An optimistic user's guide to the new XI/Phantom Roll changes.
I'm seeing a lot of people underwhelmed by the recent XI changes, but I really believe that is a pretty shortsighted approach. I personally think it is an incredibly thoughtful way to address a lot of common COR complaints over the past year or two and give the job a fresh new identity more in keeping with the original gambler concept. I'm not so sure everyone truly gets what the implications of the changes are, so here's my stab at discussing in more detail (yes, it's long!) what this all means.
What the changes do:
Essentially, it pushes COR to spend more time rolling and less time doing other things. Once you get an XI, you can pretty much keep XIs/lucky numbers up perpetually on all party members. As long as YOU have an XI active, you can bust all day and just keep trying. With PR timer down to 15-30 seconds (only 15 sec recast with 5/5 PR merits and augmented Desultor Tassets), waiting on recast is not an issue.
You should never need to settle for a non-lucky/XI (or even a strong X). Only real debate is when you DO hit a lucky... keep rolling to get XI on your party members, or move away from them and go double up on just yourself until you hit an XI/bust. If you bust, just re-roll any roll untill you do hit an XI - including simply moving on to other party members and putting the next buff up.
Or, especially viable with Winning Streak merits and Navarch+1/+2 hands... just keep one XI roll up (preferably something useful for yourself, like Tactician's Roll) and continue to bust the second roll on yourself. You're still guaranteed your short PR recast and unlimited busts as long as that first roll is active, so if you're sitting on 6+ minutes, you can slap a lucky/XI on party members and simply go off on your own and INTENTIONALLY bust. And then roll whatever you want on your next party member. And the WHOLE time you keep the XI roll that YOU want (Tactician's in my example), instead of ever being stuck with two rolls that do you no good, like the classic "two mage rolls without a mage sub" situation.
What you lose:
If you're taking advantage of the ability to ensure great roll results, you do lose some time to (a) sit back and shoot or (b) get in there and melee. But is that really such a bad thing? Does your reduced melee/ranged damage really outdo the increase to your party from fulltime lucky/XI buffs? And how does this affect other aspects of the job/common complaints?
Let's look at it further...
1) Bullet Cost/Availability.
Especially in the past year, the cost/benefit analysis of burning through ammo has become ridiculous. Oberon Bullets are impractical to shoot due to incredibly low supply and exorbitant price if you can even find them. Steel Bullets are still expensive, still fairly limited in supply, and are subpar in damage compared to much cheaper RNG options.
Instead of addressing the complaints about shooting away your gil for lousy damage payoff by adding new cheap ammo or addressing ammo costs, S-E has subtly introduced a way to simply make the question a non-issue. You don't NEED expensive ammo when you're using your time to increase overall party performance in other ways.
Buy an Oberon Bullet for Quick Draw (or a stack, if you're like me and will accidentally shoot one now and then), and you're set. If you really need to use Slug/Detonator for something, Steel are still around but you won't have to burn through as many of them.
When you get your TP, you have good ranged WS options in Wildfire or Leaden Salute that aren't affected by bullet damage - you can use cheap Bronze/Tin/NQ Bullets for the same results as Steel/Oberon.
2) You can still get TP in other ways!
Tactician's Roll (hellooo Navarch +2 body!), Atma, gear (Moonshade Earring, the now MUCH more useful Roller's Ring), instant JA Quick Draw between rolls. You end up with 100+ TP before you know it. Buff, QD, Buff, QD, WS, repeat? Not that unrealistic at all.
3) Merit Setup.
You know what I was hearing a lot (and agreeing with) in the past year? That the traditional COR Group 1 merit choice of 5/5 QD Accuracy was no longer meaningful. When do you really have QD Acc issues these days with the copious amounts of M.Acc/AGI gear we now have, combined with atma, few monsters that are way above us in level, etc.
There's now a legitimately useful 2nd option to go along with the still excellent 5/5 QD Recast. Phantom Roll Recast. That 2 seconds per merit still works to decrease your timer from the base 30sec recast when you have an XI up. Down to 20sec, and can even get 5 sec less recast if you augment a pair of Desultor Tassets (what else are you really using them for these days?). I've switched my setup this way, and I can roll/double-up/bust and be back to retrying a new roll to get an XI instantly in virtually any situation. It's really powerful. You even have the ability to put different rolls on each party member if that's what you want, you have that much time.
4) Too much gear.
Let's face it, COR was a gear hog with TP gear, ranged gear, WS gear, QD/magical gear. I've freed up a TON of space lately just leaving my ranged and melee gear in my Mog Satchel unless some specific situation comes up that requires that approach.
I'm basically using two sets:
* Rolling/idle gear (Commodore Tricorne, Navarch pieces to enhance rolls, Mirke/Desultor for QD/PR recast, Hermes' Sandals for running around like a maniac buffing people, Roller's Ring/Moonshade Earring for regain)
* MAB/AGI gear for QD and WS. Both Leaden/Wildfire have a ton of overlap with
QD gear, so it's not that burdensome.
5) Scattering party members.
Always a bit of an issue for COR more so than BRD, since we traditionally had a fairly strict cycle and couldn't re-roll with the same buff up until we cycled off it whereas BRD could just repeat a song if needed.
And OH MY GOD it's so much worse with the Abyssea habits of players these days. I don't think I'm too bad at precision in judging buffing distances. Always prided myself on my ability to stick a roll precisely on that DD who lingered by the mages and still hit the rest of the DDs. But these days, I swear I feel like I'm herding greased ferrets trying to hit people. You know what? Doesn't matter when I'm rocking a 15 second recast and I can just bust the most recent roll and redo it for that guy who won't stand still and get his buffs, the person who ran off to get a new Dom Ops page, the guy who missed buffs while he was running around to get a TP mob while the rest of the ally was fighting an NM, etc...
It's not quite Piannisimo... but you know what, such a low recast and a way to redo the last buff (bust and repeat!) is a pretty handy addition that we've never had before.
6) THIRD ROLL!
S-E has pretty much come out and said in the "Job Manifesto" that there's a good chance a 3rd roll is coming for COR. You know what that means? You're not going to be able to take advantage of that massive boost to your party members without doing lots of fast rolling. So you better have an XI up in order to lower PR recast and get 3 rolls on your party members.
Perhaps the benefit of two XI rolls on your party members won't offset the loss of potential extra melee/ranged DD from a COR. But THREE XI rolls? That's pretty potent stuff, matey.
7) Gives you an identity.
Load up on Trump Cards and go to town with unique buffs, punctuated by solid damage contribution by WS generated through regain/QD, and add even more damage (and nifty effects) from Quick Draw. And you're truly doing the Gambler thing that COR was always intended to be but which really didn't shine through very often with conservative (logical) sitting on V/VI rolls and using the majority of your time to do something other than the essential role you were invited for (buffing).
You're no longer the gimpy melee DD (who happens to toss a couple buffs up every couple minutes). Yes, I know you can make a contribution... so can a BRD with a good dagger and DD gear. Let's be honest with ourselves, especially as other DDs have seen more buffs, they're pulling more and more away from COR as a legitimate melee DD.
You're no longer the ranged attacker who RNG puts to shame (who happens to toss a couple buffs up every couple minutes).
You're no longer the BRD with lousy JA timer issues.
8) One big caveat.
OK, you Wildfire CORs in Abyssea? Yes, you are indeed DD beasts solely through Atma-enhanced Wildfire. But even so... do you really need to be fulltime shooting/meleeing to get massive TP? Not really, with stuff like Sea Daughter, Tactician's Roll, QD, and the occasional melee/shot for TP. Though for you Wildfire users, yes, it's probably more reasonable to balance your time more toward generating TP than buffing.
Remember though... Wildfire is still nice outside of Abyssea, but it's a considerable step down in comparison to other DD jobs' WS without those delicious Atma. Even with Wildfire, on 91-99 content without Atma, might be more practical to be rolling 3x buffs on people and popping off WF after you get your TP mainly from regain/QD.
Conclusion
Hopefully this was at least food for thought. The PR recast reduction is more subtle and complex than it first appears, but does require some shifts in how you use your time to take advantage. Kind of a clever way of addressing a lot of other issues with the job by giving some incentive to focus on different aspects of what COR can do. I personally can't wait to see where this goes, and the more I wrap my head around it the more I like it.
