Dual wield cap?Follow

Technical cap is 50% Dual Wield.
It's possible for DNC to reach such cap.

They raised it then? When was it?

What about the overal delay cap? DNC has to be getting pretty close to that, especially a DNC/WHM with full haste gear, merited haste samba, and the haste spell. Gear at 25, spell is 15, haste samba for 10, dual wield over 50... that's 100 right there oO. What's the cap again? Isn't it in the 80s?

Edited, Jul 21st 2011 12:06pm by Erecia

Because of the levels of delay reduction that DNC gets, I'm failing to find an offhand dagger that is better than auric. Obviously when you need the utility of others such as AGI kila +2 or w/e, that's a different story. But for raw damage output, auric's 5% dual wield just makes it better.

lol I've rewritten this post like 3 times because I kept finding errors in my math... Anyway, auric @201 vs another 190 delay dagger has always been my gripe against auric. Come to find out that two 190 daggers won't be faster than auric + one 190 dagger until you get to 79% of the 80% total delay reduction cap.

So in terms of speed, auric is more impressive than I originally thought, but still not as fast as most believe it to be (using the above comparison, it only has an 11 delay advantage over two 190s with capped DW and 26% haste gear...the more magical haste or delay reduction you add, the gap gets smaller). As Byrth said, once you start comparing daggers with either higher DMG and/or lower delay, then auric is left behind that much more.

Edited, Jul 22nd 2011 6:20pm by Kalisa

It is best to think of it in this way: the hard cap on delay reduction from the cumulative effects of all sources, i.e. Dual Wield, magical haste, job ability haste, and gear haste, is 80%. So, for example, if a DNC was using two 190 delay daggers (380 delay base), at 80%, the swings would function as if the delay was 76. You will not get any lower than that.

Because DNCs have such a high tier of Dual Wield, our gear should change depending on what buffs we have, i.e. Haste, Marches, etc. This is because Dual Wield still reduces our TP per hit regardless of whether we're hitting the 80% cap. So, to put it in extreme terms, using all of those equipment pieces you listed, plus Haste Samba/Haste/double Marches, we're effectively way over the cap, but we're gaining less TP because the Dual Wield is still affecting our TP gain, and we're not actually swinging any faster because of it.

So, if you only have your own buffs, maybe a Haste (spell), the ideal set should be something like:

Charis+2/Charis Neck/Suppa/Brutal 
Charis+2/Dusk Gloves+1/Rajas/Epona's 
Atheling Mantle/Twilight Belt/Charis+2/Charis+2

If you are getting Marches, you don't need nearly as much Dual Wield (because you're capping delay and keeping excess Dual Wield will reduce your TP per hit), so you'd use something like this:

Charis+2/Rancor Collar or Agasaya's Collar/Aesir Ear Pendant/Brutal 
Loki's Kaftan/Dusk Gloves+1/Rajas/Epona's 
Atheling Mantle/Twilight Belt/Charis+2/Charis+2

Thus, you're at 80% delay cap, but your output is improved by weaning away the Dual Wield you don't need. (I'm very much labouring the point here, lol)

Hope that helps clarify it somewhat!

Edited, Jul 25th 2011 10:45am by Secretkeeper

Auric dagger lost a lot of its lustre at the level cap increase; it's fairly outdated. As enticing as the Dual Wield seems to be, it doesn't really have enough benefit to use (for damage purposes) wherever you may be on delay reduction front. As described a few posts above, when you compare it to something like the STR magian dagger -- which is very easily one of the best daggers we have available -- it doesn't quite measure up.

Edited, Jul 25th 2011 11:41am by Secretkeeper

Yeah, it's an 80% Delay cap, not Haste cap. That's why when we get double marches it's smart to not use any DW in gear.

If you subtract all your forms of Haste in the (1-Haste%) step, then you can account for all those sources of Haste. For a Dancer with the three DW Pieces, Haste Samba, and 25% Haste in gear:
(1 - (1-.48)*(1-.25-.1)) = 66.2% Delay reduction

Toss in Haste Spell:
(1 - (1-.48)*(1-.25-.1-.15)) = 74% Delay reduction

Toss in a Victory March with March+3 from Instrument and AF3+2 hands:
(1 - (1-.48)*(1-.25-.1-.15-.14)) = 81% delay reduction (capped to 80%, can we remove DW gear?)

Remove some DW gear:
(1 - (1-.45)*(1-650/1024)) = 79.91% delay reduction = Good enough for me

So yeah, if your Bard is good you don't even need to wear AF3 neck to cap delay reduction.

Edit: Just realized that I switched the Haste into /1024 at the end, so I'll mention it here. Haste is actually a value/1024 system. Some commonly used ones are:
Haste Samba: 50/1024 initially, +10/1024 per merit level.
Haste spell: 150/1024
Advancing March: 64/1024
Victory March: 96/1024
Each March +1: 16/1024 (~1.5% Haste)
Gear Haste cap: 256/1024

I tried to go into a better discussion of it here.

Edited, Jul 25th 2011 4:24pm by Byrthnoth

Look at the comparison I did again. Incorporate Auric's Dual Wield into the delay of the dagger and then ask yourself if it's worth using.