Ternary Flourish uses: Anyone found one?

[Selzak]

Yes, because trying to balance 20 different jobs while adding in new abilities and traits with new content which makes balancing a moving target is soooooo easy, amirite?

No, it's hard- Which is part of the reason why they should be open to suggestions from the people who have spent so much time playing and understanding their game. We have Excel spreadsheets that will predict exactly how much damage a spell or weapon skill will do at any given time, I think we deserve a little more respect when it comes to suggestions on game mechanics and balance.

Also, just because it's hard doesn't mean they shouldn't be able to do it (to an acceptable degree, at the very least). There's a difference between attempting, failing, then genuinely attempting to correct your mistakes and just stubbornly repeating the same mistakes over and over again for years. They have always been, and probably always will be, simply (simply has more than one meaning here) of the opinion that it's better for them to try and fail for 10 years than to be "open-minded" enough to listen to their players at all.

When this forum opened is when FFXI began to peak (in the context of the game, not popularity). It didn't take long at all to start moving downhill. They read suggestions, they thought about them, and they appeared to even consider them at first. Now, I doubt they do more than glance at the NA players' suggestions just to see if they can give us a translated response to something from the JP side- which they listen to but still don't honestly consider.

If you go back and read the "responses" to the opinions and suggestions we had after they originally shared the Job Manifesto you'll see this. We have RDMs discussing the significance of Cure-tiers and brainstorming directions for their job and then we get a reply from SE that quotes and answers Japanese players saying that they want to be able to melee and unlock more weapon skills. This sort of thing is just unacceptable. I'm not asking for NA players to get more attention than JP players because we make up such a larger portion of the playerbase, but I think that at least deserves us acknowledgement of some kind. It's like they don't even consider us to be the actual players of the game, even though we're the large majority.


It is hard, and I'd defend them too if we were in this together- but we're not. We've been trying for 10 years to share our experiences with the game and our ideas for positive directions with them, we complained about DRG for 5-6 years and laid out specific problems and different paths to fix them before they even touched it. After throwing comments and suggestions into their e-mail trash can for eight years, we thought they were changing- but it feels like they backed out at the last second.

[Motenten]

While Byrth detailed the usage perspective, I thought I'd go through things from a mathematical perspective.


First we'll look at Rudra's, which has the most to gain from the tier 3 Flourishes.

Ternary Flourish guarantees a triple attack. A TA is effectively +2.0 fTP to the weaponskill regardless of other factors.
Climactic Flourish guarantees a crit on the first hit. We need to see the limits of when this can give more than 2.0 fTP to see when it's better than Ternary.

Base fTP: 3.25
fTP with TP Bonus dagger: 4.25
fTP with TP Bonus dagger and slow usage (~150 TP): 4.75

To go from 3.25 to 5.25 (+2.0), crit damage must be an increase of 61.5%.
To go from 4.25 to 6.25 (+2.0), crit damage must be an increase of 47.0%.
To go from 4.75 to 6.75 (+2.0), crit damage must be an increase of 42.1%.

Worst case value of a crit is when pDiff goes from 2.0 (capped, no level correction) to 3.0, which is +50%. We see from the above that if we're using the TP Bonus offhand dagger that there will never be a time when a crit will not be at least that much (excluding facetious comparisons of a high random non-crit pDif to a low random crit pDif, such as 2.3 to 2.8; the math must compare the average values).

As you add in level correction, things swing further in favor of the crit flourish. In order for Climactic Flourish to beat Ternary in the the configuration most suited towards Ternary Flourish (no TP Bonus dagger, use at 100 TP), average pDif would have to be 1.625 or lower. That's guaranteed on any mob 8 or more levels above the player, though will also often be the case on many lower level mobs if you're not capping attack.

Therefore Ternary Flourish is better on lower level mobs where you're pushing capped attack, while also not using the TP Bonus dagger as an offhand.

Of course that doesn't account for the recast use on each of them: 1:30 for Climactic vs 2:30 for Ternary. Every 7:30 you can use Climactic 5 times vs 3 Ternary uses. The player will rarely be able to use them that exactly, but the general proportions of opportunities should be roughly the same.

If we look again at the best case in favor of Ternary above, Climactic gains an effective 1.625 fTP on the crit while Ternary gains 2.0 fTP. Ternary gets 3 uses, for a total of 6.0 fTP gain, while Climactic gets 5 uses for a total of 8.125 fTP gain. Therefore longterm, under the best possible conditions for Ternary, Climactic still wins.

Ternary is also devalued when there was already the possibility of a triple attack occuring. Outside Abyssea, that's not much (3% from Epona's Ring, at best). Inside Abyssea that will also likely factor in Atma of the Apocalypse; that gives 18% of the time when Ternary Flourish gains you nothing, since you would have triple attacked anyway.

And finally, any comparison that even somewhat favors Ternary must also use something besides the TP Bonus dagger in the offhand. Given the long delays between uses of the flourishes, however, any other dagger must be able to prove itself better in long-term damage of non-boosted melee and weaponskills. I will grant that this is conceivably possible since I don't want to have to math out what such a dagger would have to look like to reach that point.

Overall, for Rudra's, there is no reaonable situational usage for Ternary.



Next, consider someone without Rudra's. Weaponskills will typically be Dancing Edge or Evisceration.

Both are 5-hit attacks, made 6-hit with the offhand weapon. Ternary caps out the number of total swings for both.

Given their base fTP (1.18 or 1.0, respectively), Climactic Flourish will never compete with Ternary for total damage gained. Under absolutely miserable cRatio conditions (0.5), Climactic only gives a +1.5 fTP equivalent compared to Ternary's +2.0.

What it must compete with instead, however, is Reverse Flourish -- not for the Flourish slot (since they're in different categories), but for Finishing Moves.

For 3 Finishing Moves, Reverse gains you 48, 52 or 57 TP, depending on use of AF3 hands (none, +1, or +2). Essentially, half a weaponskill. That works out to the equivalent of +3.0 fTP over time, overshadowing the value of Ternary.

However it does bring out an option for one strong use of Ternary: open with Pyrrhic, Reverse with 5 FMs, No Foot Rise for 3 FMs, Ternary, and close with Evisceration for a gain of ~33% on the weaponskill and a comparable amount on the skillchain damage (which itself should be 20%-25% more than the weaponskill, excluding resists).

It's only slightly stronger than Building Flourish (eyeball estimate of about +25% damage on Evisceration when not capping attack), but Building competes with Reverse, so you couldn't add it to your closing weaponskill.

In other words, for the maximizing of the damage potential at one specific point in time (you need as much damage as possible Right Now), this can work well for non-Rudra's users. That's it's 'situational use', as far as I can tell.

[autobot]

The only way i can see this ability ever come into play was mentioned before by Asymptotic.

(http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/th...tions-Round-II)
Glissade Dancer LV99 [Recast 5 minutes, shared with À ma guise]
The next Flourish may be used without resetting its category's recast timer.
** This ability would also give the other Flourishes III besides climactic some viability. It would open up a lot of possibilities. The name "Glissade" means to run two dance moves together in one fluid motion, so it's obviously meant to be used to combine Flourishes

That dude came up with enough good stuff for dancer to allow the dev team to not have to think (which they apparently dont do anyway).

[FrankReynolds]

Math Stuff

Out of curiosity, does double attack from saber dance factor in here? Seems like that would also negate some usefulness.

[Motenten]

Out of curiosity, does double attack from saber dance factor in here? Seems like that would also negate some usefulness.

Yes, DA would also devalue Ternary, but not the extent that a triple attack would. For example, if you have 10% triple attack, that devalues Ternary directly by 10% since you would have gotten the same benefit without Ternary 10% of the time. If you have 10% double attack, though, the DA only gives you half as much additional damage as the TA would, so it only devalues Ternary by 5%.

Given the ~21.5% DA rate (long-term) of Saber Dance, plus 5% DA of a Brutal Earring and 3% from Epona's, that means Ternary is devalued by up to about 15%. Combining with the Epona's TA outside Abyssea, overall devaluation is about 17%.

If you factor in the devaluation, then the average usage of Ternary would gain you about +1.66 fTP. That matches the gain from Climactic on Rudra's under even the worst case scenario for Climactic.


It's a bit more difficult to judge the change for Evis/DE since the weaponskills themselves devalue TA due to hitting the cap on number of swings with just a single TA. Overall, the devaluation should be significantly higher than the nominal case above.

Taking Evis for the easy fTP, Ternary moves it from 6.0 to 8.0.

Average fTP (ie: number of swings) with:

Brutal: 6.1
Brutal+Saber: 6.53
Brutal+Epona's: 6.269
Brutal+Epona's+Saber: 6.673

Which gives you a percent gain of:

Nominal: 33.3%

Brutal: 31.1%
Brutal+Saber: 22.5%
Brutal+Epona's: 27.6%
Brutal+Epona's+Saber: 19.9%


And these gear combos in Abyssea with Apoc atma:
Brutal: 6.627
Brutal+Saber: 6.938
Brutal+Epona's: 6.763
Brutal+Epona's+Saber: 7.052

Brutal: 20.7%
Brutal+Saber: 15.3%
Brutal+Epona's: 18.3%
Brutal+Epona's+Saber: 13.4%



Assuming a focus more on settings outside Abyssea, it looks like a potential gain on weaponskill damage of between 20% and 30%, depending on gear and use of Saber Dance.

Climactic will never come close to that number, especially on Evisceration which can already crit. Striking Flourish.... well, don't feel like doing all the math, but it looks like around a 15% gain without Saber Dance, and a 12% gain with Saber Dance, for Evisceration (slightly higher gain with Dancing Edge).

For instantaneous damage boosts outside Abyssea, Striking and Ternary Flourish appear to be fairly decent options for non-Rudra's use, as long as you can combine them with Reverse Flourish and use on the closing weaponskill of a skillchain. If you can't combine them (ie: insufficient NFR merits), Reverse + skillchain will be vastly better. For long-term damage (even excluding skillchains), Reverse Flourish will always be better.

[Asymptotic]

Using Ternary as part of your non-rudras solo-SC setup also requires you to use more finishing moves, which requires you to step more often, which causes you to lose more attacking time (fewer attack rounds) due to job ability delay. I'm pretty sure that more-or less takes care of devaluing it the rest of the way.

[Creelo]

So more proof that these forums are pointless and that the devs know best...

Ternary flourish should not have been implimented period, especially if it wasn't ready. Last I checked, people don't like playing with things that aren't finished SE...

Oh snap lol, that was awesome.

[FrankReynolds]

We skimmed over a couple of your comments, and decided that we don't really care what you think about this Job Ability.

The best thing someone could do with this ability is: Not use it.

In order for this ability to be good, you will need to add another ability or gear item. Why not just add and ability that works to begin with? That would be a lot less work, and make your "we are understaffed" line sound a lot more plausible.

[Motenten]

Using Ternary as part of your non-rudras solo-SC setup also requires you to use more finishing moves, which requires you to step more often, which causes you to lose more attacking time (fewer attack rounds) due to job ability delay. I'm pretty sure that more-or less takes care of devaluing it the rest of the way.

The only way it's really practical is to make use of No Foot Rise, though I suppose you could prep a Presto before the first weaponskill and get a 3-FM step in between the two weaponskills. Using a step is subject to missing (even if rarely), as well as a slight risk that you'd end up below 100 TP after the step, which would cause you to miss the skillchain.

Given the recast times (2:30 for Ternary and 3:00 for NFR), I thought it looked like it was geared more towards NFR usage than step usage. Climactic's 1:30 recast is too short to reliably use NRF with that, so that one would be more step-focused.

I suppose there's the other caveat: the above assumption depends on having at least 3 merits in NFR. I know common consensus for a while was to go with 2 merits to complement Presto (not sure if that's changed with the new info on Saber Dance's actual proc rates), so it may not be as practical for some.

And while it does increase delay time either way, it's a pretty minor devaluation (at best, 2 seconds every 150, or 1.33%, or 2 seconds every 180 if used with NFR for 1.11% devaluation; most likely usage will be rarer than that). It's a long way from "devaluing it the rest of the way". If comparing Ternary with Climactic directly, both have the same JA delay issue, so it's not really relevant to consider that aspect there either.

[Asymptotic]

I'll leave it to Byrth, because I don't actually have the resolve to do the math myself (being a math major, I get burned out enough on the math that I have to do), you should be using striking in the type of setup you're describing, not ternary.

Even then the following scenario:

Presto ---> Step ---> Weaponskill ---> Reverse Flourish ---> Attack Round ---> Weaponskill + Skillchain

Should be more effective, as it only requires one round of JAs per skillchain, should be able to be used every time RF is up, and over time, will result in more overall damage due to lessened JA delay and more TP gained from attacking.

It's a bit of a paradox though because this assumes engagement over time. In reality, anything for which non-evisceration multi-hits remain viable (trash mobs outside of abyssea) is going to be dead after a Presto-->Step-->DE --> RF---> DE ---> Scission (or whatever skillchain you choose to use), so there's actually very little value for boosting the damage of EITHER weaponskill. If you're fighting something with a lot of HP and would be engaged for a long time, this strategy becomes even more efficient because over time you gain a lot of attack rounds and TP over JA-heavy strategies.

Still, on just about anything where extended engagement happens, enemy defense begins to heavily favor forced Critical WS and the immense damage potential of a DoubleclimacticrudrasSC, and in general, our multi-hit WS drop heavily in effectiveness.

Anyway, basically what I'm trying to say is that if you're not using Rudra's Storm, there's really no reason to use the Flourishes III category at all except for "fun."