Spharai, Apocalypse, Or Bravura?

"Fact" doesn't mix well with the subjectivity of worth.

ok sure... just go parse that and show us. I would but I don't have test server.

I find your assessment confused. You talk about how helpful Apocalypse is for soloing on Dark Knight but blithely skip past the +14 Counter on Spharai.

Exactly what is the thrust of your argument when we remove the specificity? Because right now you're talking out of both sides of your mouth by pointing out that X doesn't provide adequate DPS to justify itself and then talking about how Y provides strong defensive capability for solo/low-man endeavors.

Let's see if we can just sum up what needs to be said about these three.

DPS -

• Spharai: One of the top DPS options for Hand-to-Hand weapons, exceeding pretty much everything except Glanzfaust and Verethragna.

• Apocalypse: Who uses a Scythe on Dark Knight anymore? It's an inferior DPS option due to poor Scythe Weaponskill implementation.

• Bravura: Near the top of the pile for DPS with a Great Axe, but neither the best nor always the most situationally advantageous weapon (Mighty Strikes zerging favors a Great Sword to use Resolution).

Utility -

• Spharai: +14 Counter and top-tier DPS make it very desirable. It does have competition from Oatixur, which provides some Evasion and -PDT, so a personal assessment of opportunity cost may be necessary. Additionally, there's no real reason to use Final Heaven, so you can stick with Victory Smite for more damage.

• Apocalypse: Excellent utility weapon for Dark Knight owing to the powerful HP recovery available from Catastrophe and coupled with the Haste Aftermath from same. On the negative side, you are having to use Catastrophe, which isn't likely to be your strongest Weaponskill.

• Bravura: Using Metatron Torment grants -20% Damage Taken which is pretty massive and helps with Warrior's abysmal defensive capabilities. If fighting weaker mobs, the Defense Down on Metatron Torment may also actually hit with the new baked-in Magic Accuracy Skill bonus. But, like Apocalypse, you're stuck using a lesser Weaponskill.

If I was the one in this position, I'd be mostly focused on the utility arguments and, honestly, it's kind of a wash on its face. They all three provide big bonuses to survivability while also bringing major DPS to the mix. If anything would sway one way or the other, it'd probably be that Monk is considerably better suited to keeping itself alive in a solo/duo situation.

Ultimately, I don't see compelling reasons why any of these are better or worse than the others and the OP ought to just choose what he likes best.

It's silly to argue about "what isn't worth it." You pay your subscription so anything you want to do is worth it.

Make whatever weapon you love the most. *** what your server thinks of you.

You missed the point that there is no end all "go parse it". Parse what? The differences between 2 players in 1 Tojil run with a constantly fluctuating buffs? Very difficult AA fights /nin with 1 brd? With 2 brds? with 4-8 songs? With a cor and 1 brd?

Your blanket no is not a valid argument to my comment or the OP and I am reaffirming that if he likes mnk make spharai, if he likes the other jobs more, or wants some versatility in which he plays, make bravura or apoc.

Test server, one person /dnc and kill ***. do a timed parse see how much dmg each weapon does. or bring along a mule to cure you and kill ***. go find nm's see how long it takes to kill things, go no buffs in abyssea and fight orthrus, I am sure there are a million different ways to parse the two weapons on 1 player. don't need two different people and two different play styles to figure this out. Kinda why I mentioned the test server earlier. Think outside the box....


edit: holy ***you guys are blatantly missing the whole point. first off stop asking "parse what?" that has got to be the stupidest question yet. we kinda know what we are parsing. The difference between relic h2h and oat's. I said it isn't worth spending the money to make a relic h2h vs using the free oat's. I will probably never see h2h relic worth it without yet another upgrade. The overall dmg is higher on relic h2h, LIKE I SAID TWICE BEFORE ALREADY THIS MAKES THREE TIMES. However the difference isn't big enough to drop the money on relic h2h 119 over using a free h2h. I ALREADY KNOW RELIC DOES MORE DMG. Holy *** we established that numerous times already. What I have been saying that you guys don't really seem to be understanding so i must say it in ebonics or something, "dat relic ain't got nuff dps over oat's to be dropping c-note fo dawg."

Apoc brings severe utility to the table. ~whaaa but relic h2h has counter~" cgs? still doesn't bring enough to the table for me to drop 200mil on for 14 counter.

Apoc can cure you....

Brav adds def down (i think, dunno not a war)

Both of those weapons have more value to them than delve weapons. Both of those weapons have more value to them than h2h relic.

Counter, slightly lower delay, relic (+116) lower dmg (than oats +126), but a little higer attack/acc isn't going to be enough to drop 200 mil for.


edit... again....

let's take a look at a 5% gain using relic over oats, someone said they don't care if it is 5% gain in dps let's use that number.

lets say 10 minutes of dmg with oat you get 1 mil dmg

multiply by the 5% gain you get with a 200 mil item

same ten minutes you get 1,050,000 dmg

50k dmg gain in 1 mil dmg? not worth 200 mil you ask me.

I'm not downing on Spharai (my wife has a pair of 99's and is working on 119'ing them). But it is true that they aren't real far ahead of Oatixurs. For that matter, none of the REM H2H options are. I don't agree with tot/Celoria that monk relic isn't worth it though. Spharai is *situationally* the best weapon for the job. It's like you say, any event where you are roaming and can't maintain AM3, Spharai will beat both empy AND mythic. And it has that Counter V bonus, which makes relic a better defensive option for solo/duo.


A mythic costs more, but if you're looking at starting a Bravura from scratch, I question why not just take the extra time/gil and do Conqueror? Even if it's 120m more, comparing 119 stages. Messing with the dps spreadsheets last week, and admittedly I'm not that great with war or drk sets, I was seeing mythic war > mythic drg > mythic sam for absolute top dps on delve megaboss.

With the cost of currency/marrows/plutons right now, a 119 relic will take you like 2/3 of the way to a mythic. That's kind of a compelling argument, to me, and I suspect beitsu will be down to something ridiculous like 5k in a couple of weeks... alex is dropping a bit as well.

I have Apoc, and I would not trade it for any other relic, its just too much fun to use.
That said, make a relic for a job that you use, level Drk and play around with it to see if its actually your style.

Counter+13 and Occ dmg x3 beats oats, and the delay is lower

Ok I have time to actually post now. I have a Rag and Bravura and they all have their functions. I would go with a utility weapon, something that adds survivability to vs raw damage. SE is now know to constantly introduce near gear, so whatever 119 RME you make could be outclassed for DPS in a future update. A utility weapon will always how it's utility even if it's a lessor option for damage. I'm currently upgrading Bravura to 119 for my WAR because content lately seems to highly favor accuracy and survivability over raw DPS and a Bravura WAR can pop off MT for solid damage while maintaining capped PDT and wearing full haste / accuracy gear. That is the advantage of Bravura, you got extra gear slots open for DD gear vs PDT/MDT gear.

Note on Bravura and Apoc, they both do the exact same thing just in different ways. Bravura gives you -20% DT making it so you only need 30% PDT and 1~5% MDT to cap out. Apoc gives you +10% gear haste so you only need ~15% haste to cap out. It's been my observation that the 20% DT from Bravura is opens more items slots then the 10% haste from Apoc due to SE putting haste on everything now. Apoc balances it out by restoring HP when you WS which isn't necessary if you have a WHM. So between the two, Apoc is for soloing stuff and Bravura is for party / alliance fights when you have a healer and want to reduce the damage you take to manageable levels.

I generally look at what the weapons can do for you/the job that the other options can't. Apoc offers DRK a lot of survivability and utility. Sure, Rag/Reso will have higher damage potential, but you have reasonable alternatives to Ragnarok in those situations. Apoc offers DRK something that no other weapon does. The same goes for Bravura. You can do more or very close to the same damage with RF (and possible future nakuul Gaxe), but only Bravura offers -20% DT along with it's very competitive damage for the situations that warrant it. Same with Spharai. They all offer something that no other weapon does. There's no reason you couldn't use Senbaak when DPS is all that matters and use Apoc when surivability is key.

MNK's advantage for something like the AA fights (aside from higher base HP which can be viewed relatively as damage reduction that surpasses caps) is that it gets to sub NIN and sacrifice very little of its offensive prowess. WAR and friends can do it, but they sacrifice Hasso and their hit builds to do so.

For spot-limited (single party) content, Spharai are a competitive option. AM1 Vere and Spharai are close, with Vere favored on paper but the Ark Angels, SKCNM and friends can be countered so Spharai are offering an additional benefit that's more difficult to account for. Plutons are deflationary though, so it might not be the best investment for the moment unless your income stream is off the chain, because Oatixur are "okay" and "free."

Bravura is the (not so?) secret runner up of the Great Axe Race, because any time you need accuracy, there's a high probability you'll also benefit from damage reduction. Conqueror is, of course, King('s Justice lololol) but that's a bit more of a commitment and requires a bit of a refined touch to use properly. Ukonvasara is still a competitive option, though, it doesn't touch AM3 Conqueror and it doesn't offer any defensive benefits.

Apocalypse is difficult to justify and haste being on everything just sort of nailed the coffin. It's probably great for soloing old content, but so is everything else.

celoria is seriously the best troll the forums have ever had.

Mnk sacrifices quite a lot from /nin. 25% attack bonus and 25 accuracy along with 10da. People keep making the assumption that ratio will be 2.25 and accuracy will be 95% while they are naked. Thats not very realistic and any decisions based on those assumptions are academic only.

Nah pchan holds that honor. Celoria just falls for the oldest error in ffxi, thinking parses are evidence of one item being better then another. Parses are only good for judging ur own performance, figuring out accuracy and encouraging DD to compete and push themselves.

Can you just tell me how you could consider the max hp as something that surpasses the dmg cap reduction while the infinite hp refill is not?

Out of the three weapons you named, only one can be worn by Monk.

Apocalypse sucks and has sucked ever since gear Haste was easy to cap and WHMs could heal forever.

Conqueror, Ragnarok, and probably any GA they introduce in the future take dumps on Bravura in terms of DPS, and 20% PDT that doesn't bypass the cap isn't exactly mindblowing in this day and age. Just make a decent PDT set and Bravura's advantage (assuming you're willing to sacrifice quite a lot of damage and use Metatron) is useless.


So make Spharai. It isn't the best H2H, but it's better than the other two options you named and you can make an argument for it as long as we keep having to MNK/NIN kill ***with Mantra rotations just so we don't get one-shotted.

The difference is this:
Get hit for 2k - if you have 1800hp with infinite hp refill, you die. If you have 2100hp with no infinite refill, you live, you just need to be healed.

I didn't ask for the obvious difference.
Sylow was talking about dmg reduction not survivability.

Damage Reduction isn't survivability? Well now I'm confused too O_O

If someone is talking about HP in terms of effective damage reduction, they are talking about survivability. The AA fights that he mentions are about survivability in which the extra HP can really make the difference.

Although I don't know if I would count Spharai's extra counter rate as an additional benefit there. Yes, they can be countered, but you lose shadows before you counter. You use perfect counter if you have aggro and need to put shadows back up. The nastiness that is Cloudsplitter can't be countered, lol.

Sorry, kinda off-topic discussion.

As for the choice of relics, none are going to really make a difference in 18-man fights compared to other ilvl 119 weapons. As Sylow and a couple others have said, I'd pick whichever one you would like more for party-oriented or low-man-oriented stuff. In this situation, they are all kinda cool, although I think Apoc kinda lost some of it's value when Trust NPC's were introduced.

Damage Taken is great, and essentially all jobs can cap MDT and PDT in their TP sets. Bravura doesn't bypass the equipment cap. Also, Cloudsplitter isn't really an issue because your bard should be singing Scherzo.

So you're choosing between a melee with no Counter that loses a lot of DPS from subbing NIN and a melee with 31% Counter (merits+base+Spharai), more HP, and that doesn't lose as much from subbing NIN.

Cloudsplitter is still nasty, even with Scherzo up. Matter of opinion anyway. I was using it as an example of one of the moves that has killed people.
Fact is, it can't be countered and neither can any other TP move or spell. My point was that the moves that kill you aren't auto attacks.

I agree that MNK is the job of choice if you are running with melee DD. And on paper, Spharai is better than Oats.

Out of the three options there:

- Spharai is the only one that can do better damage than it's associated Delve weapon.
- Bravura's biggest benefit comes at the loss of using an inferior weaponskill
- Apoc lost a lot of value in it's utility when Trust NPCs came out

So given equal amount of play time on all jobs, Spharai will see the most use because you'll pretty much use it exclusively over Oatixur.

I didn't make that assumption at all. You're just making the poor assumption that losing Berserk and 10 DA is on the same magnitude as losing /SAM.

Hint: You're not using Berserk in a situation where you'd want to sub NIN.


If you get hit for 500 and you have 2000 HP, you're 75% away from dead. If you get hit for 500 and you havw 2500 HP, you're 80% away from dead. So relatively, you took 20% less damage.

Hint: If you're brought within melee-strike of death immediately after you use a WS, or you have Amnesia, or are slept, or stunned, or terrored ... the "infinite HP" descriptor is pure fantasy, and a bad one anyway since you'll have a WHM for anything that matters.


Multiple MNKs also allow for more Mantras, which helps everyone in the party out if you get dealt a Chant du Cygne when shadows are down. Personally, I say "*** it" and I go DNC to Difficult AA.

Explained like that it's' obvious and I feel bad. Damn you!

it is nice to know they dps is no longer the only concern for dd's, but it would be nice if more jobs had a foot in the utility dd category or at least accelled more in others.

I'm not sure what you mean by this. Dark Knight and Warrior have to work overtime to reach their limited utility options (relic weapon in both instances), so their being balanced for raw damage sort of makes sense. Monk has a convenient blend of offensive and defensive tricks that have kept it consistently relevant for years. Other front-line DDs tend to have a fair mix of utility that may or may not be helpful.

For party content like hard-mode SKCNMs and AA fights, it is a lot more reasonable to bring jobs like Ninja or Thief along (although something ought to be done about how Evasion is moot on those encounters). Then again, with people clearing Delve with fewer than 10, I don't really see why anyone stresses out about bringing any particular job. Bards complain of having too little to do and stabbing things with their dagger, so it can't be that adding a third party back in would be unduly trying for the buff line.

Do S.W.I go through shadows or nah? I personally have not done the fights yet due to lack of play time but im looking forward to attending these fight soon.

Considering the population downfall ever since FFXIV revived itself, I'd go with Spharai.

The defensive utility is pretty nice, and the lower population will contribute to seeing MNK used in more low-man situations (as people have already seen before) than other DD jobs. These low-man situations are where Spharai shines. While Oatixur's do have the PDT-3%, I'd wager that the Counter will eventually lead to a faster kill, and thus less damage received overall.

Having Spharai myself, it may sound biased, but when you put the pieces together it makes sense really.

I think the arguments for Apoc and Brav are great, and it's your subscription really. Either way, no matter which you pick, you'll get the same outlook on your decision, imo. Just go with what you enjoy most.

For the last 3-4 years of FFXI, utility meant basically nothing. The only concern for DD slots was DPS, that's why you'd see groups going into legion with 4 DRK's and 2 WAR's and scoffing at the suggestion of bringing any other DD job. Right now, MNK is top dog because the current content is basically designed around their strong points.

So, yes, it is nice to see that DPS is no longer the only concern, however, it would be nice if more DD jobs had more uses.

AA is a single event, MNK is the most effective DD on basically EVERY event right now. Utility or damage, no DD should be the best at everything.