Reevaluating spent time.

This is going to be an example thread, a small slice of the new update, and then will we discuss the woe this has caused my brain to spiral through. Versus did 4 Byakko's yesterday, with zero, yes, zero Haidate drops. This is ridiculous, we seriously have a completely aweful drop rate on the Haidate. I was making me furious last night. We did get two N. Hands, a D. Legs, an E. Feet and A. Head along with some decent crafting materials, but the lack of Haidate was just infuriating. Also, SE has changed Despot so that it now spawns after the placeholder Doll has been killed and will spawn claimed to you, which is neither here nor their but it appears they have also massively increased the pop time on Despot, which is just stupid. After finally fixing the bottleneck that was Ullikummi they add a new one. It's just stupid and worthless. I literally got angry when I found this out. Not only does this slow everyone's progression again artifically, but it also allows the RMT to have more control over Sky again. They can now mass pull the statues and BLM -ga them all... luckily we will be able to help them out with this process by lowering the defense of their unclaimed mobs. It just seems so ridiculous to do this. Honestly, if they wanted to do this they could have just originally done it with Ullikummi instead of fixing Ullikummi then just screwing with Despot. Well, I feel better now. Hopefully it wont be much of an issue...

Now, onto my personal issues, these are of much these concern overall to my LS, but much more concern when it comes to what I do about my jobs and how I merit. As I have mentioned I had already put 8 levels of Hand to Hand from merits... and now after the update, I am having a twinge of regret. This was the first time I have ever dumped merits into a job before getting it to 75. I wish I has waited, LOL. My SAM is now a beast, as I have said it is my second best equipped job after my NIN, and with the update should my merits go there? Since I would like to increase my focus on Salvage should I just keep my Hand to Hand and continue to level my MNK? I think as of now I am going to put my four (three + my 1 Archery merit) into Great Katana at least. I will start there. Now for some examples of damage. First, on Byakko this was as SAM/THF. My first comment is that SA does still stack with Tachi: Gekko, you just can't see it on mobs that you can cap your pDIF on because the new cap is the same as the Critical hit cap, so it may look like they are not stacking but they still are. This was with a Hagun. Apparently, besides buffing two-handed weapons, the adjustments that were made to the high level Tachi weaponskills were also very large. Now instead of receiving a 1.50, 2.0 and 2.5 damage modifier at 100, 200 and 300 TP levels respectively, the modifiers have been bumped up to 2.0, 2.5 and 3.0, it may even be 2.5, 3.0, 3.25 (3.5?). This is just amazing, LOL. Before this update I would struggle to get to 600-700 on SATA WS like Byakko. Another thing that I noticed was that even when I didn't use food on Byakko I was able to still get a decent accuracy rate. I would say a little above 50%, and this was in all of my haste gear set on, which leaves out many different accuracy pieces. Now, does this make SAM unbalanced? I don't know, because on mobs like Kirin it used to be that NIN, MNK and WAR would only be used to TP burn it because of the damage they could do. The reason I mention Kirin is only because that is where I have decent evidence to use for this example, but the point is that those jobs would get lower WS numbers but they would be able to WS much more often than other jobs that could get higher WS numbers in general. This is the reason that SE adjusted the damage of two-handers... and now its too close for some.

After Sky we did three Operation: Desert Swarm runs, my run of course netted absolute crap. Izman's run netted exactly what he was looking for, a Claymore Grip. And Omoi's run netted some amazing drops, including a Sword Strap and a Serket's Ring! Congratulations Omoi, normally it would have been sell and split, but because Omoi could actually use the Serket's Ring there and then she just kept it. We were just there for the new grips anyway. LOL Omoi let me borrow the Sword Strap for my SAM, and I got to test it out. Of course its not incredibly noticeable, especially when using the Soboro, but I am sure that it makes a pretty good difference. This KSNM is very easy to do with a regular party, and I have no idea why people get BLM to burn it for them. The mobs are very weak and don't hit hard at all. I was tanking for some of the time and I had Hagun and Berserk up for most of the fights. The first one was a little dicey because of a resisted sleep but outside of that the fights were incredibly easy. I used Soboro on these fights and it was a blast. That was /WAR, with a 40 base damage weapon with Hasso and Berserk up. I liked it a lot. Speaking of other numbers, we went XPing in the Mire after we had gotten these new grips to test them out and test out the new damage from the two-handers we had with us. This was not an irregular WS damage amount: I know, I know, it was on a Jnun, but it was the only SS I took, because I was so busy killing stuff, LOL. It was not uncommon to see that kind of damage with Seigan and Berserk up on Flies and Imps. It seems with the increase in WS modifier damage that though the Hagun is still probably the best for straight up WS damage at 100TP the other options have moved up in relevance. An Onimaru can probably parse much closer than it used to, and other options might be viable. I am going to try to XP again tonight, and see what I can do, maybe test out some other camps and test out some other GKTs but honestly Soboro is just amazing as it is right now. I am doing more than I used to do with my Hagun in the same parties.