Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better!: RDM Guide

Thanks, but that doesn't work. I even raised the wait to 10. I can manually go into the menu and do Addendum: White in that time. So the server had it registered that Light Arts is active.

It just refuses to work in a single macro palette. I don't want to be typing out commands or using 2nd macros for stuff that go hand in hand together.

I have the same macro for dark arts addendum black and it works flawlessly, there must be some kind of error in what you're typing.
Are you leaving the space after the : ?

Something in your gearswap is preventing it is likely.

It appears that the name of the Addendum is what might be tripping you up as it is Addendum: White. The macro below will work to use both abilities in one macro.

/ja "Light Arts" <me> <wait 1>
/ja "Addendum: White" <me>

Thank you :) Finally got it working. As you wrote it above does work if the number is raised from 1.

Thats how long its been since I typed out my Addendum: White macro lol.

I think I can make macro O.o

I ran a damage simulator on RDM/NIN with malignance gear, but with:

• Crocea + Tauret | Cape w/ Crit or DA + DEX - CDC

• Maxientus + Tauret | Cape w/ WSD + STR - Black Halo

And I noticed Crocea goes up to around 3.7k DPS (3.9 with savage blade), whereas Maxientius goes up to 4.3k DPS. It amazed me a bit because I somehow felt Crocea would outdamage. Obviously this is from a simulator so isn't 100%, and depends on various things. I didn't mention the constants like haste II, Dia III, Composure on, Apex Bats enemy etc, but yeah does this sound about right for the damage?

(I'm just working on several weapons so I use the simulator to help me decide what I wanna farm for first, so yeah just noticed this).

I mean, you're missing +200% enspell damage.
If you changed to Crocea / Daybreak and switched to Seraph Blade, it'd probably increase a bit too.

RDM dps in 2024 is more about having the largest toolbox in the game in terms of options much more than having some silver bullet that once found, allows you to ignore the worry about other choices. Just for ML'ing I use 4 different builds depending on the mood I'm in and the mobs I'm fighting- there isn't one choice that just smokes the rest^^

So that being said- have fun with the job! I understand one must prioritize where to start and its a lot to build, but do help yourself longterm by remembering that its all fun, and it all has purpose.

In terms of pure DPS using Naegling/Thibron and spamming Savage Blade is probably gonna win above all other options.
And Maxentius/Thibron spamming Black Halo is likely second.

I love Crocea but the DPS spread is much different.
Crocea is fun and has a niche for diffent situations. If the target is resistant against physical damage and/or weak against magical damage and particularly weak against fire or light (so you can exploit Red Lotus Blade and Seraph Blade) then Crocea pulls out some really interesting overall DPS, but other than these and similar situations my experience is that Crocea Mors is lotsa fun but inferior to other options, for pure DPS output.
JM2C.

Solo with trusts, I would pick doing Empyreal Arrow > Savage Blade.

Duo with a COR on things that take both Dark and Light damage, Leaden > Seraph Blade > Leaden.

Just depends on what you're fighting and what you have with you. Sometimes the best option is Crocea+Bunzi doing Sanguine Blade to not interrupt others and bursting on what they make.

Thanks! Just had a few questions before I dig Crocea into a grave and forget about it until I need it lol:

• 
  Would Crocea w/ enspell work well in situations where an enemy has neutral resistance because of the free additive damage that's now also buffed because of Path C? For example, a goobbue takes 100% damage to wind, so not more or less. Would I benefit from using enaero for the extra damage?
  

• 
  I think part of the point of my question is; would I mostly encounter enemies resistant to magic around endgame, or does the above goobbue count as an enemy that's not weak to magic because it's neutral? I think in my use case I was thinking about using Crocea for a lot of older / solo content like Nyzul solo or just ambuscades (if going melee), and other general cases. If I was planning for high-end solo fights, I think I'd definitely first build more weapon sets (though this is still in progress). I was also not planning to always be using seraph/sanguine either, since I know without the proper build (which I'm still working on) they'd still be quite weak, I'd probably use CDC and whatnot over a DEX build.
  

Thanks.

As mentioned above croc's a strong sword but is likely always gonna be 2nd to standard naeg savage blade spam, even with the large boost to enspell/ele WS dmg its hard to beat raw SB power especially when paired with SC dmg.

But when you can't savage it's generally gonna beat most other oprions, the boost to both of the above can really crank RLB/seraph to respectable amounts, and sanguine is very consistent dmg that doesnt sc

Personally havent used CDC in ages beyond as a easy SC tool. dmg varies ws with a magian OH just have too large a gap compared to crit/multi-hit ws' and RDM has the easiest time covering the acc needed due to comp acc and distract

So the best use of Crocea is free wins on Tenzen. Sleep the taru,
WS until he does Yaegsumi and then just auto attack until you win on VD.

The 2nd best use is if you run into something that just doesn't seem to be taking physical damage based on your buffs. If it takes light/dark/fire damage, you'll probably do pretty well. BUT most things take savage blade/black halo and the scenario i'm talking about generally means you are underbuffed. It's probably better to resolve that than plan around magical WSs (as much as i'd love to and would prefer it.)

Crocea is really nice, but niche. It's not your best damage weapon for every scenario it's the best damage weapon for very specific (and niche) scenarios.

If you're trying to avoid pulling hate off a mob, Crocea is excellent because the enmity is very low.
If you're attacking something strong against physical attacks (elementals) then it's great
If you have an abundance of magic buffs and the enemy has an abundance of magic debuffs (Dynamis W3) then it's excellent
If the enemy is really weak against a specific element (Zerde) it can do a lot of damage
If you aren't allowed to WS (Yaegasumi, amnesia, etc.) then it can do more damage than other options

It's definitely not a one-size-fits all weapon though, and most of the time, other weapons will do more damage. White damage is not the name of the game in FFXI, WS damage makes up a MUCH larger percentage of your damage and Crocea is not very good at doing WS damage unless the mob is weak against it or you're buffed/debuffed for it.

There is a lot to unpack in this post so I'll go into it point by point the best I can.


This is highly dependent on the mechanics of the fight you are engaged in, your strategy for said fight, and the gear and buffs you have available to you. Crocea Mors can be of great benefit to make up for RDM's lack of attack with Enspell and magical weapon skill damage when solo (as you mention later in your post). But, like with anything else in this game, it cannot be applied broadly to all situations.


I have a suspicion that you may be under the wrong impression about what those resistance numbers mean.



The percentages in the red rectangle denote a monster's elemental resistance rank by skillchain multiplier, not the percent of damage it takes from that element. These ranks also determine the mount of magic evasion a monster has to a particular element. The value circled in purple denotes a monster's resistance to magic damage.

For the purposes of Enspell damage, you will deal the same amount of damage with Enfire as you would with Enaero to this monster. The only difference would be the amount of magic accuracy needed to reach the 95% magic hit rate cap. The Resist page on BG has more info if you're interested.


There are many instances where magic damage is not ideal. The real question here is, would you even be on the front lines to begin with even if it was? Not all strategies revolve around a RDM swinging their Crocea Mors around. Your role as a RDM in "Endgame" will be to conform to your party's needs, and not your need to swing your sword around.


Building a Crocea Mors just to do ancient content like Nyzul is a waste. Strategies for Ambuscades can vary wildly depending on the month, group, strategy, etc.

Crocea Mors can be a great sword, but it requires the proper gearsets and the right situation to shine as a damage dealing weapon.

Haven't fought VD Shinryu in ages. Went back in today and found my kills were slower than I remembered (like 15+ mins?).
I have three questions for people who have a better memory than mine:

1) Utsusemi
2) TP Set

3) Seraph Blade

Looks more like you needed accuracy.

Utsusemi: don't use it, waste of time
TP set: I use r30 coiste, JSE +1 neck, ayanmo+2 hands, and orpheus's sash, and ride enspell the entire time. Sherida earring, dw cape, telos earring. R30 Bunzi's Cap. Offhand is Bunzi's Rod (mine is only R27 or so)

Seraph Blade: I don't use it. I use Sanguine 100% of the time wings up or down. This allows me to not have to self heal after Cataclysmic Vortex (which can sometimes hit 1500+) into a full cure, so I am never usually at risk of dying unless there's some bad luck (like stun, para, doom and vortex all happening at the same time I am trying to holy water/remedy/cure myself). Since I stopped bothering switching weapons or cure4ing myself, clears got faster.

I engage with sabo silence/para/distract, and then if i feel like it, throw up Poison 2/Bio3, sometimes Addle 2 and Frazzle 3. Honestly I could skip most of these debuffs but it's just a habit now. Stand behind him every time to avoid Cosmic Breath, bring a stack of remedies/holy waters/panacea every run, dispel Mighty Guard, but try to focus on getting off as many Sanguine Blades/WS during wings up if you can. The slowest part of the fight is when he puts his wings back down and damage is halved. Also having a Holy Water set (Nicander's necklace and Purity Ring is what I use) makes them a whole lot more reliable.

Fastest clears are just over 8min, average time is 9-10, sometimes its longer due to him being random and annoying with Mighty Guards, Atomic Ray and Supernova. Cosmic Breath and Gyve Charge are weak moves. Trusts are Cornelia+Star Sibyll (can be skipped, but I use her for MAB aura to slightly bump up sanguine damage).

Now if only I could find a way to reliably bump his drop rate up, since I have never seen a piece of armor or weapon drop from him and I am approaching 430 or so kills on VD...

Just looking for some melee weapon options. I've got Naegling which kind of covers most of my physical + slashing damage.

Would Almace be competitive or worth getting for CDCing, or should I just stick with Naegling for that and avoid farming it?

Also haven't even touched daggers but working on my first Tauret. In general, which daggers (among the ones listed in the guide) are the best, and which would I use for what scenario? And would any be competitive in physical damage with Naegling? But as piercing?

As far as phys sword goes naegling is all you really need, big dump of atk+ on a job that is pretty lacking on it, boosts your best phys WS, and its got solid macc on it as well.

CDC imo like a lot of multi-hits that arent also dmg varies in general hasnt aged very well compared to just stacking WSD/tp bonus and using a front loaded ftp WS i.e savage blade in swords case.

Unless you go down the prime route for daggers they're not going to compete with SB in reliable phys dmg, exception being if you're locked out of dual wield where mandau is actually pretty resepctable dmg at 1k. Far as daggers go its basically tauret, gleti's(typically pair it with tauret for evis spam), mandau for reasons stated above, and prime as the closest to a SB but piercing option

Black Halo with Maxentius puts out respectable damage and may be the preferred WS depending on the content. Between weapon type weakness and WS wall, you might be better off using Black Halo.

Ambu club gets used a lot in odyssey and sortie. Ambu bow is nice for solo work because it goes with black halo and savage blade.

Daggers are less straightforward. If you make a Tauret, it will mostly be used for Aeolian Edge because it's very good at that. Evisceration is not an amazing WS for the same reasons you shouldn't make Almace for CDC. So sure you should make it, but not for piercing damage. For piercing damage, you can do relic dagger or prime dagger. Both have their strengths and weaknesses for piercing weak fights.

Investigation into Battlefield/Carnage Elegy's relationship with Immunobreak and negative status resistance ranks.

Some time ago, it was pointed out that Elegy is affected by Immunobreaks when using Slow. This is typically a characteristic of spells that use separate negative status resistance ranks. After doing some research, however, I found some conflicting information. This section of the Resistance page on JPwiki claims that Elegy uses Earth elemental resistance ranks, not negative status ranks. The Threnody page of JP wiki curiously states that it is unclear which resistance ranks Elegy uses.

There is also testing done which I have referenced before using trusts that found Joachim's Elegy AI is affected by Threnody, Rayke and Skillchains. This is characteristic of magic that uses elemental resistance ranks. I wanted to see if I could recreate some of this testing in some way so I went to Sih Gates as a BRD with my buddy Joachim.

I grabbed a lvl 127 Apex Leech (enemy level verified by setting accuracy to 955 and selecting one that checked High Evasion from the options of Low Evasion, No evasion message, High Evasion) and observed Joachim's AI while engaged (ilvl 119 + Memory Gem key item). After 15 minutes of not seeing an Elegy from him, I used Earth Threnody II while equipped with songs +7 (-195 Earth magic evasion down) on the leech. Immediately after landing Threnody, Joachim began to cast and landed Carnage Elegy. I let Threnody wear off and waited some more, but didn't see any further Elegy casts from Joachim until I landed Threnody once again. After repeating this a few times I found this behavior very consistent.


Screenshot of Earth Threnody II>right after, Joachim casts and fails to land Carnage Elegy>immediately follows up with Battlefield Elegy.

Then, I went to Ru'Aun Gardens as RDM and observed Joachim some more. After engaging an Earth Elemental I watched him throw pebbles at it for 10 minutes. Not once did he cast an Elegy. After triggering a Slow Immunobreak with Chironic Hose equipped Joachim still refused to cast Elegy. The same behavior continued with a Saboteur + Frazzle III added to the mix. After this testing I was confident that the cited testing above was correct in asserting Joachim's Elegy uses elemental resistance ranks. I changed to BRD/WHM and re-verified that player cast Elegy would easily land after the Earth Elementa's Slow resistance rank had been lowered by 2 ranks with Immunobreak. Elegy lasted for full duration when it landed.

This left me wondering: Does Elegy cast by the player rely on elemental resistance ranks? Is it possible it uses both somehow even though it's affected by Immunobreaks? These questions led me to the testing below.

The target: Lvl 125 Apex Chapuli in Sih Gates. Earth rank E(70%), CHR-210. Monster stats found here.

The test: Repeatedly cast Elegy on the Chapuli and record the results. Afterwards, repeatedly cast Elegy with Earth Threnody II applied as done with the Joachim test above and record the results. Since I was unsure if Carnage Elegy had any innate magic accuracy bonuses due to being a higher tier, I decided to start with Battlefield Elegy. According to this magic accuracy table, 828 magic accuracy is needed to reach 95% hit rate. With the specified magic accuracy listed below hit rate should be between 60%-70%. No testing done on Earthsday/Windsday or during windy weather. Enemy level verified by setting accuracy to 955 and selecting one that checked Low Evasion from the options of Low Evasion, No evasion message, High Evasion.

Relevant Stats:
Lvl 99 BRD/WHM with 362 total job points
394 Singing Skill
Job point gifts-Magic Accuracy +13
Job point category-Song Magic Accuracy +3

Equipment:
Main: Tauret-Magic Accuracy Skill +250, Magic Accuracy +40
Head: Halitus Helm
Neck: Sanctity Necklace-Magic Accuracy +10
Left Ear: Dignitary's Earring-Magic Accuracy +10
Right Ear: Crepuscular Earring-Magic Accuracy +10
Body: Telchine Chasuble (No relevant augments)
Hands: Shrieker's Cuffs
Ring 1: Stikini Ring +1-Magic Accuracy +11, All Magic Skills +8
Ring 2: Stikini Ring +1-Magic Accuracy +11, All Magic Skills +8
Back: Aurist's Cape +1 R15 (1st place Unity)-Magic Accuracy +33
Legs: Volte Tights
Feet: Telchine Pigaches (No relevant augments)
All other slots empty
Total CHR: 106+104=210, 0 dCHR Magic Accuracy Bonus
Total Magic Accuracy: 801

Battlefield Elegy:
Full Duration: 67 (67%)
Partial Resist: 20 (20%)
Full Resist: 13 (13%)

The above results will be used as our baseline. If Threnody has no effect then hit rate will stay the same. If Threnody affects Elegy's magic accuracy, hit rate should be at 95%.

Battlefield Elegy + Earth Threnody II:
Full Duration: 66 (66%)
Partial Resist: 23 (23%)
Full Resist: 11 (11%)

As can be seen in the data above, there was no real change in hit rate indicating Earth Threnody has no effect on player cast Battlefield Elegy. Now, let's do the same test but with Carnage Elegy.

Carnage Elegy:
Full Duration: 65 (65%)
Partial Resist: 24 (24%)
Full Resist: 11 (11%)

Our baseline for Carnage Elegy. If Threnody has no effect then hit rate will stay the same. If Threnody affects Elegy's magic accuracy, hit rate should be at 95%.

Carnage Elegy + Earth Threnody II:
Full Duration: 64 (64%)
Partial Resist: 23 (23%)
Full Resist: 13 (13%)

No real change in hit rate observed. Player cast Carnage Elegy is also unaffected by Threnody.

To further beat this into the ground, I went out and did some testing as RUN/BRD. Similar to the above testing, I cast Battlefield Elegy on the aforementioned monster and recorded the results for a baseline.

Relevant Stats:
M lvl 25 RUN/BRD
177 Singing Skill
Job Point Gifts-Magic Accuracy +36

Equipment:
Main: Epeolatry-Magic Accuracy Skill +242, Magic Accuracy +30
Sub: Mephitis Grip-Magic Accuracy +5
Ammo: Yamarang-Magic Accuracy +15
Head: Futhark Bandeau +3-Magic Accuracy +37
Neck: Erra Pendant-Magic Accuracy +17
Left Ear: Crepuscular Earring-Magic Accuracy +10
Right Ear: Erilaz Earring +1-Magic Accuracy +15
Body: Ayanmo Corazza +2-Magic Accuracy +46
Hands: Ayanmo Manopolas +2-Magic Accuracy +43
Ring 1: Stikini Ring +1-Magic Accuracy +11, All Magic Skills +8
Ring 2: Stikini Ring +1-Magic Accuracy +11, All Magic Skills +8
Back: Ogma's Cape-Magic Accuracy +30
Waist: Acuity Belt +1 R15 (first place unity)-Magic Accuracy +15
Legs: Nyame Flanchard-Magic Accuracy +40
All other slots empty
Total CHR: 122+88=210, 0 dCHR Magic Accuracy Bonus
Total Magic Accuracy: 796

RUN/BRD Battlefield Elegy:
Full Duration: 64 (64%)
Partial Resist: 20 (20%)
Full Resist: 16 (16%)

Afterwards, I cast Elegy while the monster is under the effects of Rayke with three Tellus runes. If Rayke has any effect after lowering the monster's Earth elemental resistance rank to H(115%) then hit rate should be capped at 95% according to the magic accuracy table linked above.

RUN/BRD Battlefield Elegy + Rayke (Tellus x3):
Full Duration: 63 (63%)
Partial Resist: 22 (22%)
Full Resist: 15 (15%)

No change. I think this is enough evidence to conclude that, while Joachim's Elegy relies completely on Earth elemental resistance ranks, player cast Elegy relies solely on a monster's Slow resistance rank.

In conclusion, it seems to me that whether a spell/song/blood pact relies on elemental or negative status ranks is entirely arbitrary and likely done for reasons only the developers would know. The same goes for which spells/songs/blood pacts are affected by Resist! traits or not (looking at you Addle).

Edit: forgot to include monster stat link

I seem to recall a patch, many years ago, where they changed the way debuff songs worked (before that it was pretty impossible to land Requiem on most targets for instance).
So maybe that time is when they swapped the way Player's Elegy work, changing it from relying on Earth Resistance to Slow Resistance, for whatever reason?

I don't remember when this patch happened and if it was at the same time when they changed the way regular enfeebling spells work (adding Immunobreaks and so on)

Can trusts immunobreak? If they can't it wouldn't surprise me if they use elemental resist rank for all debuffs.

They can, but it's extremely hard to have them do so - it basically only happens if a threnody[*] buffs/debuffs expire while they're casting, or stuff like that - because most trusts that debuff won't even try to cast said debuffs if they don't clear a certain magic accuracy threshold compared to your target. Now, we could talk about how unfair it is that trusts can be aware in advance if their debuff will land or not, but I digress...

[*] see posts on next page.

That makes a lot of sense. Thank you for all of your hard work and testing.