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Why do Lancers suck?
Fortenc
Member Posts: 427
I've gone through beta randomly testing all of the Disciples of War to find which base class I enjoy the most, and I must say, although Lancers are my favorite class lore and look-wise they.. suck! So much! Lancer rank 10 is less survivable than Gladiator rank 4 or Pugilist rank 6. From what I've read and re-read Lancers are supposed to keep enemies at range. That doesn't work if there's more than one enemy. Also, it doesn't work at all around Limsa Lominsa, not sure about the other areas.. even if my character dashes forward and is at his maximum range with his lance the enemy is still hitting me.
The worst part is the Lancer's horrible accuracy and surprisingly low damage, which is boggling. Lances appear to have a higher accuracy than any other weapon and I have 42 dexterity.. enemies evade or I miss around 50-66% of the time, no exaggeration. For a class that's supposed to keep their enemy at range by binding them with an attack.. that's horrid. I do better keeping enemies at range as an archer and take less damage, too.
Lancers also have some of the lowest HP for a melee disciple of war. So.. low accuracy, low damage, a perhaps broken mechanic of outdistancing your enemy and low hp compared to Marauders, Gladiators and Pugilists. I have no trouble killing things as any other class, even casters (though, honestly, I'm not the best caster). So why do Lancers suck so much? Are they broken right now? I can kill a dodo when I'm a rank 6 Pugilist with only a small bit of difficulty but when I equip the lance it takes far longer and I die 50% of the time. Why?
I'd like to hear other players' experiences with this. It doesn't seem to matter whether I'm strategic or just stand there and spam, I can't do anything well when I'm a Lancer.
Thanks for your opinions in advance. And I know it's a beta, I'm just expressing my experiences and frustrations and wondering if anybody else has experienced the same.
Objectivity is delivered with a lack of personality made for the mainstream but never used for the mainstream.
Comments
Sounds like Lancer is one of the crappy classes, I'm sure that FFXI had some of those too.
Could you try out the new Musketeer class and compare it to the Lancer?
All those memories will be lost in time, like tears in the rain.
You have to move while fighting, attacking from the side or the back apart of higher damage you have more chance to hit.
Almost all monsters have a range skill so they can't be kited/killed with some glitch.
You can learn some of the other class skills and use them with lancer tough.
As far as I'm aware Musketeer isn't in the game right now, maybe at release.
Objectivity is delivered with a lack of personality made for the mainstream but never used for the mainstream.
Ah I see.
All those memories will be lost in time, like tears in the rain.
Lancer + Monk's Heal + Healer's Regen + Speed Burst/Life Drain Attack + Attacking from side or rear = Very Quick Kills with little to no down time.
As far i understand Lancer are long range melees and stay behind the frontline doing sort of melee dps support.
My Marauder is very much less accurate than my old Dads Lancer, maybe the tank (that melee that has the aggro in that moment) is less accurate and the other have better chances to hit if right positioned etc.
The Lancers in FF XIV look and fight absolutely cool and not ridiculous clumsy like in many other games.
"Torquemada... do not implore him for compassion. Torquemada... do not beg him for forgiveness. Torquemada... do not ask him for mercy. Let's face it, you can't Torquemada anything!"
MWO Music Video - What does the Mech say: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FF6HYNqCDLI
Johnny Cash - The Man Comes Around: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0x2iwK0BKM
Any other melee discipline + none of that = very quick kills with little to no down time.. the fact that you can make Lancer viable by spamming abilities from other classes doesn't redeem it too much when as a pugilist or gladiator I have no problem in the first place. Something to look into if I want to play Lancer at release I guess. Sorta odd that I have to get all of the tanking abilities just to survive and lancers aren't tanks, heheh. I had planned to try that anyway; maybe I'll be a lancer tank for real.
*Edit - I have heard people on FFXIVCore and other sites say that Marauders are hard as well. I had the second most trouble with them but compared to Lancers it was nothing really. Gladiators and Pugilists seem like the most sturdy melee disciplines as a base.
Objectivity is delivered with a lack of personality made for the mainstream but never used for the mainstream.
Well lancers are good at line aoes and marauders are good at aoes.
Both will be useful in groups against many monsters but their skills are aimed at different types of aoes while pugilist and gladiators are melee mostly.
I think the point of the system is that no single class by itself is viable all the time. They encourage you to combine abilities and come up with a playstyle you like and find effective.
I did not get too far with Lancer in OB 9 or so, but I enjoy the class. Didn't feel underpowered in comparison to any other melee at same level.
Based on my experience Gladiator and Pugilist are going to be the "MT" type while Marauder are big hit melee DPS, Lancer are support DPS and debuff. Even Pug feels good DPS wise though...
Lancer Skills - http://ffxiv.yg.com/skills?c=1.8
The question is, why are you soloing in a multiplayer game? Get out there and get a group. You'll have 10 time more fun.
Because it's beta, I don't have a lot of time, none of my friends are in the beta and my attempts at communication on my server haven't even been able to garnish me brass buckles. I've grouped a few times.
Objectivity is delivered with a lack of personality made for the mainstream but never used for the mainstream.
I'm sure you can wait a week or two (depending what version you got) for the game to launch. Beleive me, there will be a ton of people playing.
You won't see many people in the beta right now because they're mostly saving up their evergy for when it really matters. I mean, who wants to get burned out on a beta?
Oh I will be, don't worry. The main point was how difficult playing a Lancer was compared to the other Disciplines of War, melee or magic. Being unable to kill green difficulty creatures by myself around 33% of the time is just silly when my other disciplines with a lower rank had no trouble. The game is easily solo-able at lower levels, though you don't have to, and I had no troubles except with Lancer.. which also happens to be my favorite class otherwise...
Objectivity is delivered with a lack of personality made for the mainstream but never used for the mainstream.
I've been playing all the melee jobs in the OB getting a feel for everything, but I'm only at roughly ~R11 for all except Lancer. I just started on that last night so I'm just about at 5. At this point, I'm really not having that much of an issue with missing and evading. The only times I get that is when attempting 5-Star leves.
What rank Lancer are you, if I may ask? I'm only wondering so I have a better idea of when to properly make comparisons. As it is and has been my experience right now, Marauder was the most painful to me because I would miss or get evaded a ton, especially on the TP moves (usually resulting in wasted Bloodbath). Pugilist was the absolute easiest, and right now, Lancer is second easiest for me.
Well, Dragoon was the red-headed stepchild of FFXI. Makes sense that the polearm user in this game would be the same.
Someone at SE just really doesn't like polearms or something lol.
But really nobody knows how classes are going to perform past level 15 or so. As you probably know from other games, classes that seem to suck early on can get much better later on with some key abilities, and perhaps lancer in group play would be useful, but that's hard to tell because nobody groups.
Remember when you've ranked up other jobs, your core stats carry over to new jobs, so your dex and str you built from other jobs might be helping you more than you realize.
Level 16 base, 11 Lancer. I haven't had nearly as many problems while levelling Marauder as I have with Lancer as far as misses and evades go. As a Lancer it gets to the point where either your TP abilities hitting will win or missing will lose, and I waste most of my TP with evades and misses. 42 dexterity, I posted that earlier but good to re-iterate I guess. I waste my time trying to use TP abilities and stronger hits and end up dead. Normal hits only do ~49 damage, more on some creatures less on some. 44 strength.
Objectivity is delivered with a lack of personality made for the mainstream but never used for the mainstream.
The lancer is on a new character. My "main" one's out of anima and is all the way in Twinpools in Coerthas. And frankly, I have no urge to walk back to areas where he can actually do stuff. It was painful getting there as it was >.> Was fun to explore though :P
I'll post back and make a comparison when the Lancer hits that rank. I think this one has ~27 Str, 24 vit and 28 dex, but that's off the top of my head.
Having played them all up to 7-10ish during beta, I concurr that the Lancer seems like a rather odd creature. However, I suspect that the problem the original poster is running into has to do with tactics and not knowing their role amongst the other classes.
When it comes to solo tactics, the lancer has the freedom to back off where the mob can't hit it more than the other melee classes do. You can hit the mob with your Heavy Thrust or Trammel and that will usualy bind it for a brief period. Now, back up a bit. Your weapon has a longer reach than the enemy's, so you can still reach the enemy without the enemy reaching you.
I'm aware it's not quite that simple because, as the original poster has noted, attacking will often cause your Lancer to dash back into range. Further, the bind doesn't last all that long. However, you will he evaded a few attacks in the intervening period. Backing off is nonetheless quite handy for granting yourself some breathing room to prepare some more attacks. It works very well if you happen to have a spell you want to cast on yourself, like Cure or Stoneskin, without the enemy beating on you. The same goes for triggering a buff like Ferocity.
Engaging more than one foe at a time is usually a no no while soloing for any class. If you pay close attention, you will note a few things:
Unless those enemies are part of a group, only one of the enemy's names will turn red-ish, this indicates you have "claimed" only one of those targets, another player can grab the ones that are unclaimed.
The second target may take damage, but you will not be granted any experience or rank points for the second target until you have "claimed" it. Consequnetly, you're actually losing xp/rank points for damaging it, and wil receive reduced xp/rank points for defeating what's left.
Of course, if the foes are in a group (attacking one will turn them all red) this is a different scenario in which it's okay to engage more than one.
The Lancer has multiple facilities for skewering multiple enemies at once, and even gets bonus damage for doing so, but clearly this is only something you'd want to do while fighting mobs which are grouped.
So, what is the point of a lancer? In other words, what is their role in a group? If you look down their skill tree, you will notice that the Lancer has unique skills related to manueverability, debuffs, and setting up unique states in the enemy, notably setting up recovery of HP and TP for attacking that target. This would seem to be their real role: they use their lances to manipulate enemies and put them into more vulnerable states in order to help the rest of the party finish them off. They have decent DPS, but that's not their role, they're really more of a unique kind of support melee character.
Very informative post geldon, and it does seem that Lancers are meant more from group play than for solo play. The only thing that I have to say really is that I've attacked from my max range, and what I mean why 'dash back up' was just a poor explanation of the animation your character does to justify being able to attack from such a range. Enemies seem to do -more- damage to me when I try to maneuver myself, however.. maybe it's just around Limsa Lominsa but most creatures have mid ranged attacks that do more than their melee but with a longer cooldown. I see very little difference in damage taken if I try to maneuver myself rather than simply standing still except I do less damage to the enemy if I try to maneuver myself.
It's those rank 10 camp guildleves that have you hunt multiple strong creatures at once (with lowered hit points) that seem impossible for Lancers. Mainly dodos (Stray Dodo), but as a Lancer I also had trouble with groups in general because I couldn't kill them fast enough to reduce my damage taken due to misses and evades. As a pugilist I can do enough damage to kill one and run or rarely kill both or all but as a Lancer I do not do enough damage and end up dying before even being able to kill one, which is odd for a level ten guildleve set for one person when I'm level 16/11. Lots of death, lots of misses and evades, TP abilities miss 66% of the time...
Objectivity is delivered with a lack of personality made for the mainstream but never used for the mainstream.
I mostly fought around the Black Shroud myself, but from what I've seen and heard about those dodos, they are pretty overpowered, wily birds. It's hard to say if you can get a good measure out of them.
Sand Yarzon, Puks, even bats in groups of 3 or more.. all deadly things that shouldn't be. Not nearly as deadly as Dodos, but still. Too much miss and evade, especially with TP abilities.
Objectivity is delivered with a lack of personality made for the mainstream but never used for the mainstream.
As a rank 20 lancer, here's my main view of the class as you begin to level up:
Feint is an incredibly powerful skill. It will completely change how you use the class, as no matter HOW inaccurate you are you can still deal an insane amount of damage. I am shifting a whole bunch of DEX points over to STR in order to take advantage of this, though I still need to land a few heavy thrusts in order to gather TP.
Learning how to properly use the buffs you get and manage your TP to maximize damage is also extremely important with this class. You must be willing to abuse your secondary abilities and you must use them constantly. I've created a couple of attack loops/rotations that tend to make battles significantly easier for me, and I'm thinking of posting a few on Youtube to help potential lancers use their class to greatest effect. Let me know if you're interested.
That being said the lack of decent healing is absolutely infuriating in battle and I STRONGLY do not recommend this class for soloing the game. Also, trying to upgrade your weapon at all is an obscene amount of work, as even the most basic upgraded lances requires both high level Fishing and Alchemy and a heck of a lot of wiki research which in my opinion are absolutely useless you are planning on maining a crafting class. Compare this to Thaums or Conjurers, who basically only need Goldsmithing or Carpentry to make weapons all the way to the 20s ranks and can easily buy their materials from NPCs.
In summary: if you want to use this class, be prepared to find a linkshell quickly and function as a supporter class for physical tanks.
Those things beat me up pretty good no matter what class I play. Bats aren't grouped, usually, but they are aggro with a pretty big aggro range. I've had Yarzon in Guildleves wipe out entire groups I've been in. I haven't seen Puks outside of Black Shroud dungeons, where they're rank 15-20 mobs.
I concurr that it seems to be easy to miss with a Lance though. Maybe this is a job that requires you pump your dexterity to be good at?
Indeed the class does... initially. I'd focus on aiming for 40 DEX, 20 STR and 20 VIT, then 80 DEX, 40 STR, and 40 VIT. Once you hit rank 20 you can move into a 60 DEX, 60 STR, 60 VIT split. Also, learning the spell Shock Spikes is pretty much mandatory to use this class effectively. I use it every single battle and it literally makes all sorts of battles a hell of a lot easier to beat.