Four Punches.

[Velecic]

Couldn't find a better thread to post this in so here it is. Not great evidence of anything except that 2h weapon damage is still solid, and Guillotine doesn't suck (I'm using Bec de Faucon as my weapon btw, for what it matters). These are the Qutrubs in the Assault Operation : Snake Eyes and the third Lamia NM at the end. I can't say for sure what I would have done pre-patch (boy those would be big numbers) but post-patch here's a couple samples.

DRK/NIN - Couerl Sub for food - No BRD, No COR

http://i67.photobucket.com/albums/h3...ineexample.jpg

Haven't gotten a chance to merit again on DRK but I was owning in Limbus as DRK/SAM, ended up tanking half the mobs after weaponskilling (running 1000-1600 Guillotines - had COR in PT). At this point I'm satisfied they didn't over-nerf 2handed weapons which makes me happy. One thing I do notice is attack seems to even play a larger roll than it did before, that is, you need more attack than pre-patch to hit the bigger numbers on WS. Anyways, I'm rambling here, sorry if this is a mostly worthless post and a waste of peoples time

[levish]

has anyone checked any differences on daggers?

I've been getting some significantly higher damage lately. Previous best sa + de's were in the 14x0-16x0 range and I popped out a 1890 and average was in the 15x0-16x0 range last night as a 72 thf on pehpredos in fairly generic but decent non-endgame gear and no buffs

Could be just placebo.

[Errors]

Could be just placebo.

Gah! That's where my pill went! Can I have it back? ;;

I hadn't had the chance to jump on my DRK since the post-post-update but tooling around with my DRG last night against some birds I hadn't seen a noticeable change in Pentra Thrust, normal or crit hits in either way. Some odd high and low hits but nothing I would see as a nerf or a buff. Wish I could post a small sample size of data/damage but I'm currently at work. ;;

[Malreg]

Any one notice a difference with Katana's?

I always thought you couldn't critical over 150, but last night I was hitting quite a few 151's, 154's, highest was 156 I think. This was with war sub, Senji/mamu+1, no berserk, food, or warcry. Also, it was on birdtrap's and pugils in Carpenters Landing.

[ringthree]

Could someone quickly recap what we know so far in layman's terms and what it all means?

My layman's hypotheses:
1. SAM/WAR has gotten the most benefit because of attack buffs and innate SAM abilities.
2. There appears to be something close to real balance between the different jobs in DD abilities at least in XP parties.
3. MNK (at least top tier MNK) have gotten a buff because the old pDIF cap has been raised, and we are unclear if this is the case for dual wielders.
4. There is a possibility of a universal damage buff favoring 2 handers but raising all jobs damage because of some change to the damage calculations.

Are these generally true? Or am I missing something?

Edit: Added 4.

[genome]

Could someone quickly recap what we know so far in layman's terms and what it all means?

My layman's hypotheses:
1. SAM/WAR has gotten the most benefit because of attack buffs and innate SAM abilities.
2. There appears to be something close to real balance between the different jobs in DD abilities at least in XP parties.
3. MNK (at least top tier MNK) have gotten a buff because the old pDIF cap has been raised, and we are unclear if this is the case for dual wielders.
4. There is a possibility of a universal damage buff favoring 2 handers but raising all jobs damage because of some change to the damage calculations.

Are these generally true? Or am I missing something?

Edit: Added 4.

For (3) The buff to pDIF (or possibly fSTR) is to everyone and not just MNKs or H2H it seems (you can see the raised damage over the previous caps even with clubs).
Assuming it's pDIF that changed, it used to be 3.0 max on criticals, now it's 3.15, and non-critical hits have also been raised a bit. All that means is that now your randomized range of damage goes a little higher, for example for monks a punch will go up to 198 instead of 189. Monsters probably got the same increase in damage as well though (there was some confusion at the start on the claim that other 1H damage was not raised but that's not the case).

I'll let others address the question of balance, SAM, and 2H changes (aside from saying that the 1DEX=1ACC and 1STR=1ATK for 2H is still there, and that's easy to understand in terms of changes and benefits to 2H).

[Churchill]

Just seems that they made everything even so we're all in the "same playing field"

However, doesn't that ultimately mean that things are pretty much the way they were before? With this new damage cap DoT is gonna trump again over spike damage.

The DoT of 2h weapons is still a lot higher than it used to be, especially including the massive WS damage increases. I think that a fully equiped/meritted 2h user will still be up at the top as far as overall DoT goes, but it's too early to tell for sure.

Because MNK's are forced to sub /nin or else they'd get raped.

[draxyl]

Funk that, I leveled a spare character on rdm so I can go mnk/war for merits and not care about getting raped in the face by 12 felons and a puk.

[RKenshin]

Just seems that they made everything even so we're all in the "same playing field"

However, doesn't that ultimately mean that things are pretty much the way they were before? With this new damage cap DoT is gonna trump again over spike damage.

The DoT of 2h weapons is still a lot higher than it used to be, especially including the massive WS damage increases. I think that a fully equiped/meritted 2h user will still be up at the top as far as overall DoT goes, but it's too early to tell for sure.

Because MNK's are forced to sub /nin or else they'd get raped.

I am a 75 MNK and I go/went /WAR to merit PTs just about 100% of the time, same applied for a friend of mine that MNK'd in exp more often than I did. Just because you can't make it work doesn't mean that everyone else can't... There was a thread about MNK/WAR in exp just a few weeks ago where other people were posting that they can pull it off.

And if it's worth anything I sponge way more MP as a SAM/WAR using Hasso full-time than as a MNK/WAR. Exp mobs tend to hit you for about the same damage with Berserk up as with Counterstance+Berserk (WS damage being an obvious exception), except on SAM and anything /SAM you don't have a ~50% chance to Counter and completely nullify the damage.

[Motenten]

Skill: 230
Str: 82
Att: 326
Location: Buburimu Penninsula
Target mobs: rabbits, birds, gobs


For anything around a 3.0 pDiff (crits), a 1 point increase in base damage should mean about a 3 point increase in potential damage. If fStr goes up as well, there should be a 6 point difference between samples.

N - normal hits
C - crit hits

Freesword's Club (d7)
N: 33 30 32 34 24 26 31 33 28 31 28 35 31 35 33 32 29 34 26 35 25 35 30 30 31 35 27 34 27 34 33 33 30 28 30 24 26 34 25 33 34 32 31 29 29 25 29 25 24 33 31 28 30 26 29 34 31 32 29 25 30 24 34 32 36
C: 46 42 42 43 45 42 46 46 41 46 47 44 43 42 45 46 43 42 42 43 44 47 45
Min N: 24
Max N: 36
Min C: 41
Max C: 47


Windurstian Club (d8)
N: 30 34 35 33 37 26 30 34 37 27 25 38 32 32 33 33 31 26 28 29 28 26 35 37 27 27 36 35 37 31 26 33 36 37 29 33 27 30 28 28 30 33 34 28 32 37 34 30 34 26 35 36 32 26 27 35 33 28 37 29 35 28
C: 49 46 49 49 50 48 49 47 50 46 49 44 50 45 46 47 47 48 50 48 46 48
Min N: 26
Max N: 38
Min C: 44
Max C: 50


Chestnut Club (d9)
N: 29 40 32 36 30 29 39 39 30 40 41 38 38 32 42 35 40 40 39 32 37 37 36 43 38 33 37 31 38 40 32 40 38 41 31 41 32 40 42 44 37 40 43 30 39 44 38 30 31 29 31 41 36 31 37 40 30 37 39
C: 56 55 56 55 53 56 52 52 55 53 55 54 53 54 49 55 50 54 50 55 50 49 56 50 53 51 55 55
Min N: 29
Max N: 44
Min C: 49
Max C: 56


From the min/max crits we can see that going from d7 to d8 is a 3 point increase, in line with +1 dmg. Going from d8 to d9 is a 5-6 point increase, in line with a +2 dmg, which means that +fStr still occurs at d/9. As such, I dispensed with testing for an fStr change at lower damage values.

None of the max crit values are divisible by 3. I take this to mean that the max crit value is not 3.0. Combined with the evidence that the weapon rank addition to fStr still occurs at d/9, I'm inclined to say that the fStr formulas have not changed, only the pDiff formulas.


Quick confirmation - max damage at 3.15 pDiff using standard fStr formulas.
Freesword's Club (d7): (7 + 8) * 3.15 = 47 Match
Windurstian Club (d8): (8 + 8) * 3.15 = 50 Match
Chestnut Club (d9): (9 + 8 + 1) * 3.15 = 56 Match

If that's the case, then min/max pDiff for normal hits works out to:
Freesword's Club (d7): 1.6 - 2.4
Windurstian Club (d8): 1.625 - 2.375
Chestnut Club (d9): 1.611 - 2.444

So, with allowance for rounding, normal hits seem to have the same standard max pDiff range of 1.6 - 2.4, or 2.0 +/- 0.4 (approximate).

Min crit pDiffs:
Freesword's Club (d7): 2.733
Windurstian Club (d8): 2.75
Chestnut Club (d9): 2.722

With allowance for rounding, it appears that the low-end crit pDiff when capped is 2.75. The mean is about 2.95, so it appears to be an even distribution between 2.75 and 3.15. It also matches the -0.4 when applied to pDiff range mod.

So, for 1-handed weapons at least, cap is 3.15, then the +/- 0.4 pDiff range is selected (2.75 - 3.55), then capped (2.75 - 3.15), then a random value within that range is selected.


Issue: using 1.6 - 2.4 does not allow the values seen with the d9 weapon. If its total base damage is 18, 1.6 would yield 28.8, not the 29 seen. While that can be dismissed as a sampling error, a 2.4 max would yield 43.2, not the 44 seen. To reach 44, it needs to be 2.44 max, which causes issues with symmetry.

For d7, the min value of 24 is exactly 1.6. 1.66 is the highest the low pDiff can be and still get 24.
For d8, the min value of 26 is 1.625. 1.68 is the highest the low pDiff can be and still get 26.
For d9, the min value of 29 is 1.611. 1.66 is the highest the low pDiff can be and still get 29.

For d7, the max value of 36 is exactly 2.4. Lower than 2.4 will not allow for that value. The highest the high pDiff can be for that value is 2.466
For d8, the max value of 38 is 2.375. We know it can't be that low because of the d7 result. The highest the high pDiff can be for that value is 2.436
For d9, the max value of 44 is 2.444. The highest the high pDiff can be for that value is 2.499

If it were possible for the d8 weapon to reach a max of 39 (and it just didn't show up in the sample run), then the actual pDiff range for capped normal hits is more likely to be 2.05 +/- .4, for 1.65 to 2.45.



Followup 2h test:

Staff Skill: 250
Str: 83
Att: 368
Location: Buburimu Penninsula
Target mobs: rabbits, birds, gobs


Light Staff (d30)
N: 103 110 117 105 92 116 115 101 94 96 106 102 120 102 111 120 106 119 120 104 107 96 115 95 106 103 111 117 117 114 109 107 99 98 94 92 111 97 100 108 94 120 122
C: 123 123 123 127 124 128 129 124 124 128 129 129 125 123 127 129 128 125 123 125 125 126
Min N: 92
Max N: 122
Min C: 123
Max C: 129

max fStr = 8 + 30/9 = 11
base dmg = 41
pDiff values for:
Min N: 2.244
Max N: 2.976
Min C: 3.0
Max C: 3.146

So it looks like, for 2handers, capped min/max normal pdiff range is 2.25 - 2.99, and for crits is 3.0 to 3.15.

Average normal hit value is 106.77, which corresponds to an average pDiff of 2.60. Kirschy's samples had an average of 2.54 (24 samples compared to 43 in this one). I expect that for 2-handers, capped normal pDiff is 2.6 with a distribution of +/- 0.4, with a max of 2.999 (can never be 3.0).

[Max™]

Dammit, all this math is seeping into my head.

I was talking to some people about the changes and slight buff to crits, the unbreaking of 1h damage, and tossing around these terms and realised suddenly what a huge nerd I was being when only one person there actually got what fStr is.

Just to clarify if this is what I'm thinking.

Rampager, Dmg 87 broken (so wrank 9, not wrank 8 from the prelatent Dmg 74, right?)

Wrank+8 for fStr cap is 17, x4 (68), +4, means I need 72 Str more than my Targets Vit to cap fStr with this weapon?

Did I totally misunderstand those formulas on the Wiki?

Lets assume I just have 10 Str more than my targets Vit (66+35 Str, 101. Mob with 91 Def) I'm a bit confused by the fSTR2/2 notation there, I thought my Str-mob Vit was dStr. >.<

Little help?

[VZX]

Wrank+8 for fStr cap is 17, x4 (68), +4, means I need 72 Str more than my Targets Vit to cap fStr with this weapon?

You'll need 64 STR

Lower and Upper cap occurence:
fSTR and fSTR2 hit:

* Lower cap value at dSTR = -(7 + weapon rank x2) x2
* Upper cap value at dSTR = (14 + weapon rank x2) x2

Upper cap = (14+9x2)x2 = 64

[NynJa]

Funk that, I leveled a spare character on rdm so I can go mnk/war for merits and not care about getting raped in the face by 12 felons and a puk.

lol...who doesnt have access to a 2boxable acct these days ??

[Max™]

Wrank+8 for fStr cap is 17, x4 (68), +4, means I need 72 Str more than my Targets Vit to cap fStr with this weapon?

You'll need 64 STR

Lower and Upper cap occurence:
fSTR and fSTR2 hit:

* Lower cap value at dSTR = -(7 + weapon rank x2) x2
* Upper cap value at dSTR = (14 + weapon rank x2) x2

Upper cap = (14+9x2)x2 = 64

Ah, that makes more sense.

Thank you.