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#152 Oct 30 2012 at 11:12 AM Rating: Decent
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Fermion wrote:
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An elite who half asses it, isn't elite.


Based on my definition of an elite, as an mmo player with well over a decade of active experience, it's simply someone with elite gear, it's never had anything to do with ability. That's been the generally accepted understanding for as long as I can remember.


That might be the generally accepted understanding amongst gimps, but elite player = elite gear + elite skill + experience.

Your mythical world where someone full timing drone earrings or some other less exaggerated example of not-elite gear still doesn't overcome those with actual elite facets of the entire equation. Plus, the vast majority of the time, those without elite gear have not been through the experience part of the equation as much as those with it.

Fermion wrote:

And we all know that everyone with elite gear is just such an awesome player right?


It's the most likely scenario. Far more likely than a gimp being an awesome player.


Fermion wrote:

Take this example:

Player A is a solid player, who doesn't have all of the latest greatest gear. Lets say he's 5% below optimum, but he's very engaged and paying attention.

Player B is an elite (my definition). He thinks so much of himself, that he's in /t laughing with his elite buddies about how he's going to destroy Player A.

The mob is popped, Player A is on it, he has an <stnpc> macro waiting to go, and he engages as fast as his connection allows. Player B on the other hand doesn't notice immediately, and it takes him an extra second to engage. Who wins?

New example:

All things being equal, say the elite still has a 5% higher ceiling than Player A. In the grand scheme of things, they're both only DDs, and that 5% really doesn't mean much individually.

Let's say the mob has 150k hp and there are 6 DDs in this 1 minute zerg. 150,000 / 60 = 2,500 dps for the alliance.

That comes out to 416 dps per DD. 416 * .95 = 395 dps for Player A.

Substitute Player A for the elite means Player A will take 63s (5% longer) to do 25k. 25,000 / 395 = 63s. But, it's not like the rest of the party disappears for those final 3 seconds, and in .6s, the damage will be made up by the combined damage of the other DDs. So in all reality, you've lost about .6s making the change.

Make all the witty remarks you like, that doesn't change the fact that the contribution of a single DD in a zerg is really not as important as you're trying to make it seem.


So in your first example, you appear to only give credit to Player A for paying attention. What about the elite players that do pay attention (which is the generally accepted definition of being an elite player in the first place)? Furthermore, I've played with a lot of elite players. They simply do not do what you say they do. They might do so in some unimportant, PUG group like a cake-walk Kaggen or Pil, but they aren't going to do important content except with players whose skill + gear + experience they trust. I call Non Sequitur on your myth of an example.

But wait, in your second example, even if the elite player wins, you still discount that (but apparently you didn't discount it in example one.) Hmmm, why am I not surprised about the hypocrisy....








Edited, Oct 30th 2012 1:13pm by TheBarrister
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#153 Oct 30 2012 at 12:29 PM Rating: Good
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But wait, in your second example, even if the elite player wins, you still discount that (but apparently you didn't discount it in example one.) Hmmm, why am I not surprised about the hypocrisy....


I wasn't discounting the fact that the elite won, I was calling out the gross exaggerations people make, when comparing one DD to another. Players (especially DDs) like to say things like "this piece of gear destroys that piece" or "x job is worthless", when the difference in kill speed between the two is negligible (under 1 second). As individuals, damage dealers have the least effect in overall kill speed of ANY role, so these endless arguments about x gear vs. y gear, or x DD vs. y DD really need to be taken in context, and not blown out of proportion.

Back in the old parser days, beating someone by 5% on a parser was considered huge, remember? Based on my previous example, that's only accounting for a 0.6s difference in kill speed. That's the point I was making, it's just basic algebra. The rest of your argument is semantics, and I'm not getting into that. Define elite however you like, it still doesn't change the math, or my point.

#154 Oct 30 2012 at 12:49 PM Rating: Decent
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I agree with you Fermion that people make gross exaggerations. My only point in the "elite" post I started was that elite is an equation, and not a single factor like gear. I've certainly partied with people who think they are elite, but may only have a couple pieces of gear that they are factoring into that equation. I've partied with others who don't have that gear and play better than the previous type. However, by and large, the people I've met with the top of the line gear for every slot and job they focus on, are the best players (all factors considered) at those jobs. For example, I have yet to meet a player with a Valks Breastplate upgraded to optimal DD augments who didn't have the other, baseline gear to support that upgrade. Or someone with a 99 weapon. However, I've met a lot of +2 Empyrean gear 5/5 DDs with 85 Empyrean weapons who think they are top of the line. Last week one of them (not the alliance leader) asked that I proc dagger on Pil. I was the sole Ukon Warrior in the alliance. I was /SAM. There was a Thief in the alliance. I was at the point in my FFXI experience that this did not surprise me.
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#155 Oct 30 2012 at 4:00 PM Rating: Excellent
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ItsAMyri wrote:
I'm going to treat that post by Fujilives like an underpaid TA. tl;dr, 10/10 points on your homework.

I tend to share the sentiment that parses can't be the be-all of a situation. I used to argue somewhat similarly back in the day with people ******** about RDM's OPness related to Convert and supporting a party when you just couldn't plug any RDM into a situation and expect miracles. Both the skill of the RDM and the skill/intelligence of their peers as a make or break in making it work. The unfortunate truth was too often it didn't work, or at least to the expected standard some would dictate through lenses like EXP/hr.

More specific to pet jobs, though, and in any MMO I've played, for that matter, I always cautiously look at them in the cumulative sense. Some people will simply not be happy until the pet/master comprise of two individual PCs in strength, and I believe that an imperative no-no in design. Unfortunately, working around this has multiple paths and any chosen path may not favor the style of one particular person with the archetype. Were I to scold FFXI in one aspect, it would be Jugs actually being consumable items that cost a player gil. If it were just a matter of a BST being able to call a crab, beetle, or whatever upon certain levels, this would just shift efficiency more toward JA timers/use and the general situations where a given pet would shine. It's a pseudo-hybrid philosophy represented even through PUP with the heads/attachments, just with their own can o' worms for mechanics.

Ultimately, doing the most damage is the best measure of fun for some people. It's also the easiest to document, as parsers and even hypothetical math indicate. My usual concern when looking into a class is just deciding if it's fun to play, and if in that process, it doesn't feel glaringly behind others in similar roles. I don't think any game ever has ever achieved perfect balance, but just because it hasn't happened doesn't mean it shouldn't be striven for. FFXI has more than its share of flaws, and while I've personally focused on some of my more preferred interests, I'm not ignorant of others. Not always popular when I do pipe in with an "outsider's" perspective, either, as BSTs and I have clashed heads enough in the past regarding things like the MPK patch or even how the claim system works and how some believe it should've relative to Charm.
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#156 Oct 30 2012 at 5:23 PM Rating: Excellent
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If only there was a way to attribute damage to who is responsible for said damage.

For instance, if you do 10k damage/minute without a bard, and 15k with one, that extra 5k would go to the bard... or the mage casting Dia III, Samurai who used Tachi:Whateveritis, dancer stacking box step, thief using feint..

Most 'support' actions get no credit. Bard/Corsair buffs are the rare exception, but mostly because you get a big icon that tells you they are up. I've never seen anyone attribute an extra-strong WS to the fact that the enemy had def down stacked on it.
#157 Oct 30 2012 at 5:30 PM Rating: Default
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ItsAMyri wrote:
If only there was a way to attribute damage to who is responsible for said damage.

For instance, if you do 10k damage/minute without a bard, and 15k with one, that extra 5k would go to the bard... or the mage casting Dia III, Samurai who used Tachi:Whateveritis, dancer stacking box step, thief using feint..

Most 'support' actions get no credit. Bard/Corsair buffs are the rare exception, but mostly because you get a big icon that tells you they are up. I've never seen anyone attribute an extra-strong WS to the fact that the enemy had def down stacked on it.


Sure they get credit. They either (a) don't get used because they weren't well thought out before implementation (e.g., during the development phase); or (b) are soooo "overpowered" and people actually use them to accomplish things (e.g., Embrava, Perfect Defense) and those without access to these jobs complain incessantly on the Official Forums that the game is "broken", thus causing no one to have any fun.
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#158 Oct 30 2012 at 6:31 PM Rating: Excellent
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Yes, no one has ever invited a bard or cast the spell 'haste' on a melee, and Dia/Def Down has never been a staple anywhere. Embrava and Perfect Defense are the only support abilities in FFXI, and without them support is dead forever.
#159 Oct 30 2012 at 6:47 PM Rating: Default
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ItsAMyri wrote:
Yes, no one has ever invited a bard or cast the spell 'haste' on a melee, and Dia/Def Down has never been a staple anywhere. Embrava and Perfect Defense are the only support abilities in FFXI, and without them support is dead forever.


After the "e.g." were examples, not meant to be exclusionary, but meant to illustrate that when support does get credit, it's not necessarily a good end result...
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#160 Oct 30 2012 at 10:47 PM Rating: Decent
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ItsAMyri wrote:
I'm going to treat that post by Fujilives like an underpaid TA. tl;dr, 10/10 points on your homework.

It appears to be a totally unrelated rant about trolling in WoW. Guy needs to get a blog.
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#161 Oct 31 2012 at 4:27 AM Rating: Decent
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Erecia wrote:
ItsAMyri wrote:
I'm going to treat that post by Fujilives like an underpaid TA. tl;dr, 10/10 points on your homework.

It appears to be a totally unrelated rant about trolling in WoW. Guy needs to get a blog.

If you were to have read it, you'd see that it was merely an example showing that depending on what you'd fight, the jobs that might be more optimal than others differ greatly and there's no real way to pick one above another. Like saying monks on skeletons, stunners on AoE death move monsters and things like that. There's no "one all be all" job, and even unappreciated jobs get really really close. Despite it being a ****-swinging contest apparently. It was a tad long though, i'll give you that.
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#162 Nov 01 2012 at 5:39 AM Rating: Excellent
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Ultimately, doing the most damage is the best measure of fun for some people. It's also the easiest to document, as parsers and even hypothetical math indicate. My usual concern when looking into a class is just deciding if it's fun to play, and if in that process, it doesn't feel glaringly behind others in similar roles. I don't think any game ever has ever achieved perfect balance, but just because it hasn't happened doesn't mean it shouldn't be striven for. FFXI has more than its share of flaws, and while I've personally focused on some of my more preferred interests, I'm not ignorant of others. Not always popular when I do pipe in with an "outsider's" perspective, either, as BSTs and I have clashed heads enough in the past regarding things like the MPK patch or even how the claim system works and how some believe it should've relative to Charm.


That really depends on the game. In a casual friendly light MMO where you can log in and do a few things, then playing only "fun" can work fine. In a more, I don't know, "hardcore" MMO where your expected to schedule events, gather with other players and work together within a strategy to defeat content, you need to actually defeat that content. Having the ability to win the fight is the first priority, after that it breaks down into percentage change to win, if one of your preferred "fun" jobs works in the strategy then great, otherwise it may require you to play a "non-fun" job to get the win in. This is particularly bad for FFXI with it's job systems and the developers insistence that the jobs be "different", meaning the ability that makes / breaks the event for one job may not be available on other jobs in the same category. For example you could attempt a legion run with nothing but BSTs, would be "fun" but you'd also not get much done and would never progress. Same thing with ADL and Prov Watcher. Arch Omega / Ultima have a much more relaxed requirement as you can actually kite / tank them effectively while you recover.

"Damage output" isn't about fun, though some people are naturally highly competitive about it. It's about hitting a certain bar that enables you to win the content, rather then wiping. In WoW speak this is known as a "Gear Check" fight, one when the monster Rages within a few minutes and you need to kill it before that happens or you lose. No matter the strategy used, without a certain level of offensive firepower you will never win the fight and thus never advance into the content. For FFXI this seems to be every single mega boss SE's created in the past year or two. "Elite" level gear is nice and all, but it doesn't account for the kind of percentage differences we tend to see. Having a relic at 99 doesn't increase your damage 300~500%, nor does having the various NNI gear sets. When you have great disparity between two similar DD's then what your really a having is one of them watching TV, talking to their friends or otherwise not paying attention to the fight. Maybe their not using macros or ensuring their standing within range. Parses will outline that like a huge red flag, and in events where it's "do or wipe" someone not paying attention is doing a disservice to their fellow players.
#163 Nov 02 2012 at 12:02 PM Rating: Good
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This is a great thread
Let's bump it againanuallynobodyisright.jpg
#164 Nov 02 2012 at 12:21 PM Rating: Excellent
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TheBarrister wrote:
However, I've met a lot of +2 Empyrean gear 5/5 DDs with 85 Empyrean weapons who think they are top of the line. Last week one of them (not the alliance leader) asked that I proc dagger on Pil. I was the sole Ukon Warrior in the alliance. I was /SAM. There was a Thief in the alliance. I was at the point in my FFXI experience that this did not surprise me.


Why wasn't the thf on it before anyone even thought to ask you? That's my question.

On a related note, I really dislike the whole focus on "elite" everything, not because I don't want to get better, but because I find it a block to me getting better.

Does that sound weird? Hear me out.

I know, for example, that I am perfectly capable of being a useful proccer on my blue mage in most voidwatch content, especially on the lower tier. Yet, my gear on blue mage isn't very exceptional. Yet my blue mage skill level is very high (nearly capped), I eat INT food, I wear MACC/INT gear, I moved all my merits into blu magic acc (over physical potency), and I very rarely get resists (certainly less than other "better geared" blus I have played with).

Still. It stresses me out to join say a Pil run (which I know I can handle just fine), because I am afraid of getting judged on my gear. Yet, in order to get better gear I need to do these and other fights. It's a catch 22. The focus on already having the good gear takes away from the fact that a player starts NOT HAVING the good gear.

Or whm, there is another one. My whm is not very well geared at all. Full stop. I've been asked to come whm to voidwatch before, and I hate pulling it out. HATE. I only leveled whm to help my LS mates with a few cure bombs in abyssea. Yet, when I have, I've noticed that even though I'm not the one with the nice gear, I am KEEPING PEOPLE ALIVE.

Still, when people look at me, they see a gimp. Even if I am sitting there, stressing myself to hell behind my keyboard, desperately trying to ensure people stay alive. Would I be better with better gear? Of course! No one is disputing that. But I sometimes feel the playerbase focuses so much on gear (especially at first glance) that they neglect everything else. Like who is actually paying attention and pressing buttons and getting stuff done.

And invisible stuff (like skilling up) matters a lot. Yet 9/10 people judge on gear. Even though it is perfectly possible to play as another job, get some gear, pay someone to level up the job for the gear, slap it on and ride. And LOTS of people do that.

TL;DR

Gear does matter. It does set two equally skilled and paying attention players apart, but by judging people on whether people have the absolute best gear at any one time is rather narrow minded and doesn't capture the fullness of what it is to be a decent player.

Also: I don't consider myself to be particularly exceptional - just competent, able to read and comprehend, and usually, somewhat prepared.

Edited, Nov 2nd 2012 11:40am by Olorinus
#165 Nov 02 2012 at 10:05 PM Rating: Excellent
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While I also dislike "elite" content that basically locks out people from participating for whatever arbitrary reason, I can at least acknowledge some people want more challenge. That's when I look to future content ideally having difficulty levels where the resulting fights/mechanics differ, while gear from earlier difficulties could be upgraded (or acquired within the harder difficulty, too). In a perfect environment, anyone who gets everything for a given job from the normal mode should have all the tools they need for hard. Those of actual higher skill could probably even skip the normal steps, but I loathe the concept of DPS checks/rage timers if only for penalizing defensive styles of play or not using the "in" jobs.

I've been a bit spoiled by other games having "inclusive" systems where people can just come and go from an event at their leisure. While they also have more standard stuff like dungeons, it's not like others coming and going from the lighter content is a detriment to your own personal progress. Basically, dynamic scaling at work to keep things from being faceroll.
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#166 Nov 02 2012 at 10:52 PM Rating: Decent
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Olorinus wrote:
TheBarrister wrote:
However, I've met a lot of +2 Empyrean gear 5/5 DDs with 85 Empyrean weapons who think they are top of the line. Last week one of them (not the alliance leader) asked that I proc dagger on Pil. I was the sole Ukon Warrior in the alliance. I was /SAM. There was a Thief in the alliance. I was at the point in my FFXI experience that this did not surprise me.


Why wasn't the thf on it before anyone even thought to ask you? That's my question.

On a related note, I really dislike the whole focus on "elite" everything, not because I don't want to get better, but because I find it a block to me getting better.

Does that sound weird? Hear me out.

I know, for example, that I am perfectly capable of being a useful proccer on my blue mage in most voidwatch content, especially on the lower tier. Yet, my gear on blue mage isn't very exceptional. Yet my blue mage skill level is very high (nearly capped), I eat INT food, I wear MACC/INT gear, I moved all my merits into blu magic acc (over physical potency), and I very rarely get resists (certainly less than other "better geared" blus I have played with).

Still. It stresses me out to join say a Pil run (which I know I can handle just fine), because I am afraid of getting judged on my gear. Yet, in order to get better gear I need to do these and other fights. It's a catch 22. The focus on already having the good gear takes away from the fact that a player starts NOT HAVING the good gear.

Or whm, there is another one. My whm is not very well geared at all. Full stop. I've been asked to come whm to voidwatch before, and I hate pulling it out. HATE. I only leveled whm to help my LS mates with a few cure bombs in abyssea. Yet, when I have, I've noticed that even though I'm not the one with the nice gear, I am KEEPING PEOPLE ALIVE.

Still, when people look at me, they see a gimp. Even if I am sitting there, stressing myself to hell behind my keyboard, desperately trying to ensure people stay alive. Would I be better with better gear? Of course! No one is disputing that. But I sometimes feel the playerbase focuses so much on gear (especially at first glance) that they neglect everything else. Like who is actually paying attention and pressing buttons and getting stuff done.

And invisible stuff (like skilling up) matters a lot. Yet 9/10 people judge on gear. Even though it is perfectly possible to play as another job, get some gear, pay someone to level up the job for the gear, slap it on and ride. And LOTS of people do that.

TL;DR

Gear does matter. It does set two equally skilled and paying attention players apart, but by judging people on whether people have the absolute best gear at any one time is rather narrow minded and doesn't capture the fullness of what it is to be a decent player.

Also: I don't consider myself to be particularly exceptional - just competent, able to read and comprehend, and usually, somewhat prepared.

Edited, Nov 2nd 2012 11:40am by Olorinus


No one is arguing what you are responding to. The person I was resopnding to was arguing about these mythical elitely geared players who are somehow utter nincompoops at playing their jobs. That's about as far from reality as saying a level 1, no subjob, first day player is cream of the crop. elite player = gear + skill + experience. I have yet to see elites fling as many insults as I do those podium thumping that elitists are ruining their game and they are just a bunch of afkers bragging about their gear. You're bound to get judged on gear. Grow some thick skin, learn to deal with it, and make sure you know your setups so you can point out the hypocrites if you have to.
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#167 Nov 02 2012 at 11:09 PM Rating: Excellent
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Olorinus wrote:
Still. It stresses me out to join say a Pil run (which I know I can handle just fine), because I am afraid of getting judged on my gear. Yet, in order to get better gear I need to do these and other fights. It's a catch 22. The focus on already having the good gear takes away from the fact that a player starts NOT HAVING the good gear.
I don't know your gear so I can't comment on you specifically... but a vast majority of those judging others on their gear stems from gear choices and not the gear quality. This includes things such as gearing up 40% haste on gear or a DD wearing dex rings while meleeing. In my experience from being on the judging side, if there is any discussion of a player's gear quality, it comes from someone trying to skip usually easy content. Showing up for Ig-Alima in pearle/aurora/teal when empy+2 would be a more reasonable step for the player.

Players judging that someone is gimp during a Pil run if they're missing NNI gear is much, much less common than you would think.

Edited, Nov 3rd 2012 12:11am by xypin
#168 Nov 02 2012 at 11:56 PM Rating: Default
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That really depends on the game. In a casual friendly light MMO where you can log in and do a few things, then playing only "fun" can work fine. In a more, I don't know, "hardcore" MMO where your expected to schedule events, gather with other players and work together within a strategy to defeat content, you need to actually defeat that content.


You have never actually played WoW at the Hardcore level have you?

Quote:
In WoW speak this is known as a "Gear Check" fight, one when the monster Rages within a few minutes and you need to kill it before that happens or you lose. No matter the strategy used, without a certain level of offensive firepower you will never win the fight and thus never advance into the content.


And then the next boss spits dozens of black and white orbs at you that will one shot you if they hit you. Essentially you get an aura and dodge opposite colors. At the same time you are keeping your DPS, Healing, and Tanking Rotations up. In FFXI, Tan tanking...check. Mage Healing...Check....damage guys damaging. Check.

If you think Procs are actual strategy you need to get out and a different game. We need one of every job...except RDM. If you are into strategy I suggest this game personally.



This group of guys RNK fought the highest level PVE fight in the game, while at the same time fighting a hostile PVP fleet of Battleships.

That is pretty ballin.

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#169 Nov 03 2012 at 1:10 AM Rating: Good
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I always wanted to try that game but I have "Should I even try to start this late in the game?" syndrome that's holding me back...
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#170 Nov 03 2012 at 3:28 AM Rating: Default
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xypin wrote:
Olorinus wrote:
Still. It stresses me out to join say a Pil run (which I know I can handle just fine), because I am afraid of getting judged on my gear. Yet, in order to get better gear I need to do these and other fights. It's a catch 22. The focus on already having the good gear takes away from the fact that a player starts NOT HAVING the good gear.
I don't know your gear so I can't comment on you specifically... but a vast majority of those judging others on their gear stems from gear choices and not the gear quality. This includes things such as gearing up 40% haste on gear or a DD wearing dex rings while meleeing. In my experience from being on the judging side, if there is any discussion of a player's gear quality, it comes from someone trying to skip usually easy content. Showing up for Ig-Alima in pearle/aurora/teal when empy+2 would be a more reasonable step for the player.

Players judging that someone is gimp during a Pil run if they're missing NNI gear is much, much less common than you would think.

Edited, Nov 3rd 2012 12:11am by xypin


This is pretty spot on. When people talk about gear their rarely referring to needing the absolute "best" but rather to poor decisions. Usually this indicates someone who doesn't know the battle mechanics of FFXI and doesn't understand Haste / Accuracy and so forth or is lazy and didn't acquire some very easy basic item sets. Uncapped skills is a HUGE issue, due to people leveling so many jobs so fast, many have jobs at 99 that do not have their required skills blue. This includes their primary weapons, any "proc" weapons their expected to have and any magic skills that are important to the job. To take BLU as an example, they should have capped Sword, Club and Blue Magic Skill. Getting 24%+ gear haste is easy and if accuracy has been an issue use Sushi / Pizza. Have separate macro sets for TP, WS and various spells. Trust me, it's very easy to see the people who don't use proper macro sets / food, their the ones who never blink and parse 50~60% accuracy.

If someones done this then nobody is going to ostracize them about their gear, they maybe give some gear advice or priorities but they won't call someone out. If their running around in full pink using M.Acc swords, well expect to leave a bad impression. At the high end FFXI is all about your reputation, groups tend to pickup a few members prior to leaving for an event and they tend to look for known good impression plays first.
#172 Nov 20 2012 at 4:36 PM Rating: Good
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So, I've been back for a few months now, still catching up, but have an observation. To me, best DD used to mean best Zerg dmg, best DD's could bring in xp the fastest. Now xp is so easy to get. I go camping for seals and stuff, do atma boss fights and stuff. It doesn't seem like the zerg thing makes sense anymore the aby.
For pandamonium warden, I had to stay out of AOE range, and kill the pets that spawned on each form. In that situation, I felt like being able to kill while staying alive, was more important than parsing well.

I guess I'll quote the cliche, it's situational. Any thoughts on this?
#173 Nov 20 2012 at 5:23 PM Rating: Good
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If I'm reading you right, it appears you're asking if there's still a use for min-maxing in order to make sure you're the best zerg DD. I believe the answer is an emphatic yes. You aren't going to clear fights like PW without at least one or two people that know what they're doing and are doing a lot of damage. I've parsed PW runs where I'm doing 40% of the alliance damage and we're barely squeaking through the fights. (A particular 40%/15%/10%/<10% split stands out in my mind). If I DCed, I have no doubt at all that the alliance would crumble because they just wouldn't be able to kill the monsters.

However, it costs a lot of time and gil to become a good DD these days and the proc system has certainly created a tolerance and use for people that aren't the best "zerg DD" so you don't need to feel particularly ashamed when you show up to the fight and parse 5% damage on your Ninja. When it comes down to it, though, you still need a few guys that do good damage in order to kill things and there's still a use for the answer to the OP question.

AFAIK, the best DDs in the game are Koga SAM, Ryunohige DRG, Ragnarok DRK, and Ukon WAR. If you're fighting lower level content (like ADL) instead of things like Legion, Spharai or Verethranga Monk is good too. When I list these jobs, I don't mean that a Hoarfrost DRK or Heshikiri-hasebe SAMs aren't going to do decent damage (probably the best non-magian DDs in the game at the moment), I just mean that these guys will do absolutely mindblowing amounts of damage.
#174 Nov 21 2012 at 3:37 AM Rating: Decent
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Hoarfrost DRK isn't much better than an AH DRK, a difference of 7.5 accuracy from the DEX on it over Gram, see. Borealis only carries a +5-10% WS damage advantage (the proc rate is crap and only 1.5x).

Just mostly want to point out that rare-drop-from-a-hard-NM != more than marginally better than crap. At the very least: grabbing the best weapon off the shelf doesn't make you top DD automatically, but some of the most critical aspects of being a good DD come from the weapon you wield (Accuracy on Relic weapons, OAT magians, exclusive high-grade WS of Empy).

tl;dr A Hoarfrost DRK probaby spent weeks doing Ig'Alima for a weapon you could pretty much buy an equivalent to off the AH. Geared equally, they'd be within a few percent of each other, and I wouldn't rate them as 'best non-magian DD' without some major hangups over sub and gear.
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Vlorsutes wrote:
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#175 Nov 21 2012 at 9:11 AM Rating: Decent
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If one number is larger than the other, than it is of higher value. Your comment doesn't really make much sense. a few % is a few %, if it was the same then it would be the same.

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#176 Nov 21 2012 at 11:34 AM Rating: Decent
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rdmcandie wrote:
If one number is larger than the other, than it is of higher value. Your comment doesn't really make much sense. a few % is a few %, if it was the same then it would be the same.

Except that VoidWatch clears, atmacites, and kills upon kills upon kills of Ig'Alima to get a paltry upgrade over an AH sword should never be understated.

Or to be more blunt: By the time you're doing Ig'Alima, you'd goddamn better have a superior weapon to Hoarfrost/Borealis, be it OAT or STR sword for those not in the Relic market. Being anything but a leech at Ig is far more work and derping about than magian trials.

Hoarfrost/Borealis/Wroth are precisely in that category of "By the time you can get it, you don't need it."

You can probably tell I just really hate people trying to qualify lolHoarfrost.
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I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Airships on fire off the shoulder of Bahamut. I watched Scapula Beams glitter in the dark near the Three Mage Gate...

Nilatai wrote:
Vlorsutes wrote:
There's always...not trolling him?

You're new here, aren't you?
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