Tomahawk

[Kashka]

Stromgarde wrote:
Kaylia wrote:
Wait wait...chariots have physical damage reduction? I used tomahawk many times, but never noticed any differences. If they have one, I supose it would be something small (20% to 15%) or something.

Never had the chance to test it on wyrm, but I can't see its usefulness unless you're zerging one. Bringing a war in aoe range to increase magic damage by ~12% doesn't look like a good deal, when you could simply have a 5th blm or another drk instead.

For temperance, you don't want to fight it on blunt modes, and being able to hit for 15dmg (or nuke for 150dmg) isn't that great, especially when its 15-45sec/3minutes, and you could equip joyeuse instead.


I'm not saying tomahawk is awful, I actually use it in certain situation (fighting elemental), or any time I encounter a mobs with resist, but it's not that great either for endgame.
I don't know what exact sort of damage reduction the chariots have, but whatever it is reduces Souleater damage.

If I'm understanding you correctly, it is not souleater resistance. If he is doing more damage than he is getting back from blood weapon, than it is BW resistance. Blood weapon is magic damage so in your scenario the chariot has magic resistance, not physical.

No, the souleater enhanced hits were not hitting for the full amount, what I was getting back from a hit was 100% but the hit itself was weaker than expected. The very first hits were not hitting anywhere near 12% of my HP, and since the difference was around 40-50 it was immediately noticeable. Because the hit is weaker than what is spent in HP enhancing it I was losing HP just from hitting it, even with a fanatic's drink on. That means it's either -damage taken or it has a special souleater inhibiting property.

As a possible explanation for that, (I've only done that on LBC so I actually don't know if that applies to all chariots) someone has stated in a thread in the event forums that he was experiencing the same thing I was but when they killed the west chariot to weaken LBC that would no longer be the case. Don't take that for gospel though as the guy never stepped up when he was asked to prove it.

At any rate, my guess is that LBC has -X percent damage taken and can be stripped of that. It wouldn't be a lot(I would guess -15% or something) so eyeballing a tomahawk's effect would be pretty hard since the difference wouldn't be drastic. To me, it just makes a lot more sense that it would have a property shared with many other monsters in the game than for it to be the only thing which specifically inhibits partial souleater damage. I'd like to test it with like a ceremonial dagger + fanatic's before/after, but I dunno when that would be possible.

I can't prove anything here right now, so take it all with a grain of salt.

[Ramses]

Stromgarde wrote:
Kaylia wrote:
Wait wait...chariots have physical damage reduction? I used tomahawk many times, but never noticed any differences. If they have one, I supose it would be something small (20% to 15%) or something.

Never had the chance to test it on wyrm, but I can't see its usefulness unless you're zerging one. Bringing a war in aoe range to increase magic damage by ~12% doesn't look like a good deal, when you could simply have a 5th blm or another drk instead.

For temperance, you don't want to fight it on blunt modes, and being able to hit for 15dmg (or nuke for 150dmg) isn't that great, especially when its 15-45sec/3minutes, and you could equip joyeuse instead.


I'm not saying tomahawk is awful, I actually use it in certain situation (fighting elemental), or any time I encounter a mobs with resist, but it's not that great either for endgame.
I don't know what exact sort of damage reduction the chariots have, but whatever it is reduces Souleater damage.

If I'm understanding you correctly, it is not souleater resistance. If he is doing more damage than he is getting back from blood weapon, than it is BW resistance. Blood weapon is magic damage so in your scenario the chariot has magic resistance, not physical.

No, the souleater enhanced hits were not hitting for the full amount, what I was getting back from a hit was 100% but the hit itself was weaker than expected. The very first hits were not hitting anywhere near 12% of my HP, and since the difference was around 40-50 it was immediately noticeable. Because the hit is weaker than what is spent in HP enhancing it I was losing HP just from hitting it, even with a fanatic's drink on. That means it's either -damage taken or it has a special souleater inhibiting property.

As a possible explanation for that, (I've only done that on LBC so I actually don't know if that applies to all chariots) someone has stated in a thread in the event forums that he was experiencing the same thing I was but when they killed the west chariot to weaken LBC that would no longer be the case. Don't take that for gospel though as the guy never stepped up when he was asked to prove it.

At any rate, my guess is that LBC has -X percent damage taken and can be stripped of that. It wouldn't be a lot(I would guess -15% or something) so eyeballing a tomahawk's effect would be pretty hard since the difference wouldn't be drastic. To me, it just makes a lot more sense that it would have a property shared with many other monsters in the game than for it to be the only thing which specifically inhibits partial souleater damage. I'd like to test it with like a ceremonial dagger + fanatic's before/after, but I dunno when that would be possible.

I can't prove anything here right now, so take it all with a grain of salt.

Well I'm not sure what fanatic's has to do with anything. Fanatic's drink never prevents hp loss from souleater in any circumstance. As for souleater getting resisted, can't think of any reason for that.

[Kaylia]

Warrior's charge is nice for 300tp WS and the occasional epeen screenshot attempt, but I don't think you will benefit much from a 10 minute recast instead of 15. The animation is long and lock your character, and I tend to forget to use it when recast is back up. It would be much better if you could put 2-3 more merit in it and drop the recast to something really low

SE posted their update notice after you wrote this, but with the new category 2 merit limit of 5 per merit and 10 in the category, this can now be lowered to 2:30 (when that update hits).

also, savagery level 5, for a 50tp bonus will be nice. can pull off a "300tp" SC at 150TP with a martial bhuj.

The 5 minutes recast on Warrior's charge make it a much better skill to merit. The difference between 1/30weapon skill (assuming you use WS every 30sec) to 1/20 with 3 merits to 1/10 with 5 is big.

I'm not sure anymore what's the best. I will probably do 5WC, 3 savagery 2 tomahawk

50tp/25tp warcry is tempting

[Kashka]

The fanatic's drink just makes it a lot easier to control how much HP you have, while also preventing paralyze from messing anything up.

[Rasantath]

The 5 minutes recast on Warrior's charge make it a much better skill to merit. The difference between 1/30weapon skill (assuming you use WS every 30sec) to 1/20 with 3 merits to 1/10 with 5 is big.

I'm not sure anymore what's the best. I will probably do 5WC, 3 savagery 2 tomahawk

50tp/25tp warcry is tempting

oh yeah, 5 minutes, not 2:30.
i'm gonna go 5/5 WC/Savagery myself.
Tomahawk just doesnt seem useful enough to me to merit it at all.
i even had 1 merit in it and took it out to cap Savagery.

[Spider-Dan]

Apologies for quoting old post.

Yes, Angon and Tomahawk will stack. Angon is a strait 20% defense down on any mob and as it has been discussed above Tomahawk is a partial reduction of special damage resistance (blunt, slashing, piercing, and magical). Angon will always have an effect on a mob unless there is a stronger % defense down effect already on the mob (the exception is Frightful Roar, which is only 10% defense down but cannot be overwritten by Angon). Tomahawk will only have an effect if the target has some form of damage reduction already. I'm not sure what order the two statuses are calculated in, but I imagine defense is calculated first followed by any blanket reductions. On a side note I think it would be interesting to test Tomahawk in Ballista to see if it has any effect on -% damage taken gear (physical/magical/both).

There was an old post a long time ago on ffxionline forums by Apple Pie that explains the concept of "ranked" buffs/debuffs. For example:

DEF Adjustment
(R1) Crawler: Cocoon
(R1) Crab: Scissor Guard
(R1) Orc: Arm Block
(R1) Yagudo: Parry
(R1) Quadav: Shell Guard
(R1) Crossbow: Acid Bolt
(R1) G.Axe: Armor Break
(R1) Staff: Shell Crusher
(R2) G.Axe: Full Break
(R3) Antica: Sand Shield

(De)buffs of the same rank will overwrite (replace) each other, but a lower-rank (de)buff cannot overwrite a higher-tier one; if a WAR uses Full Break on a mob and you try to shoot it with an Acid Bolt, the defense down from the bolt will fail to proc. Similarly:

ATK Adjustment
(R1) MNK: Boost
(R1) G.Axe: Weapon Break
(R2) G.Axe: Full Break
(R2) WAR: Warcry

Evasion Adjustment
(R1) Beetle: Rhino Guard
(R1) Big Bird: Feather Barrier
(R1) Pugil: Water Shield
(R1) Lizard: Infrasonics
(R1) Bat: Ultrasonics
(R1) G.Axe: Shield Break
(R2) G.Axe: Full Break
(R2) Antica: Sand Veil
(R3) Tonberry: Sigh
(R4) Fenrir: Lunar Cry

I suspect Angon is R1 Defense Adjustment. I think Feint is R2 Evasion Adjustment (pretty sure it doesn't work vs. Sigh, but I think it does cancel Sand Veil).

Based on offhand experience, I'd surmise the following:

Speed Adjustment
(R1) White Magic: Slow
(R1) Kindred: Demonic Howl
(R2) White Magic: Haste
(R3) Spider: Spider Web

[Kaylia]

The 5 minutes recast on Warrior's charge make it a much better skill to merit. The difference between 1/30weapon skill (assuming you use WS every 30sec) to 1/20 with 3 merits to 1/10 with 5 is big.

I'm not sure anymore what's the best. I will probably do 5WC, 3 savagery 2 tomahawk

50tp/25tp warcry is tempting

oh yeah, 5 minutes, not 2:30.
i'm gonna go 5/5 WC/Savagery myself.
Tomahawk just doesnt seem useful enough to me to merit it at all.
i even had 1 merit in it and took it out to cap Savagery.

Tomahawk is nice, even if it's just as an hate grabbing tool in situation where the mob isnt taking dmg.

It would be nice to have a list of all the monsters type and the damage reduction that are affected by tomahawk. Maybe there is enough to make it worth it.