The Problem with Red Mage . . .

[Tamarsamar]

The thing about Ephemeron is that even if the Haste alone does not trade favorably with the STR Shikargar's stats in terms of gear allowed for TP (which is actually pretty realistic), to truly evaluate Ephemeron's worth is to determine how much more quickly on average Ephemeron's TP Drain effect lets you spam Weapon Skills. And I hear that Ephemeron's TP Drain is actually pretty potent.

(On a perhaps lesser note, the TP Drain does imply that you're depriving the mob of TP to some extent, which may or may not be valuable in and of itself, depending on the situation.)

[Demon6324236]

I have often brought up the TP drain, however in any serious talk about Ephemeron it has always been seemingly ignored. The reason for this is unknown to me, as I would think it would give excellent reason to use it, especially with Almace seeing as you could do a Light SC if proced at the right time. However seeing as its always ignored I have chosen to leave it out of talking here. Once I get it and see it for myself I plan to attempt to find its proc rate. After that, I will use it in my comparisons because I will have more definitive numbers for it.

However if AH.com's SCs are anything of evidence I will definatly say the potency is great.






Guessing the 7TP was soon after a TP, cant tell.

[saevel]

Demon6324236,

What do all of those monsters have in common?

Eph suffers the same fate as nearly every other add effect weapon in the game, vs anything above your level it's proc rate and effectiveness rapidly diminishes, especially on NMs. It's SE's way of being stupid, they give it a powerful effect with a lowish proc rate but then nerf the sh!t out of it on any remotely dangerous to maintain "barance". Better to have a weaker effect that consistently procs (wind knife off that bird) then to have one that fluctuates and is rendered useless on hard stuff.

The reason it gets ignored is that on anything worth fighting it won't be a factor.

[Demon6324236]

I do not yet have Ephemeron so I wouldn't know. I also don't often use Additional Effect things as they normally don't seem to be worth using. If your right then yeah its not all to good if Ephemeron does good on higher NMs still then good, it could be worth it. In either case its the reason I never bring it up as a factor for that swords utility.

[ManaKing]

That would work. But I admit after looking at the gear you really can not get 11STR 22Attack in a TP build with Ephemeron that you lose from the Shikargar, not that it is so terrible that you shouldn't use Ephemeron, but is it a point they made & is valid. For Impact to give us enough TP for what you suggest we would need at least 12.5~15% of the MP back in TP, which means T5~6 of OA. The chances of us getting T5~6 of it would be highly unlikely so I doubt even were we to get that trait we would be able to do this even.

As for Req being non-elemental, even with this being the case you have to also understand the WS is situational. CDC is good in a number of places, where as with Athos on RDM Req would likely only win in cases where mobs are resistant to Slashing or have PDT. Also on anything with high defense, Req falls apart, where as CDC stays strong.

What I dont get is you seem to be defending SE's choice to give us nearly pure mage gear and leave us off of good Light DD gear, which makes little sense with how much time you say you spend on RDM. I would think you would agree with me that we need more gear on all sides of melee, rather than seemingly oppose me.

You more than make up the attack and you get a better TP build if you are talking Excal/Eph VS Almace/Shika. You can't make up the STR. You WS more. That's what I want. Using the word total damage to describe RDM is hilarious to me because it's only half a DD. You aren't meant to be good at Melee, that's why you have a B in Swords and Dagger and a D or worse in everything else. But the thing you can do well is support other Melee by opening up every single combination for Light and Dark if you have an Excalibur in your hand. Dia 3 is also nice for watching things die instantly from good SCs. KoR > Resolution = Light, Shitty RDM damage, but you double the damage of the WS that is more potent. Does that require friends and cooperation? Sure, but if you don't have those, why are you playing an online video game?

Morrigan's is not even close to pure mage gear, neither is any of the pieces in my TP set for RDM. We get pieces, they are just unpleasant to get, so I take pride in where my RDM is compared to where it was and compared to pretty much anyone else playing the job. I know that my job means something to me and I personally don't mind it being difficult to gear because it's worth it. My friends all can't believe I can do the numbers I do with a RDM, especially because we used to play with a RDM that had better gear than me that didn't know how to DPS well, so they made RDM look unattractive.

I hope you realize that Req doesnt just suddenly hit for almost no damage against mobs outside of Aby with high defense. It still does plenty. It does more consistent damage than I've ever gotten out of CDC. It's accuracy with the belt and gorget is something of a godsend since RDM has such bad accuracy. Adding .2 fTP to all attacks and then reducing the attack penalty with the Moonshade earring means that even at 100% TP, I'm still getting 6-8 good hits that get 100% of my MND, which is close to 200. As soon as I figured out how to make Req hit for good numbers I put my Almace in my locker. If I didn't have my gorget and belt and earring, I would not make my claims because I remember what the WS was like without gear, especially that gear. But that's the point. RDM has the gear for Req, it doesn't for CDC.

The non-elemental damage is a factor against every hard target in the game. Undead, Elementals, most Amorphs. What are we fighting? Doesn't really matter unless it has high defense. Even then, you guys seem to have this amazingly pessimistic view that I don't share even though I'm the one using it.

[Demon6324236]

I never said Morrigan's or the gear in your sets are pure mage gear. What I was saying is that we get the Pure Mage sets, never the Light DD sets. Not that we don't get Light DD gear, but we don't get Light DD sets, Bregos is good gear but Athos, is a good set. Shedir is not a Light DD set, it is a mage set, same as Rubeus, both have Haste gear in it with some melee stats but it doesn't mean they are Light DD sets either.

I understand much of how Req works. I remerited it and got both gorget/neck, I have been playing with it & its damage, so its not as if I am completely inexperienced with it. As with Ephemeron I try not to talk much about things I don't have personal experience with, in this case I have been using Req, KoR, and CDC. As for the accuracy, I don't understand why you couldn't use the belt for CDC if you need the Acc, and I mean really, its a DEX based WS, your stacking alot of DEX which means alot of acc in the end, so it provides its own accuracy on its own. As I have said though I know the gear difference between the WS gear of RDM & what other jobs have.

As for using Req against anything, you can use it against anything. But the bonus that was pointed out about it being a non-elemental WS and that bonus is only a bonus in some cases. When using it against anything else it loses that advantage over CDC, which was all I was saying about it being situational. Its not that it becomes worthless on anything else, but simply it loses the advantage it once had, which puts it back on even ground with CDC.

[ManaKing]

For CDC being DEX based i've seen enough wiffs and unimpressive damage come out of it. I can't say the same for Req. I don't like the extremely random nature of CDC and relying on an aftermath to make it better is sloppy play IMO. I get how it wins out, but it's not the way I would ever choose to play a DD, much less not a DD. IDK what to tell you on the light armor sets. It never bothered me since we were never on them. I would have been super pissed if we weren't on the scale mail that just came out, since we were always on scale mail.

I still get that it's not what you want, but that's honestly how it's always been. If anything CDC and Req are what is new to RDM because they had well Death Blossom for the longest time. What you can and cannot expect to find RDM on really hasn't changed, which is honestly why I'm against believing that SE will give us light armor sets. It's nowhere in our history. That's why when I see thing like Brego Gloves, I'm happy. Because normally we don't get this. We have always been on weird assortments of gear. I'm just used to it.

It's like the ogre's gear. RDM and BST? Who the hell came up with that combo? Doesn't matter, I'm going to wear it because it's good for me. Obviously, times have changed, but at the time, the set gave us a lot of Atk.

Also, you are partially correct. Morrigan's is going to come out and it's going to be redundant gear for BLU. They are going to push up their noses at it and be like, 'OMG this is barely better than my AF3+2. I need MOAR broken everything to feel good about myself.' And then i'm going to swoop in and take that shit because we will hopefully get 2 or 3 good pieces out of it. I'm personally hoping for Body over anything else to be above average for us. 1 or 2 Haste pieces would be amazing. Obviously, I'm excited because Morrigan's body could be easily upgraded with Haste and lvl appropriate stats on it and probably be one of the better hybrid bodies and probably the best Req Body....EVAR.

[Sunrider]

I still get that it's not what you want, but that's honestly how it's always been. If anything CDC and Req are what is new to RDM because they had well Death Blossom for the longest time. What you can and cannot expect to find RDM on really hasn't changed, which is honestly why I'm against believing that SE will give us light armor sets.

Well if all we're supposed to do is sit on our hands and take whatever we're given without complaint, then what's the point of this forum? There are plenty of other sites to talk shop without the expectation of anything better.

Besides, what about all that scale armor to which we were privy up to about level 50? We're not without precedent for heavier armor access.

[saevel]

For CDC being DEX based i've seen enough wiffs and unimpressive damage come out of it. I can't say the same for Req.

This explains everything..... you don't actually know how damage is calculated and are just eyeballing everything.

Here's a freebie, Req is more sensitive to accuracy then CDC is, and that's before accounting for CDC's extra acc from Dex. Also CDC is a +15% crit rate @100, you have a 5% base crit rate and +5% from merits for a flat 25% chance at critting @100TP without taking into account gear or dDex. CDC is three this, four with sub, at least one hit will crit per WS on average, more if you get a decent CDC set.

The game runs on a computer, there is absolutely nothing that is truly random.

[Demon6324236]

I would have been super pissed if we weren't on the scale mail that just came out, since we were always on scale mail.

Athos has my pimp hat, I used to always be on the pimp hats.