Onion Sword III Worth It?

It would be terrible for anything other than lower level content. You would have a base sword skill of 250 which iirc thats like level 50ish accuracy. You would most likely need honor March and 2 madrigals to even hit anything.

Why would a club job not go with Maxentius? You can pump out really high black halos

DRG manages kraken offhand with 300 club skill. Onion sword III is 269 skill *and* 30 dex *and* 40 accuracy. It's definitely workable, but that doesn't mean it has value over club.

Not sure if you'd be able to get enough acc for Kalunga/Mboze, and there's not much else that comes to mind where blunt just plain doesn't work.

What are you basing that on? It can still one shot mobs, it has both necessary damage types, and it has fleejig. What makes it not optimal?

You make yourself sound more stupid with each post! Didn't even know that was possible GG.

You don't need blunt to one shot. Nothing has substantial penalties to both slashing and piercing. I'm not really seeing the problem with it.

You must be the smartest person on the planet.

Dagger, with a flourish if necessary. They don't resist piercing like normal monsters.

Oh, I see. You're confusing "optimal" with "most popular". That explains it.

Optimal requires only that the setup has an equal probability of providing the best outcome. It doesn't need to have a certain degree of shout popularity for that to be true, DNC just has to be able to reliably one shot and provide some benefit to the rest of the group (Jig being instant and aoe means every use is saving seconds for multiple people).

Edit: I can support, to an extent, the idea that theorycraft doesn't outweigh practical experience. It is entirely possible that someone gets a sword and finds some glaring flaw that has been overlooked. But, this feels more like a deference to the shout strategy on the basis of popularity. It's most popular because retards can do it easily, that doesn't mean it's the only or most effective way. New options can change things.

The whole "BRD COR SCH WAR WAR WAR being optimal" is theorical statement to begin with. Whenever you made a conclusive statement based on math or popularity rather than reporting the real result without drawing a conclusion, the statement by nature is theorical, whether it's correct or not.

If I am making a pt and I know a good DNC player that I can trust with slashing options v.s a random WAR that I know absolutely nothing about, in practice it's inherently riskier to invite that random WAR that I don't know.

The whole "WAR is a better choice" is a theorical math-based statement that completely ignored other human factors that affects pt performance, such as capability between people and trust/dynamic within a team.

Without slashing options, picking a DNC for slashing content is difficult even if pt owner consider non-math factors when they build a team. With slashing options available, there are now far more flexibility on pt building when pt leader pick people.

That's where the value of slashing option is: Flexibility.

Perma bards that only play brd so they get invites they would otherwise never get due to their colourful personality are precious on what job setups they will deem worthy of their tone deaf singing.

BRD and DD gets very different treatment on party invites, we all know that already.

You've just offended an entire demographic in FFXI. You've really gotta work on your delivery though:

The "I'm different" group is at it again, huh?

1. DNC will never do competitive damage against WAR-SAM in segfarm.

2. DNC is used on piercing fights in Shaol. Why on earth would you try to use it against Kalunga?

3. It's ok for you to try to make any job - playstyle work. Just stop pretending your playstyle is just as good or better than the popular setup.

Already been answered, but...


They don't need to overkill by 20k to contribute. Chocobo jig 2 helps groups get around faster.
They offer a unique, unresistable def down and haste samba for a bunch of people with uncapped delay. Plus cures if necessary


See the above. Also: even if it's not better (whatever that means) it can still be comparable or competitive, which is good enough to take a known person on DNC over a stranger on SAM

Pretty sure Simon didn't say DNC does more raw dmg than WAR and SAM, he only said it being "ideal" because of additional benefits like emergency cures, subtle blow, haste and def down.

"Ideal" and "do the most dmg" does not have equal meaning.

For some people "ideal" could mean more dmg, for the others ideal could mean more cures or more subtle blow so people are less likely to die. It's not necessarily snowflakes to prioritize survivability over raw damage. It depends on who you play with and situation.

It's just different choice of words.

Define optimal. Are you optimizing for:

A. Most possible segments
-Dozens of setups are optimal.

B. Most possible segments with lowest average clear time
-Good case for WARx3, but can you show that a third warcry helps more than jig would in a setup like DNC WAR WAR? You're assuming because the current most accepted setup is WARx3 that it's the best, but you don't have any evidence.

C. Most possible segments with lowest chance of death
-DNC definitely better than WAR.

D. Most fun
-Depends on player.

E. Most acceptance from shout groups?
-Definitely gonna go for WARx3 here, hard to change minds.



...The argument on Kalunga seems a whole lot easier. 10% JA haste for everyone who is engaged besides the DPS is vastly more extra damage than any difference between WAR and DNC. Having an instant aoe cure is a huge safety net. 23% more defense down is an insane amount of extra ratio and will make aria useful.

Edit: I have to think some of the vitriol in these threads is coming from the inherent FOMO of having to choose a weapon. It's ok not to pick Onion Sword III; there aren't going to be enough top tier DNCs that shouts only demand onion sword DNC. Your WAR is still going to be desired even if DNC finds a place alongside it. Same goes for Kalunga. If you don't like DNC, you don't need to pick it.

excuse me, I hate to make it personal, but it looks like you have a problem with what other people on these forums think of theoretically optimal because, and you’re right at that, things that look optimal on paper might not work in practice. Do you have personal experience of dnc with onion sword not working in the aforementioned scenarios? If so please share your findings, because I bet all of us would -unironically- love to read them.

How you came up with 300 attack from skill? DNC has native sword skill.