Offhand for almace

[hideka]

OA1-2 Khanda or OA2-4 Khanda? which would do best?
im sure the questions been posted before.

[Neisan_Quetz]

The answer was Str Shamshir.

[hideka]

somehow i dont think str and attack is going to beat out OAT and OA2-4 for almace :/ i could be wrong tho. im sure someones tested the numbers for it.

[Neisan_Quetz]

ODD and both suck for overall damage say sup

[Transmit]

I personally use the Double Attack Khanda and love it. BLU/war can easily hit 30+% DA and 8% Triple Attack with it, which tops the OAT, plus it has much higher damage. Though I am working on a STR sword on the side.

[Prothscar]

STR Shamshir is the only option. Double Attack and OA2 fall behind due to their delays, and the OA2's base damage. OA4 isn't even worth mentioning.

The attack and STR from a fire shamshir is very valuable.

DEX Shamshir is suitable for situations where your ACC is horrible, but those situations hardly exist. Even in voidwatch, Stalwart's and food will be enough fix that issue, often just the stalwarts.

Ephemeron, I would argue, is the strongest offhand however.

[Transmit]

Is the gap between the STR sword and the DA one really that large when gearing specfically for CDC spamming?

I mean the slightly increased delay (22 with the DA sword, it doesnt receive the +12 extra delay that the OAT ones get) pushes my TP per hit spot on to 5 TP a swing, which in a way is nice for rounding getting to 100% reliably. In most situations where I do go CDC spam I usually sub WAR, so berserk really covers any lack of attack my BLU has along with appropriate food / Stalwarts etc. +11% Double attack is a big increase in attack speed as well as WS damage.

I'm not saying the DA sword is better, I'm saying is it really such a gap to say "STR is the only option"

[Prothscar]

Yes it's a big enough gap. STR is the only sword worth using if you do not need Accuracy or do not have an Ephemeron. Your extra TP per hit accounts for 1 attack round worth of TP. The extra delay shaved off of the Khanda is worth more than that.

[Prothscar]

What did I just read? If you value your BLU, do not take the above poster's advice.

[Tashan]

Hey Guys,

The discussion of "which sword is best" is certainly one which has taken place time and time again throughout the history of Azure Lore. Before anything, I want to just say please don't feel disconcerned or uncomfortable for not being able to gauge the differences between the vast options available.

I for one can completely relate to this:


I'm not saying the DA sword is better, I'm saying is it really such a gap to say "STR is the only option"

Indeed, it's difficult to correctly discern what the gap is without prior knowledge or informed discussion. For one, I personally could not tell how much of difference it was at first without some parsed testing, research and talking to some better informed players. I felt that if I was going to put all this time and effort into something it had better be noticeable. More often than not for Blue Mage it's the subtle benefits which make the biggest differences.

DPS - Damage Per Second. Calculated as DPS = DMG/(Delay/60). The higher a weapons DPS, the better it is before considering additional effects.

OA2-4 Weapon

30 Base Damage - The Base Damage on these weapons are comparable to that which a LV47 Blue Mage could use. What this leaves you with is poor damage over time. The only way a weapon with such low DMG could be worthwhile is whether the delay was so low its DPS (damage per second) ends up actually very high.
264 Delay - Unfortunantly the delay on these weapons is very high, lowering your DPS drastically.
Effect - Does the effect outweigh these downsides? Unfortunatly no. It tries to balance itself out with this effect but the downsides of the aforemention two points is so great it's not worth it.


OA2 Weapon

51 Base Damage - This base damage is better than the OA2-4 weapon but still below average.
264 Delay - Unfortunantly the delay on this weapon is still very high. While the higher base damage does make the DPS better, it's still below average for Blue Mage Weapons at this level.
Effect - Last year this weapon was tested to have a ~40% proc rate. I don't know whether it still is but even if you attacked twice 90% of the time it would not be enough to outweigh the benefits of the alternative weapons.


Whilst the concept of additional attacks may seem attractive, it actually does very little to improve a Blue Mage's offense. I'll illustrate why whilst covering the upcoming weapons:

Double Attack +11
62 Base Damage - The base damage for this sword is respectable for LV99.
252 Delay - The delay for this sword is lower than that of the OA? weapons but is still very high for the average Blue Mage weapon.
Effect - The juciy part of this weapon is its DA +11. While DA+11 procs a less than the OAT weapons, the mechanics of Double Attack outshine them.


--> The effect "Occasionally Attacks" procs only on the weapon which it is stated for. The effect "Double Attack" can proc on either weapon whilst Dual-Wielding, or even both weapons.


--> The effect "Occasionally Attacks" procs only on melee swings. The effect "Double Attack" can proc on melee swings and also twice on weaponskill's. For example: Chant Du Cygne is a 3-Hit Weaponskill. When dual-wielding, your offhand weapon can make it a 4-Hit Weaponskill. Should double attack proc twice during the weaponskill, it becomes 6-Hits. The limit on this is 8-Hits per Weaponskill.


--> The effect "Occasionally Attacks" and "Double Attack" do not stack with each other. In addition the effects also have a priority order:



Quadruple Attack
OA4
Triple Attack
OA3
Double Attack
OA2



As the effects do not lend themselves to each other, when one activates the rest are equivalent to nothing. e.g. If your DA activates, your OA2 is worthless. With all the Double Attack enhancements available to Blue Mage that you'll most likely be taking advantage of, you are better off increasing the effect rather than working on another.

STR Weapon
61 Base Damage - Respectful.
230 Delay - Combined with the base DMG the delay results in a good DPS rating.
Effect - Without getting too precise, STR increases the damage of Melee swings, weaponskills, physical blue spells. It also contributes to secondary STR modifiers should the spell or WS have one. The additional 27 attack also increases the damage of your Melee Swings and Weaponskills.

While it is difficult to express fully in a summary, the reason why the STR sword outshines all of the other Magian weapons is because of the increase in damage it provides to practically everything you will be doing offensively.

If you would like more specific details or have any questions please ask.

Hope this helped.

[saevel]

As much as I tend to disagree with Proth, he's correct here. BLU isn't a job with high attack and thus will almost never be in a situation with capped ratio. Capping accuracy is child's play now. STR is always useful as you need + ~60 STR to cap fSTR on a 90 Almace, that's not going to happen on anything worthwhile outside of Abyssea.

The main source of a CDC BLU's damage is that WS not their spells. You will use your spells to self SC with CDC for additional damage or for setting useful buffs / job traits. You can also use yoru spells to finish something off without having to waste TP on a WS when it's almost dead.

[Demonofhunger]

How does the additional TP from an OA2-4 sword factor into the comparisons?

I've asked on various boards and never seen the actual equations being used when sword comparisons are being done. No one has ever offered them up

[Neisan_Quetz]

It has high delay (for a sword), unfavourable effect (procs after DA/TA) and crap damage rating, there's hardly anything good about it.

[Tashan]

How does the additional TP from an OA2-4 sword factor into the comparisons?

I've asked on various boards and never seen the actual equations being used when sword comparisons are being done. No one has ever offered them up

This is where it get's a lot more tricky as you'll need to specify exactly what is being compared as a consideration. I could tell you exactly how much tp you'll be producing but you'll need to decide whether you're dual-wielding, what tier of dual-wield you have, your equipment, and what exactly you're comparing it to.

Weapons produce more TP per hit the higher their delay. With the higher delay and multi-hitting attack you'll produce TP faster with the OA2-4 weapon than any of the others. Having one myself, I definetly will say it's very fun to see yourself gain 30+ TP in a round.

However, the extra TP gain does not give increase your damage enough to use as a mainstain weapon and should only be considered if you're looking for something to help you proc weaponskills faster or you're spamming Sanguine Blade with MATK atmas.

[hideka]

PLD+Kclub + Sanguine blade +MAB atma/gear = immortal.

[Neisan_Quetz]

Stopped reading at MAB atma. Not sure how I walked past kclub either, I must be tired.

[Demonofhunger]

This is where it get's a lot more tricky as you'll need to specify exactly what is being compared as a consideration. I could tell you exactly how much tp you'll be producing but you'll need to decide whether you're dual-wielding, what tier of dual-wield you have, your equipment, and what exactly you're comparing it to.

Weapons produce more TP per hit the higher their delay. With the higher delay and multi-hitting attack you'll produce TP faster with the OA2-4 weapon than any of the others. Having one myself, I definetly will say it's very fun to see yourself gain 30+ TP in a round.

However, the extra TP gain does not give increase your damage enough to use as a mainstain weapon and should only be considered if you're looking for something to help you proc weaponskills faster or you're spamming Sanguine Blade with MATK atmas.

I'd be curious to see just how much damage is being lost by subbing a OA2-4 and if doing CdCs a lot more often and keeping Aftermath up longer with an Almace main makes up for it. Considering that there might be situations where CdC may be the only effective way for a BLU to damage some high-def/high-level mobs, anything that supplements Almace CdC use seems to be ideal.

Also, I wonder if the previous assessments were Abyssea-centric. With new content coming that is outside of Abyssea, any calculations involving Razed Ruins and other killer atma is going to be less and less relevant. If new Nyzul is anything like old Nyzul, Blue Magic is going to be crap on boss NMs and we'll need to CdC as often as possible to meaningfully contribute.

I don't have either sword, but I've love to see the calculations and criteria people have used to make this decision.

[Transmit]

I know that with the OA2 sword is really all but useless seeing as with the Double Attack sword it is very easy for a BLU to hit over 30% double attack and 3% TA /nin, or 34% DA 8% TA if you're pushing it with /war, and the DA applies to both hands rather than just the sword it is on, and it also proc's on WS's for increased damage. Meaning a 40% OA2 in one hand isn't all that appealing for TP gain seeing as it renders DA / TA much less useful.

But I couldnt say for OA2-4 times, did anyone ever work out the exact distribution of hits for it? I thought it was pretty poor.

On a side note I've been on the test server doing new Nyzul with BLU, and it seems to be the same as level 75 nyzul. BLU is extremely useful as sudden lunge stuns nearly everything you come across. (Though we couldnt find a boss floor to see what we got)

[Tashan]

As said, it get's really difficult to calculate the differences in damage between the weapons precisely because the is a lot which must be considered for in order to do so. As such, it's not something which I will be taking the time to actually do but I can demonstrate what exactly the thought process behind it is.

The main areas of consideration would be:
--> The situation you are in.
--> Your statistics including traits, equipment, food, and enhancements.
--> Enemy statistics.

Situation

The situation is important because it determines a BLU's general battle strategy.

For example, in a situation where you are killing monsters for an extended amount of time such as an abyssea merit party the most damage you can be doing on BLU is to cast Delta Thrust, Heavy Strike, and Benethic Typhoon as much as possible whilst meleeing, weaponskilling and self-skillchaining. With the release of the new spells you'll now be throwing EF Quadrastrikes in as much as possible, rather than EFCA Qaud. Cont. Since you will be spending nearly as much time spellcast as you will be meleeing, instantly the 11 STR weapon becomes a much better constant boost.

In the example you've mention of High Def/High Level monsters, I assume you're refering to Voidwatch where your best option is to not melee but to spam Regurgitation, Dark Orb and perform as many BA Everyone's Grudge's as you can.

In situations such as Notorious Monsters, you'll want to avoid using OA2-4 weapons as much as possible because the TP recieved:Damage ratio you're feeding to your opponent is in their favour since the sword has such a low base-damage.

Statistics

Consider:

-->STR vs VIT - Are you already capping fSTR on the monster you're fighting?
-->Physical BLU ATK vs DEF - How much damage will your spells be doing?
-->Melee ATK vs DEF - How much damage will your WS' and melee swings be doing?
-->Additional Attacks and Counter Rates
-->Delay reduction and Haste
-->WS TP Gain - How often will you be recieving additional hits during weaponskills? How much extra TP will you have after WS' over time? How much of that TP will be spent for spellcasts during Chain Affinity?
-->Critical Hit Damage and Rate

---

All of this can become extremely specific and time-consuming that it's beyond my own interests. However, there are those who will put in the effort and work and you are able to contact them.

For example: I believe it was Nightfyre of the Fenrir server who took the time to compare the LV90 DA+10 weapon against the STR Shamshir for damage and found the STR Shamshir pulls ahead.

[Tashan]

But I couldnt say for OA2-4 times, did anyone ever work out the exact distribution of hits for it? I thought it was pretty poor.


IIRC it was 40/20/10 for 2/3/4 attacks respectively. The OA2-3 Sword averaged at 1.7 attacks per round, so the OA2-4 can't be much higher than that.

[Nightfyre]

How does the additional TP from an OA2-4 sword factor into the comparisons?

I've asked on various boards and never seen the actual equations being used when sword comparisons are being done. No one has ever offered them up
Badly. I did a comparison with it a while ago by request and the long story short is that our relatively high base multiattack rate and the inferior delay combine to make it very unattractive. I did the comparison both in and outside Abyssea. Changes since then have if anything only made it worse relative to other options.

[Demonofhunger]

Badly. I did a comparison with it a while ago by request and the long story short is that our relatively high base multiattack rate and the inferior delay combine to make it very unattractive. I did the comparison both in and outside Abyssea. Changes since then have if anything only made it worse relative to other options.

Once again, I'll ask for the actual calculations used to make that determination.

As far as I can tell from what little has been posted, the assumptions used to make that determination are radically different from what I know about BLU. (For example, SE has confirmed BLU set DA is only 7% and our DA gear choices are not that great, so I don't even know what you are talking about when you say "high base multi-attack" considering /WAR is going to be terrible in a lot of situations. I don't even see why there is such a large importance being placed on rare DA conflicts with OA2-4 on normal strikes.)

I'll grant that the evaluation may be correct, but the fact that no one I have asked on multiple boards has ever provided figures or what conditions were used does not inspire confidence in the evaluation.

[Prothscar]

On the contrary, /WAR is the best melee sub that BLU can use in any situation that it would be meleeing aside from solo.

[Demonofhunger]

On the contrary, /WAR is the best melee sub that BLU can use in any situation that it would be meleeing aside from solo.

What situation would you use /WAR for?

I do a lot of lowmanning, tanking, and soloing, and in those situations I can't see /WAR being useful since it lacks damage mitigation. Honestly, I can't think of a single situation where /WAR would be the best choice.

Are people making these evaluations based on some theoretical fight where /WAR would be useful to max out melee strikes and the enemy never hits you or uses TP moves? I could see that happening in merit Abyssea parties, but who really cares about maxxing melee there since mobs last a few seconds each? You could increase kill speed better by simply BLU-burning.

It's these kinds of issues that make me really want to see the original calculations. I'm only asking that someone post a link.

[Prothscar]

Could just get better support. I don't have Nightfyre's information concerning swords, however using common sense and experience with the job for several years, I can affirm my belief in /WAR being the superior sub job for BLU in most situations where you're meleeing these days. That allows access to a large amount of multiattack+, which does not mesh well with an OA2-4 weapon. Beyond that, the weapon's pitiful base damage and delay make it even more unattractive. Surely you can see that?

[Transmit]

In VW /war is fantastic if you plan on meleeing the monster. Occultation is nothing to be sniffed at, and Magic Barrier is good for negating that next AoE. But really? A good group in VW should be able to keep you in fanatic drinks about 80% of the time.

You can set triple attack on BLU main, have double attack from sub, zerk + aggresor, dual wield 3 naturally from BLU now. It has a lot to really push up your melee damage.

I've tried /war at Pil, Akvan, Kaggen, Qilin etc and I survive just as easily as any other DD and I'm able to provide massive chunks of damage.

[Tashan]

Indeed theory fighting can only be respected as far, but as said before I'm not willing to sit down and calculate the results because it would take too much time. Particularly since the answer is predictably obvious.

However, what I am willing to do is some parsing. I so happen to have an OA2-4 Khanda and a STR Shamshir. If you want to set the parameters and situations for me test the two weapons I will do so. Simply look at the considerations which need to be made on the list I wrote and submit your specifications.

I will then do the parsing when I can get around to it. With the holiday season that may not be until the 27th at least.

[Demonofhunger]

Indeed theory fighting can only be respected as far, but as said before I'm not willing to sit down and calculate the results because it would take too much time. Particularly since the answer is predictably obvious.

However, what I am willing to do is some parsing. I so happen to have an OA2-4 Khanda and a STR Shamshir. If you want to set the parameters and situations for me test the two weapons I will do so. Simply look at the considerations which need to be made on the list I wrote and submit your specifications.

I will then do the parsing when I can get around to it. With the holiday season that may not be until the 27th at least.

If you have an Almace (85) or better to mainhand, go for it. I'd love to see what the parses look like on EM or stronger foes that aren't feeding you a lot of TP.

If it's just a parse on abyssea leveling mobs or not using an Almace (85) or better, it would be a waste of your time.

[Tashan]

I have an Almace (90), a (90) OA2-4, and a Shamshir (95).

[saevel]

What situation would you use /WAR for?

I do a lot of lowmanning, tanking, and soloing, and in those situations I can't see /WAR being useful since it lacks damage mitigation. Honestly, I can't think of a single situation where /WAR would be the best choice.

Are people making these evaluations based on some theoretical fight where /WAR would be useful to max out melee strikes and the enemy never hits you or uses TP moves? I could see that happening in merit Abyssea parties, but who really cares about maxxing melee there since mobs last a few seconds each? You could increase kill speed better by simply BLU-burning.

It's these kinds of issues that make me really want to see the original calculations. I'm only asking that someone post a link.

BLU/WAR is used when you need maximum melee offense. Almace/STR Shamshir with DWIII set and as many JT's as you can fit along with A.Spikes and Q.strike (self SC properties). Use occulation for damage mitigation and ride zerg while spamming CDC as much as possible. It's not a sub for solo / small group scenarios.

[Nightfyre]

What situation would you use /WAR for?

I do a lot of lowmanning, tanking, and soloing, and in those situations I can't see /WAR being useful since it lacks damage mitigation. Honestly, I can't think of a single situation where /WAR would be the best choice.
Given the lack of any useful clarifying information from the OP, the assumption is that damage output is the primary focus and you build accordingly when making comparisons. If you want data for a specific situation, you have to provide specific input.

For your specific case, I can actually construct further arguments against the use of an OA4 weapon given the increase in TP feed and inefficient damage/hit. You have to weigh the TP gain of an OA4 offhand (which is solely useful for increased Sanguine Blade spam, at which point the use of mainhand Almace is called into question... I'm sure you can see where I'm going here) against a defensive option (pdt/eva swords, Genbu's Shield) or even simply killing faster with a superior offhand.

As for /WAR, I use it pretty much any time where damage taken either isn't a concern or can't be sufficiently mitigated by subjob abilities to justify the loss of output. This actually includes a fair amount of Voidwatch NMs, among other content. It's not necessary for the purpose of my comparison though and I did the comparisons both as /NIN and /WAR. Also, even as /NIN you'll find that BLU does in fact have a high base multiattack rate. My melee-focused set has 6% triple attack and 16% DA and is actually missing 3% DA (Portus Collar, though it's not exactly clear-cut vs Rancor). Combined with even our 7% base trait, that's 1.3362 attacks generated per hand per round using Almace/STR. By comparison, an augmented Armadaberk WAR using AF3 neck/earring, Brutal, Atheling, and AF3+2 legs has 31% DA for 1.31 attacks per round. If /WAR with Triple attack set, my hits/round actually exceeds that of a MNK/WAR. I'll grant that the set I'm using on BLU is pretty high-end (I have Toci's Harness and Ocelomeh Headpiece +1), but even replacing Ocelomeh+1/Toci's with Mavi+2/Mavi+2 you exceed 1.25 hits as /NIN with DA set.

I'll do some fresh comparisons for 99 later, holidays etc.

[Demonofhunger]

I don't mean to be impolite, but that seems to be a circular bit of theory.

If you care about TP feed for any reason, then you shouldn't be meleeing at all (or should be using a sub with Subtle Blow if you can afford some TP feed and you want to minimize it).

If you don't care about TP feed, then any actual total damage lost by offhanding an OA2-4 comes from slightly slower melee strikes that do a slightly smaller amount of total damage. (Only a quarter of DA and TA on melee strikes is wasted because DA and TA still work fine on WS, so the actual amounts of lost damage from melee strikes is very small.)

In exchange, you get a huge amount of OA2, OA3, and OA4 on that weapon and a huge amount of TP and the ability to WS substantially more often (and it leads to the further question of whether a TP gearset might be more favorable overall).

The only relevant question is whether the small amount of melee strikes damage lost by using an OA2-4 in the offhand is offset by the extra damage from WSs and ODD from an Almace. Any other theoretical discussions are a distraction at best and misleading at worst.

I mean, saying that you get more hits/round than a MNK/WAR says nothing about Total Damage Over Time, and at the end of the day the total amount of damage is the only important number. An Almace sword makes this an interesting question because Chant Du Cygne can often do good to decent damage on NMs that we can only slightly damage with a normal melee strike or BLU spell, so maxxing out uses of CdC also maxxes out Total Damage.

I think the thing I find most fascinating about this argument is that people are making snap decisions after looking at just a few stats divorced from all the other considerations that go into increasing total damage, including other directly relevant stats.

[Prothscar]

TP feed from a BLU is largely irrelevant in Voidwatch (and even on most Abyssea NMs) where /WAR is most relevant. It isn't a slight amount of attack speed loss or a slight amount of melee damage lost by wielding an OA2 or OA4 sword, it is a significant amount. You either are not reading the thread clearly or are very stubborn, as it's been said several times now why the OA4 and OA2 swords are inferior to other options in several different ways.

Blue Mage has shit for attack. We can bolster it to acceptable levels with Berserk and Stalwart's Drink, but it's still rather bad. Losing 27.5 attack from a fire sword and 25+/- base damage on top of the substantial loss of attack delay and overall melee swing damage, before even considering that the multiattack procs on an OA2 or OA4 sword are largely mitigated by BLU's already substantial multiattack rate, is a fairly one-sided battle in favor of a fire sword. It honestly is a no brainer, I don't see how anyone can argue differently.

A BLU can handily exceed a MNK/WAR's attacks per round, and even with that a BLU will never exceed a MNK/WAR's overall damage done over time, however an OA2 or OA4 sword is limiting BLU's damage potential even further. This is the part you seem to be having trouble with: an OA2 or OA4 sword will not be increasing your weaponskill frequency, it will almost certainly be hurting it. It will not only be detrimental to your weaponskill frequency, but your overall damage done.

I'm sorry that you wasted so much time on your sword, however it does not make it any more relevant in any possible situation.

[Demonofhunger]

This is the part you seem to be having trouble with: an OA2 or OA4 sword will not be increasing your weaponskill frequency, it will almost certainly be hurting it.

Correct. All of the data I've seen says that WS frequency is increased when using an OA2-4 offhand.

If you have any data or calculations disproving that, I'd like to look them over.

[Tashan]

I don't mean to be impolite, but that seems to be a circular bit of theory.

If you care about TP feed for any reason, then you shouldn't be meleeing at all (or should be using a sub with Subtle Blow if you can afford some TP feed and you want to minimize it).

If you don't care about TP feed, then any actual total damage lost by offhanding an OA2-4 comes from slightly slower melee strikes that do a slightly smaller amount of total damage. (Only a quarter of DA and TA on melee strikes is wasted because DA and TA still work fine on WS, so the actual amounts of lost damage from melee strikes is very small.)

In exchange, you get a huge amount of OA2, OA3, and OA4 on that weapon and a huge amount of TP and the ability to WS substantially more often (and it leads to the further question of whether a TP gearset might be more favorable overall).

The only relevant question is whether the small amount of melee strikes damage lost by using an OA2-4 in the offhand is offset by the extra damage from WSs and ODD from an Almace. Any other theoretical discussions are a distraction at best and misleading at worst.

I mean, saying that you get more hits/round than a MNK/WAR says nothing about Total Damage Over Time, and at the end of the day the total amount of damage is the only important number. An Almace sword makes this an interesting question because Chant Du Cygne can often do good to decent damage on NMs that we can only slightly damage with a normal melee strike or BLU spell, so maxxing out uses of CdC also maxxes out Total Damage.

I think the thing I find most fascinating about this argument is that people are making snap decisions after looking at just a few stats divorced from all the other considerations that go into increasing total damage, including other directly relevant stats.

You don't understand what is meant by Damage vs TP Fed.

The idea is not whether you're feeding TP to a monster or not, but how much damage you're doing whilst feeding a certain amount of TP.

When you hit an enemy with a OA Khanda you're feeding your enemy 9.9 TP per hit, whilst with a STR Shamshir it's 9.2. As a rough number lets say the OA does 50 damage per hit, and the Shamshir does 100 damage per hit. By the time you've fed your opponent 90TP, you'll have done 500 damage with the OA and 1000 with the Shamshir. Regardless of whether you're hitting your opponent faster you're still doing less damage.

That is what is meant about TP Feed vs Damage.

---

You've still not stated your parameters for me to do any parsing.

[Demonofhunger]

You don't understand what is meant by Damage vs TP Fed.

The idea is not whether you're feeding TP to a monster or not, but how much damage you're doing whilst feeding a certain amount of TP.

When you hit an enemy with a OA Khanda you're feeding your enemy 9.9 TP per hit, whilst with a STR Shamshir it's 9.2. As a rough number lets say the OA does 50 damage per hit, and the Shamshir does 100 damage per hit. By the time you've fed your opponent 90TP, you'll have done 500 damage with the OA and 1000 with the Shamshir. Regardless of whether you're hitting your opponent faster you're still doing less damage.

That is what is meant about TP Feed vs Damage.

---

You've still not stated your parameters for me to do any parsing.

I understand what TP feed vs. damage means, but I don't see it as a useful idea for BLUs.

I mean, if the mob you are fighting has dangerous TP moves and you are concerned about them doing those moves, then letting a BLU melee on that mob is a bad tactic regardless of the swords he is using. You don't do it.

If those TP moves are manageable, then it doesn't matter how much TP you feed the mob. Sword away as much as you want and spam multi-hit spells.

In the middle situation where you want to keep TP moves to a minimum but can afford some TP feeding, the BLU uses magic spells or single-hit physical spells and doesn't melee at all.

TP feed vs. damage is a useful concept for WARs and other dedicated meleeing guys, but not for BLUs because any meleeing at all is going to be the worse TP feed vs. damage option for our job compared to our other options.

-----------

As for a parse, the parameters would be 99+ mobs outside of Abyssea. I'd be interested to see if more frequent ODD and CdC use compensate for the loss of melee hit damage from using an OA2-4.

Any other parameters you need?

[Tashan]

Sorry, I didn't mean to say "You don't understand" as that seems rude. It was suppose to say "It kinda seems you don't".


I mean, if the mob you are fighting has dangerous TP moves and you are concerned about them doing those moves, then letting a BLU melee on that mob is a bad tactic regardless of the swords he is using. You don't do it.

I disagree with that. The reason why it's important to consider TP Feed vs Damage Dealt is because it contributes to playing efficiently. For example I was soloing Odin Prime earlier and his TP moves are:

Gagnrath: Front-AoE damage and Terror.
Sanngetall: AoE Dispel, removes one buff.
Valfodr: AoE damage and Curse + Silence.
Ofnir: AoE damage.
Yggr: Gives Odin the ability to Intimidate players.
Geirrothr: Only has a 3000 Needles effect instead of the 10000 Needles effect Einherjar Odin does. Used around 50%.
Zantetsuken : An Astral Flow like ability. Will be used under 50% HP . This move will deal death to all members within a 30' radius around him.

Any of those moves used repeatedly are annoying to deal with. It would be inefficient for me to do less damage whilst giving him more TP, and thus taking more damage. However, just because the moves are annoying, doesn't mean I'm not going to melee at all.

Another example could be myself in a party farming an NM such as Orthrus, and I'm damage dealing or tanking. Whilst moves such as Acheron Flame and [Paralyze TP Move] are manageable, it is more efficient for him to have lost more health than less between being able to use them.

--

As you've said not Abyssea Merit Mobs, I've thought of leaving abyssea and using a camp in one of the older regions with new monsters. However, I'm not sure which to use just yet. Usually in a parsing test I would stick to a specific situation or monster and then fight a large numeber of them with each dependant variable that we're assessing.

For example, I've just visited the higher level camp in The Boyahda Tree and there are VT-IT Crabs, Crawlers and Puks there. However, the layout of the camp is mixed and thus not easy for me to pick just one mob family to stick to without aggroing/engaging others. A mixture wouldn't be bad either, but Puks have moves such as Flash and Knockback which may skewer results.

If you're happy for me to stay at this camp I'm happy to stay, but if not do you have any suggestions?

In addition what independant variables would you like me to control? My current TP build setup for the following:

Almace(90) + Khanda(90)

BLU/NIN

Total Delay: 207.4953 (3.46 seconds)
TP Per Hit: 5.7 (15 Hits for 85.3 TP + 14.7 WS TP)
Equipment Haste: 252 (24.61%)
Magic Haste (Animating Wail): 14.65%
Total Haste: 39.26
Store TP Job + Other: 18
STR: 98+26
Attack: 542
Critical Hit Rate Merits: 5/5 + Whatever Rancor Collar is.
Double Attack Rate: Trait + 13%
Triple Attack Rate: 3%

Almace(90) + Shamshir(95)

BLU/NIN

Total Delay: 193.0387 (3.22 seconds)
TP Per Hit: 5.6 (16 Hits for 85.5 TP + 14.5 WS TP)
Equipment Haste: 252 (24.61%)
Magic Haste (Animating Wail): 14.65%
Total Haste: 39.26
Store TP Job + Other: 18
STR: 98+36
Attack: 569
Critical Hit Rate Merits: 5/5 + Whatever Rancor Collar is.
Double Attack Rate: Trait + 13%
Triple Attack Rate: 3%


Job Traits Set Besides /NIN are:

Assimilation
Auto Refresh
Attack Bonus
Double Attack
Store TP
Conserve MP
Skillchain Bonus
Evasion Bonus

Spells Set:

Heavy Strike
Empty Thrash
Delta Thrust
Quadrastrike
Amorphic Spikes
Sudden Lunge
Fantod
Plasma Charge
Actinic Burst
Magic Fruit
Animating Wail
Battle Dance
Uppercut
Goblin Rush
Chaotic Eye
Zephyr Mantle
Occulation
Screwdriver


As for the WS set the only thing which is notably important is I'll have:

Double Attack: Trait + 11%
Triple Attack: 3%

Lastly there's the parameter's of what is to be kept the same whilst actually fighting. As said in an earlier post, the most effective way for a BLU to deal damage is to use Delta Thrust, Benethic Typhoon (I will leave this out because of its add. effect), and Heavy Strike as often as possible whilst meleeing and doing Efflux + Quadrastrike and skillchains with CA + Amorphic Spikes. This is where the differences between the weapons will become most notable. It is possible to discount any thing I do later on by simply deducting it's damage if you don't agree with it, but I can avoid it all together by not using it.

Do you want me to change sub?
Do you want me to change spells?
Should I not use Plen. Embrace because of it's add effect? (I don't usually when soloing anyway)
How many monsters do you want me to fight with each sword setup?
Should I avoid debuffs?
Do you want me to use food?

On these VT-IT mobs in Boyahda Tree, my accuracy is capped and the monsters check with Low Evasion. Defense varies. I have Red Curry +1's, Meat Mithkabobs and Squid Sushi +1 on me atm if you wan me to use them.

[Prothscar]

Correct. All of the data I've seen says that WS frequency is increased when using an OA2-4 offhand.

If you have any data or calculations disproving that, I'd like to look them over.


My data and calculations are common sense. I honestly have 0 idea how you cannot possibly see what everyone else sees, and so adamantly defend the inferior option.

D: 61
Delay: 230
STR+11
Attack+22

v.

D: 31
Delay: 264
Occ. attacks 2-4 times (30%/40%/20%/10% hit distribution)


A good Blue Mage has a minimum of 20% Double Attack and 3% Triple Attack in TP gear, and can get as high as 29% Double Attack and 11% Triple Attack in TP gear (perhaps a little more, may be missing a piece).

That's an already massive amount of chance to have a multiattack on both weapons. This, plus the extra 34 delay, plus the loss of 30 base damage, plus the loss of 11 strength, plus the loss of 27.5 attack, leads to the OA2-4 being absolutely worthless. What do you not grasp in this concept? You really don't need calculations to discern this, and judging by your past experiences whoever did the calculations previously had no idea what they were talking about.

With 29% DA and 11% TA:

You have an 11% chance to Triple Attack, and then a 29% chance to Double Attack. The game will always look for Triple Attack before Double Attack, and the Double Attack will not occur if the Triple Attack does first.

0.89 * 0.71 = 0.6319% chance that you will not get a Double or Triple attack, or 63.19%, meaning you waste 36.81% of the OA2-4 sword's "potential".

In contrast, OA2-4 sword, assuming 30/40/20/10, has 2.1 attacks/round average, which is a ~55% increase in attack frequency before DA/TA, which comes out to a 16.5% increase in attacks/round once you consider DW and DA/TA. Once you factor in the higher delay however, it's less of an increase in TP speed, for a grand total of 22% once all is said and done. Once you factor in the loss of 30 D, 27.5 attack, and 11 STR, it's a major loss in overall DPS, including melee strikes, spells, and weaponskills.

Any "potential" that an OA2-4 sword may have is undoubtedly diminished by Blue Mage's native abilities and the fire sword's attributes. It comes down to a delay difference which makes for slower TP gain and aftermath damage, while DA/TA significantly reduce the effectiveness of an OA2-4 sword, which only works in one hand, reducing its impact, and low base damage contributing to further loss of DOT that isn't compensated for by a minor or nonexistent increase in WS frequency.


Clear enough for you?

[Nightfyre]

I don't mean to be impolite, but that seems to be a circular bit of theory.

If you care about TP feed for any reason, then you shouldn't be meleeing at all (or should be using a sub with Subtle Blow if you can afford some TP feed and you want to minimize it).

If you don't care about TP feed, then any actual total damage lost by offhanding an OA2-4 comes from slightly slower melee strikes that do a slightly smaller amount of total damage. (Only a quarter of DA and TA on melee strikes is wasted because DA and TA still work fine on WS, so the actual amounts of lost damage from melee strikes is very small.)
It's the logical endpoint of a presented scenario, not circular reasoning. If you're not meleeing at all then the discussion is entirely irrelevant. If you are, your choice of subjob will not affect which weapon is feeding more TP nor by how much so it is a point that should still be kept in mind.


The only relevant question is whether the small amount of melee strikes damage lost by using an OA2-4 in the offhand is offset by the extra damage from WSs and ODD from an Almace. Any other theoretical discussions are a distraction at best and misleading at worst.
Such thinking is pitifully limited at best and outright counterproductive at worst. Weapon choice should match the situation just like anything else. If you're only interested in DPS then your mention of situations where utility is a consideration was irrelevant.


I mean, saying that you get more hits/round than a MNK/WAR says nothing about Total Damage Over Time
I never said it did. You challenged my assertion that BLU has a high hits/round value, I defended it. At least try to keep basic points straight, discussions are much less tedious and repetitive that way.


I think the thing I find most fascinating about this argument is that people are making snap decisions after looking at just a few stats divorced from all the other considerations that go into increasing total damage, including other directly relevant stats.
That's quite a snap judgement you just made there, be careful where it takes you. For instance:


Chant Du Cygne can often do good to decent damage on NMs that we can only slightly damage with a normal melee strike or BLU spell, so maxxing out uses of CdC also maxxes out Total Damage.
This is not absolutely true. Tactical Mantle doesn't beat Atheling, Houyi's Gorget generally doesn't beat Fortitude Torque and definitely doesn't beat Rancor Collar (even Portus Collar is usually second-best), Zelus/Loki's isn't remotely close to Ocelomeh +1/Toci's despite having a lower average rounds/ws value and fractionally more haste.

[Demonofhunger]

Do you want me to change sub?
Do you want me to change spells?
Should I not use Plen. Embrace because of it's add effect? (I don't usually when soloing anyway)
How many monsters do you want me to fight with each sword setup?
Should I avoid debuffs?
Do you want me to use food?


The sub, set-up, and location is fine since it tends to be evenly favoring both potential results, but you have to set Blank Gaze and Winds of Promyvion. Crabs and crawlers both have +Defense moves that need to be immediately stripped for the parse to be meaningful and the slow effect from from Filamented Hold from the crawlers needs to be taken off yourself as fast as possible so that Haste can be reapplied.

Puks aren't even a potential source of mobs since so many of their TP moves will ruin the data.

In fact, you might also want to not use spell Haste at all. Filamented Hold will overwrite your haste and ruin the numbers if you don't put it back up fast enough.... even a few shadow recasts or a heal might bone it.

(I wonder if it might be easier to just throw out any data set where the mob uses Filamented Hold or puts up a Defense bonus TP move.... would that even be possible considering the amount of TP-feeding you'll be doing?)

That being said, please don't use Plen. Embrace. Inconsistently applying an Attack bonus seems like a perfect way to ruin the data.

I also expect that you'll record all spell use and enemy TP moves. I mean, we don't want one set of data to be skewed because you spent less time swinging and more time casting spells to cure damage or put shadows/blink up.

CdC at as close to 100 TP as you can.... I guess that's it.

---------------------------

As to the other part of your post, I found it interesting.

In fact, I've been killing Orthrus a few times a week for the last few months with my lowman group. We only have one healer, so as BLU I don't melee on it at all. The main tank knocks it down in a rather slow fight so that the one healer can deal with the damage. Sometimes it doesn't work and I back-up tank until weakness fades. He's not even a NM whose moves I'd consider terribly bad except for the one at 50% that sometimes just drops anyone nearby.

As for the Odin Prime you were soloing... I wouldn't TP on him at all. It seems a lot safer to just use the tactic that people use on the NM sabotender that drops BLU body seals in Altepa (A). They don't melee at all, cast single hit damaging spells, and hit it with Reaving Wind so that it never uses 10K Needles. It's slow and boring, but it apparently works (I wouldn't know... I lowmanned the hydra in Grauberg for my seals and shadow tanked the crap out of him).

Still, what do you do about the Death effect? Just die, RR, wait to unweaken and then finish?

[Tashan]

Blank Gaze and Winds of Promyvion

Don't know why I need to set WoP but ok. Conserve MP taken out and Blank Gaze + Whirl of Rage added.



In fact, you might also want to not use spell Haste at all. Filamented Hold will overwrite your haste and ruin the numbers if you don't put it back up fast enough.... even a few shadow recasts or a heal might bone it.


It's Sticky Thread, it doesn't overwrite. Filamented is from the... tarantulas. Can't remember what they're called. Diremites, that's it.

Keeping the DEF buffs dispelled is going to be a hassle, but sure.

I'm changing camp. The one in Boyahda is too link and aggro friendly. There are LV98 crabs in Toramarai Canal which I'm going to /check.




In fact, I've been killing Orthrus a few times a week for the last few months with my lowman group. We only have one healer, so as BLU I don't melee on it at all. The main tank knocks it down in a rather slow fight so that the one healer can deal with the damage. Sometimes it doesn't work and I back-up tank until weakness fades. He's not even a NM whose moves I'd consider terribly bad except for the one at 50% that sometimes just drops anyone nearby


If we were still level 90 I may still be doing this. There's no reason to at 99 though.



As for the Odin Prime you were soloing... I wouldn't TP on him at all. It seems a lot safer to just use the tactic that people use on the NM sabotender that drops BLU body seals in Altepa (A). They don't melee at all, cast single hit damaging spells, and hit it with Reaving Wind so that it never uses 10K Needles. It's slow and boring, but it apparently works (I wouldn't know... I lowmanned the hydra in Grauberg for my seals and shadow tanked the crap out of him).

Still, what do you do about the Death effect? Just die, RR, wait to unweaken and then finish?


There's no reason to not melee on him. It's kill or be killed. As for Zantesuken, I decided I didn't want to be hit by that so it doesn't hit me.

[Tashan]

Crabs in Toramarai are DC. Eh I don't know where to camp for this.

[Prothscar]

Parses are a flawed base for evidence. Uncontrollable variables, while largely inconsequential for this situation, are variables that will play on the accuracy of a test. No situation will favor OA2-4, however, evidence like I have provided, cold hard numbers and actual data and comparisons that make sense is the only truly accurate method to gauge effectiveness in this and most any circumstance unless judging efficiency based on certain monsters or notorious monsters.

[Tashan]

As a teacher, there comes a point in time where you have to admit that the approach is just not working. While it may seem like it makes common sense to teachers, there's no use hammering home about it to the students again and again because they won't listen. Especially once we get older.

A parse is wanted and I've agreed to do it. I'll aim for a large sample size (100 mobs each probably) to arguably squash any errors and form a reliable average.

Plus, it's been years since I've done anything for the community. I don't mind.

[Neisan_Quetz]

I'd like to know this move of his that just 'drops anyone nearby' as I've eaten 3 Acheron Flame's in a row at 90 with only the brd mule dying and I was the sole healer.

Orthrus isn't dangerous at all and there's no reason to not kill it faster. If you're dying to his tp moves in one hit please reevaluate your dds and/or support.

[Tashan]

Gone back to Boyahda. Going to do crawlers and hope for no links.

Taking off Eva Bonus for Conserve MP to reduce downtime, and Wind Breath for stat bonus'.

[Prothscar]

As a teacher, there comes a point in time where you have to admit that the approach is just not working. While it may seem like it makes common sense to teachers, there's no use hammering home about it to the students again and again because they won't listen. Especially once we get older.

A parse is wanted and I've agreed to do it. I'll aim for a large sample size (100 mobs each probably) to arguably squash any errors and form a reliable average.

Plus, it's been years since I've done anything for the community. I don't mind.


Unfortunately you won't be able to squash the errors, any monster above a monster in a starter zone will see the gap between weapons increased, however I do understand why you're doing it as his resolve to not listen to what anyone in the thread says is astounding, even when provided with absolute logical and numerical evidence.



I'd like to know this move of his that just 'drops anyone nearby' as I've eaten 3 Acheron Flame's in a row at 90 with only the brd mule dying and I was the sole healer.

Orthrus isn't dangerous at all and there's no reason to not kill it faster. If you're dying to his tp moves in one hit please reevaluate your dds and/or support.

This. I lol'd pretty hard when I read that, as I duo'd Orthrus BLU+WHM(BLM mule that was only used for procs) the day it came out for enough stones to furnish half a dozen +2 bodies. Sounds to me like we're encountering that problem again, his healer sucks horribly.

[Tashan]

Unfortunately you won't be able to squash the errors, any monster above a monster in a starter zone will see the gap between weapons increased

What do you mean Pro?

[Prothscar]

Unless you're TPing in large amounts of STR, the 11STR on the fire sword is worth 2-3 levels of fSTR. 27.5 attack will also favor the str sword, especially on monsters as high as and of the type that you're fighting. Base damage will also favor str sword in this situation.


Actually, yeah, this parse is going to be pretty accurate in a conceptual sense if not 100% accurate statistically. It should open his eyes to how horrible the OA2-4 sword is in any applicable setting.

[Demonofhunger]

What do you mean Pro?

He's setting the stage to reject the parse if it doesn't dramatically prove him correct.

If it does prove him to be correct, he won't mention this issue again and will hail the parse as irrefutable evidence. He's set up this option as well.

[Neisan_Quetz]

Math is really, really hard.

I'm sorry you wasted your time on an inferior weapon, but at least others may read this and other threads like it, and learn from the mistakes of those who made Oa2-4 khanda for damage.
Or Oa2-4 weapons in general really.

[Prothscar]

He's setting the stage to reject the parse if it doesn't dramatically prove him correct.

If it does prove him to be correct, he won't mention this issue again and will hail the parse as irrefutable evidence. He's set up this option as well.

Except if you look I've already provided irrefutable evidence that your sword is shit. It isn't my fault that you're a mindless fanatic who has trouble looking at facts and logic or downright ignores everything that people say.

The parse will do nothing but prove me right, however parses are inaccurate measurements. Their only real use lies in looking for set effects that are independent of outside variables, such as TA/DA, and measuring relative data, 1 person vs another, 1 person on a specific mob.

[Tashan]

I've tested the camp again and it works. I'll be focusing on pulling Mourning Crawlers.

Some adjustments have had to been made:

Heavy Strike
Empty Thrash
Delta Thrust
Quadrastrike
Amorphic Spikes
Sudden Lunge
Fantod
Winds of Promy.
Actinic Burst
Magic Fruit
Animating Wail
Battery Charge
Battle Dance
Uppercut
Goblin Rush
Chaotic Eye
Zephyr Mantle
Blank Gaze
Dream Flower
Metallic Body


Dream Flower - Links mean death there for me, my full evasion build isn't enough to keep me alive for two.
Metallic Body - 1 Set Point Left, chose this as it allows me to /heal whilst poisoned.

+1 STR and +0.5 Attack to the setups. Added a merit.

To pull, I will be using Ninja NI spells, so I can keep using my ammo slot.

I will be using my emperor band throughout the test. The exp is pretty decent:


Fight # Enemy Killed? Killed By Start Time End Time Fight Length Exp Chain
1 Mourning Crawler True Tashan 12:31 AM 12:33 AM 00:01:51 720 1
2 Mourning Crawler True Tashan 12:34 AM 12:36 AM 00:01:57 750 2
3 Mourning Crawler True Tashan 12:36 AM 12:37 AM 00:01:36 780 3
4 Mourning Crawler True Tashan 12:39 AM 12:40 AM 00:01:28 840 4
5 Mourning Crawler True Tashan 12:41 AM 12:44 AM 00:02:18 600 0
6 Mourning Crawler True Tashan 12:45 AM 12:47 AM 00:01:51 720 1
7 Mourning Crawler True Tashan 12:48 AM 12:50 AM 00:01:58 750 2
8 Mourning Crawler True Tashan 12:54 AM 12:57 AM 00:02:27 600 0

Lastly, with permission I'd like to use my NPC here too.

http://i281.photobucket.com/albums/kk228/TashanBM/Mugido.jpg

He has a very low hit rate vs these Crawlers, I doubt I'll be performing any accidental skillchains with him and on Fierce Attacker he cannot do anything to affect one swords weapon damage (e.g. cast Dia.) Any damage he does will be clearly made on the parse. I won't use him unless DemonofHunger is alright with it though.

To gain a large sample will take some time, as you can see from the quoted text it took roughly 20 mins just to kill 8 solo. Will get faster once I'm used to the pulls but it may take a few days of working here and there. I have a signet staff should it where, and at least 8 Reraise charges. Plus I'm still entertaining guests for Christmas ._.

[Demonofhunger]

The NPC shouldn't affect the parse. Go for it.

[Annahya]

Tashan, I commend your patience and willingness to offer evidence in this conversation. While I obviously know little about you personally, in reading this thread, I would be inclined to believe that you possess very good qualities for a teacher.

[Shadowsong]

^ This, everything this person wrote x2
It is rather shocking that people do not understand the above concepts, considering how often these questions get asked.
You should make that post slightly more generic and post it on wiki

Edit: Forgive me, thread was much longer than I thought lol. This was in regards to the first page post comparing the magians

[Shadowsong]

Do everything for me

When a thread usually has a majority vs one person, it is usually that one person who has the burden of proof. It seems you want to change what is the general consensus. Instead of listing an obscene amount of restrictions onto a nice person who is trying to educate you, while also giving yourself a clean out if it doesn't go your way, makes you looks very very bad.

Please offer a parse of whatever it is you are trying to prove (I don't even know anymore). Otherwise, please either stop posting, since you don't really care about it anyway, or accept general knowledge/common sense.

[Quetzacoatl]

The answer was Str Shamshir.
This. Almace RDMs take notes.

[Tashan]

Annahya
Tashan, I commend your patience and willingness to offer evidence in this conversation. While I obviously know little about you personally, in reading this thread, I would be inclined to believe that you possess very good qualities for a teacher.

Thank you Annahya! By Altana you have no idea how much that lightened my day reading that. I really really appreciate that and thank you.

--

The parse is roughly a 1/4 at the moment. I hope to have it all done by tomorrow and uploaded as .html files.

[Tashan]

So. A ton of time later, I got the data.

It's ridiculous how many ways I could write an evaluation for this thing, it'd be like writing an assignment. So I'm not going to evaluate it yet, but let you come to your own conclusion and debate from that.

Just to put in a few notes about the performance:


Both parses under the Fights.html files show more than 100 fights. That is because there were fights from other parties going at the time, fights where I died due to a link, or fights where I had to sleep links and log out.

The performance.html file for the OA2-4 Khanda shows 105 fights. Those extra 5 fights were deaths.

On both parses the numbers for SC: Darkness are innaccurate. Under the Buffs.html files, you can see Chain Affinity was used ~90 times, but only ~70 Darkness were recorded. That is because of gear swapping during the animation and while the damage did take place, it wasn't logged.

Damage from all spells may be slightly skewed due to Cocoon. Although you can see from both the defense and debuff tables that I did dispel them as promptly as possible.

Damage from Quadrastrike may be slightly skewed because of inproper timing use of the macro causing Efflux to not go off due to animation delay.

Damage from Amorphic Spikes may be slightly skewed because of inproper timing use of the macro causing Chain Affinity to not go off due to animation delay.

DA and TA Rate will seem odd to some. The reason for the vastly different representations to expected will be because not all melee hits were done using the TP Build. It would be impossible to restrict it to. For example: In order to allow Darkness to log, I would wait for the animation to finish whilst in my multi-hit build.

I accidently performed 1 Sanguine Blade during the OA2-4 parse. My apologies.

I only made .html files for that which was relevant to this debate. If you want anything else to be dispalyed just ask and I'll upload it. I've also included the parse file itself too, if you want to look for yourselves.

Don't ask about Footwork. I don't know why that's there. But I assure you I do not have any Kick Attacks.


STR Shamshir Data (http://www.megaupload.com/?d=U4CQ8IDM)
OA2-4 Khanda (http://www.megaupload.com/?d=KA7JNCBP)

[Demonofhunger]

Tashan,

Thanks for sticking with the thread and providing the parse even as the trolling and nasty comments started. If I'd known that discussing the possibility of other sword options or asking for calculations was instant troll-bait, I would have spared everyone the drama.

Any thoughts on the final data?

[Prothscar]

Trolling is providing calculations and solid, irrefutable data? To me it seems like you just can't handle the fact that your sword is terrible and that you're wrong.

Also what's with the ~4 hour difference in fight time along with the extra 14 fights on OA2-4 sword? Seems that even the controllable variables in this case weren't controlled very well, but even with the imbalance, STR sword comes out ahead by a considerable margin when subtracting the average of 14 fights.

[Prothscar]

STR Shamshir:
Melee dmg: 246478
WS dmg: 151132

Total: 397610


OA2-4 Sword:
Melee dmg: 202988
WS dmg: 135346

Total: 338334


However, this is largely inaccurate as it's using only the average damage per fight for WSs and CDCs. Overall, the difference could be even higher. Adding spell damage:

STR Shamshir:
Melee Total: 397610
Spell Total: 531199

Overall Total: 928809


OA2-4 Sword:
Melee Total: 338334
Spell Total: 495938

Overall Total: 834272


Again, inaccurate. Could be more of a difference. The extra 14 fights on the OA2-4 sword skews the already skewed nature of a parse, however, using averages, STR shamshir still pulls ahead by almost 100,000 points of damage in 112 fights.

Averages are a largely inaccurate base in this circumstance not only to begin with, but considering that there's a difference of 144 spells for OA2-4, despite the disparity in attack/round difference and WSs, plus 14 fights difference. The 4 extra hours I will assume is afk time, not padding.

[Tashan]

Also what's with the ~4 hour difference in fight time along with the extra 14 fights on OA2-4 sword?

Player Participation (Offensive)

Player Number of fights % Participation
Tashan 105 83.33 %

Not sure where the extra 14's coming from. As for the 5, they were incompleted fights aka death.

As for the 4 hour difference I'm not sure what you mean. There are some insane reads on there like:

5 Mourning Crawler True Tashan 3:15 PM 6:11 PM 02:56:29 600 0

If that's what you're refering too, although I can assure you I did not spend 3 hours killing a crawler. I did take breaks though, as said I would.

[Tashan]

Tashan,

Thanks for sticking with the thread and providing the parse even as the trolling and nasty comments started. If I'd known that discussing the possibility of other sword options or asking for calculations was instant troll-bait, I would have spared everyone the drama.

Any thoughts on the final data?

You're welcome Demon - As for thoughts, I can think of some but I'm a little busy so I can't stop to do a big write up.

[Tashan]

Oh I see what you mean Pro.

It catches fights which wern't mine also. Anyone who made a kill near me is also said.

It counts up the total number of fights under Performance.

[Prothscar]

Noticing quite a few discrepancies and impossibilities that shouldn't be possible assuming both swords and every fight were under the same conditions, idk. It's the large difference in number of spells despite the difference in WS freqeuncy/attacks per round that has me, it shouldn't technically be possible for you to have higher spells and weaponskill frequency in the same number of fights, and besides that, it should also not be possible to have differing overall damage with the same number of fights without a large amount of damage overflow happening at the end of a battle (goes both ways, for STR or OA2-4 sword). The NPC would sort of offset this, but he seems to be pitifully weak, as is expected given previous parameters in this thread. Something just seems off.

60,000 extra damage accounts for multiple extra monsters, unless every killshot was with a powerful single hit spell, or a multihit spell whose hit was strong. 30,992 of that is from melee related damage, the rest is all from spell damage. OA2-4 sword wouldn't be boosting spell damage, thus the difference is even more bizarre.

This brings into play either inaccuracy/forgery (my bet is on inaccuracy) of the parse, due to those uncontrollable variables previously mentioned, and also due in part to the fact that you're parsing against yourself. Some of the other numbers are also rather confusing.

[Tashan]

There's nearly a 60k total damage difference between the two parses, in the Khanda's favour. I have no idea why that is.

The only thing that is at a loss on the Khanda is the melee damage.

The crawlers were VT-IT. Perhaps the second set had more HP in total?

[Prothscar]

Yes that's the issue, it shouldn't have much of a damage difference. The only difference that should be apparent on this parse should be a difference between weaponskill and melee attack frequency, but there's a major difference in overall damage and spell frequency as well. This does not make sense and does not match possible parameters if both swords had 100 fights each under the same conditions.

I do believe that the difference would be far less, perhaps opposite (but can't say for sure, only with decent certainty) if this information were more clear.

Would have to be a very high level variance, and would have had to have been a large amount of high level crawlers toward the Khanda rather than the Shamshir. Unless things have changed from the 75 days for monster stat scaling, differences between stats for 3-4 levels are not very severe.

Unfortunately this lends itself to what I have been saying about parses.

While it's appreciated that you took the time, and some groundwork has been laid (which correlates with my own calculations a couple of pages back), I don't see this being taken as much of critical evidence in the Khanda's favor.

[Tashan]

Indeed.

I was going to sit down and analyse this properly later, but I got so bored of doing it I wanted data up as fast as possible. But since you're looking at it now Pro, I may as well do it with discussion.

---

When I first saw the difference in damage I too was surprised. There didn't seem to be any apparant explanation. I added up the total number of fights of which I recieved exp for countless times to make sure it was 100 and it was.

I questioned the validity of the tests and then remembered the purpose of the experiment:


Posted by Demonofhunger View Post
How does the additional TP from an OA2-4 sword factor into the comparisons?

I've asked on various boards and never seen the actual equations being used when sword comparisons are being done. No one has ever offered them up

Or rather will the extra TP gain make up and increased WS frequency make up for the loss in damage?

I can't precsely conclude that just yet but I can point out the obvious:

The loss in damage across the board for the OA2-4 is quite substantial. This was predicted us all.

The average for all forms of damage is lower on the OA2-4. This was predicted by us all.

The majority of damage in both parses came from spells (56%+). The majority of damage from spells came from Delta Thrust. This would lead me to believe that STR Shamshir is more favourable as it provides a bonus to the largest form of damage.

Whilst the total damage is off, the percentage in WS damage is a difference of 4.03% in Khanda's favour. This would lead me to resolve that even with a substantial increase in Weaponskills, the damage is not enough to warrant the swords use.

[Prothscar]

The only situation where increased weaponskill frequency is more valuable than the loss in damage is when you're trying to proc with multiple weaponskills, say a sword or club hint in Voidwatch. If you have multiple people on that job, the value is diminished. Overall I wouldn't bother.

[Tashan]

^

That.

----

OA2-4 Khanda is fun to watch, but also extremely painful. Fights took longer, I had to recover more often and number of additional TP moves used by the mob was frustrating.

---

I have to really update my builds. Haven't even worked out the new damage tiers for Physical BLU Skill.

---

Delta Thrust is godlike.

[Prothscar]

Most effective damage tier for BLU right now includes Mirage Keffiyeh +2, Mavi Tathlum, Magus Jubbah +1, and Mavi Tayt +2. Pushes you from 107 to 109 D with a small decrease in WSC on STR/DEX and pure STR spells and a small increase in WSC on STR/VIT spells.

[Tashan]

Yeah, that's what I just got with my calculations, but thanks Pro.

Hm that Keffiyeh +2upgrade is nice. I really want it, even more than a 95 Almace.

Completing that trial's going to be difficult. Unless the drop rate is decent.

I'll have to ride 108 D for the time being. Or 107 if I can get my hands on Aias Bonnet.

We're still can't break 600 BLU ATK though :(.

[doctorugh]

We're still can't break 600 BLU ATK though

Sure you can, 482 from skill + 8 base + 220 str = 600 blue attack

Also spells like QC, VD, and GR get a bonus % to attack, and in the case of VD or GH, you'll be over 800.

[Prothscar]

Would be more around 750. I still have 0 evidence to suggest that any of our spells posses a 35%~40% attack bonus, high as they go is 25%.

[Tashan]

How do you get 220 STR?

My STR build sucks sitting at 191 STR with full merits and /WAR but like even with +2 Mirage instead of NQ, +4 Earrings instead of +2, +7 Rings instead of +5 I can't get that much. Unless it's like cruor buffs/food/something.

[Vagrua]

The average for all forms of damage is lower on the OA2-4. This was predicted by us all.


Maybe I'm not seeing this as clearly as y'all, but doesn't the parse read as this?

Shamshir
Melee Damage: 246,478
#Weaponskills Performed: 133
Weaponskill Damage: 151,132
Total: 397,610

Khanda
Melee Damage: 228,356
#Weaponskills Performed: 195
Weaponskill Damage: 199,436
Total: 427,792

Doesn't that seem in favor of Khanda?

Edit: throwing in spell damage also:

Shamshir
Melee/Weaponskill: 397,610
Spell: 531,199
Total: 928,809

Khanda
Melee/Weaponskill: 427,792
Spell: 557,930
Total: 986,532

[Tashan]

The total damage is flawed. Fighting 100 of the same mobs shouldn't leave such a large gap overall but it does. You can read through the past two pages and find that discussion.

Why it does not favour the Khanda is because when you lookat the percentages of damage dealt the increase in WS damage does not make up for the loss in WS and spell damage.

I'm on the road so I can't look at the data atm, but roughly you're looking Spell damage 50% and WS damage 16% in the Sham parse. The percentages for the Khanda parse was roughly 22% WS and 50% Spell with spell averages being lower.

Ergo, losing damage from spells was unfavourable as they still contributed to most of your damage even though it increased the WS damage up a few percent.

[Demonofhunger]

Based on the total amount of damage it took to kill the same number of mobs, the Khanda set were obviously higher level by a substantial amount. This average higher level is going to push down weapon damage, WS damage, and spell damage.

That being said, the per strike damage is nearly identical (about 1 point of damage different). This means the more frequent ODD strikes are heavily skewing the averages up even if you are getting a huge number of small Khanda hits, as I expected.

After looking at WS fequency and numbers of hits, I think Khanda comes out as the clear winner because of the level correction working against it.

I expect the Khanda fights felt harder because of the slightly higher level that pushed damage down and monster HPs and damage up. The number of Dream Flower casts also indicate twice as many bad pulls during that period, so that probably led to longer resting times because of MP spent and more damage that had to be healed.

Interestingly enough, the number of Blank Gaze casts is almost the same, so either the mob used Cocoon a lot less on the Khanda set or the TP feed was not as bad as expected.

I think the take-home lesson is that the Str and Att aren't giving people substantial damage increases at 99 even if the numbers look very big. You can barely see the effect in this parse before accounting for level-correction, and it might not even be empirically provable after taking into account level-correction, and that's pretty damaging.

After looking at this raw data, I'm more inclined to look at other stats as a way to increase combat efficacy for this one slot. The stats that NA players focus on seem designed for high-damage epeen screenshots to put in their sigs and don't reflect overall effectiveness or usefulness to the party.

[Transmit]

This will be fun.

(Note - In my "Epeen" sig I wasn't using a STR magian)

[Prothscar]

Based on the total amount of damage it took to kill the same number of mobs, the Khanda set were obviously higher level by a substantial amount. This average higher level is going to push down weapon damage, WS damage, and spell damage.

That being said, the per strike damage is nearly identical (about 1 point of damage different). This means the more frequent ODD strikes are heavily skewing the averages up even if you are getting a huge number of small Khanda hits, as I expected.

After looking at WS fequency and numbers of hits, I think Khanda comes out as the clear winner because of the level correction working against it.

I expect the Khanda fights felt harder because of the slightly higher level that pushed damage down and monster HPs and damage up. The number of Dream Flower casts also indicate twice as many bad pulls during that period, so that probably led to longer resting times because of MP spent and more damage that had to be healed.

Interestingly enough, the number of Blank Gaze casts is almost the same, so either the mob used Cocoon a lot less on the Khanda set or the TP feed was not as bad as expected.

I think the take-home lesson is that the Str and Att aren't giving people substantial damage increases at 99 even if the numbers look very big. You can barely see the effect in this parse before accounting for level-correction, and it might not even be empirically provable after taking into account level-correction, and that's pretty damaging.

After looking at this raw data, I'm more inclined to look at other stats as a way to increase combat efficacy for this one slot. The stats that NA players focus on seem designed for high-damage epeen screenshots to put in their sigs and don't reflect overall effectiveness or usefulness to the party.


I think the take home lesson is you are in a severe case of denial. Not only did you get your inaccurate parse that you demanded, but you've now had no less than six people testifying as to why your sword choice is garbage compared to other options. You need a reality check.

You're looking for a way to rationalize your choice even though it's complete shit. What other evidence do you need? You've now had the calculations and the parse, on top of several people stating why you're wrong.

If you can seriously look at that parse and try to say that it proves your point, then I don't know what to tell you.

[Tashan]

Based on the total amount of damage it took to kill the same number of mobs, the Khanda set were obviously higher level by a substantial amount. This average higher level is going to push down weapon damage, WS damage, and spell damage.


No



That being said, the per strike damage is nearly identical (about 1 point of damage different). This means the more frequent ODD strikes are heavily skewing the averages up even if you are getting a huge number of small Khanda hits, as I expected.

The Mode, Median and Average melee hit for the Khanda test was:

+ 34: 352 ^ 37: 88 M+0.Avg: 47.11

The Mode, Median and Average for the STR Shamshir Test was:

+ 66: 143 ^ 68: 111 M+0.Avg: 69.94

By swapping to the Khanda the Mode was reduced by -48.48%; Median -45.59% and Avg: -32.64%. I'm not sure how you got to 1 point of damage difference.


After looking at WS fequency and numbers of hits, I think Khanda comes out as the clear winner because of the level correction working against it.

I don't see this. The Khanda test did 31.44% more CDC's than the Shamshir test, but only increased WS damage by 4.03%.

And to add further insult to injury, even though WS damage increased by 4.03% the following took place. The Khanda test did 72.01% more melee hits, it lost 3.39% of it's melee damage.

I'm not sure it can be explained anymore simply than this. The increased frequency is incredibly unbalanced.


I expect the Khanda fights felt harder because of the slightly higher level that pushed damage down and monster HPs and damage up. The number of Dream Flower casts also indicate twice as many bad pulls during that period, so that probably led to longer resting times because of MP spent and more damage that had to be healed.

In regards to personal feelings, I don't warrant them out of data but if I must humor it I'd disagree completely. The fights were not harder, they were longer. While there's no way to justify this idea that the majority of crawlers were of higher level there is something in front of us that can. It's elementary. Less damage was being dealt and thus it took longer.

There's nothing on there to accurately dictate the resting times on the parse.

Any bad pulls meant having to logout of the game because I'd be fighting Puks not Crawlers. While it's possible to link the crawlers, there are only 3 in the camp area. They were rarely all spawned at the same time.


Interestingly enough, the number of Blank Gaze casts is almost the same, so either the mob used Cocoon a lot less on the Khanda set or the TP feed was not as bad as expected.

Actually there is another possibility. It used other TP moves.

This data is under Defense but I must apologise, it looks like I saved recovery data as this for STR Shamshir one instead. You can view the Khandas one from the Defense page, and the STR if you can open an SQL file. Here's the TP moves used in the STR parse:


Ability Usage

Ability Used/Prepared
Cocoon 32/34
Poison Breath 35/34
Sticky Thread 29/30
Total 96/98


And for the Khanda:


Ability Usage

Ability Used/Prepared
Cocoon 39/40
Poison Breath 55/57
Sticky Thread 32/35
Total 126/132


I think the take-home lesson is that the Str and Att aren't giving people substantial damage increases at 99 even if the numbers look very big. You can barely see the effect in this parse before accounting for level-correction, and it might not even be empirically provable after taking into account level-correction, and that's pretty damaging.

To be honest, this would have been irrelevant had I chosen my own criteria for the parse. But to meet your arguements basis, I did as you requested on monsters higher than Abyssea Merit Party targets. As such, the parse was always going to be susceptible to the uncontrolled variable of Level-Correction.

However, this arguement still doesn't hold much ground because the idea of having a large sample for test is to work to the effect of minimizing random effects. Rather, the smaller the sample the greater the effect of randmness. This is precisely why I opted to do 100 monsters per test rather than say 10 or 20.

Has this worked? Certainly. The Offense Detail pages support this.



After looking at this raw data, I'm more inclined to look at other stats as a way to increase combat efficacy for this one slot. The stats that NA players focus on seem designed for high-damage epeen screenshots to put in their sigs and don't reflect overall effectiveness or usefulness to the party.

I'm British, but sure.

If I had to be inclined to take anything from this, what I would take from this is that you are not aware of how to evaluate correctly. This is kind of what I was saying a few weeks back in my first post on this thread.

And had "epeen" been the basis of any arguement in this thread I would have mentioned that the STR test pulled off a CDC that did 2130 damage as opposed to 1894.

However that would be stupid as it only happened once. It's unreliable data.

[Prothscar]

To go along with Tashan's synopsis I'd also like to point out that the difference between two monsters of the same type, within 3 levels of each other (the maximum that those crawlers could be apart), will be minimal outside of max HP. Max HP scales at a much higher percentage than base stats such as DEF, VIT, AGI, and STR. Usually, the AGI and VIT barely change if at all. Level correction would be in STR swords favor too, unless you don't know how to read and somehow think that the Khandga is a bastion of overcoming level corrected adversity.

Hint: It's quite the opposite.

So, Mr. Demonofhunger, just admit you're wrong and move on. Your sword is trash.

[Demonofhunger]

No


The Mode, Median and Average melee hit for the Khanda test was:

+ 34: 352 ^ 37: 88 M+0.Avg: 47.11

The Mode, Median and Average for the STR Shamshir Test was:

+ 66: 143 ^ 68: 111 M+0.Avg: 69.94

By swapping to the Khanda the Mode was reduced by -48.48%; Median -45.59% and Avg: -32.64%. I'm not sure how you got to 1 point of damage difference.




The Weaponskill and TP rates page lists the mean damage per hit at 21.3 and 22.15 respectively.

Also, why did you not remove the Cocoon from the Khanda set 8/40 times? Failing to do that is going to bring down the Khanda numbers.

As for the two sets, an explanation for the 58,702 extra points of damage that it took to kill the Khanda set is that they were overall higher level and thus had more HPs. Being higher level, the level-correction that takes place in the damage equations would have forced down all damage numbers and lead to longer fights as compared to the Shamshir set.

Of course, you might have just been wasteful of TP and/or MP on the Khanda set and that extra damage comes from wasting the damage on mobs that were close to death. Wasting damage like that would be a different reason for why the fights might have taken longer.

From the spell usage it doesn't look like the fights were too much longer if we assume you used the spells as often as possible, so the extra 50Kish WS damage had to go somewhere.

That being said, a sample size of 100 is not large enough for the very small numbers we are pulling out of the data. This was always going to be a very rough estimate and it's ambiguous enough to resolve the matter for me.

[Prothscar]

You realize that you just said ambiguity solved the matter for you? Whatever little credit you had is now gone. You're absolutely hopeless.

[Tashan]

Good morning!



The Weaponskill and TP rates page lists the mean damage per hit at 21.3 and 22.15 respectively.


That's TP gain rate, not damage.


Also, why did you not remove the Cocoon from the Khanda set 8/40 times? Failing to do that is going to bring down the Khanda numbers.

If it wasn't removed it's because it couldn't be removed (It was dying during an animation such as a a spellcast or skillchain.)

---

Looks like we're really scraping the barrel now:

--> Level Correction as an explanaition for the difference in damage.


To go along with Tashan's synopsis I'd also like to point out that the difference between two monsters of the same type, within 3 levels of each other (the maximum that those crawlers could be apart), will be minimal outside of max HP. Max HP scales at a much higher percentage than base stats such as DEF, VIT, AGI, and STR. Usually, the AGI and VIT barely change if at all. Level correction would be in STR swords favor too, unless you don't know how to read and somehow think that the Khandga is a bastion of overcoming level corrected adversity.

--> Wasted TP on overkills makes fights take longer, yet spell damage made it not.

Self contradiction, ok.

Have you looked at how long the fights took? I have given you the data:

Khanda: Avg.Time/Fight: 338.99 s
Shamshir: Avg.Time/Fight: 136.70 s



That being said, a sample size of 100 is not large enough for the very small numbers we are pulling out of the data. This was always going to be a very rough estimate and it's ambiguous enough to resolve the matter for me.

1,000,000+ damage is a small number.

Ohkay.

[Prothscar]

Sir, the data is clearly ambiguous enough to draw a conclusion according to Mr. Hunger. We need not argue further.

[Tashan]

True that.

[Demonofhunger]

1,000,000+ damage is a small number.

Ohkay.

No, but 100 is small number.

Since the 100 mobs for each sample has a level that varies by as much as three, if one set is higher on average then one set of mobs is going to be harder to kill because they take less damage from the same attacks and spells and have more HPs.

Do you know how level-correction works? You do less damage to mobs as their level increases because they have higher stats as their level increases. The extra damage that it took to kill the Khanda set is clear evidence that they were higher level because the idea that you somehow wasted over fifty thousand points of damage on inept spell and WS use (over 5%) is laughable.

As for your times, I honestly don't have an explanation. If the times were true and the fights took twice as long, you should have used a lot more BLU and NIN spells. Since you clearly didn't, it looks like the calculation must also take into account resting times or you were fighting with less than full MP so you would run out in the middle of the fight or doing something else to make the fights harder for yourself. It might have just been the need to cure yourself wasted so much MP that you couldn't keep up spell casting the whole time and so artificially prolonged the fights. I don't really know what your fighting style is or if you were giving it your full effort or simply did the Khanda set in a lazy and half-hearted fashion.

Heck, if the battle had actually taken twice as long then you should have taken close to twice as much damage. This and many other issues make me not believe that your times are accurate.

That being said, even with the massive issues skewing with the parse, the overall issue is still very close. That ambiguity leaves only one conclusion: the parse issues negatively affecting the Khanda set are probably the only reason it looks slightly worse, and if they aren't then the two swords are too close to call.

Still, both of you should feel free to keep being rude and dismissive. It reveals a lack of confidence in your analysis that will keep damaging your credibility long after you've forgotten about this thread.

Thanks again for providing the parse data, and please don't feel the need to respond since I won't be checking this thread any more.

[Prothscar]

So what you're asking for is to find perfect conditions with no outside variables to parse and try to disprove the math that I've already provided proving what the flawed parse also has proven. |

Hint: YOU CANNOT PROVIDE PERFECT CONDITIONS FOR A PARSE. THAT IS THEIR NATURE. THEY ARE FLAWED. YOU CANNOT CONTROL EVERY VARIABLE. PARSES ARE SHIT FOR EVIDENCE. THIS INFORMATION WAS PROVIDED TO YOU PREVIOUS TO THE PARSE BEING COMPLETED. YOU ARE AN IDIOT. WHY ARE YOU BREATHING.

I've wanted to say that for a long time, seriously, how stupid, naive, and blind do you have to be to ignore what everyone in this thread is telling you and providing proof for and still assuming that you're absolutely right? You are the worst kind of person.

I sincerely hope that no one ever comes into this thread and reads one of your posts assuming they'd be right to use an OA2-4 Khanda, and I sincerely hope you never utter another word in the FFXI community ever again.

To anyone coming here in the future who wants the definitive answer from a credible source such as Tashan or myself, who actually have data, knowledge, and common sense enough to back it up:

Occ. attacks 2-4 times Khanda is complete and utter trash. Do not waste your time.

[Tashan]

Oh my god that was hilarious xD

Daaaamn Pro xD.

Thatwas the funniest thing to come out of FFXI in a year, true story.

---

Regardless it really is a shame where this has come to. I love this community and I enjoy teaching the knowledge accumulated worldwide, and the experiences had by BLUs. When I started playing this job we didn't have all of the information currently present. It's unfortunate to see it being taken for granted.

But there are others who will and do need help. We will give it to them.

[Dodu]

Do you know how level-correction works? You do less damage to mobs as their level increases because they have higher stats as their level increases. The extra damage that it took to kill the Khanda set is clear evidence that they were higher level because the idea that you somehow wasted over fifty thousand points of damage on inept spell and WS use (over 5%) is laughable.

I had to log in to laugh at this.

lol.

[Nightfyre]

This is why we can't have nice things.