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

[Alexis_Arteme]

So I've been reading over this guide. It is quite disheartening and discouraging to realize that almost all of the Darkhold equipment is useless, and that level 30 gear is "best available" in many cases.

Is it safe to assume that with the abolishment of the physical level in 1.19 that gear stats will radically change and gear will, hopefully, become more effective? I find it funny that not even the developers know that their hard-earned equipment from darkhold is worse than stuff you can get virtually solo. Don't they test this stuff, or did they just set it up to be ready to go for 1.19?

tl;dr, Should I hang on to my DH equipment in hopes of a brighter tomorrow? I suppose I could just stand around in it in Ul'dah as if it were a decorative "formal uniform". (Then of course, put on the Eternal Shade "fatigues" when headed into DH.)

[carraway]

Yes, you should definitely hold onto any gear that has significant stat bonuses. Only another one or two weeks until we can start figuring out what the new best-in-slot selections are.

[FluxNabla]

After reading this thread I'm certain I'm not alone in thinking that the name "Light Shot" is terribly ironic.

Great post, even better discussion.

[NoctisUmbra]

Really hoping for Bucc. Shirt becoming the new chest gear of choice for Archer post 1.19

[carraway]

Here's an example of a recent deepvoid slave parse that is least embarrassing to myself, recorded by Tyrith Peng (so the "You" in the parse is him): http://www.gwcdn.com/albums/images/4...6df10034b5.jpg

You can see that our three archers were all in a similar damage range. Lipiro doesn't count because he was someone we were selling gear to. The strongest corollary for higher damage is the amount of Light Shots performed in a given fight, reinforcing the core precepts of my guide.

This may or may not change in 1.19. It will take at least a few days of solid testing to iron out whether the prioritization system will require an overhaul. Gear and action/trait selections will likely change dramatically; BRs and stat allotments are null and void until 1.20 or later.

[Murugan]

Here's an example of a recent deepvoid slave parse that is least embarrassing to myself, recorded by Tyrith Peng (so the "You" in the parse is him): http://www.gwcdn.com/albums/images/4...6df10034b5.jpg

You can see that our three archers were all in a similar damage range. Lipiro doesn't count because he was someone we were selling gear to. The strongest corollary for higher damage is the amount of Light Shots performed in a given fight, reinforcing the core precepts of my guide.

This may or may not change in 1.19. It will take at least a few days of solid testing to iron out whether the prioritization system will require an overhaul. Gear and action/trait selections will likely change dramatically; BRs and stat allotments are null and void until 1.20 or later.

There is a graph breaking down damage by abilities now in IrParser. Much better to show stuff like that than the main page of the parse which only shows portion of total damage (as those DPS numbers are not completely accurate). In other words it always looks the same unless someone is slacking/has a good fight, not very informative.

I do have some questions though. Are you using a Gladiator tank? Not using BR's? Just wondering why non-archer damage is practically non-existent in the parse.

[carraway]

3 mages, none of which were DPSing, 3 archers, 1 archer for whom we were merc'ing the run, and 1 gladiator. No BRs, as we feel that it's often not worth it. We do look at the breakdowns when we're parsing, but since we can't export full parse results, it's a pain in the ass to screenshot everything while in the middle of doing a run. This wasn't a 5-chest speedrun, just a laid-back 4-chest run to get some drops.

DPS numbers are an inaccurate measurement due to the way the parser works at this time, but what is important to note is that, over dozens of parses in the past month or so, the more Light Shots an archer performs, the higher his overall damage is in proportion to others' damage.

[NoctisUmbra]

DPS numbers are an inaccurate measurement due to the way the parser works at this time, but what is important to note is that, over dozens of parses in the past month or so, the more Light Shots an archer performs, the higher his overall damage is in proportion to others' damage.

Interesting find.

So would you say this gives more reason to use the Verdant Shortbow over a Crab Bow +3, at least atm since we can bar any materia buff the Crab will get post 1.19, since the number of Light Shots performed goes a long way as far as DPS?

The biggest argument against the 3.5s attack delay was that with all the other CDs being managed a player wouldn't be hitting Light Shot every CD. Seems to me if it is determined that using more Light Shot rather than a variety of weaponskills is better, then one can quite easily prioritize a 3.5s delay Light Shot and perhaps increase DPS.

[carraway]

Verdant Shortbow seems to edge out Crab Bow +3 right now on ogre, but Crab Bow +3 seems to edge out Verdant on Batraal due to Batraal's lower defense.

[Murugan]

3 mages, none of which were DPSing, 3 archers, 1 archer for whom we were merc'ing the run, and 1 gladiator. No BRs, as we feel that it's often not worth it. We do look at the breakdowns when we're parsing, but since we can't export full parse results, it's a pain in the ass to screenshot everything while in the middle of doing a run. This wasn't a 5-chest speedrun, just a laid-back 4-chest run to get some drops.

DPS numbers are an inaccurate measurement due to the way the parser works at this time, but what is important to note is that, over dozens of parses in the past month or so, the more Light Shots an archer performs, the higher his overall damage is in proportion to others' damage.

I know what you were trying to show it is just hard to tell anything like that from a proportional damage readout for a group.

This is the useful page of the parser currently which you can access by double clicking on someone's name. You can see the portion of archer damage which is light shot, and see the break down for light shot (and why it is better).

http://img26.imageshack.us/img26/7642/unledvab.jpg

In my experience it is not really the # of light shots an archer performs but the max damage they get on buffed light shots. As you can see my minimum 48 damage and my max is 804, that is a huge difference. Your light shots probably do better damage on average because I imagine you have better gear than I do, but I doubt overall it matters that much. Yes you want to do as much light shots as possible but the key is getting off your super buffed light shots as many times in one fight as you can (once every ferocity timer). Granted on the fastest Ogre fights I have seen that is only 2 times, but that is still 4500+ damage from light shot and add in the 2-3 raging strike buffed multishots and ~80% of your light shot damage is coming from buffs.

I find that I don't even use trifurcate for buffed shots, I use it to build TP with only one raging strike. I begin my buff cycle with multishot, then cadence>ferocity>Murderous Intent>Keen Flurry>Blindside> Call BR> Raging Strikes>Still Precision>Multishot>enter/fire BR. Doing this I don't waste a single second of any of my buffs and can easily get off a raging strike multi/trifurcate in between full buff shots.

As the class stands at the moment you are best off building your entire playstyle around burst damage in my opinion. After 1.19 this might change but I still get upper 200's on fully buffed 3x shots so I'm not entirely sure. It isn't really like you have to necessarily sacrifice one playstyle for the other, but if you ever have to make a choice your burst/buffs should always take priority.

That's not even taking into account how much extra group damage you can get by focusing on good BR's. Chaos Thrust from Lancer is an absolute mob wrecker ending the melee's, and the mage damage isn't too shabby either, so throwing on your buffed damage at the end is by far (in my opinion) the single best thing for an archer/group to focus on.

I'd be willing to bet that MRD/LNC/ARC/ARC/CON/CON/THM/THM(or CON) is the best DD group setup right now over MRD/ARC/ARC/ARC/ARC/CON/CON/CON. You can substitute a Simian Thrash spamming PUG (with skull sunder for BR) for the LNC and the results are pretty similar.

Damn SE for taking away our BR's in 1.19!!!!