Raider's Earring > Brutal Earring....Follow

Edit: Editing this to note that this original claim/assertion has since been proven false. Read the thread if you want to know what was going on, but don't take it as a valid state of how things work.



So, there's some unsettling new revelations regarding the relationship between DA and TA coming out in a thread over in this thread, starting about this post. Data appears pretty solid, though more generalized testing is likely to continue.

Caveat: Whether this is a bug (and thus may potentially be fixed) or intentional (and thus remain as it is) is completely unknown at this point.

Executive summary: In calculating your overall chances to proc either DA or TA, in the event that they both proc, *neither* takes effect.

In other words, there is no priority of DA over TA, or TA over DA. The calculations for both of them puts them in the 'under' category.

This has a measurable effect on anyone using Apoc atma, but will have the greatest impact on thf gear choices due to the high TA rate they can achieve.


The math for figuring out the 'actual' DA or TA rate based on 'listed' rates is:

DA = (1 - TA%) * DA%
TA = (1 - DA%) * TA%

It's unknown how quad-attack mixes in with the above. It's also unknown how this may interact with OAT/OA2-3/etc weapons.

So, how much of an impact? Let's consider a fairly high TA thf:

Triple attack
-------------
Base + merits: 10%
Apoc atma: 15%
Triplus offhand: 3%
+2 head: 3%
Epona's Ring: 3%

Total: 34%

Double attack
-------------
Epona's Ring: 3%
Atheling Mantle: 3%
Twilight Belt: 2%

Total: 8%

Suppa for one earring, the other slot left empty.

Total additional attacks per round:
Base: 0.6784
w/Brutal Earring: 0.6774
w/Raider Earring: 0.696


In other words, not only is the Raider's Earring better than Brutal, adding the Brutal Earring actually reduces your hits per round below the -base- level. Raider's, on the other hand, gives about a 1% gain in overall damage (excluding SA/TA).


So, how much TA is necessary for Raider's to beat Brutal?

Going to assume 8% base from the other three items, but will also look at 5% (removing Atheling Mantle)


(TA+1%) * 92% * 2 + 8% * (1-(TA+1%)) = TA * 87% * 2 + 13% * (1-TA)
(.92TA + .0092) * 2 + (.08 - .08TA + 0.0008) = .87TA * 2 + .13 - .13TA
1.84TA + 0.0184 + .08 - .08TA + .0008 = 1.74TA + .13 - .13TA
1.76TA + 0.0992 = 1.61TA + .13
0.15TA = 0.0308
TA = 0.2053


So at 21% and higher total TA, Raider's Earring matches or beats Brutal (not counting the Store TP).


If you remove the Atheling Mantle (using Cavaros or whatever), the threshold is:

(TA+1%) * 95% * 2 + 5% * (1-(TA+1%)) = TA * 90% * 2 + 10% * (1-TA)
(.95TA + .0095) * 2 + (.05 - .05TA + 0.0005) = .90TA * 2 + .10 - .10TA
1.9TA + 0.019 + .05 - .05TA + .0005 = 1.8TA + .1 - .1TA
1.85TA + 0.0695 = 1.7TA + .10
0.15TA = 0.0305
TA = 0.2033

Still the same: 21% or higher.


What if you have no other DA gear at all?

(TA+1%) * 100% * 2 + 0% * (1-(TA+1%)) = TA * 95% * 2 + 5% * (1-TA)
(TA + .01) * 2 = .95TA * 2 + .05 - .05TA
2TA + 0.02 = 1.85TA + .05
0.15TA = 0.03
TA = 0.20

20% TA is when the two earrings are equal (so outside Abyssea Brutal still wins, since you can only really get a max of about 20% from trait/merits/gear).

On the other hand, that 21% threshold means that as soon as you equip Apoc atma, Raider's beats Brutal, regardless of other gear.



And what about the other direction? Adding /war for 10% DA:

(TA+1%) * 85% * 2 + 15% * (1-(TA+1%)) = TA * 80% * 2 + 20% * (1-TA)
(.85TA + .0085) * 2 + (.15 - .15TA + 0.0015) = .80TA * 2 + .20 - .20TA
1.7TA + 0.017 + .15 - .15TA + .0015 = 1.6TA + .2 - .2TA
1.55TA + 0.1685 = 1.4TA + .20
0.15TA = 0.0315
TA = 0.21

And max lucky Fighter's Roll for another 24%:

(TA+1%) * 61% * 2 + 39% * (1-(TA+1%)) = TA * 56% * 2 + 44% * (1-TA)
(.61TA + .0061) * 2 + (.39 - .39TA + 0.0039) = .56TA * 2 + .44 - .44TA
1.22TA + 0.0122 + .39 - .39TA + .0039 = 1.12TA + .44 - .44TA
0.83TA + 0.4061 = 0.68TA + .44
0.15TA = 0.0339
TA = 0.226

With extreme amounts of DA devaluing TA, you'd need 23% TA for the Raider's to win. Still basically as soon as you equip Apoc atma.


Also, with the prior assumption of TA priority over DA, there was no consideration given to DA hurting the impact of the Raider set bonus. Since DA values hinder TA, they also reduce the (admittedly limited) benefit of the AF3+2 set.


Of course I just tossed a Raider's Earring last week since I thought it wouldn't do me any good. Have to get another...




Edited, May 11th 2011 10:14am by Kinematics

First, a side note. I tweaked the thf spreadsheet to use this new xor calculation and uploaded it (link in sig), separately from the original version. Some of the numbers I'll use here are drawn from that.

For att difference: For the setup in the standard gear set I have on the spreadsheet, cRatio is 1.3272 with the Aesir Ear Pendant, and 1.3087 with no earring. (This is using Bison Steak, which is hitting its cap without the Aesir, so some small loss there.) That's a 1.4% increase in attack value, in line with rough expectations regarding attack.

However SA/TA gear sets (if solo) may use different gear, and Aesir doesn't contribute to weaponskill damage at all. With weaponskills taking up about 40% of all damage, and solo SA/TA taking perhaps 20% more, the actual contribution to total DPS from the Aesir is reduced to (for the spreadsheet config) 0.4%.

Raider's on the other hand adds to TP, so indirectly to weaponskills, and also a tiny fraction of a gain in damage from Empyrean set bonus (more of a footnote; it won't shift final numbers to any notable degree). On the other hand, its contribution in standard TP, separated from SA/TA, is also reduced a bit, such that total gain for it is 0.8%.

So yes, the gain is small, but the alternatives are even smaller. And yes, I plan to get another Raider's Earring myself, as I think it's the best second earring choice at the moment based on what I know.



With regard to the other gear change options you mentioned:

At the moment I have no idea how removing all DA gear would impact results. I'll plug in the comparison on the spreadsheet for a rough guesstimate to see, but consider this to have caveats based on the model used that combine more factors than just the TA change. This assumes solo SA/TA and weaponskills, but doesn't change any gear aside from the base TP set. Atmas: RR+GH+Apoc.

Back: Used Vellaunus since it has the same +20 att as Charger's. Swapping Atheling to Vellaunus... and DPS went up... Only 0.3%, but still...

Also checked Forager's in place of Atheling (after the other changes below). Forager's is also an improvement, though smaller than Vellaunus/Charger's.

Waist: Changed Twilight to Bullwhip, and DPS went up again. (0.2%, 314.419 to 315.112)

Fiddling with other waists like Goading means changing other gear around. Starting with 315.112 using Agasaya+Bullwhip+Homam feet to reach 26%. With Goading+Ballerines+Tiercel, DPS is 315.277. Can't really seem to improve past that, and the difference is basically just different gear to reach the same point.

The original, using Brutal/Atheling/Twilight/Agasaya/Homam feet, was 309.681 DPS. Overall, 1.75% gain by removing most DA (left Epona's on).

And so the game changes again. Guess now I've got another reason to amber farm in Tahrongi again. Feel like a fool for not lotting a belt while we were doing Empyreans, but oh well.

Thanks for keeping us up to date on how flailing works.

Kinematics wrote


This is a curious point. If the quad attack cancels out triple attack would it be more detrimental to use it than good? Of all the daggers out there I absolutely love the triplus dagger as my favorite (insane DoT and 3% TA rate/damage increase is nuts), but I've had a hard time choosing a secondary companion. I've had the twilight for two months now but it never impressed me and I rarely used it. I'm currently using fire Kila +2/triplus as my standard dagger setup. I decided to go with a sure thing since kila +2 has the highest DoT rating of any non relic/empy/mythic dagger out there (base DoT rating 13.57 with an additional 9 strength and combined 24.5 attack is monstrous). What does everyone else think of twilight and oa2-3x weapons in this light?

Ok, made the corrections (haven't uploaded yet since I haven't copied the corrections to all the other weaponskill tables), and while corrected average hits per round are slightly higher (and DPS went from 315 to 316), the bit where removing DA improves DPS still holds.

I'm going to agree that any DA gear is bad on the grounds that we are assuming 30% or more TA rate which basically means atma of apoc + merits and a little gear. Last night I was too tired to think math but I got a chance to ponder how the calculations worked this afternoon and it's actually simple. Instead of giving a step by step instruction on mathing it I'll simply give an example because it's easier for me to show you than try to put into words

With NO DA gear at all if my base TA rate is 30% then I will swing 160 times in every 100 attacks (30% TA == 60 extra swings).

Example 1: adding 5% DA gear (IE: aetheling and twilight belt)
since I have a 30% TA rate only 70% of my swings can proc a DA, thus 70 x 0.05 == 3.5 swings gained from DA
since I have a 30% TA rate 5% of them will be counteracted by DA rate, thus 30 x 0.05 == 1.5 TA procs or 3 swings
My total is 160 swings + 3.5 (increase from non interferenced DA) - 3.0 swings (countered by procing both at once) == 160.5 swings per 100 rounds

Thus with 30% TA rate adding 5% DA rate adds 0.5 swings per 100 rounds but the 4% af3 set bonus alone makes this a complete wash. 160.5/160 == a 1.003125 gain (three thousandths of one percent gain), but you lose a 4% activation on the lost 5% TA rate (28.5/30== 95% TA activations or a 5% loss) which is 100 x 0.04 x 0.05 == 0.2, and since this is a triple damage proc it's worth 2x for a total of 0.4% loss of DoT. The increased tp gain from 1 extra swing in 200 attack rounds means 1 extra weaponskill after 3,000 or more attack rounds (based on a 15 attack round to 100% model), and by then you lose out on 3.6 triple damage procs which again is either a net loss of damage or best case scenario an absolute wash.

However this is not a static rule and when you approach 40% TA rate ANY DA is counterproductive to attack speed period!!

Example 2: adding 1% DA gear to a 40% TA rate
since I have a 40% TA rate only 60% of my swings can proc a DA, thus 60 x 0.01 == 0.6 swings gained from DA
since I have a 40% TA rate 1% of them will be counteracted by DA rate, thus 40 x 0.01 == 0.4 TA procs or 0.8 swings
My total is 180 swings + 0.6 (increase from non interferenced DA) - 0.8 swings (countered by procing both at once) == 179.8 swings per 100 rounds

a net LOSS of attack speed by adding just ONE percent of DA rate.

And yes, kinematics is right on that raiders is better than brutal.

at 30% TA rate adding 5% DA means a bonus of 70 x 0.05 == 3.5 attack rounds from double attack (NON TA procing swings multiplied by DA percent), at the loss of (30 x 0.05) x 2 = 3.0 attacks (TA rate multiplied by interferenced DA procs) == a net gain of 0.5 swings (this is example 1 all over again)

whereas raider's earring increases TA rate by 1% which is a simple bonus of 2 swings in 100 rounds, and last I checked 2 swings is better than 0.5 swings, thus raider's earring is stronger than brutal earring. There's also the added perk of 3 more evasion which is never a bad thing. Basically once you equip the atma of apocalypse any DA gear AT ALL results in a total wash or loss of damage, and the higher your TA rate the larger the loss becomes. Who would have thought?

EDIT: There is one exception to this rule, and that's epona's ring. Yes, Eponas ring IS better than any alternative, and still results in a net increase in damage. That's because 3%TA/3% DA combined is a LOT of extra attack potential and more than overcomes interferenced procs and will still result in a net increase of over 2% DoT at relatively high TA rates.

Edited, May 4th 2011 9:44am by Melphina

Vellaunus' Mantle isn't an option on my server. (Conflux 7 isn't opened, and I have enough other things to do with my time than get into WoE.) My understanding is that the STR on Cerb Mantle +1 is "wasted" inside Abyssea since cruor buffs should put me over fSTR cap, therefore Charger Mantle is my next best option after Vellaunus'? Blech...

Quoting this so you can see your silliness and not cover it up =P

You see the other effect of the BQ ring? It basically means you're not going to resist fire-based attacks at all. So while you should have a partial resist going on based on your level, BQ ring means you're going to take full damage from a fire attack. Hence it's stupid to use a BQ ring against anything with formidable fire-based attacks.

To the actual thread topic: This is good to know, and while yes, it's poor programming, I kinda like it in a way. Now I know to avoid Double Attack, which means I can focus on all the other stats in the game. It essentially removes a stat from our stat balancing, which makes things easier, imo. Also I like how the Af3+2 set bonus works and plan to stack the hell out of Triple Attack, so this means to keep stacking it, even at the loss of double attack, woo!

Edited, May 4th 2011 5:41pm by SirEaglestrike

I know all that. >_>

I didn't mean to have the BQ ring equipped on purpose; I still had BQ+Meridian on from a previous Abyssea run. I just plain forgot about it. Needless to say, the higher HP was not worth taking nearly double the damage as the 60NIN.

Clarification:
What I was referring to by "just the BQ ring" was that the Bullwhip Belt is packing many more types of reduced resistances than the BQ ring does, not to mention the HP cut on it too. The BQ ring is a far "safer" item (only one resistance cut and +HP instead of -HP) but it was still enough to doom me in that one particular scenario. >_>

Edited, May 4th 2011 7:24pm by Fynlar

I dont really mind it in regards to changing gear. I mind it because it grabs /war by the bawls and pulls. I have been looking forward to (hopefully) DW3 on Thf main at 95/99 and finally free us from /nin and get back to the raw power of Thf/war and have the option to be a hell on wheels DD 2handed or not. (similar to what dancer and nin are already capable of). Honestly, /war is probably inferior to /nin in nearly every situation now. It is basically zerk vs 10% DW at best. Negative damage from DA +zerk damage vs 10% DW at worst. Thf/Nin4life because of a bug? Rediculous.

I dont mind gear being gimp and this and that as there are lots of options and some gear is always better than other gear. sh*t is situational and all that. But, to limit our subjob capabilities because of (what can only be described as) a 'bug' in the coding is completely unacceptable to me. Truth or not, its sloppy, lazy, and should promptly be fixed as a technical issue by SE.

This is a bug and should be treated as such. I strongly encourage everyone to put this in as a bug report.

/COR. It's still a flat 280 damage (negligible in Abyssea, sure, but not irrelevant outside) for QD before any MAB gear, of which there's....more now, feeds the mob no TP, generates extra TP for you comparable to Meditate (much more than DRG, at least), and gives you access to a Light-based Sleep and a Dispel more reliable than Aura Steal. And hey, Rogue's Roll.

Buy my culverins, puppets!

EDIT: According to wiki calculations, a QD shot from Culv + Cannon Shell (1060 delay) should come out to 18.4 TP before any Store TP in your QD set, which you'd probably use in non-MAB slots, because why not?

Edited, May 5th 2011 2:12pm by pacobirdley

Edited, May 5th 2011 4:10pm by pacobirdley

Lets not forget that this is one person posting parse data, and we have another topic here on the first page with similar quantity parse data showing that this isn't the case. So maybe it isn't yet time to yell "The sky is falling" and drop our twilight belts, atheling mantles, and brutal earrings...

Needs more proof is all I am saying.

I may actually dust off my kparser(haven't parsed anything for about 8 months) and try to contribute some. I wish I had a trick staff or something that is 1 dmg so I could do the -fSTR method on a hpmede or something. I will have to see if I can figure something out.

I'm so happy to hear you're wrong! =P

Anyway, wanted to ask a question regarding a comment in your original post about the "limited" effectiveness of the AF3+2 set bonus. What are the numbers on the set bonus when it comes to proc rate?

Time to visit Sagheera i guess.

They're re-running the original parse through the new analysis, not new parses. pchan's data with the revised code also now supports the TA>DA priority instead of the xor calculation. There's sufficient data among all the parses together that the refutation is pretty solid.

Now that you mention it, I do recall reading about super-damage SA/TA hits a while back. I was basing things on the wiki note that it only affects the second and third hit of a triple. Will have to adjust the spreadsheet.

Anyway, if it can affect all 3 hits, then that increases its value in DPS by a factor of 1.5 (3 hits instead of 2) and 1.33 (adding in SATA damage), essentially doubling the numbers I gave above. That puts its overall value at +3.5% to +7% DPS, depending on base 5% or 10% proc rate.


Edit: For clarification, does the triple damage proc mean that all 3 hits of a TA get tripled, or that some subset (eg: 1 at random) of the hits of the TA get tripled?

Edited, May 6th 2011 3:51pm by Kinematics

Curious. Are you sure that you didn't kill your target when only 1 or 2 procd? I never really counted procd hits or checked for perfect situations (mob surviving all hits), so i can't really say. I always felt like stuff would just die when the set bonus procd lol. Well, It would sure suck if it's random :\

On the aftermath + set bonus thing, i think they can both go off at the same time. I remember quite a few 1500-1800ish normal melee hits on fear deargs that are certainly impossible without x6 damage.

edit: i decided to analyze some parses i had to check the af bonus affecting each hit individually.

Straight to the point, it seems to me that the bonus always affects every hit. I only checked the first 100 fear deargs and could only find 2 instances of set bonus proc on a single hit. In both cases it probably killed the fear dearg as it was the last number on the full melee sequence list of the parse. Over 100 fights, there were 8 procs of the bonus, 2 actually procd in the same fight (fun stuff: 381 791c 1631c 1485c 216c 425 872c 63 903c -DEAD- lol). Actually, i think it's 3 procs there, the normal 63 and the crit 216 could have been guarded. Fun fun fun hehe.

Since i was using rudras a lot, i had to filter based on the highest crit damage the aftermath could achieve. About 630 damage (58 * 3.15 * 1.38 * 1.25 * 2), so i might have lost a few low pdif or off-hand procs. But it was interesting because even if i only found 1 crit over 630 damage, there would still be 2 unusually high normal hits to back it up.




Edited, May 6th 2011 8:35pm by Laphine

So I've just been trying to get myself caught up on this issue today, and after reading/skimming most of the thread, and then rereading sections of it, The final conclusion is that Triple Attack/Double Attack do not cancel each other out, and that in fact, Triple Attack takes priority over Double Attack? This was all started because of a bug in how KParser read the data?

I thought what he was saying was that the "Raider's Earring > Brutal Earring" thing was what was incorrect, not the whole "if Double and Triple both proc, neither one occurs" thing was incorrect.

That wasn't the same conclusion that I drew; I thought that he just meant that the parser's behind the scenes math involved in determining overall # of additional attacks with the different setups was just slightly incorrect, enough to make Raider's > Brutal.

Hence the comment of "for now I'm recanting this thread's assertion.", which I thought was referring to THIS thread's assertion (the Raider's vs. Brutal debate), not necessarily the overall concept behind it (that Double and Triple don't stack)

What Meldi and Eaglestrike said is pretty much correct.

Hold up a sec.

Claim: Adding DA gimps your damage.

0% DA/TA = 100 swings
30% TA = 160 swings

30% Ta + 20% DA:
* 30% TA: 30% of 80 swings = 24 TA = 48 hits
* 20% DA: 20% of 70 swings = 14 DA = 14 hits
Total: 162 swings.

Adding Double Attack reduces your DPS.
Adding 20% Double Attack takes you from 160 swings to 162 swings.
Statement is false.

30% TA, 10% DA:
* 30% TA: 30% of 90 swings = 27 TA = 54 hits
* 10% DA: 10% of 70 swings = 7 DA = 7 hits
Total: 161 Swings

Adding 10% Double Attack takes you from 160 swings to 162 swings.
Statement is false.

30% TA, 5% DA

* 30% TA: 30% of 95 swings = 28.5 TA = 57 hits
* 05% DA: 05% of 70 swings = 3.5 DA = 3 hits
Total: 160 Swings

Adding 5% Double Attack takes keeps you at 160 swings.
Statement is false.

Noodles: You are missing the point. The OP wasn't whether DA gimped your DPS. It was whether Raider's Earring (1% TA) offered a bigger DPS increase than Brutal earring (5% DA). And according to parse data, the answer was yes, which contributed to the conclusion that if TA and DA proc together, they cancel each other out. Your math is based on that assertion, which has since been found to be false because of a bug in the parsing program. TA and DA do NOT cancel each other out, so that math is irrelevant.



The original claim of the OP has been proven false, this is no longer true. The actual point at which raider's earring out performs brutal earring will be somewhere south of 98% TA and somewhere north of 34% depending oh AF3 +2 bonus procs and enhances TA damage gear etc.

Edit: for randomly leaving out portions of sentences.

Edited, May 11th 2011 9:39am by Meldi

The conclusion is yes, TA procs before DA.