What's Better?

[Nere]

Could get the "DEX+4 Increases critical hit damage (+2%)" augment purely for SA+Cannonball.

[Wolfknight]

Could get the "DEX+4 Increases critical hit damage (+2%)" augment purely for SA+Cannonball.

that with +4 str as other augment makes a pretty strong piece for SA cannonball anyways.

[Yarko]

Yoichinoyumi vs Annihilator.

I have Amano and I'm working on my second relic, up to now I was sure it would be Yoichi, but I'm having second thoughts. Annihilator just seems much better:

Annihilator's pros:
- 5hit build with /war or /drg
- Coronach slightly stronger than Namas
- Enmity -20 from ws added effect, combined with /drg you should be able not to cap your total enmity ever

cons:
- close range sweet spot, but at 10' it doesn't get much worse

Yoichi's "pros":
- can use on SAM, but in what instances would I use soboro+yoichi over amano sam or annih rng?
- r.acc from WS, but that's pretty much useless with the addition of Pot-au-feu
- sweet spot is out of AoE range

cons:
- 5hit build only possible with /sam
- bound to hit enmity cap unless you /drg and 6hit, but then annih rng/drg >>> yoichi rng/drg

So to sum it up:
if it's ok to cap total enmity -> 5hit annih rng/war > 5hit yoichi rng/sam or 6hit yoichi rng/war
if you want to stay under cap -> 5hit annih rng/drg > 6hit yoichi rng/drg

Am I correct if I say upgrading yoichi would be kinda silly, and should go for annihilator instead =/?

[ZhiGaruda]

You can always go SAM with a Kraken club instead of a Soboro, yeaaahh!

I'm partial to Annihilator. i'm not sure what events you do, but when I was on Garuda, there was an absolutely sick RNG in a rival LS with one, named Derena. He would do just absolutely ridiculous amounts of damage to kings, without ever fear of pulling hate. Was so neat!

[_chuchu]

You can always go SAM with a Kraken club instead of a Soboro, yeaaahh!

I'm partial to Annihilator. i'm not sure what events you do, but when I was on Garuda, there was an absolutely sick RNG in a rival LS with one, named Derena. He would do just absolutely ridiculous amounts of damage to kings, without ever fear of pulling hate. Was so neat!

^ Not much more needs to be said or can be

[Tsuko_Asura]

Yoichi's "pros":
- can use on SAM, but in what instances would I use soboro+yoichi over amano sam or annih rng?

Absolutely every instance? Six-hit with a Soboro > Five-hit with an Anni, and when all of your TP damage is coming from that GK, the likelihood of you capping enmity is.. Yeah.

Unless I'm completely whooshing by something crucial, I don't see why anybody would upgrade Anni for RNG over Yoichi for SAM

[Nameless]

I saw this on Wiki about Namas Arrow

"Regardless of damage, Namas Arrow hate is 160 CE / 480 VE."

So I am not sure if you will actually be having more hate than Anni with Namas spam. Range attack stuff is outside of my specialty, but I would think that since the bow benefits both of your jobs nicely, I would go for that just for that reason. I don't think the difference between the bow and the gun is really that big to justify any marginal improvement the bow will do for your Sam.

Just my 2 cents... can be completely wrong...

Just to add that soboro+yoichi is said by some ppl to be the closest thing in term of damage to kclub zerg by drk...

[ZhiGaruda]

I saw this on Wiki about Namas Arrow

"Regardless of damage, Namas Arrow hate is 160 CE / 480 VE."

So I am not sure if you will actually be having more hate than Anni with Namas spam. Range attack stuff is outside of my specialty, but I would think that since the bow benefits both of your jobs nicely, I would go for that just for that reason. I don't think the difference between the bow and the gun is really that big to justify any marginal improvement the bow will do for your Sam.

Just my 2 cents... can't be completely wrong...

Just to add that soboro+yoichi is said by some ppl to be the closest thing in term of damage to kclub zerg by drk...

The thing is, yes, you are spamming, and yes, you are doing very, very good damage with Soboro/Yoichi, or just Yoichi itself.

Quick disclaimer, incase I didn't make it clear before: These are my opinions based on what I've SEEN, not actually DONE, from OBSERVING those who have the relics.

Vs. DI: Yoichi RNG was constantly pulling hate. Once he got up on the hate cap, he was never dropping off. Didn't stop pulling it until he died. Of course he could've slowed down, but where is the fun in that? This was ONLY spamming Namas Arrow, no Sidewinder's.

Annihi RNG vs. DI, Fafnir, Nidhogg, KB (the only mobs I witnessed it vs.) was able to keep his enmity way down. He would just use Coronach > Slug > Slug > Slug > Coronach to re-start enmity- timer > Slug > Slug etc. Everytime he Coronach'd, if he HAD pulled hate at this point, the mob would immeditately revert back to the tank until he had done 3-4 more Slug's in rapid succession. This led me to believe there is more to Coronach than just enmity-20, but nonetheless, this is what I observed.

[Fottiti]

As has already been discussed in the relic thread and numerous other times at length, rng is NEVER going to outparse a 2 handed melee thats benefitting from haste, marches, samba or a combination of all 3 without a kraken club. You aren't going to be able to use K club on the majority of HNMs (certainly not on ixion to any great effect and for something like odin/faf it would cause far more trouble than the damage is worth).

Sam with soboro + yoichi is going to outparse rng with K club + anni on everything because it will get tp faster, do more melee damage and unless you are fighting a HNM (which you wouldn't use K club on anyway) the target will die before enmity becomes an issue and you have to remove hasso. You can actually use soboro on HNMs without causing any real issues and the huge racc boost should more than compensate for the lower archery skill.

Rng is only for when you are very low on support for ixion, scouting ix/sandworm and some people like it on khim/jol because it avoids AoE damage and doesn't mpk people when they pull hate. There is no other situation where you can justify being on rng over sam/war/drg/drk.

If you want a relic thats going to improve your performance and be useful in all melee situations and look pretty while scouting ix/sw, get Yoichi.

If you are all about rng and are determined to get a relic for it even though it won't be useful in any situation you can't use K club in and still won't do better damage than yoichi, go for annihilator.

[Byrthnoth]

If you're in a TP burn, Amano or Soboro/Yoichi will beat Anni, and your healers will appreciate you not being on RNG. Soboro/Yoichi will beat Amano if what you're fighting is either high level (less pDIF correction + attack dependent WS = win) or piercing weak. Amano will win on lower level mobs or with enough buffs maybe. Honestly, I've been pretty impressed with what I've seen of Yoichi. Just that it lets you full-time Hasso on SAM is a huge advantage over Amano, not to mention that it has a higher WS frequency anyway.
On HNM fights like DI, I guess Anni might be a little better, but unless you really hate buffering RNG or something I'm not sure one death per battle is really something to worry about.

[Yarko]

I saw this on Wiki about Namas Arrow

"Regardless of damage, Namas Arrow hate is 160 CE / 480 VE."

Yeah, but Coronach generates even less hate, and also has enmity-20 aftermath.

Absolutely every instance? Six-hit with a Soboro > Five-hit with an Anni, and when all of your TP damage is coming from that GK, the likelihood of you capping enmity is.. Yeah.

Unless I'm completely whooshing by something crucial, I don't see why anybody would upgrade Anni for RNG over Yoichi for SAM

I really don't see the hype about soboro+yoichi sam, considering SAM's r.atk even with buffs and the fact you have to WS from point blank (getting a 25-30%? ratk penalty for yoichi) is not that good. Furthermore, you do almost no dmg in the tp gain phase and on HNMs acc with soboro wont be capped unless you use acc food, so you have to choose either ratk food and not capped hit rate, or capped hit rate but so-so ratk (unless they added an acc+ratk food? not sure) . If I have to choose sushi (and tp given isn't an issue) might as well use kclub as annih ranger, and spam 1.5-2x more dmg Coronaches just as fast.

Soboro+yoichi is prolly nice on things that aren't HNMs, but I'm satisfied with how my Amano Sam performs on such things (never considered doing the maths, but I doubt S/Y sam would outperform it), i'm looking for a weapon to use mostly on HNMs without getting hate.

[absolutezero]

Drg: Aurum body or askar Have both which for TP

WS: aside from Are's <-- Zmail for Drakes (or any other suggestions)

[Cream Soda]

Sword strap: Aurum

Pole grip
Acc
Capped: Askar
Uncapped: Aurum

[Tsuko_Asura]

I really don't see the hype about soboro+yoichi sam, considering SAM's r.atk even with buffs and the fact you have to WS from point blank (getting a 25-30%? ratk penalty for yoichi) is not that good. Furthermore, you do almost no dmg in the tp gain phase and on HNMs acc with soboro wont be capped unless you use acc food, so you have to choose either ratk food and not capped hit rate, or capped hit rate but so-so ratk (unless they added an acc+ratk food? not sure) . If I have to choose sushi (and tp given isn't an issue) might as well use kclub as annih ranger, and spam 1.5-2x more dmg Coronaches just as fast.

Soboro+yoichi is prolly nice on things that aren't HNMs, but I'm satisfied with how my Amano Sam performs on such things (never considered doing the maths, but I doubt S/Y sam would outperform it), i'm looking for a weapon to use mostly on HNMs without getting hate.

Not doing damage during the TP-phase is the whole point.. You're allowing yourself to do 95% of your damage through Namas Arrow, where as an Annihilator is going to have a much less generous split in damage distribution, not to mention that, again, the TP-gain from a six-hit Soboro is going to run laps around a five-hit Anni. And I'm not sure where you're pulling these accuracy issues from. With more or less perfect gear(discounting things slightly out of reach for some players, like Hachiryu body, etc), you're looking at ~425 Acc with /DRG and Hasso, and assuming you're getting 25% haste in gear(which should be stupidly easily with /DRG), Haste, and marches, you're looking at <150 delay on your Soboro - that's a lot of Namas Arrows.

EDIT: With Usukane Haramaki, your delay would be ~138 with Sword Strap

[Vodou]

As has already been discussed in the relic thread and numerous other times at length, rng is NEVER going to outparse a 2 handed melee thats benefitting from haste, marches, samba or a combination of all 3 without a kraken club. You aren't going to be able to use K club on the majority of HNMs (certainly not on ixion to any great effect and for something like odin/faf it would cause far more trouble than the damage is worth).

Sam with soboro + yoichi is going to outparse rng with K club + anni on everything because it will get tp faster, do more melee damage and unless you are fighting a HNM (which you wouldn't use K club on anyway) the target will die before enmity becomes an issue and you have to remove hasso. You can actually use soboro on HNMs without causing any real issues and the huge racc boost should more than compensate for the lower archery skill.

Rng is only for when you are very low on support for ixion, scouting ix/sandworm and some people like it on khim/jol because it avoids AoE damage and doesn't mpk people when they pull hate. There is no other situation where you can justify being on rng over sam/war/drg/drk.

If you want a relic thats going to improve your performance and be useful in all melee situations and look pretty while scouting ix/sw, get Yoichi.

If you are all about rng and are determined to get a relic for it even though it won't be useful in any situation you can't use K club in and still won't do better damage than yoichi, go for annihilator.

The main advantage of ranger with relics is to do a large amount of damage while taking minimal or no damage in return. It is not meant to do more damage than 2-h users, so that straw man can be put away.

In any event where you do not mind having multiple melees on a mob (either because you are willing to bring a lot of mage support) and melees tanking (typically because TP moves are minimal or dealt with by melee), using a 2-h can often be a better choice.

While your list is a bit short (I don't think multiple melee on PW, Tyger, or Sarameya are necessarily a good choice over a rng, much less a relic rng), the list for rng is certainly shorter than relic sam.

I have not seen the math done between sobo-yoichi sam and KC rng on birds, but outside of that I would think the sam would win. Doubtfully, as I've posted before, did anyone get these relics to do lolbirds tho.

To reply to the OP on this, the two weapons are far more alike than any of the top ranged weapons for rng. The cap point for enmity balance (where VE damage = VE decay) is far higher on these than any other weapon by far.

I think its true to say that when racc is uncapped or barely capped, which does happen on
a number of HNMs, that Yoichi can provide noticeably better damage than Anni with substantially more hate. In situations, where racc is easily capped, Anni will provide massively lower hate with close to or equivalent damage. These are the aftermath effects which people are aware of. So the two have niches which only the user can define in importance.

[Vodou]

On HNM fights like DI, I guess Anni might be a little better, but unless you really hate buffering RNG or something I'm not sure one death per battle is really something to worry about.

I keep reading people say this, but most I imagine have not seen a Yoichi rng on DI. In several of my fights while using Yoichi, I took zero damage; in others, incidental damge from others pulling hate of like a few hundred points. If I ever died to DI, it was one of the first few fights when I was seeing how much damage I could do.

[Fottiti]

If I have to choose sushi (and tp given isn't an issue) might as well use kclub as annih ranger, and spam 1.5-2x more dmg Coronaches just as fast.

Soboro+yoichi is prolly nice on things that aren't HNMs, but I'm satisfied with how my Amano Sam performs on such things (never considered doing the maths, but I doubt S/Y sam would outperform it), i'm looking for a weapon to use mostly on HNMs without getting hate.

Subbing /drg with necessary usukane pieces you can get around 420 acc whilst maintaining 26% haste in gear. 420 acc is going to be adequate on most things, but yes on certain targets you will have to make a sacrifice in your food choice (subs/curry buns or sushi). 420 acc is about what a K club rng can manage with sushi.

Soboro also gets tp at almost identical rates to K club in those situations so I'm not sure where you are getting 1.5-2x as fast from.

The main advantage of ranger with relics is to do a large amount of damage while taking minimal or no damage in return. It is not meant to do more damage than 2-h users, so that straw man can be put away.

Yep it can do that, but instead of bringing a few rngs, bring an extra rdm and have a your melees able to damage more freely.

While your list is a bit short (I don't think multiple melee on PW, Tyger, or Sarameya are necessarily a good choice over a rng, much less a relic rng), the list for rng is certainly shorter than relic sam.

Tyger is basically khim but harder so that was somewhat implied, but yes tyger aswell. PW is several monsters in one and yes a couple of his forms have some nasty AoEs so if you're ever going to fight it (90% of people in endgame ls haven't/no intention of) then I guess it should be given consideration. If you have anything over a "lowman" group for sarameya you should be zerging it with bard rotations and all your melee should be meleeing to kill it in couple of minutes.

I have not seen the math done between sobo-yoichi sam and KC rng on birds, but outside of that I would think the sam would win. Doubtfully, as I've posted before, did anyone get these relics to do lolbirds tho.

Can't comment as I've never seen annihilator damage but assuming normal merit party conditions (marches, haste, hasso) then soboro is going to have a delay of 138, averaging 2 swings per round and 2.5 swings back to 100tp thats a delay of 345 back to 100tp after WS.

Rng subbing /war is going to have 21% haste, a delay of 121 and average 2.9 attack rounds or a delay of 350 back to 100tp after WS (this is assuming the distribution on K clubs attacks are even, which I believe is up for debate).

[ZhiGaruda]

As has already been discussed in the relic thread and numerous other times at length, rng is NEVER going to outparse a 2 handed melee thats benefitting from haste, marches, samba or a combination of all 3 without a kraken club. You aren't going to be able to use K club on the majority of HNMs (certainly not on ixion to any great effect and for something like odin/faf it would cause far more trouble than the damage is worth).

Sam with soboro + yoichi is going to outparse rng with K club + anni on everything because it will get tp faster, do more melee damage and unless you are fighting a HNM (which you wouldn't use K club on anyway) the target will die before enmity becomes an issue and you have to remove hasso. You can actually use soboro on HNMs without causing any real issues and the huge racc boost should more than compensate for the lower archery skill.

Rng is only for when you are very low on support for ixion, scouting ix/sandworm and some people like it on khim/jol because it avoids AoE damage and doesn't mpk people when they pull hate. There is no other situation where you can justify being on rng over sam/war/drg/drk.

If you want a relic thats going to improve your performance and be useful in all melee situations and look pretty while scouting ix/sw, get Yoichi.

If you are all about rng and are determined to get a relic for it even though it won't be useful in any situation you can't use K club in and still won't do better damage than yoichi, go for annihilator.

How many people do you really see using Soboro+Yoichi on HNMs? >.> Is that usual on other servers?

Aside from that, are you forgetting you can TP with Annihilator? You don't need to use a KClub and just spam WS's. These aren't bird camps, they're HNMs. Most people don't TP(melee) on Dark Ixion. I did because I'm a baws

[Yarko]

Not doing damage during the TP-phase is the whole point.. You're allowing yourself to do 95% of your damage through Namas Arrow, where as an Annihilator is going to have a much less generous split in damage distribution, not to mention that, again, the TP-gain from a six-hit Soboro is going to run laps around a five-hit Anni. And I'm not sure where you're pulling these accuracy issues from. With more or less perfect gear(discounting things slightly out of reach for some players, like Hachiryu body, etc), you're looking at ~425 Acc with /DRG and Hasso, and assuming you're getting 25% haste in gear(which should be stupidly easily with /DRG), Haste, and marches, you're looking at <150 delay on your Soboro - that's a lot of Namas Arrows.

EDIT: With Usukane Haramaki, your delay would be ~138 with Sword Strap

425 acc isn't enough to cap accuracy on HNMs. With perfect gear and amano, I get 85-90% acc on HNMs that matter if I don't use pizza. With Soboro that's gonna turn in 10% less hit rate.
SAM/DRG with soboro might be able to get tp quite fast, but you'd also have totally crappy ratk (something like 400 less than a RNG due to skill, food, 25% ratk penalty for WSing close to the mob and berserk).
Even if they WS twice as fast, I dont think it would make up for the loss of barrage, 2x weaker WSs, and dmg during TP phase.

Soboro also gets tp at almost identical rates to K club in those situations so I'm not sure where you are getting 1.5-2x as fast from.

I meant Coronach from RNG/WAR firing in sweet spot is going to be 1.5-2x stronger than Namas from SAM/WAR firing from point blank, definitely 2x if compared to SAM/DRG.
TP gain I considered to be equal.

[ZhiGaruda]

Tyger is basically khim but harder so that was somewhat implied, but yes tyger aswell. PW is several monsters in one and yes a couple of his forms have some nasty AoEs so if you're ever going to fight it (90% of people in endgame ls haven't/no intention of) then I guess it should be given consideration. If you have anything over a "lowman" group for sarameya you should be zerging it with bard rotations and all your melee should be meleeing to kill it in couple of minutes.




Can't comment as I've never seen annihilator damage but assuming normal merit party conditions (marches, haste, hasso) then soboro is going to have a delay of 138, averaging 2 swings per round and 2.5 swings back to 100tp thats a delay of 345 back to 100tp after WS.

Rng subbing /war is going to have 21% haste, a delay of 121 and average 2.9 attack rounds or a delay of 350 back to 100tp after WS (this is assuming the distribution on K clubs attacks are even, which I believe is up for debate).

I think you have it backwards. Tyger is basically Khim but significantly easier/weaker, lol.

Why do you keep reverting back to merit conditions, merit!=HNM

RNG wouldn't be using a KClub on HNMs, normally won't be sub WAR, they'll be /SAM for lower x-hit builds in most situations.