Looking for Merit advice

[Raka]

Just recently got Corsair up, was wondering what currently benefits Corsair the best with the current selection of Meritable Job Abilities, Job Traits, and Job Ability Recast/Durations.

Any suggestions?

[Greatguardian]

I used 5 QD Acc, 5 QD Recast, 5 Snake Eye, 4 Fold, 1 Loaded Deck back at 75.

These days though, with the XI buff, I've swapped to:

5 QD Recast
5 Phantom Roll Recast
5 Winning Streak
1 Loaded Deck
1 Fold
3 Snake Eye

Having Snake Eye/Fold up all the time just isn't that important any more. You really only need them to hit that first XI in a series. Once you have an XI up, you are free to roll and roll and roll as much as necessary in order to keep the XI chain going. Winning Streak just eases your overall Rolling burden, and PR Recast merits stack with the -30s Recast from having an XI up so you get a total 20 second recast on PR, which is great for spamming rolls.

[noodles355]

Having Snake Eye/Fold up all the time just isn't that important any more. You really only need them to hit that first XI in a series. Once you have an XI up, you are free to roll and roll and roll as much as necessary in order to keep the XI chain going. Sure you are, if you're happy with doing nothing but rolling for 90% of the time to keep the chain going. Personally I prefer Shooting shit. I would never drop 5/5 Snake Eye.

[Greatguardian]

Most of the time if I'm dicking around, I'll only have 2 rolls up total, which really isn't that bad at all. There's really no reason not to keep an XI chain up, and I have plenty of downtime to shoot as much as I want. Keeping up 4-6 rolls? That becomes trickier, but I can still lop off QDs and Wildfires between rolls without much issue.

If I'm fighting something where I really need to pay attention and give people their 4-6 different rolls, then shooting normal bullets would be an epic waste for me anyways and I'm best off using QD/WF which can't miss. If I can shoot/melee things and actually hit them, I really only need Wizard's/Tacticians and the rest of the party can dillwithit.jpg

[noodles355]

I don't just save snake eye for hitting 11s. I also use it to hit lucky numbers or get off unlucky numbers. Maybe that's why i end up riding the timer so much.

[Greatguardian]

I rarely hit anything except XIs, so that's never really been an issue for me. Once an XI is up, there's really no reason to stop at anything short of more XIs.

[noodles355]

I rarely hit anything except XIs, so that's never really been an issue for me. Once an XI is up, there's really no reason to stop at anything short of more XIs.This is only true if only you either
1) Get lucky and get a 2nd XI on your 2nd or 3rd roll
2) Are happy to do nothing but roll constantly for the duration of the current XI roll in order to achieve the XI chain.

I mean sure, if you don't give a shit about the DD side of the job and you care nothing less than trying to keep up an 11 constantly then feel free to do nothing but roll to only get an 11. That's cool. No one will hold you against it after rolling an 11 on Chaos/Rogue's/Fighter's and then spending 4 minutes trying to get an 11 on Tactitians, even though you would have had a higher regain effect on the party over time from sticking with that 5/9/10 first or 2nd roll than you would have from busting 5 times in order to get an 11.

11 is a bonus. Ifyou got a zerg coming up then yeah, get an 11 up then bust through till you got a perfect 11 pair. For normal situations, this is a bad tactic. 11 is a bonus, if you get it then maybe you can afford to take a gambe on the next 1 or 2 rolls. However, after those first few rolls, the downtime without any buff at all that you caused by trying to get another 11 starts to outweigh the benefit you could have gotten from sticking to that lucky or high (but not 11) number.

[Afania]

This is only true if only you either
1) Get lucky and get a 2nd XI on your 2nd or 3rd roll
2) Are happy to do nothing but roll constantly for the duration of the current XI roll in order to achieve the XI chain.

I mean sure, if you don't give a shit about the DD side of the job and you care nothing less than trying to keep up an 11 constantly then feel free to do nothing but roll to only get an 11. That's cool. No one will hold you against it after rolling an 11 on Chaos/Rogue's/Fighter's and then spending 4 minutes trying to get an 11 on Tactitians, even though you would have had a higher regain effect on the party over time from sticking with that 5/9/10 first or 2nd roll than you would have from busting 5 times in order to get an 11.

11 is a bonus. Ifyou got a zerg coming up then yeah, get an 11 up then bust through till you got a perfect 11 pair. For normal situations, this is a bad tactic. 11 is a bonus, if you get it then maybe you can afford to take a gambe on the next 1 or 2 rolls. However, after those first few rolls, the downtime without any buff at all that you caused by trying to get another 11 starts to outweigh the benefit you could have gotten from sticking to that lucky or high (but not 11) number.

It really depend on the situations....there are plenty of situations that rolling will benefit the entire pt way more than shooting.

I can understand if someone really insist to DD and not wanting to keep rolling, but if we be realistic, you're losing your greatest value of the job and may as well just just come DD job, since most of the time shooting doesn't have that much strategic value.

If you're doing VWNM, most of the time ppl will want to cap light and try proc, and you're not supposed to DD it or else after it's HP goes below 50% it got ass hard to proc. So you're not supposed to shoot, so what should you while you watch ppl proc? Rolls(or cast spells from /mage). You got plenty of time to roll.

If you're doing higher tier VWNM, their high eva will make a B rank combat skill job having hard time to land bullets. You will need to equip full racc gears, pop sushi, and possibly use hunters and racc still at horribad 40%~60%. That's just a big waste of money for very little dmg increase. May as well just put regain on and keep aiming for a NO.11(or cast spells), then rely on QD/WF for dmg. I don't know about other ppl, but personally I don't like to spend money on bullets on NMs like Hahava when I know most of them won't even land, and I'm not going to bring 5 more inv- racc gears and use gimp hunters just to raise it to 50%, for maybe 50 dmg per shot every 8 sec, that's not really contributing to the pt. I can contribute to the pt way more by aiming for No.11 and give everyone else better buffs, or cast spells from /WHM /SCH. And still able to deal dmg with regain+QD+WF.

Basically anything you do as long as you have lots of down time aiming for No.11 will benefit the pt more, unless it's in a situation that you DD a lot and rolls doesn't matter too much(Abyssea/Nyzul/Einherjar etc) . But there isn't much point to play this job in such events anyways.

[Afania]

I used 5 QD Acc, 5 QD Recast, 5 Snake Eye, 4 Fold, 1 Loaded Deck back at 75.

These days though, with the XI buff, I've swapped to:

5 QD Recast
5 Phantom Roll Recast
5 Winning Streak
1 Loaded Deck
1 Fold
3 Snake Eye

Having Snake Eye/Fold up all the time just isn't that important any more. You really only need them to hit that first XI in a series. Once you have an XI up, you are free to roll and roll and roll as much as necessary in order to keep the XI chain going. Winning Streak just eases your overall Rolling burden, and PR Recast merits stack with the -30s Recast from having an XI up so you get a total 20 second recast on PR, which is great for spamming rolls.

IMO snake eye is still more important than winning streak....since you need that a lot to hit No.11 to begin with. I do Sneak eye 5/5 winning streak 3/5 others are 1/5 only.

[Greatguardian]

This is only true if only you either
1) Get lucky and get a 2nd XI on your 2nd or 3rd roll
2) Are happy to do nothing but roll constantly for the duration of the current XI roll in order to achieve the XI chain.

I mean sure, if you don't give a shit about the DD side of the job and you care nothing less than trying to keep up an 11 constantly then feel free to do nothing but roll to only get an 11. That's cool. No one will hold you against it after rolling an 11 on Chaos/Rogue's/Fighter's and then spending 4 minutes trying to get an 11 on Tactitians, even though you would have had a higher regain effect on the party over time from sticking with that 5/9/10 first or 2nd roll than you would have from busting 5 times in order to get an 11.

11 is a bonus. Ifyou got a zerg coming up then yeah, get an 11 up then bust through till you got a perfect 11 pair. For normal situations, this is a bad tactic. 11 is a bonus, if you get it then maybe you can afford to take a gambe on the next 1 or 2 rolls. However, after those first few rolls, the downtime without any buff at all that you caused by trying to get another 11 starts to outweigh the benefit you could have gotten from sticking to that lucky or high (but not 11) number.

I'm really not sure I'm following you, or that you're following me.

Once you have an XI, you don't have to roll again immediately to keep that XI bonus. You have that XI up for 5 minutes 40 seconds without merits (AF3+2 hands). I often find it best, if I'm only rolling Tact+Wizard's, to just wait a couple minutes between rolling again anyways. Once an XI is up, it's incredibly easy to spam up another XI, and you can still QD/WF while rolling whenever the timers/TP allow (especially important since overflow TP on WF is useless).

Maintaining an XI chain does not require nearly as much time or effort as you seem to think it does. And, as I said earlier, if it's actually important that I give legit and specialized buffs to the whole party (4-6+ rolls), where I may actually be rolling almost fulltime, then shooting steels/oberon's would just be a waste of time and gil anyways. Nothing about rolling prevents you from shooting QDs and Wildfires every time the timer is up though, no matter how intense it is.

[Mirabelle]

I'm really not sure I'm following you, or that you're following me.

Once you have an XI, you don't have to roll again immediately to keep that XI bonus. You have that XI up for 5 minutes 40 seconds without merits (AF3+2 hands). I often find it best, if I'm only rolling Tact+Wizard's, to just wait a couple minutes between rolling again anyways. Once an XI is up, it's incredibly easy to spam up another XI, and you can still QD/WF while rolling whenever the timers/TP allow (especially important since overflow TP on WF is useless).

Maintaining an XI chain does not require nearly as much time or effort as you seem to think it does. And, as I said earlier, if it's actually important that I give legit and specialized buffs to the whole party (4-6+ rolls), where I may actually be rolling almost fulltime, then shooting steels/oberon's would just be a waste of time and gil anyways. Nothing about rolling prevents you from shooting QDs and Wildfires every time the timer is up though, no matter how intense it is.

You must be an incredibly lucky roller. Whenever i've gone out trying to keep the XI streak I've spent most of the time rolling. Plus with parties that tend to move around alot from one NM to the next, there's lots of times for the chain to break and you need to roll up and XI. Plus since I am invited to buff (I only play COR in non-Abyssea events largely since I don't have WF yet), I feel obligated to keep a miimum 3 roll rotation up and usually 4 or 5 rolls. And since players frequently move, asking them to stand still while you bust through 5 attempts at hitting XI is comical.

If you are WF/QD COR in aby just using Wizards and Tacticians roll, then I can see it being not so hard to do the XI chain. I think that is a specialized situation.

[noodles355]

It really depend on the situations....there are plenty of situations that rolling will benefit the entire pt way more than shooting.You quoted my post, apparantly just for the sake of it and didn't discuss it. The post of mine you quoted was about weighing up continuously busting for a 2nd 11 roll vs just taking a 2nd good roll. I even gave an example of doubling up and busting tacticians repeatedly to get an 11 when the PT would have got more TP from sticking to that 5, 9 or 10. The post you quoted did not mention anything about comparing rolling constantly to shooting.

If I get an 11 roll, I will double-up/bust untill I get a 2nd good one (Lucky number, or something above unlucky. Such as tacticians 5, 9, 10 or 11). I will not keep rolling until I get another 11 because arguably it will actually give a worse buff over the time you waste doubling up. For example:
I roll an 11 Fighter's Roll. I start trying to roll a tacticians. I takes me 21 seconds untill I bust then 9 seconds waiting on recast. Over that time let's say 9 of those seconds are at 1TP/tick, 9 of those seconds are 2 TP a tick, and 3 of those seconds are 4TP a tick (from landing on lucky 5TP before doubling up again). Over those 30 seconds that would be 13TP through regain. Let's say I bust 5 times before getting an 11. Let's time it to 5min30 from the first roll. Busting 5 times with the above example, then getting an 11 for the remaining 3 minutes would result in 365 TP gained.
If I bust once using the above 13TP example then roll a 5 for the remaining 5 minutes, that would result in 413 TP. If I bust once then roll a 9 or 10, it would be 313 TP. If I roll a 9 or 10 on the first attempt, it would be 330.

Rolling a lucky 5 on the 2nd attmept will be more TP to the party over busting 5 times before rolling an 11. Getting a 9 or 10 won't. There is no garantee that you will ever get another 11 roll. There is also the chance you will get it on the third attempt. It is a gamble.

The point is, depending on what you roll, it won't be worthwhile to the party to double up on it in an attempt for a 2nd 11 roll. Automatically trying to get a 2nd 11 after getting one is not always the best course of action. Sometimes it will be, sometimes it wont. Don't assume it always will be. Sometimes (as shown above) it will mean a smaller boost to the rest of the DDs, and that's ignoring time that could be spent QD/TP/WSing.

Edit: I worked through the maths whilst writing the post which is why it sounds like I'm contradicting myself. Also the post does not concider that when you later get that 11 roll, it will be up for longer and losing that first lucky roll then re-trying for another good roll is arguably worse too. It was a learning thing for me too. But, depending on what you roll, continually trying to double up to get an 11 can be a smaller gain than sticking with a good roll like a 10 or lucky on certain rolls ont hat first or 2nd attempt.
Although, after working through it, in instances where I'm 90% there as a buffer and DD is a bit of a non-issue, I will be busting more to achieve a 2nd 11. But I think I will still tak a lucky roll if I get it soon after my 1st 11.

[Greatguardian]

In regards to Noodles' post, I can only extoll the virtues of meriting 5/5 Phantom Roll Recast. I will heartily admit that it is a big part of how I'm able to roll so much in such short order. Having a 20 second PR recast instead of 30 seconds is a huge boon when spamming rolls for an XI, and, frankly, QD Acc is really nowhere near as big a deal or difficult to cap as it used to be anyways.

Likewise, Winning Streak merits will actually extend the amount of time you have available to QD/TP/WF, allowing you to keep those XI chains and then have additional idle time left over to deal more damage. That said, I still have to maintain that the only thin you can't actually do while rolling is fire normal TP shots. Quick Draws and Wildfires are instant, so you can still fire these off even while rolling. The only thing you really miss out on is damage/TP from normal shots, and even then only while rolling.

[Mirabelle]

Quick Draws and Wildfires are instant, so you can still fire these off even while rolling. The only thing you really miss out on is damage/TP from normal shots, and even then only while rolling.

Of course this again assumes that the party is just standing around while you roll and that you aren't in any danger while you are rolling.
I think this strategy only works if you are rolling for yourself (Wiz, Tact rolls) and not if you are seriously trying to buff a party.

You spend 1.5-2 min trying to get an XI roll on the DD's in melee range, you are sure to take some AoE in the face (which might include amnesia, petrify, terror, doom or any other of many annoying effects). Better to roll something quick and get out of range again.

I just find that the way parties zip from NM to NM and very rarely stay in one place for very long that buffing with XI's all the time becomes impractical.

[Greatguardian]

Of course this again assumes that the party is just standing around while you roll and that you aren't in any danger while you are rolling.
I think this strategy only works if you are rolling for yourself (Wiz, Tact rolls) and not if you are seriously trying to buff a party.

You spend 1.5-2 min trying to get an XI roll on the DD's in melee range, you are sure to take some AoE in the face (which might include amnesia, petrify, terror, doom or any other of many annoying effects). Better to roll something quick and get out of range again.

I just find that the way parties zip from NM to NM and very rarely stay in one place for very long that buffing with XI's all the time becomes impractical.

If my party is zipping around from NM to NM, then we're likely in Abyssea where I'm incredibly unlikely to give a crap about buffing the party and will just buff myself.

If we're not in Abyssea (Voidwatch), then being stationary or semi-stationary is much more likely. Between Luzaf's Ring and proper positioning, there's really no reason to get destroyed by AoEs if the AoEs are a legitimate concern to begin with.

It's all about reacting to the situation at hand. I'll be honest, if I'm coming COR to something that's easy or somewhere where we'll be zipping around between NMs (thus, the NMs are easy), I'm doing it to dick around with my pew pew lazer gun and not because the party actually needs my buffs, lol.

[Afania]

Rolling a lucky 5 on the 2nd attmept will be more TP to the party over busting 5 times before rolling an 11. Getting a 9 or 10 won't. There is no garantee that you will ever get another 11 roll. There is also the chance you will get it on the third attempt. It is a gamble.



IMO you're simplifying the situation and not counting other benefit of getting 2nd 11, plus you can always bust away from rest of your pt member if you're happy with rolling a lucky number on 2nd roll so they don't lose rolls.

Let's assume the situation is when you're fighting something(VWNM maybe?) that buffs actually makes a difference(so not in Abyssea, Nyzul, Einherjar etc....I personally don't repeatly bust rolls for No.11 in such situations as well), there are a couple of benefits of aiming for No.11.

Say for example you already got a No.11 roll on you and want to do regain roll next, if you get a No.5 but don't want to risk you can choose to bust away from other pt member so they don't lose a lucky regain roll. The disadvantage is yourself will lose more TP than just stop at No.5 there, but if you're not desperately needing TP(I don't need TP all the time depending on the situations) then it's not a big deal.

However if you just stop at No.5, then by the time your first No.11 wore or when you do 3rd roll you will no longer have the bonus to roll as fast as possible(15~20 sec) and get away from unlucky number without using fold. Keeping a No.11 up on yourself has it's strategic value, allows you to do more than 4 rolls for indiviual pt members if needed, or change buffs on the fly when situation changes. I'm not sure if VWNM allow you to disband pt then rejoin again(I don't think you can, but I may be wrong), but if you happened to be in a situation you can do rotation then it's always useful to disband and do another roll for another pt.

In the end it's all about choices and make the choices that will benefit the situations the most. If you think stop at No.5 is better for that situation because more TP and it's not worth to take risk, then just stop at 5. If you think keeping a No.11 chain will benefit your pt more than the TP you lose, then just walk away and bust it.(Not to mention the roll you're busting may not benefit yourself at all, such as evokers when you /SAM) If you think your pt desperatly need a No.11 buff and No.5is not good enough, then double up near the pt member and take risk. I'm not denying the fact that aiming for No.11 isn't always the best choice, but it does have it's use.

On the other hand, shooting sucked. I'm not wasting 40k a stack of bullet on shit DPS(which doesn't contribute at all) in an event that's all about killing slow and getting proc. I'd rather roll, cast spells from /mage and QD/WS.


EDIT: Of course if you really enjoy shooting then go ahead, you can play how you play since it's your $13. Just IMO it's not worth it with such bad DPS, rerolling and aim No.11 may contribute to the pt just as much while spending way less money.

[noodles355]

Settling with a lucky on PT members and then trying to bosot it to 11/repeatedly bust on yourself away from the group... that's something I hadn't conciderer and actually a pretty decent idea.