Sticking one's neck out...

[Phraust]

I really been asking myself this question time and time again, and as the title suggests I am sticking my neck out, and as a campy title for Neck discussion. This shouldn't be the typical which is better post, but something has gotten to me especially after the last 'gorget' post was locked. I had written this for that thread but had it kicked out.

Couple questions that I can't seem to get answered:

- On a weaponskill that has multiple atributes let's say Evisceration, do Light, Dark, and Earth, all get equal billing? Like is it just a plain ole true/false statement? Like if I use the Light, Dark, or Soil gorget I will get the exact same benefit?

- Fuck the god damn rabbits... Rarely IF EVER, are you capped on Attack and critting on a regular mob with a weaponskill... What about real world testing... Sure it raises the cap on pDif or whatever, but does it raise the floor too? I have been reading these threads time and time again and have been wondering why the shit my weaponskills either do just as much or less using gorgets versus using alternatives like a Torque or a Peacock Charm. Sure you sneak attack a rabbit in west ron and get bonzo numbers, but in realitly I am not out in the field killing level 0.5 rabbits... Testing Hexa Strike: PCC > Flame; Shark Bite, Evisceration, and Dancing Edge: Love Torque > Breeze, Soil, and Soil... Vorpal Blade: PCC = Soil, seemingly all GK WS: Justice > all. Am I doing something horribly wrong here? Or is the benefit so absolutely miniscule that it doesn't matter? Or is it that the tests mostly consist of torques that have stats that directly modify the weaponskill? I.E. Dex to Dagger, Str to GK kind of thing.

- If the difference is so obvious (Taking from the above) then why do there seem to be so many people confused? (Myself included) And so many topics and questions that pop up?

- If the difference is NOT so obvious (Taking from the last statement) then why are people so millitant about it? (Not trying to pick a fight, but it seems sometimes like people are unsure themselves and defend thier positions out of pride)

- Let's NOT ignore the rabbits then for a sec... All the tests I seen, even on rabbits it's like adding only 1% damage per waponskill... (Theoretically based on given tests)

- From the above statement... Is it worth it to have 2-5 or so gorgets for 1% damage on a couple of different weaponskills? Or just use the torques and/or PCC instead and save the space?

- Call me a skeptic or whatever, but the effort to reward ratio seems too off on the gorgets over all. I find it hard to belive SE would give us something 'So Good' that you could get in less than a couple hours solo... Especially when supposedly the torques are exponentialy harder to get and considered 'less effective' (Admittedly they are without peer for TP'ing) It just seems like the gorgets were SE adding a Leg-up to players that couldnt' easily aquire a PCC/Torque, and nothing more.

I mean I hate to say it, but a few/a lot/most threads on the topic seem do just turn into the most obscure shouting matches over crumbs... I see people ground into the ground for either a conflicting belief, or just general lack of knowledge. (No such thing as a dumb question etc... )

So as a general overall question as protected by the laws of the newbie forum I ask you: Given the above statements, can you say that the Sea Gorgets are really worth it for real world aplications?

[Nadia]

- On a weaponskill that has multiple atributes let's say Evisceration, do Light, Dark, and Earth, all get equal billing? Like is it just a plain ole true/false statement? Like if I use the Light, Dark, or Soil gorget I will get the exact same benefit?

They are all equal, I haven't seen any evidence to suggest otherwise.

- Fuck the god damn rabbits... Rarely IF EVER, are you capped on Attack and critting on a regular mob with a weaponskill... What about real world testing... Sure it raises the cap on pDif or whatever, but does it raise the floor too?

Gorgets do not raise pDIF (or if they do, have not been proven to), what people are referring to when they talk about the damage increase is the increase to fTP, a damage multiplier that applies to the first hit of a weaponskill; gorgets add 0.1 to this.

I have been reading these threads time and time again and have been wondering why the shit my weaponskills either do just as much or less using gorgets versus using alternatives like a Torque or a Peacock Charm. Sure you sneak attack a rabbit in west ron and get bonzo numbers, but in realitly I am not out in the field killing level 0.5 rabbits... Testing Hexa Strike: PCC > Flame; Shark Bite, Evisceration, and Dancing Edge: Love Torque > Breeze, Soil, and Soil... Vorpal Blade: PCC = Soil, seemingly all GK WS: Justice > all. Am I doing something horribly wrong here? Or is the benefit so absolutely miniscule that it doesn't matter? Or is it that the tests mostly consist of torques that have stats that directly modify the weaponskill? I.E. Dex to Dagger, Str to GK kind of thing.

Random variance. First of all, the fTP mod is active only on the first hit of the WS. For example, Evisceration and Hexa Strike have fTP values of 1.0, and since a gorget adds 0.1 to this, it results in a 10% damage increase to only one out of five or six hits. For Hexa Strike this is a 1.66% increase in damage, and for Evisceration, it is a 2% increase. Hardly a lot, and with damage varying greatly for multi-hit weapon skills, especially those with critical hit TP mods, you would not notice any difference in damage without running extensive tests, and certainly not by eyeballing it.

For weaponskills with lower amount of hits, the fTP difference would be more noticable, except those weapon skills usually have a higher fTP value, meaning the fTP boost is a smaller relative increase. For example, Shark Bite, a two-hit WS, has an fTP value of 2.00 at 100% TP, meaning you'd get a 2.5% increase in damage; for Tachi:Y/G/K, which normally have an fTP of 1.5625 at 100% TP, you'd see a 6% increase.

The reason love/justice torque could outdo gorgets damage-wise is due to their stat boosts combined with the attack from the higher skill; love torque has +5 DEX, which is a secondary mod on Evisceration, Shark Bite and Dancing Edge, and DEX also adds to your damage rating with SA. For samurai, their weapon skills have massive STR mods (75%), and STR also factors into the fSTR calculation. These things could very well outdo the +0.1 fTP boost from the gorget, but I'm honestly not as knowledgable as I'd like to be about THF and SAM, and I don't feel like doing the math for it, so this might not be entirely true in some, many or all situations, but the general idea behind it stands.

[Thorny]

Especially when supposedly the torques are exponentialy harder to get and considered 'less effective' (Admittedly they are without peer for TP'ing)

I stopped reading there, MNK NIN and ridill/joy WAR are rarely best off TPing in their respective torques in any situation where they have adequate buffs. 1.8% hitrate will never be outdone by 6.3 attack unless you have no form of attack buff(berserk, minuet, chaos roll, dia3, angon, whatever).

Edit: I meant a war using both of them, it's obvious dual wielding 2 different weapons PCC wins.

[Wizerd]

I stopped reading there, MNK NIN and ridill/joy WAR are rarely best off TPing in their respective torques in any situation where they have adequate buffs. 1.8% hitrate will never be outdone by 6.3 attack unless you have no form of attack buff(berserk, minuet, chaos roll, dia3, angon, whatever).

Edit: I meant a war using both of them, it's obvious dual wielding 2 different weapons PCC wins.

Won't the torque win on MNK if it happens to hit a mark where it bumps your base DMG up?

[Thorny]

Only things that change your h2h skill are merits and actual skill being uncapped, but yea if you have 0, 1, 4, 5, or 6 h2h merits than it'll bump up your base DMG by 1. It could be okay for MNKs with merits in another job(but there's still the potential 2nd DMG upgrade from merits.. if you care at all about mnk you should be 8/8 h2h).

[Kirschy]

To the OP~ Your frustration in using the gorgets is not without reason. Before the big 2H patch change, pdif had a hard cap of 3.0. This made majority of critical hits capped on bunnies, or any other weak mob. Because it was capped, a model equation for calculating damage was able to be surmised. This model proved to be very accurate even in non-capped conditions. fSTR tables, pdif graphs, and enemy stats were derived based off the formula. Stat and fTP modifiers on WS were extremely easy to find after 2-3 WS tests using SA on a bunny. After the 2H patches, this changed. Now even in capped conditions with SA there is variance. (This variance is MUCH smaller with SA.) Fortunately, you can do ~5-10 tests to get a very close average. And then 5-10 tests with a change. This will always provide you with a very accurate result (Although not as precise as the old system.)

I myself had a similar questions about certian gorgets affecting a particular WS more than another. But it was shown that all WS are affected equalli by a gorget corresponding it's Level 1 or Level 2 skillchain properties. Even though Dark and Light gorget use 2 Yorva organs, they do not boost the damage for Relic WS unless their level 2 property contains Light(Transfixion), or Dark(Compression? I forget the name.) The gorgets visible effect on the WS is in terms of the fTP modifier. It is shown to add 25/256 to fTP, which won't correlate to the same increase in damage for all WS. It's also a common misconception that the total damage is modified by the gorget and this isn't true.

Gorgets are not a gigantic increase, but in some cases they are the best piece for a WS. In particular you mention Justice Torque vs Gorget for SAM WS. I actualli plugged in some basic numbers and followed the math for merit mobs, and found the gorget was similar to having around 15 STR or so. While it doesn't account for the extra attack from Justice torque, the math seems to show that the gorget is going to be slightly better overall. (I did this for myself a while back when I hit 75 SAM and wanted to know which piece was better.) In majority of cases you'll find the gorget adding around 1-5% onto the total damage. That's a big increase for a single piece of equipment.

I think if you take a big look at equipment in general, most upgrades don't show a noticable difference. In terms of WS equipment, gorget is probably one of the biggest upgrades you can make. Do I think it's worth the time to farm gorgets for jobs you play often? I do. I don't think you need to go crazy and get a gorget every job that can utilize one. To share my own choices. I have DRK, WAR, RNG, NIN, SAM, and MNK lvled. My DRK uses a gorget for Catastrophe. My WAR uses PCC for Rampage/Raging Rush. My Ranger uses gorget for Sidewinder. My NIN uses Hope Torque for Blade: Jin. My SAM uses gorget for Gekko/Kasha. My MNK uses PCC for Asuran. If I was to get an additional gorget, it would be for Raging Rush. But between my low playing time, and my warrior not being played that much, I haven't put the time in to farm it.


tl;dr - Gorgets are good. Take the time to do a little research and find out if it's the best piece for the WS you use often.

[Phraust]

Sorry totally botched that, it was the fTP modifier? Iassumed it was pDif because the description on the gorget said "Latent effect: Increases weapon skill accuracy and damage"

So in reality all it would do woudl add a 10% chance to critting on Rampage, Vorpal Blade, Eviceration for the first hit? Add a little more accuracy to the first hit on an already SA or TA'd Dancing Edge?

Seems like the only weapon skills that really benefit are those that have Dmg mods on the fTP, Shark Bite and all the GK weaponskillsthen basically?

[Kirschy]

It's the fTP modifier that affects damage. I don't know if there's any data showing if it helps fTP modded stats like crit+ during WS or what not. But like you said big 1-hit WS gain the most from the gorget. For example Sidewinder is a 5.0 fTP mod. With Gorget it's ~5.1. Raging Rush is 1.0 ftp on the first hit. With gorget it's ~1.1. (Additional hits from Raging Rush won't get the extra .1)

Since all of these tests were done in capped conditions, no testing was done to see if the pdif was affected in non-capped conditions. While there's a chance it could, there's no data or experiments suggesting this is true.

[Chupunpupun]

It's the fTP modifier that affects damage. I don't know if there's any data showing if it helps fTP modded stats like crit+ during WS or what not. But like you said big 1-hit WS gain the most from the gorget. For example Sidewinder is a 5.0 fTP mod. With Gorget it's ~5.1. Raging Rush is 1.0 ftp on the first hit. With gorget it's ~1.1. (Additional hits from Raging Rush won't get the extra .1)

Since all of these tests were done in capped conditions, no testing was done to see if the pdif was affected in non-capped conditions. While there's a chance it could, there's no data or experiments suggesting this is true.

Percentage wise, sidewinder gets a 2% boost while raging rush is a 10% boost. I remember seeing ruke's sidewinder damage with and without the gorget, the damage difference of a 1.4k sidewinder was about 48points. So if you can get your first hit of RR to 480, the damage boost would be the same. At least I hope that's how the damage increase of gorget works.

[Kirschy]

Yea, that's exactly how it works~

[Chupunpupun]

- Call me a skeptic or whatever, but the effort to reward ratio seems too off on the gorgets over all. I find it hard to belive SE would give us something 'So Good' that you could get in less than a couple hours solo... Especially when supposedly the torques are exponentialy harder to get and considered 'less effective' (Admittedly they are without peer for TP'ing) It just seems like the gorgets were SE adding a Leg-up to players that couldnt' easily aquire a PCC/Torque, and nothing more.

When it was first released the UFO's weren't that easy to duo and I feel that the amount of work involve in getting a gorget that works for a specific WS and only during WS is pretty good effort to reward ratio.

[Turambar]

It just seems like the gorgets were SE adding a Leg-up to players that couldnt' easily aquire a PCC/Torque, and nothing more.

I'm pretty sure the gorgets were added before the torques. Sea HNMs weren't added until a few months after sea itself.

[VZX]

SA. For samurai, their weapon skills have massive STR mods (75%), and STR also factors into the fSTR calculation. These things could very well outdo the +0.1 fTP boost from the gorget, but I'm honestly not as knowledgable as I'd like to be about THF and SAM, and I don't feel like doing the math for it, so this might not be entirely true in some, many or all situations, but the general idea behind it stands.

I don't see any case this statement will be true.
There isn't any slight possibility a SAM will WS (Y/G/K) with less than 100 base damage. 0.1 fTP increase of 100 base damage is already 10D. 10D equates 40 STR -20 attack roughly. I definitely take 40 STR -20 attack to 5 STR 7 attack