[Arew]

BuMp, cause I was told to by a fairy.

[Zeosilot]

Hehe, with the prices on these bracelets plummenting out of control I sold my Pallas's for the same price I bought them for (450k) and am waiting for the price on Alky Bracelet's to drop just a little further.

I'd say by... next week they'll be 1.5 - 2 mil. Maybe less... but... you never know. Since the update only 2 have sold (on AH). 3 mil and 2.5 and there's still 4 on the Auction House.

[Kaslo]

None of Sold on our AH since update and 4 are on tho... I have an Alky pop to use when I feel like it tho >.>

[Montgomery]

Thisi s my current equips for Cannonball, opinions / advice would be great :X



Gonna play around with the 8 DEF on Wivre Gorget since it's only 30k~ as opposed to the 200k Tempered Chain, but IDK I was thinking after a few cannonballs, Chiv. Chain might be better for the +str on it?

[Zeosilot]

Uh... look at some of the gear that oher people are using... as well as there sub. I'm not sure what situations you use Cannonball as Blu/Nin but I'm almost certain that your damage #'s can't be overly impressive.

Sub Thf (or even warrior, but Thf is best)
Lose the Dissector
Main hand the Ifrit's Blade
Equip a Genbu's Shield or... Acheron Shield
Not sure for your head, most of the good options are hard to get but: Voyager Sallet, Crimson Mask, or Elite Beret? (I saw someone using the Beret for Cannonball so I can only assume it has better base defense than the Blu AF Head).
Chiv Chain (or even Spike Necklace)


Just looked at your gil. Assuming you're on a budget, the only affordable things I can suggest would be:

Elite Beret, Spike Necklace, and... maybe the Acheron Shield. Everything else you would want/need is HQ or ra/ex and expensive or hard to obtain.

[Montgomery]

the screenshot was for my gear. Not for my sub lol. I dont use the Dissector and such on /thf. I have Archeron waiting on my for 75. I was just posting for the gear suggestions :x

As for what I have thats not equipped in the screenshot:
Chivalrous Chain, Spike Necklace, pretty much everything you noted except the headgears. I'm in a Sky/Sea shell, just being patient until Homam Head drops and such.

[kabamaru]

Hi all
This is my normal def

here with Tavnazian taco and cocoon , protect IV.

This is my cannonball build.

[Kaslo]

Waaaaayy too much Def needs more STR... Cannonball builds should stop at around 600 DEF then max the rest out with STR and VIT

[Star A.D.]

Stop using phalanx rings, for the love of god. For cannonball str>>>vit>>>>>>>>defense. Defense functions as attack for cannonball, not a modifier, so you will not see nearly as much return on it with small amounts of defense opposed to str/vit. Same reason you don't see sam/thf or drk/thf WSing in assault jerkins and other attack+ crap, str+mods are much more important for a single hit critical. Yes you should be upping your defense with cocoon, and defense gear, but that is enough assuming you aren't using gear pieces with 0 def (like voyagers sallet). Your attack function will cap at certain amounts of defense, espicially when your str is so low.

Ideal cannonball gear, as of now:

Main: Wing sword +1
Sub: Acheron shield +1
Ammo: Bibiki seashell (or RSE sachet if elvaan)
Head: Dusk mask (+1)
Neck: Auditory torque
Hands: Alkyoneus's bracelets
Rings: Flame rings/Triumph ring +1s(only hq has defense)
Body: AF
Back: Cerberus mantle (+1)
Waist: Warwolf
Legs: Galliard trousers
Feet: Rutter satabons

[Shukudai]

Cannonball setup:

Ifrit's Blade
Genbu's Shield
Voyager Sallet
Bibiki Seashell
Chivalrous Chain
Suppanomimi (Needs replacing with either Triumph or Heims Earring)
Minuet Earring (Triumph or Heims Earring :x I'm poor)
Magus Jubbah
Pallas's Bracelets
Ruby Ring (Still poor)
Ruby Ring (... Still poor >_>)
Commander's Cape
Warwolf Belt
Magus Shalwar (LS not doin Galliard Trousers for a while)
Heroic Boots (Did I mention i'm cheap too?)

Puts me around 310~ defense, +55 STR +15 VIT, after pure +STR spells with a little bit of support (Magic Fruit, maybe Diamondhide). No STR merits yet, RDM main, so no Blue Magic Skill merits. Just 5/5 Physical Potency that matters for this.

The only thing I get to BLU/THF is Khimaira, I generally replace the Voyager Sallet with Magus Kefiyeh. I've tested the following setups:

Voyager Sallet + NQ Fire Staff
Voyager Sallet + Ifrit's Blade + Genbu's Shield
Magus Kefiyeh + NQ Fire Staff
Magus Kefiyeh + Ifrit's Blade + Genbu's Shield

Swapping in and out Heroic Boots with Marine M Boots (Poor, had to sell ._.) and occasionally Crimson Greaves. Lots of testing with Minne III + IV, or STR Etude x2, or Minne IV + Herculean Etude. Always had Tavnazian Tacos as food, sometimes Protect IV, sometimes Protectra V, but mostly Protect IV.

Results always came back best with:

Magus Kefiyeh + Ifrit's Blade + Genbu's Shield + Minne IV + Herculean Etude.

Using this I've never fell below 800 CASA Cannonball, as long as all buffs were on, mostly 850+, and quite a few 900+. SA Cannonball around 350-450, a few 500. Dia II/III was never on, nor Frightful Roar (I always forget to try ._.)

I'm currently trying to get back Marine M Boots (Usually used for BLU/THF casting only), upgrading my rings and earrings (Should give +5 STR if I upgrade to the best possible, or 4 STR/1 VIT) and trying to locate an Auditory Torque. Money still low, or else i'd replace the Ifrit's Blade with a Wing Sword(+1 someday >_>) I think with that setup, you'd be able to break 1,000 CASA Cannonball's most of the time.

[kabamaru]

ya i can take off phalanx rings no prob i have flame and rajas ring str not problem at all, thnx

[Wraithpk]

Those of you who keep saying the Defense bonus caps at 600 are wrong. The bonus will cap at different values depending on the mob. Maybe for the typical exp mob the bonus will cap at 600, but for HNM's it will cap higher. For a test of this fact, check my post here. For these mobs, the def bonus capped much lower than 600, showing that it's relative to what you are fighting. You want to aim for hitting the cap of the particular mob you are fighting, then stacking on str and vit.

[Kaslo]

Wraithpk :
Those of you who keep saying the Defense bonus caps at 600 are wrong. The bonus will cap at different values depending on the mob. Maybe for the typical exp mob the bonus will cap at 600, but for HNM's it will cap higher. For a test of this fact, check my post here. For these mobs, the def bonus capped much lower than 600, showing that it's relative to what you are fighting. You want to aim for hitting the cap of the particular mob you are fighting, then stacking on str and vit.

Yes it varies, but based on your STR v. mob's VIT

Defense is basicly the Attack Modifier for a normal WS.

600 pretty much covers the "mean" of about what you want. And 600 is "base" (in the sense of Cocoon + Taco on top) It's expected that you would get a Pro IV (75 Def w/ buffs) or Pro V (~93 Def w/ Buffs)

My Cannonball Build now Boasts about +53 STR and +26 VIT (without Food) and with food and cocoon I am at ~625 DEF (will be more when I replace Marine with rutters)

[Wraithpk]

You can't say that, though, it's not going to be 600 for every mob you face. The reason I investigated it was because someone had posted screenshots of them experimenting on Cerberus, they had a bard double minne them and got their defense up to like 940, and they hit Cerb for 2800, whereas using the 600 def model that you are suggesting, they never hit him for more than 1k. So obviously, more than 600 defense is needed to do optimal damage to Cerberus, and I would suspect the same for other HNM like hydra and Khimaira. On a similar note, when I discussed this with a friend of mine, he told me that he had been testing Cannonball on Kirin, and he noticed the damage caps out at around 760 defense on him. So you really can't say "just have 600 defense" because that is not the optimal build for all mobs.

[Starr]

2800 on Cerb really?

[Kaslo]

well yes any buff you can get is nice but if all you focus on is DEF then you will miss out on more DMG from STR/VIT.... STR more importantly.

[Astura]

well looking at the general melee standards its like a curve for damage. atk raises the floor while str raises the max potential (roof). Basicly raising atk over str will net better results in almost any sitaution for general damage. Now let turn this into ws. WS have the general melee damage calculation of atk/str + str/2ndary modifers of ws. Looking at cannonball your both right. YOu need more str to get more max damage but if you raise def then you raise the consitiancy of the lowest damage you get. Your basickly looking at a optimal rate of 2 calculations. you need a high roof (str/vit) but you also need high atk (def here) to back up that str. Sometesting i did a few months ago to compare af pants to vendors slops for sa/casa cannobnball on the same test mob showed that the 6 more def out did 3 vit. Im going to go back out and probly test str vrs def agian to see what i need to reivaulate for my cannonball gear set up. But in the mean time we should try to look what optimal def is needed per each endgame mob and document it with the damage done and str/vit/def rates with buffs. That way we can say for cerebus we want def then stack str/vit and for KB youll want this amount def/str/vit.

[Wraithpk]

Yes, it seems that the defense boost is the most important thing for cannonball, so for best damage you want to cap that ratio first, then go with str and vit.

But in the mean time we should try to look what optimal def is needed per each endgame mob

Exactly. I'm suspecting that the ratio caps at 2.0, so we'll want twice the defense of the mob. Apparently Cerberus has very high defense, so that guy was still having increases in damage up to 940 defense, showing that some mobs we'll need more defense for to do the best damage.

[Astura]

Hmm next time my ls does god's i'll bug them to let me go blu/thf over whm and use minne and see what i can get.

[alabaster]

A few weeks back a buddy, Anatoli, and I were discussing a VIT build for Cannonball. We also were discussing BLU tanking. I made an excel workbook to track the stats. BLU Cannonball / Tank Sheet At the bottom of the screen you move through the tabs (incase people are not familiar with the setup). I included NO RSE as I wanted to make this a baseline. The totals on the Build totals page is missing a bit. The base stats of your character are not present. This is all bonus. When adding base stats from Race and Job I could push to an average defense of 700-800.

Remember some of the gear was selected to help hold hate and tank. So some can easily be changed.