Level 99 Relics and Empyreans

[Insaniac]

This again!? I've decided to make a list. These are just my opinions based on observations, and opinions of owners of both including myself. I'm trying to base this on over all usefulness. Some of these are hard to compare because they can be used by different jobs.

Mandau = Twashtar - Very well balanced weapons at 95.
Ukon > Bravura - Ukon is the clear winner for anyone who has seen both used by competent players.
Rhongomiant > Gungnir - Not a huge win for Rhongo. Both of these weapons are absolutely crushed by Ryunohige
Apocalypse >>> Redemption - Without a doubt Apoc is the ONLY relic that crushes it's emp counterpart
Masa > Amano - On a lot of hard stuff both weapons will probably be using Gekko but Fudo > Kaiten when they do get used.
Caldabolg > Ragnarok - Ragnarok has some hype behind it but scourge is a terrible WS unless stacked with SA.
Verethragna >>> Spharai - VS > enhanced counter.
Almace > Excal - On extremely tough mobs excal could potentially get close but I don't think it could ever win.
Guttler > Farsha - Farsha got screwed with an inexplicable elemental WS.
Kannagi >>> Kikoku - I can't think of a single situation where one would use Kikoku over Kanaggi.
Gambanteinn > Mjolnir - Meh. DD WHM. At least with Gamb you can pop wings in VW for MP. Yagrush is king.
Daurdabla > Gjallarhorn - Gjallarhorn doesn't amount to much but a space saver. A 3rd song is kinda game changing.
Anni = Armageddon - I don't think this should really even be considered. Arma is clearly a COR weapon and Anni is RNG only.
Hvergelmir > Claustrum - Who cares.
Ochain > Aegis - Aegis has it's uses for sure and is an awesome shield but most of the damage most mobs are gonna do to you is physical and Ochain puts a stop to that and turns it into infinite MP.

EDIT: Forgot the bows!

Yoichi > Gandiva - A static enmity WS changes the game for RNG. Gandiva is beast for damage but as mentioned before. You don't do damage while you take a dirt nap.

[Insaniac]

Oh yeah. As far as the OP goes. I agree 100%. If it's some terrible grind to get my Mandau to 99 I will nerd rage so hard it will echo through the heavens. I will RMT my character, buy a plane ticket to Japan, a Hattori Hanzo sword, and a yellow suit. Then I'll take out the devs like they are the Crazy 88. Except since it's the ffxi team it will be the Crazy 4.

[uptempo]

Why wouldn't you want a hard grind for your relics as long as it puts them back to number 1 i welcome a hard grind.

[Neisan_Quetz]

Edit to that list however:

Gungnir > Rhongomiant - at 95 with the hidden damage boost in addition to the defense down effect Gungnir is better than Rhongomiant by not having to rely on a weaker WS to keep up aftermath. both lose to Mythic in overall damage on paper.

Bravura has some utility use for playing defensively but situations like that for War are typically few. Bravura loses a lot less in terms of haste etc. once you start having to swap to DT sets with Ukon.

Brd should have both tbh, you sing 3rd song with Daurdabla then overwrite all 3 with Gjallerhorn.


If the test server update that has 1h relic stats working in offhand goes live Mandau Kikoku and Mjollnir become viable offhand weapons (in terms of DDWhm you'd probably still want to mainhand Mjollnir however).

[Insaniac]

Because I already did my grind 4 years ago and then again when SE gave us crap upgrades for dozens of hours of mindless killing. When I made my relic no one was even talking about 75+ and when I finished I expected that to be the end of it. It's messed up to tell people who thought they were done with a weapon that there is an equally hard or harder grind just to keep the weapon up to date. Every trial on relics and mythics should be something that can be done in a week or less. I also know that they won't do anything drastic enough to them to justify the grind. Most relics will never be #1 again unless they are rebuilt from the ground up and SE will almost certainly NEVER do that.

As far as emps go the HMP stage kinda balances the difficulty between them and relics but it was a total bait and switch. The HMP stage is too much to throw at people who started weapons because they were reasonable to obtain for average players and not just hardcores. I guess the idea is that average players will still have good weapons with the level 90s and the hardcores will go the extra mile and take them to 99 which does make a lot of sense but I imagine that's kind of disheartening for an average player who felt good about finally having top tier gear or even a hardcore that made 2+ emps and now has to stare at inferior level 90s because spending a billion gil on all the plates he needs isn't reasonable.

[Insaniac]

Edit to that list however:

Gungnir > Rhongomiant - at 95 with the hidden damage boost in addition to the defense down effect Gungnir is better than Rhongomiant by not having to rely on a weaker WS to keep up aftermath. both lose to Mythic in overall damage on paper.

Bravura has some utility use for playing defensively but situations like that for War are typically few. Bravura loses a lot less in terms of haste etc. once you start having to swap to DT sets with Ukon.

Brd should have both tbh, you sing 3rd song with Daurdabla then overwrite all 3 with Gjallerhorn.


If the test server update has 1h relic stats working in offhand goes live Mandau Kikoku and Mjollnir become viable offhand weapons.

If you're talking about abyssea then yes Gungnir wins but no one plays DRG in abyssea for anything but exp. Outside for me Camlann's does similar damage to drakes on easy stuff and beats drakes on anything with decent DEF and 30% ODD on all swings beats the crap out of 15% 2.5x damage that can only proc on the first hit of a multi attack. Gungnirs acc does nothing and Rhongos VIT is lovely for jumps. Like I said it's not a huge win for Rhongo but imo it's still a win and at 99 when it's (in theory) AoE shock spikes VS. AoE ODD gungnir is toast.

[Neisan_Quetz]

The new jumps don't have a vit mod iirc, not sure why you're using the old ones. Correct me if I'm wrong but I've seen no evidence for it. I was referring to in or out, if the Acc matters on Drg (rare if at all possible) then Gungnir wins, if the def down procs Gungnir is increasing everyone + the Drg's damage bar angon/BT/Tourb, Gungnir doesn't have to use a Vit modded WS ever and can spam drakes happily.

[Insaniac]

You use old jumps when your wyvern is dead.

Like I said. No one uses goons in abyssea for anything but exp and in EXP what I will usually do is use Camlann's when I have TP and the mob is 50% or less cause it kills it anyway. I might even get enough ODD like that to make up for gungnirs full time 2.5x. I concede that gungnir most likely does come out a little ahead in abyssea.

Gungnir will also proc on top of your angon decreasing every ones damage. The proc will only help you 50% of the time and hurt you the other half.

The VIT mod on Camlann's is a non factor. I sacrifice a total of 7 STR in my Camlann's set over my Drakes set and come out with something like +70 VIT. I know a VIT mod WS sounds bad but the gear options for DRG are very accommodating. Outside Camlann's is a better over all WS and there's no reason not to spam it. The only reason I still use drakes is to solo double light.

[Atoreis]

Ok one important thing. Most thing you say Leon is true BUT at some point you started to believe in something that you never checked. Gandiva is not better than Annihilator and im not talking about utility. Just check their avg WS and dps.

Wrong idea about their damage comes from misleading power of crit for melee. For ranged attack its only +25% to pDIF not +1 to pDIF ( like for melee). So even assuming that you cap ddex on your jishnu and lets say achieve 60% crit rate with it and you pDIF is around 2.0 It will raise 60% of this to 2.5 on crit. Jishnu set have maybe 9% crit damage bonus. Thats:

0.4*2 + 0.6*2.5*1.09= 2.435

compered to Annihilator which has more ratt in set and will be at 2.1 pDIF probably so 16% advantage for Gandiva here from being crit WS.

Lets check fTP and base for them now then:

Jishnu 3.95 60%DEX and 156 base from bow+ammo. Jishnu set has pretty low fSTR2 but I will give it more than it has lets say 15. Lets say 170 DEX (probably also more then it has).

(0.6*0.85*170+156+15)*3.95*2.435= 2471

Now annihilator 40% dex 40% agi. Base is around 170(combined) and at least +60 from equip so 230. Annihilator + Ammo is 176. fSTR2 is much higher in coronach set but lets say its just 25.

(0.4*0.85*230+176+25)*3.2*2.1*1.25(relic boost)= 2343

so around 5.5% advantage for Gandiva (With data favoring Gandiva).

Lets check shooting phase

Gandiva: 4*(156+10)*2.0 damage in 4*580 delay 34.34 dps
Annihilator: 3*(176+15)*2.1 damage in 3*822 delay 29.27 dps

17% advantage for Gandiva which should be tuned opposite by Rapid shot, double shot and Barrage which all favors Annihilator a lot.

Save TP and regain at VW helps Anni more too. Letting it win in WS frequency by around 7%-30%(depends of Miser roll).

In the end Annihilator DPS is at least the same if not better than Gadiva even forgetting about Anni utility.

[Brolic]

On Pil, Highest Ukko's (for 4 fights) was 3.9k, highest Catastrophe was 2.1k, highest Torcleaver was 2.9k. Lowest Ukko's was 900, lowest Catastrophe was 300, lowest Torcleaver was 800. Average Ukko's was 1.8k, Catastrophe 1.1k, Torcleaver 1.5k.

Kaiten was averaging 600, Gekko was 900.

WAR: 23% (Ukon)
MNK: 25% (Vere)
DRK: 10% (Apoc)
WAR: 19% (Bravura)
SAM: 9% (Amano)(In his defense he was a Taru having to use Polearm in two of the fights for procs)
DRK: 11% (Cala)

Over the course of 4 fights on Pil. Why there were 2 DRKs, I do not know. Although again, these parses are subject to human error and there's no real way to prove "this is better than that" without a mathematician here and I don't know how to do such maths. However in practice, from every single relic I've seen, they are simply not as good. (Vere MNKs are beastly)

Edit:

POIDH you don't have anything according to ffxiah.com, sorry broseph.

I've parsed against a Bravura many a time(90Ukon vs. 95 Bravura). As it is closer to Ukon than it was at 90, it's still not as good (only gains ground when people aren't proccing and Ukon has to use PDT heavy sets reducing DPS more than a Bravura would, because of Aftermath) in the long run.

did you parse damage taken, i'm curious to see how the Bravura war stacks up against the Ukkon.