Synergy Findings/Discussion

[Shamaya]

What about this vs Osode though? Assuming it had ACP-level snapshot? Better, I assume? For people that have a lot of jobs leveled and no favorites, a fair amount of people will choose ACP for rng simply because it's so good. But not everyone has it, including myself. As for head and body, the fraps test might be able to get that sorted out. I'd like to try that, but as for body I've broken two of them already and bought a third, so I'm scared to try and synth a 4th. But if head/body are good, this together with the Hellfire evo has really buffed my rng.

[Viq]

Osode obviously wins on WS. ACP > Jerkin > Osode for TP in nearly every situation.

[tsola]

I don't think any of the gear is downright horrible, but a large majority of it isn't better than what's already out, especially considering how much of a pain it is to get some of this stuff.

As for the ebon gear, first you need to spend a few million to get the base set synthesized, then you need to go kill the ridiculously low (went 0/12 on Came-Cruse before I gave up) Aptant NMs. At least Ebur Pigment is 100% drop, and those NMs aren't too bad to kill; probably the easiest part of the process.

The entire thing just seems to be a big headache, that I can't imagine going through the Aptant NM hell for more than 1 piece. There are a few nice pieces, such as Ebon Coat for SCH nuking, and Ebon Talar for a fast cast body piece for BLU, as well as another alternative to RDM AF2 body.

Aern weapons thankfully aren't as difficult to get, since the drop rates aren't as horrible, but as was already pointed, aside from Sarissa, none of them really match up to what's already out there.

[Shamaya]

Guess I'm kinda eager now actually to work on the rng pieces. I don't do much on rng atm but ixion and khimaira. But if I go with beasts it'll work for Ixion, KB, and Cerb. So even if it's only +5 ranged acc, the head gives me snap shot, 3 agi, 7 ranged acc, and 4 r.atk. Body 4agi, 10 r.acc, 5 r.atk, and snapshot. Pretty sick compared to what I currently have.

Tsola, your idea of the ease of this is the reverse of mine. Buying stuff is easy. Aptants are rough but can largely be gotten solo. Ebur pigments require alliances (unless low man), possibly with other people who'd also want to lot. And Aern weapons seem worst of all to me. I heard the drop rate wasn't good, I personally haven't seen any drop, and for those you definitely need a bunch of (skilled) people, have to worry about other people lotting, and my LS refuses to touch them, so I'll have to do pickups.

Also can someone with Talar verify the fast cast %?

[TummieGaruda]

So, let me get this straight... Creating a nm that doesn't drop the item you want very often will make you quit? Retorical question... Of course not. This type of nm keeps you coming back just like any explored would searching for a rare item. So, based on your thought process se is doing exactly what they should be. Quit being A baby and go play call of duty if you can't handle it.

You failed to get the point of my post. I'll try to explain it so that maybe you can understand. It's no secret that FF11 is losing it's player base due to lack of interest in this game and the announcement of FF14. SE came up with this evolith system that to me seems to not have hit its mark. In fact, the system is pretty much hit and miss. The Evolith's themselves are pretty much situational for Ebon gear with all of the Vs. Family nonsense and there isn't much that really sticks out. It's nice that we can create a Shikkoku Togi with extra Acc and Attack vs birds, but in reality, that is such a situational piece that you have to ask yourself if it is really worth making.

The Aptant's themselves have a very dismal droprate, and the whole Ebon system supports the idea that you can keep one base set such as the Ebon Harness set, and move in between different sets (Shikkoku Togi, Ebon Vest, and Ebon Jerkin) with the necessary Aptants (one to synth and one for desynth). If this system is in place to switch back and forth between sets, then why keep the droprate so low on the Aptants? Like I said earlier, this probably would've been just fine five to seven years ago, but the game right now is at a state where it really doesn't need more stuff like this. The droprates for the Aptants does not reflect well on how useful the gear itself is. I could understand the low droprates if the specialized gear granted pieces that were on par with or better than current gear out there...but it isn't.

As for the whole "vs Family" thing, this was completely the wrong angle. I don't know how SE could have thought this would be a good idea. As for the thief pieces, they're either "barely" or "i don't know for sure if they're really" better than alternatives, after you consider plugging in "vs Family" evoliths. If they were going to make 'vs Family' stuff, they should make it strong enough to be decisively stronger than other alternatives.

SE's reasoning I guess was to keep a whole set from being too strong. What they could have done was:

A) Limit the strength of evolith slots based on the piece and removing the vs Family BS. This way the body can have the highest bonus, then hands, head, legs feet.
B) Give a static bonus, then a secondary bonus for Vs Family. For instance:
Attack+5 Vs Birds: Attack+10

[ronin sparthos]

Aern weapons arent that hard to get, the cobalt is easily the hardest drop from my LS kills.

For the Ebon Jerkin, I wanted to free up my ACP for COR solo purposes so this new gear helps to free that up while not losing the Snapshot or Ranged Attack.

The system to me turns out like every other SE endgame foray: You have a large pool of gear, most of it comes off as iffy/questionable, some gear turns out to be good and you now have something new to do on top of whatever else you were planning to do. I dont know how many patches it'll take for some to realize that SE is never going to outdo kings/salvage and that this game thrives on situational (to the extreme) gear.

Like every SE system, it is far from perfect at the start and mostly we'll see complaints about how SE should have done it but anyone playing XI by now should know that this is par for the course. I'll be expecting the pet augments and JA specifics next patch and then people re-evaluating the system at that time if you haven't been drawn towards something new already.

In terms of the whole "game is dying" bit going around? This was a massive patch and to me one of the few patches that actually gave some of the older players a nice surprise when every zone has a new NM with a new surprise in store. Now im sure many people go in with a "what's in it for me?" attitude but simply seeing some new NMs, some new reason to explore old zones gives this patch a big plus in my book.

Im of course unhappy with the drop rates but honestly it isn't even worth my time arguing about anymore. I'll continue to cycle Aptant NMs as something to do.

[TummieGaruda]

For the Ebon Jerkin, I wanted to free up my ACP for COR solo purposes so this new gear helps to free that up while not losing the Snapshot or Ranged Attack.

This is the same reason as to why I even gave Shik Togi a chance...I wanted to free up my Mirke for MNK since I only use it for Dynamis and Limbus. Due to the droprates I won't be be dedicating as much time to it as I had been in the previous weeks.

To me, I view the system as SE saying "Hey here's a new thing for you to do while you wait for WoE which is months away from now". Myself and others committed the cardinal sin of expecting too much from the system when an outlook of cautious optimism would have been a better approach. There are many things SE could have done to make the system a lot better such as keeping evoliths after removal and having a storage NPC to store your evoliths so that you can change them on the fly.

The Synergy system is only half complete which leaves me wondering what will be available at higher levels. We can already see that there aren't too many weapons that are useful (Hellfire+1 is one of those exceptions) that can be etched. I would like to see some high level synergy synths that will allow us to make weapons that can hold 2 evolith slots, leaving 3 for the Aern weapons.

[pchan]

Shikoku head/feet are decent for casting ichi on monk as they provide accuracy and counter, but I can't think of a decent evolith that would be great on them...

For rdm I saw some interresting evo for enfeebling : - casting time, but the system is kind of stupid as it would require to swap twice the same gear during a macro, which the current macro system doesn't really allow unless you press 2 macros : but in this case are you really gaining the -0.47 seconds you are saving if you need to press an extra key.. and even if you only have to press one key, swapping the same slot twice in a macro requires a /wait 1... fail.

[Midnightjade]

I haven't gotten into this too much so far, but when I look at the system I see evoliths that are situational (element-restricted, family-restricted) and do not include critical stats (haste wru?), almost nothing useful that can be etched, and unreliable droprates for important components. Oh, and a big gil investment.

Then I look at my current gear for BRD and BST, realize it's probably better than what I could achieve with Synergy, and go back to leveling WHM, the end. And my gear for both jobs isn't even that good.

It's an interesting system, but I think it could use some tweaking.

[Viq]

The Ebon hat (forget what the actual name is) isn't bad for BRD if you didn't use your MKD hat for Fast Cast.

[Staren]

Ok trying to HQ slots for evoliths, is there any way to not have to start all over after not hq'ing the second slot removing both and starting from the beginning is starting to really get annoying.

[dantaro]

the +22 HP/MP + refresh body for WHM is easily the best idle body for the job, that can't really be argued. Other than that the rest of that set isn't too fantastic, but I haven't really looked into it as much as I could yet. The body simply caught my eye for the crazy good idle stats

[Bling]

Ok trying to HQ slots for evoliths, is there any way to not have to start all over after not hq'ing the second slot removing both and starting from the beginning is starting to really get annoying.

I wish there was but I don't think there is. I just spent 100k + trying to get my last slot on my hands :/

[Shamaya]

I agree synergy can get expensive, especially the HQ slotting part. I've started synthing fewell and I'm definitely saving money by doing so. If anyone feels their synergizing is getting a mite bit expensive for them, I'd recommend the same.

Someone was telling me yesterday they felt that a "smooth synergy" which led to HQ was one where the target values matched perfectly, and the furnace did not leak at all. But yesterday I got an HQ just after leaking. As others have said, it seems to be pretty random.

Btw, regarding leaking. Is there a rhyme or reason to what makes a furnace leak? Maybe something to do with pressure? Or do you guys feel that it is probably random as well.

[TummieGaruda]

I agree synergy can get expensive, especially the HQ slotting part. I've started synthing fewell and I'm definitely saving money by doing so. If anyone feels their synergizing is getting a mite bit expensive for them, I'd recommend the same.

Someone was telling me yesterday they felt that a "smooth synergy" which led to HQ was one where the target values matched perfectly, and the furnace did not leak at all. But yesterday I got an HQ just after leaking. As others have said, it seems to be pretty random.

Btw, regarding leaking. Is there a rhyme or reason to what makes a furnace leak? Maybe something to do with pressure? Or do you guys feel that it is probably random as well.

I had always thought the furnace would leak an element when you feed too much of one element and the weaker element falls below some negative value causing the stronger element to became dominant. For example, too much Ice would raise ice and lower wind creating a higher dominance of ice.

[Bling]

I agree synergy can get expensive, especially the HQ slotting part. I've started synthing fewell and I'm definitely saving money by doing so. If anyone feels their synergizing is getting a mite bit expensive for them, I'd recommend the same.

Someone was telling me yesterday they felt that a "smooth synergy" which led to HQ was one where the target values matched perfectly, and the furnace did not leak at all. But yesterday I got an HQ just after leaking. As others have said, it seems to be pretty random.

Btw, regarding leaking. Is there a rhyme or reason to what makes a furnace leak? Maybe something to do with pressure? Or do you guys feel that it is probably random as well.

I HQ'd the third etch on my hands yesterday when one of the elements was off of the target by 3. I usually try to get w/in 2 but that third etch is hard as hell and I decided to go for it and it worked. Also, they pretty much always leak it seems, and I've HQ'd many times when it was leaking.

I haven't noticed anything that makes it leak specifically, but it sure is annoying. Nothing like having your elements all pretty aligned and then having one start leaking and ruin it. One thing I haven't ever tried is reducing pressure. That might have something to do with leaks, makes sense anyways. I usually just spam fewel and use safety lever when it gets to 30% impurity.

[macross]

Buy alot of dark fewell orbs, and get another lvl 50 friend to etch with and it's much easier to HQ that third etch. Course there's still alot of random bs luck involved due to leaks and what not.
I've always tried to get within 1 of the target, seems to work fine with HQ rates, but even perfectly matched you aren't guaranteed an HQ anyways.
Higher pot HP remaining might affect HQ rates as well.

Blacksmith and woodworking special powers are pretty nice as well

[Nameless]

An analysis on Galatyn with Naglering in mind:

494 delay makes perfect 6 hit build with Rose strap, /sam, Brutal, and Rajas. Similar to what you would have as Naglering, you sacrifice nothing, but gain 7 delay, which is about 1.4% faster than Naglering. What Naglering has is 20 attack and 4 acc, which when accuracy is not capped, can easily beat out 7 delay.

Galatyn has higher potential in term of WS damage. Assuming 5% double attack, 20% tp bonus on the weapon. 5% DA is pretty overrated for 1 hit WS since you will not be gearing toward acc, and all secondary hits won't have acc bonus. In addition, they will be 1.0 ftp as well, so overall, it is really less than 2% increase in WS damage from the 5% DA, most likely even less since this doesn't take accuracy into account.

20% tp bonus will be 4% WS damage since at 200%, Spinning slash has 3.0 ftp, at 100% it has 2.5 ftp. So at 120% it would have 2.6 ftp, which is a 4% increase.

20 attack from Naglering is great against higher lvl mobs taking clvl into consideration, but it does absolutely nothing when your cratio is capped.

So in the end, they are pretty similar, but I will give the edge to Galatyn due to the fact that it has higher potential. Naglering is very consistent, but when that 20 attack becomes useless due to whatever reason (uber gear etc), Galatyn will destroy Naglering because when using GS, 60% of your damage will be from WS.

So yea, I personally will take it over Naglering since it looks hot and is in par or better than Naglering.

Note: it seems like you won't be able to get both DA and TP bonus on it since both are the same shape.... in that case, TP bonus is the obvious choice... but for some reason I can't find that if TP bonus evolith even exist for GS, I thought I saw it somewhere before....

[macross]

Greatsword can only fit ws: +acc, and ws: dbl attack + it looks. There is no choice.

[Nameless]

then it becomes worthless :/

Btw, any new dark magic boots drk can use that involves Evolith? there isn't any decent existing option.