[Spider-Dan]

As we all know, Barrage's hit calculation is sequential, not simultaneous; you shoot until you miss, and then Barrage ends. If you miss Barrage entirely, you are missing 1 arrow from your inventory; if you land a 3-hit Barrage, you are missing 4 arrows (hit+hit+hit+miss). So if we are capable of landing a 7-hit Barrage and we only land 6 hits, that means that we should be missing 7 arrows from inventory.

We decided to do a 3-part test:

1) AF+1 equipped for activation and firing
2) AF+1 equipped for activation, normal gloves equipped for firing
3) normal gloves equipped for activation, AF+1 equipped for firing

Just for baseline comparison, you can see here that this weapon combo gives 10.x% TP per shot:



Test 1 - AF+1 all the way
You can see here that AF+1 equipped for activation and barrage gives the expected result: 74% TP return, -7 to ammo inventory.

Before:


After:


Test 2 - AF+1 when activating Barrage, normal gloves when firing
You can see that this combo returns 63% TP and that the ammo count went from 90 to 84; a 6 ammo decrease.

Before:


After:


6 hits with 6 less ammo afterwards indicates a 6-hit Barrage that landed all its hits.

Test 3 - normal gloves when activating Barrage, AF+1 when firing
And here is the real payoff. Prepare to see a result that, to my knowledge, had not even been suggested to this point:

Before:


After:


74% TP return, -7 to ammo inventory. I was pretty amazed, myself.

So it appears that contrary to popular opinion, not only is the practice of equipping AF+1 during activation and normal gloves during firing ineffective; it's the exact opposite of what you need to do to get the 7th hit from Barrage.

I would like to see screenshots from anyone that claims to be able to land a 7-hit barrage with normal gloves equipped. The screenshotted results of this test seem to clearly eliminate that as a possibility.

Extra special thanks go to Corwen on Midgardsormr, who did practically all of the actual work in this test.

[Machaveli]

Flat out though, to get the extra shot you need to have the AF+1 hands equipped when the shot fires to get the 7th arrow. Sucks, but oh well.

[AngryUndead]

I always love to see people try these experiments... awesome work man. I still find it amazing that there is stuff left to learn in this game.

[Mainevent41]

Fantastic post and information. Corwen is on my server and is one of the richest mofo's I have ever seen in this game as a side note.

I think this pretty much proved the point that the gloves need to be equipped the entire time until the barrage lands to get the 7th shot to land or be possible. I can only dream of owning any of the +1 AF armors, but I'll definately know this for future reference.

[Helmon]

I pretty sure I read this post a long time ago. Somewhere else. Deja vu?