You'll Shoot Your Eye Out! - New FFXI RNG Guide

I'm aware of that. Weaponskill delay is 2 seconds, and you also have to consider that my gandiva aftermath midshot set gets around 250 tp per shot, where I'd be getting closer to 300 tp per shot if I was using the full store tp build. This matters because pinaka would be using the latter rather than the former. For every bit of tp you go beyond 1k the scaling factor of sarv makes up more and more of a difference between the two. I'm not outright saying either option is higher DPS here, I'm merely looking at it from a math standpoint and questioning the pros and cons of each approach.

I also want to throw out that the point about the -50 enmity on bayeuax arrow is basically a moot point if you're getting dirge (which you should be in a ranged setup). Gear enmity has a cap of +200 and -50, and dirge goes toward the gear cap. If you're getting dirge that's an automatic -32 enmity, and since Amani Caban +3 is standard for our weaponskill body slot, that's -45 enmity right there. We can only fit in 5 more, which will probably be accomplished via amini earring +1/2 (even if it's not, -5 is far less relevant than -50). I'd also like to ask if hover shot goes toward the gear enmity cap or if it counts as a separate enmity reduction that's somehow multiplicative with gear enmity. Nobody has ever been able to confirm the hover shot thing as far as I know. If anyone has some testing done on it I'd be curious to see it.

Mischief said in the odyssey thread that dirge wasn't needed on arebati for ranger, due to hover,iirc. (so long as you don't mess up lol)

So it looks like Sarv's stat mods are 65% strength/65% agility and its TP anchor tiers are 2.75 at 1K TP, 5.5 at 2k TP, and 8.25 at 3k TP. The TP scaling is completely linear from 1k straight to 3k. So you really don't lose out on weaponskilling at any point, although moonshade earring and ikenga's vest do make it more effecient to weaponskill sooner. As far as an optimized weaponskill set I've come up with this

ItemSet 393937

And I'm gonna be honest here. I never even knew that belt existed. It looks like I'm gonna have to pay garuda a visit in the near future. Epaminondas's Ring, Cornelia's Ring, Dingir Ring, and Sroda ring are all perfectly fine substitutions for ephramad's ring, but the alternatives to amini earring +2 are all kinda trash, and unfortunately our +1 earring has no str or agi so unless you're able to utilize the PDL it doesn't offer anything. The best I can come up with is either ishvara earring or sherida earring. Amini earring +2 is just so much better than the alternatives here it's not funny. If someone knows something else I could put here in place of +2 JSE earring I'm open to suggestions. JSE +1 earring is of course best if you do get the PDL benefit, but if not it's a toss up. Nyame mail is perfectly fine in place of amini caban +3, as is ikenga's vest.

Belanus's cape would be 30 strength, 20 ranged attack/ranged accuracy, and WSD + 10. Agility is perfectly fine in place of strength on the cape. I'm pretty sure the rest of the slots are locked in. Barring true shot considerations there isn't much that competes with the other options.

I'd note that you're likely using Nyame Mail if you aren't attack capped or aren't using velocity shot.

Edit: Or Ikenga's Vest, but I haven't mathed out the ftp progression, +12/13 WSD might be better than +190/200 TP bonus.

Yeah, I made a note in the followup paragraph beneath the set about nyame mail and ikenga's vest. I can see both of those being used in place of amini caban +3. When velocity shot is up amini becomes the de-facto, but even then you can argue against it.

I'll also throw in that if you know you'll be firing in trueshot range the belt changes from ponente sash to tellen belt. There are no other swaps for trueshot though. Unlike jishnu's sarv can't crit, so Nisroch is out, and nyame flanchard should still be soundly better than amini bragues +3.

Has anyone got some code for true shot sets? I was thinking something that interacts with distance plus, e.g. distance = blue range (true shot range) equip trueshot tp or ws set. Or a simpler solution if someone has one (that still considers dynamic true shot distance of weapon type and mob size).

Question on RNG crit rate. So with Dead Shot trait, RNG is natively 45% and mastered is another 8%. Master natively has 53%. Presumptively a crit set would use Meg Visor +2 for +12 Dead Shot. So, just making sure my azimuth is correct, 65% crit rate with all that said, I only need 35% crit in gear+merits to cap out? Super elementary question but this game's logic throws me off at times. Thanks!

"Dead Aim" isn't critical hit rate, it is additional critical hit damage. Camouflage is the Ranger job ability that affects the rate, and of course that can't be fully maintained and even removes itself immediately upon usage of a Weapon Skill.

Dead aim is critical hit DAMAGE not critical hit RATE. After considering this, you should take a look at your crit sets because you're starting from...well not 0, but certainly not a very high percentage

Beat to it but yeah. Highly recommend reading this

Awesome thanks for the quick responses, read that wrong!

Im trying to find a balance of crit rate and defensive stats. I hate midshots that put me in the squishiest of sets for say arebati. We are looking into crit sets in the event we get a bad aura on Arebati and want to break. My current set is about 55%. Could add Blistering Helm and Gelti's Knife for a good chunk

few arebati suggestions:

-If both you and your COR are using relic/empy/prime weapons, consider chaos/rogue instead of chaos/sam, in particular if the need to break the aura once or twice is highly valued for your group. There is a huge advantage if your tank can handle living with the aura up for rangers, though- Once the aura is up you can safely stand at bow's True Shot range without risk of larger radius TP moves....so perhaps something to consider if you have Gandiva or Pinaka is building a DT/Trueshot set instead to boost your dps and seeing what can be adjusted for your tank to live.

-its really, really hard to justify giving up the Arcadian Beret (relic) in non-doubleshot midshot sets. I tried messing around different ways myself, against better advice, and honestly? ended up just wasting a lot of time. In particular if you're trying to create a semi-defensive/crit midshot set, throwing in something like Blistering Sallet always scares the crap out of me- that meva is so insanely low.

In the guides for Coronach why do i see that the back pieces use STR modifier for their ambu capes instead of AGI or DEX since its a split modifier for Coronach?

fstr2

I want to return to the discussion of the prime bow and its enmity problem. It's been about half a year since I fought V25 Arebati, but we got back to working on clearing him this past week and I got to try out the prime bow on him for the first time. Suffice to say... it's extremely powerful.



Unfortunately, that power comes at an extremely high cost. I rode annihilator and coronach spam from the 60% mark down to 40%, and only broke out the prime bow after an unfortunate darkness healed him. This particular fight was not going to be a win so I wanted to get a feel for what the boundaries are on the bow. The above screenshot was my opening volley fired at 3K TP right after a barrage. I only got off 4 subsequent weaponskills before I pulled hate and died. The next 4 weaponskills were in the range of 40-57K damage each, and you can get a feel for the white damage with this screenshot.



Since we were not going to win this fight anyway I don't feel too terrible about the results, but it left a very bad taste in my mouth. The enmity gain with Pinaka is astronomical. Celeb said as much on the previous page, but I need to reiterate it here. It's so absurdly high that I don't see how I can possibly get away with using the thing on any kind of extended fight unless I hold off until the very last 5 or 10 percent, and at that point I'm pretty sure annihalator would be able to finish the job anyway.

Now with that in mind, I do have one small caveat to mention. I don't have the empyrean head built yet. I've been using ososhi +1 for my double shot head swap. I'm going to add it to my repertoire tonight, but I can say with near certainty that an additional -58% enmity on the white damage phase would have only allowed me to live for an additional weaponskill or possibly two at most. I have tellen belt in my midshot set as well as ikenga's vest and feet, which is -21 enmity. I had capped hover shot stacks, so gear enmity shouldn't even MATTER because the gear enmity cap is -50 and I was maxxed out on hover shot stacks. Aside from adding the empyrean hat to the mid shot set I don't think it would be possible to lower my enmity generation any further, and the mid shot set is not the problem here. The problem is that sarv is so damn powerful I end up hitting the hate cap way too fast and rip hate right off the tank.

Final Note: I did perform at least three of those sarvs with the Bayeaux arrow equipped. The first sarv was used with an arrow I had scavenged previously. And I used scavenge after firing off two more sarvs without picking up a new arrow, so I know I still had the original in my inventory up to that point. Whether I failed to proc recycle after that I don't know, but I'm pretty sure the -50 enmity on the arrow works just like any other gear enmity (IE: NOT added as an additional reduction like the empyrean head is). In which case if you have capped hover shot stacks like I did at the time, I don't think the -50 enmity even does anything.

Edit: I'm not sure how big those images of the screenshot damage are. If they're too big I'll resize them when I get home.

Just recapping what we've known for 14 years. Bows get you killed.

Never was a damage issue, it was always a too much enmity issue. Prime without the Namas enmity is suicide. Just like Gandiva(Jishnu's) before it.

Celeb kind of championed the thing on the previous page as a really powerful asset in the fight and went on about playstyle with it. I wanna know what he did different (if anything) from my run. I held tp for all my weaponskills until the 2500 range, just like he suggested to do in his post. I had capped hover shot stacks with an additional -21 enmity, which shouldn't even matter, in my mid shot set. I weaponskilled with the scavenged ammo. And even with all that it took just 5 weaponskills and I was hate capped. The thing is absurd. It's so strong I just think it's unusable on extended fights. It is however a blast to play with. Pinaka was damn fun to shred last months ambuscade to bits with hehe. But as far as Arebati goes, I'll probably be sticking with annihalator all the way. There's just no way around it. The thing is just too dangerous to use unless there's some sort of enmity management mechanic I'm not picking up on.

Just need a pocket smn whose main role is spamming pacifying ruby

Just tossing this into the discussion- heads up I haven't actually tested the viability of this yet, its just something I've been wondering about for Arebati in particular.

At least for our 2nd KI setup of a v25 Arebati, we bring a GEO. Also, like you I stick with Annihilator from the start of ki#2 til around 35-40%. I've been wondering about the potential of a return of Decoy Shot. Its not something one uses on RNG much outside of perhaps using Gandiva (at least, that's the primary use of that /ja for me), but I've been wondering if this new weapon almost forces it upon us. I know there are benefits enmity-wise to Hover Shot...but I still feel that direct transfer of some of the enmity generated versus just reducing it could end up playing better. The GEO would be the perfect target for Decoy'ing, as they really don't generate any enmity in the fight without subjob spells and such to add to the mix.

Now- when I do get a chance next Arebati attempt to actually try this out, I plan on still riding Hover Shot during all the Annihilator time, and perhaps even for the start of Pinaka time- but I'm sure by around 25-30% I'll want to swap.

Again, these are just ideas and have not been tested yet, but I felt it would be a benefit to all to know what I plan for next time. While I do have my wins, it doesn't mean everyone I care about does, so a consistent way to win is super important to me beyond just that once.

I'm probably not going to bother testing Pinaka any further until after my group gets Arrebati cleared. But I am very interested in finding ways to make it more usable. The problem I see with decoy shot is that it doesn't work on weaponskills, and by dropping hover shot you're going to take a massive hit in your dps output. That 84K damage looks really nice, but without capped hover shot stacks it would have been half that. At that point why not just stick with annihalator and spam coronach? My coronaches were doing 26-32k during the bolster window, which is plenty strong. Since coronach fires off at 1k I could be firing off twice as many weaponskills using the gun. I was holding tp with pinaka until 2500+ and even with conservative estimates for JA delay and such that's still going to put the dps output of Pinaka with decoy versus annihalator with hover at roughly equivalent levels. I think decoy shot would result in a net loss of damage here because gun is more spammy and pinaka almost forces you to wait.


The strategy for the first KI already uses summoner, so we wouldn't have it available. And I'm not gonna lie here. I think I'd STILL have hit the hate cap and ripped Arrebati off the tank in that run with pacifying ruby spam. Summoner can't use pacifying ruby more than once every 20 seconds, and it reduces enmity by 25%. I was using exclusively coronach up to that point in the fight, so I'm pretty sure when I switched to pinaka I had extremely low enmity. I hit the cap in about a minute with just 5 weaponskills. I would need to actually see it in action, but from my limited experience with the bow it sure feels like Pinaka's enmity gain is so strong it outpaces even pacifying ruby's ability to control it.

sadly, you point out all my worries about trying out Decoy Shot and the negatives associated with it^^ I still want to get some realistic experience with it, but yeah....you nailed it.

Pinaka's enmity does not come from the midshot phase. Its white damage is on par with annihalator. It may be a little bit higher but not to the point it matters. Any attempts to stifle enmity gain during the midshot phase will have minimal impact. Decoy shot only affects midshot enmity. Our empyrean head only affects midshot enmity, and only during the double shot window. That's not where the problem lies. The problem is entirely that by throwing out massive weaponskills time after time after time... with NO way to mitigate hate beyond -50 enmity you gain hate VERY VERY fast. -50 enmity is NOT enough to suppress a sustained assault of 50k after 50k after 50k weaponskills at the rate we fire them off at. And when you're doing a ranged strategy you can't afford to NOT weaponskill when you get close to capped tp. It's not like you can build 3k TP and then just stand there idly shooting midshots for 10 more seconds just to slow down hate. You'd be better off just using annihalator and going ham with coronach.

Everything about Pinaka revolves around sarv. It's both the weapon's greatest boon as well as it's achilles heel. It's a fantastic toy to play with on lower level content or squishy mobs that you just wanna chew through. It's amazing for ambuscade (boy is it ever). But for any kind of extended fight I just don't see a reason to use it over annihalator. When enmity suppression matters for long fights, I really can't see any option other than the gold standard.

Don't make me necro all the Annihilator vs Gandiva posts on the Divine Might/Delve discussions from 2014 in the PowerRanger thread.

Just wondering is hover gear enmity or does it work like tranquil heart/emp hat and work seperately?

Is there some reason to use the GEO and not the tank? Seems like the tank would be on the party's side of Arebati to begin with and it would be pretty trivial (when not stacking Hover Shot) to line up behind them and shoot from there.

Typically we stand on the broadside of Arebati during KI#2, with the tank keeping him facing a different direction. If one were to use the tank as the target for Decoy Shot, you'd be in range of Brain Freeze, a move that inflicts Amnesia.

The positioning in this fight will usually be roughly this


Brd
.........Ranger
... Cor
Geo
.......................................Arebati

................Paladin............................Rune Fencer


The bard and geo should be standing farthest back. Ranger and cor are a bit farther ahead. Ranger is closest (but never closer than 12.5, no matter what. That's Bow's ideal true shot range and just outside the radius of his worst tp moves which I think extend to 12.0) and the ranger should have free space enough to move around for hover. The paladin tanks the two pigs off to the side where he's in range to receive random deal and whatnot from the cor, and the rune fencer tanks with his back to the wall and arrebati facing him. Arebati should always be between the main group and the rune fencer with his hind quarters facing the back lines, so there's no way you'll ever be firing off decoy shot on the tank. Arebati has knockback effect on normal hits as well, which is just more reason for the tank to have their back facing the wall. Yes I know there is a certain...method... to get around mob's knockback. Let's not change the discussion to that and keep things ranger related here ok. What I just described is the standard party positioning and you'll see that followed in every youtube video you watch of this fight.

RNG WS enmity problem solved (lol).

Got a video of a Ranger using Sarv

Definitely used Scavenge to get that arrow^^/