Merits: Accuracy

[hakrev]

Could we please get the ability to boost some accuracy with merits. Idk if I'm the only person who is sick of swapping out actually relevant gear to my job for all accuracy pieces. I'd love personally if we could just have a merit of acc under the Other category.

This isn't exactly a wish at this point but a completely necessary bonus and very needed. When it takes 1075 to 1150 of acc just to hit monsters like the Apex monsters in gates areas 50ish% of the time (just as an example there are plenty of other examples to choose from) we desperately need a way to boost our acc. I'm talking like 10 per merit with a cap of 5 merits. 50 would definately help...but even more would be great.

Honestly I'd rather it be 20 per merit, to reach 100 with 5, it'd be like adding a 2nd acc food on and that's basically the kind of boost we really must have to sort of taper off the full acc builds into some more reasonable gear sets. Plus 100 acc really isn't much when we're dealing in the thousands already. Anyways I'd just like SE to consider this request, as I'm sure their are many others who would benefit and enjoy this addition.

As it is right now, I feel like a one trick pony with all my DD's. Why even have other pieces in the game when I have to swap all my gear to have an acc build 100% of the time. It's really quite silly.

[Tidis]

Nope, it's situational gearing and it works fine as it is, for anything you can't gear enough accuracy for, you probably need a support job to buff the party/debuff the mob which is absolutely acceptable.

[Ladynamine]

Nope, it's situational gearing and it works fine as it is, for anything you can't gear enough accuracy for, you probably need a support job to buff the party/debuff the mob which is absolutely acceptable.

Added to this, Food may also be used to boost accuracy (ex. Sublime Sushi/Bream Sushi to name a couple)

[Mithlas]

Agreed with OP.

[bungiefanNA]

Your accuracy already gets boosted by boosting skill levels with a weapon. If you merit combat or magic skill, your accuracy goes up for that weapon or magic type. Equipment that raises the skill also raises accuracy.

[hakrev]

I appreciate what you're trying to say, but I know all the ways in which to boost accuracy, perhaps I wasn't clear enough. The problem is that we shouldn't have to sacrifice all of our gear for accuracy in every single battle. At 75 you never had to sacrifice everything for acc, so why now? Rng had to and so did drk, but beyond that we got to sport our fancy artifact/relic gear for the majority of stuff. IDK about you all but I'm sick of having 1000+ base acc and missing like I was a slack-off. I have full 119 augmented acc equipment and weapons and I STILL miss with bream sushi. It's just down right stupid that the focus of the entire game is on who can stack the most accuracy on their armor/weapons, I enjoy variety in my gameplay and having choices. Should rename the game to Final Fantasy XI: Can't hit this! An accuracy merit category would totally be helpful, and you can't convince me that it wouldn't be. In fact the entire enemy evasion should be looked at for high level content. Now is the time for tinkering with game mechanics, since that's all the content we'll get mainly from now on, so I feel fully justified in asking for this.

Even as a brd, I know that instead of madrigal I could be singing TONS of better songs other than accuracy, yet on brd regardless of anything I'm stuck playing stupid madrigal. I could have double minuet + double march. but instead I have to sacrifice a whopping 147 attack power for some lame accuracy buff >.> The whole argument that we have a brd so we don't need merits is really absurd. I could be giving you an actually beneficial and interesting song that makes your job easier and better on the front line by dealing more damage, but no everything is boiled down to madrigals madrigals madrigals *sigh* I mean I'll play whatever is needed, but it's just sad all the sacrifices we have to make to just do something as simple as hit the monster without buffs... No other mmo has an issue with landing simple attacks, so I cannot fathom the reasoning behind not fixing this most fundamental problem, which didn't even exist until just recently with all the 135+ battles popping up and whatnot. Something's got to give and adding more acc via merits solves this and it takes them what... 10 minutes of coding, an hour tops.

[Jile]

Agreed with OP.

[Grekumah]

The development team is aware of the desire for ways to make accuracy more manageable; however, concerning end game battle content, the balancing is done in a way that requires the use of enhancement spells and abilities for both front line and back line jobs. With this said, it would be difficult to make adjustments so that it would be possible to fight without the aid of support jobs.

Additionally, we recently introduced new NMs to Reisenjima, so we have no plans to make adjustments at the moment.

[Karbuncle]

I sorta agree? I think the accuracy cap on many mobs is far too high, even with Full Acc builds, sushi, and certain buffs, hitting accuracy caps is challenging to all but the best of the best of the best geared. While that in itself isn't inherently wrong, the problem of "Why even have non accuracy gear if Im always in accuracy gear" holds merit to many people, even when they bring proper support, its difficult to find a time to not have to be in full Accuracy gear without 2GEOs a BRD and a COR per DD party. Strictly speaking for Notorious Monsters.

But I have to agree, that on normal enemies like crabs and such for Job Point farming shouldn't require Full time accuracy gear unless you bring 2 BRDs a COR a GEO and a Witch Doctor to bless your weapons and summon the rains of evasion down. Even in the 75 Era merit parties, you generally had the option, before BRD or COR was considered, of Sushi + DD Build or Meat + Accuracy Build.... That option doesn't exist in the Apex world, and I think thats a problem.

There is no issue having Endgame NMs and such having high accuracy caps, but I think some enemies should be reevaluated...

[Alhanelem]

as above, there's no point in having any gear that doesn't have accuracy on it if the cap is so high that you basically need it on every piece on top of having every accuracy buff imaginable.

The thing is, the game wasn't always balanced this way. I don't know why they think the key to making encounters difficult is "lets make everybody miss most the time."

[Secondplanet]

as above, there's no point in having any gear that doesn't have accuracy on it if the cap is so high that you basically need it on every piece on top of having every accuracy buff imaginable.

The thing is, the game wasn't always balanced this way. I don't know why they think the key to making encounters difficult is "lets make everybody miss most the time."

two words "Artificial Difficulty" ever since i heard someone say it it made perfect sense, instead of content with real ways to fight monsters they just make them spam AoE's and have ungodly evasion and claim its higher difficulty. That would be like going on a advance driving lesson on a single lane road and being told to pass the car infront of you or fail.
Why couldn't SE make more fight gimmicks like shields/barriers that need a certain damage to break or a voidwatch'ish system where proc'ing at the right time toned the enemy down making it more manageable.

[Akivatoo]

Because they think fighting an monster with death, doom, reset aggro and great evasion is more fun.
Actually for an 18ppl ally you need half of members as buffer, 0~2DD's max then tank +heal.
you never see that in SE picture

[MilkMansKid]

What I would like to see is, just liked they added JT HP Boost to most melee awhile back is they add tier two or tier 3 of Acc Bonus to all melee. You can't denie BLU,DNC & RNG are way ahead in ACC if gear is top notch.

[Garota]

To be honest, I think it'd probably make more sense to raise the Combat Skills merits from 8. They've just been increasing the amount of skills we can have capped at 8 instead of raising the individual values of each type of combat skill. I remember a day when I could only have 4 weapon type skills capped at 8, I played THF MNK SMN at the time, so I had Dagger, Staff, Hand-to-Hand, and Marksmanship all capped, made sense to me since I didn't need Great Katana, Axe, or any other weapon type since they weren't any benefit to me. But now having all the skills capped just seems pointless especially when I don't play those jobs really, I'm simply going to level my NIN and BLU to 75 in order to allocate Katana skill, Blue Magic Skill and Ninjutsu skill merits, because meh.

[Cblade]

I totally agree that melee accuracy is broken at the moment. Rings, earrings, ammo, belts, etc. are introduced that give great stats, boosts to DA, TA, QA, etc., but they can't be used because many melee (with a few exceptions) need to use accuracy pieces in those places, along with having perfectly augmented reisenjima accuracy armor and the best accuracy food in the game and full buffs and full debuffs on the enemy to even hope of hitting some of the highest tier enemies. Magic damage is already unbalanced (I could go on for days about that subject) due to magic bursts, but the damage is made more apparent since, while magic accuracy is needed, even with lower accuracy, the mages can still do damage. There is a reason people only (mostly) want mages for end content: they can many times do more damage with their spells when at cap accuracy, can stay out of the horrible aoe range, and can actually do damage even with lower accuracy (unlike melees); a win-win there. Giving melees access to Reisenjima armor with higher stat caps is nice, but when you are then forced to try to get perfect accuracy augs over all else to be able to even hit enemies (and give up DA, TA, QA, base stat boosts, etc.), there is something wrong. As a side note, it may say that the melee hit rate can't fall below 20%, but testing I have done with hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of attacks, have put an average hit rate floor at 2-5%. I realize this could be luck of the draw (as I have the worst luck), but others have the same issue. Finally, I would like to agree with the prior posts in saying that never in the history of this game have players been forced to give up so much in gear to stack accuracy in order to hit things.

[Fermande]

I will say that it is interesting that almost all of the mage jobs have a job point category for additional magic accuracy, yet none of the melee ones have an equivalent for accuracy.

It would be nice to see more melee jobs out in endgame content, but it just doesn't happen anymore. Even in areas where skillchains are good to have, this has been taken over by SCH, another mage. It used to be that you needed to coordinate your melee DPS to create them.

[Cblade]

I would like to point out that saying that accuracy is balanced is a slight oversight. Yes, accuracy is balanced for dual-wielder jobs, but these jobs can get accuracy from both weapons, for up to a 40 or so accuracy boost over 2-handers. This is made worse by the fact that the accuracy buff to .75 accuracy per dex boost that 2-handers were given to help balance accuracy years ago has been given to dual-wielder jobs that naturally have more dexterity. Now not only do 2-handers lose in not having a second weapon for accuracy, but they also lost the only competitive edge they had with extra acc per dex. This allows a similarly geared dual-wielder to have 50-100 more accuracy than a 2-hander just because of this oversight and accuracy buff they received. 2-handers need either a new acc-dex buff or much more dex or accuracy on their gear.

[Urthdigger]

I will say that it is interesting that almost all of the mage jobs have a job point category for additional magic accuracy, yet none of the melee ones have an equivalent for accuracy.

It would be nice to see more melee jobs out in endgame content, but it just doesn't happen anymore. Even in areas where skillchains are good to have, this has been taken over by SCH, another mage. It used to be that you needed to coordinate your melee DPS to create them.

Hey, Monk has one! ...for when I have Hundred Fists or Focus up. That always seemed kind of lame to me. If I need the extra acc when I use those abilities, chances are good I'll be useless once they're down.

[Olor]

I agree that endgame accuracy is just stupid right now, and it has created a huge gap that mediocre-119 geared players can't bridge. I mean, if the idea is to make sure 3/4 of your playerbase can never participate in endgame it's well designed. Otherwise it's just awful.

I have full 119 gear on a couple jobs but it does me no good because folks all are doing the latest content which I can't even touch (literally)... and my old go-to buff job, Bard, is not really desireable anymore. Basically I feel like if I don't level and gear GEO I am never going to be able to play relevant content again...

I really wish there was some middle ground content that folks could do solo to get them to the point where they are welcome in parties but it doesn't seem to exist.

[Kensagaku]

...You do realize that to get to these "high level endgame fights," players had to actually fight through the middle tiers and get the gear themselves, yeah? To get to this "relevant content"? You say it's difficult for "mediocre-119-geared" players to get the gear for this, but unless there is <6 of you and you are all very antisocial enough to not want to work together, there's plenty of opportunities to get this gear. Alluvion Skirmish > Zi'tah (if I can solo most of these with ease, barring that stupid tauri, then I'm sure a pickup party can do it) > Ru'aun and so forth. Work in pieces, don't just expect to jump up to the highest tier right away.

[Urthdigger]

...You do realize that to get to these "high level endgame fights," players had to actually fight through the middle tiers and get the gear themselves, yeah? To get to this "relevant content"? You say it's difficult for "mediocre-119-geared" players to get the gear for this, but unless there is <6 of you and you are all very antisocial enough to not want to work together, there's plenty of opportunities to get this gear. Alluvion Skirmish > Zi'tah (if I can solo most of these with ease, barring that stupid tauri, then I'm sure a pickup party can do it) > Ru'aun and so forth. Work in pieces, don't just expect to jump up to the highest tier right away.

The problem is finding people to do those. Hell, the only time I've been able to get some help on Escha - Zitah mobs was a BST who flat out told me to sit down, shut up, and don't touch anything because I'd be more of a burden from TP feeding than a help.

[Kensagaku]

Can you describe your gear to me, then? Because with Trusts and a modest set of Taeon gear + some actual knowledge and gear swapping, most of them are pretty easy mobs. Tauri and Tiger aside, anyway, they're gimmicky.

[Lonnan]

I agree that endgame accuracy is just stupid right now, and it has created a huge gap that mediocre-119 geared players can't bridge. I mean, if the idea is to make sure 3/4 of your playerbase can never participate in endgame it's well designed. Otherwise it's just awful.

I have full 119 gear on a couple jobs but it does me no good because folks all are doing the latest content which I can't even touch (literally)... and my old go-to buff job, Bard, is not really desireable anymore. Basically I feel like if I don't level and gear GEO I am never going to be able to play relevant content again...

I really wish there was some middle ground content that folks could do solo to get them to the point where they are welcome in parties but it doesn't seem to exist.

Part of the issue is what Kensagaku stated, you have to play the tier game in order to access better equipment to be able to do better content. The other part of the issue is that the ilvl system is incredibly deceptive. HINT all ilvl equipment is not created equal. Since SE decided to cap levels at 99 and handle additional levels through gear and job points, the ilvl system should have increased as gear stats increased in relation to new content. For whatever reason SE kept the ilvl cap at 119. That doesn't mean that JSE reforged gear is equal to delve/skirmish gear is equal to Escha gear. In reality, Escha gear probably should have an ilvl gradient between 122 and 129 but it doesn't. Moral of the story, ilvl is a made up classification and it's gets more and more irrelevant the more content they make.

[Ketaru]

Part of the issue is what Kensagaku stated, you have to play the tier game in order to access better equipment to be able to do better content. The other part of the issue is that the ilvl system is incredibly deceptive. HINT all ilvl equipment is not created equal. Since SE decided to cap levels at 99 and handle additional levels through gear and job points, the ilvl system should have increased as gear stats increased in relation to new content. For whatever reason SE kept the ilvl cap at 119. That doesn't mean that JSE reforged gear is equal to delve/skirmish gear is equal to Escha gear. In reality, Escha gear probably should have an ilvl gradient between 122 and 129 but it doesn't. Moral of the story, ilvl is a made up classification and it's gets more and more irrelevant the more content they make.

It was probably done to control what level your Trusts spawn at. To my knowledge, they don't get stronger as your own attributes get stronger. At some point, they will become a liability in endgame content rather than an asset.


The problem is finding people to do those. Hell, the only time I've been able to get some help on Escha - Zitah mobs was a BST who flat out told me to sit down, shut up, and don't touch anything because I'd be more of a burden from TP feeding than a help.

The TP feed argument is rather weak on most of the Escha Zi'tah NMs. I'm more inclined to think he didn't want you to mess up skillchains. Even while helping returning players catch up, I find I view the party as having one less trust, not one more player. And with the ease of building 1000 TP these days, I might as well tell someone, "Never weaponskill, because you're inevitably going to mess up the skillchain." And because my trusts won't cast the spells I want because there was no skillchain, and because it is ultimately hurting my own damage because I can't Magic Burst, it's just better to ask someone to never weaponskill. Which, for a DD job, is nearly tantamout to "Don't do anything."

Therein probaby lies the real thing going on here- the bar for being able to work with trusts is higher for some jobs than others. Just taking some of the perks of- for example- being a RDM into a account: my healer trusts are less likely to run out of MP; I am capable of magic bursting off the skillchains being made (this is important not only for the damage, but also triggering some of the gimmick weaknesses); I can use the full gamut of enfeebles whereas Arciela only uses Paralyze, Slow, and Addle. In fact, the Sword jobs- PLD, BLU, and RDM- are all very capable of self-Light and self-Darkness. If another meleer is just gonna interfere with that, does that not make them redundent?

So yes, a lot of people solo these NMs, but it's always the usual suspects: PLD, BLM, RDM, SMN, BST, BLU, SCH (although I sometimes see this one RNG who is always soloing, she is fun to watch). And I suspect that is because they simply work better with trusts than other jobs.

Years ago, this probably wouldn't have mattered as much since soloability was seen as a minor perk rather than a boon of a job. But with a smaller and more insular player base, suddenly your job's ability to solo really matters in current content.

[Urthdigger]

Can you describe your gear to me, then? Because with Trusts and a modest set of Taeon gear + some actual knowledge and gear swapping, most of them are pretty easy mobs. Tauri and Tiger aside, anyway, they're gimmicky.

That's actually precisely what I've got, minus a naga instead of taeon bodypiece. There's still the matter of what to do once one hits the point where outside help is required. You're either asking people to go back to obsolete old content that does nothing for them, or to leech on content you've got no business being in.

[Kensagaku]

The thing is that most of it is workable, and the stuff that isn't is stuff you can probably get help for. Most of the T1s in Zi'tah are soloable, and many of those pieces still have many uses, so if you're having a hard time it shouldn't be too bad to get others to assist you. I still use 4/5 Naga for various uses, 3/5 Rawhide, 5/5 Pursuer's (albeit on my same-account mule since I don't play ranged jobs on my main), 2/5 Despair, etc. Short of someone having every single piece, there's still a reason to go back.

Once you hit T2s, yeah, that's where you start to hit the wall, and it's annoyance I myself am working to surmount, because otherwise I'm forced to rely on LSmates to pop t3s for me to fight (ofc I still need help with fighting t3s so that's okay). Nibiru weapons are generally still good, particularly the sword and club for BLUs because the former has a nice chunk of accuracy on Path... B, I think and the latter is one of their better nuke tools. The other Nibiru items are so-so from a glance, but still a step up and likely something these other people who have not progressed would like. T3s you're going to need a party for and knowledge of each NM, but you're going to find that T3s are still fairly relevant content.

When you get to Ru'Aun, it's much the same. About half of the T1s are easily soloable; the Caturae suck because some have doom gaze and your tank trusts just aren't smart enough to turn away. Atop that, even if you tank and turn away, your DD trusts just don't do enough damage. This is unfortunately where you hit another wall, but there are still people who want the abjurations, so it's still doable. It's always worth shouting, if nothing else to get a tank or DD to pair with you and you can fill the rest with support Trusts. T2/3 Ru'Aun is always in demand between weapons and abjurations, and the fact that the fights are tricky to solo. I've done Naphula solo a few times, and I've gotten Hanbi down to 5%ish more than once, but that's all I've been able to do and I'm moderately well geared.

And once you've gotten to Reisenjima, you're up to modern content. At this point you should have some decent accuracy gear between Abjuration pieces and Zi'tah armor, not to mention accessories. An example of an acc set for... let's just use MNK for now. Gonna make some assumptions on gear you should have by this point:

Nibiru Santi Path A (+25 Acc) | Empty | Empty | Honed Tathlum (+15 Acc)
Whirlpool Mask (+25 Acc) | Ej Necklace (+15 Acc) | Steelflash Earring (+8 Acc) | Bladeborn Earring
Rawhide Vest (+15 Acc)* | Rawhide Gloves (+20 Acc, tons of DEX)* | Patricius Ring (+8 Acc) | Enlivened Ring (+6 Acc, may have name wrong, DEX sparks ring)
Anchoret's Mantle (+20 Acc base) | Anguinus Belt (+15 Acc) | Bhikku Hose (+13 Acc) | Rawhide Boots (+18 Acc)*

Note that all of your Rawhide pieces can be augmented with HP+50/Acc+15/Evasion+20 on Path B, so that's an additional +45 Acc you can get on that set above, for a grand total of +248 Accuracy in that gear. With capped h2h skill and Sublime Sushi, you should be hitting things modestly well. Again, this is your post-Zi'tah setup, and you will need to think carefully through the NMs for the Rawhide pieces: Cunnast for boots, Gestalt for hands (watch those Dread Spikes, bring a Dispel trust), and Vidala for body, the last of which you'll need help on.

[Lonnan]

I would also suggest consider taking up another class if you aren't completely loathe to playing another job. When I came back after a year+ break, I found myself severely undergeared. In order to get invites to parties, I spent a week skilling, cping, and gearing geo. GEO can be successful at its core job with just upgrades to its various AF sets (some of 1, most of 2, all of 3 ). Sure your nukes will suck, but people want GEOs for their bubbles not their nukes (please note im not saying a good GEO shouldn't have a solid nuking set, Im saying that a just starting out GEO with a solid geomancy set is still an asset to a party). Using GEO I was able to quickly pick up a good nuking set and add gear to other favorite jobs. Now I have SCH (my main) geared well enough I can reliably solo all the ZiTah T1s (save one which I can solo on blu), most the T2s, and all the non-caturae Sky T1s (haven't tried T2s solo yet). Plus I can easily fill in parties on either SCH or GEO. Luckily I prefer mage and support jobs, so GEO was not much of a hardship for me. But even if GEO isn't your cup of tea, sometimes it's better to work within the system the way it is rather than stand on the outside lamenting your exclusion.

[Olor]

Part of the issue is what Kensagaku stated, you have to play the tier game in order to access better equipment to be able to do better content. The other part of the issue is that the ilvl system is incredibly deceptive. HINT all ilvl equipment is not created equal. Since SE decided to cap levels at 99 and handle additional levels through gear and job points, the ilvl system should have increased as gear stats increased in relation to new content. For whatever reason SE kept the ilvl cap at 119. That doesn't mean that JSE reforged gear is equal to delve/skirmish gear is equal to Escha gear. In reality, Escha gear probably should have an ilvl gradient between 122 and 129 but it doesn't. Moral of the story, ilvl is a made up classification and it's gets more and more irrelevant the more content they make.

I know, but the tier game is mostly closed off, there are no shouts, the few time I've tried shouting for unity NMs I can actually hit once in awhile, no one is interested and I don't feel confident in building a party for NMs that I don't know the strategy for. It's a vicious circle, can't get gear to get the gear. I have most of the Taeon set and some bits and bobs (and I totally know not all 119 is alike but I've done my best to get what I can).

The issue is the hardcore players are done with middle tier content so it's just scrubs staring at the vast middle tier with no way and no guidance to climb it. A lot of my issue is that I don't want to lead parties if I haven't already beat the content at least once. I know it's holding me back but I don't want to make people mad if we can't beat it...

The INSANE need for accuracy and the sidelining of all buff jobs that are not GEO has only made it worse. I can't even get in a party to get job points... how am I supposed to progress? I used to be able to bard for stuff since the gear requirement (outside of instruments) was lower - mostly it is JSE and most of that can be upgraded to a certain extent solo. Hell before BRD AF3 was upgraded I was still rocking it and doing fine besides taking too much damage if hit while singing... as were most bards because there wasn't actually anything much better for us for a lot of macros.

I am not asking for gear to be handed to me (that's boring) but it would be nice if there was an actual reasonable solo path for folks to slowly climb to higher gear and towards endgame. Right now the only gear "progress" available seems to be spending more and more gil on the augment lottery and that has limited returns. Or straight up buying drops. Or hoping someone pities you and lets you leech content. None of that is particularly fun.

It would also be helpful if ilevel was actually reflective of gear power. I am finding it hard to even compare a lot of the stuff released these days. Ilevel has issues but at least for awhile there it was helpful for judging gear somewhat. Now it's like "which dog's breakfast is better?" and it's hard to say. Not to mention a lot of it is sidegrades and macro peices that make a big difference but take a lot of work to actually get good use out of. It wasn't so bad back in the day since the differences between a well geared 75 player and a mediocre 75 player existed but it wasn't such a chasm... and less on the gear made it easier to judge what was worth getting.

Anyway, I just am finding the game a bit discouraging at the moment and I don't have a lot of urge to play. I keep resubbing because nostalgia but then I get back and I am like "oh yeah, the only thing I can really do is solo outdated content... I can't make meaningful progress on this character... this is boring."

I miss abyssea/voidwatch era. Back then it was easy for folks to get caught up enough to participate and there were lots of slots for different things. Like, even though my BLU was not geared well enough to be a damage dealer, I could still proc like a boss in voidwatch. It meant I could participate in group activities with a chance to improve my gear.

Since ilevel era I've always felt like I am too far behind to participate much. Bard helped me a bit, but never enough to catch me up (partially because I am a sporadic player) but at least I could get into parties for stuff. Anyway, sorry if I sound whiny I just feel like the devs have done an awful job of bringing in a balanced and level endgame. I miss the days where endgame was flat with a lot of different activities that most people could participate in.

[Kensagaku]

Gonna address a few points in order:

1) You're not confident building a party for an NM you don't know the strategy for? Do some research in BG's threads, they have whole sections on all three Escha areas within the first pages. Or even better, do what those forerunners did and throw yourself at it to see what happens. At worst, you're out some accolades or some fish mithkabobs, both of which are very easy to get. The "high-tier players" didn't just magically know how to fight these mobs. There were plenty of wipes in early experiences. If people get angry and quit after one or two losses, then they don't have the patience to progress in this game anyway. We build and learn from losses.

2) The "insane" Accuracy needed is in most cases not that insane until you jump to the higher-tier fights. Middle-tier stuff, I can hit accurately on my un-Gifted RUN at about 1050ish accuracy, and Sushi makes it trivial. Most of what you're going to need is going to be in the form of accessories; Ej Necklace off of the AH is +15, Steelflash/Bladeborn Earrings or Dudgeon/Heartseeker Earrings are +8 Acc/Atk and a bonus, easily soloed by doing individual NMs as opposed to Delve. Anguinus Belt from Abyssea era is easy, that's another +15, and then you can do a number of capes, like Kayapa for +10, or many of the job-specific ones. Using BST, for example, turn accolades into Refractives and work on getting an Acc+ augment to pair with the +10 already on it. Visible slots are generally going to be Taeon at first, but it's still something you can target simply by using Snowslit stones. If you need gil, farm Alexandrite (5~6k each on Valefor) or Dynamis, and build sparks to convert to gil. Etc etc. It's all tiers, like stated.

3) Back in the day, that difference between a mediocre and a well-geared 75 was just as bad as it is now. I remember comparing my BLU to others, doing a SATA Cannonball and falling several hundred points short (which back then was a lot!), comparing gearsets and seeing that I'm missing HQ gear or other similar. Where my DRG was there to maybe hit things but if you weren't a SAM and couldn't deal the damage that they got with their SA WS then you were mostly just fodder. The difference is about the same, it's just more pronounced now, imo.

[Olor]

1) I read threads but people are so much better geared than me that the strategies are meaningless. High-tiered players have access to better gear so experimenting works better. There aren't a bunch of scrubs posting their scrub lives on BG. There just aren't. I realize part of this I just need to get over if I want to succeed but people can be awful when you fail...and despite what people might think I really am not out to gimp stuff up and ruin people's fun.

2) I usually have under 1K acc with food. Thanks for some of the suggestions, didn't think of using Anguinus belt (I own it) because it's olde... anyway I have theacc cape from unity (grounded mantle +1) and the steelflash etc earrings and the mantis eye from kaggen but it is not enough to help me hit things. Will pick up a Ej necklace. Still, acc requirements are pretty bonkers for most stuff. It's weird that I need to use pre-99 gear to improve my acc... in an ilevel situation. Shows how out of whack acc requirements are.

3) You know what I will take your word for it since I never got to 75 back in the day (I originally played at NA PC release but had to give up my char, then played again around WoTG but gave up my char... then finally got this char in 2011) but in abyssea/voidwatch era I could do endgame (real endgame) even as a casual. Now I can't.

[Kensagaku]

1) Yes, it's the top players getting the top gear who are posting these strategies. But you can still -learn- from them. Learn mob strategies, learn what setups work and what kind of abilities are used as gimmicks. Like the eye in Reisenjima having its air spikes proc'd off by Light-aligned WS, or that the Dullahan uses a powerful AoE magic attack at <50%, so you're going to want a good magic tank or ways to resist magic, etc.

2) You do realize that accessories aren't iLvl, right? iLvl only applies to visible slots. This is also the same situation we saw at 75; we saw plenty of lower-level gear getting use. Level 60 Chiv chain, Level 33 PCC, Level 30 Rajas Ring, Woodsman/Sniper Rings, etc. On the matter of accuracy, what axes are you using? What sets are you TPing in? What augments do you have on your Taeon gear, etc? Players had > 1000 accuracy BEFORE Reisenjima, so it's not just the newest gear. Do you have your weapon merits maxed out? Have you worked on getting Gifts for accuracy? Etc.

[Lonnan]

Let's be honest. There are really only two "strategies" for end game content. You can melee zerg it or you can magic burst it. Some mobs respond better to physical damage while others respond better to magic damage (or are just to dangerous with aoe to try physical damage). The rest of the fight is learning the mobs gimmicks. So if you are arranging a PUG to fight a particular mob you need to first learn is it better to melee or magic. Then figure out its gimmick and make sure you have a job (or jobs) that can exploit/minimize/etc the gimmick. That's how you build a party for every single Escha zone mob. Some of the gimmicks can be annoying to deal with but most can be addressed by adding one or two different jobs (like smn or cor for Caturae fights). If I am doing a new fight and I can't find anything on the wiki (which is really rare) or a video (which is even rarer) I ask my linkshells (you can have 2 on at once) and usually someone has done the fight before and knows the gimmicks. Also remember that HP in Escha scales with party members so if you go in with 10 people you will have a harder fight than if you only had 4 or 5 (trusts don't count).

Lastly, don't forgert vorseals. When I first came back and was trying to solo the Reisenjiima portions of RoV quests, I was missing just about every hit. Without significant upgrades to my PUP gear, but just completing content and the dragon fights, I now hit most of time. Quetz provides an accuracy bonus that can be upgraded based on the number of times you've fought and killed him. The higher end requirements are kind of insane, but there is no reason you can't have the lower tiers done. Sure Quetz will probably kill you, but so long as you contributed in some way to the fight, Quetz dies, and you don't HP before he dies, you get credit for the fight. If you aren't jumping on every single Quetz fight, then you are leaving free acc on the table.

[Olor]

Thanks I don't really know much about the newest content since wikis are slow to update... I appreciate folks making suggestions.

[dasva]

Sounds kind of like you need to do some bridging content before jumping into mid tier nms maybe. Like alluvion skirmish still provides best to near BiS for a lot of stuff. If nothing else you use it to just build a reasonably acc set (and great pet sets). Also as a bst you can do a bit more before that focusing on your pet. It should be able to get more acc than you prebuff if not well there is always run wild so that can help greatly to somewhat zerg some stuff.

Not sure how far you've come but min ready timer is something easily done if you haven't already.... as far as jps go to get the gifts and such you should be able do get some fairly quickly solo with trusts. Get an AoE pet and go to town though you might have to start in like zitah instead of reisin. If you have Triez I recommend going to cp whenever it's up preferable after already having used it just for efficiencies sake. I recommend cping in escha just because that is where the majority of content is and you'll need to kill a lot of fodder anyways since it unlocks vorseals, temps and then gives you silt to actually buy those or nm pops.

You are right though that there isn't a lot of shouts for low tier... it's easy enough for those that kept along that I doubt they'd wait for a shout... but when you do see them they will fill up so if you shout should work out. Most the low tier are pretty much a breeze so easy to do.

You should be able to solo with trusts a bit of the easier zitah stuff which will help you do more since it opens up vorseals. Might have to zerg but should be doable. To that end resetting 1hrs is much easier now with reduced MMM timers. But yeah when you get to escha stuff would recommend mostly trying to go in zone order. Like not necessarily everything in that zone but get a decent amount of zitah done before you focus on ruann and such since it is somewhat progressive in difficulty and it's steady improvement if only in vorseals and kill counts and such

Slow but steady progress you'll get there.

[Alhanelem]

See, the thing is, missing is very un-fun. people like to see numbers, they like to see big hits. So if what you see is mostly a whole lot of nothing unless you bend over, it kind of sucks the fun out of combat.

[Olor]

Sounds kind of like you need to do some bridging content before jumping into mid tier nms maybe. Like alluvion skirmish still provides best to near BiS for a lot of stuff. If nothing else you use it to just build a reasonably acc set (and great pet sets). Also as a bst you can do a bit more before that focusing on your pet. It should be able to get more acc than you prebuff if not well there is always run wild so that can help greatly to somewhat zerg some stuff.

Not sure how far you've come but min ready timer is something easily done if you haven't already.... as far as jps go to get the gifts and such you should be able do get some fairly quickly solo with trusts. Get an AoE pet and go to town though you might have to start in like zitah instead of reisin. If you have Triez I recommend going to cp whenever it's up preferable after already having used it just for efficiencies sake. I recommend cping in escha just because that is where the majority of content is and you'll need to kill a lot of fodder anyways since it unlocks vorseals, temps and then gives you silt to actually buy those or nm pops.

You are right though that there isn't a lot of shouts for low tier... it's easy enough for those that kept along that I doubt they'd wait for a shout... but when you do see them they will fill up so if you shout should work out. Most the low tier are pretty much a breeze so easy to do.

You should be able to solo with trusts a bit of the easier zitah stuff which will help you do more since it opens up vorseals. Might have to zerg but should be doable. To that end resetting 1hrs is much easier now with reduced MMM timers. But yeah when you get to escha stuff would recommend mostly trying to go in zone order. Like not necessarily everything in that zone but get a decent amount of zitah done before you focus on ruann and such since it is somewhat progressive in difficulty and it's steady improvement if only in vorseals and kill counts and such

Slow but steady progress you'll get there.

thanks for all the good advice. I have a bunch of the alluvion stuff but need some more of it. I have found that does fill up if you're willing to spend the parts on it but I've lost a lot of gear playing with pickups who get mad if you key early but then don't key quick when stuff goes downhill. I'd personally just rather key early and not get as much rather than getting nothing but I know folks want the stones soooo, yeah it's a bit harrowing.

I think I am just feeling sensitive these days cause of general life so dealing with randos on XI is harder than it used to be.

I don't really understand escha yet (vorseals etc) but I have done some CP farming there a bit.

[Ulth]

This thread is pretty funny. You need 1800ish accuracy to cap against Reisenjima T3 NMs. I really don't think I need to say anything else.

[Mithlas]

This thread is pretty funny. You need 1800ish accuracy to cap against Reisenjima T3 NMs. I really don't think I need to say anything else.

Is it funny because it's absurd or because that's no problem?
According to one of my linkshells, it's easy to get to 1900 acc in any escha zone. I'm slowly gearing, and barely at 1200 for my pets now.

[Karbuncle]

I can't even fathom how I would reach 1900 without insane amounts of buffs.

[Mithlas]

Trust me, I'm the exact same in terms of thought process. I keep fighting between "accuracy requirements are ridiculous" to "okay, maybe I can make that happen."
Let's say I'm using 119 tiger pet, Blackbeard Randy. So we start with a base of 889 acc.

So, let's start factoring in equipment (pre-Reisenjima and pre-Job Mastery) while dual-wielding due to subbing NIN:
Taeon or Acro, all 5 pieces with pet accuracy: +125 acc (25 from each piece if perfectly augmented)
Arktoi augmented: +50 acc [Oboro JSE]
Kerehactl: +28 acc [Delve]
Pastoralist's Mantle: ~20 acc (once again, lucky augment) [SoA zones]
Thurandaut Ring: +20 acc [Finish SoA storyline]
Hurch'lan Sash: +10 acc [Delve]
Demonry Core: +4 acc [Abyssea]
Ferine earring: +3 acc [Abyssea]
Empath necklace: +10 acc [Escha Zi'Tah]

That's a total of 270 acc
We are now at 1159 base accuracy (outside of Escha zones). Now, adding food (Shiromochi from Curio vendor moogle) we get an additional 14% acc, or +108 since it is capped at that for:
Pet Accuracy: 1267

Given, the Empath necklace is a higher tier monster in Escha Zi'Tah, so we could probably be without that +10 at the moment (although I believe there are other pieces available for at least a few accuracy here and there).

Now, let's start factoring in some vorseals:
You can get up to 9 tiers simply having done quests in the game and defeating T1s in Zi'Tah and Ru'Aun (I forget which specific NMs).
9 Tiers: +18 acc

That leaves us at: 1285 (or even higher if there is a double vorseal gift in effect).

~1300 I believe is the needed cap for hitting ~129 content I believe (someone please correct me). Devs have already stated that Ready skills, weaponskills, and blood pacts all get a hidden +100 accuracy on the first hit, so that leaves you with ~1400 during the important attacks that deal out the damage.

From there, you can of course climb with more vorseals, Job Gifts, and even join in killing Quetzalcoatl for Accuracy++, which gives +5 acc per level (just takes a lot of participation). I'm not sure on Reisenjima armor caps, but I know that not only can you get pet acc+, you can also get a mix of acc and DEX on there for even further accuracy.


The current problem is a partial mix of the high accuracy requirements and the randomness of getting any of the above values. I gave up on acro and taeon pieces and simply tried to mix Despair armor and some other bits of armor so far, and I am slowly climbing there. I don't believe it practical to spend millions of gil and barely see pet: accuracy +10 even on a +2 stone due to a LUCK factor.
So, while it is a climb to be able to get there for endgame, it is possible. Is it easy? No. Could it be eased up? I would think so. Does it get aggravating when you miss a lot? Absolutely.


The other issue I see is, in order to get some of the later pieces to increase accuracy, you need to have the base accuracy in the first place to even fight the necessary NMs that drop the related items. So it's a catch 22. You need the accuracy increase, yet you can't even reliably hit the monster to get that accuracy increase.
It's also crazy to think about the i145 content in Unity monsters. So you don't even get those Escha bonuses.

I think it's kind of bad game design at this point on SE's part:
Monsters get more HP that scale to party size, which relatively increase the difficulty due to the larger amount of damage needed to kill the monster. Thus, smaller parties are always sought after first before people even consider bringing in more. However, you need more jobs for buffs and debuffs to actively and reliably defeat these encounters. Which is why I also believe we've fallen into this niche of PLD, WHM, GEO, GEO, BLM, BLM etc in order to just nuke things from a distance with minimal buff differences.

[Zeldar]

SE, don't listen to these people. If you guys are having this many accuracy issues, you aren't playing right. You either aren't using the right food, don't have the right gear that gives more than just accuracy, or (most likely) are too lazy to bring the right jobs. Or maybe you are just too lazy to swap gear and want to cry. We don't have issues in our linkshell and we fight the highest tier content. Dont know what else to tell you.

[Karbuncle]

"I Have the best available acc/combo gear and a LS capable of fighting the best content lol how are you guys having acc problems?" You have capped JP and two Idris GEO's as well right? And you're a BLU, the most OP job in the game atm.... Its a wonderrrrr

The point the OP is trying to make, and one you prove with your "Right jobs" statement, is that accuracy is such a high cap these days you are required to fully build around accuracy, as well as bring jobs that boost that stat even further... likely GEO's and COR, poor BRD... for DD to touch endgame enemies.

This isn't to say its impossible to do so, or that we should be able to hit acc caps without support... its just the requirements are far more extreme than they've ever been gear wise. I'm not saying accuracy should be stupid easy, nor do I personally think it needs any dramatic changes. But I do think the caps are set a little high on some of the endgame enemies, accuracy shouldn't be the biggest hurdle we face when challenging an enemy, and for a lot of players not as lucky as you, it is.

But regardless, despite your self involved attitude, you're probably right on one front, they won't listen to us.

[Urthdigger]

or (most likely) are too lazy to bring the right jobs.

This right here is the problem. The fact that the game has 22 jobs and only about 5 of them are even USABLE is an issue. So many jobs are LITERALLY useless trash that do nothing but waste the player's time for leveling them, and accuracy is a big reason why.

[machini]

This right here is the problem. The fact that the game has 22 jobs and only about 5 of them are even USABLE is an issue. So many jobs are LITERALLY useless trash that do nothing but waste the player's time for leveling them, and accuracy is a big reason why.

And allegedly they're fixing that in the next update, iirc?

[Urthdigger]

Eh... they're always fixing job balance. I'll be amazed if they actually do.