Sigurd's Descendants: The Art Of Dragon Slaying.

The only things that really make Jinpu inherently better are its ability to SC with itself, Ninja's lack of Overwhelm, and SAM's better TP overflow. Both have similar requirements for being effective and I wouldn't really say one job has a decisive gear advantage over the other (if anything, I would give Ninja the advantage).

You realize that Chi is identical to Jinpu right.

Mechanically speaking it works the exact same way with the exact same incorrect wiki values. Actually Blade: Chi has slightly better WSC due to being 30% STR/INT while Jinpu is just 30% STR. I know a guy here on Asura that does crazy high Chi damage, exact same dude who can also MB for 99K on Ninja. It's all about having the right buffs with the right gear and an Aeonic.

The former is very important, though. While DRG doesn't get an amazing magic/hybrid ws (MNK gets exactly 0), the properties of polearm being able to skillchain effectively far outweights the potential for a good-looking, yet, impractical "oshit" WS that is occasionally useful. Blade: Chi doesn't skillchain with anything worth a damn, even if it can occasionally hit very high.

I digress.

The ability for DRG to be able to ws & skillchain very fast and often is the real advantage DRG has, but it's almost not an advantage since other jobs do it so much better. Kind of wish DRG got the "Skillchain Bonus" trait.

DRG's are so bad that it effectively is in the same spot as MNK as far as magical WS go on its primary weapon. It can use Cataclysm, but unlike MNK, DRG needs to use a goofy subjob in order to access it.

DRG and magic WS just don't mix well so wouldn't bother. Polearm has a few flexible SC options and a powerful SC closer in Stardiver. Stardiver is the Resolution of Polearms, it's just the job not having access to some of the more powerful gear that's damn near purpose built for Reso/Stardiver. Two players can form a 4 step Umbra that demolish's stuff.

Player 1 -> Fusion WS to open
Player 2 (DRG) -> Stardiver Gravitation
Player 1 -> Distortion WS for Darkness
Player 2 (DRG) -> Stardiver for Umbra, will do 99K or very close to it.

DRK's make good SC partners for this due to Insurgency and Cross Reaper working well, though if they have Rag could also use Scourge and Torcleaver. I tend to shy away from one hit WS's for multi-steps though. Bonus is they could MB Drain III after the first Darkness for insane HP since they'll be tanking after the DRG jumps their hate off post-Umbra. THF's also work for this setup and produce very silly darkness SC's in the middle.

Or you could just Stardiver>Sonic(distortion)>Stardiver(Darkness)>Stardiver(Umbra).

The above ones are stronger, much stronger. TP doesn't stop at 1k and staggered enables the final two WS to be over 2K resulting in ridiculous SC damage. Thats easily a 60-70k and a 99K SC.

So save jumps for the last 2 WS. Can easily get over 2k TP.

And while I don't doubt that this produces more overall dmg than a solo DRG SC, I also don't see it as much of an argument for DRG's usefulness. "These other Jobs that have better WS than DRG can do this neat thing with DRG." Right. Totally going to cause a DRG popularity explosion.

Why wouldn't they just use 2 THFs in this situation? Wouldn't Mandalic>Eviseration>Rudra>Rudra net better results? IIRC someone in this thread said Evis was stronger than Stardiver. Not that I'm convinced of that, but admittedly I haven't actually checked.

About all I'm seeing here is, "DRG can Skillchain too. Just like all the other DD." It's not the best at it, nor is it the jobs specialty. This SC isn't getting DRG into a pt slot over other jobs.

I mean, you could do this with two DRGs as well. But if we're going to talk about what's most effective, DRG isn't going to be in that picture at all.

Evisceration:
fTP: 1.25
WSC: 50% DEX
Hits: 5
10 / 25 / 50 Crit Rate
fTP Transfer
Gravitation/Transfixion


Stardiver:
fTP: .75 / 1.25 / 1.75
WSC: 85% STR
Hits: 4
Decreases enemy critical hit evasion
fTP Transfer
Gravitation/Transfixion

No it won't because T4 SC would require Exten and those WS's don't activate Aeonic AM anyway.


No you couldn't, the second DRG would never get AM up and therefor couldn't execute Umbra. The second WS in the chain needs to be the Aeonic activation WS so that the fourth and final one would generate the 99K SC. It's really about pumping up that final SC multiplier. I mentioned those specific WS's due to their TP growth and SC positions. For reference, a four part double light/dark SC has a SC multiplier of 1.5 + 1.75 for the final two SC's. The same four part SC with the final WS creating a Radiance / Umbra would have a 1.5 + 2.75 SC multiplier. Ultimate SC's can do a ***ton of damage if they are properly preped, and the 99K cap is why I don't go past four step anymore.

Evis is most certainly not stronger then SD, SD is the Resolution of Polearms, it gets sickeningly powerful especially with more TP. Evis is a TP transfer WS with 50% DEX mod that's TP Bonus is crit, SD is a TP transfer WS with 85% STR mod that's TP bonus is more damage.

Doing a two party multi-step requires powerful WS's positioned at the right locations to interlock and produce a brokenly powerful result. You want the final two WS's to be very powerful while also having the necessary properties. This is something that H2H, GS and Sword suck horribly at but Scythe, Great Axe, Polearm and Dagger are really good at. SD is a very broken WS, on WAR with the HQ Exalted Polearm I can break 40~50K on SD's, DRG with Trish would do better (assuming fully buffed).

You want to see a very broken SC on Telles, do

Mandalic -> Stardiver -> Stacked Rudras -> Stardiver. Not a single WS in that chain is weak, they all gain a ***ton of power from extra TP and you'll see Telles's HP vanish while it's proc locked the entire time.


Rua just soloed DD's Kouryu without a GEO. DRG is perfectly fine when it comes to damage, it's one of the stronger DPS jobs. It's only real hurdle is gearing can be a PITA due to relying on augmented gear so damn much and you really need a full compliment of buffs.

I rather doubt it would need to be an Umbra to hit 99k if you're actually hitting a 60K WS to close. And Rudra's should be able to double dark in any case, so there's not strictly a need for Aeonic AM here.So have the final closer drop a stardiver before the SC, then alternate closing DRG's. Waste one WS at the very start to perpetuate the cycle afterwards. The supporting DD will refresh AM each SC, as they trade off closing Umbras.
And I'm looking forward to his video. But what's your point?

Is this something that only DRG could have done? Does this somehow indicate DRG supremacy? Prepare for DRG bandwagon? I rather think not. I think it's very cool that he did it, but that doesn't overturn the DPS discrepancy between DRG, and say, SAM, as an example.

I don't think that DRG is a poor DD, by any means. I play it after all, and it's the only DD I leveled(discounting RUN, since that was supposed to be a tank back when I leveled it, lol!)

But I said, "Most Effective" and I think we both know that DRG is not the top DPS.

Now maybe you're satisfied by having other jobs literally thousands of DPS ahead of you, but it annoys me somewhat. And it would be nice if SE did something to even the field a bit. And I'd rather they buff DRG than nerf the competition. Not that I think they will, but... Perhaps I'm just greedy, but I'm not convinced by the argument that DRG is perfectly fine as it is.

Most likely yes, Ancient Circle + Dragon Breaker + Angon were key considering there was no GEO present just RUN + WHM + DRG.


Where did I say that? That's projection right there.

So I'll say it again.




Only if your mindlessly spaming WS's, in which case nobody would play anything but Reso WAR since that's at the top of the DPS pile just due to it's JA's. Savagery Warcry + MS + BR + Retaliation = very dead monster.

Here's the thing, I only rarely do Reso spam anymore, I find myself doing Chango multi-steps far more often. That is the exact same situation that DRG would excel in. It has both a powerful self SC along with the ability to integrate well with others. That last part is really important as several strong jobs end up being very annoying to work around.

I'm constantly building DD parties and exploiting multi-step SC's, this isn't a rare thing for me and I can really appreciate how powerful DRG can be.

You shouldn't regularly take shots at the wiki/<other resource here> for being incorrect while acting as beacon of intellectually sound reasoning online. Only to refuse even lifting a finger to resolve the alleged falsehoods, and when asked for data on the subjects sum it up as a waste of your spare time.

Huh???

This makes zero sense. Anyhow I'm not on the bgwiki editing team, though I know who is and can drop them a line to check it out. The values on the wiki were from a mistranslated JP post on the JP wiki. 0.5/0.75/1.0 were the old fTP vales for the magic component, the melee one is a flat 1.0 per melee hit. It's been raised since then.

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/42588-dev1216-Weapon-Skill-Adjustments

The values at 2K/3K are suspected to be around 1.5 / 2.5 now. That is why Aeonic's make such a dramatic difference and why Jinpu / Chi have such a ridiculous increase in power from before.

No. Just no.

I didn't and don't think that you believe that to be the case, neither did I say you did. It was an exaggerated rhetorical question intended to express that an anecdotal account of DRG prowess(Awesome though it may be) does not indicate DRG's actual position in the DPS hierarchy. Which it apparently failed miserably at. I will try to take more care in how I express these things in the future.
I have trouble imagining that Dragon Breaker actually had that significant an impact. It's just -20to acc/atk/macc/meva/stp. Not likely enough macc to make a significant difference in resisting TP moves/debuffs. The STP would probably be the biggest thing. But I'm not actually sure how much difference that would make. Does STP affect monster TP gained form being hit? I believe it does for players but I'm not actually certain about mobs. The wiki doesn't explicitly state it. And does Kouryu have regain/save TP?

Similarly, Ancient Circle like all circle effect is notably nerfed vs NMs. Halved potency was fairly common iirc.

Now angon's contribution to the fight would be undeniable. But it doesn't seem to me like that couldn't be surmounted by a DD with much higher atk+ than DRG.(Disclaimer in that I haven't even napkin mathed that, just a gut reaction. And DRG does have a whole lot more atk than it used to, so maybe I'm stuck in an old mindset.) Now if the RUN was DD'ing, then Angon would also have a notable impact there, RUN being very atk deficient. But you said that Rua solo DD'd on DRG. Which would imply to me that the RUN was solely tanking. Or did you just mean that the DRG was the only job that was strictly speaking a DD?

I'm not quite ready to conclude that only DRG could have managed this based on the info I have at hand. But Rua's video should be informative, not to mention entertaining.

I just put them all together cause they were used in sequence, circle still retains it's defensive potency only the offensive was nerfed down.


Not with how defense down stacking works, -25% defense stacked with -15% is huge. And yes DRG gets a ***ton more attack now then before, +15% from JT and another +20% from Wyvern.

100/85 = 1.176, 17.6% effective attack increase
100/60 = 1.666, 66.6# effective attack increase

Just got messages from Rya, his highest SD for that fight was 55K on the tail end of the SC. Normal SD's were 40~50K. That's without a GEO so I'm inclined to believe the circle effect wasn't nerfed. Might be time for us ot recheck the circle effects now.


Yes that entire fight was nothing but Kyouru pulling every *** tactic known, perfect dodge, terror spam, so and on so forth. I was very busy holding everything so Rua could do his thing.

The only DD? Probably not, the best DD? Likely so. His ability to deal high damage and shed the hate immediately was a life saver when I was terrored for 55s.

My point is that DRG is perfectly fine for DD right now, so far the only complaint I've seen is that it's not #1 in DPS zergs, it's serviceable but not better then a fully zerged Warcry'd MS Reso WAR. We've taken it to nearly every event we've done and they haven't been carried at all.

Hmm. I'd second the thought of retesting circles. I would be very pleased to find them at full potency. And I was unaware that the defensive value had even been tested vs NMs. Doesn't seem to be well documented.

The enmity dynamic is one that actually hadn't occurred to me. It's been so long since I really made use of DRG's enmity shedding abilities.(although a lot of that has to do with being on RUN 90% of the time last time I played.) Nice to see those being put to good use.

I could definitely agree that DRG appears to be well suited to this particular challenge, though I wouldn't commit to saying it's impossible for other jobs. Still, I like seeing something DRG is particularly good at.

Also, I'm still salty that RUN can't wear Founder's Greaves. That Terror resist...

Far larger room for error in a fight where the NM has a whole bag of *** they can pull on you. There was one particular moment I remember when it hit me with a 55s terror right as Rua was closing one of his SC's and it turned towards him. I'm thinking "we're ***" but then he super jumps and its right back on me. And the Circle effect was extremely noticeable in that fight.

Steadfast Tonic

Had long since expired. This fight is longer then 60s you know.

Wait... there's fights that last longer than AC burn??!! /shocked!

With the introduction of the new augments you can put on your Ambu capes, what's the best augment for a DRG to use? I feel I'm gonna need a bunch of different ones, but what's a good starter?


AUG Per Max
DEF + 10 50
Evasion + 3 15
Magic Evasion + 3 15
Physical damage taken - 2 10
Magic damage taken - 2 10
Damage taken - 1 5
Regen + 1 5
Counter + 2 10
Blocking rate + 1 5
Parrying rate + 1 5
Status ailment resistance + 2 10
Casting interruption rate - 2 10
Pet: Physical damage taken - 2 10
Pet: Magic damage taken - 2 10
Pet: damage taken - 1 5
Pet: Regen + 1 5

(Source) http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/53856?p=605988#post605988

This is gonna be pretty sweet

I had no doubts about it being able to mess up Kouryu like that. I usually solo Quetz for beads in about 15 minutes, the circle JA is insanely strong and actually lets my trusts survive no problem.

What kills me is that the job performs very well when doing Zitah/Sky clears/Omen/Etc. Parsing sometimes over GS WARs, or slightly under (Not including MS Zergs, but even during a zerg DPS is respectable). The job holds its own. The only time my damage falls behind is when I decide to exploit leg sweep on certain NMs for shits and giggles.

Stardiver with super buffs/Trish/Warcry isn't all that bad.

Yet people keep telling me the job is useless. I really do wonder where that mentality comes from. Just because they suck at DRG, doesn't mean I do lmao.

Also High Jump with the relic pants is nearly as good as super jump, imo it is better from a dd standpoint since it is less down time while shedding 75%+ Enmity on a lower timer.

I actually ended up pulling hate on several Gods last night and it saved my ***. I ended up High Jumping twice on Byakko and it caused a few people to eat claw cyclones to the face. xD

My biggest complaint is having to spirit link at the start of every escha fight, but that is an oversight on s/e's part.

Despite all that this is the most fun I've had playing this game in a long time.

I think what people are saying here is the job is "nothing special" , not "the job is bad". Try to solo quetz with avg/ok geared DRK or something spamming torc, I promise you it'll also die in less than 15 min with no trust dying with right trust combo. And most well played dps job can live in today's content just fine, depends on how you play it or assign buffs.

There are just way too many melee jobs or pseudo melee jobs in ffxi, but only 1 slot for real DD in 6 man pt, or 4 slots in 18 man pt. So everyone fight for that slot real hard and that's the issue IMO.

Pet Regen for idle!
jk, I never made a pet regen cape (i guess i could cuz i have no other drg capes to make). We get a really decent amount of pet regen as it is, though, it seems quite useless with Spirit Link being as short timer as it is.

I'd probably make a status ailment resistance cape first, because nothing is worse than being amnesia/slowed/para and interrupt your jumps/dps. MDT/PDT/DT is an interesting option. I don't really have issues with my little guy staying alive. So unless they create new content that spams more damaging moves, Pet DT-5 is probably not a huge priority for me. But that's also an option to consider as well. It means you can use your pet DT set less frequently now.

I tried doing Quetz on WAR(Chango, Rag, Raetic Algol+1, Bravura, Etc for reference) and my trusts kept dying constantly. Not only that but I had to ride my hybrid set a majority of the time. I'm not saying you are wrong, but I'd genuinely like to see a DRK do that with only trusts/no mules. (I personally feel like Torcleaver would whiff too much, Reso would be my WS of choice)

I'd have a new found respect for DRK for sure.

I'm positive it can be solo'd but would it be time efficient? If my WAR can't manage it, I doubt my DRK could.

I noticed skillchain damage in general seems pretty weak on Quetz.

Out of curiosity which combo do you use? Because even AAEV/Cheru/Sylvie/Selh'teus/Cornelia kept going splat :(
Essentially it's 2.5 Healers, and a trust spamming rejuv.

It gets to the point I spend too much time recalling trusts, and not enough time DDing.

DRG can atleast pop Ancient Circle and keep shedding hate with High Jump while going all out. If you do pull hate, it's no biggy since the damage mitigation is nuts on AC.

Sylvie is a good UC, but won't keep up as well as Apururu/Yoran. But the better option as an aoe healer is Nashmeira II over Cherukiki. At least in my opinion. You get aoe cures from Selt + Nash, Yoran (or your UC) focusing on your main cures, cornelia for haste (though you could drop her for Koru, which would be more cures and higher haste), and keep AAEV because she's a good healer. That's actually 5 healers, 30% haste, MP restoral.

Whenever I do Domain Invasion, it's as Ninja, but I always fight from behind. Spike Flail is much easier to heal up from than sleepga and terror spam. And if someone else is using joachim/qultada, you get their rolls/songs anyways. If you're soloing, though, go for healing primary.

Just as a side note, DRK has a slight advantage over WAR defensively if it's keeping Dread Spikes up. Means adds won't tear right through him quickly, plus he can Drain 3 MB if needed.

edit: I should have mentioned that I don't have Ygnas, so he's clearly a better option as a secondary healer than Cherukiki/Nashmeira II

I honestly miss Apu, but I hate using a COR or BRD trust that screws things up half the time. (Qultada likes to burning blade, and Ulmia randomly uses Ballads) Sylvie is pretty nice in comparison. Also it's nice that she does use erase/lower tier cures.

Ah yeah usually I'm attacking it from behind. Getting melee'd isn't usually the huge issue. It's mainly the TP moves, especially when he gets spammy the last 25% or so. Also if you aren't paying attention and get knocked back far enough. You can get drawn in and hit with a breath (even if you immediately run behind it lol..)

Ygnas is on my to do list.

Sylvie is definitely one of the more intelligent UC trusts out there, and, might I add, she can solo cure like a champ (in some cases better than Yoran). She isn't squishy and she won't cast Stoneskin (like Yoran) and leave you stranged for a full 5 seconds. I miss her a bit, but I use so many jobs, he's more beneficial than crappy.

Apu on the other hand nearly almost ran out of MP when I played DRK. Not surprising because I'm wreckless, but I've gotten better experience with Sylvie as DRK than Apururu. She will occasionally cast Curaga 4 (which has a long cast time) and will leave you open in critical HP at the worst times. For that reason, I chose Yoran instead, Nashmeira and Selt for the aoe cures, and AAEV backing me up.