Staff trials

Does anyone have any good advice for getting through each of he elemental damage kills section of each of the trials? Making the elemental staves is easier than trying to get Nirvana, but only marginally, and I wonder how they intend to handle more stages of these staves...the -6 perp and -10 bp delay make them worth all the hard work to get them to +2

The good news is that now if you have someone else who can nuke, you can get the 50 elemental damage staves done with them. I have RDM, so I was able to do the nuke down mobs for the six regular elements in Abyssea, but for Light and Dark I had to whittle the mobs down to a low HP and then avatar nuke the mobs to death. (Carbuncle with Holy Mist and Fenrir with Lunar Bay.) If worse comes to worse, you will have to use the Group II blood pacts to finish off the mob if you don't have BLM, SCH, or RDM leveled. Or maybe even sub SCH and take advantage of Dark Arts nukes to finish off the mob after your pet gets it to low HP.

Basically, if you are going to try to get all 8 perp staves, it is all about persistence. Earth, Water, Light, and Dark are the hardest staves to do because those avatars are fairly weak compared to Garuda, Ifrit, Ramuh, and Shiva. (And even Shiva is weak compared to the big three.) But the good news is that there is so much perp gear available now that you can fight pretty much non-stop now with self-refresh and Elemental Siphon.

The Perp staves are surprisingly not worth it to get. the -10 bp delay is nice and all, but with the upcoming Dynamis changes, as well as other AH and abyssea gear, you can cap both stats with other easier to get gear. just stick to a Fay crozier, Caller's, Summoner's, Nashira hands, and Austere/Penance. If you want to do any magians for summoner, do the +pet attack one, and +pet magic attack.

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Originally Posted by Frodnon

The Perp staves are surprisingly not worth it to get. the -10 bp delay is nice and all, but with the upcoming Dynamis changes, as well as other AH and abyssea gear, you can cap both stats with other easier to get gear. just stick to a Fay crozier, Caller's, Summoner's, Nashira hands, and Austere/Penance. If you want to do any magians for summoner, do the +pet attack one, and +pet magic attack.

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Yet, having the -perp staves let you have more choices on what you want to equip on other slots. And nobody says you can't have both -perp staves and pet enhancing ones. At least, that's what I'm working on

I'm personally just rolling with B.staff and currently working on pet: mab 12 until something else rolls around. BP activation/execution in Soulscourge til then.

Simple answer: Full Atma inside abyssea for most mobs and your strongest pact. I can't imagine matching 3-5k nukes for effectiveness outside of abyssea.

If you have Bahamut's Staff and Soulscorge most magain staves are only situational/margainily better. Personally, I much rather use Soulscorge over the pet: MAB staff. My reasoningly is the increased Blood Boon on top of Caller's Set Bonus, M. Acc from Summoning Magic, and MAB on the staff make it the perfect BP staff (after timer of course). Outside of abyssea the perp staves are semi-worth it - to have fee/mp returned avatars.

I still tote around HQ staves which is.. not impressive in this day and age... but but with +2 head/feet/body i have 2/tic refresh even when using celestials/diabolos, and that's without nashiras and refresh Moonshade earring to complete my avatar-idle set. Unless Gold box'd +3 trial staves come into existence with some kind of remarkable potency bonuses for BPs, I really see no great reason for getting them. Macro in soul-scourage for BP execution and keep HQ's/Fay/Bahamuts for idle, unless you plan on getting a nirvana which i assure you is still -much- harder than getting the trial staves. On siren the required alexandrite still will cost you 60mil in gil, plus all the time devoted to nyzul isle and assault.

Honestly, I end up using smn outside aby more than within it, so for me, the perp- and bp delay- are actually useful, esp since I tote around enough other gear to fill both sack and satchel...most of it crafting items and field/fishing gear
I really do hope they make a +3 or higher version of the staves that make them even more worthwhile to get.
and as for other gear, I would prefer to use 1 set of armor/accessories for each job....as a levle 90 whm, gear swap macroes annoy the **** out of me, so I try to find the most balanced gear set for each job (though I am odd enough to use full af/relic setson every job I level) For those who think swapping gear for everything...if you can't do the job with crap gear, you can't do the job at all
there's 1 more reason to do the trials....farming....you can make alot of gil selling the cheap drops or crafting them into better things (and for some of us, gil doesn't come 1 mil at a time...more like 100 at a time...curse my lousy drop luck...3 payoffs out of 500+bcnms ><)

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Originally Posted by Effilil

I really do hope they make a +3 or higher version of the staves that make them even more worthwhile to get.
and as for other gear, I would prefer to use 1 set of armor/accessories for each job....as a levle 90 whm, gear swap macroes annoy the **** out of me, so I try to find the most balanced gear set for each job (though I am odd enough to use full af/relic setson every job I level) For those who think swapping gear for everything...if you can't do the job with crap gear, you can't do the job at all

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That is a horribly pathetic and lazy excuse for completely gimping yourself, your damage output, your healing output(as whm), and your buffs across both jobs. For all players out there, don't be this person.

As for the best Idle staff? An Atk/acc crozier is best for damage, and because of /rdm, self refresh and siphons, we can afford to sacrifice some -perp for main slotting attack when kiting. I'd rather put the hours and hours of grinding for the 9 perp magians into getting a crozier, full caller's +2, finishing wotg, and getting gear like serpentes set, and the brygid diaper.


As for the Cost of mythic, going rate on currency across all servers is 3k to 5k, 3k puts it at 90m, and each 1k over per is an additional 30m at final price.

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Originally Posted by Frodnon

That is a horribly pathetic and lazy excuse for completely gimping yourself, your damage output, your healing output(as whm), and your buffs across both jobs. For all players out there, don't be this person.

As for the best Idle staff? An Atk/acc crozier is best for damage, and because of /rdm, self refresh and siphons, we can afford to sacrifice some -perp for main slotting attack when kiting. I'd rather put the hours and hours of grinding for the 9 perp magians into getting a crozier, full caller's +2, finishing wotg, and getting gear like serpentes set, and the brygid diaper.


As for the Cost of mythic, going rate on currency across all servers is 3k to 5k, 3k puts it at 90m, and each 1k over per is an additional 30m at final price.

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1: I don't gimp myself on any job, I find the best balance for the playstyle I use, and my plastyle is not your playstyle. My whm has gear that increases cure potency, while not diminishing buffs. My smn has actually outdamaged most DDs outside of aby, where I use it most. Just because I choose not to min/max myself doesn't make me lazy or pathetic...it means I put thought into my gameplay and don't try to just max out everything, and thus get pissed off when I get agro and die because the whm can't heal me fast enough (which alot of players have done to me)

2: I didn't say I wasn't going to make att/acc staves later, or that I hadn't made them already...I just like doing quests, and it really is nice to have something else going while I'm out farming high end and high gil items. Also, you forgot how nice convert is on /rdm meaning you can keep an avatar out even longer

3: what makes you think 120 million gil isn't expensive? and did you take ichors into account? as well as all the quests you have have to put time and effort into, redoing all the Assault missions. The actual cost for gaining a mythic isn't just gil, but several months spent grinding it all out. I can do 1 staff in 3-4 days, meaning I can have all the satves in less time than getting Nirvana and taking it through the trials would take.

Don't think I'm saying my style of playing is the right or only way to play...it's MY way of playing
Sometimes I just like to toss on my RSE, summon an avatar and run around while farming ingredints for crafting (yes I do farm on thief, I just like to mix it up once in a while) I also fish on smn, and having an avatar out whle fishing means I
don't lose fishing time having to fight a mob, especially on ferries.
Currency prices have actually risen on my server, as have alex prices because people just don't DO those endgame events anymore. ALex is actually up to 7k+ and dynamis currency is up to 10k for singles.

I may sound defensive, but it really irks me that people seem to think there's only one way to play and anyone who disagrees is wrong. I think, plan and work for what I feel is best for my style of playing, and if that's wrong, I don't want to be right and play a cookie-cutter character.

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Originally Posted by Effilil

1: I don't gimp myself on any job,

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Yes you do. wearing only one set nonstop completely trashes everything summoner. Gearswapping flat out improves every job in the game. It is, literally, exactly as bad as a melee who wears only TP gear when he WSes, or decides he should fulltime STR rings.

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Originally Posted by Effilil

2: RDM

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i believe the line "and because of /rdm" covers that.

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Originally Posted by Effilil

3: price wah-wah

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I never said 90m isn't expensive, I only stated the price range of it, which based on server is 90m to 150m. that's for alexandrite only.

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Originally Posted by Frodnon

Yes you do. wearing only one set nonstop completely trashes everything summoner. Gearswapping flat out improves every job in the game. It is, literally, exactly as bad as a melee who wears only TP gear when he WSes, or decides he should fulltime STR rings.

I have multiple gear sets for my main jobs, and use them as the situation demands it. I just choose not to swap for every little thing. I also didn't say gear swapping was bad, just that I choose not to do it. The real trick to what I do with gear is I BALANCE it, so I don't NEED to gearswap everything. I also have yet to meet a summoner who swaps more than the staff they use for pets.
Also, your statement does just prove my final point that if I'm not playing YOUR way, I'm playing wrong, which truthfully, will only start a fight that neither side can win, because it comes down simply to "that's your opinion, not mine" and opinions are always very different.

i believe the line "and because of /rdm" covers that.

accepted, but it is still a valid point.

I never said 90m isn't expensive, I only stated the price range of it, which based on server is 90m to 150m. that's for alexandrite only.

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the problem there is that my server has fewer people selling alexandrite because fewer people are doing the events that you get it in, so the price has gone up...and the cost in time is still fairly high as opposed to making a few staves through trials, and it's the time factor that really matters, not the gil. There's also the problem of finding interested people to join you. I hate spending more than an hour finding people to do something that takes less time than getting people to go to it...and you end up with the person that quits after 1 death as often as not.....

90-150 mil is cake to get for Nirvana..the hard part is finding the forsaken alexandrite and somehow managing to get the other requirements done if you didn't do them way back then. It's impossible to get 5 other people to einherjar for you to get 100k ichor (plus 180k lamp each time, yay!) and doing up to 100 assaults takes 100 days minimum, then 150k nyzul tokens, so another 80-100 nyzul runs (which can't be done at the same time as assault). Getting the gil to buy alexandrite is so easy in this day and age. I worked on Nirvana, then just stopped and sold all my alexandrite when I got sick of all the other crap about, mainly, einherjar.

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Originally Posted by hohenheim/effilil

Repeated Reading comprehension failure about the cost of alexandrite

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I never made any comment as to alexandrite being "too cheap" or "too expensive, stop assuming stuff. i stated the given price range, nothing more nothing less.

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Originally Posted by effilil

I have multiple gear sets for my main jobs, and use them as the situation demands it. I just choose not to swap for every little thing. I also didn't say gear swapping was bad, just that I choose not to do it. The real trick to what I do with gear is I BALANCE it, so I don't NEED to gearswap everything. I also have yet to meet a summoner who swaps more than the staff they use for pets.

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most summoners don't put effort into gear, most summoners still think errants, moldavite, and MP gear are useful. and most summoners use it as a sideline job to their others, that doesn't make most summoners any better than sub par.

most summoners don't put effort into gear, most summoners still think errants, moldavite, and MP gear are useful. and most summoners use it as a sideline job to their others, that doesn't make most summoners any better than sub par.[/QUOTE]

that is your opinion about how most smn are....
and honestly, this whole thing comes down to opinion....
we're not the only ones making assumptions here either....

I do see why so many use gear swap and try to min/max everything....I just make the choice to play in a different style than anyone else, and believe it or not, I do make the gear I use work....I just try to balance out what I need with the job I'm playing....and as I said...if you can't play a job well in crap gear, you can't play the job at all

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Originally Posted by Effilil

I do see why so many use gear swap and try to min/max everything....I just make the choice to play in a different style than anyone else, and believe it or not, I do make the gear I use work....I just try to balance out what I need with the job I'm playing....and as I said...if you can't play a job well in crap gear, you can't play the job at all

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Yes, you can play your job in crap gear, but that still makes you crap.

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Originally Posted by Frodnon

Yes, you can play your job in crap gear, but that still makes you crap.

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so you're saying there's only 1 way to play any job in the game? I think that opinion is wrong...I know samurai who are still crap after 7 years on the job and having the best gear in the game for sam, swap gear included...it's not the gear, it's the player, and I happen to be very good at my jobs ingame, not because of gear, but because of how I use the job

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Originally Posted by Effilil

so you're saying there's only 1 way to play any job in the game? I think that opinion is wrong...I know samurai who are still crap after 7 years on the job and having the best gear in the game for sam, swap gear included...it's not the gear, it's the player, and I happen to be very good at my jobs ingame, not because of gear, but because of how I use the job

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You're still not using proper gear, nor putting effort into properly using it. Congrats, you're still crap. A person with skill and gear is still going to run circles around you.

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Originally Posted by Frodnon

I never made any comment as to alexandrite being "too cheap" or "too expensive, stop assuming stuff. i stated the given price range, nothing more nothing less.




most summoners don't put effort into gear, most summoners still think errants, moldavite, and MP gear are useful. and most summoners use it as a sideline job to their others, that doesn't make most summoners any better than sub par.

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Has nothing to do with price, the whole point is about the other requirements.

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Originally Posted by Frodnon

You're still not using proper gear, nor putting effort into properly using it. Congrats, you're still crap. A person with skill and gear is still going to run circles around you.

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not really...I have crap gear on blm and have been told by blm with the gear and skill that I'm better than they are....and if you actually research and plan your gear out, you'll find that a good balanced gear set can be 10000 times better than the swap gear sets over the longer run
what it comes down to is simply that my opinion is different from yours and you simply think that yours is right...there are as many ways to play as there are players, and not one agrees with any other 100%

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Originally Posted by Effilil

you'll find that a good balanced gear set can be 10000 times better than the swap gear sets over the longer run

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No, you'll find your damage to be less, your mana drain be faster, the need to rest be more often and for longer times. This isn't an opinion, this is factual. Two people of equal skill, one min/maxes their gear, the other doesn't, who will do more damage, have better buffs, and be able to perform better?

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Originally Posted by Frodnon

No, you'll find your damage to be less, your mana drain be faster, the need to rest be more often and for longer times. This isn't an opinion, this is factual. Two people of equal skill, one min/maxes their gear, the other doesn't, who will do more damage, have better buffs, and be able to perform better?

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and who will pull agro and die? there is such a thing as hate control, and managing that can be more important than damage when you're a mage with low hp and crap def (and don't tell me mage gear gives good def or eva, because it doesn't) and I hear people complaining all the time that the main assist can't keep hate because the mages pull hate off them with every cast

and truthfully? this started as a thread seeking legitamit advice from other players, not as a thread about what gear you should or shouldn't use or how you should play the game....so let's leave this argument with 1 fact
I CHOOSE to play in a different way than YOU.

All I hear is "blah blah. Flame flame." Go back to OP. I have a good friend that likes to solo kill Treants in Aby-Altep. Rest I'll wiki for mobs that con EP. If I'm not in Aby and I want to conserve MP, I'll carby kill till it's avatar-appropiate enough to kill. I'm collecting Geodes along the way.

Frodnon,

It isn't worth arguing over it. She's shown her view (be it appropriate or not, personally not gear swaping to optimize any job is stupid) and you've shown yours.

As for the OP The staves would be nice to have but their value is small in comparison what that space can be used for. Though if you don't have a Soulscourge or Bahamut's Staff then those staves would be next best option in my view.

I'm gonna jump in on this and flat out state that Alexandrite and MAYBE the skins from sara, tinnin, etc are the only real hurdle to Mythic. If you'd been playing the game even marginally for its content, you should have most of the points from nyzul and a lions share of ichor from Einherjar. Example, I've bought 5(five) pieces of Ein gear, not including crafting mats, and still have 112k ichor. I do admit I did nyzul a way lot more than most people, thus why I have 127k tokens in that, but its still VERY easy to farm tokens in there with the right setup. Redoing assaults is not in any way difficult, thats just a time sink, flat out.

Its ALWAYS been about alexandrites. If they lowered/removed alex's, I'd most likely have a mythic <50 days after they announced it. Would just have to redo assaults.

Hi there, I'm currently going for Suraya's Staff +2 (Light Affinity: Avatar Perpetuation -6/Blood Pact delay -10), yes this is the perpetuation reducer staff for carby. Why? 1 'cause I'm sick of wearing those goofy fugly looking mittens for carby lol, and 2 because there are way better hand gear with good stats than 14 mp or whatever mp carby mitts have AND I'm a meleer and the dmg is higher and a few more reasons.

So anyways, I'm gonna start on the trials where you gotta let your avatar deal the finishing blow and I wanna know, what is the easiest way to kill 200 dhamels? The bibiki bay ones are gonna take forever the way carby deals damage so any other suggestions would help. And yeah I've thought about lvl sync but I really don't have that many friends much less will I have the chance to sync to anyone. Sounds like a lost case huh...

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Originally Posted by Vangoh

Hi there, I'm currently going for Suraya's Staff +2 (Light Affinity: Avatar Perpetuation -6/Blood Pact delay -10), yes this is the perpetuation reducer staff for carby. Why? 1 'cause I'm sick of wearing those goofy fugly looking mittens for carby lol, and 2 because there are way better hand gear with good stats than 14 mp or whatever mp carby mitts have AND I'm a meleer and the dmg is higher and a few more reasons.

So anyways, I'm gonna start on the trials where you gotta let your avatar deal the finishing blow and I wanna know, what is the easiest way to kill 200 dhamels? The bibiki bay ones are gonna take forever the way carby deals damage so any other suggestions would help. And yeah I've thought about lvl sync but I really don't have that many friends much less will I have the chance to sync to anyone. Sounds like a lost case huh...

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Sadly, level syncing to the Dhamels in Tahrongi Canyon (level 22 to make sure that they don't con Too Weak) seems like the least terrible way to do that trial. You can also try the ones in Abyssea - Altepa, but with Carby's weak DD abilities you will probably burn through stones even with a decent Atma set up.

I bit the bullet and level synced that one, honestly, it wasn't that bad compared to some of the other trials. (Looking at you, Levithan.) But if you are just trying to get a free carby, you don't have to go as far as doing the Surya's Staff route. With a -3 perp staff of your choosing, Caller's Horn +1, Caller's Doublet +1, Nashira Gages, Evoker's Ring, and Caller's Pigaches +1 Carby should be free, if not give you a little MP back, even without Refresh.

You're right, the problem is that I just got back to the game and I don't got any of that fancy stuff, atma, empyrial AF or any of that. But you know what? You're probably right low lvl mobs die way faster than high lvls even if you're around their lvl.

So Leviathan's staff is tough huh? Hmmmm I wouldn't think there was a harder staff to do than carby..

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Originally Posted by Vangoh

You're right, the problem is that I just got back to the game and I don't got any of that fancy stuff, atma, empyrial AF or any of that. But you know what? You're probably right low lvl mobs die way faster than high lvls even if you're around their lvl.

So Leviathan's staff is tough huh? Hmmmm I wouldn't think there was a harder staff to do than carby..

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The Caller's Horn is not very hard to get, the quest for it is easy but a bit time consuming so it takes perseverance. The quest for feet seals is pretty bad since there are three NMs between you and your goal that you have to walk to with reduced movement speed. (Try to find people who are taking out the bunny NM.) I have had pretty much no luck with the quests in the Heroes zones, so I really can't say about the body or hands.

I wouldn't say that Levithan's staff is harder than Carby's, just that there are worse trials than Dhamels. (I am on the 250 beetle trial, this is possibly the worst trial ever since there are no good camps with an abundance of EP beetles. And no, Carby cannot one-shot goblin pets.) The trials for Levithan and Titan suffer the same troubles as Carbuncle, namely low damage. Holy Mist is awful, unless there is some way to mod the damage that I don't know about. Levithan's and Titan's physical blood pacts are pretty poor damage that can (and will) miss. Oh, and if a bee uses final sting or a bomb uses self-destruct, your pet obviously does not get credit for the kill. Awesome game design there.

OP:

Easiest way to do them is ask a BLM friend come along and blow things up for you. Took me 3 hours to get through half of the undead for Garuda staff, a RDM came out and Aero IVed down the rest in 40ish min.

People aruging about min/maxing and/or the perp staves:

The perp staves are a good investment if you are a hard core smn. If you play smn casually, you can live without them. They are far and away MINIMALLY the best macro piece in the slot with -10 bp delay (swaping into a MAB/ATT staff afterward). If you like melee smn, the staves have fairly high base damage, and let you wear other gear focusing away from perp to increase other useful stats like haste, acc, and stp.

Yes that's pretty messed up....I was worried about the beetles too lol. But I guess it's lvl sync what could save you, and you never find other smns doing trials....it's VERY rare. They gotta fix some of that...trials are not hard just very time consuming and that's an understatement.

IMO, I think its a waste of time doing the magian staves. Just w/ Caller's head/hands/feet +1 solves the -perp problem and as /RDM, just makes it even better. You can get the +1 set in less then 5 days. If u have super avy atmas, just do a pick up and get a BLM THF and w/e trigger u can get as 4th and have each 1 reserve a seal. If u dont have super avy atmas, then have the THF tank and get yourself a WHM. Really easy to seal farm. Now, If you wanna go the extra step and get the +2, just get yellow/red trigger jobs and your set since alot of people need +2. You can prolly finish +2 set before you finish 1 staff.

As for the pet MAB/ATT magian staff, as other people mentioned, i would get Soulscourge to mac in for BPs since the +5 Blood Boon helps with the set proc. The + MAB/ATT on the staff is a plus. Can also make a pick up for staff (which I did). And If your gonna say "Oh, I dont want to do a pick up cuz they suck" then your just kidding yourself. Of course, being in an EG/Aby LS helps speed up the process but not needed :p

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Originally Posted by Zad

IMO, I think its a waste of time doing the magian staves. Just w/ Caller's head/hands/feet +1 solves the -perp problem and as /RDM, just makes it even better.

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Flat perp is good, returned MP with Avatars out is even better. Especially outside of Abyssea where you can get 6 (or more) MP a tick back with RDM sub.

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Originally Posted by Septimus

Flat perp is good, returned MP with Avatars out is even better. Especially outside of Abyssea where you can get 6 (or more) MP a tick back with RDM sub.

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I agree. It also helps that you only have to swap YY in for capped BP timer.

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Originally Posted by Dallas

I agree. It also helps that you only have to swap YY in for capped BP timer.

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I think because of how things are calculated that you would need at least one more -BP gear to actually hit the 15 second cap. I was planning on using Summoner's Bracers since they also have +skill. And I am only 150 beetles away from being able to do that. ;_;

I have never heard that -BP timers worked like haste gear. That's interesting. Since the BP has to be activated, I imagine it'd be really hard to prove the difference isn't server lag.

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Originally Posted by Dallas

I have never heard that -BP timers worked like haste gear. That's interesting. Since the BP has to be activated, I imagine it'd be really hard to prove the difference isn't server lag.

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I am fairly certain that it has to do with fractions of seconds or something like that the same way that haste does. But it also doesn't hurt to have the extra Summoning skill to help with accuracy for Rages and potency/duration for Wards.

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Originally Posted by Septimus

I am fairly certain that it has to do with fractions of seconds or something like that the same way that haste does. But it also doesn't hurt to have the extra Summoning skill to help with accuracy for Rages and potency/duration for Wards.

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Accuracy would be outweighed by the bonus of the +2 set, but until then absolutely.

I also agree with stacking SMN magic for wards, but I don't bother with BP timers for those.