Two-Handed Weapons and Dual Wielding

[Armando]

Re: Two-Handed Weapons and Dual Wielding

Tomatoes: You set PDIF to 1, but calculated fSTR as capped. If you'll notice, in Apple Pie's post, it says the range can be from 0 to [8 + (DMG/9)], meaning that that formula gives its maximum value. If you wanted to set fSTR to 1, then we would've gotten...

TestAxe60: (30 + 1) * 1 = 31
TestGax60: (60 + 1) * 1 = 61

31 x 2 > 61
62 > 61

However, the tables in the Japanese link show that higher DMG weapons reach X ammount of fSTR with sooner than lower DMG weapons. In other words, by the time you have enough STR with TestGax60 to get 1 fSTR, TestAxe60 would still have 0.

---

SelfdestButton: It varies with level, but on the most part they're about even, or the DPS difference is marginal. Dual Weild tends to skew DPS in favor of one-handers, however, because you end up with less Delay than a Great Axe, but with comparable DMG (x2). DWII is 15% Delay reduction, with Suppanomimi it becomes 20%. Standard 276 Axes have a combined Delay of 441 with Dual Weild II + Suppanomimi. Most Great Axes have 504 Delay, with a few rare exceptions like Military Axe (478...but still not as fast, and it's a level 30 weapon anyways.) Rune Chopper's Delay gets knocked down to 458 when Refreshed, and could keep up in damage - if Refreshed. A WAR/NIN with Joyeuse in the off-hand would probably out-TP him.

Though...now that I think about it, WAR/DRG would get Jump + High Jump (both of which can Double Attack, and WAR can get DA Merits + Brutal Earring) as well as 5% Haste in the ear slot, bringing his total relative Haste up to 14% (total Delay now being 433,) and may just be able to keep up. Not to mention that with +5 Accuracy on the Rune Chopper, and the difference between A- and A+ weapons in skill, Accuracy Bonus on DRG, some Great Axe merits, some extra +Accuracy equipment the WAR/DRG might even be able to get away with meat dishes. Barone armor (Jump TP Bonus) would give give the 2 TP that Delay:504 Great Axes need to get 100 TP in 8 swings instead of 9, as well. Who'd have thought? And for what it's worth, they'd get Dragon Killer (Wyvern/Wyrm HNMs maybe?) Probably wouldn't work out at all in the meleeburn parties I've been reading so much about, but for fights that don't end in 30 seconds, this combo seems promising.

Of course, try convincing a WAR/NIN to do it, and then convincing a RDM to refresh a WAR/DRG.

[Karinya]

Re: Two-Handed Weapons and Dual Wielding

I think it's unfair to count Suppanomimi for the dual wielder and not count Bushinomimi for the 2-hand user (or possibly Abyssal, if it's a DRK - +5 scythe skill = +5 acc *and* atk; for SAM, they get +5 acc, atk, and +2 str from Bushi). You can't separate problems caused by equipment (which this may be, Suppa is a lot of haste especially from an earring slot and I don't think SE really considered the potential of WAR/NIN when designing it) from problems caused by the system and DW itself if your test cases are all including both.

I have to disagree with the people hating on Shield Bash, though. I've saved more damage than I can count with this ability - when Silence is resisted, when it wears off and the rdm is casting something else, when we're fighting Smolenkos which are immune, and in Dynamis when it's possible nobody else has noticed which one is casting (or are just too busy). It's not 100% reliable, but it seems to work most of the time for monsters other than HNM. It may often be inferior to Stun (the spell), but not on Smolenkos with magic barrier up, or if you don't have a DRK in the party, or if his is on recast.

Not all of that translates to Weapon Bash - you always have Stun, unless it's on recast. I don't see a second stun (even one that's not 100%) as completely useless, especially when it can interrupt magic immune eyes and pots (which obviously aren't going to be Silenced either, no matter how long their spell is), but I will agree it's not as good as some other JAs.

Killer/circle abilities are very useful also. Killer abilities can prevent normal attacks and interrupt spells. After taking a Dragon Earring (adds Demon Killer) to Dynamis-Xarcabard, I never want to go there without one again. Intimidating Duke Scox or one of the other demon NMs there is priceless. Granted, there's no Dynamis full of arcana, but there are quite a few arcana NMs in sky, arcana in exp parties, and I think there are some arcana in Limbus too. It does seem a bit misplaced on non-tanks (except as a solo ability, I guess), but the Circles make up for that somewhat.

Last Resort isn't so great, I agree. If it's going to stay with such a short duration, bigger attack boost or a combination atk+acc boost would be nice; less activation hate wouldn't hurt either. It does stack with Berserk and Warcry though (hopefully the Warcry is coming from someone else, otherwise the hate produced by this combo would be insane). It's possible that the name is a clue that it was intended to be used to finish off enemies, thus making the hate and defense down irrelevant, but it isn't always practical to use it that way in a PT.


I guess I have to ask, if you don't like the DRK job and its abilities, why are you playing it? If you think WAR/NIN are so uber, why not change into one? (Or if you *really* want to do a lot of raw damage, MNK/WAR.) All it takes is 5 seconds and a moogle. It's not like the game is suffering from a critical lack of DRKs and we urgently need to get more players to play them.

[Lmnop]

Re: Two-Handed Weapons and Dual Wielding

I really would like the idea of making Blood Weapon somehow variable in duration. Amount of damage absorbed seems like an easy way to do it but there's prolly a better way. So say, basically able to absorb one whole HP bar (if you have 1300 hp, goes until it's drained 1300) though it'd still have to wear off eventually. But 3 minutes would be much more helpful than 30 seconds.

Problem with this, is that it'd break the souleater/blood weapon/kraken tactic and thus, there'd be no reason to keep it as 2hour.

I think the idea of absorbing a buff would be interesting, but I would rather see the other idea where you purge yourself of one buff (erase style) and transfer it to your opponent. It'd likely be Dark Magic and have a chance of being resisted, so you'd still lose the debuff (in a perfect world) but just wouldn't stick it to the mob. I.e. Max HP down removed but the ram always resists your spell so he doesn't get the 'revenge.' Obviously, that'd be a powerful spell, but RDM can solo Genbu so what's the problem?

[Tomatoes]

Re: Two-Handed Weapons and Dual Wielding

Tomatoes: You set PDIF to 1, but calculated fSTR as capped. If you'll notice, in Apple Pie's post, it says the range can be from 0 to [8 + (DMG/9)], meaning that that formula gives its maximum value. If you wanted to set fSTR to 1, then we would've gotten...

TestAxe60: (30 + 1) * 1 = 31
TestGax60: (60 + 1) * 1 = 61

31 x 2 > 61
62 > 61

However, the tables in the Japanese link show that higher DMG weapons reach X ammount of fSTR with sooner than lower DMG weapons. In other words, by the time you have enough STR with TestGax60 to get 1 fSTR, TestAxe60 would still have 0.

Ahh, gotcha. Thanks for clearing that up for me. This has gotten me a bit interested again and gotten me forum browsing a lot lol. Anyway, the table on the geocities page doesn't come out right for me, but I did find it reconstituted on this forum somewhat recently in VZX's post:

http://www.ffxionline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=49395

Currently glancing at it offhandedly while gf is sleeping... (on break from FFXI atm )

[Smasholays]

Re: Two-Handed Weapons and Dual Wielding

I guess I have to ask, if you don't like the DRK job and its abilities, why are you playing it? If you think WAR/NIN are so uber, why not change into one? (Or if you *really* want to do a lot of raw damage, MNK/WAR.) All it takes is 5 seconds and a moogle. It's not like the game is suffering from a critical lack of DRKs and we urgently need to get more players to play them.

If that's the case, why doesn't everyone just level BLM. No one said they didn't like the DRK job, we can just see where it's weak points are and where there are balance issues. I'm not going to go play some job I hate just to be "useful".

[Aeni]

Re: Two-Handed Weapons and Dual Wielding

I guess I have to ask, if you don't like the DRK job and its abilities, why are you playing it? If you think WAR/NIN are so uber, why not change into one? (Or if you *really* want to do a lot of raw damage, MNK/WAR.) All it takes is 5 seconds and a moogle. It's not like the game is suffering from a critical lack of DRKs and we urgently need to get more players to play them.

Because no one said they disliked their DRK job? Look, do you even read the posts or do you just pick out what you want to see? I've read every single line of your posts and others as well in this thread, mostly because I want to see what non-DRK players think about this (However, it's wrong to ask a WAR/NIN anything since they will be totally biased against anything said in here and, I won't blame them, will do everything possible to defend their position)

Secondly, your attitude is mostly reinforced with most end-game linkshell ideas of running BLM zerging operations and seem to be on par with the big gil sellers on every server. You seem to enjoy the status quo and seem satisfied with the way things are. News flash! There are things that need to be looked at and addressed and if it took SE this long to correct (or attempt to correct) problems with the DRG class, who's to say they aren't going to take just as long, if at all, in addressing problems with the game balance? They have three new jobs (potentially) coming out already and they haven't addressed many other job class issues yet! WARs should always be the moderate job standing between the PLD job class and the DRK job class. We know for a fact that between WAR/NIN-MNK and PLD/WAR, PLD/WAR still gets the job done and mitigate damage and manage hate way better. However, this isn't true when comparing a DRK to a WAR/NIN. To me, this is wrong and should be fixed so that WAR/NIN cannot do more damage than a DRK - and unless SE figures out how to have DRK/WAR go to their full potential without screwing the job class over and everyone else, I don't see any other way than to bring out the "nerf bat" and start swinging around a bit ... afterall, DRKs were "nerfed" since the game was first released in Japan (Go pull up all the old threads in this forum and you'll see what I mean)

[Langolier]

Re: Two-Handed Weapons and Dual Wielding

Looking back in this forum I see threads with people complaining about Last Resort and Blood Weapon as far as back as December of 03.

[Lmnop]

Re: Two-Handed Weapons and Dual Wielding

hey Aeni! News Flash!

Dark Knights are not intended to be the biggest damage dealers the game has to offer go play with monk or ranger (yes, even post patch) if you want nothing but dmg. Just look at warrior vs dark knight damage potential for a moment: warrior does slightly more damage to offset their lack of debuffs. A blm casts Drown and immediately the tank takes 5-15 less damage a swing (i've eyeballed this many times with my blm friend on IT mobs), who's to say Abs-STR would be any different? Not to mention that when you suck some agi and some str away, your own and your party's damage increases... yada yada. Dark Knight 101: you're a damage dealer but you're also a damage enabler etc etc. I think some Dark Knights have forgotten that.

YOU'RE PROBABLY SKIMMING SO JUST READ THIS NEXT PARAGRAPH

I don't think Dark Knights are where they should be. I think the edge of their Abs Spells prolly becomes less... sharp by at least 60. I think the level cap was raised and ninjas and dark knight's magic got left behind. I'm not going to discuss ninja, but I don't think it'd be too overpowering for the DRK ABS spells to just scale better so they drain more @75 than they did @40...

If you're casting Abs-Dex because you feel that "Drk Abs spells are more for self-buffing, not debuffing" then GTFOff of Dark Knight right now.

Yea, I'm a warrior (note, I didn't say war/nin because that would be pigeonholing the potential of my favorite job) and I'll quote myself as I was talking to my family the other night: Me: "I can't wait 'til they nerf warrior." Don't shove me into the pack of war/nin fanboys. After all the fanboy RNGs cried and went BLM or WAR, my friend decided to level RNG -- he's only been outparsed once. Point? I can't wait 'til something similar happens to warrior so I don't have to deal with 13 year olds who want to be uber by making my job look bad.

[Smasholays]

Re: Two-Handed Weapons and Dual Wielding

Yeah, except WAR gets defense bonus, defender, and one less attack bonus than drk, but war has 0 problem out damaging DRK even though every JA/JT we get is towards damage. No one is arguing we should be the best damage dealers, but god dammit - the only time I'm ever wanted to a party is for 7 out of 75 levels?

The problem is we can't do anything another job can't do and they can usually do it better. Why invite DRK for stun, when you can get a BLM that can also do massive magical damage. Why invite a DRK for high burst damage, when you can get a mnk, war, or sam who can put up just as high numbers and who also have higher DoT as well. The fact is, we gain TP way too slow and RDMs are relunctant to refresh a DRK who does use spells, that we get overshadowed by other jobs.

Absorb-STR is worse than Drown because the stats wear down pretty fast making it more and more useless until it finally wears off, and lasts a shorter time than Drown. Ninutsu seems to get resisted less (depending on mob) than a RDM's enfeebles. Hell, a 75 nin can cast his spells on a VT mob and get hardly any resists, without any gear effecting his ninjutsu skill, meanwhile I have capped magic skills, with dark magic skill+ but get resists left and right?

I think it's also sad that as a DRK, I very rarely use/get to use my OWN job abilities. Whatever I'm subbing always gets to be put to more use than my own. Do you know of any other DD with that problem? Not to mention we are the only job that can't get to use their MAIN ability very often - or well I could, but that is usually just a death wish with so many penalities.

[Armando]

Re: Two-Handed Weapons and Dual Wielding

The problem is we can't do anything another job can't do and they can usually do it better. Why invite DRK for stun, when you can get a BLM that can also do massive magical damage. Why invite a DRK for high burst damage, when you can get a mnk, war, or sam who can put up just as high numbers and who also have higher DoT as well. The fact is, we gain TP way too slow and RDMs are relunctant to refresh a DRK who does use spells, that we get overshadowed by other jobs.

That's ridiculous. What's the point of every other DD, then? Let's all bow down to WAR/NIN and MNK and be done with it! They can meleeburn without taking damage, can't they? Oh noes, a skilled, wealthy NIN can tank just as well as me without taking damage! Is PLD obsolete? No. Stun is an asset no matter what. Two Stunners? Even better. I'm sure the tank will appreciate it. PLD DRK WHM BLM could do Flash -> Flash -> Stun -> Stun. Is a RDM's Cure IV worth less just because WHM can perform healing duties all-around more efficiently, or at least dedicate themselves to healing/status removing full-time? Are a RDM's enfeebles obsolete because a NIN can land the same, if not more potent enfeeble? The list goes on and on. I understand DRK job has it flaws, but come on! DRK is the only job that can apply direct damage that ignores both defense and magic defense. Stun and Absorb Spells are also an asset, even if you want to argue that Absorb Spells wear out quickly.

I do agree that DRKs should be able to use their trademark JAs liberally, but seriously now...you're blowing it out of proportion. The idea that every job can do anything DRK can but better is ridiculous. Let DRKs get away with making full use of Souleater and Last Resort and the problem's solved.

Oh and by the way, WAR gets three less Attack Bonuses than DRK.

---

Karinya: I didn't count Bushinomimi/Abyssal Earring because they're specific to SAM and DRK (and even then, it's situational for DRK since they can use Great Sword too) and because that +5 Accuracy and Attack won't translate into 5% more damage or hits landed. And SAM's a non-issue anyways since they can get so much Store TP, Double Attack +10% and Attack +100 on the same rice ball (Shogun Rice Ball w/ AF and Roshi Jinpachi), Meditate, and a Great Katana that usually hits 2 to 3 times, that they can blow TP out of their ears.

[Smasholays]

Re: Two-Handed Weapons and Dual Wielding

I was talking about endgame, not XP when I said that. As far as I know DRK only get three attack bonus abilities, and regardless if we did get 3 more than WAR, that's even worse - and no absorbs aren't very much of an asset at later levels because they don't stick.

You fail to realize the fact that just because NIN can take no damage has very little impact on your invites. Sure there are days when you won't get invites for several hours, but generally you are near the top of "most wanted" jobs. Try being a DRK, or most DD, and you will see wait times like that everytime. There are eight damage dealers, that means 7 other jobs to compete against.

"I understand DRK job has it flaws, but come on! DRK is the only job that can apply direct damage that ignores both defense and magic defense."

Have you been reading? It's been said over and over we can't use that ability hardly ever in XP, because there are far too many consequences to it. Try and go level DRK past 50 and you'll see the same problems too. I xp with a SAM and his tachi: kasha does as much or more than spinning slash. I xp with a war, his steel cyclone does as much as spiral hell. I xp with monks, their asuran fists do as much as my spinning slash. I pt with RNG, their sidewinder has been doing as much as my spinning slash for 11 levels before I got it.

You get my point yet? Everything about us is supposed to be high end WS damage, yet all these other jobs can do it too, get TP way faster than us, and do a hell of alot of damage during the times they WS for as much as us. You think that's fair, or even remotely balanced? I'll take it you're a PLD 52, unless you haven't updated your sig, but a lot of shit changes between 52 and 75.

"Let's all bow down to WAR/NIN and MNK and be done with it! "

Oh, and I don't know about your server, but that's pretty much 90% of XP setups past 60 after the recent RNG nerf. So while you may say it as a sarcasm, that is infact what the majority of the playerbase is doing.

[Armando]

Re: Two-Handed Weapons and Dual Wielding

I have been reading, but it doesn't change that fact. Like I said, all that DRK really needs is a way to use Souleater and get away with it.

"Let's all bow down to WAR/NIN and MNK and be done with it! "

Oh, and I don't know about your server, but that's pretty much 90% of XP setups past 60 after the recent RNG nerf. So while you may say it as a sarcasm, that is infact what the majority of the playerbase is doing.

I'm well aware of this. That's why I said it. If you want to call DRK useless because supposedly every other DD can do exactly the same as you, but better...well, may as well do away with every other melee DD in the game. Meleeburn parties are taking over, and it's not uncommon to see DRK/NINs, BST/NINs, or PLD/NINs trying to fit into these parties. So, I ask you, is every other DD obsolete? And is PLD obsolete because NIN can 1) take less damage 2) do more damage and 3) get TP far faster? Is DRG obsolete because other DDs can do just as much damage, even BST, while RDMs can solo better? The argument is flawed, because if it weren't, then we should give every DD (and PLD) a major overhaul so that they can do terrific damage while being able to bounce hate while shadows protect them from harm.

[Smasholays]

Re: Two-Handed Weapons and Dual Wielding

NIN sure as hell did alot to hurt PLD, but like I said - tanks are in high demand. There is a reason why DD are usually the last to get invited to parties. Not to mention there are some endgame NM's a NIN just can't tank. Do you see any monster's a DRK will do better than a war against? Not even arcana can we edge out war in damage.

I don't see why you are comparing PLD vs NIN - as this is a totally different argument. As it's more like DRK vs SAM, WAR, MNK, RNG. It's great that we can just go around saying that every DD has it's purpose, and every DD can be totally great! But the simply fact is that there are job's that are better than others, and if you don't think there is then you are simply blind.

I will say this though. I think anyone here can agree people like NIN more, and I've seen my fair share of the same complaining here as from PLD's. So while people can still XP with DRK or PLD, the majority of people are going to go with what works, and what works the most efficient.

[Lmnop]

Re: Two-Handed Weapons and Dual Wielding

You know Smash, what's funny is that you keep arguing with Armando even though you're saying the same thing.

I do agree that DRKs should be able to use their trademark JAs liberally, but seriously now...you're blowing it out of proportion. The idea that every job can do anything DRK can but better is ridiculous. Let DRKs get away with making full use of Souleater and Last Resort and the problem's solved.

I think the problem is the DRKs aren't using their full potential. How many DRKs get to make full use of Souleater? How many DRKs get to sub /WAR? Souleater can do some crazy direct damage that should make up for any damage difference.

That's why I said the problem is that DRKs aren't (guess I should've used the word "can't") using their full potential. DRK/WAR using Souleater every time it's up would undoubtedly be great, but it'd also get them killed for sure.

"I understand DRK job has it flaws, but come on! DRK is the only job that can apply direct damage that ignores both defense and magic defense."

Have you been reading? It's been said over and over we can't use that ability hardly ever in XP, because there are far too many consequences to it.

looking back, this makes me seem like an asshole. But now that I did all that work to dig out quotes, it's getting posted. >.>

At any rate, what I mean to say is that there's no reason for us to be hostile. We're all after the same goal and we all know drk is slighly short of that goal. I've leveled many jobs and as a human who is obsessed with stats and game balance, I've tried to be as objective as possible.

I think the people who take 4x war/nin + 2 support to fight 400-800 dmg AoEs are retarded. I know of one incident in particular where they decided not to grab a drk/nin because he didn't have axes leveled. Now, this is stupid on 2 levels: 1) scythe + guillotine > B- Axes and unstable rampage and 2) they got torn apart by AoE that could've been stunned. My sister was the Bard for this party and the drk she suggested that they turned down is a good friend of ours. I guess there's not much point to that except that only smart people know how to apply a Drk effectively, and only smart people know how to play Drk effectively.

We're getting more into troubles of Dark Knight than we are troubles of 2-handed melee. If we can solve the bigger issue, perhaps we can realize a method wherein S-E could apply very little effort and make melee good at end game stuff. That "I have my HNM job and my fun job" crap pisses me off. I want Dragoons to be Dragoons, not Bards.

[Smasholays]

Re: Two-Handed Weapons and Dual Wielding

I'm just trying to put my point of view. Some people will say there is nothing wrong with DRK, some will say there is just something wrong with 2h weapons, and some will say there is something wrong with 2h weapons and DRK. Of course, I can't keep track or remember every post, so if I make mistakes - oh well I'm human.

Regardless, the only abilities I get to use are berserk, sneak attack, or trick attack. With an occasional last resort. Last Resort was nerfed a long time ago wasn't it? If they did, why the hell would they do that. I remember a big list of all the changes made to FFXI, but I can't find it anymore.

Just way too many people think there isn't anything wrong with DRK and that can become incredibly frustrating; and then there are the people who say go level another job if they want to be useful. Of course many of those were the RNG's that have suddenly turned war or mnk or sam after rng nerf.