BLU DD analyze

Recently, someone on my server posted a "BLU should get invite to incursion cuz I can support and outparse MNK and SAM" then started lots of drama. In fact someone sent a /tell to me in game saying BLU is useless in incursion cuz of stun and so on, only bad mages need a BLU.

Also there are several thread on OF complaining how MNK is much stronger than BLU and such.

So I decided to post some opinion regarding this matter. IMO whenever this DD issue is brought up, it always became a 1 sided POV with everyone and their mother exaggerating to defend for their favorite setup.

IMO, BLU is indeed a DD job that you sacrifice some output for extra support, which is fact. However, BLU's output is also fairly close to a MNK, while MNK provides extra HP and formless, BLU provides hardenshell(which can be AoEed), cocoon and aoe erase.

I haven't play the job for a while, however, after sitting down and play with spreadsheet, I was fairly shocked at how much dmg increase BLU got recently, mainly because recent set point increase which allows extra DD job trait.

At 70 set points, besides basic TA/DW3/acc bonus/cocoon/def down/haste2/WoP/store TP1, BLU can also set:

1) Extra 2 tiers of acc bonus, anytime you need acc buff, this job trait allows more multi attack in gear.
or
2) Crit attack bonus
or
3) Skillchain bonus
or
4) Mix them....such as 1 tier of acc bonus+ crit attack bonus, remove wind/cocoon/haste2 for extra DD job trait.

Note that I think I'm missing some other DD trait, since I'm not familiar with new traits/spell after 2014.

Since my spreadsheet does not have crit attack bonus job trait, I'll set acc bonus3 job trait for now.

I think one of the major advantage of BLU is the high acc without the need to rely on  JA such as focus. The downside is that BLU doesn't have good offensive JA like Impetus.

Spreadsheet target: tojil, no acc buff from food, no COR and GEO, just BRD march and min. Both MNK and BLU uses R15 path B delve2 weapon, using gear sets on the last page of AH forum. I also switch sets for MNK when focus down to make sure acc is exactly capped.

MNK's avg DPS while factoring impetus/focus/berserk up and down: 711
BLU's avg DPS, while factoring berserk up and down: 647

I may be gearing wrong on both jobs, but it shouldn't make more than a few DPS difference. Around 90% of MNK it seems. If you don't have a mage that can haste 2 or need to turtle, BLU can get a lot closer to a MNK.

While it's not SAM(which is an untouchable DD anyways), IMO BLU can compete with other DD under certain circumstances. The question is, will you sacrifice 10% dmg to invite a DD that can do 10% def down, AoE def+, aoe erase and self haste?

Note that the argument of "just stun the move in incursion" is invalid IMO, anytime the move goes off it's dmg decrease for everyone. I've been clearing delve before ilv added to the weapon when stuns were really important and the groups that can clear them always had competitive stunner, I've never seen a group with 100% stun rate unless they're using robot. Sometimes ppl just miss stuns, it's called human error.

IMO, if you factor the human error in event, BLU isn't that bad as a DD. It's certainly not half of MNK like how ppl on OF claimed.

BTW, I used to defend for the usefulness of other job's job point category, now I'm starting to see how broken BLU's job point category is - -. You can gain 1~2 extra job trait with 10/10 job point, when job point category increase to 30 it'd be utter OP, while other DD job may not gain extra job trait since max lv stick at 99.

Oh and btw, some fact:

Almace 119 isn't bad at all, don't listen to what forum person says, especially someone on the forum who often downplay the performance of legendary because he doesn't have one. According to spreadsheet, when ODD is up it certainly beats delve2 R15, and ODD is fairly easy to activate, unlike AM3 from mythic.

If you look at the fact that almace has extra acc, and the ability to activate odd at 1000 TP, it can probably compete with mythic under certain situation as well.

BLU!

Ever since last update WoE coins price dropped a lot, so I decided to finally unlock CDC and play with BLU again.

I haven't play BLU and gear it properly for nearly 1 year D: My gears are sooo 2013! I missed sooo many spells D:

One of the main reason is because unlocking empy WS was too expensive for me, and BLU is nearly unplayable without CDC after WS update. Further more, my COR almost always bring more to the pt in terms of pt output, so I'm mostly on COR 24/7.

Anyways, now that I can finally afford CDC thanks to dice price drop, time to play BLUUUU! 

So, what's my opinion about BLU atm?

In WoE BLU seems like a popular job, on my server at least. Mainly because ability to deal ranged dmg via dart. Against fodder= haste2+ melee, against NM with terrible AoE= dart.

In Incursion, it can parse surprisingly high v.s another top DD like SAM. Mainly because aoe erase attack down and slow= more dmg. Self buff haste2 after haste/march dispel= more dmg as well. Harden shell/cocoon means less turtle, and you do need a lot of turtle to stay alive in incursion.

Overall, I think this job isn't nearly as bad as everyone said IMO. Time to start drama if I don't get invite on BLU! :D

Head Wind VD

I've been doing Head Wind for DW belt for a while now, after 4 runs I finally got it. Below are some of the experience.

Each cat drops stuff after being killed, therefore this BC can drop loot 3 times and there's a good chance to obtain stuff. It is also possible to obtain gears without getting clear.

First run: Normal
Since nobody has access to D+, I had to start with normal. Made a gimp /shout pt for normal, won after 1 wipe/recover. But I kinda got some experience for it and able move on to harder mode.

Note that the drop on normal is extremely bad, I don't recommend doing normal at all.

2nd Run: Difficult
Basically super buffed zerg with better DD, cleared in 4 min. Atm we still hold the record for this BC with that 4 min kill! :D

3rd Run: Very Difficult
The kill speed in VD is much, much slower than D. So the DD really need to turtle a bit to stay alive. COR dmg suck here because last stand is nearly unusable, even with sushi, full racc WS set, arma 119 it barely land without prelude. If I get madrigal no slot for prelude :( Magical WS doesn't work very well, so all I have left was melee WS D:

I guess melee WS isn't useless for COR, after all.

This VD run was fail because WHM got hit by breakga and nobody had RR :< Belt dropped after BST dead, but I didn't win it D:

4th Run: Very difficult
Won. DW belt gotgotgotgotgot! :D

I'm not sure how was the real drop rate with only 1 D and 1 VD clear experience. It is possible that belt has higher drop rate in VD since it dropped in both VD fight, but not D.

However, VD is also much** harder than D. Mobs in D just melt, in VD it takes a while. DD really need to turtle if shadows not up.

After another weekend yorcia merc, IMO......

The best setup for yorcia delve2 is probably 3 koga fudo SAM + BRD WHM GEO.....

Legendary rank for all coalitions.......

Still a long way to go.............D:

After all that yorcia spam on weekend....

I start to get the conclusion that SAM isn't the only job that got major buff last update.

Before update when I went to yorcia delve with LS, I did around 46% of another rag DRK on NM T1~5, this doesn't include wopket, which resists piercing and the gap usually get bigger. Against another LS SAM who died half the time, I was around 60% of his dmg too.

After update, against same SAM I was only 2% behind with no death. In fact, after entire weekend of yorcia spam with various slashing DD, I was usually around 2%~5% behind. This is when pt with slashing DD who gets extra dmg on wopket, while being an inferior DD with piercing dmg. Some ppl used to do double amount of dmg I can before update, now only ended up only a few % ahead.

I only get to pt with 1 Koga SAM, although I don't think the result count cuz he wasn't playing properly, the parse still shows it's 4% behind after all 6 NM.

Unless ppl suddenly forget how to play DD after update, the only logical conclusion is last update buffed COR's output a lot too. Although in COR's case its less severe than SAM, since you can only have 1 COR in pt and it won't replace every DD, but in SAM's case it'd just kill every other DD job.

There are several reason why the gap became much lower:

1) Leaden salute.

Before update, COR dmg was fairly shit on T4 5 and wopket, with new leaden salute+ voidstorm and darksday if lucky, it's actually decent with 8k avg that isn't affected by evasion or flash from wopket. It went from completely useless on wopket to DD-able now.

That being said, since Fudo is distortion and leaden is gravitation, it makes darkness instead of light D:

I want light q.q

2) OAT dagger.

The new OAT dagger and 1h TP gain update increased WS frequency quite a bit. The ideal roll to get the best out of it is SAM roll instead of DA roll though, since DA roll doesn't increase ranged WS dmg and SAM roll increase TP gain for melee, WS AND QD. With a good number SAM roll, dagger can gain 100+ TP a hit, sometimes it takes 3 dagger attack round to hit 1000 TP with SAM roll.

Note that according to spreadsheet number, in low acc situations with 1 roll being hunter, and using leaden as main WS, SAM+ hunter seems to beat chaos + hunter or MAB + hunter.

It can be quite challenging to do THAT many different rolls in a run while maintaining DPS, especially if mages ask for MAB buff too. I often ended up sticking with wrong roll in yorcia.

Time to grind PR duration + job point D:

3) Buff potency increase with new +5 ring. So yeah, as a buff job, can't ignore the buff potency increase, which seems pretty huge according to some of the testing.

Anyways, time to sell more yorcia win for $$, can't afford Ergon weapon D:

After update....

Did a yorcia 6 NM run after update, it seems this zone is quite friendly with casual now. Even with skirmish GKT SAM(inferior weapon to shark GKT/Koga), mandy died in less than 2 min and morta died in around 2~2.5 min. The entire zone was done in around 21 min with avg DD, which was about the same as Tojil 6 NM run pre-update, but with more plasm. If the pt had Koga SAM it'd probably be a sub 15 min clear!

After I change TP build to OAT dagger+ SAM roll I can no longer keep up with current TP speed, I often ended up WS at 1500 TP instead of 1000. Time to do more macro adjustment. :<

Now that leaden salute.....

Now that leaden salute is a viable WS depending on situation, I guess I can finally use hunter/snapshot in low racc situations :D

The fact that leaden salute is OP at 300 TP means it's much better to maintain aftermath with less dmg lose :D

Ergon weapon.....WIP?

Legendary rank: Only finished 1 so far....

HP bayld: Cost 400M total, no money D:

Long way to go until I can get an Ergon weapon D: Maybe it's cheaper to do a 2nd mythic after all.

Mage job players, and DD mind set

I have to agree, recently I've been quite mean to mages when they don't have boost STR on WHM, or parse low in yorcia. However, after I cool down I kinda regret my attitude toward them.

Most of the FFXI player should already know, finding a BRD WHM SCH for delve run is the hardest. There are several reasons:

1. Players tend to play DD more.....idk why. But I'm also a DD job only player in every MMO, so maybe I don't have the right to complain.

2. Support jobs are the least recognized job in FFXI. There are measurable number to determine who is good at their job on DD, by parsing. But you can't really determine who is good at BRD WHM SCH unless you actually pt with them.

And even if you pt with them, you can only determine how good they're at the job by making assumptions based on personal experience.

If you pt with awesome mage A, and pt with another awesome mage B, you can only say "Both A and B is awesome", but you can't tell who is more awesome without a measurable number.

3. It's a lot easier to make mistake on mage jobs, and when they do, it's usually make or break.

The result is, mage jobs require more work and in the end, and it's usually the first to blame when things went wrong.

Therefore, ppl who plays mage because the LS needs them should deserve some credit regardless how they perform, IMO.

Speaking of support, recently Sogomi challenged me with the "DD mind set". He claimed we shouldn't only look at the dmg dealt when determining whether a DD is good or not, but also the amount of cure the DD needs.

Although it may make sense, in practice it's hard to judge DD with the amount of cures required too. That's because, in a short zerg fight like delve NM, the NM tend to stick on the DD generating most hate.

For example, if me and a MNK engaged the same NM on the same time, according to my experience, the NM tend to stick on the MNK most of the time because MNK can deal dmg faster than me, thus generating hate faster than me too.

I may be just eyeballing, but my experience is, I don't get hit as much as the other DDs in same pt, even if the hate bounce around, NM tend to pay attention to other DD first.

Therefore, it's not exactly accurate to judge DD hierarchy based on the dmg taken either.

I guess in the end, "who is good and who is bad" is just personal experience thing.

Yorcia 1337

After a few more yorcia delve 6 NM run I finally collected a bit more data I need for this zone.

Ideal 6 man setup is probably DDx3 WHM BRD GEO. However, for ppl like me without other useful job and have to come COR, 7 is probably better than 6.

That is because, COR's output on T4, T5 and Wopket dropped significantly, to a point that it may not worth 3rd DD slot anymore. T4 is the same classic "If you get madrigal you can't get prelude" issue. Although it's still possible to land it with full racc build, the lack of Minuet makes LS quite weak, I ended up using WF all the time on T4.

Until WF can do 5~7k dmg like LS, the output on Mandy will drop a lot.

On T5 it's the same amnesia over and over and over. For a job that heavily rely on JA+WS for dmg, amnesia sucked. I've thought about melee right after NM TP move, then /ra when it's about to do TP move to dodge amnesia, but in practice it's not worth the effort to walk back and forth like that.

On Wopket, everyone and their mother knows piercing job sucked.

Therefore, the ideal setup with a COR in pt should be 7, that way the extra dmg from buffing 3 person should be able to make the job worth a spot. However, 6 person 2 DD yorcia is certainly doable. One advantage for 6 person pt is that COR can toss a wizard's roll for the nuker.

Ideal SJ should be /DNC again, because 13% def down from steps easily outweight w/e /WHM can offer. With 3 mages in pt it's not hard to haste 4 melee. Just bring Meds if mages can't -na fast enough.

In fact I'm going to advocate /DNC most of the time, just for 13% def down from steps, unless it's not realistic to run in and step stuff. In that case it'd be /DRG and /ra or /NIN.

Personally I /ra on T5 instead of melee, so 3 DDs can still form triangle formation. Thanks to recent Mog wardrobe, it is now possible to /ra and melee in same event depending on situation, without the need to spend time to move the gears around.

QD acc set is required on T4 mandy unless your mage is pro enough to dispel all the time. In my case no mage ever dispel fast enough on mandy so I had to do it myself. With QD acc set I had nearly 100% land rate on dispel, without a proper set it's quite hard to land.

On Wopket I just focus on Windshot most of the time, I made a high dmg no recast QD set to chain windshot with RD/WC.

Now that I got the data I want from yorcia, hopefully I can get some data for other delve2 zone too.

Dagger job competition

Because someone brought up the topic of COR v.s DNC as 3rd pt slot/support DD on the forum, I decided to play spreadsheet and find out the real king of dagger job/support DD in FFXI.


Target: Tojil, SV march x2 mad min. On DNC I have sabre dance/berserk/aggressor/boost STR/haste samba as buff, 23% def down as debuff(that means dia+ full step). On COR I have Boost STR/chaos/fighter/haste samba as buff, 15% def down as debuff(dia+ light shot). Since I'm assuming the other 2 slot is real DD so DNC and COR isn't in same pt, so DNC doesn't receive COR buff and vice versa.

My DNC TP/WS set:

Gimpfania reserves the right to gear wrong because I don't play DNC ^^;

P.S: That gorget/belt seems gear wrong for exen, but in reality it gives better number than other stuff I can think of.

QD dmg is 1098, that means + 27 DPS= 482 DPS total. I can't find vanir on the list and I'm too lazy to add it, so I just use Laksamana feet in WS set.

The difference is very small, basically nearly the same since there are room for me to gear wrong too. However, in practice the DPS can favor COR for a bit, due to several reasons:

1. COR can get even more def down by using step, if it lands. I just didn't calculate it.

2. AFAIK, Spreadsheet doesn't calculate TP gain via QD so the actual COR DPS can get higher. although it can also go lower if I use light shot over dmg shot, or facing a high MDB mob.

3. There's downtime on berserk.

4. COR gets bigger increase than DNC if the BRD is singing 2 min instead of 1 min 1 mad. Attack song is just that good for ranged WS.

5. Steps still needs time and AM3 needs time. Unless COR is rolling mid fight and slow down, or unless COR is getting shit number on buffs, it's faster for a COR to reach max DPS stat.

I'm not exactly sure how DNC works so maybe there's certain advantage DNC has that doesn't list on the spreadsheet and secretly adds some extra DPS to DNC too. Also, there IS a chance that COR gets shit buff on rolls and ended up having lower DPS than DNC. Although the chance of getting shit buff on both rolls is quite low.



Obviously DNC/WAR would rape the shit out of COR if both sitting in same pt and both getting phantom rolls. I've been wanting to make a dagger DD job only pt for ceizak for ages.

Playing with DP

I wanted to use "Having sex with DP" as title but it's inappropriate :X

First of all, special thanks to Zeig/Relapse/Cruunch/Shockin/Vaba/Fizzle for helping me kill all that PW. 119 DP complete!

I've been doing quite a bit of /ra only event to play with it, unfortunately I failed to make DP love me enough to do good dmg with it D:



Despite DP is suppose to /ra faster with better WS frequency on paper, in practice it isn't THAT much faster, due to gimpfania gimping it up. Further more, the WS avg drop is quite noticeable. Most of the /ra event magic doesn't work very well too, so QD avg increase is minimal.

Not just the gun itself has no racc unless aftermath 2 up, but you also need to sacrifice certain slot(ear or legs) for STP when using a delay 480 gun too, making it even harder to use in VD level of event where racc is an issue. That being said, AM3+ triple shot dmg is quite satisfying. Sometimes 1 triple shot triple dmg proc can do equal dmg to RNG's 1 WS.

I recently got my /DRG up too for high jump as well, I have to say /DRG rocks!

After tons of VD event to play with my DP:

Celestial Nexus VD cleared! Took about 23 min, but we had 3 deaths(including myself). It can be sub 20 min run if BRD has 4 songs and no death. Didn't cap racc on 2nd form but it's doable with right gear I believe. Got all the items I want(knife/dagger) from this BC unless I'm going after body.

GK VD cleared too! Took about 21 min, but one RNG had no KI when we enter so we had to waste 5 min to wait for him, and no 4 songs too. 15 min GK seems doable if everything went right. I got capped racc with DP STP build in this BC at least.

SJ was intentionally cut off in the SS to hide my uncapped /DRG D:

Also did a D EV and finished 2 pieces of 119 relic in 1 day.

I'm still practicing the timing of /DRG JA, IMO the JA must be used as often as possible. At first I use it after I pull hate but then it'd end up pulling hate again before JA up, forcing me to stop DD until JA up again. At least I no longer die in AA BC with /DRG!

I've been wondering why DP doesn't parse exceptionally high. Maybe it has something to do with QD instant TP gain lower the gap between delay 600 and delay 480. Oh well, keep parsing.

Here is why everyone would rather play with their mules....

I tried to run event for 1 LS, apparently ppl wants to start drama about how I run it and talk shit behind my back. Tried to run event for another LS, I got 100x hate tell about different players before I even make the pt. I can't imagine what kind of drama would happen if I do gear check or keep people away to limit the pt to 6 person. Obviously I've made a lot of enemy in the past by selectively inviting ppl to the run for max efficiency.

Whenever I tried to make a pt with different players, 90% of the time I got ppl that either won't cooperate, or talk shit about another player in /p chat.

Ragnarok English endgame scene: Drama, trash talk and more drama and more trash talk. The fact that delve isn't LS event anymore and more like a lowman content with friends made this worse. Ppl start to side with friends, ignore their flaws/mistakes and talk shit behind "outsider" all the time. You either join their trash talk or get no ally. The trust between each players are non-existent if they aren't friends.

For past 1 month, I had to deal with A player hating B player, or C player hating D player, or E player start drama right on my face because I want to run event with specific job/gear to make my life easier, of F player pissed at me for not inviting him and have his friends talk shit behind my back. Ppl can openly praise 1 player, and turn back then talk shit about that player.

Andddd, when I decided to resolve the drama issue in /tell in a very nice way I got cold shoulders.

I wish I can have 6 Afania so I can just play with myself, that I don't have to deal with politics in FFXI D:

GEO RUN Ergon weapons

Apparently it's very OP and game changing, inc RUN GEO Ergon weapon only /shout.

I never understand the logic behind SE's gear stat. They wanted to get rid of REM then they make RUN GEO Ergon weapon game changing, while other REM remain kinda minor upgrade/sidegrade.

What's next? After waves and waves of "My GEO RUN doesn't get invite without Ergon weapon" complain on OF they'd make new weapon with same function again to please another group of player. Like what they've done in the past.

SE I know your trick, after this update 2 of my reforge AF(which I spent 3M to make, mind you) is going to storge, I can already see this coming ;/. Afania knows best.

(And I must be a masochist to play "let's toss gear every month" FFXI)

I miss my BLU D:

/Continue to play with spreadsheet to find DD hierarchy.

Honestly though, I haven't get a chance to play BLU for ages, even though I did play BLU in all 3 delve1 zonee back in 2013/Aug and sept.

Although BLU wasn't as strong as MNK back then, it is still quite a viable DD and delve1 was clear-able with BLU in ally. Besides Ceizak, which COR just pwns, I was pretty sure my BLU could parse higher than my COR in zones like Foret in 2013.

However, last Tojil run I tried to bring my BLU to the pt for spells, I've noticed that my BLU falls way behind my COR in terms of total kill speed in 6 man setup, in fact I feel it's weaker than 18 man era. That's when I finally realized that there's absolute 0 reason to bring my BLU to delve anymore.

One of the main reason and the biggest change, is the lack of COR in usual 6 man setup.

Req avg dropped a lot without chaos+enhanced dia. Even though my BLU has double ILV 119 sword now, instead of ILV 119/113 combo back in Aug/Sept 2013, the gap between BLU and MNK is bigger due to the lack of attack from Req.

FUCK REQ D:

According to spreadsheet, using same setup as last time, /WAR, DW3, TA, STP job trait, R15 path A Usonmunku and Bura. BLU has 371 DPS using AH guide sets. Mythic AM3 doesn't seem to work on BLU spreadsheet so I didn't use Tizona.

Add def down from F. Roar, 405. However I can get over 430 on COR with just chaos + DA+ 15% def down dia. With chaos+ DA roll from COR, BLU has 439 with 15%(dia+light shot) def down, 491 with 25%(dia+light shot+ F.roar) def down. In most ideal situation, BLU has 590 DPS with haste samba, 25% def down and COR buff. Obviously the most ideal situation barely exist due to only 3 DD spot available.

Oh, I also had attack boost, berserk and aggressor all activated too. In real world none of the JA can be up entire time.

Which is quite unfortunate. BLU/WAR's output is about the same as COR/DNC even in AH guide gears, but without party buff. On lower lv NM Last stand downright avg higher than req.

Time to bug SE to fix other WS such as CDC :( Or else this blog is no longer "An empty vessel" :X

Btw, ever since I discover the awesomeness of Riverfin Soup, I've been using it and getting addicted D: The difference it made in zones like Ceizak is quite noticeable, further more, it allows DW head TP build in lower evasion area such as Tojil.

Most of the time, I did notice COR+2 DD has higher kill speed than usual 3 DD setup too. The only situation COR is bad as a 3rd DD is Tojil's first 25%(because any none MNK job suck on Tojil first 25%) and Yorcia megaboss(again, any piercing DD suck on it too). I also had 1 yorcia pt with MNK MNK COR kills slightly slower than usual, but I'm pretty sure it's not COR's fault since another pt with SAM MNK COR or SAM DRK COR kills much faster ;x

Time to convince more ppl to invite me as 3rd DD :x

DD hierarchy

Got bored and start to play with spreadsheet again.

In one of the FFXIAH discussion use spreadsheet and find out that COR/DNC+MNK x2> MNK x3 in terms of total DPS. But the next question is, what if the DD is SAM? SAM is currently one of the strongest and most useful DD job, however Koga SAM usually doesn't benefit from COR buff as much.

Since I'm doing spreadsheet anyways, I may as well check out the gap between SAM and MNK, and maybe other DDs.

All the spreadsheet uses same setup: Target Tojil, SV march march min min mad. Gear sets are copy and paste from AH discussions.

I'm not familiar with DD jobs, so my MNK SAM may be gearing slightly wrong D:

COR/DNC: 411 without QD, +34 with QD.

Relic MNK DPS without COR: 638, with COR: 810. Vere MNK with COR: 828.

Koga SAM(not using ranged WS build) DPS without COR: 826, with COR(using chaos SAM roll instead of chaos DA) 1055

Tsurumaru SAM: 678, with COR: 922: But I think I may mess up Tsurumaru save TP stuff because it looks surprisingly low from my personal experience with SAM.


Pt with 3 MNK: 1914
Pt with 3 koga SAM: 2478
Pt with COR and relic MNKx2: 2031
Pt with COR and 2 Koga SAM: 2521

LOOKS LIKE COR+ 2 SAM STILL > 3 SAM \O/ \O/ /O\

Honestly though, SAM is way stronger than a MNK D:

BRB LVING SAM(and build a Koga)

Speaking of which, I've been getting a lot of ppl telling me to "lv another job" such as WHM(and I have no idea why I kept giving other ppl impression that I can play WHM well). Although I agree that my job spread is getting thin in 2014, WHM is specifically one job I'd avoid. The frustration isn't worth it IMO.

1. I'm downright bad at mage jobs. And I don't have plan to use spellcast or any 3rd pt tool to fix it.

2. PUG nowadays can be a pain to deal with.  Most of the time, DD doesn't carry DT- set, mages doesn't support, and 1 WHM has to haste 4~5 person AND -na AND cure epeen DD with no DT- set. When shit went wrong WHM is first to be blamed.

3. I'm impatient when it comes to skill up all that magic.

I guess I'm stuck on COR for a while longer :(

Gear questions

I've been having all sorts of "how to gear" questions since I came back to FFXI, now time to play with spreadsheet to find out the answer!

Q1: For low lv content, I tend to use melee WS instead of LS to save bullet. Should I use Requiescat or Exenerator?

Requiescat is a stronger WS than Exenerator. However, that means I'd have to use IL117+IL119 weapon instead of 2 IL119 and the result is lower DPS.

According to spreadsheet 2x R15 Sabebus using exen> sword+dagger using requiescat, even though req avg higher.

So Sabebus x2 it is!

Q2: Thurandaut+1 or not?

Looks like Thurandaut+1 is finally worth using thanks to Cetl belt! New TP build go.

However, Iuitl +1 head/legs with DA augment + windbuffet is still better. But fuck skirmish! 

Q3: 

When doing 2 dmg QD in a row, QD in Navarch +2 feet for first shot or QD in Lanun feet +1?

According to spreadsheet, QD set with Navarch+2 feet and hands do 1000 dmg, Lanun feet+1+ mab+6 hands do 1137 dmg. So it'd be 1364 with QD boost from Navarch.

So yeah, QD in Navarch+2 feet set for first shot then Lanun feet+1 for 2nd shot is stronger than doing both QD in Lanun feet +1 set. IF the boost effect isn't eaten by other source of magic. It is not "wrong" to do both QD in Lanun feet+1 set when there are other DD/mages around that may eat the QD boost effect.

10 reasons why PUG fails

I've been doing quite a lot of delve PUG, unfortunately, majority of PUG sucked so much that every time I want to bump my head to the wall when I joined a fail pt D:

(On the same time I need to rely on them to get plasm D:)


Below are 10 most ridiculous thing PUG can do in a delve run that I've experienced.

1. On Dakuwaqa, DD pop HF RIGHT after Mayhem.

ARE YOU SERIOUS? It's usually mayhem >low HP > spiked to death like this.

2. On Aberrant Urganite, DD run away from doom aura with red HP.....run to opposite direction of WHM, WITH RED HP.

;(

3. No DT-/HP set for lahar. IN FACT NO DT- SET AT ALL.

And it's easy to tell who has DT- sets who has no DT- sets.

4. Gimp dmg.

This is less of an issue in delve1 now, almost anyone wearing full ILV119 can do enough dmg in delve1 even if they never gear swap or gear wrong.  It's just the matter of doing a delve 1 run in less than 20 min, or doing a run in 40 min.

That's why when a Morimar pt kill 5 NM with 5 min left, it made me want to bump my head into the wall D:

5. BRD full time JSE harp.

Ever since last update BRD can get 3 songs with little to no work, the result is bandwagon 3 song BRDs from PUG that full time it for every fucking songs.

Further more, not only they full time JSE harp they can't control the range of it and have songs hitting wrong people.

6. DDs made NM with breath attack face the mage.

;(

7. PUG can't win, fail, go in again and still can't win.

I WANT PLASM D:

8. Pt can't deal with add.

I WANT TO CRY D:

9. SCH won't regen V.

This is the worst when combo with "No.3: DDs has no DT- set".

10. The job slot with highest chance fail from PUG= BRD, mostly gimp songs with JSE and the lack of support. But fail SCH(won't regen) and fail DD(no DT- sets, gimp dmg) still exist.

MAYBE I SHOULD HAPPY THAT NO MORE FAIL COR BECAUSE NO ONE USE IT ANYMORE LOLOL.

Acc build and more yorcia note

Although it's not exactly easy to get ppl to come to yorcia(apparently this zone is cursed that everyone has to stay away), I've been trying to get a 6 men full yorcia clear instead of 7 men for a while now, just to see if 6 men work better.

As stated in previous post, in order for DDx2 COR BRD WHM SCH setup to work well, COR must do dmg too, and it's buff boost must > 3rd DD. Fortunately, one of the NM T4 mandy has very high evasion, that hunter's roll may make this job worth a slot.

Unfortunately, this zone isn't easy to DD.

I've been trying to get better gears for better DD performance in this zone. Below are some of the tips and tricks I discovered so far. It's not complete yet, not until I get a 6 man clear and parse result from it. And I probably won't complete for a while cuz nobody want to Yorcia D:

I /DNC for this zone, as always. Food: Sushi, chaos fighter until T4.

T1:

Easiest to DD, just TP last stand TP last stand. A LS set with low acc works. I used Pulfanxa R15 path A for this. LS was around 4k.

T2 tree + T3

Same, TP + LS. I missed LS twice on tree with same set as T1, maybe acc was a bit low. LS was around 6~7k on tree when DT down.

T4: The fun part, this NM needs a full evasion build and 1150 accuracy. Which is really, really hard to get.

This is the acc build I'm working on COR atm:

Dagger is IL119 path B, hand and mani is also acc path. Unless I miss anything, this should be the highest acc gear COR can get. (Can probably replace 1 of the earring for acc and screw DW)

Note that legs/head can be replaced with path B Qaaxo, body can be replaced with Lanun Frac+1. Those replacement has a bit lower acc but higher PDT- for more survive-ability.

I also noticed WF worked better than last stand on this NM. Because....well, if you get madrigal you can't get prelude, if you get madrigal you can't get min, and the list goes on.

My WF hit for 2.4k without prepare....didn't bring all my WF gear nor getting right buff for WF. If I knew WF hits that high I'd bring my obi and use WF buff for even higher dmg. My LS don't avg as high cuz all the misses.


Another issue I noticed in Yorcia is how hard it is to land light/dark shot, which is often required. Although it's partially my fault that I didn't carry a macc set for last yorcia run due to the lack of space, I only had macc earring, AGI ring and AF119 head/feet for macc swap, didn't bring shark rings and so on.I guess next time I can carry them.

Ideally the head should be blood mask for more shots. But if the shots won't land then I may as well use reforge AF. This should be the last slot to swap out.

R15 x4(and PDT path R15), macc gears. There's tons to work on if I want to be useful in Yorcia besides roll and afk lol.

Yorcia

Finally Yorcia 6NM clear. My first delve2 clear without cheating(beading) D:

Since it's the only melee strat delve2 zone, I wish I can just spam this zone for plasm and never go back to shitty delve1 again D:

5080 WHM and the JP

Recently 5080 WHM subject was brought up in NA community, so I decided to take a look at it.

5080 is a basic JP WHM delve requirement, which means 50 cure potency and 80 casting speed. However, without 3rd party tool in like Ashita, it is not possible to use traditional precast/midcast set for this, as the cures will fire off before the player swap in midcast set if the player uses windower or default macro.

As we all know that JP does not like to use tool, they basically just make 1 5080 set and full time it. Something like this:

Further more, they also often rely on /RDM to reach 80 FC cap, since /RDM has 5 more casting speed than /SCH. 

That being said, it IS possible to make a 5080 hybrid with /SCH. But from what I've seen, majority of the JP WHM still prefer /RDM and save the extra slot on MP HP items or refresh. If you do search delve zones on JP time, almost every WHM sub RDM instead of SCH.

This is quite different from NA, since in NA community /SCH is considered the best. I honestly don't understand the logic behind /RDM too,  accession iz too gooood D: Even with Yagrush, accession cure IV SS always help in delve AoE spam hell. Let alone WHM without Yagrush. IMO, trading /SCH for 5% more casting speed and refresh isn't worth it.

I guess this is just the cultural difference thing. Maybe their COR BRD are too good with -na that they don't need /SCH, lol.

Or maybe it's just the fact that WHM is a job that you don't need to play absolutely perfect to have a fast run, unlike DD jobs that you must squeeze out every extra dmg to kill fast.

---------------------------------------

Speaking of which, I need a FC set for my COR/WHM too :X I can't always cast THAT much slower than a WHM right?　

Current goal

1 month an update means I need to update my goal list every month >.>

Played with spreadsheet and this is the best I got...idk why head path C got highest DPS.

Obviously the acc is quite low in this set, so some gear may need to make acc version. Qaaxo is generally quite good for melee.

Pulfanxa R15 path A is only 1 DPS behind WSD+10% D123 Hgafircian +2, may as well save the time and make a Pulfanxa R15 Path A!

Kizaru freaked out another day because I said I want a Yagrush, so he accused me for "wasting all the helper's time to build a Mythic". So I decided to pulled up spreadsheet to see if I'm really wasting every helper's time and effort or not.

With my current gear, on Tojil level of target, double dagger, /DNC and sushi:

Pulfanxa R15 A DPS: 180 QD 1079  

DP DPS:176 QD 1572  

Even with unresist QD and QD exactly every 40 sec, DP is 9 DPS higher. With QD resist and light shot and such, they're probably pretty equal most of the time, but Pulfanxa is better for melee.

So yeah, which gear I upgrade totally depend on which will give best improvement in shortest amount of time. Pulfanxa first, I suppose!

Speaking of which, my gear is sooooooo behind D: I feel embarrassed every time ppl /c me D:

Delve, delve and more delve!(And stop failing delve pt 10 times in a row Afania, you're becoming the notorious /shouter on Rag D:<)

I need /DRG......

Pulled hate and died in AA EV D before even reaching 50%, and pulled hate again after I got up, although PLD got it back this time.

Still kinda pissed that "COR pulling hate" is the main reason why COR can't DD, even in a situation that they can.

I have enmity- merit, but I don't have capped enmity- build for last stand, because the WS won't land at all if I swap out racc gear lol. WF sucked bad in AA so oh well. Best I can do is go make a deathlocke for enmity-, hoping I pull hate slower than usual lol.

I decided to rant on lolOF again, hopefully COR can get some decoy shot or WF fix in the future.

Meanwhile, I need /DRG.

More delve notes

Ceizak 6 man: Namas SAM COR/DNC MNK(ideally it should be a DRG or another piercing) WHM BRD SCH. The only zone I can sit in a 6 man pt as a DD spot, love it :) Craft material worth 2M too, plenty of room for error, best zone to spam for gil/plasm IMO. COR/DNC shines as usual, I can't outparse namas SAM though.

Marjami: Probably the easiest delve 2 zone, with bead it's nearly 100% win rate. Without it is the matter of kill speed and don't waste time on pulls.

Yorcia: I hate this zone, without a team spending some time to practice it's probably going to be a while until PUG can clear all 6 NM in one run. /WHM is the best for this zone. Piercing dmg sucked on tree, COR swords are ILV 113 + 117, it wouldn't work well in a ILV 128 content. Need quite a bit of -na too.

Lion: Haven't done.

Tojil 6 man: Haven't done 6 man. Everyone spams it for plasm, but I can't get a spot on COR D:(Not like I ever get a spot on COR in delve anymore, no one ever /shout for it)

Foret: Haven't done!

Cailimh note

Had racc issue on Cailimh with /WAR(no GEO, SV prelude), even though my gear is only missing HQ ring/neck and vanir feet and racc path delve 2 gun.

Guess I probably need different sub for this NM until I fix the gears.

Unemployed pirate again

Since I have a bit more free time irl recently, I decided to play a bit more FFXI.

And nobody want my COR for delve 2 again D:

There's a reason for it though.

Delve 2 thunder bird run:

PLD RNG x2 WHM SCH COR BRD, I did 40% of relic RNG D:

DM2 hard mode:(everyone on the list is RNG except me)

Even against uncapped acc relic RNG, I still only did 40% of relic RNG D:

Now the gap is getting depressing, since my buff has to make up 60%(or more, if I pt with really good RNGs) of dmg. In a pt with 2 RNG setup, my buff has to give 30% increase per RNG to worth a spot. On COR/WHM my buff has to give 50% increase each.....now that's probably another reason why nobody want a COR anymore. As far as I know of, most COR sub WHM and I fail to see how rolls can give 50% dmg increase, therefore, nobody /shout for COR in lowman setup.

No wonder I'm an unemployed pirate again!

Time to try other setup to get myself delve clears >.>

Afania's crazy dream

Because I need money so much irl, kinda want to sell account.

Hmmmmm a character with a Mythic, must worth a fortune!

Oh wait, nobody gives shit about DP and a character with no craft and only BLU COR lv 99.

D; crazy dream busted.

Gun hierarchy

Although I don't play FFXI that much atm(mostly playing single player games), I can still play with spreadsheet! For some reason playing with spreadsheet is more fun than playing with FFXI D:

I decided to figure out real gun hierarchy, I've noticed I've been just eyeballing the hierarchy back in the past, which isn't a good idea :X

Because there's nothing to compare in racc uncapped situation, so I only setup 3 different situations:

1. Attack capped situation

2. Attack uncapped situation

3. Melee TP + ranged WS situation


It's the comparison between 4 ILV 119 guns: DP, Arma, Vanir, Hgafircian +2

The augment on Hgafircian+2 is what I saw on forums: D124, WS dmg+10%, AGI+8, racc+9.

.

Gear set:

Melee:

/ra

WS

QD

Because you can't get berserk/warcry from /SAM(even RNGs don't /SAM anymore), and too much racc/rattk sacrifice when using STP gear, I don't include STP build. Until SE put tons of STP on tons of ILV119 gears, IMO it's not worth it.

Some gears from the spreadsheet are a bit too old, I haven't update them.

All the empy/mythic does not include aftermath, to avoid the pain when calculating them, since it's not very practical to keep AM up entire time. One day when I have time maybe I'll do the aftermath version.

/ra TP and WS situation, capped rattk:

Hgafircian +2: 458 DPS. It has 8k WS but the delay and TP speed really killed the overall DPS.

Include QD dmg 1769 = 502 DPS total

Death Penalty: 468 DPS. 

+QD dmg 2512 = 530 DPS total

Armageddon: 473 DPS

+QD dmg 1667= 514 DPS total

Vanir: 466 DPS

+QD dmg 1793 = 510 DPS total

/ra TP and WS situation, low attk:

Armageddon: 171 DPS total 212

Hgafircian +2: 166 DPS total 210

Death Penalty: 170 DPS total 232

Vanir: 172 DPS  total 216

Melee TP situation, uncapped attack:

Vanir:552 +QD: 596

DP: 530 +QD: 592

Hgafircian +2: 571 +QD=615

Arma: 550 +QD=591

Some conclusion:

Quite surprisingly, DP does not have highest /ra DPS without aftermath. Highest /ra DPS gun on paper is Arma and maybe Vanir if rattk uncapped. However, DP can be the strongest /ra gun on paper if it can do full QD dmg every 40 sec. 

In real life practice, it's near impossible to do full QD dmg on anything worthwhile with the set I used in the calculation. On AA sometimes it's barely 3 digit.

Hgafircian +2 is pretty much only good for meleeing, it falls way behind in /ra only situation even with very good augment. 

The spreadsheet info also couldn't calculate the fact that every QD push the dmg ratio toward WS a bit more, due to extra TP gain after each QD. Therefore, every time the player uses QD it benefits guns with bigger WS number/higher QD dmg.

March version update.....

1. March update just hit!

2. Visit BG to check new gear stat as usual.

3. Found a couple of gears added/obtained 1~2 months ago now garbage. 

4. Back to single player games. Yeah, MMO is MMO, single player games are better. There goes my 3+ M gil spent on 119 AF materials.

1 year of FFXI, about time

Recently, my FFXI playtime finally broke 1 year mark.

Note that I rarely afk. Even if I do need to afk, I often log out to prevent time continue to tick. So my current time is fairly accurate to my actual time spent in FFXI.

I've been active for past 4.5 years, so around 1/4~1/5 of my life in past 4 years are spent on this game, witch means avg 4~5hr a day.

365 days of FFXI, equal to over 8.7k hrs. In order to become a master at a skill, one would need 10k hours of practice. 8.7k hrs is at least 87% close to master a skill.

Do I regret spending this much time in FFXI? I don't think so. I got majority of the experience I wanted from an MMO in past 4~5 years. Although I avg 4~5hrs a day in a video game/MMO in past 5 years, sacrificed quite a lot of opportunity to meet more real life connections, failed school twice because of MMO(D:), lost 2 jobs because of MMO too(D: D: D:), I certainly have gained something in return.....and maybe a ranting blog with a book's worth of content.

I don't think I've made wrong choice....yet.

But there is a strong voice in my mind telling myself to quit. After 4~5 years of playing, this is first time I feel like quitting not because of the lack of playtime, but because I feel it's about the end of adventure in FFXI, that nothing in this game can satisfy me anymore.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Recently I decided to pop on ARR forum to see 2.2 changes, since I haven't pop on forum for a while.

First thing I saw:"Patch 2.2, Accessibility, Difficulty levels and throwing away content"(followed by pages and pages of argument about gear progression)

Months ago before I quit FFXIV, I already knew it's gonna happen, just wasn't expecting it happen this fast and SE went toward a further direction to invalidate player's time and effort.

It's almost like "SE: Hey look, you wanna spend more time and effort in our MMO product? /slap your face mwhahahaha, we'll /slap anyone spending too much time in our video game so you guys stop playing"

I had to agree, at one point of time, I really, really wanted to continue to invest more time in ARR endgame to do more raid, but I already knew majority of my time spent is probably going to be wasted by the time 2.2 arrives. I'd ended up need to spend slightly less time in 2.2~2.3 because that's clearly SE's direction....the earlier you start your grind, the more work you have to do, and vice versa.

So technically, I can get things done faster if I come back later, catch up, then quit again. I'd spend less time total by playing on and off every 6 months~1 year, instead of full time a game in entire 6 months. SE's so called "difficult content for hardcore", is more like a cockblock to prevent everyone and their mother finish too fast and quit, less about rewarding the players that plays hard. I cancelled sub right away after I realized this game doesn't worth any time investment.

And there you go. Just as I praised last ilv change that rewards people who actually spent time to play their game, SE pulls off this shit again.

This isn't just ARR direction, it was clearly FFXI direction too. The situation got worse after XI start their monthly update.

In Nov RME was upgraded to ILV119, I finished 119 arma in Dec. In Jan a new gun that's superior to 119 mythic and empy was introduced, dropped from a fairly easy BC.

Further more, I finished 119 AF feet in Jan, and about to finish hands too. Last update dropped something that replaces my 119 AF feet and hands in less than 1 week. So yeah, farmed a fuck tone of merit to do AA, spent quite a lot of gil, 1 week later it's a piece of crap.

Of course, one can argue that "this is just a video game, it's meant to waste time and have fun" blah blah. But if I'm going to waste time in a video game, I expect to get something in return. In the case of single player games, maybe collect trophy and beat a title to seal it in the closet, in the case of MMO, to get shiny. I may not consider getting a shiny and use it for 1 year a waste of time in an MMO, but spent a lot of time on shiny only to be outdated it 1 week later is utter waste of time.

Then that's how I finally realize, for dev, they don't care about player's time, and they're willing to do anything to keep players subbed. They can toss zomg crazy epic boss that only 5% can beat by spending 5hr a day 7 days a week death grinding it to find the mechanics to give them artificial sense of accomplishment, when they feel like everyone needs to continue, they can just do w/e they want so the rest of the players can beat it too to hand out more artificial sense of accomplishment. Spending 10hr a day playing the game and spending 1hr a day get same result in the end, because the goal is to hand out artificial sense of accomplishment to everyone. In the name of "please the majority".

Once upon a time, I consider FFXI one of a title that's closest to real life, that my dream of playing a RPG as 2nd life finally fulfilled in FFXI. But in the end, it's all just illusion. Real life is better, at least real life doesn't invalidate your time and effort. I can kinda guess what's the stat on reforge AF2 and reforge AF3, I can kinda guessed reforged AF1 gonna be shit after next month. This game is same dev as ARR, if they can slap hardcore's face in ARR, they totally can do that in XI too.

IMO, choosing what game to play isn't about throwing away life and get no return besides "fun", it's about competing against another hobby and see which investment has greater return. I see zero return if the gear is too easy to get AND outdate every month, like current FFXI direction.

My 1 year of FFXI probably won't come back, but I got what I was after during this year. I don't think I'm going to get anymore by invest anymore time though, it's done. I've been pretty indecisive about whether I should quit ARR months ago and FFXI too, now this 2.2 discussion thread is pretty much the final nail in the coffin. I don't think I'm going to be into another MMO ever in my life, besides TESO which was planned.

I used to work in MMO industry, and wanted to be a MMO game designer forever too, after realizing what MMO really was, I don't think I want to make my own MMO anymore, lol. Quite frankly, I find invalidating royal fan's effort and time every update not a right thing to do. I'd rather make single player games that give royal fans a fulfilling one time experience, instead of wasting their time by dangling a carrot in front of players with a stick so they keep paying every month, only to waste thousands and thousands of their life that could be spent on something else or another game.

I may give one final chance for FFXI until Feb update, since I still have crysta in account. If I feel like SE isn't respecting player's time, then time to cancel account for a while, maybe for the first time in the past 4~5 years.

Been there, done that. FFXI, you're "just another MMO", after all. Well, maybe you used to be a bit different from other MMO, but not anymore.

JP only....or not

I've been paying attention to PT finder search comment in XIV during free weekend campaign, from what I've seen so far:

Most of the extreme primal pt, coil T5 pt are JP only.

Half of the coil T1~T4 pt are JP only, half of them have no JP only comment.

Everything else rarely have JP only comment.

One of the pt actually have comment telling ppl "as long as you can read above JP comment, we don't care if you'r JP or not"

Pretty much every pt accepting both EN and JP are not JP pt wwwwwww. Just like XI, NA/EU are ok with JP but JP not ok with foreigners lol.

Due to my timezone, pretty much every PVP and PVE pt I got from DF are JP pt. However, I haven't got kicked for being a none JP so far.

I tend to avoid JP only pt in pt finder due to my poor JP anyways. I think I've pissed off my FC coil static due to not be able to understand what they said completely in T5 before I quit 2 months ago :X
But kinda glad that I still have pt to join even if nobody want a foreigner D:

I guess this JP only trend is still acceptable by far, I'm not happy about it, but it seems that I still have 10% of pt that I can join, lol. Considering players on official forum been complaining about PVP players being super rude, and ALL of the JP PVP pt always end with otsukare(great work) no matter win or lose, at least JPs are just nicer to play with.

Sadly, when ppl create a thread about "be nice" on OF, most of the replies were "don't PVP if you can't stand ppl being rude". I've played other MMO with PVP, I know it's full of butthurt/whining kids. But if JP can end every match with otsukare and no butthurt, why can't us English community? lol

Speaking of which, pt finder is probably the greatest addition in 2.1, made me kinda want to forgive shallow to the core PVP completely. One reason is because it allows player to tell whether this pt has serious atmosphere or casual atmosphere.

JPs tend to tell ppl whether this pt has serious atmosphere or casual atmosphere in /shout before pt finder implemented. Serious atmosphere means no mistake, experienced player only. If you want to join as a first time player you better watch youtube vid 10 times. Casual atmosphere means it's ok to make more mistake, or wipe over and over again, or join as first time player. If 1 person make a mistake in first time pt everyone tend to reply with np in such pt.

From my experience, NA/EU /shout rarely separate serious pt or casual atmosphere pt. So new players join a pt, pt wiped because of new player, everyone starts blame game and blame noobs for fucking up the run.

Result? Noobs are unhappy because everyone's rude, experienced players are unhappy too because they just want to have a run complete as fast as possible.

New pt finder allows players to check whether this pt are serious pt run by experienced player or full of first time players. Want an efficient run with no noob? Pick a pt full of experienced player then. Don't want experienced player being rude? Pick a pt that welcomes new player. With pt finder, NA/EU leaders no longer have to rely on /shout to tell the ppl what kind of atmosphere their pt has since majority of the NA/EU player are not used to separating 2 different type of pt to begin with.

Free weekend-first day impression

My LS told me this weekend inactive players can play FFXIV for free, so I decided to give 2.1 a try, although I highly doubt I'll sub after free weekend ends unless my in-game connections drag me in.

I mainly wanted to try PVP, new dungeons and maybe new raid if I have time, I doubt I'll have time to do anything hardcore this weekend.

I decided to try new dungeon first, instances are one of the strongest feature in ARR, of course dungeon first! I used DF for new dungeon Pharos sirius, after 30+ min of painful DF wait time finally got in.

Then first thing I noticed was that I can't check my pt member in instance anymore D:

I'm not sure if they just change it so that you can check pt member equipment other way, or just get rid of it so ppl stop flaming other player's gear in an instance. But I can still kinda tell by looking at the player appearance.

This Pharos Sirius pt doesn't seem good D: 

And I knew it D:

Wiped at 1st boss D:

After 2~3 wipes ppl decided to leave D:

I guess I can't rely on DF anymore D:....wait, DF already sucked since 2.0, what a surprise!

I noticed that there's new pt finder feature, which is a great addition. I no longer have to camp in Ul'dah(JPs often /shout in Ul'dah, unlike NAs like to /shout in Mor Dhona) for /shout pt, I can do other stuff and randomly check whether a pt doing content I wanted are recruiting. I even noticed several English pt. Most of the time English community are too small that it takes forever to get ppl by /shouting in English. Finally more chance to interact with English speaking players :)

Planning to play with hard mode dungeons if I have time, 1 weekend is kinda too short :X 

Then I unlocked PVP and played entire night. I don't really have time to get PVP set, and rumor says my current PVE gear is equivalent to IL55 ones, so I may as well just use current PVE gear. Sorry for those who lost in a match due to Afania wearing PVE gears D: I still have 50% win rate solo queue so it's not the end of the world D:

Honestly, I have low expectation from PVP to begin with, due to terrible skill/battle system and job mechanics. On the other hand, PVP is one single aspect I wanted to play the most before 2.1 launch.

Sounds ironic, huh? And my POV toward PVP is just as ironic.

If I want to describe PVP in FTG terms, it's not Street Fighter 4. If it's SF4 I'd praise it to death. I was expecting it to be MvC3, but it's more like Soul Calibur 4.

In case if anyone don't know what Soul Calibur 4 is, at one point of time(when I still had a job and not a job-less gimp like now) I played it with a group co-workers, some of them are used to play more complex titles like SF4 or King of Fighters, one of them used to play in tournaments. I pretty much raped everyone in SC4 until someone decided to bribe me with food. So I continue to accept their challenges while eating food. I played with 1 hand spamming 1 button(1 button, for real, not including directional pad) and still able to use combos by repeatedly spamming one button and won again. 

Then other FTG pros finally rage quit: What kind of shit game is this! Win(and do crazy combos) with 1 button spam and no directional pad? BS

Note that I couldn't beat them in SF4(and I can beat other SF4 noobs or normal or higher difficulty CPU if I play Ken/Ryu), so they certainly don't suck at FTG.

On the other hand, SC4 was the title being played the most, because only a few ppl can play SF4 properly. Nobody have fun with SF4(watching noobs playing SF4 is downright one of the worst experience you can ever have), everyone just plays SC4 all day.

I have to agree, ARR PVP was quite surprising. It's surprisingly fast, some queue matches can end in less than 1 min(but I doubt serious teams of 2 can end it that fast), surprisingly shallow, and surprisingly fun in a brainless way.

It seems that there's not much strategy going on, every pt I've joined is always the battle between BLM trying hard to cast sleep while everyone else try to stop BLM from casting sleep and kill BLM first. I don't even know wtf tank's for with the way they design PVP.

After reading a bit of PVP form looking for more in depth strategy, I realized ARR PVP is:

SMN is da best.

BLM sleep.

Tank DD build plz.

Strategy? What strategy? Get your best PVP IL gear, use most OP class, ???? profit. That's pretty much all the info I can find on forum, rest are about class balance complains.

There are no 200 pages of "what is best" discussion D:

I have to agree, I was fairly disappointed, since PVP seems more like a mini game rather than anything serious(although serious teams can probably perform better regardless). On the same time, I spent entire night playing it. I know I'm probably going to get sick of it after a few days, like majority of MMORPG PVP, mostly with little to no complexity(but still more complexity than ARR PVP). On the same time, expecting ARR PVP to be amazing is as unrealistic as expecting next Soul Calibur title as classic as Street Fighter 4, or expecting FFXI suddenly turn into LOL after an update or expansion. 

PVP is just like rest of the ARR game, no depth, no complexity, just instant gratification. But no way it'd suddenly turn ARR into something else I wish it is.

Now that I see all that ARR v.s 1.23 argument on official forum all over again. It's pretty obvious that I'm on the "I don't like ARR direction and liked XI/1.23 direction more" team, but every time when I see ppl reply with "just give it time, it will get more content with more update" I just want to lol.

Of course it'll get more content and more issues gonna be fixed after more update, this I'm sure of.

But it's not possible, nor a good choice, to change the direction drastically. They can keep adding 100 dungeons, 100 maps, 200 items, 15 jobs, but fundamentally it's still going to be ARR, not XI/1.23. It's going to be ARR with 100 dungeons, 100 maps and 15 jobs, not 1.23 with 100 dungeons, maps and 15 jobs.

If their direction is to make a shallow, instant gratification MMO like every other current-gen title, aim for players that won't spend more time doing research than playing the game, then they should stick with that direction, instead of pissing ppl off and change the direction. But that means the game won't be the type of game I'm looking for.

And it's pretty silly to assume "majority" of players liked ARR direction more than XI/1.23. You can only post on OF if you're active players, those who are not happy with ARR direction already left and not bother with ARR to begin with. Maybe "majority" of player don't like wow clones nor XI, but something else.

But fuck ARR official forum. It's pretty much a fanboy/whitenight fest.

The fact that I no longer get a queue on weekend night during campaign period and SE's free weekend campaign kinda hinted that ARR already been losing ppl after first 1~3 months.

I'll probably play as much as I can this weekend, but I've planned not to sub unless friends make me do so. The way ARR is, is same as 100 other titles out there that I can play for free. I've been playing GW2 whenever I want to have brainless kind of fun in an MMO. I can just play whenever I want without having to feel like wasted money on sub. Last month I probably played GW2 for about 2~5hr entire month, no way 2~5hr of playtime justify a sub. In terms of scope, shallowness and brainless kind of fun, GW2 and FFXIV is pretty much the same......except GW2 is a bit more ambitious than XIV and no sub.

So why pay $10 a month to PVP, help NPCs, do dungeons, play with gears when I can do those in other games for free in a bigger world?

Unless MMO titles have a strong tight-knit community like FFXI/EQ, most of the current-gen theme park MMO don't justify a sub IMO. Yes, I pay $12 a month in FFXI to help NPC, kill NM, grind gears, but I'm not really paying $12 for those, but more like paying $12 for living in a community and virtual world, something I don't get in GW2/FFXIV/SWTOR/insert your title here.

If XIV is F2P, I'd probably be fine with spending 5hr a month, occasionally log on and play here and there. If current-gen theme park MMO wants to offer instant gratification, they probably needs F2P to be competitive, IMO. 

Anyways. I may or may not do extreme primal/CT depending on time, but I honestly don't expect extreme/CT to be anything different from what I've experienced so far. PVP is the last thing I wanted to experience in ARR, and I already got Yoshi-P's intention about game direction after I played it.

Been there, done that.

SE doesn't love Joachim D:

Unlocked Joachim recently. It's nice to have a BRD type character but......

It always used wrong songs D: D: D:

Further more, it uses ranged attack when it engages, but it's ranged animation seems "cut off" when it ends, so the result is very awkward and not very smooth.

It's pretty weird that FF seems to always have high quality animation, no matter how shit the update is, how many bugs and text error exists, they rarely went wrong with animation.

Wish SE fix that damn animation, it's getting annoying to look at.

Dec update review

Recently FFXI server population increased a bit, due to free campaign and new update. So how's the new update? Here's my opinion.


Trust: Shit.

It's basically the same thing as mercenary in EQ, to help players solo in a force grouping MMORPG. Except it's implemented way too late. Further more, it's not implemented very well.

Although it's supposed to be a "Help player solo better" addition, it doesn't really help me much due to their terrible stat, not swapping gears, using wrong WS. I tend to solo in Kamihr drift for 3~4k+ EXP per kill. My trust can barely hit anything there, their 300 dmg WS doesn't help either. The DRK(which cost 500 log in point to get) would cast absorb spell over and over again, then get resisted - -.

Which DRK in FFXI casts lolabsorb spell over and over!

In the end I don't solo faster with trust NPCs. That being said, it's quite fun to have NPCs in FFXI story fighting beside you.

(Would be fun to have Shantotto got ass kicked/MPKed)

RoE:

I have mixed feeling toward this. I'm against being able to solo 119 AF entirely, since FFXI is supposed to be a party centered MMORPG. I can go play single player RPG or GW2 if I want to solo play in a RPG. In fact unless you have a very organized LS/friends that would pop on right time and farm a group in less than 1hr, I ended up solo 119 AF faster than making a group to farm pages, just because it takes much longer to find ppl to do stuff, plus the time to farm pops. The fact that you can solo pages made everyone and their mother unwilling to team up and farm pages too.

However, I also believe that recent population increase is mostly because of RoE. Some ppl may return to FFXI during free campaign, go "OMG I CAN SOLO 119 ARMOR AND MYTHIC NOW, GOING TO SUB YEAHHHH".

I guess it's time to accept the fact that deep in our hearts, nobody want to play with other people in an MMORPG :(

It'd be much better if you can't exchange the pages without getting clear at least once though.

I avg 1k sparks in 5~6 min killing Qutrubs in Abyssea doing 500+ dmg trial, however outside of Abyssea may* ended up better for sparks since you can also do crystal and EXP trial. I haven't try though, and I'm planning to try none-Abyssea camp soon.

Note that I tried qutrub with several weapons I have, only Buramenk'ah(DMG130) and Eminent Scimitar (DMG 122) can hit 500+ dmg in Abyssea on Qutrubs without having to crit. Halachuinic sword(DMG 104) and Aphotic Kukri(DMG 91) are mostly less than 500 dmg a hit without crit.

That means dagger class weapon are kinda out since highest dagger base DMG is only 108. However, Pamun has DMG 124/125, which should be able to hit 500+ dmg a hit. NIN/DNC using pamun x2 may ended up farming sparks faster than I can due to faster melee hits. MNK probably can farm faster than me too.

AA:
A pain in the ass to farm pop, more pain in the ass to /shout 6 person. AA fight is kinda "Get right job and easy mode and vice versa" thing.

(Fatfania again due to aspect ratio)

Can clear VD very easy with RNG setup, but normal can be a lot more pain in the ass if going melee setup and DD don't have enough DT-.

Most ppl don't want to bother with normal anymore, so AA= RNG strikes back kinda. A lot of friends of mine recently been shitting anni out of nowhere.

I find RNG not the hardest to find for VD, BRD is ._.


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Overall I don't find Dec update very amazing due to several reasons, but I think it's one of the best update in 2013 just because 2013 FFXI sucked so much. I hope Matsui don't fuck up next update again.