Need advice Ethereal Earring or Magnetic Earring ?

[JoOeetheplatypuS]

MNKs should get tamas ring for the MND+5 at the same time as Enmity-3

[aurik]

Aqua rings, no amount of emnity is going to save you from a 1500+ chi blast.

[BRP]

Doesn't BLU tank rely on Etheral Earring?

[Demosthenes11]

lol, its wierd you are talking about rajas vs. tamas ring choice because I did that this morning, took tamas without any hesitation. Right after, the taru blm (only job leveled) in ls says: wtf, rajas so much better, that's what im picking even though I have no plans to level melee

Fuck you bitches, Tamas ring is the best gobbybag upgrade/saver of 6 mil I could ask for

[cassiraa]

I got Rajas and never looked back. I TP in it on NIN when I use Sushi, and WS on it with other jobs, [and cast with it as BLU]. It works.

Tamas is an excellent ring. Personally I just swap from Aqua to Diamond [lol@Lv72NQrings] for INT casting, and that suits me well. But Tamas ring rocks for a main/career mage.

But, to me, Rajas is to CoP as Suppa is to RoZ. It gives things you can't find in that slot, Where other things do indeed give more bonuses to other jobs.

[genome]

MNKs should get tamas ring for the MND+5 at the same time as Enmity-3

I am sure you were just kidding, still the emnity while chiblasting is not going to make a big difference, hate from damage is on some nonlinear scale, someone doing 2k damage in under 3 minutes in small 400dmg increments doesnt get nearly as much hate as a 1700 chiblast, so you will get hate anyways. If you are really concerned about losing hate faster you can swap a ton of emnity- gear on after you chiblast (raven set alone is -33) and you'll lose hate faster (most people don't bother with this though, which already tells you something). So the -3 emnity is not very interesting.
As a gil saver, while the difference in price between a +4 MND and a +5 MND ring is very large (3mil+?), the difference in chiblast damage is about 10 damage, less than 1% of your damage. So if you want to save gil on a chiblast ring, you can just save gil directly and fork out the 80k for a sapphire ring instead at the price of that 10 damage every 3 minutes.

Still, if you play monk, chances are you melee or tank a lot more than you ever chiblast. Even on commonly chiblasted hNMs, monk doesn't always just chiblast, there are very successful JP LSs on my server that use monks as tanks for Fafnir/Nidhogg for example.

Anyways, that was totally off topic. I don't think anybody was trying to pressure others into getting one ring or another, just making sure people know what they give up and why they really choose one over another (e.g., gil and space saver for mages vs stats and uniqueness for melee), and then whichever you pick as long as you know what you gave up and what you are gaining is fine, as long as you won't regret this in the future.

(on a side note, people who choose tamas seem to be more angry and unsettled somehow... crabs in the nether-regions might be a side effect of the ring... jk :wink

[BRP]

I have (Tarutaru) BLM main, and BLU/DRK/SMN are the only jobs I plan on leveling. BLU and DRK want me to get a Raja, but Tama sounds pretty good too(considering how poor I am and use lvl72 INT rings).

[aurik]

Anyways, that was totally off topic. I don't think anybody was trying to pressure others into getting one ring or another, just making sure people know what they give up and why they really choose one over another (e.g., gil and space saver for mages vs stats and uniqueness for melee), and then whichever you pick as long as you know what you gave up and what you are gaining is fine, as long as you won't regret this in the future.

Why aren't you listening? A lot of mages pick Tamas not because it saves them money and space but because it's the best ring you can wear as mage in virtually every situation. The obvious side effect of this is that yes you can sell the ring you used to be wearing in that slot, which often is worth a lot of money, but it's not the driving force to get Tamas. Yet despite people saying this, you keep claiming that they're only choosing it for the gil as if you can make it come true by saying it often enough.

PS. the fastest way to lose enmity as a chi blaster is to pop a reraiser and die. Chi blast isn't affected by weakness or double-weakness.

[genome]

Anyways, that was totally off topic. I don't think anybody was trying to pressure others into getting one ring or another, just making sure people know what they give up and why they really choose one over another (e.g., gil and space saver for mages vs stats and uniqueness for melee), and then whichever you pick as long as you know what you gave up and what you are gaining is fine, as long as you won't regret this in the future.

Why aren't you listening? A lot of mages pick Tamas not because it saves them money and space but because it's the best ring you can wear as mage in virtually every situation. The obvious side effect of this is that yes you can sell the ring you used to be wearing in that slot, which often is worth a lot of money, but it's not the driving force to get Tamas. Yet despite people saying this, you keep claiming that they're only choosing it for the gil as if you can make it come true by saying it often enough.

PS. the fastest way to lose enmity as a chi blaster is to pop a reraiser and die. Chi blast isn't affected by weakness or double-weakness.

The point I was making is still valid, while it is a good ring for mages, it is not something really much better than what people already have access to. That's why when mages choose it, they choose it to save gil and money (and macro-swaps) over the rings that would be essentially equivalent to it (aside from the emnity during casting as you pointed out before). On the other hand, there is no macro swap that can produce the equivalent of a suppanomimi or a rajas ring, that's why when people choose those, it's really for the uniqueness of the stats and the fact that all stats are useful at the same time, in a way that no amount of extra gil, inventory or macro swaps could produce. I hope this makes it clearer for you =P

About losing emnity, while what you say is technically true, it is not really practical. A lot of monsters use aoe damage moves (hurricane wings, heath breaths, thunderbolts, meteors, gigaflares) all of which makes it less likely you can complete boosting and blasting while weakened or double weakened. In addition having emnity for a short amount of time is often useful to the alliance as you can take a few hits for the team and recast shadows if subbing ninja for example. Using reraisers and dying on purpose after each chiblast is a bit too emo to be functional in any meaningful way.

[aurik]

Anyways, that was totally off topic. I don't think anybody was trying to pressure others into getting one ring or another, just making sure people know what they give up and why they really choose one over another (e.g., gil and space saver for mages vs stats and uniqueness for melee), and then whichever you pick as long as you know what you gave up and what you are gaining is fine, as long as you won't regret this in the future.

Why aren't you listening? A lot of mages pick Tamas not because it saves them money and space but because it's the best ring you can wear as mage in virtually every situation. The obvious side effect of this is that yes you can sell the ring you used to be wearing in that slot, which often is worth a lot of money, but it's not the driving force to get Tamas. Yet despite people saying this, you keep claiming that they're only choosing it for the gil as if you can make it come true by saying it often enough.

PS. the fastest way to lose enmity as a chi blaster is to pop a reraiser and die. Chi blast isn't affected by weakness or double-weakness.

The point I was making is still valid, while it is a good ring for mages, it is not something really much better than what people already have access to. That's why when mages choose it, they choose it to save gil and money (and macro-swaps) over the rings that would be essentially equivalent to it (aside from the emnity during casting as you pointed out before). On the other hand, there is no macro swap that can produce the equivalent of a suppanomimi or a rajas ring, that's why when people choose those, it's really for the uniqueness of the stats and the fact that all stats are useful at the same time, in a way that no amount of extra gil, inventory or macro swaps could produce. I hope this makes it clearer for you =P

About losing emnity, while what you say is technically true, it is not really practical. A lot of monsters use aoe damage moves (hurricane wings, heath breaths, thunderbolts, meteors, gigaflares) all of which makes it less likely you can complete boosting and blasting while weakened or double weakened. In addition having emnity for a short amount of time is often useful to the alliance as you can take a few hits for the team and recast shadows if subbing ninja for example. Using reraisers and dying on purpose after each chiblast is a bit too emo to be functional in any meaningful way.

What you didn't address again is that a lot of mages choose tamas because it's simply the best ring for magery. If you're a hardcore mage and only do the melee on-the-side, you might very well choose Tamas for the sake of having the best mage ring, with the money you reap from choosing it being of no import. On the flip side, I know a lot of people who chose Rajas because "omg I can sell a flame ring/sniper ring/whatever", and some people (like me) don't see Rajas as much more than a fancy flame ring, and hardly use it in anything serious. You don't seem to understand that people may have different motives than those that you repeatedly cite. Lumping all Tamas users as people who "chose money over uniqueness" is a bad generalization.

As for losing chi blast enmity, I agree that dying to shed aggro is too emo to be useful for chi blast a lot of places (works for kirin, tiamat, and jorm fine tho). Though I would almost never sub nin over whm, because SS+blink+the ability to do more than just DD is almost always better than 3 shadows that only block single-target attacks.

[Julian]

The point I was making is still valid, while it is a good ring for mages, it is not something really much better than what people already have access to. That's why when mages choose it, they choose it to save gil and money (and macro-swaps) over the rings that would be essentially equivalent to it (aside from the emnity during casting as you pointed out before). On the other hand, there is no macro swap that can produce the equivalent of a suppanomimi or a rajas ring, that's why when people choose those, it's really for the uniqueness of the stats and the fact that all stats are useful at the same time, in a way that no amount of extra gil, inventory or macro swaps could produce. I hope this makes it clearer for you =P

About losing emnity, while what you say is technically true, it is not really practical. A lot of monsters use aoe damage moves (hurricane wings, heath breaths, thunderbolts, meteors, gigaflares) all of which makes it less likely you can complete boosting and blasting while weakened or double weakened. In addition having emnity for a short amount of time is often useful to the alliance as you can take a few hits for the team and recast shadows if subbing ninja for example. Using reraisers and dying on purpose after each chiblast is a bit too emo to be functional in any meaningful way.

In your eyes Tamas isn't much better than what's out there. Guess what, in my eyes, Rajas isn't much better than what's out there either.

Rajas and Tamas are not in the same level of Suppanomimi and Ethereal.

If you compare a small Store TP and Subtle Blow or Enmity bonus to the effect of DMG turning into MP or dual weild boost in your ears... you're a fool.

Rajas and Tamas are nothing more than a fancier flame and snow rings really. The bonuses are small, but they're still nice, but they're not game breaking.

Bottom line is, if you use mage jobs more, Tamas will be more useful for you, and if you use melee jobs more, Rajas will be more useful.

[Rocl]

The point I was making is still valid, while it is a good ring for mages, it is not something really much better than what people already have access to. That's why when mages choose it, they choose it to save gil and money (and macro-swaps) over the rings that would be essentially equivalent to it (aside from the emnity during casting as you pointed out before). On the other hand, there is no macro swap that can produce the equivalent of a suppanomimi or a rajas ring, that's why when people choose those, it's really for the uniqueness of the stats and the fact that all stats are useful at the same time, in a way that no amount of extra gil, inventory or macro swaps could produce. I hope this makes it clearer for you =P

About losing emnity, while what you say is technically true, it is not really practical. A lot of monsters use aoe damage moves (hurricane wings, heath breaths, thunderbolts, meteors, gigaflares) all of which makes it less likely you can complete boosting and blasting while weakened or double weakened. In addition having emnity for a short amount of time is often useful to the alliance as you can take a few hits for the team and recast shadows if subbing ninja for example. Using reraisers and dying on purpose after each chiblast is a bit too emo to be functional in any meaningful way.

In your eyes Tamas isn't much better than what's out there. Guess what, in my eyes, Rajas isn't much better than what's out there either.

Rajas and Tamas are not in the same level of Suppanomimi and Ethereal.

If you compare a small Store TP and Subtle Blow or Enmity bonus to the effect of DMG turning into MP or dual weild boost in your ears... you're a fool.

Rajas and Tamas are nothing more than a fancier flame and snow rings really. The bonuses are small, but they're still nice, but they're not game breaking.

Bottom line is, if you use mage jobs more, Tamas will be more useful for you, and if you use melee jobs more, Rajas will be more useful.

nowai you're totally wrong
with me only using RDM and me leveling BLM Rajas is clearly superior because of the unique bonus from Rajas!!!

[genome]

Anyways, that was totally off topic. I don't think anybody was trying to pressure others into getting one ring or another, just making sure people know what they give up and why they really choose one over another (e.g., gil and space saver for mages vs stats and uniqueness for melee), and then whichever you pick as long as you know what you gave up and what you are gaining is fine, as long as you won't regret this in the future.

Why aren't you listening? A lot of mages pick Tamas not because it saves them money and space but because it's the best ring you can wear as mage in virtually every situation. The obvious side effect of this is that yes you can sell the ring you used to be wearing in that slot, which often is worth a lot of money, but it's not the driving force to get Tamas. Yet despite people saying this, you keep claiming that they're only choosing it for the gil as if you can make it come true by saying it often enough.

PS. the fastest way to lose enmity as a chi blaster is to pop a reraiser and die. Chi blast isn't affected by weakness or double-weakness.

The point I was making is still valid, while it is a good ring for mages, it is not something really much better than what people already have access to. That's why when mages choose it, they choose it to save gil and money (and macro-swaps) over the rings that would be essentially equivalent to it (aside from the emnity during casting as you pointed out before). On the other hand, there is no macro swap that can produce the equivalent of a suppanomimi or a rajas ring, that's why when people choose those, it's really for the uniqueness of the stats and the fact that all stats are useful at the same time, in a way that no amount of extra gil, inventory or macro swaps could produce. I hope this makes it clearer for you =P

About losing emnity, while what you say is technically true, it is not really practical. A lot of monsters use aoe damage moves (hurricane wings, heath breaths, thunderbolts, meteors, gigaflares) all of which makes it less likely you can complete boosting and blasting while weakened or double weakened. In addition having emnity for a short amount of time is often useful to the alliance as you can take a few hits for the team and recast shadows if subbing ninja for example. Using reraisers and dying on purpose after each chiblast is a bit too emo to be functional in any meaningful way.

What you didn't address again is that a lot of mages choose tamas because it's simply the best ring for magery. If you're a hardcore mage and only do the melee on-the-side, you might very well choose Tamas for the sake of having the best mage ring, with the money you reap from choosing it being of no import. On the flip side, I know a lot of people who chose Rajas because "omg I can sell a flame ring/sniper ring/whatever", and some people (like me) don't see Rajas as much more than a fancy flame ring, and hardly use it in anything serious. You don't seem to understand that people may have different motives than those that you repeatedly cite. Lumping all Tamas users as people who "chose money over uniqueness" is a bad generalization.

As for losing chi blast enmity, I agree that dying to shed aggro is too emo to be useful for chi blast a lot of places (works for kirin, tiamat, and jorm fine tho). Though I would almost never sub nin over whm, because SS+blink+the ability to do more than just DD is almost always better than 3 shadows that only block single-target attacks.

Well, it's not a matter of guessing what other people 'fail to understand'. I don't attempt to guess statistically what the motivation of a certain group of people are in choosing one or the other. Like you say, people might make choices for very silly reasons like the color of the ring for all we know, and that's fine too. What I have been discussing is the comparison of different potential gear setups and possibilities, and what are the most significant differences in committing to each choice. Someone who picked rajas and later wanted to become a mage main for example, would have to spend more gil, inventory spaces, and more complex macroes to use a set of rings in its place, but would essentially be able to replace it, at the loss of convenience of just leaving tamas always equipped and having emnity-3 also equipped while casting.
On the other hand, someone who chose tamas over rajas, or bushinomimi over suppanomimi would never really be able to completely replace them even with macro swaps and other inconveniences, if they ever later changed their minds (e.g., decided to play ninja or melee).

That is the reason for that comparison. As you mention, all this analysis and comparison might not even pass through the mind of many who choose one ring over another, and they might make that choice based on whatever criteria really matters to them. Still the comparison is accurate, it's like asking a car expert what the difference between two car models is, they will have a very precise answer, in terms of handling, towing capacity, etc. and every expert can agree with that answer. Yet someone might buy it because one looks pretty or has a better color, or even considering technical aspects it better suits their specific needs, and that's fine too.

To give an example I imagine from his previous post that lordwakif did consider these same points, came to the same comparison and conclusions, and just simply valued convenience and space more than the benefits of rajas, feeling confident in what his future plans and needs would be.

[Not Kuno]

I like Tamas because it's the best Int/Mp/Emnity and close to the best MP ring in the game usable at level 30, all in one slot.

[aurik]

Well, it's not a matter of guessing what other people 'fail to understand'. I don't attempt to guess statistically what the motivation of a certain group of people are in choosing one or the other. Like you say, people might make choices for very silly reasons like the color of the ring for all we know, and that's fine too. What I have been discussing is the comparison of different potential gear setups and possibilities, and what are the most significant differences in committing to each choice. Someone who picked rajas and later wanted to become a mage main for example, would have to spend more gil, inventory spaces, and more complex macroes to use a set of rings in its place, but would essentially be able to replace it, at the loss of convenience of just leaving tamas always equipped and having emnity-3 also equipped while casting.
On the other hand, someone who chose tamas over rajas, or bushinomimi over suppanomimi would never really be able to completely replace them even with macro swaps and other inconveniences, if they ever later changed their minds (e.g., decided to play ninja or melee).

That is the reason for that comparison. As you mention, all this analysis and comparison might not even pass through the mind of many who choose one ring over another, and they might make that choice based on whatever criteria really matters to them. Still the comparison is accurate, it's like asking a car expert what the difference between two car models is, they will have a very precise answer, in terms of handling, towing capacity, etc. and every expert can agree with that answer. Yet someone might buy it because one looks pretty or has a better color, or even considering technical aspects it better suits their specific needs, and that's fine too.

To give an example I imagine from his previous post that lordwakif did consider these same points, came to the same comparison and conclusions, and just simply valued convenience and space more than the benefits of rajas, feeling confident in what his future plans and needs would be.

Making a choice now about what you will or will not be doing in 12 months is indeed very difficult, but no matter what you choose you shouldn't regret it if in 12 months your plans change but you've already gotten great use out of your initial choice. Ask Wafik about his Abyssal earring; sure, it would be nice for him to have Suppa for his thf now, but he got great use out of Abyssal for a long long time, so he doesn't really regret it. At the time he made the decision that the immediate use of something that would definitely benefit him immediately was more of a payoff than an earring that could possibly benefit him in the far future if he levelled a melee job -- at the time having multiple jobs @75 was extremely uncommon for NA players, and he was (and still is) a mage at heart--of course he's not going to pick something he had zero plans to use versus something he felt he would wear indefinitely. And furthermore, it so happens that since that time SE has released a bunch of competing ear-slot items for Abyssal, while Suppa is still clearly the second-best earring in the game for anyone with DW. And still that's not something to regret, since it's not exactly under our control.

LW had a fairly long and involved post about why he took the Tamas and why even now as a THF with Mandau he doesn't regret it. You clearly recollect that he "just simply valued convenience and space more than the benefits of rajas", but that's not what he said at all.

Let me refresh your memory. He said:
- Tamas ring is best ring for lv 30+ for mage jobs, of which he has 2 and generally uses for BCNM or cap stuff, so it's a 100%-usage ring for mage jobs pre-75.

- Tamas ring is the peak ring for both his blm and rdm in merit, which until he levelled thf and got Mandau (a very recent thing) was 99% of his merits.

- Tamas ring is the peak ring for both his blm and rdm in hnm, which is 100% of his HNM time.

- Tamas ring replaces several mage rings whereas Rajas replaces only the Strength ring inventory space, so it's a win of 1-2 inventory slots.

[genome]

The point I was making is still valid, while it is a good ring for mages, it is not something really much better than what people already have access to. That's why when mages choose it, they choose it to save gil and money (and macro-swaps) over the rings that would be essentially equivalent to it (aside from the emnity during casting as you pointed out before). On the other hand, there is no macro swap that can produce the equivalent of a suppanomimi or a rajas ring, that's why when people choose those, it's really for the uniqueness of the stats and the fact that all stats are useful at the same time, in a way that no amount of extra gil, inventory or macro swaps could produce. I hope this makes it clearer for you =P

About losing emnity, while what you say is technically true, it is not really practical. A lot of monsters use aoe damage moves (hurricane wings, heath breaths, thunderbolts, meteors, gigaflares) all of which makes it less likely you can complete boosting and blasting while weakened or double weakened. In addition having emnity for a short amount of time is often useful to the alliance as you can take a few hits for the team and recast shadows if subbing ninja for example. Using reraisers and dying on purpose after each chiblast is a bit too emo to be functional in any meaningful way.

In your eyes Tamas isn't much better than what's out there. Guess what, in my eyes, Rajas isn't much better than what's out there either.

Rajas and Tamas are not in the same level of Suppanomimi and Ethereal.

If you compare a small Store TP and Subtle Blow or Enmity bonus to the effect of DMG turning into MP or dual weild boost in your ears... you're a fool.

Rajas and Tamas are nothing more than a fancier flame and snow rings really. The bonuses are small, but they're still nice, but they're not game breaking.

Bottom line is, if you use mage jobs more, Tamas will be more useful for you, and if you use melee jobs more, Rajas will be more useful.

I can see you have strong opinions over this, although i think calling people who don't share them fools seems a bit excessive.
I made it very clear why I compare rajas/tamas with suppa/bushi and ethereal/magnetic. In all 3 cases those are choices you can't go back on (just like say picking a race/gender), and as such it can be an important decision that needs some consideration.
I don't see what upsets you about this.
Now, from your post it seems you feel strongly that suppanomimi and ethereal are more important and decisive than the CoP rings, which might very well be (although it might depend on your job), but they are not mutually exclusive choices. They are even in different equipment slots and from different missions/quests so they can be chosen separately.
In this respect there's no reason to argue that one is more important or better than the other, unless someone posed the question of 'if you could only have a suppanomimi or a sattva ring...' This however was never the topic and it is not really a concern in the game since you can have both.

The comparison of choices and stats on the rings is not based on what i consider 'in my eyes'. The point I was making is that functionally all 4 stats on rajas ring are useful at the same time and therefore can't be replaced by just swapping in a str or dex ring, while MND and INT are not useful at the same time so having them on the same ring is just convenient without additional unique advantages.
For example, accuracy is important for melee, so if you really wish to compare rajas with a flame ring, it's a flame ring with added accuracy, increased critical rate, and all the benefits (most noticeable while soloing) of occasionally doing wss a turn earlier or delaying a mob's tp move to after it dies. Those are all useful benefits that might not be as important to you but are still a measurable difference between someone who chose a tamas ring and now has to wear a STR-only ring (or DEX-only ring or acc-only ring).

[genome]

Well, it's not a matter of guessing what other people 'fail to understand'. I don't attempt to guess statistically what the motivation of a certain group of people are in choosing one or the other. Like you say, people might make choices for very silly reasons like the color of the ring for all we know, and that's fine too. What I have been discussing is the comparison of different potential gear setups and possibilities, and what are the most significant differences in committing to each choice. Someone who picked rajas and later wanted to become a mage main for example, would have to spend more gil, inventory spaces, and more complex macroes to use a set of rings in its place, but would essentially be able to replace it, at the loss of convenience of just leaving tamas always equipped and having emnity-3 also equipped while casting.
On the other hand, someone who chose tamas over rajas, or bushinomimi over suppanomimi would never really be able to completely replace them even with macro swaps and other inconveniences, if they ever later changed their minds (e.g., decided to play ninja or melee).

That is the reason for that comparison. As you mention, all this analysis and comparison might not even pass through the mind of many who choose one ring over another, and they might make that choice based on whatever criteria really matters to them. Still the comparison is accurate, it's like asking a car expert what the difference between two car models is, they will have a very precise answer, in terms of handling, towing capacity, etc. and every expert can agree with that answer. Yet someone might buy it because one looks pretty or has a better color, or even considering technical aspects it better suits their specific needs, and that's fine too.

To give an example I imagine from his previous post that lordwakif did consider these same points, came to the same comparison and conclusions, and just simply valued convenience and space more than the benefits of rajas, feeling confident in what his future plans and needs would be.

Making a choice now about what you will or will not be doing in 12 months is indeed very difficult, but no matter what you choose you shouldn't regret it if in 12 months your plans change but you've already gotten great use out of your initial choice. Ask Wafik about his Abyssal earring; sure, it would be nice for him to have Suppa for his thf now, but he got great use out of Abyssal for a long long time, so he doesn't really regret it. At the time he made the decision that the immediate use of something that would definitely benefit him immediately was more of a payoff than an earring that could possibly benefit him in the far future if he levelled a melee job -- at the time having multiple jobs @75 was extremely uncommon for NA players, and he was (and still is) a mage at heart--of course he's not going to pick something he had zero plans to use versus something he felt he would wear indefinitely. And furthermore, it so happens that since that time SE has released a bunch of competing ear-slot items for Abyssal, while Suppa is still clearly the second-best earring in the game for anyone with DW. And still that's not something to regret, since it's not exactly under our control.

LW had a fairly long and involved post about why he took the Tamas and why even now as a THF with Mandau he doesn't regret it. You clearly recollect that he "just simply valued convenience and space more than the benefits of rajas", but that's not what he said at all.

Let me refresh your memory. He said:
- Tamas ring is best ring for lv 30+ for mage jobs, of which he has 2 and generally uses for BCNM or cap stuff, so it's a 100%-usage ring for mage jobs pre-75.

- Tamas ring is the peak ring for both his blm and rdm in merit, which until he levelled thf and got Mandau (a very recent thing) was 99% of his merits.

- Tamas ring is the peak ring for both his blm and rdm in hnm, which is 100% of his HNM time.

- Tamas ring replaces several mage rings whereas Rajas replaces only the Strength ring inventory space, so it's a win of 1-2 inventory slots.

I didn't intend to make so many long posts but since I already started replying...
I think having weighed the possible scenarios well when making a choice helps in not regretting it later, so I think we can agree it's not a bad idea to consider what your choice entails before making an important decision you can't back out of. That's all I was doing with the example of rajas, suppanomimi and ethereal. You are more likely to regret a decision when you think 'I should have thought about it more back then'. If you gave it proper thought and weighed what you value you probably won't really regret it even if later things change, because you'd still think it was the best decision for you at that time.

Having said that, the choice still boils down essentially to convenience/savings for mage over losing a more unique useful and irreplaceable ring for melee (again obviously if you don't think you'll ever be a melee then even an irreplaceable choice you'd never use is not a good choice, and as mage convenience and especially inventory space might be more interesting to you).

On the points you are recapping from lordwakif, I still don't see why at lvl 30+ tamas is a better ring than any swap-combination of rings available. It does not have more INT or more MND than lvl 14 rings, in fact +1 lvl 10 bone rings have more INT and more MND! It also doesn't give more mp, carect ring gives 5 more mp, and astral gives 10 more (although astral removes some hp). So aside for the enmity (which might be important), you are actually giving up INT / MND to use it, so i would think it still boils down to essentially the convenience and space saving.
The same is true for lvl 75, you can swap in equivalent INT or MND rings as needed, although it's obviously less convenient.


One side note, while I prefer mnk/whm for fafnir and KB, for many other situations including Kirin, attacks you need to worry about are single target and /nin gives you at least 6 shadows and a better kiting potential (avoiding bind attacks for example), and many mobs physical aoe moves are blocked by 2-3 shadows, so /nin definitely has its uses even when chiblasting, at the acceptable cost of 60-70 damage from the loss in base MND.

[aurik]

Having said that, the choice still boils down essentially to convenience/savings for mage over losing a more unique useful and irreplaceable ring for melee (again obviously if you don't think you'll ever be a melee then even an irreplaceable choice you'd never use is not a good choice, and as mage convenience and especially inventory space might be more interesting to you).

On the points you are recapping from lordwakif, I still don't see why at lvl 30+ tamas is a better ring than any swap-combination of rings available. It does not have more INT or more MND than lvl 14 rings, in fact +1 lvl 10 bone rings have more INT and more MND! It also doesn't give more mp, carect ring gives 5 more mp, and astral gives 10 more (although astral removes some hp). So aside for the enmity (which might be important), you are actually giving up INT / MND to use it, so i would think it still boils down to essentially the convenience and space saving.
The same is true for lvl 75, you can swap in equivalent INT or MND rings as needed, although it's obviously less convenient.


One side note, while I prefer mnk/whm for fafnir and KB, for many other situations including Kirin, attacks you need to worry about are single target and /nin gives you at least 6 shadows and a better kiting potential (avoiding bind attacks for example), and many mobs physical aoe moves are blocked by 2-3 shadows, so /nin definitely has its uses even when chiblasting, at the acceptable cost of 60-70 damage from the loss in base MND.

I bolded the most important part of your posts re: Tamas ring. You think it boils down to convenience, but several career mages have posted otherwise.

As for chi blasting, I preferred mnk/nin for KB and Aspid -- getting hit by KB often procs stun and if he follows up with meteor you (and your ally) are in for some pain, and Aspid I usually helped dispatch adds during the fight and between windows farmed seals and limit points -- and brought mnk/whm for everything else (wyrms, apollyon boss, etc).

Sub at Kirin / shinra is so irrelevant at this point in the game. I typically went mnk/whm because I always got teleported to the pots room, thus I saved myself a fortune on sneak oils with the ability to sneak myself. That said, 80 dmg here or there won't help or hinder the fight, which is almost always fought under ideal circumstances with an excess of people. Dying at kirin was funny more than dangerous: you just reraise and let someone else take your spot in the alliance and go get a beer.

[Julian]

A melee going mage will not regret not getting Tamas because:

1. They still have Rajas for their melee
2. They can use INT or MND rings and get near the same results.

A mage going melee will not regret not getting Rajas because:

1. They still have Tamas for their mage
2. They will get better results using accuracy rings. (Another difference is that mages can't merit melee weapons, which is something a number of melees have access to.)

They're both nice rings, but picking one over the other wont kill you, the difference isn't as unique as Suppa and Ethereal.

[Lordwafik]

Anyways, that was totally off topic. I don't think anybody was trying to pressure others into getting one ring or another, just making sure people know what they give up and why they really choose one over another (e.g., gil and space saver for mages vs stats and uniqueness for melee), and then whichever you pick as long as you know what you gave up and what you are gaining is fine, as long as you won't regret this in the future.

Why aren't you listening? A lot of mages pick Tamas not because it saves them money and space but because it's the best ring you can wear as mage in virtually every situation. The obvious side effect of this is that yes you can sell the ring you used to be wearing in that slot, which often is worth a lot of money, but it's not the driving force to get Tamas. Yet despite people saying this, you keep claiming that they're only choosing it for the gil as if you can make it come true by saying it often enough.

PS. the fastest way to lose enmity as a chi blaster is to pop a reraiser and die. Chi blast isn't affected by weakness or double-weakness.

The point I was making is still valid, while it is a good ring for mages, it is not something really much better than what people already have access to.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOooooooooooo

Failure of an argument. Let us compare them as seperate rings.

Snow ring : 5 int
Tamas ring : 5 int -3 enm +30 MP.

HOW IS THIS NOT BETTER?

I hate the argument of "You use all stats at once on the tamas ring" yeah? well 1) Not if you miss, 2) Does dex count as part of the formula? Even when you dont crit? If so, there's 1 peice we're not using aside from a small %

(on a side note, people who choose tamas seem to be more angry and unsettled somehow... crabs in the nether-regions might be a side effect of the ring... jk Wink)

Because we have fucking retarded melee like you who cannot see past your shitty fists. Tamas is not a bad ring, you will -not- find better on the one slot. The main reason people go for it is -not- the convenience of saving money on rings, because I can just say the same for melees. Hey, my thief has 2x STR rings 2x DEX rings 2x AGI rings 2x Coral rings, the only thing rajas would give me is 1 more inventory slot.

Call me angry, I dont care, but so long as you keep up with this retarded monorail of thought, I will come in with a steam train and fucking knock you off the tracks.