September 2019 Version Update

The PDL does only increase the cap. If you don't have the attack to support being at the cap of the "attack vs mob's defense" check, you won't see any advantage of the PDL on the gear.

RDMs can go solo bunnies in West Ron and hit harder now. While true, it's a joke. It's not that extreme.

Some of these pieces may be decent on crit based WS in a whole lot more scenarios than just absolute max 1hr buff type situations. And the reason for that is just the nature of the way crits work and how they interact with pDIF. Personally, I'm pretty confident that the hands of this set will be my new RDM CDC hands on most content. The hands have the 2nd most STR of any of the pieces of the set, and the STR on the hands is decent when compared to a lot of other RDM hand options, anyway. I think most RDM probably CDC with either a DM Chironic, Taeon or Jhakri+2 hands. Personally, I've bounced around a few times between a Taeon and a Jhakri hands. I've seen a DM chironic feet that had both crit % rate and crit damage %, but they fell short of Thereoid. The point of mentioning these lousy DM feet I seen, is that it's probably possible someone out there has a pretty good CDC chironic DM hands. Anyway, If we look at Jhakri+2 hands and what they have for CDC relevant stats: str18, dex41, accuracy43, attack43, WS 7%. The WS% applies to the first hit of CDC only and I think RDM's should be happy to lose 43 attack to gain 7accuracy, 7 STR, 15 DEX and PDL4 that can apply to all hits. The 7STR and 15DEX by itself should be worth more than the 43 attack. The 7% WSD applying to the first hit only quickly gets lost in the background of Triple Attack procs turning CDC into 6 or 8 hit WS's.

That club looks like it might be a fun Croc/Club Seraph Blade option. Croc Red Lotus and Croc Seraph Blade at 3k TP already do comparable damage to Croc Sanguine (Sanguine damage does not scale with TP). Seraph Blade using Croc to boost elemental WS and this club to boost light (assuming it's affinity), Seraph should find a way into RDM's arsenal of half-way viable WS options depending what you're fighting and what buffs you're getting (Warrior Warcry, Malaise).


It's really quite situational. I can find all sorts of occasions where DDing on RDM with Croc is less effective than many of our alternative options.

Maxentius/Thibron or Naegling/Thibron are both great options. Almace/Ternion is still one of my favorite RDM DD options because it skill chains quite readily/easily. Sequence/Ternion is pretty nuts with Samurai Roll because of TP over flow. It's pretty likely to Savage at 2k with Sequence/Ternion between TP overflow & TP Earring. Add a warrior with Warcry's TP effect, and Sequence/Ternion is a Savage spam machine doing 2k to 2.5k TP Savages at really high frequency.

I've joined countless CP parties to parse myself against myself comparing a variety of weapons. And I have to say, there's a reason Almace/Ternion continues to be one of my favorite RDM DD options.

But truly there's a lot of really fun RDM DD options to play with. Including R15 Mandau/Ternion which is basically a darkness spam option (Mercy Stroke) that falls just short of Almace CDC spam damage, but it brings a piercing option to the table. Before the augmented REMA option became an option, I would have scoffed at Mandau in the hands of a RDM. Hell, I would have scoffed at Mandau... period. It was a lot of work and effort for something only marginally better than other NQ dagger options, if it was even better at all. But with the augments, Mandau became a decent RDM option, I think in part because of RDM's Triple Attack (Same effect happens with Maxentius' 50% WS DMG applying to all hits). But in CP style setting I can RDM Mercy Stroke 18k to 27k on crab/fish with Mandau/Ternion. It's a darkness spam combo that WS's at higher frequency than Almace/Ternion but the individual WS's (Mercy) are a bit weaker than Almace (CDC). Mercy's biggest fault is not being able to take advantage of things like a TP earring or a Warrior's Warcry or any TP overflow. If certain TP+ buffs come into play, Mercy Stroke will be left that much more in the dust by other RDM options. Things like a quick 6 or 8 sec Amnesia really hurt RDM Mercy Stroke Spam because the extra TP does 100% nothing. RDM Mandau can't even realistically swap to a different WS to try to capture some of the TP overflow like RDM Almace can with Savage Blade. Even CDC at least gains crit % rate with more TP.

And something to be said about Croc, is that it doesn't hardly stand a chance against RDM's physical options *IF* your party is physically buffed and not using Malaise. And there's a lot of physical DD in a lot of content who wouldn't care if Malaise was ever thrown down or not. Many 6man Ambu, some Omen fights, many SR groups, etc. So you really have to look at your circumstances and just play the best option you have to match to the environment. Croc isn't some automatic DD RDM win option. You still need to think through some things: look at your party setup, buff setup, and what you're fighting.

One of the biggest reasons Croc has gotten something of a reputation for RDM DD is that because 1) It is a good option, 2) You can just buy it off the AH, but really 3) Dynamis double dark weather and the natural tendency for Malaise to always be thrown down to support Corsairs taking advantage of said double dark weather.

But bragging about being an FFXI "purist" is like walking around an Adult Video convention wearing a "Proud Virgin" t-shirt.

Knock back isn't really a difficulty in a battle. It's a stupid mechanic that should be treated as such. Lets not cry about dumb ***now.

Never said I was a purist, nor did I ever brag about being a purist. You're just lashing out because others do not agree with you skipping over mechanics when the fight is very doable without.

So far those who do not want to cheat have been called plebs, purists, proud virgins, and what's next?

Moving or being moved always interrupts your casting (unless you run back to your original spot exactly before it goes off).

Huh... is there something else that would prevent it?

I have had spells still get cast even after being knocked back in the fight.

just curious here didn’t you finish your aeonic’s with smn burn? Which %99 of people use scripts for that, due to lag spikes and slow reaction times, is that not also cheating?

And something to be said about Croc, is that it doesn't hardly stand a chance against RDM's physical options *IF* your party is physically buffed and not using Malaise. And there's a lot of physical DD in a lot of content who wouldn't care if Malaise was ever thrown down or not. Many 6man Ambu, some Omen fights, many SR groups, etc. So you really have to look at your circumstances and just play the best option you have to match to the environment. Croc isn't some automatic DD RDM win option. You still need to think through some things: look at your party setup, buff setup, and what you're fighting.

One of the biggest reasons Croc has gotten something of a reputation for RDM DD is that because 1) It is a good option, 2) You can just buy it off the AH, but really 3) Dynamis double dark weather and the natural tendency for Malaise to always be thrown down to support Corsairs taking advantage of said double dark weather.

How does SMN burn require any scripts at all? You literally just swap to your BP damage set for Conduit and spam the same JA over and over with a simple macro until your target dies.

Unless you're talking about Zerde, who is a pain, but you don't need to rely on stun bots to win.

i'm a little confused by this statement, too. last i read into AC the consensus was that manually triggering bloodpacts and full timing BP dmg gear while disabling gearswaps for the full duration of AC is superior to scripting due to lag screwing with timing and swaps.

That's really far from the truth. Knockback is most of what makes a battle "harder" It's an unavoidable obstacle that *** up range from target, THF positioning, and the distance the whm will be safe at.

Though, we use addons to tell us how far we are away.

(I'm all for addons that make life easier, but to say negating it means nothing is false)

This battle in particular is spectacularly "harder" with every single attack knocking you back. Some of the worst times in my entire life on this game were tanks being knocked back before literally everyone started using addons. (ranger era, circa 2014~) ((delve, AA HTB, Gessho HTB))

If I remember correctly one single croc rdm can parse 30% dmg of entire pt and cor war brd SC dmg do the rest 70%.

Yeah it really isn't an issue unless you're trying to multibox everything. Gonna call *** on that one m8

RDM has been able to do 30+% of the dmg long before Croc came on the scene in a large variety of content.

That's what makes croc special. They can do decent dmg without ever interrupt SC in a multi step setting. Something other weapons can't do.

Is Daybreak + Kei shield better than Lathi/Enki combo? It seems to provide way more mag acc plus the magic dmg though no Mykyr