Archer

[Raldo]

Assuming one of those posters is correct and that TP gain is just (delay * 100)/number_of_hits, then all weapons have the same technical TP gain speed, and that should be irrelevant to discussions.

I certainly haven't done any TP gain testing, myself.

Edit: Kaeko's latest post in the stats thread leads me to believe that Garuda's Spine may actually be superior, though as he stated, Barrage becomes an interesting thing to take into account. The important thing to take away here is that you shouldn't be relying on Mooglebox's has the DPS for bows (currently) because they're listed incorrectly. He is not taking the arrow damage into account. I sent him an email about it, so don't worry about notifying him.

DPS = (Damage + Damage value of the strongest ammunition at the bow's required level [excluding HQ]) / Delay

[Niiro]

.1 delay = 10 tp

TP gain is linear and WSs don't consume all TP so there's no real need to choose a weapon based on delay as far as TP gain is concerned.

Garuda bow, like all the garuda weapons, is valuable because they have the best DPS currently (Ifrit bow is 36.74 Garuda is 40.96). The additional stats are meh, ARC hurts the least for ACC among DDs and crit attack power will continue to suck on anything challenging unless SE changes things. It's other weakness is obviously less WS damage and you get less kick out of Barrage.

Another thing unique to ARC is because every shot is an animation lock, lower delay = lessened capability for quick reactions.

The reason why Garudas bow might look crappy at first glance is because the DMG rating by necessity had to be much lower relative to the DMG variations in other weapons because ARC gets so much damage from arrows (which have no bearing on delay). But the DPS tells the truth.

[Spider-Dan]

There are two others thing you are leaving out in the comparison between the two; one is the ATK+30 on I-bow, while the other is the increased stat caps on higher DMG bows.

DPS (in-game) is not so much damage per second as it is DMG per second. Particularly when you are discussing well-equipped players, it is entirely plausible that the difference in PIE/DEX caps between a D102 bow and a D71 bow (and the ATK+30) can make up for the difference in "DPS" between the two, in which case you are left with I-bow's huge advantage on Barrage and WS.

Sarnga will crush either of these bows on release, but I guess this is still fun to discuss for now.

[Grey Jorildyn]

edit: wrong thread.

[Fondue]

well I'll be honest and say I've never used a bow besides ifrit's other than maybe 1-10 when the game launched, but I thought light shot had a static recast time that did not fluctuate with bow delay? also that Sarnga is arc only right? when do people even play just archer now?

[Niiro]

Light shot recast is dictated by bow delay.

It's uncommon but you'd use ARC over BRD any time you'd want pure damage, but unless you're stacking ARC/BRDs it's usually not worth the loss of songs.

[Carraway]

I did some very, very brief testing on the Moogle fight with Garuda's Spine. My gearset and eating Jerked Beef put me at 308 DEX, 326 PIE, and 574 ATK. Of course, Moogle is also the worst possible fight for testing, since there's such a huge range of defense values for the targets, but if I just isolate my damage against Pomburner over two fights, here's what I get:

Light Shot avg 220
Heavy Shot avg 482
Piercing Arrow avg 473
Gloom Arrow avg 458
Leaden Arrow avg 465

I parsed against another BRD with extremely similar gear (triple ATK gloves instead of my STRx1+ATKx2 gloves, slightly more PIE). Her averages against Pomburner with Ifrit's:

Light Shot avg 282
Heavy Shot avg 442
Piercing Arrow avg 455
Gloom Arrow avg 413

The sample size was really low, but this does corroborate the general line of Kaeko's testing.

[TacoTaru]

How important are capping PIE/DEX before working on STR/ATK for BRD? Looking at Carraway's guide, he's really well rounded for Ifrit's Bow, but quite a bit of from the cap on Garuda's Spine and even farther away from Artemis' Bow's caps. Messing around in a spreadsheet with different gear and melds I can get 346PIE/329DEX using:



but I'm wondering if I should allocate rings or something else to STR to bump up attack more. Any ideas?

*Edit* Oops just noticed an error. Militia Subligar are 10 Atk not 10 Acc.

[Carraway]

Yeah, I haven't updated my guide in a long time. I don't think you're going to get a lot of mileage out of STR, but raw ATK is a valid choice. The gear you listed is what I'd go for with my current bow, Flame Lieutenant's, maybe swapping one DEX ring for ATK -- again, it's been a long time since I went into the trenches and collected solid data for stat valuations.

[Churchill]

I'm gonna look to triple melding a new body, in the long term (getting militia sub, darklight feet, paragons, etc) which would serve as the better base? Raptorskin Harness or Rainmakers Tunic? I'm looking to get 36-40PIE.

[Grey Jorildyn]

The tunic in that case.

[Churchill]

Cool. Right now it results in a slight loss of not capping DEX, but it seemed like a better investment for the future, especially since I'm basically making the same body again if I make a weaker choice.

[Niiro]

If you're not capping DEX I see no reason to use tunic over harness.

[Grey Jorildyn]

Dex is easy to cap so get on that. Felt bracers, 2-meld, done deal with good pants.

[TacoTaru]

Wouldn't Militia Subligar be better than double melding pants in the long term though?

[Niiro]

It would be better under any terms as long as your PIE is balanced elsewhere if necessary.

edit: I guess a triple meld STR/DEX could be better since the pants you'd be using come with 4 bonus PIE to begin with, but I wouldn't consider it worth the trouble.

[Meatdawg]

How important are capping PIE/DEX before working on STR/ATK for BRD? Looking at Carraway's guide, he's really well rounded for Ifrit's Bow, but quite a bit of from the cap on Garuda's Spine and even farther away from Artemis' Bow's caps. Messing around in a spreadsheet with different gear and melds I can get 346PIE/329DEX using:

How do you know what the caps are for Garuda and Artemis Bow's?

[TacoTaru]

I think it was in the stats thread that someone found the stats to be around 350/330 due to the higher DPS on Garuda's bow (I don't know if these stats were ever nailed down to specific numbers or left general like this). Since Artemis' Bow is higher than Garuda's the stats are going up a little farther with that.

[Niiro]

Until we have a semi-consistent theory of the stat cap formulas (DMG-AA and DPS-WS) all we can really do is test case-by-case and fill in the blanks with our best guesses.


O Kaeko, where art thou?

[TacoTaru]

Was anyone aware what their actual testing methods were to produce the original stat cap numbers? Did they shoot naked and ws naked some-thousand amount of times, then pile on amounts of each stat for another 1000 or so tests until they stop producing higher numbers? I'm just curious how hard it would be to pick up where Seiken and Kaeko left off and find the stat caps on each weapon.