Prime WS Information, Testing, Discussion

I for one welcome no one making stage 5 gkt. The dmg difference between fudo and mumei is so small it's not worth the 6 month grind.

The same people who are lucky enough to have Aria full time when they use thier drk? I also didn't say I hit capped dmg everytime. I don't hit capped damage everytime with Fimbulvetr either.

Thanks for the comment though internet elitist.

This is kinda a deeper topic.

When you can't take advantage of Prime PDL aftermath, then Mumei is only like 10% stronger at stage V, but when you can take advantage of it, it's like 20% stronger. Kusanagi at stage 5, still have 8.4% raw dps increase over R15 Masamune even when undercapped. This gap goes up very fast with TP bonus buffs like warcry from WAR. Undercapped with warcry Mumei is 20% stronger and Kusanagi has 14.6% higher DPS.

When superbuffed (capped attack, Soul Voice, warcry) Mumei wins even more and its even more noticable when you can't take advantage of overwhelm.

Nah, it's crap. Don't do it.

According to sims (and sims are more objectively correct, than your (by your, I mean all of you) anecdotes) Helheim even at stage V and even with superbuffs that take advantage of Prime PDL aftermath loses to CaladbolgR15. It only starts winning if you add Warcry from WAR to the equation. This is because of Calad better white damage, but also because of Torcleaver having much better lower fTP and scaling worse, while Fimbulvert starting lower, but scaling much better.


I already wrote the numbers for this supporting idea that Masamune and KusanagiV having almost identical TP gain in Zanhasso build. I will just add one detail, that maybe people fail to notice. While 10%DA will block zanhasso rounds ~3.4% of a time, it will double the TP of non Zanhasso rounds ~6.3% of a time.

Do you mind posting the sim results like you did with GKT?

You sim assessment is pretty much spot on to my in game experience with all 4 weapons as posted on the last page.

Kusanagi > Masamune by 15% (average of your SIM 10%/20% depending on buffs)
Helheim = Calad (I'm guessing the sim is close but Helheim has much more utility)

I will, but I need to catch up with daily responsibilities first :P

Halheim with same high buffs I used for various jobs in past few days.

DRK/SAM ML50, EndarkII (sim implements this as +16acc +120 attack avg), LR, Hasso, 21.3% PDL Aria, II (lucky, but not XI) SAM roll with +8 Phantom Roll and proc on job bonus.

5/5 Sakpata and no Vim's torque to keep it simple. Flamma+2 head is marginal improvement for Halheim IV, but not big enough to justify it imo. Vim's is break even, so also not worth it.

Sim has no option for Scarlet Delirium, which I think could help Caladbolg more, because Fimbulvert will be limited by 99k faster, leaving Torcleaver the space to catch up, while Caladbolg white damage would still be higher.

Sim suggests it's best to wait to at least 1500TP:
Halheim IV DPS: ~14400
Fimbulvert median (1500+): ~71100
With Warcry it's no longer worth waiting:
Halheim IV DPS: ~18820
Fimbulvert median (1000+): ~79200

Sim suggests it's best to wait to at least 1500TP:
Halheim V DPS: ~15580
Fimbulvert median (1500+): ~74100
With Warcry it's no longer worth waiting:
Halheim V DPS: ~20060
Fimbulvert median (1000+): ~82400

Sim suggests it's best to WS ASAP:
CaladbolgR15 DPS: ~15680
Torcleaver median (1500+): ~57000
With Warcry:
CaladbolgR15 DPS: ~19110
Torcleaver median (1000+): ~76800

Ty Simon for your work. Its nice to take "feelings" out, one of the best parts of FFXI is the math behind it.

Note: Obviously not 1hd ws, but its the same principle...

Tbh I think he only wanted show Ws frequency and not the WS damage, so attack buffs would matter less (he was haste capped), still it's far from a valid test and shows exactly the opposite result than the one in sim and math.

Best way to test things with 2% differences? 5 minutes of testing with no samurai roll.

If we all agree on how multi-attack works, let's look at the actual numbers then. In my TP set I'm getting 405 TP per swing and 652.5 TP for a Zanhasso swing (with 11 Samurai Roll). This means:

Masamune
31.15% Zanshin Single (1305)
3.85% Zanshin Double (1957)
65% Single hit (405)
Average TP/Round: 745

Prime St5
10% DA (810)
28.05% Zanshin Single (1305)
3.45% Zanshin Double (1957)
58.5% Single hit (405)
Average TP/Round: 751

Prime St4
7% DA (810)
29% Zanshin Single (1305)
3.6% Zanshin Double (1957)
60.4% Single hit (405)
Average TP/Round: 750

Funny how the extra DA from the St4 -> St5 increases TP/round, weird. You'd think it would get worse because it blocks more Zanhasso. How strange.

(not targeted at anyone in particular, to the community at large): please stop parroting misinformation some guy told you, without any understanding of the game mechanics behind it.

Everyone pretends like DA in mythic/Zanhasso builds are actively harmful to your TP gain. This is absolutely false in almost every case. It is less effective than it otherwise would be

OK I'm confused then, maybe you could elucidate your meaning a bit further for me then.


If you're not routinely doing capped damage, then why say "capped damage ws are capped damage"? If you only cap damage once out of every 10 WS, then surely the other 9 have an opportunity to be higher?

I understood this to mean "if the WS will all do capped damage anyway, the only way to improve your DPS is to increase white damage" which is a common argument people put forth. The Qutrub ambu this month is a good example of such. If you're only capping WS damage once in a while then this kind of argument (which weapon does more white damage) falls apart. The difference in damage between the weapons would then be (difference in WSD) - (difference in white damage) which is totally different.

I have not found Torcleaver to do 99,999 in...almost any circumstance, frankly. Admittedly, I haven't had Aria in most cases when playing DRK because my DRK is also my BRD, I don't play DRK in that much content, and most of my friends don't have prime horns. Maybe with Aria it hits 99k frequently, IDK, but mine range from 50-65k, so I'd be extremely surprised if Aria jumped them by 1.8x.

I'm sure the white damage difference between the two could make up the difference, though I would also point out that the white damage of Calad requires you to save 3k TP once every 3 minutes so depending how often you have to change weapons or go without fighting something, it could very easily lose in a practical scenario. Prime also makes 3-step SC instead of 2-step and can SC with loads of other WS (if desired) so it's kind of a moot point. I think if you're serious about playing DRK you should have both and use each in different circumstances.

Thanks for repeating my math, but you forgot about small thing, that will probably push it to my results.

You need to apply 95% hit rate for those numbers and then apply Zanshin to 5% of your misses, but exclude 10% of those misses as rounds that miss first hit of double attack round, so they wont get Zanshin. Don't forget to apply 95% to those zanshins too ;)

You can have median Torcleaver doing 95-99k with Aria and huge attack buffs, but you would need to hold TP for each of those to effective 3000TP, which is a huge DPS loss. You have numbers for median Torc in optimal dps approach few posts up.

I am trying to keep it as simple as possible to eliminate extra factors that will complicate it. Truth is, both weapons will miss the same amount, will zanshin the same amount, and will miss their zanshins the same as each other (assuming accuracy cap with both weapons). The only difference is in the initial attack rounds they start with.

I think seeing the actual math and how I derived it can also make for a better discussion than just putting things in simulators which, frankly, a lot of people (not me) don't trust because they trust their eyeballs more.

If we keep it simple to just the MA, STP, and Zanshin calculations, it's much easier for someone to conceptualize and much more difficult to poke random holes in like "I don't trust simulations". This is just multiplication and probability using well-tested and proven formulas.

I was asked to check Foenaria too:

Same TP set and buffs as Halheim
Sim suggests it's best to wait WS at 1250~1500:
Foenaria V DPS: ~16510
Origin median (1250+): ~66700
With Warcry it's no longer worth waiting:
Foenaria V DPS: ~20120
Origin median (1000+): ~87400

and Dokoku:

Dokoku V DPS: ~16510
Zesho Meppo median (1000+ Hitaki offhand): ~63650
With Warcry:
Dokoku V DPS: ~18090
Zesho Meppo (1000+ Hitaki offhand): ~82560

Those Dokoku numbers are....higher than I expected to see. Am I understanding right based on your previous posts that, with warcry, Dokoku V is parsing similar to Helheim IV and Calad R15? And similar meaning within 1k which I know is a material amount, but much closer than I would expect.

Edit: Also which Zesho set are you using in this sim? Which PDL pieces?

Maybe I wasn't clear enough. The results for tp per round/sec I showed was based on doing my own math, same as you. It wasn't from sim. My dps and WS numbers are from sim.

Now the bolded part. It's not exactly true. Zanshin on miss can only happen on single attack rounds. So for Masamune it can proc on 5% misses of 65% chance for single attack rounds, while on PrimeV it can proc on 5% misses of ~58.5% chance for single attack round. This small details is what push both builds to being almost equal, instead of PrimeV having marginal 0.8% advantage like in your math.

Actually higher. I forgot to change helm to NyameB after applying Warcry TP bonus. Also I noticed it has barely uncapped attack, which ultimately shows how hard it is to cap attack on NIN with so much PDL (+64%). I have also used /DRG, while for DRK I have used /SAM.

So with Warcry, Nyame B R30 helm and capping attack:
Dokoku V DPS: ~19120
Zesho Meppo (1000+ Hitaki offhand): ~85820

This is mostly the magic of TP bonus offhand. It's total of +1950 TP bonus, so all those Zesho are at effective 3000TP. This also means you might have accuracy problems on some stuff (NIN has less accuracy than for example RDM or DNC, not to mention RDM and DNC has evasion debuffs)

To make it slightly more real, this is with /war which lowers WS damage, but makes capping attack easier, at least during berserk.

With Warcry:
Dokoku V DPS: ~18060
Zesho Meppo (1000+ Hitaki offhand): ~78920

EDIT: One more detail, that people not playing NIN might overlook as something that makes such high DPS possible is Daken. NIN dps wouldn't be anywhere close to that without massive TP gain boost from Daken.

Hmmm OK, I wasn't aware that the first (or second) hits of a double attack couldn't be Zanshin'd if they missed, that was definitely a blindspot in my calculations. I will defer to your more accurate assessment, though I wish you'd laid it out in a more detailed fashion than just saying the numbers, because I think it makes it much easier to show people WHY the TP/round is what it is, rather than just stating it.

This is especially true for evangelists who say they TP noticeably faster without DA than with it.

Thanks for calculating those, that is still more than I expected based on the stigma around the katana.

Yeah, it's something I should do, but with work and family and wanting to respond to everyone and writing in english on top of that, makes it difficult to make my posts as detailed as I would like them to be sometimes.

I don't even have the time to actually play this game those days :/

I think that stigma is really easy to explain..

With Warcry and /war:
Dokoku V DPS: ~18060
Zesho Meppo (1000TP+ Hitaki offhand): ~78920

With Warcry and /war:
Naegling DPS: ~19100
Naegling median (1000TP+ Hitaki offhand): ~89700

So like you see, it's mostly the superior TP gain and high buffs what makes this dps on NIN, not really Zesho and Dokoku being that good. Really with Naegling attack bonus being almost at the level of this from Berserk (assuming many buffs scenario) I should compare Dokoku /war against Naegling /drg, but I will be merciful XD

Not sure can really use those numbers to compare weapons, given the buffs include a maxed stage 5 horn Aria.

I bet if you use the same buffs on a Savage War they too would hit a 85k+ median savage blade.

Not that the numbers are fake, but they show more how strong Aria is not how the weapons compare with each other. Yes, it's that strong.

And to point out, if a WS hits 60-70k ish without Aria, it will hit 80-99k with it, as long as there is enough attack.

In my experience even a 10% pdl from, say, switching TVR rings is very noticeable in attack cap situations, let alone 22.1% from a stage 5 horn.

If you compare the weapons on their own and you don't have Aria, suddenly the 12% PDL on a stage 5 prime aftermath matters a lot more..

Same way no Drk has a 99k Torc average without Aria, you won't be seeing numbers like that without a maxed out stage 5 horn.

The above numbers are with Aria adding 21.3% PDL, which is neither stage 4 or 5, but closer to 4. Probably right values was unknown when it was implemented. While I understand your argument, PDL value between stage 4 and 5 is very marginal, so saying you need stage 5 is really exaggerating in the name of proving a point. Stage 4 Aria should be more and more common among people with stage 4 and 5 Primes and not including it superbuffed scenario sounds unrealistic.


Now you are just really shooting your own foot with such poor claims. You have just wrote the % value and you failed to apply it 3 sentences later. 70k * 1.221 is 85.47k Where did you get that 99k from? This is also best case scenario for you, because I assumed no PDL in gear, which won't normally happen.


I could also compare them with not enough attack for PDL aftermath doing anything (which I did when started talking about low buff scenario for Masamune vs Kusanagi, so it's not like I only check for high buff). You can really assume many buff scenario and check weapons against each other, but for me the most valuable are imo scenarios with trust buffs and super buffs (including variant with warcry). I usually check other scenarios if people are actually curious about them.

Now going back to Aria and PDL, Aria impact is usually way lower than that 21%, because WS sets in superbuffed scenario are already packed with PDL. Zasho Meppo set, that I have used has 43%PDL in it (without Aria).


Again, difference between stage 4 and 5 is 1.3%PDL It's not really that big of a deal to miss. Stage 5 main purpose is no dummy songs QoL.

With Aria:
Torcleaver median (1500+): ~57000
With Warcry:
Torcleaver median (1000+): ~76800

With Etude instead of Aria:
Torcleaver median (1500+): ~50500
With Warcry:
Torcleaver median (1000+): ~68090

Not even close to the picture you are trying to paint.

That's a pretty big difference, no.

And I was not assuming an aria % is straight dmg, nor should you.

I don’t doubt that prime weapons like the Heldeim or Kusanagi are stronger, especially with weapon skills like Tachi Mumei or Fimbulvetr.

However, if you have a MASA-R15 or CALA-R15 with extreme buffs, you won’t feel a significant difference in damage compared to prime GS/GK weapons. Just by eye-balling, you’ll see the difference in the parse, but the sense of increased power will feel even smaller if you have a BRD with "Aria."

Tachi Fudo and Torcleaver scale impressively with TP, and their R15 versions come with 70 STR/70 VIT and a 10% boost to their most powerful WS. Adding the 50% chance of triple damage makes it even crazier! That’s why Zixxer, myself, and others have questioned the superiority of the prime weapons. But after what Simon, Taint, and others explained, it’s clearer now.

For example, if you switch from a UKkon, Redemption, or Rhongomiant to a Laphria, Foenaria, or Gae-Buide, you’ll feel and see a terrifying increase both in the parse and by just eye-balling it.

I can use Taint's analogy of Chango vs. Ukkon:

Chango feels weak until you check the parse. The same thing happens with Heldeim/Kusanagi vs. MasaR15/CalaR15. You don’t "feel" much of a power change until you look at the parse.

What I’m about to say might be a bit controversial, but I would use Heldeim 90% of the time in Dynamis W1/W2/W3. However, against the W2/W3 Mega-Boss, I’d switch to CalabolgR15, even if my Torcleavers don’t hit cap damage. In my opinion, 80k-85K Torcleavers & 50% Occ Triple Damage > 99k Heldeim with its 30% Occ Triple Damage only on the first hit. Of course, both with the same buffs, Aria, BRD, etc.

Caladbolg is the Greatest Sword Created ever by Design and Power!

Enjoy Great White hits, 3 swings neary 30k or more plus WS damage, nothing could beat that specially with Aria and buffs.

Prime is just a weapon for no lifers. enjoy your daily grind for 6 month to be able to catch up to all mighty Caladbolg.