BLU CDC Set Help

Finally got my 85 Almace last night (Thank God for my LS) and have been CDCing the heck out of some stuff. My current WS set is below and I was wondering what i could do to improve it. I am working on getting Aias Bonnet, Loki's Kaftan, Atheling Mantle, and a Thunder Sachet. Thank you in advance.

Current Set

This is what I use personally.

STR magian sword would be better, and alcide +1 feet/hands are probably better, atleast in abyssea where dDex is capped anyways.
Other than that I belive it's rather top-notch? (Other than anwig)
Light earring have crit rate +1 on it.

alcide hands and feet +1

tumbler trunks

epona's ring to replace the soul

dex +3/4 earring

rancor collar(?)- i'd have to play to test it for outside I'd think it'd be solid for forcing crit rather than inside since most people can get at least ~80% crit rate

can consider anguinus if you needed the acc, cuchu belt is slightly better but you have the da on the belt in abbsyea being able to stack a lot of da and having apoc atma the chances of extra attacks are pretty high so it may not help as much. Outside you have to parse to see otherwise and depends on what your da is. Your DA shouldn't change if you're using the right atmas though.

anwig salade augmented with crit damage as well

what you're cdcing against would determine what to use ie stuff with high defense like dragua isn't the same as nq mobs or most nq nms. Having capped attack would mean stats would help damage more, if attack isn't capped then you need more of it over stats.

Is your atma, spell setup, food good?

Food is Red Curry Bun, Atmas Vary but I use RR/GN/Apoc most of the time, Spells vary as well depending on fight.

if your stalwarts is down and you have space, dont forget triumphant roar, unfortunately they dont stack

for offhand sword, i hear different things I use DA+10 khanda for aftermath dot and ws proc, but i've seen 2-4 swords and str or dex swords. Heard DA one is best overall but I could be wrong and I've hardly any patience to make more swords (especially 2-4)

STR sword is the best one, with DA getting a bit better once you cap attack, I belive

I know the Gnarled/RR/Apoc combo is being set as "optimal" lately, but if u wanna test something for a change, replace Gnarled with Sanguine Scythe, your CDC and DoT will do ridiculous amounts of dmg lol.

Higher spikes, but less consistent. You won't crit as often, but when you do, it will do more damage.

The thing is, GH will add damage in places other than WS/Melee that may allow it to pull ahead if you're utilizing those aspects. Namely the Counterattack+10 for if/when you pull hate, and the 50 AGI to boost your Benthic Typhoon numbers. The other stats for SS aren't particularly helpful for your damage.

Thats what im currently using the Shamshir+2 is dex+9 acc+15 and the ring is augmented with att+3. This set, with spells, gives me +91 dex and str+34. In abyssea I use RR/GH/MM id rather have refresh than triple attack seeing as spells still do a lot of damage.

I dont understand how you need MM >_>
The only time I ever ran out of mp I think, was when I just spammed the ***outa procs during a zerg sometime.. And I didnt use any temps*
It's better to utilize the full dd potential of almace with a third DD slot by far.
STR sword is better than DEX if your attack isnt capped aswell, which I doubt vs anything worth a damn.
Buut I should just stfu about swords, been too lazy to make one at all myself :P
You should replace your gorget with rancor collar aswell, big improvement.

I really don't understand why ppl use GH, seems gimp to me

the TA will greatly improve dot and help on ws spikes as well.

When you get Almace you should ween yourself off of mm, it's not easy but possible probrably the biggest problem you'd have is watching occultation use but if you have af3 +2 body it takes a lot of the pain away really and because of aftermath and how casting pauses tp gain you're getting in the way of your hits to CDC hence using CA and/or Efflux Quad in the aftermath phase.

Outside abbsyea I never parsed it to find out if I should cast the main dd spells during aftermath since crit damage and rate is less.

But you don't need all that mp anymore if you do it sounds like you're using too much for some reason and it's affecting your almace

GH provides a lot of consistency. Only atma I'd use over it would be A&O, but often I find the loss of HP too detrimental compared to the more consistently critted CDCs and decent decrease in TP feed (more noticeable when solo/duo/trio).

RR/GH/Apoc for Almace.

Edit: The AGI is nice for Benthic too, but it won't be tipping any scales.

And GH boosts Benthic quite a bit, which is hot for your self-skillchains :D
I do swap a bit between SS and GH myself, and I kind of prefer GH, unless I really need the hp from SS

Oh god in my incredibly lucid and exhausted stupor I just had a thought of how horrid it would have been if we had gotten exclusive spells from Atmas, which would never happen even with SE, but holy ***imagine if it had happened... oh god.

Nothing to do with the topic btw, just the closest BLU thread in reach.

Hmm, go w/ SS or go w/ GH where crit rate is already high.

Decisions, decisions.

The decision is pretty simple for me. The consistency vastly outweighs the few epeens spikes you'll see with SS. Your "already high crit rate" with capped dDEX and RR is only about 50%.