Polearm Decision Woes

[Tannlore]

I'm probably going to regret asking this, but my access to fellow dragons is limited.

I currently use a Vougier's Contus, but I've been considering starting a magian polearm. Any recommendations on which one to start? Should I go for the gimperian or one of the other ones? And yes.. emp/relic/mythic not an option atm.

[Ophannus]

The Occasionally Attacks Twice Corsesca. I get OAT proc on Jumps giving me 80-120 TP per Spirit/Soul Jump and I DA about 55-60ish% of the time. Weapon Skills will be weaker than Vougier's Contus but you will probably output about twice as many Drakesbanes over time. When OAT doesn't proc, Jumps will do about 50-80 damage less, but when it procs they will do 300-400 more(along with massive TP)

[Tannlore]

I'm guessing this one here?

http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Trial_2471

Looks simple enough, thanks!

[Ophannus]

Actually, I mean this one: http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Trial_2469

[noodles355]

Echoing Ophannus, OAT polearm (not OA2-4) is not only the best magian polearm, but the best non-empy/relic/mythic polearm.

[Ophannus]

Right, though it has beaten Gungnir up until they boosted it's ODD rate to ridiculous quantities with the 95 version. It used to be better than Gungnir but now Gungnir has like a 15-20% ODD without aftermath or something I've heard. I still think it out performs even Rhongomiant in most situations just because of the ridiculous amounts of TP you get. No joke, with that polearm, 26% haste and a 5 hit build, you are looking to WS almost every few seconds. On Voidwatch, my WS aren't the strongest(typically dealing like 800-1800 even with temps compared to like 3k+ Ukkos, however I WS so often that I do infact end up stealing hate often so I sometimes have excess TP overflow when Super Jump isn't up and I have to hold back my WSing.

[Mirage]

I think I'll make me one of these as well. I sort of had a fire path polearm planned, but if this is better, this is what i'll get.

[Ophannus]

Yeah the WS is awesome but the trial sucks. I was on the Blobdingnag trial for months because I kept wiping so I started to shout for people with orange abyssites and paid them 200k to pop(many MNKs have them from camping Lamprey Lord) and I would hire a THF and a Kannagi NIN and WHM dual box to do Blobdingnag with me. He's kind of annoying to fight if you deal too much damage. I recommend a VERY good Kannagi NIN/DNC. Have the NIN never WS, only use TP for Waltzes and Steps. If you do too much damage, it will do too many Cytokinesis's in succession, each one spawning 6 babies and you'll be overwhelmed. So the NIN would save TP and use it to quickly kill babies while I (the RDM/SCH) would quickly nuke the babies down. You could get a BLM to nuke them down but if you go too fast, he'll run out of MP(also the babies hit hard/fast and rapes BLMs's manawall and stoneskin fast, and they're immmune to bind/grav/sleep/stun). Alternitevly a WAR could probably fell cleave the babies. Bring a THF for TH cuz you need 10 of those blobs. Good setup is WHM NIN THF and either a WAR or BLM to aoe the babies fast.

[Satisiun]

Bumping this up because I have a question.

Would you say the OA2 is a better polearm than the +9 DA? I ask because with my current gear roll-out, I already have something like +21% Double Attack (31% if I sub Warrior). Considering that the +9 DA has a higher DMG rating, wouldn't it be worthwhile to consider getting the +9 and having a nice, modestly high 30-40% DA rating that also procs during weaponskills, as compared to a 50% (just throwing a number out) proc on just normal attacks with also a lower DMG rating (OA2 is something like 110, while the DA+9 is around 132 or so)?

[Ophannus]

No. Also, you shouln't be having that much DA gear in your TP set unless you're doing something really wrong i.e haste isn't capped or not enough STP for a 5hit.

[Malphius]

Hi, I typed out a huge post about the DA9% lance but then my session timed out and I lost it! Awesome lol.

Basically it boils down to this. With STP+41, Haste +26 and DA 27% when subbed WAR (All gear currently available. I listed this but lost when session timed out) How well will this lance perform?

The STR Lance had shown surprising results and I have the feeling we have also dismissed the DA9% Lance in the same way. I don't know and understand the games formulas well enough to calculate it all out on my own though. Obviously we have a higher base DMG on all hits and what looks to me is a guaranteed DA on all WS's and an approximately 41% DA on Jumps when you swap out some choice STP and Haste pieces for more DA.

Any thoughts?

[Aana]

your talking about 17% DA in gear+10% /war. Is that 17% DA coming from gear and you want to add another 9% from lance, or is 9 of that 17 the lance your talking about? If your stacking 17% before the lance then the build is probably terrible. List the gear your talking about using.

[Malphius]

The gear I was theoretically using as ideal is posted below. I made an error adding up the STP and counted Rose Strap twice when I added it up in my original post. The DA9% lance is included in the DA Numbers I used from gear so total out the door DA would be 27 with DA9 Lance, Gear, and /WAR. These numbers do not take into account any other bonus from sub-jobs other than the Warriors natural double attack trait. I will leave that up to the pros if they feel like taking those numbers into consideration. I'm not looking for 100% pin-point answer as most things are situational now. Just a ball park on how the lance will perform.

So many people repeat what they hear as what they know with out looking at other possibilities. It strikes me odd that the trial for this lance requires more work and yet it's worse than the other options. I know people will say "It's SE" and to that I say yes you are probably right haha. But like I said, I just want to make sure we aren't dismissing anything with out taking a good look at it first.

Main - DA9% Lance
Sub - Rose Strap
Ranged - NA
Ammo - Hagneia Stone
Head - Lancer's Mezail +2
Neck - Houyi's Gorget
Ear1 - Brutal Earring
Ear2 - Aesir Ear Pendant
Body - Lancer's Plackart +2
Hands - Brego Gloves
Ring1 - Raja's Ring
Ring2 - Portus Ring
Back - Atheling Mantle
Waist - Goading Belt
Legs - Phorcys Dirs
Feet - Lancer's Schynbalds +2

This set grants the following stats:

STR - 24
DEX - 29
VIT - 25
ATT - 100
ACC -41
Polearm Skill - 12
Store TP - 37
Haste - 26
Double Attack - 17 with an additional 10% off of the War Sub-Job for a total of 27% Double Attack.

I did not take into account with those numbers how STR, DEX and Pole Arm skill feed into ACC and ATT. Those are raw numbers off of the gear.

Thank You for taking a look at my request! ^^

[Satisiun]

Personally, Mal, I would consider swapping the Rose Strap with a Pole Grip (+2 DA), and the Portus Ring with a Tyrant's Ring (of course if you're doing Campaign, definitely stick with the Rose Strap). You ultimately keep the same amount of Store TP, add a couple points of Double Attack, and while you lose some Accuracy from not having the +5 Polearm skill, if you're at 99 it should be a negligible loss. The other loss being the -4 AGI from the ring, but you're not a Dragoon to be agile anyway.

Beyond the main gear you are showing there, consider as well macro'd in gear for when you weapon skill. In my case, I have a pair of Calmecac Trousers, some Jingang Greaves, and Lancer's Vambrace's +2 I toss on for Stardiver, adding in an extra +10 DA (that is including the Pole Grip).

So +10 from all those pieces, plus Brutal (+5), plus Atheling (+3), being +18% DA ... tack on the spear for 27% DA (37% in the event of a /WAR sub). This is just my personal opinion, and I don't pretend at all to know much of anything, but a 27% chance of doubling up on any of our multi-hit WS attacks sounds like good, good stuff.

Going with just a TP build gear like you show, you're still sitting at 19% DA if you try the grip/ring swap I mentioned. Obviously that is no 40-50% proc. rate like the OA2 can give you, but from anecdotal evidence with my current rollout with a Nahvalr and 12% DA from gear? I see plenty of DA proccing to keep me happy.

I'm sort of rambling, so I'll cut myself off here.

[Malphius]

You're right about tyrants ring. That's where my missing 4 STP was hiding! I forgot about it the second time I added it up. As far as the grips I don't know what would be more important. Getting to 40 STP or having 2% more DA. Since I really don't know how to calculate this stuff I could already have more STP than needed idk lol ^^

[Motenten]

Little bits to note:

Switching from /sam to /war, Str polearm seems to gain a fair bit more than the OAT. As /sam, OAT is the weapon to beat, but as /war, str polearm is on par or slightly ahead of OAT (and both weapons improve relative to /sam).

Caveat: This is just with what gear I have in place; I'm not doing a full gear comparison here.

Aside: Fixed the default delay for Jump/High Jump; they were still at 90/180 seconds in my spreadsheet.

I don't have the base damage on the DA polearm; none of the wikis are up to date, and FFXIAH doesn't list augments. Using 125 as a guess.

Switching from str to DA polearm increases average hits per round from 1.245 to 1.327, given 22% DA vs 31% DA, plus 2% TA and 2% QA. That's a 6.59% increase in hits per round, which should translate to about the same amount in overall damage (all else being equal). It ends up being more than that due to effects of gear changes in weaponskills and jumps. Overall gain of a Chauve-Souris going from 0% DA to 9% DA is an 8.5% increase in overall DPS.

However a Nahalvr has a higher base damage (?), and much lower delay.

Overall combination of effects puts the str Nahalvr at 2.3% ahead of the DA lance if all gear is the same. The OAT lance is 1.7% ahead of the DA lance.

Certainly tweaking can be done, and I might be wrong in my guess about the DA lance's base damage (if it was 128, it would tie with the OAT). However the initial view indicates that it's not the best option; if you're capping attack (which may be possible as /war in Voidwatch) it will beat the str polearm, but still fall behind the OAT.

[Satisiun]

You're right about tyrants ring. That's where my missing 4 STP was hiding! I forgot about it the second time I added it up. As far as the grips I don't know what would be more important. Getting to 40 STP or having 2% more DA. Since I really don't know how to calculate this stuff I could already have more STP than needed idk lol ^^

Don't quote me on this, as like I said I'm not as in the know as many others around here seem to be, but I am under the impression that if you're aiming for a 5-hit build, you need at least 34 Store TP. So with that in mind, if your roll-out already has +36, you're ahead of the curve when it comes to what you need on your polearm.

That's mainly why I would take the Pole Grip over the Rose Strap. You're already at capped physical haste, your STP is enough for a 5-hit, that means you have some leeway. May as well toss on some DA and hope for some added attacks/bonus damage during WSes and Jumps.

Edit: A more knowledgable friend beat me over the head with her mathematics book. You actually need 45 STP for a 5-hitter with the DA/OA2 weapons. My mistake! :( A 6-hit, however, is entirely doable (low to mid 20s required depending on delay). Of course this is all under the assumption you're starting at exactly 0% TP.


Certainly tweaking can be done, and I might be wrong in my guess about the DA lance's base damage (if it was 128, it would tie with the OAT). However the initial view indicates that it's not the best option; if you're capping attack (which may be possible as /war in Voidwatch) it will beat the str polearm, but still fall behind the OAT.

In that case, it's worth pointing out that the DA+9 Chauve-Souris indeed has a higher base DMG than that. It's 132 DMG, comparable to the Nahvalr's base DMG, but minus the STR/Attack boosts.

[Motenten]

In that case, it's worth pointing out that the DA+9 Chauve-Souris indeed has a higher base DMG than that. It's 132 DMG, comparable to the Nahvalr's base DMG, but minus the STR/Attack boosts.

Ok, that changes things around a bit.

Vs a mob with high level correction, but not capped attack, str lance will win; as attack gets capped, DA lance wins.
Vs a mob with low or no level correction, DA lance tends to win regardless.
DA looks like it always wins vs OAT (OAT gets ~15% more attacks, but DA has ~18% higher damage per hit).