Returning RNGFollow

Well certainly upgrading to AF3 +2 would be the biggest upgrade to gear and honestly not that offensively difficult to obtain these days depending on your friends.
The archery and gun empyrean WS are both good for RNG so shooting for an Empy Bow and Gun (or WoE equivalent) also should be a priority. Most RNG main will get Jishnu's Radiance first whereas those of us with both COR and RNG are shooting for Wildfire weapon.
I still use relic boots, augmented anwig, sieryu's kote, amamet mantle +1and Rajas ring in various setups. Still using scouts belt also.

If you can corner the market on ISLs, I think /SAM gets a lot more competitive. Also, if you have a relic/empy so that all that TP really pays off.

I mostly went /SAM in Aby on the rare occasions I was allowed to come RNG (largely for Blue procs during piercing time). Being able to WS more frequently outdid any extra damage /WAR offered for that sole purpose. Its rare a RNG will be invited to Aby for damage so I'm not certain /WAR remains terribly useful there. Similarly in Voidwatch, being able to pump out WS in a short amount of time is more helpful than overall damage which makes sekka, meditate very useful abilities. With the proc'ing system added to most fights, it seems to take a little bit of the onus off the uber damage numbers. OThers who do more VW than me might have more to say on the subject.
The other thing to note: if you get a WoE or Empyrean Bow, Jishnu's Radiance can crit so getting a critical hit set can be very useful for that WS esp in Aby where you can stack crit % and crit damage atmas.

Personally I had more trouble giving up my HF+1 since I was more of a gun RNG to begin with. But yeah its sad the old weapons of yore have largely gone by the wayside.

To be fair, no jobs get invited for damage in Abyssea. proc, th, survive, kill. If the fight is long enough to bore you, there's always brew.

My argument is that : in Abyssea, Atma of the Sea Daughter is really a blessing for non-melee DD like RNG, 5 TP/tick is a huge in boosting WS frequency, especially when other DD need something to hit in order to gain TP, you can just gain it while you're running (if you're in exp) or waiting your ranged attack to unleash and wait the cooldown before you can initiate the next ranged attack. The time I was using /SAM in Abyssea ends up putting myself in an excessive TP most of the time.

/WAR is really helpful on pumping the WS number up. As we know ranged attack has a lot more room for attack boost compared to melee, there's more reason to use /WAR (in exp situation).

I'm not a fan of Amber light in XP, it leads to people grousing over a few measly KIs instead of actually doing what they're there for.

Some data from a worm PT I did while skilling/playing with a KC:

RNG/WAR, Vision Bow, Demon Arrows, Strong Arm/Voracious Violet/Harvester (or something along those lines).
KC average damage: 29
KC crit average: 51
/ra average: 408
/ra crit avg: 689
Barrage avg: 3151
SW+berserk avg: 3600
SW-berserk avg: 2860

RNG/RDM, Trial Gun, level 1 ammo, Ultimate/Beyond/idk, maybe Kirin for AGI?
KC average damage: 20
KC crit average: 35
/ra average: 173
/ra crit avg: 310
Barrage avg: 1300
TF average: 2530

The TF build wasn't great, mostly thrown together from BLM and RDM plus all the AGI I could find. Then again, Sidewinder gear isn't that great either, it's just a couple gorgets and all the STR/RAtt I can find without looking too hard or spending too much.

Edited, Dec 8th 2011 2:45pm by tertoonetwothreefour