Melee notes

Remember once upon a time every COR /WAR in pink bird merit pt, gain TP with a MK or Joytoy, spamming 2k slug shot every few sec, and out parse a bunch of real DDs?

As the game progress and entered VW era, majority of COR no longer do that, instead most ppl just spam WF with a staff. Although it’s also a decent way to do dmg, I realized it happened to reached the limit, no matter how hard I try, I’m unable to break the biggest curse: Shooting is just way too slow for dmg dealing.

Recent announcement of Embrava nerf made me go back and look at melee COR once again, to push COR’s performance higher in variety of events(which is my main goal since I started this job from day 1), and how viable to COR/WAR melee + last stand spam, and COR/WAR v.s COR/DNC exen spam.

Let’s start with COR/DNC exen. It actually worked well on something like Cities T4 ironclad. But as soon as I switch to Qilin, exen starting to seemed weak. After 6 pops, even with RCB and double 11 on Chaos/Fighters, I was unable to break 2k avg, in fact, only broke 2k once entire run with over 1.1k attack. It’s slightly below my BLU/WAR’s performance with CDC also, not counting TP DPS lose without ODD, and my BLU has inferior gear. According to spreadsheet and my personal experience, exen just falls behind CDC and majority of other melee WS by a large amount. Spreadsheet shows about 1.7k avg depending on setup. Not having the option to /WAR with DW also sucked, although I may actually cap or close to capped attack with No.11 chaos and if ppl stop using bio instead of Dia.

But final verdict, exen sucked. Any WS unable to avg 2k+ on lol Qilin is pretty much not an option. And Exen as a WS in this game, just isn’t a very strong one. And if I can’t reach 2k+ avg with No.11 chaos/fighter with lv 99 arma/Thaumas 4/5, no way I can avg 2.5k+ until SE release new batch of better gears. The only benefit for /DNC exen spam on qilin, is probably haste samba for none-DRK melees and that’s it. And that’s pretty debatable, /DNC just to haste 2 ppl in pt.

Side note: When I tried exen in a PUG Qilin pt though, I actually had one of highest WS avg in ally, lol VW PUG pt ;P

So that really leaves last stand, with capped pDIF as the only option. Since last stand with proper attack buff/def down is a 3k~5k WS.

1^st question I wanted to ask myself is which weapon.

There are several choices, Aluh has highest melee DPS, and minor boost for the WS. Joytoy, the melee weapon I used at 75, now no longer have good DPS but still has fast TP gain. Another option is MK, which has fastest TP gain but but complete crap melee DPS, with a risk of hitting 0 or feed too much TP.  I couldn’t tell which one is most optimal tbh, since melee COR is a play style nobody bothers anymore. There are no discussions about it, everyone and their mother just spams WF with a staff, and nobody ever bring COR to lower lv content….including myself. ;( Can’t help it, BLU with CDC is just to boss in lower lv content ;(

Personally I’m guessing with DA roll and higher DA/TA/QA etc in melee set, MK/joytoy got devalued. But the only way to find out is ask everyone’s favorite FFXI gear question machine: Spreadsheet ;)

Using DNC spreadsheet(since DNC has same dagger skill lv as COR, and similar stat lv, except a few STR higher than COR), modified sword skill to match COR’s –B rank sword skill for joy.

With /WAR, chaos, dia2, minx2+ march x2 on qilin. ( I know kinda unrealistic to have 4 songs for qilin, but last stand not worth using with high enough pDIF already, so I’ll just try to get as many as possible) Using “standard” melee set with thaumas 4/5 and Oce head, except suppa to regain moonshade earring. Spreadsheet shows using Houyi over rancor is 1 round less to 100 TP, but since there are regain atmacite in VW, I’m too lazy to truly create super optimal set with right amount of STP.

Joytoy:

Without DA roll but has chaos:

Melee dmg per round: 129

Round/WS:9.48

Melee dmg before you WS per round: 1290

Total cycle time:700

With chaos/DA roll:

Melee dmg/round:135

Total cycle time:676

Melee dmg before you WS: 1350

MK

Chaos/fighter:

Melee dmg/round:43

Round/WS:8.67

Melee dmg before you WS:387

Total cycle time:575

Chaos only:

Melee dmg/round:40

Melee dmg before you WS:360

Total cycle time:569 (yes, using DA roll with a MK actually make you TP slower ;), thus standard TP set with too much DA isn’t even optimal for MK, but that’s another issue)

Aluh:

Chaos only:

Melee dmg/round: 150

Round/WS:11.95

Melee dmg before you WS:1800

Total cycle time: 777

Chaos+DA:

Melee dmg/round:164

Round/WS:11

Melee dmg before WS:1804

Total cycle time:724

It seems that Aluh has highest melee dmg and WS dmg, but it’s TP speed is nearly 50% longer than MK(if I understand total cycle time correctly). However, it has over 1.5k melee dmg more than MK. Aluh also add about 60ish more last stand dmg with STR at capped pDIF.

In the situation when WS dmg is really high, like 3.5k~4k, or even 5k, I only see MK pulls ahead. But if last stand can’t do 3k+(not enough attack or def down), then Aluh may pull ahead. 

Note that MK also gained extra advantage with roll slot. You don’t need DA roll with MK, so 2^nd roll slot can either be hunters or regain roll depending on acc need. However, if MK can’t hit higher than 0 on the target, then MK will be completely useless.

As for joy, it seems to fall in the middle ground between both weapon, without any specific advantage. It’s melee DPS is lower than Aluh, doesn’t offer WS boost, lower skill means lower acc, in the situation when melee DPS shines Joy falls behind Aluh. It also TP slower than MK, in the situations where last stand doing crazy amount of dmg, it can’t spam LS fast enough.

Goodbye Joytoy ;( It was my precious, meant a lot back at 75, but it’s golden era is over ;( Joytoy sucked now Q.Q

Some other random fact with this setup:

Last stand is only good with capped, or very high pDIF.  So BRD attack song is pretty much must have on top of chaos. Since COR have very little attack boost ability besides chaos roll, you need every attack and def down you can possibility get.

However, you also need capped haste for TP, which means you either need embrava, 4 song BRD, or 2 x BRD rotating pt to get enough attack. Due to how hard it is to get 4 song BRD, I believe after embrava nerf COR output would drop a lot due to losing song slot for attack song, on top of losing regain on embrava since regain benefits 1h weapon more.

Sucks that COR DDing is more attack striving than any other job. No other DD job require this amount of attack/def down support to do well. MNK WAR has crit-hit WS, SAM has shoha, DRK has lots of attack, RNG has higher attack than COR also. NIN BLU all got crit-hit WS. Although DRG also suffers from low attack, it has angon to offset the disadvantage.

COR only has light shot dia def down enhancement ;(

But advantage is advantage, and it’s necessary to abuse it for most optimal output.

So if someone uses Dia, COR/WAR should always follow with a light shot period.

Sucks that ppl in VW always likes to overwrite dia with bio……………….

Need to tell ppl stop using bio in VW especially prov unless it’s confirmed to be proc ;(

Another random fact, I don’t use QD if I’m meleeing with capped haste. All that JA delay for such small dmg and TP just doesn’t seem to worth it.

Anyways, I tried spamming last stand on prov watcher instead of WF a few times, I’m pretty certain that melee for TP and spam last stand, is better than spamming WF with a staff on none firesday. Last stand can hit 3k+ on watcher easily with that much SV BRD songs, even 4k+ if your BRD’s pimp and ppl do def down properly.  And I can’t reliably hit 3k+ WF unless on firesday and lucky that no WF got resist, or got lucky with fire shot bonus.

My highest was 4.1k on dragon, although I probably can’t do that high anymore due to WS at melee range, and sacrificed more AGI for racc to land it.

Now current list of “need to work on” items for my COR:

HQ T.abj hand/body/feet.

I honestly can’t afford body atm and don’t know anyone can T1 D; Hands may be easier to get though, I know maybe 3 ppl that can T1 it.

Feet is low priority for me now, I have NQ and going to stick with it for a while.

Mythic.

Honestly can’t see a damn situation where it pulls ahead of Arma 99 unless I’m kiting something and still dealing dmg with QD blink macro, especially recently when I found out using QD with capped haste meleeing isn’t a good idea…less reason to use a high QD dmg gun now. On top of this job’s natural low TP phrase % D; SO SAD THAT MYTHIC SUCKED SO MUCH.

But still want. Not going to sell my soul to finish it though, Mythic sucked, sucked so much. And will suck unless SE gives dmg boost to dark shot, or if there’s even 1 damn situation I can get free AM3 without having to sacrifice 1 precious WS.

MK.

I didn’t spend time to play with spread sheet for nothing, I want to try it out myself instead of listing everything on paper. High priority!

Elemental Obi.

I have fire/darkness/ice and that’s it, hard to see other element being useful tbh, low priority I guess.

PDT- waist.

Too broke to afford, but I’ll try my best D;

Meeble acc back piece

If I’m going to melee in prov, I may as well take it seriously and cap my melee acc. High priority, but meeble cool down is shit, going to take FOREVER ;(

A.Omega /ra pants. Honestly, sidegrade to Mirador due to lack of STR and lower acc. But wanted to test rapid shot effect on it D;