Elements

[MajinSephiroth]

Usually in some mmo's I have played, the element on the weapon greatly outweighed it's marked damage indicator, most of the time doubling a weapon's attack power against mobs weaker to that element.

I was curious if the same held true for weapons in this game, for instance comparing an Inferno GA to a Moth GA. If you were to use them both against a fire hating mob, such as a snipper, which would end up doing more damage?

How important is an elemental weapon compared to a higher DMG rated weapon?

[Murphie]

While the elements really do play a rather large role in FFXI, they don't play exactly that role in weapon damage. Someone may very well come along and call me an idiot for saying that, but I'm pretty sure the only damage from an Inferno Axe that would change on a Fire Resistant mob would be the extra Fire Damage proc that happens every now and then.

[Aeolus]

On a weapon such as garudas dagger the silence effect activates when hitting monsters alot more on wind days. Same with the Sirocco Kukri but its additional effect is wind dmg and some Thfs Ive talked with have said it does slightly more on windsday altho Ive never had the pleasure of checking this out myself.

[MajinSephiroth]

So the element randomly gets added to damage, meaning the DMG output of the specific weapon is the one that actually helps you dishing it out.

In other words, go for the higher DMG if presented with both choices.

[bside]

So the element randomly gets added to damage, meaning the DMG output of the specific weapon is the one that actually helps you dishing it out.
In other words, go for the higher DMG if presented with both choices.

For most weapons w/ additional elemental damages, it must be safe to say that they only deal minor damages that you shouldn't be too concerned about, and they don't usually kick in that often anyways. So in general, yes, it's usually better to pick weapons w/ higher DMG, while of course their delays must also be takne into consideration.

However, there are exceptions, like the case of Garuda's Dagger which Aeolus mentioned. Other exceptions include Bolts w/ additional effects, such as Holy Bolts, whose additional effects kick in very often, and A l'Outrance (Lv 62 Scythe) whose additional effect kicks in for 100% of the time against Beasts, such as Coeurls.


Nevertheless, most weapons don't fall under those exceptions anyways.

[Icemage]

So the element randomly gets added to damage, meaning the DMG output of the specific weapon is the one that actually helps you dishing it out.
In other words, go for the higher DMG if presented with both choices.

Generally speaking this is correct.

There really aren't any weapons in the game with huge gigantic additional elemental damage, except for elemental arrows (which only Rangers can use). Otherwise, melee weapons with add effects generally just add a small amount of damage. Sometimes a few points, maybe as high as 20 on the best weapons of their type in conducive conditions.

The real kicker in FFXI is DPS, or damage per second. Weapons with higher damage ratings tend to have higher delay (and thus swing slower to compensate for their higher damage). In general, you'll always want to use the weapon with the best DPS rating you can find.

Unfortunately, DPS isn't an actual stat on the weapon. However, you can find the DPS of any weapon at ffxi.somepage.com:

http://ffxi.somepage.com/itemdb/

This should help you make an informed choice about what to wield.


Icemage