AF Upgrades

[Kincard]

I haven't bought the DW earrings personally, aside from the fact that I haven't spammed Delve as much as others (or at all really), last I checked it was a small enough difference that I didn't really bother wasting another 2 slots in my inventory on it (NIN's pretty inventory-floody for me). You're right it'd be better though, and it gets better as you add more DW. If someone wanted cheap high il weapons for NIN it'd be Pamun obviously, though at this point I'm guessing Kikoku would be the best mainhand or lolNagi if you're AM3 (or you could dual wield REMs, because I'm sure there's probably at least guy out there that built 2 REMs for a gimp job like I did!). None lv99 or lower katanas are worth it anymore, pretty sure not even Kamome inside Abyssea outdoes the sheer DMG/skill+ increase you'd get from an ilv katana. Technically you could get that extra 5% DW right now by using those earrings plus that Uguisu DW katana, but the latter's pretty crummy. Kinda sucks they outdated that weapon right after it came out because it was a pretty cool model.

There's a lot of new gear I haven't checked so it'd take a bit of playing around to find the best March'd TP set for NIN, but who the heck plays NIN in a party seriously. As for Iga Zukin +2, it's sadly still the best-in-slot TP piece normally because of the attack speed it gives unless you're fighting something really, really evasive. In those cases you'd probably go with something with a lot of haste and statvomit though, like Whirlpool. Thurandaut+1 isn't really any good because it's DW+5 but only Haste +1, so you might as well just wear something with like haste +7 or something.

As for why it's 7% DW instead of 10% DW, the simple way of putting it is because NIN already has dual wield, so it's not just "10% off my TP return must mean I added 10% to the stat", attack speed in this game gives "increasing" returns so you would need less of the actual stat once you already have some to be swinging 10% faster. NIN has 35% DW naturally so that means if I get another 7% DW on top of that I'm swinging at 100-42=58% speed of normal. 58/65 = 89%, I'm swinging about 10% faster even though I only added 7% DW.

[Sechs]

I haven't bought the DW earrings personally, aside from the fact that I haven't spammed Delve as much as others (or at all really), last I checked it was a small enough difference that I didn't really bother wasting another 2 slots in my inventory on it

Premise, you made the same EXACT thoughts that I did.
But then Plasm stopped being an issue for me and both those earrings autodropped to me during delve runs.
Also, Mog Case got released and my inventory issues got reduced, for a while at least.

To give you an idea, taking into consderation the setup I posted earlier, Chapuli 102 target, no buff, food etc
With Suppa/Brutal I get 301 dps, with the two DW earrings I get 303.
If you use thaumas body it's 280 vs 275 instead
You're free to judge if 5 or 2 is a big or a small difference to you.
Looks small to me. But I put Suppa in Storage and Brutal on porter moogle atm, wasn't using them anymore. (using refresh on my moonshade)

If someone wanted cheap high il weapons for NIN it'd be Pamun obviously

Just like above there can be difference in defining what is a small upgrade or not, I guess the same could be said here about what is "cheap"
Pamun is awesome especially if dualwielded but personally I don't really feel like spending 20 mils gil for NIN.
Now if I had capped gil maybe it would be a different story I guess

There's a lot of new gear I haven't checked so it'd take a bit of playing around to find the best March'd TP set for NIN

You'd totally be using Thaumas body and maybe a different head (uk'uxkaj? Whirlpool?)
Probably would keep using Hachiya legs though even in a march set.
Unless you're really getting A LOT of magic haste, at which point you'd be swapping to, I dunno, R15 Mani or Otronif or Kumhau legs I suppose.

As for Iga Zukin +2, it's sadly still the best-in-slot TP piece normally because of the attack speed it gives unless you're fighting something really, really evasive.

Would you be using NIN against such a target though?
Either way, Thurandaut has the same DW as Iga Zukin+2. And ilevel statsvomit etc.
You'd be missing on that 6% (5% if we're talking thura+1) haste. But once you use Hachiya legs in place of Koga+2 that's not an issue anymore.
Altough I guess you could be wanting to keep Iga zukin+2 and use Windbuffet instead of a haste belt. Didn't test it, dunno what would be better, but better or worse, I feel Thura+1 head is a nice option.
Personally I'd favour Thura because of the ilevel stats vomit, but that's just me.

Actually let me see very quickly, a setup like the one I posted above but with Hachiya legs too. Considering Ionis bonus up.

Thura+1/Cetl => 316
Thura+1/Patientia => 330
Whirlpool/Windbuffet => 296
Whirlpool/Patientia => 319
Uk'uxkaj/Windbuffet => 294
Uk'uxkaj/Patientia => 317

Whoaaaaa Thura/Patientia getting mad! xD With such a setp you'd be missing only ~4% haste to reach swing delay cap.
With Thura/Cetl you're autocapped instead (with Ionis) and I don't exactely get why but w/e

As for why it's 7% DW instead of 10% DW, the simple way of putting it is because NIN already has dual wield

Ah... uhm, forgot to consider that 35% indeed.
So it was actually a 10% TP reduction on an already 35% reduced TP gain.

[FHT]

Holy shit these new AFs! If I had not deleted my chars I would go back to XI straight away seeing how boring XIV is...

[Byrthnoth]

http://www.playonline.com/ff11us/campaign/11th/wcb.html + Character Recovery?

jk, no way they get it done in only two weeks.

[FHT]

http://www.playonline.com/ff11us/campaign/11th/wcb.html + Character Recovery?

jk, no way they get it done in only two weeks.

Thank you very much Byrth, very appreciated!

[noodles355]

Most definitely better for Rudra.

The difference between +5WS Damage and +5Crit Damage is about 4-5 stat for SA/TA Mercy, according to my calculations anyways. Pillager has 8DEX over Khepri, which makes it better for SAMercy, but it only has 2AGI over Khepri, so Khepri should still be better.

Even if it was better for both, I'd still hang on to mine for regen. Yup, 120m regen piece....

Doesn't the 5% WSD only affect the first hit, which is a critical hit? And thus wouldn't 5WSD = 5Crit Dmg?

[Fwahm]

Critical hit damage + stacks additively with the Critical Attack Bonus trait, so 5% crit hit damage on a THF with no other crit hit damage equipment is only a 1.19/1.14 = ~4.39% damage increase.

[Ihina]

Yes sir or madam. That's why you need the 4-5 dex or agi to make up the difference.

[Foldypaws]

http://www.playonline.com/ff11us/campaign/11th/wcb.html + Character Recovery?

jk, no way they get it done in only two weeks.

Yeah, I'm *still* waiting on my request that I put in on Oct. 12th...

[noodles355]

Critical hit damage + stacks additively with the Critical Attack Bonus trait, so 5% crit hit damage on a THF with no other crit hit damage equipment is only a 1.19/1.14 = ~4.39% damage increase.

Yes sir or madam. That's why you need the 4-5 dex or agi to make up the difference.

Ah, I see. Thanks for the info.

[Motenten]

Ok, I tried to re-read but I still get nothing out of it, my math skills are too low.
Can anybody try to explain with other words why it's 7% and not 10% and what CDF tried to say about the TP gain thing?
Don't get me wrong I DO TRUST the fact that body is "just" 7% (makes more sense for 109 to be 7% and 119 to be 10%), I just want to understand what was wrong about the TP thing, because that seemed to suggest a 10% difference? (10% of 20,4TP = 2 TP. 20,4TP-2=18.4TP which is the value I was getting with body on)

Total of the two weapons: 1226
Nominal delay per weapon = 613


Without the body:

Observed 20.4 per attack round == 10.2 per hit

10.2/hit => 396 - 400 delay per weapon

=> Relative to base 613 delay per weapon, implies a DW value between 34.75% and 35.40%. 35% native DW trait.


With Hachiya body on:

Observed 18.4 TP per round = 9.2 TP per hit.

9.2/hit => 355 - 358 delay per weapon

=> Relative to base 613 delay per weapon, implies a DW value between 41.60% and 42.09%. 42% total DW.


Conclusion:

35% native to 42% total means 7% DW on the body.


Edit: meh, missed a page; whatever.

[Ophannus]

Vishap Brais don't enhance Ancient Circle duration, might enhance either Dragon Killer or increase the Damage Taken-% or DMG+% vs Dragons. As for the High Jump effect, it probably doesn't enhance the enmity reduction because that's what relic pants do. Nothing obvious so far, probably a generic Attack+ similar to Lancer's Cuissots+2 bonus on Spirit and Soul Jump. Was hoping for an autocrit or a base DMG bonus or something. As for the armet, as said before it doesn't change the HP threshold for Healing Breath. Might make the Wyvern choose the right elemental breath vs the mob's weakness more often but that's superfluous. Spirit Link might be enhanced but to be honest since they doubled its potency and halved its duration and added a regen, it's already a full heal anyway. Might have changed the potency or regen effect, too bothersome to test. If anything the 82 defense and VIT/EVA while casting a spell is worthwhile since most times DRG die when solo is when swapping into armet to cast.

[noodles355]

If you're doing anything that doesn't give you exp (read: doesn't lvl up your dragon) then spirit link is a complete 100% heal anyway for the first 5 uses as your wyvern fully heals when it levels up.

[dbheinec]

skimmed through all these posts but didnt notice an answer to this:

is there a pre req or wait time on these upgrades? i have a 2 month old brd mule thats never done limbus and when i trade the items nothing happens. ive zoned and waited a full game day and tried again.

[Foldypaws]

If you're doing anything that doesn't give you exp (read: doesn't lvl up your dragon) then spirit link is a complete 100% heal anyway for the first 5 uses as your wyvern fully heals when it levels up.

That's only true with a single merit in Empathy. If you have zero, you don't get any heals, and if you have more than 1, you get fewer than 5.

[noodles355]

I thought everyone put one merit in empathy anyway so you could Spirit Link at 100%HP to get your wyvern's TP.

[Dotsudoku]

I can't imagine why you wouldn't. Aside from the TP transfer, the ability to fully heal your wyvern five times at no cost to yourself is quite useful.

[Ophannus]

I prefer 4/5 empathy just because then the wyvern will deal more damage, heal for more hp and be more accurate/resilient when at max parameter boost. Also transfers more songs and buffs per spirit link. Yeah I know lolwyverndmg but I just think of it as a floating enspell that adds 80-100 damage to my hits so the faster it's at max parameter boost. Besides what else would we merit? Deep breathing? Healing breaths already heal for 1270 with perfect gear, rarely ever need a more potent cure than that. 1/5 deep breathing is already more than my max up anyway. If you have trouble keeping your wyvern alive with a 90s spirit link and it's subsequent 33 tick regen, the wyvern'a 40% dt, and steady wing's 2k-2.5k stone skin then you're playing drg wrong. The only event I can think of where wyvern gets solidly rocked is high tier void watch and hall of mul.

Anyway I'm disppointed in the vishap set. The legs are the only useful piece due to the +5% hp boost over drachen+1 and the armet for higher def. was hoping for spirit and soul jump boosts or smithing/restoring breaths recast reduction or steady wing bonus. I hope the ilvl119 or relic ilvl119 delivers.

[Dotsudoku]

When you're finished casually ignoring that wyverns spend hardly any time actually swinging, feel free to point me in the direction of the data supporting any significant increase in resilience, accuracy, and/or overall damage scaling proportionately with rapid level increases.

Being able to keep your wyvern alive with one JA is better than being able to keep your wyvern alive with two JA; it has nothing to do with "playing DRG wrong"(which is an amusing sentiment coming from a Gungnir)

[noodles355]

Gotta say, the 60-90mil invested in Plutons could have been better put towards alexandrite. However, that's besides the point.

Your wyvern's damage is negligible in alliance content (read: Delve). Even with 4 extra buffs. The chance that three of those empathy buffs are the haste/march/march you'd need to make it swing more than once for every 10 swings (exaggeration) you do is minimal, and the chance that you could continually reapply those buffs throughout the run is non-existant. The small damage increase from leveling it up faster will also be so small it doesn't matter. The level up's boost to restoring breath also shouldn't matter as you'll have whms curing you.

Anything where you get exp, the level up bonus is moot. In such instances you probably won't even have 4 buffs to transfer either.

I'm not, and I don't think Dotsudoku is either, saying that deep breathing is so amaze you need 5/5, but realistically putting extra merits into empathy is about as useful as putting them into Strafe.

5 level up SLs before SL starts working normally is 5 SLs where you won't need a cure afterwards if your wyvern isn't at full hp. Extra deep breathing merits may not add much at all, but at least they don't potentially hinder you.