Dragoon: Penta vs Drakesbane

[Chun Liroy]

Due to me currently rebuild my dragoon, I have to ask what you guys think about this Drakesbane setup FFXIGEAR.com as far as birds go; It is 2 dex from crit cap, and 2 acc from cap (with hasso). Do you think it's good? What would you change? Thoughts on Zahaks+Nlegs over Aurum+Ares? Or would you Aurum+Nlegs? With good (Read: Lucky as fuck) augments, you can toss the cuch mantle for Forager's (Replacing the dex on a ring, and acc on the foragers/Warwolf). So, thoughts? Also, I never use penta for anything anymore other than having fun on birds w/ angon, I always get inferior results

[Ophannus]

I found that when I had absurd amounts of attack(800-900) from BRDx2 or BRD+Cor or if I felt suicidal and for fun subbed /WAR with mithkabobs on Birds with Dia that Penta would consistantly do 2-3k whereas Drakes would still be a bit inconsistant ranging from 1.6-3k. But this was only under extremely hiugh attack scenarios on low defense enemies.

Gear was
Thalasso
Tiphia
Heca hat
Heca body
Heca gloves
Flame/Rajas
Foragers
Warwolf
Conte legs
Heca feet
wuv torque
Assault earring
Brutal Earring

[Raen Ryong]

Also, are we taking into account fTP? 20% STR+DEX vs. 50% STR for the first hit.. wouldn't that make a difference, assuming you're not gearing for a crit build.

fTP is 1.0 for both WSs I believe.

And yeah, I've only been DRG75 for like ... 5 or 6 days, but Drakesbane was quite a dramatic improvement for me over Penta and I've been using a DEX-heavy build since I got it, though I have been experimenting with a STR-heavy build too. It's pretty meh though, could do with Mithra DEX! Need Oily Trousers and Zahak's Mail really but both are so pricy

@Silenteroy: If you use a Thunder Ring instead of the Flame Ring there, you both cap dDEX (on a bird albeit) and accuracy with a minimal tradeoff to STR; Pixie Earring would be even better there (or even an Adroit Earring) but I don't know your status on those.

[Chun Liroy]

Being an elv on my previous character, I never really cared enough for dex, I personally would rather keep my 5 str on a 50% Str weaponskill then go for dex in other places, but now being mithra has changed some things. I really need to start making money to equip this char but cor burning a hole in my shallow pockets lol

[noodles355]

Mithra, Gotta love 72 base Dex.

[Chun Liroy]

Elvaan, gotta love 75 base str I miss it D:

[AoshiZ]

That still seems to argue for Drakesbane in just about all situations, albeit for completely different reasons? Also, are we taking into account fTP? 20% STR+DEX vs. 50% STR for the first hit.. wouldn't that make a difference, assuming you're not gearing for a crit build.

20% STR 20% DEX is effectively 40% stat modifier.

50% STR is 50% stat modifier. The difference is 10%.

Of course the drawbacks are that you need to have both stats raised for a split modifier.
The advantages of a split modifier is the ability to leverage the other modifier's stats or if stats are scarce in various slots.

Also because STR has its own role in Fstr it gives its own bonus to base weapon damage. However it takes roughly 4 Str to increase 1 weapon damage until the fstr cap.

Like I stated previously, Stat modifiers play an insignificant role. Please plugin the variable difference to see the damage difference between 10%. Its approximately 25 extra Damage at 100 of a stat.

I also stated that players may choose WS based on what is available to them. However, the underlying premise is that in various situations the stat won't make a huge difference.

For those arguing what it takes to gain max pDif on colibri. This isn't a difficult feat. I logged in last night and was able to produce 575 attack in a WS setup with food alone in sam sub. An Average Chaos roll (16%) with valor minuet would put that at 743 attack. With angon it makes it fairly doable to choose penta thrust. If angon is down no one is stopping you from using drakesbane.

Also, the examples i posted are for the extreme case. As your pDIF goes down the player themselves should make a mathmatical assessment based on the criteria to choose which weaponskill is useful.

Lets not pigeon hole this to colibri.

There are a plethora of situations where you can also fight mobs for personal gain which would include weaker enemies. Such as farming for gil, doing quests, and fighting particular mobs with low defense or Double damage per hit mobs.

Addition: Please let me re-iterate. Drakesbane is really good! All I am saying is that there may be situations where Pentathrust is still a viable weaponskill. Personally, thats the way i like it. Being able to leverage unique weapon skills (such as wheeling thrust, Penta thrust, Drakesbane, Impulse Drive (SC element mainly QQ), Gierskogul (yes i use this one alot) ) at their moments of opportunity increases the skill level and output of the players. Take my advice with a grain of salt... keep using Drakesbane only if you want... but i will continue to take advantage of each WS for their mathmatical properties.

[Gere]

When farming, drakesbane wins because it looks so much cooler.

[Fogo]

Ok so I'm certain this has probably been asked before but, for both (or either) of these ws's, is this one of those situations where if you have a love torque, ws'ing in that is (most likely/maybe) better than sea gorget?

I'd love to be able to afford those other dex pieces (especially zahaks mail or black tathlum), but salvage is eating up all my income so, meh, hoping for that aurum cuirass sometime.

[Wolfknight]

Ok so I'm certain this has probably been asked before but, for both (or either) of these ws's, is this one of those situations where if you have a love torque, ws'ing in that is (most likely/maybe) better than sea gorget?

I'd love to be able to afford those other dex pieces (especially zahaks mail or black tathlum), but salvage is eating up all my income so, meh, hoping for that aurum cuirass sometime.

love is only arguable better than gorget if your dDex is near cap[atleast 38~42 ish] and not capped[50 already], for drakebane ONLY, it's never better for penta.

[Dathus]

love is only arguable better than gorget if your dDex is near cap[atleast 38~42 ish] and not capped[50 already], for drakebane ONLY, it's never better for penta.

What about for us unlucky Elvaan, and it puts us at the 117 DEX for birds? Would Love be better in that situation?

[AoshiZ]

love is only arguable better than gorget if your dDex is near cap[atleast 38~42 ish] and not capped[50 already], for drakebane ONLY, it's never better for penta.

I haven't done gorget calculations since they came out but the 0.1 to the FTP mod for damage is only for the first hit.

I would never use sea gorgets for any multi hit.

[Yugl]

What about for us unlucky Elvaan, and it puts us at the 117 DEX for birds? Would Love be better in that situation?

Yes.

[Raen Ryong]

I haven't done gorget calculations since they came out but the 0.1 to the FTP mod for damage is only for the first hit.

I would never use sea gorgets for any multi hit.

Why not? 10% more damage to the first hit, give or take depending on the fTP given the first hit is also the one you are most likely to land (since the first hit of any WS appears to have an acc boost) along with 10accuracy across all hits seems pretty win.

Something like Justice Torque for DRK would be the next closest, with 5str (=1.25 fSTR + ~1-2WSC ... for a max of something like 2% damage if you're lucky) and 7atk (which is roughly above 1.4% damage) both of which are across all hits... but you're giving yourself less chance of connecting all hits and even if they do all land, you only slightly beat the gorget's damage boost, if you even achieve that!

[AoshiZ]

Why not? 10% more damage to the first hit, give or take depending on the fTP given the first hit is also the one you are most likely to land (since the first hit of any WS appears to have an acc boost) along with 10accuracy across all hits seems pretty win.

Something like Justice Torque for DRK would be the next closest, with 5str (=1.25 fSTR + ~1-2WSC ... for a max of something like 2% damage if you're lucky) and 7atk (which is roughly above 1.4% damage) both of which are across all hits... but you're giving yourself less chance of connecting all hits and even if they do all land, you only slightly beat the gorget's damage boost, if you even achieve that!

10% is misleading. 10% of very little is even less than verry little. Multihits generally have an FTP of 1.0 or less. At pDIF 2.3 thats around 23 extra damage for a base 100 damage weapon. Your assessment of attack is underated. 7 Attack is compounded by food, buffs, and abilities. Every attack counts and is the key to increasing the single most damage changing factor in the game which is pDIF. Theres also added perks of dex with drakesbane. So yes I stand by my assessment. However, I guess i can always be open to extraneous situations where the circumstances would be in favor of the gorget and I opt for it but these are fairly rare.

Addition: I'm interested in knowing how you calculated 1.4% damage without knowing what I am fighting.

Addition2: I forgot to mention the increase in value of your inherent attack from allies lowering the defense of enemy mobs along with dragoons massive ability to angon.

[Wolfknight]

What about for us unlucky Elvaan, and it puts us at the 117 DEX for birds? Would Love be better in that situation?

if you're at 112 dex before love that's exactly what I am talking about when it is probably better[based on theorycraft/no parses yet].

[Raen Ryong]

10% is misleading. 10% of very little is even less than verry little. Multihits generally have an FTP of 1.0 or less. At pDIF 2.3 thats around 23 extra damage for a base 100 damage weapon. Your assessment of attack is underated. 7 Attack is compounded by food, buffs, and abilities. Every attack counts and is the key to increasing the single most damaging changing factor in the game which is pDIF. Theres also added perks of dex with drakesbane. So yes I stand by my assessment. However, I guess i can always be open to extraneous situations where the circumstances would be in favor of the gorget and I opt for it but these are fairly rare.

Addition: I'm interested in knowing how you calculated 1.4% damage without knowing what I am fighting.

1.4% was just an estimate based on 500 Attack, and will be higher depending on level difference. Attack has decreasing returns too whereas the fTP return is static, and critical hits proc'ing devalue Attack further. It's not a weak stat by any means however.

If you increase an fTP of 1.0 by 0.1, it's a 10% increase. If you increase an fTP of 0.5 by 0.1, it's a 20% increase in damage for that hit. I can sort of agree with your line of logic that increasing an "fTP < 1.0" hit whilst sacrificing the others can seem counterproductive but since Drakes is "fTP > 1.0" you are further strengthening your most reliable hit significantly.

[AoshiZ]

1.4% was just an estimate based on 500 Attack, and will be higher depending on level difference. Attack has decreasing returns too whereas the fTP return is static, and critical hits proc'ing devalue Attack further. It's not a weak stat by any means however.

If you increase an fTP of 1.0 by 0.1, it's a 10% increase. If you increase an fTP of 0.5 by 0.1, it's a 20% increase in damage for that hit. I can sort of agree with your line of logic that increasing an "fTP < 1.0" hit whilst sacrificing the others can seem counterproductive but since Drakes is "fTP > 1.0" you are further strengthening your most reliable hit significantly.

I'd have to disagree with that logic. Relative numbers mean very little to me. More specifically, saying that ftp multiplier of 0.5 being increased by 20% means very little to me if i actually sit down and realize that the netgain has gone up only a few damage.

Putting 0.1 FTP to a 5.0 fTP would be a very small % gain but infact because the total damage was so high the ftp 0.1 in actual damage would be significant.

Addition:
Example:
My SATA Giers with fTP 3.0 getting the extra .1 gives it around another 60 damage.

[Raen Ryong]

You have to compare it to other factors though.

If you have a base damage of 160 for Penta, say;

(160) * fTP * Pdif = damage per hit.

Let fTP = 1 and Pdif = 1.5

160 * 1 * 1.5 = 240

If we increase fTP to 1.1,

160 * 1.1 * 1.5 = 264

24/240 = 10% increase, so the number is accurate.

Raise Pdif by 0.1 (which would be pretty good for 7 attack),

160 * 1 * 1.6 = 256

16/240 = 6.67%, and this is rather extreme for a small value of Attack.

The point I'm making is that the net gain will be proportional to the percentage increase of any given relative increase anyway.

[AoshiZ]

But its not 7 attack =(. Its 7 Attack * Food, with Chaos. If you're a warrior you could berserk.

And most important if you're a Drg you can angon and get dia. 7 attack is now potentially closer to 20.

We all know that defense lowering abilities increase the value of attack at a much faster rate than gaining abilities.

Attack from your point of view feels very much underated.

I'll give you that if you're maxed pDIF then sure no problem go for the fTP.

Addition: I think we're going down a difficult road of opinion with attack STR and other gear choices that have many factors that need to be considered. I'm going to retract my statement and say ... whatever floats your boat.