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Guide: Melee stats for dummies.
There's way too many people that don't know what stats do or how they work so I've decided to put together an all-encompassing guide. The purpose of this thread is to teach you what every melee stat does, how melee damage is calculated, and, eventually, how to compare stats so you can judge equipment on your own. Most importantly, the guide is meant to be easily understandable.
The math behind all of this is simple. Only basic algebra is needed to understand it. If you don't understand something then I'm doing something wrong and I demand that you tell me what you're not getting so I can fix the guide. You're only hurting yourself and others by keeping quiet about it.
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Work in progress, more to come soon.
The math behind all of this is simple. Only basic algebra is needed to understand it. If you don't understand something then I'm doing something wrong and I demand that you tell me what you're not getting so I can fix the guide. You're only hurting yourself and others by keeping quiet about it.
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I) The damage formula: A single melee hit
There's no better place to begin than here. The damage you do when you swing your weapon is calculated with the following formula:
Where Base Damage = (DMG + fSTR). So, another way to write the formula is:
DMG is, as you would expect, your weapon's DMG rating.
fSTR is an invisible stat that's derived from your weapon's DMG, your STR, and the enemy's VIT. It takes approximately 4 STR to increase fSTR by 1. fSTR has the same effect as DMG on your damage output - e.g. Increasing fSTR by 1 is the same as using a weapon with 1 more DMG than what you currently use.
pDIF is a randomly generated number. The range of the numbers depends on the ratio of your Attack and the enemy's Defense, and how many levels the enemy is higher than you.
I.a) A quick look at fSTR
fSTR can be approximated with the following formula:
The formula is most accurate when there's a decent difference between your STR and the enemy's VIT. This is usually the case for EXP party and solo mobs - most mobs have poor VIT ratings, and players have easy access to STR equipment. For these same reasons, it's very rare for fSTR to be 0 or negative. Most melees will have over 4 fSTR in an EXP party.
I.b) A quick look at pDIF
At the heart of the pDIF calculations lies cRatio (which I assume means "level corrected ratio.") cRatio is calculated with the following formula:
Where Level Difference is how many levels the mob is higher than you (if the enemy is the same level than you or lower, Level Difference is 0.) Basically, cRatio is the ratio of your Attack and the enemy's Defense, with a 5% penalty thrown in for each level the mob is higher than you. cRatio is then used to calculate the minimum and maximum values that pDIF can take.
For most purposes, it's more useful to know the average value for pDIF than the minimum and maximum. For quick calculations, cRatio can be used; except at very low values, cRatio comes pretty close to your average PDIF, deviating by only 11% at most. For precise calculations, see below.
I.c) Critical Hits, Guard, and Shield blocks
Critical Hits add +1.0 to your current pDIF roll, but pDIF can never exceed 3.0. For example, if you roll a pDIF of 2.2 on an attack and it crits, your pDIF becomes 3, not 3.2. Also, if you roll a negative pDIF value on a critical hit, the negative value is used, not 0. E.g. If you roll a -0.3, normally that pDIF roll would become 0. However, if that same hit criticals, your new pDIF is 0.7, not 1.0.
A consequence of the fact that crits add a fixed number to pDIF is that they add a fixed amount of damage, and that means that they make more of a difference when your cRatio is low than when it's high. Going from 0.5 to 1.5 cRatio from a crit means you did x3 damage, but going from 1 to 2 is only x2 damage and going from 2 to 3 is only x1.5. If you've ever wondered why crits always do good damage even to HNMs, that would be it.
Guard, on the other hand, works as a sort of reverse-crit, subtracting a certain amount from the attacker's pDIF roll (and possibly causing it to become 0 if it was low enough.) This is not to be confused with shield blocks, which reduce damage by a fixed percentage which depends on the size of the shield.
- Base Damage * pDIF
Where Base Damage = (DMG + fSTR). So, another way to write the formula is:
- (DMG + fSTR) * pDIF
DMG is, as you would expect, your weapon's DMG rating.
fSTR is an invisible stat that's derived from your weapon's DMG, your STR, and the enemy's VIT. It takes approximately 4 STR to increase fSTR by 1. fSTR has the same effect as DMG on your damage output - e.g. Increasing fSTR by 1 is the same as using a weapon with 1 more DMG than what you currently use.
pDIF is a randomly generated number. The range of the numbers depends on the ratio of your Attack and the enemy's Defense, and how many levels the enemy is higher than you.
I.a) A quick look at fSTR
fSTR can be approximated with the following formula:
- (Your STR - Enemy VIT + 4)/4 (drop all decimals)
The formula is most accurate when there's a decent difference between your STR and the enemy's VIT. This is usually the case for EXP party and solo mobs - most mobs have poor VIT ratings, and players have easy access to STR equipment. For these same reasons, it's very rare for fSTR to be 0 or negative. Most melees will have over 4 fSTR in an EXP party.
Originally posted by A closer look at fSTR
fSTR has minimum and maximum values given by:
Where Weapon Rank = floor(DMG/9) (floor() means to drop all decimals; for weapons with latent effects, the non-latent DMG is used in the rank calculation.) Weapon Rank is used only for fSTR calculations.
To find precise fSTR values, refer to this fSTR2 Table courtesy of VZX's FFXI Doc. The Y axis represents your STR-VIT difference and the X axis is the weapon rank. Divide the fSTR2 value by 2 to obtain your fSTR (fSTR2 is used for Ranged Attacks.)
- Minimum fSTR = -(Weapon Rank) except for Rank 0 weapons, which have a floor of -1.
- Maximum fSTR = 8 + Weapon Rank
Where Weapon Rank = floor(DMG/9) (floor() means to drop all decimals; for weapons with latent effects, the non-latent DMG is used in the rank calculation.) Weapon Rank is used only for fSTR calculations.
To find precise fSTR values, refer to this fSTR2 Table courtesy of VZX's FFXI Doc. The Y axis represents your STR-VIT difference and the X axis is the weapon rank. Divide the fSTR2 value by 2 to obtain your fSTR (fSTR2 is used for Ranged Attacks.)
I.b) A quick look at pDIF
At the heart of the pDIF calculations lies cRatio (which I assume means "level corrected ratio.") cRatio is calculated with the following formula:
- cRatio = (Your Attack/Enemy's Defense) - (Level Difference * 0.05)
Where Level Difference is how many levels the mob is higher than you (if the enemy is the same level than you or lower, Level Difference is 0.) Basically, cRatio is the ratio of your Attack and the enemy's Defense, with a 5% penalty thrown in for each level the mob is higher than you. cRatio is then used to calculate the minimum and maximum values that pDIF can take.
For most purposes, it's more useful to know the average value for pDIF than the minimum and maximum. For quick calculations, cRatio can be used; except at very low values, cRatio comes pretty close to your average PDIF, deviating by only 11% at most. For precise calculations, see below.
Originally posted by A closer look at pDIF
The formula used to calculate minimum and maximum pDIF vary depending on what value your cRatio has. All the formulas are listed below, along with the cRatio ranges in which they're used.
Average pDIF (obtained by adding the maximum and minimum formulas and dividing by 2.)
* Note: Simply taking the average of the min and max formulas when negative numbers are involved will yield inaccurate numbers, since negatives become 0. Thus, I listed range for the first function as starting at 0.416666... cRatio since anything below that yields negative numbers.
Maximum pDIF
Minimum pDIF
Note: Negative pDIF numbers become 0 in the damage calculation.
cRatio caps at 2.0, at which point pDIF ranges from 1.6 to 2.4.
Average pDIF (obtained by adding the maximum and minimum formulas and dividing by 2.)
- If 0.4166... < cRatio < 0.5* | Average pDIF = 1.2(cRatio) - 0.05
- If 0.5 < cRatio < 0.833... | Average pDIF = 0.6(cRatio) + 0.25
- If 0.833... < cRatio < 1.25 | Average pDIF = 1.2(cRatio) - 0.25
- If 1.25 < cRatio < 1.5 | Average pDIF = 0.6(cRatio) + 0.5
- If 1.5 < cRatio < 2 | Average pDIF = 1.2(cRatio) - 0.4
* Note: Simply taking the average of the min and max formulas when negative numbers are involved will yield inaccurate numbers, since negatives become 0. Thus, I listed range for the first function as starting at 0.416666... cRatio since anything below that yields negative numbers.
Maximum pDIF
- If 0 < cRatio < 0.5 | Max pDIF = 1.2(cRatio) + 0.4
- If 0.5 < cRatio < 0.833... | Max pDIF = 1
- If 0.833... < cRatio < 2 | Max pDIF = 1.2(cRatio)
Minimum pDIF
- If 0 < cRatio < 1.25 | Min pDIF = 1.2(cRatio) - 0.5
- If 1.25 < cRatio < 1.5 | Min pDIF = 1
- If 1.5 < cRatio < 2 | Min pDIF = 1.2(cRatio) - 0.8
Note: Negative pDIF numbers become 0 in the damage calculation.
cRatio caps at 2.0, at which point pDIF ranges from 1.6 to 2.4.
I.c) Critical Hits, Guard, and Shield blocks
Critical Hits add +1.0 to your current pDIF roll, but pDIF can never exceed 3.0. For example, if you roll a pDIF of 2.2 on an attack and it crits, your pDIF becomes 3, not 3.2. Also, if you roll a negative pDIF value on a critical hit, the negative value is used, not 0. E.g. If you roll a -0.3, normally that pDIF roll would become 0. However, if that same hit criticals, your new pDIF is 0.7, not 1.0.
A consequence of the fact that crits add a fixed number to pDIF is that they add a fixed amount of damage, and that means that they make more of a difference when your cRatio is low than when it's high. Going from 0.5 to 1.5 cRatio from a crit means you did x3 damage, but going from 1 to 2 is only x2 damage and going from 2 to 3 is only x1.5. If you've ever wondered why crits always do good damage even to HNMs, that would be it.
Guard, on the other hand, works as a sort of reverse-crit, subtracting a certain amount from the attacker's pDIF roll (and possibly causing it to become 0 if it was low enough.) This is not to be confused with shield blocks, which reduce damage by a fixed percentage which depends on the size of the shield.
II) Weapon Skills
Weapon Skill hits follow the same basic formula as normal attacks:
However, Base Damage for Weapon Skills has two extra terms: Base Damage = (DMG + fSTR + WSC) * fTP. Thus, the formula for a single WS hit can be written as:
WSC are the infamous "stat mods" or "secondary modifiers" - a percentage of certain stats is added directly to your DMG and fSTR. The percentages and which stats are used vary from WS to WS.
fTP is a WS-specific multiplier. Besides WSC, it's what's responsible for making WS hits more damaging than normal hits, especially in the case of single hit Weapon Skills. This stat is also the one responsible for increasing WS damage in "damage varies with TP" WS.
II.a) WSC (Weapon Skill Secondary Modifiers)
WSC is calculated in two steps: first the base value is computed, and then it's adjusted to account for your level. The base value is calculated with the following formula:
Where, as usual, floor( ) indicates that you should drop all the decimals after you're done with the calculations. Stat1 and Stat2 represent the two stats (if there are two) that the WS draws from, while A% and B% are their corresponding percentages.
Afterwards, the base value is multiplied by a number referred to as α (Alpha), which reduces your WSC as you level up. Thus, the formula for WSC's final value is:
The Alpha values for each level range can be found below:
Let's do a quick example of WSC calculations:
Weapon Skill: Fast Blade
Stat 1: STR (20%)
Stat 2: DEX (20%)
Character: PLD30/WAR15 (Elvaan)
STR: 40
DEX: 26
Base WSC = floor(40*0.20 + 26*0.20) = floor(8 + 5.2) = 13
Final WSC = floor(13 * Lv.30 Alpha) = floor(13 * 0.95) = floor(12.35) = 12
Thus, 12 would be added to the player's DMG and fSTR in the above example.
II.b) fTP, multiple hits, and TP efficiency
Like I mentioned earlier, fTP is a multiplier that varies from WS to WS, and is responsible for increasing (and in some cases decreasing) the damage of a WS hit. However, it's of critical importance to understand that fTP only applies to the first hit of a WS. fTP is always 1.0 on every other hit, including extra hits from Dual Wield and Double Attack.
One of the most important aspects of Weapon Skill use is TP efficiency - that is, at what point a WS will have the best damage/TP ratio. After all, why would you waste 300 TP to only do 10% more damage than at 100 TP?
To analyze a WS's TP efficiency, we divide its fTP values at 100 TP, 200 TP, and 300 TP by 1, 2, and 3 respectively (technically you could divide by 100, 200, and 300 but it's pretty clear that 100 is a common factor there so we factor it out, leaving us with 1, 2, and 3.) The biggest ratio will tell you at what TP the WS is most efficient. Let's do an example with Ground Strike.
Ground Strike
fTP @100 TP: 1.50
fTP @200 TP: 1.75
fTP @300 TP: 3.00
Efficiency @100: 1.50/1 = 1.50
Efficiency @200: 1.75/2 = 0.875
Efficiency @300: 3.00/3 = 1.00
As you can see, Ground Strike is most efficient at 100 TP, most inefficient (by a large margin) at 200 TP and slightly less inefficient at 300 TP. The vast majority of WS are more efficient at 100 TP, but there are exceptions. Full Swing, for example, gets more efficient the more TP you have, and Red Lotus Blade is actually equally efficient at 100 and 300, and slightly more efficient at 200.
When considering multi-hit Weapon Skills, you can add 1 to their fTP for every hit after the first to account for all the hits. For example, when analyzing Savage Blade, you treat it as if it has 2.0 fTP at 100 TP, 2.75 fTP at 200 TP, and 4.50 fTP at 300 TP. Just don't forget to account for the extra hit(s) from Dual Wield, Warrior's Charge and Assassin's Charge if you're using any of those.
III.c) Equipment swaps and WSC
Now that we've got the numbers out of the way, it's worthwhile to make a few observations about the practicality of increasing WSC through equipment swaps.
The first would be that most multi-hit Weapon Skills have low WSC percentages, and at Lv.75 these percentages are lowered even more by the Alpha factor. This coupled with the fact that very few pieces of equipment grant large bonuses to base stats for melee jobs makes increasing WSC impractical - it's more practical to increase Attack, Accuracy, and STR. Another reason why it's a bad idea is that missing a single hit in a WS will cause you to lose far more damage than whatever small gains you would've gotten out of increasing your WSC (and missing the WS completely is even worse, in the case of single hit WS!) Accuracy is by far the most important factor in a multi-hit WS, especially since many of them can score critical hits to make up for low Attack.
However, there's an exception to every rule. Some single hit WS (e.g. Steel Cyclone, Ground Strike) have very large WSC percentages and fTP multipliers (at 300 TP). These WS will often be combined with Sneak Attack against tough NMs and HNMs. Sneak Attack will guarantee that the WS will hit, removing the need for Accuracy, and will increase your pDIF greatly because of the critical hit. The high fTP and pDIF values means that every point of DMG, fSTR, and WSC counts for a lot, and coupled with high WSC percentages, this makes increasing your WSC a viable strategy for getting the most out of your WS damage.
Finally, it's also important to realize that many WS have STR as a secondary modifier. This means that STR is factored into your DMG twice: once in your fSTR and a second time in your WSC. Thus, for these WS, STR will usually play a bigger impact than other secondary mods (e.g. DEX, MND, CHR, INT).
II.d) Critical Hits in Weapon Skills
Crits do the same thing in physical Weapon Skills as they do on normal hits - add +1.0 to that hit's pDIF roll. However, melee Weapon Skills have a peculiar restriction: they can't score random crits unless the WS description says so. For instance, Fast Blade ("Damage varies with TP") and Shield Break ("Lowers enemy's evasion. Duration of effect varies with TP.") will never randomly critical, but Vorpal Blade and Rampage ("Chance of critical varies with TP.") will.
Note that this restriction only applies to natural/random crits. You can still force Fast Blade or Shield Break to crit with Sneak Attack or Mighty Strikes, for example.
- Base Damage * pDIF
However, Base Damage for Weapon Skills has two extra terms: Base Damage = (DMG + fSTR + WSC) * fTP. Thus, the formula for a single WS hit can be written as:
- ((DMG + fSTR + WSC) * fTP) * pDIF
WSC are the infamous "stat mods" or "secondary modifiers" - a percentage of certain stats is added directly to your DMG and fSTR. The percentages and which stats are used vary from WS to WS.
fTP is a WS-specific multiplier. Besides WSC, it's what's responsible for making WS hits more damaging than normal hits, especially in the case of single hit Weapon Skills. This stat is also the one responsible for increasing WS damage in "damage varies with TP" WS.
II.a) WSC (Weapon Skill Secondary Modifiers)
WSC is calculated in two steps: first the base value is computed, and then it's adjusted to account for your level. The base value is calculated with the following formula:
- Base WSC = floor( (Stat1 * A%) + (Stat2 * B%) )
Where, as usual, floor( ) indicates that you should drop all the decimals after you're done with the calculations. Stat1 and Stat2 represent the two stats (if there are two) that the WS draws from, while A% and B% are their corresponding percentages.
Afterwards, the base value is multiplied by a number referred to as α (Alpha), which reduces your WSC as you level up. Thus, the formula for WSC's final value is:
- WSC = floor(Base WSC * α) = floor(floor(Stat1*A% + Stat2*B%) * α)
The Alpha values for each level range can be found below:
Originally posted by Alpha Values
Level.....α
1~5........1.00
6~11......0.99
12~17.....0.98
18~23.....0.97
24~29.....0.96
30~35.....0.95
36~41.....0.94
42~47.....0.93
48~53.....0.92
54~59.....0.91
60~61.....0.90
62~63.....0.89
64~65.....0.88
66~67.....0.87
68~69.....0.86
70~71.....0.85
72~73.....0.84
74~75.....0.83
1~5........1.00
6~11......0.99
12~17.....0.98
18~23.....0.97
24~29.....0.96
30~35.....0.95
36~41.....0.94
42~47.....0.93
48~53.....0.92
54~59.....0.91
60~61.....0.90
62~63.....0.89
64~65.....0.88
66~67.....0.87
68~69.....0.86
70~71.....0.85
72~73.....0.84
74~75.....0.83
Weapon Skill: Fast Blade
Stat 1: STR (20%)
Stat 2: DEX (20%)
Character: PLD30/WAR15 (Elvaan)
STR: 40
DEX: 26
Base WSC = floor(40*0.20 + 26*0.20) = floor(8 + 5.2) = 13
Final WSC = floor(13 * Lv.30 Alpha) = floor(13 * 0.95) = floor(12.35) = 12
Thus, 12 would be added to the player's DMG and fSTR in the above example.
II.b) fTP, multiple hits, and TP efficiency
Like I mentioned earlier, fTP is a multiplier that varies from WS to WS, and is responsible for increasing (and in some cases decreasing) the damage of a WS hit. However, it's of critical importance to understand that fTP only applies to the first hit of a WS. fTP is always 1.0 on every other hit, including extra hits from Dual Wield and Double Attack.
One of the most important aspects of Weapon Skill use is TP efficiency - that is, at what point a WS will have the best damage/TP ratio. After all, why would you waste 300 TP to only do 10% more damage than at 100 TP?
To analyze a WS's TP efficiency, we divide its fTP values at 100 TP, 200 TP, and 300 TP by 1, 2, and 3 respectively (technically you could divide by 100, 200, and 300 but it's pretty clear that 100 is a common factor there so we factor it out, leaving us with 1, 2, and 3.) The biggest ratio will tell you at what TP the WS is most efficient. Let's do an example with Ground Strike.
Ground Strike
fTP @100 TP: 1.50
fTP @200 TP: 1.75
fTP @300 TP: 3.00
Efficiency @100: 1.50/1 = 1.50
Efficiency @200: 1.75/2 = 0.875
Efficiency @300: 3.00/3 = 1.00
As you can see, Ground Strike is most efficient at 100 TP, most inefficient (by a large margin) at 200 TP and slightly less inefficient at 300 TP. The vast majority of WS are more efficient at 100 TP, but there are exceptions. Full Swing, for example, gets more efficient the more TP you have, and Red Lotus Blade is actually equally efficient at 100 and 300, and slightly more efficient at 200.
When considering multi-hit Weapon Skills, you can add 1 to their fTP for every hit after the first to account for all the hits. For example, when analyzing Savage Blade, you treat it as if it has 2.0 fTP at 100 TP, 2.75 fTP at 200 TP, and 4.50 fTP at 300 TP. Just don't forget to account for the extra hit(s) from Dual Wield, Warrior's Charge and Assassin's Charge if you're using any of those.
III.c) Equipment swaps and WSC
Now that we've got the numbers out of the way, it's worthwhile to make a few observations about the practicality of increasing WSC through equipment swaps.
The first would be that most multi-hit Weapon Skills have low WSC percentages, and at Lv.75 these percentages are lowered even more by the Alpha factor. This coupled with the fact that very few pieces of equipment grant large bonuses to base stats for melee jobs makes increasing WSC impractical - it's more practical to increase Attack, Accuracy, and STR. Another reason why it's a bad idea is that missing a single hit in a WS will cause you to lose far more damage than whatever small gains you would've gotten out of increasing your WSC (and missing the WS completely is even worse, in the case of single hit WS!) Accuracy is by far the most important factor in a multi-hit WS, especially since many of them can score critical hits to make up for low Attack.
However, there's an exception to every rule. Some single hit WS (e.g. Steel Cyclone, Ground Strike) have very large WSC percentages and fTP multipliers (at 300 TP). These WS will often be combined with Sneak Attack against tough NMs and HNMs. Sneak Attack will guarantee that the WS will hit, removing the need for Accuracy, and will increase your pDIF greatly because of the critical hit. The high fTP and pDIF values means that every point of DMG, fSTR, and WSC counts for a lot, and coupled with high WSC percentages, this makes increasing your WSC a viable strategy for getting the most out of your WS damage.
Finally, it's also important to realize that many WS have STR as a secondary modifier. This means that STR is factored into your DMG twice: once in your fSTR and a second time in your WSC. Thus, for these WS, STR will usually play a bigger impact than other secondary mods (e.g. DEX, MND, CHR, INT).
II.d) Critical Hits in Weapon Skills
Crits do the same thing in physical Weapon Skills as they do on normal hits - add +1.0 to that hit's pDIF roll. However, melee Weapon Skills have a peculiar restriction: they can't score random crits unless the WS description says so. For instance, Fast Blade ("Damage varies with TP") and Shield Break ("Lowers enemy's evasion. Duration of effect varies with TP.") will never randomly critical, but Vorpal Blade and Rampage ("Chance of critical varies with TP.") will.
Note that this restriction only applies to natural/random crits. You can still force Fast Blade or Shield Break to crit with Sneak Attack or Mighty Strikes, for example.
III) DEX, Accuracy, and Hit Rate
Now that we've got the damage calculation out of the way, let's deal with the second most fundamental issue: hitting the mob. Your Hit Rate (i.e. the probability that you'll hit the mob, in percentage) is determined by the following formula:
Where Level Difference is how many levels higher than you the mob is (if the enemy is the same level as you or lower, Level Difference is simply 0.)
The simplest way to look at the formula is this: when your Accuracy is the same as the mob's Evasion, you have a 75% chance to hit it. Every 2 Accuracy over that amount will raise your hit rate by 1, and conversely every 2 Accuracy under that amount will lower your hit rate by 1. In addition to that, your hit rate drops by 2 for every level the mob is higher than you (e.g. fighting a VT mob 5 levels higher than you, your hit rate is lowered by 10.) Only your Accuracy total matters, not where it came from. Your Hit Rate will be the same regardless of how much of your Accuracy is coming from weapon skill, DEX, equipment, food, or buffs.
Notice that X points of Accuracy are worth the same thing at low levels than at high levels (as opposed to Attack - 50 Attack is a much bigger boost at level 10 than it is at 75.) Also notice that increasing your Accuracy increases your Hit Rate by a fixed number. That means that although the amount by which your Hit Rate increases will be the same regardless of your total Accuracy, the improvement you'll get depends on how low or high your Hit Rate is. For example, Hit Rate +5% is an 8.33% improvement if your Hit Rate was previously 60% (65/60 = 1.0833) but only a 5.55% improvement if your Hit Rate was 90% (95/90 = 1.0555).
For reference, here's how to calculate your total Accuracy.
- Hit Rate = 75 + (Your Accuracy - Enemy Evasion)/2 - (Level Difference * 2)
Where Level Difference is how many levels higher than you the mob is (if the enemy is the same level as you or lower, Level Difference is simply 0.)
The simplest way to look at the formula is this: when your Accuracy is the same as the mob's Evasion, you have a 75% chance to hit it. Every 2 Accuracy over that amount will raise your hit rate by 1, and conversely every 2 Accuracy under that amount will lower your hit rate by 1. In addition to that, your hit rate drops by 2 for every level the mob is higher than you (e.g. fighting a VT mob 5 levels higher than you, your hit rate is lowered by 10.) Only your Accuracy total matters, not where it came from. Your Hit Rate will be the same regardless of how much of your Accuracy is coming from weapon skill, DEX, equipment, food, or buffs.
Notice that X points of Accuracy are worth the same thing at low levels than at high levels (as opposed to Attack - 50 Attack is a much bigger boost at level 10 than it is at 75.) Also notice that increasing your Accuracy increases your Hit Rate by a fixed number. That means that although the amount by which your Hit Rate increases will be the same regardless of your total Accuracy, the improvement you'll get depends on how low or high your Hit Rate is. For example, Hit Rate +5% is an 8.33% improvement if your Hit Rate was previously 60% (65/60 = 1.0833) but only a 5.55% improvement if your Hit Rate was 90% (95/90 = 1.0555).
For reference, here's how to calculate your total Accuracy.
Originally posted by How to calculate your total Accuracy
Total Accuracy = Skill Accuracy + DEX Accuracy + Equipment Accuracy + Accuracy Bonus Trait + Buffs + Food
For foods that give a certain % of Accuracy, simply multiply the total by that % to find how much the food will add (assuming it has no cap.) Drop all decimals for each part of the sum.
- Skill Accuracy = 1 Accuracy for each weapon skill point until 200, 0.9 Accuracy for every point after 200.
- DEX Accuracy = floor(DEX/2) for one-handed weapons, floor(DEX * (3/4)) for two-handed weapons.
- Accuracy Bonus I = +10 Accuracy
- Accuracy Bonus II = +22 Accuracy (in total)
- Accuracy Bonus III = +35 Accuracy (in total)
- Accuracy Bonus IV = +48 Accuracy (in total)
For foods that give a certain % of Accuracy, simply multiply the total by that % to find how much the food will add (assuming it has no cap.) Drop all decimals for each part of the sum.
IV) Haste
Haste is one of the most prized and desired stats in the game, for both mages and melees. Haste has two effects: it reduces the recast time of spells (but NOT the casting time) and it increases your attack speed without reducing TP per hit (which means you get to 100 TP faster.)
IV.a) Effect on recast timers
Haste's effect on the recast time of spells is pretty straightforward: the recast time will be reduced by whatever % of Haste you have in total (within the bounds of the Haste caps, anyways.) That is:
Do note, however, that a spell's recast timer can never be reduced below 50%.
IV.b) Effect on attack speed and the Haste Factor
Haste's effect on attack speed is actually exponential - as the amount of Haste you have increases, your attack delay begins to decrease drastically. As with recast timers, the calculation for your new delay is straightforward:
However, we can also define a very useful quantity I like to call the Haste Factor, which tells you your percentage increase in attack rounds over any period of time.
For example, a melee with 20% Haste has a Haste Factor of 1/0.80 = 1.25, which means they get 25% more attack rounds than they normally would.
Using the Haste Factor, you can also calculate by how much you'll increase your attack rounds when you add more Haste to a pre-existing amount. All you have to do is take the ratio of the new Haste Factor to the old one. For instance, let's say you have 20% Haste and want to know how much more often you would attack with 25% Haste. The Haste Factor with 25% Haste is 1/1.75 = 1.333, so the improvement is 1.333/1.25 = 1.0664 = 6.64%!
Doing two calculations and then taking the ratio looks tedious, but a bit of algebra will reveal a shortcut:
The inverted order may be confusing but there's an easy way to remember which number goes where: if you're adding Haste, then your performance has to go up and the ratio has to be greater than 1. So the smaller of the two numbers will go in the denominator. Using this formula, we could've arrived at our answer earlier simply by dividing 0.80/0.75. Convenient!
For the curious, here's how the formula for the Haste Factor was derived:
IV.c) Haste caps
There are three different sources of Haste: Equipment Haste, Magic Haste, and Ability Haste. Equipment Haste is straightforward - it's just the sum of the Haste on all your equipment. Spell Haste is the sum of the haste from the White Magic spell Haste (or any equivalent effects like Spy's Drink or the enchantment on Haste Belt) and BRD's March songs. Finally, Ability Haste is the sum of the haste from Hasso, Desperate Blows, and Haste Samba. Note that Ability Haste only affects attack speed; it doesn't reduce recast timers.
Your effective Haste is simply the sum of all the Haste you have, but each Haste category has a cap to limit how much Haste you can have in that category. In addition to these individual caps, there's also a cap on your total Haste.
For example, if a NIN has 40% Haste in equipment, his attack speed and recast timers will behave as if he only had 25%. Likewise, if a DRK has capped Desperate Blows (25%), their Ability Haste will be maxed out and they won't get any benefit out of Haste Samba or Hasso's haste. If a player were to cap all 3 kinds of Haste, he would behave as if they only had 80% haste (as opposed to 93.75%. Note that at 93.75% Haste, one would attack 16 times more often than usual, and 3.2 times more often than with 80% Haste. Yikes.)
Also, recast timers can never be reduced below 50%. Even if you're at the 80% attack speed cap and you're swinging 4 times more often than usual, your Utsusemi: Ichi recast will only be 15 seconds.
IV.a) Effect on recast timers
Haste's effect on the recast time of spells is pretty straightforward: the recast time will be reduced by whatever % of Haste you have in total (within the bounds of the Haste caps, anyways.) That is:
- Recast = floor(Default Recast * (1 - Haste%))
Do note, however, that a spell's recast timer can never be reduced below 50%.
IV.b) Effect on attack speed and the Haste Factor
Haste's effect on attack speed is actually exponential - as the amount of Haste you have increases, your attack delay begins to decrease drastically. As with recast timers, the calculation for your new delay is straightforward:
- Hastened Delay = floor(Delay * (1 - Haste%))
However, we can also define a very useful quantity I like to call the Haste Factor, which tells you your percentage increase in attack rounds over any period of time.
- Haste Factor = 1/(1 - Haste%)
For example, a melee with 20% Haste has a Haste Factor of 1/0.80 = 1.25, which means they get 25% more attack rounds than they normally would.
Using the Haste Factor, you can also calculate by how much you'll increase your attack rounds when you add more Haste to a pre-existing amount. All you have to do is take the ratio of the new Haste Factor to the old one. For instance, let's say you have 20% Haste and want to know how much more often you would attack with 25% Haste. The Haste Factor with 25% Haste is 1/1.75 = 1.333, so the improvement is 1.333/1.25 = 1.0664 = 6.64%!
Doing two calculations and then taking the ratio looks tedious, but a bit of algebra will reveal a shortcut:
- New Haste Factor/Old Haste Factor = (1 - Old Haste%)/(1 - New Haste%)
The inverted order may be confusing but there's an easy way to remember which number goes where: if you're adding Haste, then your performance has to go up and the ratio has to be greater than 1. So the smaller of the two numbers will go in the denominator. Using this formula, we could've arrived at our answer earlier simply by dividing 0.80/0.75. Convenient!
For the curious, here's how the formula for the Haste Factor was derived:
Originally posted by Haste Factor derivation
Attack round increase (in %)
= (New # of attack rounds) / (Old # of attack rounds)
= (Elapsed Time/New Delay) / (Elapsed Time/Old Delay)
= Old Delay / New Delay
= Old Delay / [Old Delay * (1 - Haste%)]
= 1/(1 - Haste%)
= (New # of attack rounds) / (Old # of attack rounds)
= (Elapsed Time/New Delay) / (Elapsed Time/Old Delay)
= Old Delay / New Delay
= Old Delay / [Old Delay * (1 - Haste%)]
= 1/(1 - Haste%)
IV.c) Haste caps
There are three different sources of Haste: Equipment Haste, Magic Haste, and Ability Haste. Equipment Haste is straightforward - it's just the sum of the Haste on all your equipment. Spell Haste is the sum of the haste from the White Magic spell Haste (or any equivalent effects like Spy's Drink or the enchantment on Haste Belt) and BRD's March songs. Finally, Ability Haste is the sum of the haste from Hasso, Desperate Blows, and Haste Samba. Note that Ability Haste only affects attack speed; it doesn't reduce recast timers.
Your effective Haste is simply the sum of all the Haste you have, but each Haste category has a cap to limit how much Haste you can have in that category. In addition to these individual caps, there's also a cap on your total Haste.
- Equipment Haste caps at 25%.
- Spell Haste caps at approximately 43.75%.
- Ability Haste caps at 25%.
- Your Total Haste is capped at approximately 80%.
For example, if a NIN has 40% Haste in equipment, his attack speed and recast timers will behave as if he only had 25%. Likewise, if a DRK has capped Desperate Blows (25%), their Ability Haste will be maxed out and they won't get any benefit out of Haste Samba or Hasso's haste. If a player were to cap all 3 kinds of Haste, he would behave as if they only had 80% haste (as opposed to 93.75%. Note that at 93.75% Haste, one would attack 16 times more often than usual, and 3.2 times more often than with 80% Haste. Yikes.)
Also, recast timers can never be reduced below 50%. Even if you're at the 80% attack speed cap and you're swinging 4 times more often than usual, your Utsusemi: Ichi recast will only be 15 seconds.
V) Dual Wield
Dual Wield has three effects:
Your effective Delay is simply the sum of both weapons' Delays, reduced by the appropriate percentage. In other words:
Your TP per hit is calculated using the average, reduced Delay of the two weapons you're using. For example, if you're using a 200 Delay weapon and a 240 Delay weapon and you have Dual Wield II, the average is 220, and 220 reduced by 15% is 187. 187 is the Delay number used to calculate your TP per hit, and both weapons will get that much TP when they hit.
Note that unlike Haste, Dual Wield does lower your TP per hit. Because TP and Delay have a mostly linear relationship, lower Delay means proportionally lower TP per hit, and thus Dual Wield doesn't increase your TP gain speed. The only exception to this rule is dual wielding low Delay weapons (daggers and katanas) with Dual Wield II or higher, because the TP-Delay relationship becomes skewed and you get TP faster the more your Delay sinks below 180.
Like Haste, we can define a Dual Wield Factor that tells us how much more often you're hitting thanks to Dual Wield's Delay reduction:
There's a lot of misconceptions surrounding Dual Wield, so there's a couple of things worth clearing up. The first is that Dual Wield is just as effective for lower Delay weapons than it is for high Delay weapons. After all, a 15% reduction is always 15% no matter what it's applied to. Secondly, Haste and Dual Wield are completely independent - they're calculated and applied separately. In other words, Haste isn't more effective in the presence of Dual Wield or vice-versa. Finally, it's a very common mistake to give more weight to low Delay weapons, to try to offset the other weapon's higher Delay. In reality, there's no real benefit to pairing a high Delay weapon to a low Delay weapon - you should pick your weapons based on their DPS and stats and not Delay. If you wouldn't single wield it, you probably wouldn't want to dual wield it either.
Finally, there are a couple of special considerations to take into account when looking at weapons to use when dual wielding. For one thing, you have a somewhat wider leeway for using lower DPS weapons - since each weapon is only responsible for roughly half of the damage you do, then the damage drop from substituting one of your weapons for one with lower DPS is also roughly halved - you could think of it as the stronger weapon picking up the slack. Also, stat boosts on weapons are more beneficial when dual wielding, since they won't just increase the stat boosting weapon's performance, but the other weapon's as well. Finally, since each weapon only swings roughly half of the time, weapon-specific effects are halved unless you dual wield two weapons with that effect. For example, you would only get half as many Defense Down procs if only one of the weapons has Added Effect: Defense Down, and likewise you would only score extra hits half as often if only one of the two weapons is multi-hit (which results in you getting only half of the TP boost.)
- It lets you equip two weapons
- It reduces the Delay of your weapons
- Dual Wield I reduces Delay by 10%.
- Dual Wield II reduces Delay by 15%.
- Dual Wield III reduces Delay by 25%.
- Dual Wield IV reduces Delay by 30%.
- Suppanomimi adds 5% to your Delay reduction.
- It adds an extra hit to your physical Weapon Skills, which is performed with the off-hand weapon.
Your effective Delay is simply the sum of both weapons' Delays, reduced by the appropriate percentage. In other words:
- Effective Delay = floor( (Delay1 + Delay2) * (1 - DW%) )
Your TP per hit is calculated using the average, reduced Delay of the two weapons you're using. For example, if you're using a 200 Delay weapon and a 240 Delay weapon and you have Dual Wield II, the average is 220, and 220 reduced by 15% is 187. 187 is the Delay number used to calculate your TP per hit, and both weapons will get that much TP when they hit.
Note that unlike Haste, Dual Wield does lower your TP per hit. Because TP and Delay have a mostly linear relationship, lower Delay means proportionally lower TP per hit, and thus Dual Wield doesn't increase your TP gain speed. The only exception to this rule is dual wielding low Delay weapons (daggers and katanas) with Dual Wield II or higher, because the TP-Delay relationship becomes skewed and you get TP faster the more your Delay sinks below 180.
Like Haste, we can define a Dual Wield Factor that tells us how much more often you're hitting thanks to Dual Wield's Delay reduction:
- Dual Wield Factor = 1/(1 - Dual Wield %)
There's a lot of misconceptions surrounding Dual Wield, so there's a couple of things worth clearing up. The first is that Dual Wield is just as effective for lower Delay weapons than it is for high Delay weapons. After all, a 15% reduction is always 15% no matter what it's applied to. Secondly, Haste and Dual Wield are completely independent - they're calculated and applied separately. In other words, Haste isn't more effective in the presence of Dual Wield or vice-versa. Finally, it's a very common mistake to give more weight to low Delay weapons, to try to offset the other weapon's higher Delay. In reality, there's no real benefit to pairing a high Delay weapon to a low Delay weapon - you should pick your weapons based on their DPS and stats and not Delay. If you wouldn't single wield it, you probably wouldn't want to dual wield it either.
Finally, there are a couple of special considerations to take into account when looking at weapons to use when dual wielding. For one thing, you have a somewhat wider leeway for using lower DPS weapons - since each weapon is only responsible for roughly half of the damage you do, then the damage drop from substituting one of your weapons for one with lower DPS is also roughly halved - you could think of it as the stronger weapon picking up the slack. Also, stat boosts on weapons are more beneficial when dual wielding, since they won't just increase the stat boosting weapon's performance, but the other weapon's as well. Finally, since each weapon only swings roughly half of the time, weapon-specific effects are halved unless you dual wield two weapons with that effect. For example, you would only get half as many Defense Down procs if only one of the weapons has Added Effect: Defense Down, and likewise you would only score extra hits half as often if only one of the two weapons is multi-hit (which results in you getting only half of the TP boost.)
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Work in progress, more to come soon.
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