Shurikens?

If barrage actually worked with throwing, and you could use velocity shot, then yeah you'd do HELP I AM TRAPPED IN 2006 PLEASE SEND A TIME MACHINE damage, as is, nin/rng with maji shuriken and my Rng's gear on, i was doing 150-170 per hit on lesser birds.

my current WS sets for nin I'm pushing 400ish acc in my crit. build (normally use this) and around 390 in my atk build. I'm not using what would probably be considered the absolute best gear, but there isn't a much better balance for damage to accuracy, and could push just below 30 more accuracy for a 14 str/dex loss to my highest accuracy build putting it slightly below the total acc I'd get from using pizza (considering I've balanced the specific builds to reach secondary mod tiers on jin, that would be a loss of about 9~10 dmg/hit for an average of 55~60 damage loss from gear alone).

now nin does have access to a good amount of acc gear for WS, but the moderate gains for acc with the loss of damage in an already inferior build is going to add up for the gain of ratk. now if koga shuriken were easily available it would be a totally different case, as their dps is incredible. fuma can come close with an optimized build, but the speed build slightly edges it out even if only due to player error with ranged attacks (there's also an obvious inventory limitation).

hitting racc cap shouldn't be a problem in gear alone, but just from the rings and body you're going to lose ~40 acc for the better ranged options. in a speed build nin's only going to have ~370 acc before food, but even swapping haste options for acc (when they'd be better used for ranged options in this build any way) you're looking at somewhere in the 60% melee hit-rate range on a sub-par weapon, in an optimized ranged build you're looking at less. swapping gear between ranged attacks to counter this is the only decent option, but I don't think spellcast would be able to handle this well (swapping gear at such a rate may cause it to crash too, unless the problem's been fixed, I think it has but not sure) so you're left to manually swapping gear for each attack on the chance a melee attack round may occur.

now realize I'm only arguing against shuriken attacks used as a primary means of damage at 75, it definitely has it's merits when used at the right times or with sange, but is especially potent while leveling where they flat out bury katana.

Doing a mixed build will completely fail. You can't do both good at the same time. If your acc is that big a concern it would be that hard to still use pizza I guess. Still would have to see which helps more the slight gains you get from the gear that pizza lets you wear or from the shurikens. Also don't sacrifice your mainhand kat for the ranged build though as alot of your tp/dmg will be from throwing offhand will hurt less and again come down to what will help which more. Being able to switch from shuri to bomblet is kinda amazing and a nice way to not accidently not have 1 to throw when you switch to your ranged gear.

I think they fixed spellcast from doing that. I mean it does pre/mid/after cast and then switching to an idle already if you are on a mage job. Here you just using it for pre and then go back to idle. Also getting the silence thing helps I here. Either way switching back and forth isn't that hard it just takes effort. Also you can kinda get into the time of it and figure out how long it takes before your next attack round. Or do something like attack, switch and throw switch back and then wait for next attack.

Really all you have to do to make it worth it is do more dmg during your throw then you would've in that time meleeing. Since manji throws in 1.7 sec (no rapid/snap shot) has almost as much dmg as you would with 2 kats offhanding perdu, and has much higher fstr caps and nin gets more ratt than att chances are it can do dmg almost as much as your 2 kat swings combine. So are you swinging that fast? Sure you can but are you in your pt in your gear? And of course if you actually get some rapid/snap shot or could actually afford to throw fuma (or lol koga) it's even better

I wouldn't be using pizza if I couldn't get a hit-rate in the mid~high 80s to 90s on average normally (beyond that I just use a different job altogether, lol). then again, the reason I won't touch sushi anymore is that I can't stand having below 400 atk w/o berzerk, lol (it also stands at 370 before food sadly, my primary/main job being drk this makes me /emo... blu even does better than that and it's a 'mage'! lol).

more seriously, I agree a mixed set would completely defeat the purpose of a ranged build in the first place (it's why I mentioned a maximum penalty on acc for the switch of those 3 gear slots).

the problem with spellcast is that you need to make a full set of rules for swapping gear with ranged attacks because they aren't treated as spells like abilities and WSs are. this pretty much causes it to act as an advanced macro and is subjected to button spam problems caused by the user (not being able to swap at the correct time). even w/o using certain prefexes this can occur with spells/ja/ws, I'm not even sure if it can determine when you're using a ranged attack (sounds like it would be simple enough to do, but w/o access to SE's coding it's a complete mess, lol). I think the crash was caused by an early version of silence, but can't be sure.

Yeah in all reality spellcast is kinda overkill for that. Script maccros would be just as fine. In fact if you know your haste going into it and time everything perfectly you could just make a really long one that kept ranged attacking and switching for awhile lol. Hell if you don't mind using 2-3 maccros per swap and could do it in time ig maccros could work.

As far as spellcast goes you could trick it. Make some ig maccro with /ra then some spell that takes about that much time. Set it to go to ranged gear on that spell. Then when that spell would've been done switch back to your tp set. Or if you actually have snap shot gear for rng then put the spell first and probably a small wait to the /ra so you can get that in first.

Though I really don't know spellcast that well. For all I know there could be some kind of code for ranged or even for it knowing when you are done throwing/ or swing with your kat

I blame SE and their funky spaghetti coding!

Lol well really I don't think when they coded this game I don't think they had making it easier for people to use 3rd party programs to do pretty much any/everything for them lol

you guys!!!! uhg!!!! ps2 has such a disadvantage

the thing that changed me to pc was the graphics upgrade =D

The thing that... nvm I never even though of using PS2. Partly cause at first I didn't know it was on PS2... actually think I started playing before PS2 release. And well switching between keyboard/controller just doesn't work for me. I chat way too much while doing other stuff. And I like how moving and hitting maccros at same time and such. Not to mention once I got windower surfing the net at the same time.

Really even ignoring 3rd pt tools PC is at a big advantage for me so meh.

thank sony for usb ports on the ps2! haha

actually, unless you have what's considered a decent gaming pc for today, the performance between pc and ps2 isn't very large. even running native resolutions on an older pc you'll get about the same performance unless you dumb things down a lot. running forced multi-sampling on today's decent gaming pc you get slightly better performance still with the nicer graphics (personally get a bit more lag in whitegate on pc over ps2 ever since I upgraded my gpu from dual to single, it's most likely my resolution though). even so it's hard for me to consider going back to ps2 because of the way everything looks, along with visual dat swaps making gear like Wturban, Ohat and other funky/annoying looking gear more acceptable (aside from that thing that noone tries to discuss much, lol).

I have checked a little bit ffah after i read your Shurikens topic and i was wondering what can make dart+1? does is it the HQ of the Dart ? because dart nq is lvl 7 and dart+1 is lvl 58.

After that does dart can be a good weapon like Shurikens to get hate? was wonderring of the dart +1 cost less then suriken it can still be use to remplace them for the time you lvl but nothing on wiki or ffxiah to show how to get them but i see 1 ppl in my server who got them one time but still din't says how to get them lol.

eh, if you're going to go the ranged weapon route for nin I doubt that darts(+1) could match up to the abilities of shuriken based on scaling. the differences in dmg:level is staggering and the delay hardly makes any difference when compared. if you're trying to compare darts+1 to the level 18 shuriken they're a bit more more comparable, but the shuriken still win out (still not really an issue since you have access to manji shuriken at that point which completely destroy either).

taking the ranged attack route you really want to go with the current shuriken for the level 'till you hit manji. manji still do very well into the low 70s when access to a good speed build only starts to become available (they still keep up very well with katana at 75 'till you really start to maximize your melee build because of gear accessibility).

as far as fuma shuriken go, I'd only use them with sange if I had gil to burn for a shorter event, because they're very expensive and only stack to 12. the gain over manji is minimal when compared to the issue of inv. space not to mention cost, sadly (I just can't justify paying over 60% more for less than a 15% increase in dmg, and ~700% increase of inv space used for the same amount of ammo). even making them yourself, the material cost <> HQ rate with capped smithing is a good slap in the face on SE's part (reason why you don't see them sold regularly on many servers).

Hmm you missed something in your calc though. You actually dont need 46% haste to beat fuma.

Taking your numbers:
22/15.5 = 1.452, so you need a 46% increase in katana dps to beat fuma.

Considering that a x value of haste gives us 1/(1-x/100) increase in dps, we have:

1/ (1-x) = 1.452, and solving x gives us:
1-x = 0.6887
x= 0.3113

So you actually need 32% haste to beat fumas.

Yeah good thing we dont have throwing ws lol. That would have been completely broken.

Alas, you're correct. I goofed and used my old formula. However, I'm not sure where you're getting that formula. Given that it doesn't account for prior values of Haste, I'm not sure I'd rely on it either. Using (new-old)/(1-new), we find

(x-0)/(1-x)=1.452

x=1.452-1.452x

2.452x=1.452

x=1.452/2.452=0.592 = ~59% Haste, which is actually higher than the value I found. This is reached with double March, Haste, Haste Samba, and ~14% Haste in gear.

Dasva pointed out a separate and more critical error, which is that throwing DPS is basically twice that listed (minus some downtime?). If we try to solve using 45 DPS for Fuma Shuriken:

45/15.5=2.9

(x-0)/(1-x)=2.9

x=2.9-2.9x

3.9x=2.9

x=0.744, or 75%+ in total Haste. In other words, Fuma Shuriken would not only win, they basically destroy melee if you have the gil.

Let's check it with AF body included:

10.07/(1-.4)=16.78

45/16.78=2.68

(x-0)/(1-x)=2.68

x=2.68-2.68x

3.68x=2.68

x=0.728

Shuriken still win. Even with a cooldown before your next throw you're going to need very high levels of Haste to even rival Shuriken DPS. Maximum buffs and strong gear would be required. If you have Snapshot gear the amount of Haste would be even higher... though to be fair, I'm still not accounting for Double Attack.

Well even the "cooldown" isn't a big loss as you are meleeing during that time.

But really even if you gathered all the Fuma's from all the servers I doubt you'd get enough for 1 good merit party lol. I mean it's from a party quest(s) that as far as I can tell not many people do especaily after they get the hands/legs. And you can only do once a week that can drop 1 or none. Forgetting gil issues they are just too damn rare.

This is the basic reason I didn't attempt to quantify it. If I were to be completely accurate I'd have to attempt to blend the two (shuriken + melee vs melee only), but...
There's this. By the time you get down into the more affordable Manjis the Katana DPS starts to be pretty close at high Haste and suddenly I'm really not inspired to throw away gil on Shuriken.

hmm never really heard of that (old - new)/(1 - new) thing lol. I use the 1/ (1-x) simply because it makes sense lol.

but it's kinda odd. If we get 50% haste we get 2x dot isnt it right?

0 - 0.5/ ( 1 - 0.5 ) = -1? really odd

With my method we have 1 / (1 - 0.5) = 2

I think i prefer my method lol

By your exemple though, shouldnt x be on new? i mean:
(0-x)/(1-x)=1.452
-x / 1-x = 1.452
-x = 1.452 - 1.452x
0.452x = 1.452
x= 3.212
I have no idea what does this number mean lol

Er I meant Koga's when I said that. Yeah Fuma's is all about bankroll lol.

Too make it even more complicated is not just the dmg rating/delay of the weapons but what kind of gear you can tp in. For melee how much dmg can you pile while still keeping max haste/acc... IE not a whole lot. While Shurikens there is no haste to worry about. Only 1-2 peices of snapshot and they can probably come close to capping racc pretty easy without sacrificing dmg since they have several skill peices and a pimping ratt/racc/str/skill gloves lol. There would be way to much math to do lol

Yeah but im finding hard to believe that with a simple damage comparison we would need 59% haste to beat fuma.

15.5 dps with katana
22.5 with fuma

The way i see it with 50% haste katana will be bumped to 31.0 dps without even account the double attack that a /war sub gives.

Probably because fuma isn't 22.5 but is actually 41.25. This site just does the generic 60delay=1sec. But for ranged 110delay = 1 sec.

This is actually a new thing added to the table lol. And i will agree with the 41 dps.

But Nightfyre actually considered 22.5 on his calculations. I can't agree with those numbers of haste though. Mostlikely the formula used is wrong, idk.

Makes sense and accurate are often two different things. I assure you my formula is accurate. Raenryong uses an equivalent of it and Failure's formula is just an absurdly huge extension of this one (I derived it from his formula here and later found it equivalent to Raen's formula). If you don't buy what I'm saying, PM Vegetto about it.

First off it is (new-old)/(1-new) so your answer should be 1 not -1. And this formula is to find the % increase from 1 haste value to the next while yours is just from 0 to a value. So that 1 means +100%. Which really you would do anyways since that is what you care about

hmm i read it wrong, only noticed it now. Thought it was (old-new), and yeah that makes the final value 1. I thought if it were to be positive it would represent exactly what you said, a % increase from your current haste, but the negative (and that other i found 3ish) made it impossible for me to accept it at first.

So yeah Night, the way you applied the formula was wrong then. You should use 0.452 and not 1.452. Cause +0.452 is an extra 45% and +1.452 is an extra 145%. Using 0.452 we have the same value i found before, 32% haste needed to beat the 22.5 dps.