I went into last night's Dynamis run expecting to do better that we ended up doing. Because of that I left with a feeling of disappointment which apprently the rest of the Linkshell shared.
We started with what has become our standard Dynamis setup of two Melee DD parties with a healer and a Bard each in addition to a BLM party with a Red mage and a Bard or (in this case) a Corsair. The last Xarcabard run we did was actually the first one I lead. It's been quite a few weeks since that run and looking back you could have seen this as a sort of test to see how far the group and I as raid leader have come. I'm glad I didn't see it that way going in...
Strategically it was different than last time. First off we had a Ranger one-shot the first time extension. I asked Skinwalker to come Ranger for this purpose, but Argonar ended up doing it, as he too was on Ranger. The second time extension requires you to kill two eyes at the first tower. The last time this pull was messed up because the eyes don't immediately link because they are actually too far apart. The person pulling the far eye got the whole group (original + 3 pops) as a result. I've found multiple groups seem to opt for one-shotting each eye with synched nukes and so decided we would do it that way. Sync AM2 one eye, then the next then the statue from behind the tower, that was the idea. However, what I did not know is that the eye on the left pops 3 eyes on the right, and the eye on the right pops 3 eyes on the left. So, if you nuke the left one first you can't reach the right eye for synched nukes without getting aggro. At least, not when you try to nuke it from the south. It may be possible to nuke it from the north, but you'd be inside aggro range of the eyes that pop after it dies. There was a pretty bad call on my side and I made BLM's nuke the wrong eye. Even though they didn't all nuke the same eye, it wouldn't have changed much as I had them nuking the wrong one. So BLM's eat it and so do I. I believe it's possible to nuke the south eye from behind the tower. Possbily all three of them. The testemonies I read had people nuking from the front, so I just did what they did. What ended up happening was an attempted sac pull. However, I stuck grav on the eye and it was casting a long spell which meant it didn't get very close to the waiting BLM's. They didn't manage to take it out before the other eyes returned, but Argonar killed it off.
So about 15 minutes in we hadn't even pulled a set of mobs yet. The main ally was waiting behind the RDM NM tower. Though they only had Bard sleepers, the three eyes behind the tower that lead to the third time extension can all be pulled seperately. So I asked the main ally to take care of those as we still had to take care of the second time extension, or so I thought. The unsung hero of last night's raid was Argonar who took out the second eye needed for the TE statue with Eagle Eye Shot where the BLM's didn't manage. Afterwards he one-shotted it with barrage after recovering. Me and the BLM's rejoined the main alliance who at this time were killing the last statue and third TE.
We were left with a reasonable amount of time to farm. I asked Requia on THF to pull the 4 eyes SE of the RDM NM tower. From then on he became the puller on his own volition and even started moving the ally around. I willingly took the back seat and let him decide the pull order. We decided to kill the eye wall (the one leading to castle Zvahl) for an extra time extension. Another strategic tip from the interwebs was synch nuking the eyes in two sets making the pull smuch easier. They seem far apart, but a Thundaga3 will actually hit the eyes on the sides if you aim for the second eye from the top. Unfortunately 4 BLM's took the eyes down to 10%. A 5th BLM or perhaps a Wizard's Roll could have made the difference there. I slept a group of demons away form the rest while the BLM's and I all bit the dust. Those demons could have been pulled as they were far away from the rest of the mobs when they woke up, but weren't. In the end it maye have been for the best.
After this initial failure Requia decided to sac pull the wall while 4 other people pulled eyes and demons off the train. The first time this went wrong because of how the pull was executed. However, I learned something from this. Normally when you pull a mob with an attack, it detects party and alliance members that are within its detection range and puts them on its hate list. When that happens, even if the original puller dies, the mobs will not go passive but target the next player on the hate list. This is something I've tested personally and though not widely known I can attest to it working this way. What I learned from that pull was that the detection range of Vanguard Eyes is larger than their aggro range and that it does not matter whether or not the puller is in a party or alliance. This is the strange linking behavior that I've been seeing over the course of the Dynamis runs I've pulled. I can explain all the 'strange' things I've seen so far with this new knowledge. Previously I found aggro pulling to be the most reliable way of sac pulling as well as having the benefit of not giving healers hate when they cure you after a messy pull. So, Requia pulled a second time with aggro only and things went much smoother.
Up to this point the BLM's died 3 times and the rest of the alliance once. Soon after we pulled another 5-8 demon train which caused a second wipe. We recover and I sac pull it. However, I soon realize they will path across where the main ally was fighting instead of what I thought was the logical path. This didn't turn out to be a problem as the alliance had killed most mobs before the rest of the group returned. Sleepers did a great job handling the incoming group. With not much time left we took one more pull which unfortunately lead to a similar situation only with less time before the returning group and more mobs overall.
So, all in all it wasn't a very good raid. Thief relic hands dropped which I suppose is one of the better drops, but still we could have killed a lot more if we hadn't screwed up several pulls and probably gotten more than the two pieces of relic armor we got. I clearly remember my conclusion about sac pulling in Xarcabard after the previous run and how it makes things much simpler if done correctly. This was the whole reason for me to level WHM to 70 and yet I seem to have forgotten the lessons I learned.
Monday, June 28, 2010
Friday, June 25, 2010
Weapon of choice
The recent 'epic' update that raised the level cap also introduced new weapons up to level 80. My first impression after parsing the list of new items is that armor pieces aren't being eclipsed as much as weapons are. I like the idea of working for a strong weapon through the Magian trials. SE tried to make half-decent craftable alternatives through Synergy as well as numerous RA/EX weapons with unique stats. We don't know where all these come from yet, so only time will tell how realistic obtaining them is.
I personally am still only persuing one Magian trial path. That of the PDT sword. Some of the requirements were lowered and the path itself extends all the way up to a 8% PDT Samshir at level 80. Since PDT is a stat that scales so well I'll keep at it. Thanks to an extremely long sandstorm a pair of friendly Monks that I could level synch to, I managed to make some good progress after putting the trial on the backburner for a while.
However, this sword is purely for my own personal obsession with PDT. It probably won't see much application outside of unimportant melee solos. What about Samurai? People say Hagun at level 80 compared to other weapons comes up short. By how much? It's hard to quantify these things without making certain assumptions about your stats and the mob you're fighting. I wanted to compare Hagun to Masamune to see how big the gap was. When I reached the important component of weaponskill damage I made the following equation:
So basically asking: "when are the WS damages of Hagun and Masamune equal?"
p-dif is the same on both sides and the difference in fTP can be represented simpler. So you get:
Masamune and Hagun WS damage will be the same when fSTR together with secondary modifiers add up to 35. The moment it adds up to MORE than 35, hagun actually wins. So, when stacking fSTR you're always going to have at least +4 fSTR when you're at the same STR as mob VIT. So in a worst case scenario you need WSC to add up to 31.
With level correction you get 0.83 x mods = 31 => mods = 37.3 STR
With a 75% STR mod, you only need around 50 STR to reach this goal. Considering you can do a Sneak Attack+Gekko to a Sky god for over 1K damage, that means that even on high level mobs (assuming p-dif of 3) fSTR+WSC can add up to more than 100. Base damage on a weapon seems to play a much smaller part in a Samurai's weaponskill damage than I expected.
Yesterday I obtained this beauty:
Its effect on fTP makes Hagun's WS boost slightly smaller relative to that of any other weapon at 100 TP (18.7% instead of 20%), but still puts Hagun's WS damage higher than that of Masamune's when you can stack a lot of STR. In turn Masamune's damage on regular melee hits as well as its lower delay makes up for its 'likely' lower WS damage.
Hagun will eventually be fully eclipsed, but until the next update it's still a strong competitor.
I personally am still only persuing one Magian trial path. That of the PDT sword. Some of the requirements were lowered and the path itself extends all the way up to a 8% PDT Samshir at level 80. Since PDT is a stat that scales so well I'll keep at it. Thanks to an extremely long sandstorm a pair of friendly Monks that I could level synch to, I managed to make some good progress after putting the trial on the backburner for a while.
However, this sword is purely for my own personal obsession with PDT. It probably won't see much application outside of unimportant melee solos. What about Samurai? People say Hagun at level 80 compared to other weapons comes up short. By how much? It's hard to quantify these things without making certain assumptions about your stats and the mob you're fighting. I wanted to compare Hagun to Masamune to see how big the gap was. When I reached the important component of weaponskill damage I made the following equation:
Hagun WS = Masamune WS
75+fSTR+WSC * 1.875 * P-Dif = 97+fSTR+WSC * 1.5625 * P-Dif
So basically asking: "when are the WS damages of Hagun and Masamune equal?"
p-dif is the same on both sides and the difference in fTP can be represented simpler. So you get:
75+fSTR+WSC * 1.2 = 97+fSTR+WSC
becomes
90 + 1.2 fSTR + 1.2 WSC = 97+fSTR+WSC
0.2 fSTR + 0.2 WSC = 7
fSTR+WSC = 35
Masamune and Hagun WS damage will be the same when fSTR together with secondary modifiers add up to 35. The moment it adds up to MORE than 35, hagun actually wins. So, when stacking fSTR you're always going to have at least +4 fSTR when you're at the same STR as mob VIT. So in a worst case scenario you need WSC to add up to 31.
With level correction you get 0.83 x mods = 31 => mods = 37.3 STR
With a 75% STR mod, you only need around 50 STR to reach this goal. Considering you can do a Sneak Attack+Gekko to a Sky god for over 1K damage, that means that even on high level mobs (assuming p-dif of 3) fSTR+WSC can add up to more than 100. Base damage on a weapon seems to play a much smaller part in a Samurai's weaponskill damage than I expected.
Yesterday I obtained this beauty:
Its effect on fTP makes Hagun's WS boost slightly smaller relative to that of any other weapon at 100 TP (18.7% instead of 20%), but still puts Hagun's WS damage higher than that of Masamune's when you can stack a lot of STR. In turn Masamune's damage on regular melee hits as well as its lower delay makes up for its 'likely' lower WS damage.
Hagun will eventually be fully eclipsed, but until the next update it's still a strong competitor.
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Secret technique to multiple 2hrs
Did that title grab your attention? If it didn't: I wasn't kidding. Interested now? No? Damn, what's with kids these days? The truth of the matter is that a few months ago I found a way to use Chainspell twice within the 30 minutes given to me to try and solo the Requiem of Sin battlefield. I never got around to actually try the 'trick' because it requires me to invest time that I didn't have or WANT to spend. My playtimes aren't what they used to be and my interest in trying to solo that battlefield has waned. I post this now because I thought it was an interesting trick and thought other people might come up with interesting ways of applying it.
So, how is it done? I'm sure many players know that cutscenes and dialogues can be used to your advantage. It used to be that a player stuck in a cutscene could still be on a mob's hate list, but that the mob could not damage the player essentially making them an invincible tank. This trick worked for the Goblin Footprint dialogue as well as the Mammet CoP mission until they patched it. Probably as a consequence of that patch, you could use dialogues to make mobs lose aggro. This could be used in Double Agent Assault mission and is useful when examining lamps in Nyzul Isle investigation.
What also happens during most dialogues and cutscenes is that the in-game time related to status effects is frozen. If you're afflicted with Bio, you can enter a cutscene or dialogue and the DoT effect will stop. Leave that dialogue and the DoT effect will resume for the unchanged duration. The astute reader will already see where I'm going with this. The 2hour ability of many jobs is nothing more than a status effect, which can be frozen by entering certain types of dialogues as well as the battlefield choice dialogues at BC's like Boneyard Gully. Stay in that dialogue for two hours and your 2hour ability timer (which was not frozen) will be up again to use as soon as the previous 2hour status wears off. I tested this with Elemental Seal on the battlefield dialogue and with Chainspell in the Temple Knight Signet dialogue in south sandy.
For battlefields like Requiem of Sin this would require you to fully buff and pop a Hermes' Quencher, Elemental Seal, then Chainspell and enter the dialogue as soon as possible. After the 1:30-2:00 wait you can enter and zip towards the mobs and still have more than 30 seconds of Chainspell effect left to take down the first mithra. A second Chainspell after killing the Wyvern (and dying and recovering again) would take care of a second mithra leaving only one to be kited and DoT'ed. This only works because this battlefield allows you to keep your buffs from outside.
This is useful for ANY ability that has a reasonably long status effect duration and a long recast timer. As in the previous example, it makes two consecutive Elemental Seals possible and that only requires a 10 minute preparation period. The applications depend on whether or not you can get into a cutscene or dialogue and to your target quickly enough for your ability status to still be useful/active. Hundred Fists, Blood Weapon and Mighty Strikes are short enough that it'd only really be worth it if you could immidiately engage your mob after exiting the dialogue. Mage 2 hours tend to be longer (1 minute for many of them) and can be more easily abused. Ranger can use two Barrages. Dragoon, 6 Spirit Surged Jumps. Samurai with 300 TP and two Sekanokki's can do 7 weaponskills along with their 2hr and takes much less preparation time than 'freezing' their 2hr. Thief can use multiple Feints in a single Zerg. A more far-fetched but very funny application would be a Monk freezing Boost recasts and in so-doing stack more of them on top of eachother. More practical would be formless strikes. I'm sure there a lot of good applications that I haven't thought of. However,...
This is probably considered cheating even though it stays inside the FFXI engine. I wouldn't have posted this technique if I thought anyone could get banned or jailed for it. However, that doesn't preclude it from happening. Only SE's GMs opinions matter.
P.S. Sorry if you thought this was a secret to killing AV type thing.
So, how is it done? I'm sure many players know that cutscenes and dialogues can be used to your advantage. It used to be that a player stuck in a cutscene could still be on a mob's hate list, but that the mob could not damage the player essentially making them an invincible tank. This trick worked for the Goblin Footprint dialogue as well as the Mammet CoP mission until they patched it. Probably as a consequence of that patch, you could use dialogues to make mobs lose aggro. This could be used in Double Agent Assault mission and is useful when examining lamps in Nyzul Isle investigation.
What also happens during most dialogues and cutscenes is that the in-game time related to status effects is frozen. If you're afflicted with Bio, you can enter a cutscene or dialogue and the DoT effect will stop. Leave that dialogue and the DoT effect will resume for the unchanged duration. The astute reader will already see where I'm going with this. The 2hour ability of many jobs is nothing more than a status effect, which can be frozen by entering certain types of dialogues as well as the battlefield choice dialogues at BC's like Boneyard Gully. Stay in that dialogue for two hours and your 2hour ability timer (which was not frozen) will be up again to use as soon as the previous 2hour status wears off. I tested this with Elemental Seal on the battlefield dialogue and with Chainspell in the Temple Knight Signet dialogue in south sandy.
For battlefields like Requiem of Sin this would require you to fully buff and pop a Hermes' Quencher, Elemental Seal, then Chainspell and enter the dialogue as soon as possible. After the 1:30-2:00 wait you can enter and zip towards the mobs and still have more than 30 seconds of Chainspell effect left to take down the first mithra. A second Chainspell after killing the Wyvern (and dying and recovering again) would take care of a second mithra leaving only one to be kited and DoT'ed. This only works because this battlefield allows you to keep your buffs from outside.
This is useful for ANY ability that has a reasonably long status effect duration and a long recast timer. As in the previous example, it makes two consecutive Elemental Seals possible and that only requires a 10 minute preparation period. The applications depend on whether or not you can get into a cutscene or dialogue and to your target quickly enough for your ability status to still be useful/active. Hundred Fists, Blood Weapon and Mighty Strikes are short enough that it'd only really be worth it if you could immidiately engage your mob after exiting the dialogue. Mage 2 hours tend to be longer (1 minute for many of them) and can be more easily abused. Ranger can use two Barrages. Dragoon, 6 Spirit Surged Jumps. Samurai with 300 TP and two Sekanokki's can do 7 weaponskills along with their 2hr and takes much less preparation time than 'freezing' their 2hr. Thief can use multiple Feints in a single Zerg. A more far-fetched but very funny application would be a Monk freezing Boost recasts and in so-doing stack more of them on top of eachother. More practical would be formless strikes. I'm sure there a lot of good applications that I haven't thought of. However,...
This is probably considered cheating even though it stays inside the FFXI engine. I wouldn't have posted this technique if I thought anyone could get banned or jailed for it. However, that doesn't preclude it from happening. Only SE's GMs opinions matter.
P.S. Sorry if you thought this was a secret to killing AV type thing.
Monday, June 21, 2010
How weak is "Too Weak"?
In my never-ending quest to test the limits of my character... I'm only kidding. I hardly ever do anything solo or exciting low-man stuff. I kind of wish I did, but I don't like failing. Maybe that's why I did this middle of the road thing I'm about to tell you about.
In the past year, but especially in the last few months, Astral Burn parties have risen in popularity. On some servers Korolloka Tunnel is apparently as competitive as Dragon's Aery back in the day. These are the main reasons why AB parties work:
Picking the right zone matters for numbers, how low the mobs' HP is (if it takes too many Bloodpacts it might become too inefficient) but also how safely the assisting player can hold all the mobs. This is where defensive measures come into play. A topic which, if you've read previous entries of my blog, you know interests me a lot. I secretly also wanted to see if I could hold a train of EXP yielding mobs indefinitely, because there is another ability that I can use on RDM whose damage and accuracy is not affected by the number of mobs: AoE weaponskills.
This means things like Earth Crusher and Cyclone. Circle Blade is notriously weak, but it would also work. The magical versions benefit from RDM's Magic Attack Bonus trait and the lack of native staff skill leaves Cyclone as the best option. I purchased a Martial Knife for this as well. The fTP modifier at 200 TP (which Martial Knife accomplishes) is more than twice the value at 100 TP, more than doubling the damage I would do with another knife. In my actual attempt I could do about 395 damage with Cyclone while wearing some extra MAB and INT gear. The total actual damage scales up with the number of mobs in the train.
I decided to go with WAR subjob for the single defense job trait and Defender. I picked this over Blue Mage because I was afraid I would not be able to put Cocoon back up after it wore off. In the end spell interruption is an issue and with too many mobs you will die if you need to recast something in order to survive. I ate a taco and wore all the defensive gear I had while using a dagger (-40 PDT during the day and -45% at night). I chose The Boyahda Tree for its large supply of mandragoras. Mandies were my target mob because they're monks and thus have a lower damage rating per hit. This increases the effectiveness of Phalanx. The Mourioche in Boyahda range from level 62 to 68. Quite a bit higher than the minimum needed to get EXP from them (mobs as low as level 56 still give EXP). Also, these actually link, making pulling easier. The most annoying TP ability they possess is Wild Oats (VIT down effect).
The initial train was 10 mobs strong and regen under Composure effect was all I needed to recoup the damage I took. I started out with Ice Spikes, but soon realized the Paralyze wasn't necessary so switched to Blaze Spikes for the slightly higher damage. It took about 6 or 7 Cyclones to kill the train. The next train was similar but this time I left some time in between reapplying Defender. The difference was notable as I took a crit for 12 damage and even regular hits started surpassing Phalanx. My Phalanx was at 271 skill which translates to 25 damage absorbed. However, I saw a risk in trying to reapply Phalanx mid fight. If I have to unequip my leg slot to apply Phalanx (only an equal or stronger Phalanx effect will overwrite) I have a bigger chance of being interrupted so I settled for a 23 damage Phalanx instead.
The final train was 18 mobs strong. Things soon started to look grim as I saw my HP going down steadily. I managed to get cures off, surprisingly. Also Ice Spikes which seemed necessary this time around. I soon realized the difference was the time of day. The hidden effect of +5% PDT on my Cheviot Cape was dearly missed. Even with Ice Spikes my HP kept dropping slowly. After many attempts to put Stoneskin on I decided it wasn't worth it and I should build TP to kill the train as quickly as possible. I was pretty nervous, I'll admit, but in the end took them down for a over 1500 EXP in under 10 minutes. The parser I had running showed over 7k EXP per hour.
I'm not promoting this as a way to solo EXP. The time it takes to gather the train an the down-time in between pulls as well as the risks involved make equally or less efficient than simply doing Campaign Battle. The fun part is that it's actually possible to hold a train of level 68 mobs. This means you could easily Astral Burn at higher levels if you had to, as long as the mob holder/tank is geared and buffed well enough. With minne's and a more potent phalanx and regen, the level and job/strength of mobs can be scaled up further. Other improvements I could make if I did this again solo:
In the past year, but especially in the last few months, Astral Burn parties have risen in popularity. On some servers Korolloka Tunnel is apparently as competitive as Dragon's Aery back in the day. These are the main reasons why AB parties work:
- A high level character can pull mobs without affecting exp and hold them indefinitely.
- Damage and accuracy of AoE bloodpacts is not affected by the number of mobs hit.
Picking the right zone matters for numbers, how low the mobs' HP is (if it takes too many Bloodpacts it might become too inefficient) but also how safely the assisting player can hold all the mobs. This is where defensive measures come into play. A topic which, if you've read previous entries of my blog, you know interests me a lot. I secretly also wanted to see if I could hold a train of EXP yielding mobs indefinitely, because there is another ability that I can use on RDM whose damage and accuracy is not affected by the number of mobs: AoE weaponskills.
This means things like Earth Crusher and Cyclone. Circle Blade is notriously weak, but it would also work. The magical versions benefit from RDM's Magic Attack Bonus trait and the lack of native staff skill leaves Cyclone as the best option. I purchased a Martial Knife for this as well. The fTP modifier at 200 TP (which Martial Knife accomplishes) is more than twice the value at 100 TP, more than doubling the damage I would do with another knife. In my actual attempt I could do about 395 damage with Cyclone while wearing some extra MAB and INT gear. The total actual damage scales up with the number of mobs in the train.
I decided to go with WAR subjob for the single defense job trait and Defender. I picked this over Blue Mage because I was afraid I would not be able to put Cocoon back up after it wore off. In the end spell interruption is an issue and with too many mobs you will die if you need to recast something in order to survive. I ate a taco and wore all the defensive gear I had while using a dagger (-40 PDT during the day and -45% at night). I chose The Boyahda Tree for its large supply of mandragoras. Mandies were my target mob because they're monks and thus have a lower damage rating per hit. This increases the effectiveness of Phalanx. The Mourioche in Boyahda range from level 62 to 68. Quite a bit higher than the minimum needed to get EXP from them (mobs as low as level 56 still give EXP). Also, these actually link, making pulling easier. The most annoying TP ability they possess is Wild Oats (VIT down effect).
The initial train was 10 mobs strong and regen under Composure effect was all I needed to recoup the damage I took. I started out with Ice Spikes, but soon realized the Paralyze wasn't necessary so switched to Blaze Spikes for the slightly higher damage. It took about 6 or 7 Cyclones to kill the train. The next train was similar but this time I left some time in between reapplying Defender. The difference was notable as I took a crit for 12 damage and even regular hits started surpassing Phalanx. My Phalanx was at 271 skill which translates to 25 damage absorbed. However, I saw a risk in trying to reapply Phalanx mid fight. If I have to unequip my leg slot to apply Phalanx (only an equal or stronger Phalanx effect will overwrite) I have a bigger chance of being interrupted so I settled for a 23 damage Phalanx instead.
The final train was 18 mobs strong. Things soon started to look grim as I saw my HP going down steadily. I managed to get cures off, surprisingly. Also Ice Spikes which seemed necessary this time around. I soon realized the difference was the time of day. The hidden effect of +5% PDT on my Cheviot Cape was dearly missed. Even with Ice Spikes my HP kept dropping slowly. After many attempts to put Stoneskin on I decided it wasn't worth it and I should build TP to kill the train as quickly as possible. I was pretty nervous, I'll admit, but in the end took them down for a over 1500 EXP in under 10 minutes. The parser I had running showed over 7k EXP per hour.
I'm not promoting this as a way to solo EXP. The time it takes to gather the train an the down-time in between pulls as well as the risks involved make equally or less efficient than simply doing Campaign Battle. The fun part is that it's actually possible to hold a train of level 68 mobs. This means you could easily Astral Burn at higher levels if you had to, as long as the mob holder/tank is geared and buffed well enough. With minne's and a more potent phalanx and regen, the level and job/strength of mobs can be scaled up further. Other improvements I could make if I did this again solo:
- Bring my capped Spell Interruption set for reapplying a higher tier Phalanx, Stoneskin and possibly Cocoon.
- Buy an Umbra Cape (HQ Cheviot)
Thursday, June 17, 2010
Improving Buburimu runs
Last night we had another very smooth Dynamis raid in the same vein as Beaucedine, Valkurm and a less smooth but still very successful San d'Oria. Most of it comes from experience of having done them before, but I believe it's also a matter being more patient with pulls.
Pre-boss we took our time (40 minutes more or less) getting Aivtaras, WHM quad, Stollenworm, and finally Tarasca. Tarasca pull was interesting as I used Powder Boots and was a bit scared its pathing would cause links. Fortunately it ended up sticking to the wall past Goblins. After Tarasca I asked 3 people to help me look for Apocalyptic Beast. Only after we found it did I remember "Oh yea, I want bards to buff both DD pt's. I asked Lacrima to set it up. In the meantime we watched AB get further away from camp which would make the pull longer and cost more time. About 10 seconds before SV rotation started (only 2 bards this time, 1 was AFK for most of the raid) I had Nis (THF) pull AB. It was a fairly good estimate of pull length as both pt's were fully buffed by the time we got to camp. It was a faster kill than last time. Improvements for next time:
...I can't think of any. We did pretty awesome. I'd like to commend everyone on doing a great job.
Pre-boss we took our time (40 minutes more or less) getting Aivtaras, WHM quad, Stollenworm, and finally Tarasca. Tarasca pull was interesting as I used Powder Boots and was a bit scared its pathing would cause links. Fortunately it ended up sticking to the wall past Goblins. After Tarasca I asked 3 people to help me look for Apocalyptic Beast. Only after we found it did I remember "Oh yea, I want bards to buff both DD pt's. I asked Lacrima to set it up. In the meantime we watched AB get further away from camp which would make the pull longer and cost more time. About 10 seconds before SV rotation started (only 2 bards this time, 1 was AFK for most of the raid) I had Nis (THF) pull AB. It was a fairly good estimate of pull length as both pt's were fully buffed by the time we got to camp. It was a faster kill than last time. Improvements for next time:
- Setup BRD rotation sooner
- Have someone stick to AB the moment we find it
- Have a WHM know where I'm sac'ing Quadav train to so I can get to Aivtaras faster while Stollenworm is killed. Either that or just have someone else pull it.
...I can't think of any. We did pretty awesome. I'd like to commend everyone on doing a great job.
- Muze did a great job sleeping.
- BLM's and BRD's helped out when needed.
- PLD's kept mobs off mages.
- DD's killed things really well!
- Amoklauf pulled his ass off!
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
The sky's the limit
As you can see from the image, I've upgraded from Byakko pants to actually wearing Byakko AS pants. We did some sky gods with WoA and I got myself a pair of Suzy Sune-ate and Seiryu's Kote, but more importantly W.hands. I've been wanting these for drains and a new tier of Bio damage since I haven't bothered getting any dark skill gear other than Glamor Jupon. For when I finally finish DRK these will be part of a relatively strong dark magic build along with a torque, AF head and relic legs.
I got to go SAM/THF to sky. Along with 3 other melee DD's of which 2 others were SAM we did the vast majority of damage with BLM's not coming very close at all. Of all the pops there were only two fights where I was competitive. One fight I died and on one Byakko I was paralyzed for quite some time. The fights were very short and I believe none lasted more than 5 minutes. It was a race to fire off as many WS's as we could before the damned NM's were dead. I think the most I got off on any fight was 4 and that's WITH sekkanoki opening and a fresh meditate. With a melee accuracy of usually 70%+ that should give you a good indication of how fast they were dying. Here's a parse of a Seiryu.
I was quite annoyed at my WS damage being low. Since the fights were mostly around 4 minutes I could have waited for the SA timer to be up for about 3 WS. I didn't do this since the mob's were turning to and fro leaving a lot of chances for screwing up. Instead I split TA and SA and even Solo WS'd a few. I think it would have improved my overall damage if I had waited for SA timer more often. In this fight Fuurinpuu got pretty high with his damage on BLM, but most of the other parses show BLM's at around 5-7% total damage. I was using Kasha for the Paralyze, but looking back that may not have been the best decision. According to some testing Gekko gets a higher Attack boost than Kasha.
I still have some things to finish on SAM to improve my WS damage:
- Snow Gorget
- Alky's for Great Katana
- Triumph Earring
- Kirin's Osode
- Balm Sachet
- Smilodon+1 for Great Katana
- Overwhelm upgrade 4 and 5
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Paladin: the truth is out there
A recent 'heated' argument in LS and now this post on Bluegartr forum prompted me to make this entry. There are always debates about gear sets on any job, but somehow playstyle and gear on Paladin is a much more touchy subject. It might be because there are more factors determining how well a Paladin performs than there would be for other jobs/roles. Perhaps there are also more ways to achieve their goals than for other jobs. Or maybe it's because players that choose tank classes are generally more arrogant, stubborn and/or egotistical than the average player. I can't decide which it is and it's probably a bit of everything.
So why post about the debate? Am I going to weigh in on the views expressed in the BG thread? No you. "Yes" there is such a thing as being optimal, but also "Yes" there are usually trade-offs made and more than one way of doing something. I think these two points of view are often on the clashing ends of Paladin debates. Both sides make valid points. If you want to discuss Blue Mage subjob versus Red Mage subjob on Khimaira you're going to factor in stuff like MDB traits, Phalanx, hate from Blind and Sleep spells and of course physical defense. You leave out things like different playstyles because you're assuming your own playstyle. Whether you think you're optimal or not doesn't change that if you put two players in the exact same situation their actions will quickly diverge. How would you compare the performance of two setups if you can't compare them under the exact same circumstances? You fall back to calculations or parses/data of situations that you deem close enough to compare. More often than not players rely on their gut feeling and support it with data/math instead of using data/math to form their opinion. So, what's the point I'm trying to make? I guess it's "Stop being en evangelist on Paladin matters". Whatever happened to reason?
Step back a bit and look at the big picture. Ask yourself how fast can your group kill something and how safe/reliable is your method. That's all that matters in the end. If you consider it from this level, increasing kill speed as well as reliability turns into macro management and low level discussions like I.R. Hauberk versus Avalon Breastplate, while still relevant, lose a lot of their significance. So, to reiterate: Yes, gear and sj choices matter, just not as much as people think they do. Both the ignorant as well as the well-informed hold on to their opinions with way too much ferver.
While on the subject. When I leveled Paladin I bought DD gear pieces once I hit mid 50's. Exped mostly on birds until I moved to the mire. Due to Feather Tickle I didn't often have TP, however I felt like the party was doing better than if I didn't attempt to deal damage. Unfortunately, the average DD player is of low enough quality that my damage output actually mattered. In the mire I felt like my utility went through the roof as I was able to eat food while WS'ing as frequently if not MORE frequently than the rest of my party. The idea behind DD'ing on Paladin was "if you can't hold hate against your DD's in such short fights, help the party in a different way". It turned out that with my DD numbers I was actually able to hold hate better than a pure turtle setup. Looking back it makes a lot of sense. In such a short fight, with nobody holding back, the rate of increase of everyone's volatile enmity is going to be very high. Considering for each point of damage dealt provides more VE than CE the largest part of your enmity is going to be VE for the duration of the fight. If you tried to turtle tank with Paladin you'd have pretty much only VE with the exception of cures. With gear swaps you can still max out enmity on Flashes, Provokes and cures. While you take more damage and thus lose more CE than a turtle tank, you also produce more CE beacause of your damage output. So CE may be somewhat similar in the two situations but more likely still in favor of the DD setup. VE on the other hand will be much higher when you attempt to DD. Since VE is the largest part of your total enmity in short fights against mobs with low HP, the setup with the highest total enmity is the DD setup. With more damage taken comes higher stress on the healer. However, being able to kill faster balances this out to a certain extent. Not to mention the more kills and thus more EXP you'll be able to get during the course of the party.
So why post about the debate? Am I going to weigh in on the views expressed in the BG thread? No you. "Yes" there is such a thing as being optimal, but also "Yes" there are usually trade-offs made and more than one way of doing something. I think these two points of view are often on the clashing ends of Paladin debates. Both sides make valid points. If you want to discuss Blue Mage subjob versus Red Mage subjob on Khimaira you're going to factor in stuff like MDB traits, Phalanx, hate from Blind and Sleep spells and of course physical defense. You leave out things like different playstyles because you're assuming your own playstyle. Whether you think you're optimal or not doesn't change that if you put two players in the exact same situation their actions will quickly diverge. How would you compare the performance of two setups if you can't compare them under the exact same circumstances? You fall back to calculations or parses/data of situations that you deem close enough to compare. More often than not players rely on their gut feeling and support it with data/math instead of using data/math to form their opinion. So, what's the point I'm trying to make? I guess it's "Stop being en evangelist on Paladin matters". Whatever happened to reason?
Step back a bit and look at the big picture. Ask yourself how fast can your group kill something and how safe/reliable is your method. That's all that matters in the end. If you consider it from this level, increasing kill speed as well as reliability turns into macro management and low level discussions like I.R. Hauberk versus Avalon Breastplate, while still relevant, lose a lot of their significance. So, to reiterate: Yes, gear and sj choices matter, just not as much as people think they do. Both the ignorant as well as the well-informed hold on to their opinions with way too much ferver.
While on the subject. When I leveled Paladin I bought DD gear pieces once I hit mid 50's. Exped mostly on birds until I moved to the mire. Due to Feather Tickle I didn't often have TP, however I felt like the party was doing better than if I didn't attempt to deal damage. Unfortunately, the average DD player is of low enough quality that my damage output actually mattered. In the mire I felt like my utility went through the roof as I was able to eat food while WS'ing as frequently if not MORE frequently than the rest of my party. The idea behind DD'ing on Paladin was "if you can't hold hate against your DD's in such short fights, help the party in a different way". It turned out that with my DD numbers I was actually able to hold hate better than a pure turtle setup. Looking back it makes a lot of sense. In such a short fight, with nobody holding back, the rate of increase of everyone's volatile enmity is going to be very high. Considering for each point of damage dealt provides more VE than CE the largest part of your enmity is going to be VE for the duration of the fight. If you tried to turtle tank with Paladin you'd have pretty much only VE with the exception of cures. With gear swaps you can still max out enmity on Flashes, Provokes and cures. While you take more damage and thus lose more CE than a turtle tank, you also produce more CE beacause of your damage output. So CE may be somewhat similar in the two situations but more likely still in favor of the DD setup. VE on the other hand will be much higher when you attempt to DD. Since VE is the largest part of your total enmity in short fights against mobs with low HP, the setup with the highest total enmity is the DD setup. With more damage taken comes higher stress on the healer. However, being able to kill faster balances this out to a certain extent. Not to mention the more kills and thus more EXP you'll be able to get during the course of the party.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)