Sword or Dagger

[Drynavere]

Regardless of contrary belief, and many threads on what weapon a RDM should use, I once more, am going to start another one! don't bother flaming.

My question is, and it's open for ANY discussion that you would like about it, is whether RDM should use a sword or dagger in exp parties, and while farming.

Here I state my opinion:

In a party, first off a RDM should be using a wand when casting, but if all debuffs are on and its going to be a long battle, sure why not head in and smack a few things around with your sword.

And as well, while farming a dagger is more likely to be used right? Because the AoE weapon skills and the faster attacking, therefore giving more en- damage, is better is it not?

Please elaborate and discuss. Thanks.

[ZQM]

I'm not one to speak as RDM experience, but my sword/dagger experience on THF was that the damage from Swords was awesome in exp parties (which was used 1-33) EXPECIALLY since some swords have good damaging attributes (i.e. +ATK +ACC). However, do to horrible accuracy, I dual wield daggers. If swords were, say, B instead of D I'd use them instead of daggers (or atleast one).

Farming, I already said in another thread. Cyclone is great when farming low level creatures, and Energy Stea/Drain helps with downtime. I'd personally use a sword though if fighting a monster closer to level, since better damage overtime is more important.

[rpgcrazy]

Use both. Dagger is good for when your using those EN- spells and u want to hit fast for some pretty nice dmg. Sword should be your main weapon, primary reason for using a sword is because rdm are good at using them, they are fast for good dmg.

Im not an experienced rdm though, so i could be wrong.

[Ruic]

Wands while casting in XP PTs. Swords afterwards.

Before we go any further, keep in mind a RDM's rating in swords and daggers is equal. I have both my weapons near level as well. (Viper bite from a RDM is hilarious.)

Swords when farming everything except elementals that you do poor sword damage to. You shouldn't ever be farming mobs that you do poor sword damage to other than elementals, because odds are that mob is T or IT.

One of the main draws of using a dagger are the various procs attached to them. Enspell overwrites these. (I've done the research on both elemental and status procs myself.) While it improves the overall enspell damage, it can't compare swing per swing with the damage a sword does.

Not to mention fast blade (or RLB or Seraph Blade) will do tremendously far more damage than any of your dagger weaponskills.

As for AOE WS farming, don't do it. It is inefficient. It is only used to farm beastmen, where you will have a lot of competition, and people picking off half or more of your train at a time. Kill each mob as you come to them. The best jobs for farming gil off beastmen that I've seen are WAR/THF, THF/XXX, RNG/THF, and NIN/THF. Use returning throwing weapons like boomerangs or chakrams. You never have to enter combat stance (Saves tremendous amounts of time/frustration), and at 35+ you start doing over 100 damage a hit with a near-level ranged weapon + maxed throwing skill.

In my experience, RDM made for terrible farming until I had refresh. Even then the "downtime" every 2-3 minutes to recast all your spells can get really annoying.

[Jonnyram]

Sorry to bump an old thread but I find myself asking the same questions recently, especially for farming.

Swords have higher DMG, but for farming, the dagger weapon skills are phenomenal. Cyclone at 300% hits all the surrounding mobs for about 450 each. And that's at a much lower skill than my sword as I haven't raised it yet. Sword is capped, the AOE WS (forgot the name), which is earth-based did about 50 to each mob at 200%. Meh

I'm told the only WS you should use for farming with sword is Fast Blade, though. Everything else does puny damage. I just don't see a huge difference between a sword fight and a dagger fight, when the WS is factored in. This is at lv56-58 fighting easy yagudos in Oztroja (Priors, Lutenists, Zealots and Conquistadors).

[Uroboros]

Cyclone is a phenomenal WS and probably the best thing I can muster, hehe. With Hornetneedle and Haste I get the TP pretty quickly, even at 100% it does great damage and to everything at once. Same can't really be said for Fast Blade, which hits for 70ish to 160ish, and if the planets are aligned correctly about 200. Cyclone does that as a minimum, and to every target. I find more success with Gust Slash than Fast Blade, too.

However, with Hornetneedle I'm only hitting for like, 20 then 18-20ish for Enspell, while Gold Sword hits for 70ish.

So if you're farming multiple things at once, Shock Spike up and spam Cyclones, but if you're going one target at a time, even with poorer WS sword still does more damage overall.

Main reason I love subbing WAR sub when screwing around is zerking up with Vorpal Blade. Of course, if you're doing that you don't have TH.

[Tomoh]

I level up sword, dagger and wand. At 60's and 70's, level up takes so long that you won't have much trouble maxing these skills. For farming I use sword mainly. From what Jonny wrote, maybe dagger with Thief support would be better for farming. During PTs, I level sword first than dagger. I don't get many hits in PTs due to all the casting, but since it takes so damn long, it eventually caps.

For RDM, you can go on Dagger WS quest at LV71 when your skill is 230. For sword WS quest, RDM needs 240 skill, which you max at LV73.

Lastly, you shouldn't skill up your weapons against mobs that do area attacks like Sleepga. The worst one is Manitocre, which drastically reduces your MP.

[Karinya]

I have never seen my fast blade outdamage burning or shining blade. Elemental sword and dagger WS were made for red mages. I was pretty disappointed when I leveled dagger for viper bite and it did less damage than gust slash... I haven't got cyclone yet but I've seen some THFs do pretty good damage with it. If it's an elemental WS ours will probably be stronger...

[Discordian]

Fast Blade easily outdamages my other weaponskills by a lot against farming enemies.

Both dagger and sword should be leveled for different uses.

Sword for flat blade and dagger for energy drain, both of them are dependant on the type of enemies you are fighting.

[SkuLLy]

For RDM, you can go on Dagger WS quest at LV71 when your skill is 230. For sword WS quest, RDM needs 240 skill, which you max at LV73.

a quick question on this.. i know particular weapon skills (like vorpal blade) don't work with /blm or /whm, but require some /melee to work.

with the dagger 230 and sword 240 skills, is this the same? i've seen some high level rdm's farming the top of oztroja with eviseration and savage blade, but they were anon and jpn, so i couldn't ask or see what they were subbing.. nor did they do anything that is job specific (like sneak attack or provoke).

:D

[Tomoh]

These WS do not require a /melee. The only requirement is that you're LV71 and have enough skill points to accept these quests.

[SkuLLy]

ah that's awesome, i hate the fact that i have to switch to /melee to use my only decent WS (vorpal blade). guess i'll definately get on leveling both of those weapons again.

[Hopkins]

When farming beechips today I got a Beestinger (Dmg 4 Dly 150 Dex/Agil +1) Knife.

The DPS of it is fairly formidable when coupled with an enspell.

[Gman]

Originally posted by Hopkins
When farming beechips today I got a Beestinger (Dmg 4 Dly 150 Dex/Agil +1) Knife.

The DPS of it is fairly formidable when coupled with an enspell.

Where do you get a beestinger?

Edit: nevermind, just checked... Stingning Sophie NM

[Gman]

How hard is the NM that drops hornetneedle? I would like to get one, but it's rare/ex, so I can't buy at AH.