Thank you for Stardiver!

[Ophannus]

Stardiver is DRG's most powerful weapon skill now outside of Abyssea when geared properly, it has higher attack and more consistent damage than Drakesbane on most things and the additional effect of boosting everyone's critical hit rate by 5% is an added bonus. Messing around in Dynamis, it was doing consistent f 2.2-2.9k which is really good for outside of Abyssea for a non-empyrean WS and was keeping up and sometimes exceeding Victory Smite numbers. Thanks for the addition of this great WS!


It's also not so bad in Abyssea either.
http://img15.imageshack.us/img15/4678/34174830.png

[Thonuwan]

Would you mind listing some of your equipment?

[Ophannus]

Corseca+3
Rose Strap
Thew Bomblet
Twilight Helm
Shadow Gorget
Brutal Earring
Aesir Ear Pendant
Lancer's Plackart +2
Lancer Finger Gauntlets+2
Pyrosoul Ring
Rajas Ring
Atheling Mantle
Soil Belt
Lancer's Cuissots+2
Hecatomb Leggings+1(Augmented with STR+3 Polearm Skill+3)


For that screenshot I used VV/Atma of alpha&omega/Apoc for the sweet Triple Attack(was dicking around, stick with Drakesbane inside abyssea for those 6-7kDrakesbanes)

[Thonuwan]

Thank you very much.

[ShadowHeart]

thanks for the info :) i assume you are 5/5 on merits with it?

[Meldity]

This has been a question bugging me for awhile, but does OAT proc on a weaponskill or is that mythic only? How much of a difference if so?

[Kriegsgott]

finally a Thank you to SE nice to read !

[Ophannus]

Reiterating for importance: Stardiver has a +20% attack bonus associated with it WHEN COMPARED TO DRAKESBANE. Drakesbane has a negative attack modifier of -20% so it performs poorly outside of Abyssea on high level mobs, Stardiver does not have this penalty so it's attack is higher and more consistant. To make this WS viable you will >NEED< Elemental Gorget/Belt. These 2 items together will boost the fTP of the WS from 0.75 for all 4 hits to 0.95 for all 4 hits. Older weapon skills normally had the first hit of the WS with a differing fTP and subsequent hits had 1.0 always. This is NOT the case for Stardiver as all 4 hits have a crappy fTP of 0.75. Wearing either Soil/Shadow/Light Gorget and Soil/Shadow/Light belt together will boost it to 0.95 and make it significantly more damaging.

Regarding OAT Lance(Corsesca)

OAT does not proc on WS. But it doesn't need to. For all you DRGs out there wondering about OAT lance(Corsesca with Occasionally Attacks Twice)

-It has pretty decent base damage, the level 99 version is ~110 base damage.
-It has 507 delay, making it extremely easy to get enough store TP to gain 100% TP in 5 hits(20% TP per swing).
-The OAT rate is 45% meaning almost every other attack will be a double attack(does not stack with Double Attack gear like Jailor Weapons or Mythic Weapons, but +Double Attack% gear will inflate your overall number of OAT's per attack round, somewhere equivalent to DA/2. So at 45% OAT rate from Corsesca and +10% Double Attack from gear, you're looking at roughly a 50% overall OAT rate.
-The OAT stacks with all Jumps. This means almost every other Jump will be a double attack for high damage and more importantly, double the TP.(Assuming 20% TP per hit with a 5-hit and /SAM, you're looking at 80% TP from a single Spirit Jump and 120% TP from a single Soul Jump!!)
-The lower base damage compared to mythic/relic/empyrean isn't too relevent with Stardiver since at 5/5 Stardiver, 1 point of STR increases Base DMG by 0.83. (It's a 100% STR mod and the ratio of STR to Base DMG for the WS is 1:1 but corrected with alpha) meaning at high STR, base damage on weapon is nigh irrelevant,making Corsesca seemingly less differential than Gungnir/Rhongomiant.
-Since OAT can proc on Jumps, your Jumps will have higher accuracy when it procs because the OAT will give your Jump a 'zanshin'-like effect in that if the first hit of the OAT jump misses, the second one might still hit so your Jump Accuracy will be inflated by the OAT level.

To give you an example of how awesome Corsesca can be this is not uncommon:

Engage NM with 200% TP
Sekkanoki(Your TP:200%)
Stardiver(Your TP:123%)
Stardiver(Your TP:23%)
Soul Jump(Your TP:143%TP [120% from the Jump and 23% left from the last Stardiver])
Stardiver(Your TP:23%)
Spirit Jump(Your TP:103%)
Stardiver(Your TP:23%)

That's 4 Stardivers or 4 Drakesbanes in less than 10 seconds, assuming OAT procs on both Jumps. Although our WS damage was never higher than WAR/MNK/SAM, we definitely out-do them in weapon skill FREQUENCY with this weapon so although Drakesbane/Stardivers only do 1.5-2.5k roughly on NMs we can do them pretty damned often to close the gap between our frequent 1.5-2.5k ws and WAR/MNK/SAMs 3-5k less-frequent WS.


I've been on 3 servers in the past year and honestly, checking every DRG I come across(dozens, if not hundreds) I've only seen maybe 3 or 4 other DRG's besides myself with Corsesca. This weapon is GAME CHANGING for DRG, it's not simply an upgrade, it completely boosts our WS damage output by 60% or higher at the price of maybe 10-12% weaker weapon skills(if at that!). Also getting 700-800 damage Spirit Jumps/Soul Jumps almost every other time adds up nicely! The only thing annoying about the trial is Blobdingnag but at 9 he's probably killable by Kannagi NIN(tank and main DD) WHM, THF(for TH to ensure 2 items drop) and crowd control(Cleave-WAR or BLM-aga)

As long as you don't zerg it you will win. He summons 6 babies every 15-20% HP so if he summons babies and you Blade:Hi or Ukkos Fury he will summon 6 more and you will be overwhelmed cuz they're immune to sleep/bind/gravity/petrify, and they hit hard/fast and have En-enfeebles on their melee hits. A good tip i can offer is do shouts to see if anyone owns an Orange Abyssite. Many players who upgrade empyreans require Lamprey Lord or Shoggoth kills for their early stages and those NMs upgrade Colorful Abyssites to Orange Abyssite (Blobdingnag pop). I found many MNKs had Orange Abyssites from their Vere trials so I paid them 100-200k to pop their Blobdingag while my friends and I killed it.

Pro Tips:
-Try to macro as much Store TP and Double/Triple/Quadruple Attack gear into your Jumps as possible.

[Transmit]

I've really enjoyed Stardiver so far. I did several Kaggens the other night with a "work in progress" set up for the weapon and was able to average 1500~ damage very consistently, which for Kaggen isnt mind blowing... but good enough to warrant that DD spot, and I'm sure once I sort out tweaks in my gear it will be even better. And inside Abyssea (lolAbyssea) on exp mobs I was easily able to average 3-4k~ with peaks of 6k+ using VV, RR and Apoc.

Current set up

Thew Bomblet
Twilight Helm
Soil Gorget
Brutal Earring
Kemas Earring
Ares's Cuirass
Alkyoneus's Brc.
Flame Ring
Rajas Ring
Atheling Mantle
Soil Belt
Lncr. Cuissots +2
Perle Solerets


For those who don't know, Stardiver copies its ftp over all hits, instead of the usual first hit of the WS. Meaning Ele Belt / Gorget actually benefits every hit of the WS, not just the first, so you NEED these items for it! Also it's not confirmed yet, but it seems since every hit is treated as the first hit of a WS that the first hit Acc bonus is also applied to every hit.

To echo what is said above, the OAT polearm on paper is GREAT for this WS due to its absurdly high STR mod. As far as I know basically 100% of your STR is added to your base damage. Which turns a 110dmg versus 130dmg~ (roughtly 15% difference in base damage) in TP phase into a 280dmg vs 300 dmg (less than 7% difference in base damage) assuming you're WSing in around 170 STR~. Meaning on WS Stardiver see's no significant drop at all with OAT lance.

[Kykusho]

Would a Stringray with +TP bonus or 10% WS dmg be worth it? If so which one is better outside abys.

[Spiritreaver]

Stardiver is DRG's most powerful weapon skill now outside of Abyssea when geared properly, it has higher attack and more consistent damage than Drakesbane on most things and the additional effect of boosting everyone's critical hit rate by 5% is an added bonus. Messing around in Dynamis, it was doing consistent f 2.2-2.9k which is really good for outside of Abyssea for a non-empyrean WS and was keeping up and sometimes exceeding Victory Smite numbers. Thanks for the addition of this great WS!


It's also not so bad in Abyssea either.
http://img15.imageshack.us/img15/4678/34174830.png

Late seeing this thread, but wanted to say thanks for the info Ophannus. I was hoping that Stardiver would get the same type boost from ele gorget/belts that my Blade: Shun gets.

[Transmit]

Stardiver ftp mods are.....

0.75 at 100%
0.84375 at 200%
0.9375 at 300%

So the TP bonus stingray is giving roughly 0.09 extra ftp, but it is going to be applied to every hit meaning it will increase your total ftp by 0.375, which could be pretty nice. But I dont recall the base damage of the final 99 versions of these weapons, arent they quite a bit lower than the norm?


Late seeing this thread, but wanted to say thanks for the info Ophannus. I was hoping that Stardiver would get the same type boost from ele gorget/belts that my Blade: Shun gets.

It does! Ele belt / gorget is applied to all hits.

[CrAZYVIC]

This WS is the reason im Lving DRG Now. I dont have acess Drakesbane and that was the thing always stop me of lv up DRG.

Now for sure im gona lv up this wonderfull job!. I have already Full AF3+1 ready and some coins For AF3 +2 the body and head. Im gona keep reading and learning about DRG.

im gona learn why a lot of careers DRGS are going for the WS DMG +10% and ignoring the str/attack Polearm, or the Tp bonus polearm, etc i have lots study about this job

[Motenten]

TP bonus polearm is definitely weaker overall; the TP scaling rate isn't high enough to be worthwhile. The two strongest options appear to be the str/attack polearm (6-hit) and the Store TP polearm (5-hit). WSDmg polearm appears to lie between the TP bonus polearm and the str/Store TP polearms.

[Kykusho]

TP bonus polearm is definitely weaker overall; the TP scaling rate isn't high enough to be worthwhile. The two strongest options appear to be the str/attack polearm (6-hit) and the Store TP polearm (5-hit). WSDmg polearm appears to lie between the TP bonus polearm and the str/Store TP polearms.

Am working on Polearm and cant make up my mind on which to do, i keep hearing different thing about TP bonus and WSdmg.

[Ophannus]

Those both suck. Get OAT lance, now.

[Motenten]

I actually checked that, but wasn't sure about the gear set combo. Can't seem to remove any notable Store TP from the set (since it has higher delay than the others), and just going with that config ends up being basically right on par with the str and Store TP polearms.

Also, WSDmg one gets a notable boost in Abyssea (which I didn't look at before).

Outside Abyssea: OAT: 120, Store TP: 120, Str: 122, WSDmg: 117, TPBonus: 113
In Abyssea (Apoc/VV/Stout Arm): OAT: 283, Store TP: 284, Str: 277, WSDmg: 294, TPBonus: 286

Change atma to Apoc/VV/RR (with the assumption that you'll also want to use Drakes, but giving Stardiver DPS):
OAT: 271, Store TP: 273, Str: 284, WSDmg: 280, TPBonus: 271

[Ophannus]

OAT is hands down 100000x better than storetp and str polearms and seconds only to Ryunohige.

[Motenten]

OAT is hands down 100000x better than storetp and str polearms and seconds only to Ryunohige.

On the assumption that this is a legitimate (if exaggerated) assertion ~~

Just to be sure, did a full revamp of jump gear, since I didn't touch it before. It changed the standings a bit.
Comparing just OAT vs Str polearms, for simplicity.

Outside (Stardiver): OAT: 122, Str: 127
Abyssea (Apoc/VV/SA, Star): OAT: 286, Str: 297
Abyssea (Apoc/VV/RR, Drakes): OAT: 317, Str: 332


Per-hit damage on jumps is about 23% higher with Str polearm (22% in Abyssea), but OAT closes the gap due to OAT procs and ends up doing 3% more total jump damage (4% less in Abyssea due to Apoc triple attack diminishing the value of OAT).

This would seem to indicate the str polearm is a pretty clear winner over OAT, by about 4%. If you think these results don't reflect reality, please review the spreadsheet and tell me where it is flawed and what could be done better.

[Spiritreaver]

Just wanted to say again how glad i am to have read this thread.

After grinding today on DRG, i got well into 99 and took Stardiver to lvl 3 so far. And even with it being only midway through to capping it, this WS is making me very happy with what is doing.

So thanks again guy, i've found this thread very helpful and informative.

[Ophannus]

This would seem to indicate the str polearm is a pretty clear winner over OAT, by about 4%. If you think these results don't reflect reality, please review the spreadsheet and tell me where it is flawed and what could be done better.

How is STR polearm beating OAT with a 5 hit? OAT with 5hit lets you WS almost 40-60% more often than a STR polearm.

[Motenten]

How is STR polearm beating OAT with a 5 hit? OAT with 5hit lets you WS almost 40-60% more often than a STR polearm.

(comparing outside Abyssea)

Tweaked for OAT: Switched from Bullwhip to Goading (did same for str polearm for parity), switch from Pole Grip to Rose, for general 5-hit build, just to be sure (it boosted the OAT build slightly).

Excluding the 0.5 over-TP rounds:

OAT nominal average rounds to 100 TP: 3.01
OAT average rounds to 100 TP with 32% Conserve TP: 2.98

Str nominal average rounds to 100 TP: 4.54
Str average rounds to 100 TP with 32% Conserve TP: 4.34

32% Conserve TP is from trait + elemental belt.

As you can see, Conserve TP has almost no effect on the OAT build (since you'd need a full 20 TP proc to reduce the hits any), but a fairly noticeable one on the Str polearm build. Str polearm is a 6-hit, but on the high end of the range (17-18 TP per hit), so many of the CTP procs drop it to a 5-hit build.

Without accounting for Conserve TP, the Str polearm drops a couple points of DPS.

OAT has a higher delay, which somewhat offsets it's lower rounds per weaponskill. Overall weaponskill cycle time is 1095 delay for OAT, compared to 1400 for str polearm. So OAT weaponskills 28% more often than Str polearm.

Average weaponskill damage for OAT is 1202; for Str polearm it's 1436. So Str polearm weaponskill damage is 20% higher than OAT.

Jump damage is mildly in favor of OAT, being about 2.5% ahead of str polearm.

Melee (white) damage per cycle is nearly identical on a per-round basis (Str polearm 1% ahead), however Str polearm has 46% more melee rounds per weaponskill cycle, and overall 47% more melee damage per weaponskill cycle.


Overall net effect is 2268 dmg per 1095 delay for OAT (124 DPS) vs 2841 dmg per 1400 delay for Str polearm (122 DPS). The gear tweak above (Goading+Rose for proper 5-hit on OAT, loss of 2% haste for Str) gave a slight edge to OAT this time around. Putting the Bullwhip back on the Str polearm build puts them back at nearly identical to each other.

Note that if you can reduce the average number of over-TP rounds, it favors the OAT build more than the Str build, and the OAT starts to pull slightly ahead. With 0 wasted TP rounds, OAT is at 132 to Str polearm's 130. However the converse is also true: the more over-TP rounds you average, the more the OAT falls behind the Str polearm.

[Ophannus]

Putting the Bullwhip back on the Str polearm build puts them back at nearly identical to each other.


That's silly because I have 26% haste and a 5hit on my OAT build.

[Ophannus]

So basically I should throw out my Corsesca and disregard by 5hit build and start getting Flame Geodes? ;_;

[Motenten]

That's silly because I have 26% haste and a 5hit on my OAT build.

If you use Zelus Tiara instead of Lancer +2 head in conjunction with Goading Belt, that's another slight improvement for the OAT build. Doing the same thing for str polearm makes it worse, though.

And no, you don't have to throw out the Corsesca and start on the str polearm, which should be obvious if you were paying attention. The assertion I'm making is that their damage potentials are very nearly identical, rather than the false claim that the OAT was far superior to the str and store tp weapons.

[Ophannus]

Go go extra elemental breaths from increased ws rate?

[Ophannus]

Meh, the WS is still kinda meh on VWNMs. Was doing 300-1300 Drakesbanes and 300-1200 Stardivers on Akvan last night with Red Curry, WAR was easily doing 2-5k Ukko's Furies, Blade Hi was doing 1200-2400, VS was doing 2200-3500, Shoha was doing 700-2k. Could have also been that I didn't have Stalwarts(Never got the KI for that Pariapht) but I was using Red Curry Bun with Augmented Angon with +2 hands.

[Transmit]

I have no clue how you're hitting that low with Stardiver. Granted I've not done Akvan yet, but on both Pil and Kaggen my WS's were never lower than 700~ and usually averaging 1400-1600~ I dont recall Akvan having anymore defense than the other two Jeuno boss's. Though I do abuse Stalwarts, and 5 minutes of quite a serious attack buff is noticable.

[Meldity]

I'm more irritated by the fact war/sam's can also use it. In fact today I was actually a little enraged in a pick up group for VW when a warrior said he was going to use stardiver for me and said I should drakesbane. Little did he know drakesbane isn't even worth it anymore with its stupid 20% attack penalty. I know we get to TP way more than war's but it still pisses me off since we don't even get a WS unique to our job that's worth using.

Protip: it's impossible to have a better drakesbane unless you have razed ruins atma. if stardiver doesn't do more damage chances are you're doing it totally wrong.

[Transmit]

Just did a few Pil's, heres the parse of my Stardivers from the first fight.

771: 1
778: 1
790: 1
890: 1
982: 1
1010: 1
1026: 1
1028: 1
1035: 1
1065: 1
^ 1080: 1
1121: 1
1154: 1
1173: 1
1185: 1
1238: 1
+ 1268: 2
1326: 1
1355: 1
1394: 1
1468: 1
1494: 1
1495: 1
1585: 1
1751: 1
1780: 1
2054: 1

Same gear used as the page before. Stalwarts + Yellow curry buns. Also Im still using Vougiers, so it's far from the best set up. Stalwarts is +20% attack for 5 minutes (went from 740ish to 922 attack with it up)

Out of 4 fights -

- Stardiver 66052 0 66052 93.85 % 57/0 100.00 % 0/2192 1158.81

57 Stardivers. 1158 average, a few of them without buffs / thrown directly into his shield (see 0 low...), and a high of 2192.

For comparison the only other noteworthy DD in my party was a SAM who switched between Fudo and Shoha...

- Tachi: Shoha 32661 0 32661 100.00 % 27/1 96.43 % 361/2610 1209.67

1209 average, low of 361, high of 2610.

[Returner]

"OAT has a higher delay, which somewhat offsets it's lower rounds per weaponskill. Overall weaponskill cycle time is 1095 delay for OAT, compared to 1400 for str polearm. So OAT weaponskills 28% more often than Str polearm."

This is where your problem is. There is no way, not a chance, that OAT is only WSing 28% more often. Yes, the longer delay offset the hit build slightly, but couple the lower hit build with the 40% OAT it should at least be 35% more often if we account for TP overflow. Not to mention you get 40% more TP from jumps as well.

Also, if conserve tp is such an important factor and that 5 hit is seemingly not as big of an advantage, you should try putting this in your spread sheet:

Using sword strap for OAT polearm and do a 6 hit. That way, you can better use your conserve tp and should allow for a better comparison.

Like I said, there is literally no way OAT only WS 28% more.

PS: You also need to account for extra TP making OAT polearm WS harder (even if just slightly). All of those conserve tp proc that didn't help OAT cut a hit from the hit build should result in 15+ extra TP on its WS as well as any TP overflow from OAT proc with 1 more hit to WS. I am not doubting your spread sheet since I know you from BG, but there has to be something that was not set correctly cuz I have parsed against STR polearm before and the result wasn't close.

[CrAZYVIC]

I love stardiver I unlocked it 5/5 and got my DRG lv 99 yesterday.

The sad thing is... i do more damage with my samurai -_- than my Drg using stardiver, this KINDA PISS ME A LOTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT.

I have 8/8 Polearm Merits. But im Using SAM/WAR Vs DRG/SAM. I really fucking hate my Sam is beating my DRG on WS Damage because Overhelm... Another thing i hate is on Sam i can get 4 hit build "Easy". With increiblity high Zanshin rate on sam my WS rate is superior. My sam will out damage my DRG for a lot =/

Im gona start work this week on my STR Polearm. DRG is a wonderfull pretty job im gona use that for have Fun.

[Motenten]

"OAT has a higher delay, which somewhat offsets it's lower rounds per weaponskill. Overall weaponskill cycle time is 1095 delay for OAT, compared to 1400 for str polearm. So OAT weaponskills 28% more often than Str polearm."

This is where your problem is. There is no way, not a chance, that OAT is only WSing 28% more often. Yes, the longer delay offset the hit build slightly, but couple the lower hit build with the 40% OAT it should at least be 35% more often if we account for TP overflow. Not to mention you get 40% more TP from jumps as well.

Note that I account for weaponskill delay in figuring the overall time per weaponskill cycle. The more frequently you weaponskill (both from OAT and haste), the more that the fixed delay from using the weaponskill itself slows you down.

Example:

Taking out all jumps, so that we're looking solely at melee+weaponskill time, look at the melee time necessary to reach 100 TP with 25% gear haste, Hasso and Haste spell:

Str: 1186
OAT: 902

OAT weaponskills 31.5% more often

With weaponskill delay added:

Str: 1306
OAT: 1022

OAT weaponskills 27.8% more often


Add marches and look again:

Str: 605
OAT: 461

OAT weaponskills 31.2% more often (appears to be roughly the same as the first comparison)

With weaponskill delay added:

Str: 725
OAT: 581

OAT weaponskills 24.8% more often (dropped an additional 3%)


You can also figure another ~7% loss due to less efficient usage of TP (see below), which puts you close to the 40% proc rate value before accounting for weaponskill delay. Additional losses (relative to the supposed theoretical gain) come from less effective DA/TA.

And yes, I'm accounting for the greater TP from jumps on the OAT. Str polearm averages 59 from Soul Jump, for example, while OAT averages 82.


Special Note: I will note, however, that I believe evidence has come up that my formulations for hits-per-round calculations when considering OAx effects may not be completely accurate. Once I've solidified those, I will see if there are any notable changes.



Also, if conserve tp is such an important factor and that 5 hit is seemingly not as big of an advantage, you should try putting this in your spread sheet:

Using sword strap for OAT polearm and do a 6 hit. That way, you can better use your conserve tp and should allow for a better comparison.

Like I said, there is literally no way OAT only WS 28% more.

I don't see any immediately obvious way to make the OAT a 6-hit and have it perform as well as it does with a 5-hit. Conserve TP is not a hugely important factor, but it does help close the gap slightly. It increases the str polearm total DPS by 2%, while increasing the OAT setup by 1.5%.


PS: You also need to account for extra TP making OAT polearm WS harder (even if just slightly). All of those conserve tp proc that didn't help OAT cut a hit from the hit build should result in 15+ extra TP on its WS as well as any TP overflow from OAT proc with 1 more hit to WS. I am not doubting your spread sheet since I know you from BG, but there has to be something that was not set correctly cuz I have parsed against STR polearm before and the result wasn't close.

Additional over-TP is accounted for. Doing a quick check using the same gear set and just changing the weapon, the str polearm averages 130 TP while the OAT averages 139 TP, using a 0.5 round over-TP scenario.

Conserve TP is calculated on a per-weaponskill-TP return value (eg: main hit plus two out of three additional hits plus a double attack or whatever), and on a per-Conserve TP proc value (calculated for a 1 TP return, a 2 TP return, a 3 TP return, etc, up to 20), and averaged out over all possible combinations, and number of hits and rounds needed to reach 100 TP for each combination.

[Returner]

That makes sense. I know WS saturation is a pain to deal with and a big problem for any multi hit weapons. However, plz double check with the OAT formula as you said.

[CrAZYVIC]

This is my Method for calculate the max DPS of my jobs i hope is usefull for the people.

1.- First i calculate my damage in 1 hour using the two diferent sets i want compare.
2.- I Think a real scenario for use my two sets taking in consideration the following

a) The rivals im Facing
b) The buffs i'm will receive
c) The level of dificult and stress im gona have in a parse competition.

Correct me if im wrong.

In my maths the STR polearm leads for a short margin vs the OAT polearm. The diference is slighty.
I taked in consideration Meditate/Sekanoki/Jumps without Merit etc.

In 5 mins of active Fighting in Einherjar

STR polearm = 85 800 DPS Damage / Full Maths 86 023 - 5 Hit build
OAT polearm = 82 800 DPS Damage / Full maths 83 588 - 5 hit build

My margin of error is short. So you guys can take this as 70% optimal tests


If you play with Short Group max 6 people einherjar, dynamis etc. The STR Polearm is the optimal choice

a) You have time for hit the mobs more
b) You can solo some mobs and they will stay enough time alive
c) You will have less STress in the parse competition


if you play with big groups 12 + people the OAT is better

a) The enemies die Too quickly the stress is insane
b) Even if you are soloing mobs the people will notice and will go kill they too fast
C) You need quickly tp for have a chance vs anothers DDS

[noodles355]

I have 8/8 Polearm Merits. But im Using SAM/WAR Vs DRG/SAM.And you're surprised you're doing more damage with Stardiver on Sam/War? One word: Berserk.


I don't see any immediately obvious way to make the OAT a 6-hit and have it perform as well as it does with a 5-hit. Most effective way to make OAT a 6hit is probably to use a Sword Strap (which brings it to 492 Delay) and gear as if it were a normal lance.


STR polearm = 85 800 DPS Damage / Full Maths 86 023 - 5 Hit build
OAT polearm = 82 800 DPS Damage / Full maths 83 588 - 5 hit buildWhat gear are you using to get a 5-hit build with a STR Polearm? 480 delay 5hits are not reasonable.

[Ophannus]

And you're surprised you're doing more damage with Stardiver on Sam/War? Two words: Berserk. Overwhelm.


ftfy lol....

[CrAZYVIC]

What gear are you using to get a 5-hit build with a STR Polearm? 480 delay 5hits are not reasonable.

If the FFXI calculator dont lie for me this is the gear necesary for 5 hit build.

We need WS on this:

This set will return you 23.4 Tp after WS
This WS set is around + 100 STR pretty solid for Stardiver

http://www.ffxiah.com/item-sets/243199

We need 19.15 tp on the TP set for 5 hit build.

This set give you 19.1 tp

http://www.ffxiah.com/item-sets/243196

Im working on get this gear atm. Im kinda new with DRG. Probably players with more exp using the job can build better Sets!

The last words of year for stardiver. Fuck Sam, fuck overhelm and fuck berserk ^_^

[Raelia]

FFXIAH is giving you the full Campaign-only +20 Store TP from Rose Strap. Some of us have known it does this for a while, but it shows you fell into trusting a calculator instead of doing it yourself.

You only have +32 STP on that set outside of Campaign, for 17.1 TP/hit. Same goes for your WS set, it's only +33 STP.

[CrAZYVIC]

FFXIAH is giving you the full Campaign-only +20 Store TP from Rose Strap. Some of us have known it does this for a while, but it shows you fell into trusting a calculator instead of doing it yourself.

You only have +32 STP on that set outside of Campaign, for 17.1 TP/hit. Same goes for your WS set, it's only +33 STP.


Using the TP formula in Wiki.

11.5 + (480 - 450) x 1.5 / 30 = 13

13 * (1.48) 48 STP = 19.2 + (1.4 x 3 = 4.2) = 23.4 On WS gear

(100 - 23.4) / 4 = 19.15. Is needed on Tp gear, After the receive 23.4 TP for WS using 48 STP on 33 gear/ 15 Sam.

Use the FFXI calculator If you dont believeme. Check My WS set and TP set both have 48 STP taking on consideration /sam and giving only 4 STP to the grip.

You are in siren you can PM if you like for Discuss This ^_^. This will cost you Some gils k? j/k

I actualy hope this shit is readeable im super drunk atm

I usually dont torture the posters posting my LOLmaths but i think in this case is necesary lol

[Motenten]

15 STP from /sam
33 STP in TP gear
32 STP in WS gear

48 STP in TP is 19.2 per hit
49 STP in WS is 19.3 per hit

Total missing TP for a 5-hit: 3.9

Achievable when hitting 3/3 of the additional hits, fails when hitting 2/3 of the additional hits. 3/3 should be expected 85.7% of the time with capped accuracy. 2/3 should occur another 13.5% of the time (total coverage: 99.275% of the time you will land 2 or more of the additional hits).

Landing 2/3 hits is frequent enough that I would not consider that a reliable 5-hit build. With only 8% DA, you can't rely on that to make up for the missed base hit either.

Current, not necessarily optimal, gear set that I've been using on comparison:

TP:
Langdebeve +3 (fire)
Pole Grip
Protestas
Zelus Tiara
Ganesha
Brutal
Aesir
Lancer +2
Timarli
Rajas
Tyrant
Atheling
Goading
Calmecac
Lancer +2

WS:
Thew Bomblet
Varangian
Gorget
Brutal
Vulcan
Lancer +2
Lancer +2
Rajas
Pyrosoul
Atheling
Ele.Belt
Lancer +2
Wyrm +2

DPS w/6-hit build: 148.609


Rebuilding using your 5-hit config

TP:
Hagneia Stone
Zelus Tiara
Love
Brutal
Attila
Lancer +2
Timarli
Rajas
Tyrant
Atheling
Goading
Calmecac
Lancer +2

WS:
Hagneia Stone
Mekira-oto
Justiciar's
Brutal
Vulcan
Lancer +2
Ogier
Rajas
Pyrosoul
Atheling
Beir +1
Lancer +2
Gigantes



DPS w/pseudo 5-hit build: 135.014


6-hit build is 10% ahead of the 5-hit build using the same weapon. Further tweaks may change their relative positions, but I'm too tired right now to care.

[CrAZYVIC]

15 STP from /sam


Total missing TP for a 5-hit: 3.9

Achievable when hitting 3/3 of the additional hits, fails when hitting 2/3 of the additional hits. 3/3 should be expected 85.7% of the time with capped accuracy. 2/3 should occur another 13.5% of the time (total coverage: 99.275% of the time you will land 2 or more of the additional hits).

Landing 2/3 hits is frequent enough that I would not consider that a reliable 5-hit build. With only 8% DA, you can't rely on that to make up for the missed base hit either.

This! Yeah this is a 5 hit build If you land the 4/4 hits of stardiver. If you Miss a hit you not are getting 5 hit build you explained already this better than me .

The point bet for this build is "Sacrifice the less posible optimal gear for 5 hit build" Asumming in Abbysea/Einherjar/Dynamis/VW tier 1 and 2 the accuracy is not a problem. Im sure 90% of time everyone will land the Four hits of stardiver.

The problem of my build is playing VW tier 3 and 4 and mobs with High evasion.

Thanks a lot for your Help ^_^. Im really want have 5 hit build on my DRG is something about personal wishes and im sure my perfomance will be "Aceptable for keep up with OAT and 6 hit build" .!

[noodles355]

You do realise that Motenten just showed you that a 5hit build with that lance is 10% worse than a 6hit build?

[Lancil]

Maybe its just me, but when were drgs able to use Attila's Earring.

[CrAZYVIC]

You do realise that Motenten just showed you that a 5hit build with that lance is 10% worse than a 6hit build?

Yeah i did. But later im gona do a personal private analisis about that. ^_^

Im new DRG and i have lots of things learn. So far in this topic i founded massive good information and i was curious for compare diferent gear sets. Im having fun with all this maths and gear comparation.

[CrAZYVIC]

Maybe its just me, but when were drgs able to use Attila's Earring.

Lmao yeah i just noticed. Let me update that God ><.
I just updated it with Chilvarous chain and removing Love torque just for have the same amounth of STP. Brb checking if i dont equiped a Masamune on DRG J/K

P.S. If your DRG cant use Attila earring you are a Gimped DRG K?

[Meldity]

I love stardiver I unlocked it 5/5 and got my DRG lv 99 yesterday.

The sad thing is... i do more damage with my samurai -_- than my Drg using stardiver

yeah, can't say I didn't see this coming. I feel the same way.

[Lancil]

When I first saw the new weaponskills I jumped onto the test server and saw that war and sam could also use Stardiver. Needless to say i was a little more than upset. So I began the testing and the damaged seemed great. Then I did it on sam with a lower dmg polearm, did comparable dmg, then logged off.
WTF? no, its just to be expected................

[Ophannus]

Stardiver is meant to be an upgrade from Penta Thrust for jobs that want to mess around with Polearm. It's to bridge the gap between Penta Thrust and Drakesbane for non-DRG jobs that can't use Drakesbane. All of the new WS are meant to bridge gaps between jobs that can't use the strongest, non-empyrean WS. Requiescat for sword jobs that can't use Vorpal/CDC, Stardiver for jobs that can't use Drakesbane, Realmrazer for jobs that can't use Hexastrike, Resolution for jobs that can't use Spinning Slash, Upheaval for jobs that can't use Ukko's Fury or King's Justice, Apex Arrow/Last Stand for jobs that can't use bow/gun WS without /RNG or /COR etc... These WS are not job specific. That's like THFs getting upset that DNC does more damage on Evisceration than them. These WS are technically WS you learn from skill level that we happen to unlock via merit points.

[Transmit]

I don't know about you, but in pretty much every serious situation (e.g not in Abyssea), I've found Stardiver does more than just bridge the gap between Penta and Drakesbane. In fact unless I've just done a Stardiver, got champions tonic up, or have been hit by Blood Rage I rarely touch Drakesbane now outside of Abyssea.

I however think this is a great thing for DRG! I don't care that WAR and SAM are able to put out better numbers, back in the old days of lvl 75 SAM's ran around with polearms beating my Penta's on everything thanks to Overwhelm, but it didnt bother me. This WS has made me feel like I'm not just along for proc's now in VW. I may not be topping any parses, but I'm keeping up with the other DD's while also helping their damage by raising everyones crit hit rate.

[Transmit]

A little piece of information which has come to light is that the "Elemental weapon skill damage increases depending on day" on Mekira Oto head piece does not apply to just magical WS's. It applies to Physical WS's on the day their elements are. So Stardiver being Transfixion and Gravition, we get the boost from it on Earth / Dark / Light day (37% of the time!), along with the 25 attack, 15 str~ and the boost is 0.1ftp.... so on Stardiver 0.4.... which makes it pretty amazing. Just did some Pil on Darksday, and was hitting an easy average of 2k, with highs of 3.5k

[Ophannus]

That property was known back in 2006 with Assault Point weapons like this: http://images.wikia.com/ffxi/images/1/1a/Imperialneza.jpg

but still, good work.

[Aana]

Its gone on for a few pages, but if im not mistaken, ALL this comparison motenten is talking about started using abyssea and Apoc. Of course str lance will compete better when you give it a full 15% triple while OAT get a super watered down version.

Without free multi-hit atmas (ie anywhere but abyssea) OAT has a rather huge advantage over a non-multi hit weapon. This is also how drg pulls way ahead vs war and sam. They simply dont have access to the powerful magian weapons, namely OAT lance.

Take the comparisons outside abyssea and there is simply no contest between OAT and anything but Ryu.

Also, Drakes in perfect gear with any of the top 3 damage lances (relic/mythic/empy) will BARELY edge out stardiver with perfect gear for both (notable exception being Ryu with the 15% drakes boost, soon to be 30% at 99 turns that 'edge' into a landslide). However, the lowest damage lances (OAT) stardiver pulls ahead because of the mods making up more of the damage on lower base D weapons.

[Neisan_Quetz]

Dps 135 isn't in abyssea. If it is quit w/e dd job you're on.

[Motenten]

Its gone on for a few pages, but if im not mistaken, ALL this comparison motenten is talking about started using abyssea and Apoc. Of course str lance will compete better when you give it a full 15% triple while OAT get a super watered down version.

Without free multi-hit atmas (ie anywhere but abyssea) OAT has a rather huge advantage over a non-multi hit weapon. This is also how drg pulls way ahead vs war and sam. They simply dont have access to the powerful magian weapons, namely OAT lance.

Take the comparisons outside abyssea and there is simply no contest between OAT and anything but Ryu.

Also, Drakes in perfect gear with any of the top 3 damage lances (relic/mythic/empy) will BARELY edge out stardiver with perfect gear for both (notable exception being Ryu with the 15% drakes boost, soon to be 30% at 99 turns that 'edge' into a landslide). However, the lowest damage lances (OAT) stardiver pulls ahead because of the mods making up more of the damage on lower base D weapons.

No, none of the comparisons are in Abyssea; I'm pretty sure that was stated early on. Crit weaponskills rule in Abyssea, so there's no real point in comparing Stardiver builds there other than academic interest (or you're on sam).

Also, feel free to provide the 'perfect' gear sets for the respective builds (including jumps) and I'll look into how they compare.

[brayen]

I am curious, what would be an ideal set up for stardiver? off the top of my head i had something in mind like the following:

str/pole/_/Threw
oto+1/gorget/moonshade/brutal
ace's/af3/str/str
ath/ele belt/avant+1/heca+1

trying to think of a non-augmented feet option but nothing springs to mind(that is better) ; ;

[Transmit]

Thats pretty much exactly what Ive been aiming for, only difference is I'm using Ares's Body.

DRG really has a poor choice of WS feet, I got +3 str +3attack augment on Heca Feet+1 and decided it was good enough.

http://www.ffxiah.com/item-sets/245693 Current build I'm aiming for, STR polearm.

Edit - Fixed link!

[Neisan_Quetz]

Set is private/you linked it incorrectly. For those who can't get augmented Heca+1 you can hope Gigantes boots show up on AH.

[frozenbear]

I have done a stardiver on 5 separate occasions that clocked in at < 1k,
and although i have done more than one that came in at > 2k and one that hit 2984 I am still a bit disspointed in a ws that i spent 1 MILLION experience points on. 800 damage is not an acceptable min damage in my humble opinion, and i dont think i should have to bend over backwards till my spine breaks trialing out a polearm that will make this deficit go away. Once again I walk away disappointed devs. Why do you always hurt me so? ; ;

[Transmit]

You know this is all highly dependant on what mobs you are fighting. In the grand scheme of things Stardiver is probably one of the better WS's, yes it is not a jawdropper like Shoha or Ukko's, but it gives DRG something they never really had before, which is consistency. Besides Botulus and mobs strong to piercing I dont think there is a mob in the game where I'm averaging under 1k damage.

Also even before I got my STR magian polearm, I was using Patentias Lance for great results, and that only cost me 50k or so.

[Ophannus]

Last Stand doing 2.2-2.8k on Pil, my Stardivers are doing 780-1700. So much for COR being a support job and DRG being a damage dealer.

[frozenbear]

"but it gives DRG something they never really had before, which is consistency."
" I dont think there is a mob in the game where I'm averaging under 1k damage."

Also even before I got my STR magian polearm, I was using Patentias Lance for great results, and that only cost me 50k or so.

The first two sentences I quoted only prove my point. I can't offhand think of a single DD job in the game that averages less than 1500 damage outside of aby and 2k+ inside aby.
As for the last bit, I'm not going to list everything, but trust me when i say that i am very well geared, and sport a 96 +47 str outside of aby. My point (and i feel that it still stands) is that Stardiver is underpowered. I don't think it would be unfair to expect more damage from it. You kind of avoided mentioning in your post how often you hit for less than 1k but by saying "I average" you make me pretty confident that you know exactly what I'm talking about.

[Transmit]

But trust me when i say that i am very well geared, and sport a 96 +47 str outside of aby.

Sorry but thats not very well geared. I can't recall my exact figures but I'm around 103+80~ STR before any buffs, so include Hasso, food and Bravers and I'm up to +100 STR in VW. And dont get me wrong, I don't think it would be unfair to expect more damage from it either, but it certaintly beats random as hell Drakesbane numbers, or consistent but rubbish wheeling thrust / calmlanns numbers.

My opinion is that the WS is fine though, but DRG needs to be buffed in other ways to get this WS damage increased. Every other job has JT's and JA's which they can use to help raise their WS damage, and short of Angon (Which is awesome but it's kind of expected that every mob has angon on it anyway nowadays) DRG really has nothing, no Double Attack, no Last Resort, no Warriors Charge, no Assassins Charge, no Sneak attack, no Overwhelm, no Attack Bonus VI, no berserk etc etc. I mean DRG is probably the only DD job who doesnt get access to an attack boost JA from main or sub job right now, no?

[frozenbear]

103+80? >.> I'm not going to call you a liar, but maybe a screenie of your stats? anyone else on here want to back this guy up buy confirming the numbers can go that high? i have the best gear you can quest/buy outside of the really crazy magian stuff and this dude just called my gear shite! anyone come close to/ higher than what he *says* he has here?

[Motenten]

Not sure what gear set he uses, but here's what I had in my comparison sets:

Langdebeve +3 (fire)
Pole Grip
Thew Bomblet
Varangian
Gorget
Brutal
Vulcan
Lancer +2
Lancer +2
Rajas
Pyrosoul
Atheling
Ele.Belt
Lancer +2
Wyrm +2


Which gives a total of +77 str. Could go to +79 if you sub a Pyrosoul for the Rajas, and +80 if you upgrade to the lvl 99 polearm. Can also add another +1 by getting a +4 str earring instead of the +3 one. Granted a notable chunk is from the weapon itself, with 10-11 str coming from that, so would maybe hit +69 if using a different weapon.

[Neisan_Quetz]

His set is posted earlier, feet is augmented hecatomb+1 with +3 Str, legs is Avant+1, body is Ares, head is Mekira-oto. I'm guessing earring is TP Moonshade.

[Transmit]

103+80? >.> I'm not going to call you a liar, but maybe a screenie of your stats? anyone else on here want to back this guy up buy confirming the numbers can go that high? i have the best gear you can quest/buy outside of the really crazy magian stuff and this dude just called my gear shite! anyone come close to/ higher than what he *says* he has here?

http://i.imgur.com/Rfa9R.jpg

103+79, my apologies. But I can squeeze out 4 more STR in my rings when I get the gil, and 1 more in my head (but that will be a lot more gil...) and I suppose I could switch to Aces's Mail.. but I think the attack wins on Ares's? Unsure. I'll lose 2 STR when I switch from lolKemas Earring > Moonshade. But with all those uprades I'll still be over +80 str. So even without Magian STR weapon it should still be possible to hit +65 STR with relative ease, I'd love to see your gear set up if thats the case.

[Motenten]

Yeah, Mekira-oto and Hecatomb +1 feet are improvements. Upgrade the weapon and Ares is a tiny improvement over Lancer +2 body. Avant +1 legs are a wash vs Lancer +2 legs. So switching head, feet (more str total), body and earring (more damage total), plus upgrading the weapon, puts it at +79 str.

Overall, hitting the +80 range is perfectly viable, though it would be +70 with a different weapon (OAT, Store TP lance, etc).

[Meldity]

Last Stand doing 2.2-2.8k on Pil, my Stardivers are doing 780-1700. So much for COR being a support job and DRG being a damage dealer.


If you think that's cool you should see PLD's sword merit ws. In no time you'll be saying "So much for PLD being a tank job and DRG being a damage dealer."

Don't worry though our "Copy food effects to wyvern" with smiting breath+ strafe+gear and wyvern melee damage should even the odds. Not to mention our upgraded parrying+evasion+hp+healing breath. Wait a minute, are COR's support jobs or us? Hmmm... (observes the 0.5% alliance damage parse of wyvern)

http://i.imgur.com/nkphg.png

[Ophannus]

I do more damage on RDM and PLD than I do on my DRG. My RDM's tier4's do about 1400ish when unresisted, Impacts do 1800-2.2k. Requiescat does nice damage 1300-1400ish, do some nice 2k Holy II's as well.

[brayen]

I do more damage on RDM and PLD than I do on my DRG. My RDM's tier4's do about 1400ish when unresisted, Impacts do 1800-2.2k. Requiescat does nice damage 1300-1400ish, do some nice 2k Holy II's as well.

That is a joke right?

[Transmit]

I'm unsure about Requiescat and PLD, but sadly on my BLU/war I probably out damage my Dragoon on most VW mobs, CDC is one hell of a powerful WS, and being able to go BLU/war and get berzerk, aggresor, dual wield 3, double attack, triple attack, etc actually makes it a more dangerous melee DD than my DRG... which is kind of depressing.

[frozenbear]

@Brayen: The sad truth is that on rdm he very well might be able to out damage his dragoon. But probably not on his pld.
on a typical mob you are hitting for about 350 + 200 from your wyvern (at least i do) you ws for around 1500 - 2kish damage + 270ish from breath (assuming saurian) spirit jump for 500ish soul jump for 500ish ws again seigan thrid eye meditate hit twice ws again.. etc but what he isn't telling you is that a crit froma drg will hit for 500+ so factor those in also factor in that sometimes your ws can hit for 800ish.... or 2900 , then there is the occasional 1k spirit jump, the even more occasional 2500+ spirit jump, the occasional 1k soul jump, etc... so yeah, his rdm may very well outdamage his drg. but not on every mob.

[brayen]

@Brayen: The sad truth is that on rdm he very well might be able to out damage his dragoon. But probably not on his pld.
on a typical mob you are hitting for about 350 + 200 from your wyvern (at least i do) you ws for around 1500 - 2kish damage + 270ish from breath (assuming saurian) spirit jump for 500ish soul jump for 500ish ws again seigan thrid eye meditate hit twice ws again.. etc but what he isn't telling you is that a crit froma drg will hit for 500+ so factor those in also factor in that sometimes your ws can hit for 800ish.... or 2900 , then there is the occasional 1k spirit jump, the even more occasional 2500+ spirit jump, the occasional 1k soul jump, etc... so yeah, his rdm may very well outdamage his drg. but not on every mob.

well dont get me wrong i dont doubt the damage capabilities of a rdm nuking, but considering nuking has NEVER outdone meleeing(outside of phy res/ magic damage bonus), on top you have rdm with more responsibilities to staggers and heals, on top of no miser roll/save tp atma..i just dont see rdm outdamaging unless you are talking like rex? who has major phy reduction and the reverse is true about his magical res.

[Ophannus]

Talking about hightier level 99 content like T5-T6 not level 95 loltier3 stuff. No DRG hits for 300-350 on Botolus Rex, Kalaasutrax or Ig-Alima and does WS over 1.5k. At least on RDM I'm practically assured 800-1.3k+ nukes with /SCH and Ascetics. Even on Bot which has damage reduction, I'm still doing like 600-700 while other melee edging close to 2k. Only time I did really nice damage on tier 6 stuff was in a JP alliance where we had 2 brds and 2 cors cycled instantly between the tank and DD parties before pop so everyone got 4 songs and 4 rolls and had a RDM keep up Dia III always.

[Aana]

No, none of the comparisons are in Abyssea; I'm pretty sure that was stated early on. Crit weaponskills rule in Abyssea, so there's no real point in comparing Stardiver builds there other than academic interest (or you're on sam).

Also, feel free to provide the 'perfect' gear sets for the respective builds (including jumps) and I'll look into how they compare.

Little late, but sure. This is my current drakes build. (http://www.ffxiah.com/item-sets/160908) Not quite 'perfect'. Changes left for me are the
*Aesir to 4atk/25TP bonus WOTG earring. ends up being i believe 3.75% crit rate.
*strigoi to pyrosoul IF it breaks a tier on WSC or Fstr. I cant be arsed honestly.
*Heca feet need better augs than my 2str 5atk. Obviously perfect would be str/atk/polearm.

Specific to me stuff due to Ryunohige aftermath (OA2-3). Take with grain of salt for everyone else.
*4str earring over brutal. This is a Ryunohige specific adjustment because i get stupid amounts of DA/TA diminishing the effect of brutal. I think brutal wins for everyone else.
*Lancer hands>Heca 4crit damage/6acc augment. Another Ryunohige specific adjustment. The DA gets washed out by aftermath again, though i havent run numbers on this one without aftermath, so it may be better anyway /shrug.
*Prosilio belt: Again, the massive aftermath waters down the -5%DA so much it still wins for me. Dont know if this is still best option for non-Ryu drgs or not.

Optionals: These mostly depend on situational aspects like the value of Ddex, acc or STP, but thats mob dependant and 5hit build dependant.
Rajas>Pyrosoul. (Ddex variable)
Lancer Body>Aces. (Ddex/Acc/5 or 6hit build variables).
Rose grip>Claymore 3%crit rate. (5/6hit dependant)

With those coniderations, im pretty sure this is as good as it gets right now until we get Nyzul gear (/drool!)

My Stardiver set is similar show here (http://www.ffxiah.com/item-sets/246130).

Planned upgrades to make it 'perfect':
Atheling>Cerb+1
Aesir>WotG 4atk/25TP
Raja>Pyro
Strigoi>Pyro (i cant be arsed)

Situational
Brutal>4str earring (Ryu aftermath consideration)
Lancer Body>Aces (Acc/STP consideration)
Rose grip>Anything else. But i dont know who would devote grip to Str grip.

That should just about do it unless i missed something. Fairly straightforward for stardiver. Drakes is a little more funky since you have to basically decide to make concessions for dex or not since halfassing it wont have any affect at all, but going for it and over/undershooting is bad too with teh dumb crit rates and very target specific. The only other real consideration with my builds is anything regarding DA. My aftermath diminishes additional DA so much it just doesnt compete well, but for the other 99%, it should be fine.

Again, drakes only beats stardiver with teh very, very high damage lances while stardiver wins with lower damage. I have only mathed it up for Ryu base damage and OAT lance damages and it was very clear. I dont know where the watershed damage is, though it is sure to vary based on race and minor junk like that, but its somewhere between 139 and 102 (i did orginal calcs at lv 95 OAT D102 version).

You REALLY need to have all the crit gear for Drakes to keep up. You have to have enough crit rate to beat down that -20% atk penalty otherwise stardiver just rapes drakes.

[Ophannus]

Yo Montenen, real quick, would Sceamol Band be better than Mekira-oto for Jumps with OAT lance? Together with Sceamol I can get ~18% Double Attack/2% Triple Attack/1% Quadruple Attack in my Spirit/Soul Jump sets. With those factored in with ~40% OAT would Sceamol's 5% DA outperform Mekira-oto? My reasoning is that even though DA is diminished in effect with OAT, I figure it would still push my double attack rate on Jumps closer to 100% and since a DA/OAT Jump= 80-120% TP I figure it would grant more damage via direct jump damage (by way of double hit on use) and by increase TP and therfore WS frequency. Of course I'd lose 15 STR and about 10 Attack, but if I can get even 2-3% increase chance of a double-hit Spirit/Soul Jump I think it's increased DA would lend itself to more DoT than the +str/att.


P.S I'm using Windbuffet Belt for waist slot, I figured in a sample size of 100 jumps, I'd get on average 2 Triple Attack Jumps and 1 Quadruple Attack Jump. A Triple Attack Jump does about 1500 and a quadruple attack does about 1900 both give well over 100% TP. Would the extra damage for 2 triple attacks and 1 quadruple attack jumps and the TP for WS they grant outdo other belts that give STR/ATT for example? I figure 5-6STR and/or 12 Attack from anguinus would only add single or low double-digit damage to each Jump and in 100 Jumps that's maybe in the low hundreds worth of extra damage whereas 1 or 2 Triple/Quad jumps will easily outdo that.

[Motenten]

Actually, there's a bug in there (and wouldn't have noticed without this question; thanks). It seems I didn't create the calculations for average hits per round based on actual gear worn for jumps, but used the value from the corresponding primary melee set. I'm going to have to correct that to find a proper answer. Will get back to you when it's updated.

[Ophannus]

OK thanks! Really trying hard to decide whether I should bother gearing for STR/ATT on Jumps or +Multi Attack. The hidden third option I forgot to consider is +Crit Damage% but there's not much for DRG besides AF3 legs(10%) Moogle expansion head(+3%) and heca hands+1 augment(+4%) but I figure for hands +4% from AF3 would be better even with OAT but I'll wait for you to get back to me.

[frozenbear]

windbuffet belt? (for multi hits I mean of course ^^)
I have never seen crit hits give me the kind of results that multi-hits dishes out on jumps.
Very nice damage.

[Ophannus]

Been using Sceamol Band/Brutal Earring/Avant Mail+1/Avant Cuisses+1/AF3 Hands/Jinang's Greaves/Atheling Mantle/Windbuffet Belt

24% DA/2%TA/1% QA coupled with 40% OAT.

[Motenten]

Ok,updated. Checking jump types:

Jump: Twilight > Mekira > Sceamol
Spirit Jump: Mekira = Sceamol > Twilight

High Jump: Twilight = Mekira = Sceamol
Soul Jump: Sceamol > Mekira > Twilight

Using a threshhold of at least about 0.1 DPS difference for one to be considered better than the next, as well as comparing direct damage per jump round.

Overall it looks like Twilight if you want Jump/High Jump, and Sceamol if you want Spirit/Soul Jump.

Also, Windbuffet Belt looks like the best waist option for all jumps.

Didn't look too much into optimizing other slots.

[Ophannus]

Would this hold true for other DA gear in general on Spirit/Soul or would we need to look at each slot individually? I know DA has diminishing returns but the closer to getting a double-hit Jump for that sweet 80-120 TP the better I figure.

Also Yugl wants to know if this is considering OAT lance or a non OAT?

[Motenten]

This is for the lvl 99 OAT lance. For other slots, they'd have to be considered on a case-by-case basis.

[brayen]

This is for the lvl 99 OAT lance. For other slots, they'd have to be considered on a case-by-case basis.

so Sceamol for people not using OaT lance right?

[Ophannus]

Would it be possible to evaluate the optimal set for Spirit/Soul Jump for increasing the odds of a multi-hit Jump i.e DA/TA/TA vs other options?

Neck: Ganesha Mala vs Justiciar's Torque
Body: Avant Mail+1 vs Ace's Mail
Hands:Heca+1(STR+8 Crit dmg+4%) vs AF3(STR+8 DA+4%)
Legs: Avant Cuisses+1 vs AF3
Feet:(Soul Jump only, because Spirit Jump is AF3 or bust)
Hecatomb Leggings Augment(STR+4 Att+6 Pole Arm Skill+4) vs Jinjang's Greaves

[brayen]

Would it be possible to evaluate the optimal set for Spirit/Soul Jump for increasing the odds of a multi-hit Jump i.e DA/TA/TA vs other options?

Neck: Ganesha Mala vs Justiciar's Torque
Body: Avant Mail+1 vs Ace's Mail
Hands:Heca+1(STR+8 Crit dmg+4%) vs AF3(STR+8 DA+4%)
Legs: Avant Cuisses+1 vs AF3
Feet:(Soul Jump only, because Spirit Jump is AF3 or bust)
Hecatomb Leggings Augment(STR+4 Att+6 Pole Arm Skill+4) vs Jinjang's Greaves

From my understanding spirit/soul jump have no real notable mods or anything, so i was always under the impression of Multi-hit and crit dmg+ as only worthwild attributes, as such af3 legs and all the QA/TA/DA you can carry. not sure how marginal any stacking on str and such would do in comparison(to multi hit proc and crit dmg+).

[Motenten]

Would it be possible to evaluate the optimal set for Spirit/Soul Jump for increasing the odds of a multi-hit Jump i.e DA/TA/TA vs other options?

Neck: Ganesha Mala vs Justiciar's Torque
Body: Avant Mail+1 vs Ace's Mail
Hands:Heca+1(STR+8 Crit dmg+4%) vs AF3(STR+8 DA+4%)
Legs: Avant Cuisses+1 vs AF3
Feet:(Soul Jump only, because Spirit Jump is AF3 or bust)
Hecatomb Leggings Augment(STR+4 Att+6 Pole Arm Skill+4) vs Jinjang's Greaves

Target: Bukhis (moderately high def, but acc capped)
Evaluating based on Total DPS, so that it accounts for TP gain applied to weaponskills. If same total DPS, choosing based on higher jump round damage.

Lvl 99 OAT Lance w/Rose Grip:

- Spirit Jump:
Head: Mekira (== Sceamol DPS, higher jump damage)
Neck: Ganesha
Body: Lancer +2 (beats both Ace's and Avant +1)
Hands: augmented Heca+1 (== Lancer+2 DPS, higher jump damage)
Legs: Lancer +2


- Soul Jump:
Head: Sceamol
Neck: Ganesha
Body: Lancer +2
Hands: Lancer +2
Legs: Lancer +2
Feet: augmented heca == Jingang


Lvl 99 Str Lance w/Pole Grip:

- Spirit Jump:
Head: Sceamol
Neck: Ganesha
Body: Lancer +2 (beats both Ace's and Avant +1; Avant +1 beats Ace's)
Hands: Lancer +2
Legs: Lancer +2


- Soul Jump:
Head: Sceamol
Neck: Ganesha
Body: Lancer +2
Hands: Lancer +2
Legs: Lancer +2 == Calmecac > Avant +1
Feet: Jingang


Generally very similar gear sets. Lancer+2 body trounces Aces/Avant+1 in total DPS, although both of those bodies do a smidge more in direct damage (4 to 8 points out of a 500 dmg round). The +10 Store TP on the AF3 body pushes the TP return above what you need to make it a 'real' hit in your x-hit build.

Also, overall, OAT lance is 2% ahead of Str lance with 0.5 over-TP rounds; they tie at somewhere around 1.25 to 1.3 over-TP rounds.

[Ophannus]

I figured the +10 Store TP on Jumps was moot since on a OAT proc you get TP overflow.

[Motenten]

That's... actually rather complicated to model. It needs discrete value calculations on top of averages. Doing a bit of math by hand to see if the simple modeling was notably off (and assuming the ws set I have in place, and using the average TP required to 100 on Stardiver as the base):

Edit:
[[
Suppose I should add -- Average TP needed to reach 100 TP after Stardiver with the build I have set up is 78.4 TP. That includes probability distribution of all possible TP returns, but (just now realizing) does not include Conserve TP. With Conserve TP, the case of Ace's/Avant on a 2-hit Spirit Jump will allow for you to not need the Store TP of Lancer +2 the majority of the time (90%) that Conserve TP procs; proc rate is 32% with elemental belt. Adjust your assessment of the worth of the tradeoff from there.
]]


Spirit Jump w/AF3+2 feet:
If jump lands 1 hit, can use Ace's/Avant and keep x-hit (need 2 more hits to reach 100 TP)
If jump lands 2 hits, insufficient TP to weaponskill if using Ace's/Avant, so need 1 additional hit; Lancer+2 gives you enough TP to weaponskill immediately
If jump lands 3+ hits, get 100+ TP

Soul Jump:
If jump lands 1 hit, short of the TP needed for 1 more hit to give you 100 TP (need 2 hits or DA/OAT/etc proc) regardless of body used
If jump lands 2 or more hits, should always get 100+ TP


So I was wrong. Basically, the only instance where you want Lancer+2 over the other bodies is a Spirit Jump that gets exactly 2 hits. Of course that's going to be fairly common with an OAT lance.

With the 1-hit Soul Jump, you want 43+ total Store TP in order to put you 1 hit away from 100 TP (this only works for OAT lance; str lance will always need 2 hits to reach 100 TP after a 1-hit Soul Jump). Assuming Rose/Brutal/Rajas/Lancer+2 body, you need another 8 Store TP to manage that, which would require compromising jump damage a fair bit.

Since you can't predict the number of hits that will land, you need to decide on the value of dropping an extra hit to 100 TP. I'd say you don't get enough extra damage from Ace's/Avant on Spirit jump (less than 1%) to sacrifice the reduced number of hits on a significant fraction of the jumps made, so would still recommend Lancer+2 there. For Soul Jump, on the other hand, there's too much sacrificed for a small bit of gain. In that case I'd go with the best pure damage piece, which would be Ace's.

[Xaander]

Don't thank SE until they reduce the 19% attack penalty on Drakesbane.

[Ophannus]

Just anecodtally, /WAR trounces /SAM with COR, WS are more competitive with Berserk and I still WS almost ever few seconds with 60% TP return and like 7/tick regain

[Aana]

And thus they are nerfing save TP. We might have to actually (gasp!) melee for TP again!!!!

[Ophannus]

Sucks because /WAR was netting me almost 2k more damage per WS than /SAM. Looks like I won't be seeing this anymore: http://desmond.imageshack.us/Himg826/scaled.php?server=826&filename=57370589.jpg&res=medium

[Aana]

While zerk is always hawt, its not taking a 1k WS and making it a 3700 WS. /war isnt adding 2k avg to your WS on a 3700. Eyeballing is bad yo. Its not quite THAT good xD

[Luvbunny]

I think with all these positive notes and remarks on how awesome this WS is, knowing SE, they will announce "barance adjustment" soon to make it more relatable to other WS and to make sure that DRG is back to the unwanted spot. I am hoping that I am totally wrong and they will leave this alone. Its great to see that one of the new WS is actually working as intended.

[Ophannus]

Meh on Tier 5's I'm averaging 2k Stardivers with /WAR, with /SAM I'm usually doing around 1400ish. WS frequency is more or less the same with miser's roll and new jump timers with OAT lance.

[Silkavenger]

While 3690 on Kaggen is most likely a double atk and odd stacking up for an abnormally high total, there's no denying that /war is a better choice spike number-wise in VW. It's not just zerk but war cry and aggressor as well. I've still got plenty I can improve in my stardiver build but when I started going /war 2k+ became the norm very quickly with highs approaching 3k (for me) and the rare low in the 1k's in the case of an occasional bad miss (when under nasty stat reduction for example).

In a situation like VW where TP is overflowing from temp items /war really shines. Especially when the average fight lasts only 5 mins anyway.

A really rough kalasutraux fight may be another matter though, those fights tend to go a bit longer with less frequent triggers. /sam might still work out better there. I may have just been with unlucky groups though, trigger-wise.

[Motenten]

Also don't forget that attack becomes vastly more valuable the more level correction you have to deal with.

600 att vs EM mob with 500 def, add Berserk. cRatio goes from 1.2 to 1.5, a 25% increase.
600 att vs Lvl120 mob with 500 def, add Berserk. cRatio goes from 0.15 to 0.45, a 200% increase (triples damage).

So yes, it's entirely conceivable that you could double your average damage due to Berserk. It's more likely to be around a 50% increase, though.

[Rohelius]

Nice Windower.

[Aana]

To double your damage, it would have to be so high that it floors your Pdif at those abyssmal levels. If thats happening, you just need to bring more chaos/min/angon/dia and remember to use your stalwarts :P Technically possible, but thats not whats happening here else his non zerk WS would be like 300. The chances of having a low def mob (has to be close to your base atk pre-zerk) AND is also so high level that lv correction shoots you through the floor is pretty much non-existant. Mobs that high will have more def so it would be difficult for % based atk buff like zerk to have quite the pronounced effect in your most extreme example xD

But either way, zerk is good. Once we get save TP nerf, /sam will at least have to be looked at again. I love my zerk more than you know since i spam drakes with ryu and its shitty -atk property. I dun wanna give it up either :P

[Ophannus]

God I hate coming DRG to Kalasutrax and Uptala because those Naraka mobs are skeleton types with -50% to piercing, my average stardiver on them ranges anywhere from 20(yes 20)- to like 600. Ugh. DRG really needs an attack boost from some main job abilities. DRK and WAR benefit so well from /SAM because Hasso/Meditate/Store TP compliment Berserk,Double Attack,Last Resort, Soul Eater and Attack Bonuses so well. We still get those benefit from /SAM but WAR and DRK can get 900+ attack with LR or Berserk. Besides WAR and DRK the other 2 hander jobs are DRG and SAM. Of course SAM gets full benefit of their own abilities and 99% of SAMs sub WAR so they benefit fully from Berserk, DA, Aggressor etc which compliments their Hassozanshin double attack etc. The only 2hand job with weak attack power is DRG unless we sub WAR but subbing WAR means we lose: Third Eye for defense, store TP for a 5 hit/6 hit build, meditate, sekkanoki and Hasso.

They've added a lot to DRG in the past few months but all of those were beating around the bush of DRG's #1 weakness of having low attack power. WARs are boasting 3k-4k Ukkos Fury in VW after the Ukko Nerf and DRKs can spam 3k Resolutions every 2 seconds and can reach haste cap without 2hr, DRG damage is still good but we'll probably never be able to compete with MNK/RNG/WAR/DRK/SAM ever again. Because they've boosting Healing Breaths so high now and we can remove debuffs with /Mage, they can justify that DRG has become a hybrid-like support DD like THF/NIN/DNC/BLU due to our support abilities and giving us higher attack power would be 'unbalancing'.

[Xenshi]

Dragoons can compete with war/sam/drk/mnk etc. easy. Stardiver is an amazing weaponskill also, I average 3k easy with food. highest is 4600+ on ADL. Yes it blows we have to /war for higher spike damage but don't be so quick to say Drg will never be up there as far as damage. Another thing people seem to forget is Drg has an amazing weaponskill frequency naturally with a 5/6 hit build and it gets even better with /sam if you time your meditate/melee/jumps correctly. Yes a Drg main job attack boost job ability would be great, do we 100% need it, no. What we need is either the wyvern being there or not affecting TP gain on soul/spirit jump removed or a better way to keep the dang thing alive.

[Transmit]

Saying you average 3k is very nice, but you arent really defining where you are using it, Stardiver is great for trash mobs where you don't need attack, abyssea, dyna farming, old VW tiers, its great there, in fact DRG is amazing for all these places right now. ADL is rather pitiful defense wise because its a level 90 monster, my BLU the other night was cracking out 3k+ WS's on him without really trying, he's a hard mob because of the way he splits into other mob, and the few horrid TP moves he has.

DRG falls behind severly if you take them to the highest tier VW mobs, especially Ig Alima, Botulus, or Kala. Because the job is severly lacking in attack over the other "top tier" DD's.

Also you really shouldnt have troubles keeping the wyvern alive now compared to before, 50% damage reduction, shortened spirit link timer, steady wing, soon to be regen on top of spirit link.


Because they've boosting Healing Breaths so high now and we can remove debuffs with /Mage, they can justify that DRG has become a hybrid-like support DD like THF/NIN/DNC/BLU due to our support abilities and giving us higher attack power would be 'unbalancing'.

This is exactly what I think SE is planning to do with DRG. Since 75 we've slowly been given a lot more utility, and I suppose its to differ jobs like DRK / DRG / SAM etc seeing as at 75 their roles were identical, its not the direction I really want to see DRG go, but I can understand why they are doing it.

[Aana]

Edit: The original post i was trying to quote got edited and toned down so this response probably seems a little excessive, but oh well :P


I dont know what your smoking. I am a stronger DD relative to other jobs today than i EVER was at 75. No DD buffs? Did you miss the part where we:
*Got jumps that give 2-3x TP
*save TP
*Acc bonus 3
*atk bonus 2
*those new sexy jumps got their timers cut down by a third
*our 2hour gives JA haste instead of lolmagic?
*Our GEAR options are phenominal these days since we are seated in the 'heavy armor' class instead of leather/mail and crap. Empy armor is super competative with "heavy DDs" like war's armor.

Yeah we sure are the same ol' lolDrg from 75.....except now we crap TP faster on par with samurais, have a new WS with no atk penalty (instead of a -20% drakes), wyverns that are becoming nigh-invincible (especially after the 33/tic regen with same duration as spirit link).

Im not here to say we destroy all the DDs or anything delusional, but to act as though were as bad off as we were at 75 when all we had to wear was homam, heca and penta thrust is rediculous. Sure we could still get more toys and atk buffs, but dont act like we havent gotten ANYTHING. Drg is way up from where it used to be. We get TP at a phenominal rate now, we have a strong, no-atk penalty WS, and our gear options are up with the best. Dont just ignore what we HAVE gotten to fuel emo rage.

[Silkavenger]

DRG rage aside, I feel like with the reduced jump timers I need /sam less than ever in VW. As far is building TP just jumps now are on par with jumps+meditate(pre-update) on a per fight basis. It's also possible to 5-hit /war now with all the new stp gear. (though it's debatable whether 5 hit is worth it due too all the other sources TP comes from in VW via rolls and temps). Defensive benefits of /sam are moot, too, in favor of temps.

Point being, even after the save TP nerf I think "another look" at /sam is still gonna see /war come out on top with ws frequency not suffering that much.