Looking for Merit advice

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Originally Posted by Greatguardian

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

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

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

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

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

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Originally Posted by Afania

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Originally Posted by Mirabelle

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Originally Posted by noodles355

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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