How do you play Corsair?

[Sandmaste]

COR without a shadow of a doubt has to be the most diverse job when using it for events with your LS. With a range of sj's that all work and offer different ways of playing the job what is it you like best or what style do you like best.

In terms of melee and ws using /nin or /dnc I don't like it because outside of an exp party (where I think that method shines most) I feel it diverts your buffing more to the melee's, and your a massive TP feed to the mob. Jobs like Thf, Dnc, and a DW COR dish out tonnes of TP to the mob for low DoT and most dmg comming from ws, it can, imo make fights messy, especially if your fighting a NM when a job like MNK or NIN can cap Subtle blow easily at 50% whilst dealing out good DoT, MNK especially has Pennance that means when im on MNK and fighting a NM, with Pennance up the mob is only receiving 30% of the TP a SAM, WAR or [insert job here] gives it.

Side tracking a bit, I like COR primarily for the buffs, i'm an aggressive roller making good use of JA's like Fold, SE, and RD and still get a little buzz from hitting the XI.

Aside from that, I still want to support, so comming /RDM I can take responsibility for my party's Haste cycle whil'st throwing out spells like Cure IV and Refresh as needed. The MABII is also a bonus to my play style.

Don't get me wrong, I know a COR decked out can dish out respectable DMG /RNG /WAR /NIN but other than melee-ing for TP /NIN, Eminant bullets cost to much to use them /RNG and /WAR and shoot like perhaps the job [should] be played if we talk lore & pirates etc.

Lastly, I have a WS set that I do tend to use fairly often but after buffing my second job is QD, and loading as much QD gear, MAB, MACC as possible into each slot (gotta love reforged relic feet and reforged AF legs) along with some other sexy pieces, its very easy to get 16MAB accross both ear slots for example. Only problem is is I tend to lose my TP gain if Im firing a debuff+ shot so my elemental staff will be automaticlly changed frim my default QD at the time to enhance a Dia or a Slow. Tactician's roll does end up on me a lot and its typically one of my main melee rolls so after Buffing and sj buffing, then after QD, I then get the chances to fire off solid WS's.

Thats my take on the job - How do you guys play it, and what do you see as the pro's (or con's) to your method of playing COR.

[pretre]

I don't like melee cor at all iv allways played it /rdm since the lvl cap increase, I buff and QD range and ws were I can between buffs but honestly im a QD addict its my fav ja in game, at 75 I used to solo QD kite kill up to t3 zeni mobs for friends, its the only ja you can do dmg while kiting without stop running. my cor has kind of lost its way since the adoulin addon I was killing the t5 monkey in kamir but I cant get my QD to not resist on him, but im still working on getting 119 daggers for it

[Karbuncle]

When im in an event that I can be killed by AoE's or at the very least become an MP sink, I'll shooty shoot if I can hit the enemy, if I can't hit it good nuff, I'll just... Sit back and do the buffing thing and be sad at being so useless. But in most cases, I want to be doing some damage... I mean COR may be a buff job, but it has the power to be a DD too, not a great DD but a good one, so a COR who doesn't deal damage, in my book, is almost useless, I could probably have replaced you with another SAM or DD and brought more to the party with them if all you do is sit back and pick your nose between rolls.

That said, I have a Melee set for when I can melee, and a Ranged set for when I can range... I don't COR much cause I'm still working on those sets and I lack enough R.acc for most content right now, but If i can shoot, I'll shoot... not like Bullets are super hard, and if worst comes to worst, I can get away with a little Recycle gear here and there.

[Sandmaste]

Even if your not becoming an mp sink all your doing is poking the mob and becomming another dagger feeding tp feeder, you can deal steady TP free dmg via QD. WS is still not going anywhere and we have plenty of magic dmg ws's
to chose from if your fighting dmg resistant mob.

To be a good shooter I've found you need to be just outside melee range so if your having to stand as far back as to not be hit by AOE then your shots are going to be lacking racc/ratt even more. If your subbing a melee job you
have to be a damage dealer, if you sub a support job your mostly support and that doesn't involve standing around picking your nose if your doing it rite.

[Malithar]

I can't remember the last time anyone honestly cared about TP feed, except for Yorcia T5 after it charms someone. With 3+ DDs meleeing, it doesn't really matter if there's more. With capped haste, it's getting fed all the TP it needs, even with Auspice or Subtle Blow.

I dunno anything about Cor tbh, but the bit where you mention losing your TP from the elemental staff for a debuff shot. Wut? Elemental staves don't really serve much of a point anymore, outside of a Sch healing, or any healer with access to light weather. Idk what you think the elemental staves are doing for your QDs in current content (in old, sure, get your elemental boost if you want, but don't complain about TP loss then :P), but I assure you it's nothing compared to what having an ilvl weapon with +MAcc skill will do.

[Karbuncle]

Even if your not becoming an mp sink all your doing is poking the mob and becomming another dagger feeding tp feeder, you can deal steady TP free dmg via QD. WS is still not going anywhere and we have plenty of magic dmg ws's
to chose from if your fighting dmg resistant mob.

To be a good shooter I've found you need to be just outside melee range so if your having to stand as far back as to not be hit by AOE then your shots are going to be lacking racc/ratt even more. If your subbing a melee job you
have to be a damage dealer, if you sub a support job your mostly support and that doesn't involve standing around picking your nose if your doing it rite.

I must pose my counterargument as I disagree. I respect you have your own style to play the job. Its nothing personal.

COR can DD well, its one of the things that separates it from BRD and GEO, other supports, it requires a lot of good gear (Reforged 119, Delve II boss items, etc), but a good COR is capable of bringing a fair amount of damage to the party on top of their already nice buffs. It won't be winning the parse, but It will ring a respectable % to the DMG. Also, you don't need to be at "sweet spot" to do good damage, and while quick draw is powerful if used right, for most COR, it won't be doing a lot. Further, the TP Feed argument is... again, nothing personal... silly. There is nothing in this game thats so "zomg" that a dagger job couldn't TP on... I'm with Malithar here, I can't honestly think of a single time I've been with a group who even have a passing thought about TP feeding except for Yorcia T5 after charm, TP feed is an outdated and silly argument.

As far as elemental staves go, also outdated. I think the best weapon we have for Quick Draw and by extent our magic Weaponskills is... Vanir Knife (http://www.ffxiah.com/item/20632/vanir-knife), which is a 119 dagger COR can use (making it one of our best DD daggers as well) that has Magic Damage+. So you don't really need to be swapping all that much, especially weapons.

At the end of the day, COR isn't welcome to all the events like it used to be, most of the time when it comes to say, AA (D), its PLD/WHM/BRD/RNG/RNG/RNG, and if its Skirmish3, its WHM/BRD/BLM/DDx3 or so forth... COR for some reason has lost its luster for a lot of endgame minus VD fights and some situational low man Delve II... most pick up groups have to make the choice of adding another DD or a COR, and if the COR is a /WHM or /RDM non-shooter, in the end adding that third DD will likely be the better bet in terms of speed and efficiency, but if you're a DD COR, you not only add the buffs to the party, but your extra damage, making the choice in favor of COR.

Now this isn't true for all situations, maybe not even true for all servers... But it is true for a lot of things.

With all that said and done, I would like to say, /WHM and /RDM can have their places in an alliance, they do in fact have their uses. Not every battlefield or content fight will allow a COR to make use of his gun, sometimes the mob will be too evasive or sometimes AoE damage will be too annoying to melee and so forth, there are situations where /WHM or /RDM will be your best choice... rather this will bring anything to the party other than piece of mind that you can toss a Cure IV or something while waiting for rolls to wear or not is just something I bring to question... mostly because of the times I've played COR as /WHM or /RDM, my MP was a formality, as I never much had a reason to use it... a good WHM lessens the use for such a thing.

This is only taking into account endgame activities by the way, not solo stuff, WKR, or outdated content.

Also for any COR who will like to know the Pro/cons of each sub job, as well as some nice DD choices for yourself, here:

COR Guides (http://www.ffxiah.com/forum/topic/31312/the-pirates-lair-a-guide-to-corsair/)

[Balloon]

Additionally, there's a lot of talk about how main hand MACC affects the magic accuracy of shots. I can't speak to this much, only eyeballing, but I have noticed that to be the case.

Marjami I've parsed quite high, not above the rangers, but not much less. I usually /drg when it's necessary for enmity, /dnc when I'm meleeing, or /war if I just want to see big numbers. I don't really like the support aspect of COR, I'll do it if necessary but it strikes me as wasted potential.

Melee cor is incredibly formidable, your white damage isn't gonna make anyone impressed, but you can throw out some speedy, hard hitting Last Stands, and can throw up Haste Samba for the odd times you're not capped on magic total haste. In delve 1 I found myself being on par with the melees there.

'support' in 6 man is throwing an errant cure IV, helping with haste cycles, and perhaps buffing dia occasionally. You're not necessary, just easing the job of the white mage. If you're not shooting during this time there's little actual work to be done.

[Reichleiu]

Once the WS update came out i've been pretty much stuck on COR because my epic DRG is now epically useless ; ;

That being said, I have learned to love the job and have it pretty much geared to the teeth. I'm missing a couple items here and there but my sets are probably 95% of the way finished. I find that for new delve.. i'm always COR/WAR or COR/DRG. Why DRG? because eventually I cap hate and pull whatever we are fighting and high jump instantly cures that. Not to mention it adds a nice ACC bonus to the job to offset CORs naturally low Marksmanship skill. In situations where I know this won't be a problem I typically sub WAR. WAR allows for my ranged attacks to hit for significantly harder than they normally would and most situations where I will be using a lot of Last Stand, you will see me sub this.

If the fight is going to have to rely on Leaden Salute, Wildfire or QDs a lot more.. I will /mage. Usually I go /rdm because not only does it provide some MAB but it allows me to cast Flurry on myself and keep other buffs on the party/ Debuffs on the monster. Your enfeebling magic might be low but you should have an extremely good MACC set on COR anyway. Typically, I will use this the most in Wildskeeper Reives. The only other time I go /rdm is when I'm asked to by our RNGs because they want NQ Flurry. (Normally this doesn't happen as we typically have a RDM in RNG setups)

That being said.. my favorite way to play COR, despite the protests above about TP feed, is COR/DNC. I typically use COR/DNC to any delve v1 when i'm not playing on DRG, Outer Ra'kaznar Skirmish, and most new hard mode BCNMs (Ouryu, Shadow Lord and Tenzen mostly). COR absolutely destroys Outer Ra'kaznar Skirmish due to the dark weather bonus that is on 100% of the time. Leaden Salute is enough to finish off the Acuex NM from 50%+ if you use it after the SAM uses Fudo for a Skillchain and can 1-shot NQ Acuex. Wildfire and Last Stand are useful for everything else and are capable of putting up better numbers than melee DDs with the proper set sans Samurai.

Haste samba is a huge help in any situation and I can stack Box Step and Quick Step for extra debuffs. COR/DNC is almost a must with the setup we use for Ouryu V2, keeping steps up and using Aeolian Edge + QDs to proc the eles and bring him back down so the MNK and SAM can destroy him. I normally parse 50% of the damage the MNK and SAM do for the whole run just using TP for steps and proccing the eles. Why? because I don't get dispelled like they do and can instantly put rolls back on if I do.

WS frequency as COR/DNC is significantly higher than COR/anything else, unless you are in a party getting Flurry II and throwing up Courser's Roll. In Delve v1 I can safely say that only exceptional DDs can do more for a party than a good COR/DNC. While I won't destroy the parse, I won't fall very far behind and other than embrava situations haste samba is a huge help. Not to mention Chaos Roll + lvl 5 Box Step is a slightly better damage difference than Angon and can be maintained for a longer time.

So.. thats how I play COR. If that was a bit jumbled I apologize. I wrote this at work.

I didn't mention rolling, but that should go without saying. I like to gamble, especially if my JAs are up. Its not hard to get 11s with a fair amount of frequency. I would say I am a little more aggressive than most COR when it comes to this.

[Malithar]

Two good posts, just wanted to point out Haste Samba has nothing to do with Embrava or capped magic haste, as it's 5% JA haste as /Dnc. :P


Haste samba is a huge help in any situation and I can stack Box Step and Quick Step for extra debuffs. COR/DNC is almost a must with the setup we use for Ouryu V2, keeping steps up and using Aeolian Edge + QDs to proc the eles and bring him back down so the MNK and SAM can destroy him. I normally parse 50% of the damage the MNK and SAM do for the whole run just using TP for steps and proccing the eles.

And wanted to echo that, I do the same as Geo/Dnc on Ouryu. May not be able to hang with the big guys, but when you can still hit 50%ish of a mythic DDs output while buffing them up well, it's a major difference when you consider what job to bring for that slot. From a Geo perspective, it's just plain pure fun to Bolster Indi-Haste with a SV March and have 3.5 minutes of capped magic haste even when slowed lol.

[Balloon]

Two good posts, just wanted to point out Haste Samba has nothing to do with Embrava or capped magic haste, as it's 5% JA haste as /Dnc. :P

I have no idea why I typed magic haste, I was thinking ja haste throughout. I did mean capping total haste, though. I don't do much on cor, but I did completely forget about Box Step / Quick Step.

I just don't know that, with 6 man content being the current norm, a COR that merely buffs and supports can be justified in a party. The damage from a COR that DDs + The additional buffs >= 3 dds, a COR that buffs and cures < 3 dds.

[Reichleiu]

and other than embrava situations haste samba is a huge help



Two good posts, just wanted to point out Haste Samba has nothing to do with Embrava or capped magic haste, as it's 5% JA haste as /Dnc. :P


I simply meant that it doesn't help in situations where you need Embrava. In that situation you should have capped haste (Total Haste) with just capped gear haste + Embrava + Soul Voice March + Haste NQ. Under these circumstances Samba would offer you nothing. I guess I could still make the case for its importance in this situation when NQ haste falls off though.

[Sandmaste]

I have no probs pointing out I was wrong when it comes to things like tp feed, like I said I've only just come back to the game after 3year absence. I always used to play COR as a DD/buffer before I quit during ToAU days and had a great time /WAR blasting out BNS Slugs, when I came back after that break obviously COR wasn't used so I only played it during the abyssea years to level it on 2 occasions. I was obviously on MNK and NIN during that stint and geared my COR through the use of those jobs. I have no qualms playing it in a Buffer/DD roll I just have a facination and love of Quick Draw and some of the ele ws's we have, to get the best out of QD you obiously have the MAB from /RDM, that dagger looks fantastic.

[Afania]

In terms of melee and ws using /nin or /dnc I don't like it because outside of an exp party (where I think that method shines most) I feel it diverts your buffing more to the melee's, and your a massive TP feed to the mob.

Since you're a returning player you probably didn't know that SE changed TP feed forumla years ago. Subtle blow honestly doesn't make a difference, there are no real danger to engage and hit the mob as long as you build a proper DT- set like every other melee.

"Diverts buffing more to the melees" is right way to do delve these days, WHM with 3 ballad usually won't run out of MP, unless the WHM is gimp.

Unless you're buffing 3~4 melees, playing COR/WHM that only roll and support and occasionally QD is like playing MNK that only melee TP but won't WS....it's a waste of job's potential and that made the job not worth bringing unless it's a mule.

Back to the topic, this is how I play the job usually:
Morimar: Attack food(RCB or steak), offhand OAT dagger, /DNC and spam last stand, light shot x2 after dia2(or light shot x1 after dia3). Chaos+SAM roll on myself and koga SAM, Chaos+fighter for none mythic MNK and SAM. Always do at least 1 def- step before last stand, can build step on NM while fighting adds. Mainly because 5 steps takes time to build, NM usually die before you finish all 5. The earlier you start steps the more dmg you get out of it.

On megaboss swap to double acc dagger and high acc set if BRD isn't using madrigal and no RDM in pt.

Ceizak: Basically the same as morimar except use acc food(sushi or riverfin soup).

Yorcia: Last stand on T1 and 2, leaden salute for everything else. Acc food. With 1~2 darksday buff the dmg gap between COR and another DD is the smaller than delve1 in this zone, it's very easy to outparse most SAM if both darksday bonus are present. Switch to hunter for T4. On wopket bring med for slow erase and swap to max acc set when flash is on.

Kamir: /DNC, WS on T1 and 4 depend on mode, leaden for everything else. I swap to /ra mode on megaboss because dispel and amnesia is god damn terrible, with new spell flurry2 /ra dmg isn't bad now.

Marj: I still do this the old way which is /ra setup, so /DRG for this.

For AA and DM2 I just /DRG and /ra in RNG setup, in melee setup I /NIN.


A few tips:

1. Always yell for dia at start, cuz no mage ever do it :< Always do at least 1 def- step before using last stand.

2. The most damaging setup for COR is Chaos+SAM roll and OAT offhand with SAM in pt. You can TP fast enough to do 8~9k WS back to back. None mythic SAM and MNK still gain more dmg from Chaos+DA though, so you'd have to do 3 roll rotation(can do them during downtime so you don't waste output) to gain the most dmg. That being said, don't use OAT offhand when acc is an issue.

SAM roll is better for mythic or OAT weapon users, DA roll is better for other melee DD.

3. You can self light with exen+ last stand. If you're single DD on the NM for w/e reason it's more dmg than do last stand twice.

4. Don't stick with same TP/WS set for every NM! DD fundamental 101 :D Use lowest acc TP set on adds/fodder, bring max acc set for flash and such.

5. Always double up on chaos 6 or 7 if fold is up :) Double up aggressively is the difference between getting a 40% avg attack boost or avg 20%. Don't spend too much time on getting a good number though.

6. Bring a DT- set, DD fundamental 101.

7. Different mobs are weak against certain QD element, memorize the elemental weakness for each mob for some extra dmg every QD. Also, always QD asap when the timer is up unless you're saving it for w/e reason.

8. If possible avoid rebuffing when fighting the NM unless the NM has dispel move. Unless you have really good number on and you don't want to erase them.

9. Melee COR/DNC is much, much more effective than every other playstyle thanks to box steps. 13% def down from steps with additional 5%~10% extra def down from dia is no joke. If you can, /DNC as much as possible.

[Afania]

I simply meant that it doesn't help in situations where you need Embrava. In that situation you should have capped haste (Total Haste) with just capped gear haste + Embrava + Soul Voice March + Haste NQ. Under these circumstances Samba would offer you nothing. I guess I could still make the case for its importance in this situation when NQ haste falls off though.

What Malithar said was, magic haste cap at 43%, gear haste is 25%, you're only sitting at 68% under these circumstances which is NOT capped without JA haste. AFAIK WAR and DRG would sit at 78% with hasso so you still need samba. COR/DNC also isn't capping attack delay with DW2.

[Reichleiu]

What Malithar said was, magic haste cap at 43%, gear haste is 25%, you're only sitting at 68% under these circumstances which is NOT capped without JA haste. AFAIK WAR and DRG would sit at 78% with hasso so you still need samba. COR/DNC also isn't capping attack delay with DW2.

You're right, my mistake. Embrava + Haste + Soul Voice March is enough to cap magic haste only.

[Karbuncle]

I think just Haste2 and a good Victory march is enough to cap Magic haste now too.