Melee WHM's Unite!

[saevel]

WHM and RDM are mostly in the same boat melee wise. RDM has it slightly better due to us being put on a few pieces and having CDC, but that's about it.

I would think the new club WS would be better then hexa. WHM has many times more MND gear then STR / attack / DA gear. 100% MND WSC means you just load up on as much as you can. Hexa is only 20% MND / STR, meaning STR has more effect then MND (fSTR + WSC) and attack has more effect then both of them. Use what you can and don't forget Dia II.

[Crimson_Slasher]

Ofcourse, i was avoiding dia for sake of controlled tests. And in a perfect world, sure, id have that club ws, but it comes down to what jobs i have and even counting rdm, id be looking at extensiator, requiescat, and Realmarzer. But at the moment im going for Resolution, Shijin Spiral, and undecided on either Entropy, Requiescat, and a few other ws. So i dont know if its in the cards for me at the moment... Just looking for some solid hexa info, i did check the mods and 40 str did pull ahead of 40 mnd, but adding both str and mnd didnt do much of anything, hence me coming here. I do know attack being a problem though... But i also know for crit rate dex is important, so i was hoping there might be some more recent testing on key gear being better. Examples being something like 3 str/dex/-3mnd vs 8 mnd, which might come out higher on average, for me they are virtually the same, but it would seem like 8 mnd would pull out ahead.

[saevel]

Ofcourse, i was avoiding dia for sake of controlled tests. And in a perfect world, sure, id have that club ws, but it comes down to what jobs i have and even counting rdm, id be looking at extensiator, requiescat, and Realmarzer. But at the moment im going for Resolution, Shijin Spiral, and undecided on either Entropy, Requiescat, and a few other ws. So i dont know if its in the cards for me at the moment... Just looking for some solid hexa info, i did check the mods and 40 str did pull ahead of 40 mnd, but adding both str and mnd didnt do much of anything, hence me coming here. I do know attack being a problem though... But i also know for crit rate dex is important, so i was hoping there might be some more recent testing on key gear being better. Examples being something like 3 str/dex/-3mnd vs 8 mnd, which might come out higher on average, for me they are virtually the same, but it would seem like 8 mnd would pull out ahead.

If we're talking WHM and Hexa, don't bother with +DEX. It's not a flat % crit but a steeply curved slop. You need 35~40 dex over the targets AGI before you start to see the really good gains, and it caps at 50 over the targets AGI. For something with 120 AGI, you'd need 170 DEX to cap and 155~160 before you start seeing solid returns. Ultimately you just go straight for the WSC (Club merit WS) or for Atk / STR / MND (Hexa). fSTR caps at ((WDMG/9)+8), that would be 15 for the Mopedia Mace (DMG70 one). 15 fSTR is about ~60 STR over the monsters VIT, your not hitting that on a WHM. fSTR can be treated as a ~25% STR WSC for purposes of gear, and with Hexa having a 20% STR 20% MND mod, you end up with more then a 2:1 ratio between them.

EX:
+10 STR would be +1.72 from WSC and +2.5 from fSTR while +10 MND would only be +1.72 from the WSC. So stack STR whenever you can't get Atk / DA in the slot for Hexa.

For your WS selection, use what you need the most. The Scythe (Entropy) one is crap though, the INT mod makes it less then useless for DRKs, but the GSWD (Resolution) one is amazing. Req is kinda ~meh~ but it beats DB and ends up being even with Vorpal most of the time (very situation and gear dependent). Exten is decent if you can get tons of AGI, so DNC and THF can get good use out of it, RDM and BRD are kinda shafted though. I went Shoha, Resolution and Stardiver.

[Crimson_Slasher]

Im aware entropy isnt great, but there isnt much for scythe that is, and even leaving 1 merit into it for mp recovery isnt really that beneficial cause it limits my other ws. However i was considering it because with it i can recover decent mp (Drk gets quite a bit of int gear afterall...) which inturn i can use (with a select gear build) with impact for a combination of magical and physical damage. Hence the reason im looking at. Resolution is brilliant, i could tell from day 1, but Shijin i dont know much about, though ive heard a lot of good things from fellow mnks with vere 90+ so im inclined to believe it, and am following suit, if my revan fists +2 (when i finish making them) equal nearly as much or more damage in most situations, ill likely unmerit it and go with entropy and requiescat, or realmarzer.

But thats good to know, try to whore str and att where possible, dex shouldnt be bothered with unless it comes tied to one of the other two. Which do you say matters more, str or att? Also in slots i have neither i should stack mnd correct?

[Economizer]

I would think the new club WS would be better then hexa.

They nerfed it hard. The only thing I've heard about it being good is one case of word of mouth about some Mjollnir holder having it outperform Hexa Strike in very, very select circumstances. Even then I haven't seen the numbers first hand and until I get a good amount of information about that my opinion is that Realmrazer got nerfed to the point of uselessness and I will never merit it.

Edit: I'd really like someone to sell me on this if they have better numbers.

[saevel]

Moten might show up and do up some numbers. Req ends up beating out Vorpal when you have really high MND, I can see Relm working out the same way. Honestly Realm is just for non-WHM's to have a decent club WS, why should you waste one of your picks for something that ~might~ be marginally better then what you already have, and most likely will be worse.

Go with as much attack as you can cram in with Hexa. The 20% STR / MND WSC really makes those stats suck over all.

[Crimson_Slasher]

Roger that, see thats exactly why i didnt get the new axe ws, or the club ws, or dagger for that matter, for the jobs i have, exten would work best for nin. I dont have sam/drg/war so stardiver and shoha dont do much for me. Working on mock emps for bow, scythe, sword, katana, and hand to hand, but dunno if Victory beats shijin so ill have both and if its close enough, shijin will be demerited. As for whm club, i currently have 2 pretty poor clubs, Molva and an auged Vodun with 6 str. Considering doing a str club for offhand and a ws for mainhand or a mock emp there too maybe as i think it beats the ws club's base dmg. But dunno. But it comes down to a lot of the new ws dont really fit me. And while i understood WSC (drk for example used to be better whoring attack and acc for Guillotine but that has changed due to drk's base attack coming up so sharply) but i knew whm had an attack defficiency. And that said i also knew trying to mash attack into whm slots is even harder than trying to fit str into them!

Does present me with some troubles... But atleast i know what im looking at now!



Edit-
With the info presented i put together this, assuming someone like me who lacks AMKD, ACP, ASA addons, i used flora (Was considering tabin jupon but think flora might be better, but its likely really close)

http://www.ffxiah.com/item-sets/249827

It seems white mage, like redmage has trouble in the body/leg slots, and is only provided with 1 good melee leg slot (Damn you rubeus spats) so aside from cramming dex/crit/mnd (if any exist) in the legs/body slots, i opted for max str, this is by no means an everyman's build (its pricy as hell on my server coming in at around 4-5 mil, and i substituted in free gear where possible, see rings). Feet presented a problem with no attack options, str limited to RSE gear, i decided to go with 11 mnd as a potentially better increase over 3 str/dex and - mnd. Very hard to obtain, but if someone can manage all of this im sure their hexastrikes would begin to hit quite impressively, especially if they also swap the body for an appropriately augmented Royal redingnote. Feel free to check and critique it.

[Economizer]

A good part of this game is effort/reward. Sometimes if you don't care about top of the line you need to care about stuff like inventory space, cost to get, and other considerations.

For example, the WoE weapons (fake Empyreans) are not worth getting because they are all outdone by their 85 counterparts and take a bunch of effort.

Feel free to check and critique it.

You have to have a reasonable amount of effort/reward as well when making a set. For example, due to inventory issues or if you never did Salvage then you might find the WHM AF3+2 leggings have MND+8.

The WS gorget/belt are more impressive for Realmrazer then they are for Hexa Strike but are okay options. You may want to consider the Prosilio Belt however.

For hands you will probably be better with Healer Mitts +1 or Iuvenalis Mittens for MND/STR+7.

For the body you will probably want to use something else. Augur's Jaseran or the Rubeus Jacket comes to mind with MND+13, or the Praeco Doublet with MND+15. Or you could gear for accuracy with either the Reverend Mail (DEF:50 MP-25 MND-5 Accuracy+10 Evasion+10) or the Hydra Doublet (DEF:43 MP+40 Accuracy+10 Evasion+10 Enmity-9).

[Crimson_Slasher]

As a note, i already have the +2 orison duckbills, as well as hydra doublet, and praeco doublet. These are all things i had considered though, the procilio belt i had wondered about but i had thought that the benefits of the gorget/belt (which i own both of already actually!) would be more consistent and overall better, but dont have the belt and thus cant test. I did adhere to the rule that attack should improve whm's numbers more because as a rdm also i felt that a little str is also important but can be somewhat equalized with a propper boost spell. As for inventory issues, its a woe i am all too familiar with, but i constantly make sacrafices and find things that i had used for one task before that i dont need urgently for it later (Auger body over praeco for example). So if the ws set was something i wanted bad enough, id make sacrafices to have it. The only thing i didnt take into account was obtainability, because i was simply trying my hand at a "great" or "very good" whitemage weaponskill build based on information presented to me.

As for woe weapons over empyreans, i have friends who could help me obtain the empyreans, but most are on hiatus from ffxi, and i am literally sitting on the coins/crests/high crests for the woe weapons, and some nms (Chloris, Bukhis, ulhuadashi) are not worth my time to make multiple sets and pop for weeks on end. If i were making a greatsword/gun/greatkatana on the other hand, i would honestly just solo those, but as it is right now i am neither in the position to buy, nor make any other empyrean weapon until my friends return, while i already have the coins and materials to make the others. So for my time investment, the WOE weapons which i will have done to 90 the day i finish each's VNM path will provide me adequate performance over what i have for high-tier weaponskill linked weapons (Nothing). And to be totally clear, the coins i actually obtained in a rather timely manner while just enjoying myself in WOE, there was no effort to obtaining them for me so much as i simply got pouches and the only effort on my part was unbagging and not throwing them away.

I do appreciate the sentiment, and am well aware with which is better, but at the moment, i either take a WOE or go without for an undisclosed amount of time, and i cant be bothered to start a shout group to make the weapons either as i still have oh so much more to do (two jobs still 95+ but under 99 to level, skilling, missions, other key magian equipment, +2 items to collect for relic and emp gear...)

Im just working with the tools on hand is all.

[Alkimi]

Did some dynamis a few weeks back, mostly messing around with friends on EP orcs. Did about equal amount of both Hexa and Realmrazer and found RR to come out about 10% ahead on average. Hexa can spike higher though.

Setup I used for both:
Hexa Strike: http://www.ffxiah.com/item-sets/139083
Realmrazer: http://www.ffxiah.com/item-sets/242092

Obviously in Abyssea Hexa will stomp all over everything though.