Why You Shouldn't Use Fracture

[Kitru]

That is kind of bizarre logic, and it does not tell you the damage per TP or damage per GCD.

It's only bizarre logic if you don't understand resource management and are ignorant of anything more than the most simplistic models and constructs. Going off of base cost while ignoring how much you regain while using it is going to give you a horribly flawed picture. Damage per TP isn't an important value; you want to look at net loss of TP per potency (which is what I've been going off of). The more something costs compared to your resource generation, the higher the opportunity cost for using it is. Overpower isn't expensive because it costs about twice as much as your single target abilities; it's expensive because it costs more than *5 times* as much in practical terms.

Fracture deals significantly more damage per TP and significantly more damage per GCD than your main threat rotation does.

The first part of this is what keeps going over your head. Base cost means nothing without context. If base resource generation was 100, none of this discussion about cost would matter regardless of what damage per TP was. Damage per TP means *nothing* because Damage per TP lost per GCD is what's actually important. The second isn't actually all that true. It's true *somewhat*, but Fracture's contributions are negligible: it might deal ~80 more potency on the surface (you're almost never going to get all 10 ticks because the ticks are based off of server time, which means that, unless you hit it at *exactly* the server tick, you've got dead time on both sides) but that potency, distributed across the 13+ GCDs it would be applied over and accounting for the 2150 potency dealt over that time frame, the "benefits" of Fracture amount to a whopping 3.7% of total DPS. Factor in the buffs and everything else that Fracture doesn't benefit from or interferes with and it gets lower.

Fracture isn't worth it if you plan on fighting for longer than 2-3 minutes or less than 45-50 seconds, and even when you *do* use it, the contributions are small enough that you won't notice. The statement that it increases your DPS is semantically true and that's about it. In reality, you won't see real, practical increases to your damage *even when you use Fracture at the optimal time*. That's the entire point of this. Fracture has no real practical use for PLD *or* WAR: it costs a crapton more, decreasing your damage dealing capability over the long term, and adds so little damage that you won't even notice it.

[Soulburn32]

Look, you're 100% wrong, just accept it and move on.

Maybe so, but the game does play differently on a game pad compare to mouse and kb. Clipping RoH does flow better than clipping other skills.

While the math may not hold it up 100% if a computer bot did everything, sometimes gameplay flow is more important than doing everything 100% correct.

On the original topic, yes fracture does appear to be worthless.

[SofiyaGlaston]

Such snip
Wow
So wall
(doge)
"..adds so little damage that you won't even notice it."

This is silly. With that logic its almost like saying "Oh, this gear upgrade is only 1 str 1 it and 1 def/mdef. Its so miniscule i shouldnt upgrade at all cause i wont see the benefits." All in all, if you -can- increase anything viably.. Do it. Even if it's a small amount. In this case, if threat isn't an issue, use Fracture. If you're getting low on TP, halt its use. Don't just not use it because you think you'll run out too fast. Maximizing dps whenever you can is the best thing you can do, even if its "so little that you wont notice it".

P.S. No one is saying you are wrong. We're just suggesting different methods of play. There is no need to get hostile with people debating as it brings a greater knowledge to all and informs those who are too shy to ask these question.

[chococo]

Correct me if I'm wrong fracture is even worse than in your proposed case because the damage over time cannot crit, so it's even less damage per TP.

Wait, I think DOT can crit? that's how the BRD's DOT + bloodletter cooldown works no?

[Jahaudant]

Fracture isn't worth it if you plan on fighting for longer than 2-3 minutes or less than 45-50 seconds

So pretty much every single target encounter currently in the game except Titan?

It's higher damage, but it's higher damage in a purely semantic context that's really so little that you can ignore it.

As long as everyone understands that your argument against Fracture is effectively just laziness.

[Sapphidia]

In an infinite TP situation where you have a threat lead, Fracture is worth using every 30 seconds. In a semi-limited TP situation, it's worth using every time Berserk is up so you only get boosted Fracture. In a very limited TP situation, it's not worth using.

There's no absolutes for those. ANY fight which you finish with more than 20 TP remaining is a fight where you could have potentially slipped in an extra fracture. Some fights have pauses for TP regeneration, some fights take longer with different group setups.

It's 100% fine to say that over long TP-starved fights, Fracture is a DPS loss due to TP starvation. But it's lazy and irresponsible to tell people to never use it, because in situations where TP isnt an issue, Fracture is the highest damage single target move a warrior has.

[Kitru]

This is silly. With that logic its almost like saying "Oh, this gear upgrade is only 1 str 1 it and 1 def/mdef. Its so miniscule i shouldnt upgrade at all cause i wont see the benefits." All in all, if you -can- increase anything viably.. Do it. Even if it's a small amount. In this case, if threat isn't an issue, use Fracture. If you're getting low on TP, halt its use. Don't just not use it because you think you'll run out too fast. Maximizing dps whenever you can is the best thing you can do, even if its "so little that you wont notice it".

First off, nice strawman. There is a *significant* difference between an explicit stat increase and a less than half percent increase in damage due to using a specific skill that ends up costing you more over time. The difference between your gear argument and my Fracture argument is that those are an explicit improvement in performance; Fracture is a purely semantic improvement: it's true, but not true in any practical sense because of the size of it.

If you use Fracture during a fight and, at any point during that fight bottom out your TP, Fracture ended up being a net TP loss, regardless of when or how you use it. The lost GCD is going to cost more than the marginal increase in damage that Fracture provided over the normal combos.

P.S. No one is saying you are wrong. We're just suggesting different methods of play. There is no need to get hostile with people debating as it brings a greater knowledge to all and informs those who are too shy to ask these question.

The only people I'm getting hostile with are the ones that have no idea what they're talking about and are trying to claim that my math is wrong (i.e. the guy that thought that looking at TP loss/GCD made no sense when base TP cost is actually what's nonsensical if you're not an idiot). For everyone else, it's exasperation because the entire *point* I've been making is that, while Fracture, as a question of damage generated in a single GCD, is a good ability, over the long term, where TP cost actually matters, it is a DPS *loss* of a pretty substantial amount. Speaking about using Fracture because small improvements are still improvements is ignoring exactly how little Fracture actually improves your DPS. It's a small enough increase that vacillations in performance based on lag, RNG, and how distracted you are at the time have a greater impact and, in my experience, if any of those factors account for more than what is being talked about, you can ignore it completely because those factors are always present. It's like saying that you can make a bullet hit harder by running at your target before you shoot: sure, it's *true* from a purely semantic standpoint but, from a practical standpoint, there is no difference whatsoever and you're just doing it to do it rather than because it actually makes you perform better.

Telling people to use Fracture will not increase their DPS. In most cases, it will actually cause them to deal less damage over the long haul. Talking about using Fracture when you have all of these specific circumstances, some of which require you to have specific foreknowledge of the fight several minutes past, is like planning on setting a long jump record at the moment of a solar eclipse so that you'll get a boost from the combined gravity wells of the moon and sun acting upon you additively rather than existing in conflict. It's like arguing that calculators need to have pi stored to more than just the first 9 digits. You're going to get the same performance, in practical terms, either way, and you'll get the same real performance whether you opt to use Fracture perfectly or ignore it altogether; you'll get *worse* performance if you use Fracture without the perfect case being true.

[Kitru]

So pretty much every single target encounter currently in the game except Titan?

Actually, you still wouldn't want to do it on Titan because his transfer phases aren't long enough to reset your TP back to full from where they were burned. Fracture on him is still an explicit DPS loss. The only fight that I know of that actually fulfills the "it's fine to use Fracture" conditions is Ifrit, because his charges are common enough and long enough to reset TP back to full every time.

As long as everyone understands that your argument against Fracture is effectively just laziness.

How hard is it to understand "less than half of a percent"? It's not a question of laziness but whether there's even a point to using it. From a mathematical standpoint, there isn't because the difference in performance is so small. It's the value that gets cut off when you measure with significant figures. The value that Fracture adds is less than that. It gets eaten by the math so that there's no difference.

The argument against Fracture is cost:benefit. The benefit is effectively 0. The cost is a nearly 10% increase in TP consumption over time. It's not laziness to say that you should stop using the ability that gives you no real benefit while costing you more.

[Kitru]

It's 100% fine to say that over long TP-starved fights, Fracture is a DPS loss due to TP starvation. But it's lazy and irresponsible to tell people to never use it, because in situations where TP isnt an issue, Fracture is the highest damage single target move a warrior has.

You're ignoring the fact that there aren't really many fights where you can say that TP isn't an issue.A "long TP-starved fight" is any fight that lasts longer than 2.5 minutes, just by looking at the baseline consumption a WAR manages. If the boss isn't going to be dead in less time than it takes for Berserk to recharge a second time (or Unchained if you opt into using that at the start), you shouldn't be using Fracture at all and every boss that you face end game is going to last that long or longer.

The problem with what so many people are saying is that they're using qualified definitions rather than quantified ones. "Long TP-starved fight" sounds like a lot longer than 150 seconds, but it's not really. Unless you opt into standing around and not doing anything, you *will* end up running out of TP on any fight worth mentioning, so it's not really a question of it being a "long TP-starved fight" but rather a "fight" in general.

Stating that Fracture should not be used in the absolute case is like stating that Shield Swipe should not be used in the absolute case. Sure, Shield Swipe does end up being a slight DPS increase when you use it (it's dirt cheap for the damage that it deals and it deals slightly more than the average damage that the Halone combo does), but you'll find a lot of PLDs that will tell you that there's not really a point to using it and tell you not to use it in the absolute case: it just doesn't provide enough of a benefit to justify itself. Whatever gains you might experience by using it are so marginal that there's no practical difference between using it and not using it. The same is true for Fracture.

It's not a question of laziness or simplicity but whether there's even a point.

[Maelwys]

(In before the obligatory "LERN2MATH!" response...)

Not sure what you're implying..

Nothing to worry about, honest.

[*Munches Popcorn*]

There is no need to get hostile with people debating as it brings a greater knowledge to all and informs those who are too shy to ask these question.

The only people I'm getting hostile with are the ones that have no idea what they're talking about and are trying to claim that my math is wrong

"Dammit, out already??"

[*Opens Second Bag*]
[*MunchMunch*]