RNG Best DD? Ah.... No

I think RNG is a excellent DD job "probably" 1# if your party/Alliance has no mage support haste, BRD songs, or COR rolls for the DDs. However with proper Support from BRD, and COR which was noramlly in good Party or End of game events, the Damage potential of the other DD jobs like SAM, MNK, DRK, WAR (not in that order) can become far greater than an equally geared RNG with its own beneficial support stats.

I've noticed recently though my party and end of game event LS, has been far lacking in support role jobs, and mages that can cast haste are far too busy healing tanks or hasting tank and our 1 or 2 brd are in tank or BLM party almost never DD party. and somehow we've moved away from the rotating 2+ brd stategy so it makes it seem like RNGs rock when they are realy just ok if/when this game is played at its unlimited potential.


RNG shines best in bad party setups or unorganized end of game events.
When the game is played correctly and balanced with DD and support jobs RNG is barely top 5 DD job.

Cliffnotes on OP's post:

Everyone knows that SMN is the new SAM.

Hi2u Spirit Taker.

Not sure how much you play rng, but i think i could come close to outparsing a lot (most) of jobs with proper brd support. Sounds almot like you are saying brd songs only effect other type of DD jobs.

Treppe, youre contradicting yourself. If a ranger can do extremely well w/o buffs, what do you think happens when we DO get them?

Minuet x2 + chaos roll ftw.

Except that rng gets less benefit from minuet and chaos roll than a melee does from haste buffs.

Both in theory and in practice, RNG tends to be the best DD for any non-zerg, non-piercing-immune situations.

Do the math. Seriously. RNG has capped ACC on pretty much anything before LV85, without ACC gear, meaning you stack almost exclusively R.Attack and STR. What that means is, RNG is not only the most accurate, but also hits the hardest. The accuracy bonus allows for better use of meat, of course.

RNG also has a BASE 25% delay reduction without gear, and up to 40% with. Bow delay ends up being less than Polearm.



I'm trying to stay away from math here, because I don't need math to state the obvious. RNG > All.

^This

Ofcourse they get buffs from them as well but they go a lot further on other DD jobs. Is why you hear about DRK Zergs ,not RNG Zerg.

ok who would you rather place your bet on, A race car with no Pit Crew, or another Race car with a great Pit Crew.

race car one has 1500 HP, race car two has 1000 HP????

If Ranger is the best DD without buffs, why would they be the worst DD with buffs? That just makes no sense.



But if you give these other jobs buffs, surely the Ranger would get them too? Without the buffs Ranger is better, so how on earth could equivalent buffs make them worse? Again, this just doesn't make sense. The point aside that needing buffs to be a good DD is a pitfall in itself; if RNG doesn't need buffs to be the best job, clearly, it's the best job.



Are you even reading what you're posting? If a Ranger without support seems better than most DDs, how will giving Ranger the same support make them worse? You seem to have Ranger down as this lame damage dealer that only rocks when everyone else sucks. Comparing any job by those conditions isn't really fair; there's more factors involved with being the best damage dealer than simply how big numbers you can throw out. Most of it comes down to skill, too; there's no point ripping a monster apart if you're going to die every fight.

I really wonder for the quality of Ranger you have seen. My Ranger isn't perfect but it parses up there with some really damn good Samurai and Warrior friends of mine. Again, parsing is only one aspect of the comparison, but saying Ranger's damage doesn't compare is naive and incorrect.

Have you seen a Kraken / Relic Ranger, presumeably this would be what you classify as "unlimited potential", in action? There is nothing in the game that will beat this toe to toe in merit setup.



Do you have anything other than your opinion to justify such a ridiculous claim? Ranger's worth as an end game damage dealer has been proven time and time again. You say Ranger is for unorganised end game events? Do you have any idea how ranged attacks work? Ranger is the runaway best damage dealer at end game because of how ranged accuracy and attack is calculated relative to a monster's level. Compared this to melee attacks and you'll soon see why a lot of traditional damage dealing (as opposed to manaburn) end game shells have Ranger and Samurai as their favoured DDs.

Big numbers isn't the only thing that makes a good DD, either. Ranger is possibly the best DoT in the game as they can literally blast our 300+ Arrows every 4 seconds with two Minuets up. Combine this with the powerful weapon skills and you have a very respectable DoT. Not all jobs hit this hard, and certainly not this quickly, even with two marches.



Barely top 5? Well, you brought up the subject of "unlimited potential", so compare an "unlimited potential" Ranger to an "unlimited potential" Samurai, it'd be pretty neck and neck. All other jobs would be distance to these two. I honestly can't believe you think Ranger is barely top five when it's perhaps the top. I run several end game events and Ranger and Samurai are my favoured DDs. Know why? Because they're the best.



You hear of DRK zergs because of Kraken Clubs. No other reason, DRK would be poor for zerging without blood weapon or multihit weapons. Ranger can stay with DRK with a similar amount of buffs (presuming the DRK has minuets and marchers pouring out of his ***) and they don't need blood weapon or a Kraken Club to do it.

Your opinion really makes me worry for the standard of Rangers on Pandemonium... Perhaps in your 'unorganised' end game events and your 'bad party setups', Ranger is mediocre, but it's not on the rest of Vana'diel.



True, but it's not hard for a BRD to Haste the melees and Minuet the RNG.

Double post, how embarrassing.

"True, but it's not hard for a BRD to Haste the melees and Minuet the RNG."
That wasn't my point at all.

"Treppe, youre contradicting yourself. If a ranger can do extremely well w/o buffs, what do you think happens when we DO get them?

Minuet x2 + chaos roll ftw."

It was in response to that. If rng is ahead before buffers are introduced, they will be ahead by less (or end up in the negative) after buffs are introduced. Which was my point in saying that melee benefit more from buffers than rng does.

Okay, misunderstood. I disagree with falling behind though, unless you're a poorly equipped and merrited Ranger you shouldn't be falling behind that much if buffs are introduced to the DDs. Ranger still has one of the strongest DoT by comparison, even if the DD's have two marches.

This is something I'd have to see personally. While I've never seen a rng at the back of the parse, I've sure never been beaten by one, and I've been up against some good rngs.

"haven't been beaten by one on something I'm actually allowed to melee rather than odin where I'm forced to meditate and run in ws and run back out"*

Well, you're an exceptionally geared DD. It'd be hard for any job to beat you; but I'm certain a Kraken / Annihilator Ranger would. But, then again, throw a Yoichi or Amano in for you and it gets interesting again.

Surely we can agree RNG is definitely a contender for top spot in the right circumstances, and most definitely is within the top 5, contrary to what the OP thinks.

"but I'm certain a Kraken / Annihilator Ranger would." Been there beat that, was a long time ago. The 2nd annhilator I went up against was just a pure joke though (this one w/ staff and /sam).

Rly though, it's all situational. You can't say Sam is best at 100% of X or on top of the list for everything the same way you can't w/ blm or rng. Every DD specializes somewhere, even pup (Try to beat my pup at 37 or 55 birds, I dare you, you can't do it idc what job. Drg rng sam(polearm))

Well, if a RNG gets an Annihilator, I'd hope they wouldn't use a Staff. ><

But yeah, fair point. Some things one job wins, some things another; no clear cut winner anywhere.

Vegetto, you're not a RNG, so I'll explain this to you.

After a certain point in R.Attack (Or I'm assuming normal Attack also, if you can get enough), the benefits of adding more drastically increase.

Just doing some simple math here, with my base stats (STR110 AGI101 R.Attack873), on Greater Colibri:

Adding ONE attack increases my average ranged attack by ~.6 damage.

Double Minuet adds 104 Attack.

My projected base ranged attack damage (This is assuming Berserk is up, so if it seems a bit high, that's why) is 447.

Now if I were to add +104 Attack to my 873, that gives me 977 Attack.

My projected modified ranged attack damage with 977 attack is 503.

That's an improvement of 56, or 12.5%.

Likewise, WS damage goes from 2832 base, to 3188 with double Minuet, for an improvement of 356 damage. Again, another 12.5%.

Assuming I'm /WAR, that's an addition of 636 damage every WS cycle.



My point from all this is, sure, your double March will improve damage by a greater percent, but with a RNG getting Double Minuet, you're gaining more damage overall than the 20% increase in attack speed that comes from double march.

Edit: Note, this was just speaking for one RNG, and as such I was using one SAM as reference.

How do you figure?

If you're getting a 12.5% increase in damage, how is that gaining more damage overall than double march? double march's increase is more than 12.5% increase to total damage at 0% haste.

Probably because an Archery Ranger is hitting more often than a two handed user with that boost, even when the two handed user has double march. So whilst the two handed user has a significant increase to their DoT through two march, the Ranger is keeping pace hit for hit (if not outpacing) and is receiving the whopping attack boost he described.

My point was, at such staggering damage differences, there's a point where just adding a higher percentage will not let you overcome the adversary.


Just a simple little description, don't take this in FFXI context:

A)1 * 1.200 = 1.20
B)2 * 1.125 = 2.25

Subject A had proposed "Marchx2" status.
Subject B had proposed "Minuetx2" status.

In FFXI, what I'm saying is SAM would be subject A, whereas RNG is subject B. Adding that 12.5% Minuet didn't improve damage more than the 20% from March.


Sorry if this made it more confusing, lol. Running on absolutely 0 sleep and about to head to bed.

I wasn't talking about who is doing more damage at this point. I was talking about which job gains more of an increase from their buffs. Which would be any DD getting marches.

Like i said, IF a rng is winning, apply buffs to both and they will be winning by less.

Btw that calculation for 20% haste is wrong unless they have 0 other haste. 20% haste is going to give more than that if you have any other haste whatsoever.

I'm not arguing that Haste isn't exponential. As I was saying, don't hold my generalization to FFXI terms.

Besides, the damage difference between SAM and RNG is more than just 1:2, so the difference would be even greater in reality where SAMs are shooting for 3x the damage of a Polearm.

Again this is something I'd just plain have to see. Rngs being x2 and x3 better than other DDs, yet I haven't been beat by any since having decent gear on my melee DDs. It's not something I can simply take your word for, especially w/o any math to back it up.

I don't know what type of rangers you've been playing with; either your ranger blows or theirs do. Nobody has ever come close to outparsing me on ranger even with buffs. And in terms of zerging. A ranger/warrior can easily outperform a kraken club drk. Done it many times and seen some crappy rngs do it as well. Either get better gear, learn how to play ranger, or stfu, thank you =).

I'd offer to parse for you but you'd argue parse results are skewed because WSs do damage past the mobs' HP.

Also I haven't been on FFXI in a while, much less on RNG.

If you want math, just scroll your eyes up a few posts. 977 Attack > ~500 Attack.

Edit: I know that's not all there is to being a DD, but I'm not really feeling in the mood to argue it but that alone should tell you that "Hey, maybe the RNG hits a bit harder"