Screwed again: Proposed THF job adjustments.

[Arcon]

Stats, etc.

I'm gonna need to check the math behind this at some point. I have plenty of experience of THF not being able to get 25% of the WAR's damage, so much in fact that I'd call it the average. I have a very hard time accepting that THF can get even near the ballpark of WAR's overall numbers. I know that this still isn't fully accurate and doesn't account for many things that rate WAR further up (Retaliation bonus, Restraint bonus, JA recast bonus in between fights) and others that would rate THF down (SA/TA reliability), but it still seems way too close to be even remotely believeable. I consider both my WAR and my THF great, in fact I'd say my THF is even better geared overall. And just yesterday I killed Koios on THF (~3min55s) and on WAR (~1min20s). I didn't use SA/TA on THF at all, but SA/TA don't give as much bonus as some people make it out to be. Even perfectly SA/TAing I couldn't see me get under 3min on THF (probably not even under 3min30, as I said, it's very overrated), which would still be noticeably less than 50% of the WAR. And it was inside Abyssea, where THF gets a larger boost, outside my THF might as well be throwing pebbles compared to my WAR.

I'll need to find a decent outside NM to test it on, to get some actual numbers. Any suggestions? Right now, those numbers seem quite impossible to me.

[Motenten]

@Arcon:

Well, you don't really have to go outside to test. You can pick a mob inside Abyssea and just not get any atma or cruor buffs (well, maybe HP buff).

Am trying to think of one that would be decently difficult without risking debuffs that can randomly vary per fight (eg: paralyze, stun, absorb damage, plague, etc). And really, Koios is probably one of the easiest choices. Occasional stoneskin is the main issue if you have a tough time getting through it without buffs. Hmm. Maybe the lizard Sirrush in Mis Coast? Also may be a more manageable fight if you're doing without buffs.

A couple fights each, where you can compare average melee and weaponskill damage, plus average time per weaponskill, etc. Should be able to get at least a ballpark DPS. Would probably also suggest war fight at least once both with and without Retaliation.

[Arcon]

@Arcon:

Well, you don't really have to go outside to test. You can pick a mob inside Abyssea and just not get any atma or cruor buffs (well, maybe HP buff).

Am trying to think of one that would be decently difficult without risking debuffs that can randomly vary per fight (eg: paralyze, stun, absorb damage, plague, etc). And really, Koios is probably one of the easiest choices. Occasional stoneskin is the main issue if you have a tough time getting through it without buffs. Hmm. Maybe the lizard Sirrush in Mis Coast? Also may be a more manageable fight if you're doing without buffs.

A couple fights each, where you can compare average melee and weaponskill damage, plus average time per weaponskill, etc. Should be able to get at least a ballpark DPS. Would probably also suggest war fight at least once both with and without Retaliation.

Good ideas. For that matter, could leave out Restraint as well, to see if it approaches the predicted numbers with those things out of the balance. Without those it should be ~95 for WAR, ~52 for THF?

[SpankWustler]

Sirrush would be a really good choice. No note-worthy defensive strengths, and he's almost as dangerous as a sharpened bread crust. He has lots of HP in spite of these things, so you could see the effects of the Warrior's berserk going down for a bit.

[Corvin]

what do u guys think warrior be doing on the VWNMS the same things they do in abyssea?

[Alaik]

Will also add one extra note to the factor of scaling damage with haste. When adding just one March (not double-march; am allowing the second to be scherzo or mambo or whatever is appropriate for a dangerous mob), war's DPS increases by 33% (Hasso) or 27% (Seigan), while thf's DPS increases by 12.5% with both SA/TA stacking, and up to 19% with only TA stacking (though the total DPS is lower than in the 12.5% increase's case).

Hasso war ends up about 42.5% ahead of best-case thf, while Seigan war ends up about 12.5% ahead. The hypothetical DW3+/war thf improves by about 20%, so the gap between fully offensive thf vs fully offensive war would still remain at about the 20% range.

So even for the comparisons where, under optimal conditions, thf can match war, as soon as a brd is added war pulls waaay ahead of thf. Thf gets too bogged down in JA timer limitations to be able to take full advantage of the extra haste (though part of that is the fault of the spreadsheet which can't easily deal with complex mixtures of stacked and held TP).

And of course as Insaniac points out, war pretty much always works at best-case or better (Retaliation), while thf usually works below best-case.

On the other hand, thf has faaar better raw survivability than war. Any time I'm not on thf, dnc or mnk, I always feel like I'm naked and have a massive target painted on my back (and front.. and head). War can manage with good support, but it's always painful to watch them try to survive anything even mildly difficult if they're not being constantly babysat.

I could certainly live with the trade-off in survivability vs offensive power if SE would make a more serious effort to work on the utility aspects.

This sounds more correct. 42.5% ahead of a best case THF. I don't really care about the "survivability" unless I'm solo/duo with my wife's WHM. If I'm in an alliance on real stuff, we have a tank, if it's trash, she can heal through. Worse case scenario I pop seigan for a few third eye hits then swap back, and I didn't have to do that much.

[Laphine]

There are some issues with the war spreadsheet inside abyssea but doesn't change anything to discuss outside stuff.

I liked these new numbers too. The main reason my war was worse was probably the lack of Blood Rage. Another thing was 5 hit (which i was using) being worse than 6 hit outside. On the overall comparison i should have used an elvaan war with 8 str merits vs my mithra with 8 dex merits. I imagine elvaan war should pull ahead of hume by the same amount a mithra thf does.

My comparison also had no haste with the exception of hasso for war. This was another edge for thf like a said from the very start. Without haste, and using the new spreadsheets kinematics uploaded, i got war with 81 dps and thf with 72. With haste thf sits at 78.5 dps and war JUMPS to 101 dps. A very big difference. Part of this difference is, i imagine, what kinematics said: the spreadsheet can't deal with complex mixture of stacked and held tp.

Out of curiosity Kinematics, how do you control the uptime of the WAR's JAs? Manually at their bonuses? Seems like blood rage has a 100% uptime as it is. This could represent a quick fight, but it's certainly an edge for war currently. But i guess i would have to do the overall average like you showed before. When i get 113 dps on set 1 and 93 on set 2, is it BAR up vs BAR completely down? A problem i see is that Blood rage can only be up 50% of the zerk and aggressor do. Is it like that currently?

Here is what i'm understanding. Set 1 is Berserk and Aggressor up. Set 2 is no Berserk or Agressor up. If i use 50% of the bonus of blood rage on set 1 and 0% on set 2, does it sound reasonable? I got a 96 dps like that. Pretty close to your 94 average. Actually the ratio between the sets are swapped now (probably related to set1 being no berserk before). 180 should be set 1 and 120 set two. I would change blood rage bonus to 33% on set one then. I got 99 dps with these changes lol.

Actually it's all wrong! Thf had 85 twash on and war was with ukon 90! bad bad! lol War also had an issue with hasso only being up on set 1.

But i gotta say. This was still all thf/nin, and fighting such a tough mob outside, thf/war is an obvious choice for me. And the difference between thf/war and war/sam is very small.

New numbers:
THF/NIN (hume + using love torque for more crits)
no haste at all: 79.2 dps
hasted: 86.1 dps

THF/NIN (le pwners = mithra thf = capped crit rate)
no haste at all: 82.4 dps
hasted: 89.9 dps

THF/WAR (le pwners more = mithra thf)
no haste at all: 93.9 dps
hasted: 101.3 dps

WAR/SAM (hume)
no hasso: 73.4 dps
only hasso: 86.2 dps
hasso+haste: 108.6 dps

WAR/SAM (elvaan)
no hasso: 75.4 dps
only hasso: 87.8 dps
hasso+haste: 110.6 dps

[Karbuncle]

even on THF I 8/8'd STR merits :X Never would change that.

Anyway, on the Vacuum-Math Theorycraft: I'm skeptical, very very very skeptical, because it logically defies all experience i've ever had. I'd say I'm too used to Abyssea but even then I do outside Abyssea content with a DRK, and he usually curb-stomps me in damage as well (and the fugger subs THF), then again, he has Caladbolg, and I currently have no Relic or Empyrean... Plus Last Resort is pretty boss...

However if all of this is true, I'd like to see some real practical parses, despite popular belief, human error is normal, and I'd like to see some results where human error is factored, because it will play a role in final results every time, since none of us are robots.

Thanks in advanced :O

[Vortex]

Sheesh, THf already steals from mobs, now they get to "bully" them, who dosn't want a job that is a comepelte A-hole to mobs.

Next on the list "Push" : knocks the mob back and occasionaly takes thier lunch money while shouting profanity.

[Alaik]

Well of course, parses will never be taken seriously. The closest thing we'll get is what Kin just put up factoring in missed SAs. It's easy enough to keep your WAR JAs on cooldown, and the chance of overflow TP can be held true for both, etc.

It also gives a fairly accurate description. I erased every parse I had (I stopped playing awhile ago) but on tough stuff outside, even my near perfect geared THF would be outdone by a near perfect geared WAR by 40%~. As stated before, my SA miss rate was around 15% on average.