Random Question Thread: Fuck it.

[NynJa]

Its not always directly above. Sometimes if theres a pack of mobs, the PH will be the top of the pack. Ratatoskr and one of the flytrap earring nms work like that i believe.

[fantasticdan]

I thought lotto NMs only had one PH and that PH was the monster directly above it in the zone .dat list. But just now Ignamoth didn't pop off the Wamoura directly above him, but off the Wamoura above that.

So can lottery NMs have more than one PH?
Or if not, is their PH not always the mob directly above them in the .dats?

PH dat location doesn't necessarily have any correlation to where the NM is, and some NMs do have multiple placeholders, like megalobugard or the o kotes NM. Usually (always?) only one can be up at a time thou.

[Taim Meich]

It's hard to say, but it feels like a better use of my TP and time, given that I need to do a fair bit of damage per mob anyway just to be sure the auto won't pull hate. Plus I don't want to get the mob's HP too low so the auto can also melee for TP for Magic Mortar (or Tactical Switch). I could see how it might be a bit more convenient, though; the way I do it, I pretty much always need to keep (ideally) 3 mobs on me to allow me to spread my damage out while I build TP, but it makes it more difficult to kill mobs quickly if I get a couple fast procs.

I'll try a run using your method, though, and see how it compares.

With my method, I procced around 50% of the mobs, only. In fact, I asked because yours loos better, but seems a bit counterintuitive to me at first glance.

[noodles355]

PH dat location doesn't necessarily have any correlation to where the NM is, and some NMs do have multiple placeholders, like megalobugard or the o kotes NM. Usually (always?) only one can be up at a time thou.

Alright, but for normal lottery NMs that pop off one mob in a group or however many (Ignamoth, Leaping Lizzy, etc) it's going to just be one PH, even if it's not directly above it in the .dat list?

Thanks, I'll keep that in mind next time I'm camping something with a lotto pop (I've just been renaming the PHs as Mob (PH)) so I don't waste time renaming and killing one mob that's not the PH lol.

[Fereydoon]

How potent is the drain effect on Catastrophe? Can't find anything on it.

[fantasticdan]

Alright, but for normal lottery NMs that pop off one mob in a group or however many (Ignamoth, Leaping Lizzy, etc) it's going to just be one PH, even if it's not directly above it in the .dat list?

Thanks, I'll keep that in mind next time I'm camping something with a lotto pop (I've just been renaming the PHs as Mob (PH)) so I don't waste time renaming and killing one mob that's not the PH lol.

Most lotterys will just have one PH yeah, but there's no way to tell from the .dat list which it is as far as I know. Best you can do is just check the usual places (wiki/otherwiki/etc) before you camp something and see if the placeholders widescan/.dat position is known.

[noodles355]

Yeah, I suppose once you find the mob in game, you can get it's ID with apradar3 easy enough.

[bellflower]

Apologies if this is the wrong place for this, but does anyone know how to register more than 4 members to playonline? When I try it says additional members cannot be registered.

I'm thinking about following this
bluegartr.com/threads/77238-How-do-you-load-gt-4-POL-ids-in-POL-Viewer?p=2840920&viewfull=1#post2840920
but was wondering if there's a less complicated method out there.

[nikia]

Added extra +counter rate gear is pointless; it's already at the max counter rate.

Hypothetical:

Activating PC: 2 seconds
Duration: 30 seconds

In 30 seconds, an unslowed mob may attack ~7.5 times, of which at most 7.1 connect.

If Counterstance is up, you'd expect to counter 4.9 of those.
If Counterstance is down, you'd expect to counter 1.15 of those.
You'd expect to counter 1.9 swings with PC (would do no damage on the other 0.1, assuming an average of 2 PC procs).
With PC+Counterstance, you'd get a total of 5.4 damage swings and 5.5 avoided hits.
With PC without Counterstance, you'd get a total of 2.7 damage swings and 2.8 avoided hits.

Damage reduction from PC if not using Counterstance: 28%
Damage reduction from PC if using Counterstance: 27%

So it seems to be the same relative value for damage reduction either way.


Assuming a 15% crit rate, ~96 base damage (90 Vere, 10 fStr), 1.5 cRatio, no Ultion:
Counter damage without CS: 177
Counter damage without CS, +PC: 678
Counter damage with CS: 776
Counter damage with CS, +PC: 1105

It's a substantial increase in counter damage if not using Counterstance (+501 damage), but less so if Counterstance is up (+329 damage).

Activating PC costs 2 seconds of melee time, which is about 0.6 of a round if you're only getting Haste. Given a middling multi-attack rate, you could expect it to represent ~250 damage with the above stats.

Overall, a very small net increase in damage done if Counterstance is up, but a decent gain if Counterstance is down. The balance shifts in melee's favor as you add more haste, or add extra +counter rate (eg: Spharai), or if you have better than floored evasion, or if you're not the sole target of the mob, or if the mob is slowed.


I'd say that if you're not using Counterstance, but the mobs can still hit you at a decent rate, it's worth spamming for extra damage. If you have Counterstance up, you may want to spam it just for the extra damage reduction, though the counter damage may be mostly a wash or only a small increase.

I didn't run the numbers, but I can't see use of Ultion Mantle being worth it compared to Atheling, since Atheling adds to normal melee damage as well as counters. Kinda nice to push those 600+ counters in Abyssea, though

For what its worth, im pretty sure perfect counters check occurs after your normal counter check. ive had times where perfect counter wore off naturally while fighting something, and countering via counterstance, or evading.

Id say its worth equipping if you arent using counterstance, so u can pop PC and the gear, then immediately get it off.

Please forgive the late reply, was sleeping.
I use Spharai99, no Vere, If I am understanding this right if PC is only active I should/can equip the Tantra head +2 and the Ultion Mantle since the effect should wear off pretty quickly. That would raise DMG by 30 points, however if I have CS active should i forgo equiping anything extra and just melee in normal TP gear, or only use PC for defensive reasons then?
I really thank you for the amount of time you took to explain Motenten.

[Taint]

How potent is the drain effect on Catastrophe? Can't find anything on it.

30-70% of damage. I don't think its been tested but that has been the estimate from the past 8 years and matches up from my years of eyeballing.

[Motenten]

With my method, I procced around 50% of the mobs, only. In fact, I asked because yours loos better, but seems a bit counterintuitive to me at first glance.

Tried a run this morning, trying to use my TP more for killing, and only using the Shoulder Tackle method if I ended up with 3-4 mobs due to linking. There were other people fighting the same mobs, but it didn't affect what I could pull, so considering it the same as competition-free. Ended up with 157 coins, which is sufficiently lower than my usual that I'd consider the method shift to be detrimental, though it's not really too far off.

It could be that I'm not quite doing it the same as you are, since you mention only proc'ing half your mobs, while I still proc'd 77/79. My normal method procs 90+, though.

[Motenten]

For what its worth, im pretty sure perfect counters check occurs after your normal counter check. ive had times where perfect counter wore off naturally while fighting something, and countering via counterstance, or evading.

Not sure why you'd think that. Since Perfect Counters are guaranteed crits, you can almost always tell which ones are the result of PC (well, outside Abyssea). I've never seen a non-crit counter before PC wore off. I've also never had it wear off for anything other than a counter (normal damage or explicit miss), or just the duration running out.

[Motenten]

Please forgive the late reply, was sleeping.
I use Spharai99, no Vere, If I am understanding this right if PC is only active I should/can equip the Tantra head +2 and the Ultion Mantle since the effect should wear off pretty quickly. That would raise DMG by 30 points, however if I have CS active should i forgo equiping anything extra and just melee in normal TP gear, or only use PC for defensive reasons then?
I really thank you for the amount of time you took to explain Motenten.

I'd equip Tantra head regardless; +20 damage is pretty substantial, and it helps normal melee as well with the haste and str on it. I might equip Ultion Mantle if Counterstance is not up, but only for like 5-10 seconds at most.

[Qeomash]

You can set it to do it automatically when you boot, just add it at the bottom of your init file.

drawdistance set 20

I've done that; except for some reason anytime I go to the character select screen, the game resets it to 1.

[Motenten]

If you use one of my spellcasts, you can insert the command into the RunFirstUpdate include. If you don't use one of mine, inserting something similar for your own would be trivial.

[dasva]

Yeah, I suppose once you find the mob in game, you can get it's ID with apradar3 easy enough.

There's also a decent sized list here of dat changes for PHers in one of the threads

[nikia]

I'd equip Tantra head regardless; +20 damage is pretty substantial, and it helps normal melee as well with the haste and str on it. I might equip Ultion Mantle if Counterstance is not up, but only for like 5-10 seconds at most.

Thank you for all the info. Had one last question about Melee Gaiters +2, the info I found says +10 DMG but doesnt mention if it is calculated like Tantra Crown/Ultion where it would raise the weapon base damage. I was wondering if it does? So +40 raised Dmg for all three items?

If Gaiters add damage different then would they be worth swapping in just for PC? Would try to make a habit of only using PC in situations where the effect would wear soon after from enemy attack.
Thank you again very much.

[TheDangerousDave]

How do I start Jeuno VW? I have cleared all 3 first nations (and just checked titles to makes sure I have them), I am on WOTG mission 4 and I have entered WoE yet when I went to Pashow [S] nothing happened when I clicked the thing

[jimbobsonofgod]

For the arch-diablo question before they removed buff locking I had a static of 8 people (and a sch mule locked at the door) mnkx2 whm brd corx2 schx2(one locked) and a thf. We like most other people dropped nox but was able to down everything else. PD is kind of useless since it doesn't block the terror. I feel like you could stream line that down to 2 mnk whm brd cor sch thf but you'd only be able to do the fight twice if you got a reset. Also contrary to popular belief you can actually stun arch-diablos but you only get about 5-6 off before he flat out resists.

[Buffy]

How do I start Jeuno VW? I have cleared all 3 first nations (and just checked titles to makes sure I have them), I am on WOTG mission 4 and I have entered WoE yet when I went to Pashow [S] nothing happened when I clicked the thing

Did you get your voidwatch alarum and cut scene in ru'lude?

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