Weapon Ratios

[Synthlol]

Since anyone can remember, the standard for judging weapon quality (in terms of swing damage output) has been the ratio of its damage to its delay. Of course, the main hand damage bonus encourages faster weapons in the Primary slot, but for the offhand weapon, the advice is invariably to "use the best ratio" to maximize dps.

I have to ask: Has it ever been proven that (barring the MH damage bonus) equal ratio weapons produce the same damage output in the long run?

It doesn't seem to be self-evident that damage and delay carry equal weight. How do we know that in the offhand, a 10/20 and a 15/30 weapon average to the same dps? I'm no expert on the formulas that control swing damage.

[Swish]

Originally Posted by Synthlol [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

How do we know that in the offhand, a 10/20 and a 15/30 weapon average to the same dps?

You can never prove it fully, but assuming both weapons have the same weapon skill (eg 1h slash) the law of averages should keep things even.

Rogues will always go for the highest damage weapon in the main hand and the best ratio in the off hand... inevitably we have a server of rogues with epics in main hand and edge of the nightwalker or CSS etc in their offhand if they aren't VP raiders.

Warriors have more choice outside of epix and things like weapon procs come into it.

[Supaskillz]

You could prove it if you know the code driving the dmg formulas, but I dont think anyone is showing you those.

People parse and it seems to be that the best weapon setups are those with the best ratio in off hand. I think you are safe assuming this is true.

Rogues are the weird example where there is a trade off with high dmg and low delay for the primary. Low delay takes advantage of primary dmg bonus better while high dmg leads to better backstabs. Swish over simplifies by saying highest dmg weapon in primary. In the extreme example: thornstinger is going to way out dmg efreeti war spear even though efreeti war spear has much higher dmg.

[sox7d]

Originally Posted by Synthlol [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Since anyone can remember, the standard for judging weapon quality (in terms of swing damage output) has been the ratio of its damage to its delay. Of course, the main hand damage bonus encourages faster weapons in the Primary slot, but for the offhand weapon, the advice is invariably to "use the best ratio" to maximize dps.

I have to ask: Has it ever been proven that (barring the MH damage bonus) equal ratio weapons produce the same damage output in the long run?

It doesn't seem to be self-evident that damage and delay carry equal weight. How do we know that in the offhand, a 10/20 and a 15/30 weapon average to the same dps? I'm no expert on the formulas that control swing damage.

Been saying this forever. Thank you. Who's to say 1 dmg = 1 delay when it comes to raw ratio? I'd love to see a mythbusters series for P99 with all the bro science floating around... (hybrid penalty... AC mechanics...)

[Swish]

If people's enthusiasm to know matched people's enthusiasm to go ahead and parse and test...we'd have answers [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Personally I like to relax and play, if my offhand does marginally less per hour than some other rogue's off hand with the same ratio I'm not going to lose any sleep over it.

[Danth]

Faster weapons will give marginally better service against weak monsters since if you kill something in a few hits, a big final hit will mostly be wasted overkill. Slower weapons are of course preferred for jousting and are less of a liability if fighting something that has a damage shield. As such there are some situations where an individual player will favor faster or slower weapons in spite of ratios.

Danth

[Synthlol]

Originally Posted by Swish [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Rogues will always go for the highest damage weapon in the main hand and the best ratio in the off hand... inevitably we have a server of rogues with epics in main hand and edge of the nightwalker or CSS etc in their offhand if they aren't VP raiders.

Warriors have more choice outside of epix and things like weapon procs come into it.

Originally Posted by Supaskillz [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Rogues are the weird example where there is a trade off with high dmg and low delay for the primary. Low delay takes advantage of primary dmg bonus better while high dmg leads to better backstabs. Swish over simplifies by saying highest dmg weapon in primary. In the extreme example: thornstinger is going to way out dmg efreeti war spear even though efreeti war spear has much higher dmg.

Originally Posted by Danth [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Faster weapons will give marginally better service against weak monsters since if you kill something in a few hits, a big final hit will mostly be wasted overkill. Slower weapons are of course preferred for jousting and are less of a liability if fighting something that has a damage shield. As such there are some situations where an individual player will favor faster or slower weapons in spite of ratios.

Danth

These nuances I understand.

I'm questioning the validity of certain assumptions which seem to be commonplace. It may be nit-picky, but I'm curious and don't know how to find an answer. Say a monk has three weapons to choose from for his offhand:

1. Blackjack

2. Knobbed Warclub

3. Efreeti Mace

He's wearing silk armor and doesn't care about the minor weight differences. Which weapon is best? Or, are they really equivalent?

Maybe the better question is: does weapon damage scale linearly at the same rate that delay increases time between attacks?

[Messianic]

Only way to know is parsing data. Unless someone does the work and posts it, we're all just shooting the poop. Which is ok.

[Jimjam]

How do fractions round when the damage a hit does it work out? I imagine some ratios would produce more beneficial round errors than others!

Hmm... thinking of that, wasn't rounding errors for haste actually a problem at some point on live?

[Ravager]

Also gotta remember the importance of delay when it comes to things like push and damage shields. Facing a lot of casters, I'd take a Jade Mace in the off hand over CSS. If the druid in your group isn't making himself useful and dispelling the damage shields, you're looking at the only situation where I'd even consider using a Green Jade Axe