Haverton Vs Karieyh

Hello,

I've been reading around some older posts and there seems to be some debate as to which would be better for RNG, I don't see any definitive answers though. Did anyone ever come up with an answer as to which is best for RNG?


Feanorsof

My personal take is Haverton, but that's because 1) I also play Corsair (and, to a lesser extent, use it on Samurai, even) and 2) even on Ranger sometimes ranged accuracy can be weak on some big stuff.

Honestly, if you're using Trueflight, Weatherspoon will probably be your go-to. Haverton and Karieyh aren't bad, but that affinity is great for an already exceptional WS.

You'll have to excuse my ignorance here I am just returning after a long break, is Trueflight useful these days? what's changed?

The main difference now is just the massive amount of MAB to which light armor jobs like RNG now have access. We're now able to stack MAB and AGI in basically every slot, as opposed to having a very sparse selection in the past.

Another large benefit to Trueflight over physical WSs is the fact that it receives no penalty from foregoing Velocity Shot. This allows you to melee for TP rather than shoot, which escalates your TP generation. This is not always the ideal set-up, but it's a very valuable way of playing the job when the situation arises.

Would you say it's worth gearing towards a good Trueflight set first, as a returning RNG? Or towards Jishnu's and capped Racc?

Personally, I would not suggest it as a first priority. My Trueflight set is superb only because I already had tons of gear from COR that I could simply transfer over. You would most likely get a lot more use out of building your ranged sets first. Usually if a group is doing a RNG setup, they're relying on physical damage, so having that aspect of the job available to you is most likely going to take precedence.

You definitely do want to work on MAB sets when you can, but, personally, I don't feel that they should be your main focus.

Awesome. Thanks so much! I'm struggling to find use for my RNG nowadays, but I'm trying to gear it regardless to be as useful as it can be. /praysforREMupdate

Are you intending to get CP on RNG or participate in big game events?

If so then you absolutely need a Trueflight setup, nothing else will deal anywhere near the damage it will. Both of those situations revolve around doing a SC and then magic bursting nukes onto it, meaning there will be GEO-Maliase and possible accumen. TF is Fragmentation and close's light off a Fusion WS. It's also Scission and can close Distortion off a SCH's luminohelix or Scission off numerous other sources. This makes it valuable as a SC closer, very similar to what COR use's Leaden Salute for. The other WS's can also close SC's but none of them will do the 16~30K damage resulting in a 30~50K skillchain. Thankfully most of your TF gear also works with Wildfire, which is the other big MAB WS you'll be using though more things resist fire then light.

I'd vouch for Weatherspoons usefulness (Among many jobs, even), but Havertons does have it place. Namely in reaching Snapshot cap while you work on augmenting Taeon. Now, I don't have 1200 RNG just yet to test this out, but I believe with 1200 gift you only need 64% Snapshot total to reach the "supposed" 80% ranged delay reduction cap with Velocity Shot. I plan on testing that some more when I get there, but for the sake of what to build for, it's a reasonable target. With 5/5 Snapshot merits, you only need 54% Snapshot from gear. Each piece of Taeon gear can get 10 each, and belt/back can get 3 each. This means you can hit 56% without Haverton, but Haverton can fill the gap should you remain unlucky with augments. And with the availability of stones decreasing, it's all the more reason to scrounge up as much Snapshot as you can (From alternative pieces like Adhemar legs and feet). Haverton becomes a bit less useful as you approach the assumed cap, but you can always trade it in later for Weatherspoon. Hopefully, you will have a full Trueflight set by then.

As for Trueflight itself, it is indeed the best WS RNG has at the moment. Due to the mechanics and nature of current strategies, safe magic damage is the way to go, making Leaden/Trueflight arguably the best WS in the game. Now, that's not to say that Jishnu/Last Stand aren't still strong, but you'll likely never receive the proper buffs to make them more powerful than Trueflight. Which is a shame, especially since Jishnu has such great SC properties with other popular physical WS. However, you'll often find that most strategies rarely use physical buffs, making their actual damage output depressing. In fact, a lot of the jobs that take the physical damage spot in modern PTs are primarily self-sufficient/utility jobs (BLU, DNC, SAM, etc.) RNG doesn't need much support in terms of Haste to maintain TP, but they have trouble self-SCing reliably like other jobs. A SCH can help open or close with a RNG, and is in fact safer than relying on a melee. However, some fights only require SC creation from a single SCH anyway, or some SCH are just unreasonable and refuse to share the spot-light. Point is, there's a niche for RNG, but it's not exactly in high demand.

As for getting CP solo, I'd also second having a good melee set. Depending on your Trust support, melee RNG is the most efficient way to kill most trash mobs. Like COR, they have access to some of the best melee gear, have obnoxiously high accuracy and receive no penalties from using Occasionaly Attack Twice/Low base DMG weapons. Dual-wielding daggers with Haste 2 and high amounts of Triple Attack generates an outrageous amount of TP, and Trueflight always does full damage regardless of your positioning or if Velocity Shot is up. It's the perfect WS to use if your support is limited, as its damage is always consistent. An average build for Trueflight nowadays should deal about 8-9k damage, which is quite a lot considering it's usually "naked" damage while you're soloing. Better gear will produce better results, but that's usually more than enough to tear through almost any trash mob the game currently has. And if something happens to resist Light, Wildfire is not too far behind in damage either.

However, if you have Trust like Qultada or Sylvie who give out attack buffs, then the Knife WS Exenterator is probably your best WS. Yes, sadly, that makes you nothing more than a gimp THF, but Last Stand and Jishnu fall behind without Velocity/True Shot. There's also the fact the 1-handed weapons are in such a good place right now, in terms of WS potency and gear options. You COULD drop the melee build and stick to ranged/sweet-spot to kill mobs with a tank trust, but I don't believe it's very efficient. Keeping EXP/CP chains is key to getting returns, and the time it takes for your Trust to get hate and for you to get in position is a liability. With a melee build, you can generate TP the entire time, making WSing far more consistent over using ranged attacks. With Indi-Fury and Chaos Roll, my Exenterators deal 8-11k damage to most Reisenjima mobs. I should say that's with Ternion Dagger +1 main-hand and only 1/5 Merits into the WS, so there's room for more damage (Like using Odium main-hand, for example). With similar buffs, Last Stand can deal 12k+ without Velocity Shot, but only with proper positioning, which I don't feel is worth the trouble.

Edit 1/25: With Odium, my Exenterator can deal up to (Vorseals/mob varying) 12k with Sylvie and Qultada, although I neglected to say WHY that's better than backpedaling for Last Stand. You see, Sylvie's AI checks your accuracy while you're hitting the mob. If she catches you in melee range with Ranged WS equipment, she often likes to drop Indi-Fury for Indi-Precision. Her AI used to re-Fury after you achieve 90-95%~ melee accuracy again, but it appears to have changed so that she won't recast Fury until Precision wears off. This defeats the purpose of using a physical WS, as Trueflight will often beat them out without Fury/Velocity Shot. So, Dagger WS tend to lead to more consistency without needing to resummon Sylvie. I'm not sure if GearSwap can bypass this issue, but it's something to keeping in mind when farming CP.

Anyway, to condense all that down: Work on a melee build if you plan on soloing CP, but do focus on acquiring as much Snapshot/MAB/Bow gear as a primary goal. There are quite a few ways to play RNG right now, and you will learn to love Trueflight for its damage, but aim to be as versatile as possible for both ranged Physical and Magical damage. It's sadly one of the only things RNG has over COR right now.

Kollo ^-^/'

with Trueflight being this good, is gastra gonna be worth it? would the 30% more dmg be worth the slower WS fequency, lack of white dmg, and accuracy loss (because who ws's at <2000 tp anyway?) compared to, say, annihilator? (and to a greater extent, Aeonic gun?)

With the REM updates just around the corner, I think it will be safer to wait and see what SE has in store for us either way. It's pretty hard to justify building Gastra knowing they could throw us a curve ball and have Physical Damage be relevant again. :(

PS: THANK YOU ZEAK <3

Sorry for another i'm confused with snapshot post but is the general consensus that +1 snapshot on gear = 2% with an overall cap of 80%?

I've been trying to calculate if I can drop my Haverton's now, I see myself at 79% without including Velocity shot and merits which doesn't seem right:

Amini Gapette +1 - +7 / 14%
Carmine fng gauntlets +1 +8 / 16%
Haverton +6 / 12%
Lutian +3 / 6%
Impulse Belt 3%
Adhemar kecks +9 / 18%
Taeon Boots with Snapshot +5 / 10%

79%

Velocity shot - 22%
Merits - 10%

111% total without flurry II which is another 30%?

I'm sorry, I don't recall what thread it was posted in but I did ask about the 1 snapshot 2% thing in a thread somewhere. The answer I got was that the math was based off of early testing and the fact that each snapshot merit gave 2%. Supposedly any gear that has been made recently (ilvl gear) the value is actually 1 to 1 not 1 to 2.

Like Hoshiku said, Snapshot is 1:1 from gear, but the overall Snapshot cap is 70% from all known sources. There is an official claim from SE stating this that's hovering somewhere around the official forums, and it appears to be true after messing around with a lot of gear sets and Flurry 1/2. As for an overall ranged reduction cap, I don't actually think there is any. I originally believed that Snapshot and VS stacked to create an overall 80% cap reduction, but that turned out to be a really, really, dumb coincidence/error on my part. I don't have anything fancy to test with, but just from playing around with a ton of different sets/weapons at 1200 JP, it would appear that all sources of ranged reduction just create fractions of fractions. Velocity Shot seems to cause a further delay reduction after Snapshot is factored, and Rapid Shot/Overkill have some type of "floor" that cuts it down to an almost minuscule amount. Basically, you want to cap 70% Snapshot first, squeeze in Amini Body +1, and then stack RS activation gear.

As for gearing to achieve this, it's impossible without some form of Flurry or Courser's Roll. As said before, you CAN get 70% Snapshot from gear with full Taeon and Havertons, but that leaves no room for Amini Body +1's Velocity Shot boost. To find a happy medium, it might be more practical to get 55% Snapshot from gear/meirts and find someone in the group who is /RDM for a "Favor Flurry". Even if you end up on your hands and knees for one reason or another, this should free up your body slot for Amini, giving you almost 30-33%~ delay reduction from VS at 1200 JP. Remember, though, this is NOT additive with Snapshot, so you're aren't at some mystical 103% Delay reduction where you're firing ammo before you even press your macro, but it is a significant multiplicative reduction. To get back to the main topic, this also means you don't need Havertons, if this is your game plan. You would only need 45% from gear, but that does mean you need 39% from 4 Taeon Slots to still fit in Amini Body. Otherwise, there are plenty of non-Taeon alternatives to hit that 55% total reduction, but none of them leave the body slot available.

Now, if you're in bed with a RDM main or use Koru-Moru, you need even LESS gear with Flurry II, opening up a lot of Rapid Shot slots. There's plenty of combinations to hit that 30% snapshot gear needed (30 from gear, 30 from Flurry II, 10 from merits), but I'd recommend a couple of pieces like augmented Pursuers Pants with +19 Rapid Shot, Carmine Hands that offer both Snapshot AND Rapid Shot, or Yemaya Belt to replace Impulse. You'll be shooting at an incredible rate with all this gear/Snapshot, although I'm not actually sure there's an upper limit to Rapid Shot. However, as long as you have capped Snapshot, there's really no harm in stacking as much Rapid Shot as possible. It's not exactly a deficit to anything even if you exceed the possible cap to its proc rate.

edit: Pointless musings