Random Question Thread XXV: Septimus Maximus, Isladar Über Alles

[Yugl]

Lancer's Torque apply to Healing Breaths or just elemental ones?

Both.

[Neisan]

Haste is macroed in mid-cast (as was mentioned), since it only needs to be in when the spell fires off.

Also, as a comment on potency, you don't need to use a second potency earring if you use one of the two 4% potency capes instead of the Orison one. My WHM mule uses an Arka IV (24%), +2 head (10%), Roundel (5%), Augur's hands (4%), Oretania's Cape (4%), and Fylgja +1 (3%) to reach 50%.
Hitting 50% potency, in and of itself, is fairly easy with WHM. The focus tends to be more on consolidating it into fewer slots in order to fit in Empyrean legs/body. I think you can configure for AoE cures differently, since cureskin only applies to single target cures. All I do is swap Augur's body in (for more MND and -enmity) instead of Empyrean, but I'm sure someone with more focus on WHM might do something more extensive.

Well, if the second potency earring is replaced by novia's for -enmity (not sure what else to put there), there isn't much difference unless you use tempered which seems pretty miniscule imo.

[noodles355]

As if AC is good for anything other than occasionally epeen WS screenshots (and even then, not any higher than you could get without it) "Woo, I get 2 extra attacks every 5 minutes, at the cost of JA delay".

You're really using the delay from popping assassin's charge immediately before WS as an argument? Piss off. Assuming you ride AC timer, AC is a garanteed increase to your DoT. Maxed Aura Steal is not. Edit: considering it is a garanteed increase, I would think the best thing to do after unlocking Aura and Feint would be to Max Ass. Charge, and then spend the rest between Feint/Aura.

Question: Is Alfard killable with Thf + Whm + Pickup Mnk + Pickup Blm?

[Foldypaws]

You're really using the delay from popping assassin's charge immediately before WS? Piss off. Assuming you ride AC timer, AC is a garanteed increase to your DoT. Maxed Aura Steal is not.

Outside Abyssea, it's at most an 11.15% damage boost (Extenterator. Rudra's/Mercy/ will be slightly less due to WS in eponas, Evisceration would be notably less due to higher total fTP and hit cap.). DPS spreadsheet is showing THF as a ~67/33 Melee, WS split with haste spell and no march.

1.117 hits/s with just haste, need 21.580 hits per ws, that's 19.32 s/WS. Add in 2 seconds/per WS for delay and you're WSing every 22 seconds for 13.6 ws/ 5 minutes.

So an 11% Increase in one WS damage every 5 minutes is a .8% increase to WS damage. And WS damage is only 33% of your total damage, so taking Assassins charge to 5/5 rather than 0/5, you're increasing your damage by .27%.

And I *completely* ignored JA delay in that. If you add marches, that value drops to .1%. That is *one tenth* of a percent.

Why don't you piss off instead.

[noodles355]

What JA Delay? The delay between hitting Ass Charge and WS is fucking micro seconds. And hey, guess what? 0.27% increase is still fucking more that the buff you get from Aura Steal which like 95% of the fucking time will be something useless anyway.

[Foldypaws]

What JA Delay? The delay between hitting Ass Charge and WS is fucking micro seconds. And hey, guess what? 0.27% increase is still fucking more that the buff you get from Aura Steal which like 95% of the fucking time will be something useless anyway.

It's like a 1 second delay. Go try putting a wait .1 or .2 in your macros and watch how none of your fucking WS will fire. And I ignored it in the math up there anyway.

As for AS, even if it's utterly useless 95% of the time, it only needs to boost your damage by 2% the other 5% of the time to still beat AC

Seriously, none of the thf group 2 other than the first in each (ok, lolambush) are that good that it's worth flipping the fuck out over a particular combination.

[noodles355]

What the what... Who said anything about having wait lines? Hitting two separate macros shouldn't take longer than a quarter of a second.

[Foldypaws]

What the what... Who said anything about having wait lines? Hitting two separate macros shouldn't take longer than a quarter of a second.

If you hit the two macros a quarter of a second apart, the second one isn't going to work. I said wait lines because that's the only reliable way to get a certain time. "I totally hit my macros a quarter of a second apart" is like trying to eyeball hit rate. It's going to be horribly inaccurate.

When you do the actual testing with controlled times, you see that you need to wait about a second before you can WS after using a JA.

https://www.bg-wiki.com/bg/Job_Ability_Delay

There is a 2 second delay resulting from any Job Ability Usage that is split into two phases.

Phase 1: Forced total inactivity, where you are unable to take any other actions with your player. It lasts for one second.

[Byrthnoth]

Reading that made me realize that I should have said "character." But yeah, I hate JA delay. I have made numerous threads on the official forums trying to get SE to reduce/eliminate it.

Also, adding two attacks to your Evisceration, Dancing Edge, etc. once every 5 minutes was kind of laughable in a meleeburn situation. You can effectively use it more often than that in practice though, because you aren't always fighting and it is always counting down. Also, Exenterator has increased its value a little. Still, it is hard to argue that it's really *that* good.

[LordTrey2]

So you are saying that to use SA+TA+Ass Charge+Hide+Ws takes at least 4 seconds? That just seems wrong. Guess I need a stopwatch. Of course, I dont think JA delay is correctly understood as I know I can hit my SA or TA macro timed right at the end of my weapon delay (between swings) and get a nearly instant solo SA or TA to go off. Plus I know that using a macro with /wait 1s between JAs and WS takes much longer to fire off that manually hitting the macros.

[Greatguardian]

JA delay for a single action is 120 (little over 2 seconds)

JA delay for multiple chained actions is 120 for the first and 60 for subsequent chained actions. Give or take.

SA+TA+Charge+Hide+WS would then be 120+60+60+60+60 = 360 delay = a little over 6 seconds total between when you hit SA and when your attack rounds start ticking again after the WS (note that this doesn't mean 6 seconds between SA and the next attack round, just the ticking).

[Nightfyre]

120 for the last, not the first, but basically yeah. Obviously there's also potential room to add time there given that you're unlikely to time each JA perfectly.

[noodles355]

So now that you've pointed out how worthless Assassin's Charge is, please go on to explain why Aura Steal, a ridiculously situational JA that will only be useful on a handful of NMs is better? For majority of the time you're farming fodder shit (like dynamis), which happens to be the majority of anything a thief does it's absorb is near worthless. You can bitch about how small a boost Ass Charge is, but it's still bigger than fucking aura steal and depending on what content you do, feint. Even when it might actually give you something good like Kaggen's Attack Boost, you'll only absorb that 3/4 of the time over his acc/mab/macc boosts.

I fail to see a reason why you should not prioritise 5/5ing it over Feint/Aura Steal.

[Foldypaws]

So now that you've pointed out how worthless Assassin's Charge is, please go on to explain why Aura Steal, a ridiculously situational JA that will only be useful on a handful of NMs is better? I fail to see a reason why you should not prioritise 5/5ing it over Feint/Aura Steal.

I didn't say it was better, or that you should prioritize it, and I challenge you to show where I did. I said it didn't fucking matter and you should merit whatever you felt like after unlocking everything except lolAmbush.

[Darkmagi]

Shit is situational, but aura steal is going to provide a much bigger bonus than assassin's charge when it actually has something good to steal. Something like dynamis you would absolutely benefit from the atk, especially with /dnc. Can't you absorb 2 buffs with af2+2 hat as well?

[Motenten]

Outside Abyssea setup, decent non-emp/relic setup (Thokcha/Triplus). DPS of about 130.

Stacking Assassin's Charge with a weaponskill costs at least 1 second delay, so it needs to be able to do at least an extra 130 damage on average to be worth it.

Going with Evisceration first.

Avg damage (non-stacked) vs Bukhis: 981
Estimated bonus TA: +8
Total baseline: 989

Avg damage with a forced triple attack: 1148
While equipped with Relic+2 feet (+2% TA damage) along with Triplus (est. +3% TA damage), should add an approximated +23.5 damage for a total of 1172

Total damage gain: 1172 - 989 = +183

Now accounting for augmented relic+2 feet (+5% crit rate when using Assassin's Charge, if merited 5/5):
Avg damage with a forced triple attack: 1192
While equipped with Relic+2 feet (+2% TA damage) along with Triplus (est. +3% TA damage), should add an approximated +24.1 damage for a total of 1216

Total damage gain: 1216 - 989 = +227

So it's a net gain over base DPS if properly stacked, but can't quite manage a net gain if not properly stacked.


For Exenterator:
Avg without AC: 1239
Estimated bonus TA: +7
Avg with AC: 1552
Bonus TA damage: +19

Total gain: +325 damage

So in this case, AC should provide a net benefit even if not properly stacked (even though the bonus +crit rate from the relic+2 feet are useless here).



Standard melee round:

Avg round damage (this includes +TA damage): 209
Avg round damage with forced TA (accounting for +TA damage and +crit rate): 315.5

Gain: +106 damage
Not worth using even if you managed to stack it with another JA

So you are saying that to use SA+TA+Ass Charge+Hide+Ws takes at least 4 seconds? That just seems wrong. Guess I need a stopwatch. Of course, I dont think JA delay is correctly understood as I know I can hit my SA or TA macro timed right at the end of my weapon delay (between swings) and get a nearly instant solo SA or TA to go off. Plus I know that using a macro with /wait 1s between JAs and WS takes much longer to fire off that manually hitting the macros.

When properly stacked, SA+TA+Ass Charge+Hide takes 4 seconds, and the weaponskill takes an additional 2 seconds, for a total of 6 seconds of interrupted melee time.

Don't use a stopwatch. Use FRAPS to capture yourself performing all those actions, and then check the frame number difference between two melee attacks bracketing those actions, compared to the difference between two normal melee rounds. 30 frames ~= 1 second. Get VirtualDub if you need a program that can show you the frame numbers.

[noodles355]

Shit is situational, but aura steal is going to provide a much bigger bonus than assassin's charge when it actually has something good to steal. Something like dynamis you would absolutely benefit from the atk, especially with /dnc.

What attack?

[Darkmagi]

You mentioned dynamis as an example for aura steal not being good, and I claimed it false. ATK buffs, EVA buffs, etc.

[NynJa]

What would be the top GA for the purpose of cleaving?

DA? OA2? OA 2-4? WS dmg? Or something completely different?

bumpin

[Nightfyre]

bumpin

WSDMG, most of your TP gain will be from Retaliation anyway.

Spoiler: show

Outside Abyssea setup, decent non-emp/relic setup (Thokcha/Triplus). DPS of about 130.

Stacking Assassin's Charge with a weaponskill costs at least 1 second delay, so it needs to be able to do at least an extra 130 damage on average to be worth it.

Going with Evisceration first.

Avg damage (non-stacked) vs Bukhis: 981
Estimated bonus TA: +8
Total baseline: 989

Avg damage with a forced triple attack: 1148
While equipped with Relic+2 feet (+2% TA damage) along with Triplus (est. +3% TA damage), should add an approximated +23.5 damage for a total of 1172

Total damage gain: 1172 - 989 = +183

Now accounting for augmented relic+2 feet (+5% crit rate when using Assassin's Charge, if merited 5/5):
Avg damage with a forced triple attack: 1192
While equipped with Relic+2 feet (+2% TA damage) along with Triplus (est. +3% TA damage), should add an approximated +24.1 damage for a total of 1216

Total damage gain: 1216 - 989 = +227

So it's a net gain over base DPS if properly stacked, but can't quite manage a net gain if not properly stacked.


For Exenterator:
Avg without AC: 1239
Estimated bonus TA: +7
Avg with AC: 1552
Bonus TA damage: +19

Total gain: +325 damage

So in this case, AC should provide a net benefit even if not properly stacked (even though the bonus +crit rate from the relic+2 feet are useless here).



Standard melee round:

Avg round damage (this includes +TA damage): 209
Avg round damage with forced TA (accounting for +TA damage and +crit rate): 315.5

Gain: +106 damage
Not worth using even if you managed to stack it with another JA

Are your melee round numbers accounting for the impact on WS frequency as a result of JA delay and TA proc?