Randomer Question Thread

[Shinryuu]

Polearm also does very well in Salvage and Nyzul, by the way.

[ringthree]

Polearm also does very well in Salvage and Nyzul, by the way.

On low evasion, low defense mobs it is also going to do pretty well, but so is anything. Above floor 2 in Salvage and for real mobs in Nyzul it is going to fall behind quickly.

[Cream Soda]

From what I hear, gears are weak to piercing and PA should excel on those mobs as well, but I always go mnk to salvage so I haven't gotten the chance to test it myself.

[Baelorn]

Does SCH weather overwrite normal weather or are both active at the same time?

[Wolfknight]

From what I hear, gears are weak to piercing and PA should excel on those mobs as well, but I always go mnk to salvage so I haven't gotten the chance to test it myself.

I don't think sam's penta is worth giving up skillchain ability of gkt there, doing darkness off mnk and self darkness would be large lose of dmg.

[Cream Soda]

Do you usually hold off on TP or the mnk hold off on tp and wait to ws? or do u just go when u have tp and just get scs off by coincidence?

[Wolfknight]

if mnks at 80 or higher tp and I am at 100[assuming mediate down], I'll wait if gear isn't low enough to where ws would kill, and good many times have two mnk + sam so it's pretty common that I can open or close darkness.

[Pumaite]

Does SCH weather overwrite normal weather or are both active at the same time?

Some of both:

No weather + hailstorm = ice weather x1
Ice weather x1 + hailstorm = ice weather x2
Ice weather x1 + firestorm = fire weather x1
Ice weather x2 + hailstorm = ice weather x2 (you can still gain the stat bonus if the sch has stormsuge merited even if it does not alter the weather).

So basically sch weather either adds to or overwrites existing weather.

[Ruuz]

When supertanking on mnk and I counter I do no get hate (or the rdm would grab them all after casting acure on me)

I heard somebody refer to counter's damage similar to Excalibur's add. effect, and it was easy to think of it like that.

Veg, can you clarify what you are saying? You say "do no get hate" or the "rdm would grab them all", dont you mean that you do get hate? I have always felt that counters are huge hate builders, since instead of loosing any CE (from taking damage) I actually increase it due to dealing dmg to mob. I noticed this a lot when tanking mandies in jungle, once I get a few counters in a row and maybe even a WS, they are stuck to me like glue.

On birds (about 54+), when I was really dishing out crazy dmg on MNK and full-timing counterstance, once they look my way and I start to counter, only a PLD covering me could keep them off me till I die. While I cannot conclusively say that counter builds enmity, I feel very strongly that it does.

[OctavoGilgamesh]

I apologize if this has been covered before, but I can't get the search function to return anything worthwhile.

This has to do with the sam/nin crowd. Has anyone done any math as to the benefits of hasso vs the benefits of /war abils (berserk and da).

Other things to take into account would be seigan/te counters for /war and ???.

Don't really want to get into the argument of /nin taking less damge yada yada.

[Cream Soda]

Anything that gains hate would claim the mob (voke, punching it, dia, dnc steps, ect) and as soon as hate is established on a mob the rdm would be able to pull hate off me with his cures and in return get fucked since when I skilled guard/parry I had 15-20 mandies on me at once with phal II and being cure bombed. Once I countered if it gave me hate, my next cure the RDM woulda had a shit load of mandy on him

[Thorny]

I do salvage with double SAM and they both use polearm on gears, damage is much faster than when I had mnk x2 for DD, though I haven't seen them use GK on them to compare. They definitely have piercing bonus.

[mdkuser]

If a SAM has access to full Usukane - should he use it, or is a mix and match set going to be better?

Hmm I found all this discussion about SAM quite interesting. I always thought that full usukane wasn't any good for SAM, but kinda changed my mind... So I went to check and compare stats for three different sets, considered to be some of the best ( excluding relic/ dusk+1):

Set A - Full usukane.
Set B - Mix match : Walahra turban, haubergeon +1, dusk gloves, Byakko's haidate, usukane sune-ate.
Set C - Ace's set : Ace's helm, haubergeon +1, dusk gloves, Byakko's haidate, usukane sune-ate.

The obvious facts, before any computation, is that for very high accuracy or haste ( which SAM can easily achieves), set B wins, while for non caped accuracy or average haste, it's either set A or C.

Set A vs. Set B:

Spoiler: show

The stats you are comparing are... Set A: 8 STR, 5 attack, 17 acc, 2% counter v.s Set B: 10 DEX, 2% haste. Ignore for a moment the str , attack, counter and dex contribution to damage ( they only boost melee dmg), and you now compare 10 acc. vs 2% haste ( since 10 dex also gives 7 acc, sometimes 8 ). If you do the maths, 10 acc wins over 2% haste as long as your hit rate is is > 91% ( assuming hasso, march haste are available). Now full usu will win for a bit higher accuracy since its also boosts melee dmg more than 10 dex do generally. so let's say 92%.

So if set B gives you more than 92% accuracy, it's better than full usukane. If your acc is <92% then full usukane wins. This is surprising for me >.>, so basically I need to use full usukane on MMJ camps, but stick to set B on birds if using katana ( and use a dex build), and full usu with polearm.

Set A vs. set C:

Spoiler: show

The stats you are comparing are... Set A: 6 STR, 10 ACC, Counter+2%, v.s Set C: 8 DEX, 7 attack, 1% haste. 8 dex give 6 acc, so if you ignore the attack, str, counter and dex contribution to melee dmg, then 4 acc wins over 1% haste if your hit rate is < 92% ( assuming also march haste hasso). Now if you take into account that str dex counter also enhance your melee dmg, the inflection point is slightly lower, lets say 93%.

So Set A wins over Set C of your acc with set C is < 93%...

Now just for reminder: set B is better than set C as long as your acc with set B is > 93%.

This kinda rules out ace's helm if you own full usukane.

If Acc > 93%: Turban > ace's > usukane
If 90% < Acc < 93%: Ace's > Usukane > turban
If Acc < 90% :usukane > ace's > turban

Warning: relic owner , set B is best most of the time ( might want to change hauby+1 to usukane for 6-hit) and dusk gloves +1 owners, set C is better than full usu.

[Drace]

I did pretty much that exact same comparison when working out gear options a few weeks ago. (FFXI Gear doesnt have merit options etc, but all other things being equal it is a nice way to compare builds.)

Didn't add Aces as I don't have it, but take any build with Askar on it and add an extra 4 ACC:

Full Usu Build: (Very High Evasion Build Basically)
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y18...anoFullUsu.png

Mixed ACC Focus Build:
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y18...noTPMamool.png

Mix/Match ATT Focus Build:
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y18...manoTPMain.png


Mix/Match builds will slightly outperform in merits/ low evasion settings, but full Usu really isn't too far behind for SAM.

[ringthree]

From what I hear, gears are weak to piercing and PA should excel on those mobs as well, but I always go mnk to salvage so I haven't gotten the chance to test it myself.

I don't know what the exact conditions are, but in Salvage DRG's are definitely the bringers of doom and woe.

But just because they are weak to piercing doesn't mean that on harder mobs you would want to use a lower skill weapon Polearm over a Hagun.

I usually go on MNK or WHM, so I am in the same boat as you. I don't know if it's Polearm itself or if it is DRG that makes the difference.

[ringthree]

Do you usually hold off on TP or the mnk hold off on tp and wait to ws? or do u just go when u have tp and just get scs off by coincidence?

Our WAR and DRG (relic) have started going King's Justice to Drakesbane for Light... and the damage at times is a bit ludicrous. They will only hold TP if the other person is close, though.

[ringthree]

Veg, can you clarify what you are saying? You say "do no get hate" or the "rdm would grab them all", dont you mean that you do get hate? I have always felt that counters are huge hate builders, since instead of loosing any CE (from taking damage) I actually increase it due to dealing dmg to mob. I noticed this a lot when tanking mandies in jungle, once I get a few counters in a row and maybe even a WS, they are stuck to me like glue.

On birds (about 54+), when I was really dishing out crazy dmg on MNK and full-timing counterstance, once they look my way and I start to counter, only a PLD covering me could keep them off me till I die. While I cannot conclusively say that counter builds enmity, I feel very strongly that it does.

I think he was trying to say that countered attacks don't give the MNK hate from that attack, but that is just a guess.

I believe that is the case also. I don't know how exactly a countered attack works but I don't think it functions like a normal attack.

[Drace]

It doesn't count as claiming action. So when he is supertanking lets say the Hammerblow room on MNK, only the mob that he is actively engaged with punching etc will be on the normal hate list. He can counter the other mobs that are linked on him to death w/o worrying about hate transferring to the healers etc. (Assuming you take no other action on the linked mobs that are only taking dmg from your counters.)

This is the way many MNKs cap Guard, bring a PL, link several mobs w/o taking action on more than one of them, engage something in the distance, counter + guard things ad nauseum while the PL keeps you alive. No hate transfer to the PL regardless of the dmg you do from counters.

Edit: to further clarify/ address this - the same is true for Seigan counters and retaliation. As long as you have done nothing else to the mob to claim it, counter/retaliation dmg will not put you on the hate list.

[ringthree]

RE: The SAM gear discussion.

I don't even have a set of macro's for a mix and match set any more, and it really doesn't have to do with damage output at all (although I love the increase in accuracy).

For me it really has to do with survivability. I went from about -20 evasion to about +30 evasion, and a 50 point swing in evasion is noticeable during events and my use of reraise items is way down.

I am willing to give up a fractional loss in damage for a strong increase in non-death. LOL

Wow... I just Ridill posted again.

[ringthree]

It doesn't count as claiming action. So when he is supertanking lets say the Hammerblow room on MNK, only the mob that he is actively engaged with punching etc will be on the normal hate list. He can counter the other mobs that are linked on him to death w/o worrying about hate transferring to the healers etc. (Assuming you take no other action on the linked mobs that are only taking dmg from your counters.)

This is the way many MNKs cap Guard, bring a PL, link several mobs w/o taking action on more than one of them, engage something in the distance, counter + guard things ad nauseum while the PL keeps you alive. No hate transfer to the PL regardless of the dmg you do from counters.

Edit: to further clarify/ address this - the same is true for Seigan counters and retaliation. As long as you have done nothing else to the mob to claim it, counter/retaliation dmg will not put you on the hate list.

This is exactly right. I completely spaced on this, and the funny thing is that I used to counter supertank SSR first floor all the time and forgot about that.