Ranger Weapon Calculations

[Shadida]

Just Ex... you can keep poppin them every week.

New arrow is definitely R/E. PPAs werent but the CCAs are.

[Spider-Dan]

How do you compare +x% snapshot to +y STR?

Pretty similar to +x% haste vs. +y STR.

[midguardian]

Pretty similar to +x% haste vs. +y STR.

Haste you can precisely account for while engaged. With snapshot you have to take into account player reaction time. This discounts the value of snapshot. I'm not sure how anyone can disagree with that.

[LinktheDeme]

Wouldn't it be different for ranged attack though because it only takes 2 STR rather than 4 STR to increase fSTR? (Which I have very little idea what it does I just thought it makes it easier for your damage to go up)

[Vodou]

Haste you can precisely account for while engaged. With snapshot you have to take into account player reaction time. This discounts the value of snapshot. I'm not sure how anyone can disagree with that.

He was answering your question (which was vague to begin with). Now you are disputing his answer?

Snapshot is similar to haste. The more you have, the better it works. Like haste, it suffers from the fact that a player that is slow to engage is not likely to hit the max theoretical DPS, but that is the same for snapshot. It only works to the maximum when you use it to its fullest.

Does not having an auto attack affect snapshot's calculated performance? Yes, but saying that "you have to take into account player reaction time", implies that player reaction time does not need to be taken into account elsewhere in the game.

In meripo where in some locations mobs literally are stacked one on another as we kill, its obviously much more of a factor as opposed to killing HNM's where one fight may take minutes. Yet reaction / engage time is rarely discussed in describing the impact of haste in one scenario versus the other. In short, we act as if it does not degrade the impact of haste, but clearly haste is discounted RELATIVELY in meripo versus long HNM fights.

Snapshot will reduce the variable portion for every ranged attack regardless of how quickly a player engages. It's total impact on the player's performance depends on the time that the player is in 1) the variable attack phase, 2) the fixed attack phase and 2) the added 'reaction time or choose to wait' phase. It still works better the more you have regardless of how long the third phase is, just as haste still works better the more you have regardless of how long you take to engage mobs as a melee.

[midguardian]

He was answering your question (which was vague to begin with). Now you are disputing his answer?

Snapshot is similar to haste. The more you have, the better it works. Like haste, it suffers from the fact that a player that is slow to engage is not likely to hit the max theoretical DPS, but that is the same for snapshot. It only works to the maximum when you use it to its fullest.

Does not having an auto attack affect snapshot's calculated performance? Yes, but saying that "you have to take into account player reaction time", implies that player reaction time does not need to be taken into account elsewhere in the game.

In meripo where in some locations mobs literally are stacked one on another as we kill, its obviously much more of a factor as opposed to killing HNM's where one fight may take minutes. Yet reaction / engage time is rarely discussed in describing the impact of haste in one scenario versus the other. In short, we act as if it does not degrade the impact of haste, but clearly haste is discounted RELATIVELY in meripo versus long HNM fights.

Snapshot will reduce the variable portion for every ranged attack regardless of how quickly a player engages. It's total impact on the player's performance depends on the time that the player is in 1) the variable attack phase, 2) the fixed attack phase and 2) the added 'reaction time or choose to wait' phase. It still works better the more you have regardless of how long the third phase is, just as haste still works better the more you have regardless of how long you take to engage mobs as a melee.

So tell me, what stat helps you engage faster? Not sure why engaging is being brought up at all. It only comes into play when you factor in timed abilities like mediate and quickdraw.

While engaged, the choice between STR and snapshot might come down to how attentive you are as a ranged attacker. Not so for the choice between Haste and Str. When you're not engaged, none of your stats is doing you any good. So why bring that up?

[LinktheDeme]

So tell me, what stat helps you engage faster? Not sure why engaging is being brought up at all. It only comes into play when you factor in timed abilities like mediate and quickdraw.

While engaged, the choice between STR and snapshot might come down to how attentive you are as a ranged attacker. Not so for the choice between Haste and Str. When you're not engaged, none of your stats is doing you any good. So why bring that up?

I'm not sure what your argument is anymore? If you are going to calculate the snapshot vs str ignore the base JA 313 delay and add it back in after all the calculation. That is going to be there regardless if you stack STR or snapshot so it won't effect it unless I'm missing something else?

[midguardian]

I'm not sure what your argument is anymore? If you are going to calculate the snapshot vs str ignore the base JA 313 delay and add it back in after all the calculation. That is going to be there regardless if you stack STR or snapshot so it won't effect it unless I'm missing something else?

My point is that in addition to the JA 313 delay, there is the delay before you hit your RA macro. That delay is also not affected by snapshot.

By the way, I'll concede that in situations where a melee has to reengage after each attack round, they are in the same boat with haste as ranged attackers are with snapshot.

[Vodou]

My point is that in addition to the JA 313 delay, there is the delay before you hit your RA macro. That delay is also not affected by snapshot.

By the way, I'll concede that in situations where a melee has to reengage after each attack round, they are in the same boat with haste as ranged attackers are with snapshot.

The act of re-engaging for melee is the same as /ra for ranged attackers.

For melee that engage slowly, added haste will improve overall damage more than for melee that engage quickly due to the stepwise manner in which damage occurs.

(This is larger, the shorter the fight. Think of it this way: you average x swings per fight; due to randomness you are midway in-between a full-swing at the end of each fight; the fewer swings you have the more you 'lost' from the average 1/2 swing you missed taking; as you add haste, i.e., increase swings, you still average the same 1/2 missed swing due to randomness, but it's now a smaller portion of the total; the increase in total swings is not based upon the swings you landed, but the swings you landed PLUS the in-between swings you missed using; equal haste increases on two players are more significant when your proportion of missed swings is higher, because the missed swings component stays constant at /12, while the overall swings is based on actual and missed swings.)

E.g. assuming a flat 50% increase in swings for two different mobs for the same player. These are just for example, assuming 8 versus 4 swings with the 2 diff mobs, then the effect of adding 50% more swings.

(8+.5) *1.5 = 12.25+.5, 12.25/8 = 53% increase
while (4+.5) *1.5 = 6.25 +.5, 6.25/4 = 56% increase

At 12 it equals 52%, at 24 it equals 51%, etc to approach 50%. Still, mathematically, we use 50% as exactly 50% for each player in each situation, when practically and mathematically it can't be. An acceptable compromise, but a compromise nonetheless.


Same phenomenon is seen in longer fights between melee that engage slowly with identical gear compared to melee that engage quickly. The longer the fight, the closer the overall damage appears between the two. (Common machine process analysis between setup time and run speed. Long setups and fast run speeds are not necessarily better than quick setups and moderate run speeds when the jobs are short. When they become longer the differences swap.) On paper, we know what it should be: but as fights get shorter engagement time becomes much more important than in long fights.

With snapshot, all things being equal and engage time being set to zero, the variable attack time will decrease in a predictable manner and damage increase in a predictable manner. With engage time being not zero, the effect of snapshot on total overall damage is variable depending upon how much added time is consumed in the 'player chosen wait time' between attacks (engage time.) This is why snapshot questions arise when damage is constrained for enmity issues.

[Spider-Dan]

Snapshot you can precisely account for while firing. With haste you have to take into account player targeting and engaging time. This discounts the value of haste. I'm not sure how anyone can disagree with that.

Fixed that for you.

Tell you what: you find me a single post of yours (before this thread) where you've said, "well, you can't really say that haste is that good because it takes time to change targets and engage" and I will concede the point. Deal?

So tell me, what stat helps you engage faster?

The same "stat" that helps you time shots better: player reaction time.

While engaged, the choice between STR and snapshot might come down to how attentive you are as a ranged attacker. Not so for the choice between Haste and Str. When you're not engaged, none of your stats is doing you any good. So why bring that up?

If I always have autotarget off (and I don't manually change targets before target death), that means that my autoattack timer is reset to 0 after every mob, which greatly reduces the value of +haste but has no impact whatsoever on the value of +ATK or +STR. In almost exactly the same sense, if I have an assload of +Snapshot but I'm lazy about firing, I've wasted my +Snapshot bonus and I should just wear +RATK or +STR instead.

I'm not sure how this wouldn't be trivially obvious.