Do Relic, Mythic, and Empyrean staves lack utility?

[Alhanelem]

Using a weaponskill that does 0 damage?

Using BPs with a 45 second minimum cooldown?

Myrkr gives you a high rate of double damage attacks after use. It indirectly does do damage. A LOT of damage, if you're using DD atmas. Yes, other jobs can get this too, but with a high damage, low delay 2H weapon, it works out really well. You may not beat the best WARs in total damage output, but you will easily be a mid to upper tier DD.

you don't cast spells. You use predator claws, and the hasted melee DoT of you and your avatar, which easily does thousands of damage in between blood pacts. Hell, with one double attack volley after a Myrkr, I did almost 1700 dmg (two crits for ~850 each)- a lucky triple attack did over 2k damage in a single volley. And that's not a weapon skill.

If you open your minds and stop playing theorycraft, you'll actually see how good it is. Find someone who has one and watch them play.

Cruor stat buffs blurr the difference in base attribute totals. Even on SMN, STR is my 2nd highest stat after MND, as a Galka with 6 merits in STR (1 in INT atm so capped) But when you have like +50 to all stats, the difference betwen my STR and some other DD's str becomes much smaller.

The BP cooldown is a problem yes... but you can easily belt out 5-8k predator claws each time it comes up. Both you and your avatar are hasted. The DMG output of this setup is much higher than you think it is. It's definitely higher than gearing for a max damage heavenly strike and not meleeing at all, despite how much people go OMG over a souped up heavenly strike. As long as you're fighting something that allows for melee DDs to be on the mob, a SMN can stand alongside them and perform at a level that makes it worthy of being in their presence. It was really quite pathetic when my melee DoT was matching that of a (admittedly gimp) DRK in my party.

[Greatguardian]

Myrkr gives you a high rate of double damage attacks after use. It indirectly does do damage. A LOT of damage, if you're using DD atmas. Yes, other jobs can get this too, but with a high damage, low delay 2H weapon, it works out really well. You may not beat the best WARs in total damage output, but you will easily be a mid to upper tier DD.

you don't cast spells. You use predator claws, and the hasted melee DoT of you and your avatar, which easily does thousands of damage in between blood pacts. Hell, with one double attack volley after a Myrkr, I did almost 1700 dmg (two crits for ~850 each)- a lucky triple attack did over 2k damage in a single volley. And that's not a weapon skill.

If you open your minds and stop playing theorycraft, you'll actually see how good it is. Find someone who has one and watch them play.

Cruor stat buffs blurr the difference in base attribute totals. Even on SMN, STR is my 2nd highest stat after MND, as a Galka with 6 merits in STR (1 in INT atm so capped) But when you have like +50 to all stats, the difference betwen my STR and some other DD's str becomes much smaller.

The BP cooldown is a problem yes... but you can easily belt out 5-8k predator claws each time it comes up. Both you and your avatar are hasted. The DMG output of this setup is much higher than you think it is. It's definitely higher than gearing for a max damage heavenly strike and not meleeing at all, despite how much people go OMG over a souped up heavenly strike. As long as you're fighting something that allows for melee DDs to be on the mob, a SMN can stand alongside them and perform at a level that makes it worthy of being in their presence. It was really quite pathetic when my melee DoT was matching that of a (admittedly gimp) DRK in my party.

I never said Emp staff sucked, or that using an Emp staff on SMN was a bad idea (I think it's neat, personally).

I said it was 110% batcrap preposterous to compare it to a Ukonvasara. I brought up spells because he mentioned BLM, SCH, and SMN. None of them are going to come anywhere near the total damage of a Ukonvasara with Emp staff, ever. The gap only widens with additional Haste buffs. There's "Emp staff Melee vs BP only", and then there's "Emp Staff is only 7% behind Ukonvasara plus we have spells/BP so we're better".

Edit: Ukon ODDs too.

[Byrth]

Aw mang, what an awesome DD SMN is. The DPS is only 7% behind Ukon... which means it's about 8% behind Twashtar. Maybe some day it'll be almost as good a DD as Bard. You want to talk "extra damage from abilities/magic?" How about Marches.

Anyway, stupid argument is stupid. Summoner's use is Earthen Armor and Perfect Defense. If you use it for more than that, you have tolerant friends or a lack of useful jobs.

[Tagrineth]

It was really quite pathetic when my melee DoT was matching that of a (admittedly gimp) DRK in my party.

Er... you are aware that DRK is pretty much the bottom-tier melee in Abyssea, right? Matching a "gimp DRK" in melee DoT is like saying you were able to "keep up" in the Special Olympics.

And again, you don't really get much in the way of gear that would help boost you any further than that.

So congratulations, your Empyrean weapon let you dangle just a hair above the bottom of the barrel... and that's even in Abyssea, where you get to cheat - by your own admission - with gigantic and completely free stat buffs.

I really think you're also badly missing the big issue that weapon skills provide a much, much larger % of a good DD's total damage than you seem to think - and is the reason top-tier DD will even wear gear like Hoard Ring and Tactical Mantle to ensure they WS as frequently as possible.

edit: Good catch on the DPS rating of Twashtar. <_<

[Dallas]

Aw mang, what an awesome DD SMN is. The DPS is only 7% behind Ukon... which means it's about 8% behind Twashtar. Maybe some day it'll be almost as good a DD as Bard. You want to talk "extra damage from abilities/magic?" How about Marches.

Anyway, stupid argument is stupid. Summoner's use is Earthen Armor and Perfect Defense. If you use it for more than that, you have tolerant friends or a lack of useful jobs.

Yeah, if you play SMN like that, I'd make you my March ho too.

[Alhanelem]

Aw mang, what an awesome DD SMN is. The DPS is only 7% behind Ukon... which means it's about 8% behind Twashtar. Maybe some day it'll be almost as good a DD as Bard. You want to talk "extra damage from abilities/magic?" How about Marches.

Anyway, stupid argument is stupid. Summoner's use is Earthen Armor and Perfect Defense. If you use it for more than that, you have tolerant friends or a lack of useful jobs.

You are stupid, end of story. I wish there was a nicer way to say it. Summoners can do a whole ton of things. They are not just cure bots or AV killers.

I said it was 110% batcrap preposterous to compare it to a Ukonvasara.

I wasn't really the one making that direct comparison, it is an apples/oranges kind of thing. SMN can be a respectiable dealer of damage if you build for it. If only more people were a little more open minded than "you're a mage, cure me and give me stoneskin."

Er... you are aware that DRK is pretty much the bottom-tier melee in Abyssea, right?

Right. Which means that a SMN DD setup is not bottom tier because it's better than that. That said, I disagree with how low DRK gets ranked in this. I realize you can't have it on all the time but souleater WS in abyssea are ridiculous. One trick pony, maybe. But a fun one trick pony.

[Dallas]

Al, I make the comparisons I do in a very specific way to lure the BG spies out from hiding. Here, I'll teach you how to do it as well:

Never start a melee SMN conversation mentioning avatars.

That's all there is to it. If I don't mention it, they don't know it exists. They are correct in one very specific argument: if you only look at auto-attack, you only have auto-attack.

I hope he retreats to bring back reinforcements!

[Bumbeen]

BG spies lol.

[Tagrineth]

Right. Which means that a SMN DD setup is not bottom tier because it's better than that. That said, I disagree with how low DRK gets ranked in this. I realize you can't have it on all the time but souleater WS in abyssea are ridiculous. One trick pony, maybe. But a fun one trick pony.

There's no agree/disagree here. DRK is the lowest. Yeah Souleater WS are ridiculous, but Souleater is on a six minute timer. An upper-class melee DD should be able to WS at least every ~20 seconds or thereabouts. DRK can actually gain TP decently well now thanks to the buff on Desperate Blows, so that means that even assuming inefficient WS every 30 seconds, that means 1 WS out of every 12, the DRK can use Souleater and make the WS compare to every other DD besides SAM that ISN'T using Souleater. SAM only beats DRK because of its better use of Meditate/Sekkanoki and more powerful average WS (the colossal STR boosts in abyssea DO make Gekko hit pretty hard, though it's definitely still not comparable to multi-hit crit WS that the "good" DD get).

Beating the lowest class "dedicated DD" with what is literally your absolute best weapon by a huge margin really isn't all that great. It IS impressive considering you get ZERO DD abilities/traits/dedicated gear, but I'd still tell you to get the fuck back out of range and just bloodpact FFS.

[Abelia]

Thank you for all the responses. It is always nice to get other's points of view.