RDM/RNG can wrec havoc on most melees with B or below evasion. I'll go a bit indepth about this, since I have more experience with it.

From what I've seen, PLAIN B+ Evasion Jobs is where the threashold is for landing Sidewinder and KClub hits. You will have a HARD TIME hitting MNK/THF, SAM/THF. Ninja is really the highest evasion job class you'll be able to land hits with relative success. This is also with many pieces of +Racc gear. Also use +Racc-Acc equipment with caution. You also need to land Kclub hits to get TP.

For jobs you can't hit, or jobs that you hit 0 (without buff, a PLD if you dont have club merits). Resort to nuking and playing like a RDM. They'll go down.

Your bow choices are VERY limited as RDM. Mighty Bow I believe is the HIGHEST DMG you can get on a RDM. Ifrit Bow, and Speed Bow+1 are viable replacements. RDM/RNG requires a lot of fine tuning and merit supports as well to be effective, use cautiously.

Thief
high evasion class.
NIN: this is where NIN is still good. THF is doomed to nuke either way... should focus on Melee evasion...
DNC: VERY HIGH Survivalbility to the point of annoyance especially in low number matches...

Paladin
A defense class.
NIN: I personally haven't seen many "good" pld using NIN. There are better subs... one advice, USE SHIELD.
BLU: Cocoon isn't bad at all.
RDM: Very very very hard to kill... Phalanx etc... for Mithra and Taru, the INT is actually high enough to land some Debuff like Bind and Sleep... En-spell and a Joyeuse is pretty good as well.

Dark Knight
A high attack class.
NIN: I recommend sticking to 2hand weapon, unless you have decent haste gear...
PLD: See Warriors Section for PLD.
War and SAM: Both offensive class, both offering similar offensive/defensive abilities. But I think SAM is better with 3rd Eye completely avoiding the melee hits.
RDM: I've only seen on /RDM and it's a Taru-DRK. Nukes did decent Damage, survived pretty well too. Not sure how good it is with low MP classes.

Bard
Lullaby, Lullaby, Lullaby, you annoyed yet?
NIN: I don't know... by now I think everyone knows the pro/con of NIN... i'll stop mentioning it as a viable subjob...
RDM: Good survivability with low-moderate offensive stats wielding joyeuse and enspells.

Ranger
Where did that arrow come from?!
WAR: Really... Unless you just like big numbers :x
SAM: Not too bad, like other Melee job. If you thinking of using Kraken Club, you'll lose out on Seigan+3rd Eye, ONLY RECOMMENDED to VERY GOOD 3rd Eyeres lol... I suggest using a gun if you are using Kraken Club. Your Kraken Club hits will be very weak... so pick the right job to fight.

Samurai
Yukikaze! Gekko! Kaisha! Again!
War: Minimal defense... Moderate attack boost. Don't see many nowadays.
PLD: See War section.
RNG: Recommended to use with Soboro and Kclub only really... Better off using GKatana WS if you don't have either.
DNC: VERY HIGH Survivalbility to the point of annoyance especially in low number matches...
DRG: Jump for high TP Gain, and Self Chain...

Dragoon
Jump! High Jump! SUPER JUMP!
War: See Samurai section.
PLD: See PLD section.
BLU and RDM: Good choices for defense Dragoon. Dragoon forum have a dedicated Ballista thread for it... Go ahread and browse through if you are interested. Remember you are good as dead if your Wyvern is dead.

Summoner
Fight by my side Fenrir!
BLM: Actually a viable sub for Sleepga... but can't heal yourself except through SMNs.
WHM or RDM: WHM provide more healing ability, and RDM provide more Survivability.

Blue Mage
...
PLD and RDM: Very high survivability...

Corsair
3, 4, 5, 10, BUST!
Any DD sub: Dont' fair that well in ballista... SAM is an OK sub for Medidate... nothing too special though.
WHM: Survivability and Healing.
RDM: Magic Attack Bonus and Survivability.
BLM: Pure Quick Draw

About Quick Draw: Gun and Bullet DAMAGE DO MATTER. The higher the better. Can do up to 400DMG A SHOT with the right equipment... VERY VERY powerful.

Puppetmaster & Beastmaster
Go forth my Puppet! I don't know what to say about Puppetmaster... I have only seen one PUP who is just NIN... one BST in my entire FFXI life in Ballista.
Support mage jobs also are viable for these jobs since their Pet does bulk of the killing.

Dancer
Jig jig jig~ Not much choice besides SAM... THF makes a viable choice in melee environment...

[ryolen]

I think some of these are quite wrong lol Not in the mood to get into it tho

Btw.. how is the ballista on bahamut? mainly concerned boout 60 n uncap

[Blacmagi]

ryolen :
I think some of these are quite wrong lol Not in the mood to get into it tho

QTF.

You did a good job, but it kinda feels like you just took some of the info from observations and you look like your like "I guess thats all to this SJ, lets move on to the next."
I was also thinking of making a WHM Ballista Guide(long ago), but then thought "Nah, how many people actually care about this?"

[errorrrr]

I don't attend 60 CAPs so I can't comment. Those observation are taken from Uncapped. I usually have to shout a day prior to match start to get enough people to start match...

As for the sub job comments, many of them have the same uses... On Bahamut the number 1 support job for melee job is Paladin, follow by SAM, and DNC (even though MNK and SAM uses DNC mainly, it still makes up majority of the subs since there are a lot of MNK and SAM ballista players.)

Flash is definitely the number one table turner in Bahamut Ballista lol... you see flashes EVERYWHERE...

For my own personal experience point of view, I have the most knowledge in Red Mage, and Corsair, as I play those two job the most. I could go indepth of some of the sub jobs more and I could even elaborate more on the strategies involved... I could start a more comprehensive guide for some of the jobs I guess... I only listed the MAIN USE of each sub job... Obviously each sub job has more to it than what I listed, and different players have different styles.

[Blacmagi]

True, I know what you mean, sorry. Its just that you wrote so little on each SJ, but then I guess people will learn themselves on how to make the best uses of the SJ's abilities.

Good job though. Makes me want to write up my WHM guide now >_> which includes all sorts of ridiculous and weird combinations of equipment and builds.

[Aj5000]

What's the point of this? But I'll give you some of Caitsith's trends:

Main/Sub: 60 caps and UNCAPPED

Warrior: Ninja, Samurai, Thief, Dragoon.
Monk: Ninja, Dragoon, Paladin, Warrior, Samurai
White Mage: Redmage, Blue Mage, Blackmage, Scholar
Black Mage: Redmage, Whitemage.
Red Mage: Blackmage, Warrior, Paladin, Dark Knight, Blue Mage, Ranger, Whitemage.
Thief: Ninja
Paladin: Ninja, Blue Mage, Redmage, Whitemage.
Dark Knight: Ninja, Paladin, Redmage, Samurai.
Bard: Whitemage, Redmage, Paladin.
Ranger: Samurai, Ninja, Whitemage, Blue Mage.
Ninja: Ranger, Thief, Dancer, Warrior.
Samurai: Warrior, Thief, Ranger.
Dragoon: Samurai......and maybe Blue Mage/Redmage for kicks or 1vs1.
lolSummoner: Redmage/White Mage
Blue Mage: Thief, Dark Knight, Ninja, Redmage.
Corsair: Samurai, Ranger, and maybe Redmage....I guess.
Puppetmaster: Monk, Thief, Warrior, etc. A variety of subjobs...really.
Beastmaster: Ninja
Dancer: Samurai, Ninja.

"number 1 support job for melee job is Paladin, follow by SAM, and DNC"

/Paladin only works for a certain class of job's. Not every melee job. Going /PLD as DRG, WAR, THF, SAM, etc...is most of the time unnecessary. DRK/PLD, I can see working as they have Souleater and are usually targeted 24/7.

/Samurai has become the new /Ninja, except with "1" "shadow" instead of 3. Making them very easy targets most of the time, but deadly damage dealers. Usually, melee go /SAM to be the gatebreacher for the team.

/Dancer is wtf? Unless you're Samurai or Ninja. Or doing Diorama, I guess.

The biggest uncapped trends is /PLD, /RDM, /WAR while in 60cap its /WHM, /SAM, /RNG, etc.

What I've begun doing is creating new job combo's so stay away from these trends.

[Lucavi]

Pld/dnc is lovely.

[Aj5000]

Lucavi :
Pld/dnc is lovely.

I've seen Paladin/Dancer work with: K. Club/Shied, Mercurial Sword(2H), Joyeuse/Shield, and Justice Sword/Shield.

It's quite effective, and K. Club makes them that much harder to kill. Makes to be a good teammate.

[Aluvien]

Still waiting on your WHM ballista guide Blacmagi :< Anyway yeah, I was almost constantly WHM/BLU when Ballista was still alive. Tanking 3 people for 10 mins was priceless.

[Cream Soda]

errorrrr :


Monk
Higher survivability than most melee jobs with its large HP, and above average Evasion plus evasion boost.
Ninja: hardly see any more monk /NIN in ballista anymore... it's just not that good...
Drg: quite interesting sub, i've seen couple monk use it... obvious SAM could arguably utilize it better but the Jump could provide you the needed damage
PLD: see Warrior. Very popular in Bahamut.
DNC: VERY HIGH Survivalbility to the point of annoyance especially in low number matches...

heh, not a single mnk on ur server uses /blu? Its the best one for large matches, imo. Though I pefer /pld in 1 on 1.
For example, full god set and cocoon alone pre-food and buffs nets me 530ish defense and post nets me 750ish.
Wild oats drops third eye first hit (even with seigan on)
Queasyshroom drops utsu (even if it says spell fails)
Wild carrot a nice cure
VIT+ spells for a defense build
With 2hander sam or /sam these days, can't really appreciate wild oats enough. .5 sec cast with low MP takin out third eyes is great.
I use this sub 89.3% of the time. Its best overall usefulness, imo. The other 10.7% of the time is if they have a lot of annoying jobs like thf or something and I can't defense whore cause i need to acc whore, which in case I'll sub sam, drg, or war.
Also, you forgot /sam. Its very popular, at least on Fairy.

Edit- Taken from the match that is currently going as I type:
Semi defense(few swaps for chakra though so lacking my max):

This is with tect II and a fish kabob. In larger matches I'm usually packing the taco



Hagun usually only does 150ish-200 more

2nd Edit:

Lace was using hagun but u only see 1 hit cause he swapped to the blm after that

[errorrrr]

About PLD/DNC, I have seen a PLD use that... it's good for survivalbility and healing teammates. I would think it's better with a smaller crowd... a PLD/DNC with Kclub does very very little damage... and can't break through most mages defenses... In addition, PLD/DNC himself don't last very long like a PLD/RDM... The Defense that PLD can get by himself isn't that much, I would say an unmerited club RNG might still hit 1-2 DMG with KClub thus still able to TP.

On bahamut, the most player go for survivability, and thus the use of /PLD is seen very much... Jobs that don't use /PLD as melee are mostly ones that benefit a lot from Dual-Wield like Thief, Ranger, and Dancer. WAR, DRK, MNK, DRG that subs /SAM do not last long in Bahamut matches... When I speak of most Melee I think I did not deliver my message properly lol... What I meant was "most of the melee who goes to ballista," which on Bahamut is DRK, MNK, and SAM. Sorry for the over general statement.

For the DRG in Bahamut (which are not many that goes to ballista), it really depends how well they utilize their wyverns, and how keen is the other team at killing wyverns... without a wyvern, there really isn't much DRG/Mage can do. So the general trend is to go either /SAM or /PLD.

As for /BLU... It's interesting that it's not so popular in Bahamut. Most of those who /BLU are RDM, and DRG. MNK on Bahamut is really exclusively /PLD lol...

[Aeonknight]

I love the description of BLU. :plain

You left out BLU/WAR (I wouldn't even mention BLU/NIN. Those ones deserve to be shot). I've toyed with BLU/PLD and BLU/WAR... BLU/WAR ~can~ be hard to kill, while BLU/PLD's tricks can save your ass a number of times, also giving Auto Refresh. So instead of dedicated spells to that 1 MP per tic, you can broaden your spell list with other useful spells. By same token... since BLU is stuck using a sword and will most likely be using Genbu's Shield, /PLD offers Shield Bash: another Stun in the already broad arsenal of Stun we have. Only this one costs no MP and shadow type doesn't have to be taken into account

BLU/THF is very much so a "cherry picker". Don't turn and run w/o some form of defense up (Utsusemis does NOT count) or a SACA Cannonball will end you every time.

[Tainted]

I would have been ashamed of myself for posting this guide, so it's a good thing I wasn't the one who posted it.

[errorrrr]

Tainted :
I would have been ashamed of myself for posting this guide, so it's a good thing I wasn't the one who posted it.

Funny thing is I've never mentioned or intended it to be a guide... it's meant to start more discussion on subjobs....

[Cream Soda]

I've played around with mnk/pld. /blu is better for larger matches imo. Full time 50% defense (cocoon) > 30 secs of mini invincible every 5 mins. Not only that but also the ability to take out third eye and utsusemi is the icing on the cake. I've fought mnk/pld as mnk/blu and come out on top 90% of the time.

[Skyrin]

Whats going on in your sigvid vegetto?

Bst/dnc is nice w/ temp axe, but bst sucks in general unless 1v1 lol.

Whm/sch is imo best sub its just enormous amounts of MP saved.

Blu/nin is fun if you want to DD basicly the same argument for pld/nin applies to that.

Drg/war still has its place especially 60cap, Drg lacks defense its almost pointless to go defensive unless ur packing all -dmg% gear which Drg does get a decent amount of.

[Cream Soda]

That Sky, is what you call composure!

[Caesus]

RDM/RNG, LOL.

your server doesn't have DRG/SAM or somethin? :/ and yes, BLU/WAR is one hard ass motherfucking job to kill; i wish I could start subbing it again instead of rdm :/

[errorrrr]

DRG/SAM dies pretty fast in Bahamut Ballista... most DRG goes PLD on Bahamut... /SAM however is popular in Dioramah where people just wants to kill for fun :x

[Shykin]

DRG/SAM dies fast if you stand in the open and try to gear like a DD. I survive decently well as drg and when I add in the tactical moves of staying with a team and super jump a drg/sam can be an annoying bitch to kill. I'd personally never use drg/sam in a small OM match unless its 60 cap. Its never ended well for me as drg/sam in uncap. Drg/pld is terrible in my opinion. I've seen some pretty nasty rdm/rngs on fenrir. Though its not the best idea its hilariously annoying. Rdm/rng with archery merits, K club and full buffs.