Hornet Needle NM

[Sabaron]

Like I said, I didn't use them. Sandspin is good for stripping shadows (I use it for that), and I generally have it in my reportoire. The low-level Sleepgas work when farming Tonberries of not-so-low level--the fact that there are two castings of BLU Sleepga gives you a better chance of a stick and since we're talking about multiple mobs most of the time, it's nice to have two. I have had good results with EP/DC/EM of varying degrees. Sleepga Shadow Stripping is primarily used when you are dealing with multiples. Tonberry adds are quite frequent. I use multiple Sleepgas to do crowd control on rooms with large numbers of Tonberries. Lead with BLU Sleepgas, pick off stragglers. We've been playing in the temple a lot recently picking up basically every valuable item in there except for Thief's Knife of course, and we underestimated the ubersapling, Yallery Brown.

I forgot about the non-overwriting Clear Mind...meh... I suppose I've been wasting a slot. I remember thinking "Whoa! Clear Mind! Why wasn't I using that before?" Now I remember why.

Yes, /WHM gets Auto-Regen. I don't like /WHM. It is very useful, but I only sub it when I have to--It makes me more of a skipping pansy-picker. It doesn't have Cocoon, Bludgeon (which still does nice damage especially against pots and undead), Sleepga (of any kind), or any of the unusual debuffs and spells that /BLU gives--most of which I like even if they're not as useful. Head Butt may not stun reliably, but it always does Knockback unless you get the rare full resist (rare in EM- range). Sandspin's Acc- is also nice. Most battles where appropriate, I use a combination of Sandspin, Battle Dance, Wild Oats, and Poison Breath. Poison Breath still does relatively nice damage, but the resists are pretty frequent and it ends up being not nearly as good as the native nukes, but I still use it occasionally.

[hongman]

So is the Hornet a 100% drop?

Meh, im not about to pay for help on this one, so I think ill just wait till a higher lvl in my LS comes in on a helping spree or wait till Im high enough to duo it with someone, w/e.

Lvling BLM sub now and so far I am good till I am lvl 60, but since I have got this far I think Ill take a nother week off lvling RDM and get BLM to 37 - get it out of the way.

Thanks for the input!

[Mhurron]

Looking at the Hornet Needle, personally I waited until 65 and went to go get Garuda's dagger.

[Murphie]

So is the Hornet a 100% drop?

Meh, im not about to pay for help on this one, so I think ill just wait till a higher lvl in my LS comes in on a helping spree or wait till Im high enough to duo it with someone, w/e.

Lvling BLM sub now and so far I am good till I am lvl 60, but since I have got this far I think Ill take a nother week off lvling RDM and get BLM to 37 - get it out of the way.

Thanks for the input!

Yes. The dagger drop isn't the hard part at all. It's the Bee Larvae that you have to farm from the bees there. If you have a THF friend it may be easier, but if you're soloing them (which you're not quite ready for) it can take a while.

I leveled my sword skill and my NPC on bees for quite a while.

[hongman]

Aha, nearly overlooked the Larvae...

Non-the-less, like I said, Im not desperate for it, just a nice to have. Ill just wait until some bored 75 in my LS hops on and then bag em XD

[Sabaron]

Hornetneedle is easier to get, and it's 28% faster. Hornetneedle is the #1 dagger for skillup alongside Beestinger if you can get it to produce 1+ physical damage consistently. No dagger is faster than these two (both 150 Delay and one of the fastest weapons in the game with Beestinger (150) and Sirocco Kukri (150 THF only). I got my HN for soloing fun and for skillup and Enspell damage.

Comparatively speaking, Hornetneedle will always outdamage Garuda's Dagger in terms of DPS disregarding Enspell Damage. Hornetneedle is the best dagger in the game for RDM until Blau Dolch and Mandau. The base DPS for HN is 6.4d/s and Garuda's is 6.23. The gap widens quickly when you apply an enspell. The Garuda's DPS is unmodified byt the attack (I didn't bother) because the progressive Enspell effect is much more significant than +7 attack. The Silence effect is notable, but only versus casting mobs.

[nickofearth]

Deathfromabove NM can be soloed easily by a 75 RDM. I did it once on my RDM, and once solo for a friend on my 75DRG/mage(stoneskined up and never had to really "heal myself with a healing breath III.) Really he is not that hard to kill.

On a side note, blu spells are based on weapon skill IRC so they are still quite potent /blu.