Top 5 RMEAs To Rank 15 And Why

Cortez's post is solid.

Should include Kikoku tho

R15 terp is great with all that acc/macc for landing steps on evasive mobs. It's a godsend for Wave 3. In fact, I'm pretty much banned from bringing anything but dnc whenever we do wave 3.

Don't really see r15 terp being the only way to land steps on w3 but ok

Yeah I was going to say, never have any issue landing steps in wave3 without terps.

I actually just made Calad 119 III. How big of a difference is r0 from r15? Is it game-changing?

Calad doesn't have it as good as other multi-hit WS with how the physical damage + works, but extra damage is still extra damage!

R15 the REMA on your favorite job first. Always ask yourself, "if I could have only one".


You list Tizona, and it's great, but not Trishula? I don't feel like, on my mythic BLU, that I do more damage than I would on DRG with aeonic (both R0 for now). Stardiver gains a lot from R15. Lionheart is also great but using it on RUN is dependent on being overcapped on attack, so it's a little more situational.

an loljob's weapon can't make a tier list by default

Blu is very useful and drg isn’t. If you want a pure DD, you would go with drk or War or Sam. Tizona R15 makes Blu able to compete in parses vs drk or war or Sam. But Blu has much more utility than drg does. A r15 Tiz Blu will at worse match the DD output of a r15 Trish drg. Then Blu offers the party tenebral, AoE nukes, mighty guard (counters slow, enhances defense, and gives Regen effect), magic fruit, etc. not to mention Tiz gives Blu virtually unlimited mp.

The question was which is best to do first. You would never, objectively, do Trish first. Subjectively you might do Trish first because you love Drg. I didn’t even rank Tiz as the #1 option, as DP or gastra are most likely the first you would do given current meta. Trish is probably around #15 weapon. Tiz is somewhere in the 4-8 range, given situation and rest of gear.

SE hasn’t made drg really useful outside of the 75 merit pts against colibri or back when you would get full TP return per hit in WS which made Penta thrust stupid broken and Asuran fists using the unupgraded dynamos h2h with 999 delay.

Drgs get no love because they don’t ever really compete with Sam or drk or war. And drgs really only role in party play is to be a top tier DD. Which it is not.

While I agree that Tizona is great, DRG's hate shedding and SC abilities are also attractive features.

I just made a r15 Trish.

It really leans hard on its 4step Umbra with jumps ready, which turns into a huge DPS burst. But outside of that DPS flatlines fast. Cleaving with Sonic yields good results but lining up mobs is very annoying.

SAM,WAR,DRK can SC well and Zerg.

Go big or go home my friend.

Depends on what we're talking about. A zerg using Fly High is incredibly fun, virtually hate less, and you'll never stop pumping out max tp stardivers. Blue won't keep up with a R15 Trish in that scenario.

I would argue BLU isn't exactly a zerg job to begin with as they have no powerful 1hr for a massive damage boost compared to 2H DDs. Their solid performance regardless of the situation is what makes them useful in general, though.

Well said, point taken. I'm just challenging the "Blu is useful, drg isn't" narrative. If you're going to argue drg is low on utility department, it's kind of the same illogical debate being made.

All you DD's swinging rank15 sausages are going nowhere without some special love from my Yagrush...that special love it can give without having to be rank15. I practically win this whole discussion.

Oh, I'm not arguing DRG isn't useful. I actually think they're an excellent DD (especially since the Jump adjustments) and I'd always invite a good DRG over a mediocre SAM/DRK/WAR/BLU. The player counts for more than the job, imo. DRG is a labor of love and it shows.

Plus hate shedding is all the utility you need. A dead DD deals no damage. I've lost count how many DDs have died so far in Sandy Wave 2/3 NMs after pulling hate.

I thought you like it when big, surly men swing large sausages in your general direction!

Sorry was referring to the person above who literally said it's not useful

No worries, I figured. I was just trying to clarify I'm not taking sides even though I tried to argue your previous post.

Thats the thing.... I already have my hands full!

Not useful was an overstatement. You will choose a BiS Sam Drk or War over a BiS Drg in 99% of scenarios is what I was trying to get at. Drg hasn’t been the go to DD job or the go to DD job with utility hardly ever, and that still holds true today.

Can a BiS drg compete or win against a 85-95% complete BiS drk War or Sam, sure. But all things being equal, War drk or Sam wins.

Therefore, you would choose Sam War or drk to r15, well before Trish, assuming you are being objective in regards to the jobs. And you would choose Tiz over Trish if you are being objective as well.

The party dps gain by using a r15 Tiz Blu, due to tenebral and MG (due to survivability of MG to everyone and the haste gained to counteract any slow), under Zerg situations, will be greatly more than the small difference in damage 2hr drg will do vs. a r15 tiz (who cares about blus 2hr). Then the utility and damage over time in events such as dynamins, that Blu brings, also more than outweighs drgs 2hr.

Again as I mentioned in my original post, every r15 is good, as they all buff damage to every job. But if you are taking an objective look, Trish is not one of the first anyone would do. However, if you are a drg supporter or loyalist or whatever, yes a r15 Trish is very good. But in terms of everything being equal, BiS Tiz Blu or BiS drk or War or Sam will perform better under almost every scenario than a BiS drg will.

Not sure why you are bringing up Tenebral for zergs when DRG has the superior Angon (-25% instead of -20%). Tenebral is better suited for weakening multiple mobs like in Dyna or certain Ambu months. For longer zergs like the Wave 3 Mega Boss you'd be using Ageha, Shell Crusher or Armor Break anyway.

MG is indeed very nice, but if DRG is your main DD in a 6-man party then hate shedding will usually prevent death more reliably than Regen/Defense ever could, unless your RUN can't hold hate due to hate resets. Counteracting Slow is a valid point, but situational as it's not a factor in every fight.

I guess I'd counter that with... does Epeo RUN really deal "decent damage"? Unless you have strong buffs (in which case, you're probably in Lionheart's wheelhouse), Epeo still puts out kinda crap damage, IMO - even when gearing more DD-oriented. As such, augments that basically just make Dimi hit a little harder don't really impress me that much. FWIW, I have an Epeo and tossed a few stones at it to get it up to like rank 5... but it's not my priority before getting R15 in my other weapons that I think benefit more from the augments.

Now, a real way RUN can increase group damage is Rayke/Gambit, so there is definitely a party DPS argument for using a RUN as your tank (in addition to the defensive group benefits). But again, RMEA augments do absolutely nothing to change Rayke/Gambit, regardless of weapon.


Empyreans, IMO, generally have the most improvement going from R0 to R15. Their 3rd augment slot is attribute+, which for the most part provides a very nice boost for the job. The related stat adds more WS damage for their associated WS, but can also pump up OTHER WS (STR on Masa helps all GK weapon skills, AGI on Armageddon helps all marksmanship WS, DEX on Twash helps relevant dagger stuff, etc). Plus, a pretty good number of the useful Empys enhance a WS that's already great pre-augment and only gets better with more WS DMG+ and stat+ (Fudo, Victory Smite, Rudra, Torcleaver, etc.)

Mythic augments can obviously be great if the associated WS is a great one, so stuff like Death Penalty or Gastra really shine just because the WS they enhance was already so strong even before augments. However, there aren't a ton of outstanding WS in the group, so some of these weapons are pretty lame (and they're modifying a weapon class that has lost a lot with OAx being less valuable than ever these days for melee purposes). They also get a lot of base weapon DMG, which is very helpful for some (Liberator). 3rd augment slot is Acc/Racc/Macc, which is kinda blah.

Relics do get a larger % boost to the associated WS than the other RMEAs - which looks nice until you consider that even with that increase, most relic WS are kinda trash. Kikoku (Blade: Metsu) and Anni (Coronach) are really the main two that actually pump up a WS of any consequence. Maybe add Gungnir to that list (I plead ignorance to the intricacies of DRG, but I've seen relic DRGs using a lot of Geirskogul)? Third augments are weapon-specific, which are largely unimpressive or odd utility stats (Drain+ on Apoc, Ninjutsu cast time on Kikoku, etc.)

Aeonic augments are somewhat lackluster to me in general just because most of the Aeonic WS that the augments directly boost are ones you wouldn't be using. Some notable exceptions: Chango is great because Upheaval is very strong, Trish/Stardiver is good. But a lot of other Aeonic WS are stuff you would either rarely use even with the WSDmg+ (think Exenterator, Shijin Spiral, Requiescat), or are situational (Shoha, Last Stand, Blade: Shun). I feel like Aeonic augments mostly helping less relevant WS was a big help to some other RME weapon types that gained ground on (or pulled further away from) their Aeonic competitors once augments came along. Aeonic 3rd augment is Acc like Mythic, which is... I'll take it, but kinda blah.

So yeah, like a lot of people are saying, the one that helps the job you actually play is always the best call. Beyond that, the most relevant decision is whether the specific weapon skill that gets improved by augments is a good WS. Beyond all of that... Empys seem to me to get a better boost, in general, than the other types.

DRG is the best DPS, when other DD's are living in -DT sets due to hate issues. A dead DD deals no damage, and a turtled DD deals less damage then a full throttle DD. Everyone wants to imagine a world where the mobs we fight stand there and don't fight back while we attempt to murder them. That is wishful thinking at best.

Yeah, and NIN is the best DPS when it absorbs some move with Migawari or shadows that wipes out the rest of the frontline. But it's a hard argument to say that means you should R15 a katana before upgrading your Chango/Masamune/Caladbolg...

You're certainly correct that max DPS potential isn't the only consideration. But DRG being useful for enmity purposes (or MNK for Subtle Blow, or RNG for damage from a distance, etc.) doesn't change regardless of weapon or augment levels.

And double posting to say that in a vacuum, I guess some of the objectively strongest improvements would all be DPS weapons that pump up a great WS that you'd want to spam anyway. I'm on board with the "do useful upgrades for a job you like" philosophy, but if I had to "rank" weapons for which to prioritize augments across all jobs, I guess I'd go with a breakdown something like:

Top tier:
Masamune, Caladbolg, Chango
Great boost to top WS for jobs that are often used as the main sources of melee DPS. Can't really go wrong with any of those three. I'd probably say they're the weapons that get the most benefit out of increasing augments from R0 to R15.

2nd tier, but great for the job:
Twashtar, Trishula, Verethragna, Tizona, Kikoku, Terp
These are all excellent weapons for their job, so if that's a job you love, go for it! Augments give a nice boost, but I'd rank these a bit lower on a purely objective scale than the WAR/SAM/DRK weapons, just because the jobs aren't as in-demand for DPS roles for group stuff (not that they can't be great, though).

Situationally god-like:
Death Penalty, Gastraphetes, Annihilator, Fomalhaut, Lionheart
Ranged jobs get a lot of niche tools, don't they? DP/Gastra are staggeringly awesome for Leaden/TF spam on magic-weak mobs, but feel a drop-off when a mob resists magic or dark/light. Anni is killer when you're using RNG for low hate Coronach spam, but that's a niche use for an already niche job. Fomal is great for physical WS spam if you don't pull hate and die (and holds up decently for TF or Leaden), but less impressive than its magical-based siblings in the current situations where RNG COR are superstars.

Armageddon probably worth a mention as a killer all-around ranged weapon for both RNG and COR (AGI helps all relevant WS, great ODT aftermath for strong ranged crits, great white damage and racc), in case a ranged-lover is not so excited about augmenting multiple weapons to cover all situations. For me personally, that's why it's gonna be my second R15 (behind Masamune).

Lionheart also gets a call-out here as the only non-ranged weapon in this category, due to augments giving a nice boost to a DD RUN's offense. But DD RUN is in itself somewhat of a niche use requiring strong buffs, for a job that is more often used in a more tank-like fashion. So I certainly wouldn't put this on the same level as pumping up DPS on a job that's always used for DPS purposes.

???
IDK where stuff like Liberator, Doji, Heishi, Gungnir, maybe Aeneas fit. They're somewhere in the mix, and worthwhile weapons to augment, but they aren't as big of highlights for their own jobs as other weapons already listed above.

Notably, magic and pet weapons don't really gain so much from augments (nor do tank weapons, really). If they're good at R0, great - but adding augments doesn't substantially change them.

The best R15 is the one for the job that you already play best, have the best gear for, and understand. R15'ing a weapon, just like AG'ing a weapon used to be, doesn't immediately make you a viable member of an alliance or leader of the parse. The rest of your gear and your understanding of the job go much farther. So, R15 a weapon for the job you are frequently on and have top notch gear for.

R15'ing a Death Penalty just because COR is the current monster of the meta doesn't make you immediately a great COR. It means your piss poor Leaden Salutes are now 15% less piss poor.

Its like building a house with gorgeous bay windows overlooking a serene mountain range, but the foundation is made with Legos. Its still a ***house.

Everybody wants to hang out with the cool kids.

all these mentions of cala makes me happy :)