COR/DRK

My static is prepping to start fighting Aminon. We've been advised that we need to /DRK. So in my testing I built out a melee for COR/DRK. Obviously, you'll go into Sortie bosses with a static, but for testing purposes, I went in solo and tested on elementals (since I typically solo those as part of my role). Here's my set; it was almost like having a Kraken Club:

ItemSet 395927

Trusts:
Cornelia
Arcelia I
AAEV
Yoran
Star Sybil

ROLLS:
Samurai Roll
Blitzer's Roll

Rostam Path A (argue with ya momma, it's better than Path B)
Max augments on all equip., including Samnuha. 19% TA, 9% DA, 85 STP (10 from cape).

I'll work on a boss set, but I usually Triple Shot from distance.

Aminon is a TP denial strategy - you won't be meleeing at all. Focus on regain pieces, roller's ring, those Volte gloves that convert damage taken to TP, and so forth.

Also, maximize your lowest possible recast timer on Absorb TP and put some magic accuracy into that set, it's tough to absorb really well on COR.

Much appreciated! The set I posted was for the fights leading up to, but I will definitely take that advice to build my Aminon set.

I'm not seeing any Volte pieces that convert damage to TP.

He means Regal Gloves.

You're going to die on absolutely every basement boss with this set. Our COR uses SB on pretty much every boss, meaning your Rostam won't work. Leaden is terrible on (almost) all of the bosses and Last Stand makes a lot of undesirable SC for a lot of the bosses too, so SB really is your best option 99% of the time.

I've started using Hot Shot quite a lot on C/G bosses, does great damage and avoid walling the BRD whom is on Savage. You can also Hot Shot A/E to great effect, but Savage typically does slightly better. I'm not sure if Savage being a little walled breaks even there, so I still savage A since there's no wall to worry about.

Between the DNC GEO RDM and BRD,on C/G/E while i'm doing hot shots Very often I get Liquefaction skillchains for 20-30k on top of the 60-80k hot shot damage, and occasionally Light Skillchains are available on E via Last Stand, which can land for 40-50k and the light more than makes up for the damage difference had I been on savage instead.

All that being said, this is on a Path B rostam (No, Path A isnt better for melee) with Fomalhaut. And the set OP posted is paper thin, and I'd recommend something more STP focused. I used Malignance head, hands, body, Empy+3 legs, Herc shoes 4TA/30acc Aug.

EDIT: before it's brought up, yes Hot Shot misses some of the time, but on Marine Stewpot with just Honor march (since madrigals dont help) and typically a distract 3, I've had very few misses. Maybe 1 a run?

To double down on the paper set not being advisable, when my group starts our run and we split up to do objectives, I solo B (fire elementals x5) as well as the porxie. At the start when I'm giving bolters/sam, and the brd is doing songs, we've started having the Geo Entrust Regen to me, because the Cor is the only player by themselves that cant heal, and the Fire Elementals typically nuke you down to yellow or orange easily without any healing.

You can typically kill all 5 within the time limit of Triple Shot. Open with a ranged attack > leaden > melee to 1k to Wasp Sting > melee to 1k to leaden and its dead. You can water shot to make up the difference or if your triple shot misses. Specifically Wasp Sting because /drk doesn't get viper bite. I only keep samurai roll on myself, and I dont advise Blitzers due to the reduction in TP as previously mentioned in the other thread you posted this set in. Also not necessary to waste the time doing a 2nd roll. You should have haste2 and honor march anyway.

I assume you use regen II from the RDM as well, usually in a hybrid set that's enough to get by

Yeah but better safe than sorry. The Geo typically doesnt need entrust while paired with the Dnc doing ghosts. We prebuff outside with crooked natty roll. The point was wearing paper would be extremely unwise, when you need some form of Regen already in a full hybrid set.

RDM and DNC to corses + GEO to A shard sped us up in the shard split. Recommend. If you're doing 9 on farm your GEO should be more than capable to handle A solo.

Care to explain where the time save comes from? Our RDM is usually 2nd to finish his objectives after the COR.... and he gets the extra few kills for the metal (@ Acuex)

The DNC/RDM can do Corpse with silence which are closer. The GEO can do A at a similar speed as a RDM. Metal doesn't matter, A is melting in a 9/9 group and only the PLD will get a poison stack.

Not saying it really matters, but its 100 more points for free essentially if they're faster than D group anyway. Plus clearing taint off people in transit just makes it more comfy whether you're running through C or G. Our C group warps to B bitzer, thru the wind/thunder elementals diagonally to the ghosts (after widescanning for Bhoot). Geo can dispelga ice spikes and they melt all the same. I also think very early on we had an incident where they were doing Corse but someone ate a charm somehow, and we've never gone back.

We do DCBA > Aminion > EGHF so Taint/Poison is never an issues. We kite E to avoid taint altogether.

Maybe our groups overall routes just line up better this way? PLD BRD RDM DNC all warp to C. RDM and dnc do corses right near by. PLD and BRD go west/southwest to do fomors in the hallways to avoid major links. By the time rdm and dnc kill 3 corse and run toward where the PLD and BRD are, D is just finishing and we jig everyone for movement speed and meet at D boss. GEO goes south from start, COR does the B thing, everyone gets to D right around the same time. On our best runs we engage D at 55~ with all 4 shards in hand.

Username checks out.

I think optimum 9 boss route is

Aminon > E > KI farm > start device > A > B > C > D > G > H > F

This guarantees the usage of everyones 2 hrs twice regardless of Wild Card outcome. SV on H and F bosses as well.

That makes sense.

We typically need a CC3+ on our BRD to guarantee SV for F and H. Any number allows SV for Aminon and H. If we get a 1/2 we just double marcato F and SV H. If we get a 3+ we SV H, WC then do F.

Forgive me for being unclear. This set is for objectives leading up to the bosses (specifically, soloing elementals, Porxie, Abdella, and Bhoot). It's not for the bosses or Aminon themselves.

I typically do this on wind elementals instead of Fire (just a personal preference). I have not gone on an Aminon run with COR, as my static prefers I tank (our main tank and I occasionally swap jobs). During regular runs with SCHs, we get Embrava at the start. I never go into the Yellow fighting elementals. Leaden > Viper Bite > Leaden for the kills. If Porxie happens to be in the area, I'll kill it. If it's deeper in with the Umbrils, I'll put it on wide scan for later.

I stand on Path A being better when soloing elementals. 50% chance of double damage and +25 STP all the time is better than a 50% chance at a follow-up attack, especially when the offhand dagger and the rest of my set already has Triple and Quad attack (when /NIN...but also better with /DRK). I've tested this based on other people suggesting I go with path B. The kills are simply faster. Maybe not by much, but enough that I notice it. Moreover, I have tried STP sets (i.e., Malignance). I have found that the multi-hit sets with STP where I can fit it in just work better for me. They both work, but to kill (I believe 3) elementals in under 30 seconds, multi-hit is better.

Lots of us love PathA Rostams....and most who do eventually realize the reason pathB's are more common is because its just simpler to make TP sets one can live in with Malignance gear+a PathB vs Adhemar gear+a PathA, since at the end of things the two set options end up in some form of those two variants.

Your ideas aren't wrong- they're just overtly risky for not enough benefit to justify that risk....so most of us are gonna be much more comfortable parsing 2% less per minute, but living longer with less support.

This is just math, anyone can just plug in the numbers and figure out the amount of TP you will gain per round on average in both sets.

What makes you think that 25% of BASE TP would be worth more than 100% more TP every other round, calculated after all the other STP on your gear?

When you're meleeing for like...50 damage per hit (because of the massive PDT elementals have) the 50% chance to do double damage on your auto-attacks is 100% irrelevant. They die from WS and SC, not from your auto-attacks doing DOUBLE their 2-digit damage.

Here are some numbers, guess which one is better:
TP from meleeing with no STP gear on: 63
No STP gear, but STP Rostam: 78
STP gear and MA Rostam: 114
STP gear and STP Rostam: 130

Which do you think is better, 130 TP/hit, or 50% chance to get 114 TP and 50% chance to get 228 TP? I'll give you a hint, (114+228)/2 = 171

edit: I see you said you're triple shotting. If you're using triple shot obviously STP is better, but that's only for a minute so once that wears off, it's 100% undeniably better for a meleeing COR to use path B Rostam.

Here's the math with your set (I corrected the TA/DA numbers). 20% TA, 22% DA, 60 STP means:

100 TP/hit
20% chance of triple attack (300 TP)
~17.6% chance of double attack (200 TP)
62.4% chance of single hit (100 TP)
Average TP/round (no Rostam): 158~

STP Rostam:

116 TP/hit
20% chance of triple attack (348 TP)
~17.6% chance of double attack (232 TP)
62.4% chance of single hit (116 TP)
Average TP/round: 183~

MA Rostam:

100 TP/hit
10% chance of triple attack+FUA (400 TP)
10% chance of triple attack (300 TP)
~8.8% chance of double attack+FUA (300 TP)
~8.8% chance of double attack (200 TP)
31.2% chance of single hit+FUA (200 TP)
31.2% chance of single hit (100 TP)
Average TP/round: 208~

Have the forums not learned by now that Galkapryme just doesn't really know what they are talking about?

I dont think he did. He said 3 months ago, that he triple shot the bosses I believe.

Now he obviously should said it, because triple shot is the way to go for everything he mentioned there (and it will last for the whole thing), including elementals and then path A has obviously way more sense.

For melee+rangedWS on COR/RDK, pathB is generally better, but less than you think. In case of the difference you can see in your calculation for MA set (25TP per round advantage for pathB), you need to remember that for Leaden Salute pathA will have a 40TP higher TP return on WS itself. So it will take 2 rounds for pathB to even start gaining any advantage. For /NIN when pathB has even smaller TP per round lead, it might actually break even in most realistic scenarios.

In the calculators/sims, I cannot come up with a scenario where Rostam path B beats path A. Path A seems to be all around better unless you specifically picked path B for subtle blow. I have done full glass cannon sets and a turtle set and everything in between, varied buffs and targets. I used the DPS spreadsheet (path A superior DPS) and Izanami's Python based simulator (path A superior TP gain). I'd love to be proven wrong.

What subjob? Dual wielding puts pathB in worse position than /DRK, because it's relatively much less of an improvement to go from like 3.1 attacks per round to 3.6 attacks per round with dual wield, than 1.55 attacks per round to 2.05 while single wielding.

Yeah you're right. I was thinking about dual wielding. I threw something in the DPS spreadsheet, single wield /DRK, hybrid set. Path B pulled ahead. Glass cannon set Path A still won. Glad to see that.

I just put my TP/WS sets for Leaden into the Izanami DPS calculator and it said Path B did more DPS, more WS damage, and higher WS damage.

Edit: whoops, I had COR/DRK but dual wielding. Fixed screenshots with COR/NIN. Path B still ahead.

Top is path B, bottom path A




Bonus, path B then path A with Nusku Shield and COR/DRK: