Stage 5 - Completed Relic Weapons List

[Slott]

The fact that's the only example where it's 'believed' to make something new possible speaks enough towards how game breaking/revolutionary it is IMO. I'll still argue that just about anything worthwhile that could be done with either of those relics could be done without them.

You're right, anything can be done without either. However, having either of those relics makes them marginally easier than lets say... a thf with mandau or blm with claustrum

[NynJa]

The fact that's the only example where it's 'believed' to make something new possible speaks enough towards how game breaking/revolutionary it is IMO. I'll still argue that just about anything worthwhile that could be done with either of those relics could be done without them.

You're right, anything can be done without either. However, having either of those relics makes them marginally easier than lets say... a thf with mandau or blm with claustrum

not really >.>
unless your mages are constantly scrapping the bottom of the barrel of their mp pools, Gjalla doesnt do much. In fact, depending who gets the relic brd, its just going to hurt BLM's since its gonna harder for them to trigger Ugga pendant, since they'll be getting 7mp/tick refresh from ballad alone, on top of 3mp from refresh.

By all means, feel free to shoot me down on this one...but what does Gjalla offer other than inventory+4 (min mar mad elegy threnody instruments) Ballad+2, CHR+4 and Wind+10 (both of which are only gonna be good for landing threnodies and elegies, since I'm pretty sure a bard can cap out on the Wind Skill bonus to Minuet without the +10 here) and epeen ?? Shit, I clearly remember a while back people saying that Gjalla would be trash if it didnt affect Ballads.


Anyways, repeating my original statement, unless your mages are constantly scrapping the bottom of the barrel for MP, Gjalla wont change the outcome of any fight. And if your mages are constantly scrapping for mp, you should look into why your mages are so MP inefficient.

[RKenshin]

You're right, anything can be done without either. However, having either of those relics makes them marginally easier than lets say... a thf with mandau or blm with claustrum

For the most part I agree, and in either case I'm not arguing against that. I'm simply saying I disagree with the idea of either of those relics being 'omg ground breaking items that completely revolutionize your linkshell's approach to endgame and all of your strategies, allowing you to do many things no one else could dream of doing.' Which, isn't too short what some people express here day and night.

[Linsivi]

The fact that's the only example where it's 'believed' to make something new possible speaks enough towards how game breaking/revolutionary it is IMO. I'll still argue that just about anything worthwhile that could be done with either of those relics could be done without them.

You're right, anything can be done without either. However, having either of those relics makes them marginally easier than lets say... a thf with mandau or blm with claustrum

not really >.>
unless your mages are constantly scrapping the bottom of the barrel of their mp pools, Gjalla doesnt do much. In fact, depending who gets the relic brd, its just going to hurt BLM's since its gonna harder for them to trigger Ugga pendant, since they'll be getting 7mp/tick refresh from ballad alone, on top of 3mp from refresh.

By all means, feel free to shoot me down on this one...but what does Gjalla offer other than inventory+4 (min mar mad elegy threnody instruments) Ballad+2, CHR+4 and Wind+10 (both of which are only gonna be good for landing threnodies and elegies, since I'm pretty sure a bard can cap out on the Wind Skill bonus to Minuet without the +10 here) and epeen ?? Shit, I clearly remember a while back people saying that Gjalla would be trash if it didnt affect Ballads.


Anyways, repeating my original statement, unless your mages are constantly scrapping the bottom of the barrel for MP, Gjalla wont change the outcome of any fight. And if your mages are constantly scrapping for mp, you should look into why your mages are so MP inefficient.

Tank party Ballad 2 + March is a pretty big win.

[Beckwin]

Tank party Ballad 2 + March is a pretty big win.

qft

Hell, 2 brd tank pt with the gjallrbrd doing ballads. Capped recasts + tons of mp for healing/etc.

[Hapernack]

I see where you come from Nynja. While they certainly won't affect the outcome of battles, they sure as hell make things a good bit easier though. I wish I could offer more first-hand experience with people who have relics completed

[Demetrius*]

they can definately change the outcome of some fights. we got stuck at faf one day with lower numbers, no rdm and one relic horn bard. theres no way we woulda kept up mp without it and we woulda lost the fight. soul voice ballads with gjallarhorn can turn a shaky fight around in a god damn hurry.
you obviously don't need them to kill anything, but they are unmatched when it comes to lowering the numbers needed for a fight which is really nice for smaller linkshells.

[Sylphet]

I guess this all boils down to what your personal definition of "game breaking" is.

Honestly there are several items in FFXI that I have heard referred to as "game breaking".

Eg: Ridill, D.Ring, Adaberk, Herald's Gaiters

But are they really game breaking or just really great?

Bottom line, in my opinion, is that NONE of the items available in FFXI are game breaking. I know people who have some of the best gear you can buy and who just really don't play their jobs well. I also know people who have only decent gear but play extremely well. Guess which one I'd rather xp/fight HNMs with? The best situation honestly is when a player with high skill is combined with great gear. For the effort that goes in to getting a relic I do belive they should be stronger than they really are (especially for mages), however it is what it is and SE doesn't seem to be open to changing that.

As far as horn and shield go they do the same thing (imo) as the "game breaking" items listed above do. They don't change the dynamic of the game or tactics. They do however provide a unique capability of making things easier and providing a bit of a back up in case people screw up and things don't go so smoothly. I would also say that the melee relics do that as well.

I don't see anyone in this thread saying that horn and shield are BAD. They're just saying that, realistically speaking they don't completely change the way you play the game. This is true. If things go perfectly in a Tiamat fight I'm never crying for MP. But in a less than ideal situation MP can be limiting. We ususally just sleep/work our way arount it etc. Having relic horn would lessen the frequency of those occurences for sure. I'm actually a really big fan of the horn and am currently trying to upgrade it, and it's for exactly those times when I think it can really shine. It's also the only way that a BRD can get a really respectable Wind Skill and personally I'd like to see how a BRD can perform in terms of their ability to debuff mobs with 282 wind skill (max possible), again only possible with relic horn. Gjallarhorn and Aegis are like anything in this game that's considered to be a "great" item. They have the ability to help make things easier/smoother/faster, but so are the melee relics too, and I for one am a big fan of making things more efficent!

Before Ruke got his relic G.Katana almost nobody considered it to be one of the better relics. Now suddenly it's on everyone's "really good relic" list. Why? Because he posts amazing numbers showing what it's capable of? Who's to say that the others won't do the same things in the hands of someone who's capable of using it to it's full extent.

Just in case people forgot. Ruke was the best tank I've ever seen BEFORE he got a D.Ring. He also always beat everyone in the parse BEFORE he got his relic.
Skill > gear people.
Always.
Don't forget it.

[Ryko]

No offense to him, but his results with the thing is what turned me off to the relic GK. I had known about its potential output back when I saw nodachi's numbers but seeing more of it pretty much killed the allure. Now that might be entirely because I either downplayed my SAM's ability [I woudnt count on that one] or I hyped the weapon in my own head [entirely more likely] but I guess reality sort of meh'd it for me. It ouputs amazing numbers with kaiten on EXP mobs but I have absolutely zilch desire to use it on low grade mobs. It will make a good SAM better, it is a strong weapon, I guess I just had hoped for more on big monsters. Those of us who were paying attention were thinking highly of the amano before ruke got it, he's cool and all but he's not the first to do everything. He gets a lot of credit and it's definitely due but it's sort of funny to see the people who blindly throw it at times without knowing or paying attention to everything.

As for the horn/shield. They are pieces that, above all else, will end up benefitting everyone around them in a much more practical way than a weapon will. Do not take this to mean that I think lowly of the weapons, because I don't. If your desire is to be the best DRK, SAM, THF (whatever it is you want to be) that you can be then by all means, go ahead. It'd be entirely stupid and hypocritical of me to bag on DD jobs when I'm pretty much a walking DD job regardless of what I play.

But taking an extra .2% off a mob's life per WS will not make or break a job or a fight. You're correct in the fact that a lot of pieces will not suddenly make a trashy player great, even relics, but that's a lot different to say when you're sitting on literally everything you could ever possibly want for any situation on a server where describing the competition's development as stunted is actually overestimating it. Admittedly,taking less damage or getting a little more back a tic than usual wont "make or break" a fight assuming you were competent to begin with but it they provide a greater net of safety in dire or even normal but still harsh circumstances. And for a lot of groups that is entirely more important than someone spending 15k currency to still use tachi gekko

[Sylphet]

No offense to him, but his results with the thing is what turned me off to the relic GK. I had known about its potential output back when I saw nodachi's numbers but seeing more of it pretty much killed the allure. It ouputs amazing numbers with kaiten on EXP mobs but I have absolutely zilch desire to use it on low grade mobs. Those of us who were paying attention were thinking highly of the amano before ruke got it, he's cool and all but he's not the first to do everything. He gets a lot of credit and it's definitely due but it's sort of funny to see the people who blindly throw it at times without knowing or paying attention to everything.

Ruke never claims to be the best at anything or to be the first to do anything. He just happens to be really well liked, respected and publicized within the end game community and therefore gets a lot of attention. Subsequently, things he says are able to reach a broader audience than most. I don't consider that to be a fault. People will belive what they want to about him both good and bad. I don't think he's overrated at all, he's hands down one of the best players in the game and one of the nicest people I know (and I know you weren't saying that he was overrated!). I just think that many other very good players are underrated/unknown because they chose not to participate in LJ/forums.

I don't like to speak for Ruke but I don't think he'd disagree. I know that he wants to use Amano for HNMs more than he does. He definately did not get it to be used in XP only. However, he doesn't often have the opportunity to go to HNMs on SAM. As a linkshell we rarely if ever camp kings. Tiamat he's always NIN/DRK and he's pretty much always asked to come on NIN for things like Bahamut or Ouryu. He does SAM sometimes in salvage because relics actually do really great damage there, so um lol people can see the damage it does when totally naked with no sub or ablilities? Ruke loves going to events on SAM, he just doesn't have the opportunity as much as he'd like.

I can say for sure though that Ruke's Amano is the most used of all the relics our shell has gotten.

[Sylphet]

You're correct in the fact that a lot of pieces will not suddenly make a trashy player great, even relics,

Well fact of the matter is that any retard with a relic horn can cast ballads lol. It's hands down the relic that you can get a substantial benefit from with very little skill/effort put into it.

Again as someone who personally wants to upgrade it, I think it's capable of a lot more than just souped up ballads but that's what 90% of people think it's "all that" for... and anyone can do that.

[Ryko]

As someone who is lucky to get a 1/4 Mage/Melee ratio in a lot of events, I cant imagine the horn would do us a ton of good and one of the mages it would likely benefit most is also the best bard I know so it's sorta like eh...

[Shadowrunner]

Just a few things i can see the Horn helping otehr than ballad:

The obvious space-reducer.
Ability to discard some +skill/+CHR gear in favor of even more +MP or other beneficial armors.
Easier time to target the Bard for healing purposes (as well as status ailments)
Boosts to songs that don't have instruments (the 2 new songs and those goofy ones).

just a few other things i see coming with it.

[RKenshin]

Ack @ bringing me into this.

One small off-topic clarification I want to make though is that while yeah, as Syl said I'm needed as a tank much more often than as a DD... I've still had a few HNM fights as SAM, the tone of those posts made it sound like I just about never have. And, I actually use Kaiten most often. The WS damage is definitely lower than a 300% Gekko, but the damage in spamming Kaiten at 100% TP far outweighs that. I only have like 3 fights parsed but it's something, none of which with a BRD:
http://img205.imageshack.us/img205/4690/cerbparye3.jpg
http://img234.imageshack.us/img234/6025/fafparsenh3.jpg

Green blocks are THF, red are ridill/adaberk WARs, blue are SAMs, black are BLMs and other misc jobs. So yeah, the one thing I meant to highlight in that last update is that GK does well on more than just exp mobs too, since before then I only had the chance to show results with it on exp mobs.

Slightly more on-topic though, the situation Ryko just mentioned is an example of what I meant earlier. As he said, in his linkshells situation a horn would do little to change/revolutionize fights or strategies, which is my argument for horn/aegis' effect on most linkshells.

[divisortheory]

Just a few things i can see the Horn helping otehr than ballad:

The obvious space-reducer.
Ability to discard some +skill/+CHR gear in favor of even more +MP or other beneficial armors.
Easier time to target the Bard for healing purposes (as well as status ailments)
Boosts to songs that don't have instruments (the 2 new songs and those goofy ones).

just a few other things i see coming with it.

Has anyone proven that Ballad does affect the 2 new songs? I know it seems obvious that it should, but since Gjallarhorn was added before those 2 songs, it's possible to imagine a scenario where they forgot to change the game code to have Gjallar modify those songs.

[Sylphet]

Relic Capriccio + Earth Carol + Barstonra + Barpetra= really resist petrify?

Anyone know how well that works actually?

You would need to have a 2 BRD party to do that though with the relic BRD doing Ballad (because when will a relic BRD not do ballad) and Capriccio, with another BRD on Carol.

I don't ever remember seeing anything on how Gjallarhorn affects those kinds of songs. Anyone have a link if it's been done?

[Alyriel]

Relic Capriccio + Earth Carol + Barstonra + Barpetra= really resist petrify?

Anyone know how well that works actually?

You would need to have a 2 BRD party to do that though with the relic BRD doing Ballad (because when will a relic BRD not do ballad) and Capriccio, with another BRD on Carol.

I don't ever remember seeing anything on how Gjallarhorn affects those kinds of songs. Anyone have a link if it's been done?

Cappriccio+Earth Carol+Barstonra+Barpetra = a half decent chance to resist petrify, but by no means is it 100%.
I think I've only participated in 1 Rostrum Pumps NM since obtaining Gjallarhorn (it's been a while, may have been pre-relic, can't remember for sure). The resist rate with all the above was about 30-40%, just eyeballing it, my PC is too crappy to reliably run anything else (parser) in the background with FFXI.

The biggest problem (imo) is being able to reliably test the effects of the songs that give +resist rates Gavotte, Cappriccio, etc., which also don't have an easily quantifiable value. I've been contemplating hopping into a Diorama-Ghelshba ballista with a RDM to test some of these songs against debuffs like Poison, Bind, and Silence, although silence may be harder to test because of BRD's natural resist trait. But I whenever I have a free hour or two I never seem to think of it. I'll see if I can get around to it during the next week or so. And then even with this you'd have to assume that the results obtained there would carry over to songs that are not nearly as easily tested.

Any know a mob that uses Curse often that won't kick the tar out of a 75BRD, without being too weak to naturally resist the Curse anyways?

Also Kalia seems to have plenty of free time for playing around and testing the attack cap for exp mobs. If he's willing, I think a madrigal test would be something nice to have as well. Minuet4 caps out before hitting max wind merits. But I've seen no information on whether or not Madrigal does the same.

Also, Sylphet, I don't have AF2+1 hands yet, so I'm only sporting 280 max wind skill. But I see a noticable difference when attempting to land standard debuffs (primarily elegy) on certain mobs that everyone seems to think landing successful debuffs is just luck. Namely Sky Gods, I can land Elegy on any of them with about 60-70% accuracy. Again just eyeballing, it's definately better than it used to be before I had Gjallarhorn and appropriate wind skill equipment.

Other HNMs like Fafhogg, Tiamat, Jorm have never given me any problems with landing elegy, although I can now land requim now on Tiamat with surprising reglarity, but this was something I never did on a frequent basis, so I can't really a give a before/after comparison. I think the only HNMs that our LS fights that still gives me considerable problems are Cerb, I only run at best 10% on this guy (whm sub, I haven't tried /blm for ES yet), Kirin gives me problems as well, but there is a definate improvement, I've gone from hardly ever landing Elegy on the bastard, to being able to keep elegy on for most the battle, and lastly: JoL is a bitch, I have no idea why, but I've yet to be able to land elegy on it (although I've not been actively trying to until our last JoL).

[divisortheory]

Also Kalia seems to have plenty of free time for playing around and testing the attack cap for exp mobs. If he's willing, I think a madrigal test would be something nice to have as well. Minuet4 caps out before hitting max wind merits. But I've seen no information on whether or not Madrigal does the same.

Should be pretty easy, provided we can find a mob that nobody will kill while we're doing the test.

Regarding your other comments, my understanding is that resist status effect traits (including the songs that enhance them), have two possible outcomes: 1) You completely resist the effect and as such you never even get the icon, 2) You partially resist the effect, which means you are still infilicted with it, but with a shorter duration than normal. So even though you only got a "30-40% resist rate" on those things during Rostrum Pumps, I'm willing to bet that the other 60-70% of the time the effects always lasted considerably less time than they would have had none of those songs/spells been used to enhance the trait.

[Alyriel]

Regarding your other comments, my understanding is that resist status effect traits (including the songs that enhance them), have two possible outcomes: 1) You completely resist the effect and as such you never even get the icon, 2) You partially resist the effect, which means you are still infilicted with it, but with a shorter duration than normal. So even though you only got a "30-40% resist rate" on those things during Rostrum Pumps, I'm willing to bet that the other 60-70% of the time the effects always lasted considerably less time than they would have had none of those songs/spells been used to enhance the trait.

Yeah, this is fairly common knowledge (whether accurate or not, I don't know for sure, but like everyone else, I assume it), but, in my opinion, the shorter duration is inconsequential(sp) due to the fact that if your PLD has been petrified you want to Stona him right away, and not wait to see if it will be a partial resist that would have a shorter duration than normal.


Edit: I fail at using quote tags, Kalia said the quoted part above -_-;

[pohibaba]

Bottom line, in my opinion, is that NONE of the items available in FFXI are game breaking.

I would have to agree with this except for one notable exception: kraken club. It's the only item in the game that can make the hardest mobs in the game (DL, Vrtra, Bv2, etc) practical push-overs and killable in the matter of minutes.

It is also the only thing that's even being considered as a "strategy" for defeating AV. While I know that the plan is ridiculed by most of the end game community, and while I personally don't think it would work without an absurd amount of luck, the fact that it's the only thing that's really being considered means that the item is seen as game breaking by most of the community.

The main counter argument against this is that it requires the use of multiple 2 hours for it to work (BW, whatever that cor thing is, and CS) and the fact that there's very few shells with the resources to put it to use.