What's Better?

[Ksandra]

so debating about bit by bit going down the horror road of "upgrading" my 51 ele staves to the magian ele staves.

There's two kinds though for each magic acc. +1 and magic dmg + 5 vs. magic acc. +5 magic dmg +1

so like trying to figure out which I should do. I can't seem to find any updated comparisons between the current staves vs. the 51 ones (stuff on wiki is only up to the lvl 75s). Currently only job I'd be using them on is rdm, but want the best overall because they will take so damn long to do I don't want to regret the time if I decide to lvl sch or blm someday. Of course inside abyssea would seem like the +5 mag dmg would be the way to go, but what happens when they give us some wtf hnms down the line outside it and I'm stuck having to buy hq staves because of resists or some shit?

Any thoughts?

[Atoreis]

I can't bring myself to believe the difference between a 90 Twashtar and 90 Mandau is that large for a THF.

Mercy Stroke - 60% STR, (3.0 + 1.0 + DAs/TAs fTP)*1.25, minimum of about 5.4 fTP, and +35 Attack
Rudra's Storm - 60% DEX, 4.0 to 6.25 fTP depending on TP, DEX+15

Mercy Stroke probably does more damage at 100TP.

OADD vs. Crit rate +5%? OADD wins, but you only get it after you use a SA or TA WS, which could be pretty infrequent in many situations.
15 DEX vs. 35 Attack for DPS? Well, depends where you sit relative to the monster's AGI. Without Twashtar, I had a ~13% crit rate on the Doomed Toad VNM. With Twashtar, I had a 25% crit rate. Depends how often you're dealing with cases like that, though.

If SE decides to power up Mandau in a coming patch just after you make Twashtar, it'd still probably be the best offhand with its stats/delay.

Im not sure if Mercy will really win for SA/TA. Because of 2 things:
1. It's really common to TP over 100 when trying to use WS with SA/TA. Mostly because of how fast can be round with daggers and how much TA you can get and sometimes you have 100TP and 2 sec on SA and you gonna wait that 2 sec and probably get another 1-2 rounds of melee. You can also get TP bonus earring which is fTP +0.25 for Rudra.
2. DEX mod contribute to SA damage.

[Atoreis]

so debating about bit by bit going down the horror road of "upgrading" my 51 ele staves to the magian ele staves.

There's two kinds though for each magic acc. +1 and magic dmg + 5 vs. magic acc. +5 magic dmg +1

so like trying to figure out which I should do. I can't seem to find any updated comparisons between the current staves vs. the 51 ones (stuff on wiki is only up to the lvl 75s). Currently only job I'd be using them on is rdm, but want the best overall because they will take so damn long to do I don't want to regret the time if I decide to lvl sch or blm someday. Of course inside abyssea would seem like the +5 mag dmg would be the way to go, but what happens when they give us some wtf hnms down the line outside it and I'm stuck having to buy hq staves because of resists or some shit?

Any thoughts?

I honestly doubt that +15% damage will ever lose to macc gain from nq to hq staffs. You would also rather wanna switch some other equip to get some macc than lose that bonus from magian staff.

[Mirya]

I have an old W Feet Abj laying around and I'm trying to decide if I should turn it into Tatters to augment my Blood Legs or if I should uncurse it and augment it. Would Blood Feet (Dex/Agi 4) augmented with Blue Magic Skill (3-4) beat out Lithe Boots (Dex/Agi 6) on Dex and Agi modded spells? I know it would break a damage tier, but would the difference be splitting hairs?

[Toshiko]

Do the Ice, Thunder, and (if you're not burned out) Wind staves on the M.Dmg bonus path, and keep your HQ staves as well. Things like Bind, Gravity etc arent affected by the dmg bonus so you would want to either make the nq magian m.acc staff for that element, orrrrrrrrr just keep your normal lvl 51 hq staff for casting. Also abyssea makes magian trials so much easier then doing them in the normal field, I totally wasted a ton of time doing things like wyverns in riverne site B instead of doing them in konschtat/grauberg/ulegurand with atma buffs.

My 2 cents.

[Byrthnoth]

Honestly, I didn't believe the hype and had my mule Barding for me forever, but Cure 5/6 are just too awesome in Abyssea especially when all I seem to do is AoE kill and kill NMs. I got his WHM to 90 and intend to use it forever, so I should probably consider gearing it. We have Plucking Wings open at the moment, so I'll probably snag him a Roundel. Main question: How do I WHM?

My mule's WHM: http://www.ffxiah.com/item-sets/216966
- Before anyone asks, the Dark rings are PDT-11%, which is an improvement over his former rings (Tav Ring and Olduum Ring). He has a 13% Bliault, but I haven't bothered writing him a spellcast yet so he doesn't use it. -

1) 2 mil budget, Lakshmi. What do I buy?
2) Is there some essential piece that I should increase my budget for? Is it worth skilling up healing magic and/or enhancing? My enhancing got to 295 while testing out Conserve MP.
3) Currently I just use triple Refresh Atma on him for 20MP/tick. Is there anything better in Abyssea?
4) I'm one seal away from AF3+1 head, I think, and he has a smattering of other WHM seals. Is there one piece that's worth focusing on?
5) People used to care a little about Haste gear on Cure for lowering recast. Do people still care about that? I haven't had much of an issue when I just alternate Cure 5/6. Maybe use it on -na spells?

[Arthars]

Honestly, I didn't believe the hype and had my mule Barding for me forever, but Cure 5/6 are just too awesome in Abyssea especially when all I seem to do is AoE kill and kill NMs. I got his WHM to 90 and intend to use it forever, so I should probably consider gearing it. We have Plucking Wings open at the moment, so I'll probably snag him a Roundel. Main question: How do I WHM?

My mule's WHM: http://www.ffxiah.com/item-sets/216966
- Before anyone asks, the Dark rings are PDT-11%, which is an improvement over his former rings (Tav Ring and Olduum Ring). He has a 13% Bliault, but I haven't bothered writing him a spellcast yet so he doesn't use it. -

1) 2 mil budget, Lakshmi. What do I buy?
Nothing to buy as a whm XD

2) Is there some essential piece that I should increase my budget for? Is it worth skilling up healing magic and/or enhancing? My enhancing got to 295 while testing out Conserve MP.
Healing magic is worth skilling for a better chance for cursna and lesser interruption on lesser mobs

3) Currently I just use triple Refresh Atma on him for 20MP/tick. Is there anything better in Abyssea?
perfect attendance/MM/MM is the best for general purpose. The regen and regain from perfect attendance helps

4) I'm one seal away from AF3+1 head, I think, and he has a smattering of other WHM seals. Is there one piece that's worth focusing on?
legs >>>>>> head >> body. Get serpentes set too

5) People used to care a little about Haste gear on Cure for lowering recast. Do people still care about that? I haven't had much of an issue when I just alternate Cure 5/6. Maybe use it on -na spells?

fuck the haste gear, this is basically enough for everything in abyssea:
input /equip main "Surya's Staff +2"
input /equip sub "Bugard strap +1"
input /equip Body "Orison Bliaud +2"
input /equip legs "Orsn. Pantaln. +2"
input /equip hands "Serpentes cuffs"
input /equip Neck "Orison Locket"
input /equip Waist "Siegel sash"
input /equip Ear2 "Loquac. Earring"
input /equip Ear1 "Orison earring"
input /equip feet "Serpentes sabots"
input /equip ring2 "Tamas Ring"
input /equip ring1 "Sirona's Ring"
input /equip Back "Orison Cape"
input /equip head "Orison Cap +2"
input /equip Ammo "Incantor Stone"

if you wish to spend some money for WHM, roundel is the only piece u prolly need. My WHM mule is decent enough to keep me alive in anything. Anything more is just bonus or elite onry

i dont think i spent any real gil obtaining the above. I might get a roundel some day. maybe u can buy a belt as im lazy finding a good belt to swap anyway

also good to keep augur hands and cure clogs somewhere in ur sack

[Limlight]

i'm not sure what your c5's and c6's cap out at, my whm mule gets around 1450-1500+ cure6 and 1050-1100 cure5 with allure/mm/fullmoon atma (thats 17mp refresh with his idle set (15 from atma + serpentes + af3 body) and +44% cure potency.) tbh I'm not sure if I even need a second refresh atma since i go /rdm most of the time, but it lets me be lazy about it too.

+2 pants are the real thing here(and one of the first things you should focus on) getting 50 mp back for 1k+ cure5's is just friggin awesome, basically getting cure5 for just a little more mp than cure4. I did T3 vnm in mis coast and got all 6 cards in 2 days.

My whm mule looks much like arthars (still +1 body /grumble), and there isn't much that it can't do, even wrote up a little mnd+ build for my enfeebles in my SC. I just use an extremely bare bones sc and its more than functional.

also, roundel is totally unnecessary. You can hit 40%+ cure potency without one easily. If plucking wings would ever open back up on sylph i'd try for one, but honestly save your money for other things. Unless you're ridiculously rich like arthars!

[Seol]

A good combo for whm-mule only is MM/Apoc/Ambition that's 15MP/tic, Quickcast, unlimited RR (in case you forget to RR your mule) Minor fastcast, and 12% movement speed. It's pretty lazy-go-all-around-purposes.

[Byrthnoth]

Mule doesn't have Ambition (never did miniexpansions), does have Apoc. I will get started on some of his AF3+1/2. With DNC/NIN + BLM/BRD, he and I can grellow most anything.

I'm a little afraid to try Tristitia duo until his gear gets better, because I'd have to go WAR to deal with the spikes and I'd end up taking a lot more damage. I could just farm old-world mobs for it though.

[Michelob]

For my mule, I typically use either MM/Apoc/Perfect Attendance or MM/Full Moon/Perfect Attendance if I need more refresh.

[Ksandra]

I honestly doubt that +15% damage will ever lose to macc gain from nq to hq staffs. You would also rather wanna switch some other equip to get some macc than lose that bonus from magian staff.

ya I was kinda leaning toward that since it seems since coming back they've put a lot of m acc. on shit unlike before.

I couldn't find the chart last night (was late lol) but found out the stats this morning. So it's 10% dmg and 60 m. acc vs. 30% dmg and 20 m. acc right?

Do the Ice, Thunder, and (if you're not burned out) Wind staves on the M.Dmg bonus path, and keep your HQ staves as well. Things like Bind, Gravity etc arent affected by the dmg bonus so you would want to either make the nq magian m.acc staff for that element, orrrrrrrrr just keep your normal lvl 51 hq staff for casting.

Well the point is to replace not to add if possible (I got enough inventory issues as it is lol).

Looking at this:


http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Magic_Affinity







It looks like the staves are on the same level for both stats as the NQ versions. So I guess the big thing is whether it seems like NQ accuracy seems to be fine for even "hard" fights (without aby buffs). I guess best test for that now would be the voidwatch nms 'cause I'm not sure if there's anything outside of abyssea that's new to lvl 90s outside of those.

But ya I'm leaning towards just getting the dmg ones, and if it seems like later on I have acc issues I can compensate them with others slots to make up for it guess.

[Arthars]

yea ambition atma is hot for mule

i need to get my shantoto done as well -_-;

[Haborym]

Mule doesn't have Ambition (never did miniexpansions), does have Apoc. I will get started on some of his AF3+1/2. With DNC/NIN + BLM/BRD, he and I can grellow most anything.

I'm a little afraid to try Tristitia duo until his gear gets better, because I'd have to go WAR to deal with the spikes and I'd end up taking a lot more damage. I could just farm old-world mobs for it though.

On my WHM mule I use MM/Apoc/Rescuer, that way I can drop some cure potency for other stats (or in your case bump you up to 37%), and gain a bit of Fast Cast. That leaves me with a 21/tic idle so mp isn't ever a issue. As far as Orison Pantaloons +2 go, you could look into getting the cards from Sobek, or even Chloris if you know someone doing either of those NMs. They seem more common on Chloris then Sobek, as far as my experience goes. Looking back at longs I am 12/12 on them from Chloris with just TH.

[Limlight]

rescuer is an option if you don't have surya staff+2 done, when you get it done I get more mileage out of allure and sitting around 44-45% cure potency gear wise.

with af3+2 pants and /rdm honestly just MM is enough for your mp.

for cards. If one of your mates is on chloris/sobek you can get them easy off that, but if no one is on that stage. T3 vnm in mis. coast drops 3 cards with yellow and th. He can be a little rough with his perma shock spikes (stun off them procs a lot). But you have a really good dnc so you, healer, yellow procs, and a thf could handle it easily.

[Tribe]

Should be /sch.. And yea NQ light with Rescuer is way to go

[Haborym]

I don't see why Surya+2 is a breaking point for Rescuer. I'm not trying to defend it as the better atma, but just curious to why you think it would be useless with it. If you are already using MM and another refresh atma, just for the refresh, why would you not take the Fast Cast and cure potency over say, movement speed. 10% cure potency can easily be dropped for a ton of -enm, or MND.

And why would you /rdm over /sch?

[Michelob]

rescuer is an option if you don't have surya staff+2 done, when you get it done I get more mileage out of allure and sitting around 44-45% cure potency gear wise.

with af3+2 pants and /rdm honestly just MM is enough for your mp.

I usually bring my mule whm/thf when I'm just off doing stuff alone, so no refresh or convert. Depending on what you're doing 15 per tick refresh may or may not be enough. Some things I use 20 per tick refresh in atmas, like Rani, Shinryu, or anything else that can get spammy. For most things just MM is enough, though but I still use another refresh atma because I'd rather be safe than sorry.

[Med]

Career WHM here, just my 2c:

For anyone that even cares about WHM...
IMO, not capping 50% cure potency (Especially in Abyssea) for any whm is just lazy. Do it. There's no reason not to. It will benefit your healing efficiency and cureskin too. Aim for 1050+ CureV's and 1400+ VIs. These days, You really don't need to break the bank on a roundel or Fyljia+1 to achieve this either!

Staff+2 (22%) - Magains are sigh, but be glad, this ones not that hard.
Head+2 (10%) - Get the legs+2 also, it goes in tandem.
NQ nobles (10%) or better yet Falcio Bliaut (possible 7%-15%)
orison cape (3%) - The bunny in Latheine
orison earring (2%) - LBC in Altepa
Augur's Gloves (4% / +5 Healing skill) OR Serpentes Set (5%)
Atma of the Rescuer (10%) - SL win in Dyn-Xarc.

At bare minimum this set achieves 51% and 61% with the atma, all for the price of some NM pops and the noble's tunic. So really, just mix and match what pieces/atmas suit you best to get to the 50% cap. Once you know you can hit the 50% cap -then- worry about the WHM minutia that only hardcore healers would consider. Ex: Using Orison Body+2 for stronger cureskins, or Marduk Body for Fast Cast, haste gear, -enmity gear (for outside abyssea without Allure atma)

This is a far cry from before 2009 when all we had was Lightstaff, and Aristocrat's. (and maybe ring for above mentioned hardcore healers xD )

[kamugi]

http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c243/r5n/which.jpg

1% DA or 7str 7att?