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[blowfin]

Question about laptops. I am going to get my wife a new laptop for Christmas. I have to say, I dont know much about computers at all and want to make sure that what I get will run FFXI and FFXIV smooth without annoying lag.

The main thing I dont know about is the graphics cards. I read about the approved cards by SE but they dont list out any of the "Intel HD Graphics with 128MB of dedicated system memory". Would I have any issues using the built in Intel HD graphics?

Yes, don't get it.

Honestly you're going to need a bleeding edge graphics card to be playing FFXIV on a laptop without any slowdown etc.

For XI you want at least an NVidia or ATI/AMD GPU in the machine, not an Intel POS. Doesn't really matter which one too much.

[Vincento]

For XI you want at least an NVidia or ATI/AMD GPU in the machine.

Avoid, at all costs, if XI is your main focus.

[Kegsay]

Sobek lowman strat? Kite? Straight tank? Will be BLU or NIN tanking if straight tank. Tyrant tusk seems like a bit of a whore, death proc often enough to cause major issues?

[blowfin]

Avoid, at all costs, if XI is your main focus.

Meh, it's probably neither here nor there. Nvidia released a set of drivers recently that helped performance in FFXI a lot. Personally i'd probably go for an ATI card because NVidia are plain fucking evil, but that's just me.

[TheDirtyHobo]

Sobek lowman strat? Kite? Straight tank? Will be BLU or NIN tanking if straight tank. Tyrant tusk seems like a bit of a whore, death proc often enough to cause major issues?

Often enough that you will want an extra person that can tank it if it connects, not worth wasting a pop to get nothing because of a ~25% chance of randomly wiping. You'll want at least BLU BLM BRD for triggering grellow anyways, unless you're fond of wasting your time and pops. NIN if you're popping around darkday, and a WHM or RDM to heal people and you should have plenty. I'm somewhat positive a BLU paying attention can stun Tyrant Tusk.

Edit: If you're asking about barebones minimum you could probably do RDM/DRK + DD/NIN, but you would have to turn around and stop feeding it TP for 20 seconds after each TT stun. And again, not popping grellow on +2 NMs is stupid. Even if you're doing it to make an empyrean, just bring friends/LSmates to leech stones.

[Greatguardian]

What set of drivers is this? As recent as a week ago, Nvidia's most recent drivers (and the only ones available for the 400M series) were still absolute shit with ffxi.

[Aragon of Odin]

Sobek lowman strat? Kite? Straight tank? Will be BLU or NIN tanking if straight tank. Tyrant tusk seems like a bit of a whore, death proc often enough to cause major issues?

How low-man? We did it with 6, 2 were mules, 1 BRD mule to try and proc grellow, 1 BLM mule to stun Tyrant Tusk and proc grellow, then had RDM, WHM, BLU and MNK. Seemed easy enough, just hate reset can be a bitch sometimes.

Edit: Mnk straight tanked it, so I imagine NIN could as well.

[Greatguardian]

Often enough that you will want an extra person that can tank it if it connects, not worth wasting a pop to get nothing because of a ~25% chance of randomly wiping. You'll want at least BLU BLM BRD for triggering grellow anyways, unless you're fond of wasting your time and pops. NIN if you're popping around darkday, and a WHM or RDM to heal people and you should have plenty. I'm somewhat positive a BLU paying attention can stun Tyrant Tusk.

Slight addition to this, if you're trying to stick to as few people as possible, have 2 DDs and just have one HP and conflux back if Tyrant Tusk procs. Waiting on weakness and junk is not worth it when you can re-cap Lights so easily.

[Kegsay]

So Sobek doesn't build resistance to stun? And Tyrant Tusk is relatively long prep time?

[blowfin]

What set of drivers is this? As recent as a week ago, Nvidia's most recent drivers (and the only ones available for the 400M series) were still absolute shit with ffxi.

260.89 was the release that actually mentioned a fix.

Your laptop manufacturer is not going to have a wide range of drivers if you didn't know that. Try this site:
http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/

[Aragon of Odin]

So Sobek doesn't build resistance to stun? And Tyrant Tusk is relatively long prep time?

Mule was using On-Event, so only stunned Tyrant Tusk, never noticed any resistance, probably due to the fact it only used it a couple times per fight.

[Rehn]

Out of my nearly 30 sobeks, I've only wiped once during 4-man run, and it was literally an unlucky death-tusk back to back to back... to back (4 times!). Our stunners don't use on-event, so when commented on how hard it is to stun tusk, they said it was quite fast and really had to pay attention solely for it.

Did it before with MNK DD WHM BLM with little problems as long as WHM is on the ball with cures/status. Death proc on tusk is extremely rare though; don't think I've had more than 10 deaths out of those 30 sobeks from tyrant tusks, 4 of which were in that fight I mentioned. Have had multiple stuns used per fight when I've had higher count on helpers (about 20+ stuns) and never saw resist.

[Kegsay]

Alright, thanks.

Different topic: Why is MNK good at tanking in abyssea? I've seen MNK+WHM duo some pretty tough stuff, but what is it about MNK? The high HP? Counter? Guard? Physical-%? What do MNK tanks usually go for gear wise when tanking?

Edit: Like now, watching a MNK/WAR tank Sobek in full damage gear, only pdt-% is from BB. How come he isn't just taking fatal damage? I can understand he's holding hate since MNKs are pretty heavy on the DD, but is guard/counter -really- that good to keep him alive? He's got a WHM for cure-spam etc

[Fievel]

Alright, thanks.

Different topic: Why is MNK good at tanking in abyssea? I've seen MNK+WHM duo some pretty tough stuff, but what is it about MNK? The high HP? Counter? Guard? Physical-%? What do MNK tanks usually go for gear wise when tanking?

Edit: Like now, watching a MNK/WAR tank Sobek in full damage gear, only pdt-% is from BB. How come he isn't just taking fatal damage? I can understand he's holding hate since MNKs are pretty heavy on the DD, but is guard/counter -really- that good to keep him alive? He's got a WHM for cure-spam etc

Counter, high HP, and a healer with infinite MP, how would he die?

Well aside from Tyrant Tusk obviously.

[Kegsay]

So it's the counter which saves him? You know, what stops a few hits + TP move from killing a MNK tank?

[Aragon of Odin]

I think MNK is used a lot because it has access to a lot of the WS's used to proc !!'s, along with it's ability to deal damage effectively.

[Fievel]

So it's the counter which saves him? You know, what stops a few hits + TP move from killing a MNK tank?

Counter is a big one yes, 3k hp and unlimited cures helps too.

Any DD job can tank most any Abyssea NM though

[Dooom]

Having started trying to use ninja over monk for dual-boxing NMs in Abyssea, I can certainly vouch to how powerful Counter is when it comes to tanking. The high HP helps too, but going from Counterstance + Perfect Counter to no counters at all is a big drop down.

[TheDirtyHobo]

So it's the counter which saves him? You know, what stops a few hits + TP move from killing a MNK tank?

High HP more than anything, as well as fairly easily obtainable PDT sets for emergency. Counter is nice to speed up the kill speed, and is great for the few fights where you want to keep shadows up, though. Especially considering you can get like a ~50% or higher counter rate with capped merits, Counterstance, GH, etc. They've also got relatively high evasion, which is nice considering how blind a lot of abyssea NMs are.

Basically, with a good WHM, only thing that's going to kill you on any job is TP moves or spells that 1shot you. Or insta-death.

[Darkmagi]

Will a war/blu + rdm fell cleaving the Battaru Royale ASA fight have much trouble? Good PDT/MDT gear etc.