RDM and Eminent Staff

[Demonjustin]

i dunno that i agree that the best offhand in eminent dagger. while it has the better delay, delay is really all it has. it's behind in combat skill compared to either a buramenk'ah or anahera saber, and WAY behind on base dmg (which does still count for something, even in the offhand) not to mention that whichever of the 2 swords it's competing with, it's behind on DA as well.

I wouldn't think it would win either but going by sheets its out in front of the Anahera and other options, Dual Wielding with Excalibur in your main hand Bura is only a small amount of DPS ahead, literally within 1~2% on most things, and that's partly due to the fact of the attack it adds to TP/WS from the 3 extra STR and its normal 10 Attack that Anahera lacks. I do not mean to say Anahera is bad, its just not a sword for RDM to use, chances are if you can get Anahera you can get Buramenk'Ah, and if you can get either of them, you can get the EDagger.

as to the OP, RDM can use baqil staff. it has decent showings in magic acc, magic dmg, and magic att bonus, and of course venabulum is a full blown 119 staff which rdm can use if you're lucky enough to get it, it's arguably the best casting item in the game ATM.

you could also look at eminent wand if you wanna go that route. it's slightly ahead of baqil staff magic acc wise, (very slightly if you assume a mephitis grip) but a good bit behind for magic dmg so, eh. tamaxchi is also noteworthy, it's the worst i've mentioned insofar as magic acc, magic dmg, and magic attack, but it still gives sizeable bonus' and 22% cure potency. so if you need the cure potency... it's pretty great.

I don't think the thread is so much about being left out of staves in general, just that we were left out of this one staff, when its a very easy staff to get that would help newer RDMs, I mean, I was disappointed myself when I took note of the fact RDM is not on it simply because of the fact its something my new character will not have access to when the time comes. By all means if I am wrong, please say so. But in either case, you're right that we can use all of those things both comparable and better, just kinda sucks we were left out of this.

[Raydeus]

I'm a RDM, and while I'd love to be able to use the staff I can't really blame them for not giving it to us. Because: 1) We already get Sword, Dagger and Wand (which is still pretty good for casting) 2) We have no innate staff skill.

Personally I'd much rather have access to the shield instead for those times when I'm not DW'ing.


PS> As a side note I main Dagger while DW'ing and main Sword when going single+shield.

[Demonjustin]

Word of advice, you should never main Dagger on RDM.

[Raydeus]

Word of advice, you should never main Dagger on RDM.

And what would be the reason for that? o_O

Because Evisceration and Exenterator work better for me than sword WS while I'm DW'ing. And like I mentioned in my post I usually main Sword if I'm going single handed because most of the times I'll have access to Vorpal Blade. Except for the cases where I'm fighting something that makes Requiescat very useful or that is resistant to piercing DMG while DW'ing that is.

[Doombringer]

in general, between Chant du Cygne and Requiescat, sword has better weaponskills.

you mentioned vorpal blade, and how it performed fairly well when you could get it? CDC is essentially "vorpal blade, but better" it uses dex instead of strength, but it has double the bonus from that mod, and higher FTP. (and swapping from str to dex isn't even necessarily a bad thing when you consider they can both crit, and amping up your dex will also improve the crit rate on CDC)

requiescat is a little more of a special case, but in the right situations with the right gear it's fantastic. it has a fairly rare trait amongst weaponskills in that it copies it's first hit ftp to all subsequent hits. using the correct elemental belt/gorget combo is equivalent to adding an entire extra hit to the ws (more if you're dual wielding) and while a mnd mod isn't ideal, it's something an rdm should have no problem stacking. it's one issue is the attack penalty. at 100% tp your dmg is calculated as if 20% of your attack stat was sacrificed to the aether. if you're getting outside buffs this is a non issue, leaving REQ with nothing but a 100% secondary mod and outstanding FTP, but if you're solo it can hurt and might push things back into CDCs favor.


all that being said though, if you're in abyssea, and you DON'T have CDC, and you're dual wielding (therefore don't have vorpal blade) evisceration is probably competitive just due to how well crit weaponskills combine with crit atmas.

[Raydeus]

I see, but that's definitely not a case of "RDM should never main Dagger" though. XD

If I ever want to spend the time required to get a lvl119 Almace I'll stop using Dagger main, but until then I'm pretty good with Exenterator/Evisceration and dual Eminent weapons.

[Doombringer]

you don't need a 119 almace for CDC. if you get even a lvl 90 almace, you can use it to unlock the weaponskill. alternately you can get a lvl 99 WoE sword and unlock CDC that way.

[Raydeus]

It isn't required to use it anymore? I just came back to the game so I thought you still needed to equip the weapon to access the WS.

[Doombringer]

nope, there's a very short quest (essentially a cutscene) in walk of echoes where you can unlock any empy WS so long as you have at least the lvl 90 emp, or lvl 99 coin weapon with that ws.

once it's unlocked you can use it with any sword.

they also changed the path for the coin weapons (or added a new path?) so they no longer require the nm kills, just the woe part: coins, residue, dice, seals. you could almost BUY an emp ws...

[Raydeus]

Ahh, that changes things significantly.

I guess I know what my next project will be. Thanks for the info.