I also wanted to ask with warrior what are we getting from it other than berserk? Does aggressor/warcry/attack bonus passive affect ranged attacks equally or is it for berserk+stats of subbing war?
Aggressor doesn't add to Ranged Accuracy(at one point it did), Warcry still does, however(in all honestly I can't say I use it much, though. I've noticed one of our RNG does at times so I leech off of that and that's pretty much it). Berserk is huge, and Fencer is helpful. Fencer is more-so helpful for Last Stand than it is for other WS since it has damage varying with TP.
Also where can I read up on these PDIF values and how it affects my ability to do damage? I've played support most of my FFXI career where this wasn't a thing last time I played ranger. I would really like to understand this better and know how it applies to specific fights so I can gear accordingly.
http://wiki.bluegartr.com/bg/PDIF
In an attempt so summarize for RNG however; PDIF is your attack divided by enemy defense, however, when calculating total damage this value is actually run through a function instead of taking just the attack/defense value. This is what causes variation between basic attacks when meleeing/shooting. RNG has two unique cases, capped and ~1/3 from capped. When ranged attack is capped (PDIF of 3.0), all ranged attacks and weapon skills will do the same damage. When PDIF is between 0.9-1.1, the function will ALWAYS return 1.0, so again, when roughly 1/3rd away from the attack cap, all ranged attacks/weapon skills will do the same damage and as noted before, increasing your attack/defense value past 0.9 does nothing unless you can break 1.1. This is why I can make the assertion about Divine Might because having no variation in ranged attacks for an entire boss is easily observable. While I can't give a 100% certain estimate of their defense, I can round ball it, and more importantly I know when running with my LS I will be in this "soft cap" value fairly comfortably(mistakes have happened where Minuets will drop off, no GEO buff, COR weren't able to Dia IV properly).
Well since my build needs 28 STP to get 4 hit on 3/4 recycle proc I think the best method to make up the loss of STP from sam sub is really Mekki Shakki, Bloodrain Strap and DM2 body. I lose next to nothing by going this route and gain 16 store tp which is exactly what I need.
I don't like the suggestions you mentioned because I would like to keep the ranged acc and attack wherever possible and this seems to have the biggest impact with the lowest trade off. The body is only a 1 racc 1 ratk loss over orion +1 and the staff/strap is the stat loss of Hurlbat but adds 5 strength. These combined with Raja's the gorget and volley earring puts me at a 4 hit with /war sub.
Despite mentioning Trupido, I steered away from mentioning Kyujutsugi just because I'm not sure how readily obtainable DM drops are for most players. It is by far the go to TP body, no question asked. I personally still run Hurlbat because Mithra evasion still makes me cry sometimes, but if you'd already be planning running Mekki+Bloodrain, you obviously don't need swaps elsewhere as you said; again, just wasn't sure how easily obtainable Bloodrain is for most people, though Rose Strap would probably also work fine.
You say the hands are a potential swap as well. Are you talking Arcadian hands as a piece to TP in? I am wondering if you just are referring to the arcadian pieces to TP in like the beret and the pants and mentioning hands because of the kote and not meaning TP in arcadian hands. I see the potential with the kote augments if you roll well and it is something I could easily farm but I wonder if it isn't better than the rank15 Manibozho gloves assuming you meet your STP needs on gear already. This is where the PDIF values would come in handy in determining when you want one stat over the other.
Well, before Arcadian Hands came out, our hand options were pretty lackluster. Iuitl/Manibozho/Sigyn(gun only obviously) were all pretty much non-distinguishable from one another, even when accuracy wasn't an issue, so therefore the logical conclusion was pretty much to equip the highest accuracy piece just in the event that you needed the accuracy. However since Arcadian finally combine Ranged Attack STR and AGI into one package they can be called the best TP options when accuracy isn't an issue. Seriyu more come into play when trying to 3-hit gun since they not only give good STP but also give within ~2 accuracy to other i113-i119 options TP options. I wouldn't recommend them if you're planning on going Mekki+Bloodrain/Rose since you don't need the STP, was only suggesting them as a potential STP swap that's easily obtainable.
I just use Motenten Spreadsheets, I'm still using a pretty dated version and manually upgrade the gear myself based on what I'm using, but they can be downloaded
here.