Dark Knight Zerg Math

[Quizno]

You can laugh at me if you want

Let me know how the brick wall feels on your forehead.

This isn't hard, the math is all there and so are the parsed and visual results.

[RKenshin]

Although I would like to know how the hell you get 2600 HP, subbing MNK and full Drain II? I have all the standard HP gear (Cassie, Intruder if not subbing DRG, Gigant, BQ, etc) and am Elvaan as well.

This was a long while ago (I think over half a year) but IIRC my gear was as follows:

Main: KC
Sub: HP Shield (NQ)
Range: Rosenbogen
Ammo:
Head: Chaos+1
Neck: Shield Pendant
Ear1: Cassie
Ear2: Pigeon+1
Body: Scp. +1
Hands: Dusk
Ring1: BQ
Ring2: Bloodbead
Back: Gigant
Waist: Speed
Legs: Homam
Feet: Homam

I hit a really high Drain II for I think over 500 (darksday/weather), and ate Stamina Soup. Ended up settling at about 330 damage per hit. Obviously there's a good deal amount of room for improvement in the above set of gear too, I think at least 7 pieces of gear could be replaced with better alternatives.

I don't usually use anything like the above setup for Kraken but was experimenting with a higher HP build. My current KC set is much different as well.

You can laugh at me if you want

Let me know how the brick wall feels on your forehead.

This isn't hard, the math is all there and so are the parsed and visual results.

Actually:

1) There are very few to no good parses for all of BZ, Apoc, and KC. Although I've seen more KC parse results than any other.

2) Visual results mean nothing, you can't simple tell by eye who's swinging faster and doing more damage when you get to these insane haste values... Whether you're comparing Apoc/BZ/KC or 93%/90%/88% haste. And a year ago you could've just as easily came across a million 'zomg look at ma kraken DRK swing KC a billion times a second' videos, just like now you have a billion 'zomg look at my 2h weapon DRK swing a billion times a second' videos.

And math alone can't account for all the factors involved in each situation, it's all just estimations that assume perfect circumstances that never happen anyway.

[Shuvo]

If people are arguing Catas/BZ vs KC, does that mean Catastrophe --> switch to KC would completely own every other combo?

[Xrave]

If people are arguing Catas/BZ vs KC, does that mean Catastrophe --> switch to KC would completely own every other combo?

No, Cata's haste goes towards the gear cap which you're already at if you're a smart DRK and are subbing /DRG for use with the Kraken. The only benefit is you can take out some haste gear and add HP instead (only really applies for the belt slot since other pieces have both haste and HP).

[Tubbers]

If people are arguing Catas/BZ vs KC, does that mean Catastrophe --> switch to KC would completely own every other combo?

No, this wont actually change the amount of haste you can get using a KC (Catastrophe counts towards equipment Haste), but it would allow you to replace ~10% in haste gear for HP gear.
Edit: Xrave beat me to it

Catas/BZ is seen as superior to KC because it nets you ~116 swings versus a KC's 94.5 swings. Along with this it has inherently higher accuracy, and about twice as much base damage. What it leaves out though is the time factor to use Catastrophe on the Apoc, then switch to BZ and use three job abilities, and then start attacking. Because of this, it isn't practical in an all out zerg where the enemy tends to die in 30 seconds or less, and everyone begins attacking at roughly the same time.

On mobs such as JoL where you tend to see single person, or otherwise few people in a zerg, and you go in segments, that's where the BZ is superior over the first 30 seconds. Over the second 30 seconds it is probably worth switching to a Kraken if you have one.

[RKenshin]

Was just about to key in with the fact that this whole measurement is only the first 30 seconds, since it often seems to be overlooked. But, Tubbers basically brought up the reminder.

[Quizno]

1) There are very few to no good parses for all of BZ, Apoc, and KC. Although I've seen more KC parse results than any other.

There were several parces of BZ and RC along side KC on DL, one on Bahamut 2.0, and one on JoL.

2) Visual results mean nothing

It does when the person in question broke it down frame by frame and actually counted.[/quote]

And math alone can't account for all the factors involved in each situation, it's all just estimations that assume perfect circumstances that never happen anyway.

All this game is (under the surface) is math, and random number generators. Understand the math and the ranges and you have an exact model of the game minus human error. This is further simplified because you are dealing with maximums and obtainable averages.


The point of my negativity is that in 2 months nobody is going to remember a damn thing from this thread, a dozen other people will continue to ask questions and 99% of the rest of the population will continue to:

a) do whatever their particular group considers "in".
b) use whatever gear they consider the most rare and eye pleasing.

[Sidanoir]

The point of my negativity is that in 2 months nobody is going to remember a damn thing from this thread, a dozen other people will continue to ask questions and 99% of the rest of the population will continue to:

a) do whatever their particular group considers "in".
b) use whatever gear they consider the most rare and eye pleasing.

Welcome to the real world, where have you been? And it will be a lot shorter than 2 months before you see similar questions.

[RKenshin]

There were several parces of BZ and RC along side KC on DL, one on Bahamut 2.0, and one on JoL.

Can you post/link them then? I ask people to post them every single time this comes up and I rarely get anything. Not just the fact that seeing results is a lot better than 'he said she said one guy's brother-in-law did 40k to DL!' type of thing, but I like being aware of what other people's results are.

However, flat out comparing BZ and KC like that isn't a very good idea for a comparison. With no further details from that statement, I'd equate it to picking a SAM out of a hat and having them parse against my SAM where I use an Obimaru and they use a Hagun, and then posting results as if they really mean something. I mean there's a reason anyone that knows a thing or two about how to get valid data results/statistics in general thinks any kind of comparison between two players in this fashion means very little since there's always almost no control at all, way too many outside factors, and it's far from an equal comparison. Something as simple but unnoticable in the heat of a typical zerg situation as one person engaging 2-3 seconds after the other could greatly skew the parse, especially on Bahamut where he often dies in like 15-30 seconds.

The sad thing is this is a lot easier to compare than xxx ear1 vs xxx ear1, because it's only used to achieve the maximum damage output in 60 seconds. All you need to compare the two are DRKs posting a parse of doing ##### with BZ and DRKs posting a parse of doing ##### with KC, and with enough parses that would be an accurate measure of their output.

Comparing both side-by-side is silly for a number of other reasons as well, but especially because anyone that has experience with zerging should know you sure as hell don't hit your max damage every round. I've had BZ/KC both do under 10k on a zerg to absolutely ridiculous factors, despite my personal highest being about 21-22k with KC (and I'll gladly search for the parse, although I have several people I could get to post here to back me up on this just because I've displayed the results publically to my LS as it was one of the first DL runs where I had the complete HP parse, where it had ~75k HP iirc).

But, regardless of if you find that parse, if that's the only parse you have regarding this it doesn't mean much of anything towards a comparison other than showing 'this is what a BZ did'. It certainly isn't a 'this is BZ vs KC.'

It does when the person in question broke it down frame by frame and actually counted.

Where is this posted/displayed?

I mean like, is there something I'm missing? I browse all of BG, KI, and Alla on a regular basis and I never see any of this stuff it seems you see all over the place. I even post there rather often, having something like 1.5k posts on Allah and ~1k on KI. But still never came across this. It's perfectly possible for me to just have missed it, because I certainly don't read all the posts on all those sites, but I'd think something like this wouldn't get by me.

But, what does slowing a video and counting it frame by frame mean that we didn't already know? I honestly fail to see how this sets any kind of advantage/disadvantage in favor/against KC or BZ, in which case it's pretty irrelevent to the conversation... Which was my point about this from the start.

\All this game is (under the surface) is math, and random number generators. Understand the math and the ranges and you have an exact model of the game minus human error. This is further simplified because you are dealing with maximums and obtainable averages.

The point of my negativity is that in 2 months nobody is going to remember a damn thing from this thread, a dozen other people will continue to ask questions and 99% of the rest of the population will continue to:

a) do whatever their particular group considers "in".
b) use whatever gear they consider the most rare and eye pleasing.

This is new? lol... It takes forever for people to adapt to new concepts and change, no matter how much better they may be than doing things the old way. It sucks and there isn't anything you can do about it other than just sit there and repeat/support it over and over for a while.

I don't know how long you've been playing but transitions in this game are much like they are in real life; extremely slow. I'm sure you could list like hundreds of little things in this game that have changed over the years, from everything to strategies to playstyles to equipment setups, etc. All of which, would take months to over a year to become generally accepted by the player base.

Just look at the transition from PLD/WAR to PLD/NIN. The first use of PLD/NIN and the first public display of how viable it is as a combination must've been like 1-2 years before it became generally accepted, and even now there are still people that don't understand its use or why you would use it. The same applies for the transition of NIN/WAR to NIN/DRK, or the transition of going from no Barfira gear to max Barfira setups on Tiamat. Or, the transition of an attack build SAM to a haste + 6-hit build SAM... Or just the general transition of every job going from mostly attack builds to builds that hinge on Haste. Or the whole transition of manaburning things to melee burning.

All of the above and countless others can fall in the same category, and all of them took a lot of time to be 'generally accepted' as what's best. And even now, there are still significant amounts of people that aren't aware/don't agree with all these generally accepted principles/ideas.

Change is hard, and change is slow... And yes, in the future/distant future this topic will come up a countless number of times. Just look on the newbie forum here, or any KI/Allah forum, and people are still asking questions that were answered 4 years ago. It's not necessarily a bad thing, it's just the way it is.

The only way to deal with it is just repeat it, and post evidence. You can't ever expect people to embrace your theories/ideas/proposed changes immediately as if God himself descended from heaven and announced to the world that yes, Quizno of Final Fantasy XI is right and you all should change everything you do to revolve around his ideas this instant, or be sent to hell.


EDIT: Sidanor knows what I mean!

EDIT2: Perfect example of what I mean, I just read this now on KI. It was posted only yesterday:

That is incredible. I don't even want to know who came up with that one haha. A NIN/DRK. tanking. wow.

And it's only been what, 2+ years?

[Soldier]

Pardon the newbie questions...but how much HP does Dynamis Lord Have?
How many DRK/SAM's with Rune Choppers do you need to take him down (assuming they have 2 Bards and 25 haste cap etc.)?

Thank You

[Fockr]

I love the random off topic revival of a thread 3 months later.

[Rya]

Pardon the newbie questions...but how much HP does Dynamis Lord Have?
How many DRK/SAM's with Rune Choppers do you need to take him down (assuming they have 2 Bards and 25 haste cap etc.)?

Thank You

I guess you searched for Dark knight rather than DL / Dynamis Lord ....

viewtopic.php?f=31&t=28547

[Soldier]

Pardon the newbie questions...but how much HP does Dynamis Lord Have?
How many DRK/SAM's with Rune Choppers do you need to take him down (assuming they have 2 Bards and 25 haste cap etc.)?

Thank You

I guess you searched for Dark knight rather than DL / Dynamis Lord ....

http://bluegartr.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=28547

Thank You so much Rya, and yes please forgive me for not using the search!

/bow

Soldier

[kayn]

needs more Apocalypse parses

[Phatnightmares]

just recently got a KC. before my KC i was using ridill to zerg hnms such as JoL and Kirin. my gear set up consists mostly of hp gears (i try not to worry about haste since i always zerg with a brd or 2 SV with Mad/March) im just wondering what kind of subs(/mnk, /drg, or /nin really only come to mind) and food(hp vs. acc) would a hume with with 1600-1700hp~ i usually have the following gear set up:

Main: Kraken Club
Sub: Janiyuwiah(sp)
Head: Chs. Burg. +1
Body: Homam Corazza
Hands: Alky. Bracelets
Legs: Homam Cosciales
Feet: Marine M Boots
Ammo:Happy Egg (i chose this over Fenrir's stone bcuz -4 isnt that bad to lose compared to +4 hp for 30 mins)(sometimes zergs can't wait )
Neck: Shield Pendant
L.ear: Physical Earring/Wyvern Earring(/drg)
R.ear: Cassie Earring
Back: Gigant Mantle
Waist: Ocean Sash
Rings: Jaeger/Uthlamam's(sp) <---- really need to work on this lol (BQR/BBR)

I usually eat some type of acc sushi since I dont really have acc in this set up. im just really looking for some pointers on gears, subs, and food.

[Awoir]

If Feint is being used on the mob you could prolly use HP food, without feint you'd definitely want sushi.

[RKenshin]

blahblahblah people rarely ever posting useful (if any) parses of their results with RC/BZ/KC blahblahblah need more people to blahblah

Slight bump, but to go with what I was asking earlier I figured I'd post my most recent results with something other than a KC. Otherwise I'd be a hypocrite.

This is maybe my 6th time using Rune Chopper for a zerg. I've used BZ around 20 times, and who knows how many times for KC. However I'm discussing RC results for this post. Due to the rather random nature of zerging up until now I haven't had any kind of reliable or useful results for RC (dieing in the middle of 2h, etc), but this definitely has been the best so far.

I was really impressed/surprised at these results though, and how well this set of gear I recently rearranged performed. Beforehand most agreed (including myself) that RC peaks at about 10-15k in 30s, but this parse surprised me:
http://img246.imageshack.us/img246/6701/rcth7.jpg (ignore others, isn't meant to be a comparison)

This was on DL, and encompasses about 25 seconds of the duration (before DL died). It's also important to note that during the 2h I took 1360 damage (Oblivion Smash), 1332 (Oblivion Smash), and ~652 damage (Critical Hit). Which was mostly self-cured with the attack speed, but it lowered the damage/hit by a good amount at a few points. And yeah, it was a mean DL.

But, considering the above I believe this setup could've easily hit or even passed 20-23k total damage under more ideal conditions (less damage taken, longer fight, minuets and/or rolls). Which is what really surprised and intrigued me about this parse... Being almost double of what most people agreed to be normal.

The gear I used:
Main: RC
Sub: Pole
Ammo: Bomblet
Head: Chaos+1
Neck: Peacock
Ear1: Cassie
Ear2: Brutal
Body: Homam
Hands: Dusk+1
Ring1: Blitz
Ring2: BQ Ring
Back: Gigant
Waist: Speed
Legs: Homam
Feet: Homam

Which hits the absolute haste cap, accuracy cap, and provides 7% DA and 2.5% TA. I'm at about 1740 HP in this set of gear, but I think I could easily spare more accuracy for ~30 more HP.

DL had Feint and Angon on it for the duration. I also ate Carbonara, had SV Marchx2, Haste, and started the fight with an DS+Drain II for about 500 HP. This put me at about 2.4k HP for the zerg, which is about how much I normally have.

[Mojo]

Recently this topic has come up quite a bit between a few friends and myself, and after reading about what others say and how they perceive it, I've come up with a slightly different and hopefully easier to understand way to view the issue. I've thought about this for a while so please at least read it.

I used FFXI Calculator to determine the delays for the different set ups. It caps gear haste at 25%(rounding down correctly on the individual pieces), magic haste at 43.75%, and seems to do Hasso and Desperate Blows correctly as well, so I'm pretty confident in the results. If delay gets rounded or truncated at some point, someone please correct me.

The three different set ups are Kraken Club(DRK/DRG), Rune Chopper(DRK/SAM), and Bahamut Zaghnal(DRK/DRG). Haste is optimized for all three set ups, Gloom Breastplate being used in each case. I didn't include slots that would be used for HP or accuracy as they aren't relevant in this comparison. The first column is the piece of gear, the second how much haste it adds, and the third the sum total of gear haste.

Kraken Club[Delay: 264]

Walahra Turban   12/256  12/256
Dusk Gloves +1   10/256  22/256
Speed Belt       15/256  37/256
Homam Cosciales   7/256  44/256
Homam Gambieres   7/256  51/256
Wyvern Earring   12/256  63/256
Blitz Ring        2/256  64/256

Bahamut Zaghnal[Delay: 480]

Walahra Turban   12/256  12/256
Dusk Gloves +1   10/256  22/256
Speed Belt       15/256  37/256
Homam Cosciales   7/256  44/256
Homam Gambieres   7/256  51/256
Blitz Ring        2/256  53/256

Rune Chopper[Delay: 504]

Rune Chopper     23/256  23/256
Walahra Turban   12/256  35/256
Dusk Gloves +1   10/256  45/256
Speed Belt       15/256  60/256
Homam Cosciales   7/256  64/256
Homam Gambieres   7/256  64/256

There are other choices to reach the Haste cap on RC and KC. Blitz Ring can be swapped with Wyvern Targe if you have access to Bloodbead Ring, although the difference is minimal. The other options for RC, namely namely using either Sable Cuisses or Chaos Burgeonet +1 and Homam Corazza, are much more significant. Either way, this is the geared used for the numbers. Brutal Earring and Pole Strap will be used for Rune Chopper.

Assuming 43.75% magic haste cap and whatever FFXI Calculator assigned to Desperate Blows III and Hasso, the final attack speeds would be the following.

KC: 82.5  1.375   0.73~
BZ: 52.5  0.875   1.14~
RC: 33.5~ 0.558~  1.79~

The first value is the actual delay. The second value is the same number converted to seconds. The final value, the inverse of the second, gives you swings per second. This doesn't yet take in to account the multi hit procs on the weapons. KC hits an average of 4.5 times a swing, RC would be 1.07(Brutal + Pole Strap), and BZ would be 2.0. The result, hits per second, is the following.

KC: 3.27~
BZ: 2.29~
RC: 1.92~

If FFXI Calculator is doing Hasso and Desperate Blows correctly(which I'm pretty sure it does, the values for each DB merit are slightly under 5% and everything else seems to be accurate), then this is a pretty good estimate for how many hits per second you'll be getting with each weapon assuming a maxed haste set up. There are large percentile differences, but they are in the same ball park. You also have to consider base damage between the three weapons. KC is 11, BZ is 24, and RC is 88. If the damage done every hit was scaled perfectly to match these numbers, Rune Chopper would be the clear winner, but it just doesn't work that way. I think the best way to look at this is to take these numbers and scale them in the following way.

DpH * HpS = DpS (Damage per Hit * Hits per Second = Damage per Second)

KC is going to have the lowest damage per hit but the highest number of hits, so it would make sense to scale the other weapons according to that.

DpH(BZ) * HpS(BZ) = DpH(KC) * HpS(KC)
DpH(BZ) * 2.29    = DpH(KC) * 3.27
DpH(BZ)/DpH(KC)   = 1.43~

DpH(RC) * HpS(RC) = DpH(KC) * HpS(KC)
DpH(RC) * 1.92    = DpH(KC) * 3.27
DpH(RC)/DpH(KC)   = 1.70~

In other words, you'd have to hit 1.43 times as hard with a Bahamut Zaghnal(High base attack, DMG: 24) than you would with a Kraken Club(Low base attack, DMG:11) in order for them to perform equally. You'd have to hit 1.70 times as hard with a Rune Chopper(Good base attack, DMG: 88) than a Kraken Club(Low base attack, DMG: 11) for them to be equal. This includes Souleater damage.

There are also a few other things to consider. This comparison is only valid for the first 30~ seconds of a zerg because of the duration of Last Resort. The gear set ups also highly favor Kraken Club and Bahamut Zaghnal as Dusk Gloves +1 and and Speed Belt are hard to acquire. If you happened to have a Speed Belt alone, you could also have a slightly better set up on Rune Chopper(Ideally Sable Cuisses + Homam Corazza).

The two handed weapon zergs, RC in particular, are also nice because you do not need to use your 2 hour to achieve great damage. Generally speaking, you'll put up higher numbers with a non-BW RC zerg than any other non DRK. This can be useful if you're planning on multiple zergs in succession(Bahamut II, Kirin, etc.) utilizing only BRD and/or WHM/RDM 2 hours with COR to restore them. The damage output from RC suffers less when you get hit and also keeps you alive better, both are significant.

Here are some parses from some of our last B2 runs. The first parse is non-BW non-SE.

http://img100.imageshack.us/img100/3717/b2r4re6.png

http://img120.imageshack.us/img120/6826/b2r5ui8.png

Next time we'll bring 1 KC DRK and attempt to parse average damage per hit with and without SE/BW. We had another DRK who had both BZ and RC although I'm not sure which weapon he was using for each run.

[Linsivi]

Is rune chopper going to *heal* you for the amount the base damage does? If so.. that's a fuck ton of HP. o.o;

Likewise, how much is BZ going to heal?

[Zekyr]

I doublechecked a few times and I might be missing a number somewhere in there, but...

How exactly are you calculating Hasso as a factor with BZ, seeing as how you specced DRK/DRG?

The problem with Fort Axe and BZ zerging is that unless you have an apoc you wont be capping haste like you will with a RC. Even with the best items in the game and haste everywhere you can stick it you'll only get (spell haste cap) + (DBIII) + (hasso) + (22% from gear) which is still around 3.6% short to hit the cap, and a noticeable drop in attack speed, however slightly made up for with the multi-hit effects. I'm not sure if you factored that into your calcs, but without an apoc, RC will nearly always perform better than BZ or FA unless you get insanely lucky on triple/double procs, I think.

EDIT: I went back and ran some number through, I'm pretty sure I did it right.

First, unrelated variables, capped magic (43.75%) and DBIII (15%) and the most haste gear you can get normally (22%) is 80.75%.

If you choose to use hasso as DRK/SAM, you'll increase that to 90.75%, on the delay of BZ of 480, and get a delay of 44.4.
If you choose DRK/DRG for capped gear haste like you said, you increase to about 84.3%, or a delay of 75.36.
You chose 52.5, and I'm not sure where that came from.
Anyways, using DRK/SAM for BZ or Fort Axe is a much better idea than /DRG for capping gear haste, hasso is a much larger improvement.