Prime WS Information, Testing, Discussion

Yeah Drk-bro, primes are overrated, I'm telling you all you need is good ol' R15 Calad and Aria.

But Drk-bro, don't you need a prime to do Aria?

...

Then are you implying the prime weapons are tailor made for us?

Funny how people react to discussion about facts. I haven't even provided any opinion (and I don't want to). We simply wanted to have a bigger picture and understanding of game we love.


I have no idea what you mean here. Aria is PDL, we know how PDL works.

I sincerely can't tell if the last half dozen or so posts (aside from Simon) are sarcasm or delusion.

Didn't mean to interrupt your maths lessons with fun, do carry on.

It opens scission for savage and closes liquidfaction off savage. Compare that to opening and closing light of savage its not really close.
The dagger is good in its own way but you cant deny the power of making easy lights with savage (via prime katana or scythe).

Yeah it's a little wild to see people saying things like they are prioritizing their white damage tp builds on SAM instead of the PDL weapon that will make their pdif caps better than say a PUPs.

DA? No thanks, I like fully wiffing WSs like Tanaka intended.

I guess people just can't imagine a world where they could hold tp past 1000tp and still to win parses.


Polearm and Great Axe are similar. If you open, Savage Blade makes Distortion, and you finish it up with darkness. It's really nice.

No disagreement here. Just pointing out that there is SC compatibility between Savage and Ruthless in general.

You can look at it from different perspective though.

Savage -> Origin is light, but then another Savage is nothing, then Origin is light again.

Savage -> Ruthless is liquefaction, but then Savage is scission, then Ruthless is liquefaction, so you can even make 6steps and it would be slightly stronger than 3x 2step Light. Ofc this is much more limited because target needs to be vulnerable to both fire and stone elements, while Light covers light, thunder, wind and fire. On the other hand if target absorbs one of those, then your Light is useless.

Since when is savage blade distortion?

Since day 0

Transfixion > Scission

Also your target needs to have enough HP for the 3rd, 4th, 5th SC to matter. Also you need to only have 2 melee on the target.

These things are neat and all and maybe my meta is just different to yours but uh..how often are you guys fighting an enemy with 300k health and the only melee on it are a 2h weapon user and a single person using SB?

I think Opening/Closing Light is potentially useful because you can just catch a random SC with 1-3 people using SB, cool no coordination or TP holding needed. Once you get into 3-step and 6-steps, it becomes an increasingly uncommon scenario. Maybe some CP farming strat where somehow the mobs are alive after 4 WS?

Also have to consider if your weapon opens Light (or Darkness) with commonly used WS that could be a major downside for fights where you're trying to avoid SC, like most of Sortie, Bumba, and some of the Ody bosses (during fetter mode). Making easy SC with Savage Blade is often a reason you don't get to use your weapon, not an advantage.

Really depends on the situation, as everything else in FFXI. That's the power of the primes IMO; even if they're not the best in every scenario they give you a new, different option that will be the best in some scenario, and if you really want to perform at your best, you should have one. Or two, or three...

When you know how level 1 SC properties work. So since always when you bring Transfixion.

Primes intentionally put the level 1 sc properties first so they interact differently than every other WS.

Savage Blade is Fragmentation/Scission
Diarmuid is Transfixion/Scission/Gravitation

So it goes Transfixion + Scission = Distortion + Gravitation = Dark

If Diarmuid was Gravitation/Transfixion/Scission then it would go Gravitation + Fragmentation = Fragmentation and it would end there. But it doesn't.

my tier list of primes so far.
SSS: Horn
S: Dagger, Polearm, Great Katana, Club (stage 1 or 2 only)
A: Great Axe, Katana, Great Sword, Scythe
B: Gun (Maybe A tier for -50 enmtiy 20 dex bullet for savage cor), Bow, Hand to hand
C: Sword

I'm not ranking shield / staff because their power can be S tier depending on jobs you play and how often you use it. I don't have axe so I cant rank it.

Sleep awakening?

I think gun is S, Polearm is A.

This is more like a tier list based on use case in Sortie right?

Gun/bow are actually very powerful on RNG fighting high HP target and actually shooting. Bullet is good for Savage on COR and decent for ranged fight. Gun can also be used by RNG and COR, which is an important advantage.
Polearm or GKT aren't stronger than Great Axe, Great Sword and Scythe and Scythe having by far the biggest utility on top of being top tier for damage is arguably tier higher than weapons only top tier for damage. Also arguably Great Sword being for WAR/DRK/PLD/RUN should also be tier above weapons only top tier for damage for one job. Katana above H2H, gun and bow is kinda silly :)

My tier list would probably looks like this

SS: Horn
S: Dagger, Scythe, Great Sword
A: Gun, Bow, Great Axe, Great Katana, Polearm, Staff, H2H
B: Katana, Axe
C: Sword
D: Club stage 3+

completely agree with Simon regarding his opinions on Earp and Pinaka. I've had stage5 Pinaka(bow) for about 4 months now, and just dinged stage4 Earp(gun) at the start of this week.

All I can say is there has to have been a lot of very poor usage of the Earp early on to determine its potency/value- even at stage4 I'm really impressed and the ceiling on this thing is up there. I understand the demand for ranged-based damage as a specific form is less now than in the past...but with the right gearsets, buffs, and usage, these two weapons in particular are showing potential to hang with damn near anything.

For the first time in years I have to worry about pulling hate on RNG, and even have gone as far as finding use for Decoy Shot again^^ All I want to confirm for everyone is if there's something you want to make for a favorite job or situation- go ahead and do it. It'll find some use and you'll enjoy what's possible.

My only real issue with Earp is the fight that you really really would want it for (Arrebati) has a major flaw in that Terminus closes an Induration Skillchain off of both Last Stand and Slug Shot which will heal Arebati 100k.