Hverlgelmir, mighty stick of death trap?

I'm looking at the mighty Emp Staff and I'm wondering exactly how any of the 3 jobs that can wield it would stay alive if they used it in battle. The base damage is only 4% less than a Masamune.

At first glance, it would seem it helps that Myrkr does no damage, but the mp restored will cause more devastation than a WS would. BLM and SCH are dead as soon as they use that mp.

I am hopeful that Hver SMN would find a niche that doesn't involve any -perp gear, but I know how bad avatars are at keeping hate off any other melee setup. Anyone have this staff and can comment on the rate of death?

I don't have the staff myself but, if we're just talking about normal exp mobs a melee SMN should not even be pulling hate unless all the other DD went afk, their avatar just died, or their BP timer is not ready yet.

However, I can't really recommend Hver on NMs/HNMs because of AoEs and TP feeding.

Although, TP wings in abyssea are really common so I could see Hver having some actual value and the aftermath procs would add a decent increase in overall dmg. Plus the thing looks really nice so you would get a few random /check and "style points" ^^

Assuming we use the weapon the way any DD would use the weapon, the only thing I can see holding hate would be a better emp weapon. It's going to be very unpleasant surrounded by people who keyboxed to 90.

I don't know about you, but if I had the staff, I'd be using spirit taker to do damage and gain MP, because it would be pointless to have a DD staff and use none-DD WSes.

And you wouldn't pull hate as a mage unless you wear 25% haste in armors like other DDs. You'd simply swing too rarely to steal hate of them. And if you find 25% haste in gear for SMN, give me a tell, because that would be fun to have. (Well, as a SMN you'd need the acc too, so just haste would be pointless).

Lastly you'd also lack the STR of other melee, so you'd do less damage anyway. It would be impossible to pull hate even as /SAM.

Problem with SMN vs. any DD is it lacks any true melee abilities/gear. ie: Dual Wield, martial arts, stp gear, etc. However, if you would melee with Hver I think you would still want to go with the emp WS for the ODD aftermath as I can't see spirit taker doing as much dmg plus you get 20% mp back for sure.

The aftermath greatly outweighs Spirit Taker damage. Also, since the WS does no damage, there's no point in using it before 300% for 60% mp. I'd macro in all mp gear, Myrkr for 900 mp, then switch back to haste gear. The aftermath doesn't overwrite itself, so I'd also get a feel for how much TP you get and swap in Retribution in between.

As far as melee abilities go, all the good ones come from /SAM. You lose Cataclysm, but that isn't a good WS for slow Emp anyway.

BTW, I pull hate from many DD with /WHM and my OA4 Yantok. I am at 21% out of 23% gear haste. Atma gives me 200 STR too. It's only going to get worse.

Depends on your atmas. I'd assume a RR atma combined with OA4 would raise your hate drastically since each crit you do is worth a ton of hate. It could even be so that it is the best hate pulling option you are playing with.

I'm horrified that SE will do something ... useful with it like add potency or maac to it and I'll actually have to make one.

SMN DD has always been a fun idea for me, An Unrealistic Idea, But a fun one. When i do SMN "DD" with a Staff, Its generall a good idea to SMN/SAM.

Also, With Atmas, I'd probably go for VV/RR/Minikin (Mini for maintaining Avatars since you wont have a lot of Perp- Gear on, plus its got INT+50, a strong mod in Retribution/whatever). The above you could use Predator Claws and still do bitching damage, as well as have the boost to your own damage. RR/Omni/MM wouldn't be too bad either for the 10% Haste, but your avatar damage on BP's would suffer, but their Melee Stage would increase a little.

my current TP Set up for my SMN is (lol i have one D: ) :

http://www.ffxiah.com/members/item-sets/?id=206905

I've been looking for Better Feet/Hands. Also going to get Haste+3% Attack+ Augment on Shantoto Pants when i buy the expansion finally Lol. Upgrading Head to Zelus when i get it.

I'm working on the STR+ Magian Staff too lol... I've always enjoyed the idea of Meleeing on SMN, but i know its criminally inefficient. But its fun.


Edit: Then again with nirvana (90) or Hverlg(90), you could probably just pop 3 DD Atmas and go to town, since both of those have MP helping abilities (Nirvana has Perp-7, and hverl has the mP recovery WS).

Also, I just looked at Nirvana(90) For the first time and I splooogeded :(

Well, melee SMN can be built in two ways. Either you try and max out WS damage (in which case you probably want /WHM or something with cataclysm) or you max out melee hits. I've always gone more for the WS build than the melee swings, just because the options for a good DMG staff was always rather poor.

I'm kind of crazy though, so I actually have a pure melee, avatar melee and spirit melee build.