Shuriken build
Been some time since my last post so I guess its time for my next one. First, I'd like to discuss a bit on the shuriken build. Here is a build I am considering for this:
MAIN/SUB: katanas or Fire Staff
HEAD: Optical Hat
NECK: Qiqirn Collar
EAR:Minuet Earring
EAR: Bushinomimi
BODY: War Shinobi Gi
HANDS: Ninja Tekko
RING: Bowyer's Ring
RING: Merman's Ring
BACK: Psilos Mantle
WAIST: Hurling Belt
LEGS: Jaridah Salvars
FEET: Bounding Boots
Currently, I have too many goals to reach, so for now, this one is low on priority. That is why I chose NQ and easy to get pieces, rather than go all out. The overall stats this set(minus staff) gives are:
Throwing skill +20
Ranged Attack +46
Ranged Accuracy +34
AGI +5
STR +1
My focus is on the throwing skill and ranged attack. As I haven't played around with shurikens yet, I may need to change my priorities on the stat when I go into actual testing. For shurikens themselves, I have the following:
Koga Shuriken - DMG88 D175 R.Att+20 (27.5 DPS)
Fuma Shuriken - DMG72 D192 (22.5 DPS)
Manji Shuriken - DMG63 D192 (19.6 DPS)
Realistically, I can't regularly use the Koga because it is cost prohibitive, although when I start doing the Ashu Talif fights, I may start collecting them for special fights. That leaves me with Fuma and Manji shurikens. Not factoring in HQ synthesis, the Fuma will cost 87.6k gil per stack and the Manji 50.148k gil per stack. This is still rather expensive, but the aim of this is to see if that cost is worth it for specialized fights, if using a decent setup. This is probably last on my priorities, so it will take a while before I get to it.
NIN/PLD
I have been playing around with this for some time. Granted, it has been primarily solo work but I have gotten some feel for what it would be like in party situations.
As far as solo situations, I think this combination is pretty great. You have access to Cure I to Cure III and Auto-Refresh. You also have Sentinel for when shadows are down and you are waiting on the timers. Flash on the other hand is rather limited. Sometimes I can rely on it to recast Utsusemi: Ichi but for more serious fights, the low Divine skill holds it back. For those leveling parry, this may also be a consideration, as you can wield Parrying Knives and use Energy Drain to maintain MP. Overall, the Cure + Auto-Refresh combo makes it a worthwhile consideration.
In party situations, this depends on what type of fight it is. If you are involved with fights with large amounts of enmity, it isn't very useful. I attempted to compete with a PLD/WAR and it simply cannot compete the same way with NIN/DRK can. It definitely won't hold hate for long against any high damage spams (such as from a Samurai spamming WS or BLM spamming nukes). On a longer drawn out fight however, it can compete with NIN/WAR for hate. This combination does have its uses in small group situations though, as with Flash and Cure you can maintain hate to a degree. The additional MP pool (with refresh from others) can help the group overall.
I really wish I could quantitatively describe NIN/PLD but without spending excessive time measuring enmity on this and similar tank, I would have to settle for just a small description.
Summary for NIN/PLD: Feasible for solo and small groups, impractical for typical HNM situations. Cures and sentinel a plus for solo work.
Monday, November 19, 2007
Monday, November 12, 2007
How to become a thrifty player - Part I
Before I start on the actual topic on hand, I'd like to make a quick mention of my use of tags. As some of you may have noticed, I use the tags 'casual' and 'advanced'. The topics tagged advanced are more useful to higher level or endgame players. It can be useful knowledge for more casual or newer players, but because of some limitation (such as gear, merits, etc), it is mostly usable only to those type of players. Though I use the word casual for a tag, casual tags indicate topics that can be used by everybody. These are probably more of game mechanics type of topics, or maybe miscellaneous ones like this topic.
How to become a thrifty player - Part I
One of the aspects that I feel separates good players from the bad is how they manage their resources. In this game, there are predominantly two resources: Gil and Time. These two resources are interchangeable usually. For example, when you farm for items to sell for gil, you are just exchanging some time for gil. On the other hand, when you decide to craft and buy materials from AH rather than farming it, you are exchanging gil for time. My take on this is to value time more than gil. You have more control on how you use your gil, while you do not have complete control over time (work, school, chores, etc). Your time is also the limiting factor, as if you had infinite amount of time, you also would be able to farm infinitely for infinite gil. But realistically, you only have a set amount of time. However, since they are heavily interlocked, you must not neglect over the gil aspect either. For Part I of this series, I will discuss how to save and maintain gil. For Part II, I will discuss saving time. For Part III, I will discuss how to make gil most effectively. After that, I may or may not add more parts depending on whether I can come up with more topics.
NPCs are your friend
Most players use crafting to help them earn gil. Every synthesis, however, requires materials. Often times, these materials can be bought from NPCs. When this is the case, buying from NPC is much cheaper than buying from the Auction House!! This does not only apply for NPCs however, it also goes for magical scrolls and to an extent, low level armors and weapons. Your best bet is to use website resources (Allakazham, Somepage, wikis, etc) to research how those items are obtained. Often times, there are items that players would buy from NPCs and sell on AH to make a profit, so naturally the AH would sell at a higher price. If you have mules spread out on multiple cities, here is where they can be very useful.
Summary: Buy materials, scrolls, low level armor/weapon from NPCs, after researching the pricing.
The AH game
The Auction House is a center of commerce for Vanadiel. Every day, millions of gil are processed through the AH. Most people buy things they need through the Auction House. However, the demand varies with time, and as such, the price will vary too. By planning ahead, you can save gil in the long run.
One way to do that is to buy more than you need. Bundled ninja tools and ammunition will generally go for much less than the unbundled variety. Stacked items will almost always go for less than unstacked (rare items can have the opposite effect, so beware). By buying the extra and just letting it sit in your mog house or mule(s), you will have saved gil. Here is an example:
A stack of Kawahori-ogi currently goes for 6,000g. A single toolbag of Kawahori-ogi goes for similar. However, a stack of toolbags of Kawahori-ogi goes for 60,000g. By going for the stack of toolbags, you can save 12,000g. Sure, you may not have as much gil right now, but after you use it all up, you've would have 12,000g more by doing so.
A second way of saving money on AH is to research trends in pricing. A lot of consumables (and durables some of the time) will fluctuate in price. The dominant force in this is supply and demand. On the weekend on Titan server, pricing will go up because the server is heavily Japanese, and because of such, a high number of players play on the weekends. This high number causes consumable items to go up in price. My method of overcoming this is to watch the market on the things I need (ninja tools, food, etc) and see what is the lowest price they hit. If I see a stack of Shihei go between 2,500g and 6,000g, I know I should buy some when its at 3,000g and not when its at 5,000g. The same can be for durable items, however it is much more resilient to changes and they tend to occur in long term (perhaps months) rather than within a week. Plan your purchases ahead of time and you will be rewarded in savings.
Summary: Buy in bulk, buy ahead of time when its cheaper.
Alternatives to traditional ways
The first two points are somewhat obvious, though I've stated them because they can be easily overlooked. However, this one may be lesser known. This can easily vary from different circumstances so its harder to use as well. There are some ways to save small amount of money (and time) by taking a different approach to things. For example, a Teleport-Dem ring costs around 8,000g currently on Titan. 10 charges, and this translates to 800g per teleport (with a Lv65 requirement). However, I do see a lot of people shouting for teleports and pay 2,000g. These people are just overpaying for their teleport, as well as spending unnecessary time finding that. Another way to save money is paying attention to NPC pricing. Often times, there are items (especially scrolls) that sells for more to NPC than AH. Most people would just end up slapping them onto the AH, unless they have no free slots.
Ever since the patch with the Auction House fees, Whitegate has much higher fees than other areas. Sometimes, you can save on the listing fees by waiting till the next time you stop by Jeuno/Nashmau/Tavnazia, or even city AHs. Here are the fees for AH listing, in lowest to highest order:
City AHs (including outlands)- Single=1%+1gil Stacked=0.5%+4gil
Jeuno/Nashmau/Tavnazia- Single=1%+50gil Stacked=0.5%+100g
Al Zahbi- Single=1%+100gil Stacked=0.5%+400g
Whitegate- Single=2%+100gil Stacked=1%+400g
As you can see, any items worth small amounts (1,000g or less) is probably better off listed in City Auction Houses. Any high value items (like 100,000g or more) are better put in either Al Zahbi or Jeuno, not Whitegate. By taking a little time to research, you can find small ways like these to save some gil here and there.
Summary: Look into alternate ways of doing things, place items into "right" AHs, research and research!
At a glance, this may not seem like much in savings. However, if you do this several times a day, it can add up quick. But this is only the beginning to becoming an efficient player. In the second part, I will show how to save time in doing things.
Updates relating to prior posts:
Parry build: Skill ups are coming ever so slowly, currently at 194. However, I am making progress towards Amir Kolluks, Myochin Haidate+1, and parrying merits so its a couple steps in the right direction. Also obtained Bushinomimi, though did not explicitly said that in the Divine Might post.
-Phys damage build: Not much progress with this yet. Currently farming gil to hopefully by the two Arhat's pieces. Waiting on a friend to finish his Bonecrafting to do the Gavial pieces.
How to become a thrifty player - Part I
One of the aspects that I feel separates good players from the bad is how they manage their resources. In this game, there are predominantly two resources: Gil and Time. These two resources are interchangeable usually. For example, when you farm for items to sell for gil, you are just exchanging some time for gil. On the other hand, when you decide to craft and buy materials from AH rather than farming it, you are exchanging gil for time. My take on this is to value time more than gil. You have more control on how you use your gil, while you do not have complete control over time (work, school, chores, etc). Your time is also the limiting factor, as if you had infinite amount of time, you also would be able to farm infinitely for infinite gil. But realistically, you only have a set amount of time. However, since they are heavily interlocked, you must not neglect over the gil aspect either. For Part I of this series, I will discuss how to save and maintain gil. For Part II, I will discuss saving time. For Part III, I will discuss how to make gil most effectively. After that, I may or may not add more parts depending on whether I can come up with more topics.
NPCs are your friend
Most players use crafting to help them earn gil. Every synthesis, however, requires materials. Often times, these materials can be bought from NPCs. When this is the case, buying from NPC is much cheaper than buying from the Auction House!! This does not only apply for NPCs however, it also goes for magical scrolls and to an extent, low level armors and weapons. Your best bet is to use website resources (Allakazham, Somepage, wikis, etc) to research how those items are obtained. Often times, there are items that players would buy from NPCs and sell on AH to make a profit, so naturally the AH would sell at a higher price. If you have mules spread out on multiple cities, here is where they can be very useful.
Summary: Buy materials, scrolls, low level armor/weapon from NPCs, after researching the pricing.
The AH game
The Auction House is a center of commerce for Vanadiel. Every day, millions of gil are processed through the AH. Most people buy things they need through the Auction House. However, the demand varies with time, and as such, the price will vary too. By planning ahead, you can save gil in the long run.
One way to do that is to buy more than you need. Bundled ninja tools and ammunition will generally go for much less than the unbundled variety. Stacked items will almost always go for less than unstacked (rare items can have the opposite effect, so beware). By buying the extra and just letting it sit in your mog house or mule(s), you will have saved gil. Here is an example:
A stack of Kawahori-ogi currently goes for 6,000g. A single toolbag of Kawahori-ogi goes for similar. However, a stack of toolbags of Kawahori-ogi goes for 60,000g. By going for the stack of toolbags, you can save 12,000g. Sure, you may not have as much gil right now, but after you use it all up, you've would have 12,000g more by doing so.
A second way of saving money on AH is to research trends in pricing. A lot of consumables (and durables some of the time) will fluctuate in price. The dominant force in this is supply and demand. On the weekend on Titan server, pricing will go up because the server is heavily Japanese, and because of such, a high number of players play on the weekends. This high number causes consumable items to go up in price. My method of overcoming this is to watch the market on the things I need (ninja tools, food, etc) and see what is the lowest price they hit. If I see a stack of Shihei go between 2,500g and 6,000g, I know I should buy some when its at 3,000g and not when its at 5,000g. The same can be for durable items, however it is much more resilient to changes and they tend to occur in long term (perhaps months) rather than within a week. Plan your purchases ahead of time and you will be rewarded in savings.
Summary: Buy in bulk, buy ahead of time when its cheaper.
Alternatives to traditional ways
The first two points are somewhat obvious, though I've stated them because they can be easily overlooked. However, this one may be lesser known. This can easily vary from different circumstances so its harder to use as well. There are some ways to save small amount of money (and time) by taking a different approach to things. For example, a Teleport-Dem ring costs around 8,000g currently on Titan. 10 charges, and this translates to 800g per teleport (with a Lv65 requirement). However, I do see a lot of people shouting for teleports and pay 2,000g. These people are just overpaying for their teleport, as well as spending unnecessary time finding that. Another way to save money is paying attention to NPC pricing. Often times, there are items (especially scrolls) that sells for more to NPC than AH. Most people would just end up slapping them onto the AH, unless they have no free slots.
Ever since the patch with the Auction House fees, Whitegate has much higher fees than other areas. Sometimes, you can save on the listing fees by waiting till the next time you stop by Jeuno/Nashmau/Tavnazia, or even city AHs. Here are the fees for AH listing, in lowest to highest order:
City AHs (including outlands)- Single=1%+1gil Stacked=0.5%+4gil
Jeuno/Nashmau/Tavnazia- Single=1%+50gil Stacked=0.5%+100g
Al Zahbi- Single=1%+100gil Stacked=0.5%+400g
Whitegate- Single=2%+100gil Stacked=1%+400g
As you can see, any items worth small amounts (1,000g or less) is probably better off listed in City Auction Houses. Any high value items (like 100,000g or more) are better put in either Al Zahbi or Jeuno, not Whitegate. By taking a little time to research, you can find small ways like these to save some gil here and there.
Summary: Look into alternate ways of doing things, place items into "right" AHs, research and research!
At a glance, this may not seem like much in savings. However, if you do this several times a day, it can add up quick. But this is only the beginning to becoming an efficient player. In the second part, I will show how to save time in doing things.
Updates relating to prior posts:
Parry build: Skill ups are coming ever so slowly, currently at 194. However, I am making progress towards Amir Kolluks, Myochin Haidate+1, and parrying merits so its a couple steps in the right direction. Also obtained Bushinomimi, though did not explicitly said that in the Divine Might post.
-Phys damage build: Not much progress with this yet. Currently farming gil to hopefully by the two Arhat's pieces. Waiting on a friend to finish his Bonecrafting to do the Gavial pieces.
Saturday, November 10, 2007
Secrets of Enmity cracked!?
2 or 3 days ago I found Kaeko's blog while trying to find some information on soloing Apollyon NW. At the time, I saw the posts on enmity but I skipped over them because I was trying to watch Kaeko's solo video. Today I went back to it to read the enmity and found it interesting. I've always had a specific understanding of how hate works, through the years of playing especially in endgame fights, just that I could never seem to verbalize it. But I can always "feel" when hate is going to shift and to whom it would shift, just by internally analyzing what actions have been done. But what Kaeko and Ashira has done is put an actual model to enmity and found various properties through vigorous testing. I am currently still reading these posts and analyzing it against what I understood about enmity, but if you would like to read, here are the posts:
Part I
Part II
Part III
I'd like to post the summary of the testing here, but I felt that it would do no justice to them, because of the time they have thought this out and the time they took to do the testing (spamming 320 Cure I's for just one test...). So instead, I'm forcing anyone that wants to learn more to read the original posts rather than through here. =P
If I find anything that conflicts with what I know or holes in their testing, I will post here as well as notifying Kaeko but I think they have been pretty solid with the tests and hypotheses.
As for implications, I don't think it will have much impact on the current endgame community. Most people understand that Flash and Cures helps PLD/NIN keep hate, that NIN/DRK works well, and that mages will overtake hate on long drawn-out fights. It will only help explain why these are the case and perhaps help make minor tweaks to tanking/fighting styles, but it would be very minor at best. It may have more impact on low-count fights however, but as to the specifics I will have to come back to that another day.
edit1: I've finally finished reading through Kaeko's post for the first time. There is one thing that was extremely surprising to me: The chart at the end of part 3. I had always suspected that Flash and Stun have some of the highest "persistive" hate (Cumulative Enmity as Kaeko calls it) of the spells with the Cure series behind it. A few years ago, I used to kite Kirin on my WHM, with our kiters fighting back on hate. I would normally toss Flash as the timer came down and occasionally toss a Cure IV. I thought the Cumulative Hate would be the dominating force at this point and attributed my high hate level mainly to Flash. However, because how Kaeko's testing results in "round" numbers, I am inclined to believe in them, despite not agreeing with the tested levels of Cumulative Hate for each action performed. Perhaps I am underestimating how long it takes for Volatile Enmity to decay and as such, its contribution to overall hate.
(any posting/edits after this will use the same naming convention used in Kaeko's blog)
Part I
Part II
Part III
I'd like to post the summary of the testing here, but I felt that it would do no justice to them, because of the time they have thought this out and the time they took to do the testing (spamming 320 Cure I's for just one test...). So instead, I'm forcing anyone that wants to learn more to read the original posts rather than through here. =P
If I find anything that conflicts with what I know or holes in their testing, I will post here as well as notifying Kaeko but I think they have been pretty solid with the tests and hypotheses.
As for implications, I don't think it will have much impact on the current endgame community. Most people understand that Flash and Cures helps PLD/NIN keep hate, that NIN/DRK works well, and that mages will overtake hate on long drawn-out fights. It will only help explain why these are the case and perhaps help make minor tweaks to tanking/fighting styles, but it would be very minor at best. It may have more impact on low-count fights however, but as to the specifics I will have to come back to that another day.
edit1: I've finally finished reading through Kaeko's post for the first time. There is one thing that was extremely surprising to me: The chart at the end of part 3. I had always suspected that Flash and Stun have some of the highest "persistive" hate (Cumulative Enmity as Kaeko calls it) of the spells with the Cure series behind it. A few years ago, I used to kite Kirin on my WHM, with our kiters fighting back on hate. I would normally toss Flash as the timer came down and occasionally toss a Cure IV. I thought the Cumulative Hate would be the dominating force at this point and attributed my high hate level mainly to Flash. However, because how Kaeko's testing results in "round" numbers, I am inclined to believe in them, despite not agreeing with the tested levels of Cumulative Hate for each action performed. Perhaps I am underestimating how long it takes for Volatile Enmity to decay and as such, its contribution to overall hate.
(any posting/edits after this will use the same naming convention used in Kaeko's blog)
Thursday, November 8, 2007
Low-man Divine Might (12+1)
After setting this up for 3 weeks, I finally have this:
There is no fraud or people disbanding for screenshots, we won with only 13 people for the run. The setup was this:
BLM
BLUx3
DRK
MNK
NINx2
PLD
RDMx2
RNG
THF
I wanted to get a video of the actual run, but the strategy involved me kiting most of the enemy so there would not be much to see. Furthermore, there was nobody else that could do the recording for me in that run. As far as the strategy, essentially what I did was load myself up with powder boots and kite everything back and forth. At least that was what was supposed to happen. As it turns out, everything that could go wrong, did. The Elvaan shield bashed me right in the middle of the circle, I get stuck up the stairs, the angry mob of ArkAngels slowing me down in the hallway, etc.
So the second and winning round was done like this: I begin the fight aggroing and kiting everything. The Tarutaru gets taken down quickly, the Mithra gets tagged and kited, the pet held by RDMs. This leaves me kiting the Galka, the Hume, the Elvaan, and the wyvern. All went dandy for a while but I'm not sure on what exactly happened. All I know is I started to lose the ArkAngels I was kiting somehow and the group is slowly dying off. We managed to kill the Tarutaru, the Mithra, and her pet before wiping. Then after reraising and recovering, we resumed the killing.
Just like before, I started to kite like before and let the group focus on the Galka. Again I was losing some of the ArkAngels somehow, but nevertheless we managed to kill everything one by one. Luckily the Hume used Mijin Gakure right before we wiped the first time, which saved us trouble of him using it when we were actually fighting him.
I had several reasons for doing this run the way I did. First, I was tired of everyone following cookie cutter strategies. For a while, the way to win was the multiple kiters method, manaburning, or monkburn. Eventually the supertank strategy was formed, but from what I understand it was originally used because the person organizing the run did not want to rely on other players doing their job properly (in kiting the ArkAngels). This was something different, which I think what people should be doing with battlefield fights. Second, I felt that the fight was old enough to the point where people should be doing with fewer players. Since the introduction of this quest, there have been much equipment, merits, job abilties, and other tweaks added. The capability of 18 players back then should be matched with capability of less, possibly as few as 10. My third reason is it would be more or less a precursor to my plans for making a low-count LS. In the future, I plan to make a linkshell that fights with far fewer players than what most linkshells fight with today ( like 6-person gods runs, 3-person demi fights, etc). I wanted to see if I can pull it off before I dig a deep hole into that LS.
This run is still rather an amazing feat. The majority of the players involved do not have extensive gear/merit/experience/skill. Most have not been involved in endgame, if any at all. Because of this, I suspect it might be possible to cut the numbers down towards 10 or 9 with a very solid group. Not that these are poor players, most of them are pretty good, just didn't have best of the best of gears.
I think thats all I am going to write about after this emotional roller coaster (had thought my chances of winning were bad after seeing what happened in the first run, then later was ecstatic when we were winning). It was a great run and everyone enjoyed it. Till my next post, good night!
There is no fraud or people disbanding for screenshots, we won with only 13 people for the run. The setup was this:
BLM
BLUx3
DRK
MNK
NINx2
PLD
RDMx2
RNG
THF
I wanted to get a video of the actual run, but the strategy involved me kiting most of the enemy so there would not be much to see. Furthermore, there was nobody else that could do the recording for me in that run. As far as the strategy, essentially what I did was load myself up with powder boots and kite everything back and forth. At least that was what was supposed to happen. As it turns out, everything that could go wrong, did. The Elvaan shield bashed me right in the middle of the circle, I get stuck up the stairs, the angry mob of ArkAngels slowing me down in the hallway, etc.
So the second and winning round was done like this: I begin the fight aggroing and kiting everything. The Tarutaru gets taken down quickly, the Mithra gets tagged and kited, the pet held by RDMs. This leaves me kiting the Galka, the Hume, the Elvaan, and the wyvern. All went dandy for a while but I'm not sure on what exactly happened. All I know is I started to lose the ArkAngels I was kiting somehow and the group is slowly dying off. We managed to kill the Tarutaru, the Mithra, and her pet before wiping. Then after reraising and recovering, we resumed the killing.
Just like before, I started to kite like before and let the group focus on the Galka. Again I was losing some of the ArkAngels somehow, but nevertheless we managed to kill everything one by one. Luckily the Hume used Mijin Gakure right before we wiped the first time, which saved us trouble of him using it when we were actually fighting him.
I had several reasons for doing this run the way I did. First, I was tired of everyone following cookie cutter strategies. For a while, the way to win was the multiple kiters method, manaburning, or monkburn. Eventually the supertank strategy was formed, but from what I understand it was originally used because the person organizing the run did not want to rely on other players doing their job properly (in kiting the ArkAngels). This was something different, which I think what people should be doing with battlefield fights. Second, I felt that the fight was old enough to the point where people should be doing with fewer players. Since the introduction of this quest, there have been much equipment, merits, job abilties, and other tweaks added. The capability of 18 players back then should be matched with capability of less, possibly as few as 10. My third reason is it would be more or less a precursor to my plans for making a low-count LS. In the future, I plan to make a linkshell that fights with far fewer players than what most linkshells fight with today ( like 6-person gods runs, 3-person demi fights, etc). I wanted to see if I can pull it off before I dig a deep hole into that LS.
This run is still rather an amazing feat. The majority of the players involved do not have extensive gear/merit/experience/skill. Most have not been involved in endgame, if any at all. Because of this, I suspect it might be possible to cut the numbers down towards 10 or 9 with a very solid group. Not that these are poor players, most of them are pretty good, just didn't have best of the best of gears.
I think thats all I am going to write about after this emotional roller coaster (had thought my chances of winning were bad after seeing what happened in the first run, then later was ecstatic when we were winning). It was a great run and everyone enjoyed it. Till my next post, good night!
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
SAM -physical damage taken build
To start off, here is a potential equipment setup:
MAIN: Earth Staff (-20%) or Terra's Staff (-20%)
HEAD: Arhat's Jinpachi+1 (-6%)
BODY: Arhat's Gi+1 (-9%)
HANDS: Darksteel Mittens+1 (-2%)
LEGS: Gavial Cuisses+1 (-4%)
FEET: Gavial Greaves+1 (-3%)
RING: Jelly Ring (-5%)
RING: Defending Ring (-10%)
*note: I do realize that the advertised damage reduction percentages are not the actual damage reduction you received in the game. However, for sake of simplicity, I am using those "rounded" numbers. I may explain this in a later post, but for now, you will have to take this on my word unless you decide to go research or do your own testing.
As it stands, there are two things wrong with this. First, the total damage reduction is 59%, which is over the 50% cap. Second, while the defending ring is really nice, it is unrealistic to obtain, due to the rarity. Considering those two things, we can leave out the ring and then our total reduction is -49%. This is pretty significant, as we can do a few things to this setup. First, we can add even more enmity past the +6 enmity on the minimal set for better hate. Samurai has a decent access to enmity gear (especially the Arhat's set). However, with the Earth Staff, most likely some additional hate planting will be necessary. Second, we can also add more defense gear with the slots left over. Then we have more damage mitigation through job abilities, such as Defender and Seigan+Third Eye. While I do not think this will enable many Samurai to safely tank every single HNM out there, I think it would be enough to allow for them to tank the majority of Sky HNMs as well as other smaller HNM.
Obtaining the gear set
Surprisingly, this is a relatively cheap set. As of this writing date, here are the pricing on Titan server:
Earth Staff (30,000g) or Terra's Staff (590,000g)
Arhat's Jinpachi+1 (250,000g)
Arhat's Gi+1 (500,000g)
Darksteel Mittens+1 (200,000g) (approx)
Gavial Cuisses+1 (see below)
Gavial Greaves+1 (see below)
Jelly Ring (rare/ex)
Defending Ring (rare/ex)
On Titan server, I'm not even sure if the HQ of Gavial Cuisses and Gavial Greaves still exists. However, each synth costs about 10,000g so synthing 100 of each in hope of getting HQ is not unrealistic nor expensive. Excluding the cost of the Gavial Cuisses/Greaves and using Terra Staff, the total cost is still below 1 million gil. This is an easy and "cheap" set to obtain with the exception of the Defending Ring which can be omitted.
Progress
Currently, this is not high on my priority so I only have the Jelly Ring and Earth Staff. However, I may attempt to farm and buy the pieces (except Gavial Cuisses/Greaves) over the course of the next 2 months. Once I obtain the full set or almost all of it, I'd like to attempt tanking a variety of HNMs, especially Faust (which is traditionally tanked by paladins, but I have seen warriors and ninjas tank it on several occasions). Perhaps if I have the time, I may do comparisons with paladins on the damage taken overall. I do have high hopes for this setup like the parry build, and would like the actual proof to back it up.
MAIN: Earth Staff (-20%) or Terra's Staff (-20%)
HEAD: Arhat's Jinpachi+1 (-6%)
BODY: Arhat's Gi+1 (-9%)
HANDS: Darksteel Mittens+1 (-2%)
LEGS: Gavial Cuisses+1 (-4%)
FEET: Gavial Greaves+1 (-3%)
RING: Jelly Ring (-5%)
RING: Defending Ring (-10%)
*note: I do realize that the advertised damage reduction percentages are not the actual damage reduction you received in the game. However, for sake of simplicity, I am using those "rounded" numbers. I may explain this in a later post, but for now, you will have to take this on my word unless you decide to go research or do your own testing.
As it stands, there are two things wrong with this. First, the total damage reduction is 59%, which is over the 50% cap. Second, while the defending ring is really nice, it is unrealistic to obtain, due to the rarity. Considering those two things, we can leave out the ring and then our total reduction is -49%. This is pretty significant, as we can do a few things to this setup. First, we can add even more enmity past the +6 enmity on the minimal set for better hate. Samurai has a decent access to enmity gear (especially the Arhat's set). However, with the Earth Staff, most likely some additional hate planting will be necessary. Second, we can also add more defense gear with the slots left over. Then we have more damage mitigation through job abilities, such as Defender and Seigan+Third Eye. While I do not think this will enable many Samurai to safely tank every single HNM out there, I think it would be enough to allow for them to tank the majority of Sky HNMs as well as other smaller HNM.
Obtaining the gear set
Surprisingly, this is a relatively cheap set. As of this writing date, here are the pricing on Titan server:
Earth Staff (30,000g) or Terra's Staff (590,000g)
Arhat's Jinpachi+1 (250,000g)
Arhat's Gi+1 (500,000g)
Darksteel Mittens+1 (200,000g) (approx)
Gavial Cuisses+1 (see below)
Gavial Greaves+1 (see below)
Jelly Ring (rare/ex)
Defending Ring (rare/ex)
On Titan server, I'm not even sure if the HQ of Gavial Cuisses and Gavial Greaves still exists. However, each synth costs about 10,000g so synthing 100 of each in hope of getting HQ is not unrealistic nor expensive. Excluding the cost of the Gavial Cuisses/Greaves and using Terra Staff, the total cost is still below 1 million gil. This is an easy and "cheap" set to obtain with the exception of the Defending Ring which can be omitted.
Progress
Currently, this is not high on my priority so I only have the Jelly Ring and Earth Staff. However, I may attempt to farm and buy the pieces (except Gavial Cuisses/Greaves) over the course of the next 2 months. Once I obtain the full set or almost all of it, I'd like to attempt tanking a variety of HNMs, especially Faust (which is traditionally tanked by paladins, but I have seen warriors and ninjas tank it on several occasions). Perhaps if I have the time, I may do comparisons with paladins on the damage taken overall. I do have high hopes for this setup like the parry build, and would like the actual proof to back it up.
Saturday, November 3, 2007
SAM parry build
One of the things that had bugged me is the way samurai was designed to tank, at least implied by design of the game. They could wear heavy armor, has Third Eye, and access to a decent amount of enmity (I am talking about earlier days before ToAU so I didn't include Seigan). They're also very proficient at parrying (A- skill) and somewhat proficient on evasion (B+ skill). I think they were initially intended for samurai to be parry tanks, despite their claims of never intending for them to tank. Heres a list of the maximum parry a samurai has access to:
MAIN: Schiltron Spear (+6)
NECK: Parrying Torque (+7)
EAR: Parrying Earring (+3)
EAR: Bushinomimi (+5)
HANDS: Praefectus Gloves (+5) or Amir Kolluks (+5)
BACK: Boxer's Mantle (+10)
LEGS: Myochin Haidate +1 (+10)
So far, that is +46 parry skill, which is significant. Add full merits and you have +54 parry skill. A samurai has A- parry skill, so the base at 75 would be 269. With the boosts, that becomes 323 parry skill!!! As a comparison, my ninja only has +20 evasion skill (289 total skill) and is capable of soloing monsters that check tough without debuff ninjitsus. I can also solo very tough monsters with ninjitsu assistance. 323 would be almost comparable to the base skill of a level 86 player! (Assuming the formula does not change past 75, a level 86 with A- skill would cap out at 324.)
Some of you may have noticed I put in Schiltron Spear rather than Parrying Knives. While it would be nice to have +20 skill (leading to a total of 337 parrying skill) rather than +6 skill, I suspect they will be of no use. First, having to use ninja as a subjob is limiting. Second, even if you sub warrior, then you lose out on one knife and only have a 4 skill advantage over the spear. Third, with the very low damage, there will be problems with hate in party settings and with killing things in a timely manner in solo settings (samurai has no access to Dancing Edge, Shark Bite, or Evisceration weapon skills, not to mention the 11 DMG on the knives). Fourth, and most important of all, parry skill seems more effective with 2 handed weapons over 1 handed ones. I will do more testing on this later on but on the similar skill and monsters, I have noticed my samurai will tend to parry more than ninja. Now moving on......
People may wonder if this sounds so godly, why haven't there been more people attempting setups like this. And to that I blame SquareEnix's design of defensive combat skills. If you didn't realize, this is the order in which the game processes a hit (for both monsters and players):
Evasion → Parry* → Utsusemi/Blink/Third Eye → Shield* → other factors such as Stoneskin/Phalanx.
*note that this is for weapons that can parry. With guard and counter, I believe they come after Utsusemi and before the other factors.
The fact that parry occurs after evasion checks causes problems for people who want to skill up parry. Evasion will occur more often and then the higher skill will prevent parry from skilling up. By the time you hit 75, if you had leveled normally, your evasion skill would be anywhere between 80 to 150 over parry skill. Anything weak would be always evaded and rarely parried while everything strong would be not evaded, but also way too high for you to parry more often. Overall, what this means is there are relatively few players with capped parry skill and most of those that do are ninjas (not all of which would have samurai leveled to 75 as well).
Progress
As you can see, my parry skill is currently at 192. Which means theres another painful 77 skill ups to go. Initially I had planned to alleviate the problems I listed above by leveling paladin and ninja concurrently and level up after capping parrying each time. However, I had lost sight of that at some point and had leveled ninja to 75, leaving paladin at 57. I think I will finish leveling paladin in hopes of getting more parry skill along the way, and then finish it off on ninja, soloing tough and very tough monsters.
As far as equipment goes, most of them are easily accessible except Bushinomimi (which I expect to get next week) and Myochin Haidate+1 (which I am currently working on). I already have the Schiltron Spear and Boxer's Mantle, currently have the points to obtain Amir Kolluks, and the torque/earring are buyable. I haven't started to merit yet either, but it only cost 90k of merit points so it should not be a problem.
Predictions
I think once I push my parry skill up to 300 and beyond, I might be able to do interesting things with my samurai as far as soloing goes. However, what I am really after is attempting to tank some lower or mid level HNMs with some assistance without sponging up MP. It might be possible to tank fine as long as I can keep the hate, but I will not know for sure till I get to that point.
I didn't quite expect to write up this much when I first started the blog, but I guess the next few posts will be similar in length as well. Till my next post, this is Chewbar signing off~
MAIN: Schiltron Spear (+6)
NECK: Parrying Torque (+7)
EAR: Parrying Earring (+3)
EAR: Bushinomimi (+5)
HANDS: Praefectus Gloves (+5) or Amir Kolluks (+5)
BACK: Boxer's Mantle (+10)
LEGS: Myochin Haidate +1 (+10)
So far, that is +46 parry skill, which is significant. Add full merits and you have +54 parry skill. A samurai has A- parry skill, so the base at 75 would be 269. With the boosts, that becomes 323 parry skill!!! As a comparison, my ninja only has +20 evasion skill (289 total skill) and is capable of soloing monsters that check tough without debuff ninjitsus. I can also solo very tough monsters with ninjitsu assistance. 323 would be almost comparable to the base skill of a level 86 player! (Assuming the formula does not change past 75, a level 86 with A- skill would cap out at 324.)
Some of you may have noticed I put in Schiltron Spear rather than Parrying Knives. While it would be nice to have +20 skill (leading to a total of 337 parrying skill) rather than +6 skill, I suspect they will be of no use. First, having to use ninja as a subjob is limiting. Second, even if you sub warrior, then you lose out on one knife and only have a 4 skill advantage over the spear. Third, with the very low damage, there will be problems with hate in party settings and with killing things in a timely manner in solo settings (samurai has no access to Dancing Edge, Shark Bite, or Evisceration weapon skills, not to mention the 11 DMG on the knives). Fourth, and most important of all, parry skill seems more effective with 2 handed weapons over 1 handed ones. I will do more testing on this later on but on the similar skill and monsters, I have noticed my samurai will tend to parry more than ninja. Now moving on......
People may wonder if this sounds so godly, why haven't there been more people attempting setups like this. And to that I blame SquareEnix's design of defensive combat skills. If you didn't realize, this is the order in which the game processes a hit (for both monsters and players):
Evasion → Parry* → Utsusemi/Blink/Third Eye → Shield* → other factors such as Stoneskin/Phalanx.
*note that this is for weapons that can parry. With guard and counter, I believe they come after Utsusemi and before the other factors.
The fact that parry occurs after evasion checks causes problems for people who want to skill up parry. Evasion will occur more often and then the higher skill will prevent parry from skilling up. By the time you hit 75, if you had leveled normally, your evasion skill would be anywhere between 80 to 150 over parry skill. Anything weak would be always evaded and rarely parried while everything strong would be not evaded, but also way too high for you to parry more often. Overall, what this means is there are relatively few players with capped parry skill and most of those that do are ninjas (not all of which would have samurai leveled to 75 as well).
Progress
As you can see, my parry skill is currently at 192. Which means theres another painful 77 skill ups to go. Initially I had planned to alleviate the problems I listed above by leveling paladin and ninja concurrently and level up after capping parrying each time. However, I had lost sight of that at some point and had leveled ninja to 75, leaving paladin at 57. I think I will finish leveling paladin in hopes of getting more parry skill along the way, and then finish it off on ninja, soloing tough and very tough monsters.
As far as equipment goes, most of them are easily accessible except Bushinomimi (which I expect to get next week) and Myochin Haidate+1 (which I am currently working on). I already have the Schiltron Spear and Boxer's Mantle, currently have the points to obtain Amir Kolluks, and the torque/earring are buyable. I haven't started to merit yet either, but it only cost 90k of merit points so it should not be a problem.
Predictions
I think once I push my parry skill up to 300 and beyond, I might be able to do interesting things with my samurai as far as soloing goes. However, what I am really after is attempting to tank some lower or mid level HNMs with some assistance without sponging up MP. It might be possible to tank fine as long as I can keep the hate, but I will not know for sure till I get to that point.
I didn't quite expect to write up this much when I first started the blog, but I guess the next few posts will be similar in length as well. Till my next post, this is Chewbar signing off~
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