Lehko Vs. Cornelia Vs. Ephramad

I feel like the 10 str dex agi and 20 att is being ignored.

Always useful especially if you aren’t super buffed.

Lehko used to be more useful when -dt sets didn’t cap out haste. I’m reasonably sure that currently tank jobs can cap out their haste in their fast cast sets relatively easily now but I also haven’t actually checked up on things in a while.

Weatherspoon +1 and Ephramad for that Blinding Fulgor build, obviously.

Ephramaud's is regal ring with 10 PDL and no vit on it. Most of the savage blade's out there are BiS with a combination of regal ring and epaminondas's ring if you ignore the VR ring option. So you have the choice of upgrading regal to ephramaud's for the 10 PDL, or the epa to cornelia's for the extra 5 WSD. Upgrading epa to cornelia is better if you're not capping attack, and upgrading regal to ephramaud's is better if you do utilize the pdl.

Saevel summarized the situational differences pretty well. If you're running limbus with a geo all the time then ephramaud's ring is better, but most people here have agreed in the limbus thread that bringing a geo results in slower kill time than 3 strong dd's with a bard cor and red mage. So which is it? Do we run geo and use our ephramaud's rings or do the setup that kills faster and use our cornelia's rings?

The takeaway is it's personal preference. If you only run a static 100% of the time then you can choose the ring best suited for all cases, but most of us join pickups for stuff so the "best" choice will change from party to party and event to event.

We also need to mention Aria which is another 20.8% ~ 22.1% increase in PDL before Marcato or SV boosting it further. It's not enough to be at "Attack cap" for any given scenario, just being at the cap and adding PDL will do nothing for you. You need to be above attack cap by a sufficient amount that you can benefit from the additional raising of that cap. This is why I mention debuffs, because it's only through stacking debuffs that we can reduce the monsters def enough to create that overwhelming ratio that is far above attack cap prior to PDL.

While doing some tests using Izanami's calculator, I set an i145 target with typical SV buffs (Honor, March, Minuetx2 Mad), COR rolls, and Sublime Sushi on a Mlvl 12 DNC (/drg) with Twashtar R15 + Centovente. Only Dia II + Light Shot + Box Step. No Armor Break.

I do not have decked out Nyame or Gleti's, all the +4s and a few other things like Duty or Aurgelmir +1. Still working on this stuff, but that makes me a viable test to compare Cornelia's vs. Ephramad. I'm not BiS all around, but I'm not seriously undergeared, either.

Found that while doing 3k Rudras with Climactic, Ephramad flies ahead. It is no competition. However, doing 1750 Rudras without Climactic has Cornelia's ahead, but it's so close I wouldn't consider it a win.

If we add Armor Break + Warcry at 1750 (no climactic), Ephramad flies ahead again. This tells me that most of the time, Cornelia isn't winning, and even when it does, it's not by much. When my DNC gets better, Ephramad will keep on getting better. The only time it may suffer is if we can't buff properly or get regular Dispels.

I'd like to do this for DRK next, which is my main job. Again, it isn't mega geared, but it is better than DNC and higher Mlvl. I have a strong feeling DRK's high attack traits will make Ephramad destroy Cornelia even more so.

For what I play, Cornelia would hurt magic WS on my RDM and COR, but I rarely use those jobs anyway, and when I do I'm not the main DPS. It helps, but not enough to justify when I play DRK and DNC far more.

Of course, I could be completely wrong, so feel free to correct anything after doing your own testing. The only thing I haven't done here is test this while using Aria. I'll get back after I've looked through DRK in a similar scenario to above.

That's the thing with cornelia's ring, it is 10% WSD, but that's all it is, a statted ring on a WS with good WSC may not beat it, but itll be pretty close, ephramad's is that + potentially 10 PDL. its a wider gap on magic since there's not as many potent magic rings to compare to in the same vein as phys WS rings so if you were primarily doing magical WS might be a good deal there

DRK is as expected. Used similar options to above, except my DRK is Mlvl 37 using Caladbolg. /drg has an extra WSdmg trait to my DNC.

Ephramad is ahead in almost every situation. It ties with Cornelia with no SV, Dia III and regular buffs. Warcry and/or Armor Break puts it ahead, though.

DRK is known for lacking accuracy compared to other jobs. I always wonder if I am undershooting. I can immediatelly tell when I am. Unless Nyame and Sakpata is augmented, Torcleaver is pretty limited on choices. Ephramad's DEX +10 and Accuracy +10 puts my mind at ease. I can line up Torcleaver accuracy easier with my TP sets this way. As Taint was saying, this isn't just about the PDL and attack for some jobs.

Lehko

After looking through DRK+DNC TP sets, I am going to lose out slightly by not having Lehko, but the loss is so minimal I won't notice it. Chirich +1 or Moonlight +1 serve as decent replacements. If I ever get Prime and start hitting regular 99999s I'll likely get Lehko's back for the slight TP increase.

Conclusion

If you're a heavy DD with decent equipment and quality buffs behind you, Ephramad will probably win.
Some jobs like MNK and WAR are exceptions already discussed.

Cornelia is enticing if:

1) No Epam Ring for some reason
2) You're a returnee gearing up
3) Poor buffs and minimal debuffs
4) Using magical WS most of the time.

Seems like my mind is made up on this one. Thanks everyone.

I've used both Ephramad's and Cornelia's rings, done a bunch of in-game testing and sims for the jobs I actually play with the buffs I usually have, worked both into my sets for various occasions, and ultimately I think a lot of the conclusions in this thread comparing the two are just wrong. Don't get me wrong, they're both great rings, I absolutely wish I could have both. However, in the OP and some of the following posts, the general conclusion is that Ephramad's is "better" if you put in the work to use it properly, but Cornelia's is nice because you don't have to think about it. As someone who puts in the work in this game and thinks about these things to a probably unhealthy degree, this just isn't true at all.

• Cornelia's Ring provides a hefty boost to your strongest physical/magic weaponskills all of the time, under all circumstances. Even when you're attack capped, Cornelia's Ring provides a big damage boost. I get it, it's boring and people desperately want something else to be better, but that doesn't change the fact that it'll still likely provide the biggest boost.

• Ephramad's Ring has the potential to situationally spike to slightly higher damage values (seriously, run the sims yourself and make sure to account for the existence of other PDL+ gear options, the difference between the rings isn't as high as some here are making it out to be) for physical weaponskills than Cornelia's Ring, but falls well behind when the conditions of those situations are not met. The reality is that with the widespread (and ever widening) availability of Aria of Passion, Prime weapons, augmented Odyssey gear, some Sortie earrings, some JSE necks, Crepuscular Pebble, Sroda Ring, and now Limbus gear, the set of situations in which Ephramad's Ring is superior has become practically a niche. This is especially true for Aria of Passion; that buff really took the wind out of Ephramad's sails.

If you play solely in the niche where Ephramad's Ring is superior, then by all means pick that over Cornelia's. However, if you play a wide variety of jobs, a wide breadth of content, a wide assortment of party compositions, you'll almost definitely get a bigger bang for your buck out of Cornelia's Ring.

Someone in this thread referred to Lehko's Ring as an "enthusiast's ring". I wholeheartedly agree with that. Ephramad's Ring is also an enthusiast's ring.

Some additional things to keep in mind:

• We're all aware of this fact, but I think it deserves extra attention- by going with Ephramad's Ring, you're sacrificing 10% WSD due to opportunity costs of not having Cornelia's Ring. While the 10% PDL+ is nice when you're attack capped, remember that you're lowering your WSD by 10% to gain that (WSD+ is still just as valuable even when you're attack capped), and the only gains you'll see are the difference between the two potential boosts, that difference generally being pretty small. And no, the attack+ and stat+ on Ephramad's Ring does not help close the gap as much as some are implying.

• Someone in the other thread made the claim that "WSD+ has diminishing returns, but PDL+ doesn't." I've heard this before from others, so I want to make sure we're all tracking correctly. Neither stat has traditional "diminishing returns". WSD+ has linear returns from start to finish. PDL+, on the other hand, does have conditional quasi-diminishing returns, in that the returns disappear completely once you have "enough". PDL+ is similar to accuracy in that if you don't have enough, adding more can make a big difference, but if you do have enough, adding any more is completely pointless. There is no such thing as "enough" when it comes to WSD+, making Cornelia's Ring always valuable.

• The mention of PDL+ affecting white damage and/or the accuracy boost from Ephramad's Ring in your TP set is really not worth any consideration. The damage boost you'll get from using Ephramad's Ring in your TP set is microscopic, and there are much better ways to boost your accuracy in a TP set than completely sacrificing your ring slot. Criticizing Cornelia's Ring because it's only good in a WS set is ridiculous, Ephramad's is also only good for WS sets (ok, ok, maybe also physical BLU spells, lol).

The fortunate thing about the TVR rings is that this isn't like the Bonanza weapons where you need to pick one. You can go back and forth every week as your situations change. As is unsurprising from my post, I use Cornelia's Ring for now as it provides a substantially larger benefit to my gameplay, but if my conditions ever change, I can freely go back and grab Ephramad's Ring again.

Regarding accuracy, cornelia's is wsacc+20 in the JP description.

Imagine a world where we could have all of them /dream

People really misunderstand "diminishing returns", which is exacerbated by malicious posters trolling people. It's a term that is only important which comparing two different values and trying to figure out which is the "better" increase. It serves as a counter to the human nature to follow the "more is better" fallacy which tends to ignore diminishing returns.

Imagine stat A and stat B, and you get to add +10 to either of them, and both have the same percentile increase (they are multiplied by each other). Stat A is 220 (3.2x) while stat B is 180 (2.8x). Adding 10 to stat A would yield 230 (3.3x) multiplier being a 3.125% increase. Adding that same 10 to stat B would yield 190 (2.9x) for a 3.571% increase.

In FFXI we see this while comparing things like WSD, WSC and even PDL. Someone having 80 WSD (1.9), adding 10 would only be a 5.26% increase not a 10% increase. Someone who has 34% PDL and added +10 would get a 7.46% increase, assuming they were ~0.3 above 154% of the monsters defense prior to PDL.

On the whole topic of "attack cap", anyone who talks simulators without knowing the real values being used should be taken with an entire mines worth of salt. Apex monsters are a good case study for the approximate defense regular non-ITG monsters have for each level. Some like bats have substantially less then crabs or even crawlers. NM bosses have even more, sometimes substantially. Level 119 Tojil for example was measured to have 1900 defense. The aforementioned Samurai with JSE neck would need 8515 attack to reach attack cap. Adding Frailty and Dia II from a GEO drops that requirement substantially.

https://www.bg-wiki.com/ffxi/Category:Apex_Monster

https://jp.ffxiah.com/forum/topic/58150/arebati-stats/1/#3727529

Gaol T3 V25 bosses have close to 3000 defense, have 85% resistance to Geomancy debuffs and you need to spend buff slots of defensive buffs on many of them. Sortie basement bosses also have obscene stats but at least Geomancy is only nerfed 50%, as well as most common groups bringing both a DNC and RDM for 9-boss's making stacking large amounts of defense down feasible. Though it should be mentioned that no amount of gear, buff or debuff stacking is going to get the DNC to do more then 99,999 damage per WS.

The choice of ring should be centered on what someone is doing regularly.

Looked into this further because of Navius' post.

With my (not BiS everywhere) DRK equipment using SV with Aria, the numbers tell me that Cornelia's is more competitive.
Ephramad is still ahead, but only just. I tested with different enfeebles and this didn't change.

The PDL from Aria makes Ephramad less potent, so this has me second guessing my earlier decision. I sometimes run with an Aria BRD, but I run more so with a non-Aria BRD. And even with Aria available, that doesn't guarantee it will be used.

I'm still going with Ephramad, but when I gear up more and am almost always getting Aria, then I'd reconsider Cornelia for sure.

If the take is that Ephramad's beats Cornelia with extreme buffs but without Aria in 2026, I'm not sure there's actually _that_ much of a niche for it.

Except for Monk's Howling Fist build!

Just pick one of the candidate rings (read: Cornelia) for now. You can freely change the TVR every week afaik, so it's not a heavy decision.

Definitely put entirely too much energy into a 200 damage difference.

But I do love the fighting about it. so.

It is because I change my sets and don't want to have to switch rings again for at least a few months, lol.

More of what target are you fighting? Some random Apex / ML monster with a pet GEO / BRD? Well if you weren't already doing 99,999 damage per WS then Ephramad might help you hit 99,999 for more EP/hr. Are you fighting Aminon and not hitting 99K on DNC? Then this might help you hit 99K more consistently. Fighting Rimbus mobs with a full party of buffs and a GEO doing iFrailty + Dia tagging everything, then Ephramad is going to be a 3~5% increase depending on how much PDL you already have.

Fighting Goal T3's V25? Ephramad's doing absolutely nothing for you.

The PDL on it is doing absolutely nothing, sure... but the ring itself isnt doing "Absolutely Nothing".

The important distinction to note is; how much the BP and Atk/Acc are providing for your WS's VS the 10 WSD/20wsacc on Cornelias. However it calculates down to, the number Cornelia's ends up providing is less than 10 WSD worth in the comparison. It's a net positive of 5+ WSD likely, but not the full 10 because those stats matter.

It goes without saying that context matters, and the sum of all parts of your gear always matters... comparing both rings in a vacuum is a fools errand. If you're doing predominantly V25 runs/attempts/clear then get the Corny ring and swap it later. It's not all that complicated.

Most people who have the ephramads want something that's "Servicable" in situations where the cornelias ring would edge it out. They make this judgment call because they value the boon it provides in the scenarios where you take advantage of it's PDL more than the lack of damage where you dont. Things like Aminon where it offers something tangible that you can easily see on a scoreboard

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To have a brief 2 cents on the Lekho's, its super cool... but the cost of getting it is too high. The way I feel about it is the same way I feel about Nyame Path A. It's amazing sure, but at the expense of the potency of my weapon skills across all the jobs I play... I simply cant pull that trigger.

This is the equivalent of an 8th grader going "nuh uhhh".


In the context of the discussion, that ring slot is frequently taken by regal ring.

https://www.bg-wiki.com/ffxi/Regal_Ring

The difference between Regal and Ephramad's is the 10 PDL, which is why the discussion revolves around that. Cornelia is usually compared to the second ring slot with is +4~5 WSD.


Lekho's is one of those universal utility rings that always finds its way into sets. 10 Store TP is very useful, 10% crit is very useful, 10 DEX is just 10 DEX and 10% haste on a ring is amazingly useful. Rarely will all be useful at once, but one or two at a time is commonly nice to have. For example 10 Store TP and 10% Haste is very good to have on Occult Acumen Impact sets. 10 Store TP, 10 Crit and 10 DEX is good on WAR TP sets and various jobs WS sets.

So while the other two would raise some WS damage situationally by 3~5%, Lekho's boosts the utility of dozens of sets.

Reading back through my post, it looks like I was heavily critical of Ephramad's Ring. Just to reiterate, i think both rings are great. I personally feel that Cornelia's Ring is the better of the two, but I don't think anyone should feel bad for using Ephramad's Ring instead. I just felt that the good points of Ephramad's Ring were already well stated by other posters, but Cornelia's Ring was under-represented in this thread.

Absolutely. While a 200 damage difference is an obvious exaggeration for the sake of humor, your point is spot on. The actual difference is small, either way. But hey, we're all psycho min-maxers, so what can you expect?

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I really think more people should use the Python simulator that Izanami created. He's done a fantastic job of ensuring the tool is user-friendly and very accessible. Instead of relying on people's opinions on the forum or things you see in some "guide", you can look at what's best for the jobs you actually play, with the gear you actually have, under the buff conditions you'll likely have available with the people you actually play with, for the content you actually care about. Which piece of gear is "best" (this pertains to much more than just the TVR rings) is often highly situational, and if you're running your own sims, you're no longer beholden to other people's opinions. (NOTE: I'm referring to WS sets. Using the sim to help with TP sets requires a different level of finnese to ensure you don't end up hugging the floor constantly).


You're right, but you're exaggerating. Epaminondas's Ring (+5% WSD) is better than Regal Ring (same BPs and attack) for similar weaponskills, so the benefit you'll get from Cornelia's over Ephramad's is significantly greater than just 5% WSD+. Additionally, please remember than Sroda's Ring exists, which provides +3% PDL+ and +15 STR. In general, Ephramad's Ring will replace Sroda's Ring in this situation, so the actual PDL+ benefit you get isn't actually 10%, it's less than 7%. So all in all, this argument is a wash between the two rings.


Or don't swap later, because you're likely already using the most optimal ring. ;P

Most people who have the Cornelia's Ring want something that's considerably more than servicable, even great, in situations where Ephramad's Ring would edge it out.

I'm highly skeptical of this claim. Aminon, content where we typically have a Soul Voice Aria of Passion active for the whole fight, nerfed GEO debuffs, and 5/6 of our DDs are notoriously attack-starved? I don't believe that Ephramad's Ring is better at all in this instance for most of the jobs involved, and I certainly don't believe that the difference is so great that you can see it on Scoreboard. As someone who does a LOT of Aminon, both normal/hard modes on RDM, and who has absolutely used both Ephramad's and Cornelia's rings for the fight, I call bs on this claim. Neither ring provides a huge difference over the other, and if either is better (for most jobs involved, at least), it's certainly Cornelia's Ring.

Absolutely. I think comparing Lehko's Ring to Nyame Path A is a great way of putting it.

It is worth considering, because it is a possible use for the ring(and a highly useful one). You may not like it, and it may have no bearing on how you play, but that doesn't make it any less real. Name a ring with higher accuracy in the ring slot. I'll wait. It's particularly tangible when soloing with Trusts like Sylvie UC who will adjust their buffs when you take even slight accuracy dip for WS set. This can help you prevent that, keeping the far more desirable Fury (after all Trusts don't register +WS Acc).

You can try and make the claim that Ephramad's is only good for WS all you like, but it will never be the truth. In any Empy AM3 or Prime Stage 5 white hit focused/leaned build +10% damage on ODT procs can be as much as a 4.6k increase to the hit(DRK WAR BST SAM THF empy set bonuses stacks with ODT). Most often it is about a 1.4k increase. In the situation where you are benefiting from this boost (see all serious group content) you are also benefiting from a 10% increase on your physical WS damage. And no, before you start, it doesn't seriously impede WS frequency from losing a meager amount of Store TP from your ring slot. Not with how powerful Samurai Roll is.

I also find it strange that you claim Aria of Passion devalues Ephramad's Ring. I fail to see how? DRK with Scythe needs the highest ratio in the game, still incorporates PDL gear in its WS sets, and still benefits greatly from them and from Aria. This is a truly nonsensical take from my perspective.

And you conveniently do not mention multi-hit WS, which Cornelia's Ring under performs on. And in your response to Dexprozius you talk of the disgusting Sroda Ring which is terrible. It also sports -20 DEX, making it an accuracy(and crit) penalty in WS set as negative modifier for any DEX based WS(which includes all Utu Grip using jobs btw). It is significantly worse than Ephramad's.

Re: Saeval(couldn't be bothered to quote you), I'm glad you understand math and ratios, but it really isn't hard to cap pdif even with increasing the ratio you need. I don't know why every discussion of PDL and pdif starts out this same way on AH. "Zomg this monster at this level range will have too much defense for you to meet the ratio with just buffs! zomg! No ***, sherlock. Dia is one of the most common debuffs used in the game for a reason. Your trusts will handily do Dia III for you. Defense down effects are also not hard to come by. In party setting, you can reduce monster defense by 71% without a GEO(61% w/o DNC main, 53% realistically on trash, 48% w/o dnc sub). It is not a herculean feat to get the ratio you want. Even in your own example with just Trust buffs/debuffs and Ageha you'll achieve -43%(-55% if Entrust Frailty up) defense rendering it down to 712(625) defense, making you only need 3200 attack(3500 if more PDL w/e). Which is super achievable with /drk for Smite II/III, Last Resort, Sylvie Fury, Food, and Qultada Chaos. Thanks for playing.

Also when I said old content I was speaking of things that are actually old. Pre-item level. Salvage bosses/NMs. Provenance Watcher. Not Level 132 random demonstration mob.

Kinda over thinking this, it's not that complicated.

Pretty simple really.

Wanting to bump up those meme-savage-blade numbers? Ephramad will do that for you.

Any other use case? Cornelia is a safe bet, ephramad is a big boost only if you have the buffs for it.

Ask yourself if you care about meme-blade e-peen numbers more than anything else.

Go on.. you know you want ephramad.

10 PDL =!= 10% damage.


Re-read the post then? Each % PDL means you need more and more attack to take advantage of it.

If you're on DRK with a scythe and your target has 1000 DEF and you have 5000 ATK then you're above the ratio (5 compared to 4.5), so you can use ephramad's ring. If you have aria, your PDIF goes up to 5.5, so your ephramad PDL is useless. As you add PDL from gear, aria, etc you need more ATK to take advantage of the extra PDL. So...aria and the PDL gear you have (and are using) absolutely affect whether or not you can take advantage of more PDL.

Cornelia has wsacc+20.

There's also the relative increase lens. Even if you can hit the attack you need to take advantage of it, if you start from a base of 50% PDL (SV Aria and minor other stuff) and add another 10%, you're going from 1.5 to 1.6, which is +6.6667% damage.

So the more PDL you have, the less likely you are to take advantage of it (due to needing more attack) and also adding marginal PDL is going to be a smaller relative increase than with less PDL.

Because everyone makes the same mistake of just assuming attack is always capped, then has to back track and become creative with doing so. I used the SAM as a trap to catch people doing that, since they would immediate think to "win" by using a weak WS and therefor doing less damage on a trash mob that you would otherwise be killing in two WS's. It has more to do with the target content you are doing. Debuff stacking is something you do on boss's because they tend to live long enough for it to be worth the time and effort.

Which is why I made this statement


This isn't about item choice X good, item choice Y bad, its' about understanding the context of the content someone is doing and then making a personal choice around that.



And why I made this comment.

Ephramad would help the DNC get more 99,999 if they weren't already getting 99,999... :trollface:

But seriously this is that exact situation I found Lekho's to be the "better" ring, because it let me get more TP per Impact and more Impacts per fight due to reduced recast.

Waist option is Oneiros rope making Haste hard to cap in midcast and therefor making the recast higher on a spell that already has a high recast. Bam drop in a Lehko's and all my other slots are committed to OA / Store TP.

It's the same mistake people always make with assuming macc is capped on hybrids and only thing that matters is what Sim says will give highest damage.

Hint - accuracy and macc requirements change dramatically depending on the content.

So much so. Like Sim's are only useful if the person using it actually understands the data underneath it, otherwise it's just a magic eight ball. Values like Defense, Evasion, Magic Evasion and Magic Defense change per-fight and so the resulting "best" can also change, especially with regards to pDiff and hit rate.