Carraway's Guide to the New Archer: 1.18 and Beyond

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Originally Posted by carraway

40? You're right. So DEX+4/PIE+4 (+2 DEX from 1 II) vs. DEX+5 (+7 DEX from 1 IV) = Raptorskin Subligar wins still.

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lol yea, fixed it now :P Meant 40. I'm still rocking my Trousers with STR?DEX +9 melded on it. Really wish I could get that belt though.

Also, I'm really torn on whether I should get another harness made to meld it with PIE IV when I have one already doubled with +66 crit potency.

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Originally Posted by carraway

I'll go into it in more detail when I rewrite my guide, but for now:

Paragon's Crown
Raptorskin Harness (PIE)
Raptorskin Gloves of Slaying (DEX/ATK)
Flame Sergeant's Sash
Raptorskin Subligar (STR+DEX or VIT+DEX)
Cobalt-plated Caligae / Cobalt-plated Jackboots (HP)
Amethyst Ring x3

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Felt Bracers seem (at a glance) to be better than the gloves, depending on how good their PIE is.

Good call. PIE should be somewhere around 2:3 ratio to ATK, maybe slightly worse, but I'll need to do some testing to confirm.

(I posted that list hastily from work)

So, for those of us no where near getting Paragon, I'm seeing Rainmaker's Hat as the next-best. Or is Acc still useless, making Felt Cavalier the better choice (1 extra PIE)?

i was thinking along the lines of the woolen turban of invoking. it has 3 dex and 2 pty. if u consider dex/pty on equal scales, it has 5 points total, putting it on the same level as the felt cavalier's. but then dex also gives acc, so perhaps its a little better? hat slot has no useful materia, so this time u dont have to worry about the level of the piece :P

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Originally Posted by Hoplite

i was thinking along the lines of the woolen turban of invoking. it has 3 dex and 2 pty. if u consider dex/pty on equal scales, it has 5 points total, putting it on the same level as the felt cavalier's. but then dex also gives acc, so perhaps its a little better? hat slot has no useful materia, so this time u dont have to worry about the level of the piece :P

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Hmmm. . . but if we're gonna count Acc for anything at all, Dex contributes almost nothing to Accuracy compared to actual +Accuracy.

i guess what I was really trying to point out is the fact that by considering damage modifiers alone, it's superior to the rainmaker by having 1 extra point of modifier, but compared to the felt cavalier, it not only matches the damage modifiers, but it also grant whatever little accuracy dex provides. on a side note, I dun think arc has much accuracy issues at the moment.

Yeah, Woolen Turban of Invoking should theoretically be the next best choice. I've updated the original post with a bare-bones guide, but when I have the time to pretty it up, I will change the original post to a link to the guide on my shell's website.

Hi Carraway (and all),

Great guide. Thanks! :)

I had some questions / notes:

1. In your Guide, you list this:

Hands: Dexterity IV (STR+16~20) / Heaven's Fist IV (ATK+26~30)

I'm guessing the RED highlight above is a typo, and you meant "DEX+"? :)


2. I see no mention by anyone lately about Strength (STR). From the latest Patch 1.20 Notes, it lists STR as:

≪Parameters and Their Effects≫

Strength

• Attack Power

So is STR really useless for Archer? Thanks for the info! :)

Oh yeah, my bad. Sloppy copy&pasting.

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Originally Posted by carraway

Oh yeah, my bad. Sloppy copy&pasting.

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Hi carraway,

No worries. :) Great guide.

So do you have any thoughts on STR for Archer? Is it really a dead stat / not useful?

Thanks~

It does less than or the same as ATK, point-for-point. I need to do some testing to corroborate, but as far as I'm concerned, it's of very little value to an ARC.

Hi Carraway,

What do you think about Mercenary Leggings over Sipahi Crackows?

The attribute bonus info that was released for each class was listed as Auto-Attack bonuses. One thing I'm curious about is if these bonus stats, for instance DEX/PIE for Archer, enhance only the standard Light Shot or do they increase Weaponskill damage as well. Could it be that Weaponskill damage is still based off of STR?

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Originally Posted by ChubbyWubby

Hi Carraway,

What do you think about Mercenary Leggings over Sipahi Crackows?

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PIE instead of DEX and 1 less? Definitely worse, but really all of the footwear are so close to each other that it's not going to make a huge difference. However, because the Leggings are unmeldable and offer no DPS increase over meldable alternatives, I don't see a reason to use them at all. Might as well go with the Cobalt-plated Caligae or Jackboots and throw some +HP on them.

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Originally Posted by NoctisUmbra

The attribute bonus info that was released for each class was listed as Auto-Attack bonuses. One thing I'm curious about is if these bonus stats, for instance DEX/PIE for Archer, enhance only the standard Light Shot or do they increase Weaponskill damage as well. Could it be that Weaponskill damage is still based off of STR?

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I did some super-quick testing last night and my observation was that PIE was affecting WS damage as well. I'll do more in-depth testing when I have time, but I'm pretty sure PIE operates similarly for ARCs as it does for LNCs.

Don't forget PIE increases Enfeebling Magic with aids in the success of our WS debuffs landing.

Another reason no Archer should of spent any points in another but dex to 23, pie to 22

Noticed that you dont list Keen Flurry in the list of cross-class actions. Which action would you sub out for it? I'm thinking bloodbath.

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Originally Posted by Sigmakan

Noticed that you dont list Keen Flurry in the list of cross-class actions. Which action would you sub out for it? I'm thinking bloodbath.

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That is probably just an oversight. The usefulness of Keen Flurry on a skill like Quick Knock is so obvious.

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Originally Posted by Murugan

That is probably just an oversight. The usefulness of Keen Flurry on a skill like Quick Knock is so obvious.

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Oh I agree, I figured as much.

Barrage has a duration of over 50 seconds, I generally fire off my combos before firing it so their timers can start refreshing. (I also prebuff it when applicable)

Shadowbind/Piercing's damage versus many mobs (with lower defense like the DD/Mage Moogles) is so comparable to that of light shot, that it does not seem worth the extra time spent in animation to use the combo other than to bind, or when fighting high defense bosses only.

I don't know how much Bloodletter's DoT and endgame proc do exactly, but if it is anything significant I wouldn't overwrite it but instead have your archers alternate their combo rotation.

Though Bloodletter does a noticeable amount of damage again especially on high defense mobs, the difference diminishes between it and heavy/light shot on others with less defense. If you are only concerned about your own damage then the small difference it will make to not simply change the orders of your combo at the start (sacrificing maybe at most one less bloodletter in the entire fight? Or more likely 1/3rd or 1/2 of your timer on one bloodletter) might be a good idea.

However, you should consider the damage your group is losing out on by your playing with blinders on trying to get that meaningless #1 spot in the parse results.

edit: de-barbed (sorry it is late as I am writing this)

My advice concerning Bloodletter is with total group DPS in mind. With more than two archers in a group, staggering Bloodletters is a hugely inefficient way to go about the combo process, especially because every single archer needs to be riding every single cooldown in order to maximize personal DPS. And total group DPS is the sum of individual archers' DPS.

Right now on moogle our best archer is consistently peaking at around 100 DPS at the end of phase 1. Every archer should be pushing themselves to maximize individual performance in order to provide the most benefit to the group.

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Missing Keen Flurry on the list was definitely an oversight. I also changed the weapon recommendation to accommodate the changes to HQ structure and added -enmity as a possible materia choice.

Testing to-do list:

- Nail down exact effects of DEX, PIE, STR, and ATK on more than one range of mob; confirm DEX:ATK 2:3
- Double-check Blood for Blood contribution on ARC; based on brief testing by Peng, Blood for Blood appears to now be a flat damage increase across the board instead of the old multiplicative modifier for Ferocity as originally assumed

So, would it be better to use Blood for Blood on Light Shot, Barrage, or a WS? Does it even matter?

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Originally Posted by NoctisUmbra

So, would it be better to use Blood for Blood on Light Shot, Barrage, or a WS? Does it even matter?

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It doesn't seem to affect Barrage or Quick Nock meaning it most likely doesn't work for multihit abilties currently, not sure this is a bug or just the intended way it is supposed to work.

I would say if it is indeed 100 damage increase like i saw in the small amount of testing i did than using it on lightshot would probably be your best bet since it should always be available when BFB comes off cooldown where as most weaponskills wont be.

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Originally Posted by Penguin

It doesn't seem to affect Barrage or Quick Nock meaning it most likely doesn't work for multihit abilties currently, not sure this is a bug or just the intended way it is supposed to work.

I would say if it is indeed 100 damage increase like i saw in the small amount of testing i did than using it on lightshot would probably be your best bet since it should always be available when BFB comes off cooldown where as most weaponskills wont be.

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Good to know. I'll check it out myself in more detail. I was under the impression that BfB only boosted the first hit in multi-hit skills. If it is indeed a static 100 damage increase then Light Shot would be the way to go. If it's based on the base damage of the skill, it'd be better used to buff a WS - but sounds like that's not the case. I suppose it simply increases the damage you do on your next skill by a static number based on the level of the class you use it on.

Confirmed 100 for a level 50 then?

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Originally Posted by NoctisUmbra

Good to know. I'll check it out myself in more detail. I was under the impression that BfB only boosted the first hit in multi-hit skills. If it is indeed a static 100 damage increase then Light Shot would be the way to go. If it's based on the base damage of the skill, it'd be better used to buff a WS - but sounds like that's not the case. I suppose it simply increases the damage you do on your next skill by a static number based on the level of the class you use it on.

Confirmed 100 for a level 50 then?

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I only tested it on maybe 100 hits because of the 1 minute cooldown and because i am super lazy.

But from that small sample size it seemed to be around 90-100 damage increase, i tested it on lightshot, heavy shot, piercing shot, leaden arrow and wide volley and even though wide volleys average was 400 points higher than light shots the increase from using BFB was still 90-100 damage on both.

Also i thought BFB increased the first hit in multihit abilties aswell but after testing i found it didn't seem to increase the damage of any of the hits, as i said not sure if this is a bug or intended.

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Originally Posted by Penguin

Also i thought BFB increased the first hit in multihit abilties aswell but after testing i found it didn't seem to increase the damage of any of the hits, as i said not sure if this is a bug or intended.

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Might I suggest that the buff maybe is being shared by each hit on multi-hit skills. So for Barrage, it's 30-33 increase per hit, and quick nock its ~20 each hit - making it not as easy to notice as it may fall into the standard deviation.

Also, thanks for the testing. Much appreciated.

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Originally Posted by NoctisUmbra

Might I suggest that the buff maybe is being shared by each hit on multi-hit skills. So for Barrage, it's 30-33 increase per hit, and quick nock its ~20 each hit - making it not as easy to notice as it may fall into the standard deviation.

Also, thanks for the testing. Much appreciated.

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That is what i thought at first and so mainly used it on quick nock but even if its a 20 damage per hit increase it just wasn't noticeable on any of my moogle kills and would probably require a decent amount of testing to figure out.

Barrage is also 5 hits so it should be 20 damage per hit aswell.

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Originally Posted by Penguin

That is what i thought at first and so mainly used it on quick nock but even if its a 20 damage per hit increase it just wasn't noticeable on any of my moogle kills and would probably require a decent amount of testing to figure out.

Barrage is also 5 hits so it should be 20 damage per hit aswell.

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Ah, right. Can't get Trifurcate out of my head.

BFB was doing +75 damage for me today on moogles comparing 1 light shot to the next, but I am full STR I guess maybe a modifier? Was +100 on the key pop items for some reason.

Btw I clocked DPS in Phase1 with my full STR/Atk build and got to 74 DPS (slightly messing up rotation). Perfect rotation I could get to 82-84 probably but nothing higher than that. (298 STR, 268 DEX, 545 ATK)

Going to regear full DEX/PIE and note the differences.

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Originally Posted by carraway

Testing to-do list:

- Nail down exact effects of DEX, PIE, STR, and ATK on more than one range of mob; confirm DEX:ATK 2:3
- Double-check Blood for Blood contribution on ARC; based on brief testing by Peng, Blood for Blood appears to now be a flat damage increase across the board instead of the old multiplicative modifier for Ferocity as originally assumed

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carraway,

You are an invaluable asset to the community. Thanks so much for testing! :)

I look forward to this. :)

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Originally Posted by NoctisUmbra

The attribute bonus info that was released for each class was listed as Auto-Attack bonuses. One thing I'm curious about is if these bonus stats, for instance DEX/PIE for Archer, enhance only the standard Light Shot or do they increase Weaponskill damage as well. Could it be that Weaponskill damage is still based off of STR?

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I assume that PIE and DEX boost both Light shot and WS damage, but I notice that each Parameters effect also is listed into the auto attack damage for each class.

Copied from patch notes:

Dexterity

* Accuracy
* Block Rate
* Parry
* Damage dealt by archer arms

Piety

* Magic Evasion
* Enfeebling Magic Potency
* Maximum MP
* Damage dealt by archer, lancer, thaumaturge, and conjurer arms


The parameters are listed to boost the damage of Archer arms, as well as Auto attack damage. So I am wondering this myself as well

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Originally Posted by carraway

My advice concerning Bloodletter is with total group DPS in mind. With more than two archers in a group, staggering Bloodletters is a hugely inefficient way to go about the combo process, especially because every single archer needs to be riding every single cooldown in order to maximize personal DPS. And total group DPS is the sum of individual archers' DPS.

Right now on moogle our best archer is consistently peaking at around 100 DPS at the end of phase 1. Every archer should be pushing themselves to maximize individual performance in order to provide the most benefit to the group.

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Missing Keen Flurry on the list was definitely an oversight. I also changed the weapon recommendation to accommodate the changes to HQ structure and added -enmity as a possible materia choice.

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I don't know how you even begin to defend that. That is quite simply ridiculous. There would literally be no difference in the # of bloodletters in the fight unless it ended in the wrong 15 seconds.

Archer 1 combo rotation:
QK/WV/BL

archer 2 Combo rotation

QK/BL/WV

ARcher 3 Combo rotation

BL/QK/WV

After that they continue to hit their combos every refresh. They have the same numbers of those specials as all other archers, the difference to their personal damage is minimal. Pretty easy to do.

100 DPS overall is a pretty insignificant stat, but if your goal was to try and impress me with that number you did not. Between 80-100 DPS is easy enough to pull off during the first phase. I'm regularly in that range despite not having near the gear you do. Though I attribute that to my pre-buffing Barrage and other things I do which you may not. Maybe the cap for archer "DPS" is more close to 120 with ideal gear/play.

However, DPS numbers on a multi mob fight are pretty irrelevant.

You are sacrificing the DoT (which we do not know how much damage it does, but tests in past patches showed it was significant), you are sacrificing the end burst which most definitely is significant.


:Whiskerwall Kupdi Koop suffers 570 points of damage from Bloodletter

Yeah... but hey keep telling yourself that your "increased personal damage" is more important than staggering for a free 570 damage and a DoT on the highest defense mob in the fight (which btw is quite a bit more than bloodletter itself does against the guy).


Just like how BR's were a total waste of time right Carraway? You got it all figured out, and I'm sure you manage fine with all the archers in your group slapping their dicks on each other's faces to get that ultra parse. My comments are merely directed at the readers of your guide who might want to you know play with the other people in their group, and not against them.

No reason to make it personal; I don't even have an Ifrit's Bow or Mogbow.

But if you have more than two archers, you are going to slip on the Bloodletter cooldown (80s, staggered by 30s = fine for two archers, not fine for three archers). And if all three archers are slipping on a cooldown by 10s, I don't see how the gain from Bloodletter procs makes up for the loss in personal DPS. As far as I can tell, Bloodletter does zero damage during the debuff and still just procs the ending damage.

I acknowledged the power of BRs once you proved it. I have no issues admitting when I'm wrong. But we're all trying to maximize overall damage output.

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Originally Posted by carraway

No reason to make it personal; I don't even have an Ifrit's Bow or Mogbow.

But if you have more than two archers, you are going to slip on the Bloodletter cooldown (80s, staggered by 30s = fine for two archers, not fine for three archers). And if all three archers are slipping on a cooldown by 10s, I don't see how the gain from Bloodletter procs makes up for the loss in personal DPS. As far as I can tell, Bloodletter does zero damage during the debuff and still just procs the ending damage.

I acknowledged the power of BRs once you proved it. I have no issues admitting when I'm wrong. But we're all trying to maximize overall damage output.

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Why would you assume it does 0 damage just because it doesn't show up in the log? Tests on Batraal and deepvoid showed that the Bloodletter DoT did significant damage.

579 damage on WHISKERWALL is 100-200 more damage than bloodletter itself is doing, it requires no animation. Frankly I find your reasoning for stressing over cooldowns (once again) to be needless. Yes you want to keep everything on cooldown, but I can manage that for the most part just fine without overwriting an existing bloodletter buff. The damage from Bloodletter is good (especially on Whiskerwall) but it falls off on most moogles. So even skipping it on moogles like pomburner and pukna will make a negligible difference in your personal DPS while you can gain thousands of damage over the course of the encounter through bloodletter.

If you require proof fix your parser so that it shows bloodletter end damage in a line by itself, and try staggering to see the difference. There is no difference between now and 1.18 in regards to bloodletter. The end damage+DoT when it lands is still higher (for the most part, maybe not on many low defense moogles though but people can apply some logic on their own without having to rely on a static "rotation" in all situations) than the shot itself.

The free TP damage from Combos is nice yes. But I've proof positive through parses that you can parse similar numbers even neglecting the piercing lines completely (as an archer in my LS proved) if all you are concerned about is "overall DPS". The only time that combo damage really shows its full strength that would necessitate maybe disregarding everything else is against the high defense moogles because light shot damage falls off so quickly when calculating your attack versus their defense.

For the most part however, when you are giving advice to endgame archers the damage of the many outweighs the damage of you. You are under the assumption that somehow a five players playing a set blindered rotation (no matter how much min/max experience they have) gives you an advantage over if you would try actually coordinating your DD. People proved the fallacy of this line of thinking to you once, but yet you still cling to it.

You may not need it to beat fights, but this is a guide and you are quite frankly offering ill advice by once again offhandedly disregarding group mechanics because you personally in BG are already capable of trivializing fights without it.

Show me some actual evidence, not anecdotal garbage about "personal DPS" that it represents a significant loss by showing evidence that you cannot fire as many bloodletters during the encounter by simply staggering 20 seconds at the beginning. Because it would have to be 2-3 bloodletters to overcome the damage gained through the DoT and end bursts and unless you are purposely sabotaging your own parses that is impossible.

Calm down, Murugan. Relax.

I'm with Carraway on this one. In the time of Batraal and Ogre it made sense, what with the damage Archer dealt coming primarily from Light Shot by a large margin Bloodletter was really the only thing to stagger and it was easy enough to do on a single target with 4-5 Archers even.

It's different now however. Setting aside the fact that you already have to be mindful of so many things, Archer's damage no longer primarily comes from Light Shots - not nearly to the extent as it used to - and with the combo system we have now DPS is increased through efficient TP use by managing combo WS cooldowns well.

The typical Moogle fight now has 4-5 Archers that converge on one moogle at a time. If you've got 2 Archers holding off on using their available Bloodletter at the end of a combo to prevent overwriting, you've already lost the amount of damage the end damage will proc.

One thing I can understand, however, is perhaps having the Archers agree upon a certain order to which they execute their 3 main combos. This way, if all 3 Archers use the Bloodletter combo on the same Moogle at the same time and move onto other combos, the last Bloodletter that procs on the target will be able to go all the way to end damage. The problem with that is, various aspects of the fight requiring you to bind certain Moogles or kite other ones at certain times will offset such synchronization, making it no longer an efficient choice.

As for the GLA or MRD Moogles, dealing with them with the use of a THM in the party is much more efficient than any amount of Bloodletter staggering you can come up with.

In conclusion, it's not that attempting to stagger Bloodletters is a bad thing, or that it will drop party DPS by a heavy amount or any such thing. Simply put, in it most efficient use throughout the Moogle fight, it essentially matches the DPS output of a band of archers freely managing their cooldowns; it does not surpass it.

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Originally Posted by NoctisUmbra

Calm down, Murugan. Relax.

I'm with Carraway on this one. In the time of Batraal and Ogre it made sense, what with the damage Archer dealt coming primarily from Light Shot by a large margin Bloodletter was really the only thing to stagger and it was easy enough to do on a single target with 4-5 Archers even.

It's different now however. Setting aside the fact that you already have to be mindful of so many things, Archer's damage no longer primarily comes from Light Shots - not nearly to the extent as it used to - and with the combo system we have now DPS is increased through efficient TP use by managing combo WS cooldowns well.

The typical Moogle fight now has 4-5 Archers that converge on one moogle at a time. If you've got 2 Archers holding off on using their available Bloodletter at the end of a combo to prevent overwriting, you've already lost the amount of damage the end damage will proc.

One thing I can understand, however, is perhaps having the Archers agree upon a certain order to which they execute their 3 main combos. This way, if all 3 Archers use the Bloodletter combo on the same Moogle at the same time and move onto other combos, the last Bloodletter that procs on the target will be able to go all the way to end damage. The problem with that is, various aspects of the fight requiring you to bind certain Moogles or kite other ones at certain times will offset such synchronization, making it no longer an efficient choice.

As for the GLA or MRD Moogles, dealing with them with the use of a THM in the party is much more efficient than any amount of Bloodletter staggering you can come up with.

In conclusion, it's not that attempting to stagger Bloodletters is a bad thing, or that it will drop party DPS by a heavy amount or any such thing. Simply put, in it most efficient use throughout the Moogle fight, it essentially matches the DPS output of a band of archers freely managing their cooldowns; it does not surpass it.

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How do you back that up?

You have ~571 damage regardless of defense and an unknown amount of DoT damage. If it is up you simply don't overwrite it, or by staggering by 20 seconds at the start since Carraway is convinced the secret to Archer damage is strictly following a set rotation, and never missing a second (which I'm confused because you seem unable to do according to the bolded part above) you can still do that. I don't think that is quite as important to Archer damage as knowing when to do what moves, but that's my opinion that I back up with the belief that:

• 571 + DoT damage is a higher number than 200 which is honestly the most that you can "miss out on" by losing a bloodletter.
  
• Except that I really don't feel I lose any bloodletters, since my bloodletter timers doesn't generally line up with the exact start/finish of the fight anyways so the time it takes me to stagger or not use the weapon skill if a Bloodletter DoT is on the mob is in fact not affecting my overall damage at all.
  
  Maybe if in the process of looking at a mob to determine if it had bloodletter, or even /telling an archer an order for us to use bloodletter I fell out of my chair and hit my head on something I could see me totally missing a full cooldown's worth of that red hot gotta-have it bloodletter front end damage action.

But your argument is that you can't do that because you instead somehow lose over 571+ damage through some as yet unexplained way. So I'm guessing you also believe it is completely stupid not to use Bloodletter if it is available and the Moogle you are fighting is about to die (even though you have others right after it)?

And this is a guideline that you two believe all endgame archers should follow?

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Originally Posted by Murugan

How do you back that up?

You have ~571 damage regardless of defense and an unknown amount of DoT damage. If it is up you simply don't overwrite it, or by staggering by 20 seconds at the start since Carraway is convinced the secret to Archer damage is strictly following a set rotation, and never missing a second (which I'm confused because you seem unable to do according to the bolded part above) you can still do that. I don't think that is quite as important to Archer damage as knowing when to do what moves, but that's my opinion that I back up with the belief that:

• 571 + DoT damage is a higher number than 200 which is honestly the most that you can "miss out on" by losing a bloodletter.
  
• Except that I really don't feel I lose any bloodletters, since my bloodletter timers doesn't generally line up with the exact start/finish of the fight anyways so the time it takes me to stagger or not use the weapon skill if a Bloodletter DoT is on the mob is in fact not affecting my overall damage at all.
  
  Maybe if in the process of looking at a mob to determine if it had bloodletter, or even /telling an archer an order for us to use bloodletter I fell out of my chair and hit my head on something I could see me totally missing a full cooldown's worth of that red hot gotta-have it bloodletter front end damage action.

But your argument is that you can't do that because you instead somehow lose over 571+ damage through some as yet unexplained way. So I'm guessing you also believe it is completely stupid not to use Bloodletter if it is available and the Moogle you are fighting is about to die (even though you have others right after it)?

And this is a guideline that you two believe all endgame archers should follow?

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First off, discount the DoT. Overwriting Bloodletter makes you miss out on the end damage, however the DoT is kept up. The DoT itself is of no consequence to this very debate as both sides involve having it up. This discussion pertains to the worth of the end damage.

Nowhere do I say that one should never pay any attention to the mob's debuffs and make decisions throughout the fight. There are many reasons to hold off on cooldowns - sometimes without a choice even - so if a Moogle is about to die and you have Bloodletter available it would be stupid to waste it on that Moogle.

What I am against is going well out of your way for the end damage. If you use Bloodletter on a Moogle and no other archer happens to have it available to use for the duration of it's DoT, the end damage will proc anyway. If you have Archers with all their cooldowns on their combos used up and are up to Bloodletter, them deciding not to use it because of overwriting is 200+ damage that didn't happen. This holding back, provided the Moogle isn't about to drop dead, already decreases the worth of that Bloodletter end damage by 200+. If during any given DoT duration, 2 archers held back on hitting Bloodletter for this very reason, you already basically broke even with Bloodletter.

Now, Bloodletter has an 80 second cooldown and is not the preferred WS on which to use Keen Flurry. Considering that, as well as the relatively short duration of the DoT it inflicts, you would require an ironically well-timed staggering of coincidental Bloodletter overwrites to make it so a Moogle does not get hit by that end damage. More often than not, Archers will hit their Bloodletters seconds apart, and this will allow the Moogle to suffer that end damage.

The point is, while the end damage of Bloodletter is a delicious-sounding 570~, it is only worth it if you're not reducing your DPS to allow it. Reducing DPS to increase DPS is ridiculous. If you can find a way to have all the Archers in the party manage the Bloodletter DoT on each Moogle without overwriting it, and do so without ever having to hold back on their DPS and Damage per TP, then the more power to you. To each his own.

My LS has Moogle on farm basically at this point, with our kills having become much swifter and smoother, and we do so not paying extra mind to the upkeep of Bloodletter for end damage. There may be fights where it will matter a great deal - Thornmarch isn't one of those.

Just an FYI while i was testing BFB i was also using bloodletter and at no point did it do "dot" damage, the only damage bloodletter does is still the end tick after 30 seconds.

Also i can personally see Bloodletter giving a higher benefit if staggered when using 2 archers and on a fight with only 1 enemy or on extremely high defense enemies where weaponskills are doing far less damage, however on the moogle fight i think if you are bringing 4-5 archers like we do and most LS's do than organizing a rotation that wont overall lower the parties damage output would take a decent amount of practice and in most cases will barely break even with having all archers just spam cooldowns.

Most moogles in phase 1 for us die too fast for Bloodletter to take effect the main benefit would be in phase 2 where the moogles generally take longer to die due to kiting and controlling the fight, coordinating a Bloodletter rotation during this time would just be a hindrance to most peoples tactics.

I agree though that if you see Bloodletter is currently up on the target and has been for a while you are better off holding off that Bloodletter for a while, but with the hectic nature of phase 2 that can be tricky even for the most experienced archers especially when you are focusing more on winning the fight and not winning the Bloodletter dot damage award.

Peng and NoctisUmbra voiced my exact thoughts and reasoning.