So after leveling all my healers and ranged physical from 20 to 60+ with GC squadrons, here's what I've learned.
Class selection.
ACN is king. Why? Because they will AoE (quite potently) and their pets will instantly attack things. They will also cast Physic if the tank (or you) are low on health and their bubbles apply slow, allowing you to almost not have to heal. THM is actually pretty bad, because they like to stand around for a few seconds before they do anything. ARC is OK, but it's hard to get them to use their AoE because it seems to require them to be in melee range, but they wont actually run into range. They also like to stand around instead of attacking. All the melee are good at killing bosses, but they generally wont AoE and most of your time in dungeons is spent killing trash. Again, they tend to stand around when a fight starts as well. It wasn't uncommon for my ACN to have a trash group half dead before the melee dudes would even have ran over to the pack.
You don't have an option for healer, so Conjuror it is and for tanks you really want the circular Flash over the cone Overpower... Overpower misses. A lot.
So, pick up a pair of Arcanists, a Conjuror and a Gladiator and don't look back.
Tactics.
You will start with all your guys on Independent tactics with no option to change it. You also start with only rank 1. These are both BAD. Obviously you want Offensive on your damage, but you can go either way with your tanks (I prefer Defensive). Healers should be on Defensive at all times. The real kicker here though is the ranks. A rank 5 Offensive will do 60% more damage, while a rank 1 Independent (the starter) will do only 4% more damage. Having double rank 5 offensive DPS is worth more than an extra squadron member.
So how do you get the different tactics? You run your squadron through dungeons. This means that while you're leveling your first class with them, they'll be pretty bad. If you're leveling a healer, then you'll have to baby your tank and things will take a while to die. If you're leveling a tank, then you'll have to play defensively (Healers seem to heal late when not set to Defensive) and things will take a while to die. And if you're leveling a damage class then you'll have to AFK longer between packs (haha!). But once you've leveled their tactics it's like an entirely different game.
Just for fun (LOL) I want back and ran some dungeons with the rank 1 Balanced tactics on my other squadron members after doing the same dungeon on the maxed ones. It's night and day. I ran The Vault in 14 minutes flat with my maxed squad with a GLD and 2 ACNs. It took 28 with the newbies (NIN, LNC, the same GLD).
That's a lot of setup. Why not just run it with people?
Because DF queues take time. Your queue was 5 minutes (fast for a damage class) and I'm half way through the dungeon. Because people make mistakes, or are learning their class, or are new to the dungeon, or have poor gear. All of these things will make the dungeon take longer. Squadron members are always on point. So what if they stand in an AoE? It's not going to kill them. I think I've had 5 or 6 times that a squadron member died while leveling 6 classes to 60+.
Squadrons are faster (after you've got them leveled) than all but the most optimised PC groups, they wont yell at you for doing bad damage or if you're leveling DPS, for straight up going AFK for entire packs. They also only occasionally require healing.
If you're only ever going to play the classes you already have leveled, then don't worry about your squadron... but if you're going to level multiple other classes, get them. Train them. Love them.
submitted by /u/Paikis
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Continue reading...
Class selection.
ACN is king. Why? Because they will AoE (quite potently) and their pets will instantly attack things. They will also cast Physic if the tank (or you) are low on health and their bubbles apply slow, allowing you to almost not have to heal. THM is actually pretty bad, because they like to stand around for a few seconds before they do anything. ARC is OK, but it's hard to get them to use their AoE because it seems to require them to be in melee range, but they wont actually run into range. They also like to stand around instead of attacking. All the melee are good at killing bosses, but they generally wont AoE and most of your time in dungeons is spent killing trash. Again, they tend to stand around when a fight starts as well. It wasn't uncommon for my ACN to have a trash group half dead before the melee dudes would even have ran over to the pack.
You don't have an option for healer, so Conjuror it is and for tanks you really want the circular Flash over the cone Overpower... Overpower misses. A lot.
So, pick up a pair of Arcanists, a Conjuror and a Gladiator and don't look back.
Tactics.
You will start with all your guys on Independent tactics with no option to change it. You also start with only rank 1. These are both BAD. Obviously you want Offensive on your damage, but you can go either way with your tanks (I prefer Defensive). Healers should be on Defensive at all times. The real kicker here though is the ranks. A rank 5 Offensive will do 60% more damage, while a rank 1 Independent (the starter) will do only 4% more damage. Having double rank 5 offensive DPS is worth more than an extra squadron member.
So how do you get the different tactics? You run your squadron through dungeons. This means that while you're leveling your first class with them, they'll be pretty bad. If you're leveling a healer, then you'll have to baby your tank and things will take a while to die. If you're leveling a tank, then you'll have to play defensively (Healers seem to heal late when not set to Defensive) and things will take a while to die. And if you're leveling a damage class then you'll have to AFK longer between packs (haha!). But once you've leveled their tactics it's like an entirely different game.
Just for fun (LOL) I want back and ran some dungeons with the rank 1 Balanced tactics on my other squadron members after doing the same dungeon on the maxed ones. It's night and day. I ran The Vault in 14 minutes flat with my maxed squad with a GLD and 2 ACNs. It took 28 with the newbies (NIN, LNC, the same GLD).
That's a lot of setup. Why not just run it with people?
Because DF queues take time. Your queue was 5 minutes (fast for a damage class) and I'm half way through the dungeon. Because people make mistakes, or are learning their class, or are new to the dungeon, or have poor gear. All of these things will make the dungeon take longer. Squadron members are always on point. So what if they stand in an AoE? It's not going to kill them. I think I've had 5 or 6 times that a squadron member died while leveling 6 classes to 60+.
Squadrons are faster (after you've got them leveled) than all but the most optimised PC groups, they wont yell at you for doing bad damage or if you're leveling DPS, for straight up going AFK for entire packs. They also only occasionally require healing.
If you're only ever going to play the classes you already have leveled, then don't worry about your squadron... but if you're going to level multiple other classes, get them. Train them. Love them.
submitted by /u/Paikis
[link] [comments]
Continue reading...