Excalibur vs Joyeuse vs Burtgang

[Lilgangstaa]

I know we have a which is better thread, however I wanted more detailed information on this topic then one or two replys.

Obviously each of the above weapons have their merits for tanking; joytoy for atonement spam, burtgang for accuracy and damage reduction, and Excalibur for damage.

However, my question is not which is better, because everything is situational. Instead I would like to know which does the most damage during HNM fights. I know similar threads may have been posted but I have not found them.

Some things to consider:

Joytoy is increased rate of TP gain and thus more WSs then the other two weapons in theory.

Joytoy has extremely low base damage and will hit for zero on most HNMs around half the time.

Burtgang has more accuracy due to aftermath then either of the other two.

Excalibur has 2.5 damage procs and additional effect 25% damage.


Sorry for the long post. If I could get some info I would really appreciate it, thank you.

[Max™]

25% of current HP Damage*

If it wasn't so ridiculous to get Burt into AM3 mode, it'd probably be hard to beat, I'm not sure of the math for 50% DA tp gain + Atonespam vs Excal Dmg/Dly/Att/Add effect + Atonespam, but there aren't a lot of cases where a Pld would be hitting for 0 with Joytoy that they wouldn't still hit for 0 at times with Burt at least, Excal would be even less of course.

If only Burtgang AM1 was OAT effect... T.T

[rog]

Joytoy has extremely low base damage and will hit for zero on most HNMs around half the time.

that has very little to do with base damage. if you're hitting for zero, it's because of your (lack of) attack.

the only difference weapon damage will have on that would be due to truncations (ie .9 -> 0 damage with joytoy, or 1.1 -> 1 damage with a higher base D weapon).

[Shinryuu]

What rog said. Mobs don't have phalanx.

Joyeuse is basically the standard damage-PLD (which really is PLDs only thing over RDM tank on most mobs) weapon and Excalibur does the damagey part better and the hate part a bit worse. Burtgang is for if you need to tank something really hard.

[Ashmada]

Joytoy has extremely low base damage and will hit for zero on most HNMs around half the time.

If you're hitting for 0, it's due to either :
- Low pDIF, you'd hit for 0 with any other weapon, unless it has (sufficient) +atk.
- Phalanx/Stoneskin/Invincible/Physical Shield, you'd hit for 0 with other weapons in most cases.
- Your weapon damage is 1 and your STR lower than the mob's VIT. Joyeuse's damage is higher than 1.


Now, the difference in damage on HNMs :

I'll dismiss Burtgang right away, because I'm too lazy to actually include it and it's very unlikely to compete with the other 2 in damage.

Excluding hits for 0 and misses (both have the same Acc and Excal will hit for 0 nearly as often as Joyeuse) :
Joyeuse will allow you to use Atonement roughly every 43.77 seconds (17/1.45*224/60).
Excal will allow you to use Atonement roughly every 66.02 seconds.

You probably have 50% Haste for Utsu recasts, so halve those numbers.
~51% more WS from Joyeuse.

I'll keep assuming 100% hitrate, because the weapons are both penalized in the same proportions from lower hitrate.
If the fight lasts 15 min, that's ~29520 Atonement damage from Joyeuse and ~19440 from Excalibur.
Excal needs to make up for that mostly with its proc (the difference in DoT will be negligible), so that's 10k damage from HP procs.
At 1500HP, that's ~26-27 procs, so it needs at least a ~5.8% procrate.
At 1800HP, that's ~22-23 procs, so ~5% procrate needed.
At 2000HP, that's ~20 procs, ~4.3%
At 2500HP, that's ~16 procs, ~3.5%

So, if Excalibu's additionnal effect occurs more than 5% of the time or your HP is (consistently) over 1800, it wins.
I don't know how often it happens. Probably higher than 5%, so it's probably better.

... fuck, I forgot the 2.5x damage proc.



tl;dr :
1. Lower base damage doesn't make you hit for 0.
2. Excalibur probably wins in pure damage.

[Arthars]

get all 3

[geno3302]

I was under the impression that the proc rate for Excal was around 20%, but maybe it's based of level difference.

[Neosutra]

Proc rate is about 10% from what I've seen from friends over long periods of time, but it is random as hell and I dont have a large sample size (may very well be lower).

Excal also feeds the mob less TP than joytoy.

Just from numbers, Joytoy for hate, Excal for damage, and Burtgang for Oshi.

And to be clear, excal will do significantly more damage than Joytoy/atonement spam.

[Lilgangstaa]

Thank you for all the replys. I suppose the remaining question for me is if excalibur is worth the gil/time. I am told it is a very situational weapon, but pld melees just about everything but KB. What do you guys think, is it worth the gil or just a piece of Epeen? (There is no real right answer, its all relative to person being asked) I just want opinions.

Thanks.

[hagun]

Everything in the game is nigh situational. Does that make it worthless? Everyone seems to just spew out the phrase "it's situational" like it makes you look cool, but in reality have no clue what it means. Be American and get all three. Win.

[Takedown3]

excal > joy > burt

[Tsuko_Asura]

Thank you for all the replys. I suppose the remaining question for me is if excalibur is worth the gil/time. I am told it is a very situational weapon, but pld melees just about everything but KB. What do you guys think, is it worth the gil or just a piece of Epeen? (There is no real right answer, its all relative to person being asked) I just want opinions.

Thanks.

Excalibur is about as 'worth it' as relic weapons get.

Though admittedly, Burtgang would be hella awesome for Dark Ixion. <_<

[rog]

Excal also feeds the mob less TP than joytoy.

unless the pld is like the only one meleeing, that isn't going to matter. with a few melees, they'll have 100+ tp in a matter of seconds anyway (3-7 total attack rounds (combined total attack rounds of every person meleeing that is) usually, depending on weapon(s) being used, which can be anywhere from 3~10 secs, depending on the melee's gear/buffs, DAs, amount of melees, etc).

[Aable]

Something I have been wondering, figure someone in this thread will know; can Excalibur's 2.5x damage proc on Atonement (1875 Atonement)?

[miokomioko]

Proc rate is about 10%

10% my ass.

[zard1977]

Relic's 2.5X or 3X damage can never proc on wses.

[Therin]

10% my ass.

It is in fact about 10%.

As previously stated, Excalibur is bar none the best for damage.

Joyeuse will produce the most hate (only because Excalibur's add effects grant no hate).

Burtgang is the best defensive sword.

All three shine in very specific situations, and while Joyeuse is better than Burtgang for straight-up hate accumulation, the difference is probably minimal enough that you could still make a case for fulltiming the Burtgang to shave off that extra 10% physical damage/enmity decay.

Finally, in most cases a good PLD (and I would hope that any Excalibur or Burtgang PLD is in fact a good PLD) can approach or hit the hate cap anyway, so why bother using anything BUT Excalibur (unless you're going PLD/WAR or PLD/RDM)?

[Arthars]

cant really tell the proc % on additional effects

but i kinda notice a para proc with kikoku on every mob i fight thus far

as for blind on apoc, maybe less, but thats just prolly because of 2H's delay/frequency

10% seem to be a fine line

[Gustave]

Excalibur can also do added effect when hitting for 0 dmg. I don't know you if you calculated. 10% seems like a rough estimate but its so random its hard to tell. I do feel like its a bit higher tbh.

[Izzy]

My Mjollnir procs about 10% of the time for the MP effect. I don't think it's unreasonable to say the 25%HP procs the same amount.

We are talking about that right? The 2.5x damage procs way less I think.