Waking the Beast

[Skylark]

-Might have been thought of before, just posting my thoughts-

So with this new update that's affecting SMN to the point where SE wants the avatars to stay out I started thinking about the Waking the Beast quest. From what I've seen not many people do it just because the rewards never merited enough interest in gathering the manpower to do it. I looked over the rewards list from beating Carbuncle Prime and saw that the latents on the weapons dropped are all activated by having the specific avatar in your party. I was wondering if A) This update might raise interest in people starting to do this quest regularly and B) If people actually obtained a weapon, is it worth it to use? Or the weapons just aren't good enough to try and get them.

First example is Ifrit's Bow Stats are as follow:

DMG: 40 Delay: 360 STR +3 Ranged Attack +10
Latent effect:
Increases rate of critical hits
72 WAR / RDM / THF / PLD / DRK / BST / RNG / SAM / NIN
Now because of the few people that attempt this quest, there's even a fewer chance that someone has this weapon as opposed to the other 6 items that can be dropped. But if a melee were to obtain this bow would it be regularly used as opposed to other items that can be equipped in the Range/Ammo slot? I was mainly thinking this could be used for THF, SAM, and quite possibly WAR because if the critical hit rate was good enough it could be used instead of say a bomb core, or goblin cracker. Plus that STR+3 seems pretty good to me on a range slot, then again I could be completely wrong as I don't have any melee jobs past 45 and that's just PLD.

The only other weapon that really sticks out to me that could be really good is Leviathan's Course. Stats are as follows:

Polearm
DMG: 89 Delay: 480 MND +8 Attack +8
Latent effect: Water damage
Lv. 72 WAR / SAM / DRG

From what I can find, the additional damage added on is unknown. For this weapon I was thinking that it could be good for SAMs in Meripos as a different option to the Engetsuto. The other thing that this could be good for is a DRG/Mage with the MND+8.

My question to you all. With this new update, will you look at possibly doing this quest? If you get one of the weapons will you only use it if a SMN has that avatar out? Or might you use solo / without a SMN. Thanks for taking the time to read my wall o' text (If I'm completely way off in my thinking of the weapons being used for melee feel free to let me know, I'm a mage guy)

Information of quest / lists of rewards: Waking the Beast - FFXIclopedia, the Final Fantasy XI wiki - Characters, items, jobs, and more

[Corrderio]

My question to you all. With this new update, will you look at possibly doing this quest?

Really don't see people picking this quest up but that's just me. If I could do it with a successful PT I would since I wouldn't mind Leviathn/Shiva/Ifrit drops

[ArwynOfOdin]

The bow was already the most popular piece, so its demand will only increase. Does anyone know if by any chance the critical hit+ effect only applies to the ranged slot? If it doesn't, I imagine it will become the weapon to have when a SMN is present since it works with Ifrit and his double attack+ effect is arguably one of of the best avatar buffs.

This is assuming of course that these new buffs are worth the trouble.

[Karbuncle]

Aye, Got a good shell on Asura that does WTB once every 2 Weeks. 1 Saturday we do Eye farming for new members, the next we do WTB.

Its a wonderful shell, haven't seen a lot of good drops. Carbuncle cuffs we saw, Ramuh's Rod, etc.

Titan's Baselarde dropped lawl.

My guess is the people who already do the BCNM will be happier, but those who don't do it / not interested probably won't suddenly start finding people for it.

[Tomiko]

From what I can find, the additional damage added on is unknown. For this weapon I was thinking that it could be good for SAMs in Meripos as a different option to the Engetsuto. The other thing that this could be good for is a DRG/Mage with the MND+8.

This is what I use for Sam when I use Polearm. I'll check tomorrow for the additional damage since I can't remember off hand. For lower level stuff, I think it was doing 60ish, but I could be wrong. I'll test on Colibri as Sam/Smn unless I can find someone (Smn or /Smn) to come with me.

[Draylo]

Wish people still did this regularly on my server, I loved doing it.

[Corrderio]

The bow was already the most popular piece, so its demand will only increase.

It depends on how big of an impact this avatar favors will have on the playerbase. I really don't see this changing endgame that much since I have a hard time seeing a shell worth anything having a lack of BRDs or CORs and need to resort to SMNs to give people favors instead of just having them use BPs.

Though we'll see, it just depends on how much of an impact this BP reduction and how long it takes for the favor to reach it's peak.

[Jeryhn]

...it just depends on how much of an impact this BP reduction and how long it takes for the favor to reach it's peak.

Its unlikely that if any Bloodpact nerf were to occur when Avatar's Favor is active that it would affect Ward Bloodpacts. That being said, a Summoner could provide a constant Warcry effect through Crimson Howl with Ifrit, while using Ifrit's Favor to bolster Double Attack rate of the melees. With a combination of a Scholar support job and maybe some offbeat meleeing for TP for Spirit Takers, MP shouldn't be too much of a problem depending upon how much perpetuation cost the Favor cuts off.

This kind of setup would make the Ifrit's Bow exceptionally desirable to a melee character. STR+3 and an increased critical hit rate seem pretty good in tandem with Crimson Howl and increased Double Attacks on paper.

This setup would require another mage to support the party with Hastes, but I could definitely see it working out well. Ideally a RDM in case MP expenditure becomes an issue.

[Shinryuu]

Tomoe beats Leviathan's Couse. For WAR, Gondo vs. Couse is a tossup.

[Nevex]

Shiva's shotel suffers of the "Hofud syndhrome", namely a very desiderable weapon for a recently added job that quickly loses its value once new and more accessible gear is added.

Both weapons are indeed decent/good even today and were a BLU's wet dream a few years ago (not to mention they're cool looking as well), but both got outclassed by overall better and more accessible options (such as Perdu and Koggelmander).

tl;dr Shiva's Shotel is decent, but it's more like a trophy than else.

Ifrit Bow doesn't look too good to me, at least not better than Fire Bomblet/Black Tathlum without a SMN using Ifrit.
Way too situational to even bother with it.

[Miraun]

Shiva's shotel suffers of the "Hofud syndhrome", namely a very desiderable weapon for a recently added job that quickly loses its value once new and more accessible gear is added.

Both weapons are indeed decent/good even today and were a BLU's wet dream a few years ago (not to mention they're cool looking as well), but both got outclassed by overall better and more accessible options (such as Perdu and Koggelmander).

tl;dr Shiva's Shotel is decent, but it's more like a trophy than else.

Ifrit Bow doesn't look too good to me, at least not better than Fire Bomblet/Black Tathlum without a SMN using Ifrit.
Way too situational to even bother with it.

I'd be willing to say even Ifrit's bow is subject to the same condition, but not by a distinct piece of equipment, but from augmenting in general.

Now that it's possible to obtain STR on ranged weapons, usable by most classes, it's become outdated. For those situations where you need to purely stack STR, you can go augment 20 Lightning Bow +1s to try to get STR on it.

... And of course, the one that you get with STR on it will have ATT-20, ACC-3, with +2 CHR, but that's another topic.

[Julian]

I'm pretty sure the increased critical hit rate would just be on the bow itself.

+Critical on current weapons already apply only to that weapon itself, why would this be any different?

[Thorny]

I'm pretty sure the increased critical hit rate would just be on the bow itself.

+Critical on current weapons already apply only to that weapon itself, why would this be any different?

It's worded the same as pahluwan khazagan(which isn't a weapon) and trollbane(which is a returning range proven to increase MELEE criticals by 5% when latent is active). Furthermore, the ranged weapons from the crit+6% series of KSNM weapons all give ranged accuracy instead of critical rate. I'm pretty sure it's retarded to assume Ifrit's Bow doesn't effect melee crits. It doesn't really matter though, SMN is an awful job and favors won't change that.

[Shinryuu]

Shut up and make me a SMN DNC BRD COR RDM me party with Ifrit's favor, 2 marches, Haste samba, haste, Fighter's roll...

AND MY AXE

[Thorny]

sry dunno any 75 smns

[Fiendishone]

Just picked up my Ifrit's Bow a few weeks back during LS event for my SAM (2 dropped, along with a Leviathan's Couse), and as soon as I seen the SMN update I began wondering about this as well . . . .although i noticed someone did mention that the latent effect was on ranged attacks only, which would suck. ALOT. Hoping that isn't that case, but unsure if it's been tested or not.

[nitsuj]

If someone starts up a shell on a server I would consider moving to do these quests regularly. PM me if you do!

Hades had a pick up group semi recently that I was fortunate enough to tag along with. We ended up winning, and did the fight with all summoners. I loved it! Tons of fun, and carby mitts dropped.

I think what jeryhn had to say has good potential.

Come to Unicorn, we can start these up semi-regularly. I love doing these with a SMN alliance.

[Tomiko]

This is what I use for Sam when I use Polearm. I'll check tomorrow for the additional damage since I can't remember off hand. For lower level stuff, I think it was doing 60ish, but I could be wrong. I'll test on Colibri as Sam/Smn unless I can find someone (Smn or /Smn) to come with me.

Went Sam/Smn and hit a couple Lesser Colibri (easy prey). Damage varied between 38-47 with the average around 43 or so. I'll see if I can get someone to go with me this weekend when I have more time. I'll try something harder then.