Wednesday, June 27, 2007

Ok, head to MG, and ignore the dead bodies... o.o;

So, what happens when you pull a detector and on the way back to your party of 5 people it spawns Steam Cleaner and the tank accidentally vokes a Dust Buster? LOL You get a mad-cap dash to the zone line, while the rest of the LS heads back to get it and the original party dies. :) That was a fun little adventure, and while the rest of the LS was killing Steam Cleaner, Mother Globe had spawned, so they had to run off to get it while we were left for dead. LOL It was a good day in sky though, more money from the Gods, even though the abjuration drops from the Gods weren't that great. In fact, they haven't been dropping good abjurations or God gear for a long while. Oh and if anyone is interested Refrain purchased what I would guess to be W. Hands from RMT, as they are a RDM and were with the RMT while they were doing a Seiryu, and immidiately got warped out while the rest of the RMT stayed. So it is my conclusion that Refrain is an RMT item buyer and should banished to the Second circle of Hell and forced to lie in the mud under continual cold rain and hail whilst being forced to consume their own excrement. Graphic sure, but Dante was dead on in great punishments. LOL Anyway, we are definitely in a deficit when it concerns good Abjurations and God Gear. N. Feet, D, Head, Sune-ate and Kote are all no where to be found, and I don't even want to mention the lack of decent drops from the kitty.

Anyway, after Sky we headed to xp for a while. NIN, NIN, WAR, WAR, BRD, WHM with Daraut changing to DRK about halfway through. It was pretty decent XP for a 70-75 party, and we were in the Mire so chaining was more important than base XP anyway. I got a little more than half way to 72, where I finally get to change up some of my gear, I actually get quite a lot at 72 and then even more at 73. Right now I am using a borrowed Juggernaut and my Acha d'Armas, I think I will skip the Woodville's Axe for now and just wait for the Maneater at 73. I need to get my Soil Gorget made up so that I can use it at level 72. And I will also get my Suppanomimi at 72, along with my borrowed Dusk Gloves and feet. Then at 73 I will have access to my Hecatomb gear, I will definitely use my Hecatomb feet for WS's but I don't know if I will use the body, as it probably isn't as good as a Haubergeon +1. So the faster I get to 73 the better. Now Kira still has to fight Maat, and she needs to skill up her Sword to be able to do Spirits Within, but I think and quick night of skilling up in Kuftal Tunnel should fix that right up. She is getting close to the cap on 70 so that means that we wont be XPing until she beats Maat.

Now for the topic I wanted to cover yesterday but didn't have time for, and that is the utility of two BRD's in a party. The obvious assumption is that two BRD's with the proper DD jobs is better than one but under what circumstances is this true? Obviously the 1337 DD jobs are the best focus on this, ones that can have their performance most optimized by having more songs. The obvious answer is WAR, NIN and MNK whereas WAR benefits from the Minuets and then the Haste, the NIN the Haste then the Minuets and the MNK pretty much both equally. There are camps that definitely have the benefit of having two BRD's maximized also, like the Great Colibri camp were two Minuets, a March and a Madrigal are a boon to all DD's because of the lack of food. But really what is most important about using two BRD's is to actually use them, with two BRD's you have to make up for a missing DD. Now with all the buffs going on this is not that difficult if the people in your party are paying attention. The need to engage quickly and efficiently use WS's to kill mobs but not waste TP is much more important in this case than it would be in a normal party. The essential basis of any "burn" party is to get to 100 TP as fast as possible and use that TP so that it takes out as much of the mobs HP as possible. This means that delays in engaging a mob can actually slow down your damage over time and this factor is multiplied in a two BRD party for two reasons. 1) Just as the buffs make you more efficient for doing damage to the mob while you are engaged, the corollary is also true in that the time that you speed not engaged is has waste effect multiplied. 2) You have to make up for that fourth DD, this means you are always fighting a battle of time, to keep the three people's efficiency up to and over the point of the imaginary fourth member with lessened buffs. Ultimately, it is very difficult to test whether two BRD's is more efficient than one, but I think the evidence is available for this in XP/hour claims (yes, claims, because we all know how accurate some of these claims really are). So basically, if you aren't going to do your job in the party as a DD with two BRD's you are probably actually going to get less than you would if you had 1 BRD and another DD that would be picking up the slack for you. Two BRD parties don't even necessarily have to work just with 1337 jobs like WAR, NIN and MNK again if all three of the DD's are paying attention. If they are not paying attention, or if they are slacking or if they are not paying attention when to WS, then you are just wasting the benefit of a second BRD.

And that is my rant. :) I hope you enjoyed it.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

the important thing is the tank (Aable) lived as always. and came back to get SC before it depoped. lets hear it for such an amazing guy!

Drac said...

I've tried the 2x Bard parties a few times. You make good points, that if you have an extra Bard you must keep engaged in battle constantly.

I usually feel that one is enough, because I have a hard time seeing the percentage of performance increase for 3 melees being greater than the percentage of damage another DD body would be.