Pimp Hat and DuelistFollow

So, while I do realize that the Pimp Hat is well... it makes you a pimp due to the fast cast, but that +15 enfeebling skill and refresh looks mighty tasty. is there any argument as to which is better? or am i just trying to make duelist's way too good?

To elaborate, you'll want both on hand, particularly because the fast cast effect of the Warlock's Chapeau WILL stack with the fast cast effect of the Duelist's Tabard. However, neither of them are useful 100% of the time.

Whether you have a vermilion cloak or a Duelist's Chapeau (and/or Dalmatica or Morrigan's Robe) you will want a whole new macro called an "idle" macro. In it, all of your Refresh effects should be thrown on, as well as any slots which can be tied up in other macros by a Movement Speed Down peice(such as dusk hands or feet). Throw in a Movement Speed Up peice as well if you have one.

The hard part, and it's only "hard" because it's a whole new habit to get into, is remembering to press that macro EVERY time you finish casting a spell.

Fast Cast meanwhile will probably cause you to expand several spells into two-button macros(unless you use windower plugins, which I do not advocate). A good example would be my own Stoneskin macro;

Button 1: Alt-9
/equip:
Warlock's Chapeau
Duelist's Tabard
...some other stuff I forget(predominantly MND iirc)
/ma "Stoneskin" <me>

Button 2: Alt-0
/equip:
Whatever MND hat I have
Errant body
Other MND stuff not already equipped by the first macro


The end result is a capped Stoneskin casted in a fraction of the time the original spell takes.

One misconception is that the Warlock's Chapeau MUST be used for everything. Most spells we have(or use, rather), by default, do not have very long casting or recast times. The same is also true of the Duelist's Chapeau.

The Duelist's Chapeau is amazing for a lot of things... even ignoring the Refresh effect. Should you be fortunate enough to procure such a legendary item, the first thing you should do is re-evaluate your macros; for MOST situations, you only need/want either the Warlock's Tabard OR the Duelist's Chapeau. In any spell you already use the Tabard in, your best bet is actually to replace the tabard with a MND body(Errant being the minimum); You'll get at most 5 MND(short extremely hard-to-get items) in your head slot from anything else. Compare to the body, which 10 MND is the most basic thing you can have in that slot. With a Duelist/Errant head/body combo, you're getting a great deal of accuracy for your enfeebling spells AND a nice extra amount of potency for those enfeebles over and above what, say, an Errant/Warlock head/body combo would give you. (And MND itself ALSO increases MAcc to a degree as well!)

Don't throw out your Warlock's Tabard, either! There are some enfeebling spells you have where magic accuracy/skill is KING simply because INT/MND/everything else has a minimal effect. Gravity and Bind fall in that spectrum.



tl;dr: Duelist's Chapeau, Duelist's Tabard, Warlock's Chapeau, and Warlock's Tabard are all vital to keep. None TRULY replaces the other. Such is the way of the Red Mage...

I was honest with myself about Duelist Hat. I knew if I got that then I'd just want Dalmatica/Morrigan's even more and end up spending the rest of my FFXI life in end game.


I bought an Ixion and never looked back. 13 INT, 13 MND, Refresh, Regen, & 5 MACC does NOT suck. Dont let anyone tell you otherwise.


I still use my pimp hat for utsu, tabard for enfeebs, and SH+1/Walmart for lol RDM DD.

I use Ixion for Idle, Stoneskin, Slow, and Paralyze. Ixion is seriously cheap for the stats on it imo, 1,300,000 on Bismarck. The Mahatma Houppeland is 3,900,000 for 1 INT, 1 MND, and 1 hMP. If I had Goliard Chapeau I'd consider using it for Slow/Para, but that's only the difference between +2 MND and +5 MACC. 2 Mind, or 3 Mind if I spend 3,900,000 just seems like a pretty worthless upgrade for the amount of gil/time in Nyzul it'll take. I just don't see +3 Mind being significant enough to change the game in any way, and I've grown partial to my Ixion Cloak.

My plan is to idle in Ixion until I get a Dalmatica/Morrigan's Robe, in which case I'll idle in Duelist's Chapeau / Dalmatica for +5 Refresh. In the mean time I get a nice looking idle piece with Regen and +5 MACC in my potency set.

Mahatma Houppeland seems like an upgrade for when you are about out of other things to upgrade, to the extent that, if you are willing to save 4,000,000 gil for +1INT/MND/hMP, then why not save 14,000,000 gil and get a Novio Earring? That I could see improving my game play much more.

Why would you still use individual gear macros?

Windower macros can be used to apply gear before and after spells cast, then just revert to your idle set after a /wait.

If you're less lazy you just use spellcast and everything changes for you.

I really don't understand why people would play on consoles as it makes the game as excessively complex and limiting as SE intended.

1) Make a .txt file with the EXACT SAME THINGS as your regular macros, but put "input" at the beginning of every line (except for waits).
2) Because that takes sooo long.
3) Nah none of that. You can either use bind and then a key (prefix with !/^/@ for alt/ctrl/shift) to bind your macros to a key(s), or more simply just put //exec file.txt in your regular macros.


Ever jaywalk before? Having to hit one macro per spell instead of 2-4 is just as harmless.

Edited, Dec 31st 2009 12:54am by ThePsychoticOne

I'd prefer AF hat+errant for stoneskin.

Ixion is "cheap for it's stats" because with macros it is worse than reletively easy alternatives.

I'm assuming you mean Duelist's Tabard +1? Or are you casting with a total of 10 mind in the head/body slots?

The thing is, the items needed to make Ixion not worth while are not really easy to get. Goiard being the easiest, and until +2 MND becomes a lot more worth while, I'd rather have Regen + 5MACC.

+1ing a Chapeau isn't exactly easy either. Ixion pretty much rocks, it's not the best possible combination, but well worth 1,200,000 gil until better, harder to obtain upgrades present themselves.

Because not everyone wants to break the terms of use, not everyone has the choice to play on pc, and the game is not that difficult enough that you need to be supremely optimized for every little thing you do?

Edited, Jan 1st 2010 9:08pm by Fynlar

Because people rarely rate based on actual right or wrong, but based on whether it's what they want to hear.

I dunno, I rarely use the arrows, but I pulled you back to "Default" on that post XD

That's all good and well, but I have to mention, being able to put macros on my letter keys has opened up a wonderful world for me. There is never any split second wondering if I'm on the right macro set... because I only have one! Assist macros as alt-m/n/b, Sleepga alt-l, aquaveil alt-y, blink alt-u, phalanx alt-i, stoneskin alt-o, ice spikes alt-p. Just too damn convenient. Doing that has let me put all 6 TIII nukes on my numbered macros in elemental order. It's nice when you only need a Stone III to kill something. Plus you can use a logging type program (I use FFA2) to display what macros are bound where on-screen full time. Handy!