Holy Bolts

Are Holy bolts viable today or are they a complete waste of time even with the best equipment?

I played around with these back at 90 cap in Abyssea. The additional effect got as high as 300 but the actual damage from the attack was woeful compared to conventional ammunition. I remember parsing a few battles and without the weapon skills with conventional weapons, Holy Bolts (in Abyssea, at least, with the relevant atma) won. But soon as the damage from weapon skills was added, the difference was enormous. This was before the days of Last Stand, too. So in short, not really, no. :\

They're a waste of time. If you're gonna use marksmanship then use a gun, adaman bullets destroy everything else a RNG can use. As for war or drk, wtf are you using an xbow for?


Also obligatory use Random Question Thread yada yada...

Thanks for the heads up.

If you want to use a crossbow (barring mythic) your best option is Moro's Crossbow+ Dark Adaman Bolts. They do pretty well.

The old formula used to include the machine Xbow. Haven't found one yet, nor is my RNG past L 60. But it looks like great fun for a short while.

Edit: And that reminded me to check the AH listings for a machine Xbow. I found one!

Now I am going to HAVE to finish my RNG AF and get back to leveling it....

Thanks.... /grumble

/giggle

I used an Xbow for VW before I finished Anni and Arma and it did relatively well. Tp'd on holy bolts and ws'd with dark adaman bolts. But as said above, it's greatly inferior to most options nowadays.

I've done recent testings and its not worth using holy bolts anymore. This is coming from a full time holy bolt spammer at 75 cap. I've tried everything inside and outside of abyssea: atmas, mab gear, MND merits and gear and different sub jobs, but they just aren't what they use to be which is kind of sad. The additional damage effect hit high 90's at the most. That's basically the same as what it did at 75. DPS will never keep up with holy bolt spamming. Just not worth it.

Can I ask what Atma's you were using for this?

For anyone who wants to know, I ran tests in Abyssea La Theine and the cap for MND build before the damage stops is 124. Any MND above that didn't make a difference but 123 saw a slight decrease on average.

With this in mind (no pun intended) I am formulating a build with 124 MND exactly and the rest into R.Attack and Light Damage.

The reason that I ask is that Atma that increases Light Damage effects the light damage on the Holy Bolts. Therefore, in order to do an accurate test, I wanted to know if you had defeated Indrik the Unicorn NM in Ulegurand Range Abyssea to get the 'Atma of the Holy Mountain'

1. Atma of the Holy Mountain Equipped?
2. Tested Light Damage increase with Holy Sword? (is it 10% added damage?) Spirit Sword?
3. Tested Dual Wield with Holy Sword and Trilling Dagger vs. Apollo's staff and Light Grip?
4. Acquired Guglielmo's Bow?

If you have indeed tried all of these and even the 124 MND Build with the three Light Damage Atma's equipped then I would love to see the results.

Cheers

I was under the impression that Holy Mountain was Light elemental accuracy not attack. It was a typo in English translation.

I haven't gotten it to confirm but I do know that the Atma of the Sellsword did increase the damage.

Last Stand and Adaman Bullets make it near impossible for Holy Bolts to compete, I would think. Abyssea is the only place I'd even contemplate Holy Bolts being able to compete with my Annihilator and I'm unlikely to bring my Ranger there in the first place.

I wish I had a copy of the testing I did @ 90 cap a couple of years ago. Rather than blithely state Holy Bolts are no good, I could produce some numbers and parses that proved it then and might add some food for thought. For anyone who does trust my word enough to accept it, Holy Bolts @ 90 didn't come close. Whilst I agree there's a lot of new sparkly toys to use with them, I can't see them making up for the huge gulf in damage from using Last Stand and Adaman Bullets. Heck, I'd wager even with an average gun and not necessarily an Annihilator you'll out damage anyone using Holy Bolts.

Once again I would agree with you but needed to know if you (or anyone for that matter) had indeed tested the four points I brought up above. Have you done 1-4 of these tests?

Nope. I'd be intrigued to see them too if anyone has. I'd think a Ranger could sufficiently condone the use of Holy Bolts on physically resistant monsters if they did enough damage. Could even make Wildfire obsolete, especially if the Aftermath is a non-issue being a physically strong beasty.

Holy Sword and Spirit Sword, the level 36 Alchemy craftable items, will have no effect on Light damage and you don't even need to test it.

Trilling Knife/Shield vs. Chatoyant/Grip would be a harder call because one gets you Fencer (TP Bonus +20) and the other does not. In a situation where Holy Bolts somehow outperforming other DD options, Chatoyant would probably be the better option.

It's not possible to get the crossbow you listed until they release the second half of the December update (Meebles expansion).

Atma of the Holy Mountain isn't what you want. It just mimics a Korin Obi. You want Atma of the Beyond, Sellsword, and probably Allure to maximize Holy Bolt damage. If it's Lightsday, you can wear a Korin Obi.

I am going to be running tests this weekend with the Guglielmo's Bow, Chatoyant Staff, Trilling Knife, Atma sets and a TP build that focuses on getting to the MND maximum.

From my original tests I discovered that the additional damage capped at 124-125 Mind (MND) build and that anything above that wasn't showing any gain.

On the flip side, the Atma was greatly increasing the Holy Bolt damage. The question is, how much increase will come from Guglielmo's Bow.

Once I have run tests inside and outside of Abyssea I will post them here. Now that I know the MND build is 124 I can focus on a TP build and gearset that still maximizes the r.att damage and combines it with the additional damage.

I am lucky enough to have a number of Rangers (four of us) who are staticing Meeble Burrows and are interested in testing the bow and the 124 MND build. We are also fully aware that the additional damage gives zero hate so spamming the bolts and producing maximum damage will not pull hate. When we run the tests (Mithra, Hume, Elvaan and Taru) we will post the builds and results.

To save time:

Has anyone found any results anyhere on the damage calculator for Holy Bolts?

I have tested and confirmed that Magic Attack Bonus does not add to it, but does anyone know if Divine Magic Skill has any effect on the Holy Bolts? It would save me some time and money if you have confirmation.

Cheers

Perhaps one day they'll make level 80 versions of the status bolts with more potent debuffs Venom Bolts(stronger poison),Carnage Bolts(Stronger blood bolts)/Stupor Bolts(stronger sleep bolts), Melt Bolts(stronger acid bolts) and then they can also implement more potent elemental bolts and arrows; Sacred Bolts, Bolt Arrows, Flame Arrows etc, higher base DMG but similar added damage for those. Would love higher level blood and status bolts for THF though.

I am wondering why the Magic Accuracy is attached to Guglielmo's Bow and only a RNG can use it.

Does M.Acc affect the damage?

Would really help if we knew the damage calculator on the bolts.

It would affect the resistance rate, not the maximum damage dealt.

Ah, thank you. Do you think /RUN with Light would increase the damage?

Newp.

Basically, for a holy bolt setup you would want to 1) Make sure accuracy is capped 2) Use Chatoyant Staff 3)Equip as much MND as you can in the rest of the slots.

As far as I know, Trueflight is pretty derp- but if you were using it, you would want to use an AGI and MAB setup for it. Otherwise use Last Stand with better bolts.

Exactly the setup I was using.

Chatoyant, Elder Grip, Guglielmo's Bow, Korin Obi and the rest is R.att and MND gear up until 125 MND.

Now I want to add in the /RUN and two Light Runes to see if that increase the damage as well.

Then I swap in 112 AGI in for Last Stand with the new Damascus bolt and the light belt with the Light gorget.

/RUN is the big test this week. Would love to see a spike in Light Bolt damage.

http://www.ffxiah.com/item-sets/296778

Lux only adds an enspell type effect to your normal autoattacks and gives you +dark resist. It doesn't enhance other additional effects (and in fact, blocks potential additional effects on from your main/sub- not that that's applicable here).

So Lux doesn't add to range attacks?

Back in the good ol' days (like 2008) I managed to get about 100 add'l effect damage out of Holy Bolt Machine Crossbow spam, but only in Temenos on Lightsday using a Korin Obi, MND+ set and Apollo's Staff - every day circumstances it never worked well, especially with the pathetic Slug Shot damage. Then they added Trueflight as a weapon skill, which sounds great on paper if you've got a AGI+light elemental damage/acc build but in reality falls way short. If only there was a way to use Wildfire with a machine xbow it might possibly be useful, but I just don't see it happening.

When the tests are done I'll post a thread with the new X-Bow in use complete with the /WHM, /SCH, /WAR, /SAM and /RUN subs. Guglielmo's Bow opened up the conversation once again.

As for WS, I posted my Last Stand gearset in the other thread that would be used with the Holy Bolt setup (swapping in Damascus Bolt).

/COR + QD (Iridal/Chatoyant obv) would probably be most functional sub if magic damage is all that matters - unless what you're fighting is specifically vulnerable to Light element and only Light.

But yeah, I can hardly think of a RNG-friendly event where you'd actually want to gear for Holy bolts. Nevertheless I do appreciate someone taking the time and effort to test out the new x-bow, just trying to be realistic there.

Is that Xbow worth the low dmg it has ? Wouldn't your dps be better if you had a higher dmg Xbow and still used Holy Bolts during TP phase ? Even using Virtus Crossbow would be better I'd assume seeing as how your WS is going to be Last Stand. I mean if the boost is that substantial then by all means but I don't see it being that big of a boost that it would justify that big a drop in the base dmg of your Xbow

Thanks!

I have been pretty bored with this game lately and as soon as I saw the Guglielmo's Bow come out, I had a goal of testing something new.

I will also try RNG/COR.