[Cosmos]

Sub jobs:
So you just hit DRG 75, the first thing you are going to need to know is which sub job is best in what situations. Put simply, SAM sub is going to be the answer to this 99.9% of the time and the very few situations where WAR or THF sub job are going to be more beneficial are far too uncommon to warrant a write up so there is your answer; SAM.

Food:
So food... you should NEVER use any form of Sushi at any point at 75, for Greater Colibri which will most likely be the main mob you find yourself killing at DRG 75 you are best to use cheap Meat Mithkabobs or Ceourl Subs because they can and will steal them very often, for Mamools and Trolls and low evasion, higher level enemies Red Curry is the best food but far too expensive for every day use so your next best bet is Hedgehog Pie which is 90 cap, 5 STR and 5 Accuracy, failing that you should use Bison Steak for +90 Attack, +5 STR. For all situations past the difficulty of Merits, Limbus and city Dynamis, or for those who can't get 8 Polearm merits I will suggest Marinara Pizza/+1 which gives +50/55 Attack and +10/11%=+30-40 Accuracy but no STR like other foods, this will allow you to keep hit rate capped and give you some nice Attack bonus.

Merits:
First of all you should merit Polearm to 8/8 then Critical Hit Rate 4/4; next you should do STR to 5/5 and for the most damage, which this guide focuses on, merit Jump and High Jump to 5/5. On Group 2 merits, max Angon to 5/5 then do whatever with the other choices because none really directly increase your damage output.


TP:

Accuracy..... and Store TP, Haste, DA....
First and most important of ALL in TP gear is that you get and can maintain a 6 hit build, this means it takes only 6 hits or one WS and 5 hits to reach 100 TP, this is done by assuming you will connect at least 1 hit on your WS which is what you should really be aiming for or higher on merit mobs at least. With a 492 delay polearm it takes 26 tptal Store TP15 Store TP from SAM sub job, 5 from Rajas that you will full time, 1 from Brutal which you will full time then an additional 2 from elsewhere which can be either Valyrie's Fork (3), White Tathlum (2), Askar Korazin (5) or Aurum Cuirass (8) because as I will soon show you, all your other slots will be spoken for if you aim for the ideal as you should.

Second is Accuracy, yes a free +22 accuracy from traits is beautiful and all but no, you will not always cap accuracy in all situations as I will show you. Accuracy caps at 95% hit rate and cannot go below 20% but what should you aim for and what's worth giving up
other stats for to gain accuracy? Well ideally you should aim for at least 90% Accuracy, first of all you can calculate your total accuracy by using the formula 200+((skill-200)x0.9)+DEX*0.73+22 (for Accuracy Bonus II trait), and the enemies total evasion
(calculated by Evasion+(AGI/2)+Evasion Bonus/s for THF PUP or DNC enemies) and level because there is a level correction involved also. Then to calculate our Accuracy we must find where we are from 75% Hit Rate, which is what you will have when Accuracy is equal to the mob's evasion after a level correction has taken place. It is found by using the
formula Accuracy=Evasion+((MobLevel-75)*4). So for a Lv82 Greater Colibri where Evasion=339, you would need to have Accuracy=339+(7*4)=367 to be at 75% hit rate. From this point you can find your actual hit rate by using the fact that 2 Accuracy=1% hit rate either way from the 75%, so if you have 367 you will have a 76% hit rate, if you have 365 Accuracy total you will have a hit rate of 74%, simple right? So, you need to know the Evasion, job and level value of mobs? Well I can't
really help you here but there are sites out there that will tell you or you can find ways to calculate/evaluate them. As far as merit party mobs go, you can use this site; http://www.mattrocks.net/matt/ffxi/other/e...0in%20merit.txt or this calculator; http://ninjafada.com/ffxi/ to know the values you must reach in order to be around your ideal hit rate. As you can see, Mamool Ja Lurkers take a whole 100 more accuracy than Greater Colibri to cap hit rate so you would have about 50% hit rate on Mammool Ja Lurkers in the same equipment as what you would use for a Greater Colibri. Now what does that tell you? Full timing any set of gear is stupid, lazy and not something you're ever going to do. Well that's enough for now, Accuracy will come up a lot in the rest of the guide.

Third, Haste, now there are many people who really don't understand this value at all, you do not need enough haste to get an extra hit per fight to make it worthwhile at all because it still means faster TP and more WS. Haste increases your rate of attacks and also your TP gain drastically so after you have your 6 hit and your hit rate comfortable you will be going all out Haste. It works like this: Delay=Delayx(100/haste%) and increases exponentially, or put simpler, the more you have the more effective each % of Haste is. This graph displays that:

Haste caps at 80% now but that's irrelevant in every day situations.

Double Attack, well it has very slight diminishing returns in a sense, for example going from 10% DA to 11% DA would result in an increase of 111/110=1.0090=+0.9% attacks rather than +1% of your total attacks before, or going from 20% DA to 21% DA results in
121/120=1.0083=+0.83% attacks before you added the next "1%". As you can see though, it's not something that should ever need to worry about because you'll be subbing SAM and be at 10% at most on TP. Currently in FFXI there are only three pieces of armor that have Double Attack on that you would ever full time, these are Brutal Earring which you will full time, Pole Strap which most of us will full time and Askar Korazin which a lot of you will be using full time to keep your 6 hit due to lack of Valkyrie's Fork or Aurum Cuirass, and one piece that you would use on WS and that's Ares Flanchard but we will come to that later.

Melee damage. . . wut?:
Next of all let us begin to understand the calculations that involve regular melee damage, the widely accepted and used formula is: (D+fSTR)*pDIF where D is your weapon damage found on the weapon in game, fSTR being a function of your STR against the targets VIT that is uneffected by level, and pDIF being a random value between two points determined by your attack divided by the enemies defense after a level correction has taken place. Now as far as weapon damage goes, any polearm that is 75 material is between 91 and 100 damage rating, fSTR will cap (determined by D/9+8) at 18 for all but Gungir which is 19, but what does this mean? Well most merit mobs at 75 are between 65 and 75 VIT and fSTR increases by 1 for every 4-6 STR over the enemies VIT (but closer to 4 as the gap increases) and can be approximated using (STR-mobVIT+4)/4. For example a Greater Colibri has 67 VIT always, so say you have 80 STR in your TP set, you would have (80-67+4)/4=2 fSTR, say + or - 1 because it is an approximation.

Now pDIF is the hardest part to get your head around and it will never be a readily available, calculatable value. I'll try and keep this as simple as possible but that's not easy, so first you must find your "cRatio", this is the term we will use for your attack divided by the enemies defense from now on. All enemies 75+ have between 300 and 400 defense but you must also include a level correction for anything that is above level 75. This is done by using the formula: (attack/defense)-0.05*(mob level-75), for example a Greater Colibri of level 81 has 322 defense and it is 6 (81-75) levels above you, let's say your attack in TP gear at 75 with Meat is 500 (excluding Minuet/s, Chaos Roll and Berserk because you won't be subbing WAR, will you?), your cRatio will be (500/322)-(6*0.05)=1.55-0.30=1.25 cRatio.
Now that you have this value you will have to find a 2handed, post November 2007, pDIF graph, I don't know of a perfect one that exists but please post it if you can so I can add the link, but it is not miles off the olde one which is this:

to get your pDIF range, you must now take your cRatio (labelled "Atk/Def Ratio" here) and follow it up to see the range of values you will have in pDIF, where our example of 1.25 cRatio would give a pDIF of any 2 decimal placed number (1.50, 1.51, 1.53 etc)
between 1 and 1.5 with roughly an equal frequency on all, meaning in 1,000.000 hits you would see very close to 20,000 of each pDIF number occur. Now, as you can see from the graph the minimum pDIF you can have is indeed 0 which is doable by having low attack
and fighting something a lot higher than 75, and the upper cap being 3.00 which is actually 3.15 now for 2 handed melee which is unreachable when not on a critical hit on anything merit level and above. Oh and crital hits simplified for those who don't still know how they work, it gives +1.00 pDIF to the attack, so you would actually cap attack at about 1.75 cRatio and the damage for the hit could be calculated as damage=(D+fSTR)*(pDIFmin+1) to (D+fSTR)*(pDIFmax+1).
A little more on critical hits, well it's a % based on your DEX compared to an enemies AGI, first of all you can never have lower than 5% critical hit rate and never above 20% from DEX/AGI alone, critical hit rate caps at 50 DEX over an enemies AGI. Critical hit rate from mobAGI=DEX to mobAGI+DEX+50 increases exponentially as this graph shows:

Merits (+4% max), Rogues Roll (Var.) and Equipment such as Zahak's Mail (+3%) add on top of this value as a constant %. A DRG that wears good TP gear, not aiming for DEX, and has 4/4 Critical Hit merits will normally lie around 12% Critical Hits in merit parties.

So I hope you can all understand that as it should be the basis you use to decide which equipment is best, although mainly on WS because Accuracy and Haste should be priority on TP. To make that as easy as I possibly can, here is all the value's and examples used in one place for reference:
Mob=Level 81, DEF=322, VIT=67
DRG=Level 75, ATK=500, STR=80, Valkyrie's Fork D95 (dream for most of us).
Damage=(D+fSTR)*pDIFmin to (D+fSTR)*pDIFmax=(95+((80-67+4)/4))*1.00 to (95+((80-67+4)/4))*1.5=97 to 145 damage per hit, but oh let us not forget that Polearm has +25% damage to all flying enemies including Greater Colibri and Sea Puks which are two of the most common merit party enemies, so your actual damage would be 97*1.25 to 145*1.25=121 to 181 damage in the above example. Note that this will get more complex when I get to WS damage.

Weapons and Armor:
ok, now that all the basics are set and you understand why certain pieces are better than others and that full timing equipment is dumb, I will do a slot by slot guide of good pieces of armor to use for TP and their situational uses, done in order of awesomeness.

Weapons:
Gungnir, currently the hands down best weapon to have for all situations.
Ryunohige, very good and could possibly beat Gungnir but noone will know til it's completed.
Valkyrie's Fork, now we're getting more realistic, best weapon pre-relic/mythic and allows for a body other than Askar or Aurum
to be used for TP, so for example you could use Homam and Ares depending on when you need the accuracy or not.
Skystrider, only when paired with Supreme Earring is probably going to be your next best choice, 6 STR and 5 Attack gain, but 2 Accuracy loss compared to using weapon+Assault Earring which I'll come to later.
Thallasocrat, most commonly used at 75, very good weapon with a nice Evasion down bonus and 2 DEX that can help during high Evasion mobs like Mamool Ja Lurkers.
Clentine, with it's Critical Hit Rate+3%, when paired with Claymore Grip and Zahak's Mail on Drakesbane, and only when using solely Drakesbane, although you lose 6 hit and it has a fairly low D it has been shown to parse very well.

Grips:
There are only currently only 2 grips you should ever use, well it's really 1 and maybe the other very occasionally, they are Pole Strap which is awesome as not only does it give 2% more attacks, it increases WS frequency by 1.85%, and Claymore Grip only when combined with Clentine and using solely Drakesbane. Brave grip under no circumstance will outparse either of these grips, do not use it.

Ranged:
There are no Ranged items that DRG can equip that are worth carrying and you'd only ever want to use an Ammo slot item anyway so you can still macro in Angon's without losing TP.

Ammo:
Black Tathlum is the most awesome piece here, followed by Tiphia Sting, nothing else is worth using.

Head:
Ace's Helm is untouchable here but failing that Askar or W Turban are next best situationally, (Askar is generally >W Turban under 50% Haste and vice versa above 50% Haste for example), also always carry Ares Mask if you have it or at least Optical Hat for high evasion mobs.

Neck:
Love Torque is what you should really be aiming for but it's a hard piece to get for most people so failing that use Peacock Charm if you're rich enough then Chivalrous Chain if not.

Earrings:
One Earring will be Brutal and never change, if you can't get it then work towards it til you can, the other will be either Assault Earring or Supreme Earring if using Skystrider polearm, full time.

Body:
Split into a few categories for those who care about a "true" 6-hit build or not and those with Valkyrie's Fork or not. Those with Valkyrie's Fork and the ability to get a "true" 6-hit without using a Store TP body armor or those who don't care about it should aim for carrying Ares Cuirass and Homam Corozza to use situationally, although Aurum is still a very strong piece if you don't have either of the above or you have high accuracy and really do not need the extra from Homam Corozza. Those without Valkyries Fork should use Aurum then Askar to keep their "true" 6-hit if they so choose and for those who don't care about a "true" 6-hit, use Aurum Cuirass full time if you can obtain it or Homam/Ares situationally depending on outside buffs/food/mobs etc.

Hands:
Dusk+1 are THE best TP hands followed by Dusk and Homam which would be a wash, failing them 3 or if the slow movement on Dusk delays your engaging of mobs then Askar are a very good choice also. If possible get Ares hands to carry for when you need the Accuracy.

Rings:
Well one should ideally always be Rajas Ring as it keeps your Store TP set, the other would be Mars' Ring but very few exist, failing that a Blitz Ring will be your next best choice if you have full merits and good Accuracy gear, if not then Toreador/Sniper+1/Divisor Ring, then Ulthalam's Ring or Iota Ring are your best TP choices.

Back:
Cuchulain's Mantle is the ideal piece here because you're not always gonna be capped on Accuracy and there are better slots to lose Accuracy for to gain other stats, Cuchulain's Mantle + Blitz Ring >> Attack back piece + Accuracy Ring for example. Failing this or being at a high Accuracy % before back armor, the next bext options are Cerberus+1>Forager's>Amemet+1>Cerberus.

Waist:
Gonna say Ninurta's Sash is best because although it's currently practically unavailable it may be in the future, following this is Velocious/Speed Belt and then Swift Belt, failing that well, you just fail. Carry always Wyrm Belt or at least Life Belt if you can't get that for when you may need an Accuracy boost.

Legs:
The best legs are Homam, followed quickly by Barbossa Zereh's. If you can get them, always carry Drachen Brais+1 for when you need an Accuracy lift.

Feet:
Homam takes top place again, followed closely by Aurum Sabatons, then Dusk+1 and Dusk. If you're in the position to only be able to have NQ Dusk feet then carry either Ares or Amir feet if you can obtain them.

TP Summary:
Above should be all you need to know about what to wear at 75 DRG for ideal damage, to recap; always have your 6hit (be it either "true" or WS with a couple of hits and 5 melee hits) with good Accuracy (90%+~) before you go for Haste and always have 2 sets of TP armor, one for normal melee and one high Accuracy set for certain mobs that are unavoidable during merits and events like THF NIN MNK and PUP enemies.

WS:
ok now my favourite part, weaponskills. We will start of with more formulas and numbers you must remember but we will only do them for the 2 WS that matter at 75 and they are Drakesbane and Penta Thrust. The standard WS damage formula is as follows:
((D+WSC+fSTR)*pDIF)*fTP but for simplicity and the fact it's irrelevant for said WS we will ignore fTP entirely. The only new term here is WSC, WSC put simply is the total value all of your WS modifiers give. Penta Thrust has modifier's of 20% DEX and 20% STR, Drakesbane has only 50% STR as a modifier, this means that you would get D+1 for every 2 STR on Drakesbane and D+1 for every 5 STR or DEX on Penta Thrust but oh no, SE wouldn't dream of making life that simple. At 75 you must multiply these values by 0.83 to get the correct value that you will actually get. So for example you are using Drakesbane with 100 STR total, you would get (100*0.5)*0.83=41 WSC and say 100 DEX and 100 STR on penta would give ((100*0.2)+(100*0.2))*0.83=33 WSC. On WS we obviously don't need to worry about Store TP build so much, because we will be aiming to most of the time land at least 3 hits on Drakesbane and 4 on Penta Thrust, and not Haste because it doesn't effect WS damage. Accuracy and Double Attack gear are variables you will need to focus on though, as was earlier said you should aim for at least 3/4 hits landing on Drakesbane and 4/5 on Penta Thrust which is about 80% accuracy so you will need to keep accuracy on for these WS and on some mobs even wear mostly Accuracy as damage lost from missed hits would never be able to be made up from modifiers.

STR VS DEX?? STR VS ATTACK?? Accuracy??
All the time people ask stupid questions like this without giving all the details which would be required to answer the question sufficiently; buffs, food, available gear and mob stats are all needed to be able to answer the question correctly. People also like to be
ignorant and make vague statements like x>y always but no, shit is situational.
STR factors into both WS' WSC, fSTR and pDIF from the Attack you gain.
DEX factors into Penta's WSC, Accuracy of both WS and the Critical Hit rate of Drakesbane.
Attack and Accuracy obviously factor into both.
For Penta Thrust; you must first of all account for the extra accuracy from the TP modifier of Penta Thrust leaving you able to equip more STR/Attack, ignore the DEX modifier entirely because it is not worth building on when you only get +((0.20*0.83)*pDIF) damage per one DEX and ~+(((0.20*0.83)+0.25)*pDIF) damage per one STR, also pDIF increases from the Attack gained through the STR at a rate of 1STR=0.73 Attack. For Attack, the only slots you would really change over a Drakesbane set up would be Ares' Cuirass at high accuracy, Assault Earring and Hecatomb Subligar>Ares Legs.

For Drakesbane you must first worry about getting enough accuracy to make it worthwhile using over Penta Thrust, ~80%+, then you must worry about packing STR/Attack OR a high DEX build to increase your critical hit rate. Either way you go, do NOT half ass each and each, DEX set for critical hits ONLY works at a total DEX of 110+ minumum and I would only say it was worth using for Greater Colibri/weaker mobs in all honesty. For every 1 STR you equip for Drakesbane you get ~+((0.5*0.83)+0.25)*pDIF) damage, for every 1 DEX you equip you will get +0.73 accuracy and an increasing critical hit % you can estimate using the graph near the start of the guide if you know the enemies AGI.

WS Equipment:
So now that we understand that we can go into discussion for the equipment we should use for said WS'. Note that your weapon, grip, ammo, and Brutal Earring will always remain constant in WS equipment.

Head:
Your best choice is Hecatomb Cap, followed by Gnadbhod's Helm from the La Vaule [S] BCNM, after that I would argue for Ares Mask, followed by Optical Hat. You should always carry either Optical Hat or Ares if you can for high Evasion enemies though.

Neck:
Love Torque is your safest choice for both WS, and argueably the best choice for Drakesbane, this is followed closely by or beaten ever so slightly by WS Gorgets from Sea which give 8-10 accuracy and +0.1 fTP on the first hit which would add approximately the damage per hit of your WS, which you can calculate multiplied by 0.1. Peacock Charm or Chivalrous Chain, depending on your Accuracy, are your next best choices.

Earrings:
Brutal will be one full time, the other should be Assault Earring for Penta Thrust and either Triumph Earring or Pixie Earring for Drakesbane depending on which route you are gonna equip to. Obviously the Triumph can be one of a few Earrings including the Taru RSE STR+2 Earring if you are Taru or Bushinomimi.

Body:
If you are using solely Drakesbane, Zahak's mail is the best body armor followed closesly by Aurum Cuirass for both WS. Ares Cuirass is next situationally, under really high (ideally 90%+) Accuracy situations. If your Accuracy is terrible (sub 80%~) or you are fighting high Evasion enemies, Hecatomb Harness and Homam Corrozza are excellent pieces to WS in.

Hands:
You are most likely safest to use only Hecatomb Hands ever for a good result but Ares Hands are better in a lot of situations depending on your other gear available, if you can get them you should always carry them for your WS Accuracy set.

Rings:
If you have Mars' Ring never take it off, otherwise Rajas/Flame is your best choice. If you have low hit rate, 2 of any of the following will give you a better result: Sniper+1/Toreador's/Divisor Ring/Iota Ring/Sniper/Woodsman/Blood Ring.

Back:
Cuchulain's Mantle is the best WS back armor because it allows you to lose Accuracy in other slots to gain STR and Attack at a better rate, if you cannot get one or are using solely Penta Thrust with good Accuracy then use Cerberus+1>Forager's>Amemet+1>Cerberus.

Waist:
Warwolf is the generally the best but under low Accuracy or if you are better off losing Accuracy in other slots then use Potent or Wyrm Belt, the results are too close to say one is always greater than the other.

Legs:
For Penta Thrust, Hecatomb Subligar is best, for Drakesbane it's a wash between Ares Flanchard and Hecatomb Subligar. Ares is going to produce a higher max WS damage but slightly less average WS damage, use whichever you can obtain first and don't be too worried about getting the other. Failing both of these I would honestly stick with Drachen Brais+1 and lose Accuracy in other slots for STR/Attack. Failing all of the above, use Dusk pants for Attack+14, or Pahluwan legs are also a good piece for both WS.

Feet:
Hecatomb are the best, followed by Aurum>Ares>Amir, keep one of the 3 available for low Accuracy situations also.

WS Sumarry:
Drakesbane should be your WS of choice most the time, unless you are fighting high evasion enemies then you should use Penta Thrust or have a second Drakesbane equipment macro with high +Accuracy. WS in as much STR/Attack as you can pack on Penta Thrust and aim for either a high DEX>STR set up or a high Accuracy/STR/Attack set for Drakesbane.

Jump/High Jump damage:
First and most important of all is to have high Accuracy so your jumps connect while keeping all the Store TP you need for your 6-hit (be it "true" or not), following that, Double Attack and Triple Attack are the next most important with Brutal Earring and Pole Grip (if you're not using Cletine/Claymore) being full time pieces and Ares Flanchard being an amazing Jump piece. If you don't care about a "true" 6-hit build then full Ares could be argued as the best Jump set but if you don't have it then either Askar Korazin or Homam Corrozza are excellent Jump pieces. After both Accuracy and DA/TA, because it's delay is not effected by Haste so you don't need any equipped, you can go full out STR and Attack.I personally don't have a seperate jump macro and just do Jumps in WS gear, this is gonna be 99% the damage of someone OCD enough to change one or two slots for Jumps and saves macro slots.
On normal Jump there is a 50% VIT modifier, meaning that you gain +1 D for every 2 VIT you have, for example if your VIT=67, STR=100, D=95 (Valkyries Fork) and you were fighting a Greater Colibri with VIT=67 your D would be 95+(VIT*0.5)+((STR-mobVIT+4)/4)=95+(67*0.5)+((100-67+4)/4)=95+33+7=135 which would then be multiplied by your pDIF. This modifier is not really high enough to warrant carrying a full VIT set for but there are 2 pieces you might be carrying with VIT on that double up as other pieces you will use and they are Ares Cuirass with +12 and Wyrm Belt with +5, other than these I really wouldn't advise carrying any other VIT equipment as a full STR set will do just as good.

Is DRG better than other melee?:
It shouldn't matter, if you want to play the job and you enjoy it, you should. It can and will generally keep up with equally equipped melee jobs but in extreme equipment and play skill scenarios it will not beat SAM WAR or MNK often but it indeed can.

[Torak]

really good guide, but u forgot to add in aurum legs for WS, only 2 acc less than drn brais +1 and u get an extra 4str towards drakesbane,as well as drn finger gauntlets +1 if u cant get/afford heca hands/ares,but those are just my personal prefrences.

[MrReinhardt]

it has graphs!!! must sticky nao!

[Cosmos]

Courtesy of Starr, for those who said I never did anything positive here.

[Wolf~Knight]

very good except this is just wrong:

Merits:
First of all you should merit Polearm to 8/8 then Critical Hit Rate 4/4; next you should do STR to 5/5 and for the most damage, which this guide focuses on, merit Jump and High Jump to 5/5. On Group 2 merits, max Angon to 5/5 then do whatever with the other choices because none really directly increase your damage output.

Angon is first it's a must I'd put it above even polearm, angon is a huge asset at a lot of fights and can speed them up dramatically and allows you to be useful even if not meleeing sometimes[ie salvage mega bosses], however aside from angon, I agree though I think jump recast is better than str first given str costs almost as much both jump and high jump recast timer merits.

Edit: ok well one other thing:

Clentine, with it's Critical Hit Rate+3%, when paired with Claymore Grip and Zahak's Mail on Drakesbane, and only when using solely Drakesbane, although you lose 6 hit and it has a fairly low D it has been shown to parse very well.

It doesn't lose 6-hit if you have aurum or white tathlum, I think with either of those it should beat even V fork since lower delay provides good DoT increase for only 4 dmg/3 DA lose while gaining 3% crit rate. I haven't parsed yet to see how does since I don't have aurum or white tathlum currently, since w/o those lose of 6-hit to great.

Missing stuff on WS/TP:
on legs Askar/Aurum legs are both very good choices providing acc and mod, and also good for tp pre-haste.
Also I would think askar/ace helm to be acceptable ws piece if you lacking better.
Other than that I approve and say sticky it.

[MrReinhardt]

I agree with Wolf, first and foremost is ANGON, you can get Angon lvl 1 if you arent doing endgame and move on, but Polearm should be second. I did Angon, Crits, polearm

[Tainted]

I would disagree with a lot of the information posted about gear selection since it's all very situational. There should really be no point where you ever have a >>> over another unless you're comparing like ace's to askar head lol!

But yeah, I'll decide if I want to actually post my grievances with the guide or not when I'm not as tired.

[Aleera]

Cletine works well for me full time, with askar body, rajas and brutal I still keep a 6-hit build. The crit is nice for drakes/dot, and it's free~ Cletine is also very nice for soloing with the extra HP and MP.

You should add smart grenade as an option for ranged slot, too. +4 att is still pretty good.

Also, I'm getting Nuevo body for WS's on DRG and DRK.. Might wanna toss that in there as an option. Though, Aurum can beat it as far as the STR/DEX on it goes, but putting stats on it like crit, DA, Store TP, etc., can still make it an option and worth putting in there.

[Tainted]

All right, to start off..

The format is inconsistent and complete shit. Long(and often posted in a way to make them appear more complex) formulas should not run together with the rest of the text. Spacing is also a problem due to its inconsistency through out the entire post.

Merits:
You do not need 5/5 Angon, there is no point at all to put any more than 3 into angon unless you're planning to wipe during a zerg, because that'd be the only time 5/5 angon would last that long. Also, you're entirely wrong when you say that no other group 2 merit directly enhances your damage. 5 minute recast on Deep Breathing adds a large amount of damage over a period of time as to compared 1 in deep breathing or not even having it at all. Considering the nature of Drakesbane, angon doesn't even directly increase your damage as you suggest. Deep Breathing though will always be an increased amount of damage, even if the wyvern gets resisted.

Math:
A lot of the math is not needed. It's nice to have to say you know it but those formulas besides acc, sTP and haste hardly have any influence on what gear you're actually using. It is pointless to list these formulas and then recommend certain pieces of gear as the best for whatever situation because there is no point in deviating from the already tried and true to play around with math that is not going to make a difference to you. You could simplify the whole "melee wut" section to three sentences. The only graph that you would need, diminishing returns, you don't supply. People who know the formulas are going to use the same exact gear as the person who doesn't which is testament to how irrelevant actually knowing the formula is so pointless when you can more easily explain concepts of STR and ATK as filling a glass with water.

Jump/High Jump:
You go on to explain that there is a VIT mod in jump but then go on to say there's no real point for DRG to carry around a VIT set for jump, that the STR gear for those slots will generally perform equally if not better. With that, what is the point of the section? The whole section could be summed up to, "VIT is part of the jump mod, if possible seek out gear that has VIT and STR on it." More math you really will never use unless you're a job like SAM or MNK who have gear spots where VIT completely shits on STR.

DRG better?:
By extreme situations I'm guessing you mean zerg where those jobs have a better tools available to them. In any other situation the best geared DRG should almost always win out against the best geared WAR or MNK if they have equally aggressive play styles. SAM only wins because SAM is the closet thing to 2004 RNG there ever will be.

Gear:
Your recommendations in gear are inconsistent and fail to take on the "shit is situational" attitude you badly convey in the post.

You say how great Dusk hands +1 are and how Blitz ring is the superior ring choice after Mars. After that you go on about how OMGAWESOME Cuch mantle is.

Let's assume just merits for now. Your goal is simply 90% ACC instead of 95%.

On Colibri, what is the point of Cuch mantle? There isn't any, you can get capped ACC using forager's, dusk+1, and blitz ring. On Mamools, the only mob that you shouldn't have at least 93% ACC on are THF. So for the NIN mob where you're not at 95%, but can use say, homam hands instead of dusk+1 to push you there, why would you use Cuch mantle over foragers? There is no viable reason to do so. In a merit party the minor increase in haste will not be reflected in a parse at all when mobs die in below 30 seconds. A paper argument about how great the increase in haste is is fine, but when you take it to the field you'll find that application is quite different. But clearly we can see you've been bitten by the "It's rare so it must be good" bug over your justification of Mars ring. If haste were really that great, in times where you have excess ACC then blitz ring should out perform Mars ring. But because of your mixed bag of bias that isn't the case. somehow that 8 ATK is justified over the 1% haste to you because of a rarity factor. If that is true of Mars ring, then what about Assailant's ring with gives 5 ATK in the same slot. ACC is capped or satisfactor so the ACC of Mars ring is not an issue here, why is this not an option over blitz ring? I guess it's not rare enough.

If 90% if all you're aiming for, merman's will almost always beat out assault earring unless you suck or are against a mamool THF which at that point it won't even really matter.

You can get capped ACC, or a satisfactory 90% on merit mobs during WS with out cuch mantle as well, with out substituting any other gear for ACC. It's not the best WS back piece by a long shot.

[Sirbacube]

Didn't read all of it, but sticky anyway pls!

[Punicesvir]

Tainted-did you expect a guide to be short?lol

plus if you are going to comment on his guide being to long maybe you shouldnt post a novel in response?

edited:i guess its not good unless you have spaces in your post

[Tainted]

You're an idiot, I don't think the guide is too long I think it has a bunch of information that is for the most part useless.

[Cosmos]

Why are you bitching about stuff that is not needed being there? It doesn't hurt to have it there than not at all and some people will appreciate it I'm sure, I'm not asking everyone to read that part but it could help if they don't understand why some items are better than each other situationally. I'll just say now that I'm not gonna get into an arguement with you on my guide cus you are an idiot troll and the worst poster on these forums, let's do it some other place.

[Tainted]

You in no way try to relate the concepts behind those formulas as to why a certain piece of gear might be better. It's simpler to just see that n.head has more STR than wyvern helm with out worrying about a formula in a game that will most likely take no consideration whatsoever when gearing a person.

And you want to know why, especially in this attempt as a guide?

You already tell the person what(you think) is the best gear choices with out allowing them an opportunity to experiment and collect data for themselves. Having the gear section using terms as such best and greater than completely nullifies the point of posting any of the formulas, they will hardly if ever be taken into consideration. We already know the general concept in FF is that more is better, unless you run into diminishing returns, which you don't even post a graph showing the point of diminishing returns. Most of us don't know what that kind of graph looks like.

Your post is redundant and shares no new information that can't be found in the stickies already, or simply looking at either the DRG SS or DRG Damage SS threads, which are always on the front page. There is no need for this to be a sticky let alone exist.

Now, you can call me a troll instead of defending your attempt to a guide. Remember, you're the person not posting on your main account or whatever.

[Wiseman]

Tainted!!! Come back to Cerb!
We needs drama badly

[Punicesvir]

your term of usefullness is quite relative. as a higher level player you might not find it useful but, someone who has just started playing of is trying out drg can come here and find some good information to be a decently geared drg. stop being butthurt

[synthetic]

Tainted!!! Come back to Cerb!
We needs drama badly

yeah thats what cerb's missing...

anyways i also found this mostly useless. drg isn't hard enough to warrant a guide. shitty drgs deserve to stay shitty.

[Wiseman]

stfu hoe, go rub your skadi body you freak

[MrReinhardt]

Punice I think a certain part of Tainted's post might have confused you,

Long(and often posted in a way to make them appear more complex) formulas should not run together with the rest of the text

she was referring to the math, not the length of the post itself

[pathwriter]

This is not a guide so much as a long, extended opinion. Post it to FFXIclopedia, they like that sort of thing.

For reference, what I write tends to have a fair bit of opinion to it, too, but there are limits and the discord seen here pretty much proves it.