Still king of the solo?Follow

Yeah, RDM's still a beast, and there's lots of different strategies you can adapt to particular NMs. In general, you win through survival, so PDT/MDT-50 sets are very helpful (and much easier to achieve nowadays), as much Fast Cast gear as you can acquire (AF hat + Relic body at the absolute least), and Enfeebling/Enhancing sets are the ones that'll make or break you in most cases.

Of particular note is the gear that enhances Stoneskin; there's 4 items that increase the 350 damage absorbed, and RDM can use them all. Neck/Legs are easily soloed, Waist is 100% from Ogopogo, and Hands drop from that sealed casket BCNM in Beadeaux [S], in order of pain in the ass to acquire. 450 Stoneskin is boss, highly recommended.

Also kinda goes without saying, but the entire Estoqueur's set kicks ass; just about triples duration of buffs cast on yourself w/ Composure, huge increases to elemental/enfeebling magic.

Once you have that in order and get some practice, you become very hard to kill, so at that point you'll want to work primarily on a good nuking set to start increasing your killspeed. Melee isn't quite as versatile, but can still be put to good use with the right gear/tactics (see Xenith's Fafnir video for emphasis), but unless you intend to devote a good amount of time and effort to it, it's very lackluster.

For soloing, /BLU for blood tanking, /NIN for blink tanking, otherwise if you're in a situation where you're nuking and either aren't taking damage (Bind/Gravity kiting, pinning), or your natural defenses can handle it, /SCH. There's a few solos where /WHM is desireable (Skuld comes to mind), as well as /BLM for Stun, but they won't see nearly as much use as the above.

As for Magian Weapons, Almace is good for wrecking sh*t (don't waste your time with the WoE version; without Aftermath, you might as well just use a good dagger and save yourself the headache), STR+ Shamshir is the best offhand ; you'll hear arguments for the OA2-4, but I remain unimpressed. If you opt for the /BLU strategy more often than not, PDT- Shamshirs are a must.

For staves, the DMG variants are far and away the best improvements you'll find for your nuking set; the 12% casting speed increase is a very nice bonus, as it applies to all spells. As for the accuracy variants.. there just isn't enough content at the moment to justify the effort; for the most part, if it resists, it's immune. Take that with a grain of salt though, as the amout of not-Abyssea/not-meant for lv.75 content will increase in the near future, as well as the Enfeebling overhaul mentioned in the manifesto, they may become much more desireable down the road.

Edited, Aug 8th 2011 4:28pm by LyltiaofLakshmi

Or you just replace your elemental staves outright, so it's more like inventory +1 (earth staff for PDT is something you'd keep around).

Because Sang Blade is our best WS pre CDC. It is a great utility (heals 50% damage to health) does very great damage (near 1500 with right gear + atmas), The good atmas all benefit our other aspects (Minikin, Beyond, Apoc is what I use.) Where GH/RR/Apoc don't help us other than kill faster. Sang Blade building gives us not only a solid free cure 5 every 30 seconds or so, it allows us to nuke to kill it down while we use our sword to keep us up. Apoc helps sometimes to cram back to back B4's out.

Because you built for sang blade, your damage output is higher, your staying power is longer, and your overall utility is better. This applies to both inside and outside abyssea as we can put MP from saved cures into more nukes.

Thats why I build sang blade at least, I find evisceration lacking and random, sometimes its awesome sometimes it is not. With sang I know exactly what to expect every time, and it provides a boost to my other talents from damage boosts to MP regeneration.



Well you don't need math. A near 10% boost to damage (depending on atma/sub/gear this will vary) via 10% DA, trumps anything the STR ATK sword can do. 18 ATK is not coming near 10%, and STR isn't going to be noticed, with Abyssea buffs and all, and on anything outside it doesn't matter, or a RDM shouldn't be meleeing.

You don't need math to know that the STR Sword is pretty trashy.


Oh and the joyeuse is still the best sword to solo with, unless you want to waste time getting the Khanda 2-4. (and I do mean waste.)

Edited, Aug 10th 2011 12:13am by rdmcandie

Edited, Aug 10th 2011 12:15am by rdmcandie

I don't know why you are getting so angry. But since Im bored I will bite.

Sang Blade is used so you don't have to spend money on heals, even if you are not taking enough damage for its value to be fully used, it is still nearly 1500 damage, every 30 or seconds, with over 700 of that healing you. This frees up nearly all your MP for use with Nukes, which will produce more damage in the end. (regular melee hits + nukes > high crit based melee hits). There is no other sword WS that comes close to the durability of Sang, and it even pushes Evis for top spot.

Even without a staff melee for TP + nuke for damage, WS to stay alive + damage. There is no reason to use anything other thank Sang Blade. Futher more considering how sh*tty RDM evasion skill is, in a melee role /NIN is almot entirely useless, with how high the DA rates of nms are you are going to be burning shadows incredibly fast.

Its not that its hybridy its that it is practical function Sang Blade plays best with our solo style, which is longevity. If you run out of MP you lose. Being able to have a refresh atma that benefits or melee (sang blade) and casting (nukes other spells via refresh) is huge. RR GH just don't stack up.

2. Actually it will be fairly close to 10%, and even then it is still a hell of a lot higher than anything 9STR and 18ATK could ever hope of boosting that high. Off the top of my head I can't think of too much a RDM will be wearing with DA on it. You might have Atheling, or Brutal earring. But really you are going to be hard pressed to make a considerable impact on it, you might see 20 if you try for it, but then you eat into your haste gear. Using Atmas other than RR,GH,SS (or apoc) is silly to when considering an offhand because at this point you are married to Evis (or CDC both of which crit).





and I am pretty sure I said this:



I didn't think Id need to repeat myself. If you are using a sword Sang Blade is the best, and the Joyeuse is the best for it (unless you waste time getting the 2-4) if you aren't using a sword the it doesn't matter. In order to get CDC you need alamace. (or the sissy version).

And im done arguing with you, because you don't know what you are arguing about (as usual). I should have stopped with you advocating the STR sword as good for RDM, but i didn't. So I am now.

Edited, Aug 10th 2011 11:27am by rdmcandie

Right, and greatly increased frequency of a crit-based WS doesn't count in the comparison, or the Double/Triple Attack from melee Atmas? Also considering that you're tossing nukes, I'd be very surprised if your WS frequency was even half of what it would be with melee Atmas. No, you're just making this sh*t up as you go. I mean, 1500 Sanguine Blades threatening to compete with Evisceration...?



Huh? Melee with a staff?

Also, if you take the time to actually cast debuffs on things, shadows are more than enough to handle them.

You do realize that this is essentially a replay of the Defender vs. Berserk argument of old? And how everyone decided that yeah, you might take more damage per hit with Berserk up, but you take less damage overall through increased killspeed? Yeah, you're the guy arguing for Defender.



You vastly underestimate the impact of 9STR 18ATK on a job whose most glaring melee weakness is.... lack of attack.




?




C'mon, you've seen me angry, do you really think my above post was me being angry? Confusion @ logic behind bad strategy /=/ mad. Your post on the other, hand, definitely mad.

Edited, Aug 10th 2011 1:57pm by LyltiaofLakshmi

Ill break it down for you.

Anything a RDM can melee solo, a DNC or NIN will do faster.
Anything a RDM can nuke solo, a BLM or SCH will do faster.

RDM has one benefit in that you can /NIN and melee solo one NM, then go and solo another NM using nuke strats (most likely pining) only other job I can tink that can do this is BLU but they are really limited in their options due to ranges of spells, MP recovery, and sheer damage mitigation/recovery.