Sword vs Dagger

[Rain_Blade]

Re: Sword vs Dagger

It is strongly situational which is why I don't recommend it before 75. I have 9 subs and the only 2 I don't consider to be strongly situational are blm and whm. /dnc happens to be the best for colibri just like /drk is the best for stuff that needs stunning.

How long have you played this game?

[Icemage]

Re: Sword vs Dagger

Wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong. In my pt yesterday on colibri I was doing 5 Hastes, 1.5 Refresh(damn drks), 3 PhalanxII and kept protectIV up. I converted about once every 12 minutes (no ballad) and almost always had 200-300TP.

Also, who derailed this?

Eww @ Colibri parties. Seriously eww. In that specific instance where you don't have to cast anything else or even move very much, then yes, you can melee all you like, but the XP/hr is pretty unremarkable. Against Colibri, yes, you're free to use /DNC, or /SAM, or pretty much anything you want because you almost never have to cast cures in those parties anyway aside from the odd Pecking Flurry.


Icemage

[Glued]

Re: Sword vs Dagger

i dont have anything to say to his post he makes a good case and good points and those would be situations where meleeing would not be considered appropriate even by my standards, the only thing i have to say to Sabaron's post is what i said, numbers and letters should never occupy the same space unless it is in a mathematecial equation.

i not a computer i dont read numbers as letters to be honest i dont even know what the hell it is he is saying in that garble of arithmetic and alphabetical numbers

[Icemage]

Re: Sword vs Dagger

i dont have anything to say to his post he makes a good case and good points and those would be situations where meleeing would not be considered appropriate even by my standards, the only thing i have to say to Sabaron's post is what i said, numbers and letters should never occupy the same space unless it is in a mathematecial equation.

i not a computer i dont read numbers as letters to be honest i dont even know what the hell it is he is saying in that garble of arithmetic and alphabetical numbers

The only thing I'll respond to this with, is that if you play RDM as diligently as you post, you must be a very lazy RDM. Insufficient punctuation, no capitalization, walls of text... your posts are just as painful to read as Sabaron's sarcastic leetspeak.


Icemage

[Esoa]

Re: Sword vs Dagger

The whole idea of RDM melee is absurd because you'll do horrible damage and have horrible accuracy. You'd do more damage and be more effective subbing /BLM and tossing out some nukes because then you can still switch out between your staves and eat appropriate food.

As a RDM 51+ you MUST be doing all of the following: Haste, Refresh, Enfeebles, and main healing all without holding up the PT to rest for MP. That is the minimum baseline with which to work from. If you are sacrificing any of those to melee, you've failed. If you can melee and still do all of those, it remains to be seen whether the extra damage outweighs the damage you could obtain from /BLM (which I doubt) plus the enfeebling accuracy from staves.

[Richie]

Re: Sword vs Dagger

Eww @ Colibri parties. Seriously eww. In that specific instance where you don't have to cast anything else or even move very much, then yes, you can melee all you like, but the XP/hr is pretty unremarkable. Against Colibri, yes, you're free to use /DNC, or /SAM, or pretty much anything you want because you almost never have to cast cures in those parties anyway aside from the odd Pecking Flurry.


Icemage

20k/hour+ is unremarkable now? If I subbed sam I would need ballad. If your melee aren't taking damage you're pulling too slow. The greatest thing about this sub is how easily our bard out pulls everyone else because he's only casting 2 songs. Drain samba and the aoe waltz is just enough to cover 90% of the curing situations and if you're casting cure spells you're not swinging, the dances are instant.

Esoa if you're going to use the nuke argument say /sch not /blm.

[Sabaron]

Re: Sword vs Dagger

The whole idea of RDM melee is absurd because you'll do horrible damage and have horrible accuracy. You'd do more damage and be more effective subbing /BLM and tossing out some nukes because then you can still switch out between your staves and eat appropriate food.

As a RDM 51+ you MUST be doing all of the following: Haste, Refresh, Enfeebles, and main healing all without holding up the PT to rest for MP. That is the minimum baseline with which to work from. If you are sacrificing any of those to melee, you've failed. If you can melee and still do all of those, it remains to be seen whether the extra damage outweighs the damage you could obtain from /BLM (which I doubt) plus the enfeebling accuracy from staves.

Using /BLM for Nuke damage is plausible; however, you aren't being situationally mindful. The only situation thus far that has been mentioned to allow RDM melee (in XP) is against Greater Colibri. The next time you go and do a Colibri/Greater Colibri party, sub /BLM and nuke like there's no tomorrow. Then ask the tank how much he liked your contribution.

As an aside, I did frequently sub /BLM in XP for nuking/EleDoT and it does work out quite well as long as you're not fighting mobs that mime your spells back. I use a relevant EleDoT during my enfeebling sequence such as Burn (to decrease resists) or Frost (to reduce Evasion a bit) and then launch 1 nuke per mob and I found that that (in most instances) was spot on with my Convert cycle if there was someone else with the ability to heal. If I'm the only healer (or my backup is a Bard with 3mp) then I don't toss any nukes at all...ever.

[Icemage]

Re: Sword vs Dagger

20k/hour+ is unremarkable now? If I subbed sam I would need ballad. If your melee aren't taking damage you're pulling too slow. The greatest thing about this sub is how easily our bard out pulls everyone else because he's only casting 2 songs. Drain samba and the aoe waltz is just enough to cover 90% of the curing situations and if you're casting cure spells you're not swinging, the dances are instant.

Esoa if you're going to use the nuke argument say /sch not /blm.

Maybe I'm spoiled by 25K+/hr merit parties in Bhaflau Thickets.


Icemage

[Richie]

Re: Sword vs Dagger

Try that on unicorn with the 6 other parties that are constantly there during my play time . :/
The highest I have gone there is chain 10 and then you just watch everyone stand around because there isn't even a fly to pull.

[Icemage]

Re: Sword vs Dagger

Try that on unicorn with the 6 other parties that are constantly there during my play time . :/

At Mamool Ja Staging Point? Everyone I've seen in random parties avoids that spot like the plague because most of them don't know what to do with linked Mamools.

I'd say my hit rate on that camp is personally at least 2/3 of the time.


Icemage

[Sabaron]

Re: Sword vs Dagger

Try that on unicorn with the 6 other parties that are constantly there during my play time . :/
The highest I have gone there is chain 10 and then you just watch everyone stand around because there isn't even a fly to pull.

...and Nyzul is any better? Every time I go there there are at least 2 parties there. If you know how fast 1 meri eats Greater Colibri then you know that it can't support a 3rd party without tanking the XP rates and having Bards involved in nancy-boy slap fights over whose bird is whose.

On the rare occasions where I've been in a party that gets the bottom level (the one with the most birds) all to itself, competition usually shows up within an hour or so.

The meripos with the least competition in my experience is Nyzul Isle top tier Mooks which is not nearly as nice as MJSP or NI Bottom Tier Colibri.

Are Hediva Isle and Dvucca Isle any good? I've seen big mobs there, but the Soulflayers and Lamia give me a skeptical impression of the two.

[Patchinko]

Re: Sword vs Dagger

Excuse me while I return to the original topic since the whole RDM melee vs mage thing is so tired and all good RDMs know the correct answers anyway.

Putting the applications of RDM-melee aside, the selection of sword that RDM can equip is better the the selection of daggers. There are a few outstanding daggers for RDM, but they are far and few in between.

We actually have access to excellent swords and excellent daggers later in the game. We can have fun with melee on our own time thanks to that.

Our best swords tend to be piercing type and our En-spells are a major boon to fast weaponry. Probably our best weapon is one of two swords because of the combination of great WSes being available with a strong subjob (/DRK) and the proc rate of the double attack on the Joyeuse or boost from the Enhancing Sword. But until one aquires one of those, the most available and best weapon is probably a Misericorde+1, a dagger and maybe second to that is Ryl. Grd. Fleuret, a piercing-type RDM/DRG(?) sword.

Then again, I'm thinking of a few years ago when I knew more about this, so maybe there's even better stuff easily available now. Someone else can fill in those blanks if so (I mostly focus my attention on getting a Joyeuse in the future regardless).

Now for a tangent, sorry for the late reply to this:

At Lv.70, I found Imps to resist my Silence more than half of the time. Even when it landed, it tended to be for very short period.
It was around Lv.72 or 73 or so when I started to land Silence more than resisted. (When using Goblin Mushpot.) Still, the duration were short. Once I hit Lv.75 and with merits, Silence on Imps did became a lot easier. However, resists do happen quite frequently.
I'm very surprise you were able to do well with just Artifact armor and Wind Staff. Then again, I may have been emotionally scarred by all those nasty Imps, and that distorted my memory of how bad things were. >_>;

Hm, maybe you are thinking of even earlier than 70.

I couldn't stick Silence if lives depended on it prior to 68, and only noticed in the last level that there's a significant boost in how often it and most of my other enfeebles are sticking such that it's worth my time to cast it (and Paralyze, which together make them laughably easy mobs to fight). I do have very a very strong MND set, but since I'm Tarutaru, I'm already at a disadvantage, plus I typically use Sweet Rice Cake over Goblin Mushpot unless I'm the sole back line job. I do notice that the resist rate is very dependent on the level of the mob at 70. The weaker Imp I could land Silence/Paralyze/Slow every time I cast them, the stronger one only half the time. It's just one of those threshold levels against those mob types.

Sorry for the tangent. Again, I will emphasize that meleeing against mobs like Imps, though, is simply not an option. The whole idea is kind of silly, given their tendency to spam AOE-silence, use -ga spells and the nature of the PTs that typically fight them. Take your melee set out for Besieged if you want some fun, but leave it in your Mog Locker for a level-up PT, especially at these late levels.

[Raydeus]

Re: Sword vs Dagger

Mensur Epee is my sword of choice until I get Joy (which I probably never will )

And for dagger I usually use Martial for the TP bonus until I get Blau (although not very excited about it anymore).


It would've been nice if SE would've at least gave us access to a Sirocco kinda weapon.

[NicasinXS]

Re: Sword vs Dagger

Lately I have been playing with both sword and dagger with my 75 rdm and have noticed some things I wish to share on the topic sword vs. dagger. First off, by the time I got to lvl 75 rdm both my sword and dagger where around lvl 100. I recently spent the time needed to lvl the skill up above 210 and I did it all solo so I could learn some ins and outs of both weapons as much as is possible doing that.

One cool thing I noticed was when you swing 2 daggers you get 9 tp, 2 swords you get 10 tp, and 1 sword and 1 dagger you get 10 tp so you get faster tp using either daggers or a dagger with sword then with 2 swords. To say the least here the rdm fairs well having both equipped given the /nin.

I don’t have evisceration or savage blade. Besides that I have noticed that some mobs are easier to kill with one or the other. When I fight trees, for instance, I keep my dagger in the main hand because Cyclone messes them up pretty good, I keep a sword in the offhand. When Cyclone isn’t going to be of help I main hand the Enhancing sword and offhand dagger. When I main hand dagger I use Martial knife due to the increase in Cyclone power for the tp boost. I don't have the Blau Dolch yet. So far, from this red mage player’s point of view from what I have seen with my skill up to only lvl 210, I need to carry both of these weapons around for the maximum benefit of both. I carry around 2 of each.

When I farm /thf is a different story, I pretty much stick with the Sword, even when I am fighting trees, and eat attack food.

Also, I have to consider what weapons I have. If I had a Joyuese to go with the Enhancing sword I don’t think I would bother with a dagger at all. If I had a Blau Dolch already I think I would always main hand that, and I'd finally hurry up my skill to get evisceration already. (Almost there)

For my melee red maging I don’t see so much sword vs. dagger when its time to fight something in a melee’s fashion, I see, "which one can I do better with right now." When I soloed the avatars (just to do it) I found that some are much easier to kill with daggers, and some with swords. Titan was a piece of cake with daggers, and Garuda was much harder to defeat with daggers then swords.

[Richie]

Re: Sword vs Dagger

...and Nyzul is any better? Every time I go there there are at least 2 parties there. If you know how fast 1 meri eats Greater Colibri then you know that it can't support a 3rd party without tanking the XP rates and having Bards involved in nancy-boy slap fights over whose bird is whose.

On the rare occasions where I've been in a party that gets the bottom level (the one with the most birds) all to itself, competition usually shows up within an hour or so.

The meripos with the least competition in my experience is Nyzul Isle top tier Mooks which is not nearly as nice as MJSP or NI Bottom Tier Colibri.

Are Hediva Isle and Dvucca Isle any good? I've seen big mobs there, but the Soulflayers and Lamia give me a skeptical impression of the two.

I'm not sure about the other camps really, after I partied with this one bard we started semi staticing together. He likes not having to cast ballad and I like how easily he pushes the other pts out. And when we get 2 brds in the PT it's game over.

I really want to try a good pt on trolls since I never see anyone there, the one I had was garbage.