Grinding the new level cap

I'm now a happy lv. 80 Redmage. I'm not sure how many parties it took, but regardless it wasn't as bad as I expected. I think RDM gets a lot from hitting 80 as SCH sub becomes interesting and also the added Enhancing Magic Skill makes Phalanx stronger. I haven't played around much with Stone and Water4 nukes, but I'm looking forward to finally breaking 1.000 damage with a nuke on RDM.

Also, I leveled my SAM up to 77 and was glad to do very well in all parties I joined. I'm using a regular 6-hit build with Hagun and it was amazing to see me leading so many of the parses. I don't know if it's players skill or knowledge, but never seeing myself as a DD player I was pleasantly surprised. The last party on SAM was a record setter. Previously the highest chain I ever got in an EXP pt was ~83. That party had a single Ridill Warrior doing almost all the damage. I was on RDM at the time. All other parties just didn't kill fast enough or sponged up so much MP that the healer had to rest and the chain broke. In this party we had 3 DD's all doing their fair share of damage. We also had a Dancer with fully meritted Haste Samba which made for some pretty fast swinging stacked with Hasso and Marches. A Scholar and a Bard rounded out the party. I can only imagine the speed at which we'd be killing if we had Haste spell on us. I'm sure the Monks would have torn things up even more. And of course, I would have too. I lead that parse of that party with 31% of total damage with the only other DD that was there for the same duration (a MNK) doing 24%.


I noticed I'm still approximately 5% below accuracy cap while fighting birds in Misareaux at level 76 eating Marinara Pizza. The true acc gap is larger due to Zanshin. I bought a Fowling Earring and am considering other pieces to make up for this. However, the most obvious improvements would be a HQ Haubergeon and Usukane feet. I'm gonna postpone both of those things for the time being as I don't see myself playing SAM a lot despite really enjoying it.

An interesting bit from the parser was my WS rate. I did a WS for every 4,37 melee hits. The usage of Meditate is what puts this number below the 5 you would expect from a 6-hit build. The two gear pieces that enhance Meditate have been a great improvement in my opinion. I can usually get 2 weaponskills off before Meditate wears off which results in 3 weaponskills in quick succession. Samurai is a very strong job. I realise this more and more the more I play it.