Empyrean weapons

Recently I've seen a lot of ppl asking "Which empyrean weapons I should work on?" kind of question on forums. And ppl often reply in all sorts of answers, involving comparison between each empyrean weapons. Sometimes there are replies telling them to do them all, which doesn't help at all.(No matter how easy/fast they are to build, no one still want to spend time to build a weapon and ended up finding it not useful)

So I'm gonna write my opinion about empyrean weapons for my jobs, based on my experience and friend's opinion.

Armageddon: This weapon has fairly diverse point of view. Some say Wildfire is extremely powerful, and the community kinda pushed Wildfire to god like status. Some say it's weak outside of abyssea, or weak against some NM due to dINT etc.....So is this weapon worth doing for CORs and RNGs, especially for future game content that's outside of abyssea? (Besides obvious answer such as "It's easy, just do it anyways")

1 year ago when SE released the info about Empyrean weapons, I mentioned I like the look of Death Penalty better, so yeah, I'm more of a fan of Death Penalty but not Armageddon XD

But I still have to say that Armageddon is probably the best well-rounded weapon COR can get atm, and the reason is more than 10k WS dmg this weapon can do, or brewing situations. Wildfire kinda started all the "Gun mage" play style for COR, and associate COR to magic dmg dealer somehow, which is very different from old pink bird pt where COR is melee/ranged physical WS hybrid job. Outside of abyssea, without atma/cruor buffs, Wildfire is a lot weaker, but still decent enough to deal magical dmg when magical dmg are needed.

To sum up, Wildfire provides another way to deal dmg for DD CORs if necessary for certain situation. If a COR ended up having to fight mobs that has Invincible, or Perfect dodge, or fighting skeletons/scorpions/flans type of mob, or high def/eva mobs in general, Wildfire will get the job done better than slug. If CORs are fighting mobs weak against piercing, or have enough DD buffs to hit very high slug number, then Armageddon with highest base dmg and +15 AGI will still provide very high slug dmg.

Wildfire is certainly not "One WS rules them all" like how COR community labeled it, it has weakness, it doesn't work on fire and water elementals, or Glavoid, or goblin NM, or Amarok/Orthus or a lot more mobs sometimes, and it's only on the same lv as slug outside of abyssea. It's more like a complement to the physical WS COR can use. COR already has access to very strong physical WS such as Evisceration in Abyssea, and Slug shot outside. And Wildfire provides the magic dmg needed when physical dmg doesn't work too well. It's more than just a brew toy or abyssea epeen WS, it completes COR's DD arsenal even outside.

Therefore, although I'm a big fan of Death Penalty, I'd still have to say Armageddon is probably more useful than Death Penalty atm for CORs, since it can be used in almost every situation, while DP only shines in very, very few situation such as QD spam only, or /ra with triple shot etc.

So, WoE version or Armageddon? In brewing situations, WoE version and Armageddon is exactly the same, so for anyone just want a brew toy, WoE version is enough. But if you want to use COR for none-brewing situations, then extra AGI on Armageddon is gonna make quite a bit of difference.

Now on to next question, should RNGs do Armageddon? I don't have RNG, but I'd rather do Annihilator if I'm a gun RNG, and Gandiva for more dmg if enmity is not an issue. Wildfire RNG without fireshot dmg boost is just gonna be COR -1 with Armageddon, while Annihilator has higher rattk and base dmg, decent relic WS after relic WS dmg boost, plus low enmity aftermath after WS. I guess Armageddon may be useful for RNGs if magic dmg are needed for certain situations, but COR -1 is COR -1. 8D




Almace: I personally don't have Almace, but I somehow pt with Almace owners a lot and see them in action, .....So I guess I can still write my opinion about it. XD

In Abyssea, CDC is a very strong WS. BLU or PLD with CDC is on another tier of DD when fighting NMs compare with none Almace BLU or PLD. However, in order to make the best out of it, you probably need to play BLU/PLD/RDM with a passion, and play those jobs very often and refuse to change to easy mode jobs to get something done.

If you only lv BLU to for yellow proc, then you don't need CDC. If you only lv BLU for Abyssea cleave burn, then you don't need CDC. BLU's dmg against lower lv NM and old lv 75 EG content is actually high enough without CDC by doing spell spams. Having CDC or not is not gonna make a damn difference in Nyzul or Einherjar in terms of dmg output....CDC dmg isn't high enough outside of abyssea especially without buffs, and BLU's dmg ratio will go toward spell dmg against those EP mobs. Spending more time to TP and WS actually lower the dmg IMO.

Therefore, for BLU, CDC only shines in Abyssea against T2+ NMs. It fixed one of the biggest weakness for DD BLU: Spell dmg sucked against NMs due to lv correction.

But the real question is, do you play BLU often enough to use BLU against Abyssea higher tier NMs? Most ppl play MNK or WHM or NIN in such situations. And if someone is a BLU, he/she is usually just yellow proc bitch in the pt and shouldn't engage the NM to eat AoE and TP feed. In order to make the best out of CDC for BLU, the BLU need to main tank/DD and full time engage the NM, not just a yellow proc bitch that stand outside of range and watch MNK or NIN rape the NM like most BLUs do nowadays.

Same thing applies to PLD, Almace kinda fixed one weakness PLD has, dmg output and enmity generation in Abyssea. But do you really play PLD in Abyssea? You can just play MNK or NIN and get the job done faster and easier in Abyssea. Not to mention RDM, which is not just a mage job, and it's a no-no mage job in abyssea. In order to make CDC really worthwhile in Abyssea, you really need to love PLD/BLU/RDM to a point to play those jobs in Abyssea when you're supposed to play MNK NIN WHM instead.

Outside of Abyssea, CDC dmg is much lower than many other empyrean WS, it's much lower than Ukko and Victory smite. My Slug average from COR/WAR is still higher than CDC average from BLU/NIN in Einherjar. It's still the strongest physical sword WS, just not strong enough when comparing with other WSs. BLU spamming spells in Nyzul/Einherjar is probably more effective than focusing melee TP/WS with CDC. I haven't done many voidwatch NM, so I'm not sure how good they are for new content, but Ager told me his CDC on PLD is only 300~500 while SAM can WS for 1k on those NMs. So I guess this WS isn't strong at all against those higher def/eva mobs. In fact, I still see Ager use traditional OA2~4 sword+ Atonement spam a lot on PLD outside of abyssea as well. Again, RDMs shouldn't melee those new NMs, and BLU can probably go back to old BLU/THF SATA cannonball or run in Efflux QC run away when fighting them.

Does BLU need Almace? My opinion is, if you love your NIN/MNK/WAR/SAM as much as your BLU, you can do weapons for other jobs first, BLU can really live without an Almace, and CDC isn't that good outside of Abyssea. I'm not sure about PLD, but I'd do Ochain first(which is an empyrean that truly makes a huge difference) if I'm a PLD especially if old Atonement spam revive in the future, although CDC can still be a very useful physical WS for PLD if needed.