You'll Shoot Your Eye Out! - New FFXI RNG Guide

As has been stated for a couple years now, and certainly several times within this post, Archery is in such a bad situation that outside of a complete re-vamp of the category, there's not much to do.

Let's look at why Marksmanship destroys Archery.

Best physical WS for Marksmanship scales with TP and is AGI based, the easiest stat for a RNG to go crazy on.

Best physical WS for Archery only adds +crit rate with extra TP, and is DEX based.

this means that TP overflow, something incredibly common on RNG in particular with Doubleshot up, is pretty much worthless for Archery but is a gold mine for Marksmanship.

Best magical WS for Marksmanship is arguably the 2nd best or best magical weaponskill in the game for pure damage, depending on the situation, again scales with TP overflow.

There is no respectable magical weaponskill for Archery.

In order to bring Archery up to be competitive with Marksmanship, you would have to add new weaponskills that function similarly to Marksmanship both physically and magically. The way the game in general plays these days the white damage:weaponskill ratio is so skewed towards WSs that you cannot improve white damage enough to be competitive in overall DPS for Archery without creating a complete hate monster that would rip mobs away from the tank/bubble/other DDs and bring it towards the RNG/buffers/healers.

The only other option I could see is making the "True Shot" distance penalty much bigger so Bows functions incredibly better from a "safe" distance over Guns/Xbows in addition to new Weaponskills.

Isn't ranger just a lot weaker than other options when it comes to physical damage? We can't really pretend that Last Stand is something special when most melee DDs can pull out an ambuscade weapon and double our Weaponskill damage with the same frequency.

And don't guns get a bit worse when you try to go for the True Shot range.

It's been awhile since I've heard about it but last I remember in a fully buffed Physical group Gandiva just flat-out beats any other RMEA option. I think in that situation hate can be problematic which is where Anni shines.

But yeah I think the real argument is just how strong Trueflight is. Even in unbuffed situations a Gastra TF is our strongest weaponskill bar none.

I think if the changes are more physical oriented Gandiva may make a comeback but there is really no hope for Yoichi and Fail-Not outside of buffing their respective WS.

last i knew even gandiva jishnu's isnt so far ahead of current LS numbers, and as stated, marks comes with so many benefits in low hate WS or magical WS in its category, while archery really only gets a crit WS as its shiner. Itd take a weaponskill overhaul to really change up where archery stands far as i can tell.

Jishnu is better than LS? Really? Sounds kinda sketchy.

It was a combination of AM and Jishnu's.

If all you need is straight up physical damage, of course take the SAM, DRK, or WAR or some variant of a heavy DD. If you want physical damage and need to be safe due to either lack of healing or some other factor, bring a couple Fomalhaut or Annihilator RNGs and have them 2 step light or 2 step darkness all day while being out of range of danger.

We're not meant to be the same level damage as a heavy DD, we're meant to be a good option for that damage while being out of range of dangerous AoEs from the mob. I've got both an AG Gandiva and a RP10 Armageddon....I can rock AM3 with both weapons and I parse better with the Arma and pull hate with the Gandiva, every damn time...

These comments are based on dozens of ranged strat Neaks to give it something standard to use. And every gun I've got out parses the Gandiva, yet the Gandiva with AM3 up will pull the mob out of bubble and down to the rest of us instead of having it smacked on the Tank.

I'd definitely trust your opinion far more than information from several months ago.

Sad to hear that it either wasn't true or has since fallen from grace.

I can't speak for an R15 Gandiva, but the mechanics of the weaponskill don't change in terms of how its functions with TP and having DEX as its main modifier. Maybe someday I'll start throwing swart crystals at my Gandiva, and I'd love to be proven wrong (god that's a lovely weapon), but until all my current projects are upgraded, it'll have to wait.

I'm definitely not feeling that, 'oh that's nice' sensation from the patch.

Node is updated with today's.... changes..?

so frustrating. The only part of this "update" to the RNG job that is marginally beneficial is the cooldown on Velocity Shot changing, esp with the addition of the Ambuscade Axe last month there being actual benefits to RNG meleeing now and then this allows us to switch between shooting and melee mode while maintaining max efficiency when changing between modes.

So in my mind, the greatest thing that came from this update to RNG is to make our non-shooting DPS improve. Yeah, that makes sense.

And please, fellow RMEA RNGs out there, tell me the last time you used Scavenge because you were truly short on ammo vs. you didn't want to equip the waist quiver/pouch and get the item use lockout mid-fight. With the amount of Recycle we have now, there was no need to change/improve Scavenge.

I think being able to hit 99% acc on barrage is a fairly significant boost. Your probability of hitting an 8 shot barrage at acc cap went from 66% to 92%.

But yeah, the update was somehow even less than the lowest of expectations.

Velocity shot is also a nice QoL for crappy runs(where you die a lot) or constant dispels.

Scavenge is a big middle finger unless it has some other hidden effect not listed. With capped recycle rate and RMEAs giving us free ammo any change to scavenge is just a slap in the face. Maybe they will release OP ammo soon that has a steep cost.

At least our barrage's are more consistent now.

Womp womp

Makes me want to make RNG and Annihilator just for the screenshot worthy Barrages a little more now :P

I dont mind the velocity shot update. I remove it when going to a decimation build. Of which I didnt think it would be that great. I still dont have a cape made for it yet and still getting into the 50k's. Definitely worth it for rangers to make when they're not getting any buffs and all the melee are.
I'm with you Simon. I cant wait to see what barrages will look like now. Or at least higher averages lol.

If you want screenie-worthy Barrages, get AM3 up on Armageddon and fire one off.

Is it good form to include the text log where you get yelled at by the party for getting yourself and the backline killed?

On a more serious note, I would have loved a Decoy Shot buff (apply to WS/Barrage?) even if only to remind non-RNGs it exists so maybe they could actually be convinced to let you line up behind the tank. Decoy isn't a bad tool for stuff like Empy in particular - two RNG with Empy AM3 up coordinating timers can consistently plant a ridiculous amount of enmity on the tank, if the group only cooperates.

HELL YES. Allow Decoy to work on WS alone would have been incredible. They could have even been mean and just allow it to work on physical weaponskills so we still have to play nice with Trueflight, I woulda been fine with that.

magical ws already give greatly reduced enmity compared to physical anyways

Has anyone tried sharpshot with Slugshot or sidewinder after the update? #wishwecouldmemeagain

Atleast my Coronachs will whiff alot less now.

Dunno why it's just super noticable with Torcleaver, Upheaval,Fudo, Catastrophe.

-_-

I threw Upheaval in there since that first fit is the majority of damage.

Is there even a mob that has a 20+ yalm dispel? The change seems so pointless only time it’s ever down for me is if I die.

Neak is the only one coming to mind when it comes to 20'+ dispells.

yup, if you notice, you tend to pull hate with magical WS when they SC, and you generally don't when they don't SC. I'm not sure what the specifics are, but SC damage enmity seems to be treated differently.

Well I hate to sound like a COR hater, but alot of the reason RNG never gets to do Physical DD isn't JUST that the damage isn't super impressive... it's more a case of, If you need Trueflight, you need a ranger... if you need Last Stand, or "any ranged magical WS" you could just bring an extra COR if they are well geared, and you get another set of rolls. Because they can also cap out their Snapshot pretty easily, and do comparable damage.

This is just me making my opinion here, but COR steps on RNG's toes much like the invention of SCH stepped all over RDM's toes for the longest time. It's not that it's categorically better, It's just that it's good enough at alot of the core mechanics that it's hard to justify bringing that other job.

But you are right though, there's more problems than just that... I'd say it contributes though.

I mean, yeah... I'm pretty much with you. Other than super-rare stuff like the example of Neak with huge range dispel, it's really an uncommon issue to be caught with Velocity down for any reason other than death. Occasionally you might an AoE dispel using mob come over to the backline and wipe your stuff, whether due to a hate reset mob, or some backline player (it's always the COR, or a Gandiva RNG XD) pulling hate... But like you said, really uncommon stuff.

As for death, I don't see it really being a huge issue. The most realistic example of 5min timer being a little unfair would be stuff like Ambuscade where you have to wait to zone in to use Velocity, and you die near the start of an already short fight but you can still raise and keep fighting. OK, that's a little annoying. Reducing timer to 1min timer is an actual help in that case.

But even when you look at the situation of being weakened and waiting on timer, not having Velocity Shot for a couple minutes is FAR less of a penalty than melee DDs face from getting killed. On RNG, you can still do good damage while single weak without Velocity - you're just losing some preshot delay and a bit of Ratk. Much better than what melees face, being essentially out of commission until unweak in most situations.

And if you lost Velocity because you died TWICE in rapid succession, you're double weak anyway and useless. So it doesn't really matter whether Velocity JA is back up until you're unweak.

All that being said, there was no great reason the JA should have been 5min in the first place, so the change is totally logical and is fine as a minor QOL improvement. Key word being "minor".


You're definitely hitting on one of the keys. Unless light magical WS are really important, 2 more rolls for everyone tends to add more overall benefit than RNG being a bit better than COR purely for ranged damage purposes.

For that reason, they really should give RNG something to better differentiate them from COR (outside of mobs that are particularly strong/weak to light/dark magical WS) other than the current state of: COR has really potent party buffs, RNG does slightly better ranged damage with the same buffs as a COR.

One way they COULD have made RNG more of its own thing would be to make RNG better at managing enmity. Kinda the same reason Anni/Coronach sees some popularity in some situations. They could have adjusted some JAs to help RNG in that respect. For example:
- Maybe make Camouflage *dump* some hate a la High Jump (and not wear so easily).
- Give Velocity Shot a good chunk of enmity- (and/or allow it to exceed normal enmity -50 cap from gear), and maybe even make that apply to WS/Barrage as well.
- Change Decoy Shot to generate minimal hate for the RNG when the JA is up, even if you DON'T have someone positioned to divert the hate to that player (and you can still let it transfer hate if you do have a tank in position)

Plenty of ways that relatively simple adjustments could have helped further diversify RNG and give it a use for "safe" damage.

And yes, the aforementioned Anni/Coronach example is something RNG already has. And I'd also argue that even with other weapons, RNG already has some ability to use Decoy and TF/WF for similar enmity control situations; Armageddon's strong white damage means Decoy is REALLY effective when you can get people to position correctly (which is kinda like herding cats, but it's possible), and it's the strongest gun for WF (another low enmity WS option). But I'm talking about differentiating things even further, to the point where RNG really doesn't have to worry about enmity outside of hate resets with any half decent tank, regardless of WS. And leave COR as it is, where there's some real risk of pulling hate when doing strong damage, especially with Last Stand.

EDIT:
Another idea, you could let COR give the party buffs, and RNG put some actually potent debuffs on the mob. For instance, real ilevel appropriate status bolts that are worth using. Give people a real reason to bring BOTH ranged jobs together in one setup.

You'd have to balance this against stepping too much on other enfeeblers' toes, but I think that's plenty manageable if you limited the number of RNG debuffs, and/or make them stack with each other. And RNG still wouldn't bring the other utility of RDM GEO buffs to the table, but would instead be a unique mix of good ranged damage and a good debuffer. A little bit like the premise behind DNC's steps. Debuffing kinda fits with the "lore" aspect of a "ranger" too, pinpointing the weaknesses of your target and softening them up for the group with precise shots and skillful use of different ammos (hey, this even makes the Scavenge changes less utterly useless).

Give RNG an MDB down bolt or arrow.

Does anyone know of a good guide for ranger on Ou fight? I've heard Trueflight destroys him. I remember seeing a ranger's critical hit ranged attacks doing 46k damage to him. I guess I'm looking for the mechanics of the fight to fit ranger in there.