Sub For Soloing

I was wondering what /sub you use for soloing? and what do you find the pros and cons of it?

The main ones seem to be

Nin/Dnc - Nin/Whm - Nin/Rdm - Nin/War

I want to know what one would be best for pure survivability. I know with /War you can get more proc but is it as good for survivability. Looking at soloing hard endgame content. Don't mind Long fights.

I have been using Nin/Dnc I find the
pros: no mp to have to worry about, tp is usually not an issue, fast cast times, can use all three Atma as DD ones.
Cons: you use less weapon skills since you are saving tp for heals, once you get in red I find it very hard to get back up.

I was thinking with /Whm or /Rdm
Pros: you have more cures that you can use in a row if it gets bad cure I cure II cure III ect. Enspells for when you need them. Stoneskin is a nice buffer to have for when special moves take all shadow at once. Can use weapon skill as you like.
Cons: Would have to use an atma for Refresh mp so would have one less DD atma, Would prob want to merit some mp merits for a larger mp pool so a little less hp.

Am I right here at all?

Not a 100% sure what big differences would be between /Whm and /Rdm

/DNC soloing is probably the overall best sub job for soloing as far as survivability goes. But this is situational, like anything. The dancer sub gives you the ability to heal yourself through waltzes, a stun with violent flourish, and a solid evasion bonus through traits. Also sambas are a nice added bonus if you have the extra TP to spare.

A huge con to the dancer sub job for soloing purposes, you have to feed TP to get TP. This can prove detrimental on some harder mobs.

/WHM sub is not viable for soloing in my opinion. There is no way to maintain MP with /WHM alone without the use of items.

/RDM has always been a great soloing sub job for ninja. Especially now with the ability to cast refresh and access to convert if you REALLY need it. For a worthwhile convert as a RDM sub you would need a convert set for obvious reasons. The red mage sub gives fast cast, enspells, barspells, dispel, stoneskin, phalanx, and the ability to cure yourself. At level 96 I think /RDM has haste.

Someone somewhere mentioned /pld if you need red stagger and cures solo.

Something to consider

/PLD gives you the same procs as /war but you can cure yourself. and the abilities are kinda a nice perk as well. when u need them. but otherwise i think /rdm wins for soloing.

think of it this way. you say using rdm sub requires you to have a refresh atma? well Atma of Perfect Attendance has +10 regen, +5 refresh, and +1 regain. that should be enough. is for me. if not the Atma of the Minikin Monstrosity 10mp refresh is nice. but taking away 1 DD atma shouldnt net you less dmg than /dnc. since dnc rapes ur tp and you cant ws. also if your a kannagi nin then /dnc is even worse =/

Edit also Atma of the Mounted Champion is nice too. for /rdm. since you have refresh as /rdm you really dont need the refresh from perfect attendance. just something to think about

It is just as Hotsoups says, However on the TP feed note about /DNC, if you keep Myoshu and Yurin on the mob, then TP feed shouldn't be too much of a problem.

That said however, there are situations where one subjob would be superior to the other when soloing. For things outside of abyssea (such as Cerberus) /RDM would be a better option than /DNC imo, as /RDM you can keep pro/shell/stoneskin/phalanx/haste/barfire up and reduce the damage you take. However a mob such as Cerberus likes to spam a paralyze move in which you could remove if you were /DNC.

So there are pros and cons to every subjob, and as for inside abyssea, imo there is no better sub than DNC for a NIN, as most things in one way or another can silence you. And as for atma's, if you go as /RDM, you won't notice too much of a drop in damage by swapping one atma out for MM, RR/MM/Apoc will still pull out a good bit of dmg. So if you do go as NIN/RDM to abyssea, just take some Echo Drops, and you might look into building a set for your Ele wheel, as MM will give a nice boost of dmg to it.

Also, as the cap is now 99, NIN/WHM is inferior to NIN/RDM in almost every way except for Divine Seal and spells such as paralyna.

If you're only considering Abyssea, like the OP seems to be, then a Refresh Atma would do it. Really, relying on Refresh for MP on /RDM wouldn't afford you too much healing. 110MP returned over 2.5 minutes n' all (150 back minus the 40 the spell costs). Barring something like Minikin Monstrosity being used, /DNC likely offers far more potential healing over time, even if you need to burn TP to do it.

If you were considering /WHM vs /RDM though, /WHM does have status cures. Both have Shell and MDB traits to utilize, possibly, as well.


I'd agree though, /DNC would tend to win out. A couple more considerations for it would be the nature of the healing done (instant, uninterruptible), and that if you're willing to swap out an Atma for a Refresh one, you could do a Regen Atma with /DNC.

TP managment and knowing when to use weaponskills is something you have to learn through experience subbing /DNC. In most cases I WILL dump my TP into weaponskills. It really comes down to what situation you find yourself in, it is important that the mob dies before you.

Use your noggin' and you will see when it is good to weaponskill or hold TP for cures etc.

Also as RDM sub, it's easier than ever to bring some meds like remedies, eye drops, echos, antidotes. Which should be something you carry with you as a standard anyway. You cannot paralyze meds and other items now due to a recent update. As such you can just spam that remedy til it goes through.

True, I forgot about that update

I have found (eyeballing mind you) about a 90% success rate of removing para on the first try if you wait until you have a swing animation go off to try and remove it.

I think para acts in waves the peaks of the waves prevent actions the trough of the wave you are un-affected. It is just not a constant frequency of waves. Catch them troughs.

Anyway as far as refresh atmas are concerned Atma of Ambition is a nice one too. Refresh, Fastcast, and Movement speed all in one. Pretty hard to top that.

edit: Also ice spikes are the *** bane of my existence, So /rdm dispel might be handy for mobs with that ***. IDK have not played with it much yet.

Id rather have atma of PA or MC. fastcast in atma seems meh when subbing rdm. i mean with haste/ninfeet/haste gear/ fast cast gear/job traits. how much does that fastcast in the atma actually help? and the movement speed plus. well situational. especially since nin already has movement+ options. and its not hard to switch to them

also mind that /rdm has aquaveil,bio/dia2, shell2, pro3, haste, dispel, refresh, bar spells, stoneskin, spikes, enspells, regen, phallanx, and raise(not bad when duoing with a friend)

also fastcast2, MAB and MDB2