Modern Sub-Job Discussion

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Modern Sub-Job discussion
 Leviathan.Celebrindal
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By Leviathan.Celebrindal 2018-02-20 13:53:24
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So, the subjob world for Ranger is more complex than ever. And I felt it worthwhile to have a true discussion on the pros and cons of differing subjobs in different situations with current content,buff options, and setups taken into consideration.

Yes, there are old mentionings of subjob choice, and the information that the decisions are based on isn't wrong per se, but it is important with changing of the game through additional gear, events, and monsters I felt it was worth another examination. Additionally, its good for new Rangers to have recent topics to peruse for information.

So let the discussion commence.

/NIN:
In many situations where Trueflight is your main source of damage, /NIN will be a great choice. The ability to dual wield two Malevolences will boost your damage output much more than the physical damage-superior /WAR. In addition, you'll have the safety valve of shadows if you're the primary source of damage. This is primarily a defensive choice subjob, and the nature of Trueflight combined with the extreme Magic Attack Bonus on the Malevolence makes for a unique situation where you will gain damage boosts as well.

/DNC:
I see this subjob choice, when in a party situation, to have all the offensive benefits for situations where you'd use /NIN plus the added punch of extra Skillchain Damage with no "safety valve". You won't be utilizing steps/sambas at high end events, so the real benefit is that extra damage. You're lacking shadows for moments when you might rip hate, but if you can effectively Decoy Shot that's typically not something you'll miss. If you're going to be closing skillchains (think of a SCH+RNG Kei Setup, or any SCH+RNG fusion>trueflight) this can be a GREAT subjob. If you're not skillchaining, the benefit of this subjob over /NIN is lost.

/WAR:
The staple. Clear choice very often, especially if you're spamming Last Stand due to access to Warcry and how Last Stand scales with TP. Berserk is also a great tool. Honestly, I don't use /WAR as much as I probably should, and would love hard numbers or more accounts.

/SAM:
I have found that as our damage ratio of WS/TP phase has grown to be so heavily biased towards Weaponskills (it always was, but that ratio is now so skewed its humorous), this subjob just gets stronger. 15 Store TP from job traits, 600 free TP every 3 minutes from Meditate, and a guaranteed Self-Skillchain every 5 minutes from Sekkanoki are amazing abilities for self-chaining, especially when used during doubleshot/barrage downtime. If I'm either using Gandiva for JR spam or Fomalhaut for Last Stand spam and I'm going to be able to self-chain those on back-to-backs, its hard to beat. In addition, a nice crooked 11 samurai roll from a regal neck corsair combined with /SAM and a strong STP build, many Foma RNGs can go WS>Shot>WS, which is close to the results of Overkill, minus the overflow.


So, please include your personal preferences, reasons why, situations applicable, and weaponry utilized. I'm very curious what others are doing!

EDITS: Removal of mentioning of Aggressor as an usable tool for Rangers while /WAR since Aggressor does not grant any bonus to Ranged Accuracy, just Melee Accuracy.

Removal of limitations mentioned around Decoy Shot, as testing by Chiaia of Asura shows Decoy Shot WILL transfer enmity to a target in the alliance, but in a different party.
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By Sidiov 2018-02-20 14:02:57
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/BLM
I like to warp out after stupid events.

/RDM
Alliance flurry bot broke?
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By fonewear 2018-02-20 14:06:03
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I like to sub RDM so I can cast flurry on myself.
 Leviathan.Celebrindal
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By Leviathan.Celebrindal 2018-02-20 14:06:38
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Sidiov said: »
/BLM
I like to warp out after stupid events.

/RDM
Alliance flurry bot broke?


I took advice from Capuchin a while back- carry a Flurry Scroll for the GEO/RDM who only leveled RDM to 49 and didn't know that Flurry, while added after that raise to 99 cap, isn't necessarily a level 99 spell.
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By clearlyamule 2018-02-20 14:10:08
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/rdm:

MAB while still getting to wear Nusku, self flurry, still have protection spells as another true flight focused build. Particularly when you have people being poor at keeping you flurried. Also occasionally useful to be able to cure or dia II. You'd be surprised how bad a lot of pugs can be at things that simple

/drg:

Low enmity fights that drag out so that you still end up capping. Actually did this on Kei once as the sole DD since turns out even trueflight will eventually cap you lol. Of course if I had more support particularly bubbles probably wouldn't have come down to that
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By hobo 2018-02-20 14:18:20
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aggressor no longer gives Ranged Accuracy unless war is main job and it is merited.
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 Leviathan.Celebrindal
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By Leviathan.Celebrindal 2018-02-20 14:19:38
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hobo said: »
aggressor no longer gives Ranged Accuracy unless war is main job and it is merited.

Thank you for that- as someone who doesn't play WAR and have only used it as a subjob, I wasn't aware of that. Darn shame, but will update OP to reflect.
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By fillerbunny9 2018-02-20 14:40:06
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another benefit to /WAR, provided you are not using a 2 handed weapon for some reason opting instead for Perun/Kustawi/Malevolence, etc depending on your needs plus Nusku Shield, is Fencer. at Fencer I (WAR45) that's an added 200 TP bonus to every weaponskill you shoot, and you should be firing them off often. additionally, this is useful for pushing your crit rate a smidge higher if you're making use of AM3 on Gandiva/Armageddon.
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 Lakshmi.Buukki
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By Lakshmi.Buukki 2018-02-20 14:45:35
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I just had this semi discussion about a week ago with ls member. /SAM + /WAR are very close. In fact, I recently tested both in this month's ambu and I now prefer /sam, since you can sc faster. I don't really see the value of your point about warcry, since its such a princely amount of attack (I guess if you have 3 rangers rotating it, its great, but /war warcry != Warrior's warcry).

/DNC has the benefit of being able to participate more effectively in Omen Card parties, specifically on ability objective (/nin can do this with ninjutsu, but its costly and a waste of inv space). They can dual wield Ternions if they choose and get a really good tp set as /dnc or /nin in apex, omen card, anything really. In Omen Kei runs, I'm almost always /nin using 2x ternion or malevolence and spamming trueflights (ternion offers a great amount of acc and agi for TF also, so it's not a horrible downgrade from Malevolence. Don't miss that).

Nusku shield is the real bonus. if you're going for Last Stands, Perun+1/Nusku is the go to choice for axe/shield; I don't even bother using Kustawi+1 anymore. I guess you can make the case for /war over /sam if you're paired up with a couple corsairs who can toss you a few RDs for long berserk timers. Hasso from /sam sadly goes wasted, but I honestly have not missed it this month.

It all comes down to what you will be doing in the event. For most events where I'll be doing a number of things, /nin is the best to use. If I'm just shooting, I'll pick sam just because.
 Fenrir.Snaps
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By Fenrir.Snaps 2018-02-20 14:57:45
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/SAM is my goto anytime I'm using relic gun.
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 Leviathan.Celebrindal
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By Leviathan.Celebrindal 2018-02-20 15:09:34
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I find /WAR benefits to be more valuable in a full ranged attack setup party with 3 shooters, so that warcry can be rotated as you speak of. Its certainly != to a WAR main's, but it does help and deserves mentioning.

/SAM is great on non-fomalhaut guns- you're losing 10STP from the change in weapon, and both Armageddon and Annihilator have slightly lower delays than the 600 delay Fomalhaut. That 15 STP from /SAM makes up for it nicely.
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By clearlyamule 2018-02-20 15:15:42
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I still like busting out the Mekki Shakki/Bloodrain Strap when /sam sometimes. You miss out on some racc/ratt and maybe some agi but man dat store tp. Also the extra str from hasso or fun seigan 3rd eye hijinks is nice
 Asura.Chiaia
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By Asura.Chiaia 2018-02-20 15:39:42
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Leviathan.Celebrindal said: »
but if you can effectively Decoy Shot (read: the tank is in YOUR party)
100% Wrong it's alliance wide transfer. You're not the first person I've seen say this so I decided to make a video disproving it's only party wide hate transfer.

Proof by me:
YouTube Video Placeholder


Notes:
Sometimes the first hit won't transfer hate and sometimes it will. In this video the first /ra did not transfer hate and Chiaia gets it for a moment.
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By clearlyamule 2018-02-20 15:42:03
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Wont work on pets though :(
By Asura.Kuroganashi 2018-02-21 14:02:07
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I usually do /WAR for End Game and /DNC for CP-ing.
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By Ramuh.Austar 2018-02-21 15:34:28
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clearlyamule said: »
I still like busting out the Mekki Shakki/Bloodrain Strap when /sam sometimes. You miss out on some racc/ratt and maybe some agi but man dat store tp. Also the extra str from hasso or fun seigan 3rd eye hijinks is nice
any idea if utu bonus applies to ranged weapon skills? never thought about it until reading your post
 Odin.Drakenv
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By Odin.Drakenv 2018-02-21 15:36:11
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Sidiov said: »
/BLM
I like to warp out after stupid events.

/RDM
Alliance flurry bot broke?
Lol
 Siren.Kyte
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By Siren.Kyte 2018-02-21 15:39:16
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Ramuh.Austar said: »
clearlyamule said: »
I still like busting out the Mekki Shakki/Bloodrain Strap when /sam sometimes. You miss out on some racc/ratt and maybe some agi but man dat store tp. Also the extra str from hasso or fun seigan 3rd eye hijinks is nice
any idea if utu bonus applies to ranged weapon skills? never thought about it until reading your post

I assume it would, but there isn't much use for it.
 Leviathan.Celebrindal
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By Leviathan.Celebrindal 2018-02-21 15:43:04
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Ramuh.Austar said: »
clearlyamule said: »
I still like busting out the Mekki Shakki/Bloodrain Strap when /sam sometimes. You miss out on some racc/ratt and maybe some agi but man dat store tp. Also the extra str from hasso or fun seigan 3rd eye hijinks is nice
any idea if utu bonus applies to ranged weapon skills? never thought about it until reading your post

Ranger isn't on Utu grip anyways. Too bad SAM doesn't get access to Jishnu's Radiance, already a DEX based weaponskill.

Also to Chiaia: VERY interesting testing, and I must admit the "Decoy Shot doesn't transfer across the alliance" mantra was just accepted on my part, never taken out to the field and tested. Many Thank-yous.
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By Lakshmi.Buukki 2018-02-21 16:01:06
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Leviathan.Celebrindal said: »
Ramuh.Austar said: »
clearlyamule said: »
I still like busting out the Mekki Shakki/Bloodrain Strap when /sam sometimes. You miss out on some racc/ratt and maybe some agi but man dat store tp. Also the extra str from hasso or fun seigan 3rd eye hijinks is nice
any idea if utu bonus applies to ranged weapon skills? never thought about it until reading your post

Ranger isn't on Utu grip anyways. Too bad SAM doesn't get access to Jishnu's Radiance, already a DEX based weaponskill.

It does work with Ranged, and that's not how Utu works anyways. It just adds 10% of your dex to the modifier on your weaponskill. SAM can use Namas + Apex, so this grip does modify the damage on that even though they aren't DEX weaponskills.

https://www.bg-wiki.com/bg/Utu_Grip

Quote:
Notes

Adds a 10% DEX Modifier to any WS (including Ranged) used with this Grip equipped.
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By clearlyamule 2018-02-21 16:02:09
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Leviathan.Celebrindal said: »
Ranger isn't on Utu grip anyways. Too bad SAM doesn't get access to Jishnu's Radiance, already a DEX based weaponskill.
Whatever war/rng flaming arrows!
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By Asura.Chiaia 2018-02-21 16:04:34
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Lakshmi.Buukki said: »
It does work with Ranged, and that's not how Utu works anyways. It just adds 10% of your dex to the modifier on your weaponskill.
No, it's exactly how it works it adds 10% Dex mod to a WS and if the WS already has say 30% Dex mod it now has a 40% Dex mod.
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By Lakshmi.Buukki 2018-02-21 16:07:36
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Right, but the weaponskill itself being dex mod has zero bearing on the value of it. It just adds 10% of your dex to any WS. Maybe I misread. The comment above made it imply that the grip would benefit Jishnu's Radiance more if SAM could use it. It's still 10% regardless.
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By clearlyamule 2018-02-21 16:10:43
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Lakshmi.Buukki said: »
Right, but the weaponskill itself being dex mod has zero bearing on the value of it. It just adds 10% of your dex to any WS. Maybe I misread. The comment above made it imply that the grip would benefit Jishnu's Radiance more if SAM could use it. It's still 10% regardless.
It's because it's the same stat so you can stack
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 Lakshmi.Buukki
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By Lakshmi.Buukki 2018-02-21 16:12:21
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Ah I see, got it.
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By Phoenix.Capuchin 2018-02-21 16:47:16
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fillerbunny9 said: »
another benefit to /WAR, provided you are not using a 2 handed weapon for some reason opting instead for Perun/Kustawi/Malevolence, etc depending on your needs plus Nusku Shield, is Fencer. at Fencer I (WAR45) that's an added 200 TP bonus to every weaponskill you shoot, and you should be firing them off often. additionally, this is useful for pushing your crit rate a smidge higher if you're making use of AM3 on Gandiva/Armageddon.

This is my main reason, along with Berserk, for using /WAR almost every time I need more focus primarily on physical damage/Last Stand. Perun+1/Nusku and blast away.

I use /SAM almost never, because I very rarely find it actually changing my x-hit. I suppose this is a YMMV thing, but I'd suggest taking a look to see if that Store TP is REALLY doing anything for your WS frequency.

The subjob Store TP does end up being a little more TP overflow for WS purposes, but Fencer is ALWAYS an extra TP+200 on every weapon/Nusku WS, plus the little bit of added crit rate (particularly helpful for Gandiva/Arma users)... and /SAM doesn't get Berserk/Warcry (but if you're always assuming capped attack, those tools may not be as beneficial to you).

COR Samurai Roll affects things too; if you're barely hitting an x-hit because of /SAM, that benefit is likely out the window as soon as you get a Samurai Roll (where, with any decent number, you're probably hitting the same post-roll x-hit with or without an extra STP+15 from subjob). For me, when I do get Samurai Roll from a Phantom Neck COR, that generally means WS + 2 shots to 1000+ TP. With Double Shot up, I use a DS+85% set (40% base + 20% JPs + 25% gear)... which means most of the time with DS on (as RNG/notSAM), I'm already operating at WS + one /ra = WS again. With Double Shot down or when it's up and no proc, then /SAM or not, I need to hit /ra again for that extra hit to WS.

Leviathan.Celebrindal said: »
/DNC:
I see this subjob choice, when in a party situation, to have all the offensive benefits for situations where you'd use /NIN plus the added punch of extra Skillchain Damage with no "safety valve". You won't be utilizing steps/sambas at high end events, so the real benefit is that extra damage. You're lacking shadows for moments when you might rip hate, but if you can effectively Decoy Shot that's typically not something you'll miss.

Any time I expect to do a significant amount of Trueflight, I'll go with a DW sub - having that second weapon is just too strong. And 99% of the time, I choose /DNC over /NIN. With as frequently as I end up closing a lot of SCs even when not TRYING to do it and just spamming WS indiscriminately, SC Bonus trait (8%!) is very significant offensively.

For the very small amount of times that /NIN would actually save me from death (which is still usually just a matter of raising and getting back to work while weakened, with some loss to DPS while rebuffing), I err on the side of doing more damage every single time I close a SC. Unless it's some super specific case of a massive range AoE that's absorbed by shadows or something, in which case, that's when I'd NIN.

I don't bother meleeing for TP, so the extra DW on /NIN over /DNC is fairly irrelevant to me. I find I get TP faster shooting in all cases.

Lakshmi.Buukki said: »
/DNC has the benefit of being able to participate more effectively in Omen Card parties, specifically on ability objective

Eh, I wouldn't really go /DNC for JAs. We already have native Shadowbind and 1min Bounty Shot, and 30sec Voke if /WAR. The larger the group (i.e. anything that your native tools plus maybe another player isn't enough to cover), the more likely you have several other people with JAs too. That's honestly one of the easiest objectives, IMHO (aside from like... a totally mage focused Kei run or something).
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 Ramuh.Austar
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By Ramuh.Austar 2018-02-21 17:04:28
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Siren.Kyte said: »
Ramuh.Austar said: »
clearlyamule said: »
I still like busting out the Mekki Shakki/Bloodrain Strap when /sam sometimes. You miss out on some racc/ratt and maybe some agi but man dat store tp. Also the extra str from hasso or fun seigan 3rd eye hijinks is nice
any idea if utu bonus applies to ranged weapon skills? never thought about it until reading your post

I assume it would, but there isn't much use for it.
I was thinking relic sam bow if it ever became useful again
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By Shiva.Arislan 2018-02-21 17:20:31
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Phoenix.Capuchin said: »
I use /SAM almost never, because I very rarely find it actually changing my x-hit. I suppose this is a YMMV thing, but I'd suggest taking a look to see if that Store TP is REALLY doing anything for your WS frequency.

This ^

If you don't have a COR, and 15STP is the only thing that gets you to your x-hit, then yeah, SAM might be the way to go. Otherwise, Fencer/Attack Bonus/Berserk are just too good. If you pull hate, Defense Bonus II/Defender and a -DT set are nice for when you want to tank for awhile. ;)
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By Asura.Saevel 2018-02-21 17:47:28
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You guys forgot /DRG, for when your doing such silly Trueflight + Light SC damage that you need to shed hate or become a liability. Mostly applicable to Gastro RNG's doing 50~60 TF's to 99K lights.
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