What Atmas Do You Use?

[Invasion]

Oh and VV will?

You've no idea what you're talking about, nor what you're trying to argue anymore.

[Superchicken]

did i say i used VV on mobs like sobek? NO. Did i say atma is situational yes. you said apoc is standard atma for dd. And in the SITUATION where i'm the tank and dd when i'm duoing something by myself where i'm playing nin and the whm then i'm a dd cause i'm dealing the damage. So yes i know what i'm arguing its that atma choice is situational and that Apoc is not a standard atma you should be using at all times when you are dd like you are saying.

If i'm on ninja and i'm farming up my Key Items for NMs is VV good yes because it gives me constant regain which helps when i'm building tp for things like raiden thrust, earth crusher, GK ws etc.

[Mojo]

Razed Ruins - Always, no matter what.
Gnarled Horn - Always, but I have Kannagi and solo/duo a lot, so the +50 AGI helps a lot. It's likely the best second atma choice for Blade: Jin users as well (I use it on Verethragna MNK and Victory Smite is a STR mod WS.)

The third atma depends on what I'm doing. If I'm in a DD situation fighting NMs and the like, which I often am, then Apoc almost always. Sometimes I replace this with Cloak & Dagger. I suppose if I was afking a lot then VV might be useful to have 100% TP at the start of every mob, but I can't foresee myself doing this very often. I do use Mounted Champion often for the Regen as it's nice when I'm solo /WAR (for red procs.)

Also, offhanding Kraken Club is questionable, at best. Here's a little napkin math.

The best case scenario for Kraken Club yields 1 hit per round mainhand 3.8 hits per round offhand. This would only ever occur if you were DNC subjob and using poor atmas, but we'll disregard that for the sake of this comparison. Using Atma of the Apocalypse, Twilight Belt, Brutal Earring, Epona's Ring, Double Attack from WAR subjob, and Atheling mantle yields 18% Triple Attack and 23% Double Attack. Assuming the distribution listed on studio gobli is correct, you're left with the following numbers of hits per round.

N	Kannagi	Club	Occurrence	Kannagi Hits	Club Hits
1	1	1	0.05		0.05		0.05
2	1	2	0.15		0.15		0.30
3	1	3	0.25		0.25		0.75
4	1	4	0.25		0.25		1.00
5	1	5	0.15		0.15		0.75
6	1	6	0.10		0.10		0.60
7	1	7	0.03		0.03		0.21
8	1	7	0.02		0.02		0.14
							
Total			1.00		1.00		3.80

Kannagi		Kamome
1.5486		1.5486

Finding the number of hits for Kannagi/Kamome was done by calculating Triple Attacks first and then calculating Double Attacks when Triple Attacks didn't proc (.18 * 3 + .82 * [ .23 * 2 + .77]). This is an assumption on how the game works, nobody really knows. Assuming Double Attacks overwrite Triple Attacks yielded a result within 2.75% of the one I listed.

Kannagi/Kraken Club total delay is 474 (1 round every 7.9 seconds, or 0.1266 rounds per second,) Kannagi/Kamome total delay is 400 (1 round every 6.66 seconds, or 0.15 rounds per second.) Ignoring haste/dual wield (will produce the same increase for both,) yields the following hits per second.

Kannagi		Kraken Club	Total
0.1266		0.4810		0.6076

Kannagi		Kamome		Total
0.2323		0.2323		0.4646

Factoring in delay and dual wield (assuming Iga Zukin +2, Ninja Chainmail +1, Suppanomimi and Rajas Ring) produces 4.6 TP per hit for Kannagi/Kraken Club and 4.5 TP per hit for Kannagi/Kamome. So you're left with 2.7950 TP/second on Kannagi/Kraken Club and 2.0907 TP/second on Kannagi/Kamome. Or, in otherwards, using the Kraken Club under optimal circumstances will only yield a 33.7% increase in TP gain.

Now, it's worth bringing up the very low DMG rating on Kraken Club. Assuming capped fSTRs for all weapons (which will definitely occur inside of Abyssea) leaves you with the following total DMG ratings.

Weapon		DMG	fSTR	Total DMG
Kannagi		56	14	70
Kamome		39	12	51
Kraken Club	11	9	20

You can factor this in with the hits per second to come up with a DMG/second number, which is odd but perhaps useful in this case for comparing melee DoT.

Kannagi		Kraken Club	Total
8.8620		9.6200		18.4820

Kannagi		Kamome
16.2610		11.8473		28.1083

So, going from Kannagi/KC > Kannagi/Kamome yields a 52.1% increase in melee DMG/second applied to the mob. This is a best case scenario for Kraken Club because it disregards Kannagi aftermath. Assuming you have the level 1 aftermath up 100% of the time, it's a 30% increase in DMG (on just the Kannagi.)

Kannagi		Kraken Club	Total
11.5206		9.6200		21.1406

Kannagi		Kamome		Total
21.1393		11.8473		32.9866

This yields a 56.0% increase in the same switch, and is the best case scenario for Kamome. So the observable number will fall between those two points.

I could provide some more napkin math on other facets of total damage output, but they're not going to mean much because those variables (pDIF, WSC, etc.) change too much from circumstances to provide useful ballpark figures. What you can conclude within a reasonable degree of confidence is this.

The increase in TP gain provided by offhanding Kraken Club is, at most, 33%. This won't always equate to 30% more weaponskills, however, because of things like TP overflow and holding TP because the mob has low health.

The increase in DMG/second by offhanding Kamome is around 51~56%. It's a reasonable measurement of optimal DoT from melee swings.

In this comparison, I ignored the effects that Kamome gives on critical damage. It's pretty big, that's the entire reason for offhanding Kamome. With RR & Qirmiz Tathlum you're looking at critical damage * 1.35 already. Kamome providing +0.10 to this yields a marginal gain of 7.41%. This increase would occur 74% of the time (with Gnarled Horn + Razed Ruins, 95% if you have Innin.) The actual DoT increase will be less than this, hard to say by how much without knowing a pDIF average.

I also made no analysis that the loss of 120 combat skill would have. You're losing a tremendous amount of accuracy and attack (108) on all of your offhand swings, which is the main source of your TP gain and, as it seems, melee DoT.

Lastly, your weaponskill damage will also be impacted by all of this. Hard to give good figures, but it would be significant. All in all, you are likely losing total DoT by using KC, not to mention unnecessary giving the mob more TP.

[Ezikiel]

THIS IS AN OPINION THREAD THERE IS NO RIGHT ANSWER YOU GUYS KNOW THAT RIGHT! If i use MM on my Ninja for more INT to nuke its just what i do that make what u do right or the correct way to do it. Read the thread name "What ATMA do you use"

[Superchicken]

THIS IS AN OPINION THREAD THERE IS NO RIGHT ANSWER YOU GUYS KNOW THAT RIGHT! If i use MM on my Ninja for more INT to nuke its just what i do that make what u do right or the correct way to do it. Read the thread name "What ATMA do you use"

^^ as i stated but thank you. People choose their atma for w/e reason they have.

[Mojo]

Actually, there are right answers. The original question posted was this.

Just wandering what atmas I should be using as a nin DD or tank.

He clearly wants to know which atmas are the best for the situation described. The effectiveness of certain atma in certain situations isn't a matter of opinion. The situations can be reduced down to a simple comparison of atma effectiveness. For instance, Razed Ruins is always going to be better than any other atma if you're meleeing (which you will be in the situation the OP described.)

I encourage posters to go beyond the original question and post atma combinations they use for other circumstances, but the point remains that it's most often not a matter of opinion. Someone who is knowledgeable about game mechanics and atma will be able to quantitatively explain why one atma is better than another in a situation. Often players use atma/gear combinations without going through this process and simply shirk off the atma choices of others to opinion. That doesn't mean it's a matter of opinion, it just means they haven't thought about it enough and that there is a good chance their gut instinct is wrong.

Either way, some of the atma I use for other situations.

Nuking
MM/Ultimate/Hell's Guardian (sometimes I use RR on because I'm just finishing the mob off for Azure and RR increases the speed of this process greatly)

Aeolian Edge spamming (non brew)
Gales/Ultimate/Hell's Guardian

Aeolian Edge spamming (brew)
Gales/Ultimate/Smiting Blow

[Superchicken]

tanking

I always use RR as one of my atmas for the DD aspect of it
stuff like Shiren Shadow, Cloak and Dagger, Einherjar (Sobek mostly), etc, basically w/e the situation calls for

if theres a tank and dd is more my focus

RR
Apoc, VV, alpha omega, GH, etc (GH pretty standard for me to as it works nice with RR and Blade: Hi)

I've never really set up to just nuke but stuff like

Minkin, Ultimate, MAB INT bonuses etc

[Mojo]

Atma of the Einherjar is a poor choice for Sobek, it's simply not reliable enough to be useful. You can also dodge Tyrant Tusk by moving to the side when it readies it (you need good reflexes for this.) I duo'd it with a Black Mage for most of my skins and found that if I stopped meleeing at around 35%, the Black Mage could finish it off with a volley of nukes (utilizing Enmity Douse.) So it almost never used Tyrant Tusk. I eventually switched over to Apoc on that too because in the rare situation that I was killed by Tyrant Tusk I could quickly reraise > Mijin > reraise to erase my weakness.

For tanking NMs, always RR + Gnarled Horn. The +50 AGI caps dAGI used for mob TP calculations, gives you +20% critical hit rate, and +25 evasion. Apoc can be good, depending on the NM, although sometimes I use others for a variety of reasons (unwanted quick magic procs on Ichi is really annoying.) Cloak & Dagger is useful when you want evasion & aren't completely capped on accuracy while Siren's Shadow is probably better when you don't need that accuracy.

[Ezikiel]

^^ as i stated but thank you. People choose their atma for w/e reason they have.

i was rferring to the guys going back and forth biting and scratching like little girls

[wish12oz]

Apoc, razed ruin, and gnarled horn are your best atmas for DDing, it's not a matter of opinion, math confirms it.

That being said, I do sometimes switch apoc for siren shadow or cloak and dagger because I am tanking a specific mob and like the extra evasion.