Focus Effects that impact weapon selection

[Sempai]

Coporlith asked me to start a thread here that discusses the focus effects that impact weapon selection. Specifically, my goal is to address the ones found in Time and GoD to start.

My reason for this is that a while ago, I started using an Ethereal Destroyer in my MH and my Shinai of the Ancients in my OH. Furthermore, I passed on the Exquisite Puresteel Wraps when they dropped as I was pretty sure that it was lower DPS for me, but I could not prove it at the time. Most of my guild and most of the other beastlords I spoke with thought I was completely nuts. As the parses have demonstrated, my choice which went against "conventional wisdom", was the correct one from a DPS standpoint.

While Coprolith and Tastian have done a lot of work that helps us make better decisions when it comes to high end weapon drops, there are a lot of other items that are currently being missed that impact the choices.

So, lets build a list of the effects which might impact our weapon selection so we can get some parses done, and see if we can build a spreadsheet which helps us pick the right weapons for our playstyles. I am going to skip the effects and AAs already in Coprolith's spreadsheet (attack, haste, ambi, sinister, etc).

Accuracy
Cleave I-III
Combat Effects
Ferocity I-III
Sharpshooting I-III
Strikethrough

Again, I am trying to keep this discussion to effects which impact weapon selection and I will update this list if anyone posts more effects that I missed.

Depending upon your playstyle, and preference for weapons, these effects do impact your dps very differently. If you like the ED for example, I am pretty sure Combat Effects are going to be more important than the others. However, if you are using the SoT you might fight Ferocity and Cleave as more important. It is these kind of choices that I want to understand better as I help make loot calls for me and my guild.

[Dummkopf]

Is it proven that Ferocity works for us? Afaik it doesnt work for bards or beastlords since we dont have a double attack skill, only an aa that allows some double attacks but is not based on a skill.

Otherwise, yes i surely like combat effects, but to be honest, ED is already so much aggro i cant go for full damage on most mobs since i would out aggro tanks or at least die every tank-change. I was planning to get my 30 CE within time.

Accuracy and Sharpshooting seem to be nice, dunno about strikethrough, that would only be more dps if you tank or offtank a lot (and it spams).

Cleave is a nice thing and i would take items with it if i have the chance to.

[Sempai]

That is the whole point Dummkopf, I want to prove how these impact our weapon choices. Unfortunately, I do not have one of the Ferocity or Sharpshooting items yet, but I have at least one of the rest, so I should be able to put together a few parses to help come up with some real numbers.

For raiding, I have pretty much retired my ED due to aggro. For kicks I used it on Quarm last week and I stole aggro and Quarm can still crush me like a bug if I take aggro. :lol:

My goal is to end up with a spreadsheet like Coprolith already has, but have it include the impact of these effects so that we can all evaluate our weapon and gear choices better on the high end.

[Bengali]

According to posts on the bard boards, Ferocity has no effect on them even if they have trained in their double attack AA.  It's probably the same for us.

Strikethrough works even if you don't tank -- a mob can still dodge/parry/block if you attack it from the sides, and often beastlords aren't in the "rogue spot" of directly behind a mob.

[Skratchen]

If Ferocity doesn't work for Bards or Beastlords, then Cleave shouldn't work for anyone who isn't a warrior, rogue (backstab crits) or monk (special kick crits).  I had to spend aa's to get melee crits.  And I've noticed with my own parses an increase of melee crits with Cleave.  The bottom line is, if Cleave works with skills gained only through aa's, then Ferocity *should* be the same.  But maybe this needs be /feedback'd to the developers.

[Coprolith]

Thanks for the inventorisation Sempai.

I guess the next step is to find out which of these effects have already been parsed properly on other class boards, review them and think about whether or not they apply to beastlords as well (like Ferocity), and finally establish what parses still need to be done.


Tastian already provided a link to aparse of Combat Effects, found here:
http://www.thesteelwarrior.org/forum/showthread.php?t=5656

Summary of the results are in this graph:


Additional info on legend:
MH, PP = primary proc on mainhand weapon
OH, PP = primary proc on offhand weapon
MH+OH, SP = combined proc rate of secondary procs on MH and OH weapon (Anger III augments on both weapons)
WA0, WA5 = Weapon Affinity 0, 5 respectively

- There's no significant change in the slopes of the fitcurves going from WA0-->WA5. So Combat Effects must be working of the base proc rate.

- For the MH primary proc the slope is about 0.02/CE, for the OH primary proc its 0.01/CE. That's the same 2:1 ratio that procrates usually have in MH vs OH. However, The MH weapon, Darkblade of the Warlord, is one of those weapons that have a proc rate modifier (30%). So we cannot be sure if the 0.02/CE applies to all MH weapons, or if it has the same 30% modifier.

- Based on the above I would have expected that the MH+OH,SP proc rate would be enhanced by 0.03/CE, but this does not seem to be the case at first. However, the slope of the secondary proc rate will be biased. As the primary proc rate increases, there are less combat rounds in which the secondary proc can go off at all. This will cause the slope to be less then expected.

It seems to me that Combat Effects simply adds a fixed amount to the proc rate, regardless of proc rate modifiers on the weapon, but it would take a parse of 2 proccing weapons, both augmented, but with 4 different procs to prove this conclusively.

I'll try to look into some of the other effects later this weekend.

/hugs

[Bengali]

If Ferocity doesn't work for Bards or Beastlords, then Cleave shouldn't work for anyone who isn't a warrior, rogue (backstab crits) or monk (special kick crits).  I had to spend aa's to get melee crits.  And I've noticed with my own parses an increase of melee crits with Cleave.  The bottom line is, if Cleave works with skills gained only through aa's, then Ferocity *should* be the same.  But maybe this needs be /feedback'd to the developers.

I agree.  The practical explanation is that the effects are coded differently in the database.  Ferocity III, for example, is coded as:

1:  Increase Double Attack by 9%

By contrast, Cleave III is coded as:

1:  Chance to Critical Hit(60)
2:  Chance to Critical Hit(60)
3:  Chance to Critical Hit(60)
4:  Chance to Critical Hit(60)
5:  Chance to Critical Hit(60)
6:  Chance to Critical Hit(60)
7:  Chance to Critical Hit(60)
8:  Chance to Critical Hit(60)
9:  Chance to Critical Hit(60)
10:  Chance to Critical Hit(60)
11:  Chance to Critical Hit(60)

Cleave actually adds a chance to crit while ferocity is an increase to "double attack".  Apparently bestial frenzy and the bardic counterpart don't give us "double attack", at least not in a way that the game code recognizes it so that Ferocity would affect it.

I don't see a design reason why Ferocity shouldn't affect bards and beastlords, so I've /feedbacked it myself.

[Sempai]

Cop, just let me know the parse you want for CE. You know I have the 4 unique procs, but I only have 1 CE item. So, I could do 2 parses, one with and one without. Not sure if that is enough to get the job done, but I can do it.

Since I already did a long proc parse for you without CE, perhaps I just need to do a long one with CE to test it.

Anyway, let me know and I will get it done.

[Coprolith]

Hrrrmmm

Well you have WA5, so MH PP rate be 3 ppm w/o CE. With only 10 CE that number would go up to 3.2 ppm according to my interpretation of the SW parses. It's not going to be easy to parse that out Sempai, it may take a week per parse (The parses on the SW were 40+ hours each!). If you feel you're up to that then by all means go ahead, but it might be wiser to ask someone who has more CEs / wait for more CEs yourself, and accept the SW results (more precisely my interpretation of them) until then.

/hugs

[Choppin]

wondering:

if all classes who get crits via AAs have the same crit chance (like procs?) would a beastlord catch up dps wise by getting max amount of crit melee?

example:

monk goes from 200 dps to 210 dps via crits (made up numbers)

bst goes from 130 to 140 dps via crits (also made up but you see the both gain 10 dps part)

both having no crits = monk does 54 pct more dmg via melee

both having crits max = monk does 50 pct more dmg via melee

well as tiny as the catching up might be, crits seem to scale in our favor if they work like procs and ignore amount of hits / haste / whatever

[Coprolith]

No, crit chance would add a % to melee dps. You'd never catch up. In fact since the fractional gain is the same, the absolute difference would increase.

That monk going from 200 to 210 had a 5% increase in dps. The beastlord would have gone from 130 to 130+5%*130 = 136.5

/hugs

[Choppin]

So humm crits favor 2h users due to the superior ratio on 2hers ?

Guess cleave is of special interest for bsts using 2hers then

[Coprolith]

Who says crits favor 2H users? On the contrary, if anything crits favor dualwielders; OH crit average is 2x normal damage, whereas MH crit average is only 1.7x normal damage

[Tastian]

"if all classes who get crits via AAs have the same crit chance (like procs?) "

Yeah cop pretty much covered it, but crits aren't like procs.  Proc rate is adjusted based on round and haste and weapon_mod so that overtime you have a set number of procs on average.  Crits are just a % of your hits.  The more you swing the more crits you have.  It's not a hard cap like 10 crits per minute that beastlord and monk would still get.  Rather it's a %.  Also of note is that well casting will lower your proc rate, it won't lower your crit rate as crit rate is simply based on swings, you will have fewer crits from casting (because of fewer rounds), but it'll still be the same % of crits.

[Derrict]

Sharpshooting is based on ranged attacks, I believe.  Guildmate parsed cleave I to increase crits 0.4%