Fire Staff - Thoughts?

[Callisto]

So last night I hit 58, and the party continued to do Lesser Colibri, which were mostly VT at this range. Once I capped out my MM for the level I was just kind of goofing around...and I had a Fire Staff on me that I forgot to put in mh when I changed from RDM, and noticed the STR+ and RATK+(strangely enough, I rarely use my Fire Staff, I didn't even know it had RATK+ lol), so I decided to play around.

At 58, if you equip a Fire Staff over an Archer's you're only losing 2 racc from where you were at lvl 57, since the AF body is +8 racc(well at least I did, I was using Shikaree Aketon and not a racc body piece). I had no problem at all hitting mobs at 57, so I tried to using the staff for a bit.

At first it did kind of suck since I obviously couldn't hit a VT mob with a staff @ 0 skill, so I had to spam bullets, and we had a WAR tank(who did a commendable job, Roccojordan on Ramuh is a damn fine WAR tank at lvl 58), so I was getting beat up a bit. The boost to my normal ranged attacks was very noticeable, they went from doing 85-100 per shot to doing 110-130. I wanted to see if it would effect Slug Shot noticeably, but every time I used SS I got hate, and the damn Colibri ate my sushi, eventually I gave up testing b/c I don't currently have enough gil for another stack of sushi^^; Before using staff I was doing 550-630~ Slugs, after was doing 580-720~, but I only fired off about 4 of them using staff.

Just wondering if any of you had tooled around w/ Fire Staff on COR, and if you ever used it over a racc weapon. It looks like at 60 I'll have 21 more racc than I did at 57 from AF/Spectacles, I'm wondering if it'd be possible to use the staff and still actually hit IT mobs easily despite losing the racc from archer's/tuck/trailer's?

[Murphie]

I've seen RNG using Fire Staff before, but I haven't seen any COR. But I imagine it would serve much the same purpose/have the same effect.

[Zempten]

I think the difference is that RNGs have so much access to ranged accuracy gear/JTs(Accuracy Bonus 3 & 4) that they can sacrifice accuracy for atk, not to mention they have a higher weapon rating. Even if we were COR/RNG we'd only get 1/2 of a RNG's Accuracy Bonus JTs (Accuracy Bonus 1 & 2).

I'm not sure if we can sacrifice 14 ranged accuracy for 10 ranged atk & 5 STR on IT mobs, but maybe it'll work at even later lvls where you get more ranged accuracy rings and whatnot.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

In certain situations you could make the sacrifice - such as meritting in Caedarva Mire where lots of low evasion mobs roam about - but I wouldn't use Fire Staff against particulary evasive mobs like NIN or THF type mobs. You could even possibly go /WAR and eat meat in places like Mire and plausibly Nyzul Thickets camp, but I'd be hard pressed to say it was worthwhile elsewhere. You probably could make do with Fire Staff on most colibri mobs, I'd think.

For EXP levels otherwise, I'd reccommend sticking with Archer's/Trailer's on main hand as /RNG or x2 with /NIN . That's not to say staves are entirely out of the question, but much like others have pointed out, RNGs can afford to drop accuracy gear in ways other jobs just can't.

At level 70, RNG has five Accuracy Bonus Traits in their corner. COR only gets two of those from /RNG thier whole career. I'm always kinda baffled by the CORs out there in STR/Att builds with Raja's Rings, Triumph Earrings and Fire Staffs. Its just not the same as RNG at the same level no matter how much they wish to think it is. COR isn't exactly a RNG, even with /RNG.

When you cap off Marksmanship merits, you can practically eat meat save for mamool camps. But I'm far more anal about accuracy on COR, I've typically stuck to Squid Sushi to cover my all my needs.

[Callisto]

Haha, I'm kind of in a spot where I really want to test it, but I don't have the gil to throw away a ton of ammo at the moment. I will probably wait until 60 when I have a few more racc pieces.

I'll have +54 racc not counting the weapon slot with my 60 setup(+46 when my WS fire, I swap to two Scorp +1 rings for ranged attacks but do 1 Scorp +1 and Garrulous for WS'), add in Hunter's and sushi and I think I'd be able to hit ITs easily still, but that's theory at the moment. Whether or not I'll use it pretty much depends solely on how bad Slug is with/without a racc weapon. My normal ratks will land just fine using the staff, so I'm trying to max out my Slug damage, but if I can't land it for beans then boosting the damage is a moot point.

[Callisto]

Side note: The party that got me 58 last night, me and SAM/RNG spamming SlugWinder with a WAR tank. Kept things interesting for sure. Between me and the SAM we must've lost 15+ pieces of sushi to those damn birds. Can't wait to xp on Defoliators tonight!

[Callisto]

So I did the Airship fight last night (CoP 6-4), and used my COR for the 60 cap. It seemed like I had plenty of racc going(had just gotten myself deadeye gloves :)) on already so I went ahead and used Fire Staff for the fight.

I was a beast.

Mammets have pretty weak defense, but still, my normal ratks did about 130, and my Slugs did 930~(high of 1029), Barrage did about 560. On Omega and Ultima the damage dropped a bit, down to 400~ per Slug(including the kill on Ultima :D), but still hitting very hard relative to the other DDs. I missed one Slug out of around 12 or 13, and missed maybe 3 normal ranged atks for the entirety of the 3 fights.

I plan on sticking with Archer's/Trailer's for xp parties, but for 60 cap stuff like CoP I highly recommend going with the Staff, assuming you have the gear you should at 60 you shouldn't have any problem hitting anything, and the DD #'s you put up are great.