Random Question Thread V: But does it 6-hit

[kyosak]

Is Formless Strikes worth meriting?
I'm sitting at 5/5 Invigorate right now and I need help deciding between...

1/5 Formless Strikes, 4/5 Penance
or
5/5 Penance

MNK gets used in Salvage onry pretty much.

[Meat]

Penance

[Gustaf the Voidbringer]

Does Weapon Skill Accuracy affect physical blue magic under Chain Affinity?

[Kidnoftle]

We skillchain the flans on 2F all the time and they always pop. It doesn't count as magic damage in this regard.

I can say with 99% confidence that skillchains do count towards magic dmg that can make the spikes go down. Maybe you just got lucky every time and did it at the start and gave time for flans to regain spikes.

[Wolfknight]

It's either a total amount of magic damage must be dealt to remove spikes, or over a certain amount in one hit.. not positive which, but am positive skillchains count.

I can say with 99% confidence that skillchains do count towards magic dmg that can make the spikes go down. Maybe you just got lucky every time and did it at the start and gave time for flans to regain spikes.

This to both of these, also If you have a drg, their wyvern's breath damage does a lot on them, and in my experience it will NOT take the spikes down ever, cause I've done large amount on them with HP unlocked, Relic helm, and Deep Breathing, and done high total wyvern breath damage on them and never once seen it take spikes off them.

[zagex]

so is it safe to SC of any kind on flans and keep their spikes? we already know about formless strikes, magic ws and en-spells. at most it'd save us 3-4 minutes, but 3-4 minutes can be 2-3 gears on 4F. thanks!

Regarding en-spells, en-spells are awesome on the flans, they do a lot of damage and won't drop the spikes. At least en-spells1 won't, I never tried en-spells2 and don't plan to.

[Argettio]

Can you do Healing Breath swaps well using Spellcast? An example of how to handle it would be nice, not sure how to make things delay properly to do HP Gear > Wyvern HP Gear > Aftercast gear.

see the spellcast thread in this section, last 1-2 pages.

[pchan]

Is Formless Strikes worth meriting?
I'm sitting at 5/5 Invigorate right now and I need help deciding between...

1/5 Formless Strikes, 4/5 Penance
or
5/5 Penance

MNK gets used in Salvage onry pretty much.

Yes totally worth it, but obviously situationnal. In salvage it's good on Flans (you don't always want to pop second floor rampart) and on ghosts/bhoot.

[Martinius]

penance is amazing, and well worth capping. that said, if you have a co-tank who has mnk, and theirs is fully merited, then you only need 4/5 for penance to be up at all times. with the exception of LBC, which just has insane regain, it's amazing on chariots. it's not uncommon for me to see only 2, sometimes 3, tp moves over the course of 1:40, with 2-3 ppl on the chariot (or 4 where we're doing LAC).

that said, pchan is right. formless strikes is well worth unlocking, especially for ghosts/bhoots. personally, i'd drop 1 from invigorate, but that's just me. my co-tank 75% of the time is either a war or sam, so penance is great since they have no subtle blow.

[Cream Soda]

I'm 4/5 penance, 5/5/ invig, 1/5 formless. I'm happy with it. That being said, I do a lot of soloing on mnk. If that were not the case, invig and penance would be swapped.

[Deemos]

I was wondering... does Dark Ixion resets to 20-24 after manteinance killed or not before it starts, or just if killed and not in window? Asking this because we've had a no pop after a maint. And we killed him shortly before its start

[Byrthnoth]

iirc, DI is unaffected by maintenance. Windows continue as they were regardless of the maint.

[Wulfgang]

DI / SW are weird.

One theory is that, unlike every other NM in this game, if the window was open prior to maintenance, it will be open after maintenance. If window was not open, it will be 20 hours after maint. I have seen this not to be the case 3-4 times and I don't think it's correct.

I save my LS the time and just assume 20 hours post maint for camp. I'll run through the zones and /sea the areas prior to that so that if it does pop, we at least have ToD.

EDIT: When I say not like every other NM in the game, I mean that its pre-maintenance status somehow affects it post-maintenance.

[Byrthnoth]

What are opinions on DNC T1/2 merits? 5/5 Haste Samba is a given, I mean after that.

Tier 1: 5 merits left to play with
Step Accuracy (+3 acc per merit level) - I'm the least keen on this one
Reverse Flourish effect (+3 TP returned every level) - Okay, looks pretty hot. You already get back the same amount or more TP for each step you use, but this bumps it up further.
Building Flourish effect (+2 Acc, +1% Attack, +1% Crit rate per upgrade with the appropriate number of finishing moves) - This is the big contender vs. Reverse Flourish

Tier 2: 10 merits - I don't intend to use Dancer a lot in Campaign or for tanking and crap. I'm interested in being the best DD I can be in a merit party.
Saber Dance - +50% DA, decaying effect. Lasts 5 minutes, recast 5 minutes each additional merit level decreases recast by 30 seconds. So meritting higher than 1 level lets you reapply sooner and keep a higher potency buff up (or reapply sooner if you have to drop it to cure someone).
Fan Dance - Not interested in soloing, but it's really hard for me to look at this JA and pass it up. IDK!
No Foot Rise - + Reverse Flourish = 75TP Meditate for DNC on a 3 minute recast.
Close Position - +3 Acc and +3 Eva per merit level

So, right now I'm thinking:
5/5 Haste Samba
5/5 Building Flourish effect
5/5 Saber Dance
5/5 Closed Position

By and large, I don't think spamming Steps to use Reverse Flourish will really help damage due to the animation delay (if you're dancing you aren't swinging, ironically) and Building/Reverse Flourish being on the same timer. This merit strategy lets Steps be kind of a once-per-monster thing. I'm the least sure about choosing Closed Position over No Foot Rise.

[Xno Kappa]

What's a good piercing weapon for DRK's besides daggers?

[The Stig]

What's a good piercing weapon for DRK's besides daggers?

Tutelary?

[Enedin]

What's a good piercing weapon for DRK's besides daggers?

Dunno, I'd use my Blau Dolch. Would work ok with my full dagger merits. Can DRK use any rapier-type swords? I don't think so.

[requim]

What's a good piercing weapon for DRK's besides daggers?

Your E marks!

[Thalandor46]

Good food for low level rng?

[Martinius]

Good food for low level rng?

flounder meuniere is probably the best, w/ racc +15, ratt+14%(caps @25). dex isn't worth much, but also has enmity -3, which doesn't do jack when soloing, but is nice in a low level pt, especially when you hit 30 and get barrage.

that said, it tends to be fairly rare, as it's cooking 90+ (93 i think?) and uses black sole/dil. the upside is that it's cheap to make and lasts 3 hours. make friends with a cook and you should be in pretty good shape.