Merit Weaponskill 2014

When do you really really need req when you have access to formless? Can you give me an example? I'm certain you don't need req in all 6 delve zones.

You don't really NEED it for much of anything, but it's a tool at your disposal. In situations where a specific mob has large physical or damage type resistances, QD and formless are probably more useful, but that doesn't mean that Req isn't worth having.

For Shoha and Apex, I'd say it likely depends on how your LS operates and what weapons you have access to. If you do Yorcia solo DDing, Shoha is pretty damn important (probably important enough to 4/5 or 5/5). If you do Bee often and don't have a Yoichi, Apex is very important. With a Yoichi, Apex is still pretty good but you can justify not having it. I'm personally 4/5 Apex 1/5 Shoha right now because my LS does Samx2 in Yorcia and we do Bee often.

I know that, and my point was that when he has all jobs 99 he pretty much have all the tools at his disposal without it.

If he can get req 1/5 without sacrificing anything, then sure it's worth having, but he has to make a choice if he wants 1/5 req, that means one of the WS has to be 4/5 or less instead of 5/5.

I suppose it's just personal choice, unless I have a few "main" jobs I'd like to focus on, personally I'd make some of the more important DD WS as strong as possible and job change for situations needing req.

With the merit WS changes, losing access to Req is probably just as large a sacrifice if not more than going from 5/5 to 4/5, and it will depend a lot on what you do in game. Anyone who doesn't play exclusively in parties will probably get more out of Req. I play BLU often enough in and out of parties that having 1/5 Req is basically a requirement.

The thing is, if you're farming Bee with SAM's, you could farm tree just as easily for a lot more plasm. That's the main reason I don't see much use for Apex anymore. I still have it 1/5 just for the occasional piercing weak add or for quickly pulling mobs off mages when provoke is down. It has it's uses, but they're pretty limited if you don't need a specific drop off the Bee.

On both Bee and Shark zones Req is incredibly useful. FS 10m recast REALLY sucks when your rushing through killing NM's and your monks are saying "sorry 3m left on FS". And that's without getting into it being useful as a SC opener on BLU. Probably not worth going 5/5 anymore but definitely should have 1/5 if you play BLU or possibly RUN. Just because you don't have room for it doesn't mean it's not useful nor a staple tool in BLU's arsenal.

This is FFXI, it's possible to make an argument for nearly anything by altering the conditions and assumptions enough. And if that fails you can resort to the tried and true noob shaming + humble bragging technique that you just demonstrated.

I agree, we do Bee often because of a combination of being bored of tree and the LS leader wanting to use his Blu. In reality both of the Sam weaponskills are used in extremely niche circumstances and it's more about evaluating what these circumstances are to you. Both could be good enough to 5/5, or just 1/5s, you may even find them not being worth the merit at all.

You guys forgot the MOST important use for tachi: shoha!

You're having a bad run, NM is at % everyone else is dead; usa Shoha instead of fudo cause everyone know fudo miss at 1%.

wait, wasn't that you who missed on 1% and failed the run?

Tachi: Jinpu, hits twice and doesn't even take a merit!

Rana, yo.

but those 10more dmg shoha would have done and killed the mob! Now it regened and killed you !(Yeah shoha is totally going to be 1/5 if I need to merit another ws)

I can't wait to see drg change and hope it get as good as sam is now(or somewhat close), otherwise they will nerf fudo soon :(

I don't think there is a problem with fudo, the biggest advantage sam has over every other job is the 4 hit build and koga's ability to oat. Tsu's save tp is also OP too.

You're answering my question based on what YOUR jobs and what YOU choose to play as, doesn't mean OP normally bring BLU to bee/shark zone since the standard setup is SAM or MNK.

Normally ppl don't bring BLU to bee/shark unless it's their favorite job. You certainly don't need FS nor MNK in bee zone. Unless OP loves BLU enough to bring it to above zones, he'd be sacrificing the output of other jobs for it.

The standard setup on Bee is PLD RNG RNG RNG BRD WHM/RDM and you bead out anything your uncomfortable with. After you get whichever noob needed the win you then spam Tojil for plasm. Shark is usually some combination of RUN BLU and MNK with much the same story. Bird is again more RNG's as is the Lion. Tree is the only one where SAM is standard, for the same reason MNK is standard on Tojil, the whole fight practically caters to its strengths. MNK is standard on Tojil and frequently used on Shark but is practically useless on Bee, seriously don't bring a MNK to bee your just making your fight harder.

And seriously... why would you use a SAM on bee over a BLU or RNG? It get stacking PDT every 25% that renders the SAM's slashing WS's nearly useless under 50% HP and so your not going to be pimping out Fudo's new brokenness. Req ignores the stacking PDT entirely and will do consistent damage throughout the fight. RNG's get fully powered ranged WS's like JR or LS to go with their broken relics and ranged focus geared while enjoying the 2x piercing damage bonus and not needing to stand in range of the annoying moves. SAM would do good damage on Shark but Shark isn't a DPS race like the rest, it's an endurance fight where staying alive and not getting one shoted by Guillotine is the key to success along with the zone possessing two NM's that require non-physical damage.

Those "standard" "best chance at winning" setups aren't always viable as your friends Fred and Joe might not have those specific jobs geared to the same level as other jobs they have. And so there are alternative strategies. Unless of course you don't play the game with friends.


Of course these fights can be done with a multitude of setups, each with different chances of success. I find that Bee / Shark runs are done to get someone a win KI and thus you won't have your all star lineup going in.

why you spam tojil for plasm when shark is much faster?, or spend extra minutes on bird or tree for over 100k plasm.

It's probably for the Gil that they do Bee. Stingers still tend to be good money, there is also a new drop. They also mentioned they farm tree as well.

merit weaponskills vs empy weaponskills~ what beats what?

Wait what, people still use Rng on anything but Marjami? Sam is absolutely the standard for bee these days, Apex wrecks that mob. If you think a Blu or Rng would ever even come close to an Apexing Sam you are smoking something. Also Sam is amazing on shark, in most cases killing something faster is just as good if not better than taking "endurance" jobs to shark. Saying that you need formless for two mobs on that zone makes me think you haven't really done it in months. I'd still say that bringing a Mnk/run for shield breaking and formless on Craklaw is still a good idea, but a Sam as a second DD is way better.

Don't take him seriously. All he does during delve runs is spew insults at players for not being as perfect as he is.

Aye sam rocks beee and having it for other nms is really nice too since it really speeds up getting to the bee.

Every zone should be doable in under 20min with less than 6 people and 0rng. Absolutely prefer sam marjami over rng marjami, just because *** switching jobs and wasting plasm.

I haven't actually tried Sam Marjami yet, but I believe it. I don't think Rngs, Plds, or Mnks have been the "standard" for most delves in months. Sam is the best DD for at least 4/6 of the delves in standard setups, Marjami and Khamir still seem to be Pld and Rng for most groups (not saying it's best, just standard like he was arguing).

Shark and Tojil do kinda cater to MNK, but you can just bulldoze your way through with any DD really. If you bring SCH/RDM or RDM/SCH to lowman runs, enspells and nukes are more than sufficient to break aura and compensate for damage resistance phases if that's a concern, or just bring one MNK/RUN, BLU/RUN, RUN/xxx, yada yada. For Bee, SAM SAM MNK WHM BRD COR is basically top notch. Even moreso if the SAMs have Yoichi, but Apex works fine. The bee does gain some resistance at lower HP, but the SAM's are doing 6-8K Apex's in full accuracy sets and pushing 10K if they can use a max set. Their WS frequency is WAY higher than BLU or RNG and Requiescat doesn't even start to catch up to Apex until the last 25%. With 1 Cibit SAM, one Yoichi SAM, and an Oat MNK, we were killing the bee in less than 2 minutes and clearing the zone in less than 20. Tree is even easier because SAM can kill everything in zone with unbelievable efficiency.

There are basically no Delve runs that BLU is better than SAM by any real margin. There are some particular mobs, sure, but SAM is so much more useful for the rest of the run and sub 20 minute clears are all but guaranteed, why bother?

Well I'm not counting Yochi because it really doesn't change how SAM is played. Bee isn't a "does gain some", it gains a stacking 50% PDT each 25%HP if you deal the wrong type of damage in the previous phase. It's why damage suddenly slows down at 50%, you've brought a MNK and they triggered the first PDT due to blunt during the first quarter. I wasn't aware of Apex being buffed in the slightest and last I checked it was pretty bad.

Shark isn't a bullrush because no matter how fast you kill it, if it gets lance / cleaver off then a guillotine your pretty much going to lose DDs. It's better to take that fight a little slower and ensure a victory then to gamble. I would love to know how people are dealing with static prison to have melee's survive a fight with the bird. The rest of his moves are negligible but static will rape anyone who isn't a buffed RUN or Aegis PLD, not to mention dispelling your buffs and inflicting that potent paralyze which essentially halts your damage.

Anyhow tojil is super stupid easy to beat for an easy 70K plasm, takes a special kind of retard to fail that run these days. It's why most players are spamming that to buy their delve stuff. So I guess it's the one with the lowest common denominator for 70K every 20~30m (the not so great folks) that is accessible to pretty much everyone. Tree is also super spammable but only if you have people who are already extremely well geared and skilled, basically the 5% who likes to post on forums.

By getting rid of aura, obviously.

I have no doubt that if both the ice tiger and the thunder bird were to sit there and let you kill them, that SAM would crush it. Both of those have very dangerous and crippling TP moves that can't be stunned. Glacial Entombment sucks and Glassy Nova pretty much destroys anything nearby, Static Prison is extremely cheap and similiar to Glassy Nova. Bee is an interesting case because you can have one run go super smooth, then another where it spams incisive moves and starts killing everyone while it's aura prevents stunning. If the aura gets dropped super quick then it's easy, if its doesn't then bad things happen fast.

The point was that the vast majority of groups do Shark / Bee only to get some returning friend of theirs wins, not selling them btw. I have no doubt that a group of extremely well geared players with powerful support can do things differently, but I tend to ignore the, by definition, niche segment of the player base and only focus on the mainstream players.

If your lucky and you get rid of it before he has a chance I could see it working, but most of the time its gonna get off and that's game over for your melees. Tank + RNG spam doesn't have to bother, especially if there is a relic RNG amongst them. Huge margin of error and virtually guaranteed win for less effort. Not to mention a single RDM could main heal and put Flurry II on the RNG's, don't need curaga III/IV if there is only one highly survivable melee in range.

Morimar is the only zone where stuns make a significant difference, I've never even seen stuns in Ceizak. If your mages are awake, you can eat TP moves without issue.

Never had a Static Prison go off since we started doing melee strat, even when we bring multiple DDs since I have them turn around until it's down. If anything you're unlucky to have it go off. When I just solo SAM the zone, I Konzen > Rana for Darkness and if we have a mage, they'll Stone MB and knock if off. If not (4-man runs), I'll /RUN and Lunge MB and that works, too. Once it's off you can kill it before it decides to use Crashing Thunder again.