Melee as RDM

[Neosutra]

You won't compare to them, but don't think your aim should be trying to compare to a BB MNK or a Ridill. I wouldn't be surprised if you could do similarly to a decent melee and better than some of the pick up DD's you see.

Why not? As a DD, don't you compare your damage output to that of the top-tier DD, ie. Ridill or BB MNK? How should it be any different for RDM?

So far, couple of posts said that it could compare favorably to other AH DD, to a low of 20% output compared to a Ridill-class DD. I'd really hope that a RDM wouldn't parse that low, but I'm sure Neosutra has his reasons for coming to that conclusion.

You wouldnt even come close to a crappy AH war.

Couple reasons:

Weapon selection: Pick joy or justice, still get TP slower then a typically war/mnk, and about 3 times slower then a haste nin, and the low base damage will give you 50-200 damage vorpals (you wont be eating meat with your sword skill).

SJ selection: Pick /nin and your adding a 15% reduction in delay, which is nice if you have justice/joytoy, but give up berzerk and vorpal (your only decent(and I use the word decent loosly) WS).
Pick /war and your attacking significatnly slower then the rest of your melees.

Gear Selection: And this is one of the big ones.
DD options:
Haste: Walahra(5%), Nasheera body or denali(3%), nasheera legs (3%). I might be forgetting something.
The acc/attack/str peices you have access too are disgusting and wont be mentioned.

You dont have high sword skill, you dont have any DD job traits, you dont have decent DD gear, and you dont have any natural access to DD WSs.

You might as well ask "why cant a melee brd compare to a standard DD, any DD". The only thing you have over a melee brd is enspells, and an extra 20 damage wont help that much.

edit: and forgot about rdm crappy melee stats as well.

[Yutuyu]

PLD isn't that great, but they do have access to a few things that RDM doesn't that makes them worthwhile. Namely: Homam, Hauby, and A+ sword skill. Those're the saving grace of your PLD/NIN dd. Take those away, take away high base STR, and add -en spells. It really doesn't balance out.

[Malinn]

Although most of the the time, you'll pretty much just get "lolRDMmelee" when you ask about it, RDM melee in SOME merit camps is actually pretty fun and not too shabby if you put enough into it. You're never going to compare to a real DD job, but you also have the ability to support, pull, and really do anything the party needs while being a self sufficient source of small, but constant damage. It's definitely something I'd only recommend when you're with friends though, since pickup parties tend to be full of fail so there's little room for error.

Blau Doch, Joyeuse, Justice Sword are really nice weapons to have, although I prefer Evisceration to Savage Blade any day though.

Here's what I currently use for TPing on RDM (mostly solo however)
Joy/Justice
Tipha Sting
W.Turban/Optical hat
Chiv. Chain (I need to work on this)
Brutal/Whatever earring fits situation
Pln. Kagazamandafland
Dusk Gloves
Woodsman/Rajas
Amemet+1
Potent Belt (0/10 on Swift belt!)
Dusk Trousers/Galliard Trousers/ Nashira
Ogre boots

But when you compare that to what a real DD job does, its pretty laff. Still, it's really fun to be able to reach into every part of your job and find some use in it.

What's really awesome is RDM/RNG though. I've got totally awesome Sidewinder gear. :D

[Carnusty]

Gear Selection: And this is one of the big ones.
DD options:
Haste: Walahra(5%), Nasheera body or denali(3%), nasheera legs (3%). I might be forgetting something.
The acc/attack/str peices you have access too are disgusting and wont be mentioned.

I think I might have /whooshed, but can't RDM equip basically the same Haste/attack/acc pieces that your normal Thief can equip?

I never thought Pahl. gear or dusk equip was that terrible. Hell, even that weird RDM/BST Ogre gear is really nice for DD gear for RDM. It's not as awesome as a Hauberk set can get, but it's not bad. Aside from Dragon/Homam gear there's not much that a THF can equip over a RDM meleewise.

Really, the only things limiting RDM are the lack of skill, lack of WS, and lack of natural melee JA/JTs. That's why mages are "lolmeleemage", because they have nothing natural to them that melees have.

[Malinn]

What the hell, posting it for lols. This is the gear I use for sidewinder.
RDM/RNG: Making the most of D rank Archery.

Main: Joyeuse (For TP building)
Sub: Astral Aspis
Ranged: Expunger (Needs mhore Perdu)
Ammo: Kubawa Arrows
Optical Hat
Aqua Gorget
Beater's Earring/Vision Earring
Pln. Khazagand
Crimson finger gauntlets
Behemoth Ring x2
Amemet+1
Warwolf Belt
Dusk trousers
Wise Pigaches

Hardcore.

[Septimus]

A RDM can get a fairly respectable 278 Sword Skill (250 base, 16 from 8 merits, 7 from Fortitude Torque, 5 from Suppa), but gear and base skills are a huge impediment. RDM can use some fairly nice gear like Forager's Mantle, but gets excluded from the big-boy armor like Haubergeon. (Even Homam would be nice for the potential to use meat.) Also sword is one of the weakest weapon classes in the game, with weak weaponskills and RDM has a fairly weak selection of them. (We have probably have a better selection of Hand-to-Hand weapons for which we have no intrinsic skill.)

One of the skill calculators says that RDM/WAR has 5 less STR and 4 less DEX than WAR/NIN, but WAR get Aggressor and can merit the recast timers for Berserk and Aggressor. Not to mention the big-boy gear that WAR can use that RDM cannot.

But even after all of that, I still would like to try to gear up my RDM and try a merit party as a melee. Why? Why do people climb Mt. Everest? Why do people swim the British Channel? Why did man go to the moon? Sometimes you just want to dream the impossible dream.

Plus there are some really pathetic melees out there that I know for certain my RDM would out-parse.

P.S. Why are people so ga-ga over Pahluwan Khazagand? Scorpion Harness +1 has more accuracy, and the critical hits seems to be very low. (1%)

[Whatinthe]

Although most of the the time, you'll pretty much just get "lolRDMmelee" when you ask about it, RDM melee in SOME merit camps is actually pretty fun and not too shabby if you put enough into it. You're never going to compare to a real DD job, but you also have the ability to support, pull, and really do anything the party needs while being a self sufficient source of small, but constant damage.

What's really awesome is RDM/RNG though. I've got totally awesome Sidewinder gear. :D

Do you have any parses of this in merit camps? What do Sidewinder do to pierce-weak mobs like Colibris on average?

[Malinn]

Afraid not, even my friends wont let me go RDM/RNG, so I just sneak it into City Dynamis to keep from getting bored. I should probably make the effort to unlock Expunger too, eh? :D
With locked expunger, my average on Yagudo in Dynamis-Windurst was around 400 with a surprising amount of accuracy.

Yeah, I haven't made any effort to test it in anything other than a goof off setting, but once I get Perdu Bow (as I have nothing better to spend points on) I want to try on Colbiri.

[Isiolia]

P.S. Why are people so ga-ga over Pahluwan Khazagand? Scorpion Harness +1 has more accuracy, and the critical hits seems to be very low. (1%)

I dunno, the extra gil pocketed would buy a piece of Dusk gear or one of a number of other improvements to a setup that would arguably be better than the extra 2 ACC. If you had nothing else to get, then sure, might be something to go for.
Personally I use the Pahluwan as well, though I'd prefer Goliard or an AJ. If nothing else, it certainly looks nicer than most options, especially free options.

[Yutuyu]

I think I might have /whooshed, but can't RDM equip basically the same Haste/attack/acc pieces that your normal Thief can equip?

Thief DD gear isn't exactly something I'd want to try and match up to. They don't really have the best gear in the game, but if you want to use that as an example...

No Homam, Hecatomb, Bomb Core/Fire Bomblet.

All of which, rocks.

[Neosutra]

A RDM can get a fairly respectable 278 Sword Skil

So basically the same as a meritless pld with none of the same + skill equipment. 300ish skill is roughly what i prefer in meripo for any DD job (merits, skill gear). And even with that and accuracy gear you typically wont hit accuracy cap w/o sushi.

But even after all of that, I still would like to try to gear up my RDM and try a merit party as a melee. Why? Why do people climb Mt. Everest? Why do people swim the British Channel? Why did man go to the moon? Sometimes you just want to dream the impossible dream.

Dont think I would compare hard but attainable goals such as "going to the moon" to making the best potential rdm melee. You wont just get the extra "damage/tp gain/attack speed/stats" via hard work and dedication, you just cant access them.

Plus there are some really pathetic melees out there that I know for certain my RDM would out-parse.

Thats the sad thing, even with the crappiest melee (and ya i know alot are), they will still most likley outparse the best rdm melee, as long as they are engaged and are using a job appropriate weapon (cant compare a nakid war using a Bee Spatha).


As for the Paluwan body........ Idk, i ask myself that everytime i see a rdm in it. All i can think of is "too poor to aford a SH".

[Bagel]

A RDM can get a fairly respectable 278 Sword Skil

So basically the same as a meritless pld with none of the same + skill equipment. 300ish skill is roughly what i prefer in meripo for any DD job (merits, skill gear). And even with that and accuracy gear you typically wont hit accuracy cap w/o sushi.

I guess WAR should use G Axe instead of Ridill then, since it's impossible to have capped GAxe skill lower than sword. Everyone out of the Aery, pool's closed.

[aurik]

Bonus points for anyone that can link Tyche's test that showed a uberified RDM melee getting creamed by a naked monk + destroyers in a parse.

[Tajin]

http://www.killingifrit.com/forums.php? ... 32294&d=90
?

I remember reading that, some nice lulz there

http://img347.imageshack.us/img347/5...dmnklogmc4.jpg ?

[Isiolia]

Bonus points for anyone that can link Tyche's test that showed a uberified RDM melee getting creamed by a naked monk + destroyers in a parse.

Actually, wasn't that RDM wearing gear that was "uber" in the form of being really expensive, not necessarily the most effective thing they could be using?

[Whatinthe]

Bonus points for anyone that can link Tyche's test that showed a uberified RDM melee getting creamed by a naked monk + destroyers in a parse.

You know, I never was really happy with that so-called "test". Although Wrish did whine alot, he did have couple of valid points. Mainly in that the RDM didn't equip himself properly, and that the test itself could have been conducted better.

Although if RDM/RNG is a viable combination, a KC RDM/RNG could in theory produce decent damage. Gear up as much haste gear, and let /RNG's accuracy bonus offset the KC's low acc. I would really have to see if Sidewinder is a viable WS on pierce weak mob first, though.

[aurik]

Bonus points for anyone that can link Tyche's test that showed a uberified RDM melee getting creamed by a naked monk + destroyers in a parse.

You know, I was never was really happy with that so-called "test". Although Wrish did whine alot, he did have couple of valid points. Mainly in that the RDM didn't equip himself properly, and that the test itself could have been conducted better.

Although if RDM/RNG is a viable combination, a KC RDM/RNG could in theory produce decent damage. Gear up as much haste gear, and let /RNG's accuracy bonus offset the KC's low acc. I would really have to see if Sidewinder is a viable WS on pierce weak mob though.

Don't rangers miss enough sidewinders as is? Also, D is 210 cap, and RDMs only get the shit bows (Expunger?!)

[Tajin]

You know, I never was really happy with that so-called "test". Although Wrish did whine alot, he did have couple of valid points. Mainly in that the RDM didn't equip himself properly, and that the test itself could have been conducted better.

nuuuu, i cant troll anymore ;;


AFK trolling this broken computer

[aurik]

Naked mnk/war with destroyers (Tyche)

vs

http://img334.imageshack.us/img334/9...eedbeltal8.jpg
(complete with 5/5 zenith to activate the ring)


The result?
http://img292.imageshack.us/img292/7051/parseuk7.jpg
Monk wins by virtue of doing 50% more damage.

[Tajin]

bah, you fail aurik, where is my bonus points