FFXI: The Best Subjobs For Warrior

Warriors are one-stop shops when it comes to bringing the pain.

With the wide range of weapons they have access to, in addition to their already-great abilities, they have a lot of flexibility when it comes to support jobs.

So which are the most notable picks for a warrior? Let’s find out.

5. Ninja

This is a fairly common defensive support job that’s mostly used when physical damage is high and mighty.

The Ninja’s claim to fame is Utsusemi, which allows them to cast shadows which completely nullify damage coming at them. Very useful to counter the unavoidable damage that can often sweep and wipe players out quickly.

This job also provides the dual wield trait, which many warriors will take advantage of when using Savage Blade in quick succession.

Not to mention the Subtle Blow trait, a welcome aid to reduce feeding enemies TP, since they do seem to attack often.

Unfortunately, this combo is held back slightly for its missing but incredible Yonin and Innin abilities, which aren’t available when ninja is a support job.

4. Rune Fencer

This is certainly a situational but useful defensive support job for a warrior.

This job will almost exclusively be used as a way to deal with magic damage, but it can often mean the difference between life and death – especially when a warrior is expected to tank.

Inquaratata gives warriors a much-needed boost to their parrying rate, allowing them to fulfill their role as a tank even better.

Plus this subjob offers up a Magic Defense Bonus and Tenacity trait.

And even though warriors aren’t made for it, the spells that a rune fencer can provide are incredibly useful for the job; Blink, Aquaveil, Flash, and practically every self-cast bar-spell with the exception of Baramnesia is at their disposal. And this offers some incredible defensive capabilities.

As if that wasn’t enough, an intelligent use of a rune fencer’s abilities can often help any player mitigate (or completely nullify) magic damage or status effects via each elemental rune, or by using Vallation and Pflug.

3. Dancer

Now this is a very valuable utility subjob that’s common among new players.

The Warrior & Dancer combo is also chosen when high damage and amounts of debuffs are a concern.

Haste Samba offers warrior a 5% job ability haste, and waltzes are immensely cherished on a job that’s capable of generating TP very quickly.

While this support job doesn’t do much in the way of boosting a warrior’s power, it does give them the ability to survive where a trust or party member may suddenly die.

Dancer also grants warriors the ability to debuff in the form of steps, primarily Box Step, which goes incredibly well with their Tomahawk ability. The Skillchain bonus trait is a prized tool on a job that doesn’t offer much damage; giving them a large 8% skillchain damage increase.

When combined with the frequency of a warrior’s weapon skills, this is seriously powerful.

This combo also gives warriors the natural ability to dual wield, which can be very attractive to anyone using the incredible Savage Blade weapon skill often enough. Opening up dual wielding for warriors also increases their flexible nature even more.

I’d say it’s most common to see this subjob being used in older high-level content for the natural safety that it provides.

2. Dragoon

Recently this subjob gained large amounts of popularity because of the recent additions of the Weapon Skill Damage trait, which belongs solely to this job.

The trait offers a substantial 7% boost to all weapon skill damage!

That makes a Dragoon one fantastic damage-dealing option, as a warrior’s main focus is on hard-hitting weapon skills.

High Jump also allows you to deal respectable damage and reduce your enmity should you need to avoid tanking (or are off tanking). It’s also a great way to counter your high damage output but limited enmity control.

Conserve TP is a minor but welcome trait for warriors as well, to supplement their weapon skill frequencies and occasionally allowing the TP cost to be cut down.

The dragoon subjob doesn’t offer anything in the way of utility, but does lend itself to powering up weapon skills.

1. Samurai

This is the unbeatable support job for a warrior in almost any situation.

The main reason being Hasso, which offers 15% job ability haste and massive amounts of strength, attack, and accuracy.

The increased cast or recast times are never an issue either, due to the inability to use spells naturally.

Zanshin is also very valuable since it allows you to swing you weapon again if you miss. Given a 2-handed weapon user’s natively high delay, this is great to maximize TP generation.

The Store TP trait along with Meditate lets you rack up TP incredibly quickly, which warriors are already great at. This allows them to break TP thresholds much easier, or build TP passively in preparation for a fight.

On top of all of this, the Seigan and Third eye combination allows warriors to take their tanking to the next level with the ability to nullify single-target physical damage several times over, which can be helpful even in situations where a warrior may be off-tanking.

Ultimately, this subjob works best when a warrior is using great swords or great axes. They’re both weapons that offer the most damage alongside their affinity with Hasso.