Chewbar Blog

Time for my once-in-every-month-post (about lolSAM)

2008-08-06T17:09:00.012-04:00

For today I'll discuss some of the things a Samurai can do. Some people may or may not have noticed the roles Samurais can play in this game. Let's explore these roles and the extent they can fill them.
Damage Dealer
This is probably the most common and most used of them all. Samurais are best at gaining TP fast and being able to put out fairly good WS numbers at a quick pace. It is this fact which is why many seek to design 5-hit and 6-hit builds over many others. For damage-to-TP given ratio, I would say SAM are high up (bested by gun/bow RNGs, BLMs). Other than those points, I don't think SAM are anything special as a damage dealer.
Tank
This is the second most underrated role (in my opinion). There are a handful of people who do use this to the full extent. A Samurai has access to Seigan, which can be fairly reliable if used correctly. That is also supported by access to a nice set of equipment that lowers damage. A competent and well-geared Samurai can be able to tank all sorts of things like lesser HNMs, Sky Gods, alternate versions of HNMs (like Nyzul and ZNM versions), and even chariots. In another post, I will discuss more about tanking these sorts of things. As a tank, a Samurai does not really need NIN sub or a WAR sub, as they can tank purely through damage and Seigan. The one benefit of a SAM over PLD/NIN or NIN tank is that any magical AoE (either spells or TP moves based on magic) will not wipe shadows, whereas utsusemi will be wiped. On some fights, this can be a very beneficial thing.
Hate Control
With a fairly potent and accurate WS, comes the hate control with a THF sub. Samurais can use trick attack to put a nice amount of damage onto a different target and be able to keep up with the 1-minute timer. If done from behind, a Samurai has Sneak Attack which will provide a large boost to the damage. If done from the front, a Samurai has Overwhelm which can provide up to an additional 19% damage bonus from merits.
Ranged Attacker
This is one that has been seen in less and less use over time. A SAM/RNG has access to Sidewinder (the most powerful Archery WS) coupled with a C+ skill in Archery. Samurais also have some decent bows (only 3-4 bows out of the top ones are RNG only), decent selection in gear for Ranged Accuracy, and a subpar selection for Ranged Attack. They even have the ability to wield Yoichinoyumi. The benefit from being a ranged attacker is being outside the range of most AoE attacks, as well as being able to continue to attack in a kited-fight. With current strategies (such as TP-burn Kirin), this is very rarely seen nowadays.
Healer
This is the most underrated role (in my opinion), though a very niche one as well. A SAM/DNC has Curing Waltz I&II, Divine Waltz, Healing Waltz, and Drain Samba I&II. These dances consume TP which is a Samurai's forte. The biggest pitfall of a Samurai healer is it cannot keep up with spike damage (like TP moves that land for 800+ ) or for high Damage over Time. A SAM/DNC can provide as a support healer or even main heal in some low-man situations.
Soloer
Not really a role, but a Samurai can basically couple as a Healer, a Tank, and a Damage Dealer to become somewhat of a soloer. They can solo a wide variety of NMs, or even some BCNMs like Operation Desert Storm. Or if they really wanted to, they can solo chain Ts and some VTs.

Versatility
The greatest asset to a Samurai is that with proper preparation, you can easily change roles. One can easily jump from being a damage dealer to a tank by simply swapping gears and putting up Seigan (as well as gain hate if necessary). Natively, a Samurai can be a damage dealer, tank, or ranged attacker as long as they have the suitable equipment for it. Very few jobs have such a luxury as a Samurai in that regard.

Progress Report

Finally finished with the last two merits. With parrying skill done, it frees up some time, some of which I can use to finish my work with parrying and -damage taken set. I have the materials for Gavial Greaves+1 but just never had my crafter do them yet. As far as parrying goes, I still have to get Tomoe, and upgrade the AF1 legs (been sitting on Apollyon piece for some time).

Today's Random Fact
You cannot use elemental WSes to skill up on a combat skill.

The end of this chapter

2008-07-22T12:42:00.006-04:00

Ok, perhaps I've overdone that image a bit. But I finally hit a milestone (yesterday) after pursing this for ages. It has been a long, annoying, tedious journey. Unfortunately this is incomplete, as I still have more to go with parrying. I did finish 2 more merits:
Which means 2 more to go. I also have to finish my Samurai AF1 legs upgrade for another +5 parry skill and then finally get Tomoe for +4 parry skill over the Schiltron Spear.
So currently I have:

I also modified my previous parrying post slightly, to reflect some alternatives I've used, since I noticed some of them after going over my parrying screenshots. At least this is rapidly coming to an end. Then I could start doing some tests on parrying. However, preliminary observation shows parrying not to be too promising though.

RANDOM FACT OF THE DAY
Zanshin not only kicks in for evasion, but also can kick in on a parried, shield blocked, or guarded hit.

Getting parry to skill up

2008-07-08T13:01:00.011-04:00

As I write this, I am trying to finish up the last of my parry skill ups. I currently sit at a base skill of 254, leaving me with 15 skills to go. This was a long journey up to this point and I would be lying if I said I didn't work hard on it. If you've read one of my earlier posts, then you know my final goal for this is to reach a total skill of 327 and see what happens (Yes, my original post was 323 but with the most recent patch, there is a polearm with +10 skill now and its better in all aspects).
Before I begin, lets go over the basics of combat skill levels. For any given mob, it'll have a limit to how much skill level it will give you. This cap is the same was your cap for that job regardless of any other factors. A level 70 mob will not cap at the same skill level for a 75 Samurai on both sword and great katana (by the way, this is 215 and 251 respectively). A fine point to note is that both weapon and defensive skills work the same. That is to say numerically they are indistinguishable. A lesser known point is that they also work similarly to skilling up crafting. With crafting, it is well-known that there are 4 ranges when comparing the difference in current level and cap of the synth you are working with. The 1st is the non-skill range, where your level is higher than the cap. The 2nd is where you have low rate of skill up, where your level is close to the cap but less than the cap. The 3rd is the ideal skill up zone, where your level is a few levels off but not too much of a difference. Then you have the critical break zone where you'll break a lot. With combat skilling, its no different. The ideal zone for combat skill leveling seems to be mobs that are T-VT to your skill level (roughly 2-7 levels above). This point is important to keep in mind when skilling up anything, crafting, weapons, parrying, guarding.
Now a quick recap on what I've said in my 2nd post of this blog. When it comes to skilling parrying (or guarding), it is important to consider the fact that evasion is considered before anything else. If you evade, the game won't check (or merely don't care, but from a player's perspective, both are the same) whether or not you had parried because it doesn't matter to it. Because of this heirachy, both parrying and guarding succumb to evasion, where evasion can end up 100+ levels ahead. If you get stuck in this situation (90% of people end up like this when they want to skill up parrying), it puts you in a bit of bind, as it means higher level mobs let you evade less but you almost never parry while lower level mobs you'll evade way too much and still never parry. This is the biggest problem in capping parrying.
When choosing a mob to skill off on, I think it is more important to choose one that has the proper level range first and foremost before you choose one based on sheer number of attacks (meaning don't do Phalanx II in Den of Rancor when you're only capped for a level 60). Some people seem to forget this and it drags their parrying longer. You parry less often with the lower level mobs but you'll have more skill ups overall, thus providing for a more quality session. Remember quality over quantity!

Now for the meat of this discussion...... I've tried all kinds of variation (as well as reading countless skill up threads) and this is what I found worked best for me. These are what I've done solo (usually SAM/PLD before WoTG, SAM/DNC after WoTG), as not everyone have access to a bored RDM or a 2nd character. The points I've made above are applied to these selections. I'll break it according to different skill ranges. Everything is referred to job levels (and A- rank skill levels in parenthesis) to make this apply to a broader set of players. If you have some extra help (for example RDM with Phalanx II), then you may want to try something different, such as the infamous Den of Rancor Pucks, as these camps are selected with a solo skiller in mind.
For level 55 or less (178 A- skill) : Use CoP level-capped zones according to your current levels. It forces your evasion down, giving you more chances to land parry without killing your actual parry rate. As an alternative, you could do the same as 55-65 though it'll be slower.
For level 55-65 (178-223 A- skill) : Grab as many Mourioche as you can handle in Boyahda Tree and face them all. You'll evade decently at this level range but to make up for that, you'll have much more raw hits on you. An alternative is the Gigas in Upper Delkfutt, which is nice since some of them are Monks and they drop pops for Alkys/Pallas.
For level 65-68 (223-235 A- skill) : Grab as many Flamingoes in sky as you can. I'm not sure why this really worked well for me but I was intrigued at Maiev's blog post and it seemed to work well. I guess maybe they're more accurate or something but I had some fairly good skill ups here. I also had some skill ups farming for Air Tanks (off Hobgoblin Blaggers) at this range.
For level 68-72 (235-254 A- skill) : Grab 2 (or more) Korrigans in Boyahda Tree. You can mix in Elder Goobbues but they kinda hurt. At this point you actually can start to get a bit of Exp/Merits while doing this solo. Your parrying is starting to catch up to your evasion so things are picking up. At the early levels, Steelshells also work though I would limit to korrigans/goobbues at the end of this range.
For level 71-75 (249-269 A- skill) : I have been getting fairly great results in Mamook, with Mamool Ja Frogman and Mamool Ja Diver. The location is at (F-6) on the first map, past the Poroggos. However, you'll need decent equipment paired with good subjob if you do this solo, as the tough Divers can hurt quite a bit. If you're a NIN, you could probably even chain to #2 or #3 solo here, but I've been only having luck to chain #1 on SAM/DNC.

When it comes to equipment, you'd usually want to stack +parrying equipment, and then defense (or -phys damage taken). It will not slow down the rate at which you get skill ups. The exception is where you have a lot of monsters (like I did for Mourioches), then it might be more beneficial to have a full defense set.

Now I need to get back to my skilling while I churn out the last 14 skills needed. If anyone have things they want to see tested with parrying, let me know. I have a few things of my own I'd like to test but if I find the time I can test other people's ideas/suggestions.

RANDOM FACTOID OF THE DAY:
If you have Third Eye up, a monster cannot counter you.

Maximizing Campaign EXP

2008-06-26T14:53:00.018-04:00

It has been a while since my last entry and I was in a blogging mood, so lets discuss campaign again!

WARNING!: If you don't like graphs (and basic math), then you may want to skip this post. I tried to make it as simple and least technical as possible, but this explanation still hinges on a graph shown on this post. Otherwise read on to learn how to maximize your campaigning!

Lately I've noticed that some people don't really understand campaign or don't know how to maximize their time in it. This post should help you achieve maximum potential out of it. First off, if you don't know how exp is calculated in campaign, please read one of the links just to get a grasp of it, take your pick:
http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Campaign_XP_Point_Calculations
http://wiki.bluegartrls.com/Campaign_Point_Calculation
http://ff11wiki.rdy.jp/2026067319.html#z86c536a (Japanese)
The exact numbers do not really matter, just the ideas in those pages - in particular the idea of caps and how high they are, and the time-based EXP caps.

Now onto the meat of this discussion...... every player participating in campaign will move through 3 "phases", one which is described by this graph:Now naturally, this graph is not to scale nor close to exactly what happens. However, it shows the different trends. First, the blue line is your EXP cap - it is based on time. This cap starts at 60EXP/min, and increases by 2 EXP/min for every rank up. This holds true to at least the Wings of Integrity at 88 EXP/min (the rank I currently hold), and I see no reason for it not to stop following the trend. The function represented by the blue line is actually incorrect, as it should be a step function but it won't affect this discussion really.

Now, the red line is the Total EXP you actually gained throughout the campaign. There are 3 distinct phases if you're doing campaign properly (meaning you're doing as much as you can to get EXP than if you just sit back and do something weak for exp gain).
The first phase (labeled A) is where you have the fastest EXP gain. You are also not capped in any of the categories for calculating EXP. Here, you should be gaining EXP at a faster rate than the time-based cap.
The second phase (labeled B), is where you have moderate EXP gain. Some of the smaller exp caps are reached - like swings, critical hits, buffs, debuffs, enfeebles. Your EXP cap may be gaining on your actual EXP gained, but you should still be still above the cap.
The last phase (labeled C) is the one of interest. It is where your exp gain rate has slowed to the point where it is less than the cap's rate. This is due to the fact that every category of campaign calculation has a finite cap, even curing and dealing damage (I do not know if taking damage has a cap but I suspect it does). It is in this phase where the two functions should intersect (circled in orange in the graph above).

That crossing in the graph is the primary point of focus for this discussion. After you hit that crossing, you're more than likely not going to reach the time-based EXP cap again for the rest of the tag, since too many categories are capped. In order to maximize your time, you should turn in your tags (assessment) before you hit this critical point!!! When you receive a new tag, then you will reset all the calculations, so you are no longer hitting the caps on the categories. Once you realize this, all there is left to do is re-evaluate every time you're close to the critical point. The trick though is finding out when you hit this intersection on the graph.

For me, I try to estimate when this happen based on EXP. I seem to reach this point at around 2000 EXP gained at Holyknight rank, so it occurs around 25 minutes of campaigning. That means I should reset my tags at every 20-25 minutes to make sure I always stay at the time-based EXP cap. However you can do it differently, if you have some system to "estimate" how far along you are on that graph. Guessing by time is the most simplest way for me to do this.
However, to make this more complicated, this will vary by circumstance and players. For example, if I am attacking Shadowfang Voids, I will reach that point sooner, since I can't take much damage from them nor deal as much. If I am attacking fortifications, I'll hit that point even sooner. Depending on how you campaign, the graph may shift or distort, but you will always have the 3 phases and the critical point. As long as you stay before that critical point and reset your tag regularly (even if it means resetting every 10 minutes), you should be gaining nearly the most you can out of your current rank. At the time of this writing, if you follow this style of campaigning, it would mean almost achieving 3,600 EXP/hr at Bronze Ribbon of Service and 5,400 EXP/hr at Wings of Honor (minus the time it takes for finding another campaign and travel).

As a side note, I will have to eventually redo my campaign research as many things had changed in the few patches since I first done the research. I had a working campaign EXP calculator prototype program, which was fairly accurate but I doubt it is anymore now. If I ever find the time to, I may post the results of such research, but for now I have too many things I want to do in this game and not enough time.

Mog Bonanza

2008-05-17T12:56:00.008-04:00

Figured it was time to make a post and trying to win the Bonanza is more up my alley in terms of crunching numbers. My method for choosing numbers is part systematic, part random number generator. If you don't know about the Bonanza and how it works, try reading this first:
http://www.playonline.com/ff11us/guide/mogbon/index.html

My method is more along the lines of trying to win *something*, as something is better than nothing. First, lets explore the probabilities involving the Mog Bonanza.

Probability of Winning
For rank 5, it is rather simple. Only one digit has to match, so for 1 marble, you have a 1 in 10 shot at winning. For one character (10 marbles), you have 10 in 10 or 100% shot if you choose properly.
For rank 4, you have 2 digits to match, in the range of 00-99. So 1 marble has 1 in 100 chance. If you choose 1 character with different numbers, you have 1 in 10 chance.
This goes on and you get these probabilities:

Rank	1 Marble		10 Marbles		50 Marbles
Rank 5	1/10	10%	10/10	100%	50/10	500%
Rank 4	1/100	1%	10/100	10%	50/100	50%
Rank 3	1/1000	0.1%	1/100	1%	5/100	5%
Rank 2	1/10000	0.01%	1/1000	0.1%	5/1000	0.5%
Rank 1	1/100000	0.001%	1/10000	0.01%	5/10000	0.05%

I threw 5 character set on there for good measure. Now these probabilities are based on if you choose 5 different numbers for each rank. So you have to make sure it does not repeat for any of the rank.

Selecting My Numbers
I have 3 mules and 1 main. So to maximize my chances, I selected numbers which will enable me to win rank 5 on each of my character, and spread out my chances of winning rank 4 across all 4 characters, so I have no repeats of rank 4 numbers. To choose my numbers, I used this random number generator generating 4 digit numbers. The reason for 4 is that my last digit is predetermined so I have 0-9, each used once for every character. Each randomly generated number is tacked onto one of the single digits. Then I made sure that the last 2 digits (the rank 4 numbers) do not repeat across all numbers. Now since there are no repeating rank 4 numbers, that automatically means there are also no repeating rank 3, 2, 1 numbers. My final result is:

11663	32891	54037	67014	77034	91832
13568	35236	54335	68360	77897	93711
14450	39941	55724	69899	79457	95930
15322	41306	58592	72056	79577	98693
21079	42685	58933	73086	84369	99013
22255	46418	62978	75002	88571	99090
22264	48505	65789	75148

There are only 40 marbles, so my chances are less than the 50 marbles I listed above. So my probabilities are:
Rank 1- 0.04% Rank 2 - 0.4% Rank 3 - 4% Rank 2 - 40% Rank 1 - 400%

Impact on Server Economy
This was something I tried to discuss in my linkshell but nobody really seem to have an interest on it. The Census report from yesterday says there are 500,000 accounts. Across 32 servers, that is 15,625 accounts per server. Let's assume there are 3 mules per account and 1 main ( I have no idea if this is conservative or not, some people may level new characters just for this event, while others have 20+ gardening mules too). So that is 62,500 characters playing Bonanza per server (sounds reasonable considering ffxiah.com lists around 40,000 characters on Jeuno AH per server, and if you consider other mules on top of that and characters that quit as well). Each of which plays 10 marbles, for 625,000 marbles per server. With that many marbles, we can expect:
6 Rank 1 winners
62 Rank 2 winners
625 Rank 3 winners
6250 Rank 4 winners
625,00 Rank 5 winners

Rank 5 has no gil option, while Rank 4 has 3 or 4 items worth more than the 100,000 gil offered.
Now assuming all the Rank 1, 2, 3 winners choose gil (it is what I would do, not necessarily what others would though), that is: 600M+ 620M + 625M or 1.845 billion gil added to the server. That should be significant enough to cause some level of inflation, one that should not be taken lightly. So if you were smart, you'd put all your gils in items and watch as the Bonanza come and inflate the prices.

edit: I've forgotten one major thing about this: the costs of buying those marbles. At 625,000 marbles, 625M gil exits the system, so that leaves a net 1.22 billion gil added. Not quite as much but still a lot.

5-hit / 6-hit / 3-hit setups and the math

2008-04-07T17:57:00.018-04:00

Ok, the math for it isn't extremely complicated but its complexity is around the same as algebra level math. This math generally applies to any job in any circumstances, though it'll focus more for a Samurai as it is really the only job that can do this. I'll try to break it down to step by step instructions:
*note: When I say trim, I mean just ignore those decimal values, do not round them.
In the examples, we are using a Samurai at Lv75 using Hagun and no delay reductions.

1. Find your base TP gain
First, you will need to know the delay of the weapon you're using.
For example purposes, I'll use a delay of 450 which is the delay of Hagun as well as other commonly used Great Katanas.

Next, adjust the delay for any delay reduction items. Trim off any decimals. Haste and Hasso are NOT delay reduction. This adjusted delay I will call Delay.
If our samurai were using Sword Strap (3% reduction or 97% of original delay), then your new delay becomes 450*0.97 or 436. The decimal is trimmed off. For the rest of this instruction, I will use no delay reduction, so the adjusted delay is still 450.

Using the following table and the adjusted delay, find your base TP gain (BaseTP). Trim off to one decimal place.

Delay	TP
0 - 180	5.0 + [(Delay - 180) * 1.5] / 180
180 - 450	5.0 + [(Delay - 180) * 6.5] / 270
450 - 480	11.5 + [(Delay - 450) * 1.5] / 30
480 - 530	13.0 + [(Delay - 480) * 1.5] / 50
530 - 999	14.5 + [(Delay - 530) * 3.5] / 470

Pluging 450 into Delay, we get a BaseTP of 11.5.

2. Find your targeted TP gain
Find how much TP per hit you need. Take 100 and divide it up by how many hits you want to get to 100%+ TP. Then round up to the nearest 1st decimal place. This is TargetTP.
100/6 = 16.66666. So our TargetTP is 16.7, what each hit needs to give us at minimum to ensure 6 hit.

3. Find how much Store TP you need to get for your targeted TP
To get the actual TP gain, ActualTP, the formula is simply ActualTP = BaseTP*StoreTP. To find how much Store TP you need to achieve the target TP gain, just replace ActualTP with TargetTP and solve for StoreTP. Round up to the nearest 2nd decimal place.
Our BaseTP was 11.5, TargetTP 16.7. Solving for StoreTP, we get 16.7/11.5 or 1.46. Now we know we need a total StoreTP of 46.

4. Account for Store TP trait
Using this chart, look up how much Store TP you have from job traits, as these will always be on.

Level	StoreTP
10-29	10
30-49	15
50-69	20
70-75	25

Then subtract off the trait's Store TP and the rest is what you need to get through Equipment and Corsair Rolls.
In our example, our Samurai is 75, so he will have 25 Store TP from traits. This means he needs to get 21 Store TP from Equipment, Rolls, and Merits to achieve 6-hit with Hagun.

Caveats
There is one issue that slightly complicates this: The fact that most players swap to a completely different equipment set for WS. Usually this set will have little to no Store TP. With it, you may end up coming short on TP of a x-hit setup. As such, there are a few solutions around this.

1. You can just not swap equipment for Weapon Skills. Probably the most unacceptable of the three.
2. You can try to adjust your swap to include more Store TP to match what you need. A bit more acceptable but probably still unacceptable to some.
3. You can leave the swap alone and include even more Store TP to the normal meleeing set.
This is what most players prefer to do. Now, this means more math to work with though.

First, figure out how much TP you use Weapon Skills in, factoring in the Store TP. Multiply the BaseTP by this Store TP value(normalized to decimal) to find the TP from WS. Trim decimals to 1st decimal place.
For our example Samurai, let's assume he WSes only with the 10 Store TP from merits and none from equipment. 11.5 * 1.10 = 12.6
Second, find a new target TP by taking the TP from WS off from 100%. Then divide it by the number of hits left. (If 6-hit, then divide by 5. If 5-hit, divide by 4, and so on) Round the TP up to the next 1st decimal place.
100-12.6 = 87.4 TP is what we need to achieve in 6-hits. With the WS hit, we need to achieve 87.4/5 or 17.5 TP per hit. Note this is much higher than 16.7 TP we had before, due to the WS only contributing 12.6 TP.
Third, find the Store TP needed to achive that. This is the same as Step 3+4 previously, just with different numbers.
So our new TargetTP is 17.5, BaseTP is still 11.5, so 17.5/11.5 is 1.53 or 53 Store TP. Since we have 10 from merits, we need to add 43 Store TP to our equipment, 22 more than what we found without accounting for WS TP. In more practical situations, we probably wouldn't have to add as much Store TP, as people are likely to have some Store TP from equipment like Hachiman set, Rajas Ring, Brutal Earring, Askar Korazin, or Usukane Set.

3 Hit setup
Now we know how to calculate Store TP needed to achieve x-hit, let's try to get a 3-hit setup! First, we will use Ito because that's only the Great Katana with high enough of a delay to provide a sizeable BaseTP. It has 999 delay.
Step 1:
Delay is 999, we are not using any delay reduction.
Using the chart, we find that BaseTP is 17.9.
Step 2:
TargetTP is 100/3 or 33.4.
Step 3:
StoreTP = TargetTP/BaseTP = 33.4/17.9 = 1.865 = 1.87
So we need 87 StoreTP!!!

Well, we have 25 from trait at Lv75 SAM, 10 from merit, leaving us 52 from equipment and rolls. Maximum from equipment is 51 Store TP, 1 short of the goal. So we need Samurai Roll to get there. Assuming we will never bust, lowest Store TP from rolls will be 14, so we only really need 38 Store TP from equipment to get our 3-hit setup. Alright!!

In actuality, this is horribly impractical. Even at 4-hit setups, you'd have to sacrifice a lot of key equipment pieces or rely on Samurai Rolls. But I guess it is interesting to know you can hit 3-hit setup. Unfortunately, the relic Great Katana does not provide enough Base TP to hit 2-hit setup. Which would have been fun even if its stupid and does no damage.

Nada

2008-04-07T17:30:00.006-04:00

I'm still alive, just been in a boring lull. I am writing this as I skill up parrying with flamingos in sky. As anyone who has tried to force their parrying to skill up will tell you, it is very b-o-r-i-n-g. Now it sits at 231 which is still a far cry from 269. As far as why flamingos, I may explain that later on when I finish parrying, probably will list a way to find ideal parrying skill up camps.

As far as all my "research projects" go, it'll yet still be pushed back some more, as I am starting to get spread thin. Each week I am doing: 2 salvage runs (possibly 3), 2 limbus runs, 1 dynamis run, 1 nyzul run, 3-4 assault tags farming points, a few hours slaving in Mount Zhayolm for khroma ores (11/48....), maybe 2 hours rebuilding buffers in campaign, and finally IF I have time left, skilling up parrying. Sometimes I even throw an ENM or two in there. However, this doesn't even leave me time to go back to subjob leveling (DRK, RDM, COR, BLU, SCH) or any of my old projects (Campaign studies, NIN throwing setup, and the others).

On a related note, with much thanks to Siveth, I have a pair of Gavial Cuisses+1 now, with no luck on the greaves. May try another round of attempts later on this week for the greaves. While on the note of Damage reduction, I am liking this set and the results I am seeing. On stuff that normally hits me for 200+ damage, I can cut it down to roughly 100-120 which is a lot more manageable for tanking (especially with merited Third Eye). In the future, I plan to post some actual data comparing on a average per-hit basis the difference between a PLD and a SAM tanking in this setup.

Following up this post is one on 6-hit/5-hit setups, along with an almost 3-hit setup. 5 months after starting this blog, it still seems rather empty so I think I'll fill it up with "stuff". Actually, what prompted me to do this is how people will just casually say "You need 11 store TP to get 6-hit" without considering the circumstances. So expect that soon.

Catch-Up #297421

2008-03-17T12:17:00.006-04:00

While I had intended for me to write up entries about once or twice a week, I always seem to get distracted and fall behind on that. Lately I've been focused on mining Khroma Ores to make a full stack of Imperial Wootz Ingots so I would be able to obtain an Usukane Haramaki when the time comes for it, leaving me not much time or anything else. For time being, I guess I'll list my current projects and where I am on there:
Campaign research: Constantly looking at computer code and tweaking formulas on my campaign parser kinda gave me a headache so it is on hiatus for now. Right now, the biggest hurdle is dissecting the contribution from damaging enemies and related contributions (swings, crits, etc). I know the wikis has them listed but I would like to find them out for myself independently, as they seemed to be estimates (check my original post about the calculations from healing). If anyone knows how to deal 0 damage to campaign mobs while not missing them, I would really love to learn how, as it is not as simple as taking a 1 damage dagger (Ceremonial Dagger) and start swinging at it. It would definitely help speed things up if there was a way to test 0 damage on campaign.
Over time, I am also slowly building a collection of what category each ability or magic falls under (like buffs, debuffs, etc). If anybody is interested in contributing to this, please let me know.
Parry build: Has been on hold for a while. Once in a while I'll head back and play with Korrigans, but as anyone who has actually tried to skill up parrying will tell you, it is annoying and takes a long time. Currently at 228 out of 269 parrying skill.
Damage reduction build: I've had chances to play with this in a rough sense, though I'm missing a few pieces that may make a difference. I am missing: Darksteel Mittens+1, Gavial Cuisses+1, Gavial Greaves+1, leaving me short ~9% damage reduction(which is not the actual exact number). If I could find crafters that would help me HQ these pieces on Titan without charging an arm and a leg, I could finally wrap this up.
Shuriken build: Has not been promising at all. Despite a 269 skill, and adding significant +throwing skill +ranged accuracy, Sange doesn't seem to be reliable even on EM-Ts. If that can't be reliable, it means I'm missing too often which means I'm essentially throwing money away.... In the future though I may test out the effects from level caps (where dual wield is less effective), but for now, it is on the back burner indefinitely.
NIN/PLD: I know this has been "wrapped" up before but I think I might revisit this one day, along with other subjobs for NIN (/DNC, /DRK, /WAR, /RDM) and compare among them.

Well that's all the updates I have for now, maybe I'll have some actual goodies on my next post.
~

My FFXI Videos

2008-03-06T09:58:00.011-05:00

[Rant] One of the many things that really annoys me is when people really overbuild their parties for missions and such. You do not need to have 6 75s just to beat Shadow Lord (which by the way was released around when the level cap was 55 or 60 I think). Nor do you always need a full party/alliance just for anything.[/Rant]

As such, I've been making videos of me soloing various things in hopes of maybe better educating people at what is needed at these fights. Some people may think I'm just doing this to show off but my intent is truly to show people what can be done without grabbing a full party or a bunch of 75s, with a secondary objective of challenging myself a bit. While not everyone is capable of doing these fights even if they're given the same exact condition, it just means they would need at most another boost (i.e. another player to help them out). As I upload more of these videos, I'll try to keep this post updated.

Last Update: Mar 6, 2008

All my videos are also listed at:
http://www.veoh.com/userVideos.html?username=chewbar

NIN44/BLM19 solos NIN AF1 - 20 in Pirate Years
Click here to show/hide video

NIN50/BLM25 solos NIN AF2 - I'll Take the Big Box
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NIN60/WAR30 solos NIN AF3 - True Will
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NIN65/WAR32 solos Shadow Lord
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NIN70/THF35 solos Aht Mission 13 - "Lost Kingdom" (Jazaarat fight)
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NIN70/WHM35 solos Aht Mission 22 - "Shield of Diplomacy" (Khimaira 13 fight)
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SAM75 and MNK75 duosSan d'Oria Mission 9-2 - "The Heir to the Light"
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New day, new age..... and campaign!

2008-03-03T12:28:00.012-05:00

Wow, it has been an eternity since I last posted in this blog. That isn't due to lack of content but rather me being a big procrastinator. Unfortunately, that made me forget more than half the stuff I wanted to post =/ So for today, I'll start with my campaign research.

Current theory on how points are calculated are found from a Japanese wiki: http://ff11wiki.rdy.jp/2026067319.html#z86c536a
I came across it from the BG wiki which basically copied from Reinheart's blog which translated the original Japanese wiki.

While it is nice, it is however only approximate and is not suitable for the campaign parser I am programming. As such, I am currently doing research on the exact calculations used to determine EXP / AN earned in campaign. This is all my original research, with foundations based on information from sources above:

There is a time-based EXP cap for which is the maximum EXP you can earn per given time. This EXP starts at 60 points per minute and goes up by 2 points per minute for every rank up. Currently Holyknight Emblem §§§§ is the maximum rank (at 82 points per minute) and it is not known if this trend will continue. Furthermore, this is based on minutes, rounded down to the nearest minute.
The total EXP you receive is rounded down to the nearest 5 multiple. This applies regardless of capped EXP or not.
AN gains are exactly half of your EXP gain, rounded down. However, the cap is the same as EXP cap, which means you can gain equal amount of AN as EXP (e.g. 1000 EXP / 1000 AN is possible).
Currently, EXP is calculated based on a large function comprised of several factors. The biggest 3 factors are: Damage dealt (to campaign monsters), Damage received (by campaign monsters), and damage cured (by you to yourself or others).
I have found the rate at which you receive exp from HP cured is exactly 25/256 (~9.766%) times the total HP cured.
HP cured has a maximum cap of 500 points ( or 5,000 HP recovered) regardless of time spent in
Current research seems to point at damage dealt and received calculations are either a little different than cured, or there may be a factor missing from what the Japanese wiki mentions.
Self buffs are worth 20 points per buff, which includes some Job Abilities. Things like Sambas, Sange, Hasso/Seigan, Third Eye, magic buffs, Spectral Jigs, Utsusemi, and Tonko all count as self buffs. However, there are others like Circles (Warding Circle, Holy Circle, etc) that do not count as buffs (I currently do not know if these count towards other player buffs).
Self buffs has a maximum cap of 150 points (or 7 and 1/2 self buffs) .
Debuffs are worth 15 points per debuff. Some Job Abilities also counts towards debuffs. This can include Steps, ninjutsu debuffs and magic debuffs.
Some actions are worthless in points. This includes Meditate and possibly Circles.

This is what I know for sure from my research, there are a lot of other things I need to figure out. I am not going to post the methods or data from this research here as it would fill up pages. However, if anybody is interested in them, you can ask me for it.

Updates

2007-12-01T12:16:00.001-05:00

It has been a while since my last posting. There's plenty I want to discuss for this blog but I have been busy inside and outside of the game lately so I hadn't have the time to write it all out. So for today, I'll just do an update of what has been discussed already.

Parry Build
Making some progress with this. Yesterday I had just finally hit 200 base parry skill...... so 69 more to go. As far as skilling up goes, I have been chain-soloing Catoblepas in Bibiki Bay as it kills 3 birds with one stone:

Meriting / Buffer Building
Parry Skill-ups
Conquest points (for Praefectus Gloves)

The parry comes at around 1 skill for 2-3 hours here for me. Perhaps I'll have a summary of my skill ups listed in the blog when I'm done skilling up. For now I plan to stay with Catoblepas but perhaps skill up off Steelshells or Pucks later on for better skill-ups.
As far as equipment goes, I have Schiltron Spear, Parrying Torque, Parrying Earring, Bushnomimi, and Boxer's Mantle. I still need to obtain Praefectus Gloves(27579/48000 CP), Amir Kolluks (11620/20000 AP), and Myochin Haidate+1 (need both items).
Initially I was not intending to do much experimenting with parrying on NIN but since then, I changed my mind about that. As a result, I have bought Yasha Samue and Yasha Tekko, while having plans to obtain Koga Hatsuburi, Otori, and Kagui.
Priority: 1st

Defense Reduction Build
One of the nice things about new additions to the game (namely the release of WoTG) is the fact people will spend a lot to be one of the first to do/get things. So rather than exploring the expansion now, I have been making a lot of gil to finish out my Samurai's regular builds. But I also have been spending some of that money towards this build. So now, I have: Earth Staff, Arhat's Jinpachi+1, and Jelly Ring while I have enough money for Arhat's Gi+1 and money for getting Gavial Cuisses+1 and Gavial Greaves+1. Still need to farm some more money before I can buy the Darksteel Mittens+1. If anyone knows any bonecrafters on Titan to help with Gavial pieces, let me know.
Priority: 2nd

NIN/PLD
With the recent discoveries on Enmity, I am considering revisiting issues with this. At least looking at theoretical comparisons between various subjobs for NIN. It may compare NIN/PLD with NIN/RDM and NIN/WAR on the issue of Enmity as well as benefits to each subjob. At least I can quantitatively compare the different setups on a theoretical scale, but I will probably not thoroughly test it in a practical setting.
Priority: 3th

Shuriken Build
Not much progress regarding this particular build, as it is still expensive and I do not have the money still to test it out. The equipment are relatively cheap and simple, its the price tag of the shurikens holding me back.
Priority: 4th

That is all the updates for now, perhaps I can have more practical testing and results soon rather than just theoretical ideas. As far as other topics go (like the thrifty player one), I do plan to eventually discuss more of it, just when I have the time, as it takes a while to get all my thoughts together.

NIN shuriken build and NIN/PLD

2007-11-19T11:23:00.000-05:00

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.

How to become a thrifty player - Part I

2007-11-12T12:54:00.000-05:00

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.

Secrets of Enmity cracked!?

2007-11-10T12:05:00.000-05:00

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)

Low-man Divine Might (12+1)

2007-11-08T22:39:00.000-05:00

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!

SAM -physical damage taken build

2007-11-06T19:45:00.000-05:00

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.

SAM parry build

2007-11-03T13:20:00.000-04:00

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~

First Post!

2007-10-30T23:52:00.000-04:00

The beginnings of my blog....I think I'll start with what this blog is about. In this blog I'll be discussing some (currently) unorthodox playstyle of the game. It will probably also cover some not-so-well-documented things about the game too. Currently, I am working to finish leveling my NIN and work on some merits before I dive into doing this sort of thing. Here is a sample of the questions I have planned to answer:

NIN/PLD - NIN/DRK was once uncommon. Now DRK as a sub is popular but what about its polar opposite?

SAM -damage% build - It was once thought that SquareEnix had intended samurai to tank. Can there be any actual truth to this?

SAM parry build - A different take on the tanking samurai.

NIN shuriken build - The highest DPS of any conventional weapon is 11.8 DPS (excluding relics and haste effects). However Fuma Shuriken has 22.5 DPS. Is this (or other shuriken) a realistic option or are NIN better off sticking to ordinary katanas?

Over the next few days I'll elaborate more on these topics and my current progress on testing them. I will perform some testing in actual realistic settings (and not beat up on poor lv1 rarabs for sake of numbers). If there are other topics that you want me to consider, let me know in-game or here.

edit: Much of what I will discuss will be my own theories, especially with game mechanics. Although this comes from 4+ years of playing, I can easily be wrong on some points. If you find things that are proven wrong and have been documented, feel free to point that out with the source.