Damage change thread

[LD]

Shouldn't the balance be found in the damage and not the accuracy?

You can't really pull the 'slower swings = lose more damage when you miss' card when it's technically just as likely to lose the same amount of damage through misses with dual weild. Saying the 20% latent hit rate bonus was somehow needed is essentially the same as saying 2Hs are gigantic wiff fests, and that's not the case.

[Max™]

More Accuracy naturally=you can stack more Str/Dex/Att and hit harder, to make up for the (often) significantly longer delay between swings.

As seen in the parsers, it seems to be pretty well balanced.

If they just made them hit hard enough to balance it, you would still need Acc gear, but meat foods and att gear would be lol, and it would feel a little weirder, imo.

[layoneil]

Shouldn't the balance be found in the damage and not the accuracy?

should it? maybe, but how often do we get a say in how stuff should work. we should see all the numbers like Ranged Accuracy, Ranged Attack and Magic Accuracy too but we don't.

would you rather the game not be balanced because they didn't do it the way you think it "should" be done?

i think one of the reasons they did it this way (on purpose) is to increase variety. Ares's Cuirass and Shadow Breastplate were definitely 2nd rate body pieces and they are not exactly Walmart gear in terms of difficulty to acquire. after this patch, they're not so second rate anymore.

as much as some people like to say, there were Meat builds and Sushi builds before this patch, Meat was pretty much reserved for the extremely well equipped (and the average MNK). now there should actually be a lot more people using it as a choice rather than because they can't afford a Peacock Charm and HQ Sniper's.

[AoshiZ]

So the proponents to the ACC=DEX do not feel that it is a little funny that we don't need feint or bard songs or sushi to hit the hardest content in the game at 95% accuracy?

Back to the topic... I haven't seen any posts about this but... after testing alot last night it looks like weapon skills can still scale up to 3.0 PDIF so Gekko/Yuki/Kash should still have the same potential max damage... but like regular hits they are variable from 2.2(? lower limit) PDIF to 3.0 which is why the average damage should be averaging to 2.6 PDIF averages. This is having a large effect on the multi-hit weapon skills since each of the hits are no longer averaging 3.0 but 2.6. This seems to make the new Raging Rush TP Crit change have more effect as criticalled hits not only reach 3.144 PDIF but push the average of each hit higher.

[Beckwin]

Umm, the only things you're really gonna be capping acc on without food/song buffs are Colibri. As far as HNMs go, Feint pretty much capped acc pre-patch anyway.

We're talking about 30-40 extra acc. It doesn't magically give you a 95% hitrate on everything wearing little to no acc gear.

[Rayvin]

If I want my gear to be made trash over time I could go play WOW.

Why do people have problems with gear that is 5 years old being replaced with something better? Yes it takes alot time to get the greatest gear, but when your setup hasn't changed in 4+ years its kind of lame... I don't understand why people are so afraid of having to get bigger, better gear and why SE is so reluctant to add new items that might out shine their 5 year old pride and joys...

[AoshiZ]

Umm, the only things you're really gonna be capping acc on without food/song buffs are Colibri. As far as HNMs go, Feint pretty much capped acc pre-patch anyway.

We're talking about 30-40 extra acc. It doesn't magically give you a 95% hitrate on everything wearing little to no acc gear.

Sorry i should have been more clear. I'm using myself as an example. Since the ACC=DEX change my 97 ACC set pretty much has let me hit JOL, AV, Mamool Lurkers, haven't tried faf but i could get 90% before patch anyway. I know 97 ACC is the high end of ACC but does that mean i shouldn't need buffs?

[AoshiZ]

If I want my gear to be made trash over time I could go play WOW.

Why do people have problems with gear that is 5 years old being replaced with something better? Yes it takes alot time to get the greatest gear, but when your setup hasn't changed in 4+ years its kind of lame... I don't understand why people are so afraid of having to get bigger, better gear and why SE is so reluctant to add new items that might out shine their 5 year old pride and joys...

Did you ever play EQ? where they upgraded gear all the time and if you didn't play for a couple months and a new expansion came out, you were not only obselete but new players probably had equivalent gear to yourself? I think SE's model is to not invalidate old gear but make newer variations to increase the total number of combinations rather than just making bigger and better gear.

I personally am not afraid of having to change gear but more dissappointed that i feel i've capped one area and have no room to grow in it. I think the only way i could be satisfied without a change in the DEX=ACC is if they maybe released mobs with more evasion? but i guess then... how would 1handers hit it?

Edit: Addition below

Well maybe i should take a more positive approach and be happy with the change since its in my favor even though it feels wrong.

heh

[Rayvin]

FFXI was the first MMORPG i ever played and loved it. With both expansions that have come out so far there has been nothing really that compares with the high end gear that has been around from the beginning of the game pretty much. I just think that after 5 years there should be something to replace a ridill/adaberk etc.

[levish]

If I want my gear to be made trash over time I could go play WOW.

Why do people have problems with gear that is 5 years old being replaced with something better? Yes it takes alot time to get the greatest gear, but when your setup hasn't changed in 4+ years its kind of lame... I don't understand why people are so afraid of having to get bigger, better gear and why SE is so reluctant to add new items that might out shine their 5 year old pride and joys...

because it took 2-3 years to get?

/hides

I am on the: there should be progression camp btw.

[AoshiZ]

FFXI was the first MMORPG i ever played and loved it. With both expansions that have come out so far there has been nothing really that compares with the high end gear that has been around from the beginning of the game pretty much. I just think that after 5 years there should be something to replace a ridill/adaberk etc.

I personally like the Salvage gear? I'm not sure myself on how they would find an upgrade to the ridill though... since its pretty damn good. Maybe their attempt to make warriors with GAxes stronger is sort of a way they are giving variety to the ridill? Now there is more reason to go for Bravura? Personally I always felt Bravura being one of the more powerful relics IMO.

[Amele]

Umm, the only things you're really gonna be capping acc on without food/song buffs are Colibri. As far as HNMs go, Feint pretty much capped acc pre-patch anyway.

We're talking about 30-40 extra acc. It doesn't magically give you a 95% hitrate on everything wearing little to no acc gear.

Sorry i should have been more clear. I'm using myself as an example. Since the ACC=DEX change my 97 ACC set pretty much has let me hit JOL, AV, Mamool Lurkers, haven't tried faf but i could get 90% before patch anyway. I know 97 ACC is the high end of ACC but does that mean i shouldn't need buffs?

97 accuracy is very much the high end of accuracy, so, assuming accuracy and attack are remotely balanced, no; you shouldn't need acc buffs at that point (you'd need attack buffs)

regardless, madrigal isn't useless (since most people won't sacrifice the amount of attack/haste you must've to get to 97 even on hnm). it's just no longer as favorable in merit (not that it was particularly before, since it's was possible to hit enough accuracy in gear/food and just use mins/marches)

your view of mad/feint as worthless stems from your gear set predisposing you to need minimal accuracy buffs. that it was necessary pre-update for a 2h to do that to be able to keep pace was what was broken, not that dex=acc frees a two-hander up to take advantage of the pdif slide that evens up the groups.

(if a 2h can't get into the 2.1+ cRatio range, they aren't gaining the benefit of the pdif cap slide) so they either needed to be buffed like woah on attack (which makes attack gear totally obsolete and SE obv. didn't want to do) or they get buffed on accuracy too - which gives the choice of using that flexibility to maintain hit rate and push into the higher cRatio range, or use the extra acc to improve your hit rate within the 1h cRatio range, so you make up for weaker damage/delay with better hit rates.)

I dont see why people assume this is unbalanced. so what if a bard has to use Minuet instead of Mad? and feint will still be used for zerg since zerging typically involves all kinds of not A+ skill 2h weapons. (kclubs, ridills, etc)

[AoshiZ]

Well let me give an example of what i mean.

So we did JOL last last Sunday, after the 2H update but before the recent fix which fixed the damage variability.

I had my ACC set with 97 accuracy for TP. With the TP set on i had about 800+ Attack from double minuets and berserk. I was hitting JOL for about 100-150 damage per hit on average. Then Swapped to hecatomb/hecatomb+1s which has alot of DEX (so the ACC doesn't drop too much) to increase my attack to 900+ to do a weapon skill which varied from 800-1400 damage (probably won't happen now that the PDIF is fixed). Thats crazy! (from what it was before at least)

I guess this is good in the sense that melee can shine on HNMs and stuff but I thought they were trying to get it back to a balance where we wanted to SC with MBs and such?

[AoshiZ]

I dont see why people assume this is unbalanced. so what if a bard has to use Minuet instead of Mad? and feint will still be used for zerg since zerging typically involves all kinds of not A+ skill 2h weapons. (kclubs, ridills, etc)

Just a note on this comment... but if a bard were to use Minuet instead of Mad... would a side effect be to make it difficult to group DD's of 1handers and 2handers together? Could this possibly force us to choose between the two types causing more conflict? I guess we always did have issues with optimal songs for everyone... but heres one more =D

[Amele]

I dont see why people assume this is unbalanced. so what if a bard has to use Minuet instead of Mad? and feint will still be used for zerg since zerging typically involves all kinds of not A+ skill 2h weapons. (kclubs, ridills, etc)

Just a note on this comment... but if a bard were to use Minuet instead of Mad... would a side effect be to make it difficult to group DD's of 1handers and 2handers together? Could this possibly force us to choose between the two types causing more conflict? I guess we always did have issues with optimal songs for everyone... but heres one more =D

most 1h dual wielders tend to use sushi and prefer min/march combination anyway in my experience (lower typical skill ranks, A- to C+ etc) so in some ways this lines up the two group's songs better.

[layoneil]

Well let me give an example of what i mean.

So we did JOL last last Sunday, after the 2H update but before the recent fix which fixed the damage variability.

I had my ACC set with 97 accuracy for TP. With the TP set on i had about 800+ Attack from double minuets and berserk. I was hitting JOL for about 100-150 damage per hit on average. Then Swapped to hecatomb/hecatomb+1s which has alot of DEX (so the ACC doesn't drop too much) to increase my attack to 900+ to do a weapon skill which varied from 800-1400 damage (probably won't happen now that the PDIF is fixed). Thats crazy! (from what it was before at least)

I guess this is good in the sense that melee can shine on HNMs and stuff but I thought they were trying to get it back to a balance where we wanted to SC with MBs and such?

this example is irrelevant and you know it. stop basing your feelings on things that happened before the correction patch.

[suji]

Well, aside from the lack of +5 Dex rings at lvl 40, I couldn't see myself using a pure acc piece in a lot of slots.

If you can use Blitz Ring, that's only Lv39. ;p I think people just haven't gotten over the lolfactor that it used to have yet. Assuming capped acc and att, the trade off is really a little fstr vs. a little crit vs. a little haste and it wouldn't surprise me if 1% haste had more of an impact on your damage than the fstr and crit.

[AoshiZ]

Well let me give an example of what i mean.

So we did JOL last last Sunday, after the 2H update but before the recent fix which fixed the damage variability.

I had my ACC set with 97 accuracy for TP. With the TP set on i had about 800+ Attack from double minuets and berserk. I was hitting JOL for about 100-150 damage per hit on average. Then Swapped to hecatomb/hecatomb+1s which has alot of DEX (so the ACC doesn't drop too much) to increase my attack to 900+ to do a weapon skill which varied from 800-1400 damage (probably won't happen now that the PDIF is fixed). Thats crazy! (from what it was before at least)

I guess this is good in the sense that melee can shine on HNMs and stuff but I thought they were trying to get it back to a balance where we wanted to SC with MBs and such?

this example is irrelevant and you know it. stop basing your feelings on things that happened before the correction patch.

Well the example is in terms of things that haven't changed except for the variable damage though. I will still have the same attack and accuracy now. I may hit for a little less on average from the fix but i promise you that my damage will still be insane. But you're right, maybe i shouldn't use myself as an example.

Edit: Addition Below

From this discussion I think I've found my own conclusion that the DEX=ACC being bad or good is pretty much like religion and I guess I'll stray away from the neverending debate. However I do think alot of judgements may have been biased in favor of benefit. Thats why I wanted to make the point being a 2Hander and saying i felt it was unfair.

[Amele]

Well, aside from the lack of +5 Dex rings at lvl 40, I couldn't see myself using a pure acc piece in a lot of slots.

If you can use Blitz Ring, that's only Lv39. ;p I think people just haven't gotten over the lolfactor that it used to have yet. Assuming capped acc and att, the trade off is really a little fstr vs. a little crit vs. a little haste and it wouldn't surprise me if 1% haste had more of an impact on your damage than the fstr and crit.

at the level you can first wear it you shouldn't have capped accuracy unless you're eating sushi (which is probably dumb considering meat will give a bigger bonus) and 2.5% hit rate should outparse 1% haste for most level ranges anyway.

blitz is something to consider at 75 depending on what else you've got on / what set up you're trying for, but again, dex+5 is possibly better.

I've been known to argue the value of very small points of haste before, but the fact of the matter is, 5dex/5acc or 5str/5att is going to be a bigger improvement than 1% haste in most 'general purpose' situations, if not all.

situations with extreme haste are another story of course.

[suji]

blitz is something to consider at 75 depending on what else you've got on / what set up you're trying for, but again, dex+5 is possibly better.

I've been known to argue the value of very small points of haste before, but the fact of the matter is, 5dex/5acc or 5str/5att is going to be a bigger improvement than 1% haste in most 'general purpose' situations, if not all.

situations with extreme haste are another story of course.

Yea, I think its main application would be at 75 when a 2-hander *would* likely end up in a capped acc/att scenario and not so much for lower levels. A pimped homam/dusk+1/turban/speed DRK would have 21% already so it really seems like 1% haste could win over the other alternatives.