Hours spent:
Wed: 6PM-11PM
Thurs: 6PM-11PM
Fri: 4PM-1AM
Sat: 12PM-1AM
Sun: 8AM-4PM
That's what it took from a time standpoint to finish up Trial 1040. For those sucky with math, that would be 40 hours. Yes, I practically spent an entire workweek upgrading an item I already spent an entire year of my life sitting in my mog house completing. That doesn't even include the time I spent in Trial 1039. I get that SE wants you to spend time with their game and all, but adding that after the amount of time necessary to finish the weapon in the first place is just dumb.
Huge thanks to Kaylea, Drakus, Lectrikelion and Mav for spending huge chunks of time with me to make this go faster. I likely wouldn't be finished with this until the end of summer at the solo pace.
Just to recap:
Trial 1040 requires me to use Geirskogul to land the killing shot on anything classified in the lizard family. Sounds easy enough right?
On paper it is. Certainly these critters aren't hard to kill, but it's what isn't on paper that makes this maddening.
For starters, I'm swinging a weapon against creatures that don't have enough HP for me to really build up TP, use a WS, build up TP then finish it off with Geirskogul. So this means I'm essentially forced to just whittle down the targets with normal melee swings.
As it gets closer to the 10% mark, I would fire Geirskogul. Upon firing one of the following things would happen:
1. Target would die and I'd get credit towards trial.
2. Geirskogul would miss.
3. 2.5x Damage would kick in and kill before I could fire my WS.
4. Geirskogul's humongous damage range would prevent me from getting the kill shot.
5. I'd get petrified (Baleful Gaze, yes I know you can turn away and I did most of the time) and Qiqiru would finish off the lizard before I could get disengaged.
Conversations with most relic owners will show that it would seem the relic WS's have a higher rate of missing than most other WS. That or maybe I'm just spoiled by all the multi-hit WS I use. Despite it's animation appearance, Geirskogul is a 1-hit WS.
Number 3 wasn't a huge issue, but always seemed to show up when I was on a particularly bad stretch of Crapskoguls happening.
Number 4 was, by far, the most maddening out of all of these possibilities. The same TP return for Geirskogul presents a damage range anywhere between 350-1200 on the lizards and raptors I was fighting out in Teriggan. I would usually try to have a Daedaleus Wing handy from the chests and hope that I could get it slept (with Airybreeze as my mule) long enough for me to use it and finish it off with the wing. This wasn't the case most of the time this happened. Usually it'd have just enough HP left to kill itself on my Shock Spikes or enough for Qiqiru to finish it off in one blow.
At any rate, for the third time (original, trial 1039, trial 1040):
That photo turned out a lot larger and crappier than I thought it would. Gogo iPhone camera...
Between trial 1039, 1040 and minimal effort in campaign to rank up, I pretty much went from start to finish in capping Desperate Blows on DRK from the XP I picked up. That would be 22 merits primarily just from 2 Magian trials. If that alone isn't any indication how much of a time sink these things are, I don't know what is.
Campaign
Been working on the medals for this since Fiat Lux happened the past week and the allied ring is available. Picked up {Wings of Honor $ $ $ $} late Sunday night, so I should be able to get an Allied Ring at some point Friday evening or Saturday morning.
I enjoyed Campaign when it first came out. The main pros for it are generally along the lines of it being a way to kill that down time while seeking a party and because there are genuinely some good pieces of gear you can get from it. The primary con, and the main reason I stopped caring about my medals, is the whole 30-day bullshit SE implemented. To be fair, I thought the 30-day stuff was crap when they first released campaign, but I didn't mind it as much as I do now.
Campaign is the only thing in the game you have to maintain in order to participate in various events associated with them (Splitting Heirs and Fiat Lux being the 2 primary ones). I get why they implemented it, but it's a really poor way to keep people interested and paying their monthly subscriptions. When this started feeling more like a chore instead of a game, I stopped caring. At one point, I had the Starlight Medal. By the time Fiat Lux came out in late March, I had fallen 4 ranks.
I can't really say I'm motivated now to get the top rank specifically for Fiat Lux as I'm not overly excited about the gear itself. Given these are the final ranks, I'm just going to get up to the top and hopefully have the patience to maintain it so that I can participate in the XP loss with my friends whenever they need me.
Subjobs
After an old man nap upon completing Trial 1040, I came back to find that Gawayne was seeking someone to replace a member of his subjob party in E.Ron_S. I needed a couple more levels on SAM, so I joined them. I popped my Emp. Ring and one charge from my Anniversary ring and killed level 47-50. This got me to thinking a little bit more about what subjobs I actually need to finish up.
For DRG, SAM and WHM are pretty much the only two that I ever use and I can't see that changing much. RDM or BLU might become more prevalent, but I'm still not sold on them as full time subjobs when WHM offers so much more in terms of self-preservation. WAR becomes somewhat tempting with the ability to use Bergressor in tandem, but it's not a deal breaker as Hasso is essentially the same thing. DRG is pretty much done.
For WHM, I'm not completely sure I want to even level this past 75. I may do it out of sheer boredom one day, but given my feelings on the job in general (despite the fact it's max-merited), I just can't see myself using this job enough for me to dump more time into it.
For PLD, I gotta do WAR, NIN and RDM. All 3 of these are at 37. This job, unfortunately for the most part, is going to force me to level subs that would come in handy with my other jobs in niche situations. The exception here being RDM will turn WHM into a juggernaut.
DRK pretty much goes along the lines of DRG. The only other exception here is THF. This brings my tally of subjobs to level to 4. WAR, NIN, RDM and THF. All of these are 37. With the Gungnir trials out of the way and with my minimal participation in campaign, hopefully I can knock a couple of these out each week and be done with subjobs entirely before the June update hits.
Anyway, still working on a complete breakdown of the Noct helm and Noct body as it compares with other items in those slots for the jobs that can use them. Hopefully that's done sometime this week...
Aren't you working on BLM also? You'll need RDM for that and maybe SCH (though I'll be the first to admit the only times I've subbed it have been for shiggles).
ReplyDeleteI had BLM on my list of New Year's resolutions to level, but with the increasing level cap, I'm not sure I'm going to have the time to level it with all the other responsibilities and interests I have currently.
ReplyDeleteI'd like to level it, but it's not at the forefront of thoughts atm.
What gear are you using to get such a wide damage range on Geirskogul? Did you eat any attack food or get minuet from a BRD? I've been ranging 900-1600 on those same lizards and raptors. My Geirskogul set is on my FFXIAH profile, and I've been eating Bison Steak for attack and lizard killer and using my BRD mule for Minuet4/March2. Attack/Defense has always been the thing I've noticed that determines whether or not my Geirskogul will suck.
ReplyDeleteI've been taking 1040 pretty slow compared to 1039 which I blazed through in 2.5 days. After 5 days I still have 785 to go on 1040. I kind of burned myself out on 1039 so I'm only shooting for ~100 WS/day. Congrats on finishing the first set of trials!
Carbuncle.Xanthe
For 1040, I ate a variety of different foods. Coeurl Subs, Carbonara, Chiefkabobs, and Yellow Curry Buns mostly. No pocket BRD to use, just a pocket RDM. Even still with your buffs, you've got a huge damage range, it just starts higher, ends higher and is narrowed by about 150pts (assuming you're seeing the same TP return throughout that range).
ReplyDeleteFor a single hit WS, that damage range ridiculously huge. I've never seen Wheeling Thrust vary by more than a couple hundred points by comparison.
As for the gear I was using in comparison to what's on your profile at the moment. I use Champion's Galea (WS Acc+15, STR+4, Acc+10, Att+5 augments) instead of Heca Cap. Rose Strap instead of Pole Grip. Ethereal Earring instead of Aesir (on my list to get). Hecatomb Subligar+1 instead of NQ. Aside from a slight diff. in fSTR (due to HecaCap), we're pretty much the same gear-wise.
If I had to guess, I'd say the major differences are:
A) you have a BRD.
B) Mithra vs. Elvaan DEX and AGI. Elvaan DRG is super LOL in both regards.
My range is probably more like 900-1300 if you factor out any double attacks, so it does seem my pocket BRD is indeed the culprit for having the much narrower range. Even on a WS like Drakesbane I've found that attack is a real clincher between sucking or destroying.
ReplyDeleteYour observed narrower range for Wheeling Thurst is easily explained by its defense-ignoring property, in effect giving it a pDIF boost via a better attack/defense ratio. People laugh that I use it situationally, but it really does shine on those occasions my ratio is bottoming out.
I'll concede the Mithra advantage for the bottom line. I've never regretted that choice, despite the lower STR. While Mithra has a STR penalty of 8 under Elvaan, worse off is Elvaan's DEX penalty of 10 and AGI penalty of 9 under Mithra, and STR is much more plentiful on equipment that has other worthwhile stats. If I could land a Nocturnus Helm the next time we get Fiat Lux on Carbuncle I would use that for Geirskogul instead of Hecatomb Cap in a heartbeat, possibly even for Drakesbane.
One advantage of my narrower damage range is that I'm reliably killing lizards from ~25% and raptors from ~18%. So unless I manage to pull out a freak double attack with 2.5x procs on both hits, I can kill a little faster.
I don't think it misses any more than any other WS, just that it's more notifiable when it's all or nothing. I'll go with the placebo effect from using all of those multi-hit WS. Of course those misses are nowhere near as rage-inducing as trial 1039 on leeches when they decide to use TP Drainkiss back to back to back immediately after you hit 100% TP. Killshot requirement aside, lizards are heaven in comparison. I can only imagine what hoops they will jump us through for our next enhancement.
TP Drainkiss was very rage inducing and always seemed to happen when I was @ or near 100TP...
ReplyDeleteWheeling Thrust is my favorite standby WS if the normal ones aren't doing any good. A lot of people don't realize that consistent damage is better than the occasional eye-popping spike damage over the long haul if the terms necessitate it.
Noct Helm has me pretty convinced it's the best WS hat out there despite the slight hit fSTR will take from using it. Most friends won't listen to that logic. Same sort of logic that was applied when I busted out the Champion's Galea.
"That'll never outparse a hecacap."
I didn't have the highest WS damage (was off by 100pts...), but I won the parse and likely would have won it handily.
I'd stop Trial 1040 until the update happens unless you're super bored. I suspect they're going to drop the required number rather substantially. If they do, I'll probably rage hard enough to equate to all the rage I had during the trials themselves.
Eh, as overkill as things will be if I finish before the update I'm making a killing in merit points to finish off my SCH as well as improve my pocket BRD, not to mention the few hundred thousand gil in NPCables, AHables, and strait gil from FoV. I prefer to think of it as forced farming to refill my coffers after finishing this lance while still accomplishing some other goals. If the number goes down, I'll be happy that at least they will have most-likely reduced the new trials from what they could have been. How about 15,000 damage inflicted from Shock Spikes?
ReplyDeleteThat was the other thing that kind of frustrated me about 1040. The chests kept distracting me. XD
ReplyDeleteI did make a nice chunk of change and xp across both trials, which I'm not really complaining about, but I could have made the same amount of xp in about 1/5 of the time and a lot more money in the same amount of time. Speaks more to my "one thing at a time" mentality than anything else.
If the next trial is anything related to insane shock spikes damage, don't be surprised if Gungnir stays at DMG 107 and I upgrade Oathkeeper or bust out my V.Fork on a permanent basis. :)