Noob Question

[IronMonk]

Hey there,

I just recently picked up playing FFXI again I played it when it was released for about a month. I couldn't get into it well I am back World of Warcraft has let me down once again and I am really enjoying FFXI. I am a level 11 monk right now, my question is what does the delay on a wepon convert into seconds. I know in the orignall EQ +56 delay was .56milliseconds so in term it was really a 5.6 second delay. Does this work the same way in FFXI or does it not matter. Just trying to figure out weapon speeds and what not. I just like to know stupid information, so any info would be appreciated.

Thanks,

-IronMonk

[greydaze]

from http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/Delay

The time that is between swinging or shooting with a weapon. Every 60 in a melee weapon delay is normally equal to 1 real time second. Refering to rumors, the delay system is based on the FPS of the FFXI servers. Every Frame counts as 1 delay and the Frames per second are internally set to a static 60. If a server falls down under 60 FPS, the delay value per second will fall down with the FPS regardless if your own console /PC is over 60 FPS or not to clock correctly the mob and the player behavior.

[Armando]

Hehe, it's not stupid information, it's very important to figuring out what's better than what. Anyways, greydaze covered the important point, 60 Delay = 1 second. There's more to it than that in your case, though. You've probably noticed, but H2H weapons have Delay: +X, not Delay: X. They add X Delay to your base H2H speed, which depends on your level of Martial Arts. If I remember right, base H2H speed goes like this:

No MA: 480
MA1: 400
MA2: 380
MA3: 360
MA4: 340
MA5: 320
MA6: 300

You get Martial Arts I at Lv.1 as a MNK, so right now your Delay is 400 + Whatever your weapon has. If I remember right, you get Martial Arts II at 16, Martial Arts III at 31, and kinda sure MAIV is obtained at Lv.46, but I forgot how it progresses from there.

If your weapons don't have any other significant stats, you can tell which one will do more raw damage by taking their DMG and dividing it by their Delays in seconds. The higher number does more damage over time in normal swings. Higher DMG weapons do more damage on Weapon Skills, but if we're talking about a 1 or 2 DMG difference, it doesn't matter as much as DMG/sec. For H2H, I think your base DMG was calculated as 3 + (H2H Skill/9) (drop all decimals.)

[IronMonk]

Cool thanks Greydaze and Armando that makes sense now just doing math... hehe one of my weaker points. O well I am gonna take the info and play the game and see how I do. Thanks again guys. = )

[Dryhus]

Martial Arts traits are granted as follows.
Trait Level Base Delay
MAI 1 400
MAII 16 380
MAIII 31 360
MAIV 46 340
MAV 61 320
MAVI 75 300

This is one thing to consider when calculating the DPS of weapons for a (VERY) rough comparison. With all other weapons, D/(60*Delay) is sufficient. With H2H weapons, you need to calculate (D+Base_Damage)/[60*(Delay+Base_Delay)], where Base Damage is approximately (but not exactly) floor(Hand-to-Hand skill/10).
EDIT: Forgot it had been revised to floor(H2H_skill*0.11)+3. Thank you, bside.

At face value, Cross Counters (D+19, Delay+96)and Spartan Cesti (D+20,Delay+113) would have DPSs of 11.875 and 10.619 respectively. This would make both both weapons seem vastly overpowered, with CC edging out Spartan's by over 1.2 DPS.

However, after adding base damage and base delay, you get a much different picture. At lv61, base delay is 320 and base damage is 20. As such, the DPSs of the above weapons would be 6.346 and 6.234, which is much more realistic and also within a margin of 0.12 DPS.

Please note that DPS is not the actual damage dealt to a mob per second; that is, at 61 you will not be doing 5-7 damage to the mob every second. Rather, DPS is essentially weapon damage, prior to being run through the damage formula, broken down per second to evaluate weapons by taking into account both damage and delay. There are many other things to account for, of course. Your STR, Attack, Accuracy, TP return, etc. should all be significant factors in deciding on a weapon.

[IronMonk]

Wow... better bring out my alegabra book lol. All seems a little confusing hopefully i will get the hang of it soon. Thanks again.

[Ameroth]

Who knew there was so much math involved from Point A (being my fist) to Point B (being the goblin's face). Glad I know all this now too.

[bside]

Wow... better bring out my alegabra book lol. All seems a little confusing hopefully i will get the hang of it soon. Thanks again.

Yeah, there are a lot of things to know about this game. But since you've recently started, until you get to know more about the gameplay, don't concern too much about those mathmatics; just try to have fun. (I don't mean to discourage you from doing that; just a personal recommendation, as I don't think anyone wants to deal w/ those kinds of numbers from their day 1.)

As you progress more, you'll want to explore deeper about this sort of damage formula thing, and that'd consequently affect the weapon choice, but in the meantime, like Armando mentioned, going w/ weapons of better DMG/Delay ratio should be a good measure.


For H2H, I think your base DMG was calculated as 3 + (H2H Skill/9) (drop all decimals.)

H2H bare fists' DMG is currently considered to be;

floor( H2H Skill * 0.11 ) + 3

[IronMonk]

I got the whole equation, but what does "Floor" stand for: floor(H2H_skill*0.11)+3.

[Celeal]

I got the whole equation, but what does "Floor" stand for: floor(H2H_skill*0.11)+3.

Floor(H2H_skill * 0.11) should mean that the result of H2H_skill * 0.11 and get rip of the fractional part. For example:

Floor( 7/3 ) = Floor( 3.5 ) = 3

[Karinya]

Note that although these delay calculations are exact as far as anyone can tell, the DPS calculations are an approximation: the effect of fSTR on damage over time varies with delay as well, not to mention the damage contribution of WS, and jumps and kicks for jobs that use them. (Kick damage doesn't depend on weapon damage IIRC, but the number of opportunities you have to kick *does* depend on weapon delay. Thus, faster weapons will yield more kick damage over time.)

But it's pretty good for most purposes. Unless there's some weapon with really significant stats on it or a great hidden effect, the highest DPS weapon according to this formula will always be at least a respectable choice.

[bside]

the effect of fSTR on damage over time varies with delay as well

Sorry to do a nit-picking, but since we're dealing w/ a new player here, I'm compelled to pick it so they won't be misled.

The quoted sentense is very likely misleading many others, while you seem to know and understand the formula. fSTR, which caps at (weapon rank + 8), is one of 2 factors that determine the Base Damage for melee physical attacks. Weapons' base damage (DMG) is added to it to come up w/ the Base Damage, which then is multiplied by PDIF to get the final damage output. While PDIF is indeed a varying factor, fSTR nor DMG, and consequently Base Damage, are NOT to change against the same mob, so long as there are no factors that affect our STR or mobs' VIT, and that we're not changing the weapon.

Therefore, there's no such thing as "the effect of fSTR on damage over time" that "varies" w/ Delay.


Instead, it should have been simply put; "even if one weapon might have a better DPS over another, damage over time depends on Delay, thus that weapon might not prove to be better."