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

[Momita]

I'm trying to reach cap stat with brd, but with Garuda's Spine, what's the stat cap? 340PIE 315DEX? or lower?

[zzapp]

OK, I could use a little guidance from the esteemed arc/brd community in regard to my current end-game gear. My current setup is as follows: (Note: Kindly bear in mind that relic, Garuda Bow, and darklight armor are not an option at this time.)

Base stats this setup, solo, no food:

Pie 323 / Dex 286 / Atk 600 / Acc 379

Weapon: Ifrit's Bow **
Head: Paragon's Crown
Body: Raptorskin Harness (+33 pie meld)
Hands: Felt Bracers +1 (+48 attack) **
Legs: Militia Sublilgar
Feet: Explorer's Moccasins
Waist: Flame Sergeant's Sash
Ear: Explorer's
Neck: Electrum Gorget +1
Wrists: Tourmaline +1
Rings: 1 Tourmaline +1 / 1 Spinel +1 (can swap in 2 each +1 - Tourmaline, Spinel, Electrum)

(Note: I gear swap macro bard AF for the various songs - body/legs/hands)

The two pieces I'm having trouble with are weapon and hands. From what I've read, above, it appears I should spring for a Flame Lieutenant's Bow. However, I'm wondering if a double meld on Giantsgall Bow to help me max attribute stats would be better. If I successfully do that, I should be very close to stat caps, both pie/dex, and I'd probably be ok with my 2x attack hands. If I go with the Flame Lieutenant's Bow, should I replace my 2x attack hands with 2x dex?

I'm guessing the best direction for me would be Flame Lieutenant's Bow and 2x dex hands. This would put me @ roughly 341 pie and 300 dex, base, solo stats.

Any guidance here, is sincerely appreciated. Thanks.

Edit notes: Well impatient as I tend to be, I went ahead and made up some double dex hands and bought the GC bow. Puts me @ 347 pie / 304 dex solo, without food/buffs. Hope I did the right thing. Regards

[carraway]

Should probably use the ATK hands regardless of your bow. Otherwise, looks pretty good to me.

My favorite testing targets for convenience are the static amalj'aa outside Zahar'ak -- I think the Halberdiers in particular are always L52. So you could do some quick reps of Light Shot and basic WSs against those to directly compare one pair of gloves to the other.

[Heavell]

Carraway is that true that SE raised main and second stats? liek main : 380 and second : 330

I saw it through this : http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...-new-stat-caps
thanks for your answer in advance.

[zzapp]

Should probably use the ATK hands regardless of your bow. Otherwise, looks pretty good to me.

My favorite testing targets for convenience are the static amalj'aa outside Zahar'ak -- I think the Halberdiers in particular are always L52. So you could do some quick reps of Light Shot and basic WSs against those to directly compare one pair of gloves to the other.

Thanks for taking the time to reply, although I have to admit I'm surprised at your recommendation of the attack gloves vs. dex, as I thought attribute stats > all until cap. I kept the attack gloves, so I will go test the two, as you suggest.

Edit notes: As you suggested, Carraway, I did a quick eyeball test on this. Maybe I should have targeted the 52 lancers but I grabbed the 50 pugs. Anyhow, this isn't even close. The attack gloves are noticeably and vastly superior to the dex gloves - especially obvious on Light Shot, as one might suspect, but even the WS, granted the very small sample. Wheter I choose to under-cap myself in pie or dex, it doesn't seem to make a difference. I must admit I'm very confused by this, given that all job forums advocate attribute caps > everything else first. Now I'm wondering if the same is true for my mnk war drg, with the 2x str gloves i purposely made up for those jobs vs. atk gloves.

I currently don't have a parser so I end up eyeballing these things, and mostly rely on the much more intensive and thorough testing done by knowledgeable folks, such as yourself. Anyhow, thanks again for taking the time to head me in the right direction. Regards.

[Meatdawg]

Should probably use the ATK hands regardless of your bow. Otherwise, looks pretty good to me.

My favorite testing targets for convenience are the static amalj'aa outside Zahar'ak -- I think the Halberdiers in particular are always L52. So you could do some quick reps of Light Shot and basic WSs against those to directly compare one pair of gloves to the other.

Carraway is correct.

I would go with PIE>ATK>DEX when gearing Brd. The cap on dex is more around 280 for AA which will affect your light shot/barrage. This is pretty easy to achieve. Always go atk gloves.

The Flame Lieutenant's Bow > Ifrit also. Pretty much any GC bow is better then ifrit.

[zzapp]

Carraway is correct.

I would go with PIE>ATK>DEX when gearing Brd. The cap on dex is more around 280 for AA which will affect your light shot/barrage. This is pretty easy to achieve. Always go atk gloves.

The Flame Lieutenant's Bow > Ifrit also. Pretty much any GC bow is better then ifrit.

Thanks to both you and Carraway for the kind guidance. Without getting into extensive testing for my mnk war drg, would the same apply to those jobs? I.E. - the attack gloves vs. str gloves. I'm guessing probably not, since the primary stat for all 3 is str, whereas arc/brd is a little out of the norm with dex capping so low.

Thanks again for you guidance.

[Meatdawg]

Thanks to both you and Carraway for the kind guidance. Without getting into extensive testing for my mnk war drg, would the same apply to those jobs? I.E. - the attack gloves vs. str gloves. I'm guessing probably not, since the primary stat for all 3 is str, whereas arc/brd is a little out of the norm with dex capping so low.

Thanks again for you guidance.

The general rule on those jobs is to cap str at 350, 2ndary to 300ish (280 for AA) then to do Atk. Remember, Str adds to atk as well(3:2 though you don't see it in the stats it does parse this way), where as with the BRD dex really adds nothing of value (acc isnt a problem for most brds).

[zzapp]

The general rule on those jobs is to cap str at 350, 2ndary to 300ish (280 for AA) then to do Atk. Remember, Str adds to atk as well(3:2 though you don't see it in the stats it does parse this way), where as with the BRD dex really adds nothing of value (acc isnt a problem for most brds).

Awesome, thanks so much for your guidance.

[Lux_Rayna]

I have a couple questions here actually.

1) How exactly does Raging Strike work with barrage? Does each hit increase the buff, or just the first one? I ask because I know they patched multi-hit skills a while ago so I was wondering if that affected the raging strike barrage combo. I looked around but couldn't find a definitive answer.

2) Is it really worth adding any crit attack power at all if your gear set isnt designed around it? Even triple melding +120 crit attack power to a body seems like it would offer pretty underwhelming results. I ask because, obviously, the guide is a bit outdated. I remember someone did some testing with crit attack power a bit ago, and it looked like it had to be stacked quite a bit. Idk if any more recent testing has been done.

3) HQ arrows...worth the effort? Especially for Bard since its like a hybrid support/dps class. HQ arrows aren't that terribly hard to get, but are a bit time-consuming considering how quickly arrows deplete. Is the dmg increase significant, or minor?