Luck Of The Draw: A Corsair's Guide *NEW*

QD is a weird one, because you ideally want a toggle between damaging QD and getting TP QD. Personally, I just use the getting TP QD, because QD damage is utterly unimpressive 99% of the time and even in the best conditions it's largely irrelevant.

For a damaging QD sure, go AGI/MAB/Macc & mdmg. AGI probably performs better than mdmg, but not sure, you could try both kinds.

As mentioned above, I use an STP cape for QD because *** the damage, I'd rather have more TP.

Absolutely! I also use Schutzen Mitts in my QD STP set.

Well with my shitty gear I can easily hit >6k which is... well, I guess irrelevant but I'm talking about literally zero buffs. Now let's imagine with DP, proper buffs and better gear? Bet but it's gotta be nice!
I mean not the main source of damage of course, but it all adds up, no?

Doesn't AGI only adds to QD's macc? It's also used in the dmg formula? :o
Didn't know that, thanks!

Interesting, have you tested whether these give more TP than using STP in that slot? I don't have them or I'd check for myself.


I've used QD quite a bit including with DP and the damage depends largely on the resistance (or lack thereof) on the mob. On a lot of things it will be very minimal, and I don't think I've cracked 10k on anything beyond trash mobs, though I haven't spent that much time on a MAB QD set so it might go a bit higher. Even still though, you can probably get similar damage from getting hundreds more TP that you feed into a WS, increasing your damage by more than the 3k damage you got off your shot. This is all theoretical, but I think realistically the TP will almost always do more damage than the QD itself.


Nope, I was mistaken on this one. I'd go with mdmg in this case, though frankly I just wouldn't build the cape, for the reasons enumerated above. YMMV, play however you want this is just my $0.02

They're basically a sidegrade to Malignance (STP+12) for TP gain purposes. Schutzen have a very slight edge in TP generation, but with it being so close I go for Malignance for (1) better damage over time due to significantly more Macc (less resists), (2) much better defensive stats if you ever get caught in QD gear, and (3) Inventory-1.

If you care about both TP gain and QD damage, Carmine+1 D aren't a bad compromise (MAB+42, STP+6)

Just fired off a few QDs in (a) a STP-heavy set and (b) a more damage-leaning set, only changing the hands:
Schutzen: (a) 405 TP, (b) 267 TP
Malignance: (a) 400 TP, (b) 262 TP
Carmine +1 D: (a) 390 TP, (b) 252 TP

Back to the mule with ye, Schutzen Mittens!

QD damage is pretty handy for all those annoying times during segment farms and Sortie when a fodder mob is still hanging by a 1-5% hp thread after you've WS'd and you just wanna finish it off instantly and move to the next target.

Is greater than 70% Snapshot needed to cap? Does it work on a x/1024 scale?

Considering how almost everything in this game is NOT in /100, I would dare to say it's quite possible that snapshot is not either.
As such, you might need ~71% to actually cap Snapshot, who knows, depends on the actual values the single items have.
Either way I doubt there's gonna be a huge difference. If you can manage to get ~1% more Snapshot it's probably good to get it, but not if it requires you too big of a sacrifice.
JM2C.

Which multistep SCs do you guys use on Corsair? Mind listing a few that you find to be useful and why?
Thanks in advance!

Leaden > Aeolian Edge > Leaden > Wildfire all the things!

... or Leaden > Aeolian Edge > Wildfire > Wildfire if it's undead.

For physical/Light:
Savage -> Last Stand -> Last Stand or
Last Stand -> Savage -> Last Stand

I'm sure you could turn it into a 4-step, but I don't find that scenario comes up very often

These are some of the notes I have:

Leaden > Requiescat/Aeolian/Shining > Leaden > Wildfire > (Darkness)

Wildfire > Wildfire (Darkness)

Leaden > Savage Blade > Last Stand (Light) > Last Stand (Radiance)

Numbing > Last Stand > Last Stand (Light) > Last Stand > (Radiance)

Leaden > Aeolian/Fast Blade > Leaden > Wildfire > (Umbra)

Savage Blade > Last Stand (Light) > Last Stand > (Light)

Requiescat/Swift > Savage > Last Stand > Last Stand

Hot Shot/Red Lotus > Numbing > Savage > Last Stand


Distortion > Leaden (Darkness)
Chant du Cygne > Leaden (Darkness)
Chant du Cygne > Wildfire (Darkness)

In sortie on elementals ill do leaden > viper bite > leaden > wildfire. although they never live to the wildfire. this is nice if you dont want to use aeolian edge to AOE things

So many useful ones, thanks a lot guys!

Leaden > seraph blade > leaden > wildfire also works.

Is there something unique to Light and Dark shot compared to the other 6 elemental shots?
I'm talking about damage/TPreturn.

It seems to me I'm getting quite different results comparing the 6 elemental ones and light shot...

Light and Dark Shot don't deal damage

May I ask how do you behave as COR in Sheol C runs?
Just did a couple and when I'm getting slashing weak mobs it's all good.

When I'm getting slashing resistant it's... a pain. A lot of CORs I ran with recently keep spamming SB regardless o.O
I wonder what I should be doing?

Normally I go around with Ataktos. Tried swapping around to Fomalhaut (losing TP in the process) for better Last Stands on piercing weak monsters but the damage was quite unimpressive. To the point that in the few times I tried just spamming SB seemed better even with the reduced Slashing Resistance.
Tried some Wildfire on fireweak slashing resistant monsters but I was unimpressed.
Guess Hotshot might be good for those, then again I need to swap back to Fomalhaut.

Or should I say "*** it" to my Ataktos and keep Fomalhaut always up? STP+10 and TPbonus+500 isn't too bad after all.

Should I mainhand Tauret and spam evisceration on piercing weak mobs? I haven't tried but I'm skeptic on the result.


Willing to hear from you folks, thanks!

I've been doing Sheol A for a while, maybe with Aria or other buff changes the situation has changed in C, but when I was doing C I found that I couldn't 1shot mobs with Savage past a certain floor, or certain types of mobs (resistant to Slashing). In these cases if there's not a WS which will 1shot them (Hotshot on birds, maybe some others) I opted for Last Stand -> Savage Blade for Light. This should kill just about anything in there, with the possible exception of some Agon mobs. You can top this off with another LS for another Light if it somehow lives.

You might be able to do 2 Savage Blades and do the same thing, but there are some mobs which won't die to 2 Savages in my experience and the extra damage from the Light > the extra from another SB. You might not win any parses with overkill damage on mobs, but it is still faster IMO because...

While doing this, I opted for Fomalhaut for the 10 STP, since no other guns will improve the efficiency at which you gain enough TP to do 2 WS, and the TP bonus from the Ataktos is not required to get high enough WSD to finish them off.

FYI in case you didn't already know: TP bonus from Fomal will not apply to melee WS, so it's not "half as good" as Ataktos for SB, it's useless except for the STP.

Someone with more recent experience in C might have a list of all the mobs you can 1shot with Leaden/Hotshot, but outside of those situations, I find this method to be the fastest kills for anything you need 2 WS to kill.

Oh, and I never found switching to piercing weapons (Evis, Last Stand, or otherwise) to be good enough to 1shot anything with physical piercing WS. It's just not something COR is very good at.

1. TP bonus on Fomalhaut won't affect melee WSs.

So, in Sheol:C on COR, I do frequently swap weapons as needed. And sometimes its not a matter of "this mob is weak to piercing" that makes me switch- you can get thru any bird family with quality Savage Blades, for example- its more "this mob is resistant to slashing" that makes me swap. Lamia, for example, are just horrible to try and push thru with Savage. I'll do one of two things on those halos- either swap over to Fomalhaut, and use Last Stand at high TP values, or if the accompanying family of regular mobs are fine for Savage, work on them while the "real" DDs handle the Lamia.

What I do find is great on COR is knowing when Leaden, Wildfire, or Hot Shot are really the best option. Skeletons and Bhoots are great for Wildfire if you get your own mob- can spam at 1k and the Wildfire>Wildfire directly to darkness will handle those mobs alone faster than any of our other options. Hot Shot is crazy fun to use on any of the piercing-weak-specific families of regular mobs like Birds/Vultures, as well as a few strange ones if your gear can back it up (examples being Qutrub, Leopards, Imps). Even Leaden has moments where its by far the best choice (Crabs come to mind, there are others).

The advantage that comes only with time is knowing when one of those non-Savage options actually does pan out better for you and your specific builds/weapon options. And again, just stating that often its not so much about what a family is "weak" to, its often a lot more about what a family is "resistant" to.

My general list goes something like:
- Fomal Hot Shot for the flying stuff(birds/bats) + qutrubs
- DP Leaden for Wyverns/aquans and most of the beast types (you can oneshot a ton of stuff if you hold to like 1500+ with leaden, but it's probably not all that far ahead of savage on the beast mobs)
- Ataktos Savage for most other stuff
- If I think I can get skillchains off consider swapping to Wildfire for skeles/ghosts and Last stand for Lamiae, but ideally you leave all of these to someone else tbh. If you have to fight them, and people are spamming the same mobs so you can't self SC, you might as well stick with savage even if the dmg kinda sucks in my experience.

Knowing when to swap weapons will put you a few % ahead of a "savage all the things" COR for sure, but not really by a crazy amount

Wtf no I totally didn't know that o.o
Geeeeez, thanks!

Pretty sure I can't oneshot anything, given how I don't have DP.

I've been able to oneshot lotsa stuff on floor1 and 2 with Aria and/or SV songs. But on Floor3 and especially Floor4 it's borderline impossible for me.
Plus I'm still ML0 so that doesn't help either.

The Last Stand > Savage idea is nice. I'll try to play around with that on floor 3 and 4 since I can't oneshot most stuff. Actually on some mobs not even 2x Savage Blades are enough to kill them sometimes, so yeah the Light SC would totally help there.

For Hot shot you'd use Fomal and you should be able to oneshot birds/bats fairly easily if you don't just fire right at 1k tp (tp scaling is really good it's like 3x the dmg at 2k tp vs 1k), it can be a bit random at times though. Generally it's probably not all that far ahead of just spamming savage all over the place sadly.

As for Leaden it should still be your best option for aquans (really just crabs and jagils I guess) even without DP, and by a fair bit too. But stick with savage for the other stuff.

Oh with Hotshot I can oneshot lotsa stuff. I meant with Leaden Salute of course! :-D

Good to know for Aquans though, I'll try it next time.

Leaden is good on more than just Crabs and Jagils you can one shot Leopards, Raptors and Marids with leaden.

Prime gun seems underwhelming. Am I missing something?
Stage 119(II) has 151dmg
R15 Fomalhaut is 176
I'm just not understanding the math here. Crit dmg is appealing but still seems lacking. The PDL aftermath is interesting but we have other gear or song for that.

....what?

Does that mean R15 DP sucks cause it only has 107 DMG? No one is building the gun for the DMG#, it's the WS associated with it. That's like saying Twashtar is Trash cause a Plunderer's Knife gets more DMG.

Probably just some new person following the logic of other newer games. In FFXI base damage of the weapon is just one of the many metrics involved is damage output and for some things (magic WSs) it can even be ignored, so just looking at base damage won't get you anywhere.

So is it worth building?

I do realize that weapon "dmg" isn't the only figure used when calculating which is why I was asking the question here.

Could you provide more info on the weapon and how it performs?

Thanks!

I'm not sure how much COR-specific testing there has been on the WS but it's been my experience that the prime WS are the best physical WS you can get, especially with the PDL included in the AM, and generally open up new SC options.

Is it worth it? Well...it only matters when you're shooting for physical damage on COR which is....not very often, honestly.

If I had to guess based on looking at the WS numbers I've seen from a friend with a S4 gun, it's better than Last Stand for COR, so S5 will certainly provide better WSD than Fomal (limited testing, take with a small grain of salt). Again guessing here, but I also think it would beat Arma/LS because the ODT will be a bit weaker, but WSD should be higher.

This only applies when you're pretty heavily buffed too.

Is this "worth it" depends on way too many factors that nobody on this forum understands about your ability to farm muffins, kill HM Aminon, what other jobs you have, how much empy armor you still have to make, what other REMA you have for COR, which content you do on COR, how your peers and friends' CORs compare to yours, and probably 50 other factors.

It is, in my opinion, a very good gun for COR (and maaaaybe RNG) to do physical damage at range. It's probably the best gun in the game for this, at stage 5. But it costs you 8.5m muffins plus psyches and mesosiderites, and you (probably) won't use it very often. I would only get one if you're a hardcore COR and don't play a lot of other jobs that would benefit from a prime, or maybe if you play COR and RNG a lot and would use it on both.

Earp is a huge gift to CORs. There's a lot more than just DMG/delay numbers regarding it...stage 4 has the ODD and stage 5 has ODT (occ. deals double/triple dmg) on your regular shots, and Terminus has some real teeth to it.

Fomalhaut has zero boosts to regular shots, and Last Stand can't keep up with Earp's WS. If you're serious about COR, its really a great weapon and will easily become your 1st choice on anything where physical dmg is used.