Cor MeritsFollow

Group 2: Snake eye 5/5 is a must, put at least one merit in Loaded deck is a good choice, rest is either fold 4 or fold1+winning streak 3.

I do snake eye 5/5 Loaded deck 1/5 Fold 1/5 and Winning streak 3/5. Have winning streak means my roll stays 1min+ longer, and I can spend less time doing PR, and do more dmg for the pt overall(doing PR and all the double-up+ running around can consume quite a lot of time). Plus with 5 min Snake eye, I land on good number most of the time whenever I need to roll, so multiple fold merit isn't that necessary IMO.

I suppose multiple fold merit is good if you absolutely need to land a good buff, usually defensive buffs like magus/evokers. But that doesn't happen very often. Unless the XI bouns coming this June is truly amazing, and worth spending extra time and sacrifice all the DPS to go for it, I'll just stay Fold 1/5 for now.


For Group 1: QD recast 5/5 is a must have, then rest is either PR recast or QD acc depending on how you play.

I have the exact same merits, exacts same mentality...freaky stuff!

Edit Kodos to creapercorsair too.

Edited, Apr 16th 2011 8:33pm by AshMulder

Edited, Apr 16th 2011 8:33pm by AshMulder

Went 5/5 Snake Eye and Fold.

Random Deal is still lolrandom (besides, in Abyssea, CORs can afford to throw out Wild Cards willy-nilly if they felt like it; Random Deal practically becomes an afterthought), and Phantom Rolls already last so long (compared to a certain other AoE buffing job) that I saw no real need to make them last longer.

I have the same opinion towards QD Acc merit. Don't know why every NA COR merit QD acc and flame those who doesn't have. I personally don't have QD acc 5/5, and I don't feel my QD acc is lower than my friend with 5/5 either. Although I put the merit in PR recast instead of Random Deal. Being able to get buffs back up sooner when bust/fold/doing roll rotation is just awesome.

Are there any test result that actually shows the % of resist rate between QD acc 0/5 and QD acc 5/5?

Because right now we're just guessing and not having the exact %.

If the % difference is small, isn't PR recast merit suppose to add more DPS to your total dmg due to lower roll recast time?

I mean back at 75 cap pink bird merit pt, I always do 4 roll rotation, and not having chaos roll on me lose about 300 WS dmg. Having PR recast merit means I can get my chaos roll back on me 10~20 sec faster. If I WS once or twice every 10~20 sec, I kinda lose 300~600 WS dmg everytime I do rolls for other ppl, and 300~600 dmg is much higher than average QD dmg you're losing by getting resist outside of abyssea. And if I hold my TP to wait until chaos roll back up, I lose even more DPS by doing less WS over the long run.

Inside abyssea is the same, the rolls that benefits me are regain/wizards if I'm spamming WF. So even if the mages no longer need evokers, I still have to do other rolls for other DDs. And not having roll that benefits me on myself seems to lose way more DPS than occasional(maybe?) QD resist, which I don't even know the exact %. Of course some ppl may argue "god damn it just don't do chaos/fighters for other DDs they don't need it" But if you have 4 other DDs in your pt, and each got 1% dmg increase from chaos/fighters, will it outperform only 1 person getting DD buffs as well? Either way I just don't believe that QD acc merit 5/5 will give more DPS for entire pt than PR recast merit unless I see the numbers and math.

My light/dark shot rarely got resist as well unless the mob can't be slept, sometimes I don't have time to gear swap when I sleep the mob and light shot still lands in little to no AGI gears. So the whole point of QD acc merit is really just QD dmg against NMs, which has no concrete test result(unless someone already done it) to show how effective it is and how much DPS it gained overall. Not to mention the dmg from QD is really very small % of your overall dmg especially outside of abyssea and NMs outside, and it doesn't seem to be worth going for considering how long recast QD is. It's unlike BLM, magic dmg is main form of dmg a BLM can do, so getting resist as low as possible from merit for them is important. But for COR, unless you're soloing, the main dmg usually came from WS, which is boosted by rolls but not QD acc merit. Isn't QD acc merit worth sacrificing for other stuff that gives more WS dmg instead?

Edited, Apr 19th 2011 5:01pm by Afania

Edited, Apr 19th 2011 5:09pm by Afania

IF some big bad HNMs in future content requires to use QD as main form of dmg, then maybe I'd do QD acc 5/5.One example is when vision abyssea came out, ppl kill Ovni by a bunch of CORs spamming QD and kiting, I almost wanted to do QD acc 5/5 just for it.

But if not, then it may still not making much difference tbh. QD dmg outside of abyssea is never good enough considering how long the JA recast time is, so I rarely rely on QD dmg anyways(I don't solo)

Edited, Apr 27th 2011 2:05pm by Afania

I thought Random deal merit is in different group from Winning streak? Or you're talking about Loaded Deck merit?

Random deal still resets something else from what I've seen, I've got it reset QD and meditate before.

QD acc isn't THAT good even at 75 era unless you heavily rely on QD dmg to do stuff(such as solo), otherwise I have no problem landing QD when necessary without putting merit in it even at 75.

I'm never the big fan of Fold 4/5 ever since 75 era too, but that's due to the fact that I mostly use COR in merit pt and want DD buffs stay on myself as long as possible. Fold 4/5 does have it's advantage though, but I'd rather to have DD buff on myself longer ._.

Most of the JP guide I've read years ago also suggested Snake eye 5/5 Fold 1/5 Winning streak 3/5 and loaded deck 1/5, and PR recast over QD acc even at 75(QD recast is a must have though).



Edited, Aug 4th 2011 10:38pm by Afania

Yep, this is my setup now.

I've always been 5/5 Snake Eye, 1/5 Fold, 1/5 Loaded Deck, 3/5 Winning Streak - was always somewhat debatable before, but that setup has certainly become stronger with these changes. I guess you could debate whether 1/5 Loaded Deck is even that useful, and maybe stick that merit into Winning Streak or Fold as well. I'd rather just keep it.[/quote]



I think you're right that it is a arguably a bit overkill once you're already operating on base 30 second recast before merits/gear. If you didn't have the -5 on Desultor, all 10 seconds of 5/5 merits is still pretty handy.

But a couple considerations...

1) Sometimes you don't have an XI up yet, so you don't yet have that short timer. That's a BIG reason to want every second you can get on lower PR recast - so you can get that held XI. You might be just starting to buff, maybe you got killed by AoE, maybe you got dispelled by some move, screwed up a timer or reset a roll leaving yourself without an XI, etc. Maybe you just cycle buffs normally as soon as PR is ready until you can get that needed first XI, in which case every second of recast reduction helps.

2) Sometimes you won't actually need to run away to bust on yourself only. Maybe you're doing a roll on yourself only to begin with, or buffing an idle group waiting for buffs (in which case you may be able to simply bust on everyone and just redo it immediately until you hit XI). In that case, you do get some benefit from the even lower recast.

FWIW, I redid my Desultor Tassets since my old ones were now useless (haste+3%/acc+7). I wanted to make a unique macro piece that wouldn't be replicated, so I chose Repair +10% for my PUP and PR Recast for COR. I know you could still make a very nice QD piece, but there are other good QD options like Denali, Navarch +1/+2, Nimue's Tights, etc. Besides, I think my eventual ideal QD build (with today's gear) would use +2 legs/feet for the set bonus anyway, and stick to Mirke (QD Recast), AF+1 head, and Schutzen Mittens for the other slots.

Edited, Aug 5th 2011 12:04pm by Anza

I see the argument for Navarch hands vs. Schutzen, but...

1) I do QD at low TP sometimes - a significant enough amount that a lot of my QDs DO benefit from the extra TP from Schutzen (not to mention the healthy chunk of Store TP from Schutzen/Nav+2 legs). I guess you could make separate "high TP" and "low TP" QD macros with different gear to get ideal results, but that's pretty burdensome.

2) Nav+2 hands do absolutely nothing for QD other than as a piece to get set bonus, but Nav+2 legs are pretty nice for QD with AGI+8 and Store TP+8. Especially considering that I dropped 5 QD Acc merits, I'm kind of OK giving with that trade-off. You do lose some MAB, but gain a lot of Macc/AGI and Store TP/bonus TP from the combination of Schutzen/Nav+2 legs.

I think either choice is reasonable, and you're not going to have a world of difference in either setup. But I'm personally a bit more comfortable with the Navarch legs/feet combo, and keep Schutzen on my hands. In any case, QD recast Mirke, Navarch +2 feet, and AF+1 hat are non-negotiable for me.

Even still, without moving, by the time you roll enough to bust, you are pretty much ready to go again. Even without an Xi, the only time I really was sitting on PR recast was when I busted double VI's.

I guess it's nice to always "be prepared" but I could just as easily come up with a rare scenario where a mob was just evasive enough to not be slept by QD without that one merit in it. Or another scenario where you've used your fold and really need it but it's 2:30 away and you don't have that extra merit in it. Sadly compromises must be made in merits and you can't cover every scenario. If I ever finish ASA, I'm going to get pants for a different job than COR. I'm not needing a ton of PR recast at this point with 4/5 merits.

Interestingly I'm a bit concerned about about abandoning my QD Acc merits.

Finally got around to finishing my VNM trials for Armageddon. Did 4 Yacu's, 6 Feuerenkes and 6 Tammuz last night with a group. I noticed that my QD resist rate on these tier II VNM's was a lot higher than I'm used to. I know that even with capped QD acc there is a static resist rate but it was definitely higher than 5%. If at 90 on only modestly difficult NM's I'm seeing higher resists, maybe QD ACC isn't as naturally high as we all seem to think.

As I've been playing more COR lately since swapping my 5/5 QD Acc for 5/5 Phantom Roll recast, I can confidently state that I'm very happy with my decision.

If you want to hit an XI for super fast recast and no busts, the biggest issue is getting that FIRST XI while you're still dealing with the full PR timer and you still need to be wary of busting. Well, with 45 sec recast thanks to 5/5 merits and Desultor Tassets, that's a big deal on being able to keep rolling a cycle to hit that initial XI. Once you do hit the XI, it's a luxury that if you're shooting high and you bust, PR will always be ready nearly instantly to simply roll again and aim for a good roll without waiting. And if you end up losing an active XI at some point, you'll need to go back to standard PR timer so the lowered recast is useful again.

As for QD Acc, I will admit to not doing a ton of Voidwatch, but I haven't run into any QD acc issues so far. I just think I was working with a bit of overkill on the M.Acc front, especially with a lot of extra insurance from gear that you'd want to use in any case for QD: Nav+2 boots (10 Macc/13 AGI! That's just insanity), Aquiline Belt, Forban Cape, Nav+2 or Denali legs, Schutzen Mittens, etc.