Asymptotic
03-13-2012, 08:31 PM
All right, I give in. Coruscanti is actually "functioning" in some way. I'm not 100% convinced this is how it's supposed to be working, but here's some pretty pictures to get you hooked on this thread. We all like pictures, right!? Okay!
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/32078748/Last%20Dance/coruscanti_test.png
Notice that little tail on the end? We'll call that the "anomalous zone." It exists in the critical hit data from the same set, as well, although critical hits don't have the same pretty distribution that non-crits do:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/32078748/Last%20Dance/coruscanti_test2.png
Even though the distribution isn't normal, you can still tell that the tail is out of place. So we know that Coruscanti is actually doing something. Especially when you consider that in theory, for my attack and the defense of those Bluffalos, those damage values should be 100% impossible.
All right, great! So we know Coruscanti is doing something. But what?
Well, we can infer from the shape of the anomalous zone that Coruscanti is not applying some multiplier to damage. It's not double damage, it's not triple damage, it's not quadruple damage. If it were some sort of damage multiplier, the frequency spike in the distribution of the non-crits would be replicated in the anomalous zone. It's also important to realize that all of the damage values are POSSIBLE for the Coruscanti to reach, just at higher attack values.
SO, it appears that Coruscanti's "Occasionally Deals Severe Damage" is functioning in one of two ways:
"Severe Damage" pretends that the ratio of your attack to the enemy's defense is capped (2.0)
Severe Damage is a large (>85%) attack boost
(Note that it also could ignore the enemy's defense altogether, or a large portion of it, which would produce identical effects.)
Update: Using Scissor Guard, it has been determined that Coruscanti is using capped ratio on "Severe Damage" attacks. This means it's pretending that your attack is 2x the enemy's defense, or for the same effect, ignoring the enemy's defense all together. It's currently unclear whether or not it's ignoring level correction on the ratio. Level correction still applies.
Here's where the problems start.
The processing rate on anomalous damage in the above sample seemed sort of small (~3.5%) and someone suggested that it may not work on double attacks. So, I tested it again with 0% double attack. None from gear, no saber dance, none from atmas - 100% vanilla single attacks.
Guess what?
With 0% Multi-Attack, Coruscanti did absolutely nothing.
What? That's crazy talk! It was mind-blowing. So I re-tested 10 different things to try to figure out what was going on. I thought maybe it was a hidden bonus to Saber Dance, or a hidden Dancer job trait. None of these things were true. Saber Dance + Twashtar produced no anomalous damage.
However, equipping double attack gear, I was able to get anomalous damage to process once again. So it became relatively apparent that Severe Damage was dependent on double attack. Furthermore, I noticed that whenever an anomalous attack occured, it was never on the first hit of the attack round.
I decided to see what would happen with Triple Attacks:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/32078748/Last%20Dance/corus3.png
I made the following observations:
ODSD never processed on the first hit of a set of triple attacks, or on a single attack
If ODSD processed on the second hit of a triple attack, it also processed on the third.
ODSD could process only on the third hit of a triple attack.
The processing rate of "Severe Damage" on the triple attack data was approximately 5.6%, which if functioning as observed, is consistent with a 10% process rate on multi-attacks (it also fits with the intitial tests, as I had ~15% DA and 3% TA in gear, and was using Saber Dance most, but not all, of the time).
This really doesn't fit well at all with the item description, so I'll pose a few questions/suggestions for the Development Team (that probably won't get answered or acknowledged):
Is this working as intended? (Coruscanti only working on multi-attacks)
If so, why would you attach such a weak effect to such a rare item and give it such a misleading description?
If this is functioning properly, can we get the description changed to something more appropriate, please?
There are a lot of items with misleading descriptions. ("Elemental weapon skill damage increases depending on day" actually refers to ALL weapon skills, Blue Mage group 1 merit "Physical Potency" actually increases accuracy ). You seem to have a great localization team, maybe you should work more closely with them when defining item descriptions? I don't know, it seems like there are a lot of things that are worded very poorly and both the English and Japanese texts. (Occasionally deals Severe Damage is "Sometimes Great Damage" in Japanese)
There are people on multiple servers that shout constantly trying to get this dagger. If this is "working as intended," it's an extremely lackluster effect and these people are essentially wasting their time.
Community team, you guys are awesome. I'm sorry you guys have to deal with our complaining constantly, but please get a response on this. We just want to know if it's working properly.
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/32078748/Last%20Dance/coruscanti_test.png
Notice that little tail on the end? We'll call that the "anomalous zone." It exists in the critical hit data from the same set, as well, although critical hits don't have the same pretty distribution that non-crits do:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/32078748/Last%20Dance/coruscanti_test2.png
Even though the distribution isn't normal, you can still tell that the tail is out of place. So we know that Coruscanti is actually doing something. Especially when you consider that in theory, for my attack and the defense of those Bluffalos, those damage values should be 100% impossible.
All right, great! So we know Coruscanti is doing something. But what?
Well, we can infer from the shape of the anomalous zone that Coruscanti is not applying some multiplier to damage. It's not double damage, it's not triple damage, it's not quadruple damage. If it were some sort of damage multiplier, the frequency spike in the distribution of the non-crits would be replicated in the anomalous zone. It's also important to realize that all of the damage values are POSSIBLE for the Coruscanti to reach, just at higher attack values.
SO, it appears that Coruscanti's "Occasionally Deals Severe Damage" is functioning in one of two ways:
"Severe Damage" pretends that the ratio of your attack to the enemy's defense is capped (2.0)
Severe Damage is a large (>85%) attack boost
(Note that it also could ignore the enemy's defense altogether, or a large portion of it, which would produce identical effects.)
Update: Using Scissor Guard, it has been determined that Coruscanti is using capped ratio on "Severe Damage" attacks. This means it's pretending that your attack is 2x the enemy's defense, or for the same effect, ignoring the enemy's defense all together. It's currently unclear whether or not it's ignoring level correction on the ratio. Level correction still applies.
Here's where the problems start.
The processing rate on anomalous damage in the above sample seemed sort of small (~3.5%) and someone suggested that it may not work on double attacks. So, I tested it again with 0% double attack. None from gear, no saber dance, none from atmas - 100% vanilla single attacks.
Guess what?
With 0% Multi-Attack, Coruscanti did absolutely nothing.
What? That's crazy talk! It was mind-blowing. So I re-tested 10 different things to try to figure out what was going on. I thought maybe it was a hidden bonus to Saber Dance, or a hidden Dancer job trait. None of these things were true. Saber Dance + Twashtar produced no anomalous damage.
However, equipping double attack gear, I was able to get anomalous damage to process once again. So it became relatively apparent that Severe Damage was dependent on double attack. Furthermore, I noticed that whenever an anomalous attack occured, it was never on the first hit of the attack round.
I decided to see what would happen with Triple Attacks:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/32078748/Last%20Dance/corus3.png
I made the following observations:
ODSD never processed on the first hit of a set of triple attacks, or on a single attack
If ODSD processed on the second hit of a triple attack, it also processed on the third.
ODSD could process only on the third hit of a triple attack.
The processing rate of "Severe Damage" on the triple attack data was approximately 5.6%, which if functioning as observed, is consistent with a 10% process rate on multi-attacks (it also fits with the intitial tests, as I had ~15% DA and 3% TA in gear, and was using Saber Dance most, but not all, of the time).
This really doesn't fit well at all with the item description, so I'll pose a few questions/suggestions for the Development Team (that probably won't get answered or acknowledged):
Is this working as intended? (Coruscanti only working on multi-attacks)
If so, why would you attach such a weak effect to such a rare item and give it such a misleading description?
If this is functioning properly, can we get the description changed to something more appropriate, please?
There are a lot of items with misleading descriptions. ("Elemental weapon skill damage increases depending on day" actually refers to ALL weapon skills, Blue Mage group 1 merit "Physical Potency" actually increases accuracy ). You seem to have a great localization team, maybe you should work more closely with them when defining item descriptions? I don't know, it seems like there are a lot of things that are worded very poorly and both the English and Japanese texts. (Occasionally deals Severe Damage is "Sometimes Great Damage" in Japanese)
There are people on multiple servers that shout constantly trying to get this dagger. If this is "working as intended," it's an extremely lackluster effect and these people are essentially wasting their time.
Community team, you guys are awesome. I'm sorry you guys have to deal with our complaining constantly, but please get a response on this. We just want to know if it's working properly.