Voidwatch

[Saefinn]

I just reactivated my character after quitting literally just after the level 95 update. I've never done any Voidwatch and I've had about as enough Abyssea as I can stand and I see COR seems like a popular job for it, which is music to my ears because I love COR. Now my COR doesn't have all of dice yet and is geared moderately well for a level 90. I don't have an Emp and will be working on that casually - I got part of the way through it before I quit. When I got back (yesterday) I decided to play the game casually with only 1 or 2 level 99's and to not to go mad.

Is there any advice anybody has for a COR going into Voidwatch? I generally go COR/RNG when I do anything on it but that's quite expensive, I have RDM levelled as a sub too and am going to be working on /SAM as well. But I just don't like going into anything unprepared.


Cheers.

[Seha]

Best subjob for Voidwatch is samurai cause it offers the overall higher utility(store tp, seigan+3rd eye, sekka, meditate), disregard ranger, that sub doesn't have a place with us anymore; red mage can be useful depending on situation. Having Wildfire is very important, so it's a good thing you're working on that, till then Last Stand is a very good ws, be sure to merit it to full, it'll be very useful even once you get WF against fire/magic resistant foes. I recommend having all rolls so that you're ready for every situation, but that aside the most important right now are Tactician and Miser which are the absolute best for dd parties(and you as well).

[Afania]

I just reactivated my character after quitting literally just after the level 95 update. I've never done any Voidwatch and I've had about as enough Abyssea as I can stand and I see COR seems like a popular job for it, which is music to my ears because I love COR. Now my COR doesn't have all of dice yet and is geared moderately well for a level 90. I don't have an Emp and will be working on that casually - I got part of the way through it before I quit. When I got back (yesterday) I decided to play the game casually with only 1 or 2 level 99's and to not to go mad.

Is there any advice anybody has for a COR going into Voidwatch? I generally go COR/RNG when I do anything on it but that's quite expensive, I have RDM levelled as a sub too and am going to be working on /SAM as well. But I just don't like going into anything unprepared.


Cheers.

I found /RDM more useful than /SAM in VW generally. Tested on Kaggen, /RDM gives extra 230+ WF dmg without fire shot, and 50~60 extra QD dmg. /SAM only gives 2 extra WS with Sek/Med(you usually get to use them once in entire fight). If you don't factor darkness SC dmg(your SC will get eaten by 1000 DDs spamming their WS anyways), /RDM actually does more dmg than /SAM.

STPII doesn't make a difference with wings/TP roll and so on, you only get like 2 extra TP after WS and QD, which doesn't lower your hit build (you still 2 hit with /RDM in VW) and sometimes doesn't save you 1 tick regain as well.

If you use 2hr to recharge Sek/Med during the fight and darkness SC didn't get eaten, /SAM may win in terms of dmg, but that's not as reliable as MAB II from /RDM to boost your dmg IMO.

/RDM also offers good defense, Stoneskin, MDB, Cure IV when no body wants to cure you which happens often, and Raise when shit goes wrong. Although /SAM also offers defensive ability such as seigan third eye, it really only works on straight forward NMs that only melees. Many VWNM spams AoE and all sorts of nasty magic, that MDB and SS is probably your better bet for defensive ability.

/RNG is pretty pointless, if you're using magical WS, you don't need racc. If you're using physical WS, your WS dmg will suck a lot if you don't /WAR since this job has low rattk. With all the wings/TP rolls/atmacite, you can get TP easily without shooting, not to mention /RNG has zero defensive ability. Note that if you want to get TP faster, you'd still have to shoot for TP, then racc may still be an issue. Just make sure you make a /ra TP set with lots of racc in it to ensure every hit lands.

Which SJ to use also depending on which WS you planning to spam, if you're fighting Qilin, or Zilart T1 dragon, or Jeuno T4 book NM, WF doesn't do much dmg, you'd need a strong physical WS like Last stand. If you know you're going to use Last Stand, you need /WAR+Chaos roll+Minuet and attack food for it to work properly.

If you're subbing RDM and inventory space allowed, you can bring 1~2 high +MP ring or hairpin(ring is better because you'd need to swap head slot in and out for relic+2 head if you have winning streak merit) just in case that you're weakened and need to cast high MP cost spells like raise when shit goes wrong.

Also if you have WF and even more inventory space, I suggest you build an enmity- set for WF. This is the one I'm using:
www.ffxiah.com/members/item-sets?id=238247.

-46 enmity from gear, can hit -50 cap with merit, or drop Forban for another -enmity back piece. This set lost about 200~300 WF dmg, but enmity is cut in half, allows you to WS 3x more. So if you cap enmity in 7 WF in regular set, you can do 20 WS instead in enmity- set resulting more WS total dmg. You don't always need it though, if the pt is procing very fast to keep gnostic drink recharged + fight end in less than 3 min, just WS in high dmg set. But if fights starting to drag with no HQ proc for a long time + gnostic drink wears, and enmity starting to become an issue, enmity- set allows you to keep WSing without slowing down too much.

And if you have morrreeee( ;; ) inventory, you can do a MDT- and PDT- set to swap in when you really do get hate. Sometimes you also need to run into AoE range to roll(some NM just has huge AoE range and melees don't partcularly position very well), and no fanatic up, having a PDT- or MDT- set also help you a lot that you don't have to risk your life to roll DDs.

[Seha]

Casting magic on corsair should be the least of your concerns. If the healer doesn't heal you find a better one or use temps like everyone does. Also mp gear is the worst advice I've ever heard.
Also no point in gimping a WF set for enmity-. At best you need that on Last Stand, but even then I wouldn't bother at all. Everyone caps hate easily and if I'm on top fanatic's are there for a reason.

[Afania]

Casting magic on corsair should be the least of your concerns. If the healer doesn't heal you find a better one or use temps like everyone does. Also mp gear is the worst advice I've ever heard.
Also no point in gimping a WF set for enmity-. At best you need that on Last Stand, but even then I wouldn't bother at all. Everyone caps hate easily and if I'm on top fanatic's are there for a reason.

In a perfect world when pt proc fast and zerg the NM down in 3 min, you don't need any of these, in fact you don't even need MDT- and PDT-, but sometimes it just doesn't work that way.

enmity- set isn't full time set, it's used when pt couldn't get proc and recharge temps, which does allow more dmg total before capping hate, when other DDs cap hate before you and die before you, you will be the last one standing and do most dmg. Other DDs usually cap hate in about 5~7 WSs, if no one gets proc after fanatic/gnostic wears they will die. Enmity-50 set allow you to do almost 20 WS before cap, and that's obviously more dmg if the fight lasts longer than 20 min.

I parse/record my dmg and WS frenquency in VW reguarly, in situations when enmity became an issue, my WS frenquency does decrease, due to slowing down and holding back, and stop to use potions/temps. This especially occurs when I use Last Stand(that's why I'm not a big fan of Last Stand)

WHM is busy keeping other melee DDs alive, which usually eats more dmg than CORs. There are no reason to rely on them to cure bomb you, the best you can do is to watch enmity if fight starting to drag for more than 15 min.

I don't see what's wrong with MP gear when it can save ppl's time after fight to help raise, or help raise when you're double weak(since you can't do dmg when you're double weak anyways) You're not using the advantage of your SJ to the fullest when you totally can.

Say if 5 ppl died, only 2 WHM in pt, and you happened not doing dmg atm(such as fight just ended, double weak etc) 3 ppl doing raise is faster than 2 ppl doing raise. Why stand there and do nothing when you can do something to increase the pt efficency?

Again, if your pt can keep getting proc and temps, you can spam temps sure, but if no proc for a long time how long can you last?

Is it NEEDED in a perfect world when nothing go wrong and one fight end in 3 min? No. But if one fight happened to last 20 min, then it helps.

Inb4 "get a better pt" or something. A well prepared player should be able to deal with all sorts of situations, instead of complaining about healer too bad or something(seen too many epeen melees died in VW and parsed low, then complained about WHMs don't cure bomb them and keep them alive for them to do more dmg)

Edit: Forgot to mention, certain fight /BLM is also great for stun, alone with MABII for dmg.

[Afania]

Casting magic on corsair should be the least of your concerns. If the healer doesn't heal you find a better one or use temps like everyone does. Also mp gear is the worst advice I've ever heard.


Tell you a little secret, if a corsair starts to cast magic, uses anything that has something to do with MP/cure potency/fast cast, or even just to spend some extra time rolling instead of WSing, you will bust all rolls and wipe to all NMs, or all NMs will drop nothing when you defeat them.

I call this COR magic casting phobia, because it's a taboo to select the magic command when you should be select ability command.

[Saefinn]

Cheers for the responses, I'd say both sides of the argument are helpful, I'd probably need to have RDM at the ready if the situation demands for it. I wasn't a big fan of playing COR/RDM, but then I never really took advantage of its support roll fully. For MP gear, I've got a couple of rings spare already if I find they're needed, plus I've got 90mp in merits from playing my SCH a lot, so as COR/RDM I get 232mp at level 90, which I think should be enough, if not, I can still carry a ring on reserve whenever I need to come /RDM.

However, I think primarily I'll go for /SAM, and have /WAR and /RDM when needed or asked. For gear, obviously I want to go for Last Stand whilst I don't have an Armageddon. Current gear I've got tries to cover all bases without gear swaps (except on the weapon & ammo) - AGI , Ranged Attack, Ranged Accuracy (as Last Stand is physical), Store TP, Damage Taken and Mag Atk (for Quick Draw). I don't have the perfect gear set up quite yet, but I'll know what kind of thing to pick up along my travels.


Cheers for the help.

[Mirabelle]

If I packed a MP set, enmity set, -PDT set and -MDT set in addition to my TP set, WF set, QD set, Last Stand set, I would have no inventory space for all those logs and ores. What's the point of VW again if it isn't to keep the AH stocked in crafting mats?

Something has to give and for me its usually the MP set, enmity set and the melee TP set when I do VW.

[Seha]

If you're worried about hate use pax(if you have no items at all at your disposal you must be doing something wrong), still worried get a scholar in party. It's absurd to think that the cor is the one who has to worry the most with samurai, warriors, rangers etc around, even more while using a ws that generates smaller enmity per se.
And it's not a phobia of casting magic, there's just no point to do it bar emergency, which makes mp gear redundant and stupid. And nope, I don't live in a perfect world, my ls is full of gimps and we only use whm mules, yet I absolutely have no need to play bard style and enjoy epeening to my heart's content.

[Afania]

If you're worried about hate use pax(if you have no items at all at your disposal you must be doing something wrong), still worried get a scholar in party. It's absurd to think that the cor is the one who has to worry the most with samurai, warriors, rangers etc around, even more while using a ws that generates smaller enmity per se.
And it's not a phobia of casting magic, there's just no point to do it bar emergency, which makes mp gear redundant and stupid. And nope, I don't live in a perfect world, my ls is full of gimps and we only use whm mules, yet I absolutely have no need to play bard style and enjoy epeening to my heart's content.


T6 Ocythoe fight, used Gnostic drink for Pax right from the beginning and started spamming WF in none-enmity- set, mob attention was on be even before Pax wears. And the fact that it does deadly AoE plus magic means I will take dmg no matter what since I can't stack fool and fanatic.

T4 beetle fight, 2 Last stands with pax and mob attention was on me again, forcing me to slow down to use potions and wait for other ppl to gain more CE than me to get hate back. That fight I only did 12 WS total when I average 14~15+ with /RDM.

I know using Last Stand as example is a bit extreme, but pulling hate is still way possible even with WF and pax. If you somehow always play with good pt that always able to recharge temps before everything wears,
good for you. But that's just not my case(and I believe majority of player's case too unless you're in an elite LS), sometimes I'm just temp-less, have to deal with no HQ proc, death, and so on.

I didn't suggest ppl carry a whole MP set for /RDM, since you're not gonna have enough inventory like that. I only suggest you carry 1 high MP+ ring, because there are a couple of time when I was weakened and not doing dmg, I tried to help pt raise to recover faster when 100 ppl screaming for raise, but didn't have 150+ MP pool to do so, was thinking one Bifost ring plus ether can get the job done.

[Afania]

If I packed a MP set, enmity set, -PDT set and -MDT set in addition to my TP set, WF set, QD set, Last Stand set, I would have no inventory space for all those logs and ores. What's the point of VW again if it isn't to keep the AH stocked in crafting mats?

Something has to give and for me its usually the MP set, enmity set and the melee TP set when I do VW.

Melee set is usually the one leaving in MH when I headed out for VW as it as almost 0 use. Don't need entire MP set that's way too much. The inv does suck a lot, so it's really up to you. I actually don't carry a full MDT- and PDT- set also(at best it's only twilight, due to inv issue), instead I just try to stay alive as much as possible by WS away from AoE and avoid pulling hate.

[Greatguardian]

-Enmity set is irrelevant because you're probably already capped on hate either way, especially if you open with Pax and WF spam like you should. -50% Enmity isn't going to stop you from re-capping every time you QD/WS. You'll just be doing less damage for nothing.

[Saefinn]

I can see why damage reduction might be needed, my LS ran a VW group and didn't mind me tagging along even though my COR isn't quite there on the WS side of things. I did get find myself getting hit on a few occasions and pretty hard, so maybe a damage reduction set would help when rolling. Saying that, on my 3rd go on the NM (Kaggen), I didn't die and I think I only got hit once or twice and just about managed to keep up with my rolls, so if I were able to keep that up, damage reduction might not be an asset and I could leave it at my Twilight Torque and save inventory space for more suitable stuff - I suppose if I had oodles of room it'd be a different matter. I didn't carry a bifrost ring with me, but then of course I was /SAM...granted if I went /RDM I could have helped with the raising and have a few extra bits for my own survivability. :)

[Greatguardian]

You're a DD. Act like it and use a Fanatic's Drink. I promise, if the WARs are surviving, you should have no problem at all.

[Afania]

-Enmity set is irrelevant because you're probably already capped on hate either way, especially if you open with Pax and WF spam like you should. -50% Enmity isn't going to stop you from re-capping every time you QD/WS. You'll just be doing less damage for nothing.

That's not true, my math says otherwise, it's about the total amount of WS you can do before hitting cap.

I can't find info about how much enmity- Gnostic drink gives, but pax effect from SCH spell is only -10, so it's probably not -50.

The amount of CE gained=CE modifier x dmg dealt, so if your WF hits 1.7k(that's how much I hit in full dmg set on Grauberg T6 anyways), you're gaining about 1593 CE(since WF has -25% enmity), with pax=1433 CE

Enmity capped at 10k, so you can do 6~7 WS before capping hate, with gnostic drink, thats 11900 dmg.

If you start with -50, do 1.5k dmg instead(again, that's the dmg I do in enmity- on same NM), you're gaining 562 CE every WS, 17~18 WS before hitting cap, with 27000 dmg total.

What I do agree though, that if you somehow capped even before pax wears, then you're screwed either way, it's actually better to start with it, and end with full dmg to zerg it to death.

EDIT: You also lose CE when you get hit, so you may ended up recap slower with enmity- too.

[Greatguardian]

Right. You're working under the assumption that Corsair is not putting out 10-15 thousand damage before Gnostic's wears. In my experience, this is most certainly not the case.

You also seem to be taking Wildfire's -Enmity and multiplying it with the -50 Enmity you have from gear/buffs. Is there some testing that you can link me to that confirms that Wildfire is able to bypass the -50 Enmity cap in this manner?

Either way, I find it's of little consequence if I do get hate because I'm perfectly capable of using Fanatic's and Fool's drinks like everyone else. On NMs of any real value in Voidwatch, the difference between a Corsair's survivability and that of a Warrior or Monk is negligible. The end goal of the alliance is still to proc consistently enough to ensure a steady supply of Fanatic's Drinks so that the DDs stay alive, regardless of what job they're on.

[Afania]

Right. You're working under the assumption that Corsair is not putting out 10-15 thousand damage before Gnostic's wears. In my experience, this is most certainly not the case.

You also seem to be taking Wildfire's -Enmity and multiplying it with the -50 Enmity you have from gear/buffs. Is there some testing that you can link me to that confirms that Wildfire is able to bypass the -50 Enmity cap in this manner?

Either way, I find it's of little consequence if I do get hate because I'm perfectly capable of using Fanatic's and Fool's drinks like everyone else. On NMs of any real value in Voidwatch, the difference between a Corsair's survivability and that of a Warrior or Monk is negligible. The end goal of the alliance is still to proc consistently enough to ensure a steady supply of Fanatic's Drinks so that the DDs stay alive, regardless of what job they're on.

I can do the test for that when I get a friend to help, since I'm curious myself now that you brought it up, but even if it doesn't, you're still not gonna hit cap with Pax + -25% fom WS. The worst case sceneriao is to adjust the set/merit so only -15~25% from gear to reach cap.

Although that can be a bit disappointed if the best is -50% instead of -75%, it's actually less dmg output from WF before reaching cap.

And I agree that in optimal situation keep fanatic/fool refreshed with HQ proc and go all out none-stop is the best way to go(that's why I said you don't NEED it, if things goes well) But I wouldn't rely only on HQ proc to keep doing dmg....considering most of the none-JP /shout pt isn't that efficent in terms of getting proc and recharge fana(I join /shout pt most of the time). Most of the time it's semi-wipe/full wipe on T6s and fanatic/fool isn't always up. 90% of time is if I get hate, I will die after fanatic wears because it won't recharge that fast. If you have a group that proc that fast by all means do it, you can skip MDT- PDT- set even, and just carry DD gears. But that's just not my case with /shout pt.

EDIT: The reason why I assume WF enmity- 25% stack with gear is because enmity-50 cap applies to gear only, and other enmity changes such as JA is calculated differently and not restricted with this cap. So I assume WF is same as JA but different fom gears. But I can test it regardless if I can get someone to help.