G.S. bad accuracy?

[Antivomit]

I have a lvl 21 drk in Qufim and was in a party last night. I was switching back and forth between Great Sword and Scythe to lvl them both up. The G.S. i was using was the Platoon Sword (lvl. 20, dmg. 33, delay 444) and the Scythe was the Bastokan Scythe (lvl. 15, dmg 28, delay 440- MP +4, STR. +2, VIT. -1). And even though the Scythe's lvl was much lower than mine, I was connecting about 8/10 times and doing about 25-35 dmg on normal hits. After I got that up from 57 to 60, I started trying to get G.S. from 57 to 60. When i started using the the Platoon, I started doing over 40 dmg with most hits but i would only connect about 5/10 times. I was watching to see if I had any negatives. I would get either Acc. Down or Eva. Down every other fight and I didn't figure those into my stats. We were fighting the same style mobs, worms and crabs (near the lake in the middle of Qufim), the whole time. Is G.S. known for being generally less accurate or did I over look something?

[Tisaragi]

Re: G.S. bad accuracy?

Sounds like just random bad luck. There is no reason you should miss more with gs than scythe when your skill is the same for both. Maybe you were getting it with the acc down less with your scythe.

[Aeni]

Re: G.S. bad accuracy?

There's a slight difference in rating between Scythe and Great Sword. However, at that level, the difference is trivial. Dark Knights have an A+ rating with their Scythe and A- rating with their Great Sword. The difference is only apparent at high levels.

From level 61 and onward, weapon skill ratings get separated from the broad rating categories to specific ones. For example, B rating gets split into B+, B and B-. The exception to these are the A rating (A+ and A-) and D thru F ratings.

http://www.ausystem.org/~aushacho/gbox/ff/skill-e.html

It's a bit outdated, but the core mechanics have not changed one bit in the past two or even three years now. AFAIK, no job class has had their weapon rating altered since CoP expansion, unless someone would like to prove me wrong.


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Now that the general idea has been taken care of, what you were experiencing is a phenomenon only to FFXI when switching different weapons on a character in a short time period. I noticed that (And many others have as well) you do not gain skill from a weapon very quickly when you first start to use a weapon, especially if it's your first time in a very long time. You might get a couple of tenths of a point in the skill, but then there will be a lull. For some players, this can be very short, maybe one or two fights before they pickup another skillup. For others, this could be several fights in-between.

This lull will sharply increase the higher you are in character level. At level 64, I can go for 20 minutes using a dagger and not see a single skill point, even if I'm fighting a monster that is appropriate to my current weapon skill level.

Generally, as you cap your skill on your current character level, your accuracy with the weapon increases. When you first reach a new character level (Let's say you just leveled up to 21 on your DRK class) your weapon skills, if previously capped at level 20, are no longer capped anymore. For some strange reason (And I'm sure this is a bug which SE has not addressed yet in the past 3 years I've been playing this game) the act of leveling up and raising your weapon skilll cap decreases your accuracy. It might just be temporary and all you can do is just keep swinging away on the monster. As you start to get points into the skill, the accuracy issue will slowly fade away until you level up again (Unless the monster's level starts to drop quickly to the point where you should be hitting it anyway - like Tough versus Incredibly Tough)

This is the best plausible explanation that I can come up, short of blaming it entirely on the random number generator not spitting out numbers in your favor (This is also an issue which I brought up in another thread on this forum somewhere)

[Sabaron]

Re: G.S. bad accuracy?

The Braveheart is a wonderful sword for that level range and has a +5 Accuracy and +2 Dexterity which is basically +6 Accuracy with a little boost (~0.2%) to criticals. It's an excellent sword especially for skillups. It does have one drawback with respect to the Platoon Sword--it's damage code is 3 points lower. I think that you'll find, however, that since it's a slow weapon, mitigating misses is much more important than increasing the damage. You can get this for free if you've got a bit of time to camp an easy NM in the Palborough Mines (see Braveheart description for details) as it can be a bit expensive off the Auction House.

Were you eating Sole Sushi like a good little level 21 DRK? If you can't afford sushi, at your current low level you can get a similar amount of accuracy from Jack-o'-Lanterns which are currently on sale from the Festival Moogle Vendors for 1000gil each and last for 3 hours. They are otherwise relatively expensive unless you make them yourself.

[Antivomit]

Re: G.S. bad accuracy?

lol, yea, i use squid because I am too poor for the sole. Do the jack 'o's give the exact same stats as the sole?

[Celeal]

Re: G.S. bad accuracy?

I would not recommend sushi before level 45. Try Rice Drumplings --- it offers both +acc and +attack.

Rice Drumplings should give you enough +acc for exp. parties at your level, and it raises your attack too (acc +5, attack +20%, str+, hmp+, etc).

Jack o'Lantern is good in Kazham (acc +10, eva +10, chr -10, 3hr food) because mandy has weak defense in kazham. However, when fighting carbs and pugils in Qufim, I would use rice drumpling for both +acc and +attack.

If you have a WAR in your party that uses Great Axe, coax him to open Shield Break every battle The evasion down effect from Shield Break (evasion -40 on mob) is stronger than any acc+ food you can get at level 20.

The reason I would not recommend sushi at low level because sushi acc+ is percentage based. If your base accuracy is low, sushi only offers a small accuracy boost.

For example:
1) If your base accuracy is 100, sushi adds 15 accuracy (15% acc bonus).
2) If your base accuracy is 200, sushi adds 30 accuracy (still 15% acc bonus, but doubles the 1st case).
3) If your base accuracy is only at 10, sushi adds 1.5 accuracy.

Just beacuse sushi is expensive, it does not mean it is the best DD food in exp. parties at all levels. From my personal experience, and from what I seen other DD ate, stick to rice drumpling until level 45 is your best bet.

[Antivomit]

Re: G.S. bad accuracy?

Thx for the info.

How much do the dumplings normally cost and does a vendor sell them? Is shield break the same as shield bash? And is that eva. down %100 or how often does it stick (and for how long?)

[lionx]

Re: G.S. bad accuracy?

Shield Bash is a stun move that gathers hate, however Shield Break the weapon skill givies a -40 evasion stat debuff on the monster if unresisted, and i heard it is halved if its partially resisted. lasts 3 minutes i think, and can be overwritten by other stat ups the monster may have (Like evasion boost from beetles...but you shouldnt get that for a while).

[Antivomit]

Re: G.S. bad accuracy?

What lvl do warriors get that skill?

[lionx]

Re: G.S. bad accuracy?

Level 10 Great Axe skill, so unless they NEVER touched a Great Axe...then by the time you are partying they should have it.

[Celeal]

Re: G.S. bad accuracy?

Shield Break is the first weapon skill (TP-move) from Great Axe. Shield Bash is a Job Ablility from PLD that requires a shield to execute.

Shield Break is ice element based and tier 1; it can be resisted or overwritten. The resist affects the duration of evasion down.

If Shield Break is not resisted, evasion-down last 3 minutes.
If it is partially resisted, evasion-down last 1 minutes.
If it is totally resisted, no evasion-down at all (last zero seconds).

However, Shield Break's evasion down is constant -40, regardless of no resist or partially resisted.

Since Shield Break is ice based, it does not work on mobs that have natural resistance to ice element. For example, Bones (undead) has a strong resistance to ice element, so stuff like Blizzard, Paralyze, EnBlizzard, Shield Break... trend to be resisted by Bones.

Shield Break is also tier 1, it can be overwritten by tier 1+ evasion boost. For example, Beetle's evasion boost can overwrite Shield Break's effect --- this is when DD start to whiff and scream at RDM for Dispel

As for price of Rice Drumplings, it depends on your server

P.S.
DRK also have B rating on Great Axe, and can equip most Great Axe (only WAR and DRK have natural Great Axe Skill in this game). But since many DRK struggle to cap Great Sword and Scythe, most DRK does not use Great Axe.

[Kitalrez]

Re: G.S. bad accuracy?

Shield Break is a lvl 10 Great Axe WS. If you're using Great Axe at all on DRK, (and near the end of your 30s it'll be far better than your Scythe and Great Sword, strangely), you can use this WS to drastically improve everyone else in the party. It's just that you have to use it at the start of the battle, instead of the end, which is really weird for a lot of melee to get used to. If your Great Axe is not levelled yet, you may want to think about soloing some EP or DC mobs around La Theine or Konschtat to work on it before you party, to get your skills up before you try partying with it. If you have that capped when you can start using GA's like Horror Voulge, you'll be a sight to behold.

Don't worry so much about accuracy at lvl 21. In this phase of the game it's not nearly as important as it is later on. At this stage you may only be hitting 50% of the time, but you're still getting the job done. Later on, when you're facing things like Spiders in Boyada Tree, a 50% hit rate is an opportunity for that spider to take out your tank with another Sickle Slash, so it's much more important. That said, I'm going to break with the other players in this thread and suggest that you might want to go with Meat Dishes instead of Sushis and the like. Meats will up your attack and strength ratings, meaning you hit for more when you do connect. ffxi.somepage.com has a wonderful guide on Food Effects and how to maximize your usage. Right now you'd be looking at Grilled Mutton or Dhalmel Steaks, IIRC. Those are both incredibly cheap to make, and will last you a good chunk of time. I think you can easily level Cooking in your party making them if you bring along the ingredients with you. Right now, though, getting in every hit isn't vital, you may want to look more at increasing the damage when you do hit. If you were an underequipped Taru and having acc issues, my advice would be different, since your max damage would be slightly lower. For everyone else, just work on hitting a little harder when you do connect, you won't notice things dying any faster with lots of ACC.

I kind of look at Sushi as a "catch up" food pre-45. Unless you're drastically underlevelled in your weapon skill, it's not vital that you have sushi in a party. It just feeds munchkin syndrome and e-peen.

[Macht]

Re: G.S. bad accuracy?

There's a slight difference in rating between Scythe and Great Sword. However, at that level, the difference is trivial. Dark Knights have an A+ rating with their Scythe and A- rating with their Great Sword. The difference is only apparent at high levels.
From level 61 and onward, weapon skill ratings get separated from the broad rating categories to specific ones. For example, B rating gets split into B+, B and B-. The exception to these are the A rating (A+ and A-) and D thru F ratings.
http://www.ausystem.org/~aushacho/gbox/ff/skill-e.html
It's a bit outdated, but the core mechanics have not changed one bit in the past two or even three years now. AFAIK, no job class has had their weapon rating altered since CoP expansion, unless someone would like to prove me wrong.
-------------------------
Now that the general idea has been taken care of, what you were experiencing is a phenomenon only to FFXI when switching different weapons on a character in a short time period. I noticed that (And many others have as well) you do not gain skill from a weapon very quickly when you first start to use a weapon, especially if it's your first time in a very long time. You might get a couple of tenths of a point in the skill, but then there will be a lull. For some players, this can be very short, maybe one or two fights before they pickup another skillup. For others, this could be several fights in-between.
This lull will sharply increase the higher you are in character level. At level 64, I can go for 20 minutes using a dagger and not see a single skill point, even if I'm fighting a monster that is appropriate to my current weapon skill level.
Generally, as you cap your skill on your current character level, your accuracy with the weapon increases. When you first reach a new character level (Let's say you just leveled up to 21 on your DRK class) your weapon skills, if previously capped at level 20, are no longer capped anymore. For some strange reason (And I'm sure this is a bug which SE has not addressed yet in the past 3 years I've been playing this game) the act of leveling up and raising your weapon skilll cap decreases your accuracy. It might just be temporary and all you can do is just keep swinging away on the monster. As you start to get points into the skill, the accuracy issue will slowly fade away until you level up again (Unless the monster's level starts to drop quickly to the point where you should be hitting it anyway - like Tough versus Incredibly Tough)
This is the best plausible explanation that I can come up, short of blaming it entirely on the random number generator not spitting out numbers in your favor (This is also an issue which I brought up in another thread on this forum somewhere)

Not certain about what you posted, the experience I've had is a little different and seems to have actual mechanics. I've noticed my character's accuracy varry depending on a few conditions. The conditions I've had were the accuracy actually does change is:

• Day's element
• Weather effects
• Strength + Dexterity (For Melee), Strength + Agility (For Marksman), Str + Dex + Agi (For Archery)
• Raising certain elements

It's wierd but I have noticed improvements in my accuracy on Fire, Wind, Thunder, and Light days. However I've notice my accuracy drop in dust storms and windy weather unless I am wearing gear or am buffed to that element.

I had started noticing these when there was conditions that I didn't eat accuracy foods and yet still had accuracy that was matching other members. Also noticing other negative effects when doing specific BCNMs and other fights and notice a very sharp and sudden drop when a mob would debuff me.

I think similar might be happening to you since if you look at your Scythe vs. your Sword the Scythe gives you +2 STR at lv. 21 +2 STR is quite a big bonus at that level.

[Aeni]

Re: G.S. bad accuracy?

Not certain about what you posted, the experience I've had is a little different and seems to have actual mechanics. I've noticed my character's accuracy varry depending on a few conditions. The conditions I've had were the accuracy actually does change is:

• Day's element
• Weather effects
• Strength + Dexterity (For Melee), Strength + Agility (For Marksman), Str + Dex + Agi (For Archery)
• Raising certain elements

It's wierd but I have noticed improvements in my accuracy on Fire, Wind, Thunder, and Light days. However I've notice my accuracy drop in dust storms and windy weather unless I am wearing gear or am buffed to that element.

I had started noticing these when there was conditions that I didn't eat accuracy foods and yet still had accuracy that was matching other members. Also noticing other negative effects when doing specific BCNMs and other fights and notice a very sharp and sudden drop when a mob would debuff me.

I think similar might be happening to you since if you look at your Scythe vs. your Sword the Scythe gives you +2 STR at lv. 21 +2 STR is quite a big bonus at that level.

I've noticed that elemental skill and day does not affect melee accuracy. I'm not sure what you posted that for, because that's almost heresy. However, I might be inclined to believe that time of day can affect accuracy, as it makes a lot of sense. At night, you should have lower accuracy than during the day. However, this is where I believe the system stops at. If it goes beyond this point in complexity, like exp'ing in tunnels produce lower accuracy due to the fact you're in an unlit condition (Seriously, ceiling lights in natural and unkept tunnels?) then I'll go eat my hat. THIS GAME SYSTEM IS NOT THAT COMPLEX.

Melee accuracy is dependant primarily on these factors:

• Weapon Skill (Both job class proficiency rating in weapon and current skill level in that weapon)
• Base Stat (DEX)
• Job Abilities
• Job Traits
• Spells
• Enhancements from Equipment/Weapon
• Enhancements from Food
• Monster Abilities
• Monster Job Traits
• Monster Spells (which includes Stoneskin, Utsusemi, Avatar Abilities, etc.)
• Environmental Factors - These are special cases normally reserved for an event battle, which includes - but is not limited to - BCs, Missions (Assaults are considered repeatable ToAU missions), Quests and Beseiged.
• Randomly Generated Coefficient used in determining battle outcomes (aka "rolls") on a per "action" basis.

I might be missing a couple of other obvious factors, but these are the ones primarily factored into the formulas SE's battle system uses to determine "checks" with regards to a hit rate. A successful hit is one that is not parried, evaded, blocked or otherwise impeded by an ability or spell. The term "Accuracy" is used in two manners. One is to describe the general hit rate of a situation or someone and the other references to a stat which has a major control over the hit rate of a situation or someone.

[Macht]

Re: G.S. bad accuracy?

Well accuracy for wind condition and dust storm I've only experienced it effect my ranged, not really tried that codition with melee. As far as complexity what I've stated there wasn't complex, it would be using pre-existing mechanics since you can see day's element already effects SMNs Avatars, Mage's Spells, and the likes.

Same goes with Stats since it's already proven that WSs can require a combination of stats to be more effective nothing states that accuracy can't be the same. The only thing stating that DEX effects accuracy is a test that only tested DEX for accuracy never tested possible combination effects.