Weakens Def. Shikargar

A friend of mine asked me today how this sword compares to other options (offhand for almace) and I honestly had no idea.

For anyone who has made one of these/played on test server, could you please share your views.

Read this: http://www.ffxiah.com/forum/topic/30626/the-beast-within-a-guide-to-blue-mage

You'll want to offhand a Str path Shikargar for most content.

Yes I'm aware, was asking in regard to the specific weapon itself and possible uses.

I can't remember where it was posted, or when, lol
But I believe the proc rate was too low to give the weapon much functionality compared to other choices.

Str sword gives you the attack (and str value on top of that) 100% of the time.

DEF Down magians are kind of a niche use, they do have some use if you play with a regular group that doesn't have access to an easy def down (Angon, acid bolts, etc), or it's not available for whatever reason. I imagine if the def down is that important to you can just set a def down spell since you're on BLU.

Thanks Kincard, was exactly what I was looking for.

And gads, not playing for a year really kills your memory >< totally forgot about tourbillion etc.

Well, tourbillion's effect is highly inaccurate at the moment.

Bilgestorm does suffice, but the duration is relatively short and I don't know how frightful roar is now though.

Would Benthic Typhoon be a solid option for lowering def as well?

Yes it is. I've tried the sword on Kaggen a while back when there wasn't much testing and wasn't exactly happy with the proc rate but it was only a -10% DEF sword so maybe it increases proc rate as a Lv 99 weapon. If it procs often then it would be worthwhile for niche uses (along with other variations like -atk.) An example: if there is no angon and you're in a large group like VW, but I doubt it does.

Bilgestorm is good as an opening DEF down. Frightful Roar is the most efficient one after that with Benthic Typhoon coming after roar. Can't really see the sword ever being worth it since you don't have to give up your offhand or rely on variable procs just to stick a 10% DEF down on something when you're on BLU

The end result is a -16% DEF down sword. It all depends on the proc rate/duration, -16% DEF down with no angon is doing more in alliance based content than a str sword. Like I said though, I doubt its anything impressive but I haven't seen any tests done with it.

16% changes things then, proc rate permitting it could be decent, but it seems unlikely that the proc rate would be high enough to make it as useful as it could be

I'm really bored today so I spent some time making a defdown sword to satisfy my curiosity on this
(aaaand its finished now!)

Proc rate is about 10% when single wield testing, its about the same proc rate as 2h defdown weapon (I made a defdown scythe before) so it procs fairly quick into a fight.
Procs when offhanded as expected.


Some key points from my playing around with this so far:

The proc still triggers with haste samba on and doesnt replace/override build up box steps.

Sword will *NOT* proc at all if you already have frightful roar defdown on a mob - did 400+ melee strikes across several mobs and never saw a sword proc if i put frightful roar on 1st. Pulled mob with /ra -> frightful roar -> singlehand melee with defdown sword = will never see proc.

Frightful Roar will not overwrite defdown proc from sword, even if the sword proc has a lower/same/higher defense down effect. melee'd until proc from sword(tested 5% , 10% , 15% and 16% defdown versions of sword), then used frightful roar(-10%) = no def down message in chatlog.

The defdown effect from sword will not proc again/refresh an existing defdown proc, it has to wear (effect last about 30sec to 1 minute).

fully upgraded version of -16% def + 5 box steps (-13%) would give -29% def if they stack as they appear to (sword proc doesnt interfere with or reset box steps)

The defense down effect will land on a mob with a damage shield/invincible effect active:
(Paladin Yagudo with invincible active)



Since frightful roar isnt a spell I usually set, and a defdown sword does have situational appeal when lowmanning stuff since set points+spell slots are precious, kinda leaning towards finishing this sword.

Extra notes on building this weapon quickly in case anyone fancies making this without too much hassle:


Trial 164:
Caedarva Mire. voidwatch warp drops you right where you want to be for leeches.
Weather is pretty frequent water/dark/thunder and theres about 7 leeches that pop here if you just do 2 laps around the pond you can do this in like 15minutes weather permitting since you only need 10 kills with weather active.


Trial 190+197+198:
Quicksand Caves (enter western altepa at J-9, the VW warp also conveniently drops you here too!)
Helm Beetles (3 at entrance, 4-5 others in the vicinity, about 20% of them are too weak but you dont need that many and earth weather is super common).
Anticans work for the Trial 197 part when you run out of beetle and need 'any monster family' kills. 5pts a kill for each stage just wait for earth weather.


Trial 201:
Abyssea Konschtat Saplings, /dnc , single wield sword to focus on getting the # of procs needed. dual wield will just require you to get fresh targets/run around more.
Viscissitude/VV/Apoc atmas, no need to focus on lights or even cast spells or ws, should be done in 30-60minutes.

Starting with trial 202, these trials take a bit more time because the added effect has to wear to proc again.
If you get impatient you can kill the mob fast *OR* tank more than 1 and target swap after you proc it to keep procs flowing faster (highly recommended !).


Trial 202:
Kuftal Tunnel crabs, /dnc , single wield so you can stick to 1 target longer and not run out of spawns. Idle/regen set with evasion and you can pretty much just afk kill these.
Another option is to do Aby Grauberg and tank multiples and target swap which will require being less afk :p


Trial 1230:
Abyssea Altep. Fear Dearg.
Similar as trial 201, pulling 3-4 mandies at a time w/ trial sword+genbu shield + regen atma/pdt/eva/dream flower and target swap on def-down sword proc. Trial done for me in about 90 minutes.



Trial 1231:
Ro'Maeve.
2-5 Ominous/Killing weapons at a time + target swap on proc as previous trials. blu/dnc with dynamis spellset in regen/eva gear.
Don't bother stunning/silencing the casters since they will heal each other saving you time running around for new mobs and the damage spells they use are a joke.
Just focused tp on waltzing to keep hp up while sword procs.

Just a few more procs until i'm done... ohai there



Trial 1956
The last proc trial, almost there!
Hounds in Abyssea Attohwa.
These cannot be Dream Flowered like the other trial mobs so take care on these and dont pull too many!
Highly recommended you /dnc for this and occultation tank with refresh+regen atma + eva gear (and keep that genbu shield on!)
The hounds are fragile to slashing and attack somewhat quick and the frequent paralyze/blind/poison statuses can be a bit of a nuisance.
So expect to spam healwaltz and magic fruit/occultation while you grind this trial out.




Now to spend some time/gil for geodes...
Trial 2355: Soil Geodes x15
Trial 2788: Soil Geodes x40
Trial 3251: Titanites x15
Buy these or if you prefer to farm Quicksand Caves and need tabs/CP , doing GoV page with 7 antican kills isnt too bad of a way to pass the time. Same spot as Trial 190+197+198 works nice.

Ta-da!, if you followed this guide and made one of these, grats on being a unique snowflake and making something better than that other guy that was lazy and made a macc shikargar instead.

Your Reso spammin' heavy DD friends will appreciate you when your sword procs and lets them get even higher epeen ws damage than before
(and you'll do some more damage yourself too!)

When STR sword gives att 100% of the time it doesnt affect spell damage (well +11 str does but not as much as -16%def on mob). Wouldnt it be cool sword for Dynamis? It should usually proc before you can stagger the mob and help finish it faster after the stagger.

While you may not have frightful roar set, I can't envision a situation where I wouldn't have benthic typhoon set, thus making the sword fairly useless. Benthic typhoon, when geared correctly, can be an incredibly mp efficient spell, especially when hitting multiple targets. It's one spell I never remove for anything.

The sword does have higher -def% though, so I guess on a longer fight it could be worthwhile.

Another use tho kinda risky and hard to calculate would be to use it before Azure Lore and switch back to STR sword to spam spells? (For Salvage II boss for example?)

The added effect doesnt trigger a stagger on dynamis mobs.
It does however combined with box steps make things delightfully squishy and explode regularly like this with my gimp sword+gear:



-I hardly ever set benthic, if you want to pick a fight with multiple mobs all the time then yes its a great spell.

-Not everyone wants to use benthic all the time however because its an area attack and will break someone else supertankning or wake slept mobs (tiny reive areas, having to move+reposition+losing combat rounds become an issue if you fight multiple mobs anywhere)

-The sword is a stackable defense down option on targets in areas where you want to avoid magic aggro when /dnc and you are just melee+boxstep+waltzing.

situationally worthless? maybe if you have someone with you all the time to angon stuff or you have the mp to burn on benthic all the time like lolabyssea or have a tizona.

situationally useful utility weapon that also improves the damage output of your party/alliance? absolutely.

I meant in time it takes you to stagger mob with JA the sword will probably proc def down. Following that mind it should be good alternative because you will use ws/dmg spells after proc most of the time when in normal fight you would ws/cast from the start not waiting for stagger.

ok i see what you mean.

yeah for DC JA stagger nightmare mobs a sword proc is usually on by the time you stagger so yeah 'finishing' a 5box stepped+defdown'd mob is pretty easy.
A lot easier for me after i made this sword and the recent 1h/def adjustments.

I was under the impression that the "Additional Effect: Weakens Defense" it's "+16" was it's proc rate, and that the amount of Defense reduced was actually fairly significant.

Have there been any tests to see just how much Def got taken off, or is everyone just perpetuating what one person may have said at one point?

I think a few things that stand out in my mind when it comes to this sword is that there are some genuinely useful applications which you touched on however some of your points I'm skeptical about.

Frightful Roar is 36 mp and 90 second duration with 10% defense down(no damage)

B.Typhoon itself is 54mp conal 10' for 10% def down and 60 duration.


I agree, for dynamis is very efficient since as helel says it's a great mp saver because it shaves off additonal mp spent and attack rounds on multiple mobs if you line the mobs up properly making the possible attack rounds lost due to lining up worth it. Eijin in his war guide demonstrates how to pile mobs into a wall in the war sticky.

Most of a blue mage's time (or at least my own) I spend more proc'ing for stagger rather than needing to kill mobs making their lives somewhat short lived, that being said I'd probably would use wind shikargar because of the eva bonus and how it helps with the multiple mobs you probably are going to have at dc camps and can handle and that it play's into benthic's wsc mod.

Considering which offhand to use plays into how many mobs you're going to be holding/killing over time, I infer from your points that it's some or not as many as you could potentially manage with a wind shikargar because of dealing with multiple adds which can be a bit of a pain without wind shikargar(makes it more feasible to stay in normal tp gear or hybrid) areas like dynamis/abbsyea/adoulin mobs (reives I haven't done yet personally nor do I know the mob levels so I can't say too much).

A fire shikargar on the other hand is just dandy for dealing with lower amount of mobs (swapping into eva for procs) which you replace with the def down shikargar(correct?)for the defense down affecting all forms of physical damage. The problem with that I see is that for keeping your fire offhand you would have to give up just 3 points for a 90 second aoe def down that doesn't wake mobs or 4 for a conal spell that shaves off time killing and more into proccing saving mp and damage. The difference is about -6% def down that you give up for 11 str and 22 attack that affect two swords and is a stat you're starved on usually in most situations. Whether the -6% def down is better on singular mobs than the str offhand is something I don't know and will leave it open for someone else to comment on, however keep in mind that you aren't using b. typhoon and by your argument no other conal/aoe attacks so you're not having def down on all the mobs first with frightful roar then follow up with emptyhrash/whirl of rage then B.typhoon(could be void because I don't know if the defense down from typhoon will overwrite f.roar's effects at the time of landing making the previous defense down void or if it will apply it AND overwrite for a new one) followed up with actinic burst> sleep.

I left out Almace as an important factor and I'm not sure where to stick it in the above writing, but it should be considered for the difference in str/attack vs the def down for tp/aftermath/ws. I'm aware that you don't have Almace and most of your damage comes from spells to clarify and that you can handle multiple mobs(they aren't dynamis mobs which is a huge difference on damage taken before being slept).


It's a very good chance that they're going to reposition for various reasons and you'll lose attack rounds, take damage for it, and lose casting time you could have had, unless you're doing everything perfect and no one is moving(players to face the next mob), no knockback, additional links that join after you slept the mobs in question.



In what events,mobs, areas and is it beyond your control to handle additonal mobs or magic aggro? Not being able to using magic on blu would say you'd want another job for solo but blu is the best at solo and crowd control. I'd say in that situation you're about half dead with low mp and should switch to your eva shikargar.



B.typhoon is cost effective on multiple mobs and worth setting in my opinion, F.roar of course, is for duration/mp cost. It gets expensive when you're using Bilgestorm which much more powerful but can't be justified for mp intensive operations that cover a long period of time without a lot of mp restoring options.



I agree, to clarify you'd want to use your bilgestorm first for their benefit so you don't overwrite it with your weaker def down sword. It seems reasonable to say that giving up 11str/22attack for -6% def down to everyone is fine. It would get trickier to manage if you factor other def down abilities but it can be coordinated.

I really believe this last point of yours should be the main reason to make this sword the others seem somewhat shaky.

I thought about making a def down sword a few times, but hearing the effect won't stack with our own def down completely ruined it for me.

I only ever have amorphic spikes set if I need the TH trait. Benthic does a great job of closing darkness with the added benefit of a def down effect and lower MP cost. If you dont want to hit multiple targets, you can just turn around and cast it with your back to the mob(s) and hit your main target. It's more than enough to 1 shot (or very nearly) any trash/dynamis mob.
I used to use CDC > AS, but found it more cost effective to WS then CA heavy strike to kill without the need of the SC damage.

If you don't have CDC you would probs get more damage out of req > quad continuum, even without the def down effect. (assuming you have DW3 set already.)

I wouldn't bother with a wind shikargar on Adoulin mobs, even in a full eva set, completely ignoring haste etc. they still hit with high accuracy. You are better fighting in full DD gear, stun lock the mob and zerg it down before stun wears off. If stuns don't work, then a hybrid PDT set + cocoon will perform better. BLU just hasn't got high enough base evasion (or decent eva traits) without completely gimping your damage.

It will depend on how you play BLU. If you are a spell fiend, the def down will probs help you deal a bit more damage while blowing lots of MP. I dropped AS in favor of conserve MP trait, so I can fight for longer, deal roughly the same damage, and always have lots of MP on standby incase something goes wrong and you need to blow a large chunk of MP to get out of it. You also get the added benefit of dealing decent damage while applying the def down effect, exactly when you want it, rather than waiting for it to proc. You also have an extra 11 str and 22 base attack for TP/WS while applying roughly the same def down.

TL;DR: You already have the ability to apply def down to mobs instantly while dealing respectable damage in the process. If you apply the def down via other means (spells), you get to keep the benefits of a fire Shiargar AND the def down effect. If the effect stacked with other sources then it would maybe turn my head.

My 2 pennies.

When do you ever have the ROOM for frightful roar? Also I think maybe you might be underestimating how good def- stuff is? I'm under the impression lowering defense is more dmg output than substantial attack raises, but idk for sure. I'm just now reading up on these things myself. I think it could be a solid option given the 1h update.

I will pull some numbers (blu att and mob's def) out of my *** to make some picture to compare this.

mob 500 def
blu 700 att
Ratio: 1.4
Ratio with STR Shikar: 1.456
Ratio with STR Shikar and def down-10%: 1.618
Ratio with def down -16%: 1.66

Its not a matter of it being beyond ones control to handle aggroing everything and sleeping it. My question to you would be why should one cast in those areas if white damage+ws and /dnc suffices on some mobs with an 8 yalm sound aggro range but aggro magic at 20 yalms and link?
Sometimes I cast and sleep everything that decides to get pissed off about it, sometimes I melee stuff down while other things are nearby that would aggro if I cast a spell. One approach doesnt mean you fulltime it.

Some of the relevant zones/mobs where a magic aggro-less def down proc comes in handy when lowmanning:
Nightmare weapons/snolls in dyna, sky and other zones with arcana/elementals/Archaia are some of the places.
If you don't do this kind of content with other people then I can see why the tactic to use magic in moderation and opt for this weapon choice might not be appealing.

I don't, I use BT instead. I rarely use roar, mainly because I can get the same effect from BT + have it double as a decent way to close darkness. It may miss occassionally but not enough to sacrifice more set points for the same effect minus the damage (for me at least). You can always bilgestorm if BT misses and the effect wears before you can recast it.

I'm not underestimating the value of -def, I'm questioning the choice of applying it via a sword at the cost of 11str and ~28 attack that applies to every swing (no waiting for it to proc to see any benefit).

Like I said, if it stacked with our native def lowering abilities I'd be all over it. IDK if an extra ~5-6% def down is enough to sacrifice the boost from a str Shikargar, and vs targets whare it would be better, you will likely be in a large group with Angon anyway.
The 6% vs a target with 500 def is only lowering def by an extra 30 ~80% of the time.
Str shikargar is increasing your attack by near the same (30) but with the benefit of extra str and working all the time.
At 1000 def, its a larger boost, but you also have food, triumphant roar and sometimes berserk increasing the base attack on the str sword to near the same value as the def reduction provides.
Yes it also effects the other jobs in the group, but chances are, they will have capped attack when fully buffed anyway.

If your melee damage is low and it takes a while to kill stuff with -10%def down, then it's likely a decent option. If you already kill fast, you are less likely to see the benefit of the effect unless it procs on your first/second attack round.

Edit: is the "16" the proc chance or the effect% or both?

To answer you question: It depends on the event and whether or not I can afford to, most nq monsters are just dead monsters roaming if they attach onto me there are a few ways to get rid of them. It's true if you don't want to deal with more mobs than you want to then you don't have to but I wouldn't suggest alternative weapons for just the fewer mobs you do kill. The shorter answer is because I can handle it is why it doesn't matter, evasion is a god send on lower content and staves off damage while I wait for my timers to come back up and of course there's stun, terror, flash to complement that.

I've been speaking mostly from a solo perspective with this weapon when you have other people factored in, the odds get a lot better for you unless they're detrimental(healing them more than you should?) and require you to only have less mobs than you can deal with. I'm assuming the people you lowman with are also assisting with you also to take advantage of this bonus on mobs that die fast enough already(in dyna, sky, limbus) since your goal is to have the least amount of mobs to deal with. The damage from this one or two people is contributing to the mob you're killing but isn't needed(?)

I'm strongly inclined that you're better off on another job than blu because it's not being used to full effect if you're concerned about additional mobs to deal with and can't adjust to what you can potentially control and it could be tied in to who you lowman with. I wouldn't suggest a fulltime action for every situation on blu only the best way to control it and there are a few ways as you've pointed out but a def down shikargar isn't the best unless you're constantly not using magic and constantly using only /dnc, if you're with other people once again the said mob should die quick enough regardless.