[Spider-Dan]

Originally Posted by Grizzlebeard

If you honestly believe that I don't know where to begin.

Any decent party can chain birds-only without the COR engaging at all.

Please explain what you mean by upper-tier. Other than an accidental pull the only time a sane party chooses to fight wivre is if they're low on bird pops.

So, again, you're showing your hand.

Upper-tier (read: elite) parties kill faster than bird repop. You have to kill wivres, or your chain will break.

[re: Evoker's downtime]
The two statements are in no way connected so I don't understand what you find so puzzling.

It's not hard: if the amount of time you are spending rolling Evoker's is that significant, then that speaks to the time that you will spend without Corsair's. If it isn't significant, then your point about Samba is invalidated.

It's not really difficult to understand. Cast Evoker's, wait 50 seconds, cast Chaos, another 50 seconds and Corsair's. Refresh Evoker's as it's about to drop, wait 50 seconds and repeat the cycle. At most, in a 12 minute cycle you won't have Corsair's on you for 50 seconds.

...

In the hypothetical 12 minute example you just gave, you are without Corsair's for 2:30; it takes you 1:40 to even put Corsair's on to begin with, and then you are without it for another 50 seconds after the second Chaos. Outstanding work.

Listen, it's extremely simple: rolls have ~5-6 minute duration and 50-60 second recast. You can try to juggle the stopwatch start/stop time all you like, but the plain and straightforward fact is that for any given full roll rotation, you WILL be stuck with two non-Corsair's rolls for the duration of one Phantom Roll recast AT THE VERY MINIMUM.

How exactly do you figure that? They each have two people in with around 60% health and one with about 80%. The difference being my healer is sat on a healthy MP buffer to ensure they can be cured and to cover any emergencies like a resisted sleep or pecking flurry.

My frontline (the people that are actually taking damage) had more life than yours. MP buffer is, as I said, irrelevant; setting aside the fact that we have no idea where your mage and my mage were in their Convert cycles, Light Shot covers resisted sleep and my TP pool covers emergency cures (and is instant).

As I stated above, it's preferable for your healer to have a pool of MP they can draw on for unforseen events. The "bonus" is not ending up face down because they ran out of MP.

The only time having more MP matters is if you actually run out, which we did not. Bird camp is simply not that dangerous. Having more MP just to have it simply holds you back; I cannot remember the last time any bird camp party (or any merit party, really) had a PT member die due to lack of MP.

Congratulations, that's the point. In an eleven second window with average gear I put out 745 non-ws damage. Therefore why would you gimp your damage and use a dagger to TP with knowing, unlike the other melee DD, you aren't going to fire at 100TP each time?

1) I do a lot more with my TP than just WS
2) I have no problem firing WS at 100 TP

To borrow your own argument, perhaps the reason why your mage is camping on 80% MP is because you aren't being aggressive enough?

This, of course, spectacularly misses the point that while you would be gaining TP faster with a merc kris on cor/war over a joyeuse wielding cor/war your damage over time will be significantly lower due to the lower damage of the kris. Unless I'm to believe, as above, that you would be firing at 100TP each time regardless of the mob's health and subsequent hate-grabbing / healing drain issues it confers.

Well, first of all, when I fire a WS and pull hate, I'm not sporting a 25% defense reduction. But to answer your question, I have absolutely no problem firing WS at 100 TP. If you really want to pursue the issue, who will be more of an MP drain when attacked: COR/DNC or a 'zerked SAM/WAR with Hasso up?

[Grizzlebeard]

Originally Posted by Spider-Dan

Any decent party can chain birds-only without the COR engaging at all.

If you want to be in decent parties and be lazy that's your call. I'd prefer to actually perform my core corsair role and DD thereby raising the exp/hour from "decent" to exemplary.

Originally Posted by Spider-Dan

So, again, you're showing your hand.

Upper-tier (read: elite) parties kill faster than bird repop. You have to kill wivres, or your chain will break.

I seem to recall already saying, "if they're low on bird pops." That in no way is the indication of an elite party, although, I find it laughable that's how you quantify it. It more than likely means the party at the upper bird camp is grabbing your spawns and forcing you on to wivres. It happens sometimes, it's hardly the "elite" choice.

Originally Posted by Spider-Dan

It's not hard: if the amount of time you are spending rolling Evoker's is that significant, then that speaks to the time that you will spend without Corsair's. If it isn't significant, then your point about Samba is invalidated.

Not sure if you're trying to be obtuse or if you're just struggling to understand. My initial point was that while you're applying Evoker's your Drain Samba could drop from the mob. Granted 3 ticks can be a while and it won't always happen but there's still a chance. That in no way has anything to do with skipping Evoker's on the healer or the horrifying loss of Corsair's on yourself only for 50 seconds every 12 minutes. Of course, this is all a moot point if your healer is a Scholar and he's casting Enthunder on you all because then you can kiss Drain Samba goodbye.

Originally Posted by Spider-Dan

In the hypothetical 12 minute example you just gave, you are without Corsair's for 2:30; it takes you 1:40 to even put Corsair's on to begin with, and then you are without it for another 50 seconds after the second Chaos. Outstanding work.

Clearly, the example I gave are the initial rolls, they can be performed before you even begin combat. Try and keep up.

Originally Posted by Spider-Dan

Listen, it's extremely simple: rolls have ~5-6 minute duration and 50-60 second recast. You can try to juggle the stopwatch start/stop time all you like, but the plain and straightforward fact is that for any given full roll rotation, you WILL be stuck with two non-Corsair's rolls for the duration of one Phantom Roll recast AT THE VERY MINIMUM.

I agree, it's extremely simple and yet it still manages to elude you. Given a full rotation you will have no Corsair's for 50-60 seconds in a 12 minute window. You have a Luzaf's Ring right? I mean, you're not doing two seperate sets of Corsair rolls?

Originally Posted by Spider-Dan

My frontline (the people that are actually taking damage) had more life than yours. MP buffer is, as I said, irrelevant; setting aside the fact that we have no idea where your mage and my mage were in their Convert cycles, Light Shot covers resisted sleep and my TP pool covers emergency cures (and is instant).

I agree, it's easy to toss out a screenshot as evidence but without knowing all the details behind it then the screenshot is meaningless. That was kind of the point really. In your screenshot did you have double Minuet, were you using Ranged Attack food, did you have a dragoon and had they used Angon? As for your emergency cures, those heals are coming at the expense of your damage and the party exp gain. In addition to generating enmity for yourself which could lead to additional healing required as unlike the other DD you don't have access to Third Eye/Seigan, or jumps, or shadows to mitigate incoming damage.

Originally Posted by Spider-Dan

The only time having more MP matters is if you actually run out, which we did not. Bird camp is simply not that dangerous. Having more MP just to have it simply holds you back; I cannot remember the last time any bird camp party (or any merit party, really) had a PT member die due to lack of MP.

I agree, people really shouldn't die at bird camps, it can happen on occasion with wivre pulls.

Originally Posted by Spider-Dan

1) I do a lot more with my TP than just WS
2) I have no problem firing WS at 100 TP

To borrow your own argument, perhaps the reason why your mage is camping on 80% MP is because you aren't being aggressive enough?

The original point was about your damage output. Claiming you use yours for actions other than WS is just clarifying the fact you're doing less damage over time than you could be doing.

As for hanging fire and not WS'ing on 100TP every time, I tend to be more considerate towards the bigger picture I guess. Better to have the DD all hitting the mob and not chasing it and to have the healer with an MP buffer while still being able to keep a full haste cycle and meet the full healing requirements of the party without me having to gimp my damage and the party exp gain by going /dnc.

Originally Posted by Spider-Dan

Well, first of all, when I fire a WS and pull hate, I'm not sporting a 25% defense reduction. But to answer your question, I have absolutely no problem firing WS at 100 TP. If you really want to pursue the issue, who will be more of an MP drain when attacked: COR/DNC or a 'zerked SAM/WAR with Hasso up?

The fact remains, it's detrimental for the corsair to pull hate. What happens if your Evoker's is nearing refresh on the healer but you've just landed at Slug Shot on the mob and it's sitting at 80% health? You going to run over to the mage with mob in tow while all the DD chase after you? Or are you going to wait 5-10 seconds while the mob dies, then run over to the mage, then do your roll? You've just lost 10-15 seconds of the DD rolls and Corsair's if you're doing that also.

As for your Sam/War comment, they have access to Third Eye/Seigan while a Cor/War can always pop Defender if they're taking a pummeling in addition to having Defense Bonus I. Granted, /dnc gives you Evasion Bonus I.

Clearly you enjoy playing cor/dnc in merit parties whereas I prefer cor/war. Nothing wrong with that at all just don't try and convince me that /dnc is superior to /war for exp gain in a balanced merit party because I'll call you out on it every time. Likewise with the merc kris being a superior choice of weapon over a joyeuse.

[Spider-Dan]

Originally Posted by Grizzlebeard

If you want to be in decent parties and be lazy that's your call. I'd prefer to actually perform my core corsair role and DD thereby raising the exp/hour from "decent" to exemplary.

...which has nothing to do with my original statement.

Any decent party can chain birds indefinitely, regardless of the COR's SJ. Either you disagree with this statement, or you do not. If you don't, then why even respond to it?

I seem to recall already saying, "if they're low on bird pops." That in no way is the indication of an elite party, although, I find it laughable that's how you quantify it. It more than likely means the party at the upper bird camp is grabbing your spawns and forcing you on to wivres. It happens sometimes, it's hardly the "elite" choice.

So from your response, it seems fair to presume that you aren't specifically referring to a situation where your party has both floors to itself. Great.

If you are chaining birds alone (no wivres), on one floor you cap out at ~23k/hr, ~26k/hr with Corsair's Roll (feel free to do the math on that). This is significantly below "elite" exp (30k/hr+ is quite attainable), and this is presuming that your party can kill at precisely the maximum bird repop speed, yet NOT too fast to outspace respawns. Good luck with that.

Clearly, the example I gave are the initial rolls, they can be performed before you even begin combat. Try and keep up.

[...]

I agree, it's extremely simple and yet it still manages to elude you. Given a full rotation you will have no Corsair's for 50-60 seconds in a 12 minute window. You have a Luzaf's Ring right? I mean, you're not doing two seperate sets of Corsair rolls?

Are you really this bad at math? Let me try to break this down for you. Let's suppose that the last two rolls you applied were Chaos and Corsair's, and you are just now getting ready to renew Evoker's (I'll use unmerited PR recast and 3 Winning Streak Merits, just to make it that much easier to grasp):

0:00-1:00 - Evoker's + Corsair's
1:00-2:00 - Chaos + Evoker's
2:00-3:00 - Corsair's + Chaos
[3:00-6:00 unchanged]
6:00-7:00 - Evoker's + Corsair's
7:00-8:00 - Chaos + Evoker's
8:00-9:00 - Corsair's + Chaos
[9:00-12:00 unchanged]

Gee, sure seems like 2 minutes out of 12 to me! But feel free to post your own timeline where the results are any different. I am very interested in seeing how math works in your world.

As for your emergency cures, those heals are coming at the expense of your damage and the party exp gain. In addition to generating enmity for yourself which could lead to additional healing required as unlike the other DD you don't have access to Third Eye/Seigan, or jumps, or shadows to mitigate incoming damage.

That's why they're called emergency cures? It's not like I don't have the option to not cure and continue dealing damage (i.e. precisely what I would be doing if I were on /WAR).

I agree, people really shouldn't die at bird camps, it can happen on occasion with wivre pulls.

...which you just said you don't fight. So why does your mage need to be sitting on 800+ MP, again?

For the record, I have had plenty of party members die when fighting birds/wivres. But their deaths had nothing to do with MP pool and everything to do with them losing life faster than cures can refill it.

The original point was about your damage output. Claiming you use yours for actions other than WS is just clarifying the fact you're doing less damage over time than you could be doing.

If I wanted to simply deal more damage (to the exclusion of other factors like increasing the party's damage and increasing exp/hr rate), then of course I'd use /WAR or /RNG. /DNC isn't used to win parses; it's used to increase exp/hr. Sorry if you misunderstood my reasoning.

As for hanging fire and not WS'ing on 100TP every time, I tend to be more considerate towards the bigger picture I guess. Better to have the DD all hitting the mob and not chasing it and to have the healer with an MP buffer while still being able to keep a full haste cycle and meet the full healing requirements of the party without me having to gimp my damage and the party exp gain by going /dnc.

DD not chasing the mob? check (where would they be chasing it?)
Healer has enough MP to do their job? check
Full haste cycle? check (in fact, I'm fairly sure that I was hasted in my screenshot, while you definitely aren't hasted in yours)

The fact remains, it's detrimental for the corsair to pull hate. What happens if your Evoker's is nearing refresh on the healer but you've just landed at Slug Shot on the mob and it's sitting at 80% health? You going to run over to the mage with mob in tow while all the DD chase after you?

You mean the Evoker's that I'm not using?

As for your Sam/War comment, they have access to Third Eye/Seigan while a Cor/War can always pop Defender if they're taking a pummeling in addition to having Defense Bonus I.

So which is the better option:

1) SAM drops Hasso for Seigan, lowering damage output, while healer maintains 80% MP and rests comfortably
2) SAM keeps dealing damage, healer actually uses their MP

It's a fundamental difference in mindset. The fact that you think DDs should be focusing on defense, you prize healer MP reserves, and you don't think that wivres are required for optimal exp... these are not random coincidences. It is cause-and-effect. You will not be able to chain wivres with that mindset (nor will you need to, because you will be taxed at simply killing 10 birds).

[Lmnop]

This turned huge and scary.

[Grizzlebeard]

Originally Posted by Lmnop

This turned huge and scary.

Not really. My faulty math aside, he knows a cor/dnc will fall behind a cor/war in a merit party situation everytime regardless of whether the cor/dnc is wielding a merc kris or not. The rest is just backtracking and vain attempts to avoid the points I laid out a page ago.

[Mezlo]

So should a COR use MK?

jk...

Since i started this pos,t my COR's hit 75 and is fully merited. On merit parties, I'm puller 50% of the time because 50% of the time we can't find a brd. In a 2 hour merit party, i typically get to WS 3-5 times which means who the F cares about MK. I usually main hand a wind staff for the + agi for QD and the +eva.

[Spider-Dan]

Originally Posted by Grizzlebeard

Not really. My faulty math aside, he knows a cor/dnc will fall behind a cor/war in a merit party situation everytime regardless of whether the cor/dnc is wielding a merc kris or not. The rest is just backtracking and vain attempts to avoid the points I laid out a page ago.

If "fall behind" = "get outparsed by," then sure. You thoroughly disproved a point that I was never making. Actually, I can't even give you credit for that, given that my very first reply to you was:

Originally Posted by Spider-Dan

COR/WAR is better for your personal damage and certainly better for screenshots*, but it's not the superior option for exp/hr.

So after a page and a half of posts, you "proved" what I said from the start. Outstanding work!

To continue, if you mean that COR/DNC "falls behind" COR/WAR in the sense of gaining less exp/hr, definitely not. You haven't even attempted to address this point directly, and every time you've addressed it indirectly, you've proven me right. To wit:

- I have fulltime Corsair's, you do not (speaking individually)
- my party is killing every bird plus wivres, your party is killing birds only

Hmmm, which one of us is getting more exp/hr? The math on this one shouldn't be that hard.

[Vyuru]

This turned huge and scary.

Not really, this made me want to go and get a MKris for when my Cor is higher level.

[Grizzlebeard]

Originally Posted by Spider-Dan

To continue, if you mean that COR/DNC "falls behind" COR/WAR in the sense of gaining less exp/hr, definitely not.

Post a screenshot and prove me wrong.

Here's one to compare to. You can see the buffs and lack of Exp Band. Granted it was a bird only party and not an "elite" bird and wivre camp but being EU I'm usually lucky enough to have access to both camps due to timezone differences coupled with a pretty godly puller and solid DD. The only wild card in our set up is the healer which we can sometimes fall foul of.

[ShepardG]

Speaking of the MP issue, I've about gotten to the point of saying goodbye to tradional healing roles in my Merit Parites. I've seen Dnc/nin's with M. Kris's main heal the shit out of parties. It's pretty epic.

[Spider-Dan]

Originally Posted by Grizzlebeard

Post a screenshot and prove me wrong.

Here's one to compare to. You can see the buffs and lack of Exp Band. Granted it was a bird only party and not an "elite" bird and wivre camp but being EU I'm usually lucky enough to have access to both camps due to timezone differences coupled with a pretty godly puller and solid DD. The only wild card in our set up is the healer which we can sometimes fall foul of.

...

Your Sanction has been up for 45 minutes (your Protect has been up for 12). You are on chain 28. If (hypothetically speaking) you did have an EXP ring, it would have expired already. Showing me some screenshot of your instant momentary high of exp/hr (near the start of your session) doesn't really prove a whole lot. Hell, getting two good Corsair's Rolls in a row could have produced that effect.

Besides, it's not even necessary to go into all that. If I'm killing every bird plus wivres, then I am necessarily going to be getting more exp/hour than you are when you're just killing birds; the only way that this could not be true is if you have access to more birds than I do (i.e. you have both floors open), which has not been a stated condition.

---------- Post added at 10:10 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:07 AM ----------

Originally Posted by ShepardG

I've seen Dnc/nin's with M. Kris's main heal the shit out of parties. It's pretty epic.

[ShepardG]

WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW WWWWWWWWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSSSSSSSSSS SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHEE EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD


FTMFW.

/thread

[Mezlo]

lol...

FTMFW?

[ShepardG]

For the Muther Fucking Win ^^

[Grizzlebeard]

Originally Posted by Spider-Dan

the only way that this could not be true is if you have access to more birds than I do (i.e. you have both floors open), which has not been a stated condition.

Here, let me help you out.

Originally Posted by Grizzlebeard

Granted it was a bird only party and not an "elite" bird and wivre camp but being EU I'm usually lucky enough to have access to both camps due to timezone differences coupled with a pretty godly puller and solid DD.

Fact remains, until you provide some proof of your superior exp/hour with cor/dnc as opposed to cor/war I'm going to continue believing you're talking out your arse.