Lionheart Vs Epeolatry In Modern Era FFXI

I've been doing a lot of research online from both past threads on here and other sites like BGwiki and some threads on the official SE XI forums about the usefulness of Lionheart for RUN in 2025. I know in the past it was considered a pretty bonkers DD weapon for the job if buffed properly for Resolution spam. However most of the info I found for it was from between 2016 to 2019 and not a whole lot recently on it.

There's 3 main factors I was taking into consideration for whether or not it would be worth getting the Lionheart at this point for my RUN. First is I already have Epeolatry at the afterglow (III) version but without any Oboro augments yet. I noticed Epeo gets a much bigger DPS boost with R15 augments than Lionheart does. With Epeo going from around 37.4 to 42.2 DPS, where as Lionheart only goes from 42 to 44 DPS at R15.

Second is the amount of gear creep we have seen since the 2016 to 2019 era, since Odyssey and Sortie have really made a big difference with gear choices since then. Especially in the case of WSD on Nyame, which seems to favor Dimidation a lot more than it would Resolution.

Third is with or without having party support buffs and which WS would be better to use overall in an non-buffed/not attack capped scenario. If I wanted to do some solo content on RUN with trusts like Easy or Normal Ambuscade or some HTMB where I'm not buffed aside from trusts support buffs, would having the Lionheart make Resolution more powerful than Dimidation with Epeo in uncapped attack/non-buffed situations if you also factor in the Nyame and other modern era gear creep as well? Likewise in modern day full party support/buff situations, does Epeo Dim seem to do better now than Lionheart Reso or vice versa?

Back in the day it sounded like Reso was much better than Dim from what I had read in older posts. But I would assume that might have changed since then, plus I saw that Reso has that attack penalty and Dim can also make self light SC more efficiently with Epeo aftermath. Not to mention Epeo is obviously superior taking weapon, however I would like to try and experiment with some older 119 era content with my RUN solo outside of when I'm main tanking in a full party.

So my main TLDR questions are:

1) is Lionheart still worth obtaining in 2025 with the new gear creep and if someone already has Epeolatry upgraded to either afterglow or R15? I would assume without Epeo then Lionheart would still be worth it compared to non REMA options. At least for DD/lower end content potential and not so much in higher end more difficult NM tanking scenarios. I would probably use Aettir for high end tanking if I didn't have Epeo.

2) Is Dim or Reso the more powerful WS option in under buffed/not attack capped situations and same question for fully buffed situations as well?

3) Will Reso with Lionheart out perform Dim with Epeo in modern day with the new gear creep or vice versa?

I'm mainly trying to figure out if it's still worth it for me or any RUN in general to get the Lionheart in modern era FFXI or just stick with Epeo full time. Thanks for taking the time to read this for those who do, I appreciate any advice and insight on this topic.

I have Lionheart but it gathers dust. The only time I would use it is if I wanted to avoid skillchains, but it's such a niche situation (think the T4 Reisenjima Sandworm) that it isn't worth keeping around.

Well.. the thing is, if you are talking about modern day RUN meaning Oddy-Sortie, RUN has really become a tank. That being said, Lionheart has no use (at least to justify the trouble of making one) in endgame.

I usually don't even bring Lionheart to Wardrobes. It stays in storage.

Now, if you are trying to experiment with older content, using new gear, then Lionheart would still be super fun and strong. I still find Epeo AM3 more fun than Lionheart tho.

Yes, I believe Rune Fencer defaults as a tank now. If you are ever getting to a zerg situation where Lionheart could be viable, you are better off bringing a heavy DD with /RUN for some protection. Having Valiance on subjobs from master levels killed any slight allure of a Lionheart RUN damage dealer.

R15 on both of them, don't have r3+ Helheim yet.

As Kylos stated, Lionheart is good for keeping around to avoid skillchains and in the off-shoot chance you are getting the whole nine yards for BRD/COR buffs, including Aria. But the chances of that are slim to none (unless of course, you're multiboxing).

Even messing around with low-stakes content, Epeo just feels better to use due to the Aftermath 3's Double/Triple Attack and the DT II +25% it has.

If I were to tell an aspiring RUN when to get a Lionheart, it would be 6th or more on the Aeonic shopping list after getting the essentials. Aside from the aforementioned above, it's really there as a lockstyle piece (and a damn good looking one at that. Easy personal top 3 favorite looking weapons at the moment)

Ahh right thank you for the insight on Master levels there, I wasn't considering that. Which is a very good point since all those old threads/pages I was reading about RUN Lionheart were before master levels existed. I was having a hard time finding more recent info on the topic from after Ody/Sortie and ML were all added to the game.

Right I totally agree about for Ody/Sortie you would either main Epeo full time or maybe Aettir for NM's that mostly or entirely use magic damage. I wouldn't even consider using Lionheart for either of those lol. But yeah I was more referring for older content like Ambu, Omen, HTMB, and maybe Dyna-D on wave 1 that I would like to try experimenting with either soloing w/ trusts or dual/triple boxing with my 2 alts on GEO and BRD.

I've done the same content plenty on WAR, THF and SMN, but I wanted to try and see how RUN would do in those scenarios DD wise and having a more sturdy defense than those jobs would soloing. Right for zerg type fights I would definitely bring something more like WAR/DRK/SAM instead.

My other main question though is in the situations where someone would be able to do DD RUN say on mostly older content, would Epeo Dimidation or Lionheart Resolution put out bigger damage numbers with modern gear creep like Nyame WSD factored in? And also depending on if you have support buffs/attack capped or not, which WS would be the better option to use for RUN on those older content?

Since I have a GEO and a BRD alt but don't always want to spend the extra money to resub them every month lol I only resub them sometimes. So I was curious how those 2 WS would fair with and without support buffs, like which would be the better choice in each scenario.

Thanks again for the info on all this, I really appreciate it!

With newer stuff hitting harder, run not getting the dd gear it used to like adhemar days, nyame favoring wsd which helps dimi a good deal(though theres a good chunk of da on it too) and run being atk starved naturally, resos got an atk penalty, while dimi gets an atk boost

I just cant see much point in LH personally

It has already been answered. The AM3 on Epeolatry is very strong and being able to pair that with Last Resort to self skillchain will always outdo Resolution with Lionheart. If you are getting seriously buffed, it is similar, but Epeolatry will still be favoured for the extra defense. The only time you would ever consider Lionheart is on fights where using skillchains is seriously dangerous, but that is very rare.

In other words, stick with Epeolatry. Lionheart is not good now. Full stop.

Thank you Hovann for that additional info, along with Kylos and Godfry, all of your insight definitely helps me with this for sure. Yeah I was looking into getting some of the Aeonics, already got Foma for COR. I wasn't sure if Lionheart was still worth it for RUN though since I had a couple other Aeonics in mind especially for WAR and eventually SAM and NIN. That's mainly why I'm wondering about this with Reso vs Dimi if it would be worth it to get Lionheart. Cause I wasn't sure if Dimi was stronger now than Reso with Epeo and the new gear creep from Nyame and other newer gear added since back in the day.

Get Chango for your WAR. It is exceptional and is a far better choice than Lionheart at this point.

Chango is probably the most fun weapon in the entire game. Not to mention that with current gear you can actually just tank older content on WAR (in case damage is what you are looking for).

Utu Grip amps Dimidiation from a 80% modifier to a 90%. 95% of the time as a RUN you will use Dimidiation. I say this with 100% certainty.

Thank you to all of you for the insight on all of this. Right I was leaning more towards Dimi Epeo being the better option, and especially when factoring in all of what you guys mentioned. I just wasn't sure if I was missing something there that might of made Lionheart Reso come out on top damage wise. But I think I'll just stick with Epeo Dimi then for the times when I'm able to do some DD on RUN in mostly older content and maybe occasionally newer content.

I do agree about Lionheart is a pretty awesome style lock though lol. I wish there was a way to combine a style lock with the Lionheart and Epeo's green afterglow somehow. That would look pretty sweet. Yeah Chango is definitely the next one im planning to get for sure. Chango, Doji, Heishi and Foma seemed to me the better options of the Aeonics for the jobs I either already have leveled/geared or ones I plan to in time. That's a very good point about Utu grip! That and Niqmaddu ring are the 2 main gear from Omen I'm still hunting after for sure.

Lionheart is so bad, this thread reminded me I have one sitting in the exact same spot in Storage and haven't used it in years, totally forgot I even bothered making one. Jeez, this weapon (Resolution) did NOT age well.

Shoulda been DRK+WAR on it along with RUN. Skip this weapon completely.

It's funny when I think about RUN winning parses on WoC in Escha Ru'aun and other zerg fights as well.
But that was mostly for the superior Meva RUN had back then, making RUN resist most debuffs, making stun last less, and over that short fight with ultracapped stats, that usually meant that Resolution spam with >500 TP bonus was a very good source of damage.

But a lot of things changed since then I suppose!

I'd say make it if you just started coalitions and can knock out an aeonic in a day, but, there's Agwu's Claymore so yeah.

Lol thanks Buukki for that final nail in the coffin on my Lionheart consideration. xD Yeah it seems like I was looking through rose tinted glasses with those older threads and other FFXI site posts about Lionheart saying how epic it was back then. I figured by this point it wasn't going to be at the same level it was back then, but I didn't realize it fell THAT far from grace. Thanks everyone for helping me and other upcoming RUN on dodging a bullet with the Lionheart.

And yes it definitely should of had WAR and DRK on it, I've been thinking that since I first saw the weapon on BGwiki years ago. Idk What SE was thinking there, or maybe they weren't. They make all sorts of weird/dumb choices, like why the F WAR cant equip the Zantetsuken X but PLD can?? And yet WAR is able to equip the Hjarrandi head and body armors. Doesn't make sense and still irks me to this day that I can't use Zant X on my WAR. >:(

Oh no I already have Epeolatry so that's not an issue. That was the main reason I was on the fence with Lionheart. Cause Epeo took me so long to make with the coalition grind and not to mention the gil for the HP Bayld and Beitetsu was a lot. But for tanking it's obviously the better option for RUN, so I knew it was well worth the time and gil for it.

For someone who doesn't have either RUN REMA yeah I would agree Agwu or even Aettir would be a good alternative. Right Lionheart is much faster to get than Epeo, but I have a few other Aeonics that are higher priority. Plus with everyone's advice/insight on here definitely doesn't seem as worthwhile to get it as I originally thought.

Yeah Sechs thats the type of stuff I was reading from back in the 2016-2018 days with how great Lionheart was for Reso at the time and people saying that there was shouts for RUN DD in ambu and stuff all the time lol. I didn't return to the game until like late 2017/early 2018, so I think I missed most of the RUN DD hype back then. Plus some of the RUN job guides still mention that type of stuff about praising Reso Lionheart, so it was a bit confusing to separate that from the current day circumstances.

I agree with opinions here. Lionheart is lockstyle only. There is no reason to ever take off Epeo. It parses better then all other h)gs including stage 4 helhime for run (I have stage 4 helhime and epeo won in the little parsing ive fone with it).

I would say whether it's worth making or not depends on what you play RUN to do.

I agree 100% that r15 Epeo is the way to go these days for most endgame groups, but if you also do solo stuff or non-tanking activities as RUN, Lionheart can be a lot of fun, even if it's technically behind R15 AM3 Epeo.

If your solo play is mostly as other jobs and you mainly use RUN for endgame tanking, then yeah, probably safe to skip LH.

Lionheart isn't useless!

I used it in Cait Sith HTB just what feels like no more than 5 or 10 years ago.

Cait's melee attacks are magic damage so there's literally 0 physical in the whole fight, and the fight is generally over too fast to make Epeo AM3 outpace Lionheart.

So yeah. That's the one place I use it. The only place.

But it's not useless!

Wow really?? That is very impressive if Epeo is out parsing even the prime G sword Helheim on RUN. That sword is way out of my league currently, which is why I didn't bring it up at all. But with how they are the newest REMA type weapon SE added and with how difficult/super grindy the primes seem to be in aquiring them, I figured that Helheim would smoke Lionheart for sure regarding DPS and DD in general on RUN.

I know Epeo would still be the better tanking choice, but I figured Helheim would beat Epeo damage wise. That's very shocking to hear the opposite is the case, and makes me feel even better about putting the effort in to getting Epeo. Although I would imagine the stage 5 version of it would probably beat Epeo at that point. But I'm definitely going to try and get my Epeo R15 eventually to unlock it's full potential.
Yeah I mostly solo play in general or dual box. But when I do group content it's usually on either RUN or WHM, and sometimes SMN when it's useful for certain content. I would like to get my DD jobs into group content, but it's hard to land a DD slot most of the time for parties, at least for more modern end game. I haven't done really much soloing on RUN though aside from VE Ambu for fun and super easy trash mob stuff.

Since I do like soloing the older content a good bit, that was mainly why I wanted to mess around with seeing how RUN would do for that since it's more sturdy of a job than my other current leveled/geared jobs aside from probably WAR. That was what I was thinking about Lionheart originally how you mentioned it for solo stuff. If I didn't have Epeo I would have definitely gone for it. But I think like others mentioned with having Epeo it's probably not worth it anymore to get Lionheart like it used to be back in the day.

Lmao that's pretty hilarious honestly, Cait Sith of all things to use it on! Fellow career SMN here, so the irony is not lost on me with this. xD

I wouldn't chase damage on Lionheart when Helheim exists. I remember doing JPs with Lionheart as RUN/DRK in Dho gates. Temper and LR made it feel fast and Radiance damage was keeping it looking good, but it was quickly outshined as soon as I got my Epeo and put AM3 up.

My usual top damage range on Dimi with trust buffs and armor break from ambu gaxe is 32~36k. I think the first time I hit A boss with prime WS with the same buffs, it broke 40k. Still too hard to fight against AM3, enmity, and pdt 2 25% with store tp, ODD/ODT, and PDL since RUN gets no native attack buff. Cough add attack buff to swordsmanship.

I use Helheim to close Gravitation to Darkness on B and F sometime for fun, but otherwise Greatsword is 95% Dimidations for damage. Resolution <> Herculean Slash for objectives, shockwave for tagging/sleep, sickle moon for SC partner with Leaden Salute.

I also 100% believe you should use Epeo almost exclusively.

That being said, some of the claims about Epeo's ability to DPS are flat out crazy.

If you're in a position to DD on RUN, Helheim is way way way out in front of both options. It's not even close. On top of that Lionheart is a good clip above Epeo.

When Simonsess starts distributing punches at you guys for saying stuff like this yall call him rude...

There no way in hell Epeo can outparse helheim in any relevant scenario. Probably if you are soloing with not even trusts out.

I imagine most people who are deciding between Epeo and Lionheart aren't considering their St4/5 Helheim...I'm sure it's possible, but I think assuming people have or are interested in picking up a prime is misguided. It should be more of a footnote than anything.

It's a bit like the GEO thread recently: which is best for Judgment spam? It would be really strange to say "well, get a Lorg Mor, it will do more damage!"

Not that you didn't already get essentially unanimous advice on Lionheart, but it would be an especially poor choice over those three, which are all excellent options for their respective jobs.

Lionheart RUN had a vaulable DD niche for dangerous fights back when the choice was between DDs wearing what amounted to wet paper armor, versus a Lionheart RUN that could do decent DPS with Resolution while also surviving much better than the DD alternatives. But since then, (a) the abundance of high DT- and Meva gear for all jobs has made it trivial for "real DDs" to wear strong defensive/hybrid sets, and (b) Epeo/Dimi got more of a boost from the R15 augments and more widely available WSD gear.

My question is whether Lionheart is THE WORST Aeonic in 2025. It's a real contender, I'd put it in the very bottom tier with Sequence and Tri-Edge.

I’m certainly not saying people need to go get Helheim.

But we really need to be realistic about this discussion. If you as a rune want to dd without consideration for dt or enmity and you have buffs for it, Epeo is not the best dps weapon. Dimidiation sucks. FTP scale is horrible, worst disservice se did to ergonomic is not giving them the hidden ws bonus.

If you don’t have buffs or you want to tank, Epeo is king

Edit: I also disagree with the geo lorg mor comment just precisely due to the context. That question is coming from a person that is actively persuing sortie content. I think it’s absolutely viable to say that a stage 3 lorg mor would probably provide better benefit than all those other clubs. And for a group that is actively going for primes it wouldn’t be a huge setback to spent 1 M muffins for that

Is that worth upgrading it past the point of being able to wake up from sleep? Meh, probably not

I think this is the real kiss of death for Lionheart being useful at all now. In older content where you can easily overcap on attack, like aeonic farming or Omen, you don't need rune fencer's toughness or really any tank at all today. Lionheart and Reso spam is still fun IMO and it still works sometimes but using it now is more of a novelty.