I’m currently leveling RDM as a sub to my Paladin for solo work, and a couple days ago I hooked up with a Level Sync Qufim party, Ninja tank, Beastmaster, Ranger, Black Mage, Red Mage (moi!), and White Mage.  A nice balanced party.  Things went okay, except the Ninja was having problems keeping hate off the Mages.

With only Utsusemi: Ichi, our Ninja was bound to take some heavy damage.  To boot, although I was successfully Slowing, Paralyzing, and Blinding our prey, the poor guy was having a tough go of timing his Utsusemi casts to get shadows back up.  So the White Mage or myself would throw out a big cure and the Crab/Pug would come after us.  If it wasn’t us, it was the Black Mage after tossing out an unresisted Thunder or Blizzard.  Ever single one of use managed to get KO’ed as a result.

Then our Ninja disconnected and never came back.  No tanks were seeking, so I offered to bring in my Paladin if the party leader could find a mage to replace me — which he did pretty easily.  The party wasn’t happy though.  With the Ninja we had been getting some okay XP, sometimes getting up to chain 4.  It was clear they considered bloodtanking passé.  There was much whinging about how the XP was going to go down, but everyone would put up with it just to get the next level.

I was pissed off.

I’d been through Qufim on my Paladin, Thief, Warrior, Ninja, Bard, White Mage, and now Red Mage.  Qufim is exactly the place you want to have a Paladin.  The monsters hit hard, and with the Pugils, they hit fast too.  The critters are high defense, so battles aren’t going to be rapid.  You want a tank that can take in the face, and survive for awhile under the beat down.

• It’s worth noting that SE has introduced “Fields of Valor” (FoV) to FFXI, and part of the FoV mechanic is “Field Support.” This allows you to get some advanced support for your character.  The Ninja had opted for Regen, I picked Refresh and Regen.

We level synched to our lowest member — the mage that replaced me, which put us at exactly the same level the Ninja was when we started.  I was hell bent to show them that Paladin was the better tank in this circumstance.  I knew the field support was going to help, but hory crow!

I NEVER dropped below 50% HP, and I never dropped below 25% MP.  I almost never rested, and the only reason we didn’t chain endlessly is because we ran out of monsters.  With Refresh at that level, I could cast Cure on myself with wild abandon.  Nothing could peel the hate off me, and I’m pretty sure the White Mage was bored.  Losing 50% of my HP because of the Pugils TP attack?  *yawn*  Losing 50% of my HP because of a Puglis TP attack and the Black Mage getting Blizzard to land unresisted?  No problem-o. A quick Weapon Skill made the monster quickly forget the mage.

In no time we burned through 2 levels, and everyone in the party was now high enough level that we weren’t getting good XP.  We finished off our last FoV assignment and called it a night.

Just to rub it in, I sent the two biggest whinners a /tell saying: So, would still rather have had a Ninja tank?

I got no answers, which made me feel even more smug.

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