The Last Dance II: The Show Must Go On

Nah man you kick ***. That ***gets so complicated that eve pro folks miss stuff sometimes. And if pro folks, with ***tons of experience, can make mistakes, imagine how bad a player trying to bandwagon BLU or DNC would do.

17322 Pyrrhic. Currently playing catch up from almost a year away from the game so my gear is a little behind atm.Also, skillchain gear is fun. Top score for your skillchains so far everyone?

Agreed. No need to apologize. Your blue guide was a wonderful help to me.

Saevel what's the meaning of bandwagon? I jump from hot jobs to jobs but i put in effort and tremendous amount of time to try to gear it get it battle ready and time in job points before taking it out to battle. Am I a bandwagoner?

Are you playing BLU because you really enjoy the job or because it "lets you do stuff". A bandwagoner is a player that levels / gears / builds a job because it gets a lot of invites to current events, not because they actually love playing the job. Balance and content updates continually shift the landscape of the game and lead to different jobs / abilities / gear becoming exploitable. That in turn leads to a bunch of "job hopping" from bandwagon players. Gearing any job isn't difficult, it's just a factor of how much free time a person has.

Some good examples of bandwagon vs non. Bandwagon SAM only knows Fudo -> Fudo or Rana -> Fudo, a dedicated SAM will know all the different SC attributes of their WS's and how to link them to produce any SC imaginable. To this day I still have to teach people how to form the T1 and T2 SC's on demand. A bandwagon SCH only knows how to stun, or only knows how to cast embrava or nuke, any SC ability is because someone told them and they wrote a self contained macro. A dedicated SCH will have sets for cure / buffs / debuffs / nukes along with knowing how to form any of the SC's on demand. A bandwagon GEO will only cast Geo-blah and Indi-blah, maybe a nuke set. A dedicated GEO will have sets for healing, enfeebling, sleeping and know that they need to cast Dia or otherwise get on the monsters hate table for their debuff aura to take effect.

The basic gist is that a bandwagon player will put minimal effort to be invitable and "do stuff". A dedicated player will put in the effort to learn all aspects of the job and attempt to maximize their own play experience. If tomorrow SE nerfed BLU while simultaneously buffing SAM/WAR/DRK/ect.., would you still pursue gearing / playing BLU with the same fervor or would you suddenly find an interesting in whichever "new" job was buffed.

heheAlso randomly while farming up some lunge gearI really love this job, it's a bit unpopular on my server so I tend to raise a few eyebrows whenever I use it for stuff.

Seeing all these Terpis DNCs doing near 20k Kleos' makes me so sad. I am so torn between Death Penalty and Terpis. I feel that DP is a better strategic choice given what I usually come as. Given the state of the game I'd opt to get Terpis but I don't even know anymore.

Just got Pyrrhic Kleos and I love it! With my really crappy gear it's spiking up to as much as my stacked Rudras. Do you guys use any of the Flourish IIIs with Kleos or do you guys generally save it for stacked Rudras?

Flourishes III only affect the first hit of a weaponskill, so they benefit Rudra's way more than multihit weaponskills

Making heavy approximations here, and removing the offhand attack, the damage from Pyrrhic comes from 4 hits roughly equally, so only 25% of the WS is augmented (though in reality it's a bit more), compared with Rudra's, where the entirety of the damage is augmented

that said if your Pyrrhic is regularly doing more than stacked Rudra's (which I can't really imagine happening regularly) then it doesn't make sense to waste Climactic on Rudra's (that hurt to write)


EDIT: I don't have a Terpsichore, so I'm not sure if that changes things for non-skillchain use ---- but climactic is intensely useful with closing darkness or double darkness with Rudra's regardless. I pretty much reserve climactic for when I'm skillchaining -- the damage you get with capped skillchain bonus is tremendous

I think he meant if people use Ternary or Striking Flourish... not Climactic.

Which, if he did: Ternary is my personal favor for Pyrrhic Kleos.
Striking is ok, but I don't think the loss in accuracy or attack from trying to use the empyrean body over... pretty much any body suited for WSs... is worth the -1 hit.
Especially when ƒTP transfers, which essentially turns PK into a monster.

And that's not even considering the CHR damage bonus. (which isn't a lot, but it is 100% CHR vs the 50% of Climactic, so it's a little more potent)

All in all: Climactic is for Rudra's, Ternary everything else.
Even without 100JPs you shouldn't be pressed for FMs.

I personally don't use Striking Flourish or Ternary Flourish, unless it's for *** 'n giggles, e. g. pre-popping before engaging.

For me, Ternary Flourish is about a 25% increase in WS damage for both Pyrrhic Kleos (non-AM3) and Evisceration. With the numbers I'm getting, I'm losing more than that damage-wise by popping Ternary Flourish and getting back those 3 FMs. Spending time (= damage) worth almost three seconds for that "minuscule" increase in WS damage isn't cutting it for me.

Climactic Flourish + Rudra's Storm is the only thing I'm using Flourishes III for, and that's more or less to close long SCs. Occasionally, I end up dropping double CF Rudra's Storm on things, but I am not a big fan of that move. I however can't even say whether I'm playing optimally with that line (more multi-step, closing with CF Rudra's whenever applicable instead of setting up big double CF Rudra's), to be honest. Assuming that 5-stepping is feasible, of course, because the moment you have to stack accuracy all over the place, it becomes a lot more difficult, especially without Samurai Roll.

Is anyone getting enough macc to stun anything noteworthy? Or is violent flourish gear a lost cause?

I can stun Darrcuiln once in a blue moon with Stutter Step!

It's actually rather accurate for "lower" content, but it is pretty much useless for 130+. I'd say 128-, you can stun a bunch of TP moves before things start to resist, which can be useful, if you are still doing Incursion for some reason and you don't have enough people for someone to cover stuns.

Darrcuiln isn't stunnable reliably even with the Stun spell. I definitely have stunned him with Violent Flourish as well (he's not immune to Stun), but I think you're wasting your time with Stutter Step. It's probably a floored proc rate no matter what.

;-(

ftfy

I was about to say go for DP if you are into big epeen WS numbers, but I'd be a blind hand cannon fan girl if I say that....the use of DP nowadays is quite limited with more and better good gun options. It's 83 low base dmg and the lack of STR/AGI/RACC/RATTK is starting to hurt. Ranged AM3 is meh compare with melee AM3 as well, and it's harder to maintain than melee jobs. It's good but the gap isn't quite as high as many other melee mythics unless you're only using leaden salute and quick draw, if you're using any other WS there are better options.

So yeah, go for Terp if you really like the job, it's not a bad strategic choice at all.

/bow.

/hairtoss!

Also, I lucked out and made a Jinxed Bonnet last night. Now I need to get lucky with a Jacket, Wristbands, and a Voodoo Cap.

Sounds about right. Another useful scenario is high tier battles - I did lots and lots of Normal level Ultima/Omega solo DNC and Violent Flourish was reasonably good to stun their TP moves.

Anyone know about Geas Fete NMs stun-ability? That could be pretty useful for solo/extreme lowman setups after those NMs become poppable solo in the Nov update, at least on T1s.

I can't speak spcefically for DNC, but I would assume that Violent Flourish follows the same or similar rules for stunning as Sudden Lunge does for BLU. I'm 99% positive that all Geas Fete NMs are completely immune to Sudden Lunge. I have an excellent SL set, capable of stunning Vagary bosses and mid-high 130 bosses in Incursion, but I'll be damned if I can land a single stun on any 119 Geas Fete NM.

It took about a billion tries, but now I have a Voodoo Cap!

Wristbands and Jacket are my last two, but I'm pretty broke at the moment and the AH doesn't have anything on it anyway, so I don't really anticipate any rapid progress on those fronts.

why the lustratio cap over adehmar cap

Looking at it further, I think it is probably good for PK (when Acc is not an issue) and CF Rudra's (particularly with the set bonus.) The base stats on this piece are just insane.

One question regarding the DW. You have listed "Additional Dual Wield..." in the gear sections. I was wondering if you meant that in addition to the native dual wield job trait. Thanks in advance! And thanks for making such a great guide. Much appreciated for us coming back after so long. Well done!

Am I wrong, or would AF3 head still be best for CF Rudra's? I'm pretty sure Lustratio +1 head would demolish other options for non-stacked, but wouldn't that crit damage on AF3 be best?

Yeah, I meant non-CF Rudra's.

In addition to what a DNC with fewer than 550 Job Points has natively (Dual Wield III IV).

Thank you!