Gandiva 119 Question...

So I've decided to start collecting heavy metal plates, 1400 more to go!

Here's a little backstory,
I returned to ffxi 3 months ago, I used to play about 3 years ago pre-abby, and started back in the good old days of 75 cap.

Anyways I've played for awhile, raised some 99s this last two months, rng brd whm and thf to be exact.

Now I would like to attempt to make an empy, after 10 years of playing, and I cannot find any good threads supporting my descision to make this bow. It seems like anyone who is RNG these days makes guns due to enmity loss from contarch WS.

I do not prefer to use a gun, and I like gandiva 80% dex boost aftermath...

So given the information above, tell me why I should or should not make this bow, and what other BOW options do you reccomend?

First post here too... hi everyone from sylph!

if you want to increase your desirability as a rng, youll make the gun. if you want it to remain the exact same, but complete a personal goal of which youll surely regret(functionally), then its a fine decision to complete any other weapon for rng. its as simple as that.

the skirmish bow is pretty good with augments, and surely youll find it functionally as effective as your empy decision. if you want to make an empy, make the harp for your bard. its like 2 bows glued together with a few extra strings!

Get the Tenzen BC bow ( Hangaku-no-Yumi ) if you wanna jishnu/apex all the things.

If you are already decided to 119 a gandiva i would encourage you to keep going. There are lots of factors that can justify one person commitment, like personal preferences, and thats valid.

My personal opinion is that i wouldnt do a gandiva, because the main aspect of an empy is the empy ws, and jishnu is available to any bow. Stat wise, its pretty much so so, relies on aftermath to even out with others options.

About the sugestions of other bow, i would recomend falubeza or cibitshavore. Both have higher base dmg though higher delay, but falu has snapshot and large amount of racc. Cibi can have stp7 and sam can use.

Finally, yoichinoyumi has the same appealing of anni: the low enmity ws plus extra racc, and the plus that sam can use, and its way cheaper than empy.

he should be aware (or be made aware of), though, that it wont create any more opportunity or advantage (at this time) over any of the significantly cheaper options, like the ones you stated, panta.

its one thing to want to advance yourself functionally, and another to advance yourself personally. pantas advice is almost always sound and worth considering so before you make any decisions id at least "sleep on it", it being his suggestions.

You won't be popular using Jishnu's over other ws options because RNGs are brought to content where hate control and being out of range of damaging aoe's are the priority. Gun/Relic bow > empy..

I like the ya mi relic bow but from what I've read, Anni just is the common go to weapon for rangers... I guess I could sell the 100 plates and get 1/2 the money I need for whiteshells..

In order to unlock empy skills I still need to go through the trials, right?

So here is where I stand, make relic bow and unlock jinshus or make a gandiva?..

Thanks for all your input guys and keep it

rolling!

:edit: how Is namas arrow?

You can easily unlock Empy WSs now from Weapon -1 trials (you can get these in the coffer next to the weapon magian moogle), just cost a little bit of gil, depending on the WS for the coins part.

Namas Arrow can do pretty decent DMG for SAM or RNG, with the proper buffs. Coronach will do more damage for RNG, always has.

If your intention is to make a 119 Gandiva to have a role in current or future endgame where RNG set up is best/easiest, good luck with that. However, if you're making it just to do insane JRs or a die hard RNG, by all means... knock yourself out! Truth is, you'll have a hard time getting a spot in fights where RNGs even matter w/o a relic.

please dont waste your time or money, 119 gandiva falls short to easier to obtain bows. you will be a laughing stock with one and prolly not get much invs on rng. gl though.

While true in most cases, not always. Namas has the advantage of having a direct STR mod, so where you only benefit from fSTR2 when building the required STR on coronach, this also buffs the WSD on namas. Furthermore the 'sweet spot' for bow is much easier to maintain than gun (which basically requires you to be right in the mobs face) which helps. This is only a case on very high def/vit NMs, but its a point.

As for gandiva vs others, its a nice bow and I'd personally give it a little more credit that others, BUT, the main issue was raised by blazed: hate control. With a half decent setup you can get a 4-hit tp phase (weaponskill + 3 regular hits) and then spike for high damage every 8~10 seconds or less if double shot is up. Yes, you'll do damage but if decoy shot is down you either lose a LOT of that damage to play safe, or quickly pull the NM into the back lines.

This isn't to say don't do it. There are a lot of weapons you can make that aren't considered 'top tier' but can put out very competitive numbers if used right. I quite regularly break out my bravura war for incursion. Do I do as much damage as a SAM with equal gear? Heck no, but I take a lot less mp to heal, my eva down helps a ton and when high dt is needed I actually do compete with sams thanks to the aftermath. Just play to the weapons strengths and try to marginalise the weakness.

The sweet spot means little when most of what you're fighting on RNG has an AOE of 15'+ :(. Back in Ixion days, you were expected to fight at max range, KB also wherever you can hit it. I guess for a more contemporary example, you'd want to fight all AAs at 15'+ except what.. MR and HM (I forget which have shorter AoE WS ranges). Cailimh is 19' yalm+ or something too?

At 21 you're still in the tier 3 spot for bow, but you're completely out of bonus damage range from gun.

Edit: Hit the wrong number key and didn't re read.

Depends if you fight with aura up or down. It's either 15.1 or 10.1 assuming aura up/Static Prison only. Otherwise some moves can hit up to 20', but they're not very threatening so you could potentially still move in to like 15.1 depending on your group.

I'd invite a 119 Gandiva RNG all day ....

a few particular players with 119 Gandiva*