A Moogle Kupo d'Etat Head GearFollow

For those that didn't check out the site, you can find the new expansion info
http://www.playonline.com/ff11us/addon/

I am not going to list all the augments, but the base stats for the pld piece are

Champion's Galea
def 24 hp +15 "Counter" +3.

Not terribly amazing base stats, but it's the augments which are the good stuff anyways. (though I wouldn't mind countering on my pld either)

So, I would say a lot of the augments are things you can find on other 'swap in' pieces, other than the fast cast. Fast cast again will be the winner for me, but what would you all pick for the second augment? Some people would take the shield skill, but that's what Koenig is for. I almost think I would take str+4 WS ACC +15 so I can use it for penta on my drg and sam.

What are all you going to do?


edit1-4: all the edits are me trying to make the link one word, lol. I fail....

Edited, Jun 29th 2009 8:01am by Nadaa

Edited, Jun 29th 2009 8:10am by Nadaa

Edited, Jun 29th 2009 8:11am by Nadaa

Edited, Jun 29th 2009 8:12am by Nadaa

I'll do Shield Skill/Fastcast for Ichi or Idling /RDM.

Or maybe a WS head, I use Ares's Head for most WSs now.

Well, all I've got for my noggin is:
Iron Ram Sallet
DEF: 29 HP +20 Enmity +5 Magic Def. Bonus +3

After looking at the augments I figured I'd end up getting:
Champion's Galea
def 24 hp +15 "Counter" +3.
Vit+4 Shield +5; Enmity +4 Magic Dmg -2%

Overall my differences would be:
-5 DEF, -5 HP, -1Enm, +5 Shield, +4 VIT

Questions:
How does the Magic Def Bonus +3 compare to the Magic Damage -2%?

Would this "Counter" +3 give me the ability to Counter just by wearing it? Or just increase my ability to counter IF I could counter already (/mnk)

... Or would I be better off picking MND +2, Enhances Fast Cast +2%?

ps. Got the Neuvo w/ Enm and Fast Cast

I'm pretty new to the 75 PLD scene, but I've done some thinking, and, for those of us (a majority) with Iron Ram Sallet and Walahra Turban, it seems like the relevant options (for PLD, let's just talk about PLD^^) are these 5:

(a) WS macro piece: 15 WS ACC and whatever else, probably +10 ACC.
-Pros: This would easily beat out Optical Hat, with its only competition being Ares's Mask -- and we have to assume that this new helmet will be easier to obtain than Ares's Mask.
-Cons: While this is godly if you're stuck with Vorpal, does a PLD with decent ACC miss a hit on Atonement that often? This is an honest question whose answer I'm unsure of...

(b) Iron Ram Sallet replacement: +5 shield skill, MDT -2%. Use it when you're in situations where you stand to take a lot of Magic Damage, or you're being hit so fast that shadows don't help.
-Pros: Like IR, but with some counter, negligible defense loss, and a big bonus with shield skill. Koenig has shield skill, and IR has MDB, but this combines them.
-Cons: Kind of sucks to replace IR helm, which takes some (not a lot) of (mostly boring, for some) time to get. Also, you lose +1 enmity, which may not seem like much, but given that IR is largely a macro piece, bear in mind that people pay 1.5m gil more for Hades Earring +1 than NQ Hades Earring, which is also a 1 enmity difference.

(c) Macro piece for Shadows: +5 shield skill, 3% fast cast.
-Pros: It seems that even the DD disciples of this forum like the Koenig Schaller as a macro piece for shadows (due to its +5 shield skill), and this beats that handily.
-Cons: I have to wonder if the slight reduction in casting time from Fast Cast (3%) will make up for the haste time lost wearing Turban (given that a gearswap macro will involve a ~2 second delay). Also, Koenig Schaller doesn't seem that hard to get (100k Cursed Schaller, abjuration off of a lesser Sky god).

(d) Idling piece for RDM (NCCoda's suggestion): +5 shield skill, 3% fast cast. Or 3% fastcast + 3% haste.
-Pros: Given that with /RDM, we sometimes aren't *as* worried about TP gain, and try to maintain enmity largely via spellcasting, this is a nice piece. Good for supertanking as well.
-Cons: TP gain does matter as /RDM if you're using Atonement, and this undeniably hurts TP gain. The Fast Cast is nice, but for idling, Turban or Iron Ram (depending on the situation) seem like better calls. And you can always throw Koenig into a Phalanx macro or whatever if you want.

(e) Walahra turban replacement: 2 STR/2% haste + 3% haste --> 5% haste total.
-Pros: Pretty considerable difference in DEF, +2 STR and Counter doesn't hurt.
-Cons: Small HP loss... but moreover, when we wear Walahra, we're usually /NIN and not taking many hits anyway -- and for the hits we do take, 24 DEF might not be gamebreaking. This is essentially a DD choice, and if your concern is improving your DOT, you should probably go with option (a).

My first impression is that -- if and only if ACC is as crucial on Atonement as it is on Vorpal, which I'd like to know -- the WS piece is just too good to pass up. I mean, a potential 25 ACC and 5 ATK just blows anything else out of the water.

As a final note overall, has anyone parsed the importance of +5 shield skill? It's clearly not as easy to quantify as, say, +5 sword skill, but it seems that knowledge of that would help with making the choice here...

Edited, Jun 29th 2009 2:31pm by soopafeen

It takes 4 but your point is correct. Best bet (from a cast/recast perspetive) would prolly be a combo of 3% haste and 3% fast cast (3% casting time reduction, 4.5% recast) though I'd prolly look up how fast cast timings truncate before setting that in stone.

Atonement is 100% acc. btw. It's just like Spirits Within, so acc+ won't effect it at all.

Took this from the war boards, looks like a good case for an awesome TP piece.

I'm really comflicted now. I cant seeing the DEF side of this helm having much of an impact over and above my current tanking gear.

As a WS piece however, it really, really owns.

However, -10% Damage taken for BST is like a Defending Ring for my Pet! Thats pretty awesome. However, there aren't all that many situations where I pull out BST for long periods of time. Farming maybe, but dont really need the Pet Def there, A few NM's I help friends with (Xotol, Hakutaku and Various other NM's)

After thinking about (and typing this actually helped too) I think i'll drop the Def piece as a choice... Just have to decide if I want to have an absolutley awesome WS piece or a Kick ass Pet piece... Maybe a /random will have to decide for me.

(All other 'Single pick only' gear has been 100% solely with PLD tanking in mind, but this helm doesn't strike me as all that awesome for tanking)

How often do I TP burn on PLD these days though... not that often as I have THF 75 now... So how much would a PLD WS piece help? Still very nice WS piece for my THF/BST... I think i'm going to go with a Pet Piece. Thanks guys!

Correct, sorry about that, I use it for Raging Rush on WAR, Vorpal Blade on PLD.

Your Atonement macro should be as much Enmity as you can cram into it.

For your shadows recast you can always put Walahra in your utsusemi/flash macro(as you should anyway regardless if you have askar or not)

As for you haven't seen 100% convincing evidence on Askar O.O? seriusly?

Even with Dorado sushi and a heavy acc gear I use to parse between 65~70% hit rate against anything lvl 85 or above(aka HNM), there 1% Hit rate(what you get from +2 accuracy on Askar) will account for 1.45% DoT.

"Hey! but Paladin aim at least for 50% haste for recasts where 1% Haste = 2% DoT then Walahra is better!"

Well not really, the thing comes here to those +4 Str in Askar that will raise your fSTR value on 1, for a weapon like Joyeuse(D=35) and the low fSTR values that Pld experiences against HNM the boost in damage will be at least for 2.85% while it isn't really important the big deal here is the insurance it grants to avoid hitting for 0 that alone is huge while selecting idle gear for an Atonement build.(aside the multi-hit that rather than haste let you assign this bonus more than once per round)

Well now with the new gear you have not only something that is far more accurate than askar, but also grants attack to avoid hitting for 0(which I should say isn't as good as Str but is there anyway) while still maintaining a decent Haste Value.

Sincerely.

Ken.

Edit: Grammar.

Edited, Jun 30th 2009 8:24am by kenage

A few questions in response to kenage's post:

1) Just to be 100% clear, will I get the full recast-timer reduction benefit of Haste with a macro like the following?:
/equip head "Walahra Turban"
/ma "Utsusemi: Ichi" <me>
/wait 2 [note that this wait time is shorter than the Ichi casting time]
/equip head "Askar Zucchetto"

If so, it seems like I should idle in Askar (or, better yet, Galea with 10acc/5atk/3% haste) and use Turban as a macro piece...

2) However, in that case, why do people put Koenig Schaller in shadow macros? You lower your chance to get interrupted in exchange for wrecking the recast timer... or, can you actually macro both in?

3) Finally, do you have any recommendations on a good crash course for Haste and ACC caps, a resource as solid as Kanican's tables are for enmity? I've looked at the WAR board a lot, including the Moogle Kupo d'Etat post, and people certainly refer to "capped ACC" a lot but I'm not sure what their sources are. Maybe something like this, but not GA-specific: http://ffxi.allakhazam.com/db/jobs.html?fjob=4;mid=1239392995109441515;num=56;page=1.

Thanks for the advice!

(By the way, I'd appreciate if people would stop rating down my posts on this thread -- as I say in every other post I make, I'm still new to this and am asking honest questions with an open mind. Some of them may be "newbie questions", but at least I'm not just spamming mindless sh*t already answered in 50 stickies ("shud i idle n valer or habuberongon!?") or acting like a know-it-all...)

You could macro both at the risk of some lag that could cut the benefits of the extra haste piece in the last minute, but mostly the target with Ichi is to finish casting it since it could be interrupted by attacks, unlikely flash and Ni which interrupts are non-issue and for this you can concentrate entirely on the recast.

You can start with accuracy here and Haste here, both are great sources but could a bit technical for some fellows, you can come to the forum again if you have further questions.

Sincerely.

Ken.

Each expansion in WoW adds equipment that completely invalidates the top-tier equipment that previously existed. That's how a lot of MMOs work. Its how they keep you playing. SE went with the rarity route instead, because since they don't plan on raising the level cap, adding stuff to beat the existing top-tier items would completely break the game.

So if that means FFXI is in its death-throes, WoW has been dying for several years.

Ya #2 would be best, although I generally hate things like /wait, because you cant use any macros in between as it will interrupt that macro process that happens after the /wait, iirc.

I usually hit 2-3 macros for ichi. First being my ichi macro itself which tossing in all the fastcast/haste gear, and then none blinking items like back/neck/ring. the 2nd macro depends how far im casting and if I think I might lose the shadow before get ichi off, and that macros in full shield gear and damage reduction gear like body/ring. The 3rd/2nd macro is my idle set. You wont need that much haste on anyhow for ichi most of the time, homam legs,swift and homam hands with loq are plenty to get your recast down to 16-18 seconds. If you have ACP body, than you would be set.

I dont think theres a parser that will give you a shield skill evalutation, if so wed know exactly how much skill we need on any particular mob. Atm we just agree that 310-315 seems to be the sweet spot.


What aug to put on the helm depends on what you do with pld. Is pld your only 75? Do you merit on your pld? Only because the tp pieces is very nice option, but also that ws piece is very very hot. 25acc on a ws would really put pld up a notch. Im thinkin of doing that for pld as I have pld sam and soon drk, so that would really help those jobs on ws, with multi hits, like penta and guillo.

Im going to go on a limb and say the tp one would be the better upgrade. The fastcast/shield one is a koenig + loq combined with less mp/vit. If the fast cast was as large as say the ACP body was, then you could make an arguement there.

The tp piece will really be a big increase, as the acc(2) from askar makes up the -1% haste from turban either being being less or almost equalled to turban, and only when the fstr from it comes to play does it do better than turban. Now this piece has 10 acc but only 3% haste, 10acc is 5% hitrate so thats going to be minimum of 3% dot, which on pld is usually more. 5att is about 1~2%. Tossing in haste thats another 3%~ish. Assuming turban and askar range around 4~6% Dot you can see this piece is ahead, and thats just assuming when the numbers arent on the good side.

I didnt do the exact calculations as im packing and moving stuff out, so if someone wants to add the numbers to get the exact numbers, please do :) This was just a rough bases kinda thing.

The logic above from hito, kenage, and others make sense... but has anyone done the math on this yet? My only concern is that I've read that you see increasing gains as you get closer to the haste cap, and PLD has issues there already. With turban, swift belt, homam, you're at 17% haste. This drops you to 15% (for TPing, I mean). I've not done much endgame yet so this is an honest question... is our ACC on HNMs really so terrible, even with expensive food, that the gains from the haste will be outpaced by 10acc/5atk?

And all this is assuming that 3fastcast won't be noticeable; otherwise Koenig Helm+FC is kinda nice for Ichi.