Dagger choice.. X's vs BD.

[dawdr]

Woah X's affects both hands? That is sick, I want it even more

only on Sneak and Trick, but yea.

No, it affects any critical attack. It's basically Critical Attack Damage+10%.

Oops I misread the data. Does it work with weaponskill?

I'll go test and put numbers up if you want, but yes, it does work with weaponskills. I was doing assaults the other day with my friend who was on corsair, Rogue's Roll and Evisceration are a mean combo when you're using X's Knife.

[hopefulki]

Now that you mention Evisceration, i remember seeing some crazy 3k+ ones from someone with X's, so actually yes, I am 100% sure it affects ws.

Ill see if i can find the SS when i get home

[divisortheory]

Now that you mention Evisceration, i remember seeing some crazy 3k+ ones from someone with X's, so actually yes, I am 100% sure it affects ws.

Ill see if i can find the SS when i get home

The reason I ask is because I thought it might be a great way to test certain things. For example, it might be interesting to test with Rampage (you'd need a BST) or Dancing Edge. Does the +crit apply to every hit in the WS or just the first hit? Does it apply to the offhand in the WS?

[LLK]

Woah X's affects both hands? That is sick, I want it even more

only on Sneak and Trick, but yea.

No, it affects any critical attack. It's basically Critical Attack Damage+10%.

Oops I misread the data. Does it work with weaponskill?

If you don't know, why did you even comment?

Oooohhhhh Sick Burn Sick Burn!

just making a joke don't go all crazed out on me.

[dawdr]

From personal experience, the effect is critical-specific. Meaning that using the dagger with an SAWS or TAWS, the first hit will get the effect, but none of the later ones, unless of course we're talking about Evisceration.

As for the offhand's chance to critical on weaponskills, that I have no idea. I think my best bet on finding that out is to grab something like a Ceremonial Dagger to main and off the X's knife, and go find something low enough to keep my attack capped but high enough to withstand a few hits. I'm thinking dhalmels, but I'll take suggestions.

[Yutuyu]

TA is not a guaranteed crit.

Please tell me you didn't really just say this.

TA damage enhancement is not a crit. If you think it is, then you're clueless.

Wow, you really did say it. Can you explain why the chat log says you scored a critical hit every time then?

Cause I'm not a thief main and didn't know assassin makes TA guaranteed critical. My mistake, in that case, it's a nice boost either way on the first WS hit.

If you don't know, why did you even comment?

I've done X's knife tests with a friend so I knew that. But my THF is only 37, so I didn't know what Assassin did that.

[Charismatic]

So... then, you didn't know?

[archibaldcrane]

Does the +crit apply to every hit in the WS or just the first hit? Does it apply to the offhand in the WS?

Call me crazy, but I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that it applies to any hit that is critical, regardless as to where it happens.

[divisortheory]

Does the +crit apply to every hit in the WS or just the first hit? Does it apply to the offhand in the WS?

Call me crazy, but I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that it applies to any hit that is critical, regardless as to where it happens.

I'm guessing that too, but if it can be proven, then why not? It's too bad WAR can't use it, because then Might Strikes with Axe mainhand, X's offhand, and Rampage would tell you right away.

[dawdr]

Okay, been doing a little bit more testing with Evisceration. I'll go ahead and post what I have so far, and keep on hitting things and update it along and along.

First, I went and picked up an Onion Knife. This is a 3 damage 193 delay dagger. The standard damage info went as like this:

Normal: 22
Critical: 33
Sneak Attack: 273
/X's knife
Critical:36
Sneak Attack: 300

This was done on dhalmels out in Bubumaru, and attack was still capped. I moved to Bubu because I wanted something with higher HP to take the weaponskill damage, and still be safely in the attack-capped range.

I used Evisceration for these tests, because criticals are what we're looking at and all. And again, I know the sample size is a bit small, yadda yadda.

First up, Evisceration with only the Onion Knife, as damage(TP):

360(9) 360(9) 390(9) 300(8) 360(9) 390(9) 360(9) 450(9) 330(9) 420(9) 420(9) 480(10) 360(9) 390(9) 330(9) 360(9)

Just eyeballing things, it appears to me that I have at least one critical in every WS, and it looks like the normal hits are 50 damage each, with a critical being an additional 30 damage. So a non-critical WS would be 300 with all hits landing, and a full critical 5 hit would be 450. The two with different TP returns, 300(8) and 480(10), may cast doubt on this though, because just eyeballing it and trying to figure it in my head I don't see how those came out like they did.

With /X's Knife, I got these numbers so far:

641(10) 537(14) 407(8) 626(15) 589(13) 626(15) 587(15) 506(13) 589(13) 407(8) 386(7)

||582(13) 534(13) 861(15) 582(13) 366(12) 442(12) 663(15) 660(13)

A lot less uniformity, so my simple brain doesn't quite see the pattern. I also think I need to find a mob with more HP and still have capped attack, so I intend to head to Altepa next and try dhalmels there.

If someone can make something with these numbers outside of the obvious, please do. I'll offer what support I can in getting the numbers, but math never has been my strong point.

edit: Wound up changing to the lower level dhalmels in Bibiki, and I added some more numbers to the list. I did the same checks to see where my damage was, as I did earlier (normal hit, normal crit, normal SA, /X's cricial, /X's SA) and a few more normal weaponskills, and I got the same results, so I assume everything else should line up. If not, the numbers are added after the || and underneath the old ones, so just ignore them if you need to.

[vagus]

People still sub /nin for XP PT?

I do. P Harpe + Ridill says I can...

I go Blau Dolch / Ridill myself. heh.

[dawdr]

While playing with my Onion Knife/X's knife combo, I decided to try with Viper Bite, because it's one hit and all that. I was able to get an offhand critical on the weaponskill, so there's another base covered of that.

In a slight derail, Viper Bite is, at least at 75, equal to a normal swing. The damage is your normal main + offhand. I was getting 22 and 86 with Onion/X's, and I got 108 damage Viper Bites. On offhand criticals, I was getting 167, because the critical hits of X's knife were 145. Sneak Attack + Viper Bite was netting me 388 with no critical offhand, and were 445 with one. Without X's knife involved, they were a steady 22 normal and 273 with Sneak Attack.

This would debunk the dexterity mod that is currently on the wiki page for Viper Bite, and also, for what it's worth, make Shadowstitch the stronger of the two weaponskills once you're at the cap, because Shadowstitch carries a slight charisma modifier.

[ReddwarfX]

my LS (myself, and a bunch of BLMs, some who have THF) are about 2/8 (in the Final BCNM) on X's Knife

we did it trio twice, and one time we got nothing at all in the chest.

i was unaware that X's Knife worked in offhand.

[archibaldcrane]

i was unaware that X's Knife worked in offhand.

It's great that it works in offhand, although...the only time you would offhand it that I can think of is if you were mainhanding one of 4 daggers:

Martial Knife
Harpe
Perseus's Harpe
Mandau

Otherwise with it's 34 WDMG, there's no reason not to mainhand it. The question is, would it ever be better to offhand than Blau Dolch, which is the offhand of choice for most people that use any of the above.

[Starr]

I saw someone with Heartsnatcher/X's earlier -_-

[sakurato]

i was unaware that X's Knife worked in offhand.

It's great that it works in offhand, although...the only time you would offhand it that I can think of is if you were mainhanding one of 4 daggers:

Martial Knife
Harpe
Perseus's Harpe
Mandau

Otherwise with it's 34 WDMG, there's no reason not to mainhand it. The question is, would it ever be better to offhand than Blau Dolch, which is the offhand of choice for most people that use any of the above.

i've wanted to test x's knife ever since it came out for off hand (every single person i saw that posted about it never seemed to understand how to test if it worked off hand up until this thread ^^). i'm about 0/28+ and we took a break from the bc because i hated dragging 2 others out there for 0 reward every week.

but in light of this wonderful information we're back at it! kaeko and i just duo'ed it this week (g.cloth -.- so at least i only need to drag him out there every week XD

i'll post lots once i can get this thing to drop and do lots of tests between x/blau offhand ^^

-saku

[Eaglestrike]

While playing with my Onion Knife/X's knife combo, I decided to try with Viper Bite, because it's one hit and all that. I was able to get an offhand critical on the weaponskill, so there's another base covered of that.

In a slight derail, Viper Bite is, at least at 75, equal to a normal swing. The damage is your normal main + offhand. I was getting 22 and 86 with Onion/X's, and I got 108 damage Viper Bites. On offhand criticals, I was getting 167, because the critical hits of X's knife were 145. Sneak Attack + Viper Bite was netting me 388 with no critical offhand, and were 445 with one. Without X's knife involved, they were a steady 22 normal and 273 with Sneak Attack.

This would debunk the dexterity mod that is currently on the wiki page for Viper Bite, and also, for what it's worth, make Shadowstitch the stronger of the two weaponskills once you're at the cap, because Shadowstitch carries a slight charisma modifier.

Viper Bite is a normal swing, but it doubles your attack. So on low level mobs you won't see a difference, but I've done VB's on Kirin almost as much as my SB's lol. I'm not sure when a DEX mod was added but I know like 2 years ago I would've told you there is no mod for it.

And from the earlier tests (I'm tired and just skimming so correct me if I'm wrong) X's Knife is +10% damage to all crits? (I had read a long time ago that it made the crit pDIF bonus 1.1 instead of the normal 1.0 so I thought it was meh) Cause if so, it does look interesting now. And man if they increased our crit rate would that be an awesome dagger lol

[Starr]

Mandau/X's = higher SAMS damage than Mandau/Blau? I think they'll be pretty much even but would be interesting to find out if X's is a better sub.

[dawdr]

Viper Bite is a normal swing, but it doubles your attack. So on low level mobs you won't see a difference, but I've done VB's on Kirin almost as much as my SB's lol. I'm not sure when a DEX mod was added but I know like 2 years ago I would've told you there is no mod for it.

I'm pretty sure there isn't a dex mod on Viper Bite, there's just one listed with a need for confirmation on the wiki. And yeah, I know about the whole normal hit with doubled attack thing, it just amused me to see what was for so long my bread and butter weaponskill hitting for a mighty 22 damage.

And from the earlier tests (I'm tired and just skimming so correct me if I'm wrong) X's Knife is +10% damage to all crits? (I had read a long time ago that it made the crit pDIF bonus 1.1 instead of the normal 1.0 so I thought it was meh) Cause if so, it does look interesting now. And man if they increased our crit rate would that be an awesome dagger lol

I've seen people say anywhere from 1.1 to 1.3 pDIF increase, but it looks pretty obvious that it's a flat 10% for X's Knife. And it is absolutely dirty with a corsair tossing out Rogue's Roll. A critical rate up trait or job ability (my personal dream is an ability which ups critical hit rate and drops our evasion down to abysmal levels) would probably move the dagger firmly into broken status, not on the level of Ridill or Black Belt sorts, but definitely up there.

I think it could maybe even work as an offhand for something like Mandau when /nin, because having another 10% damage on Mercy Stroke would probably be fun indeed. And isn't the weaponskill effect on Mercy Stroke a critical rate up bonus too? Sounds like match made in heaven.

[Fallso]

TA is not a guaranteed crit.

Please tell me you didn't really just say this.

TA damage enhancement is not a crit. If you think it is, then you're clueless.

Wow, you really did say it. Can you explain why the chat log says you scored a critical hit every time then?

Cause I'm not a thief main and didn't know assassin makes TA guaranteed critical. My mistake, in that case, it's a nice boost either way on the first WS hit.

If you don't know, why did you even comment?

I've done X's knife tests with a friend so I knew that. But my THF is only 37, so I didn't know what Assassin did that.

You're a fucking idiot, I was never Thf main but I always knew that TA was a guaranteed crit after Assassin.