Prime WS Information, Testing, Discussion

Few years ago I was trying to make highest damage that was possible, so I went with Annihilator and I was doing Barrages on. That voidwatch qutrub who takes 10x more damage. Looking at it's HP, I was able to notice that when triple damage proc, the damage was around several hundred thousands damage or maybe even above million, but highest damage I got in log was like 20k and some was as low as 2k. I reported it somewhere on the forum. Maybe I will try to find it later.

Oh and it was the same with and without battle mod.

COR already does that with Armageddon so its nothing new really. You can always /drg now for high/super jump.

If you have a subjob

Exactly. To be fair Armageddon would still be way better for something like Arebati, where you wouldn't get any benefit from Earp PDL. Earp would be great in scenario where you want to change to piercing damage, pop triple shot and shoot. Like maybe for lamias during segments or for Sortie bosses instead of being another Naegling DD.

Ok thank you for that info, I had a feeling that it was just an issue game side..

In all seriousness, in my experience Fomalhaut has always been more dangerous than Armageddon in the hands of a COR. And Earp/Terminus acts a bit more like a really strong Fomalhaut/Last Stand, so is gonna be even worse. Fun times! Hope that mob dies fast. If you have subjob, I guess maybe you're holding onto Random Deal/Wildcard just to reset /DRG jumps lol.

But yeah for Armageddon, COR just isn't dishing out nearly that high of numbers with /ra AM procs, especially without Hover Shot that gives RNG those truly ridiculous shots. And if elemental WS are viable, those are usually my go-to choices with Armageddon, and are inherently lower enmity WS (both for Leaden, and especially the associated WS in Wildfire). Whereas if you wanted to use Fomal, it's more likely you made that choice because you explicitly wanted physical/Last Stand damage.

But Earp is like... FOMALHAUT what? Hold my beer.

I'd have to disagree, for last stand damage maybe, but the white damage on Arma VS Foma there is no comparison, none what so ever. The rest of what you said I could agree with.

Earp is for sure Foma 2.0, or even if Foma and Arma had a baby, and named it Earp.

I do find Arma and Earp to be somewhat Comparable in white damage (but I think Aram wins overall) The Advantage is that Earp has a better light side/non Magical Weapon skill damage then Arma, and with Arma you have to throw a Wildfire to get your AM up (which can be annoying on some bosses because you don't want to make darkness skill chains).

My Earp is only stage 4A< and has been for sometime now, I could see it giving Arma a real run for its money on stage 5.

Guys unless the WS specifically says otherwise, damage is damage when it comes to hate. CE and VE from damage doesn't care where it came from, 50K in RA damage is the same hate as 50K in physical WS damage. Since the point of doing damage is to .. do damage, then the hate issue effects everything the same way. And thus why RNG's can fall back to Ahnilator if things heat up too much.

If a fight allows for /DRG, Super Jump is a 100% hate clear and High Jump a 30% one, so maybe time them for after triple shot is finished.

The consideration isn't whether ranged damage and melee damage both generate the same "type of hate". Fact is when you're running a RNG setup it's likely to avoid aoe damage and status effects and be as safe as possible, so enmity generation is often a point of conversation because the RNG pulling hate constantly and pulling the NM to themselves/the backline defeats the entire purpose.

To be more clear in case my wording was confusing, I am in no way trying to say Fomalhaut is generally better DPS than Armageddon. I AM saying that from my experience, a COR using Fomalhaut and Last Stand has always tended to be one of the riskier pre-Prime ranged approaches when it comes to avoiding pulling hate, since there are few native enmity mitigation tools at play. Whereas even for Arma where there is risk too, you can often help mitigate the high white damage enmity generation by using a lower enmity WS in Leaden/Wildfire (i.e., enmity only calculated based on damage before the MAB and other multipliers, plus WF's native enmity-) and still do good overall DPS while being a bit less of an hate risk.

Not saying that Fomal is a better DPS choice, I've been on the Armageddon train for YEARS (was my second REMA and I've always loved it). But I've seen enough CORs try to use Fomal & Last Stand in physical damage situations and end up wiping the backline to be particularly nervous about that combo.

And Earp (or Pinaka) is basically that same type of Fomal/Last Stand approach that was already risky, but super-charged. It's (a) a better physical WS than Last Stand (so, more hate from WS due to more physical WS damage, and a big VE spike coming all at once), AND (b) it comes with crazy physical damage from TP phase at least approaching Arma. You get the "best" of both worlds from a DPS perspective, but that's the worst of both worlds for keeping hate off the backline.


Yeah, pretty good time to employ those.

And if those aren't available and you're still struggling to keep from pulling hate, while it isn't ideal damage-wise, a COR could chill out a bit by firing off a few Wildfires or Leadens to generate a bit less hate from WS while still doing some WS damage (likely not as much as Terminus). RNG gets the added luxury of other options like swapping to Anni, poping Camo and just raining down low enmity white damage crits without WSing for a bit, etc.

Takeaway seems to be that because Prime ranged weapons are strong AF and focused on physical damage in tp and ws phase, you're gonna have to be very thoughtful about hate. Jumps, Dirge, Pacifying Ruby, whatever. Even tougher for COR since it doesn't get RNG's full bag of tricks.

Also absolutely worth considering using Random Deal/Wild Card for the purpose of resetting High Jump/Super Jump in some fights. It could be the difference between a win and a wipe caused by you pulling hate.

Staff confirmed Ruthless Stroke is Dex/Agi, has no vit Modifier. They *** up, fixing it next month.

Where is the confirmation of this. Can't find it :/


Omg I changed the world!!!

Jokes aside, Ruthless WSC is a crap and I reported this, because Im hoping they will spaghetti code it to 60% from that silly 20% :D

Them not including CHR and having WSC so low makes it less attractive when you can't sneak attack or climactic.

I didn't say anything about melee damage..

My point was the discussion on Prime vs Empy vs Aeonic is useless regarding hate since they all generate the same CE/VE per damage done. One million non-magic damage is the same TE regardless of what percentage is ranged attacks vs weapon skill.


Thankfully magic WS only generate hate based on pre-multiplier damage, so it's that or just stop shooting to let VE cool down. Unfortunately CE doesn't decay over time so need to Jump it off, have it Capered or have a Thief steal it.

Really boils my piss that with the wsc fix for ruthless stroke it is literally just a better zesho meppo. About the same wsc but stroke has ~5 more http://ftp...

What reason is there to hamstring katana (and axe which is admittedly even worse)

Other than Zerde, I can't think of a single scenario where I've been on COR trying to do damage and using WF as my primary WS. It's god awful at doing damage on any target that isn't severely weak to fire damage, even with R15 Arma. I could count on one hand the number of times I've even used Leaden with Arma on, because once again, if the target takes Leaden damage and I'm concerned about my enmity, I'm not wearing an Arma, I'd be wearing DP. I can't think of a scenario where I'm doing primarily physical damage, but the mob is also weak to Darkness/Fire and mid-fight I decide my enmity is too high and switch to using magical WS. Maybe it exists, but it's not coming to me. Frankly, if I were doing too much physical and wanted to switch to Leaden, I'd think the 500 TP bonus would outweigh the 70 AGI (though I haven't checked).

{Where?} I can't find it, it's in the JP section I'm assuming?

It's a JP OF post.

Ya know, it will never not blow my mind that there are literally 4 or 5 posts per day on the OF (including the jp side), the only place to get the info, and it's still too hard to figure out where a post came from.

Every time. It's wild.

"Those are jobs with access to Naegling, you should be using that"

-someone who posts here, probably

I don't see an extra 15% WSD to their WS on any of these weapons, it would be foolish to believe that you'd beat out Naegling SBing with a 1hand + tp bonus offhand/ranged before SC or WS Wall entered the discussion. It's the quenchiest.

Messing around with tier list for prime weapons for fun, posting here at risk of being flamed, lol, but seriously wanted some thoughts.

Taking the following criteria under consideration

- Job flexibility
- REMA competition/options
- Utility/Impact/DPS

TBH, I wasn't sure on the gun/bow based on recent findings and should move Gun in S tier since 2 jobs can use it? Is scythe overrated?

Also unsure on tiers A and B for some weapons, especially on the gtk/gaxe/polearm when compared to their other REMA that's easier to get and 1 job only.

No idea on the axe and club.

Open to interpretation/opinions on how accurate would this be?... lol. I'm aware there's much more variables involved on identifying the true value of a prime weapon, but gonna let the smarter people comment.

inb4 "Just pick one for your favorite job" or "tierlists are dumb"

Why is sword c isint it naeglinf with dark element for sc?

It's very hard to tier this weapons against each other in the vacuum (not triering jobs at the same time).

Caliburnus is not C, it's still best weapon for solo skillchain and has one of the best WS animation in the game. Should be B.

Varga is definitely not C either. If the recent numbers are true, then Maru Kala is actually very strong. Matching best MNK WSes on avg but being much more consistent (1st hit heavy is more reliable than ftp transfer) and very potent for TP bonus buffs. It's also great for skillchain and solo skillchain on the darkness side (which MNK really lacks otherwise) and it has bis white damage too. If Maru Kala will be confirmed to have those numbers it's A. Even A+ or S for PUP, since PUP has no Footwork/Impetus boosting Varga's competition.

Gae Buide is definitely not B. It's somewhere between A and S. It's the prime example of wha tI said about tiering this in vacuum. Diarmuid is not that impressive on paper, but on DRG it simply smash, because of all the WS damage bonuses on that job. It also helps Wyvern to survive (hp, def, meva from lvls)

Mpu Gandring is also A, because of how strong it is for skillchaining and TP gain and for how many jobs. I understand Naegling exists and can be used by THF, BRD and RDM, but for solo, you want to solo sc and for group content everyone can't use Savage because WS wall on most relevant content. It's S for DNC, A for THF and BRD and B for RDM imo. Overall A.

Kusanagi is definitely A+. It's strongest SAM weapon and opens new skillchain options for both solo and group. It would be S with stp+10 instead of da+10.

Pinaka/Earp stage 5 are S. Stage 4 they are A.

Laphria is A.

Helheim is S, because of job flexibility, but it's A on those jobs. So for example Helheim is not better than Laphria on WAR imo.

Spalirisos is definitely not in the same tier as Lorg Mor.
I would put it in B, assuming all the other changes I mentioned above.

Not really. Naegling/Savage is much stronger for raw damage. Expiacion/Black Halo too. So it's mostly self skillchain/utility weapon.

Helheim is S tier because usable on WAR DRK RUN.

Holy ***so its not worth it for RDM!?

If you care about RDM enough, that you want solo skillchain weapon for older content(no ws wall) or simply strong Distortion WS or alternative slashing option for something like idk Mboze with other people using Savage, then sure it's worth it.

Opashoro is S+ tier. Amazing for all 3 jobs that cab use it,

I think this tier list lacks A+. I would put Helheim and Opashoro there. They are A, but for several jobs, so overall better than A, but not S imo and for sure not S+.

What I consider A is either best DPS weapon or almost best dps weapon, but adding some utility like more skillchains options, self skillchain options etc.

For something to be S, it needs to have more than that, like Scythe, which is in DPS top, adds skillchain options and has OP utility of stealing HP and MP.

Opashoro is simply higher damage option for BLM and SCH and partially for SMN. It's just a damage stick, with a gimmick too.

You could argue Aria is also just damage, but it's like 15-30% increase for each DD, which is huge.