Possible Guard (ninja) changes in update?

[Dense]

I know it's a lolAlla post, but it appears to be quite legit in proving that guard proc-rate has improved dramatically in this last update:


http://ffxi.allakhazam.com/db/jobs.html ... m=2;page=1

Ok, there's rumors of a ninja edit to Guard. Decided I needed to test this out. Here's the setup.

Gear:

Black Adargas
Tiphia Sting
Tiger Mask
Guarding Torque
Guarding Earring
Spike Earring
Melee Cyclas
Melee Gloves
Rajas Ring
Woodsman Ring
Melee Cape
Warwolf Belt
Temple Hose
Melee Gaiters

Total:
+41 Guard [Skill total: 200]
-14 Evasion (decided to keep the +HP of Melee Gloves instead of -eva of kotes)
Food: Shallops Tropicale
Total defense w/Prot 3: 403

Target mobs: Mourioche (Boyahda Tree) [Lvl 62-68]
Guard skill to be EM with mobs (assuming target is A+ rating): 212-241

Mnk/Rdm for phalanx, assisted by lvl 59 healer NPC. Phalanx should be -8 damage with 109 enhancing skill (didn't bring torque).

Tracked all connected hit damage and noted guards.

Recieved exp per mob of: 27 (-11 lvls), 29 (-10 lvls), 31 (-9 lvls), 32 (-8 lvls), meaning mobs were levels 64-67. Guard skill EM range for those levels is 222-236.

Had to warp out after 18 mobs because I linked 3 with no chakra and NPC out of MP. Bah.

Summary:

Lvl 64: 56% -- 13 guards / 10 unguarded
Lvl 65: 30%-33% -- 17 guards / 37 unguarded / 2 uncertain
Lvl 66: 24% -- 10 guards / 32 unguarded
Lvl 67: 27% -- 39 guards / 102 unguarded


So as the mob level approaches current skill (assuming no level correction is involved, considering I'm 75), the guard rate goes up markedly. This is a far cry from Jinghles's tests of capped guard vs EM mob yielding about 8% guard rate. It does not seem unlikely that you could reach a 70%-75% guard rate vs EM for your skill. On the other hand, I didn't get a single skillup.


Thoughts on guard formula: It does not appear (to me) to be that guard is the traditionally believed -1.0 pDiff. With 400 defense, the mandys' cRatio should have been below 1.0 (in fact, 1.0 cRatio on steelshells is around 360 or so, from when I was doing some tests on pld, and they're 10 levels higher). If guard was a straight -pDiff, I should have been getting hit for 0 regularly (especially with phalanx on top of that). That was not the case. I was commonly getting hit for 3-5, but only hit 0 a couple times.

If phalanx is the last modification in the damage done, those 3-5 hits would have been 11-13 natively. I was hit by crits twice, 55 and 60. Taking the higher of those and removing the phalanx mod puts it at 68. Taking a quick average of non-guarded, non-crit, non-phalanx damage from that level of mob gives 27. Diff is 40, which should be the base dmg rating for the mob. 27 average on 40 base dmg weapon means a .675 cRatio, which would be an attack of 270 vs my 400 defense. That's reasonable, assuming 236 skill (lvl 67), 8 base, and 52 str (quite possible; not going to look it up).

11-13 out of 40 base would mean .275 to .325 pDiff. .275 would be -0.4 pDiff compared to cRatio. Thus I would posit that what Guard actually does is force the mob's attack to have the minimum pDiff possible for a given cRatio. This means it's not nearly as effective in damage reduction as previously thought (or possibly it was changed along with this edit; however I've seen results while farming that have also made me question the way guard worked, before the update). The possibility that it may now have an activation rate similar to how accuracy is calculated (75% vs EM?) makes it far more valuable, though. More testing is needed.

Note: if this is the case, some of the guards may end up being mistakes on my part in watching the animations, in which case the guard rate is probably lower than reported.


Also of interest - weaponskill damage. Didn't start using weaponskills til later in the run because I felt I was using up too much time and wanted to get the full 25 fight limit for the NPC.

Weaponskills done with no boosting and no gear swapping, just the above gear, usually near or at 100 TP.

Asuran Fists: 561, 462, 475, 509
Dragon Kick: 444, 586, 395
Howling Fist: 691, 682, 686


Howling Fist is doing surprisingly well. I'm curious to experiment with it on merit mobs.

[spooky]

I don't know if this is related but I noticed more parry skillups last night on DRK(63-64) than normal. Got 2x .4s in a row as well. :D
I was tanking the whole time though. >_>

[Goldfish]

I don't know if this is related but I noticed more parry skillups last night on DRK(63-64) than normal. Got 2x .4s in a row as well. :D
I was tanking the whole time though. >_>

With the new str/att and dex/acc formula for 2handers i as actually wondering if agi/parry saw a boost too. Would be interested in seeing if that holds true.

[levish]

i got a random parry skillup on thief on the single Ameretat I fought last night for ToAU Jody's Acid, kinda shocked when I saw it didn't think anything of it though. Normally I get a skillup once in a blue moon but to get one right on my first and only fight is pretty lucky, was a .3 iirc @ 212/254 cap at my level

[LD]

50% guard rate, huh?....hmmm.......

I definitely want to see more data, though.

[Byrd]

I don't know if this is related but I noticed more parry skillups last night on DRK(63-64) than normal. Got 2x .4s in a row as well. :D
I was tanking the whole time though. >_>

I noticed more skillups on Easy Prey mobs outside of Whitegate than normal last night, as well. 75 RDM Parry 166, Shield 185, I figured it was just a lucky streak, but maybe there's more to it than that.

The night before, I got quite a few skillups trying to kite Qiqirns during an Assault, but those at least read as Tough.

[Turin]

Sure it was on lower level mobs with no gear swaps, but wtf @ Howling Fist damage.

[miokomioko]

I noticed a huge increase in Guard rate (as well as skillup rate) while skilling up solo as PUP last night against DC hpemde... and yeah, Howling Fist beats out Dragon Kick now, at least for PUP (I only Asuran on MNK...).

[Fawkes]

I haven't gotten a single skillup, and it doesn't seem to be happening more often either.

It would be nice if guard were enhanced though, since SAMs have always had better defensive capabilities and now have potentially better offensive capabilities.

[evilpaul]

I got a .4 and .5 in a party earlier as 46-47 MNK. Brought me to 37 total skill.

[Priran]

I was /WAR in a merit party earlier and I didn't notice shit sooo

[evilpaul]

Mythhttp://www.micrrh.jcu.edu.au/confere...ges/busted.gif?

[Aquilla]

guard's capped on my lv 27 lolpup, and i was poking around with it yesterday -- at first I didn't notice much, vs. EP-DC stuff, but with eva boost and gear they don't hit me much.

Vs Ts I did notice an increase in guards, but I can hardly specify a %. It's probably just more noticeable when something is whacking at you for 50ish a hit and then suddenly does 6 or less.

I will say that it definitely was not 50% rate @.@

[levish]

Mythhttp://www.micrrh.jcu.edu.au/confere...ges/busted.gif?

i'm not sure if it was the proc rate of guard/parry (not likely) or the skillup rate that was changed, i know for any skillup prior to that night i could easily go a 2-3 hour xp pt without any skillups

[Francisco II]

Mythhttp://www.micrrh.jcu.edu.au/confere...ges/busted.gif?

Nothing has changed.

Edit: Except for certain mobs hitting for a fairly consistent rate... We fought LAC last night, and it was hitting the tanks for constant damage each time (185 on the WAR, I think).

[divisortheory]

Did Salvage last night and our MNK got .9 of guard during one salvage (it came in 4 different skillups). We've been doing Salvage 3-4 times a week for about 5 months now, and he said previously he would get one level of guard every 2 weeks or so.

[Francisco II]

Did Salvage last night and our MNK got .9 of guard during one salvage (it came in 4 different skillups). We've been doing Salvage 3-4 times a week for about 5 months now, and he said previously he would get one level of guard every 2 weeks or so.

It's luck... I've gotten 1.6 guard skill in one run before - and I've gone from 155 to 190 on Salvage almost exclusively.

[suji]

1.4 levels of parrying in a 2 hour party while leveling NIN last night. That was a .5, a .4, and a .5. Before I would have been lucky to just get a .1. I guess it's possible that we are all just crazy lucky, but it does seem like this was changed.

[Apelila]

I got a .2 in quicksand caves off an antica i've killed maybe a couple thousand times before with no skill up. But I was also sans +30 in eva gear i normally have.

On a side note, they made the drop rate for antica acid re-fucking-diculous. its 90% now at least. Also, I hope they fix the HTH cap. Hitting everything for 122 over and over and over is starting to annoy me. (but it makes it so easy to see when you crit on a counter attack)

[Ashira]

If there was some change that made us resist magic at a ridiculous rate, couldn't that somehow also have some effect in how we deflect melee hits? It's not completely that farfetched with everything else being wonky atm.