Is Valoredge done?Follow

Let me preface this by saying I've always had a soft spot for VE. In my noob PUP days I picked him first despite all logic (mage to curebot solo, SS to party DD and keep ranged skill up from the start). I've always thought about ways to utilize VE, like its sturdiness back in the days before DEA when keeping the puppet alive was a priority. Mnejing is my homeboy.

VE was finally starting to really shine in the Abyssea age though. With its fast accurate melee strikes, it was built for loading up on haste and DA (Turbo Charger/Coiler) and watching the atma enhanced crits fly. With Burattinaios, it could tank like a champ and refill HP with Cannibal Blade spam. And with Armor Piercer looking a bit less sexy compared to other WS in Abyssea, SS lost a little of its wow factor.

I think that moment in the sun is over. Armor Shatterer + Barrage means SS seems to now be back to its old place as the go-to DD frame (VE may get more crits over time, but it doesn't feel like enough to outweigh SS's WS+Barrage power). DEA means nobody really cares if you're losing puppets left and right, because it's never more than 60 seconds to a new one. And Burt nerf means that the days of VE tanking anything interesting were short lived. String Shredder is better for DD than what VE had before, but pales in comparison to AS in damage (plus AS defense down helps the whole group).

I think I know the answer, but I'll put it out there - is there anything particularly useful for VE to do any more? I guess it has the one niche of chasing mobs instead of standing out of range like SS if things are moving around, but that's pretty minimal. For the super rare instances where you just NEED slashing damage, there's that. Otherwise, I can't see myself doing much of anything that can't be handled by SS or SR for offense, or Soulsoother for solo or party support.

Edited, May 26th 2011 1:16pm by Anza

I am typically /war and just bring my whm bot along with me so I never to worry about heals.

That being said, Armor Shatter - > Victory Smite (or reverse) is hella nice, and AS does about 2x the damage of Sting shredder with the same atma setup. Add in barage and I have no reason to use VE for dd anymore.

The only way to save it, is if they continue down the road of making it tank better. For that it would need:

More -DT
More emnity/emnity tools
The ability to heal itself (make it a true paladin)
More HP (not a lot, but maybe 10-20% more)

Yeah, plus AS helps everyone else in your group do more damage because of the def down effect, so the true benefit to the group is even more than just comparing WS+SC damage to WS+SC damage. String Shredder just doesn't compare.

And like you say, add in Barrage and SS becomes that much more powerful as a DD.



Hell, just give it innate Regain, and maybe modify Cannibal Blade a bit (better trigger maneuver, generate Provoke-type enmity each use, etc). We saw how well Burts + VE Cannibal Blade spam worked. Maybe give VE 1tp/regain baseline, then another 1tp every 10th level. Lv90 VE = 10tic/regain.

I really wonder what S-E was saying when they were talking about tanking as well as a flesh and blood PLD. Stout Servant and improving the -DT attachments was a nice enough little bonus, but it surely didn't turn VE into anything close to a PLD. Of course, it never WAS a PLD before, it was always a melee DD holding a mostly ornamental shield. I guess that's another suggestion, make VE actually USE the shield - give it a high shield block rate with appropriate damage reduction, etc.

At this point it seems like VE really needs some big changes to be a viable choice though, or else it's going to go the way of Harle and full SW.



It's true that Shredder does pair well with Pummel for SCs. But does VE+master damage ever really outdo SS+master damage? Doesn't seem that way to me. So even if VE isn't far behind SS, why pick it if it's still behind?



I guess so, but even SS has a pretty decent chunk of HP for emergency use. And if you have a non-lazy healer, this isn't really much of an issue. Pretty minor benefit, but I do see some uses.



I'm getting very used to the idea of a disposable puppet. I'll DEA Sharpshot and not hold back at all with more Barrages and WS. By the time he eats it again, DEA is probably back up and ready for more. And if Repair is up, you can refill HP in a hurry. Speaking of which, they really need to make Oils stack to 99...

Edited, May 27th 2011 3:52pm by Anza

Hehe :) I'd probably still just fill up a stack of 99 and restock from NPC when needed though. Takes me a while to burn through 99 of em, and then that's only one inventory spot instead of two (stack of toolbags plus the active stack of oils). Same thing I usually do with NIN sneak/invis tools, I keep a 99 stack and when I get a little low I buy some from crafter bazaars to get back to 99 of each.

Plus I'd be in shock dropping ~600k at once on oils XD (assuming 500gil NPC prices, since it's hard to find em cheaper crafted and especially in that kind of quantity). But Gavrie would be one rich NPC the day of that particular update. And a side note, I run past multiple NPCs to sell my junk and go to Gavrie when I'm in Whitegate even when I'm not buying any oils. Odd, this NPC customer loyalty I have...

o.O Wow. I don't quite dislike Whitegate that much, but that's... dedication ;) I could never pull that off though, even with max available storage I always struggle enough for space with general stuff and gear for 5 jobs.

- Gobbiebag has current job gear and room for drops
- Mog sack is crammed full of consumables, food, Abyssea pop items, teleport and warp items, tactics/signal pearls, RR items, Dyna currency, Ancient Beastcoins, etc...
- Satchel is loaded with alternate job items and a lot of all jobs stuff, alternate weapons, Porter moogle storage slips, some other random things
- Storage is full of R/E stuff and event items that can't be stored
- Locker full of COR DNC items. COR in particular takes a lot of space
- Mog safe full of PUP MNK items that aren't on me or in my satchel, NIN stuff, and Abyssea seals/+2 upgrade items

How does SS not benefit from those same atma combinations? I'd argue that overall, either of those two common atma sets you mentioned benefit SS MORE than they benefit VE.

1) Apoc gives both VE and SS triple attack, which is honestly more useful for SS than VE. Faster TP = more WS, and SS benefits more than VE from more frequent WS.

2) RR - maybe slightly tilted in VE's favor due to stronger melee crit strikes, but probably not enough to outweigh the significant advantage in damage from WS that SS enjoys. The atma also certainly helps SS quite a bit with all the DEX for melee accuracy while building TP, since SS needs more help to cap melee acc than VE does - so I'd say that aspect is more helpful to SS than to VE. Overall, the atma certainly helps both frames though.

3a) VV - same thing as Apoc, SS probably benefits more than VE from the Regain and DA giving faster TP generation and more frequent WS. STR+50 helps both frames with stronger hits.

3b) GH - I believe dustinfoley found that AGI is the sole modifier for Armor Shatterer, and AGI+50 is a huge chunk. Offensively, that makes GH more useful for SS than increased crit rate which helps both frames, even if that aspect does benefit VE a little more than SS. Defensively, the AGI/evasion and counter help both frames, but (unless you're using VE to tank) those benefits are probably are more helpful to SS since it has more potential to momentarily pull hate due to a WS damage spike.



I have no disagreement that String Shredder is far better for damage than previously existing VE weaponskills. But it's still clearly inferior to SS's damage with Armor Shatterer (plus AS's added effect helping the entire group), so still a second rate choice. Really VE's only argument here is "still not as good as SS, but it could be even WORSE if we didn't have this WS"

Put another way, a BRD with a Mandau and DD gear is certainly a better DD compared to a BRD without that stuff. But if you're looking for a DD, you're still better off picking a well geared DD job instead of a pimped out BRD.



Who cares about survivability when we have DEA on a 60 second timer? Even going all out and pulling hate, how often are you losing SS without either of DEA/Activate up? If you do lose it, you'll have a new DEA puppet back up very soon - and if you're doing THAT much damage to pull hate that quickly that you're having puppets dying in under 60 seconds, I would imagine your impressive overall DD from SS still exceeds VE's even with a little bit of downtime with no puppet while waiting on DEA.



For what situations?

- SS seems to clearly win to me for any DD situation.
- Survivability shouldn't be a realistic issue with DEA.
- Inside/outside Abyssea doesn't matter really, it's the same story in both.

So VE is really just the winner for:

- Odd situations where you need the puppet to chase mobs - hate bouncing all over the place, some sort of kiting strategy, etc
- Tanking something, probably requiring Ducal Guard and all the pet DT- gear you can get your hands on (but VE tanking got a severe hit with the Burt nerf, so I'd have to see big changes to make it a viable tank for a lot of stuff)
- Maybe you need slashing damage for some unusual reason

I can't see myself using the little guy very much. It's gonna be SS as the general DD frame, Spiritreaver when nukes are more effective (and for DD ability where melee is unwanted), and Soulsoother when its cures/support are needed.

Edited, May 31st 2011 4:41pm by Anza

Awesome, would be great to see your results. I've been thinking more than playing in the past week or so myself, so I'm a little slow to test some of this stuff ;)

Awaiting confirmation of WSC mods for Armor Shatterer/String Shredder to see how that breaks down. In either case, I'm expecting AS to still be the stronger WS in either common 3 atma setup (since I've used both and seen my AS outperform Shredder). Would be nice to know exactly which stats are modifying these WS though. For example, if Shredder is DEX/STR, then RR/VV would be the best atma combo for WS damage.

Speaking of the benefits of raw stats, forgot one item as it relates to Sharpshot/Valoredge. GH's AGI+50 at the very least helps R.Acc for Sharpshot, making that an advantage for SS. For both frames, AGI provides evasion and the fairly recent Subtle Blow-like effect on mob TP - pretty much a wash on that front.

Oh and btw, before the patch I was always sticking with RR/GH/Apoc as atmas.
RR/Apoc aren't being discussed, but the third one opens up to interesting options.
A&O would be the best anytime, even before the patch, but I don't really like the -HP so I hardly consider it for my jobs.
Ruling that out, we're left with 3 options imho: VV, GH, Apoc.
I used GH, altough probably VV might have been better. Well, not if you were using Burattinaios maybe. SS was definitely behind.
Tested a few things with the new caps using Motenten's spreadsheet, and these are the results I got concerning the tier list of the third atma option:

Vsmite
Unbuffed: VV > SS > GH
Buffed: SS > VV > GH

Pummel:
Unbuffed PUP: VV > SS > GH
Buffed PUP: SS > VV > GH

Using PUP/WAR and average gear, +40 cruor buffs.
Now for "unbuffed" I mean that you have no additional buff at all. No COR rolls, no BRD songs, no haste, no food, no berserk, no Stalwart's etc.
For "Buffed" I forgot what I used lol think it was Haste + Berserk + Food? Maybe something else too, not sure.
Of course this tier list takes into consideration the master only.
SS wouldn't probably benefit the automaton that much. +HP is nice but not necessary and doesn't affect damage output. +30% crit damage is good but SS ain't gonna crit much (and its crit will do less), might be better for VE maybe, I don't know.

Personally I think from now on I'm gonna swap to RR/VV/Apoc if I wanna use VE, and maybe RR/GH/Apoc for SS, especially if AGI is proved to be the modifier (and also AGI would allow me to use Drum Magazine without missing too much I guess? Supposing the AGI>Racc conversion works for Automatons too)