New WS Properties/Modifier/Damage Testing

[Jkun]

I'd like to introduce to the year 2008.

This is the era of TP burns/zerging/fast kills....so yeah, you use the WS that does the most damage 9 times out of 10. Giving jobs a new WS that doesn't outdamage the old WSs sadly makes half the new WSs obsolete, because everyone wants shit dead ASAP and nobody SCs anymore.

I'd like to introduce you to the fact FFXI has more to offer than just merit parties.

[Xanthe]

More SC Fun, this time with a RDM with Death Blossom

Omniscience > Death Blossom = Fragmentation
Omniscience > Savage Blade = Fragmentation
Death Blossom > Omniscience = Darkness

Take it as you will.

This isn't really new information. We know Death Blossom is Fragmentation A and Distortion B, and Omniscience is Gravitation A and Transfixion B. There's nothing more to elaborate on that point.

[Tempyst]

I run nyzul with a DRG and WAR, being able to make light with good ws has sped things up enormously on stuff like Dahaks and bosses, if you really don't think SCs have any place in the game anymore because "everything" is tp burned then you've got a nasty case of tunnel vision.

SAM and WAR going from having no level 3s to having light and darkness options is hot as hell too.

[Enedin]

I'd like to introduce to the year 2008.

This is the era of TP burns/zerging/fast kills....so yeah, you use the WS that does the most damage 9 times out of 10. Giving jobs a new WS that doesn't outdamage the old WSs sadly makes half the new WSs obsolete, because everyone wants shit dead ASAP and nobody SCs anymore.

Our social LS (with averagely geared people) killed Shen 7/8 times (we got all 7 our WHMs a Mail, the first pop was sort of a try).

We used 3 level 3 skillchains coupled with our 4 BLMs MB'ing and pretty much 'zerged' it down due to amazing cooperation (coming from a social LS containing 80% people who never done much HNM ever). Without those SC's we'd have 7 sad WHMs and no rev mails.

I even ordered all our WHMs to get 300 TP to Hexa Strike, of which 2 were used for Light SC. That was the proudest day in my FFXI life, a social LS helping each other out to get our WHMs a melee piece. Thank you skillchains.

[Max™]

What is more frightening is you did not say /dnc or Great Axe in those posts!

I was using /Dnc on Fafnir and landing steps easily due to Great Axe having stupid Accuracy, and actually dropped a few Gravity flourishes on him, the other day.

I found myself wishing I had King's Justice though, so I would have better Skillchain options with Great Axe.

(was up there /Dnc and friends group claimed a first window pop with just a couple of people, so I ran up to the Aery to open Frags for them)


OH WAIT, SC's are useful for HNM's? HOLY SHITBALLS!

[Xrave]

Insurgency = a guillotine you can actually make skillchains with.

There are no SCs other than Guillotine to Gekko or Guillotine to Raging Rush (or vice versa on both).

[hexagram23]

I'd like to introduce you to the fact FFXI has more to offer than just merit parties.

Yes because my whole post was talking about merits parties.

Oh wait it wasn't.

[hexagram23]

I dunno why people keep bringing up the SC options.

I never said the SC options from Insurgency aren't nice....I said the WS is extremely average compared to some of the other new WSs, which also have more or less the same SC options. Atonement, Drakesbane, and a few others are an obvious step up from what those jobs have had. In the past DRK got Spinning Slash and Cross Reaper and the damage on both of those is good, so I don't understand the complacency of "it has lowish damage but look at the SC options!".

Insurgency is a niche WS, at best. Reiterating "but it has nice SC options!" is fine but that still doesn't explain why the damage is all over the place, or the spikes.

[Seraphus]

Update on Atonement:

In addition to the damage on Atonement, right now i am up in Ru'Aun Gardens fighting Groundskeepers in Sky, and I'm noticing a nice track this:

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a3...Untitled-6.jpg

Is it possible at all that Atonement has the capability to force the opponent to use TP (Given it has it)?

Running a few more tests while I'm up in sky, so far I'm up to 12 times in a row that the monster would counter Atonement with their own TP move (Provided Atonement wasn't a killshot on the monster)

Will report back soon.

[sscearcev]

Is it possible at all that Atonement has the capability to force the opponent to use TP (Given it has it)?

1 thing to watch out for, your atonements could be causing the mob to drop below its 25% hp threshold for spamming tp.

i.e. mob is at 40% w/ 187 tp when you use atonement and drop it to 22% so it immediately enters the program that says: hp<=25% use tp @ 100 or greater, and since it already is above 100% it immediately burns a tp move.

I see it all the time farming, get in a couple swings toss a disseverment(50 tp to mob) and it almost immediately uses a ws since its now at 10% hp.

[Seraphus]

I see, but assuming that my Atonement drops it from 70 to 54? That was the case when it just happened again.

[Fwahm]

I dunno why people keep bringing up the SC options.

I never said the SC options from Insurgency aren't nice....I said the WS is extremely average compared to some of the other new WSs, which also have more or less the same SC options. Atonement, Drakesbane, and a few others are an obvious step up from what those jobs have had. In the past DRK got Spinning Slash and Cross Reaper and the damage on both of those is good, so I don't understand the complacency of "it has lowish damage but look at the SC options!".

Insurgency is a niche WS, at best. Reiterating "but it has nice SC options!" is fine but that still doesn't explain why the damage is all over the place, or the spikes.

But Insurgency is better than Cross Reaper even at 100 TP, and at least as strong as non SATA Spinning Slash if you can land all the hits.

[Sekkite]

There needs to be more tests with Insurgency versus Guillotine on high level/defense mobs. It's been mentioned several times in this thread where Insurgency has out-performed Guillotine on a consistent basis on higher level mobs.

[Astarael]

I dunno why people keep bringing up the SC options.

I never said the SC options from Insurgency aren't nice....I said the WS is extremely average compared to some of the other new WSs, which also have more or less the same SC options. Atonement, Drakesbane, and a few others are an obvious step up from what those jobs have had. In the past DRK got Spinning Slash and Cross Reaper and the damage on both of those is good, so I don't understand the complacency of "it has lowish damage but look at the SC options!".

Insurgency is a niche WS, at best. Reiterating "but it has nice SC options!" is fine but that still doesn't explain why the damage is all over the place, or the spikes.

On high end melee-ables like fafhogg, omega, einherjar, i've noticed a far more consistent and higher damage output from insurgency over anything guillotine ever produced. Where previously i'd average 400's, i'm averaging 600's. That's a pretty big increase really. I'd say it's up there with Atonement and Drakesbane as one of the ones that should be used full time.

I havn't exped with it yet, and probably won't for awhile, but i expect it'll perform roughly even with guillotine. Either way, it's hardly a niche skill, when for me it's showing as the highest damage skill with a solid skillchain attribute.


Edit: Also just saw the post above me, i've been testing for a week exclusively on high end mobs, and although i don't have parser results or solid displayable evidence, from what i've heard from the people who use parsers on our fights, and my eyeballing (unbiased, generally, because what do i care if it's less good than guillotine. if it is, i just use guillotine. but it seems not to be. i'm not someone who gets obsessed with "new shiny WS, i hope it's good so much im blind to failures"), shows a big difference

[Nameless]

Anyone wants to run a test on Genbu for insurgency vs guillotine? I suspected an ignore lvl correlation effect within the ws (means a direct pdif jump on tougher mobs), but then someone had said that they have run the test on DL and guillotine did more, which troubled me since DL is like lvl 95 or something and in that case Insurgency should outperform guillotine. So perhaps DL isn't a very good test subject since it has very low defense?

Running a test on aspid or genbu would be the best since lvl correlation effect your damage the most when under low pdif.

[Ramses]

Anyone wants to run a test on Genbu for insurgency vs guillotine? I suspected an ignore lvl correlation effect within the ws (means a direct pdif jump on tougher mobs), but then someone had said that they have run the test on DL and guillotine did more, which troubled me since DL is like lvl 95 or something and in that case Insurgency should outperform guillotine. So perhaps DL isn't a very good test subject since it has very low defense?

Running a test on aspid or genbu would be the best since lvl correlation effect your damage the most when under low pdif.

Well I used insurgency on AV and got a whopping 0. No, he didn't use invincible and my regular hits did damage. Insurgency did crap against kirin also. On regular mobs level 80-85, guillotine performs much better for me. Same in einherjar. Idk, maybe tarus with their higher base int do better with insurgency than guillotine. I really have no idea how some people are getting better numbers with insurgency over guillotine. As far as I'm concerned, insurgency looks nice and adds some nice sc options. For raw damage, guillotine will always outdo it.

[Havok]

I would say things like Kirin/Nidhogg/wyrms/cerb/khim would be the best test subjects for it. I don't think DL is lvl 95...that seems way too high.

[Astarael]

Used it fairly heavily on nidhogg and cerb (although i was also playing the pld on cerb, so most of the WS's were 300%tp on that). Nidhogg was a fairly easy 500+, compared to much usually 400ish guillotines.

Cerb was anywhere between 400-1.2k, probably averaging around 600-700, but as i said, higher tp.

This is on a galka, so my int is err... somewhat lacking.

In my experience thus far insurgency clearly outperforms guillotine on HNMs, and well, Einherjar and Dynamis too for me. dunno how everyone's coming up with such different results, makes me think there must be some kind of hidden modifier.

[kenshyn]

On insurgency can people post race, gear and stats that may help narrow it down a bit.

[hexagram23]

But Insurgency is better than Cross Reaper even at 100 TP, and at least as strong as non SATA Spinning Slash if you can land all the hits.

At best Insurgency does the same damage as SS and CR at 100 TP....at best. The main problem these WSs are 1-2 hits, Insurgency is 4....so if you miss even 1 hit the damage drops far below what SS or CR would normally do. Also, what you said is sort of my point....we already have SS and CR, we don't need another WS that's mostly only good for SCs. Closing Light with scythe is cool but we could already close Light 4+ years ago with GS.

And especially not in light of the fact how good some of the other new WSs are, which is why I'm so curious about the uneven numbers/spike damage/etc.