Random Question Thread XII: Don't Believe Advanced's Lies

[Shenrien]

Anyone done any testing with restraint to show if its worth using on WAR for WS, with the cost of no crits?

[rog]

I saw a guy doing that in Grauberg [S] while I was doing staff trials on treants. Not only was he below ground, he was teleporting around above ground, too. I could see him every once in a while for a split second. Scanning for Dark Ixion makes sense I guess... but as fast as he was zipping around the area, how does SE not flag that shit?

Probably because they're too lazy to code something that wouldn't catch normal occurrences, such as if people start to dc, but don't fully dc, which looks just like pos hacking.

Getting away with pos/speed hacking is about as easy as casting invisible.

[rog]

Anyone done any testing with restraint to show if its worth using on WAR for WS, with the cost of no crits?

When i first got it, i used a few times, and my RRs dropped a good 2-300 damage. Could have just been a coincidence, but seems like garbage to me.

[Onorgul]

What about Restraint used on a weaponskill that, you know, doesn't crit?

[Byrthnoth]

When i first got it, i used a few times, and my RRs dropped a good 2-300 damage. Could have just been a coincidence, but seems like garbage to me.

I've also never noticed a positive change when using it. I tried to test it on level 0 mobs, no noticeable effect. I tried to test it in a merit party with Fort Axe and KJ... no noticeable effect. The description is:

"Enhances your weapon skill power with each normal attack you land, but prevents you from dealing Critical Hits"

A friend suggested that it might require your "each normal attack that land" be on the same mob as what you're WS, which would make it essentially worthless for merit mobs. If it works, I don't know how it works. Currently it's a tool that Bravuras can use so they don't triple damage crit monsters to death, if they feel it's worth it.

[Carraway]

Restraint is absolute shit for RR due to obvious reasons: no crits. It might be worth it for SC if you're looking to completely frontload damage for closing a skillchain or something, but overall, the sacrifice in DoT far outweighs any potential gains (personal experience has shown, at most, a positive variance of 50-100 damage on a 300% TP SC after charging Restraint from 0-300%, but I didn't test it much, and that extra damage could have had absolutely nothing to do with Restraint).

[Chen]

Why are you assuming someone would use a mule for nothing but scanning di/sw?

Plenty of people have mule accounts for bazaaring, pling, gardening, etc that can be used for it.

cause if it could be banned at any time from that (i mean, it does look pretty obvious) they'd lose all their bazaar'd junk/high level mage char/precious pots?

[Byrthnoth]

Sooooo.... Saber Dance looks like it's main-hand only to me. Furthermore, it looks much less potent than wiki claims. I'd really like to know the source for the 50->10% decay stat.

At the moment, looks main-hand-only 50% DA rate that suppresses natural Double Attack (gear, subjob) so you can't 4-hit attack round without an OAT offhand. I'd have noticed this sooner, but I was offhanding Athame, Parazonium, or Joyeuse.

[Thorny]

Sooooo.... Saber Dance looks like it's main-hand only to me. Furthermore, it looks much less potent than wiki claims. I'd really like to know the source for the 50->10% decay stat.

At the moment, looks main-hand-only 50% DA rate that suppresses natural Double Attack (gear, subjob) so you can't 4-hit attack round without an OAT offhand. I'd have noticed this sooner, but I was offhanding Athame, Parazonium, or Joyeuse.

How extensive was your testing? That pretty much kills the DNC zerg idea if accurate.

[Raen Ryong]

I recently had the pleasure of having Bind on Zipacna persist after several nukes (on BLM80), so killing it was fast. Is this normal?

I'm 99.9% sure the chance of it happening is to do with the level difference between the mob and you. Anyone killing Groundskeepers even at 75 could tell you that you can often land 1+ nukes without Bind breaking, but I can't remember a single time I nuked Zipacna/Faust etc at 75RDM without Bind breaking.

Going back at 80RDM, Faust's Bind wasn't breaking after the first nuke a lot of the time, etc.

[Byrthnoth]

How extensive was your testing? That pretty much kills the DNC zerg idea if accurate.

So far, not that much really. I killed maybe 10 mobs and with Fusetto/Dakini and basically spent the whole time going, "WTF, where are my four-hit attack rounds?" Only counted the last 3 mobs (canceled after 1 minute) and I'm on lolPS2 so it has to be done by hand.


I should note, I was on DNC/WAR so I'd have expected to see a 4-hit round or two even without Saber Dance up. I'm going to do further testing on DNC/NIN without Suppa or Brutal (no DA and I'll get 5TP/hit to make it easy to count rounds).

[rog]

I'm 99.9% sure the chance of it happening is to do with the level difference between the mob and you. Anyone killing Groundskeepers even at 75 could tell you that you can often land 1+ nukes without Bind breaking, but I can't remember a single time I nuked Zipacna/Faust etc at 75RDM without Bind breaking.

Going back at 80RDM, Faust's Bind wasn't breaking after the first nuke a lot of the time, etc.

I'm not so sure though. If you bind some really low level mobs, and try, you'll still break bind a lot. But then there's things like buffaloes (at least in NW, not sure about others), which almost never break bind with a single nuke, and it's not uncommon to get as many as 5 or more nukes off just to have it wear off on it's own. It doesn't seem consistent between levels, or even int values. Honestly my only guess would be that maybe certain mobs are just less likely to have a bind broken with a nuke, regardless of their level/int. Or maybe it's a combination of that, as well as int and/or level.

Maybe we should try testing it on one mob family of extremely different levels, as well as with burn+absorb int (in case it's based entirely on mob's int, and not on the caster's), as well as stacked int.

[CDF]

I'm 99.9% sure the chance of it happening is to do with the level difference between the mob and you. Anyone killing Groundskeepers even at 75 could tell you that you can often land 1+ nukes without Bind breaking, but I can't remember a single time I nuked Zipacna/Faust etc at 75RDM without Bind breaking.

Going back at 80RDM, Faust's Bind wasn't breaking after the first nuke a lot of the time, etc.

Despot would be an case to determine whether decreased level difference could be that dominant a factor. At least at level 75, Bind lasting through one nuke is very rare (if it's even possible as I have yet to observe it), but I haven't had occasion to kill it recently.

[Tambor]

Sooooo.... Saber Dance looks like it's main-hand only to me. Furthermore, it looks much less potent than wiki claims. I'd really like to know the source for the 50->10% decay stat.

At the moment, looks main-hand-only 50% DA rate that suppresses natural Double Attack (gear, subjob) so you can't 4-hit attack round without an OAT offhand. I'd have noticed this sooner, but I was offhanding Athame, Parazonium, or Joyeuse.

Well I just grabbed a Mercenary Captain's kukri to check this out.
DNC/NIN - Auric/M.C Kukri, no DA gear, no haste gear, no haste samba, no suppa, no food.
I saw both main hand DAs and off hand DAs aswell as one 4-hit DA damage in log looked like this 86(Auric)>89(Auric)>25(MCK)>39(MCK)>59(Auric)

[Kalisa]

Well I just grabbed a Mercenary Captain's kukri to check this out.
DNC/NIN - Auric/M.C Kukri, no DA gear, no haste gear, no haste samba, no suppa, no food.
I saw both main hand DAs and off hand DAs aswell as one 4-hit DA damage in log looked like this 86(Auric)>89(Auric)>25(MCK)>39(MCK)>59(Auric)

I've also seen plenty of 4-hit attack rounds while /SAM out doing Magian trials. And yes, many were before I got my Athame to OA2 status. It's fun; looks like Hundred Daggers. Granted, I was using Brutal, and you could chalk it up to that... but I don't think I'm willing to credit the earring with every single one.

Byrth, I'll help you test this if you tell me exactly how you're doing it. I've got plenty of non-OAT daggers still laying around to play with, and I'm a fan of both /WAR and /SAM. More sample sizes can only be a good thing, yeah?

[Byrthnoth]

I've also seen plenty of 4-hit attack rounds while /SAM out doing Magian trials. And yes, many were before I got my Athame to OA2 status. It's fun; looks like Hundred Daggers. Granted, I was using Brutal, and you could chalk it up to that... but I don't think I'm willing to credit the earring with every single one.

Byrth, I'll help you test this if you tell me exactly how you're doing it. I've got plenty of non-OAT daggers still laying around to play with, and I'm a fan of both /WAR and /SAM. More sample sizes can only be a good thing, yeah?

So far my basic testing methodology has been to grab two non-OAT daggers and hit things with Saber Dance up. I cancel Saber Dancer after a minute or whenever I need Curing Waltz IV, depending what I'm fighting.

A confirmation that you can get a 4-hit attack round with 2 non-OAT weapons, no brutal, and /SAM would be awesome. I can't parse and I hit fast, so my notes are only as good as my eyes.

[Tambor]

Dunno how good this is but > i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk4/Tambor-Caduceus/ffxi_20100731_162733.png

That is the SS I took of my 4hit round using Auric mainhand/Merc Capt Kukri off hand with /NIN and no Brutal

Edit: should probably have grabbed an even lower level dagger so the damage difference would be more noticable

[Kainstryder]

Any decent spots found yet for Parry/Guard past 75? I'm thinking Deco Weapons, but wondering if I'm missing something better

[Byrthnoth]

Dunno how good this is but > i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk4/Tambor-Caduceus/ffxi_20100731_162733.png

That is the SS I took of my 4hit round using Auric mainhand/Merc Capt Kukri off hand with /NIN and no Brutal

Edit: should probably have grabbed an even lower level dagger so the damage difference would be more noticable

Hmm.... your photobucket name actually gave an idea, I'll offhand my Caduceus. Are you sure that you had no DA in that picture? No Aurore Doublet?

[Ellimist]

Is Adler Ring (Acc+8, Attack-12) ok to use in any sort of TP phase...? I'm thinking of using it on COR with Joyeuse, since I'm assuming the majority of my damage is coming from Slug/Det.