Half the man I used to be ... (maybe a quarter of the elf actually)

konofo, with the way I play, I really don't think it would help, because I just don't string together enough CAs in relation to the total time I spend in combat to make up that difference.
I dunno how true this is of everyone else out there, of course...but I have a total of 6 CAs that include a weapon swing as part of the attack (whilwind, berserker assault, rupture, furious rush, mutilate, and relentless battering). Violent Promise, Vanquish, Stunning Cry, and the kick/stomp series are melee damage, but do not incorperate a weapon swing into the CA cast (the kick/stomp series even shows in the animation that you're dealing crushing damage with your foot). Again, spell/combat window activating will show this CLEARLY, with the added damage from the weapon swings involved not being enumerated immediately following the CA damage message.
Of those 6 skills that include weapon attacks, 4 have a 0.5 second casting time, and 2 have a 2 second casting time...chain casting all CAs, plus a shout to set off an HO, costs a total of 605 power, out of a power pool of 1679 unbufed (and, when soloing, we berserkers don't have ANY INT buffs to raise that, absent the PGT proc), and takes a total of 10 seconds (2 seconds each for BA, SC, and WW, 0.5 seconds each for VP, Vanq, Mutilate, Stomp, Rupture, FR, and RB, plus the 0.5 seconds for the shout skill to set off the HO).
This means, AT BEST, I can chain all of these three times in 30 seconds, and be entirely out of power, as a result.
IF I do this, while holding a 2H, I get a grand total per chain of 6 weapon swings in each 10 seconds, and am still waiting for 10 seconds for the FASTEST of them to recycle...which is four standard melee swings with a 2.5 second 2H
If I do this with 1.2 second DWs, I get 12 swings, 6 of which are "boosted" by the CA, and then get 16-17 standard melee swings (total) while waiting for the recycle.
So even under these circumstances, when a 2H has "all the advantages", comperable imbued duals have a better total chance of proccing an imbued weapon proc, and will proc more of them, in the same time period...they're getting 4 times the number of hits during the 50% of the time they're in auto-swing, and 2.8 more total hits overall.
The NON weapon CAs make precisely the same damage at the same level, regardless of the weapon you're wielding...I admit the half-dozen CAs that use the weapon get more damage with the 2H than with the DW...but let's use the average damages from my last post for convenience, and see how MUCH that impacts things (won't be actually accurate, because, as I noted in the earlier post, CAs that use weapons also boost the damage of the weapon-based attack immediately associated with the CA, but it's close enough to demonstrate the principal)
10 weapon hits with 139 damage per hit vs 28 hits with 33 damage per hit in 20 seconds
1,390 damage from weapon vs 924 damage from weapon
OK, purely on WEAPON damage, 2H gained an advantage from the "reduction in delay" it got out of chaining the CAs

BUT
In the 10 seconds of melee, there were only 4 swings from the 2H, and 16-17 from the DW, which works out to be a 16.2% chance you procced a GS off the 2H during that CA recycle time, and a 31.8% chance you did so off the DW. This, admittedly, is offset by the chance of spawning one through the CA...as I said, the second to hit weapon doesn't seem to be counted for proccing weapon-imbued attacks off CAs, so you stay around that 4% "per-hit" ratio with duals during a CA, and drop to about 2% chance of proccing it off CA with the DW, which is exactly the chance you'd have of proccing it "per weapon hit"...so it's like you only hit with one weapon during a CA instead of both, which we've already established seems to be how the game sees it anyhow.
So now you have a total of 10 swings with 2H, each swing having besically a 4% chance to proc, and will basically have a 40% overall chance to proc a weapon-imbued cast sometime in this period of chaining all CAs, an HO, and auto-swinging while waiting for the fastest one to recycle so you can do it again.
And you have 6 hits that have a 2% chance (off the CAs), 6 hits that have NO chance (offhand swings coming from CAs), and 16-17 hits with 2% chance per hit...to make this simple, once again, we'll have to call each double hit an "attack...so now there's 6 attacks with 2% chance to proc, and 8 attacks with 4% chance to proc....half the oppertunity to proc for the same number of CA hits, and the same % oppertunity with TWICE THE "ATTACKS" to proc during the other half the time....that means, under these circumstances...the ones MOST ADVANTAGEOUS POSSIBLE to a 2H, the 2H has a rock-steady "4% chance" to proc the weapon imbued cast off any given swing, while the DW chance to proc in the same period actually works out to "3.14%" to proc it off of any given "attack", but gets 4 more attacks in the same period.
In other words, you're working with 4% of 10 vs 3.14% of 14....or 0.4 vs 0.439
And THIS is in the ABSOLUTELY worst case scenario possible for a direct comparison...the first 20 seconds of any given encounter, in which it is possible to chain ALL CAs, and the following 10 seconds required to let the fastest of them recycle...since not all of them recycle within 20 seconds, you CAN'T do "full chain, wait 10 seconds, chain them all again", to keep up this pace



And konofo...I don't KNOW how the game sees each "attack", to be certain...because if it saw each swing by left hand and each swing by right hand EACH as a distinctly seperate attack, it would NOT seemingly disregard half of the attacks when working out the stance based aggressive procs...which is exactly what it seems to do. Now the fact that these procs happen at about the same PACE (same number of times in X period of time under AS combat) indicates (to me, anyhow) that the developers were TRYING to make certain it stayed balanced, so that DW didn't get a HUGE advantage over anyone else, since, as I've just proven above, everyone HAS to spend AT LEAST 50% of their combat time in AS combat (unless you're deliberately picking mobs you can kill in 20 seconds or less by chaining CAs, then resting between mobs until they all recycle, and you regain power).
Knowing programming projects as I do, I suspect different teams worked on "skills" "melee combat" and "item imbuements", and they didn't all communicate as clearly as they could have...but the stability of the actual chance to proc in any given swing with 2H and 1H suggests to me that it's also possible that whoever did the developing for this particular issue just didn't put enough thought into this particular situation, and that they're still trying to balance things out properly BY making CAs cause the second weapon to be ignoreed for proccing purposes, and making the stance-based procs work from the "average delay" of the two weapons to get its actual effective % to proc chance, and ignoring the fact that there are two hits in each cycle under these conditions...which ends up effectively cutting the number of procs per attack in half for the DW, but still leaves them pretty much balanced in terms of number of procs per period of combat (what I'm menaing by this is if you're holding DW with 1 1.2 second and 1 1.3 second weapon, your average delay is 1.25, not 1.2 or 1.3, and so the calculation for chance to proc a stance based proc would be 1.25/3 * <chance to proc> on any given "pair" of swings, whereas, with an imbued pair of weapons, this would be 1.25/3.0 * <chance to proc> on any given hit with either imbued weapon.)


Basically, what I'm saying, in the end is, unless the 2H in question has SUCH a damage advantage over time as to outweigh the fact that every figure I've been able to come up with, in theory AND in testing, says that I'll get more weapon-based procs in a given time with DW, I'll be DWing...but I freely admit that the actual-situation damage advantage, in a "per-swing" reading isn't all that big. After all, BEST case scenario, for DW, is an average additional 155 damage (at current level and gearing) from imbuements in the time it takes to make 25 swings with a 2H (in the time it takes a 2H to AS 25 times, it procs a 5% imbument once...the weapon damages just about balance over the same time period...so the additional proc you get off paired DW in the same period is the "breaker")...which means that if I find a 2H with a mere 6 points higher damage than the "comperable" player-made imbued 2H (with the same delay), it's the better choice...the better choice BY FAR, once you factor in the additional damage the CA boost gives it.
TBH, I'll go so far as to say that if the Imbued Fulginate Greatsword were even 3 points higher physical damage, it would probably make it the better weapon than the Imbued Fulginate Short Swords I'm currently wielding...that little tiny change in weapon stat of 3 physical damage would come VERY close to making up for the additional procs under AS conditions, and would surpass total damage easily, with the advantages in CA related procs, CA boosted weapon damage, DPS gain from chaining CAs (even as little as I do it with my personal pattern) and the relative balance in procs/time in combat from stance-based aggressives. Come level 50, I don't imagine that it's hard to find those 2H with that "3 point advantage" over the 5% GS imbued player-made stuff.




Pinhead StNeedles:
Do the math yourself, mate, I'm not making up any numbers.

30 minutes is 1800 seconds
1800 seconds of auto-swinging with a 2.5 seconds delay weapon is 720 swings
1800 seconds of autoswinging with a 1.2 second weapon in my right hand is 1500 swings with my right hand
1800 seconds of swinging a 1.2 second weapon with my left hand is 1500 swings with my left hand
1800 seconds swinging with a weapon in EACH hand is a total of 3000 swings (1500 right, 1500 left)
2910 total hits is 97% hits out of 3000 swings...my actual may have been higher, but I started my stopwatch in each encounter when I clicked the melee attack button, and stopped it when the golem died, then attempted to cast infuriation, so as to get the "no target" message as a placeholder between encounters in the spell window, so I could go back later, and seperate each and every encounter easily (and also so I'd have the marker in parses).


2910 hits and 58 procs is, as I said, 1.99% proc per hit ratio...and it's 3.98% "per swing cycle", if you halve the number of hits so that you actually match what a 2H is doing (hitting the target once per cycle, not twice, which a DW does, once with left, once with right).
Sorry you don't like my numbers, but they're what I got testing.

"k"

OK, lets do it like this. I'll set up the proc chance of a 1.2 dual wield and 3.8 2 hand on auto attack over a 60 second interval, which everyone should be able to agree upon. Then, I'll calculate a number of CA's that need to be used over a given period of time for a 2 hand to do more total (procs + auto-attack) damage than a dual wield. In order for me to do this I'm going to make the following assumptions.

1. No attacks are missed or parried (this simply doesn't matter, as over an infinite attack interval both weapons and their procs will miss the exact same amount of times).
2. When you use dual wield weapons they only give a single chance to proc when you use a CA. I.e. You can't cast 2x gleaming strike off 1x CA if you are dual wielding (you can however have an attack do 0 damage and still proc which could explain some instances of this happening. An example is in raiding when a mob is immune to crush but you can still proc screaming mace...moving on).
3. We're only taking into consideration the proc damage of the weapon, not the effect that the speed of your weapon has on other procs such as your offensive stance, etc.

We'll use a 60 second interval since a minute is a nice round time frame.

Auto-Attack with 2 Hand:
15.79 attacks
Chance to proc = 15.20 (12% base and a 3.8 delay weapon)
Expected # of Procs from auto-attack = 2.4

Auto-Attack with 2x Dual Wield
50 attacks *per weapon (100 attacks total)
Chance to proc = 4.8 (12% base and a 1.2 delay weapon)
Expected # of Procs from auto-attack = 2.4 per weapon. So 4.8 procs total.

So from auto-attack only we see that the damage delt by 2x dual wield weapons is superior by about 2.4 procs over a 1 minute period.

However, it has been my general experience that no player spends his or her time only auto-attacking. So at what point does a 2 hand weapon become better than a dual wield when using CA's. For that we can set up a simple 1 variable equation where x = the number of CA's used over a 1 minute interval.

(15.79 + x) * 15.2% = (100 + x) * 4.8%

So in english this equation represents the break even number of CA's (x) which you must use for the two weapon setups (3.8delay 2hand vs 2x 1.2delay Duals) to have equal effectiveness.

When you solve for x (this is very easy so I didn't show it) you get x = 23.
In otherwords, you have to use greater than 23 combat arts in a 1 minute time frame for the 3.8 delay 2 hand weapon to be better than the 1.2 delay duals.

So, if you are someone who uses CA's at a decent rate a slow 2 hand will be better for you. If you rarely use CA's as Gurg does, the duals will be better for you.

THIS IS ONLY FOR BASE WEAPON DAMAGE (i.e. THE DAMAGE THE WEAPON DOES + PROC DAMAGE)

What you find however when taking into consideration other procs such as the one found on Cryptic Metallic Curiass (CMC) or the one we gain from our offensive stance the number of CA's needed for a big slow 2 Hander to be better than Dual Wields becomes drastically smaller, because now the actual percent your CMC procs or your offensive stance fires is determined by the speed of your weapon and is thus much higher or lower than listed. Thus is the beauty of the slow delay weapons. They not only effect the amount the proc listed on the weapon fires, but the rate at which other "to hit" procs fire as well. So lets look at how this effects the situation we set up above. It was found that when using 23 combat arts in a 1 minute period, as well as counting auto attacks both the dual wields and the 3.8 were equal with respect to damage. So using those numbers lets add in an additional 10% chance to proc (as found on the CMC).

I guess our personality propensity makes a large part of it - I am a heavy user of CAs, in fact, the only autoswings I typically get in for the first 30 seconds of a fight is by luck more than anything.

As for your numbers, it's funny that when Pin first posted his numbers, you said they support what you said. I have since debunked all of that and you responded by saying that we need a "honest" test. Now you suggest that your numbers are real and we should accept them even if we don;'t like them.

If anyone else recalls, I had previously conceded that DW would proc as often as 2H if the extra swings of DW exceeded that of 2H by a factor of 2.6 to 5. Clearly 4 is well within my predictions. In my opinion the two sets of numbers seem to be tell the same information about proc rates. Aside from the fact that GS procs less for the same amount of swings for Pins numbers.
It does seem kind of crazy tho, to me, that DW weapons attack 4 times as fast as a 2H. In any case, is a 4 times attack rate from DW weapons likely to occur in normal combat situations?

Grug, how do you answer the question of your using 2.6 as the multiplier when adjusting Pin's numbers, and now have the additional attacks from DW at a factor of 4 instead of 2.6 now?

I think that 2.6 was the relative length (of time) of the two result sets, not that it mattered.
najena.konk

Right. But it was used as a "ruler" for how many more tiems the DW should've hit. 4 is a lot more than 2.6!

Of course, then there's the second parse Pin has posted which shows that with another 1200 autoswings, he still hadn't reached Gurg's insane number of procs.

Thank you, Sabin, you have just shown what I've been trying to say from the get-go...to this point, I have not HAD skills that would allow me to do 23 CAs in under 1 minute...but then again, I also haven't had 3.8 second delay 2H weapons to need that many to balance. Partially because there are only 6 of them (at level 44) that use the weapons, and you can't cast most of those 6 four times in under a minute (BA and WW you can only cast twice in a minute, for example)...the best of them, you can cast 3 times, and shoot the fourth just past the 1 minute mark.

And, as you say, that doesn't take into account stance-based procs, which I happily admit decreases the disparity.

All I've been saying is that, at 35, when I first tested this, I did not have enough stance-based procs OR CAs to make it so that, combined, the 2H imbued playermades outperformed the DW imbued playermades, though, at the time, I hadn't worked the figures to know WHY this was so, and at THIS point, the reasonably priced imbued playermades STILL have it so DW outperforms 2H...I can't, and won't say that this doesn't change with gear available come Tier 6 equipment availability, OR that there aren't 2H weapons in each tier that not only outperform most, if not all, DWs in a 'Zerker's hands, and if/when there are, they're probably more realistically aquireable than an pair of DWs that would rationally compare to them.



One thing you missed, though...the DWs don't attack "4 times as fast", it's two weapons, EACH attacking TWICE as fast as the 2H, making for four times the total number of hits...1.2 is less than half of 2.5, and you have 2....I'd probably come up with a different set of figures if I worked with 1.5 second duals, but they'd still proc the imbued skill more than the 2H during the auto-swing portion, simply because there were more hits...and each imbuement appears figured to proc a certain number of times in a set period...I suspect that it would still be near double the 2H figure, under those conditions, for that reason, but I ALSO figure that the figures working with CA "boosts" would be closer together, because there would be lesser disparity in the number of autoswings taken and landed in the period it takes the skills to recycle...if you get what I'm saying, there.




And Pin's numbers (in that particular parsing) DID support what I had and have been saying...they showed that, given the same time period, you get more procs off weapon imbuements with two imbued weapons equipped than you do with 1 imbued weapon equipped....and the only way to GET two imbued weapons equipped is to DW...I haven't backed off that point one whit, except in agreeing that CAs produce more with 1 imbued than they do with 2 imbued, because the CA effectively ignores the second weapon (I DO wonder why that second weapon doesn't then count towards the "normal swing" proccing...seems it should, but doesn't)...what I didn't like about his numbers was the fact that I had to "fiddle" with them to make it so we were comparing "damage over the same period of time" instead of "damage over the same number of hits"...to which I responded that it wasn't an "honest test" when you complained about that "fiddling"...and then admitted that such fiddling demonstrated more disparities, in terms of the number of CAs used per time period.

To answer your last question, 2.6 multiplier used in figuiring Pin's numbers was the differential in TIME spent in combat (approximately, based on the delay of the weapons used, and stats given for them)...I halved the number of hits he reported for the DW and divided by the delay of 1.5 he reported for the weapon, to arrive at 621 and change seconds, and divided the number of hits he reported with the 2H by 2.5, the delay he reported the weapon used had...the 2.6 figure was the ratio of 1633seconds to 622seconds...the approximated TIME spent in combat to achieve those figures. If you'll look again, the 2.6 time differential, when applied, gave approximately 2 times the number of GS procs as a result, when comparing the melee driven procs...and if you look at my results again, you find that the difference in the number of procs of GS was slightly less than twice the number of them from the 2H, once again.

Which is exactly what I've been saying from the outset...two imbued weapons equipped means you get 2 times as many procs FROM the weapons in the same period of time, under auto-swing...BECAUSE the primary thing you've changed is that there are TWO IMBUEMENTS IN PLACE to have effect on the overall situation.
Message Edited by GurgTheBashur on 09-27-2005 04:31 PM

Don't forget that it's 1200 more swings AND I'm using slower weapons, which should 25% proc more from the same number of hits...

So in conclusion, 2H is better unless you just sit around autoswinging, in which case it's just as good as DW.

Good deal!

Close enough...more like "until you have enough CAs available, and stance based aggressive procs off attacks available, to make up the difference in delay, the number of procs you get off dual imbueds is higher than the number you get off having a single imbued"

But yours sounds better, if less precise.


As for the "insane number" of procs I got...how's it insane? it's right in line with what you predicted anyhow...around twice the number I got off 2H in the same period of time.


auto-swing: 28 GS procs (4.05% actual, 4.05% per swing) 58 GS procs (1.99% actual, 3.98% per swing) (28 X 2 is 56...I got 2 extra...but delay was slightly under 1/2, so I EXPECT a hair over a 2:1 ratio)
with controlled numbers of CA in given period: 30 GS procs (4.17% actual, 4.17% per swing) 59 GS procs (2.007% actual, 4.014% per swing) (30 X 2 is 60...even this controlled use of CAs had some impact in reducing the delay ratio)
And, if you go back and look at where I applied that 2.6 multiplier to equalize "time in combat", you'll find that once again, the ratio of procs for GS was approximately double with DW what it was with 2H



Coincidentally, I want you to notice something CAREFULLY in Pin's figures....in his first parsing, when you adjust for time, you DO get what you and I both predicted...approximately twice the number of procs of GS in the same period of time. In his NEW numbers, you get THE SAME number of procs in the same essential period of time. Which indicates to me that he's finally realized that with DW you hit twice per "delay cycle", not once. In his NEW figures, though, instead of supporting the conclusions you and a already agreed are "right", and that it's correct to expect the 2:1 proc ratio for that imbuement, his figures show HALF that with the DW.

NOW do you see why I accuse him of tweaking the numbers? they're inconsistent in ratioio to THEMSELVES, not just contriving to test things that aren't in contention.
Message Edited by GurgTheBashur on 09-27-2005 04:47 PM

Huh? Not sure what you're saying here. The numbers I used for auto swings per minute were taken by dividing 60 seconds by 3.8 for the 2 Hand, and then taking 60 seconds divided by 1.2 (which equalled 50) and then multiplying by 2 to get 100 swings. I don't think I ever claimed that they attacked 4 times as fast lol.

QUIT ARGUING FOR THE SAKE OF ARGUING!
Message Edited by Sabin the Great on 09-28-2005 01:53 AM

Sorry Sabin, was answering something Solokov said, that I attributed to you by mistake.

lol. only if your brain approximates 3.2 as close to 5.0, rather than 2.5, and then completely ignore the FA procs.

And you still haven't posted any real parse, or log. All you did was take the conclusion you wanted to reach, and work backwards to get the numbers that you needed to have (particularly getting double the amount of Gleaming Strike procs).

I didn't even bother reading the rest of the junk you posted, as if you're just going to lie and cheat in order to mislead the population reading these boards, you really aren't worth that much time, but looking back at what you posted, there's just too many things wrong with it. Luckily, there are plenty of other people here that can run the test for themselves.

Beyond there being twice as many procs for the DW setup as there should have been, there are

That should give ~160 combat art casts, but your 'parses' give "(40 cast)"... I think you forgot that you stated you were casting 4 combat arts each 45sec cycle.

No. The "delay" is the stated delay of the weapon in the examine window. It has nothing to do with what combat art you are casting. So 2.5 and 1.2 respectively. Try manipulating some numbers with those instead.

Have you ever even turned logging on and looked at it? Do you know what a parse is? Are you actually claiming you counted numbers by scrolling through the chat window?

What? Are you even playing EQ2?

Now THIS means that parses will (and do) show a higher damage per CA with a 2H than with DW, because, well, to put it baldly, when you add 139 average swing damage and 280 CA damage from a cast of BA while holding a 2H, it adds up to more than when you add 33 average weapon damage, 33 average weapon damage, and 280 CA damage from a cast holding DW... [/QUOTE]
As above... Weapon damage is COMPLETELY seperate from combat art damage. You are talking absolute nonsense.

Fast enough? You mean 1 combat art per 45 seconds, or 4 per 45 seconds? An this "difference" you're eating up, is that the one you fabricated?

I cannot even begin to read this gumph. Do you have a clue what you are talking about?

konofo, with the way I play, I really don't think it would help, because I just don't string together enough CAs in relation to the total time I spend in combat to make up that difference.
I dunno how true this is of everyone else out there, of course...but I have a total of 6 CAs that include a weapon swing as part of the attack (whilwind, berserker assault, rupture, furious rush, mutilate, and relentless battering). Violent Promise, Vanquish, Stunning Cry, and the kick/stomp series are melee damage, but do not incorperate a weapon swing into the CA cast (the kick/stomp series even shows in the animation that you're dealing crushing damage with your foot). Again, spell/combat window activating will show this CLEARLY, with the added damage from the weapon swings involved not being enumerated immediately following the CA damage message.
Of those 6 skills that include weapon attacks, 4 have a 0.5 second casting time, and 2 have a 2 second casting time...chain casting all CAs, plus a shout to set off an HO, costs a total of 605 power, out of a power pool of 1679 unbufed (and, when soloing, we berserkers don't have ANY INT buffs to raise that, absent the PGT proc), and takes a total of 10 seconds (2 seconds each for BA, SC, and WW, 0.5 seconds each for VP, Vanq, Mutilate, Stomp, Rupture, FR, and RB, plus the 0.5 seconds for the shout skill to set off the HO).
This means, AT BEST, I can chain all of these three times in 30 seconds, and be entirely out of power, as a result.
[/QUOTE]
Personally, I use a combat art about every 4seconds, and I expect most other people to aswell. The attacks that people chain on single-target fights are the single-target attacks, and those typically use 30-40power for the fast-recycle, high-DPS ones and won't run you out of power in 30 seconds.
I don't know why you think that some combat arts "include a weapon swing as part of the attack" - there is no relationship, except the damage type the art does, and the animation you see your character performing.
According to you, the first parse I posted, with 436 combat arts included in 30 minutes of fighting, wouldn't be possible as I would be always out of power (FYI, I never paused between those fights for power).

And again, you lost me with another couple of pages of random waffle...

Basically, what I'm saying, in the end is, unless the 2H in question has SUCH a damage advantage over time as to outweigh the fact that every figure I've been able to come up with, in theory AND in testing, says that I'll get more weapon-based procs in a given time with DW, I'll be DWing [/QUOTE]
So long as you're happy playing the way you're playing, that's what counts. Just please, don't try to mislead other people on the boards by "coming up with" figures and posting reams and reams of incorrect or fabricated data.


PS. Sorry if this is counted as badgering...

So what you are saying is... 4 is 4. And 2 x 2 isn't 4.

Awesome.

Not at all, Solokov, but I see your point.

What I'm saying is 2 weapons, both attacking twice as fast as the third weapon they're boing compared to may be attacking 4 times as often in the same period, but that doesn't mean they're attacking 4 times as fast, they're still attacking only twice as fast, but EACH is doing it.

Works the same way as two motorcycles doing 120MPH vs 1 car doing 60MPH...the motorcycles aren't going "4 times as fast" as the car, they're going twice as fast...2 vehicles will each reach their destination in half the time of the third.




Pin: Simple answer; I flubbed a number. On the notepad I was working figures on, I wrote the number of CA cycles down independantly, in both cases, and when I went back to subtract the resisted/missed CAs, that's the figure I subtracted it from, instead of the total count I'd written down seperately, as I should. At least I did the same thing on both.

And yes, I'm using parses...as a matter of fact, I'm using EQII Companion for the parses, and comparing it to the spell/combat window log to seperate...which is why I note the differences between AS average damage and the damage figures attatched to the weapon swing immediatly following one of the six CAs that "use weapons"...When you have a weapon that does a max damage of "38", and you notice that ONE of those weapons consistantly does 42+ damage immediately following certain CAs, and the other doesn't have any "anomaly", and you further note that after those same CAs, a 2H with a "max damage" of 168 regularly does in the neighborhood of 180-190 damage, you start wondering, because there's a pattern, and there's not supposed to be any pattern for "crits".




As for my numbers being "made up", bull. As for them being "unrealistic, bull. You KNOW they're legit. You know why? I finally realized, last night, after posting, what you were trying to say with your "half the rate for DW".

You were, and have been from the beginning, trying to state things on a hit-fo-hit comparison. And, in that sense, you're right....A single DW will proc it's imbued "skill" on 2% of the hits it makes...which is 1% of the total hits made, if the other weapon is not imbued, or has a different imbuement. TWO DW imbueds will proc it on 2% of the total hits made, not 4% (which is apparantly what you thought I was trying to say, and, looking back, it's an easy mistake, because, due to improper terms, that is what I stated).

Let me repeat that...we were stating it two different ways, but stating the same thing, in our contention over DW proc rate...but I was focused on "procs per second" and you were focused on "procs per hit".

Why haven't I posted the log? Too easy to answer: They prove nothing, being easily tamperable (as I have reason to suspect you know all too well, but we'll get into that later), and I DID "mess with" the one I used to compare to chat window, adding "breaks" to seperate items for couting, and so on, so as to make sure I didn't miss anything, and to account for everything...had I made a copy and tinkered with THAT for my "bean counting", I might have posted the original despite their editability, but as is, if I made a mistake in trying to put it back as it was before I seperated bits for counting, I'm well aware that it would just cause people to cry "tamper"...justifiably, as even if there is NO clear evidence of tampering, there's no proof but my word that I didn't, anyhow...just the same as with yours. Why waste the bandwidth, and the time?

As for my dismissal of stance based aggressive proc generation: Simple enough to explain why I disregard FA procs, there's oly one incident of the "proc generator" in place, regardless of the number of weapons equipped. This in this case, there is only X% chance per 3 seconds of combat to proc it, not 2X% per 3 seconds of combat...see the difference? With weapon-based procs, there are TWO incidents of the proc-generating imbuement present, so EACH INCIDENT has X% to proc in 3 seconds of combat, or 2X% total in 3 seconds. The purpose of dividing by delay is to establish how many SWINGS will occur in that 3 seconds, to arrive at "chance per swing". In other words, I'm not, and never have been, debating or arguing anything in regards to these procs, I fully agree with your precepts in regards to them.





Now, as for why I suspect YOUR numbers are "tweaksed", and your parse tampered:




Using 2x 1.5sec delay DW pristine imbued cedar fighting baton:
Auto-swing hits: 882
Combat Art hits: 195
Furious Assault: 24 (5 off CAs)
Gleaming Strike: 17 (2 off CAs)
FA%: 2.2% (2.6% off CAs)
GS%: 1.6% (1.0% off CAs)
FA% adjusted for weapon delay: 4.5% (5.1% off CAs)
GS% adjusted for weapon delay: 3.2% (2.1% off CAs)

This means in your first parse, you claim 15 GS procs in 882 auto swing hits...and you gets 2 auto swing hits in 1.5 seconds, with the weapons he specifies, which gives you a 1.7% chance PER WEAPON to proc it...For a short sampling, this is within reasonable tolerances of both our predictions...enough low that it's questionable, but within tolerances.
BUT
How long did you fight to get those 882 hits?
Well, divide the number of hits by two, to find out how many swings you make with each hand, and get 441, then multiply THAT by the delay rating of 1.5, and get 661.5 seconds.
So you procced it 15 times in 11 minutes, 2 seconds, by your figures, or once every 44 seconds, according to you, in your first report.
In your second "parse generated results", you claim 4180 hits generated 52 procs of Gleaming Strike.
Divide 4180 by two, to find out how many swings you make with each hand, and get 2090, then multiply THAT by the delay rating of 1.5, and get 3135 seconds.
So NOW you says you procced it only 52 times in 52 minutes and 15 seconds...or once every minute and a hair.
See what I'm saying here?
An increase of better than 33% in a larger sampling that is CONTRARY to the results you, I, AND the developers predict, by formula, isn't "anomaly".



Now let's check the formula to make that abundantly clear:

Developer's stated formula is <weapon delay> / 3.0 *<stated percentage chance to proc>
For a SINGLE DW with 1.2 delay with a 5% stated chance, this is 1.2/3.0 * .05, or 0.02
2% chance on any given hit (with that imbued weapon, of course, which is half your total hits)
For a SINGLE 2H with 2.5 delay with 5% stated chance, this is 2.5/3.0*0.05, or 0.0416~
4.16~% chance on any given hit (with that imbued weapon, which is ALL your total hits)
For a single 1H with 2.0 delay with 5% stated chance, this is 2.0/3.0*0.05, or 0.0333
3.33~% chance on any given hit
For a SINGLE 2H with 12% stated chance and 3.8 delay, this is 3.8/3.0*.12, or 0.152
15.2% chance on hit
And for a SINGLE DW with 12% stated chance and 1.5 delay, this is 1.5/3.0*.12, or 0.06
6% chance on hit

We can all agree on all the figures I just posted, right? I assume we can, since those are EXACTLY the formula everyone's been using.



So let's look at how long it takes to spawn it with each.
You swing a 1.2 second delay 5% DW weapon once every 1.2 seconds. 2 out of 100 hits with it will proc it. 100 swings at 1.2 seconds takes 120 seconds. 60 seconds to swing 50 times to get ONE proc.It procs from a SINGLE DW 1 time in 60 seconds. (120/2) This matches his SECOND post of "parse derived info"...or would, had he only been holding ONE DW, but he claims he was holding TWO, and that ONE would have half the number of procs (To be honest, if you're only equipped with one DW imbued, your total ratio WILL be 1 in 100 total hits proccing, because you do one hit with one hand, one hit with the other hand...I am examining the number of hits made by the "right hand weapon", which is imbued, here, and that INDIVIDUAL weapon still swings 100 times in 120 seconds, independant of what the other does. And they will EACH do this, for 4 procs in 200 total hits, 2 procs from each, 100 hits from each)
You swing a 2.5 second delay 5% 2H once every 2.5 seconds. 4 out of 100 hits will proc it. It takes 250 seconds to swing 100 times, and 62.5 seconds to swing 25 times, in order to get ONE proc. It procs once every minute and 2 seconds, roughly. (250/4)
You swing a 2.0 delay 5% 1H weapon once every 2 seconds. 33 out of 1,000 hits will proc it (disposing of a nasty decimal this way). It takes 2,000 seconds to swing 1,000 times. It procs roughly once every 60.6 seconds with this weapon. (2000/33)

Now from your second parse AGAIN, we look, JUST so I can stress this...4180 hits..if you had both DW equipped, this is 2090 right hand, 2090 left hand, correct? You swing right and left hand "together", and you state you used a pair of weapons with a 1.5 second delay...so 2090*1.5 gives us how long you were swinging. 3135 seconds. 3135 / 60 = 52.25, or 52 minutes and 15 seconds.
Above, we just settled that a SINGLE DW with "5%" chance to proc will proc once a minute...you'd have hit 52, possibly 53 procs, had you stood there JUST ONE SLOT equipped, you'd have procced it this often, according to your own figures AND the developer's formula.
Now, since we know that EACH "5%" imbued weapon will independantly proc its imbued cast on the order of once every 60 seconds, this means having TWO of them, they will EACH proc it once every 60 seconds of unhasted, non-CA combat, yes?
And that's 2 every 60 seconds, or one every 30 seconds, depending on how you look at it, yes?
And you claim 52 casts in 52 minutes and change THIS time, and 15 casts in 11 minutes, 2 seconds, LAST parse.


For the parse itself...things I noticed:

I randomly went through your parse post, picking areas between "you have started fighting" and "you gain experience"


Your miss ratio varied throughout by more than enough to be questionable, just off that sampling (varied between 9% and 19% on mobs with the same names).
You'res missing swings...I'm not talking about announced misses, here, there are several points I noticed where there's a SWING missing...where one second has two swings, the second BEFORE that second has two swings, two seconds before THAT has two swings (the missing second is due to having 1.5 weapons...the cycle bridged a gap of a full second), but second AFTER that has only one swing, the second after THAT one has two swings, the second after THAT one has two swings, and two seconds following THAT comes another two swings....there's a swing missing in there, if you don't see it. Not a "missed swing", it just "didn't happen" according to the parse.
Sorry, but that doesn't happen...you don't just fail to swing...you swing and hit, you swing and miss, you're stunned or knocked back, and don't swing at all...but you don't swing one, and not the other, when both weapons have the same delay and are on the same cycle.

And there's the question of the two areas I noted 200+ swings between procs. By your OWN figures, each 1.5 delay weapon should proc 2.5 times in 100 hits (1.5/3.0*0.05=0.025)...so there should be 5 procs in 200 hits...twice, you go more than 200 swings (and in one case, 200 hits) without proccing ONCE...that's not an anomaly, that's an impossibility. An it doesn't get balanced out later, to make it possible that it IS an anomaly. The odds of that happening ONCE in a random sampling of 200 hits is better than 10 trillion to 1, literally (that's the odds of completely "dissappearing" 5 consecutive procs).

Shall I continue with the buildup of "anomalies"?

Message Edited by GurgTheBashur on 09-28-2005 03:20 PM

I missed addressing a concern, and the last post is too damned much text already.

Regarding CA delay matching weapon delay...horse puckey!

You can chain your short-cast CAs as fast as they cast, and they cast at their stated rates, not at weapon swing rates. Parse it.
2.5 2H shouldn't be able to do 2 CAs back to back in the same second, or even in two consecutive seconds, if what you claim is true, but my parses show that rupture and furious rush almost always happened in the same seconds, and when they didn't, they happened in two consecutive seconds, regardless of the weapon used. (This is also true when I firget to switch off "ranged attack" and switch on "melee attack" after pulling, when the mob is close enough...and my bow has a delay in excess of 6 seconds (and delivers crushing damage when I hit them with it at close range, which is what usually alerts me to the fact that I forgot to do this, since the animation shows me drawing my slashing weapons when they get within range, automatically)).

If that was NOT the case, then there would BE no "CA speed advantage" except on the parts of the three CAs (Stunning Cry, Whirlwind, and Berserker Assault) that take longer to cast than it does to melee swing the DW weapons.

And as for some CAs using weapons as part of their damage, and some not...look at your speel/combat window with all messages enabled, as I said above...some deal ONLY the damage the CA itself is rated for, others enhance the weapon damage of the immediately following attack of the weapon as part of it...parses, though, only show the cumulative damage of the CA and weapon combined as a single figure. At least with the parser I'm using...haven't tried others.

RGF for the win!!!

Aye, yes, affirmative, no doubt, and never really in contention, Spike :smileysurprised:

Color me nonplussed, but I just ran a 50 minute parse under each situation, using stances and casting my weapon based CAs pretty much as they came up.


I still did 3 casts of GS with DW for every 2 with 2H, even under these conditions, overall (that's total, CA and AS time)....but I discovered that my total damage figures were WAY stacked for 2H, and my stance based aggressive procs were pretty much what I figured they'd be (about 1/4 lower with DW than with 2H...or, to put it simply, for every 3 I procced with DW in the 50 minutes of combat, I procced 4 with 2H).

In the end, casting weapon-involved CAs pretty much as often as I could gave me a total damage with DW of about 78% (.77835 to 1) of that I got total with 2H.

What a difference it makes to be casting those CAs so often! But I was resting more often, too, so I stiill feel somewhat vindicated <grin>.


Having managed to flip my results by making two minor changes in test conditions (using the buffs/stances that proc offensively, and using CAs as they became available, instead of "rationing" them), I suspect that there's a middle point at which they EXACTLY balance, by design, and the reason I'm on one side in this debate and most of ya'll are on the other side is purely a result of which extreme on the curve our relative playstyles put us on.

My normal playstyle has me rationing CAs to the point that I won't fire a CA if my power is less than 75% of my HP, when I solo, under normal conditions, for fear I won't have the power available to pull my nuggets out of the fire if I get in trouble, and apparantly ya'll use CAs pretty much when they're available for use all the time (how ya'll can stand doing so, I don't know...all my "per tick" buffs went to HP, so even with best drink and food I can buy off broker, if I stop to rest with both at 10%, I'm full on HP about 5-6 ticks before my power finishes refilling).


At any rate, final conclusion is ya'll are right, there's more DPS available to a 2H than a DW, but I was right in saying there's more damage from GS available to the DW in the same period of time than there is to the 2H...it's just not enough to make a difference if you use your skills as they refresh.


As a side note, my normal solo playstyle, which has worked quite effectively for me through the game so far, is to pull with arrow, weapon guard, hit fighting chance, hit BA, hit mad cry (to set off fighting chance HO), whirlwind, rupture, relentless battering, furious rush, then just auto-swing until BA is available again, and repeat from "fighting chance"...this pattern does generate more DPS with DW than with 2H, and ensures I have plenty of power available to "save my butt" and run at a sprint, if i get in trouble, even with recasting WG every time it comes back up. (this is with all three group buffs, greater rage, fury, and blood boil in effect on me before entering combat, every time). Interestingly enough this pattern ALSO ends up with me fighting with less total time needed to kill the same number of the same level mobs than when I maximize DPS by using CAs when available, but that's probably because I'm pretty gimped when it comes to regenning power, and therefore have to break longer and more often, to do so, rather than being able to regen while picking my next target (or group of targets).

For me, the rate at which one regens power when out of combat vs in combat means that every second less spent in combat is worth much more than having to rest one second less.

Additionally, every second one spends extra in a battle is increased liklihood of an add, thus shortening battle time by any means necessarily seems efficient to me.

I myself have a weird habit of drawing out pulls if possible in order to get in two bow shots, which invariably proc SOMETHING.

Perhaps my disposition towards 2H has to do with the fact I seldom solo and thus have the benefit of procs from group members - including my personal favorite, Glory of Combat, which is not even an offensive proc. My 2H also benefits from being a 12% proc rate.

In any case, I still find it odd you proc more often than Pin does.
Message Edited by Sokolov on 09-28-2005 10:49 PM