Luck Of The Draw: A Corsair's Guide *NEW*

I would say it's a okay qualitative test, but you would need a larger sample and record other parameters (ranged accuracy in particular) to know if this is a valid comparison. The last run I did (just 6 characters farming wave 3 trash mobs) used the following Triple Shot set.

ItemSet 361699

I was having ranged accuracy issues on the blue weapon mobs with this set despite having Marine Stewpot, Victory March, Archer's Prelude and 2x AGI etudes (one of them Marcato'd). I foresee serious ranged accuracy problems with your set and buffs although I don't know how different the requirements are for select blue mobs vs the boss. Next run we'll switch to Marcato Victory March + 2x Prelude + 1x AGI to avoid any issues. Not having Flurry of any kind will affect the results too.

I think this is your confirmation bias showing. You've constantly scoffed at the notion of a ranged COR achieving higher DPS than a melee COR. The first attempted comparison from someone using an underbuffed undergeared Triple Shot setup vs a nearly ideal melee setup showed better results for the Triple Shot setup. I think the only way to interpret the result is that it's clear there is potential for a ranged COR setup to exceed (by how much unknown) the DPS cap of a melee COR setup and until some better testing is done it's an open question.

Volte mob wasn't what's being discussed. This is the original qiestion:

In a melee setup on wave 3 boss, should cor swap to ranged mode from melee mode every time TS is up.

Volte mob is out of question because it's tougher to swap between melee and ra mode during volte phase due to ra and melee needs different acc buffs. Its better to full time melee mode on volte instead of change songs every 1.5-3.5 min.

Boss is at least more viable, since it's possible to swap between melee and ra based on whether TS is up or not and not having to change songs.

The test result only has 1k difference in 1 min fight, if you consider ra/melee mode switch tp lose or even the reaction time on clicking weapon toggles it's probably not worth ut. Personally I don't find it worth it unless the gap is bigger than 1k or PD is up.

If someone seriously want to shoot during volte phase, like melee multiple tier of acc will be required. And it's silly to full time ra in a melee pt anytime anyways. Even if TS can keep up, TS down certainly cant.

His melee setup is not ideal as well. FUA Rostam > Rapier +1 > blurred +1 for melee using the set he has. Basically both aren't bis.

I recognize TS up being competitive with melee based on result, but not TS down. You are advocating ra entire time so as soon as TS is down ra cor will fall far behind melee. And how can you keep ts up for 20 min(that's how long most groups takes to kill boss) in a melee setup? Just not seeing how it's possible unless you have 4 cor per pt.


The debate isn't ranged setup in dyna v.s melee setup in dyna. Whether the setup is ranged or melee should based on ls, and the main job of everyone else in the group, not on cor. I may not make the ls do ranged setup even if I want to play ranged cor. If ls do melee setup then I just lose my dps if I choose ranged mode as my dps style, since there won't be ranged buffs nor additional cor available for TS reset in such a long run.

I don't even understand why is this a debate anyways. What is your point? You seems to think that every group out there should build a ranged pt and set up 3-4 cor per pt just because ranged cor spam leaden can compete with melee when TS is up and safe to use, it doesn't make sense. What about everyone else who wants to play drk war Sam in event?

Its a job forum, not a dyna D strategy discussion forum. I feel the discussion should focus on "how do I perform better If my ls use this setup on cor" not "which setup is better for dyna D"

You're falsely assuming that you need to change buffs. Minuets are not very helpful for COR (unless you're using Savage Blade... but why?). You can overwrite them with Preludes. I think shooting is faster on the trash volte mobs anyways, even without Triple Shot. Despite their dark affinity I can still get Leaden to do over 60k. You can shoot -> Leaden before you even land first melee strike and if you have other ranged DPS/strong melee that means the mob is usually dead before you shoot again. For the blue volte mob you need Dark Threnody II for Leaden to land, but it can land and you can save Triple Shot for this to cut through it quickly.

I feel like you're discussing something you don't understand that well. Your expectations about what you need to do with buffs or how to play ranged COR in that situation don't line up with my experience after refining this many times over several runs. If you want to carry strong opinion about it, I think you should put a concerted effort into actually trying it first, otherwise this just comes across as stubbornness and hubris.

This is the discussion. I think you've misunderstood or have been running under the false assumption that in order for a COR in a melee dynamis group to utilized ranged that you need to completely revamp your entire composition. That's not what I'm advocating or considering. You only need to ask for some Pianissimo buffs and Flurry.

Or rather it's because our group uses different setup, buffs, and already got it to work as a system thats already working very well?

We generally use melee setup for dyna D, with other war drk sam player. We also generally have surplus of (lesser experienced) player on geo role to do defensive bubbles. cor just full time chaos/sam and spam savage blades.

On wave 3 boss one of the geo will do malaise so cor can spam leaden instead of savage.

In terms of clear speed, Our fastest run is 30 min left with all fetter and boss killed. So this strategy is not slow or bad by any means.

In terms of parses, on boss cor almost always parse top, on volte last 3 parse between 4 none cor DD and 2 cor dd was: cor #1, cor#3(within 0.5%), cor#2. Basically even when they compare with other heavy dd, in a pt with enough firepower to clear everything with 30 min left, cor performance still matches other melee.

So there are very very little reason to change the strategy that requires more effort unless there's solid evidence that the effort will be worth it. In order for your setup to work:

1)The cor will need to use different buffs on melee AND themselves. Which means less engage time and lower performance on parse.

2) the pt will need multiple cor for triple shot reset. Which is often not an option because people want to play dd.

3) The brd will need to use more sets of songs and change them more frenquently, the time can be used on doing something else, like DD or heal.

4) and even if everything line up to the point that leaden does 60k like you said, according to the test, melee leaden is still overall stronger if you count TS down time.

All seems to be more work for not much gain.

Just fyi, if you think I'm stubborn and refuse to accept things, I'm actually not. Here is the story, When dyna D just came out, we cleared it with melee setup with standard melee buffs, and leaden dps was roughly on par with savage dps in such setup. I parsed several time and record the ws avg to draw this conclusion.

I watched the video of another ls using malaise resulting their leaden avg twice more than savage, then I proceed to convince my ls change one of the buffs to malaise.

At first nobody wants to do it, because that means we need additional geo dedicated for that buff slot. But since the result caused 2/18 people in alliance dps sky rock by doubling their dmg, the effort is worth it. Now malaise is one of standard buffs in our melee runs.

If you want to make an argument that "my strategy is better than yours" which requires tons of buff change and adjustments, then you have to prove the difference will be large enough to justify it. So far there are 1 test with every data posted, and what I see is ra with ranged do 1k more dmg after 1 min with TS up.

Therefore Its extremely rational to assume ra will be inferior to melee if TS isn't up based on the test result. Its also extremely rational to assume ra will do overall less dps than melee in a 20 min fight just based on the fact that TS has longer cool down.

If you want to prove ra is without doubt, overwhelming better and worth the extra effort, then prove it with a video.

And my point is that I'm completely not convinced that cor full time ranged attack can compete with war drk Sam in a melee alliance in volte phase. The dps difference between TS and no TS us huge. And volte phase is the longest in entire run.

When melee cor using savage blade already can parse well. Our cor often(last 3 runs at least) come out as top 3 and often within 1% from other stronger dd.

I can change my play style to ranged and yell at brd for specialized buffs next time if I want, I'd just jeopardize my chance to parse well in an alliance if it doesn't work, and piss other people off since they have to do more work now.

Oh and btw, another reason why I think ra switch isn't worth it based on test result, though more personal reason here: I lag every time I swap macro rows in dyna because how lag it is in dyna.

With how fast blurred x2 or rostam/blurred can gain tp melee, if I switch weapon > pop TS(1 sec JA delay) > then shoot I will lose at least 0.5 to 1 ws cycle, which cost way more than 1k dmg difference because every ws hits so hard.

Ra with TS needs to be at least 10% to 20% ahead of melee mode to offset the ws cycle lose from swapping modes back and forth. 1k dmg difference isn't enough imo. Now if TS ranged attack do 100k more damage than melee in a min, then Id totally switch to ranged every single sec TS is up.

Lag is a poor excuse, most players use gearswap or keybind or any number of other input method that suck much less than SE's awful macro system.

I will agree with the standpoint that changing buffs for half the party is a significant effort on the BRD's part and needs to produce significant gains to be worth it. From what I'm seeing right now, it doesn't appear worth it to me. There is room to improve ranged setup for sure, but counting on triple shot for more than 10 minutes requires a lot more organization than just meleeing as well.

However, it's also worth noting that you win or lose based on your group dynamic. Neither melee or ranged COR's damage coming from someone putting this much effort into the job is going to hold your group back. Asking too much of everyone might. Simpler is better, unless you perform at such a low level that you're struggling to meet dps checks or such a high level you have nothing better to do than measure time leftover after completion.

Then why are you engaging in this discussion? You're admitting that you're reluctant to change anything because your particular configuration already achieves good enough results. Why leave dissenting remarks on discussion regarding further optimizations which you're openly stating you're unwilling to even try? What are you trying to achieve with this? I feel it has more to do with your expressing your personal opinion towards ranged COR than anything else.


No you don't. You only need Samurai Roll, which you should be using anyway.


This isn't what's being directly discussed. The dude who posted the testing was simply benchmarking Triple Shot on the boss. Changing the entire group composition and strategy is not what's being discussed. That's just one setup out of what's known (melee, mage, ranged) that is viable for the boss and that has some benefits to it compared to melee.


One or two Piassimo'd songs is not a huge ask. This is a completely trivial remark.


You're falsely assuming that you couldn't melee while Triple Shot is down.


I'm going by what you've posted here. You discussed an additional Piassiamo song or two in a 10 minute rotation like it was some kind of burden. You lose credibility when you use something as trivial as that as a supporting point. It's hard not to see it as hubris/stubbornness.


I don't really feel like I need to post a video. You can try it if you like and parse for yourself.

Yeah, I agree that lag may be something only happen on my end. But even then, JA delay from using TS and tp lose from weapon swap will happen to everyone regardless. Then you need to swap back to melee after TS is over. That's still a solid 0.5ish to maybe even 1 ws cycle lose, which equals to 25k dmg to 50k difference, MUCH bigger than 1k extra dmg from shoot.

The test only shows melee v.s ranged within 1 min of parse, I don't think it counts dps lose from mode switch, ja delay and tp lose twice.

Personally, I think it's logical to draw the conclusion that in melee pt, ranged should never be used unless NM perfect dodge us up, or the cor died and weakened. Its certainly not because I am biased against shooting or something, unless another person has different parse result.

People made a point of "cor should ranged", and I simply respond to the test result.

I feel it's YOU who has emotional feeling towards ranged, then got excited with "see I was right seeeeee?" attitude when result shows TS RA doing 1k more dps out of 470k+ dmg.

The completely ignore the fact that 1k dmg in 1 min of spamming 50k leaden is trivial to the point that sticking with melee mode and not lose tp from changing weapon or use JA will more likely parse higher in the long run.


Ok let's get it clear first, are we discussing volte phase or wave 3 boss phase?

They are completely different in terms of buff requirement and sometimes you argued about volte, sometimes you argued about boss, times you argued about ranged setup with multiple cor reset TS and sometimes you argued about melee setup 1 cor.....

For boss phase: yes you only need a Sam roll, everything else are not required. However TS barely beat melee, to the point that the 0.5 ws cycle lose(aka 25k dmg lose) from ja delay and weapon swap twice made it not worth using.

Without TS, there's no doubt ranged won't keep up.

For volte phase: according to you, you will need prelude x2 to cap acc, in a melee pt you are asking brd to change buffs when they can do other things like heal or DD.

According to you leader also needs threnody. So that means if you engage before threnody lands(or if brd is busy or died) then other melee will get to deal full dmg ws while cor ws got gimped....

If you melee full time none of these will be required. Nor triple shot required to be up.

If you change back and forth between melee and ranged between TS up or down, and ask brd to change song based on whether TS is up, then there's a chance that brd will make a mistake and you'd lose dps.

Winning a Parse in dyna D is 100% about how long you stayed engaged and fire off ws as fast as possible with no mistake. A playstyle as simple as melee ws spam you just need to engage, ws, engage, ws, repeat, whoever do that the best wins parse. Even if you want to agrue that leaden beats savage with buffs, melee leaden still often come out easier to fire off ws at 100% potential than ranged with those mage buffs.

Let's say, if in theory, a ra cor spams leaden whenever TS up and change to melee leaden whenever TS is down(I'm personally not seeing ranged keep up with melee without TS in any way), and brd buffs/debuffs perfect accordingly, is the optimal playstyle on paper. How often can you execute it at 100% potential with no *** ups?

Some of the DD in my ls is extremely hard to beat, often stayed engaged near 100% of time and ws with minimal overflow. Any potential risk that results less ws fired at full potential = lose parse, period.

And that's the reason why I'm unwilling to try, not enough evidence atm, just a test with 1k net gain out of 473k total dmg.


Its less about piassiamo songs being omg wtf hard to do, it's about the potential dps lose doesn't make up the dps gain.

If I do 20% more dmg from piassiamo songs then sure? Id whip my brds for all the extra dmg, But if only 1k net gain or less(counting the tp lose and JA delay) then meh. Not worth it.


Totally agree, group dynamic, or general "flow" of the run. Melee is simplistic in a way that it allows me to engage > engage > ws and stay as close to 100% engage time and close to perfect ws timing as often as possible. After parsing with tons of melee that's the real key to parse high.

If I'm going to spend significant amount of time communicate with brds and pay more attention on things like buff/debuff check, my total engage time and perfect ws timing rate will reduce. That's kind of dps lose far above 1k.

I'd totally consider switching modes more often if gap is at least 50k to 100k, personally.

If this is what you actually think then reread my initial responses a few times. I feel the tone is fairly flat and that they're mostly casual observations and remarks.


The recent discussion is about utilizing Triple Shot/ranged in DD regardless of the setup you're using. I'm advocating that all you need to do is overwrite your Minuets with Preludes for your initial rotation and use Leaden Salute (regardless of whether it's Volte mobs or not.) I'm not advocating hot swapping buffs other than Flurry or Haste depending on whether Triple Shot is up or down, although if you wanted to be super lazy about everything you could probably get away with just full timing Haste because the marginal gains from Rapid Shot aren't great. If you're concerned about TP loss during weapon swaps, then don't swap your weapons. You'll probably want double Rostam for Volte mobs because of resists.

However, after looking back and my logs it seems that Rayke is required in order for Leaden to do 60k+ on volte mobs. Otherwise you are going to get hit with a half resist no matter what your macc is. So for volte you might want to just stick to melee and use SB. Wildfire is another option on volte, I think you could probably break 30k although I don't think that stands up to a good SB set. You can save Triple Shot/Leaden for circles in that case (although I know some groups avoid doing magic damage to them) and I don't think you need preludes for those.

If you're running with an actual ranged setup (Rangers + Corsair) then you'll probably want to do other optimizations or changes. That's a different conversation.

From my experience, volte mobs need a bit more buffs/debuffs for leaden to work, wave 3 boss less so (only need malaise). Hence it's possible for our group to give a buff slot on boss just for cor. Because the sacrifice isn't huge, and the gain is worth it.

If volte need more buffs and debuffs than wave 3 boss, then it will be much harder to use leaden in melee pt.

Based on the test result, I see switching between ranged and melee based on TS by using leaden way more doable on boss, less so on volte because leaden need more buffs. And even then I would limit the switch frenquency and only do it when I am weakened or perfect dodge up.



I'm aware that in ranged setup stacking cor is way to go, when we do ranged setup on T4 we had 4 cor per pt for endless TS. I mean, you are repeating everything we already know and been using >.> And I merely want info on things that we dont know or not sure about, not things we already know v.v

Pardon me if this has been asked before but I've been curious:

In what situation would Evisceration be more viable than using Savage Blade? Evisceration's damage won't scale with TP, and Requiescat already covers Gravitation SC on Sword. (Not to mention Wildfire and Leaden both cover Darkness and Gravitation respectively) So what exactly am I missing here?

Piercing weak enemies?

For piercing weak enemies... why not just use Last Stand?

Perhaps there's some use for a Rostam user (assuming they want to keep Rostam equipped and not use it for rolls only). We haven't exactly had a dagger taking the spotlight for mainhand weapons in a while, so maybe there's some reason or SC that you might be encouraged you to use dagger WS instead of just, you know, using a ranged WS (including Leaden/WF which already cover gravitation regardless of melee weapon type).

Right now, if you're in Dyna D and trying to level 2 daggers, if you're not getting R.Acc buffs, Evisceration has a place. Otherwise, yeah. It's not the best WS for COR.

Thank you for the replies. I unlocked it on my mule last night, and the thought had just crossed my mind on it's current viability. Sorry to interrupt the riveting discussion on dyna-d COR set up. Carry on.

Last stand generally suffers from buff split in high level content because they need prelude not madrigal, and it's not gravitation.

Evis is probably our strongest physical gravitation ws. Last time I checked it's roughly on par/a bit better than swift blade. Now that rostam is out I dont think swift blade can match evis anymore. So it should be the go to ws for physical gravitation now.

Requesicat is horrible.

With wsd glitch now I've been wondering if evis become our best ws to spam on piercing weak enemies in high level content. Getting FUA main hand for extra tp gain is extremely nice. Something savage blade doesn't have.

Well it's good to know it's technically COR's strongest Physical Garvitaion WS. However, many years of playing THF has taught me Evisceration is largely dependent on getting critical hits to proc. Otherwise its damage is pretty nominal.

Was far less concerned with which did more damage as much as having overlap in skillchain options. The OP shows both Evisceration and Savage using Aktakos in the gun slot which had puzzled me at first.

Also, for a fresh COR, Rostram isn't exactly going to be an option. Decent dagger options are fairly limited outside of Kustawi and Odium.

The gun's TP Bonus applies to all WS and not just ranged WS like Fomalhaut.

Yes, but Evisceration only gains a higher % chance to critical, not do more damage. Not completely sure its critical hit rate applies to all hits or just the first hit. Even so, Atakos adding 1000 TP is a waste as critical hit weapons skills are meant to be spammed as soon as you hit 1000. Otherwise you'd have people advising you to wait until 2000 similarly to Savage Blade.

It's +15% crit rate if you WS at 1k, and it's well known to be for the entire WS.



....

More critical hits = more damage.

Now we can argue on the relative value of that extra TP, 2K is estimated to be about +25% while 3K is +50% crit. With around 11% CHD (I'm throwing that out, not sure how much COR would actually get) a crit is worth +%45.15 damage on that hit.

We all have a base crit rate of 10% (5+ merits)
Then the WS adds it's crit bonus
Then add crit gear
Then add up to +15% from dDEX, which is really easy to get +50 on a DEX based WS.

So at 1k TP Evis should have about a 50% crit rate, at 2K a 65% one. With 6 hits and no MA procs, we go from 3 crits to 3.9 crits per WS (meaning 90% of the time 4 crits 10% 3 crits).

Higher chance to crit=higher ws avg in the long run. When we discuss ws dmg, we usually mean ws avg and geared for higher avg in the long run.

The reason why we use atakos is because we spam ws at 1000 tp. And atakos turn it to 2000 tp instead. That makes the ws even stronger in the long run because they are more likely to crit.

Also afaik crit hit rate has more value if you have more crit hit dmg in other slots. So atakos probably performs best if you have tons of crit hit dmg gears, and vice versa.

If you are using FUA Rostam and forming SC, you are likely to have 2000 tp every time you fire off a ws from waiting for your partner, in that case molybdosis for gun slot is worth considering. If you don't have enough crit hit dmg in other slot to make atakos strong choice, molybdosis is probably the best alternative for evis.


THFs strongest ws is rudra and cor's strongest ws is savage follow by last stand, of course evis is nothing special by comparsion. Its more of an utility ws.

Although recent wsd glitch may change ws hierarchy a bit.

Silly newbie question but why is Samnuha Coat recommended for mid tier Leaden but the Relic +2 for mid tier Wildfire? If I get the relic +2, any reason to use the Samnuha Coat over it on Leaden?

It doesn't... just an oversight by me.

can some 1 clear up some things for me on dyna wave 3, i was under the impression the fetters were somewhat weak to salute but when i went spamming salute on fire circle it did lackluster dmg and countered with aoe Fire each time, is it any WS that triggers their AoE? and do i need a bunch of buffs for salute to do well on it? for the NQ mobs around the fetter physical is best IIRC unless some 1 has a better option?