Luck Of The Draw: A Corsair's Guide *NEW*

Still trying to figure this whole cor thing out, but what makes path B outshine the path A augments for melee situations?

Working on buying my first Rostam, but want to put it down the most sensible path and have heard mixed reviews.

Folks are welcome to pick my numbers apart, but I have Paths A and B both arriving at 1k TP with melee leaden spam at the same time in nearly any ideal situation.

This is why I went with path A.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/10LpRCPET1mYTV2rcNIZZvCLJeXHuWePKmNmSDOHIgjM/edit#gid=747591238

Its more like this.
Path A = Decent melee, Great ranged
Path B = Great melee, ***ranged
*edit, had them mixed up*

nice to have both, but first one should be the more versatile one

Nah, stp favors higher multi attack but as soon as you swap to high acc or dt set with less dt it loses its values.

For example, this is what I use on volte 90% of time, minus fetter/aurix.
ItemSet 340842
(DA +10% on back because DA > STP in low MA set)


Using Austars SIM to calculate avg TP/round:

STP path: 391.065
FUA path: 403.2

Basically, if you strictly melee and use leaden/wf on wave 3, path B are likely to do more ws because there's entirely too much time spent on high acc/DT set.

My max HP/weakened set has even lower MA than above and I do use that in dyna too. The advantage of FUA is that it doesn't suffer as much as stp after you swap ma out.

Anyways, the best choice is case by case...I haven't shoot last stand for like....since lamia month I think? Everything I do is either dyna dyna and more dyna. I am mostly a solo player too, so subtle blow helps with surviability. That's why I picked FUA anyways.

If I need to shoot leaden salute/wf I just use kaja x2 for bigger ws. Stp benefits last stand the most, magical ws not as much, especially wf.

I don't think we're in disagreement on the basics. I'm just not using average TP per attack round as the measure of time to TP because it doesnt seem right. I did compare our posted gearsets using average TP per attack round and I do see the same thing you commented on generally.

My calcs take your set's x-hit requirement at its current STP and divides it by the set's average number of swings per attack round to arrive at the average number of attack rounds necessary to achieve your target TP for your set.

That number is then rounded up to a whole number (because you can only have partial attack rounds if we were to factor in accuracy or killshots) and your weapons' delays are factored in to arrive at the returned time to TP.

That upward rounding is why I see paths A and B as the same in both our sets so far as time to TP is concerned. If that ain't right I'm gonna need some ELI5.

Your math is bad and you should feel bad, robut.

Please don't make me reconcile the Jet I play with, with the Jet that posts here, I beg for mercy.

Calculate avg TP/round makes more sense than hit required to get 1000 tp for a ws that scales so well with ws no?

For example, assuming you start at 200 tp after ws, set 1 generates 270 tp per round, set 2 generates 280. Both sets will get 1000 tp in 3 rounds, but the difference being set 2 has 30 more tp overflow which adds dmg to ws.

So it makes more sense to directly compare tp gain per round.

Generally, if the average damage added by your average overflow TP can overcome the damage lost by the added time to TP per WS, then Avg. TP/attack round makes more sense. If not then the time to TP is the measurement to use when a comparison of weapons with the same DPS is made.

I came up with 1.26 seconds added per WS by not dropping down to under 2 average attack rounds to achieve target TP. Could always set your target TP higher if you want overflow TP as well.

I'm confident and have tested most my numbers when it comes to the calculation of multi-hit rates (FUA/QA/TA/DA/OAT), STP, TP Return, TP/Hit X-hit, delay reduction, etc., but actual the time to TP is something I've not thoroughly tested, so take it for what it's worth.

why would you go to all the trouble to find an arithmetic mean just to round up?

Not to try to calculate the actual reality of the game's constraints, as implemented, so as to provide a platform to min/max, I can tell you that!

the problem with that is the fact that it's an average. if you have two sets with an average rounds to X of 3.75 and 3.95, they're not equal. the second one, for example, could consistently get 4 rounds and a lucky quad would make it 3. average tp per round and average tp per second are both fairly useless stats and don't tell the whole story. i only wrote a simulation to compare specific things.

Right, they're not equal, I agree, and I think we agree that the real benefit of one over the over isn't quantified either, but that statistically, 3.75 is probably better than 3.95.

With that understanding, I think we need get into statistical variances, standard deviations, etc., to put a real number to it, and with paths A vs. B it's already so small as-is.

I figured that at least knowing that both will result with, on average, the same time to TP based on the minimum requirement of 4 attack rounds, that it'd provide a good sense of the kind of wiggle room each option gives.

I love this kind of math, but not sure i know how to advance it further :D

https://github.com/CaseyMakes/Simulations/tree/master/hits_ex

even then, it isn't the end all answer. there are a lot of things to consider, like what if i FUA when i'm close to 1K. how much additional WS damage does that give me? Or how much damage am I gaining on my TP phase from path A?

AFAIK magic WS still returns TP normally, so doesn't 25 sTP with 720 delay gun+ammo return 40.2 more TP on Leaden Salute?

So on avg after 2 rounds Path A would still end up with more TP, because (403.2-391) * 2 is only 24,4 TP advantage for Path B and wouldn't make up for a 40.2 TP loss on WS?

In that case I guess origional spreadsheet result from Dades SS showing B being a couple hundred dps ahead is incorrect? Because that would put A ahead in most scenarios, unless you score a CC No.11 SAM or something(high SAM value benefits FUA too).

STP works w/ Leaden, absolutely. With 10 STP in gear plus Path A and a crooked non-bonus regal IX (+60) returns 313 TP. Path B gives 273. That's a 40 TP difference, yup.

Most builds I've tinkered with, Path B requires at least 2 more X-hits to reach target TP, but when Path A only requires only requires 2 attack rounds on average to reach target TP, you start to see why they're so close.

Ah, just FYI, the above SIM result isn't meant to apply to all scenerio. It was more of a low SAM roll high acc swap scenerio. With different SAM roll values the result change.

For example, if I set stp value to CC No.11 with +8 roll set and job bonus (96), I got 500.532 from FUA path and 475.245 from stp path, which is bigger than 40 tp return.

However assuming Austars SIM is correct but not Dades modified spreadsheet (I couldn't get that version to work so I personally never use it, I only use Chiaias which doesn't calculate FUA at all), stp path is probably the better choice most of the time unless your goal is to multi step and make sc on time, or swap weapons around between sc or something.

Either way, SIM didn't existed back when we had this discussion so we couldn't verify until very recently. With info from sim its easier to tell when to use which. Id probably rerecheck all my set soonish with SIM when I finally stop being lazy..

So I'm going to be getting my first rostam here soon. I'm seeing a bunch of conflicting info on which should be my first as I skim through these comments. It seems mostly situational.

I'll be meleeing with mine 95% of the time for leaden spam. I will usually have max melee related buffs and rarely get mage buffs.

All things considered it sounds like path B is for me, but if it only pulls ahead by a miniscule amount, I feel I might need to do path A first just in case I do end up shooting for whatever reason.

Opinions or math to help me decide would be greatly appreciated.

From what I see with all the math the gain in melee with path B is minuscule in most situations... and B path is awful for shooting cor. A path is killer for Ranged and right up there with path B for melee so going to go with A for my first.

Right Afa. I primarily use the calculator within the sheet I linked in my initial post. It's of my own making, and I've tested it to the extent I noted in a previous post. I've slowly built it out over time. It's got FUA and OAT build in and a number of other things that work nicely.

It focuses on time to tp, but you can get average TP per attack round from it if you unhide the bottom section and add your main/sub average swings per attack round and multiply by tp/swing.

Austar know his ***though. He helped clarify some of the HQ Raetic logic (that i've yet to complete). I'll prolly check his out eventually.

It really depends on how you use cor.

Based on the discussion I'd say A will perform better in most of the "raid" scenerio and B is more of a solo/lowman/solo multistep in DT set weapon.

This is what I was looking for. Thank you. I don't solo or low man much. Usually in a full alliance unless doing master trials. If I'm soloing I'm most likely on BLU

Is Blurred Knife +1 Still best offhand for COR or has that changed due to Rostam and/or Kaja Knife?

Been busy a few days.

I can't find my old post, but as I said when I did it, I had serious doubts about how good the spreadsheet captures ffxi combat. I think using a spreadsheet beyond like ws damage formula is a joke, but was only tool available.

If you dig up the post I made I linked validations to what I changed. Ill re-upload it in a few formats because I'm using libre office and not buying excel over this
Excel Format
OpenDocumentSheet

As I said before, what I added for FUA doesn't account for things not added to the game atm for cor. (A way to FUA+Kick/FUA+OAT on same weapon,etc)

Time to 1k tp seems extremely dumb as a final metric. I'll list what relevant values spreadsheet has.

Used spreadsheet sets from guide for haste cap and 30% for these and offhand blurred+1 even though Spreadsheet likes kaja offhand way more:
Haste cap/sam roll #9 with regal(stp+60)
Rostam A:
Leaden TP return: 313
Leaden TP avg: 1440
Melee TP per hit: 110
Rounds/WS: 2.42

Rostam B:
Leaden TP return: 273
Leaden TP avg: 1550
Melee TP per hit: 97
Rounds/WS: 2.42

30% haste/Same sam roll(stp+60)
Rostam A:
Leaden TP return: 313
Leaden TP avg: 1365
Melee TP per hit: 97
Rounds/WS: 2.93

Rostam B:
Leaden TP return: 273
Leaden TP avg: 1465.51
Melee TP per hit: 85
Rounds/WS: 2.87

Game needs a *** training dummy.

Here is the post if you would like to reference it.

From an endgame standpoint, namely Divergence w3, I don't see a strong argument for Kaja offhand. Smidge more acc with kaja vs blurred, but you're capped acc regardless, right? Almost identical delay, but blurred boasts OAT, lending to more savage blade frequency.

Rostam has a defensive argument for providing a fulltime -24dt in its slot if you feel you need it. If you're pretty sure you're gonna be safe from damage in a shooting scenario and your r.acc is good, I'm down with Kaja in the OH.

As far as melee leaden, it'll surely boost your ws dmg, but I'll be damned if I'm putting down my offhand Rostam there.

@Dades

Both has identical TP speed even on spreadsheet. Looks like spreadsheet value for tp speed isnt inaccurate because that's what we got from Sim too.

I bet the extra 100-ish dps came from white dmg from FUA because more hit = more white dmg with how spreadsheet calculates avg?

But A haz double dmg so it should be the same?