Abbysean DA/TA build worth it?Follow

I'm still sitting on that trial path and have been mulling it over for a while as to what to do with it.

I've noticed that Red Mage can build approximately +21 Double attack on their own without Atmas. (DA+10 sword, Atheling Mantle, +2 DA on body and leg Add on pieces, Brutal Earring)Then Atma of Apoc and VV would tack on 15% triple attack plus another 5% double attack.

This would essentially give us a 41% chance to attack more than once, and a 15% of attacking 3 times, on each weapon, and in Weapon Skills.(Subbing warrior would add Fencer and another 10% DA if desired.)

The cost, however, is that it involves tanking hits in accuracy in the Add on gear such as legs and body (and a hit on haste in the absence of Goliard Saio.)It would also pretty much sacrifice any 'occasionally attacks' weapons for this to work.

What I'm wondering is, considering the chance of Double Attack/Tripple attack function on both of the higher damage weapons (Almace/Bladelair+2 for main hand or high damage dagger assumed.) that it would outweigh perhaps a shift in food choice (if necessary) to accommodate the loss of accuracy.

This would also be Abyssea specific, however. (I'll likely offhand Joyeuse outside abyssea and swap body with Goliard.)

In the end I'm wondering if this would be a viable build, and what sort of accuracy changes I could make in a standard TP build to accommodate for it (as well as the loss of accuracy on the legs outside of Abyssea.)

I've been away from the game for quite a while so I was fishing for some feedback, especially from Seriha and Zafire.

Edited, Jun 1st 2011 6:48pm by Hyrist

DA is the way to go currently, it boosts or TP gains, it boost o DoT dealt, and increase our WSD. The ACC loss is going to be very very minimal almost to the point it isn't even worth bringing up in discussion. Razed Ruin + Composure pretty much over caps us on nearly everything, except for some of the higher tier NM (atwhich point its moot since we likely won't melee on those for any real amount of time).

/WAR is also a viable build. You get pretty much a face value of 25% damage increase (factoring in of course the 60% effectiveness of berserks timer, as well as the 10% effectiveness of Warcry). In addition to this you also get Aggressor which allows you wiggle room to adjust gear for more ATK, Haste, DA/TA what have you. Depending on that you could see a larger than 25% increase from /WAR, oh and then of course there is fencer which is a free 5% crit rate, and allows use of sentinel shield for an additional 1% haste to help off set the loss of the G.Saio a bit.

now the value of worth is a totally subjective answer, while on paper the damage output is going to be tops, this applies only to being inside abyssea, outside of abyssea we have ACC issues out of the gate, we can't get TA and DA via atmas, Crit rate drops, damage drops, enspells significantly rise as a portion our DPS and once again Multihit weapons pull ahead. The of course there is the small issue with RDM melee in general in that it has no native access to any desirable Sword WS, and no really awesome dagger (twilight knife aside). To me it isn't worth it, nothing in abyssea really has been, outside of CDC, although outside of abyssea without Atma, we are so far behind in melee its astonishing SE even lets us maintain sword/dagger skills at all.

In all honesty you are not going to notice the 17 missing ACC in abyssea, and if it you do it will be in the 1-2% range, which is minimal for the damage potential you gain. To be perfectly frank its not even worth fretting over. **** back in the days of 75 cap big DD's seldm had capped ACC and were in the 85-90 range more often then not. There is no reason a RDM can not follow the same suit now, especially in abyssea where we are pretty capable DD's. But if capped ACC is simply something you must have, then you could always eat Pizza and cap it that way, or /WAR and come out almost dead even with what /NIN gives you overall, and maybe even slightly ahead because /WAR stacks significantly better into our WS's than /NIN does, and inside abyssea with Enspell damage falling off into the ream of neglible, and WS's on our end rising to the level of average, there is a dramatic shift in the weight of our damage dealing, from the old line of thought of maximizing dot (such was the popularity of J/J) or being forced to use B/J to gain access to a respectable WS. We can now do very well with vorpal at the limited cost to our dot (via multi enspells) /WAR.

On your remarks regarding Outside of abyssea, it is true that the vast majority is a joke, mostly because of our advanced levels etc, but really RDM melee outside abyssea has not advanced much, if any at all, we have a higher ACC rating, and native ATK from skill, but all that means is we are able to hit and damage mobs more efficiently. We do not have any wicked new tools like other DD's such as WAR, or even DNC. Our casting side has been the side that has seen the most buffs, and ever since SCH RDM has been quite capable of being part of a nuking team on these mobs, even at the T3 level.

Outside of Abyssea RDM has fallen far behind not only big DD, but the jobs that we should be close to in parity (BLU/DNC). BLU hasn't received to to much in the way of updates, but they do have access to some nifty tricks, that allow them subjob versatility, they can set DW and /THF or /WAR. All be it the DW is of a low trait, the bonuses offered from these subs certainly have added value when combined with the fact they also drastically increase their casting damage output at the same time. DNC i think is pretty self explanatory, it has gone from meh...we could u haste samba, to being in the top 3 non 2H dd. (MNK I consider a 2H DD in this regard.)

For inside Abyssea it is totally worth the effort to build a nice DA/TA based set, subjob choice is up to you, there are advantages on either side but pretty much is down to WAR or NIN (which in the end will likely end up being about even in abyssea). Outside of abyssea however, even in old content we are drastically falling behind, and DA/TA will work, but not nearly be as effective, and Multi hit weapons will once again be the mainstay of a RDM melee set.

(as for the tequila thing, its not a bad thing, it just states im either drunk, getting drunk, or high (see the rest about the joint) usually anytime i frequent these boards).

Personally (if I cared at all to advance my RDM melee set, but why bother when I have a DNC that does it better and is almost just as fun to play on) I would forgo getting the DA+ weapons, and focus on getting the top tier MA weapons. If the pattern of RDM is to continue the same as it has done in the past, we can expect to see more melee gear then mage gear in the next few updates, as well as some additional tools that help us stay on the front better and increase our damage potential. Until that happens however my observation is based on where we currently stand, and unfortunately outside of abyssea, even with the increased levels RDM melee is the worst it has been since we though EXPing on Crabs and Beetles was a good idea.




Edited, Jun 2nd 2011 3:53pm by rdmcandie

Well id suggest getting the CDC (if you don't have already), and one of the other Multihit weapons. If you have a large amount of free time then worry about the DA. (optimally it is totally worth getting one) To be perfectly frank the overall DPS change is going to be pretty minor anyway. Joyeuse still gets benefit from the DA you would equip via gear/atma, all be it at a "reduced" amount a Joy combined with Alamace will actually still slightly eek out an advantage in TP gain rate (based on Delay and Number of Hits/Round), where as the CDC+DA will edge ahead in terms of sheer damage overall, and have a small advantage in the number of hits on a WS.

In the end the difference you are really talking about is maybe 3~5% on average, and varies greatly on randomness of crits, and ability or inability to use TP at exactly 100% TP.



Edited, Jun 2nd 2011 6:03pm by rdmcandie

Edited, Jun 2nd 2011 6:04pm by rdmcandie

Yes both the Kahnda and DA weapon are only a slight bit better than the joyeuse, currently. If SE extends these trials more tiers that could change things, it wasn't until Kahnda went 2-4 that it passed the joyeuse, and I think that it was concluded to be only a 1-2% edge over it in the end.

If you plan to have a bunch of swords why not just make them all then? Ii don't really get what the discussion is about now if you planned to have a plethora of options anyway, so I am going to wish you luck and respectfully bow out of this conversation.

(also Hi2U Karma camper!)

Edited, Jun 2nd 2011 9:10pm by rdmcandie

I dont agree. RR + Composure is 40 ACC. A nice chunk, but not enough alone. We still need to be eating ACC food.

Personally, I would never consider a set built for raw melee damage, because thats not what we do best. My "DD" set is a PDT/MDT hybrid build, because that is what we do best.

That said, if I were to make a damage set, I wouldnt trade any haste for DA.

This would be why you need ACC food. Abyssea increases our hit rate by +27.5% for putting on the buffs and RR. (a total of +90 dex.) If you are not capping ACC this means your Hit rate is god awful terrible to begin with. Add in the 7.5% from composure and you have a total of +35% hit rate before you have even touched sword/dagger skill, and ACC gear in your melee set, natural dex, and dex on gear.

This means you could have a hit rate of 60% before even looking at anything else outside of buffs, and still cap your ACC.

Add in a couple things I can think of of the top of my head.

Woodsman ring 2.5%
PCC 5%
Suppa (with sword) 2%

that is another 9.5% Hit rate from 3 items which don't need to be replaced. Meaning you now need a naked land rate of 51.5% to cap.

There is no reason to not be eating meat (or curry) because you are going to be capped ACC in nearly every encounter, with a fall off on NM's to a degree that is accepted by the community. If it is Ok for a WAR to eat meat and parse 85-90% ACC on an NM then it is ok for a RDM to do the exact same thing. For everything else you are likely going to be capped or close to cap nearly always.

Quote:
Melee Damage   
Player            Melee Melee % Hit/Miss   M.Acc%  M.Low/Hi   M.Avg #Crit  C.Low/Hi   C.Avg     Crit%   
xxxxxxxxxxxxx     14672 32.14%    344/61   84.94%     14/60   38.18    39    54/109   77.62   11.34 %   
Mageoholic        67666 44.52 % 1701/267   86.43%     0/114   37.1    128    42/151   71.71    7.52 %   
yyyyy             39881 30.80%   826/171   82.85%      0/74   44.34    68    63/133   92.25    8.23 %
 

This is a snipit of a parse I posted a long time ago. It does not have RR Atma, and LVL cap was 85.

Gear set was.

Blau/Joy/-/Tsting
Walmart/Spectacles/Coral/Coral
Goliard/Dusk/Woodsman/Woodsman
Ammets+1/Headlong/Venodors/Dusk

Total ACC from that gear was 23.
Food eaten was Yellow Curry Bun. (all ive eaten since composure was released)

Add in RR Atma and I break the Cap, Add in the additional 30Dex available from buffs with atmacite and I am well over the cap.

There is no reason to eat ACC food.


Edited, Jun 3rd 2011 6:07am by rdmcandie

Edited, Jun 3rd 2011 6:14am by rdmcandie

This was kinda what I mean by I'm behind the times and looking for insight.

http://www.ffxiah.com/item/11958/calmecac-trousers

*stare* ... drool.

See this would work for that build I'm talking about, and accentuate further my questions on whether it was worth the gear shift...

Do waaaant...

I've been gone for over six months. So I had no idea when these came out.

****. I don't even know how to pop "!!"s yet.


Edit:
You know... thinking on this a bit.

I could go DW+3%, Acc +10 RR, then get the Calmecac trousers.

Have Goliard for Abyssea where Accuracy is fairly well covered by Atma and other buffs, wear the Reddingnote outside Abyssea to counter the -8 Acc on the trousers, and I'd only be down 15 instead of 17 total, with superior DA/TA than my previous assessment, and the stats should balance out, performance wise.

So yep, I've made mah decision. I'll work on it and in a year when I'm catching up to what's coming out then, I'll let you all know how it works out ;)



Edited, Jun 3rd 2011 3:37pm by Hyrist

If you are fighting a lvl 95 monster you are likely in a Hero's zone.

If you are in a hero's zone then you have an extra 30 dex which is an extra 15 accuracy which should bring you close enough to the cap; to justify meat over pizza.

No matter how your slice it, given our gear and native skills/traits, ACC and ATK will always be a juggling act for us.

Yes 88% before you factor in gear at all. You need 14ACC to cap, be it from a combined +Skill (such as suppa) ACC on gear (hello PCC) Those 2 items alone is 14ACC 7% hit rate. Capped ACC, and we still havent touched any Dex on gear, or ACC on the other 14 gear slots.

You should not have to eat acc food at all you should be full timing attack food. In abyssea, all the time you are meleeing. There is no reason not to.

I'm not opposed at all to gaining another tier on Enspells in order to fix some of the issues they currently have. As they stand, we have a choice of either a low level Enspell Damage that works with multi-hits, but conflicts with Dancer's sambas, befretting us of 5-10% attack speed, which is vastly superior to the damage output of our enspells. Or taking a severe hit in enspell damage output in order to be able to get that samba effect by limiting our enspell output to the first hit in a chain (with the output formula no only horrible, but the damage itself being sub par as well.)

It'd be easier to simply make a new set of spells that meet both the damage and the synergy crateria, and honesly, it'd feel appropriate at least for enspells to go one tier further than 2. (more appropriate than tier ups on enfeebles, honestly.)

As far as gear that enhances it. I would not mind more, and it's more than possible to see that in the future. However, I want merits in that department (as well as our melee aspect in general).

Wow ya'll got some evil karma campers out there. Little bastards didn't even join the discussion, just following Hyrist around and spamming red arrow. Ohh well did what I could.

Hmm from my playing around I'd say that RDM definitely needs a gear update and balance out the WS distribution a little, we shouldn't need an Emperion weapon to get a decent sword WS. I'd like to see them boost enspells more, either modify the formula or introduce a new tier and make sure they do the calc on cast and not on strike.

Yeah inside Abyssea accuracy isn't an issue if your got the abyssites and RR, at the worst your talking Pizza+1 territory although I tend to use Bison steaks. Actually Hyrist I'd suggest you go +atk on the body rather then +acc. I know it sounds crazy but the way our skill has been scaling hitting the 40 cap on pizza is trivial if we even need it. Between composure / gear / crour (abyssea) I have an over abundance of acc and a severe lack of atk. BLU, NIN, DNC and THF's are already running into an attack problem due to how defense scales. Monsters 90 or higher should be having 350~400 defense which is turning into a nightmare to get anywhere near the cap on, especially once LCF is thrown in. The good rule of thumb I've made is 700 attack average is what you want to sit at.

On currently a very limited number of mobs. (ones that we probably wouldn't be meleeing anyway.)

Its pretty gross, at first I thought it was the usual people hitting me, until I saw everyone getting red arrowed. I been trying to keep up the green arrows but its hard when im being bounced between yellow and blue every other post.




If they do this then I really want them to scroll our merits, and maybe put t4's in their place. Drop the levels on them to the mid to late 50's give us T3's for Slow Para Blind @ 75 with Bio III(its Dark magic) and phalanx staying. Put T4's + T5 Dia @ 99 merits with Break II and Addle II as other options.

Edited, Jun 6th 2011 11:41pm by rdmcandie

I'm anti-rdm-melee for most things, but i'll rate everyone up as theres isn't a single thing that warrants a red arrow in the thread.



I concur, but its a shame the bottle of Tequila has to be empty, sounds a little negative or depressing - I hope theres another bottle of spirits around for after the empty bottle to carry on getting wasted.

I play FFXI, obviously I have more booze.

I was wondering how far down I'd have to scroll for you to see those pants, hyrist. :3

To be honest though, there's not a lot of new melee gear for RDM. If you haven't seen the likes of the Zelus Tiara then that's an epic head piece for TPing in, but other than the double/triple attack pants you were drooling over already (and i was too!) then I don't think there's much else that I can point you towards. Just some other 'All Jobs' kinds of equips that a recentish thread covered. Otherwise yeah, everything else has been said well enough by others and i guess I JUST WANTED TO COMPLAIN A LITTLE. =D

Best of luck though. I love you and your RDM melee posts, but alas that much struggle isn't for me anymore. After the spell enmity nerf I dropped red mage entirely and leveled paladin and thief to 90. Scholar is next. I'm sure you see what I'm doing there.

Edit: Green arrows for everyone! I <3 you all.

Edited, Jun 8th 2011 3:15pm by Aiyl

I has a fan! <3

Yeah, in spite of the nerfs I'll never give up on RDM (without giving up on the game itself.) It was my first job and the only one that's kept my interest all of these years. Any jobs I take up will primarily be out of curiosity, or necessity for the new merit system they put into place (Heard rumor that they will benefit those with multiple jobs leveled >.<)

But there is SO MUCH in a Red Mage that can be enhanced and embraced, and enough gear sets for at least two jobs on its own. So I figure it's a worthwhile venture to just continually invest in Red Mage. I doubt I'll ever be done gearing it.

As far as the Zelus Taria. I've spotted it. It's a lot of work to get up to that NM. But I'll be after it once I'm caught up more on the basics.

Also, random bit. I've found a new love in Procing !! in Dynamis. Yey for massive drop rates!



No numbers or anything? Back up what you say man. Explain your experiences, what you target on average, what you enjoy about the set up, etc. Just listing the stats doesn't do anything for me, as I was already aware of that build as a possibility, but lack any feedback on it.

Edited, Jun 8th 2011 4:53pm by Hyrist

Eh. I'll eventually make a build for it, but the 2-4 Khanda has kinda lost its luster for me. We could likely break those numbers + addional DoT with the build I was mentioning earlier.

I do wish we got Sanguine Blade natively though, because you could play a bit more on the support line with that build subbing Scholar and still yeild good numbers.

Denying RDM EX weapon skills really does kind of aggrivate me. After so many years it dosen't seem to hold a point any more.