Lastest H2H Tiers?Follow

The formula is (H2H skill * 0.11) + 3 = damage tier. Drop all remainders.

So for PUP at 99:
* Base skill at 99 is 404
* Skill with 8/8 merits is 420

You reach a new tier at the following skill levels:
410 = 48.10
420 = 49.20
428 = 50.08
437 = 51.07

Realistic options for H2H skill gear:
* Faith Torque = skill+7
* Cirque Capello +2 = skill+5
* Bruiser's Earring = skill+3
* Portus Ring = skill+5 (but extremely rare, since it's a R/E drop from the high level Diabolos boss in Dyna-Tavnazia)
* Note that there are a couple other skill+ pieces PUP can equip, but you just lose way too much to make them at all viable (augmented Oberon's Sainti, or Cestus Belt - which also requires /MNK)

So from capped skill and 8/8 merits, you are already at the 49 tier, and you need any TWO of the above viable options to break into the 50 tier. Cirque+2 head is a pretty easy choice. Faith or Bruiser are the obvious possibilities to pair with it, but they aren't necessarily better choices than the alternatives. IIRC, the preferred set for best overall DoT is actually Cirque Necklace or Rancorous Collar and Brutal/Moonshade (regain) earrings.

I really am not a big fan of Bruiser's Subtle Blow -10 for a relatively modest gain, so if you're gonna pair two skill items, I'd go for Cirque+2/Faith. At least Faith is pretty close to Cirque/Agasaya for DD purposes. Even if you don't have Moonshade to pair with Brutal, there are some good attack options (Aesir, Ghillie) that would probably be more beneficial than Bruiser's without the big negative effect.

Edited, Jun 7th 2012 12:47pm by Anza

You're very welcome, needed to refresh on this myself :)

As for WS piece... I'm still not sure I am sold on Bruiser's. What other skill+ piece are you WSing in, since you still need two skill+ pieces total to break into the next tier?

For head on WS I wouldn't want to lose something like, say, Athos on Smite/Pummel, or Ocelomeh/+1 (especially with set bonus with Toci/Oce bodies). You'd have to give those up to use Cirque head on WS (or Tokon Hachimaki if you still wanted skill but were concerned with Accuracy).

For neck, Faith isn't bad, but isn't as good as some other options: Ire/+1 for VS, Rancor, Gorgets, etc.

For earrings, I tried out several combinations on all three of Smite, Pummel, and Shijin, using Kinematics' DPS spreadsheets. I never saw Bruiser's beating Brutal/Aesir (can replace Aesir with Ghillie/+1 too) in any instance, regardless of skill. I trust Kine's math here, and he's pretty well recognized as the H2H users' math guru for the English speaking FFXI community. Bruiser's is close, and by no means a terrible choice, but why waste an inventory slot on something marginally worse than an easily obtainable next best option?

Edited, Jun 7th 2012 5:00pm by Anza

Just finished writing the below, and man, I haven't gotten going on PUP gear like this for a while. Kinda fun, and really helps me think through my own gear :)

Your SP/Shijin sets are actually very similar to my own. A few observations by slot:

Head: You really, really don't want to give up Ocelomeh Headpiece (or +1) on Shijin Spiral. DEX+12 (or 13) and Triple Attack +3% from the set bonus with Toci's crushes Cirque+2's H2H skill+5 and DA+3%, even if it moves you up one H2H damage tier. Go get Ocelomeh Headpiece if you don't have it, it's that good even without the set bonus, but for someone with Toci's it's even stronger. The one thing that surprised me a little from playing with Kinematics's math is that even on SP with no DEX modifier, Ocelomeh is a top option just because the large amount of DEX has a big impact on crits (and obviously the set Triple Attack is nice). It just doesn't win by as wide a margin as it does on Shijin.

Earring 1: Keep Brutal Earring for either WS. Averaged over time, it's the best earring you could use for any PUP H2H WS. True that it's arguably less consistent in damage than the other options due to DA not procing at all on some WS, but over the course of many WS it's #1 by a pretty wide margin. This is pretty much standard thinking for all DD jobs now, with the notable exception of Asuran Fists (simply because it can't double/triple attack due to already having the maximum 8 attacks per round).

Earring 2: For the second earring to pair with Brutal - Moonshade (Attack/TP Bonus, then Acc/TP Bonus) is going to be the best possible choice, and a lot of people might have it especially if you play other DD jobs. However, for H2H users Moonshade is even better as a TP earring with Regain and either Attack or Accuracy. So if you're like me and picked Moonshade primarily based on overall PUP MNK utility or you got a mage earring (or you didn't finish WotG), you might not have this option.

If Moonshade is out of the picture, you're looking at a group of earrings which are all close enough to more or less be sidegrades, in Ghillie/+1, Aesir, and stat+3 earrings (for Shijin, DEX+3 from something like Jupiter's or Pixie Earring). If Bruiser's brings you to a new H2H tier, it's also in that group (but in order to do that, you have to sacrifice from better options in the neck or head slots). And it's still bringing up the rear of that close grouping.

Waist: This is the one slot where I see a cheap/easy significant improvement for your Shijin set. Artful Belt is cheap and excellent, the +1 is considerably more expensive but a modest improvement. Though worth noting that Prosilio is probably the best belt for all PUP WS (and especially VS/SP), despite the DA-5% it makes up for it by being loaded with STR/Attack.

Shijin Spiral doesn't replicate fTP across hits of the multi-hit WS like some of the merit WS do (Blade: Shun, Ruinator, etc). Therefore, while they're still pretty good, elemental belts/gorgets aren't as huge as they are on some of the other merit WS.

Neck: Consistent with the above on belts, gorgets are solid but not as big for Shijin as they are for some of the other merit WS. However, better options are more limited in this slot for PUP than they are for waist, and are kinda pricey - most notably Tjukurrpa Medal for SP and Moepapa Medal for SS. Gorget is still respectable here though, and one comparison worth noting that is that in an ideal build it should beat Rancor Collar for both SP (because Rancorous Mantle is the best back for SP - the crit rate on collar/mantle doesn't stack, and if you're choosing one of them the Mantle is better due to its very nice Atk+17), and SS (because SS doesn't crit).

Back:You don't need to upgrade Pantin Cape for Shijin, it's actually really good due to the DEX+5 along with a healthy amount of attack. As far as I know, best possible piece in the slot for Shijin. I do think Rancorous Mantle (with max Tonberry hate) is the best option for SP though.

So to recap and combine all of the above, if you were really dead set on trying to get to the next H2H tier for WS, best slots to use for skill+ gear are neck (Faith) and your non-Brutal earring. Don't sacrifice a better head piece, especially not Ocelomeh on Shijin. I played around a lot with both SP/SS on the spreadsheets though, and I never saw the Faith/Bruiser combo beat the other good choices. Could get pretty close to some alternatives, but nothing better than a near sidegrade/slightly behind other choices.

Edited, Jun 7th 2012 10:44pm by Anza

Plus that 1 extra dmg is now about 1.5% dmg increase than just not having that extra tier at all, extra tiers were much better before when we had a base of 50-60 (including weapons). Where's now we sit late 70's-early 80's. There's a lot of other easy ways to pump out 2%+ more dmg.