Dbl attack or Berg/Aggr for 2 handed WAR?

[Zeoaesir]

Like many, I capped merits in both Berserk + Aggressor. This seemed optimum for dual wield. I've been contemplating switching aggressor to dbl attack. The reason for this is the lower need for /ja accuracy. Have any of you made this switch yet? If you have, what are your feelings on this. I need to get Imperial standing for a possible future Perdu Voulge, so will have merits going a begging.

 

[rabidsquirrel]

If you put merits into Gaxe I think aggressor would loose some of its appeal. Double attack is pretty sweet and I have found it to be far more usefull than my merits i have into aggressor. I am in the process of making the switch and have no regrets so far. I am however curious as to other peoples opinion on the subject.

 

[Reko]

4 DA, 3 Berserk and 3 Aggressor FTW ^^
With sushi while dual wielding and meat for GA, you're fine.

 

[CmdrFly]

After the change I've been thinking about dumping my Aggressor merits and going 5 DA, 5 Berserk.

 

[Zeoaesir]

After the change I've been thinking about dumping my Aggressor merits and going 5 DA, 5 Berserk.

I've not noticed a huge amount of 'whiffing' when Aggressor is down, so I think I'll dump the aggressor and go 5 dbl attack.
I use meat everywhere now. Not dipped below 89% anywhere at any time so far.

 

[jamal]

After the change I've been thinking about dumping my Aggressor merits and going 5 DA, 5 Berserk.

With Haidate yes. Without no. Merits aren't blanketed, you have to use them to enhance strengths and minimize weaknesses. Question 1 should be are GA merits capped, as that would be the #1 thing to have done first.

Your other accuracy gear comes into question as well. Fire bomblet is a great place to get a good chunk of accuracy for a relatively low price. PCC/Sea Gorget is a must to remove aggressor.

While Haste+ and DA+ are the biggest enhancers to overall damage, without plateauing (new word) accuracy first any enhancements to them are lessened. PM or reply with your setup and more accurate advice can be given.

 

[Itachiii]

Imo it all depends on what you are fighting. Merit lvl mobs barring THF class DA merits would benefit you more. Stuff like gods I think it would be a toss up but Aggressor may help more. I didn't find my acc to be horrible on them but I was missing more than I would like to.

When I have my GA out I have +32 acc and +20 DEX when TPing not counting my sub. My merits are 3/3 Bergressor 4 DA and 4 GA and I'm happy with that atm cause I use my WAR for all sorts of things. I also find that Dual wielding outdoes the GA when /NIN so you may want to hold onto some of your Aggressor merits. Unfortunately I can't test any of this cause I'm on PS2.

 

[jamal]

I also find that Dual wielding outdoes the GA when /NIN so you may want to hold onto some of your Aggressor merits. Unfortunately I can't test any of this cause I'm on PS2.

The biggest factor in Dual vs. 2-hand I've found is crit. hit plateau. The damage difference can be made up for by having a higher percentage of critical hits. More attacks means more criticals, which bumps up dual-weilding further with a haste/crit setup. Ive recently started experimenting with an extremely high dex base on both TP and more importantly WS.
TP Gear (with sushi)
66+35 -- just over the 100 mark where Crit's become more noticeable
WS gear- 66+50 -- Way over the 100 mark. My rampages are consistantly hitting for huge numbers because crit's proc at least once on every rampage.

With Great axe the critical hit % would be the same, but with not attacking as much, you lose out on the number of criticals, so it would lose out to dual-weilding.

 

[Necrosis]

With 2h I don't see the point for Aggressor unless you, like, wear no acc at all? I'm a dual wielder with meat and I rarely have acc problems on anything barring Lurkers.

 

[jamal]

With 2h I don't see the point for Aggressor unless you, like, wear no acc at all? I'm a dual wielder with meat and I rarely have acc problems on anything barring Lurkers.

A real WAR would save tp to full-break the lurker right off the bat

More to the point though, the mage-type mobs you'd be fine on with lower lvls of accuracy, but any of the melee type mobs, especially the NIN's and THFs could be chain-enders for two reasons:

1. The first time through it takes you vastly longer to kill them and you lose chain.

2. The second time through because it took you so long to kill the first time you have to wait even longer for the pop to appear. When it finally does appear, unless everyone has tp, you're severely at risk for losing the chain.

 

[Itachiii]

The biggest factor in Dual vs. 2-hand I've found is crit. hit plateau. The damage difference can be made up for by having a higher percentage of critical hits. More attacks means more criticals, which bumps up dual-weilding further with a haste/crit setup. Ive recently started experimenting with an extremely high dex base on both TP and more importantly WS.
TP Gear (with sushi)
66+35 -- just over the 100 mark where Crit's become more noticeable
WS gear- 66+50 -- Way over the 100 mark. My rampages are consistantly hitting for huge numbers because crit's proc at least once on every rampage.

With Great axe the critical hit % would be the same, but with not attacking as much, you lose out on the number of criticals, so it would lose out to dual-weilding.

That's what I noticed with Raging Rush. It did get somewhat of a boost because it is a crit based WS but with it only being a 3 hit WS the chance of criting is alot lower than Rampage (6 hit when dual wielding, which also means higher chance of DA going off). You will get some very nice numbers on RR on occasion but it is not as consistent as Rampage.

This is why I stick to SC and a Martial Bhuj when /SAM. Can't go wrong with SC never dipping below 700, easily averaging well over 1k and topping off somewhere in the 2k region when going at 200TP.

 

[Zeoaesir]

With Haidate yes. Without no. Merits aren't blanketed, you have to use them to enhance strengths and minimize weaknesses. Question 1 should be are GA merits capped, as that would be the #1 thing to have done first.

Your other accuracy gear comes into question as well. Fire bomblet is a great place to get a good chunk of accuracy for a relatively low price. PCC/Sea Gorget is a must to remove aggressor.

While Haste+ and DA+ are the biggest enhancers to overall damage, without plateauing (new word) accuracy first any enhancements to them are lessened. PM or reply with your setup and more accurate advice can be given.

Thank You

I don't mind it being in open. Open discussion is what takes us forward

Great Axe Is capped (along with all the usual WAR merits)

Weapon : Byakko's Axe - omw to Perdu Voulge (should get by December)
Grip : Pole Strap
Ammunition : Fire Bomblet
Head : W Turban / Adaman Celata
Body : Hauberk+1 / N Body (access to Osode)
Neck : PCC
Waist : Swift Belt / Warwolf
Ear1 : Brutal
Ear 2 : Assault
Ring 1 : Snipers / Flame
Ring 2 : Rajas
Hands : Dusk / N Hands
Back : Forager's Mantle
Legs : B Haidate
Feet : Unicorn / Amir

 

[jamal]

Thank You

I don't mind it being in open. Open discussion is what takes us forward

Great Axe Is capped (along with all the usual WAR merits)

Weapon : Byakko's Axe - omw to Perdu Voulge (should get by December)
Grip : Pole Strap
Ammunition : Fire Bomblet
Head : W Turban / Adaman Celata
Body : Hauberk+1 / N Body (access to Osode)
Neck : PCC
Ear1 : Brutal
Ear 2 : Assault
Ring 1 : Snipers / Flame
Ring 2 : Rajas
Hands : Dusk / N Hands
Back : Forager's Mantle
Legs : B Haidate
Feet : Unicorn / Amir

You should have no problem at all with full DA/Berserk Merits. WAR's role in HNM fights is usually tp'ing before a big opening SC anyway, so you'll have aggressor available to you then when you need it.

If I were you, I'd definately hit up the DA+Zerk

 

[Itachiii]

Thank You

I don't mind it being in open. Open discussion is what takes us forward

Great Axe Is capped (along with all the usual WAR merits)

Weapon : Byakko's Axe - omw to Perdu Voulge (should get by December)
Grip : Pole Strap
Ammunition : Fire Bomblet
Head : W Turban / Adaman Celata
Body : Hauberk+1 / N Body (access to Osode)
Neck : PCC
Waist : Swift Belt / Warwolf
Ear1 : Brutal
Ear 2 : Assault
Ring 1 : Snipers / Flame
Ring 2 : Rajas
Hands : Dusk / N Hands
Back : Forager's Mantle
Legs : B Haidate
Feet : Unicorn / Amir

With that setup if you plan on never dual wielding again I would definitely drop aggressor merits for full DA merits. If you are doing lets say Byakko and you are not happy with your accuracy you can always just eat sushi which would be more than enough. Or grab a BRD or COR for some acc buffs and you're golden.

 

[Rappa]

Unless you're just a fan of redoing your merits over and over, you should keep dual-wield in consideration when you merit war too. I mean no war used 2h until this sudden unexpected update. You never know when another update will suddenly bring dual-wield back into vogue. I mean we do have an expansion right around the corner that will assuredly be bringing new gear into the game, might be some badass axe or something awaiting.

 

[jamal]

Unless you're just a fan of redoing your merits over and over, you should keep dual-wield in consideration when you merit war too. I mean no war used 2h until this sudden unexpected update. You never know when another update will suddenly bring dual-wield back into vogue. I mean we do have an expansion right around the corner that will assuredly be bringing new gear into the game, might be some badass axe or something awaiting.

That's been a constant problem though since the beginning of merits you can't really get over unless caps are raised :/ As much as I'd love to dump the AGG for DA I can't really, but oh how I'd love if this cap were raised like the combat skills.

 

[Zeoaesir]

You should have no problem at all with full DA/Berserk Merits. WAR's role in HNM fights is usually tp'ing before a big opening SC anyway, so you'll have aggressor available to you then when you need it.

If I were you, I'd definately hit up the DA+Zerk

I normally go BLM endgame. Your point about not needing a long lasting Aggressor is valid.
Gonna get 10 merits before I switch anything. 10 will give me 4 raises straight off the bat. Don't want a messy handover.

 

[Mishaela]

Unless you're just a fan of redoing your merits over and over, you should keep dual-wield in consideration when you merit war too. I mean no war used 2h until this sudden unexpected update. You never know when another update will suddenly bring dual-wield back into vogue. I mean we do have an expansion right around the corner that will assuredly be bringing new gear into the game, might be some badass axe or something awaiting.

I dunno, I always thought Juggernaut and Maneater were pretty damn good in comparison to the weapons some other jobs get, with the exception of Blau Dolch. It's be pretty hard to make an axe with better base/support stats than either axe without making Guttler completely obsolete, which I'm sure would have a few people complaining (albeit I'd not mind, personally...)

 

[hellstorm]

4 DA, 3 Berserk and 3 Aggressor FTW ^^
With sushi while dual wielding and meat for GA, you're fine.

I did same with him split 6 merits in zerk, agg and place 4 in DA. Give you a nice middle ground for GA and axe. Now if only war. Charge had a lower cast time.

 

[rabidsquirrel]

Ok as long as we have some much WAR knowledge in one place, I have been debating putting some merits into category 2 merits but I can not decide which one I should use. From what I have seen only Warriors Charge looks worth a damn, but even that is only marginally useful. Does anyone have any suggestions?