Great Sword advice (+ other equipment)

[munky@thechosen]

I am a lvl 21 Warrior, and am currenlty using the Braveheart Great Sword, i am now looking at upgrading, but without the added Acurracy will it be worth me changing to one of the lvl 20 Swords? ie, 2 Handed Sword or the Mercenarys Great Sword?

any advice what i should be doing with this would be good.

if i sell the Braveheart, then i will have some spare cash so which items would be good for me to get? aswell as full Beetle Armour, i have a Amethyst Ring, 2 x Beetle Earings and a Fang Necklace already.

[abrias]

well....

Well to be quite honest,

As a warrior you really should not be using a great sword. If you want to be a Drk.... You still won't be using great sword as a main.

You may not like cookie cutters But in all honesty there is a reason for them. I'll list some melee classes and show you what the basic cookie cutter for each is



Warrior - Great Axe - Axe/Shield
Drk - Scythe - Great Sword
Drg - Pole Arm - ???
Sam - Great Katana - Polearm
Thf - Dagger (only thing accepted post 33) H2h or sword before that
Paladin- Sword/Shield - Great Sword (farming not parties)

(theres a bit of debate on that last one some carry a club/shield around for fighting against bones and such high level club ws are really nice^^)

Rng- Bow / Gun - Dagger

Thats it???
Sorry I'm very sleepy right now^^

[munky@thechosen]

I was after some form of advice on the question i asked, rather than being told i shouldn't be using a Great Sword.

I know that Axes and Great Axes are better for a Warrior but i would rather use a GreatSword as i am going for a DRK later on.

[Star8urst]

Mercenary GS is a nice level 20 sword, I have one too. My advice on weapons, any weapons you use for melee damage, is it always get the weapon with the best ratio of damage/delay (is highest). The stats on the weapon are a bonus, but they are secondary to the weapons main function, to deal damage. I hope that helps.

Advice for other items, most melee look for +accuracy, +attack, +Dex stuff. I'm not sure if Amethyst are +1 dex or +2. Try to get the +2 rings at this level. Apart from that, that's pretty much what I use as well still.

Good luck with the DRK quest, drop by the DRK forums if you are looking for more advice.

[Amaterasu]

i don't understand why people have the notion of "pre-leveling" a weapon for a later class.

you will have plenty of time to raise the weapon level WHILE you play that new class. Why not use the weapon your class is A+ or A in? (Ie: warrior -> Great Axe). Otherwise you'll be sitting around with a level cap .. I'd rather be gaining levels in a new weapon....

the only thing I would "pre-level" is shield block if you are going pally. (its almost impossible to cap)

[Ginthaeriel]

Originally posted by Star8urst
Mercenary GS is a nice level 20 sword, I have one too. My advice on weapons, any weapons you use for melee damage, is it always get the weapon with the best ratio of damage/delay (is highest). The stats on the weapon are a bonus, but they are secondary to the weapons main function, to deal damage. I hope that helps.

Advice for other items, most melee look for +accuracy, +attack, +Dex stuff. I'm not sure if Amethyst are +1 dex or +2. Try to get the +2 rings at this level. Apart from that, that's pretty much what I use as well still.

Good luck with the DRK quest, drop by the DRK forums if you are looking for more advice.

According to what I've read, I'm not sure about the whole Damage/Delay thing. By logic and through most accounts, the defense/damage mitigation system in the game is linear- which means mob defense subtracts directly from your damage. This means that in some cases higher damage is more preferable to lower damage, regardless of delay. You'd rather be doing 10 damage per hit slowly, than 0 damage per hit quickly. You can see this just by looking at how almost all the damage dealer classes- DRG, DRK and SAM- all use two handed weapons.

However, Damage/Delay is probably the first rule of thumb you should follow. If two weapons have the same damage/delay ratio however, go for the one with the higher damage higher delay.

However yet ANOTHER thing that factors in is accuracy. A long delay weapon is going to absolutely suck without much accuracy, since every one of those few precious high damaging hits you do get from a high delay weapon is going to count- and if you miss several of them, then your damage is going to get really inefficient.

Also yet another thing to note is that the higher the delay of a weapon is, the greater the TP return per hit.

[Star8urst]

Accuracy works the same way for every weapon, it's just your perception that it affects weapons with high delay more. Missing 3 or 4 hits on a row will make a difference only if you are soloing a DC or EVEN con mob. When fighting in a party it's not realy an issue. if you are going to hit 75% of time, you will hit 3 out of 4 hits on AVERAGE, no matter what your weapon delay is.

[munky@thechosen]

i don't understand why people have the notion of "pre-leveling" a weapon for a later class.

you will have plenty of time to raise the weapon level WHILE you play that new class. Why not use the weapon your class is A+ or A in? (Ie: warrior -> Great Axe). Otherwise you'll be sitting around with a level cap .. I'd rather be gaining levels in a new weapon....

the point is that by the time i get my DRK quest i will have a capped Greatsword skill, to do the quest then switch to a scythe so i will have both available to me while i am a DRK.


thanx for the advice on DMG vs Delay, ill take a look into this abit more.

[Aeynrieus]

Re: well....

Originally posted by abrias
As a warrior you really should not be using a great sword.

And why not? Great Swords are rated B+ for WARs along with Scythes. That's one of the nice things about Warriors: versatility. They can tank, they can deal decent damage, and seeing that they're relatively proficient (B or better) in nine weapons, they're extremely useful for forming skillchains.

You should see the reactions I get when I enter into parties and they ask for my list of Weapon Skills. It's two and a half lines long (unabbreviated). It gives us increased potential for forming the best skillchains for the mobs we're fighting. I know that I've been praised more than once for being proficient in more than just one or two weapons.

If you want to be a min/max'er and/or don't want to spend the gil on the extra weapons, then just use axes. But for me, I like having a list of Weapon Skills that rivals the magic-users' grimoires.

EDIT:

I would go with the Mercenary's Great Sword, too. It's an excellent weapon. I've already bought mine and though I can't use it with this character yet, I had one with another character and it was an excellent weapon. The attack boost will also help you out if you've leveling it from scratch, like I had to.

[Ginthaeriel]

Originally posted by Star8urst
Accuracy works the same way for every weapon, it's just your perception that it affects weapons with high delay more. Missing 3 or 4 hits on a row will make a difference only if you are soloing a DC or EVEN con mob. When fighting in a party it's not realy an issue. if you are going to hit 75% of time, you will hit 3 out of 4 hits on AVERAGE, no matter what your weapon delay is.

Well that only works if you were fighting a mob that had lots of HP, and therefore the high delay weapons have plenty of time to balance out their hit-connect ratios. If say there were two fighters, both using weapons with the same delay to damage ratios, only one was using high-damage, high-delay, while the other was using low-damage, low-delay and they were fighting a mob that had very very low defense so that actual weapon damage wasn't a factor, then that means that the low-damage, low-delay weapon is going to cause damage to the mob faster than the high-damage, high-delay weapon.

Lets say that this mob had enough evasion to cause both fighters to miss 50% of the time, and that the low damage low delay weapon had half the damage and half the delay of the high damage high delay weapon. That means for every attack the high weapon does, the low weapon can deal out two attacks.

If the high weapon connects on its second hit, then the low weapon is going to hit the mob twice before the high weapon makes the second hit. If that was enough to kill the mob, then the high weapon would have not even touched the mob before the low weapon killed it. If the high weapon connects on the first hit, then theres still a 50/50 chance that the low weapon hit before that as well.

This is all negligible when you're fighting mobs with lots of HP, since over time the damage is going to even out with so many hits, but if you're say, chaining some evens or toughs or something, then it starts counting up a bit. Add the fact that if you need so much time to start hitting things, that means that you're taking more time to kill the mob- which means more HP from the tank is lost- which means more downtime. Missing with low delay isn't a big deal since you're still doing damage, but if you're one of the higher damage dealers, then you want to get in your hits quick and fast because the windup is just so big- so you want to connect as much as possible. Need of accuracy is skewed a bit more to high damage weapons. Whats the point of getting something that hits hard, if you can't hit at all? The probability gets better with the more chances you get. I think a good testament to the fact that high delay weapons require more accuracy than low delay weapons is that almost all 2h weapon wielders, once they hit the high enough level, almost always get the life belt (+10 accuracy).

High delay weapons have a harder time recovering from streaks of bad luck too. Say your luck just went down the tube and you missed five shots in a row. A low delay weapon won't really be bothered by that, but high delay weapons would really need to wind back up to recover the lost damage. Having a high delay just allows less room for error.

EDIT: Also, I'm not too sure about this, but I believe that 2h weapons in general have lower accuracies than 1h weapons, but I think this is just from what I've heard.

[Aeynrieus]

Originally posted by Ginthaeriel
<snip>

You're leaving out that 2-handed weapons have a higher critical hit rate, which actually puts them ahead of one handed weapons of same damage-to-delay ratio.

[munky@thechosen]

I think a good testament to the fact that high delay weapons require more accuracy than low delay weapons is that almost all 2h weapon wielders, once they hit the high enough level, almost always get the life belt (+10 accuracy).

i think that might have done it for me... im going to keep my Braveheart for the time as the + Accuracy and + Dex does make a big difference. untill i get started on my scythe it will do me i think.

[Amaterasu]

Re: Re: well....

Originally posted by Aeynrieus


And why not? Great Swords are rated B+ for WARs along with Scythes. That's one of the nice things about Warriors: versatility. They can tank, they can deal decent damage, and seeing that they're relatively proficient (B or better) in nine weapons, they're extremely useful for forming skillchains.

You should see the reactions I get when I enter into parties and they ask for my list of Weapon Skills. It's two and a half lines long (unabbreviated). It gives us increased potential for forming the best skillchains for the mobs we're fighting. I know that I've been praised more than once for being proficient in more than just one or two weapons.

If you want to be a min/max'er and/or don't want to spend the gil on the extra weapons, then just use axes. But for me, I like having a list of Weapon Skills that rivals the magic-users' grimoires.

When I played warrior I was the same. I had Sword, G.Sword, Axe, G.Axe, Polearm all capped or near capped.

I'm a paladin now, and i'm expected to use sword/shield

g.sword for soloing/farming though

[Star8urst]

This is all negligible when you're fighting mobs with lots of HP, since over time the damage is going to even out with so many hits, but if you're say, chaining some evens or toughs or something, then it starts counting up a bit. Add the fact that if you need so much time to start hitting things, that means that you're taking more time to kill the mob- which means more HP from the tank is lost- which means more downtime. Missing with low delay isn't a big deal since you're still doing damage, but if you're one of the higher damage dealers, then you want to get in your hits quick and fast because the windup is just so big- so you want to connect as much as possible. Need of accuracy is skewed a bit more to high damage weapons. Whats the point of getting something that hits hard, if you can't hit at all? The probability gets better with the more chances you get. I think a good testament to the fact that high delay weapons require more accuracy than low delay weapons is that almost all 2h weapon wielders, once they hit the high enough level, almost always get the life belt (+10 accuracy).

Accuracy is independent of weapon delay. High accuracy = more hits = more damage. If you choose not to get accuracy items because you think your fast weapon hides the amount of times you miss, that is your choice.

In a group situation you usualy fight an incredibly tough mob which takes a few minutes to kill. Considering a slow weapon hits every 5 seconds or so, that will give you enough hit sample size to average your number of hits close to your accuracy. The only mob you will kill with 2 or 3 hits is a very easy or too easy to be worth anything, and you almost never miss on those mobs. So your example is not correct in "real game" environment.

The point of hitting so hard, and that has been brought up already, is that mobs defence substract from your damage a set amount, not a pecentage. What's the point of hitting a mob many times and do 0 damage? Another thing is, when you get the lucky streak and hit 5 6 times in a row with a high damage / slow weapon, you actualy kill a mob a lot faster. Do that with a low damage / fast weapon and you hardly notice a difference.

Also it is my impresion that slower weapons have a better damage/delay ratio which means your Damage Per Second (DPS) is much better.

In conclusion, accuracy is important regardless of your weapon delay, the higher the better. The best weapons are the ones with the best damage/delay ratio. And in my oppinion high damage weapons are better than low damage weapon (see hit for 0 damage above).