Warrior Merits

[Khamsin]

My H2H and staff is capped, too, but all I routinely carry around on WAR is Woods/Jugg, Joyeuse, Fortitude Axe and Byakko's Axe. Though I haven't played WAR much since before Maneater was introduced, and it's fallen somewhat behind. So I'm still undecided on the whole Wood/Jug, Wood/Man, or Man/Jug. It is fully meritted at least, 3/3/4.

[RKenshin]

H2H, Staff, Polearm, and Shield are all still uncapped for me on WAR.

I was on this huge skill up spree about a year ago, but after many many many hours of skill up I was so sick of it I never wanted to go back to it again for a long time... So now I'm left with around 190 H2H, 80 Staff, 140 Polearm and 60 Shield. I don't think I'll touch them either, haven't had any good reasons to. Especially since I use SAM in Salvage.

[Sadler]

H2H, Staff, Polearm, and Shield are all still uncapped for me on WAR.

I didn't really skill up... I just leveled instead.

PLD = Sword, Staff, Shield
DRK = G.Sword, Scythe, Club
WAR = Sword, Axe, Great Axe
RNG = Bow, Cross, Dagger
BRD = Staff? lawl

Thats basically my leveling spree for skills.

[SassiAsura]

Khamsin, Maneater/Jugg is probably the winning combo in what you've just listed. That Att is nothing I'd pass over. Heck, if you're going for something homogeneous you can even work in a sea torque to get a good amount of skill/att/acc instead of your basic acc from a pcc.

[Retrieving/C.D/Searain]

I usually start off DL fights when I'm on WAR doing MS WC Steel Cyclone > change gear fast > Icarus Wing > Rampage > melee to TP > Rampage all before MS wears off unless something goes wrong (IE, sleepga getting off or shadows getting cleared, etc), yet I suppose that shouldn't be impossible?

Using an Icarus Wing is a waste as well since it takes a bit to activate and in the "few" (until the time your macro get screwed by lag) seconds it takes you to switch weapons, eat your medicine and stuff I do enough damage to fill the gap between one of my Rampages and your SC (doing 3 total weapon skill like you) with good chances of having an overall better performance if I get lucky with Ridill triple attacks. There's a reason if I was able to do about 7k total damage (and I still had rooms for improvements) in about 30-35 seconds, *eating sushi*, which was quite a bit for a War/Nin back then, pre-Feint, pre-Angon and pre-Warrior's Charge.

Why changing weapons (losing some TPs in the meanwhile) if you can do pretty much the same damage or even a little more, just using Axe/Ridill?

All this...unless you can do 3k Steel Cyclone on Dynamis Lord of course, since a fully buffed Rampage on him, with Axe/Ridill combo, does about 1100-1500 damage usually, depending on your luck with Double Attacks.

[Kaylia]

I don't know what some people are doing but it doesn't take long to change weapons, and sure as hell doesn't take 10 seconds... Maybe like 1-2 seconds if that. It really shouldn't take you much longer to change weapons than to change equipment, and arguing that changing weapons kills your damage doesn't sound any different to me than saying changing to WS gear kills your damage, because you'll take "10 seconds" to change back to melee gear and then lose attack rounds from the stats of Heca and such.

Changing weapons and gears isn't the same. Changing weapon reset your delay, and you have to wait an aditional seconds to equip your offhand weapon (you get: unable to equip offhand without something in main hand if you do it too fast). Your delay will be reseted again when you equip your offhand, and possiblity your tp if you got one hit with a single weapon in between.

And swapping armor isn't a problem with macro, it can be done in 1sec, I supose you will have to do it manually for your weapon.

[shihei]

you can macro weapon changes
anyway
id just
like to
say
i am now dumber for reading the last 2 pages of this thread
isn't this going in meat vs sushi etc direction?

[Kaylia]

you can macro weapon changes
anyway
id just
like to
say
i am now dumber for reading the last 2 pages of this thread
isn't this going in meat vs sushi etc direction?

I did not say you can't >_> I said you probably don't have one on warrior. I wouldnt risk putting one in your macro bar, not to mention I dont really have room for it anymore.

[Jeryhn]

Savagery is more beneficial if you merit Warcry.
lol sorry Takedown, couldn't resist.

In all seriousness, Double Attack rate is all well and good, but wouldn't lowering recasts on Aggressor or Berserk provide more concrete results regardless if you use Axe/Sword or Axe/Axe?

[Ryko]

All I have left is throwing and staff, and I'm seriously not of the mind to do either

Edit: It's not hard to put into an equip macro, I made a re-equip script for all of my jobs because of shit like yovras and merrow, you place your main weapon at the beginning a wait 1 at the end then your offhand. If you hit icarus wing then hit that macro, you're fully equipped for DPS by the time it goes off.

[Saito]

If you want to parse higher you do all Berserk/Aggressor.

If you want to be able to hit bigger Rampages and Steel Cyclones then go for 5 Double Attack.

[RKenshin]

Using an Icarus Wing is a waste as well since it takes a bit to activate and in the "few" (until the time your macro get screwed by lag) seconds it takes you to switch weapons, eat your medicine and stuff I do enough damage to fill the gap between one of my Rampages and your SC (doing 3 total weapon skill like you) with good chances of having an overall better performance if I get lucky with Ridill triple attacks. There's a reason if I was able to do about 7k total damage (and I still had rooms for improvements) in about 30-35 seconds, *eating sushi*, which was quite a bit for a War/Nin back then, pre-Feint, pre-Angon and pre-Warrior's Charge.

Why changing weapons (losing some TPs in the meanwhile) if you can do pretty much the same damage or even a little more, just using Axe/Ridill?

All this...unless you can do 3k Steel Cyclone on Dynamis Lord of course, since a fully buffed Rampage on him, with Axe/Ridill combo, does about 1100-1500 damage usually, depending on your luck with Double Attacks.

I've gone from using SC > Ragingx3 (WAR/SAM) to Rampage x3 to SC > Rampagex2 messing around with different damage outputs and my personal best results were always using what I mentioned before. I always end up "tanking" it throughout most of the fight over other DDs, which is why I sub NIN now over anything for that since being dead means no damage.

But I don't see how the damage done in the ~3-5 seconds of melee can outweigh the 1300-1600 of using an Icarus. It may be close on a lucky day where you're doubling up every main hand attack and tripling up every Ridill attack, but that's not something you can expect to happen on average.

And, technically, I'm not losing any TP (as in swings to 100 TP) in changing weapons since I'm using an Icarus Wing immediately after the WS. Steel Cyclone damage is also usually in the 1500-1800 range with no DA, and 1700-2100 range with DA.

Changing weapons and gears isn't the same. Changing weapon reset your delay, and you have to wait an aditional seconds to equip your offhand weapon (you get: unable to equip offhand without something in main hand if you do it too fast). Your delay will be reseted again when you equip your offhand, and possiblity your tp if you got one hit with a single weapon in between.

And swapping armor isn't a problem with macro, it can be done in 1sec, I supose you will have to do it manually for your weapon.

I agree that it isn't exactly the same, but it isn't really much different either. I just have a macro with a /wait in it, and it's able to equip a main hand weapon and a sub weapon (hasn't failed for me yet) all within 1-2 seconds of time. Swinging in between that time hasn't been an issue for me, but if it is for someone else that can simply be solved by turning away and turning back to the mob when you're ready. All and all it doesn't takes anymore than about 2-3 seconds if you do it correctly.

[Marsala]

I have:
5 DA - with brutal, af2 legs, and af1 feet. I havent been able to get haidate and I will never get a ridill so I figured double attack over 20-30 secs of serk/agg is the better deal.

2 Berserk

2 Agressor

1 Warcry - Yes, laugh at me I wanted to keep my serk and agressor in sink and I wanted full DA so there was not any other option really then leave WAR at 9/10 merits.

3 Warrior's Charge - I love this it helps on XP and for /THF. Amazing DMG increase when used even with rampage.

3 Savagery - I did not want tomohawk because after talking with several other WARs I did see it was worth it. Als noted was that I end up having to use RA on my WAR alot because if I voke pull I usually end up tanking the whole fight and if I switch up tomohawk and my xbow it will take my TP to zero.

[Marsala]

If you want to parse higher you do all Berserk/Aggressor.

If you want to be able to hit bigger Rampages and Steel Cyclones then go for 5 Double Attack.

I disagree. Sure, serk affects your attack alot but I would rather hit alot more all the time then have 20-30 secs off of my serk timer. I dont see having the small amount of time taken off your timer being able to out DMG massive double attacks if you have full DA merits, brutal earring, af1 feet, and af2 legs.

Sry for the double post. I didnt see this until I posted.

[Saito]

If you want to parse higher you do all Berserk/Aggressor.

If you want to be able to hit bigger Rampages and Steel Cyclones then go for 5 Double Attack.

I disagree. Sure, serk affects your attack alot but I would rather hit alot more all the time then have 20-30 secs off of my serk timer. I dont see having the small amount of time taken off your timer being able to out DMG massive double attacks if you have full DA merits, brutal earring, af1 feet, and af2 legs.

Sry for the double post. I didnt see this until I posted.

Well I have parsed many times the difference between going all double attack with 2 axes against all zerk/agg with ridill/joyeuse or Axe/sword, and the zerk/agg sword person always wins if the rest of the gear is the same.

Also 50 seconds out of every 5 minutes is a small amount of time? Could have fooled me.

[aurik]

I wouldn't listen to Saito, he's more concerned about looking elite than actually being elite.

[Saito]

Ya listen to the dude who dropped millions on Spharai instead of just using destroyers and spending the money on something useful.

[Swatt]

Ya listen to the dude who dropped millions on Spharai instead of just using destroyers and spending the money on something useful.

like crafting amirite

[Palin]

If you want to parse higher you do all Berserk/Aggressor.

If you want to be able to hit bigger Rampages and Steel Cyclones then go for 5 Double Attack.

I disagree. Sure, serk affects your attack alot but I would rather hit alot more all the time then have 20-30 secs off of my serk timer. I dont see having the small amount of time taken off your timer being able to out DMG massive double attacks if you have full DA merits, brutal earring, af1 feet, and af2 legs.

Sry for the double post. I didnt see this until I posted.

1 extra DA every 100 rounds isn't much either, until you stack it. Just let Agg/Zerk timers, 10 seconds isn't a lot, but 50 is huge. Plus the gear setup you use loses out on Haidate and Dusk, which is 7% Haste in its own right, and more than compensates for the loss of DA in those slots. As you gear more towards Haste, it makes more sense to make your hits(which are coming at a faster rate) more accurate and hit harder. Not to mention increased Aggressor makes your viability of using Meats that much higher.

If theorycraft isn't enough I'll go by my own expeirences. I've done both 4/3/3 and 5/5, and people I couldn't come close to on Parser I now can beat or match even with. 5/5 has been much better in my experiences in both HNM and exp.

[Kaylia]

I agree that it isn't exactly the same, but it isn't really much different either. I just have a macro with a /wait in it, and it's able to equip a main hand weapon and a sub weapon (hasn't failed for me yet) all within 1-2 seconds of time. Swinging in between that time hasn't been an issue for me, but if it is for someone else that can simply be solved by turning away and turning back to the mob when you're ready. All and all it doesn't takes anymore than about 2-3 seconds if you do it correctly.

It would probably be safer to mash the same macro until your 2nd weapon is equiped than put a /wait 1 that might not work. /wait doesnt always work for me when there is lag,

I kinda agree with Ryko about having a "equip all" macro used against Yovra/lamia, but I dont have more place on my main macro bar. It's not like moving a few macro away is a big deal, but when I've hate on HNM, especially in a place that lag like the Aery, I would rather just concentrate on my shadow than start swapping gear/weapon to deal a few more dmg points. I guess it's the lazyness talking for me, but opening with SC is too much trouble on fafnir for what it worth. I can understand on Dynamis lord where dmg are really important, and where you arent tanking, but not on fafnir.