unlocking WSs

[Protey]

so with this talk of unlocking WoE weaponskills and raising R/E/Ms, what do you guys think of using Chant du Cygne on Excalibur? or would you just stick with KoR?

[Demon6324236]

I will have to check the spreadsheets to be absolutely sure but I am almost positive that CDC beats KoR, the only reason that Almace does not beat Excalibur is because Excalibur has a ton of attack with its higher damage. A 99 Almace using CDC is barely weaker than a 99 Excalibur using KoR, so CDC should come out on top even with our limited gear for it. Now, if they add even more WS damage for KoR on Excalibur, that would change things a bit, depending on the +% it could push KoR ahead again, but for now as things stands I am 99% sure that CDC wins.

[saevel]

It depends on the base damage of the "new" 99 weapons. You can't just throw CDC onto excal and call it a day, the AM effect on Almace is pretty potent. 99 Excal barely etched out 99 Almace and only due to lack of good DEX WS gear and the abundance of STR / MND WS gear. If the gear situation ever gets solved then expect Almace to hit the top again.

[ManaKing]

I would stick with Uriel Blade since we are talking about unlocking WSs.

Since it's better than both by a long shot.

[Demon6324236]

It depends on the base damage of the "new" 99 weapons.

I went with the stats they showed us from their examples, which I assume are what we are getting or fairly close.

You can't just throw CDC onto excal and call it a day, the AM effect on Almace is pretty potent.

Yeah AM is great, but when you have to choose between that and the massive 40 Attack on Excalibur, along with its higher DMG and its 2.5x that is always on, Excalibur should normally win on RDM.

99 Excal barely etched out 99 Almace and only due to lack of good DEX WS gear and the abundance of STR / MND WS gear. If the gear situation ever gets solved then expect Almace to hit the top again.

Why would gear have anything to do with that? You are saying Almace would win because CDC would win, but that's not true, as you said before, it depends on the DMG of the new weapons. So far as base weapons go Excalibur is better, so far as WSs go Almace is better, if you can learn CDC and use it on Excalibur it wins, Excalibur's biggest drawback was that KoR is still weaker than CDC even with all of our gear and the DMG boost, using CDC with it eliminates that flaw and puts it at the top.

I would stick with Uriel Blade since we are talking about unlocking WSs.

Since it's better than both by a long shot.

Well seeing as that is only in Campaign and we are not talking about unlocking any extra WSs in this thread, only the RME WSs which SE talked about, that seems like a baseless statement.

[saevel]

Huh... what the ...

Ok stop for a moment. There are two WS's in question. CDC and Req (KoTR is weaker then both). CDC is a 3+1 hit critical hit WS with 60% DEX mod. Req is a 5+1 hit WS that has a -20% attack penalty and a 100% MND mod. CDC is 5.25 fTP while Req is 7.2. The primary difference between them is attack, crits give a +1.0 ratio with a cap that we won't be seeing on anything worth a damn. Req on the other hand has a crippling -20% attack penalty. As a WS CDC piss's all over Req in damage, provided you have sufficient access to DEX gear, kinda of like BLU. If instead you have access to tons of MND/STR gear but little DEX gear then Req will be better. @100 TP the AM effect of CDC + Almace is 30% proc of a 2x damage multiplier, at 300% (starting a big fight) it's 50% proc. This is much better then the bonus damage and the 40 attack on Excal put together.

As of right now 99 Excal + Req barely beats 99 Almace + CDC, even with RDM's crippled DEX selection. Also the higher your weapons base DMG the more powerful CDC becomes vs Req due to effect of Req's superior WSC being diluted. This is what I mean by "depending on the weapons new DMG values". If their large enough then Almace + CDC wins even with current poor gear options due to CDC gaining a greater damage percentage then Req. If tomorrow SE snapped their finger and put RDM on all the light melee gear BLU is on (I know it's a pipe dream) then Almace + CDC would instantly become the best option.

The -20% attack on Req is absolutely crippling on anything that's not trash. This is only compounded by RDM's lack of a native attack boost ability.

Finally just giving Xcal CDC won't fix the issue as it immediately loses 30% of it's melee damage vs Almace, 50% if you have time to prepare for the fight. Those AM values are really important, don't ever forget about them. Almace also has a decent size accuracy bonus from it's 20 DEX, that also translates into a dDEX crit bonus.

[Demon6324236]

Finally just giving Xcal CDC won't fix the issue as it immediately loses 30% of it's melee damage vs Almace, 50% if you have time to prepare for the fight. Those AM values are really important, don't ever forget about them. Almace also has a decent size accuracy bonus from it's 20 DEX, that also translates into a dDEX crit bonus.

I know all of this, but just by this comparison alone right here, you are talking about being 30 or 50% better, what about Excalibur's 2.5x? So far as I know its a 10~15% rate or so, not exactly sure, you probably know that so you can fill that gap. Now if it has a 10% proc rate it would be the same amount of damage as roughly 15% ODD I would assume, add on that Attack on each hit and WS as well as Excalibur's higher damage and I would assume it wins. As I said, I put the info all into the spreadsheet and Excalibur came out on top easily, all of the numbers were put in from SE's post which gave these examples.

Excalibur

DMG: 73 Delay: 233 Attack+40 "Knights of Round" Additional effect: Damage varies with HP
↓
DMG: 121 Delay: 233 Attack+60 Accuracy+20 "Knights of Round" Additional effect: Damage varies with HP



Almace

DMG: 70 Delay: 224 DEX+20 "Chant du Cygne" Aftermath: Occ. deals double damage
↓
DMG: 114 Delay: 224 Attack+20 Accuracy+20 DEX+20 "Chant du Cygne" Aftermath: Occ. deals double damage

If you could use CDC with Excalibur right now, Excalibur would still be the best weapon, and the gap would be bigger because what we lose from using Excalibur is CDC, KoR does not live up to that WS, so if they let us use CDC on Excalibur then Excalibur would gain Almace's greatest advantage. After this update, the spreadsheet says its basically going to be the same way, unless there are some new hidden stats, that seems unlikely to change. I just woke up so I hope this is getting across well.

[Kitkat]

I know all of this, but just by this comparison alone right here, you are talking about being 30 or 50% better, what about Excalibur's 2.5x? So far as I know its a 10~15% rate or so, not exactly sure, you probably know that so you can fill that gap. Now if it has a 10% proc rate it would be the same amount of damage as roughly 15% ODD I would assume.......

This is an incorrect assumption given this simple fact: Hidden effect of relic weapons only proc on first strike of every attack round with the weapon where as ODD can activate on every strike of an attack round with the weapon.

This means if you have a decent DA/TA/QA rate mixup you're not seeing the same outcome in damage with 15% 2.5x dmg compared to 15% 2x dmg aftermath. If no DA/TA/QA is factored in then your assumption is correct, but it has been proven time and time again that hidden effects on relic weapons cannot proc on any strike beyond initial hit, meaning the more DA/TA/QA the person wears the more it becomes diminished over extended periods. The only real saving grace of the x2.5 dmg is that it is always there regardless compared to Aftermath ODD which relies on WS use to be active. It is more or less their way of "balancing" relics with other weapons or something to that effect.

This is more likely the reason why Saveal is fighting your comparison so hard. The aftermath effect is a huge increase in DoT considering Capped Temper and gear effects in comparison to mainhanding Excal. While with Excal you have Hidden+additional, the additional follows the same rules I believe and only activates on first strike of the weapon, but can activate at the same time as Hidden (though hidden doesn't increase additional in this case). These are just a few of the considerations you need to take into account when making out your spread sheet (aka remove all attacks that would be due to DA/TA/QA activation then figure out your 2.5x damage activation rate and compare to ODD).

[saevel]

The 2.5x activate rate is known and can easily be accounted for, once BG is back up I'll post it. Also I'm shocked you didn't know the bonus damage on relics only applies to the first hit. This is one of the reasons Almace beats Excal in actual DPS. The only reason Excal + Req is slightly (seriously check the difference) ahead of Almace + CDC is the gear situation, it won't take much to push the pendulum the other way. With the respective RME's having their base damage boosted, Almace + CDC gets a bigger percentage boost then Excal + Req or a hypothetical Excal + CDC and that boost could very well put it ahead.

[Demon6324236]

So far as gear goes, unless a miracle happens I doubt we will see any change, now if they did change it for us so we had light DD gear then yes, things might change up a bit.