Single-Handed Damage Adjustments

Currently, two-handed jobs have an unfair advantage over one-handed jobs in how their damage is calculated. It is so far skewed that dual-wielders have no place in current end-game content outside of procs. Are there any plans to fix the damage calculations to put the jobs back on even footing, or is it your intention for every player to have to level WAR, DRK, or SAM if they wanted to be considered for a DD role?

what are you talkign about ? WS damage? it has and ill alwasy be like this. 2Handed DD will always do good WS damage and poor melee damage, and 1 handed DD do the converse. A sam excells at WS damage for exemple but its meelee damage completely blows. For a monk its the converse, a mnk does 2x more melee than ws. Its always been balanced like this and despite that 2hander have rarely been able to keeep up with a mnk on stuff a mnk can dd. Exception ws dualwielding war/nin with ridill back in the day.

That used to be the way, not much anymore. The attack formula is skewed to favor 2H's more, especially in high buff scenarios which is what everything in this game has turned into. Gear that's been introduced since Abysesa has also heavily favored the 2H group (and BST to an extent). Once you combine those it becomes a case of 1H's never approaching the total damage output possible by most 2H's. Finally the JA / JT distribution favors WAR / SAM / DRK for damage with BST and DRG getting some from their subs.

It's a result of everything being stacked on top of each other. During abyssea SE should of handed out native DW3 to all jobs that wield 1H weapons and high forms of CAB.

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Originally Posted by Monchat

what are you talkign about ? WS damage? it has and ill alwasy be like this. 2Handed DD will always do good WS damage and poor melee damage, and 1 handed DD do the converse. A sam excells at WS damage for exemple but its meelee damage completely blows. For a monk its the converse, a mnk does 2x more melee than ws. Its always been balanced like this and despite that 2hander have rarely been able to keeep up with a mnk on stuff a mnk can dd. Exception ws dualwielding war/nin with ridill back in the day.

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Within any 20-30 second span, melee DPS damage assuming optimum TP and WS gear should be comparable within 2-5% between jobs. Melee job preference should be based on personal taste and appeal, not upon outrageously poor "balance". Dual-wielders with empyreans/relics should never fall short in DPS compared to 2H jobs that didn't put in the effort to obtain similar weapons, I.E. fauxkonvasara WAR should never beat out Twashtar DNC/Kannagi NIN/Mandau THF in damage.

A player's effort/time invested in their character should be the deciding factor in their damage output, not amateurish formulas compiled by poor/biased programmers. Make the game better for the majority of players, not the jobs the developer's preference favors.

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Originally Posted by Snoctopus

A player's effort/time invested in their character should be the deciding factor in their damage output.

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A lot of items exist for the sole purpose of e-peen stroking.

Although I agree that any item that portends to be a major enhancement on the character's performance should have the amount of "awesomeness", there is a such thing as diminishing returns. If each time something new came along, which had to be better than what came before it, we'd find ourselves with DMG999 daggers, eventually.

Not every new piece of gear and equipment will automatically be better than the last; and not every item that is upgraded 20x times will be 20x better than other item that hasn't.

If you wanted to be a realist, you'd could say that a dagger, no matter how upgraded, shouldn't deal more dmg than a 2-handed axe, but that's neither here nor there.

Point: 2H users were the laughing stock of FFXI for many a year, and the pendulum finally swing over to the other side. When 2H users have capped ACC, there is a clear advantage, however the time between 2 swings of a 2H weapon, a single-weapon wielder would have swung nearly 4 times; about 2-3 for dualwielders, roughly, not accounting for DA/TA/QA procs. When a 2H misses, however, it is much more costly to dmg and TP gain than it is for a DW or 1H weapon(s).

Also, I have an issue with Empyrean weapons, because compared to a lot of weapons they suck. A lot. This is probably why you mentioned a Mandau THF. Mandau is a Relic, Twashtar is Empyrean. By your logic, a Twashter should be > Mandau. After all, players who made the effort in the newer weapon should be rewarded more than a player who rides a 7-year old piece of equipment, right?

Alas, if the Twashtar was better than Mandau, you'd have all sorts of complaints about how Mandau took so much time to acquire just to become obsolete. You can't please everyone, no matter how hard you try.

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Originally Posted by Llana_Virren

A lot of items exist for the sole purpose of e-peen stroking.

Although I agree that any item that portends to be a major enhancement on the character's performance should have the amount of "awesomeness", there is a such thing as diminishing returns. If each time something new came along, which had to be better than what came before it, we'd find ourselves with DMG999 daggers, eventually.

Not every new piece of gear and equipment will automatically be better than the last; and not every item that is upgraded 20x times will be 20x better than other item that hasn't.

If you wanted to be a realist, you'd could say that a dagger, no matter how upgraded, shouldn't deal more dmg than a 2-handed axe, but that's neither here nor there.

Point: 2H users were the laughing stock of FFXI for many a year, and the pendulum finally swing over to the other side. When 2H users have capped ACC, there is a clear advantage, however the time between 2 swings of a 2H weapon, a single-weapon wielder would have swung nearly 4 times; about 2-3 for dualwielders, roughly, not accounting for DA/TA/QA procs. When a 2H misses, however, it is much more costly to dmg and TP gain than it is for a DW or 1H weapon(s).

Also, I have an issue with Empyrean weapons, because compared to a lot of weapons they suck. A lot. This is probably why you mentioned a Mandau THF. Mandau is a Relic, Twashtar is Empyrean. By your logic, a Twashter should be > Mandau. After all, players who made the effort in the newer weapon should be rewarded more than a player who rides a 7-year old piece of equipment, right?

Alas, if the Twashtar was better than Mandau, you'd have all sorts of complaints about how Mandau took so much time to acquire just to become obsolete. You can't please everyone, no matter how hard you try.

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The pendulum has been on the side of 2H weapons since August 2007, and has never swung back. Regarding your comments of Twashtar vs. Mandau, old vs. new, as well as my own, this is moot, and was merely meant as an example, as I have both the "gimp" (empyrean; twashtar) weapon and the "optimum" (relic, mandau) weapon on my job of choice. The issue is that with the game's current state, even with an optimum weapon such as Mandau, a THF cannot keep up with a WAR, DRK, or SAM in the current content due to the attrociously poor "balance" that the game currently has. Buffing 1H weapon holders is a plus across the board as it increases the amount of viable party members available for the current and SEVERELY improperly tuned content that the game has to offer:VW. Abj. augementing, nyzul.

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Originally Posted by Snoctopus

Currently, two-handed jobs have an unfair advantage over one-handed jobs in how their damage is calculated. It is so far skewed that dual-wielders have no place in current end-game content outside of procs. Are there any plans to fix the damage calculations to put the jobs back on even footing, or is it your intention for every player to have to level WAR, DRK, or SAM if they wanted to be considered for a DD role?

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ill prase it this way , i have a barely merited uncapped dagger skill thf with a VERY solid exern , and the 2nd best tp set you can get for thf. it took me 2 months to gear thf as well as it is i have 0 empys and 0 magian weapons and im able to outparse and or hold my own with 2handed DD's in VW, and trust me im a piss poor thf.

Now you put me on Monk * none 2 handed DD and suffers from the same penaltys as 1handed users* and i straight wreck almost everything any anything im fighting.

you issues seem to stem from either your
A. lack of gear
B. lack of a reputation
C. lack of skill

yes 1 handed DD's CAN pump out solid DPS , but to do so you will have to work a hellva lot harder for it then a 2handed dps job. so if your not making the cut and getting frustrated look no further then yourself. Will you ever come close on thf to a well geared / skilled ukon war? no... but you can easily out dps your average cookie cutter af3+2 ukon war. God knows the last prov parse my static ran i out dps'd 2 ukon wars by 6% on my none ukon upheaval war.

to put it into perspective , cookie cutter war / drk / sam dps is somewhere between my thf and a mandau 95-99 / str dagger , thf with str food on and a PERFECT tp set, and a very strong WS set.

Resolution is heavely reliant on beating its atk pen. Ukkos is reliant on crits and has been nerfed once already , and fudo/shoha stops being omfgawesomesauce very very quickly.

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Originally Posted by Snoctopus

The pendulum has been on the side of 2H weapons since August 2007, and has never swung back. Regarding your comments of Twashtar vs. Mandau, old vs. new, as well as my own, this is moot, and was merely meant as an example, as I have both the "gimp" (empyrean; twashtar) weapon and the "optimum" (relic, mandau) weapon on my job of choice. The issue is that with the game's current state, even with an optimum weapon such as Mandau, a THF cannot keep up with a WAR, DRK, or SAM in the current content due to the attrociously poor "balance" that the game currently has. Buffing 1H weapon holders is a plus across the board as it increases the amount of viable party members available for the current and SEVERELY improperly tuned content that the game has to offer:VW. Abj. augementing, nyzul.

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Except that it doesn't work that way: for 1) a dagger should never actually deal more damage than a very large axe; but more realistically because 2) the more damage players deal, the more HP/insta-death moves our friends in the Development Team give to the NMs we like to fight.

This of course also deals with job roles: a THF was never designed to be a front-line DD, but rather a mid-line support role. THFs should not be keeping up to par with WAR, DRK or SAM. As for the argument between a 1H WAR and 2H WAR I would agree, but believing that a THF should be on-par with a DRK or SAM is like having a RDM argue that he can't deal more damage than a DRK or SAM.

I mean, afterall, a RDM/dw can Dual Wield Excalibur and Mandau.... so nothing should be able to touch that!

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Originally Posted by Llana_Virren

Except that it doesn't work that way: for 1) a dagger should never actually deal more damage than a very large axe; but more realistically because 2) the more damage players deal, the more HP/insta-death moves our friends in the Development Team give to the NMs we like to fight.

This of course also deals with job roles: a THF was never designed to be a front-line DD, but rather a mid-line support role. THFs should not be keeping up to par with WAR, DRK or SAM. As for the argument between a 1H WAR and 2H WAR I would agree, but believing that a THF should be on-par with a DRK or SAM is like having a RDM argue that he can't deal more damage than a DRK or SAM.

I mean, afterall, a RDM/dw can Dual Wield Excalibur and Mandau.... so nothing should be able to touch that!

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I wont say I think my RDM should do more, or the same, but I should be somewhere on the board, RDM has been left out of melee in any content and everything RDM gets magic wise is better as a SCH/RDM... Melee is what keeps RDM & SCH apart, so a melee upgrade for 1handers such as RDM would be most welcome by the RDM community I'm sure! ^_^;

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Originally Posted by Gokku

i have 0 empys and 0 magian weapons and im able to outparse and or hold my own with 2handed DD's in VW, and trust me im a piss poor thf.

you issues seem to stem from either your
A. lack of gear
B. lack of a reputation
C. lack of skill

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Cute, except your first statement is a gross exaggeration at best and more realistically a flat-out lie.

@LLana;

"Realism" arguments have no place in a video game that's based on a fantasy setting. THF's initial design no longer applies to FFXI, and SE should fix the job, rather than ignoring it. SAM was intended to be a tank, so even within your own argument the logic falls apart.

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Originally Posted by Snoctopus

Cute, except your first statement is a gross exaggeration at best and more realistically a flat-out lie.

@LLana;

"Realism" arguments have no place in a video game that's based on a fantasy setting. THF's initial design no longer applies to FFXI, and SE should fix the job, rather than ignoring it. SAM was intended to be a tank, so even within your own argument the logic falls apart.

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actually its not , if you can push your STR / atk high enough *which it did* you can get about an 2k avg for the agi ws on thf, combine that with proper temps timing and a solid ws avg and it is not hard to beat cookie cutter dd's on any job.

i have 3 macros on thf , dps tp , th tp and ws... thats it. most players on carby server have no idea how to use the weapons / gear they have at all. most wars are fulltime tping in af3+2 4/5 with Z tiara still , alot i catch not wsing in af3+2 feet. most have no idea that just because acc was capped in abyssea doesnt mean its 24/7 capped in VW. almost none of them have an X hit build they just figure empy = bestdps ever. it goes alot farther knowing what your capable of then just having the gear.

2K Exenterator isn't going to allow you to "keep up" or outparse an Ukon WAR, Resolution DRK, Shoha SAM. Any competent 2H job will beat out an equally competent 1H job by a very large margin, and that gap is what I'm looking to have shortened.

AGI mod weaponskill on a light DD versus Str mods (plus a crit ws) on weapons with higher damage rating, better gear selection and equal/superiour traits/abilities, I see the problem here.

But yes assuming relatively speaking gear/skill/participation/performance was the same I'd expect the war/sam/drk to perform better than a Thf, if they didn't something is terribly wrong.


It's funny how SE finally created an actually decent GS weaponskill and people are complaining "it's too good".

To give Axe credits, Ruinator is one godly WS. Decided to get it to 5/5 and mess about on WAR/NIN with it, and I was impressed.

5 hits (DW) 1.0 fTP 100% STR and 37.5% attack bonus.

200 STR (248 inside Voidwatch) for 210 WSC
76DMG Weapon
16 fSTR
302 BD * 1.2 (belt / gorget) = 362 per hit.
Assuming capped ratio (37% attack bonus nearly guarantees this) of 2.0 (averaged), we got 724 per hit
27% DA (easy to get for WAR) in full STR WS gear, 5.54 average hits per WS.

~4010 or so damage prior to taking accuracy into account (75.26% of the time).

Resolution is still stronger, but only if you auto-cap attack.

Still only a WAR could pull those kind of numbers off, BST has far too little offensive JA / JT to push it. That and most BST I've seen suck at anything remotely related to damage, even with them being on tons of heavy DD orientated pieces.

For Exten, it's ~ok~. Best unstacked WS for DNC and THF, still it's lack of fTP copy and attack bonus leaves much to be desired.

I'm curious about how these are compared. Are you comparing a WAR to a THF based on job and sub-job only, or including outside buffs? If the discprency is caused due to that, then maybe an adjustment needs to be looked at. But if the numbers are skewed one way only due to having a rdm/brd/cor buff one of the jobs to the max, I don't think there is anyway it can be adjusted without making it worse.

Is this thread about to turn into a THF= DD argument? I'm asking because last I checked the devs seemed to define THF as by Treasure Hunter when they nerfed it on THF pets. Prior to that they stated that the goal of the job was to be support melee fighter who controlled hate(terribly mind you).

If this argument is to gain any ground just compare 2 wars with the same gear(or no gear idc) with one using 1handed vs the other using 2handed. Compare the damage then build your argument from there. But if this topic is another "my job isn't as strong as X job" then your better off not posting and leveling a different job, or better yet stop caring and have fun playing the job.

Also be it reality or fiction expecting a knife to do more damage than an axe(or a Greataxe, hell why not a greatsword while we are at it) in the long run is folly.

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Originally Posted by Rekin

Is this thread about to turn into a THF= DD argument? I'm asking because last I checked the devs seemed to define THF as by Treasure Hunter when they nerfed it on THF pets. Prior to that they stated that the goal of the job was to be support melee fighter who controlled hate(terribly mind you).

If this argument is to gain any ground just compare 2 wars with the same gear(or no gear idc) with one using 1handed vs the other using 2handed. Compare the damage then build your argument from there. But if this topic is another "my job isn't as strong as X job" then your better off not posting and leveling a different job, or better yet stop caring and have fun playing the job.

Also be it reality or fiction expecting a knife to do more damage than an axe(or a Greataxe, hell why not a greatsword while we are at it) in the long run is folly.

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I think its more to the point some jobs have no use really because of the lower end of damage or the fact that they are simply left out of the loop because of this. Take DNC for example, DNC has only 1 use in the game currently so far as I know, and thats Dyna, trying for white procs, abyssea it has no use over THF because THF has TH, VW avoids 1hand jobs, NNI needs 2SCH 4Heavy DDs. All in all they are left out for that reason, THF at least adds TH as you said, which is cool, but thats the only reason it might be brought with you in a party, past that THF is worthless for the most part.

As for the fact daggers do less than an axe and such, this is true, when you hit me with a giant Axe I should be hurt more than if you stab me with a tiny dagger. However daggers hit faster, they should be balanced a bit so that when you are fighting, if the GAxe hits a mob for 400, and your daggers are about 1/4th the delay then you should be hitting roughly 80, dagger is still hitting less overall, but not so much less that it makes you worthless to bring. This however isn't the way it is in most cases, most the time the HDDs get TP much faster and smaller hits don't matter nearly as much, something that cannot be said the same for LDDs like THF or DNC.

The attack and WS mods between these are obvious to tell how they differ, Heavy DDs have much higher attack than their lighter counterparts, and many WSs for them are based on your STR, which is all over HDD gear and effects your fSTR all in 1 go. Lighter DDs do not often find great pieces with alot of DEX AGI or CHR that also gives them a nice STR boost, so they must go with either mods, or fSTR where as HDDs get both. The attack difference also helps them alot, not only are their weapons much higher on DMG, but their attack can be raised easier due to the 2STR=1Attack for LDDs, but 4STR=3Attack for HDDs.

As for having fun, it is hard to have fun. People will turn you down on the job you want to play because they think its useless or its outside of the norm and thus must be bad and avoided. I am a RDM, I see no point in my job as RDM without meleeing, if you want me on the back lines as RDM and I may never melee, just tell me to be SCH/RDM because it loses very little that RDM has. But RDM is avoided as a melee job, same with THF, DNC, NIN, they will never be DDs as it is outside of abyssea because of the WS & Attack disadvantages. NIN is currently for procing or abyssea, THF is for Treasure Hunter, thats all, maybe EVA tanking in abyssea but thats where it ends. DNC is for Dyna soloing and trying for white procs, but BST still beats this because they rule in Dyna only and are worthless elsewhere. Leveling a different job shouldn't be a solution you must resort to, its like saying to quit the game if you don't like it, its not fixing the problem, its only forcing me away from something I like.

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Originally Posted by Rekin

Is this thread about to turn into a THF= DD argument? I'm asking because last I checked the devs seemed to define THF as by Treasure Hunter when they nerfed it on THF pets. Prior to that they stated that the goal of the job was to be support melee fighter who controlled hate(terribly mind you).

If this argument is to gain any ground just compare 2 wars with the same gear(or no gear idc) with one using 1handed vs the other using 2handed. Compare the damage then build your argument from there. But if this topic is another "my job isn't as strong as X job" then your better off not posting and leveling a different job, or better yet stop caring and have fun playing the job.

Also be it reality or fiction expecting a knife to do more damage than an axe(or a Greataxe, hell why not a greatsword while we are at it) in the long run is folly.

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Well I can sorta do this seeing as I have a Rag, 5/5 Resolution and 5/5 Ruinator (no STR axe's though). Reso Rag is stronger no doubt, as a total package it's beyond amazing. That being said, I've played with WAR/NIN Axe / Axe just to see what Ruin could do and frankly I was amazed. It use's nearly the same WS set as my Resolution, only thing changing is the torque / belt and possibly the gloves (depending on accuracy). Gets the same WSC and number of hits (5.54), has slightly higher fTP and a crazy attack bonus. Overall WAR/SAM with Reso tends to win over it due to WS frequency and the awesomeness that is Rag, primarily thanks to an easy 6-hit.

Like I said earlier, the jobs that use 1H weapons tend to not get the best offensive gear, JT/JA nor WS selection. When your comparing Exten / Shun / Req / CDC / MS / Hi to the likes of Shoha / SD / Res / UF / Ruin that it becomes obvious SE was playing favorites. If Exten had copy fTP and was a 5-hit base, then it would be considerably more powerful, if Req didn't have that crappy -20% attack penality or if Shun didn't have such a bad fTP then things might be a bit different. With those weapon skills being somewhat crippled and 1H jobs lacking the JA/JT/Gear for truly impressive damage, it's no wonder they've been left behind as far as end game events go.

Tanaka .... Barance.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQbRyay_ojY

Monk...

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Originally Posted by Snoctopus

2K Exenterator isn't going to allow you to "keep up" or outparse an Ukon WAR, Resolution DRK, Shoha SAM. Any competent 2H job will beat out an equally competent 1H job by a very large margin, and that gap is what I'm looking to have shortened.

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in this thread: guy does vw with gimps, keeps up, thinks he's awesome.