Charged Whisker weaponsFollow

Don't bother. If you're using the proper atmas, Jupiter's sh*ts all over Shamshirs.

It's been tested up and down that if you're going for pure Charged Whisker damage and not doing any meleeing on the side that the Jupiter's Staff with a Gatta Strap +1 will do much more for you than dual wielding Shamshirs, no least of which for the fact that you're either going /Nin or /Dnc for Dual Wield over something more useful like /Rdm (thus needing to set spells to offset the traits lost from not being /Rdm) or setting spells for the Dual Wield trait instead of spells that would more directly boost Charged Whisker's damage. That and just the fact that the % boost to Thunder based magic damage and accuracy is just too good to beat anything out there currently or known to be coming out soon.

As for Evolith gear and thunder affinity, that's not a good recommendation by any means. Due to how significantly DEX factors into Charged Whisker's damage output (especially with Burst Affinity up), casting in the Empyrean +2 legs are unbeatable, as well as Aias Bonnet or Maat's Cap (Maat's Cap, due to being only 1 DEX less than Aias but 7 Int more, would edge out over the Aias) for the head.

It's not hard by any means to be able to get 5-6k damage on Charged Whisker already, so it's as a whole unnecessary to go to the trouble of something like evolith gear.

Edited, Dec 13th 2011 10:28am by Vlorsutes

I'm working on this also, currently I am using Baying Moon, Ultimate and MM. I want to swap out Ultimate as soon as able, the -MP pool on it, I think is hurting me. In the beginning without getting the ISL chests I run out of MP too often. Later it isnt a problem and every 10 min Convert is up, but I suspect once I get another atma to replace Ultimate I will not miss it.

One slight thing about the Ice Shamshirs is sometimes I want to build Amber lights for items. I try to only open ISL chests with swords on, just for the 300% TP Sanguine blade to get some amber lights. BUT for pure damage Jupiters all the way.

Outside abyssea, the INT/MAB does indeed outweigh the Jupiter's Staff. I don't think the margin is very big, and you won't often be CWing outside of abyssea anyway.

Inside, with atma, Jupiter's is the easy winner, since MAB returns 'diminish' (the more you have, the less %increase you see from more, since MAB modifies the base damage, and the staff modifies the damage after MAB).

The real benefit of Ice Shamshir is that they're easy to get and great for Sanguine Blade; I find Sanguine to be much more powerful than Vorpal when you gear for it and take the MAB trait.

But yeah, for CW burning, staff all the way. Unless you're doing it outside Abyssea for some reason. (I tried CW burning elemental magian trials; it was ok. Not really special without atma.)

Edited, Dec 15th 2011 6:48pm by ItsAMyri

/facepalm

... you think I don't know that? I can kill anything I need in Whirl + CW. swapping weapons was irritating.

I"ll go out w/ my set and see the exact different between swords and staff sometime soon. Its not going to make/break my cw build.

conformists.

Edited, Dec 17th 2011 3:49pm by Xilk

EDIT:
I'm level 96. This is vs bluffalo

Jupiters: 6111 damage
MAB swords: 6281 damage

it could be a level difference for dINT... but swords won for me. I'll try a few more.

if you really care I'm using lion, blinding horn, and ultimate.

base dex is 79 (I'm galka) + 129 from spells gear. I'm using Aretemis, and its a new moon.


Edited, Dec 18th 2011 11:14am by Xilk

Edited, Dec 18th 2011 11:14am by Xilk

sorry, I should have said spells, gear and CRUOR buffs. this is in abyssea obviously.
I have 40 dex from gear
http://www.ffxiah.com/item-sets/208290
Its not a perfect set.
I don't remember how much from spells. I'd have to go rework it.

I was getting at least 40 from cruor buffs, but I think 70 was probably likely. so pulling another 19 from spells would probably work.

I got over 6300 after a few pulls as well. staff did not beat my lvl 95 mab swords. That's my point.

LOLZ ok. if I must. I'm on test server now. so I'll edit this in a short bit.
I"m on my way out the door for errands, but I did go in and take screen shots.

Jupiter's staff is doing more damage. by about 300 for me. I haven't checked much. I think maybe the cruor buff bonus shifted while I was switching from staff to swords perhaps last time. I'm not sure if that would be enough to account for it.

I tweaked my spells a bit. my /rdm is 49 now instead of 46 like it ws before. also i'm level 99 instead of 96.

w/ swords I ws doing 6700 something on bluffalo. w/ Jupiters I was doing 7033.

I'll post sh later if you still want them. my point stands, its not a big enough difference for me that I need to switch to staff. Is there a mob that has over 7k hp to farm? Really it would need like 8.5k to merit using staff for CH and WoR to take it down quickly.
oh, today was water day. I didn't check the moon phase.

Edited, Dec 23rd 2011 4:51pm by Xilk

The reason people make ice Shamshir is because they take like an afternoon and are, for damage, literally equivalent to every other magian sword with the exception of the Fire one, which is exponentially more difficult and frankly, not worth it unless you never ever plan to do an Almace or Badelaire.

Also, the time when you use magic in a melee build? It's known as 'Sanguine Blade', and it's better than vorpal with dual ice swords and an actual WS build. Also, it fills your HP without spending MP.

So if you have 'em, why not use 'em? I use Jupiter's myself (and have ice shamshirs) because I use a Terra's Staff to pull when I cleave and swapping dual wielded weapons in a macro is tedious.

But yeah, Ice swords make perfect sense to obtain, when you're looking for an easy weapon with a good damage:delay ratio. Wind or Earth are good for tanking, but the only superior 'damage' sword is the fire one, unless you live in some bizarro realm where accuracy is still an issue.

I'm not so sure about that. I was arguing with myself back and forth about whether I would rather use a fire Shikargar (the magian 99) or a DA+10% Khanda+3 in my offhand, and as much as I wanted a Shikargar, I just can't justify it.

With even cheap attack food and Triumphant Roar, I'm hitting nearly 700 attack, and with real attack food like curry I'd easily be breaking 730-750. Add in /war and berserk if pushed into a pure DD roll, and you end up well over 900 attack. Then, once you factor in Benthic Typhoon...

I agree BLU is attack starved, and I'm actually in the process of trying to solve my attack woes, but I just don't think 20 attack is going to make a dent. I'm not sure how much spell damage 11STR will add, but I get the feeling it'll be inferior to the DA when paired with Almace.

I got my Ice swords as a first weapon back at level 90; they were a substantial upgrade over the augmented domnotes weapons. Now I use wind magians for the evasion, while I work on Almace and a proper offhand.

But the tl;dr is, I really want a Fire sword, I just can't seem to justify it. The attack/str seems like a drop in the bucket unless you dual wield 'em, and I can't ever see myself dual wielding shikargars once I complete Almace.

As an afterthought, the MAB swords might be the ideal BLU Brew weapons?

Also, not to derail the thread, but has there been any real comparison between the fire weapons and DAKhanda, or at least maths as to how much damage 11STR adds on average? For some reason, I really like the thought of the fire shikar, but I am under the impression that it'd be inferior and I'd eventually be forced to go back and grind out a khanda anyway. I'd love to hear otherwise.

Or everyone can play how they like to.

swapping back to swords for physical and staves for magical is irritating to me. It was well worth it making the swords, though that staff does have a bit more than 4% boost to damage in current state. the margin will narrow a bit w/ the level 99 swords. Having the staff doesn't allow you to kill any more efficiently than I.

LOL obviously you haven't! Please tell me a mob you can kill faster than me because you are using jupiter's instead of mab swords! Did I ever say "its the best way!"

You and another jumped down my throat for saying it was worth it to me to make swords so I don't have to swap to staves. Thats a personal preference! Then I went to show the difference and was surpised in my first example that swords were doing better. On that example they were. More extensive testing did show that staff is going to do a bit more damage more often, however the difference is really not that significant because it doesn't spell the difference between a 1-shot kill or not.

I just showed you I'm hitting 6.7k w/ swords. Nothing you are gonna CW farm is going to have that 300 difference in hp. same time for a pull, same time for casting. that 300 damage is making no difference in efficiency. It only makes a difference in someone's ego.

Here's a very practical reason I use jupiter's:

I pull in -PDT including sword, which I also use for whirl of rage, and I put all my other swords with the same stupid name in my sack so they don't get put on. It helps automate the process, which can get very vapid and tedious after about an hour for me. Granted, I could just use terra's staff but I don't keep it with me on blu. Inventory and all.