Dark Knight Zerg Math

[Not Kuno]

Unless something one shots you, you wont get killed

Well if you take alot of damage you certainly fall behind on how much damage you do.

Another thing, the big thing that hurts Rc zerg is if something has a stun aoe, paralyze, or *gasp* charm

I never did zerg on stuff that can charm (Vrtra) but going /nin saves my ass alot at DL and Baha v2. Oblivion smash goes through sometimes an thus taking alot of dmg (and reducing your damage as well) not counting if you die. And don't forget Bahav2 loves his blinkable aoe terror. I've done runs where the other drks all get stopped by terror while my shadows save me and I kept going.

I'm sure all this all looks good on paper but there's alot of variables when you go do it.

[Xrave]

This has been beaten to death on KI. All you can do is calculate the number of hits over time, there're too many variables to factor in base damage.

[Tubbers]

Im a little skeptical on this test. Just the way it was put together it seemed like the testers were leaning towards anti-KC or at least alternative being just as good. I noticed a few mistakes in the math as well, so I won't take it at full value as is right now.
Needs a bit more testing I think.

Please point them out to me either here or by PM. I am not favoring any one weapon, I even say KC will most likely outperform all other weapons if for nothing else other than there is one less ability to use, giving you an extra few seconds to attack during Blood Weapon.

This math assumes an ideal situation, where all 1800 frames of the 30 seconds are used only for swinging the weapon. This is, obviously, not the case in the actual game. Things like JA delay, the mob moving, etc. can affect it.

The way I calculated delay may in fact be suspect to the actual game mechanics (I didn't take the ceiling). If I did take the ceiling of the delay to get a whole number, the values should all change by less than 2% so I left it.

I realize capping pDIF is quite difficult, but that doesn't mean it isn't a possibility. As I stated you need to, literally, look between the lines to get a better understanding of where your damage will fall. If you assume 1.0 pDIF, then the line is dead center, and KC wins unequivocally at about 1500 HP.

I'm planning to change a few small things, and add in as was suggested the extra hits from Jump and High Jump. These will add quite a bit of extra damage to /DRG, widening the gap between a very good zerg weapon alternative (Rune Chopper) and what is seen as the best (Kraken Club).

Wasn't it shown that Blitz Ring Haste+1% out does BQR Ring's HP+75 when under capped magic Haste with good Haste equipment?

I believe so, but there really is no point to using it when your haste is capped already. It is possible to hit the 128/512 cap with both Kraken Club and with Rune Chopper without using a Blitz Ring, provided you sub DRG with a Kraken Club.

For the other two handed weapons, I did use Blitz Ring in the calculations (that's where the 18.55% Haste total comes from).

I'm gonna stick with my /nin and KC as I enjoy not getting raped by aoe. There are some fights where if you go /sam you will get smashed. And yes I know stuff will be chainspell stunned but there's always stuff that gets through.

In my opinion this is a very good choice. I'm not telling people who have Kraken Clubs already to switch to Rune Chopper. I believe KC is better as a zerg weapon. Also, you can switch to /NIN and increase survivability like you said, while still putting up very similar damage numbers to the point where it doesn't matter.

I'm sure all this all looks good on paper but there's alot of variables when you go do it.

There are a great deal many factors, yes. You may not always have 2x SV March, likewise you may not have Feint, or Madrigals, or Minuets. Depending on what you actually have, different weapons will be favored. If you have no march, but you do have Madrigals then in a LANDSLIDE, KC and the other one handed weapons beat every two hander. If you have Marches, Minuets, but no Madrigal and no Feint, then Rune Chopper will have a very large advantage (on paper). This still doesn't factor in the exact timing of abilities I mentioned earlier, which would produce a linear shift in favor of KC. Even still is if the fight lasts longer than one minute. If this is the case then once again (assuming the same healers) KC and other one handers get the advantage over two-handed weapons. I'll calculate it later, but I assume the difference would be so great it might be worth switching even with SAM sub.

Hopefully this clears some things up, if it doesn't just switch to the old cliche "Shit is situational."

This has been beaten to death on KI. All you can do is calculate the number of hits over time, there're too many variables to factor in base damage.

This isn't exactly true... base damage is simply the damage on the weapon times the number of swings. To get the REAL damage, there are many more factors like ATK/DEF difference (pDIF), STR/VIT difference (fSTR), crit chance, etc. the list goes on. However you can still get a good estimate of how it will compare by simply using pDIF, and the data shows that both weapons will put up very respectable damage, with Kraken coming out ahead with a good setup.

[Rije]

@ Not Kuno

Yes, /nin would help in those situations
But haste is the most important thing in this zerg, as stated earlier
The closer you get to cap, the more benefits you get out of zerg.... a difference of even 4% haste is too huge

sure /nin will let you keep swinging, but /nin isn't gonna come near what /sam can do
Not to mention, hasso is not affected by caps.... so you're absolute cap is 83.75% essentially
10% is too huge of a gap
The damage lost from SE being at 1/2 life for 2~3 hits is small compared to 4% haste difference from cap and noncap

[Tubbers]

@ Not Kuno

Yes, /nin would help in those situations
But haste is the most important thing in this zerg, as stated earlier
The closer you get to cap, the more benefits you get out of zerg.... a difference of even 4% haste is too huge

sure /nin will let you keep swinging, but /nin isn't gonna come near what /sam can do
Not to mention, hasso is not affected by caps.... so you're absolute cap is 83.75% essentially
10% is too huge of a gap
The damage lost from SE being at 1/2 life for 2~3 hits is small compared to 4% haste difference from cap and noncap

This is true Rije, but only for purely damaging things, and also when using a Kraken Club as Kuno does. Kuno is saying for specific cases like Bahamut's AoE Blinkable terror, if that gets off you are sitting there for up to 10 seconds (I'm not exactly sure how long it can last) of doing nothing at all -- it isn't likely to happen but it provides some insurance. Also with Oblivion smash, it can be just as likely to kill you as damage you severely.

To reiterate again, in a perfect situation you are absolutely correct, if you are taking relatively small damage, then the extra haste will help more than shadows will on two-handers, but for one handers, an extra 4% haste on top of 60% haste will not make as big a difference, especially when you need to be Cured to make the health back.

[Rije]

Oh, yes, lol you've proven Kclub > Rune Chopper
But if you are gonna go Rune Chopper, /sam, because in 10secs you can probably do mroe than a /nin in 30

If you have a Kclub, definitely /nin .... or /drg, situational... /sam is ludicrous

I'd support kclub over Rune Chopper, because its more hp dependent..helps a lot more, and hp is a lots easier to come by than haste ^^

[Tubbers]

Oh, yes, lol you've proven Kclub > Rune Chopper
But if you are gonna go Rune Chopper, /sam, because in 10secs you can probably do mroe than a /nin in 30

If you have a Kclub, definitely /nin .... or /drg, situational... /sam is ludicrous

I'd support kclub over Rune Chopper, because its more hp dependent..helps a lot more, and hp is a lots easier to come by than haste ^^

Err I meant more along the lines of single wielding a weapon (/DRG vs /NIN) to save from being damaged. If you get hit while using Kraken Club, you can't heal yourself because of the low base damage, so the extra insurance of shadows might outweigh the haste bonus /DRG gives. Also it may be able to block the AoE terror, or Oblivion smash, which would basically end your zerg.

With two-handers (/SAM vs /NIN) the fact that the base damage can heal you, and you are missing out on 10% haste over 83.3% haste is huge, I would still sub SAM as long as it has access to Hasso.

[sephir]

Fortitude Axe (1+2)/2 = 2.0

This for one is wrong. 3/2 is 1.5 not 2.
(its in first chart)



Please explain the math behind this graph because the Merc. Kris seems a little too low if you ask me.

"
If you can get roughly 1800 HP, and Gloom Breastplate, you can fire off approximately ~200 worth of Souleater Damage per attack round. Factoring this in:

Mercurial Kris 1200 480

compared to: Ridill

Ridill 9600 1920
"

I can understand the difference in the damage being significant in the zerg, but I would have thought the low delay and being able to keep up with the rate of triple/double attacks would have kept these 2 a little closer. Also the graph below shows the Souleater damage of Merc Kris being 9x more under non-optimal gear. This just seems wrong, worse gear 9x better souleater results?

Also for your optimum gear set up what about Homam body in place of Gloom. Im just a little curious as to how big a difference Homam body would be to Gloom since it does offer Triple attack enhancement, HP and, accuracy.

[Tubbers]

Fortitude Axe (1+2)/2 = 2.0

This for one is wrong. 3/2 is 1.5 not 2.
(its in first chart)



Please explain the math behind this graph because the Merc. Kris seems a little too low if you ask me.

"
If you can get roughly 1800 HP, and Gloom Breastplate, you can fire off approximately ~200 worth of Souleater Damage per attack round. Factoring this in:

Mercurial Kris 1200 480

compared to: Ridill

Ridill 9600 1920
"

I can understand the difference in the damage being significant in the zerg, but I would have thought the low delay and being able to keep up with the rate of triple/double attacks would have kept these 2 a little closer. Also the graph below shows the Souleater damage of Merc Kris being 9x more under non-optimal gear. This just seems wrong, worse gear 9x better souleater results?

Also for your optimum gear set up what about Homam body in place of Gloom. Im just a little curious as to how big a difference Homam body would be to Gloom since it does offer Triple attack enhancement, HP and, accuracy.

Those are typos not math errors, the values I actually used were 1.5, and 12,000 respectively. Thanks for pointing it out though I'll go fix them.

If you have Dusk Gloves +1, and Speed Belt, then you can get 126/512 Haste by using Chaos Burgeonet. I didn't actually do the calculations for it, but 2.5% Chance of triple attack against 2/512 Haste seems like it would be close, so I will do it.

[Rije]

Im in support of homam body

Help Rc the most
And you can use the sable cuisses and blitz ring to reach that 25% cap

But didn't on the "Nailing down haste" forum say Rc was 47/512 instead of 46?

[Khrno]

I don't see any problem on doing /sam at Bahamut 2 and ending first on pase with a RC anyway, just wait for 1 warrior to voke and hit before you get on your first hit. For Vrtra i do understand the implications, i got terrorized at the beginning, lost around 10s there and came out second after another DRK who altho was /sam too, but didn't get roared or charmed, but died at the end.

Anyway, since you in your charts you are talking of perfect situations, you should do 2 things, first add a perfect KC situation (8 hits/round with 95% acc) which is almost as impossible as capping pdif with RC on Vrtra or Kirin. And second, extend the damage until 1 minute and see the implications of losing Desperate Blows and a Cure bombing situation for the 30 remaining seconds of SE, because Vrtra and Kirin at least don't go down on 30s, well at least not with my LS since we don't have that many DRKs (or any KCs at all).

Also for your optimum gear set up what about Homam body in place of Gloom. Im just a little curious as to how big a difference Homam body would be to Gloom since it does offer Triple attack enhancement, HP and, accuracy.

You most likely don't require Acc+ (since why you usually should eat Carbonara +1 and not Sole Sushi +10) if you are doing it right, then you will have Madrigals on.

Homam gives you 28 HP, GB (assuming 2k HP) gives you 40 extra damage, 12 more than Homam, and with the more HP you have, the better.

Regarding Triple Attack, if you are using Brutal Earring, or a multi-hit weapon, then there will be a conflict and you will lose at the end when every hit is being decided as multi-hit, DA or TA. Stick to DA or to none at all.

[Tubbers]

I don't see any problem on doing /sam at Bahamut 2 and ending first on pase with a RC anyway, just wait for 1 warrior to voke and hit before you get on your first hit. For Vrtra i do understand the implications, i got terrorized at the beginning, lost around 10s there and came out second after another DRK who altho was /sam too, but didn't get roared or charmed, but died at the end.

Anyway, since you in your charts you are talking of perfect situations, you should do 2 things, first add a perfect KC situation (8 hits/round with 95% acc) which is almost as impossible as capping pdif with RC on Vrtra or Kirin. And second, extend the damage until 1 minute and see the implications of losing Desperate Blows and a Cure bombing situation for the 30 remaining seconds of SE, because Vrtra and Kirin at least don't go down on 30s, well at least not with my LS since we don't have that many DRKs (or any KCs at all).

Also for your optimum gear set up what about Homam body in place of Gloom. Im just a little curious as to how big a difference Homam body would be to Gloom since it does offer Triple attack enhancement, HP and, accuracy.

You most likely don't require Acc+ (since why you usually should eat Carbonara +1 and not Sole Sushi +10) if you are doing it right, then you will have Madrigals on.

Homam gives you 28 HP, GB (assuming 2k HP) gives you 40 extra damage, 12 more than Homam, and with the more HP you have, the better.

Regarding Triple Attack, if you are using Brutal Earring, or a multi-hit weapon, then there will be a conflict and you will lose at the end when every hit is being decided as multi-hit, DA or TA. Stick to DA or to none at all.

If you have DG+1 and Speed Belt, You can trade Walahra Turban for Chaos Burgeonet and still come close to equipment haste cap (2/512 off). So you're basically trading 2/512 haste for 2.5% triple attack.

[Quizno]

/sigh

[Tubbers]

/sigh

Quizno I realize you've brought this up before, but when you did it you didn't have nice table layouts and pretty graphs. Also your data was a pure swing analysis, whereas I try to factor in base damage as well. What I'm simply trying to do is make an easy to understand practical layout that can help people get a good estimate of their zerg damage with differing conditions and weapons, without doing out the calculations themselves.

Nothing to get leaky about.

[Not Kuno]

I don't see any problem on doing /sam at Bahamut 2 and ending first on pase with a RC anyway, just wait for 1 warrior to voke and hit before you get on your first hit.

Until it does one of its many aoe moves that get taken by shadows. I know terrorize is one of them I think theres a few more. Granted it doesn't happen every time but it happened to us in our last run of v2s. Not to mention the other stuff I said like DL and probably KV and whatever else we zerg with drks. A very large majority of them have WS that take shadows and if you're getting hit then you won't do more dmg when the /nin are doing fine.

[Wulfgang]

I never understood the logic behind using /NIN with K-Club. /DRG nets you 6% extra haste and an Accuracy Bonus, and using a Blink Band / Dread Spikes, the survivability difference is fairly minimal. The only mob where 3 guaranteed shadows might be necessary is JoL since Primal Drill or Boosted NQ hit = /goodbye; even then I never have issues tossing up 14k+ on it as /DRG.

[Stromgarde]

On the things you truly need /nin on, i.e. KV and DL as Kuno mentioned, is because other damage reduction measures don't do shit. Even your own example, JoL with Blink Band - what are you thinking? Physical AOEs have always ignored and wiped blink. Weaponskills never take Dread Spikes into consideration. Terra Slash will wipe and go through Third Eye, Blink, or what have you and disregard Dread Spikes entirely... Even chainstunning, stuff still slips through on occasion. Earth Pounder? Yep, better have shadows. It's the same reason I come /nin over /war on my monk to DL; Dead people don't do damage.

[Starr]

/sigh

Quizno I realize you've brought this up before, but when you did it you didn't have nice table layouts and pretty graphs. Also your data was a pure swing analysis, whereas I try to factor in base damage as well. What I'm simply trying to do is make an easy to understand practical layout that can help people get a good estimate of their zerg damage with differing conditions and weapons, without doing out the calculations themselves.

Nothing to get leaky about.

You're doing it all wrong though, go back and change KC build to Blitz/BQR!

[Wulfgang]

JoL with Blink Band - what are you thinking?

Relax, you act like I haven't zerged JoL with different subs more than a dozen times. Concussive Oscillation is fucking you /NIN or /DRG and Luminous Drape as well and any -ga spell. Primal Drill can be blinked, normal hits can be blinked. Sometimes you get unlucky and eat a 2400 dmg Primal Drill, I often survive the first 40 seconds then force DC my character and log on alive perhaps half the time. /DRG is good for Tiamat, DL, Vrtra, Bv2, and a number of other mobs. /NIN is the safer play, /DRG has more potential assuming certain factors are in your favor which is risky.

Don't be an asshole though with the "what are you thinking" comment. I conceded the potential flaws that I've experienced with /DRG and the potential upside of it as well.

EDIT: Concussive Oscillation may only wipe 3 shadows actually, I've forgotten.

[Breemer]

Wasn't it shown that Blitz Ring Haste+1% out does BQR Ring's HP+75 when under capped magic Haste with good Haste equipment?

Just wear BQR and blitz, unless you can get capped haste without it and try to get a bloodbead ring as well.