[lufia22]

Just finished leveling NIN to 37 and am just starting RNG. Any sort of guidelines to follow on how much ammo I should carry around? I'm trying to stock up on ammo for the dunes but am not sure how much to bring. Obviously I'll need more and more as XP to level increases.

[Ellipses]

You can roughly estimate the ammo you'll need based on your ranged weapon's delay.

(Delay / 110) + 1.75 + 1.1 = rough # of seconds between shots. 60 divided by that number = # of shots per minute. You're not going to be firing full rate every minute of every hour (especially not at that level; there's time between pulls, etc.) of XP, but pretending that you will be will over-estimate the ammo you need, which is safer than under-estimating it.

You need 35,000 XP to get from 10-20. If you figure 3k XP/hour (if you're making less than this, it's really doubtful you're firing at full rate anyway), that's about 12 hours' worth of ammo if you don't want to make any trips back to town. Of course, you're likely going to switch ammo at some point(s) in there, but you're on your own with that.

I'm not guaranteeing this is a good way to estimate the ammo you'll need. It's just how I would do it if I were leveling RNG.

[Mog]

I usually carry around 12 quivers whenever I go out on ranger. Do I need that many? No, probably not. But after each party, I just buy however many quivers I used and I'm set for the next party.

For 99% of parties though, you're probably fine with 6 quivers.

[lufia22]

I suppose I'll keep all my questions to one post. A big help you guys have been so far.
Two more questions:

1.) Do WS have different sweetspots than normal ranged attacks?
2.) I know WS have modifiers based on AGI and/or STR. Is it recommended to macro swap in rings with AGI or STR for a WS, or just stick with ACC rings?

[Tokitung]

1.) No, the weapon type has a base Sweet Spot for WS and R. attacks

2.) Stick with Acc rings (until you hit your Raja's Ring, as long as your hit rate is still high.)

[lufia22]

Another question that has popped up when buying ammo.

I noticed there is a lack of normal bolts between 1-40 (I believe that's correct). There are obviously status bolts, which have higher damage than the lvl 1 bolts, but it seems quite expensive to spam those bolts.

When skilling up marksmen, should I stick with lvl 1 bolts till 40 and use status effect bolts when I need the effect or am using a WS or something?

[Tokitung]

Holy bolts are your friend. They are lvl 30 and the holy damage rocks. It's basically enmity-free damage. And the holy damage done can be adjusted by your Mnd stat. Also, Acid bolts (lvl 15) are very nice in parties as it increased the damage dealt by all other DDs in pt. Also, the other status effects can be helful if your pt is lacking a debuffing job.

If you are skilling up in party, use the highest level bolts available. For status, Acid will always be nice, even just for initial effect higher levels. Blood bolts are great for soloing or just lightening the healing burden during a party. Holy bolts are the cream of the crop for leveling all the way to 75, if you use xbow the entire time. Once you get access to things like Darksteel bolts, you only want to macro them in for Barrage/Slug Shot as they are quite a bit more expensive.

[VZX]

Originally Posted by Tokitung

Holy bolts are your friend. They are lvl 30 and the holy damage rocks. It's basically enmity-free damage. And the holy damage done can be adjusted by your Mnd stat.

It's not enmity-free. But as far as you are going up to 75, you can take it as enmity free, since the huge MND modifier worth to use during leveling only Devotee's Mitts. Promise Badge is 2nd but arguable since it has racc/ratk+5

Also, Acid bolts (lvl 15) are very nice in parties as it increased the damage dealt by all other DDs in pt. Also, the other status effects can be helful if your pt is lacking a debuffing job.

Debuffing is a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Totum_pro_parte. You should specifically say "Dispel".
Acid bolt usefulness is apparent for removing Crab's Scissor guard (when you're on Qufim) and Crawler's Cocoon (when you're in Crawler's Nest).
Combined with Dia(II), any mob you can land Acid reliably should drop pretty quick.

And for bolt, once you got access to Holy Bolt, main that bolt for any damage dealing purpose. Darksteel bolt can come close, but will not overtake holy bolt for TPing bolt (unless you're fighting Colibri; Then you may want to switch to gun or bow)

[ShadowHolyFlyingDragon]

Originally Posted by lufia22

Two more questions:

2.) I know WS have modifiers based on AGI and/or STR. Is it recommended to macro swap in rings with AGI or STR for a WS, or just stick with ACC rings?

In my career, I haven't noticed a signficant amount of increase from equipping more STR and AGL on my char and doing more dmg on a WS than I have equipping racc/ratt. It seems to me loading up on racc/ratt made the more noticiable difference.

And if you're shooting guns, STR doesn't have a modifer to play with for your dmg on guns. But they always say that your STR vs a mobs VIT is always under scrutiny by the game. I know when I played DRK and had over 120 str.. my dmg didn't seem to get terribly increased when I just had 90-100 str. It seemed to increase by a few points thats it. But friends of mine swear by gobnormous amounts of STR is amazing. I just haven't seen it. However, on the same token, 2STR gives 1Ratt, but I never had a problem finding a place to put gear that had ratt on it already. If you find a slot that you want to put something in, I'd say put str there if you can't put ratt. But pre70, you want to concentrate on racc vs ratt. I always seemed to think that with the amount of gear i had, with regular food I could go both ways and it would be the same, whether i ate sushi and loaded up on gear vs eating couerl sub and loading up on racc. My dmg seemed to be just about the same until after 70 when I had all this good racc, I started eating meat/subs all the time.