Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Weekend update 10

I was home sick the last two days, which made it a particularly long weekend. I thought I'd use my time to do all kinds of things on FFXI, but I ended up watching movies while chocobo digging and doing the regular LS events. It was relaxing.

I made it a point to finally put together a magic defense set. I had several pieces already, but not an actual macro. I sacrificed my Cure3 macro for it, which is no big deal since I use Cure4 almost exclusively nowadays anyway. It's still unfinished but it's already enough to survive Citadel Buster, which I found out during last night's Ultima. I died anyway, because after the second one I got hit with a Holy2. I was riding out the hate assuming a PLD would pull it off me. They did, but only a fraction of a second too late. Below is what the set looks like now. It carries over my PDT pieces in slots where I haven't got any magic defense pieces yet.



I know Limbus mobs are now DC with the level 85 cap and that any damage on them isn't going to 'wow' or impress most people. However, it was still a shock to me to break 4000 on a Weaponskill. The blobs in SE Appolyon are weak to piercing and so Penta Thrust was always going to do well [Correction: They're not weak to piercing. The crabs are though]. Be that as it may, it was the highest damage I've ever done in a single action on any mob on any job ever. Also, I beat Kingcem's MNK! Hahahaha, I know you're reading this! Woo!


The Gekko damage was also quite pleasing. I sacrificed 2 haste and tp'd in Perle hands and feet. I believe these are pretty reasonable trade-offs with only Haste spell backing you up, but I could be wrong.

On that topic, I recently thought of how Haste often doesn't produce ANY extra benefit. Take the 2% Haste trade-off I was talking about. Let's say in pushed me from 35% down to 33% Haste, which is about a 3% DoT increase. That means that in 97% of fights I will NOT see an extra attack. If you have a single long fight, the 3% means that I'll get an extra swing every 33 hits which is guaranteed. In contrast, the STR and Attack that I gain from wearing Perle hands and feet affect my damage on EVERY melee hit. It's guaranteed benefit versus benefit in the long run. When I look at it that way I'm more willing to sacrifice small amounts of haste when we're not swimming in it. Some would call such a situation suboptimal and that it shouldn't be considered anyway. I think it's me being realistic. Yes, that does mean that Ace's helm does not universally suck.

2 comments:

  1. I WAS AT A DISADVANTAGE NOT BEING ABLE TO WS ON THE SQUISHY SLIME FLOOR !

    On the MDT set, is that particular set just for Ultima ? why no INT on the open slots ? I cant recall for sure if CB damage was reduced by MND or INT (being light based and potentially playing by Banish/Holy rules), but for general purposes wouldn't INT would be more helpful when getting smacked about by a heavy hitting nuke.

    ReplyDelete
  2. It's a general purpose set. Dunno what CB's base damge is based on, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was a MND v MND check. Lowering dINT does make sense, I'll swap some stuff around.

    ReplyDelete