Whats better?

[SamanosukeShiva]

use pole

they're either: 1. piss poor
2. filthy rich but buys gil
3. rich but doesnt want to show off? (huh? what?)

[ringthree]

use pole

they're either: 1. piss poor
2. filthy rich but buys gil
3. rich but doesnt want to show off? (huh? what?)

I know that my initial reaction was to keep using pole, but using Amele's rough estimates, wouldn't a raw reduction of swing speed by three 3% be more than the 2% DA? Or am I misreading that? But that is probably just for TP build, which doesn't calculate the 2% increase in damage from Pole on WS.

[Trime]

I now have the oppurtunity to complete a relic weapon and have already begun buying currency and sponsering dynamis.

I am split between Amano and Apoc, they are generally considered the strongest weapons out of all the relics (or atleast thats how it seems), GA also but war/sam is already at a large advantage so the improvement is less.

Feedback from relic owners or people who have observed either of these relics used to their full potential in all the various activities (HNMs, Limbus/Merit/Ein, any other different events that don't really fall into those 2 categories).

I don't really want to ask "Which is the better relic?" but I would like to know which has the most potential on high level mobs/low level mobs and what kind of support is required to carry it off.

Edit: Assuming maxed, or very close to maxed gear and aggresive playstyle.

[ringthree]

I don't think you can really go wrong with Amano, Apoc, Bravura or Gungnir. All of them are devastating. All are very good on high level mobs because of their very high base damage and because of their additional effects or strength of WS or the number of WS's that can be used quickly. People highly underestimate Gungnir, though I do get far more personal experience with Gungnir over the rest of the weapons.

[Trime]

Well I've only ever seen 2 Amanos in action and both were played terribly by under geared and under meritted people that had no real insight into the job (although one of them played his other jobs very well just seemed to lack direction with his sam).

How does Amano compare to Hagun on HNMs with 100-200% Y/G/K, I've been lead to believe by other posts that Kaiten is inferior to Y/G/K on high defense mobs. Although this was by Rukenshin a long time ago and all the other people since then seem to be like "I use Kaiten because I can spam it" or some retarded statement. Is it now possible to gear Kaiten to average higher than the best possible Y/G/K you can average?

I currently do not have drk at 75 but I have all gear I would need for it except Homam Legs and feet which I could get within a few weeks of the job being 75. So I really want to know which of the 2 has more potential.

My sam is further from completed as I still need to get Usu body, Hachiryu Legs and Gnabhod's Helm.

[Amele]

I know that my initial reaction was to keep using pole, but using Amele's rough estimates, wouldn't a raw reduction of swing speed by three 3% be more than the 2% DA? Or am I misreading that? But that is probably just for TP build, which doesn't calculate the 2% increase in damage from Pole on WS.

3% speed increase should outperform 2% DA. I don't remember offhand if it works out storeTP wise however (my plan was always to ditch extra store TP merits in favor of Third eye merits when I was full usukane; so I never ran the numbers; nice that you have finally gotten your 35s though 19 months and I'm -still- 1/5 on 35s.)

benchmarking war/sam with 15% DA, 2% DA will add about ~1.7% dps in tp mode, and about 1.7*.9%= 2.6% dps in ws (a DA on y/g/k being worth about 1/2 the damage of the first swing)

3% speed increase should add 3% dps in tp mode, and about 2.4% dps in ws (figuring ~44% haste, meditate should be about 20% of your tp gain, the rest coming from per hit tp.) obviously, .2% dps in ws is going to be outweighed by 1.3% tp mode damage (unless you're some strange sam who can't hit and has a ratio of about 6:1 ws:tp damage)


to the guy asking about amano y/g/k. you're basically looking at a 20% damage advantage (vs a naked 75D gkt) on hagun. amano's 88D (99D with 11fstr to 86D with 11fstr) is about a 15% damage advantage vs a naked 75D gkt; I'd trade 5% ws damage for the 2.5x damage proc in tp and 20 accuracy any day (although debates still rage about whether or not the 20 accuracy matters for ws; it's still a big boost in tp mode).

with full usukane, I believe amano is a true six-hit even without kaiten bonus btw; so we shouldn't need to do any speed adjustments

[Fingerspitz]

When and where is Charger Mantle (20 atk) better than Forager's Mantle (15 atk 3 STR), for tp and ws (WAR, Great Axe, usually meat)? Yes I know I should have bazaared the ancient beast coins and bought a cerb.

[Thorny]

When the STR doesn't push your fSTR or WS mod up by 1, charger's is better. Otherwise, Forager's is. Cerberus is pointless to buy for WAR, unless you like having hate glued to you for some reason.

[Fingerspitz]

I don't know melee math, but breezing through the bg wiki pages it seems that it takes between 4 and 6 STR to increase fSTR. Since enemy vit in any given situation where I'm fighting more than one mob type is likely to have a wider range than that, it seems like Forager's has a slightly better than 50% chance of bumping me up. All the GA WSes worth using are 35% STR mods or higher so Forager's a shoe-in there I guess. That all sound right? Forager's is more likely to come out ahead on average when fighting different mob types and will always win for ws?

[Thorny]

Correct, more or less. Greater Colibri have static VIT since they only have a 2 level range, meaning in that case you can figure out if it's bumping you up or not(if you merit a lot, may be worth finding out, since you can't return the chargers). In general, Forager's is a better option though. The enmity on cerberus won't make a huge difference either way, but there's no real reason to throw away attack for it unless you can get your hands on a +1(or really like tanking for some reason? It'll still usually net you more hate over time than a Forager's would from melee damage, but not by much at all if that wasn't clear in my previous post).

[Rama]

I only see Charger's mantle as useful for TP on a job that can cap fSTR vs. a particular target. I think a MNK in full Usukane vs. Greater Colibri will probably do this, but other jobs have too high of a weapon rank, and stronger mobs you won't be capped anymore. Easier mobs, who really cares.

Situationaly, if you can *know* that the 3str from Forager's isn't bumping your fSTR vs. a particular mob, then yeah go with Charger.

[Amele]

When the STR doesn't push your fSTR or WS mod up by 1, charger's is better. Otherwise, Forager's is. Cerberus is pointless to buy for WAR, unless you like having hate glued to you for some reason.

I would argue in this situation that it's better to find 1 more strength somewhere else than wear charger mantle - the only time this wouldn't be the 'smarter' thing to do is if you can't find 1 more strength somewhere (or ditch strength elsewhere for better than 3:5 attack) or when you're genuinely fstr capped. on gaxe it's very hard to cap fstr without sacrificing other more important stats so it's unlikely that a war would ever be capped.

in situations where you aren't getting a point of fstr you are only gaining 3 attack from swapping your backpiece; surely there is a better trade -somewhere- else than 3str > 3 attack.

[Thorny]

I would argue in this situation that it's better to find 1 more strength somewhere else than wear charger mantle - the only time this wouldn't be the 'smarter' thing to do is if you can't find 1 more strength somewhere (or ditch strength elsewhere for better than 3:5 attack) or when you're genuinely fstr capped. on gaxe it's very hard to cap fstr without sacrificing other more important stats so it's unlikely that a war would ever be capped.

in situations where you aren't getting a point of fstr you are only gaining 3 attack from swapping your backpiece; surely there is a better trade -somewhere- else than 3str > 3 attack.

Depending on what you use, a lot of the gear is kind of fixed though.. especially for war.
Turban/askar, peacock/fort, brutal/assault(or suppa for DW), changing from hauby to hauby+1 or ebody isnt something you do to justify your foragers, dusk/+1, rajas/acc ring, swift/speed/ninurtas, haidate, dusk/unicorn.
What out of that would you switch to get that 1 extra STR? You could go from dusk feet to unicorn feet if you don't already use unicorn and have the gil, but again most people already will. If you have access to a hauby+1 or ebody you'd be wearing it already, etc. I wouldn't advocate buying charger's solely for those situations, but the guy asking about it already has it @.@ You could upgrade your food maybe, but on colibri it's usually mithkabobs or nothing. If he already has the charger's, I see no reason not to check if forager's bumps his fSTR up or not and TP in charger's otherwise.

[Marcicus]

Ares Cuisses vs Byakko's Haidate for Raging Rush? Ares Cuisses vs Hachiryu Haidate for King's Justice? I'm leading towards Ares for King's Justice, but I'm not too sure about Raging Rush.

8/8 Great Axe Skill, 4/3/3 Double Attack/Beserk/Aggressor for merits.

[geno3302]

Merry Christmas.

you were nicer than I could've been at this point (which is why I didn't respond)

here's the basics for people who aren't sure about it.

pound for pound, melee stats are equivalent in about these ways (note to real theorists; this is a really rough estimate guide so fewer 'obvious questions' are asked, not meant to be exhaustive) at level 75. excluding haste.

1 EP = 1% TA = 2% DA = 4 acc = 6 attack = 6 str = 6 dex(tp mode only)


store TP and haste are harder; so here's an easier rule for haste: 1 haste is about as good as 2 acc if you aren't getting much haste; if you have merit party haste levels, it's about as good as 3 acc. if you have dark knight zerg haste levels it's worth 6+ acc until the 80% cap(the very last point of haste from 79-80 is worth 9acc), then it's worth nothing at all.

if the differences between two pieces of gear are obvious using these equivalences (see: askar: 2% DA 5str and 12 attack is worth not quite 3 points above; versus haub+1 which is worth about 3 points just on accuracy alone...) then you probably don't need to ask about it unless you're -sure- you're in a corner case (i.e. you've got two madrigals or something.)

I'm sorry, I had this question as well. (Yay for someone who did a search first?)
What about for WSs on sam, assuming ACC is good, does the 2% double attack win out over Hauby+1 or Kirin's Osode?

[Amele]

I'm sorry, I had this question as well. (Yay for someone who did a search first?)
What about for WSs on sam, assuming ACC is good, does the 2% double attack win out over Hauby+1 or Kirin's Osode?

no. here's a tip for sam ws: the most important stats are - acc (until the hit cap) and str. everything else is secondary.

what the hit cap is on y/g/k depends on what exactly the bonus to accuracy is; if there is one. (that there is one, at least in some common situations, is pretty well proven at this point, but how the acc bonus works exactly is up in the air still)

after that, strength matters the most, being basically an 87% D boost; you will not be fstr capping samurai weapons in most situations; but if you do, this becomes a 62% bonus (still hefty)

[Wolfknight]

no. here's a tip for sam ws: the most important stats are - acc (until the hit cap) and str. everything else is secondary.

what the hit cap is on y/g/k depends on what exactly the bonus to accuracy is; if there is one. (that there is one, at least in some common situations, is pretty well proven at this point, but how the acc bonus works exactly is up in the air still)

after that, strength matters the most, being basically an 87% D boost; you will not be fstr capping samurai weapons in most situations; but if you do, this becomes a 62% bonus (still hefty)

I'd say str is very very very important on YGK, but I don't think att should be ignored, like Foragers to Smilo +1 is silly to do as is Usukane to Shura +1, unless it's a trade of a lot of attack for little str, the str should win.

[Amele]

I'd say str is very very very important on YGK, but I don't think att should be ignored, like Foragers to Smilo +1 is silly to do as is Usukane to Shura +1, unless it's a trade of a lot of attack for little str, the str should win.

matters the most doesn't mean matters regardless of relative quantity. I would've thought it was clear that I wasn't recommending taking str over other stats at a 1:7 or worse ratio...

[jibini]

There's actually a pretty big attack/pDif boost on YGK also.

Preliminary testing showing possibly as much as +200 att or ~60% pDif.

If you're already getting minuets and/or DRK roll, adding attack might be doing less than your expect, especially in merits.

[ringthree]

I tried reading that thread and I don't know how they came to that conclusion with such limited testing...

And the Temenos test was completely useless to begin with, and they were even doing that Temenos zone incorrectly...