Offhand for almace

[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.

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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?