LNC Observations

So after playing with a handful of jobs (beta and final) I have gotten a good feel on the roles of the jobs. Keep in mind that you can essntially mix-and-match JA and create some interesting combinations. With that said, based on the inherent traits of the job, LNC seems to be a light DD/party-support job.

The LNC output is below an equally geared PGL, MRD, and ARC. The only melee job it outperforms in DD is GLD. The area that it outperforms those jobs appears to be accuracy. I talked with a few people and also experimented with PGL, GLD, and LNC - all with fresh gear, equal level, and equal weapons (naked, mind you). The LNC had the most accuracy by a large margin. And based on my experiences with MRD, LNC also outperforms. This creates a very nice DPS job, although still about 10-20% less than MRD or PGL (this can vary by gear and physical level, of course).

The support elements of the job come from the inherent JA that you learn. While each melee class offers some unique debuffs, LNC seems to have the most obvious impact in party situations.

1. Speed Surge - increases stamina regain and grants party members HP Drain on melee attacks (essentially, Drain Samba)

2. Trammel - reasonable damage TP attack, great accuracy, weighs the target down. Great in situations where hate flies around (it happens a lot due to the weakness of the early level provoke).

3. Moonrise - slows the pace at which the mob generates TP. Very nice for obvious reasons. 1 less TP attack per fight is a huge relief on healers.

So far, at level 15, these are the big three that indicate a very nice support DD class.

If you're looking to do solo work, make sure to equip Fracture (from MRD) and Second Wind (from PGL). Due to the high parry rate of LNC, Fracture provides a very nice cost-efficient TP move (250 TP) with good damage. The Pacification effect is also very nice.

Again, you can stack JA tons of different ways and create some neat combinations, but based on the initial experiences, it is very likely a very nice job for parties.

Fracture is sort of situational.. Soloing it can mean the difference between winning the fight and losing it, at least on MRD.. It loses it's usefulness (other then a cheap WS for pure damage) in a party situation though. I'm not sure how often a LNC parries, but MRD parries pretty often, so there's plenty of chances to use it, and some of the mobs out there have some really bad WSs, which is where it comes in handy.

Actually, it appears that LNC does parry more often. Just playing the job, I see way more parries from LNC than MRD. Take the comparrison of both the Bronze Labrys with 72 parrying and the Bone Harpoon with 100 parrying. Both weapons are r9/10. Even with MRD's inherent parrying enhancements, it would be a far stretch to expect a 25% increase. Based on that, LNC would parry more frequently (based on raw stats).

Does anybody know the percentage increases for MRD's JAs?

I'm really starting to see some outstanding value to LNC.

Lv20 lancer gets a real nice ability called feint

If you use after you miss an attack it uses 250tp and guarantees a hit at WS damage basically. and uses minimal stamina bar like 1/3 of a normal WS. good against mobs that u miss a lot such as exp mobs

"The LNC output is below an equally geared PGL, MRD, and ARC. The only melee job it outperforms in DD is GLD. "

when i was a 48 lancer i was doing more dmg than a 50 mrd with a +2 engraved bhuj with my banneret +1. in my SP party i constantly do more dmg with WS than the archers and pgl. Largest hit ive done on hog up in coearthas (sp?) was 2005 with a 3000tp Doomspike II with raging strike and ferocity buffed to it. As far as accuracy goes, i think lancers miss just about as much as all the other melee classes =p

heh i seem to miss much more then i should... but atm i been using a lance not a spear ... got a battle fork waiting for when i get to 35 or something so that is sure to help :)

When using lances i stacked ACC rings, when using the other stuff, forks, guisarme etc.., i would stack str rings. Or whenever i would get 5x misses in a row even with using the higher acc weapons i would use all ACC stuff lol...yah im sure you guys know what im talkin about =p