Polearm weapon skills naturally weak? Maybe it's just me?

[DakAttack]

Is it me or is there a lot of monster out there that aren't weak polearms? It seems like everything I fight seems to be resistant only to polearms. My weapon skill rarely do enough damage to make the tank sweat, and in comparison to other jobs I've partied with they rarely do enough damage. I was in a party with a Monk who could easily break 400 with Raging Fists, and when he got Howling Fist he was consistently pushing 500 damage at 100% TP. I'm lucky if Double and Penta Thrust break 200 damage at 200% TP. After he left he replaced himself with a Warrior who had Haubergeon, and could also easily break 400 with Rampage. We were fighting crabs and fish in Cape Terrigan, and I was always sure to use my WSs when I had berserk up and the monster wasn't completely buffed with defense.

I have a Merman's gorget, two Sniper's Rings, and a Life Belt for accuracy gear. That's +25 accuracy(not including the job trait), and because of Seraph economy that's well over 2,500,000 gil in gear. That's pretty much all I can afford at this moment. My regular attacks seem to hit for around 70 damage, and pretty consistently as well. I'm not really worried about that as much as I am weapon skill damage.

Is there such a thing as too much accuracy? I currently have no equipment that adds Str, just Jaeger, Walkure, and Spike earrings for +19 Atk(not including job traits). That's a little over a million in Atk gear right there. I use meat mithkabobs for the Str bonus, but should I be adding in some Str equipment as well? I'm going to run some parses to see if I'm making up for the lack of WS damage with pure DoT.

[neighbortaru]

Re: Polearm weapon skills naturally weak? Maybe it's just me?

check here for monster weaknesses.

I'm afraid the polearm WS are just not very strong unless you are fighting flying things.

Also, I do believe there is such a thing as too much accuracy. Balance is always the key. Some STR+, some ATTK+ and some ACC+ is what you want to strive for.

[DakAttack]

Re: Polearm weapon skills naturally weak? Maybe it's just me?

Thanks, I'll try and make some adjustments. I also noticed that lances are no longer the power house wepaons they were from 20-50. Vassago's Scythe outdamages the Grand Knight's Lance by 4 damage, and has an almost similar amount of accuracy. I'm thinking at 60 with the +7 accuracy I can trash the Snipers and buy some +4 Str rings. I think I'll keep the lifebelt, and replace the merman's gorget with a storm gorget maybe. I'll see how things work with each other.

[kuu]

Re: Polearm weapon skills naturally weak? Maybe it's just me?

Pent has a pretty crappy modifier as it is, might want to go back to double thrust simply on the principle of it lol. But 200... my memory is rusty at that level, are you getting your full hits in?

With a lance you should be seriously out TPing anyone else, so it's give and take.

And yes, too much acc has a down side since the raise of sushi.

Since sushi is percentages, you can drastically lower your built in ACC and keep sushi.

Or you can stay with high acc and eat att food...which depending on what you're fighting could be good or bad.

[Rai|Kye]

Re: Polearm weapon skills naturally weak? Maybe it's just me?

there is a accuracy cap but i dont know how high it is.
it depends on level.

[kuu]

Re: Polearm weapon skills naturally weak? Maybe it's just me?

there is a accuracy cap but i dont know how high it is.
it depends on level.

Nope not a cap per se.

In terms of functionallity though, you can assume there's one. As it's like a tangent, where the higher you go, the harder it is to rise.

From test data it also looks like there is a sort of check for monster level too, as something that goes over your level "slightly" like a 210xp monster as oppose to a 190xp monster, will do weird things to damage and acc.

Everyone had that magical, "This is taking forever" to 2hrs later when you ding a lvl "WTF, it died so fast"

This is most easily seen in static PTs, where everyone is like 1k of another, and it's hard to blame it on eq or skill when you see a fight time suddenly cut by a third.

[Isendre]

Re: Polearm weapon skills naturally weak? Maybe it's just me?

Try using sole sushi instead of mithkabobs.

[Balodoth]

Re: Polearm weapon skills naturally weak? Maybe it's just me?

You have built in ACC. Wish it was more so we could swap in more +STR/+ATK. But you can still get away with less than other jobs. I would start with the rings and move to +STR. If I remember correctly Double and Penta have STR modifiers.

And yes, Sushi is your friend.

[DakAttack]

Re: Polearm weapon skills naturally weak? Maybe it's just me?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but Sushi is for Accuracy. Mithkabobs will give me +5 Str and +25% Atk. That's something I can't do without at this moment. I bought two Sun Rings, a Swordbelt, and I macro it in a long with my JSE for weapon skills. I've only seen better damge on two of my weapon skills. The rest seem exactly the same.

[AgentBrownEye]

Re: Polearm weapon skills naturally weak? Maybe it's just me?

well sole sushi has +5 str as well, so your even with the mithkabobs there. the atk bonus given by the mithkabobs offers nothing for your ws's, so your better off with the str + rings and sushi. you should see a pretty good increase in your ws damage.

[SelfdestButton]

Re: Polearm weapon skills naturally weak? Maybe it's just me?

"Mithkabobs will give me +5 Str and +25% Atk. That's something I can't do without at this moment."

Mithkabobs become unusable after level 60 till 70 or so, flat out. Kabobs at level 60-62 on Toramas will flat out depress you. Pre 65 WS (Double Thrust, Penta Thrust, Skewer) Are heavily dependant on attack vs. defense and level vs. level, base stats hardly matter in those instances.
Well, let's see. The bad news is that you'll be relying on DoT for damage in Cape Terrigan since you won't be doing WS damage to those crabs and pugils. Personally I just penta'd Kuftal raptors all the time and circumvented the entire thing. Oh yes, nothing is resistant to piercing except skeletons by the way.
The reprieve comes with the aforementioned raptors, stuff like processionaires and mainly skewer. Mileage varies, but my record on toramas was 670 at 64 (mostly 300ish). Bards make skewer truly impressive since you will be sushi'd all the time and sort of need the attack.
Wheeling Thrust does 300-400 ish damage which is about as good as any other fusion WS except probably kasha. SA it for 600 or so. Attack is irrelevant for it. Level and STR are not.
55-60 is the weakest stretch for drgs, much like it is for thieves and such.

[Lmnop]

Re: Polearm weapon skills naturally weak? Maybe it's just me?

well sole sushi has +5 str as well, so your even with the mithkabobs there. the atk bonus given by the mithkabobs offers nothing for your ws's, so your better off with the str + rings and sushi. you should see a pretty good increase in your ws damage.

Not quite. Even if double and penta have a str modifier, +attack is still your friend. There's a reason people like berserk. +attack is gonna be very useful the vast majority of the time. As a warrior, I have quite a bit of acc gear and I've been cycling between sole sushi and yellow curry. Though I lack a parser, I haven't noticed much of a difference in my rate of tp-gain. And hitting a Peryton for 1 damage is painful. On attack food, my attacks seem to hit higher but this could just be placebo effect. The big reason I started using sushi was because I wanted to push rampage further and I thought more acc would = more consistent rampages. Since haubergeon, this hasn't been the case. Now where am I? what's any of this have to do with 'goon? My friend has very similar equip to you, and I believe that we exp with almost exactly the same amount of +acc gear -- my hauby would put me above him if not for his acc bonus trait. The difference is I get more str and attack at the same time. And yes, last time I partied with a good drg/war he usually had 80-200% tp when I got to 100. Note that it was very seldom below mine and usually more above mine. In part because Drg are very good at getting tp and in part because warrior tp gain is so erratic between aggressor not always being up and double attack. We were both on sushi.
Let's see if I can gather a point from all of this... your DoT should make up for your slightly weaker WS. @60, if you still feel low on the WS ladder, you can embrace the "WS DoT" method and sub Sam. I was never a big fan of it 'til I saw a drg/sam in action. Med may be gimped when subbed but it works wonders in conjunction with the jumps.

One more thing, I think I might say screw storm gorget (unless you convert to sushi - DON'T DO IT!!!) and just go to spike necklace. It's still a solid piece of equip and I don't leave home without it.

[Muu Yi]

Re: Polearm weapon skills naturally weak? Maybe it's just me?

Also, Vorpal Thrust is one of those bizarre weapon skills that can do several times its regular damage if it criticals. Its chance of criticaling is improved with the more TP you have, or you can force criticals if you sub Thief and stack Sneak Attack to it.