Relic of a bygone era

[Hankthetank]

Re: Relic of a bygone era

1.While you assume Suppa for the /nin setup, you don't mention what the /war is using in the other earring slot (besides brutal, which any DD setup will use if they have it). Whatever they choose to put there it will benefit them to some extent which may be difficult to quantify without a parse.

/war you are using the Suppa as well. 5 Sword skill = 5 Atk and 4.5Acc. So even /war you’ll be using a suppa ideally.

2. The same is true for the shield slot. Viking or Tatami shields for example will raise your damage - if you have a slot open to equip them in, which a /nin doesn't. Base STR is different too. These things together could easily add up to +20 attack for the /war - *without* Berserk. If you're taking hate sometimes shields also mean shield blocks, which mean extra TP, which means more WS. (Leaving out shield bash - whatever you may say about its utility, its *damage* is insignificant with anything other than Aegis.)

Viking, does add a nice amount of attack and I’d like for being a buckler giving a higher block rate for nice TP gain when you are getting hit. It’s still only an extra 3TP a block, since you get 2 for getting hit without blocking. So it’s 33 shield blocks (rounding down) to get one more WS. Assuming a 75% block rate with a size 2 shield that means you have to take 44 hits. Even with a size 2 shield you will need some +shield gear to hit the block rate cap. Using +shield gear is using slots where a /nin is adding DD gear, effectively negating the attack bonus you get from your shield. The big shield slots are back feet neck, which also happened to be big DD slots too.

I haven’t used a buckler shield in forever, but I think 50% block rate with no shield gear is a generous guess? In that scenario it takes 66 hits to get one extra WS. Take into account the pounding I am taking meaning I have to cure more, which is more lost attack innings, and more mp both myself and mages need to spend. I can attest to the fact that in full DD gear and with berserk up I get just about as hard and any other melee. In theory I’ll give sword and board an advantage, but not so much for practical purposes.

The extra attack and it’s impact really depends on what your are fighting, 25 Atk on Imps in mire isn’t very dramatic for me. 25 Attack on trolls can have a noticeable difference. Attack is a key DD stat, but its not the end all DD stat. My warriors base attack now at 75 is lower then its been since I was 70, but there is no doubt he is much more powerful now. Attack is great, but haste is better, unless you are taking about huge amounts, trading attack for haste is usually the right call.

Base Str makes very little difference when TPing and in small amounts its not a huge factor for WSs. I have 5 Str merits and I really don’t notice the difference. The difference in WS damage between a Elvaan and a Hume isn’t that big, and that STR spread is larger then the difference between Pld/War and Pld/Nin. Yeah it is there but I really don’t see it as a significant factor.

Also on the Tatami shield, I wouldn’t bother, 12 Atk is better than 3 Str which is only good for WSs, and the block rate on a Tatami is lousy even with 313 shield skill.

3. Attack Bonus trait. WAR has it, NIN doesn't. Now we're looking at a 30 point attack swing with the same gear and food (aside from suppa vs. assault/coral and Viking vs. DW).

The attack trait is 10 Attack, 12 from Viking shield, brutal/suppa are the ideal earrings either way so it’s a 22 attack difference. It’s very nice, but by itself it’s not going to change the outcome drastically by itself.

4. Warcry. Not only one of the most powerful hate tools a PLD/WAR has, it also boosts the damage of every physical DD in the party. It's hard to say exactly how much extra damage comes from Warcry, but it's not zero (unless you're not using it at all).

Well, its has a 5 minute recast and a really rather insignificant effect on damage output, check the attack boost it gives. You use it and pull hate you’ll take more damage and curing yourself and the 1 attack round you lost would easily make up for the tiny bit of extra damage you do because of Warcry. I really stopped using it all together it’s a hate tool only for me.

5. Not everyone *has* a suppa - DM earrings can't be rechosen, ever. For those who chose something else - because they did DM before /nin became as popular, before the other gear/mobs to make the build work were around, or as a different main job altogether - /nin isn't nearly as attractive an option.

Without a suppa you lose 5% dual wield reduction. Both /nin and /war lose the 5 Atk and 4.5 Acc so the replacement earring is irrelevant and would be the same for both jobs. Without the 5% delay reduction, I can see /war on paper pulling ahead in DoT due to how close the numbers are.

6. Your DW numbers assume justice/joyeuse. This is a great setup if you have it. If you don't, something like company/joyeuse will fall far behind single-wielded joyeuse in attacks per minute.

Actually I didn’t do numbers on Comp/Joy Vs Joy simply because it then all comes down to WSs as well as to delay. Justice and Joy are so similar, its easy to compare then since we need only take the delays into account. Actual WS numbers need to take into account Mob level, mob type, other you have buffs, debuffs on the mob, and your WS gear set in general.

Without actual WSs numbers to compare its alot of conjecture. In this case I would rely on my parses and the majority of parses testing the two jobs was done with Comp/Joy Vs Joy and Comp/Joy, and /nin won every time. I understand the TP gain is slower, but a Vorpal with a Company Sword Vorpal is very respectable, while a Joy or justice Vorpal is very lack luster. This is the primary reason I was so surprised when Just/Joy Vs Just worked out so close. Just/Joy destroys Comp/Joy and all my parses show Comp/Joy destroying Joy. I really assumed the numbers would be much stronger in favor of Just/Joy then they worked out to be. I could try and work some numbers for Comp Joy Vs Joy later. I think 450 average Vorpal with Joy and about 750 with Company is a fair ball park estimate. It’ll look at how that compares on paper later. But doing numbers this way just seemed to open a door to a derail into how big the difference between a Company Vorpal and a Joy Vorpal are. Which once again seems very difficult to prove.

Overall I think that if you're not going to use shadows frequently, /nin isn't really worth using; DW looks good at first, but the benefits of /war are more wide-ranging than is immediately apparent.

Perhaps this is where we don’t see eye to eye. For me its not a question of “if” I’ll be using these shadows, I have always used my shadows. Even back in the beginning when I barely had a DD build, I would generally tank the first part of the fight, flash is a great hate gainer. If I am not using my shadows then /war loses any TP advantage he might have due to shield blocks.

It seems to be a matter of Theoretical Vs Practical. I’ll be the first to admit I often end up speaking about practical when we are talking about theoretical.

Theoretical -> Practical
1. Fast TP gain due to shield blocks -> You are a MP sink & lose attack innings to cure
2. Faster WSs (Compared to Comp/joy) -> Weaker weapon Skills (Comp/Joy)
3. Big Attack boost from Berserk -> Huge MP sink from berserk being up
4. Shadows offer no bonus to DD -> Shadows offer me safety to pull hate at will
5. More STR Vs Elvaan WS -> Hume WS /shrug
6. More base Attack -> Haste generally performs better

At the end of the day, I wouldn’t vehemently disagree with someone who claims /war is a stronger damage dealer on paper and can see how they would take that stance. But in light of all my parses showing the opposite, I find it extremely hard to believe the difference is hugely in /war’s favor. Nonetheless, in any practical setting, /nin is a more beneficial sub combining excellent damage dealing potential and excellent survivability. The added survivability gives me ability to pull hate at will without worry of becomming a MP sink this lets me go balls to the wall and never slow down in merit parties. Not having to hold back seems to allow for more damage to be dealt.

Sincerely,
Hankthetank

[Lmnop]

Re: Relic of a bygone era

Haste should be virtually identical in either case.

The only piece of Homam I'd see worthwhile tossing would be the AF boots. Look for Armando's tests on shielding rate -- he came to the conclusion that additional shield skill+ didn't help much. I wouldn't even use the torque. Actually, if you used the torque, you could use Homam feet. Or, you could put on a Boxer's mantle. If you were really macro happy, you could swap off amement +1/cerberus/whatever and Pcharm for Boxers/Torque every time you had hate. Since those 2 slots are accessories, they would't make you blink -- they'd execute quickly and it wouldn't really slow you down since you'd only have hate half the fights anyway.

[Celeal]

Re: Relic of a bygone era

/nin + Ni + Ichi shadows are so broken m('A')m

Seriously, front-line melee's subjob choices in merit TP-burn parties (the ones that make sense) are very limited:
(1) /nin,
(2) /war, /sam
what else?

Although shield block can prevent interrupt for casting magic, I doubt any shield is needed for pld/nin.

Hasso and Seigan from /sam have penalty of magic /recast timer. The only tool for PLD to enter the hate-list of a slept-mob without waking up the mob is Flash. pld/sam + staff is out of the question unless the pld has a lot of Haste to overcome the Hasso + Seigan's penalty of magic timer.

pld/war needs at least some tanking gear if hold hate against VT+ is required in TP-burn parties. But once again, /nin + Ni + Ichi shadows are so broken m('A')m

Some odd combo like pld/blu, pld/rdm, pld/whm offers alternative damage migration, but no increase in DD output.

I guess theoretical, it is either pld/nin or pld/war at the end. Want more hate control? Trade off with some DD output with pld/war using DD+tank hybird gear. Want more damage output and better damage migration? Trade off hate control with pld/nin.

[Lmnop]

Re: Relic of a bygone era

TP party SJ choices:

1) /nin
2) wait for a /nin to appear
3) anything else

just wanted to point out that the only real reason for Pld/blu is that it'd actually drastically increase your DD potential. Likely much more than /war could ever do -- at the cost of heightened mp consumption. If it could be balanced, it could be powerful. I don't know that it has a place in tp parties.

And pld/rdm isn't too far behind -- they gain a lot in means of negating damage, which allows them to use sushi or whatever and DD with a bit more breathing room... things still on the drawing board though, that need not be discussed heavily in this thread.

[Hankthetank]

Re: Relic of a bygone era

just wanted to point out that the only real reason for Pld/blu is that it'd actually drastically increase your DD potential. Likely much more than /war could ever do -- at the cost of heightened mp consumption.

Can you point me towards someone who has tried this? I ask because I tired it got very poor results, I would very interested in how they made it feasible.

Sincerely,
Hankthetank

[ItazuraNhomango]

Re: Relic of a bygone era

Armando's PLD/BLU conjuncture and testing?

[Hankthetank]

Re: Relic of a bygone era

Thanks, i read that and posted my opinions in that thread. I appluad the effort and was wondering if anything further was done with it.

If I remeber correctly there was no actual testing of Pld/Blu in a battle situation beyond soloing lesser Colibri, and the majority of the thread was largely hypothetical.

I was hoping there was some futher info on the topic or perhaps a success story since my experiances with the job combo aren't very positive.

Sincerely,
Hankthetank

[Lmnop]

Re: Relic of a bygone era

things still on the drawing board though, that need not be discussed heavily in this thread.

I just wanted to mention it in response to Celeal. Not say "yes, it's true, pld/blu outDDs Monks." Just that it's hard to quantify unexplored subs. In the instance of a sub that provides nothing but defense, for instance (/rdm), it offers no DD advantage to a PLD except for the fact that his sub lets him focus more on DDing. Pld/Blu is nothing but theory, and it may very well never be plausible (very similar to war/mnk - has many elements of a powerful combination but in practice, becomes a hindrance).

But since we really don't know for sure what their capacity is, we shouldn't be commenting on them here.

[Amele]

Re: Relic of a bygone era

war/mnk is a strong and proven blood tank sub. it's still a decent g.axe sub, although war/thf and war/sam are probably both stronger in terms of pure DD now.

blood tanking is so 2005 though.

[Empedocles]

Re: Relic of a bygone era

Looking back, I noticed SevIfrit mentioned the Walahra Turban, and it seems to have "slipped under the radar".

I agree with Sev that the haste is rather nice, but I'm no mathmetician and to date there have been no pieces other than O-hat recommended... ( I haven't checked any links to gear)

So.... the opinion on it?

[Lmnop]

Re: Relic of a bygone era

I'm of the mindset that everyone needs to get one eventually. If you cast spells, there's no reason not to macro in the turban. The math always seems to come out showing that Haste gear full time isn't worth it 'til you hit 8%... I'm not sure and I don't currently feel like figuring the gains.

[Armando]

Re: Relic of a bygone era

Actually, a certain poster from Allakhazam (MargavineLiselle from the RDM and NIN forums) has taught me that even small amounts of Haste make a difference in an EXP party setting. I too made the error of assuming that for Haste to matter, you first need to get enough that you'd reduce your Delay by one swing's worth, but this is false. In order for the Haste to have make a difference, it needs to allow you to score an extra hit during the fight. However, in a party, you're not the only melee, and other melees will frequently steal the finishing blow. Thing is...well, it's easier to illustrate visually. Assume you have 4 secs unhasted, 3,8 hasted

4.0 secs | 8.0 secs | 12.0 secs | 16.0 secs | 20.0 secs | 24.0 secs
3.8 secs | 7.6 secs | 11.4 secs | 15.2 secs | 19.0 secs | 22.8 secs

The difference in the first attack round is 0.2 secs. In the second, 0.4. In the third, 0.6. This difference keeps getting wider as the battle progresses. In the above example, if another melee got the killing shot at, say, 23.5 secs, you would've scored an extra hit with the 5% Haste while fallen short without it. The longer the fight goes on, the more likely it is that Haste will make a difference.

Also, Haste technically has increasing returns, and you're going to have the Haste spell on you. Going from 4.0 secs to 3.8 means your Delay is 95% the original amount, but if you have the Haste spell on (15%) then in reality you're going from 3.4 to 3.2, 94% of the pre-turban quantity. Plus, Haste numbers are kind of deceiving. Having 15% less delay really translates into 17.65% more hits. Having 20% less delay really translates into 25% more hits. So the actual improvement to your speed is 6.25%

As for a Turban vs O-Hat comparison, the difference is small (Turban is 5% Haste, O-Hat improves hit rate by 5%.) It depends on your current Haste and hit rate levels. The lower your hit rate, the more valuable that extra 5% hit rate becomes. The more Haste you have, the more valuable that 5% Haste becomes. As mentioned earlier, going from 15% to 20% Haste means you hit 6.25% more often. Going from, say, 80% hit rate to 85% is a 6.25% improvement. If you get more Haste or your hit rate is higher, the turban pulls ahead. If for some reason you're not getting Haste cast on you, or your hit rate is lower, O-hat pulls ahead.

[Amele]

Re: Relic of a bygone era

As for a Turban vs O-Hat comparison, the difference is small (Turban is 5% Haste, O-Hat improves hit rate by 5%.) It depends on your current Haste and hit rate levels.

this is silly. +10 accuracy is not necessarily 5% hit rate. -> conversion isn't linear.

+10 accuracy may be approximately +5% to your accuracy value (depending on your skills and stats, this is highly optimistic, since it's 5% of 200, and your skill + 1/2 dex should be much higher than this) but this does not directly translate into 5% dot via 5% net hit rate gain.

walahra turban is better, in almost all situations by the time you can wear it (since it's a level 75 item).

[Lmnop]

Re: Relic of a bygone era

I disagree. While you're looking at a PLD trying to fulfill more than one role at once (remember the title of this thread?) and deciding between 2 head pieces that have 0 defense, I think it's worth considering the rest of the build. And until you have lots of Homam or Hydra Haubert set, you're probably not going to have enough accuracy in addition to other things you need (depending on build - I'm thinking about all the phases that occur between DD paladin and turtling paladin and enmity paladin and HP paladin etc etc). The glorious thing about Homam is that it gives acc and haste, so we don't have to make the decision. But when we do, you probably need to worry about acc first.

As for what Armando said, it's a concept I'm well aware of. I was trying to explain that talking to a friend about melee'ing in Rutter Sabatons. It's only 2% and it's completely unnoticeable, but the probability is still there that a monster would die faster if you weren't using it. So haste gear is the same concept (though in the positive, obviously) and if all melee swing 5% faster, then they may not get an extra swing but at least the fight will end 5% faster (all the same damage delivered, but compressed into less time).

Understanding all of that, I still don't think 5% is worthwhile full time. As Armando stated, Haste technically has increasing returns - not diminishing.

Still... all said, I guess I never thought about how useful even 5% in gear is if you can assume that you'll be hasted full time already.

[Hankthetank]

Re: Relic of a bygone era

this is silly. +10 accuracy is not necessarily 5% hit rate. -> conversion isn't linear.

Yeasterday I'd whole heartedly agree with you. However a Naga on BG seems to be showing a directly linear effect of Acc and Hit Rate.

http://www.bluegartrls.com/forum/vie...7450&start=330
Thats a link to the thread if you are interested.

I never would have guessed it was a linear correllation, but his numbers look solid, and Naga even accounts for Level differance.

I may have to rethink my stance or at the very least do some tests of my own.

On O Hat Vs Turban.

My Advice would be:

If you are above 90% Acc with sushi switch to the Turban. If you acc is below 90% keep the O Hat and try and get more Acc elsewhere as well.

85% Acc with Meat
If you can stay above 85% Acc eatting meat, then use the turban, below 85% keep the O Hat.

The goal is a full haste build while eating meat. So Meat + Turban and 85% Acc is the ideal. But I would priortize it as Acc > Meat > Haste. Eatting meat with O Hat is going to offer better over all damage than Turban and sushi assuming turban is your only haste piece.

Sincerely,
Hankthetank