What's Better?

[FailureMidgard]

DNC or 2nd BRD (Or a COR) for a merit party?

Assuming 5haste samba merits.

Corsair. Cor Roll > an entire bard, and you get another roll with it. This is assuming good DDs.

Past that, depends on the DDs you have, etc. 2nd bard does nothing for a GK sam at MMJ really, but is ok with pole, etc.

[Cream Soda]

Corsair's roll > 2 marches? wut? or did you mean only the 2ndary bard that's doing x2 attack rolls?

[Clerix]

Corsair. Cor Roll > an entire bard, and you get another roll with it. This is assuming good DDs.

Past that, depends on the DDs you have, etc. 2nd bard does nothing for a GK sam at MMJ really, but is ok with pole, etc.

In the event that a COR is unavailable (PUG, etc) would a DNC be better than a 2nd BRD?

[FailureMidgard]

Corsair's roll > 2 marches? wut? or did you mean only the 2ndary bard that's doing x2 attack rolls?

Assuming 1 bard ya, sorry. Cor roll beats 2 minuets.

In the event that a COR is unavailable (PUG, etc) would a DNC be better than a 2nd BRD?

Hard to say, depends on the party. If you don't trust the healer, I'd def get a dnc just for that reason alone probably. But, I don't think I'd take a pug dnc, if they aren't quick to engage and get haste samba + a boxstep off, then bard is probably better, if they are quick, dnc should win. It's hard to do exact math on, due to how dancers buffs/debuffs work, and a bad dnc will lose a lot more than a bad bard will. The dnc should have higher potential, though.

[Lone]

For nuking on red mage

Shadow Trews or Mahatma slops?

[jimbobsonofgod]

For nuking on red mage

Shadow Trews or Mahatma slops?

On anything resistant
AFII>Morrigans>Valkyrie>Mahatma>shadow>Errant
Non-Resistant
Valkyrie>Morrigans>Mahatma>shadow>Errant>AFII

?

Probably wrong but I'll get at least a B- for my efforts. I'm sure someone may or may not come along and correct me shortly.

[Neosutra]

Isnt it 2 INT = 1 MAB?

In that case, nothing beats Morrigans, even Valkyrie.

[Byrthnoth]

2INT ~> or ~= 1 MAB for BLMs on Tier 4s on most targets in the game depending how good their gear is. RDMs and their Tier 3s are different. Much lower MAB (which increases its value), but the INT tier modifier is also lower (1.5 vs. 2), but the spell base damage is also lower so a 1.5 increase is a larger percentage than it would be otherwise.

[Limlight]

DNC or 2nd BRD (Or a COR) for a merit party?

Assuming 5haste samba merits.

the correct answer is brd/nin, and brd/cor double march, double minuet, and cor roll!!! HO HO HO

[DAKPluto]

Ichi Macro for WAR and DRK:

Shadow Mantle or Boxer's Mantle?

[Massimo]

Shadow.

[DAKPluto]

That's what I figured, thanks.

[ZhiGaruda]

Quite sure that a few HNMs (mainly Khim and Cerb) have a landing rate cap on spells like Slow, Para and Elegy, which is around 10~20% no matter how high your m.acc is. Pretty much like non-ES'd Sleeps will land on Wyrms 5% of the time no matter what.

I notice no difference in landing my Slow as WHM or RDM on them, both in full MND gear, and their MND isn't even that high since when Para lands it does proc quite often.

Bottom line: go full-MND on HNMs, you're going to have to spam Slow and Para regardless.

I'd like to go out on a limb here and say you're wrong, or gearing wrong, etc. Especially on Cerb, I've never had nor seen people in my shell having a very difficult time landing any of those spells.

Even on Khim, when not /BLM, BRD seems to have a ~33% stick rate on Elegy.

[Thorny]

morrigans > valkyries > mahatma > shadow

af2 only win vs morri/valkyrie's if your stick rate is absolutely abysmal, 5 m.acc supposedly = 2.5% hitrate, where a hit saves a bit less than half of your damage on average while 10 int = 15 damage on a base ~450 spell or 3.2% damage

vs mahatma, af2 win if stickrate is uncapped pretty much always

of course, this is barring any situation where an ele resist can get you killed and you don't just want best average damage per cast, can't think of any of those offhand though

[Tuna]

For the PUPs out there:

Wayang Kulit Mantle or Pantin Cape (for automaton only)

[pchan]

For the PUPs out there:

Wayang Kulit Mantle or Pantin Cape (for automaton only)

You are not serious, Pantin cape of course.

[Tuna]

You are not serious, Pantin cape of course.

That's what I thought but I am just unsure how the automaton's base damage is calculated. What exactly does +2 melee skill do for the automaton? Assuming you have 5/5 melee merits and capped skill, does it break some kind of damage tier?

[pchan]

That's what I thought but I am just unsure how the automaton's base damage is calculated. What exactly does +2 melee skill do for the automaton? Assuming you have 5/5 melee merits and capped skill, does it break some kind of damage tier?

only H2H skill gives additional D. This cape gives 2 att and 2 acc at best.

[Kyte]

I'm not exactly sure how automaton's damage rating is calculated, but I know for a fact that Cannibal Blade damage is increased through skill.

[Tuna]

only H2H skill gives additional D. This cape gives 2 att and 2 acc at best.

I understand that H2H is the only skill that gives additional D but I was under the assumption that automaton damage is calculated differently. Like how do they hit so hard if we can't equip anything to increase their base damage? I understand if this sounds retarded.