Brave GripFollow

So...

revising brave grip for abyssea uses...

+3.5% Critical Hit Damage Boost.

3,500 Drakesbane = 122.5 Damage Boost from Grip.

4,000 Drakesbane = 140.0 Damage Boost from Grip.

4,500 Drakesbane = 157.5 Damage Boost from Grip.

5,000 Drakesbane = 175.0 Damage Boost from Grip.

5,500 Drakesbane = 192.5 Damage Boost from Grip.

This is pretty much on every WS. How would this compete vs let's say Pole Grip, or even Claymore Grip. Would Claymore Grip even have an effect in Abyssea considering Razed Ruins, or would Razed Ruins completely overshadow what Claymore can provide?

These numbers maybe completely off, it's % based on total damage versus the actual Crit per Hit basis that it would go by.

This would also directly affect Spirit and Soul Jump with Wyvern out.

Any ideas?

The higher your critical hit rate the better brave grip would be. If you critical 100% of the time, you take full benefit of the 3.5%. If you critical 80% of the time, you take 2.8% etc etc. With RR and SQ, you are probably looking at 64% critical hit rate during tp, and 100% during jump, and likely 80% during drakesbane with the bonus from the WS. So you will probably take advantage of this 70-75% of the time.

However, you also have to remember this, you are going to have 30% critical damage boost from RR, and 10% from AF3+2 pants, so you are going to have 40% by default. Adding 3.5% on top of the 40% on 70-75% critical hit rate, is like 1.875% increase in overall damage.

Claymore grip is 3% critical hit rate, but remember it gains you nothing when you do soul or spirit jump with wyvern out. So it is 3% on top of the 64% during tp phase and 80% during drakesbane. Going with 3.5:5.5:1 ratio on tp:ws:jumps, you are gaining about 1.56% on overall damage.

And obviously if you have critical hit rate gears on tp or ws, it is going to downgrade claymore grip and upgrade brave grip.

So in conclusion, yes, in abyssea, brave is likely going to be better. Pole is not really for me since I use an OAT polearm already, so the boost to my overall damage is minimal. But it is probably a better boost than brave for none OAT users. Tho it also depends on what atma you pick. If you stack alot of DA, it is not as big of a boost.

The net damage is the same. 2 more hits every 100 rounds is always 2 hits worth of damage. if you do 10 damage a swing and get 2 more, you always do 20 more damage. That is true.

The RELATIVE gains are not. If you increase your damage by 20 for every 100 you do, you do 120 damage instead of 100. Your total damage output increased by 20%. If you do 200 damage, but still just increase by 20, going from 200 to 220 damage is only 10%. That is diminishing returns. The actual net damage increase may be the same. Both add 20 damage. But if your base is far higher, then it will only make up a relatively smaller chunk of your TOTAL damage.

It really doesnt technically matter how you measure it or what you call it to determine the end result of what gear/atma/buffs make you do the most damage. Both statements are true. However, you MUST COMPARE in the same way to the alternative gear/atma/food/buff/whatever. If a pole grip gives you 20 damage and a brave grip gets you 15 damage. The pole is better. If pole increased damage by 2% and brave by 1.5% its the same thing. It doesnt matter if you say its 'diminishing returns' or not. So long as you calculate the damage properly the terminology is irrelivant aside from consistency and clarity in communicating ideas to others.

Conceptually, adding more of any stat aside from haste reduces the % gain of each point after the 1st by more and more until said stat caps (hard or soft cap) because you are adding the same net damage with each increment, but your overall damage is increasing making additional amounts of the stat a smaller and smaller chunk of your total damage as you progress, even though each point adds the same damage per time increment. Its just a numerator and denominator fractional relationship.

What I am curious about is, do you also apply the same logic in reverse regarding haste? If there is no such thing as diminishing returns, then haste should not have increasing returns either as they are just opposite sides of the same coin. You cant accept increasing returns on haste while disregarding diminishing returns on acc/atk/DA/TA/Fstr/WSC/FTP and all that jazz.

Ill try to put it a different way as I realize this often doesnt make sense. Hell, when I was 1st posting here I didnt understand this concept myself. I was under the impression that haste and acc/atk etc were the same. I didnt 'believe' in diminishing or increasing returns myself some years ago and it took me a looong time to come around and it finally just clicked one day. So I dont mean to beat a horse to death with another post, but if i can try another way so more people get out of the same thought rut I was stuck in then I think it is worth trying.

The two different measurements are just that. Two different measurements. They dont quite say the same thing.

'Cool Item' makes you do 20 damage=20 damage all the time only measures the raw damage added by a stat. There is nothing wrong with this because it is completely true. However diminishing returns combines that raw damage boost and compares it to the existing damage. Say base of 100 and adding 'Cool Item' is +20 damage=20% MORE damage over what you did before. Compared to 200 base adding another 'Cool Item' is +20 damage=10% MORE damage over what you did before. The net damage is still 20 damage. But the % of the total damage has changed.

They are not measuring the same thing. Net damage is in a vacuum. X damage boost adds X damage. Diminishing returns come in when you incorporate everything before you add X damage. I imagine the 'proof' is that an item adding X damage will ALWAYS add X damage and that would be the 'proof' there is no diminishing return because it always adds the same thing. But, as stated above, that is not measuring the same thing. Both concepts exist and are true, but we just have to be careful not to mix up the ideas and apply them in the wrong situations.

A good drg related example is the melee damage from your wyvern. Wyverns will basically swing at a mob at teh same speed/damage all the time so it is X damage. It will always be X damage no matter what you do (ignoring empathy and stuff. just go with me :P) Lets say it does 100 damage over a defined period of time. If you send your wyvern on autoattack and you dont even hit the mob, wyvern is 100% of 'your' damage poking away for that 100 damage. That is 1 end of the extreme. A middle example is now YOU engage and do 400 damage in that same time your wyvern still does 100. Now YOU make up 80% of the damage and the wyvern only does 20%. Now you get buffed up to hell with food/haste/stuff and do 900 damage in that same timeframe that your wyvern only does 100. Now you are doing 90% of the damage and wyvern only does 10%. The X damage your wyvern does (100) has NOT changed. But it is becoming a smaller part of your TOTAL damage. It gets smaller because it is part of a fraction. The X added damage is the numerator and the total daamage is the denominator.

wyvern/total.
100/100=100%. This is the player not engaging and wyvern doing all the work.
100/500=20%. This is the player doing 400 and wyvern doing 100.
100/1000=10%. This is player doing 900 and wyvern doing 100.

The more damage is being done, the smaller % adding a static amount of damage like 20 will be. Its measuring something different than "X item adds 20 damage". It is saying X item makes up Y PERCENT of my TOTAL damage.

Please do yourself a favor and look up what "Diminishing Returns" actually means, without listening to what other Alla posters are telling you. It is simply not what you are talking about.

You are arguing percentage of increase, which is not at all the same thing. Sure, percentage-wise, each time you add a static amount, it's going to be a smaller percentage increase. If every year, you get a $0.50 pay raise, you are getting a linear increase. Percentage-wise, it is a smaller increase, but does that make the slightest bit of difference? You still get the same benefit from it. (ignore taxes for this discussion)

If you take all the math you've done and call it "Smaller Percentage of Increase" then you'll be on the right track. It will also help you make better decisions going forward.


Haste is increasing returns. When you graph it, your benefits from haste rise in a parabola shape (much like the right half of a U).

If you were to graph decreasing returns, it would look like a U rolled on its side, facing the right. There would be a sharp rise at first, followed by leveling out, and eventually virtually no rise at all.

DA's graph does not look like that. It is an angled line that is straight and consistent.

Fail is the grade you would get in math class if you turned any of this in for an assignment.

You are expecting increasing returns and when you are not getting them, you are calling it decreasing. You're missing the fact that it is linear returns. Not as good as increasing returns, but not decreasing in any way.

At 1st I assumed you didnt understand the concept, but after the last post and catching a similar one you made in anther forum, its quite obvious that isnt an issue. I think its quite obvious at this point we all understand the concepts everyone is talking about. Were just debating about 'what is the proper term for X phenomenon' semantic junk. If there is no confusion on what we mean then I dont really see what the issue is. If you graph the % gain of DA, each point is smaller than the last. Decreasing return. If you graph the literal net damage of something like DA it is a straight line.

Most people that do math here work in % gain because it is more easily translated to other changes in gear/atma/buffs. If changing from weapon A to weapon B increases damage output by 10%, we dont have to recalculate explicitly every time we change another piece of gear that does not share the same stat boost as the weapon. We can just multiply all the + and - % from varying adjustments together and get a final number. That is simple. If we say changing weapon A to weapon B increases damage by 5000/hr, we have to recalculate from scratch EVERY TIME we do anything because the actual net damage will be adjusted and thus needs a new number/hr. % gains are just easier to work with because they are more easily applied to changing gear/mobs/buffs.

Because % is always easier to work with in our situation (calculating game damage) everything will be referenced as such by the community which is what has happened. Chart the % gain from DA and its not a straight line. Im all for PC correctness, but the fact is, terms are only as good as the clarity they provide in communication. Even if the term isnt used 'technically' correctly, so long as it is clear to those using it what is meant, it is irrelivant. (Lol just realized i could have said that much more succinctly and clearly by just quoting the 'ain't is in the dictionary' line :P Irony go!)

We know what we mean dagnabit! Now get off my lawn you wily kids! :P

Edited, Jan 26th 2011 1:39pm by Banalaty

You're basically right in the fact that we're talking about two different types of calculation, one is based on the original values and the other is based on the adjusted value each time you add more.

The problem is that the terms you are using are only meant to be used with the first type. Increasing, decreasing, and linear returns are all based on the original values. I wouldn't have that big of a problem with misuse of the terms if it weren't for the fact that the conclusions being drawn are based on the proper use of the terms.

Other than the terminology, you were incorrect about haste. Even in the first calculation, each additional amount of haste increases damage over time more that the amount before it did. Haste is not linear in that method of calculation.

Very well stated. Rate up! And I loved that 'ain't is in the dictionary' line too, that was great.

Yes, we are talking about terminology. We both have a very good understanding of how the math works and we know that the community is taking a little license with the terms. I don't believe that you will be mislead at all by that. Being a very smart guy (or girl), there are people who will just accept what you say as the truth. Do they understand that you're using a different definition for the term? 'Diminishing returns' has a very negative connotation. Are they going to be led in the wrong direction by that?

The reason haste is different is because what we're measuring through all of this is Damage / Time. Every other factor we're looking at is dealing with the numerator, Damage, which we would graph on the y-axis. Those are all going to have similar effects. Haste affects Time, the x-axis. It's a whole different animal. It's kind of like taking the same linear graph and then taking one step, then a bigger step, then a bigger step, etc.

You're right, haste goes up linearly, but its effect on Damage / Time does not.

tl;dr Tomato tomāto

Shoot, I thought this topic had died, but since this post was added...

Meldi, SE has not yet added a NM or BCNM scenario where you get a specified number of rounds of combat. Until that happens, the only thing people care about is damage over time.

That scenario would be interesting because it would radically shift everything you gear up for. For instance, haste would be worthless because you wouldn't gain anything by finishing your 100 rounds of combat earlier. If anything, you'd want to slow yourself down so you can use more spells and job abilities during the fight.

It would be an interesting topic of conversation, but it is not currently what people are interested in gearing for.

It would seem he's showing the overall effect of 2% DA with the more hits you land to your dps.

Herein lies the problem. You are considering DoT over Time. DoT in fact stands for Damage over Time. So, your calculations are based on Damage over (Time * Time). Why?

The statements of increasing, decreasing, and linear return are based on Damage over Time. That's all anybody really cares about is how can I do the most damage in the shortest amount of time.

All the math being done to back up the decreasing returns argument is based on Damage over (Time * Time). They are mathematically correct, but they don't back up the argument.

Edit: There are other formulas people have used as well, but they still have the same problem. They are using DoT as the numerator, when it is supposed to be the whole formula.


Edited, Feb 4th 2011 5:21pm by Niakohr

No I am not. Time is not a factor when calculating the potential benefit of double attack. Time is a constant(In this relation). The relation is Damage from extra DA / Damage / Time -> (Damage from extra DA * Time)/Damage. What changes with each percentage of DA added is not Time, but the base damage from which you are working. It could be adapted to some how account for arriving at the same damage in a specified amount of time, but that is way too complex to do. As it stands, Time can be fixed to a specific period to remain constant, more damage would be produced in that specific period of time, you are working from a base damage determined by your base DA rate and adding a percentage of DA on top of that provides a diminishing marginal return of Damage for that specified period of time.

Edit: It is much easier to translate Haste into this same formula to measure whether you want to use haste or double attack in a certain situation too by the way.

Edited, Feb 7th 2011 10:39am by Meldi

tl;dr

What's the verdict?

Different terminolgy with the same conclusion.
By "diminishing returns" what people mean is that it's the opposite of the "increasing returns" of haste. It's just an easy way of stating the mathematical difference between reduction stats and addition stats (as in: haste is not an addition of a stat, but infact a reduction of a stat (delay), wheras DA (number of attacks per round), attack, acc, etc is an addition of the stat).
I'm sorry but no one cares if the terminology is not technically correct by some math graduate's standards. It's an easy way of explaning and comparing the two different types of stats whilst making it easier to understand for less educated people.

Seriously, shut up.

Yeah, Brave > Pole Grip in Abyssea. I wonder how it would do outside of abyssea versus pole grip though, but even then I'm sure Claymore still reigns supreme over Pole Grip anyways.

However, while it may be better than pole or not is really irrelevant if you need a Rose Strap to hit a 5 hit, in which case most drg's without a STP Stingray would need to use it to get closer to that 5 hit.

Be really nice if whoever is in charge of thinking crap up for jobs would really sit down and look at what DRG is missing, and needing.

On a separate note... what are people using for jump sets now a days? Full AF3+2 seems to be the way to go, although I must admit I do tend to miss 5/5 Ares's on jumps.

And you wouldn't believe how much attack can fit in the str cup now!

So you're saying VV will make pole better and similarly RR will make Brave better?

Bzzzt. Incorrect. Please feel free to try again.

We have a winner. Razed Ruin atma makes Brave Grip Stronger, however VV Atma does not make Pole Grip stronger, infact it makes it weaker compared to other options.

Not sure I agree with this. Drakesbane has a 50% Str mod, and WSC has no cap. It's also 10% DA and regain. Regain is debabteable for how useful it turns out to be, but the 10% DA is not.

I've tried all manner of combos of RR, SS, SA, GH, A/O, Apoc, VV, SQ and RR/VV/Apoc is easilly my favourite.