Whats better?

[Thorny]

MNK/DRG isn't as bad as people make it out to be.
vs. /WAR it's actually about equal on paper.

You're trading 10% DA and berserk 60% of the time, whatever minimal boost from warcry (+hate)
for 10 acc, 5% haste, 1 free attack round every minute (2+1 jumps in 3 minutes), and a small amount of hate shedding.

/DRG is an undervalued sub at 75.

Did you even READ the math I posted on the last page? With all equal things removed, /WAR has:
1.25% damage over time, 5.5% tp over time(remainder from DA after jumps and dune boots)
8 accuracy, 35 attack, 13 str, 13 store tp, 5 subtle blow, 32 evasion
/DRG has:



That doesn't look very equal to me, not sure what else you mean by on paper ;/ There are the gear differences mentioned, but to make use of wyvern earring you need them anyway so it's a pretty moot point.

[Sanjiyan]

Not everyone has full usukane. Obviously full usu MNK/WAR would be the best combo (with hachiryu mix/match being equal) for pure DD, but for those without full usu which is like 99% of the MNKs, /DRG offers comparable to /WAR with a little more survivability.

Not as much as /NIN mind you, but if Rukenshin has proven anything, it is /DRG isn't a bad sub at 75. The trade-off a SAM faces between /WAR and /DRG applies to a MNK as well.

EDIT - I changed my post because I realized full usu + black belt is already capped haste.

[Thorny]

The gear aren't the same, so the math is pointless. Full usukane obvious has an advantage over mix and match (unless mix and match also involves hachiryu).

MNK/DRG can easily wear full usu as well, and macro in dune boots or other gear for jumps (if one so desires to have stronger jumps). The *only* gear difference between a MNK/DRK vs a MNK/WAR is one earring, which could be 5% haste for 5-6 atk, or 3-4 acc.

The problem there is that gear haste caps at 25%, besides tiny tweaks the mnk/drg mix and match set is about as good as it's going to get while still using wyvern earring. If you forego wyvern earring entirely and use the same set on both, a lot of things switch around but /war still has a commanding lead.

Not everyone has full usukane. Obviously full usu MNK/WAR would be the best combo (with hachiryu mix/match being equal) for pure DD, but for those without full usu which is like 99% of the MNKs, /DRG offers comparable to /WAR with a little more survivability.

Not as much as /NIN mind you, but if Rukenshin has proven anything, it is /DRG isn't a bad sub at 75.

EDIT - I changed my post because I realized full usu + black belt is already capped haste.

/DRG does not offer 'comparable to /WAR' just because you took away full usu, the mix and match set on both will also favor /war. Rukenshin was talking about SAM not mnk when he made his LJ entry on subjobs, SAM has a free pdif bonus on their WS and has a much larger chunk of their damage in WS compared to melee which greatly devalues berserk. MNK does the majority of their damage through melee, has no pdif bonus on asuran, and uses berserk to it's full benefit. Berserk 3/5 of the time is 60 attack average in bad conditions(400 attack before berserk, +100 3/5 of the time = +60 avg), much higher in good ones. Using mix and match set, /war uses turban, usu shoes, ethereal/hollow/merman's earring to /drgs usu head, dune boots, wyvern earring.. so essentially it comes down to the same comparison again. 7 acc from usu head is negated by 7 acc from usu shoes, /war gets an additional ~11 attack from gear. Double attack outdoes the kick attacks boost AND the jumps with some bonus left over.. and you're both at capped haste. This is before even adding in the effects of berserk, which shits all over /drg's remaining 1% haste and 10 accuracy, fin.

As a subjob, it's feasibly useful for a newly dinged 75 MNK with half-decent merits, brown belt, and acceptable but not great gear meritting with crappy DD. They get some degree of extra damage and can use high jump when they get hate, but keep in mind that high jump is only a 1/3 hate reset every 3 minutes. It'll do absolutely nothing for a good mnk, they'll be tanking on /drg or /war.. but on /war they'll be doing more damage while tanking.

[Sanjiyan]

See above

[Thorny]

See above

see what? I addressed both your post before edit and after, unless you're implying you can use no usu in the comparison ... in which case mnk/drg takes another hit because they have even less alternative gear, while /war just switches usu feet to fumas

[hagun]

Amanomurakumo or yoichinoyumi?

[Sanjiyan]

Who said a /DRG has to use dune boots?
Usu head + wyvern earring + black belt + usu feet + byakko haidate is 27% haste, which is 1 over the max (25% haste just falls short of the cap due to rounding, so you'd need 26% to fully cap). So we'd waste 1% haste from the earring, but gain 7+10 more acc than /WAR from usu head and JT.

In high haste situations, the extra haste and innate higher acc from /DRG transfers to a higher gain, meanwhile, with double minuet + meat, the extra attack benefit from berserk is reduced. Boosting before WS also gives a nice chunk of attack that just further reduces benefits from berserk.

[Thorny]

Who said a /DRG has to use dune boots?
Usu head + wyvern earring + black belt + usu feet + byakko haidate is 27% haste, which is 1 over the max (25% haste just falls short of the cap due to rounding, so you'd need 26% to fully cap). So we'd waste 1% haste from the earring, but gain 7+10 more acc than /WAR from usu head and JT.

In high haste situations, the extra haste and innate higher acc from /DRG transfers to a higher gain, meanwhile, with double minuet + meat, the extra attack benefit from berserk is reduced. Boosting before WS also gives a nice chunk of attack that just further reduces benefits from berserk.

capping cratio on a lv81 bird with 320 defense takes well over 700 attack, depending what the new cratio cap is for 1handers ... stop trying to argue for your crippled sub, it's only a fraction of a % of extra haste because /war can get 25% haste fine too, jumps are worthless because DA is a much higher increase in damage over time as well as tp gained over time, if you're looking at 500 attack instead of 400 before berserk with your proposed buffs then berserk is adding 75 average instead of 60. You end up with 17 accuracy 3 str 1.x% haste vs the remaining 5.5% damage increase after you subtract the bonus from jumps from the bonus from DAs. At 60% haste(march x2, haste spell, 25/26% from gear), 1.5% haste is 3.75% damage/tp over time. This leaves the remainder from DA at 1.75%. This negates an additional 3.5 acc, so you end up comparing:
13.5 accuracy, 3 str to:
berserk, warcry, ear2
Say you use hollow earring, that cuts it to:
9.5 accuracy, 3 str vs
60-75 attack average over time, warcry
/drg sucks, do your own math before you post your setups and how great they are :\

[Sanjiyan]

stop trying to argue for your crippled sub

My sub? I haven't subbed /DRG in ages. Don't make this as if I'm hailing /DRG to be the best sub for MNK, or that I'm a pioneer in MNK/DRG or something because I'm not.

All I'm saying is that /DRG doesn't suck, and you've proven that pretty well for me. It's pretty much right up there with /WAR, and at most a little behind in exchange for a little less hate. Oh and no -def from berserk.

I guess anything that doesn't end in the best DD EVAR "sucks", right?

PS: 10% DA doesn't automatically translate to 10% more damage. 660+ attack is easy to get on WSs, and you didn't include the extra TP from jumps into your calculations, jumps hit harder than a normal attack round, the small benefit from jumping with dune boots, not to mention that even /DRG has 5% DA, DA doesn't do shit in asuran fists (while acc does), and DA has diminishing returns.

[Thorny]

you didn't include the extra TP from jumps into your calculations, jumps hit harder than a normal attack round, the small benefit from jumping with dune boots

I did, read the full math on the last page. I accounted for jump's modifier, as well as TP gain benefit, by splitting DAs benefits into damage over time and tp over time seperately.

not to mention that even /DRG has 5% DA, DA doesn't do shit in asuran fists (while acc does), and DA has diminishing returns.

DA has constant returns. Going from 100 attack rounds, 95 landed, 80 damage each(7600 damage) to 150 attack rounds(50% DA!), 142.5 landed(11400 damage) is an increase of 3800 damage, 76 damage per point of DA. Increasing it to 175 attack rounds(75% DA), 166.25 landed(13300 damage) is an increase of 1900 damage, or 76 damage per point of DA past 50%.

Haste, on the other hand, has increasing returns. Using the same example, 50% haste results in twice as many attacks in a given period of time. 100 attack rounds becomes 200 at 50% haste, 15200 damage, an increase of 7600 damage for 50% haste. Going up to 75% makes it 400 attack rounds, 380 landed, 30,400 damage. This is an increase of 15200 damage for 25% haste. The very definition of increasing returns is that each point adds more than the last, DA having diminishing returns is a common misconception because it adds proportionally less. In reality, each point of DA adds the same amount the last point did.

All things considered, /drg doesn't add enough to be worth using over /war.. who cares about the defense from berserk when any good mnk is counterstanced? If you want defensive, sub NIN.. if you want to do damage, sub war. The difference isn't gigantic, no, but:

I guess anything that doesn't end in the best DD EVAR "sucks", right?

willingly gimping yourself for a 1/3 hate reset every 3 minutes sucks.

[Wolfknight]

Amanomurakumo or yoichinoyumi?

assuming you're asking for sam, Amano is far more worth while generally.

[Wulfgang]

Yoichinoyumi if you have a serious RNG; dealing solid, low hate damage to a mob from out of AOE range is underrated. I'm biased as one of the guys in my Salvage posse has one; he also has some of the best SAM gear you can get and he did Yoichi before Amano.

SAM/WAR with Soboro and Yoichi at birds is so broken; Min x2, Chaos, Berserk, Coeurl Sub was pushing 1500-2000 Namas Arrows with Namas > Namas > Light taking ~80%+ of the bird's HP (and not taking hate off my initial provoke + ~2 melee hits). Insert "FF =/= bird camp!" comments, still a sweet weapon.

[Kroot]

leave /drg to 2handers with high delay / high dmg weapons

[Sanjiyan]

If you full time counterstance while /war, you're retarded.

Going from 0% DA to 10% DA is an increase of 10% more DoT, going from 15% DA to 25% DA is an increase of 8.5% DoT. I'll let you figure that one out.

Edit - /DRG use to be pretty good for 2-handers, but nowadays it's not as good because of /SAM, unless SAM main, of course.

[Thorny]

If you full time counterstance while /war, you're retarded.

If you're berserked, mob is at 1.5-2 pdif already. If you add counterstance, the mob goes up to the cap and you gain a huge amount of damage mitigation, more than the def- costs you w/ berserk up, while adding more damage potential. Hypocrite.

Going from 0% DA to 10% DA is an increase of 10% more DoT, going from 15% DA to 25% DA is an increase of 8.5% DoT. I'll let you figure that one out.

Did you read a single thing I wrote? It's proportionally less increase, but DA itself has constant returns because each point of DA is adding THE SAME AMOUNT OF DAMAGE THE LAST POINT ADDED. Decreasing returns = less increase per point as you add more, constant returns = the same increase per point as you add more, increasing returns = more increase per point as you add more ..... by your definition, anything with constant returns has decreasing returns simply because you're looking in terms of % instead of actual benefit. Look at it this way:

Going from 0% DA to 10% DA is an increase of 10% DoT.
Going from 0% DA to 25% DA is an increase of 25% DoT.
Going from 0% DA to 50% DA is an increase of 50% DoT.
Going from 0% DA to 100% DA is an increase of 100% DoT.

Going from 0% haste to 10% haste is an increase of 11.11~% DoT.
Going from 0% haste to 25% haste is an increase of 33.33~% DoT.
Going from 0% haste to 50% haste is an increase of 100% DoT.
Going from 0% haste to 100% haste is an increase of infinite DoT.

The latter is increasing returns, the former isn't, can you figure out why? I have to go to class, if you still can't figure this shit out I'll be back in 6 hours.

[Jeho]

Sanjiyan, I think you should give up. Thorny knows what he's talking about and you're liek a page behind or something. lol

[Appie]

warcry

Please don't mention warcry in a MNK discussion. No monk is using it since better JA Boost doesn't overwrite it, which any monk will be using about every 30 secs for a WS.

If you full time counterstance while /war, you're retarded.

In a merit pt, why not?

As for the discussion of /drg. It's fun and seriously not as bad as people make it out to be, but it won't beat full usu /war. Full usu is like /drg on your gear (hi acc and haste) while subbing war =)

[FailureMidgard]

I'd like to jump in between Thorny and Sanjiyan.

First off, overall, I agree with Thorny, but sorry Thorny, saying "DA doesn't have Diminishing Returns" is a kinda silly thing to say. It really depends on your definition of DR.

If you definite DR as "the return you get as opposed to other stats diminishes", then indeed, it has DR.

If you define DR as "the amount of damage you get from 1 point of the stat", then there is no DR.

It's really irrelevant which way you look at it though. You -ARE- making sacrifices in other stats to gain DA. The amount of damage you gain per DA is irrelevant unless you look at the amount of damage you gain per other stat you gave up. Rather than looking at the damage per DA%, look at the "accuracy needed to equal the damage gained from 1% DA", and you will see it as diminishing returns.

The fact is, the more DA you add, the less beneficial it is to you to choose DA over another useful stat.

[Valyana]

Going from 0% DA to 50% DA is an increase of 50% DoT.
However, going from 25% DA to 50% DA is an increase of 20% DoT.

[Sanjiyan]

I'm giving up only because Thorny feels like he has some kind of pride or e-peen to defend when all I said was "/DRG isn't as bad as people make it out to be". Not once did I say it's better than /WAR, and in certain situations it's comparable (situation being that the MNK doesn't have the most top end gear available, which is most of the people).

Oh and while you don't take significantly more damage when using counterstance with berserk up, a /DRG doesn't have to make that choice does he? Plus, nobody MNK/WAR at all these days. The point is, /DRG is trading what minimal performance difference for some more survivability.

That's that.
Oh and I bet Thorny haven't even tried MNK/DRG before.

PS: It's great for conflict.