Rampage/Decimation evaluation

[Xythalia]

You can check my original post here on my Livejournal: http://www.livejournal.com/users/xyt...78.html#cutid1

I basically copy and pasted what I wrote down on my Livejournal, but some formats didn't transfer over so the one I posted here looks rather sloppy.

Warning: Extremely long post.

Ever since I got my hands on several cursed pieces of hecatomb and adaman pieces, I've switched them in and out based on assumptions and mainly from popular belief that each pieces I swapped in during 'situational' attacking phases would generate faster TP or give me the highest damage possible during WS. So I thought it's time I took several hours off of my weekend and finally do a prolonged 'controlled' test to evaluate the performance of the Axe skill's 2 best and most used WS: Rampage and Decimation.

Test Conditions:

Job: BST/NIN
Equipment: These items are always on and equipped in every test.
Woodville Axe
Maneater (49 dmg, +5 acc, +18 atk hidden effect when TP is below 100 and during WS)
Rajas Ring
Sniper Ring
Tiphia Sting
Assault Earring
Beastly Earring
Merman's gorget
Amemet Mantle+1
Byakko Haidate
Adaman Sollerets
Hecatomb Harness

Axe skill: 280 (merits + beastly earring)

No food
No debuff spells on target
No beneficial spells on target
TP level per test and Margin of Error: 100~109 TP at all times

Test Subject: My test subject is 1 Tracker Antlion (decent challenge) and I used the same one throughout the whole test.

TP up conditions: TP up on surrounding easy mobs to as close to 100 TP as possible. Perform WS on antlion pet and immediately charm/release to reset claim--that's how I only used 1 and the same mob throughout this entire test so results stay as accurate as possible.

Motive for Test: I wanted to evaluate the strength of Rampage and Decimation while gradually shifting equipment setup. The test equipment range from: (1) High STR, lower ACC and gradually shifting to (2) Low STR, higher ACC.

I performed 7 WS for each armor setup.


Rampage

Rampage: Delivers a 5 hit attack. TP increases chances of critical hits.
*Note: It is extremely hard to test Rampage since, in my opinion, this WS is all about luck. Sometimes you get extremely good rounds where all 5 hits connect and the majority of those are crits resulting in extremely high damage. Sometimes you land all 5 hits but all those are regular hits, and sometimes you miss some of those 5 hits.

Test #1: Highest STR setup


1. 631 dmg, 107 TP
2. 673 dmg, 107 TP
3. 397 dmg, 100 TP
4. 495 dmg, 102 TP
5. 507 dmg, 100 TP
6. 514 dmg, 102 TP
7. 618 dmg, 102 TP

Average damage: 547.86

Test #2: Replace Warwolf Belt with Life Belt (+10 acc, lost 5 STR/DEX)


1. 426 dmg, 100 TP
2. 515 dmg, 107 TP
3. 472 dmg, 100 TP
4. 668 dmg, 100 TP
5. 526 dmg, 100 TP
6. 351 dmg, 100 TP
7. 616 dmg, 100 TP

Average damage: 510.57

Test #3: Adaman replaces Hecatomb gloves (Lost more STR for higher ACC/ATK)


1. 559 dmg, 108 TP
2. 561 dmg, 100 TP
3. 333 dmg, 100 TP
4. 472 dmg, 104 TP
5. 640 dmg, 107 TP
6. 435 dmg, 107 TP
7. 585 dmg, 100 TP

Average damage: 512.14

Test #4: ACC setup. Optical hat replaces Hecatomb cap


1. 478 dmg, 105 TP
2. 475 dmg, 109 TP
3. 402 dmg, 107 TP
4. 696 dmg, 107 TP
5. 349 dmg, 105 TP
6. 453 dmg, 100 TP
7. 410 dmg, 100 TP

Average damage: 466.14

As you can see from Rampage results, multi-hit WS like this yields very random results. If you're lucky and land all hits + crits, you get high damage. If you miss hits and score only regular hits, your damage suffers.

It was also interesting to notice how the highest STR setup had the highest average damage overall. This leads to suggest that Rampage's damage is mainly calculated off of STR. Perhaps the popular belief that higher ACC helps with a multi-hit WS like Rampage because it helps land all hits does not necessarily apply. As the trend also suggested, the more ACC items I put on and the more STR items I lost, my overall damage begins to drop. Anyone believe that ACC plays a minor role in Rampage and that perhaps the accuracy of landing all 5 hits might depend on Axe skill?


Decimation

Decimation: Delivers a 3 hit attack. TP effects damage.
*Note: Decimation is another multi-hit attack, but since it's only 3 hits, it tends to land all hits more often than Rampage, thus generating a more consistent result. I also noticed that accuracy of landing hits seem to be slightly better than Rampage. Also note that Decimation base damage is lower than Rampage, but this WS is useful since it also helps open Light SC.

Test #1: Highest STR setup

1. 479 dmg, 102 TP
2. 337 dmg, 101 TP
3. 315 dmg, 100 TP
4. 449 dmg, 107 TP
5. 456 dmg, 105 TP
6. 340 dmg, 107 TP
7. 471 dmg, 100 TP

Average damage: 406.71

Test #2: Replace Warwolf Belt with Life Belt (+10 acc, lost 5 STR/DEX)

1. 444 dmg, 100 TP
2. 435 dmg, 100 TP
3. 451 dmg, 107 TP
4. 425 dmg, 100 TP
5. 411 dmg, 105 TP
6. 429 dmg, 109 TP
7. 463 dmg, 100 TP

Average damage: 436.86

Test #3: Adaman replaces Hecatomb gloves (Lost more STR for higher ACC/ATK)

1. 419 dmg, 107 TP
2. 415 dmg, 100 TP
3. 484 dmg, 107 TP
4. 423 dmg, 101 TP
5. 433 dmg, 100 TP
6. 394 dmg, 109 TP
7. 442 dmg, 100 TP

Average damage: 430

Test #4: ACC setup. Optical hat replaces Hecatomb cap

1. 374 dmg, 100 TP
2. 390 dmg, 101 TP
3. 362 dmg, 105 TP
4. 366 dmg, 100 TP

Average damage: 373
*Note: I didn't continue with all 7 WS on this one since judging from the previous 4 results, it was certain that all ACC setup won't match or even come close to the average damage on other armor setups.

What happened here? Seems like loading up on STR didn't help much with damage. It was only when I sacrificed some STR and loaded up on ACC that Decimation results became a lot better as shown by the 436.86 and 430 average damage when I switched in life belt and adaman mufflers. It would appear from this test that Decimation damage is based off of both STR and ACC and that going to either extremes of STR or ACC yielded lower damage.


If you find any incorrect calculations, please point them out to me. Please feel free to comment on these findings.

Next weekend, if I have time, I'll continue with this test on a slightly harder mob: An Even Match steelshell crab in Boyahda.

I'm also interested in other people's results...mainly from other BSTs, WARs, or any Axe users out there.

[Lmnop]

Re: Rampage/Decimation evaluation

maybe I'm sounding overly simple here, but it seems the real reason Rampage dealt more on your STR setup is because your acc was good enough. While Rampage is still extremely random, in this instance against a DC mob, you cut down the randomality of missing some hits, leaving the extremely random damage of 1-5 crits instead. However, the higher Str at least upped the non-crits good enough and made the crits felt even more. The +5 dex on Warwolf wouldn't hurt crit rate either. When you switched to acc gear, you weren't actually gaining much acc. You were just losing attack power since you'd lost those valuable slots.

As for Decimation... I think I'm as confused as you. Perhaps some multi-hit WS are less accurate than others. Like in the instance of Penta Thrust, the 1st hit seems to be more accurate than the rest. Perhaps Decimation has this same shortcoming where the first hit has high acc but the other 2 suffer? In this same vein of thought, you'd expect Rampage to have the same shortcoming, considering its already awesome potential.... I really don't think I have much to contribute to the Decimation department. I hope your tests on Steelshells will shed light. Thank you for the experiments.

[Xythalia]

Re: Rampage/Decimation evaluation

When I used the STR setup during rampage, to me, I was expecting it to be a lot less accurate and NOT score all 5 hits. I was expecting it to miss more and do less damage. Unfortunately, that doesn't seem to be the case.

I expected the high ACC setup or at least have the setup where I replaced warwolf with life belt to yield higher damage since I'm supposed to miss much less and do max damage.

This is one of the problems when testing accuracy. It's hard to tell whether I already have high enough ACC. I guess next weekend when I test on harder stuff, I might remove all other accesories like sniper ring, merman gorget, assault earring, tiphia sting, etc...and see if the raw results are similar to this antlion test.

[ZQM]

Re: Rampage/Decimation evaluation

Speaking from a Warrior Standpoint:

ACC wise, it all depends on the mob. You can't say "This is best all the time" when it comes to Rampage damage. That goes for basically everything that's in the game, everything is situational.

In general, EM and under mobs don't need a lot of accuracy. Around 10, maybe 20 if it's an evasive type of mob (I.E. Courels). This also goes for most T mobs.

When it comes to VT and up, Sushi is the only accuracy you need. You can dump every other piece of ACC and load up on strait STR.

Low IT mobs, a bit of accuracy is nice if using sushi (10-20).

High IT and up, I can't really say. Back when I originally leveled WAR, the whole "macro in STR gear for WS" thing was unheard of, and ofcoasre Sushi wasn't back then.

On Kings and Gods, I use full ACC for Rampage.

Also, if you have sea access, WORK ON A SOIL GORGET. It doesn't help damage very much, but the ACC improvement is VERY noticable. Supposedly it's +10% ACC, so you're looking at ~+30ish ACC alone on the neck piece. As a sushi WAR I dont' notice in EXP or lower things, but when I'm tanking Kinds/Gods, it's a huge boost to Rampage (Also allowing me to filter out some ACC gear for STR gear, though at the moment I only switch Optical Hat to Heca Cap).

Also just one other note for Rampage, I have found DEX to be equally important to STR when it comes down to consistant Rampage damage. I'm able to hit 900+ consistantly with +54 DEX in gear and food (+57 STR aswell). It's actually rare for me to not get a critted Rampage with the amount of DEX I use. For you personally Xythalia, I'd suggest swapping to an Osode if you have access to one (Since you have N.Body I'd assume you do. +10 DEX > +2 STR +10 ACC), aswell as picking up a minuet earring (Better then Assault for WS), Spike Necklace, and uncurse Heca Feet if possible.

[Tomatoes]

Re: Rampage/Decimation evaluation

Xythalia, thanks for doing this study. It was fun to read. However, I pretty much agree with the above posters in saying that the level of mob selected is the cause of the discrepancy between what you got and what you expected.

Also, I'm thinking that this is very time consuming for you. Could I suggest that you just drop out test #2 and #3 and focus on #1 and #4? My other concern with your testing is that 7 samples per setup isn't conclusive enough imo. And maybe if you have time, do a #3 DEX setup, since Nny brought up that point.

I'm most interested in the numbers you could achieve on T-VT mobs, since those are the mob strengths that the majority of BSTs likely fight in their XP'ing careers. Most of us probably don't put too much thought into maximizing damage on EM, DC, and of course lower, farming mobs.

[Xythalia]

Re: Rampage/Decimation evaluation

I'll definitely think about that doing test #1 and test#4 on T-VT mobs this weekend then. I'll try to increase the number of tries to 10.

On a sidenote, I'll probably have to bring a couple BST and WAR friends with me to provoke or try to re-charm my failed charms on those T-VTs.

Some steelshells pop T to lv. 75 sometimes. If I can get my hands on one, I'll use that in my next test unless anyone here has other suggestions as to where I should do these tests without being a major risk to my life