100% to 0% Rani Brew strategy

[Alderin]

Also, be aware of amnesia from Malign Invocation. Forgot to mention that earlier. Don't really know how big of a problem that is either.

Yep just to play it safe I intend to get an Amnesia Screen from Dominion Ops. It lasts 2 mins so I figure if I pop the brew > amnesia screen... Rani will be dead by the time it wears.

[ThaiChi]

Ha, I completely forgot about amnesia too, its 1AM x.x The amnesia doesn't last a cripplingly long time usually. If your brewer is really that worried about it though as it does have the potential to really screw things up, they sell amnesia screens at Flux 1 at the Dominion guy. My biggest concern while brewing Rani is honestly the charm, I can't really comment on the resist rate with a brew on but I personally have yet to see someone I know be charmed while attempting to brew, although I have heard some horror stories about 5 brews in and Rani still being alive -- pick up groups, nothing within my own events that I've attended. I may actually speculate that the longer the fight goes on, the more frequent the charms will happen, but that's just something I would throw out and can't particularly prove.

[Mojo]

Blade: Yu and Aeolian Edge both have secondary mobs of 28% DEX 28% INT, so WSC for both weaponskills is the following.

WSC = floor(0.85*floor((999*0.28)+(999*0.28))) = floor(0.85*floor(559.44)) = floor(0.85*559) = floor(475.15) = 475

The systematic factors for both weapon skills is the regular dINT which will be capped at 32. Blade: Yu has a constant fTP multiplier of 3.00 (more TP = longer Poison) while Aeolian Edge is 2.75 3.50 4.00. Thus the damage before atma and magic attack bonus are applied will look something like this.

Weaponskill	TP 100	TP 200	TP 300
Blade: Yu	1733	1733	1733
Aeolian Edge	1591	2016	2300

If you happen to have the elemental obis/gorgets (which are best in slot for any weaponskill under brew), then it looks like this.

Weaponskill	TP 100	TP 200	TP 300
Blade: Yu	1846	1846	1846
Aeolian Edge	1704	2129	2413

The next step is to evaluate gear and Atma. The only thing that you can do besides the elemental obis/belts gear wise is MAB equipment. Transcendancy grants +900 MAB, thus reducing the benefits from additional MAB to 1/10th of what it normally would be. There is little MAB gear available for NIN anyways, so I'm just going to ignore it for the sake of comparison (it's honestly not worth worrying about.)

For Aeolian Edge, Martial Knife is your best bet. It increases the damage by quite a bit as you'll start out at the TP 200 spot on those tables. The best Atma is Atma of the Gales, it adds 30% wind potency to your spells and weapon skills. The next best is Atma of the Smiting Blow. It gives you another 100 TP bonus that stacks with Martial Knife. There's not much else for Atma, Atma of the Ultimate is a distant 3rd place (+50 MAB +50 MACC.)

For Blade: Yu, the best Atma are Atma of the Noxious Fang (40% water potency) and Atma of the Tusked Terror (20% water potency.) This is followed distantly by Atma of the Ultimate. The best weapon is the magian katana that gives weapon skill damage +10%, but I don't even think a single person ever bothered to get this.

Damage tables for this are as follows (weapon skill damage +10% not used for this.)

Weaponskill	TP 100	TP 200	TP 300
Blade: Yu	29113	29113	29113
Aeolian Edge	21716	27518	31395

Weaponskill	TP 100	TP 200	TP 300
Blade: Yu	31012	31012	31012
Aeolian Edge	23259	29060	32936

There's also one last thing to be said about these weapon skills. Aeolian Edge has three different skill chain properties and is capable of creating a skill chain with itself. It can do this indefinitely (scission > detonation > scission > detonation etc.) Blade: Yu, although I haven't used it since I brew mainly on Thief, I think is capable of doing Induration > Fragmentation, although I'm not completely certain. Either way, these skillchains can contribute a lot of damage if they're unresisted.

These numbers may be off a little bit on normal mobs due to where I truncated numbers, but they will be very close (within a fraction of a percent.) You won't see numbers that big on Rani because caturae have some MDB or MDT-% trait and Rani also builds damage resistance. However, I was able to casually kill it with Aeolean Edge after waiting a while to proc (I didn't have the right atma on either because I was tanking.) So I don't think that it will be a problem. If Rani resists water (Blade: Yu is water based), then you may not be able to use that weaponskill.

As far as strategy goes, this is what I recommend. When you're done procing, keep on fighting it regularly until it weaponskills then immediately use your brew and start spamming. The reason for this is you want it to die fast without accumulating TP, or you could become charmed if you're unlucky when it gets down. Turn around while it's casting so you don't heal it. Forget about using Evisceration, it's really not worth the effort and you don't want to be giving it TP anyways. Really though it should only take 4-5 WS to kill it if you have a good set up for one of those weaponskills.

[Nacht]

Water atmas should be 30% for major, unless it's different than every other elemental major atma (wiki lists some at 40, but it's wrong).
Elemental damage minor atmas are 10%, unless the wiki's wrong about that. Never tested this personally.

[Mojo]

Elemental potencies aren't consistent. Minor can be 10% or 20%, Major can be 30% or 40%.

http://wiki.ffo.jp/html/21869.html
http://wiki.ffo.jp/html/20891.html
http://www32.atwiki.jp/studiogobli/pages/105.html

Two different places agree both which are usually accurate.

[Nacht]

Elemental potencies aren't consistent. Minor can be 10% or 20%, Major can be 30% or 40%.

http://wiki.ffo.jp/html/21869.html
http://wiki.ffo.jp/html/20891.html
http://www32.atwiki.jp/studiogobli/pages/105.html

Two different places agree both which are usually accurate.

Interesting... I concede my point, but I won't fully accept it until the servers are up and I see it for myself.

[Mojo]

Honestly I've been wanting to test all of the different potency atma myself too. I haven't seen any really solid data on it, just trusting the sources I see. Shouldn't be hard at all though, just need to get Smoldering Sky/Undying/Holy Mountain still.

[Nacht]

I'm missing claw, undying, lion, and blinding horn. Between the two of us, we can check all but undying.

[Alderin]

Very nice post Mojo.

Thanks a bunch for that.

So basically to sum it up - both are a viable ws to use and the extra damage due to the fTP multiplier with Aeolian edge is there, but not a huge difference.

I do recall a couple of Shinryu fights and I was hitting about 11-12k without MAB or Water atmas on with Blade: Yu (Which isn't ideal but was still sufficient to get the job done at the time.) I do understand Rani may be a different story but in the end it's a "much of a muchness" case.

My next question is - I notice the lack of Razed Ruin in your atma lists. Do Elemental Weapon Skills have absolutely no chance to crit hit - and does the MAB / Water based atmas outweigh reducing the chance to crit hit?

[Mojo]

Elemental weaponskills cannot crit, so Razed Ruins doesn't help aside from adding 50 DEX (which is nullified, however, if you're using brew since Transcendancy puts you at 999 DEX regardless of job/race/gear/buffs.) Both WS should work fine, just use the one that produces the best damage with the gear/atma you have available.