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

Those parameters are going to cause a few more pages of debate...

Let me try to spell this out slower.

I mentioned the JA delay of additional rolls because you mentioned the TP loss of Compensator.

Both are extremely small and largely irrelevant things.

Neither is a reason to base your merits on.

The TP lost from putting on compensator(if you happen to be engaged and aren't prebuffing for a fight that will end anyway) is negligible, but in some cases it's still less than the TP lost from additional rerolls.

Stop focusing on the most irrelevant part of my post just because you perceive it as a weak point. Look at the argument as a whole.

The guide mentions it as an option and recommends the other option. You're going full autism here, you're not even arguing it's better, you're trying to demand Afania word the guide differently because you feel slightly different about the level of comparison between the merits. Do you realize how silly this sounds? It's Rhongomiant all over.

This is what I had in mind. It will only attempt to snake eye once, either on a 10 or between 5 and 9.

No, I feel strongly about Snake Eye being superior. I am only advocating for a neutral position in the guide. Most arguments for winning streak are inconsequential nitpicks that rarely happen in actual content, and usually boils down to what you said earlier about it being "fire and forget" and not having to worry about rolls. If both sides are arguing that same thing about the other, is that not the perfect argument for a neutral position in the guide?

For a explanation on how I generally do rolls, I double up natively until I hit 8 or 9, then snake eye.

Also if your simulation isn't factoring in the 30% chance at snake eye reusing itself it's not going to fully represent things.

Impractical to use snake eye on a 5(given timer is up, another roll has a chance at 10/11 and can't provide a worse result.. you still have the option to snake eye afterwards).

Every roll has an unlucky and almost(maybe all?) are in the range of 6-10, so you would also not snake eye if you are the value below unlucky. For estimation purposes, maybe snake eye on a 6, 8, 9, 10(assuming 8 is unlucky). If fold up, many would still roll on a 6.

can easily just do if random() > 0.3: snake = False for that.

think we can all agree to snake eye on 10, though. and forgot a regular roll on 5 would be better.

rolling is going to be a bit more complex then that. If you have an 11 up it make sense to be fairly aggressive since recast is so low. If you don't have an 11 up, eating a bust trying to push a higher sam roll then 7 seems fairly dumb. Different rolls have different thresholds, like a 6 evokers is good enough since its difference between 12 on a 6 and 14 mp on a 11 and not worth bust. Also going to roll different if fold is up. I personally don't risk bust with fold down in ambuscade since that eats a ton of time for a usually trivial event.

As far as figuring out SE vs WS just potency of a single roll wont show full picture. Have to track number of rolls up, potency and uptime for varying fight duration.

There is an interesting optimization problem there to solve dunno if its worth the effort to solve. Humans are terrible at estimations so even things I said above could be wrong. IE you could math out the overall kill speed would be higher if did risk bust without fold on 5min kill ambuscades, but you know you would hear ***from party if you did it.

Why not Fenrir Ring +1 over Archon Ring in Leaden sets?

Archon ring is not plain MAB. It's Dark Affinity, which is a super-powered version of MAB for Dark elemental damage. Same goes for Pixie Hairpin +1.

Thanks!

Agreed. I think the debate can be summed into Snake Eye giving you better regularity and control over your rolls and Winning Streak gives you a longer ideal scenario with your rolls. Which is best is going to depend on the content you're in and some personal preference, but each has its place.

Yup, something like this should have a note right under the set because it's made for people learning to gear. Tons of things probably make little sense in the guide since there are no notes.

There was a note about Dark Affinity under the section header, but I guess it isn't clear what that means exactly -- added "Dark Elemental Magic Atk. Bonus" in parentheses.

These were renamed Trews last update...


I know AH hasn't been updated but our images have over at the wiki...

Maybe. At the moment, I'm reluctant to make any value claim. I think largely it will come down to a value of roll potency (avgbuff/time) and how long it takes to get initial rolls up. Right now I'm working on trying to figure out how to get gearswap to see blurred knife haste proc. If I can figure that crap out I may write something next week.

It really isn't so complicated.
And I'm not trying to pick on you Dade, I'm only quoting you because LoH is +1ing your post as if what you said is supporting her position. But it doesn't.

If you have an 11 up, you don't need 5/5 SE to get more 11's. You don't really need any, but the guide simply favors 3/5 rather than 5/5. This isn't all or nothing, it is simply optimization.

These examples also favor 5/5 WS. 5/5 SE is only the best option if you live or die by 11's.
Keep in mind, some CC lucky rolls exceed the potency of 11's. So, the argument that 5/5 WS will always be weaker than 5/5 SE is incorrect.

Let's take this, sometimes but not always, 5-6min Ambuscade. If the flavor of the month is only taking 5-6min, it is probably an easier battle design combined with an optimized party set-up. In this case, the party is unlikely to live or die by 11's. It might be SMN-burn, it might be Triple Shot COR-burn, it might be SCH + BLM MB-burn, but, either way, the set-up is overpowering the battle and good-great rolls will not slow the fight down much (or at all) as compared to perfect rolls.
If the battle design is so easy that it can be won without an optimized party set-up, this is even more true.

Not all Ambuscades take this little time. In longer battles, there are more playstyles that benefit from 5/5 WS than 5/5 SE. 5/5 SE only benefits those that live or die by 11's that can't simply get 11's via temporary item spam. There isn't a temporary item that increases the duration of rolls.

Looking at this another way, the hardest content in the game (ilvl 140+) is:
Aeonic T4's and HELMs.
High-end Unity
New Dynamis Mega Bosses

Of these three things, only one has a timer already ticking when the alliance is buffing. The first two can pre-buff at their leisure. The very first benefits from unlimited temporary items to hit an 11 or multiple 11s if necessary. The last exists in an event that over-all benefits from 5/5 WS.

Everything else is slightly weaker. Even the highest setting for Ambuscade is ilvl 139. Other options are even lower than that. So, let's look at Ambuscade again. Between each battle, one can simply shuffle over to a Nomad Moogle and reset regular JA's, so SE, CC and RD will always be available for use at the start of a battle, regardless of its ease.

It is abundantly clear that the unique benefit available from merits is duration.
Look beyond that rush of satisfaction one might get when rolling an 11, as if you HQ'd that SAM roll synth.

i know it’s way more complicated than that and unless you’re rolling for 11 every time for a zerg or something people would be willing to accept a less than 11 roll. it was just an example of how easy it would be to write if people could agree on whether to double up or not. mathematically it wouldn’t be hard to calculate the odds though.

Found some more mistakes in Roll Values some on BG and some in Rolltracker. I fixed both and did a push for Rolltracker. I don't feel like making pretty wiki pictures of the before and after but here is a quick and dirty comparison of the changes to roll tracker.
Most of it was Ninja Roll was totally wrong probably never got retested after 2016 updates but a few other changes/mistakes found and updated.



BTW the Warlock's/M.Acc numbers we have on the wiki and in Rolltracker are the number given to us from SE in 2014 but in 2016 it was listed as being updated and I'm starting to really think it lines up with Hunter's and Runist probably would line up with Ninja's.
There actually is some testing on a JP Blog pretty much confirming Roll +, XI, 10 and Lucky number on Warlock's and they line up perfectly with Hunter's. Thinking SE did what they have with GEO and made them = values acc vs macc and evasion vs magic evasion.

Edit: Oh yea I learned something on COR you can get the Job Bonus it seems even just as long as the person is in zone with you. I always figured they had to with roll range or at best 50 yalms(exp range) but nope. So with that info I can have Roll Tracker start accounting for job bonus now it seems.

Edit 2: Also never payed attention enough to notice job bonus will cancel out the bust if they are equal.

P.S. - 5/5 SE or bust :P

So you're saying which gets 5/5 doesn't matter?


I've already said that t4's are a win for Winning Streak. Of course, I also view that as a terrible form of content to make a guide for, as the most common usage of a COR in t4's is roll and drop. Oh what exciting play. Not to mention since most t4's are simply done SMN burn which takes a minute, the extra duration from WS doesn't even factor in the majority of the time...


Again this is only in an ideal world. Last I checked there was this job called a ninja, which uses Mijin Gakure, which occasionally kills your DD in Dynamis. Not to mention there's all sorts of timing issues at hand for this. Are rolls halfway done and you'll need to roll multiple times to refresh them all before mega boss? What if you don't get an 11 for quicker rerolls? What if you bust that crooked and have overall weaker rolls without CC or 11's? So many variables just for that one event.


So again the final argument is...it hardly matters? Again, how is that a great boon to 5/5 WS? The totes unique boon of adding another 52s on the 210s in duration we get from gear is the ***. Do you realize how boring and inconsequential that truly is? It's such a tight window for that 52s to have any impact, and plenty of pros and cons to either side (or, as we've all done a great job of pointing out, really doesn't make a big difference). So for the 50th time, why is there a heavy preference to one instead of a neutral position?

For ls acc swap, regal shouldn't be changed to to hajduk+1 right? you're losing racc/ratt/agi.

as long as your pairing it with a piece of af2/3 regal has more r.acc anyway between 15 from set bonus and the 10 agi.

Full discolsure: I actually prefer WS merits and don't find the debate that interesting.


Fair enough, just running a sim piqued my interested because I don't think there is a commonly accepted rolling strategy beyond Lucky/11 good unlucky/bust bad. My philosophy when rolling, outside of mashing revits in escha, is try to maximize up time on buffs over quality because +roll is a flat buff and washed out the variance from 75 era. This is not backed by anything rigorous beyond waiting for buffs is annoying, downtime for buffs is more likely worse then quality difference, and time spent out of dd position rolling sucks.

In situations where neither matters, neither matters. In situations where one might matter,

Also, I wouldn't say the guide gives a heavy preference. It recommends one option and notes the other as situational. For the situations that stick so heavily in your mind/style of play, use 5/5 SE. If one follows the recommendations throughout the guide, 5/5 WS will likely prove more useful.

This all goes back to how you started playing and got used to playing the job.... If you got into a good rhythm from the beginning and things are flowing nicely than leave it alone. But understand, at some point you are arguing personal preference over legit coded benefit.

The grey area here is intense. If you can maintain 2 capped rolls for your people for the duration of the fight, pick whichever makes you stop flapping your gums on this damn thread. lol

Tough Love ™


The question has been answered for the 50th time as well. I don't think there's a point to go over the pros and cons of each setup after 3 pages of discussion anymore as everyone already posted why they prefer or don't prefer certain setup. And whoever read through the pages and interested in trying them out already got enough information to make the decisions.

So I am just going to address your concerns about the wordings, even though I(and Comeatmebro/Anza) already did that pages ago.

I can understand why* you advocate a neutral position. it's more politically correct to say "X and Y are both equally good. The pros of X is A, Cons is B, the pros of Y is C, cons is D." Then make a long list of different choice comparisons for readers to decide.

But when it comes to the functionality of the guide, some readers may have the tendency to open the guide, skim through everything, pick the fastest merit configuration listed, copy and paste, get it done, without using the brain power to think about why they would do that.

Reading through lines of "pros and cons" of each choice, spend time think it through, then make decisions based on their knowledge about the game, is not these kind of reader would be looking to do, such info is useless to them. If we do not provide the direction, and just be completely neutral, then the guide does not provide the functionality for these type of reader. It would not be so useful for them.

On the other hand, for readers that prefer to read through every pros and cons of each choice, analyze it, then make the best choice based on their circumstances, the guide already provide certain level of pros and cons of each choices. If that's not enough, past 3 pages of debate already provided even more pros and cons of both choices, that there are already enough resources to help those type of readers to make the decisions.

And like Anza or Comeatmebro pointed out, for readers that do not analyze pros and cons before decision making, WS 5/5 is the most obvious choice for them due to its easier to take advantage from it. After 3 pages of argument I haven't seen anyone seriously disagree with that.

Guides being not-completey-neutral has been a practice for long time. Very often we see description like "X is usually better, but in A situation you could already do Y".

For example, in BG-wiki war guide:
https://www.bg-wiki.com/bg/Warrior!_A_Community_Collaborative_Guide

They worded the merit choice like this:


Compare with the SE description:

It basically follows the same principle of "X is recommended, but if situation favors Y, do Y instead". It's a direction that other guide has been following for long time.

Like what I said in the PM, I leaned toward neutral stance at first, because it's more "politically correct" and more likely to make everyone happy. After talking to Arislan and checked how other guides do their wordings, I think it's also reasonable to lean toward WS 5/5 in the guide. It's not about being neutral and objective, it's about the functionality of the guide and providing fast references for those who doesn't want to analyze anything. And I do not have strong aversion to wordings to the point to force my pov on other people, so the wording was kept.

Now if sim shows SE 5/5 being overwhelming superior to WS 5/5, or enough demand for more neutral stance of the wordings, then it would be more reasonable to change. If both are equal/about the same/personal preferences, it's not wrong to lean toward WS 5/5 and make SE 5/5 an alternatives because of reasons listed above.

Anyhow, when it comes to the reasoning behind the choice of wordings, I consider the case closed because I believe this post is as clear as it can be when it comes to explaining the reasons behind the choice of wordings. If you are still not happy, convince other people instead.

"The most damaging phrase in the language is 'We've always done it this way.' " -- Rear Admiral Grace Hopper

This is a new guide, and as much as I dislike Ladyofhonor's abrasiveness, his argument is more than sound enough. And at this stage in the game's life, a more in-depth analysis is not only plausible, it's warranted. Anyone bothering to look things up is concerned enough about the job for the guide to be more than a cursory glance.

When I'm looking at a new job, my single greatest frustration with the guides is that the people who know the most make sooooooo many assumptions about what's evident, or think that they have made a sufficient explanation of "When X >/ Y" or what that really entails. And when you're just learning COR, X >/Y a *lot* more often than if you're experienced, or with a group that is experienced.

Don't do the guide the way everyone else has always done; do it better.

I don't disagree with that you are saying here, at all. And I do not have strong aversion to change the wordings at all.

But it goes back to the functionality of the guide.

We actually removed tons of information that we considered more "advanced" when we wrote it. So you don't see hot shot being mentioned at all(despite I want it to be in there), and ambuscade back section does not include AE back and req back.

Mostly because we wanted this guide to be more "beginner friendly" and leave more advanced/niche stuff for the future, for possibly a more advanced guide for not-beginners. At that point it would be more likely to include indepth strategy to utilize different merit choices. Otherwise we will just have one guide that has everything and too overwhelming for the beginner.

If readers find tons of information about SE 5/5 v.s WS 5/5 useful, then I am all for adding it. If it's something most people probably won't read/don't care, then adding more of them just confuses real beginners, since the guide already provided some information about the pros and cons of each preferences. And it becomes the question about where to draw the line between beginner friendly and advanced information.

I think this ridiculous argument is watering down the fantastic information that was provided via making this guide. I wish we could just roll back the last five pages and /clap for their effort. They in no way, had to do what they did. Move along now people.

Thank you again for your hard work in making this guide.