Whats better?

[Bozo]

Rajas or Woodsman for COR melee TP? Second ring is a Blood Ring. I also eat Sushi for most events.

I am leaning towards Rajas since I occasionally get stuck at 99tp and the Store TP+5 would prevent that from happening. I don't have FFXI on right now but I think I am at +6 DEX before food, so with sushi and Rajas I'd have around +17 DEX.

Thanks for the advice.

[Alistaire]

Rajas or Woodsman for COR melee TP? Second ring is a Blood Ring. I also eat Sushi for most events.

I am leaning towards Rajas since I occasionally get stuck at 99tp and the Store TP+5 would prevent that from happening. I don't have FFXI on right now but I think I am at +6 DEX before food, so with sushi and Rajas I'd have around +17 DEX.

Thanks for the advice.

I use Rajas, but that's also with sushi, joyeuse and full sword merits/suppa. As far as your DEX goes, your total DEX will determine if you get 2 or 3 acc from Rajas. Even # = 3 acc. So the weapon you're using + merits + total DEX would be needed to be sure, but I'd lean toward Rajas.

[Raen Ryong]

After seeing a RNG with Yoichi sporting a Gunner's Mantle in the Relic thread, I was wondering if it's really worth it...
Amem +1 vs. Gunner's which boils down to 2 STR vs. 5 R.attk and -10 R.acc.

It's trash. -10Racc for 5Ratk is a TERRIBLE tradeoff on anything.

[Drako]

Until there are conclusive tests published that prove beyond reasonable doubt that INT does indeed affect the "potency" of Bind, I'd recommend using Swift Belt isntead of Penitent's for now. And assuming you don't own Morrigan's Cuffs, you might want to look into using Dusk Gloves in place of Duelist's since they're doing absolutely zilch for your Binds. Of course, if you're in an appropriate zone, M.C.Bracelets would be an even more attractive option.

any soloer knows that int is the most important stat for bind after enfeebling.
if you have enough int you will get less resisted, binds will last longer and you wont need haste..

if you put haste instead of int, you might have lower recast on bind, but if u try to solo things like faust or seiryu you will get owned.

for longer and less resistant binds

Enfleebling magic (until you have 335+) > Int > Magic. acc

after all these you can fit some haste.

[FailureMidgard]

*and this has been worked out before somewhere by me and failuremidgard; in fact, we had almost a full page of discussion on it..

Don't you love how many times this same question is asked?

Kinda stopped playing a month ago, but was bored and came to browse forums, thought it was funny!

[Amele]

It's trash. -10Racc for 5Ratk is a TERRIBLE tradeoff on anything.

I wouldn't be surprised to see certain builds for a relic ranger where they are overcapped on accuracy and then it's just a question of 5 ratk vs. 2 str (a comparison that I would have trouble making since I'm not really competent with the range formulas yet and would cock something up running the numbers probably)

between the half level diff penalties and the accuracy bonus traits, along with the absurd quantities of racc available on some gear, hitting capped accuracy on most non-90+ mobs is going to happen almost accidentally.

[Raen Ryong]

Yeah, I agree with that; so many better tradeoffs you could make for 10racc though

2STR vs 5ratk... well, rng pdif is very explosive in terms of maximising damage after the cratio 0.9~1.1 range (where both pdif_min and pdif_max = 1), but of course 2STR uses fSTR2 so it all depends how the cratio ends up I guess.

[Crisco]

So how are you liking this WI weather lately Amele? Not sure where in WI you live, but it's definitly took a turn for the worst in central area.

[Amele]

So how are you liking this WI weather lately Amele? Not sure where in WI you live, but it's definitly took a turn for the worst in central area.

I actually live in NYC now; just haven't updated my profile. lol

[matix]

After seeing a RNG with Yoichi sporting a Gunner's Mantle in the Relic thread, I was wondering if it's really worth it...
Amem +1 vs. Gunner's which boils down to 2 STR vs. 5 R.attk and -10 R.acc.

im guessing he got the mantle since he didn't have anything else worth spending abc's on, and was wearing it just for town/show. i would never wear gunner's mantle in a serious situation, or even, id almost never be in a situation where the gunner mantle should outperform amemet except in a /c since its a r/e goodie~

[drwaffles]

any soloer knows that int is the most important stat for bind after enfeebling.
if you have enough int you will get less resisted, binds will last longer and you wont need haste..

if you put haste instead of int, you might have lower recast on bind, but if u try to solo things like faust or seiryu you will get owned.

for longer and less resistant binds

Enfleebling magic (until you have 335+) > Int > Magic. acc

after all these you can fit some haste.

Thanks for the advice, now provide some conclusive testing and maybe I'll actually take it.

[Gunslinger]

Drg/Sam:

Pole Strap Vs. Sword Strap

TP Gear:
Valk Fork/Strap/Tiphia Sting
Turban/Love Torque/Ethereal/Brutal
Aurum Cuirass/Askar/Rajas/Iota
Amemet +1/Swift/Homam/Aurum Sabatons

This gives +31sTP (with sam sub), meaning I can use sword strap without losing my 6-hit. I did some searching and saw a previous question about this, but it was really never answered with any certainty (only: don't discount the sword strap).

Think the sword strap pulls ahead enough to warrant using over pole?

[SamanosukeShiva]

pole

[Gunslinger]

Any math or anything to back that up? I know the common knowledge is to use pole (which I have stuck to for a long time), but this is what caught my attention:

Sword Strap seems good if it doesn't affect your hits to 100 TP; it won't improve your WS damage, but it'll improve your TP rate and melee damage more than Pole. But for most interesting 2h weapons it costs you one hit to 100 TP, and so should be avoided.
if it doesn't cost you a hit it's pretty much one of the best straps yeah^^

[Xerlic]

Vendetta + Supremacy Earring vs. Tred/Perdu + Assault Earring?

I don't own Abyssal.

[Valyana]

With no DA other than Brutal and Fork, Pole Strap gives an increase of 1.85% in melee damage and WS rate. Sword Strap gives an increase of 3.1% in melee damage but no change to WS rate (since you can keep 6-hit). Which one is better for you will depend on what proportion of your damage comes from WS; for non-/SAM melees that's about 1/3, but for /SAM it tends to be closer to 1/2.

Basically, if your regular melee damage is at least 50% higher than your WS damage in a parse, use Sword; otherwise use Pole.

[Naash]

I'm still not sure which Apocalypse Nigh reward to pick:

Magnetic for RDM?
Hollow for RNG and solo RDM?
Static for BLM, but will rarely use?

I also have Suppa, Brutal, Loqua, Fenrir's, Moldavite...

[Callisto]

Magnetic really is nice, if I didn't need Hollow for COR(Abyssal instead of Suppa for me) I'd take it for sure.

[Valyana]

Basically, if your regular melee damage is at least 50% higher than your WS damage in a parse, use Sword; otherwise use Pole.

It occurs to me that WS from Meditate shouldn't be included in this calculation, which makes it harder to parse unless you don't Meditate at all for testing purposes (and also makes it more likely that Sword will win).

[Gunslinger]

With no DA other than Brutal and Fork, Pole Strap gives an increase of 1.85% in melee damage and WS rate. Sword Strap gives an increase of 3.1% in melee damage but no change to WS rate (since you can keep 6-hit). Which one is better for you will depend on what proportion of your damage comes from WS; for non-/SAM melees that's about 1/3, but for /SAM it tends to be closer to 1/2.

Basically, if your regular melee damage is at least 50% higher than your WS damage in a parse, use Sword; otherwise use Pole.

Excellent answer, thanks for the help. I think I'll have to parse it to be sure in my situation, but it seems like sword strap will win for sure on melee damage alone. The real question is if I make up the 'missing' 2% DA damage on WS through that melee damage and from being able to WS sooner.

This is what I get from the TP calculator I use:

All with 16% haste, not assuming using hasso-

With Pole Strap:

»TP Given to mob: 16.3
»Delay: 492 - WS in ~65 second.
»W/ Haste: 415.1 - WS in ~41 second.
»DPS: 13.7 - ~8 Round/30 second
»TP/Round(Before Store-TP):13.3 TP
»TP/Round(After Store-TP):17.5 TP
»100%TP (Before Store-TP):~8. Round(106.4%)
»100%TP (After Store-TP):~6. Round(105.%)

With Sword Strap:

»TP Given to mob: 15.8
»Delay: 477.24 - WS in ~63 second.
»W/ Haste: 402.6 - WS in ~40 second.
»DPS: 14.1 - ~8 Hit/30 second
»TP/Hit(Before Store-TP):12.8 TP
»TP/Hit(After Store-TP):16.7 TP
»100%TP (Before Store-TP):~8. Hit(102.4%)
»100%TP (After Store-TP):~6. Hit(100.2%)

If hasso is included, DPS based solely on weapon/delay increases by .5 in favor of sword strap (16 vs 15.5 w/ pole). I imagine with hastes, this gap would grow wider?