Hitting for really low damage - what can I do?

[Talisien]

Disclaimer: My gear is pretty damn bad, as was my performance in this party, so constructive criticism would be appreciated.
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I was in a PT last night and hitting for just awful damage per swing, like with a Great Sword (Faussar) I was connecting for 20-50 damage at most. I'm wondering what I can do to improve my damage, and also wondering how one issue specifically effected my damage.

Gear:

Taru
Dark Knight 52/Sam 26
Food: Sole Sushi +1

Main: Faussar
Ranged: Crossbow

Head: Empress Hairpin
Neck: PCC / Spike Necklace*
Earrings: Beetle Earring +1 x2
Body: Wonder Kaftan
Hands: Royal Squire Mufflers / Wonder Mitts*
Rings: Courage Ring x2
Back: Traveler's Mantle
Waist: Life Belt / Brave Belt*
Legs: Republic Subligar / Wonder Braccae*
Feet: Bounding Boots/ Wonder Clomps*

* - WS gear

Monsters being fought --

King Ranperre's Tomb Dire Bat
King Ranperre's Tomb Cutlass Scorpion

At the start of the fight my Great Sword skill was *very* low, 152, and ended the party at a respectable 160 (163 is the cap at 52). Here are my questions:

1) I switched from /war to /sam to experiment with Hasso and Zanshin. Is Berserk basically required to keep my Attack high enough to connect for decent damage against ITs? Obviously in Aht Urgan where VTs are more common, /sam would shine.

2) Is the Skill issue so glaring? I thought that Skill was related to Attack, but last night it felt like my damage was affected by my skill to a huge degree. I expected to see numbers in the low 60s per swing, not the 20s.

3) Which factor is more important in the attack formula in regards to damage per normal swing, Strength v. Vit, or Attack v. Defense? As a Taru I expect to hit for less damage, but not THIS much less.

4) Any relatively cheap/campable gear that would improve my Strength or overall damage would be great to hear about. My budget is ~100k per item, so those 1M items are out of the question.

That's it really. I'm just curious as to what factors contributed to my low damage -- race, skill, or something else. Also, my accuracy was not a problem -- by the time my skill hit 158 or so, I was hitting consistently, just for awful damage.

Thanks very much, I look forward to your answers helping this lowly Taru return to his Dark Knight more effectively in the future

-Talisien

[Eddie]

If you're accuracy is fine, look into replacing some parts of your Accuracy and/or STR pieces with Attack. It's hard to tell a difference while TPing in STR or Accuracy as far as how much DMG you do....at least to me anyway.

Don't use Kaftan, Courage, and Traveler's Mantle while TP building.

[Pergo]

capping your skills is always good... but my initial suggestion would be to use abs-vit and str to adjust things in your favor... your gear looks pretty decent

also, when you level switch to glorious sword at 53 (68/456) or darksteel claymore at 54 (71/489) that boost in dmg on your weapon should help quite a bit

[Sidanoir]

Your using sushi and sub SAM...

High damage weapons require the attack to back them up and you lack that in your setup.

[Lordwafik]

If you're accuracy is fine, look into replacing some parts of your Accuracy and/or STR pieces with Attack. It's hard to tell a difference while TPing in STR or Accuracy as far as how much DMG you do....at least to me anyway.

Don't use Kaftan, Courage, and Traveler's Mantle while TP building.

No offense but don't listen to this. If you're going to tp in str gear, you may aswell tp in vit gear, as you'll hardly notice a difference. Attack gear though yes, try stockpile on it, berserk is great if you're trying to reach attack caps.

If you're overhunting, which means IT mobs you can't hit without sushi, wear attack. If you're normal xp'ing, which means VT-Low IT's that you can hit without food, stick on 2 snipers, life belt, which should give you 20 more acc, then eat meaties, you'll see higher damage from that, it doesn't always work while xp'ing though because of party leaders who enjoy epic battles for 250xp and no chains.

[solsovly]

1) I switched from /war to /sam to experiment with Hasso and Zanshin. Is Berserk basically required to keep my Attack high enough to connect for decent damage against ITs? Obviously in Aht Urgan where VTs are more common, /sam would shine.

It's a player choice on hunting IT in Signet zones vs VT on Sanction zones. Did you have a Bard? How were you comparing agains the other melees?

[Sidanoir]

Oh yeah make your mages cast dia II...fights last pretty long at lower levels and dia II speeds it up a lot....helps a good deal and the mp isnt that horrible...

[Meriandle]

Since you say that your accuracy was consistent, you may want to look at an alternative to the life belt.

In this case Swordbelt +1 would be a nice alternative.

Also instead of travelers Mantle, try Jaguar Mantle.

These are both quite cheap, and the Jaguar mantle can be quested. The only problem with this is that it brings your in gear accuracy from +22 to +12, however you say you are eating sole sushi so you should not have any problem.

You may also want to consider doing the BCNM40 Royal Jelly for an Archer's Ring to be synthed into a Sniper's ring. Or just farm for Sniper's ring, basically get two anyway you can as soon as you can.

If you have a lvl 75 character you may want to think about camping Duke Haborym in Castle Zvahl for his Barbarian's Scyth but this is a more extreme option.

[Talisien]

Wow thanks for all the great replies!

I have some follow-up questions.

@Sidanoir

High damage weapons require the attack to back them up and you lack that in your setup.

Can you elaborate on why attack is required to back-up high damage weapons? Does that mean that higher base damage weapons (like most Two-Handed weapons) require a high Attack score in order to keep the damage range on the high side? Would a faster weapon then rely more on Strength rather than Attack to push the damage range higher?

I'm trying to understand the relationship between Strength, Attack and weapon and your comment seemed to carry with it the weight of understanding.

@Lordwafik

We were fighting *deep* IT, it was impossible for me to hit 'Low Evasion' even with full +22 Accuracy and Sushi, so I didn't expect much. I was also the lowest party member (52 in a 52-54 party) so I expected lower hit rates as a result. The lack of damage was surprising though.

In your estimation, does Strength mean nothing then? I thought that Strength had a 2 Str -> 1 Attack ratio and thus made TPing in Attack ideal, but TPing in Strength at least decent...is that not the case and Attack just matters a great deal more?

@Solsovly

It's a player choice on hunting IT in Signet zones vs VT on Sanction zones. Did you have a Bard? How were you comparing agains the other melees?

We were hunting IT in a signet zone, and there was no other melee, only a PLD and a RNG. The Ranger was a Rank 10 Taru with 2 Archer Knife's +1 and other stuff ... the damage he was doing was nothing short of remarkable. 900 Sidewinders and Slug Shots and a consistent 148 damage per ranged attack.

There was no Bard, only Rdm, Whm, Blm as support.

@Sidanoir

The casters were using BioII to help out the PLD. Death Scissors was especially difficult to deal with at times.

@Meriandle

Thanks for the item recommendations, I'll definitely check those out! Would you recommend Barbarian Scyth over the alternatives at 53/54? All that attack looks especially good, but I wouldn't know if the damage increase from the higher level alternatives would make up for it.

Thanks again everyone for the help!

-Tal

[Lordwafik]

[img]In your estimation, does Strength mean nothing then? I thought that Strength had a 2 Str -> 1 Attack ratio and thus made TPing in Attack ideal, but TPing in Strength at least decent...is that not the case and Attack just matters a great deal more? [/img]

Not strength means nothing, but it doesn't play as big of a role as attack will while in an exp situation or in non WS scenarios.

If you want to argue that 2STR is 1attack, you'll have to realize you'll need 20 STR for a mere 10 attack, hardly practical exp gear considering what slots you'd need to sacrifice.

After reading that you were deep in IT, nothing aside from actually levelling up would fix your problem really, unless you had a BRD giving the pt madrigal/minuet while you swapped to meat/acc set.

Best thing to do is know your camp, had it been me I wouldn't have went to KRT at 52, I did fine at 55, 52 is way too low, especially with an uncapped weapon. If you were whiffing with sushi + all that acc gear you had on, then really there was nothing wrong with you, just whoever decided it was a good idea to bring underlevelled melees to an overlevelled camp.

[Halcyon]

Taru
Dark Knight 52/Sam 26
Food: Sole Sushi +1

Firstly, you're a Taru. Taru DD is always going to be lower than normal DD unless you have optimal gear. That's because Taru DD have relatively low STR compared to other Races.

Secondly, You're using /SAM as a sub. /SAM isn't really a viable option for DRK. Most DRKs *I* know use /thf for WS DMG or /war for DoT. Not sure what the benefits of /sam are at those mid-levels besides Hasso?

At the start of the fight my Great Sword skill was *very* low, 152, and ended the party at a respectable 160 (163 is the cap at 52). Here are my questions:

As stated previously, Great Sword skill being capped will help both your accuracy and attack so it's always best to keep it near the cap. As DRK, I would also cap Scythe if you have it. SA Guillotine @ 60 is sexy.

1) I switched from /war to /sam to experiment with Hasso and Zanshin. Is Berserk basically required to keep my Attack high enough to connect for decent damage against ITs? Obviously in Aht Urgan where VTs are more common, /sam would shine.

/war doesn't just give you berserk! It gives you an attack bonus and a STR bonus! Berserk isn't really required per se for DRK but /war is one of the more common subs for DRK at the levels you're ptying.

2) Is the Skill issue so glaring? I thought that Skill was related to Attack, but last night it felt like my damage was affected by my skill to a huge degree. I expected to see numbers in the low 60s per swing, not the 20s.

I would -think- it's a combination of varying factors. Low Skill, Sushi over Att food and Eq just to name a few. Just my op.

3) Which factor is more important in the attack formula in regards to damage per normal swing, Strength v. Vit, or Attack v. Defense? As a Taru I expect to hit for less damage, but not THIS much less.

STR is a mod for WS dmg. For DoT the conventional thinking is 2 STR = 1 Att. If you're going for DoT, I would say to balance between Acc & Att as DRKs are notorious for having crap accuracy.

That's it really. I'm just curious as to what factors contributed to my low damage -- race, skill, or something else. Also, my accuracy was not a problem -- by the time my skill hit 158 or so, I was hitting consistently, just for awful damage.

It may not be one singular factor but a combination of different factors (as I stated above) combined with the particular strength of the mobs you were fighting (IT) that may have led to lower than anticipated numbers.

I'm not a taru DD myself, I'm an arrogant elf but you might want to tinker around with different EQ or subs to find out what works best for you.

On another note, maybe it was just a fluke? You should try different camps and see if the results are similar on other IT mobs.

[Khamsin]

The topic and OP reminds me of Lordwafik's thread about Rykoshet on the spam forum concerning

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b3...ngslash5rm.gif

[Faranim]

The reason your melee damage is low is due to Attack/Defense ratios. I'm not an expert on the formulas but this is the basic theory:

1. Low Damage weapons (Axes, Swords, etc) have a "low" Attack Cap. This means that you don't need much Attack in order to reach the damage cap, or at least get the damage pretty high and consistant.

2. High Damage weapons (2 Handed stuff) have a "high" Attack Cap. You require a massive amount of Attack in order for your melee swings to deal the right amount of damage. It's virtually impossible to get your Attack high enough on EXP mobs. This means that your melee damage will have a wide variance, and be pretty crappy.

This is one of the main reasons why Dual-Wield and Hand-To-Hand is vastly superior to 2-Handed weapons for DoT. You can make axes deal consistant 80 damage per hit, but good luck getting a Scythe to deal over 200 damage per swing without eating meat and using a good deal of Attack gear (usually meaning poor Accuracy)

Also, you want to sub /WAR for exp. The only reason to sub THF was if your EXP party was doing a skillchain with GS. Berserk and Double Attack are just too good to pass up for anything else.

[VZX]

The reason your melee damage is low is due to Attack/Defense ratios. I'm not an expert on the formulas but this is the basic theory:

1. Low Damage weapons (Axes, Swords, etc) have a "low" Attack Cap. This means that you don't need much Attack in order to reach the damage cap, or at least get the damage pretty high and consistant.

2. High Damage weapons (2 Handed stuff) have a "high" Attack Cap. You require a massive amount of Attack in order for your melee swings to deal the right amount of damage. It's virtually impossible to get your Attack high enough on EXP mobs. This means that your melee damage will have a wide variance, and be pretty crappy.

Still a mystery to me why they act that way.

At least, when I try to imagine it just using the formula, both weapon shouldn't behave that way.
I know attack favor the weapon that has high base damage, while low damage weapon users may rely on base damage addition (STR/WS mod)to enhance their damage better

[Sidanoir]

Wow thanks for all the great replies!

I have some follow-up questions.

@Sidanoir

High damage weapons require the attack to back them up and you lack that in your setup.

I think this was answered quite well 2 posts ago...

But basically what he said its fairly easy to reach the high end of a low damage weapon in terms of damage per hit..
But requires substantially more attack for high damage weapons like scythe, great axe etc.

Using sushi really screws scythe/great sword unless you have a bard

[Sidanoir]

Oh also don't forget that since you were on the low end of an over hunting party you also get hit by the level difference penalities even more...and that further makes attack matter even more ;/

[Dalek]

Disclaimer: My gear is pretty damn bad, as was my performance in this party, so constructive criticism would be appreciated.
---
I was in a PT last night and hitting for just awful damage per swing, like with a Great Sword (Faussar) I was connecting for 20-50 damage at most. I'm wondering what I can do to improve my damage, and also wondering how one issue specifically effected my damage.

Gear:

Taru
Dark Knight 52/Sam 26
Food: Sole Sushi +1


-Talisien

Stopped reading about there

[Khamsin]

On the other hand, that's a good thing about 2-handed weapons. For a 1-hander, you hit the attack cap and anything beyond that does nothing. With some builds on some jobs, you might not even need Berserk to hit the attack cap. There's a lot of wasted attack potential there, from attack you could get beyond the cap but won't do anything for you. So at that point, switch to a 2-handed weapon and you can go even higher since your extra attack will now do something.

[Seditedi]

At Level 52? Use Gaxe if its already decent leveled or close to cap. You get better WS than GSD/SCY have at that level and the DPS on most Gaxe at that level are much better than the SCY/GSD available.

[aurik]

You're fighting in a lv55 camp at lv52 with underlevelled skills and far from phenomenal gear, using Bio instead of Dia. Yes, your damage is going to suck.


The main reason why bigger weapons are more friendly to meat is because attack works as a multiplier on base damage. Big base damage means that small variations on the multiplier can have big effects on resulting damage. As base damage decreases, it can be more beneficial to modify the base damage term instead, through the addition of strength, or increase the frequency of damage dealt, through the addition of haste and the use of faster weapons.