Stardiver Or Drakesbane?

Okay...for abyssea the answer is obvious. Drakesbane wrecks. But what about outside? I was campaigning with a fellow drg a few days ago and noticed his stardiver was doing more than my drakesbane(granted my polearm was about 80ish levels below cap) But I've seen drakesbane do 1900~3400 on dc mobs outside abyssea on occasion... Is there a major advantage to using stardiver > drakesbane outside abyssea?

Drakes really, really falls behind on higher-level content because it has a significant attack penalty.

Both, because the attack penalty will be more than negated when you do a skillchain with your buddies when timed properly, one for darkness one for light.

In Zerg situations (90% of endgame content at the moment?) skillchains are the furthest thing from your mind.

I'm not saying I like it. But that's how it is.

Live in the now.

Unless you got a mythic polearm, should really just stick to Stardiver on anything that matters. I have seen 8k Drakesbanes on Arch DL though. Granted the DRG had Minuetx3 Madrigalx1 , Chaos Roll, Warrior's Roll(The DA one) and Embrava just spamming Drakesbane with Mythic polearm... But still.

I just nostalgia'd so hard.

In Zerg situations (90% of endgame content at the moment?) skillchains are the furthest thing from your mind.
I'm not saying I like it. But that's how it is.
Live in the now.[/quote]

Oh for zerging of course, but for team play my DRG buddy skillchains light and darkness with me all the time with my extenterator and rudras storm. The damage output is higher when we work together, and it's more fun I think.
Keep in mind, I'm only playing -with- a DRG and am not a well equipped DRG myself, so others may have other (more accurate) oppinions.

Dynamis? That's the only situation I can think of you'd really be teaming up and not zerging something. In some instances there you might be better off lowering your ws damage for a skillchain on a DC mob. Then again, on smaller mobs, Drakes won't be as problematic because the attack penalty won't be nearly as evident anyhow.

Fodder mobs, more or less, is where Drakes is going to tear it up. Or, as stated, Abyssea.

I skillchain in salvage, does that count?

As Fodder mobs. Sure.

Drakes !

Late but why would use use Madrigal on ADL?

My stardiver pushes 4k on fodders lol.

If anything, I'd throw up a march for the 4th song in case Haste gets dispelled. You don't need madrigals on him lol

Honestly? Its more for the DRKs in party. lawl.

k

You must be a time traveler from the past.

Basically what Ramyrez said. For Abyssea and crap stuff use Drakesbane. Otherwise, for recent endgame content, Stardiver wins.

And even though Stardiver gives critical hit evasion down to the monster, it's not enough to justify using Stardiver once and then use Drakesbane afterwards (unless on lower-end monsters).

Any melee job needs Madrigal on ADL? Was it's evasion buffed in the last two days, since I last did ADL

Don't forget you can farm for beehive chips, they sell well on the auction house! ^ ^

I can not get my stardiver to beat my drakes constantly and I do not know why. (in or out of abyssea/voidwatch) I was just assuming because drakes can crit is why it wins but so may people swear by stardiver so I am trying to read up on it.

gungnir 95

ws in
drachenhorn
light gorget
bushinomimi
kemas
lancer body +2
lancer hands +2
spiral
raja
atheling
light belt
lancer pants +2 (I want to test ogiers legs after reading best stardiver set thread)
perle boots

Are you parsing your results? Target/buffs?

Don't use Ogier legs.

I have no parser, just pen and paper (old school I know sorry) And I have been reading a lot here now and am thinking of keeping brutal on during the ws.
No buffs I was thinking to test out which was doing the better before buffs because with buffs it should all go up the same %-ish. But now I am reading that is not the case. I am trying to go with DC mobs at 99 to try and see which is doing more dmg consistently. I have no dual box toon to give me buffs and I hate to bother anyone to stand next to me and be bored. It has taken me eight years to get Gungnir and I just wanna try and max out my DRG. Or at least look like I have tried...

As far as I know Stardiver beats Drakesbane unless your critrate is inflated via dDEX/outside buffs or you're able to cap cRatio with Drakesbane (not an easy task for DRG/SAM since Drakes has an attack penalty, but it's possible). The difference isn't very large though, so sample size and other things may be a factor here. Looking at your build, generalized optimizations for each WS probably stand to benefit Stardiver more than Drakes.

And yes, you should keep Brutal on.

I use maxed out OAT polearm to build TP fast so I really wanted an ideal WS to use with hit. As a result, I gave up Shoha to pick up Stardiver, thinking that I'd just go polearm on SAM, and that the trade would be worth it because it would be quite a bit stronger for my DRG over Drakes.

Now I think that was a mistake. Stardiver isn't really performing significantly better for me over Drakes, so while I got a minor buff to DRG, losing Shoha has been a significant nerf to sam. Polearm sam doesn't suck or anything, but I end up asking myself why I'm not on DRG if that's what I want to be doing, and there isn't really a good answer to that question. (It also is expensive due to the polearm I have to use on SAM.)

One other thing DRG related is that since I swap in Neck/Waist gorget(s), I lose a nice chunk of attack for Stardiver, where as on Drakes I lose it innately but pick some back up from gear. It kind of takes some of the sting out of it. Here are the sets that are giving me these results:

Drakesbane
input /equip ear1 "Moonshade Earring";
input /equip ammo "Thew Bomblet";
input /equip ring1 "Strigoi Ring";
input /equip head "Mekira-Oto +1";
input /equip body "Lncr. Plackart +2";
input /equip hands "Lncr. Vmbrc. +2";
input /equip legs "Lncr. Cuissots +2";
input /equip feet "Wym. Greaves +2";
input /equip neck "Justiciar's Torque";
input /equip waist "Anguinus Belt";
input /equip back "Atheling Mantle";
input /equip ear2 "Brutal Earring";
input /equip ring2 "Rajas Ring";

Stardiver (Changes)
input /equip neck "Soil Gorget";
input /equip waist "Soil Belt";

So it's a loss of about 33 attack, 1%DA, and 4 STR in the Stardiver set in order to use the fTP gear. (Moonshade augment is 4ATK and 25TP. I use it on drakes to increase potential chance to critical, although I could also be using 7ATK/Conserve TP 3 earring or something that would push the attack a bit more.)

To me it feels like this is a great WS, but we already had one, where as my SAM simply operates in gimp mode without the Shoha insanity (and it is, indeed, an extreme difference). Thoughts?

EDIT: Still working on Heca+1 augmented feet.

@ Nightfyre, I have 12/12 in str/dex and 5 in crithit. But I assume most main DD have done that. I do not think that has over inflated my crithit. And I doubt my cRatio is caped on anything outside east ron. I used to ws in love torque and str belt but I finally got light gorget and light belt. Both Drakes and Star are aligned to those I have read.

You're damage testing on level 0 bunnies?

Also, drgs don't need an alt or a pl, that's what your wyvern is for. DC mobs are no problem even on /sam.

No I am not damage testing there.
He said buffs so I was thinking boost str firestorm embravia ect.

Ah okay.