Please Help Me Understand

I have read several of the posts regarding the math behind gear, but I still don't entirely understand it. So I typically use the gear that, from what I can gather, the smart people around here say to use. But a friend has me second guessing, so I am hoping that someone can break my question down even more for me.

what i currently use:


But my friend questioned the stats on the Iga +2 body, and the stats on the koga +2 body out weighing the 5% DW on the ninja chainmail. Help?

edit: 5% DW vs 3% DW/15acc/20atk vs 12dex/12str/17acc/17atk/crit hit rate 5%. Just so its clear what im asking.

http://www.ffxiah.com/forum/topic/33470/the-sealed-dagger-a-ninja-guide/

This guide here is pretty well put together for nin, and I'm sure you've read it. It has nin chainmail coming in first, in the set that doesn't involve massively expensive gear slots like tenryu+1.

Right, I understand THAT it says its better. I need help understanding WHY its better. What makes it trump the extra att on koga, or the dex/str/crit on iga.

Attack speed is a very good stat until you hit the delay floor, if you don't have accuracy issues.

I can't really explain it in a mathy way but other people have mathed it out.

I can just say that the 2% DW difference lets you swing faster and get more damage in over time. You may do a couple of less damage per hit without the 20 atk but you're going to swing more over time to do more damage overall. (Made Up Example Because I don't know the actual math: If you melee for 1 minute, would you rather do 20 hits of 100 damage each or 19 hits of 102 damage each). I'm not sure if the situation changes if accuracy is uncapped or not.

Same with the Iga +2. 5% Dual wield just nets you a lot more hits that outshine those stats. That's why you wear dual wield pants instead of any other pants. I may be mistaken but I think the relic+2 pants even beat out thaumus pants.

I downloaded some spreadsheets recently and what I found is that sometimes when people say "this is the best" they mean in certain situations like capped haste two bards, a corsair and someone shooting acid bolts at the decent challenge mob you're killing.

What's important is how well the gear performs for you in the situation you're in. After messing with the stats on the spreadsheet I found that for me, in the situations I'm in, that Koga works better for me.

Ninja Chainmail may have 2% more dual wield but if your accuracy isn't capped then you're gonna be missing more often than that 2% dual wield will make up for.

What is fSTR ?

Thanks guys for the quick replies, and thanks to Karah on my server for hooking me up with This post.



edit: luth, is there anyway to share those spreadsheets, or share where I can get them?

http://wiki.bluegartr.com/bg/FSTR

In short, fSTR is a bonus to base damage derived from your STR against the opponent's VIT.

Here.

That spreadsheet looks complicate lol.

It's a bit initimidating at first, but if you just want a quick reference of "this is better than this" you can just use the Gear page and the Setup page to input gear/buffs and it'll do all the work for you.


That is actually the precise reason Koga Chainmail +2 isn't very useful. It has essentially no situational uses.

I've mentioned in the guide that if you don't have a Thaumas Coat, it pretty much always comes down to either Ninja Chainmail or Iga Ningi +2 (I think Usukane Haramaki +1 might be a contender now if you're getting set bonus). Ninja Chainmail for capped accuracy and such, Iga Ningi+2 if not. It's true that people like saying "***is situational", but I can't think of enough situations where you're saying "This monster has just enough evasion where Koga Chainmail +2 is winning but I am also not benefiting from the STR/attack/critrate that Iga Ningi would be giving me" to actually bother building the thing and then lugging it around unless you know specifically ahead of time that you're going to fight a specific enemy where Koga +2 is coming out ahead.

If you're buffed out the wazoo, you wouldn't need much DW gear at all and you wouldn't use Koga Chainmail +2 or Ninja Chainmail anyway.

If you're wearing Iga Zukin +2, Suppa, Koga Legs +2 with 21% haste plus 15% haste spell, your attack speed is:

0.48 x 0.64 = ~0.307

Of what it usually is. 3% and 5% DW affect it thusly:

0.45 x 0.64 = 0.288
vs
0.43 x 0.64 = ~0.275

In layman's terms, you're attacking 364 times with Ninja Chainmail in the time you'd attack 347 times with Koga Chainmail +2, and attacking 326 times with something without DW/Haste (Iga Ningi +2 in this case).

Let's ignore attack for a second. 15 accuracy from Koga Chainmail +2 is 7.5% accuracy. So let's find a point where your accuracy is low enough so that 15 accuracy is going to matter more than 2% DW.

We want

364x < 326(x+0.075)
38x < 24.45
x < 0.6434

This is, your accuracy has to be 64.34% or less before the accuracy of Koga Chainmail +2 makes it win over Ninja Chainmail.

Now obviously with the attack factored in it changes quite a bit in favor of Koga (And Iga+2), but I hope this helps you understand just how powerful dual wield is for Ninja. It's conceivable for you to find situations where Koga Chainmail +2 might win out over Iga +2 because you just happen to only need the 3% DW and not the 5% DW and you are also capped fSTR and dDEX, and you are also needing exactly 15 acc and 20 attack and thus the 3% crit is the only edge Iga Ningi +2 has. These situations do not come up often (if ever). This is why I wouldn't bother bringing my Koga Chainmail +2 around with me anywhere. It looks really swell in town, though.

To clarify, Koga Chainmail +2 isn't a terrible piece or anything, it's just kinda pointless to go to all that effort to make a sidegrade piece like that when Ninja Chainmail and Iga Ningi +2 will serve your purpose at both ends of the spectrum as needed.

Really awesome post Kincard, thank you.

Also, Ban should be offhand. ^^

Great post, I honestly had sort of found my way with NIN gear by simply checking what almost every other NIN I saw was wearing and some of the subtleties, and was really surprised that just everyone was using the AF1 Ninja Chainmail just as often, if not more than AF2 and AF3. This gives me a better understanding of the numbers and reasoning behind it though.

Also surprising to me is that I don't see a ton of people with the Ninja Chainmail upgraded to +1, it cost me 70,000 gil (40,000 for steel sheet, and 30k for two limbus runs), and about 45 minutes of my time to upgrade it.

Sure the stat bonuses aren't hugely significant -- but if you're using it as your primary piece, it seems like it would be worth the relatively small time/money investment.

specific* Limbus items are 100% drop now? i know back at 75 you could do alot of runs before you got both items lol.

What ever the zone was that had the mimics on the whole floor, I have ALWAYS seen nin +1 item drop off of it. Was pretty much a given.

idk if this is one of those "too hard" pieces, but have you looked at the thaumas body instead? You're not capped on haste, so you'd sack 5% dual wield for 4% haste. so you are going to attack 1% less fast w/ the thaumas, but the more dual wield you have the less TP you get, so you'll ws slightly sooner. Then on top of that, the obvious DA, TA, QA, acc boost. Of course ignore me if you already planned on this piece and you just havent obtained it yet.

if i were upgrading any of my nin af, it would be feet before body.

Well from looking at the Wiki, you can sort of find the best higher percentage places to go. I know I've done two runs and got the Plaited cord 2/2 (solo), and the Ebony Lacquer I'm 2/4 (2-3 man party). That's definitely not perfect, but for something that's still just a 20-30 minute run for a couple people, it's not a huge time/effort investment.

@Jassik - I upgraded the body first, but just last night finished upgrading the feet for an extra 2 hours of movement speed. I'm thinking of doing the hands, legs, and head just for the sake of being a completionist.

A lot of Ninja who don't have Thaumas body also default to Porthos Byrnie. Maintaining the Gear haste cap and allowing for the use of Koga Hakama+2 over Byakkos or Iga+2. The extra HP and Triple Attack isn't so bad. Plus it looks cool on my Taru.

Thaumas body is just to sexy. Not wearing it is a crime!