Killer Instinct: The Beastmaster Compendium

This is all true too, but if the BST isn't the one spending their own TP and adjusting DW gear, someone else has to. As a practical matter, I don't run into a ton of situations where parties are thrilled to set things up to intentionally optimize for maximum BST DPS. If you happen to be running with a DNC main, sure. If no DNC main, I feel like most parties would probably prefer BST to be one of the first jobs to sacrifice their subjob in order to go /DNC for the greater good of the party.

Like, if you have a choice between BST/WAR + COR/DNC, versus BST/DNC + COR/DRG... I think most parties trying to maximize total party DPS would tend to default to asking the BST to be the one to have to suck it up and go /DNC, so the COR gets the benefit of more/stronger Savage Blades or Leaden Salutes which are at least probably perceived as stronger than Calamity or whatever from a BST (assuming the COR and BST have relatively similar quality gear, and we're not talking about a mule Roll-COR with mediocre melee/WS gear or something).

Now, someone here might have data showing that it's actually preferable for overall party DPS to have the COR or someone else be the one to /DNC instead of a BST. If so, that's interesting - please share more! But I don't think that would be the standard assumption among the overall FFXI playerbase, so at the very least may require the BST to do some explaining as to why someone other than them should be the /DNC.

Personally always assigned samba duties to the brd or cor if they're /dnc. It's generally a net gain regardless of who does it so long as they arent natively overcapping DW (rip nin) and have a set ready to swap into with samba active. And that's just for the user, technically everyone benefits unless already delay capped(2 handers) or they're a nin

It's more a case of.. there's already a cor brd that are likely subbing dnc or even a dnc main. Bst doesn't also need to do it in that case.

Generally not seen many cors prefer /nin, some brds do.

If you know there's already someone doing samba, why would you also go /dnc. Unless of course you have no set ready for /nin with samba.

If you get an actual party invite firstly what game are you playing it's not XI secondly you do whatever the party wants idc what sub you want.

As far as data showing bst benefits more from haste samba.. already showed it. That party setup was cor/nin brd/nin with dnc main haste samba and sets for it, without any DW.

So you have less DW to possibly be overcapped on(this is more relevant for when a dnc main is present), to have 2 tiers 1 tier of acc bonus, to have skillchain bonus, along with just general spot utility.

If ever there's a real need for shadows that can push you to /nin again but those are pretty rare

COR/DRG? I'm lost. I'm not sure I've seen this before at all, so educate me. Are people actively subbing DRG on Corsair for "stronger Savage blades" (meh)? That doesn't seem like it's the most optimal support job, if the context of the discussion is providing support for the party in general.

Well the offhand doesn't get a tpbonus so it wouldn't be ridiculous.

If there is someone doing samba. Dunno if it's better or worse just not completely silly

The only practical scenario I could envision that would benefit from /DRG as Corsair main would be mimicing Xolla's Oathsworn Master Trial, but for that, it wouldn't be for Savage Blade, but Su5 OAT MH and High Jump/Super Jump to clear hate, while spamming Leaden. Ditto for any other fight you can use a sub and need to clear your ceiling hate.

DRG sub works for most jobs because they're either 2-handers or otherwise heavy DD, or for the single wielders like WAR BST and even BRD, they get a Fencer trait to pair on top of it, so they get even stronger single handed WS, and Haste Samba just makes them even better. If they're a DW job natively like THF NIN or DNC, the sub works well also. It doesn't really work the same for non-native DW jobs like RDM or COR (RDM would be a better candidate for /drg because it Tps fast).

COR benefits far too much from an offhand in most situations (their shield options are terrible), and your offhand adds damage to your WS as well, including whatever stats come from Gleti's/Crepuscular Knife. You also TP way faster with an offhand weapon than you ever would single wielding with a sword on COR in standard TP set, so I don't see much of a use for it in most cases. I would say in most modern content, /DNC is the standard for COR, /NIN for like a MT you need survivability.

I think if its dnc main samba itd push single wield up, 2% off delay cap iirc without a tp hit in dw(plus being overcap in said dw) along with seperate wad bonus which would outweigh any oh stats. Shields do suck and probably stuck with nusku. COR has its own fencer in tp bonus gun

This is purely for meme blade

I'll even grant it, SB damage would be higher with /drg. I still can't think of a single event in the game that would warrant that additional DPS for the purpose of solely doing higher savage blade damage to the exclusion of practically any other utility.

I may have been loopy suggesting COR/DRG, but fine whatever, maybe COR/WAR for similar reasons as people are suggesting BST/WAR? COR/NIN for more DW and not spending its TP and JA delay on /DNC abilities?

It just feels a little weird to me that there's the idea that we're doing what is best for optimal BST damage in a party setting. Maybe sometimes that's just how it breaks down, but IDK, usually I tend to feel like BST is one of the jobs you'd look pretty seriously at being the one to use a /DNC sub and spend its TP due to the offense it usually brings to the table relative to other DDs.

Optimizing around WAR damage and forcing another party member to do the Samba makes perfect sense to me, because WAR dishes out a ton of damage by virtue of having better offensive JAs than BST. And hey, BST benefits too if they're in the party. But party composition focused on maximizing the BST's output seems... well, harder to convince a lot of parties.

Not really exactly this. Dodik was sharing his parse and dps comparison between a bst/dnc with kclub vs a bst/war. Both had dnc main job haste samba. From that, he gathered that so long as BST is getting a haste samba from like a dancer main or sub, it made more sense for BST to sub war for more damage, as the /dnc wasn't helping it pull ahead of fencer/berserk/da/ma build.

I don't think he was saying that a party should necessarily do what is best for BSTs damage, but that if the party comp already satisfies conditions for BST to sub something else and improve it's damage, why not?

Oh for sure, I do think the whole discussion is pretty cool. Just trying to figure out, well, is that really the best party comp?

I tried doing a 20 step skillchain w/ Aymur + Diamond Aspis, and that seems to be the limit for skillchains.

Don't think it has anything to do with best, just a statement of "if this ever occurs".