Melee Gear

Nice set. Using an Antares Harness instead would be a good upgrade in that slot if you can get a hold of one.

Here's what I'm working with/toward at the moment. Just need to get off my butt this week and get my Raja's Ring and Swift Belt, everything else in the set I have:



Being able to cast Haste in addition to having gear haste is nice as RDM to have. I have about 6 Shamshir's, so it really comes down to situational use. Working on STR ones in my spare time. An Almace would be neato, but a little out of reach at the moment.

if you don't have almace, or at least badelaire, i recommend you go with a dagger mainhand and use evisceration.

sadly the dagger selection for rdm is a bit lacking.. i think your best bet is gnadgott or a twilight knife?

kinda sucks, but evisceration is just better than death blossom. then if you're in aby with proper atmas it absolutely destroys death blossom.

I solo on my rdm all the time. There are mobs in fact, that demand that if you solo, you're not kiting, so must melee. Rdm's are great melee if capped in skills and know what you're doing. However, may I recommend a fav of mine...?

I was messing around with chimeric offhand this morning. The low delay is nice and of course the enspell damage... Too bad from the update notes it looks like they changed it so the bonus doesn't apply to your mainhand today.

Rather than making a new thread, I figure I'll ask it here, does anyone have the Str+9 Att+20 Shamshir? Is it worth making one for RDM?

I've experimented with other Shamshir +2's(MAB, M.Acc, -PDT) in an attempt to find a middle-ground for RDM melee and still keep decent spellcasting, but I'm finding it impossible to hold up melee-wise. Would the STR/Att Shamshir +2 make enough of a difference to warrant the work?

If dual-wielding, +18 STR and +40 Att sounds like a ton of stats piled on, but I've tried piling on similar amounts with other gear and not noticed a consistent enough difference(eye-balling FTW on console) with native WS's like Savage Blade. I could sub a melee job and get better WS's, but end up losing dual-wield.

Inside: Mainhand a dagger/work on CDC sword
Inside/Outside: Str Shamshir is a solid offhand (inside)/mainhand(outside if no CDC sword) bar chimeric (slight nerf to the enhancement damage SE ignored for years somehow) assuming you don't need accuracy. Oneiros Knife is abit better inside iirc, Dex shamshir obvious winner if you need more accuracy/Str Shamshir if you're benefitting from the attack, DA Khanda if neither of the above is true.

I guess I'll just post this question in here:

For outside of Aby, against DC or lower mobs (solo'ing mission-lines, trials etc.), which -reasonable- weapon combinations would be best?

By reasonable I mean nothing that takes ungodly amounts of time to get and/or relies on other people (Almace/Mandau/Sagasinger etc.)

Since it's outside Aby and no CDC should I still main-hand dagger for Evis? The damage increase going from a dagger to a STR Shamshir for example is pretty huge, so would Twilight/Gnadgott/Clement still beat that for mainhand?

And for offhand would a multi-hit weapon outdo a STR Shamshir?

Thanks

If you don't count WoE as having to rely on other people (this assumes Flux 7 and people still do WoE), Baudelair/Str Shamshir are mostly solo able, although you'll probably take longer on Str Shamshir.

DB sucks less outside esp on fodder but I haven't really compared the two. If you must use swords Str/Chimeric or Str/Dex(assuming you made one already), even though Chimeric got nerfed abit.

For offhand no, assuming acc isn't a problem none of the multihit weapons I know of offhand beat Str Shamshir, Chimeric was alot more competitive before they changed it.

I'm really not bothered between daggers and swords, I'd rather just use the one that's going to be better.

I'm guessing STR Shamshir will beat Blau Dolch main hand, but I'd like to know between STR Shamshir and Twilight/Gnadgott/Clement, if anybody has any numbers on those.

The problem is the WS itself. Nothing is going to stop Death Blossom from being a lackluster WS on anything but the lowest fodder (even considering my best DB on older content was 1kish, that still comes out behind CDC easily). Using a dagger means a weaker mainhand. Just work on a WoE weapon if you can't get Almace.

And looking at sheet Twilight/Str Shamshir Evis is beating my best Death Blossom on average for older content.

sp I pulled out ffxi calc to figure out which set would give the lowist delay while keep hits to 100%tp to be 20-18 the best set assuming just gear and spell haste is



I'm missing phasmid belt, the hands and still no luck on Z tiara, took me 12 trys to get the ki for damn chariot.

now the acp body is with duel wield enhancement. for 1 augment.
the other augment is what i'm trying to figure out would be best, or if it would make a better ws peice. I was thinking acc, atk, or double atk for second augment but with temper, camlac, atheling, and brutal, i'm already at 23%da, so stp +4 as the second augment, tyrants ring, AND +3stp neck would put it at 19 hits, I believe only 1-2 more stp and it's 18 hits.(since feet have stp -3). but you have to sacrifice too much else where for that last little bit of stp unless i'm missing a piece of gear. or I could crit rate +3 and atk +10 as a CDC piece.

the difference in a cap haste without the body, and 25% haste with the body is that without acp body it will take you 1.5 seconds longer to 100tp assuming 80%acc(which is abnormally low on most things)

Assuming accuracy isn't an issue yes that's the best non-relic set bar dusk+1 hands if alucinor isn't contributing to dDEX/accuracy.

For CDC body I just use Assault/Antares. There's options for CDC (even if they are 75 cap) bodies, there are none for Dual Wield though.

If the current test server update allowing relic stats to work in offhand goes live Mandau becomes the best offhand. A new pair of haste pants is alsocoming out without the -acc of calmecac, once again if acc is an issue.

As for augment, I went with +accuracy/Dual Wield in the vain hope I have to melee anything on Rdm above EM.

Everything except voidwatch, 90% of the time I melee on rdm. If you can't do your job while meleeing don't do it. the 10% is when it's just not logical to melee either due to subjob requirements or mob kill requirments, some KSNM. unless it's my turn to chainspell stun on dynalord, I'm in there and putting up good numbers.

voidwatch is really the only area where I don't melee, I'm usually on blu for this anyway. This is due to a number of reasons mainly, trying to proc everything and max out weaknesses. Until the high tiers just processing weaknesses the mobs usually almost dead. On higher tiers, lots of nasty aoe and I still need to finish mdt/mdb and pdt sets. Curing gives enough hate without adding damage to that it just isn't reasonable, most the time, to melee to much on a majority of them

what i tp in atm khandas 2-4 RR is 3 DW 3crit

Drop 2-4 Khanda for Str/Dex Shamshir, Even a joyeuese is probably better for overall damage it's that terrible...

2-4 swords not as bad as you claim it to be. Tp gains great with it and that should honestly be the point of a offhand weapon

kills your dot

If i where to replace my offhand it would be with Ephemeron as it would allow different tp options such as Savateur's Gaiters and goading belt while maintaining capped haste.

2-4 sword is bad for overall damage, it doesn't increase TP gain by a worthwhile amount for a weapon with lower D rating than a Joyeuse and 264 delay (this is garbage for a sword). Switch to at least Ephemeron.

Also, all that gear with Double Attack and Triple Attack you have overwrites the Occ. Atk. 2-4 when they proc. This actually gimps the purpose of the sword.

and your aftermath can't proc off hand nor does double attack stack with the 2-4 weapons so your wasting any da/ta gear the 2-4 weapons averaged lower hits then joytoy at 90 version, probably still the same. The delay is so high it cuts back on your aftermath even more. Your off hand should first off be to maximize your damage dealt. This barely increases your damage dealt. It takes me on average 30 second to get 100%tp and my off hand and almace have an equal chance of double attacking. Off handing str or dex shamshir(food/mob dependent) my CDC will out do yours by a lot, and my regular hits will outdo your hits by even more. My enspells actually add damage where as yours just make up for the low damage on the weapon

Not sure how much this applies to everyone here, but if you own a mandau or Excal, the +att now works in offhand as of 12/14/11 update. No other additional, hidden, and obviously WS work when it is offhanded though. Just the +att works.

EDIT: And then SE proves me wrong by declaring relics working in offhand is 'unintended' and they're sorry for this mistake, and they're looking to fix this.

Yeah I noticed that too....which makes no sense when every single weapon other than relic retains visible stats in off hand -.-

So these are some itemsets I pulled up since I'm getting back into RDM. (Not sure if I'll do an Almace or not though.)



CDC WS set


And if I don't make almace, Death Blossom

If you aren't using the merits for other jobs Requiscat will probably outperform DB, even with its attack penalty. Use the Shikargar for CDC set. Stick to Cuch belt unless you're using the HQ to artful (it's still pretty close).