Adventuring Fellow Combat Styles - Preferences

[Antithesis]

So I was just wondering what exactly everyone has their Adventuring Fellow set to in the Combat Style department. In addition I also have a question. If I cannot provide a direct form of Refresh (Refresh, Evoker's Roll) to my fellow what would be the best potential style for minimal downtime / good kill speed. Right now I got my fellow set to Soothing Healer.

[Ehran]

Level 70 soothing healer, GKT.

My NPC does waste a lot of MP casting Paralyze that never lands EVER, but I'm willing to take the trade off of a little down time for Haste and quick -na spells. Most of the time I have my NPC out I'm on NIN, so Stalwart Shield and Fierce Attacker don't make a lot of sense.

[Savanah]

Personally for levelling him (he's in the mid 60s right now) I hit VoS and do training regimes with PLD/DNC and set him to Fierce Attacker so we can skillchain. Even without my fellow hasting me it's no big deal because Atonement, especially paired with my fellow opening a Lv2 SC, rips apart the monsters. If you're trying to solo harder NMs Soothing Healer's MP pool in the 60s is a good size to last you, but unless you have ballads/refresh/evoker's roll I don't really see much point in actually levelling him in soothing healer mode, he just gives you more downtime than its worth.

Summary: Stick with Fierce Attacker on most jobs, especially if you sub dancer or have a way to cast cures. Skillchains make those mobs go down quicker.

Edit: Ehran makes a few good points, if you're fighting stuff with alot of debuffs and haste really helps you like on NIN soothing healer rocks. It's all really a matter of opinion, situation and personal preference.

[ryskar]

Soothing healer, unless I have to unlock a weapon. In that case I use Fierce attacker. It's all about haste, protect, and shell tbh.

[Antithesis]

Well with Fields of Valor alot of thing have changed so its a bit diffrent now. Also, does Ballad afect NPCs? Cause im mainly looking for soloing on BRD. If Ballad affects NPCs then im totally going Soothing Healer. If not ill switch to Fierce Attacker.

[zantes]

Well with Fields of Valor alot of thing have changed so its a bit diffrent now. Also, does Ballad afect NPCs? Cause im mainly looking for soloing on BRD. If Ballad affects NPCs then im totally going Soothing Healer. If not ill switch to Fierce Attacker.

Ballad should affect NPCs if you cast it, it won't if another party member casts it. Any AoE party spells you cast will affect your NPC.

[fndragon]

One thing you can do is you can cast Refresh on your NPC. I do this all the time with mine set to Soothing Healer. The thing is you can't do it directly from the menu; it won't let you target your NPC unless you explicitly use a macro such as this:

/ma "Refresh" <st>

(and then tab over to your npc)

In fact, I wonder if /ma "Refresh" <pet> would work, or <stnpc> even...

This is useful for low-man events and the like.

That being said, I prefer the Fierce Attacker NPC when farming, etc. /DNC can throw cures to your NPC in the same way (<st>), so I usually just keep her hp up that way, and it saves having to rest every so often.

[Zosi]

Soothing Healer is nice, but I found that I rarely ever stopped for her to get MP, so she's on Fierce Attacker now for extra damage. Haste is great, but not when you have to rest for a minute every few fights because your NPC doesn't know how to conserve MP for the important spells.

[Savanah]

The macro you can use to cast a spell on a fellow , in this example Refresh:

/ma "Refresh" <ft>

the <ft> tag will cast the spell on your fellow. Far as I know you can Pianissimo songs on your fellow the same way, like this:

/ja "Pianissimo" <me>
/ma "Mage's Ballad II" <ft>

All there is to it. Any spell that can be cast on party members can be cast on a fellow if it is *your* NPC.

[Mariote]

mine is lvl 67 and healer. i think is the best, because i like to solo lots of things with mnk or nin. for some nm's it's a butt-save

[ferigor]

If I'm on whm I let her go fierce attacker, if I'm on nin or sam I bring her out as soothing healer. My npc is 70, so the only instances when I use her is if I'm trying to "solo" something. Most of her leveling was with me as whm and her as fierce attacker. I don't even have stalwart shield unlocked. I also am the only person I know that gave their npc a one handed weapon and actually upgraded her shield (Yeah, it was kind of a retarded move).

[Savanah]

I'm a skillchain junkie, but I used GAxe for the longest time for the break WS (they are kinda nice). Switched to gkt recently though, soboro model nice, cheap, and cool looking.

[Roronoya]

Soothing healer mostly. The random haste is what keeps it set that way. I've switched to fierce attacker for unlocking weapons, or going Axe/Shield and Stalwart for tanking while soloing lowbie jobs.

[Juna]

mine attacker+ since im mostly on pup and just want extra damage on stuff

[Cesaria]

Mine's on soothing healer just because I forget to change her - set to axe and shield as well and in full bison gear with a tiger mask - not that she's at all trying to masquerade as a BST of course.

[Raineer]

As RDM I like fierce attacker and polearm, opens Distortion 90% of the time for me.

On my NIN I could love the hastebot/na's as well.

[FallingHigher]

Quite a long shot but if for some reason you have a club equipped on w/e job and are getting TP somehow then you can use Moonlight to restore some of their MP providing they're in range. At 100% TP it roughly gave around 20 MP each time. Was just something I found out when I was skilling club up on NIN one time, but yeah my NPC ran out of MP eventually.

Not an amazing option by any means just sort of convieniant at the time and thought it couldn't hurt to mention it.

Don't play anymore but as for the combat style it depended what job I was on. If it was soloing on NIN or THF I would set them to soothing healer for sure as a personal Haste slut.

[Plow]

Pre dancer, I was always nin/thf when leveling npc (or just smn leveling her on bombs lol), so always soothing healer.

Now I'm always nin/dnc for leveling her, so definitely fierce attacker for that. Soothing healer for any nm's and crap harder than like... Alky. (and I keep her healer for alky just so I can sub thf lol)

[Lahina]

I prefer to keep mine (70) on Soothing Healer most of the time. She lets me farm some nastier mobs with mnk/thf instead of dnc or nin, which helps my profits considerably. Since I work in dungeons a lot, the 15-minute repop usually gives me some time to rest her up, and well-timed chakras heep her from wasting too much MP on big cures if I take a particularly vicious chain. She also helps a lot when I'm going for moderate NMs, or trying to cap guard on mobs that aren't chigs (only 80 levels to go...).

On the other side of the coin, when I'm screwing around levelling a mid-level job, having a solid (if mildly retarded) whm who only sucks a quarter of my XP following me around is quite delicious.

And for some jobs - like drg and whm, where I can handle healing quite well on my own - I usually use Fierce attacker.

As for Stalwart Shield? Unlocked, but only used it a handful of times. Bitch can't tank (probably my fault for picking a taroo, but still...).

[Pindle]

If I'm out soloing on Mnk/Nin I tend to set mine to Soothing Healer. There isn't much call for Fierce Attacker unless I'm duoing/skilling with a healer type friend.