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

Right on, thanks for the info.

Hey Carraway, I was going to write another testing/results thread for bard but I'll just make a note here.

PIE caps around 330-335 with a rate of roughly 0.55 dDamage/dPIE.

DEX caps around 295-300 with a rate of roughly 0.7 dDamage/dDEX.

Attack has no feasible cap and a similar rate to DRG/WAR/MNK of roughly 0.36 dDamage/dATK.

STR has no feasible cap and a rate of roughly 0.23-0.25 dDamage/dSTR.

Tested on R52 Halberdiers with Light Shot and Heavy Shot. Here is the raw data (needs to be tidied up a bit~)

Important to note though, Light Shot is one of Bard's main damaging abilities. Light Shot is capped VERY early on with DEX/PIE. I'm planning to test on higher ranked mobs later this week to see how the stats' rates change. And depending on that, I'll make a suggestion on which stat to focus on.

Hope this helps~

Seiken

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/...pQ2RjWXc#gid=0

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by carraway

Great read, testing with excellent methodology by Seiken. If we extrapolate with DEX replacing STR, DEX to ~350 then going for ATK with incidental PIE sounds like the way to go.

---

I think the correlation is more likely to be to LNC:STR:PIE::ARC:PIE:DEX. As you recall, DEX didn't affect ARC WS damage, just as PIE did not affect LNC WS damage.

So the general theme should still be the same: high PIE, high ATK, DEX (and STR) where you can.

So a decent/BiS "Rich Man's" set for BRD would be:

Head: Paragon's Crown
Weapon: Ifrit's Bow
Body: AF
Waist: Scarlet Sash
Hands: ATK x3 Fingerless Raptorskin Gloves of Slaying
Legs: AF (could meld PIE onto a pair of trousers, but Paeon boost is too good)
Feet: Darklight Boots
Accessories: HQ Spinel set (can exchange for Tourmaline if PIE is a better substitute), HQ Electrum Gorget, Explorer's Earrings

So the final stats would be STR 213, DEX 306, PIE 299, ATK 586+ (dependent on meld)

Please correct me if I'm mistaken!

Yeah I'm still trying to brainstorm the best build as well, but one thing about the AF bonuses is that they last for the duration of the ability even if you unequip the AF. For example, you have Bard AF gloves for Minuet of Rigor. You cast Minuet of Rigor and get +43 Accuracy. You unequip the AF. You still have +43 accuracy for the duration of Minuet. I know people dread "gear swapping". But this would be once every 3 minutes, so it's not that bad.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by TheFatHousecat

So a decent/BiS "Rich Man's" set for BRD would be:

Head: Paragon's Crown
Weapon: Ifrit's Bow
Body: AF
Waist: Scarlet Sash
Hands: ATK x3 Fingerless Raptorskin Gloves of Slaying
Legs: AF (could meld PIE onto a pair of trousers, but Paeon boost is too good)
Feet: Darklight Boots
Accessories: HQ Spinel set (can exchange for Tourmaline if PIE is a better substitute), HQ Electrum Gorget, Explorer's Earrings

So the final stats would be STR 213, DEX 306, PIE 299, ATK 586+ (dependent on meld)

Please correct me if I'm mistaken!

---

Well the goal then is to get dex to 300, then Pie to 330, with the rest in ATK/STR.


Head: Darklight Eye Patch, Paragon's Crown
Weapon: Ifrit's Bow
Body: Rainmakers Tunic with 2x Piety, Darklight Corselet
Waist: Flame Sergent Sash, Scarlet Sash
Hands: ATK x3 Fingerless Raptorskin Gloves of Slaying, or Felt Gloves
Legs: Felt Trousers with 2x str/dex
Feet: Darklight Caligae, Darklight Boots, Explorers Moccasins
Accessories: HQ Spinel set (can exchange for Tourmaline if PIE is a better substitute), HQ Electrum Gorget, Explorer's Earrings, 4 dex or 4 pie bracelet

This should let you interchange to have 300 dex, 330 pie and around 650 atk

Thanks a ton for the updates, Seiken and others. I'm still pretty busy when I'm not in-game but I will do my best to incorporate everyone's findings into a new guide sooner rather than later (I know I keep on saying this...sorry!)

edit: Seiken, do you have somewhere where all of your findings are collected in articles? You and Kaeko are really doing a service to the community. When I update my guide, I'd like to incorporate some knowledge from your findings with a link and credit to you and your shell.

Kaeko has his live journal kanican.livejournal.com that has a lot of his stuff and stuff we've worked on together (Crit testing, Def/Vit etc). I haven't really consolidated all the testing I've done into one location, but I'm thinking of starting to use the Lodestone blog and just put everything I've done since 1.20 in there.

And glad my testing is being useful!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Seiken

Hey Carraway, I was going to write another testing/results thread for bard but I'll just make a note here.

PIE caps around 330-335 with a rate of roughly 0.55 dDamage/dPIE.

DEX caps around 295-300 with a rate of roughly 0.7 dDamage/dDEX.

Attack has no feasible cap and a similar rate to DRG/WAR/MNK of roughly 0.36 dDamage/dATK.

STR has no feasible cap and a rate of roughly 0.23-0.25 dDamage/dSTR.

Tested on R52 Halberdiers with Light Shot and Heavy Shot. Here is the raw data (needs to be tidied up a bit~)

Important to note though, Light Shot is one of Bard's main damaging abilities. Light Shot is capped VERY early on with DEX/PIE. I'm planning to test on higher ranked mobs later this week to see how the stats' rates change. And depending on that, I'll make a suggestion on which stat to focus on.

Hope this helps~

Seiken

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/...pQ2RjWXc#gid=0

---

First I'd like to say to both you and Carraway thank you so much for posting information like this, and for all the time you've poured into testing this stuff out.. I have some questions and pardon my insolence if they are stupid questions :b

So let us take two bows, Ifrit's Bow and NQ Crab bow, please let me know if I am doing anything wrong..

Ifrit's Bow: DMG: 102, ATK Power +30
Crab Bow: DMG: 87, ATK Power +15, ACC + 10 DEX+35 (Double Melded)

dDMG = 15 dATK = 15 dACC = -10

Now, considering your findings @ DEX being 0.7dDMG/dDEX, this should put me @ (0.7*35) = +24.5 DMG on the crab bow, making bringing it's total output to +111.5DMG.. Is that correct?

Also, comparing the ATK bonus to your findings, which on Ifrit's Bow adds 10.8 dmg, compared to 5.4, which should bring us to these final values:

Ifrit's Bow DMG+112.8
Crab Bow DMG+116.4

Is this theoretically correct? Or am I completely off my horse? Is the dDmg in your findings the actual dmg done to mob or the dmg stat attached to each weapon?

Also you say Light shot is capped very early, does that mean <280 stat?

Again, thank you for all of this :)

Sorry for the confusion; I've been using some poor terminology. When I gave a rate of 0.7dDamage/dDEX, I was implying that you do 0.7 more damage points on the mob. The actual "Damage" stat that you see on weapons is a completely different stat/term. The "Damage" stat on weapons is not the dDamage I was referring to in 0.7 dDamage/dDEX.

If I am talking about a change in the weapon "Damage" stat, I will usually use dDMG or DMG.

Hope this helps clear things up!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Seiken

Sorry for the confusion; I've been using some poor terminology. When I gave a rate of 0.7dDamage/dDEX, I was implying that you do 0.7 more damage points on the mob. The actual "Damage" stat that you see on weapons is a completely different stat/term. The "Damage" stat on weapons is not the dDamage I was referring to in 0.7 dDamage/dDEX.

If I am talking about a change in the weapon "Damage" stat, I will usually use dDMG or DMG.

Hope this helps clear things up!

---

Indeed it does, thank you for clearing that up! :)

Sorry if this is a bit late. As was suggested earlier by Seiken, the "dreaded" macros are an option. For those that dont mind the extra couple seconds of waits every 3 minutes for the flexibility of DD/AF gear, you might give it a go.

/battlemode off
/wait 1
/equip body "Choral Shirt"
/wait 1
/action "Ballad of Magi" <me>
/wait 6
/equip body "Raptorskin Harness"
/battlemode on

Your mileage may vary with /wait durations, but this setup has been working flawlessly for me for the last couple weeks. Just rinse and repeat for Minuet/Paeon with the respective AF pieces.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by cataclysm

Sorry if this is a bit late. As was suggested earlier by Seiken, the "dreaded" macros are an option. For those that dont mind the extra couple seconds of waits every 3 minutes for the flexibility of DD/AF gear, you might give it a go.

/battlemode off
/wait 1
/equip body "Choral Shirt"
/wait 1
/action "Ballad of Magi" <me>
/wait 6
/equip body "Raptorskin Harness"
/battlemode on

Your mileage may vary with /wait durations, but this setup has been working flawlessly for me for the last couple weeks. Just rinse and repeat for Minuet/Paeon with the respective AF pieces.

---

... and so it begins...

*shudder*

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by cataclysm

Sorry if this is a bit late. As was suggested earlier by Seiken, the "dreaded" macros are an option. For those that dont mind the extra couple seconds of waits every 3 minutes for the flexibility of DD/AF gear, you might give it a go.

/battlemode off
/wait 1
/equip body "Choral Shirt"
/wait 1
/action "Ballad of Magi" <me>
/wait 6
/equip body "Raptorskin Harness"
/battlemode on

Your mileage may vary with /wait durations, but this setup has been working flawlessly for me for the last couple weeks. Just rinse and repeat for Minuet/Paeon with the respective AF pieces.

---

Been using this macro for body and pants and it works great, thanks for putting it up!

While buffing in the circle pre-Mistress pop I use the Ballad macro so I don't have to switch bodies mid-fight. Then at the start of the fight, during Battle Voice/Paeon (mages don't get overwritten since they're in the back), I switch the pants really quickly. It's not as much as a pain as it might seem ;3

Just did a basic overhaul of the guide and edited the original post in this thread accordingly. There are still a lot of gaps in my own understanding, so any additions or corrections would be more than appreciated. I play several jobs on a regular basis, not just BRD, so I might've missed some things.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by carraway

Just did a basic overhaul of the guide and edited the original post in this thread accordingly. There are still a lot of gaps in my own understanding, so any additions or corrections would be more than appreciated. I play several jobs on a regular basis, not just BRD, so I might've missed some things.

---

You may want to take this part out, or edit it to reflect Archer and not Brd. (Since Brd can't have keen flurry anymore)

"- Quick Nock outdamages every other WS by far, and Keen Flurry should be saved so that it can always be applied to Quick Nock."

Oh yeah, my bad. Thanks for pointing that out.

Fixed a few minor mistakes and clarified some gear choices.

Looks like with good gear (x2 melds in applicable slots, HQ jewelry, Ifrit's Bow, etc.) BRDs should be pushing 110ish stationary DPS on Miser's Mistress. This is with BV Paeon. The number drops substantially if you need to support with cures/stoneskins, of course.

Thanks a lot for this carraway!

Is there a guide for MNK?

MNK is a class I'm really bad at. ^^;;;

Forgive me if I missed it, I did search but came up short with nothing but a bunch of PLD talk. Is there anywhere a pretty clear point allocation listed? On LNC it seemed that capping STR and then putting the remainder into PIE was pretty much it, however with STR also having a bearing on BRD I'm a bit at a loss. Should I put only points into DEX and PIE and then meld STR? I see the caps and diminishing returns, but from a base stat allocation view is what I'm looking for.

Thanks in advance for any help!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Sumii

Forgive me if I missed it, I did search but came up short with nothing but a bunch of PLD talk. Is there anywhere a pretty clear point allocation listed? On LNC it seemed that capping STR and then putting the remainder into PIE was pretty much it, however with STR also having a bearing on BRD I'm a bit at a loss. Should I put only points into DEX and PIE and then meld STR? I see the caps and diminishing returns, but from a base stat allocation view is what I'm looking for.

Thanks in advance for any help!

---

Put your points into dex then Pie. (You can also do pie then dex, but either is fine)

Dex caps at 300 for ws damage with an Ifrit bow and Piety caps at 330.

After that you want Atk or str. Str falls into the 3:2 ratio of 3str=2atk. It is easier to add atk and this is why carraway suggest you meld it to your gloves.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Meatdawg

Put your points into dex then Pie. (You can also do pie then dex, but either is fine)

Dex caps at 300 for ws damage with an Ifrit bow and Piety caps at 330.

After that you want Atk or str. Str falls into the 3:2 ratio of 3str=2atk. It is easier to add atk and this is why carraway suggest you meld it to your gloves.

---

Thanks I just wanted to make sure before I messed up my Keepers of the Hymn...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by carraway

Fixed a few minor mistakes and clarified some gear choices.

Looks like with good gear (x2 melds in applicable slots, HQ jewelry, Ifrit's Bow, etc.) BRDs should be pushing 110ish stationary DPS on Miser's Mistress. This is with BV Paeon. The number drops substantially if you need to support with cures/stoneskins, of course.

---

The guide still needs a tweak in regards to the proper usage of Quelling Strike's additional bonus. Doing a raw Raging Strike > Quelling Strike > Light Shot provides no additional TP aside from the 450 from Quelling Strike. Like Spider-Dan mentioned earlier, Raging Strike needs to be "charged up" with Light Shots (3 to max it) then Quelling Strike should be used. Activating Quelling Strike at that point gives you 300 TP. It's not really an issue mid-fight since Raging Strike will most likely already be maxed out.

That's what I meant, but I recognize that it was unclear the way it was written. I fixed it, thanks.

Normally, I solve the problem by opening my battles with Raging Strike -> Barrage -> fire Barrage -> Quelling Strike -> Light Shot -> Raging Strike.

I've been having a little trouble trying to understand the Raging Strike mechanic. Do you have to reuse it after a certain point or does it start itself over after a miss/kill? I thought you could just leave it up, so I'm curious why you use it again.

Sorry I couldn't find the answer anywhere else.

@Aern,

You want to use it after hitting a Light Shot with Quelling Strike Buff. Because Quelling Strike cancels out Raging Strike.

So basically, as Spider-Dan says, use Quelling Strike, Light Shot, Raging Strike.

Ah that makes sense. I just got Quelling Strike and until I used it I didn't know it cancels Raging Strike. Thanks!

Right. You charge Raging Strike by using Light Shots, consume it with Quelling Strike, then put it up again after firing the Quelling Light Shot.

Quote:

---

Weapon: Ifrit's Bow > Mischievous Mogbow

---

Is it still true ?

They added the DPS with the 1.22 and we can see :
- Ifrit's Bow = 36,74
- Mischievous Mogbow = 37.14

I never realized how close the stats were for Ifrit/Mog bow.

Ifrit's
DMG: 102
Delay: 4.3

Mog
DMG: 100
Delay: 4.2

So that .1 difference in delay adds .4 to your DPS? If that's the case the Garuda melee weapons may not be as crappy as initially thought.

Of course this is strictly auto-attack.

It's not only the delay, you have to count the base dmg too :

DPS = (Damage of the bow + Damage value of the strongest ammunition at the bow's required level [excluding HQ]) / Delay

But yes, the garuda weapons seems not too bad at the end if you look the DPS :
- Ifrit's Bow = 36.74
- Mischievous Mogbow = 37.14
- Garuda's Spine = 40.96

My problem with the DPS is that the weapons (ifrit and mog) didnt change between the 1.21 and the 1.22, and everyone said that ifrit > moogle weapons. Does that mean that ppl were wrong or does that mean that we dont have to care about the DPS and only about the base dmg ?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Gael

It's not only the delay, you have to count the base dmg too :

DPS = (Damage of the bow + Damage value of the strongest ammunition at the bow's required level [excluding HQ]) / Delay

But yes, the garuda weapons seems not too bad at the end if you look the DPS :
- Ifrit's Bow = 36.74
- Mischievous Mogbow = 37.14
- Garuda's Spine = 40.96

My problem with the DPS is that the weapons (ifrit and mog) didnt change between the 1.21 and the 1.22, and everyone said that ifrit > moogle weapons. Does that mean that ppl were wrong or does that mean that we dont have to care about the DPS and only about the base dmg ?

---

dps numbers dont mean anything on weapons, the highest damage rating is gonna be applied to your WS, ws are on cooldowns so you want them hitting as hard as they can every time.

DPS is only AA/Light shot. So every time you do a weaponskill/Change mob/Move/Buff/ect. The number changes. Things die way too fast or move too much right now for A lower delay weapon to beat a higher dmg one. In a game like this Where you do combo's most of the time. A 1-2 increase in DPS simply won't beat the pure dmg from a higher base weapon and higher Weaponskills.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Xianghua

DPS is only AA. So every time you do a weaponskill/Change mob/Move/Buff/ect. The number changes. Things die way too fast or move too much right now for A lower delay weapon to beat a higher dmg one. In a game like this Where you do combo's most of the time. A 1-2 increase in DPS simply won't beat the pure dmg from a higher base weapon and higher Weaponskills.

---

the dps is AA only, i thought it was based off the damage stat+delay and affected light shot?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by syntaxlies

the dps is AA only, i thought it was based off the damage stat+delay and affected light shot?

---

My bad it effects light shot for brd.
Yes it's calculated by dmg / delay = dps

But It only matters if you just did Auto attack/Light shot the entire fight. As soon as you start doing other things the numbers change

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Xianghua

My bad it effects light shot for brd.
Yes it's based off dmg/delay.

But It only matters if you just did Auto attack/Light shot the entire fight.

---

so are you saying the damage stat does not apply to WS moves?If so id have to test a weathered bow and see if i still WS the same damage.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by syntaxlies

so are you saying the damage stat does not apply to WS moves?If so id have to test a weathered bow and see if i still WS the same damage.

---

Huh where did I say that?

DPS is Damage / delay = dps.

It does not take other stats or weapon skills. The DPS stat only goes towards Auto-attack/Light shot. DMG itself affects both Auto-Attack/Lightshot and Weapons skills to. Which is the reason Why Higher bases DMG beats lower delay.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Xianghua

Huh where did I say that?

DPS is Damage / delay = dps.

It does not take other stats or weapon skills. The DPS stat only goes towards Auto-attack/Light shot. DMG itself affects both Auto-Attack/Lightshot and Weapons skills to. Which is the reason Why Higher bases DMG beats lower delay.

---

k, just making sure we were talking about the same thing. So i stand by my statement highest damage is best. Low damage supplemented with low delay will only nerf your WS. Also arent your stat caps based off you base weapon damage?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by syntaxlies

k, just making sure we were talking about the same thing. So i stand by my statement highest damage is best. Low damage supplemented with low delay will only nerf your WS. Also arent your stat caps based off you base weapon damage?

---

Yes caps are. We won't know how Garuda weapons truly compare until people get them and do the test. But from what we know for now it looks like Ifrit's > all still.