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

[Murugan]

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)

[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.

[Murugan]

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.

---

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.

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.

[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

[Kiara]

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

carraway,

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

I look forward to this.

[NoctisUmbra]

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

[Penguin]

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

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.

[NoctisUmbra]

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.

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?

[Penguin]

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?

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.

[NoctisUmbra]

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.

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.