Valor SurcoatFollow

3 years, got it a week before they increased dynamis drop rate :)
With increased drop rate, I wouldn't be too pessimistic if I were you. Good luck!

http://ffxi.allakhazam.com/db/jobs.html?fjob=5;mid=118698486045916906;page=5;howmany=100#m121213589868274702

http://ffxi.allakhazam.com/db/jobs.html?fjob=5;mid=118698486045916906;page=5;howmany=100#m1212456069242329706

Check the dates.

Hello, I'm the leader of the Kazoku Dynamis linkshell on Fenrir. I saw your post in the job section menu so I'll try and take a stab to answer that question^^


Your luck on obtaining the Valor Surcoat depends on 3 factors: 1) the frequency of your shell doing Xarcabard, 2) your competition among your fellow members of the linkshell and 3) farming efficiency within Xarcabard. The first and second categories are probably the biggest obstacles any plds will face when trying to obtain the surcoat. Generally, you want to be in a linkshell that does Xarcabard as often as possible (2-3 runs per month) if you're wishing to see a low to moderate movement in the AF line. Your competition also matters big time. If you have recently entered a linkshell with 4-5 people ahead of you, you can definitely expect to wait for the item 2-4 months before you get to the top three. The only way to break this bubble is to either keep up your pace in points hoping that your competitors will waste their points on other items or simply get involved with leadership roles and perform various tasks like being a main tank and such. Lastly, farming efficiency is very important because the rate of AF drops depends on how well your linkshell handles mobs. You can actually gauge this efficiency once you clear all of the tower NMs. Having 1 hour 30 min to 2 hours left on the clock after the last tower NM & time extension is dead is a good sign of linkshell progress. Clocking out of Xarcabard before or during the clearing the wall of eyes is a very bad sign of farming efficiency.


Most of my top PLDs in my shell have received their Valor bodies in various ways, some are lucky, some are not. Since the start of the shell, my oldest member PLD recieved his Valor Surcoat in 6 months since he joined. Thereafter, 2 recieved Valor bodies 3 weeks after that run (1 from NM, 1 from regular mob SE from the Wall of Eyes). We recieved several more and I'm observing its probably 1 out of every 4-5 Xarc runs.


Anyways, the point is don't despair about this item, it is certainly obtainable however you must figure out where your position is because 40% of getting this item is based on where you are in this linkshell for priority, 30% is based on farming efficiency, and 30% is based on the luck of it dropping.


Artanis of Fenrir

We are doing Xarc this weekend, and I should be first in line for it, ill know once the points are updated. If anything im second in line for it. Last Xarc run we did PLD body dropped, so maybe it will drop for us again lol.

Edited, Feb 17th 2009 10:18am by Markynaz

I started Dynamis in 2005, and our LS only saw 2 surcoats between that time and the time I left them spring '08. One was in 2005 around christmas, and the other was in 2007 fall/christmas time. So roughly 2 years apart. In 08, after I left, and after the increase drop rates in northlands update happened, we saw 2 coats drop on...the same night I believe. If not, it was within a 2 week period(the interval in which I spoke with a friend in the shell). Our RDM hat drop rate was the same, and we got one hat before the drop rate update, and one or two after the update, whereas previously we only had one EVER drop from the shell's inception, in early 2004.

Fear not my friend. Those who waited 2-4 years are those who finally got theirs near/around the time of the update. Newer PLD's who are just entering into Dynamis will find it much easier. I'd say expect somewhere between 2 months and 1 year, max.

Edited, Feb 17th 2009 11:36am by FenrirXIII

fat chicks need love too.

I've passed on surcoat for my paladin like 3 times now, so I don't have to toss it when I finish my ares body.

Its a good body, but theres a million alternatives to it available, and 2 enmity over gallant won't make or break you.

I can't argue against the Ares piece... but the Surcoat's latent Cover effect should be its selling point regardless if you're a 35piece or a few imperial wootz ingots short of completion.

At the very least... You can always store the entire set

Edited, Feb 17th 2009 1:25pm by amdgsrt

I won't get the rest of the set either because the effects are too small to even waste inv space on them. The boots would be ok in the rare occasions I blood tank, but I rarely blood tank. My paladin is more the backup "this just popped so we need a fast good tank" tank. Legs I already have hydra, IR, wlegs, mlegs, and homam. There is no situation where I'd ever use legs. Hands? Not worth carrying for an extra 10 damage to bash. Head? Wooowwww, 15 more seconds on rampart.

Body is the only piece that I could ever use, since the latent cover effect is so utterly useless (I can't imagine a single situation I'd ever use it....I've never even ever had to Cover anyone, ever). Co-Tanks either survive or are 1-shot. Theres no room or time to cover. And I can't imagine ever attempting to Cover someone at a Fafhogg, tiamat, or any other thing I'd ever see myself tanking.

The pieces do have uses, but my inventory can't handle carrying them for the incredibly small series of uses while I collect them, and then take them out.

The latent involves getting punched in the face and recovering MP. I don't get hit, and I'm not going to intentionally cover the cotank, then drop shadows and let the mob hit me for 30 seconds.

In a situation where you have a high chance of being hit anyway, and you have to cover someone, its worth having. But the fact that in every situation I tank theres no such thing as Cover since it only covers your own party, makes the surcoat latent suck.

I know you cover for the latent. Thats pretty no crap.

Never ever ever ever?

Got the body for my lvl 62 pld not very long ago. I had always wanted to lvl pld to 75 so I actually put that in my /seacom all the time when we do dynamis just in case all 75 plds have it and it doesn't go to someone with lvl 1 pld. So finally I got it after being lvl 62 for 1 year or so, now my pld is lvl 70 and going to be 75 soon. I have always had been this way, getting gears before I have the job at 75. I had drg af2 5/5 and pld af2 5/5 before reach 65. I just like lvling into gears I got, that gives me the greatest thrill.

Doing so without lotting over any lvl 75 of the above jobs? priceless... all those were lotted after all lvl 75s have it. :D

In my first ever dynamis xarca run it dropped.

I was a 75 PLD for probably about a year and a half before that run.

I can feel the hatred!

The problem is, if you ever say that 1 gear that looks pretty isn't 100% as good and useful as another gear, then people are going to fight for no reason.

Lots of paladins dream of getting valor surcoat (why nowadays, i dunno. Its just some average eyecandy gear), and I said its ok but i'd never waste inventory space on an item that I might not use once in a 6 month period. Its not that the gear is bad, its just that its skill enhancement sucks, and theres other gear available with better stats.

Plus I'm an elitist, so I have a few fanboys who follow me and rate me down whereever I go.

Im not hating on Surcoat. I actually like it.I always wanted to get one. But now that I have other idling pieces, I dont need it.

Its basically this, if you dont have Atonement, and AF the only piece you have, Surcoat is very nice. However, if you do have Atonement, imo, hauby will do much better than having 4enm. If you want to be a maximizer and macro it into your flashes for the added 7CE, thats fine, or any JA/cure.

Atm, I have Avalon, and will soon be working for an Ares body piece. Id probably keep Avalon still until I could get a Hydra drop........which means ill probably never sell my Avalon as by that time it will be worth 2 gil (._. )

Ive used the plenty in low-man wyrm fights when mp actually becomes an issue. I don't understand why it covers its attacks in the air (which are magical as far as I know since resist gear/ rampart works on them) but ill swap it on, refill my mp and be good to go. This shouldn't be an issue with a full ally etc, but you won't always have that with you =P

Endgame isn't the only thing to do either =P I can't personally think of a time I needed it in a mission, but I was done with them all when I got it lol. Im sure there are plenty of situations outside of endgame where it would come in handy.

It's true, you would probably never need it if everything always went perfect, but people dont't always have the perfect set up available to them. To some it may be a waste of space, but to the person that wants to optimize their performance for every single possible situation in the game, it's a great piece to have.

I don't even want it, yhelothar Hydra Haubert.

my LS actually has a running joke about the amount of times that bitching has led to AF2. When we dont get any AF2 people get accused of not bitching hard enough lol :P

a lot of the time i say on teamspeak "WHERE IS THE GOD DAMN AF TWO!?" and then we get WAR body or BST hands drop >.> wish we got as many rdm hats as we did war and bst..

Just got Valor Surcoat today in dynamis. Cant wait to finish dynamis and go use it! lol

Just got my Are's body so I'm playing around with different setups, but the three points I can make so far:

1. The 1mp/tick helps over the course of a long fight, 2mp/tick naturally becomes 3mp/tick with it, which becomes 6mp/tick with Refresh, which etc etc, more Refresh is never a bad thing since you should never be sitting at full MP.

2. I'm hating the ACC loss from not idling in a Hauby +1, I'm not whiffing all the time but I am missing more than I would like, although it remains to be seen if this is accurate or if it's just me freaking out and feeling like my ACC took a nosedive. (Haven't parsed is what I mean)

3. I macro my Valor in Flash and JAs, so I'm not losing anything there, I'm having the same Enmity gain combined with more Refresh.

Ares is the end-all best idle piece to tank in if you're not going acc for some reason.

There is -never- a time as paladin if you're not just standing with your thumb up your ass that you should be full of mp. If you're not curing other people in the ally, you should be spam curing yourself. You're not a nin/drk or rdm/nin, you don't have lots of fast spells to use, so you have to use cures to keep the mobs attention on you. If you need acc, you can eat sushi.

Avalon, in the average hnm fight, is really only useful for its accuracy. 4 minutes in, all that enmity you're trying to stack onto your body just stopped working because you capped hate. Now all you have to do is spam spells and maintain. Oh wait, theres a useful body that leaves the hat open that gives you more mp and makes you hit harder so you get less 0's while meleeing for atonement!

Other bodies are situationally useful, but ares is useful in more situations than all the others.

I've had mine for a few years now. Took ages to get though back then.

Ares's vs. Valor is a pretty pointless argument for people that have both, since idling in Enmity gear purely for the Enmity isn't doing much vs. the ability to either damage the mob or get MP back faster to spam cures more often.

Also, you can macro Valor into Cover if you tend to Cover people often, and you can even macro it into all of your JAs, Flash, Cures, or some combination of those. (In before another stupid blinking argument)

Thats basically everyones point for Ares. The majority of time youll be spending casting spells, which is where the refresh affect becomes potent.

The enmity on valor surcoat is only going to give you 7CE/51VE on your flashes and roughly about the same on your cures. In a 30 minute fight, you are going to get 600mp back from the 1tic of refresh on ares body. Thats 24 flashes or 13 cure IIIs or 6 cure IVs that you got to squeeze out of the mp that ares provided you with.

Is it worth the cost? I dont think so, though Id be willing to pay 8mil for it. The 8mil isnt the killer, its the drop rate (._. ).

Valor surcoat is indeed a good piece, but if it came to deciding whether Id equip the surcoat or Ares. It be Ares, for me.

Then again, why not have both? There are fights that youll see yourself usually needing MP(for me thats cerb) and other fights where you never have to worry about MP so much(for me thats khim). In those situations you could decide for youself, emnity body or refresh body. Or both and blink, to each their own.





Edited, Mar 12th 2009 9:18pm by hitoseijuro

This is why the refresh on Ares is so valuable. We need MP to build hate, having more lets us build more hate.



Idle sets do work. A number of the Paladins here use them, myself included.



If you are casting non-stop you are burning thru your MP too quickly. While Tanking is a very active activity, you still have "idle" time.



Once your hate is capped, you have to do less to keep it there. This gives us more "idle" time. In addition, a 750 damage weapon skill is a hate spike that doesn't even cost MP. So maximizing my idle set helps me build more hate, and not only does it let me build more hate with less MP spent but it actually helps me recover my MP faster.



If you aren't swinging and are really constantly cure spamming, you are burning thru MP must faster than you need to be. Constant cure spamming is not sustainable from a MP perspective. If you are chain casting so much that you rarely swing your sword, you are going to run out of MP, if you aren't then you can benefit from maximizing your TP gain.



There is a ring with 24Atk 12 Str and refresh? or a neck piece? or a back piece? Ares body is incredible because it gives you all of that in ONE slot. two flame rings is only 10 Str, a cerb mantle is only 15 Atk, Parade gorget is only refresh, name the one piece of gear that offers me all of this in one slot and I'll go buy it.



Atonement has dramaticly changed our gear options. I often eat sushi for the hugew boost to Acc, and I have enough acc in my other gear slots where the ares body's HUGE bonuses to atk and Str while giving me extra refresh is perferabel to any other body piece. Once again its the combination of all of these stats in one slot that make it an incredible piece. With sushi and my DD tanking kit, my Acc is around 90% on things like Cerberus and Khim. I don't use a Hauby +1 because the huge bonus to Str AND Atk AND Refresh are better then a just Acc in this slot.

The refresh on Ares body will result in better hate holding than a bit of enmity will. Even is situations where you aren't meleeing. Even if you remove the entire hitting for 0 and TP gain arguments, the refresh on it's own will end up generating more hate than a bit of enmity will over an extended fight.



The situations where it is useful is most of the time. Even on stuff like tiamat in the air, Ares is better than Avalon. You can hit 310 fire resist without using a body for resist. You dont need 5% damage reduction when tia is already hitting your for extremely low damage already. The refresh will generate more hate than a 5% reduction in what is already minimal damage.

Even if you are being hit for 100 damage while tia is in the air *and that's a lot*, Avalon will drop that by only 5 Damage, and as you take less damage the value of -5% damage taken becomes worth even less. 1mp a tic refresh will generate more hate than taking 5 more damage will lose.

Vs JoL you can hit the cap on Magic damage taken without Avalon so once again ares for the refresh is better.

Cit. buster? Once again you can cap -MDT without Avalon so in my mind the refresh is perfered.

Avalon is a great body piece, but its not better than Ares.



Look at it stat by stat, what other piece gives refresh (Parade gives refresh but there is no reason not to stack these)? or 12 Str or 24 Atk? And we are ignoring the lol vit and Def of this piece, as well as the added HP which are all nice bonuses even though we wouldn't gear specifically for these stats. One again however, there is nothing that gives you ALL of this at the same time in only one slot.

As far as it "getting the job done". I am one of the main tanks in a very active HNMLS. Ares gets the job done for me and my LS on a daily basis. I had a Hauby +1 I have a Mbody, I have a Valor surcoat, I have used an Avalon breastplate. My opinion of Ares being the best body piece for a Paladin especially in the endgame arena is based off of having or having used just about every other body piece available to a Paladin. My opinions are based off of my experiences with these items and gear sets, I've tried the other options and Ares work the best in my opinion.



What value is the head piece? It's 5% haste or 12 Acc 12 Atk. This is ignoring the fact that Vermy doesn't have 24 Atk and 12 Str on it.

36 Atk 12 Str 12 Acc with refresh or 24 Atk 12 Str 5% Haste with refresh Vs just refresh

That seems pretty substantial to me, logic would dictate either of the first two gear sets is preferable. And considering how quickly I get TP I am quite sure we do spend enough time "idle" to make these sets worth it.

I really think you just over value enmity and undervalue refresh. There is a lot more information on the actual effect of enmity on our hate levels then they was in the past, and with all the info we have on hate caps and hate values I realize how I over valued enmity in the past. My gear set now doesn't have nearly as mush enmity as it had in the past, and in spite of that my hate holding hasn't suffered at all, quite the opposite it has gotten much better.

Sincerely,
Hankthetank

Edited, Mar 13th 2009 2:02am by Hankthetank