Yet another Math lesson...Weapon Skills.

For this post, I'm going to go over the formula for calculating weapon skill damage. There are two different types of weapon skills. They are physical and magical. Dragoon's most common weapon skills that are used are Drakesbane, Penta Thrust, and Wheeling Thrust. Later in this post, I will break down each weapon skill based on their modifiers. Again, for starters, let's look at my gear for weapon skills.

Weapon: Gungnir
Grip: Pole Grip
Ammo: Olibanum Sachet
Head: Askar Zucchetto
Neck: Love Torque
Ear1: Brutal Earring
Ear2: Bushinomimi
Body: Ares Cuirass
Hands: Hecatomb Mittens
Ring1: Flame Ring
Ring2: Rajas Ring
Back: Amemet Mantle+1
Waist: Warwolf Belt
Legs: Conte Cosciales
Feet: Hecatomb Leggings

The relevant totals for this gear set:

STR: 80+53
DEX: 62+26
Acc: +20
Polearm skill: +7
Att: +46

The target is yet again our level 82 Greater Colibri (340 evasion, 69 VIT, 330 defense).

The relevant information that we already covered recalculate for this set (WS total(TP total)):

fSTR: 17(10.25)
cRatio: 1.25(1.17)
pDIF Minimum: 1.25(1.05)
pDIF Maximum: 1.86(1.64)
fMIN: 183(144)
fMAX: 271(226)
Accuracy %: 89.5%(95%)

(pDIF values determined by using 527 attack vs 330 defense)
(fMIN/fMAX numbers include 25% piercing bonus to our target)

What a difference STR makes eh? Now for the equation:

Damage = WD * pDIF

...wut?

Based on what we already know from above, the equation looks like this:

Damage = WD * 1.86

That doesn't leave much to figure out. Or does it? Let's define the parts we'll need to know.

Damage: Self-explanatory. The end result of all that number crunching.

fTP: TP multplier. This applies specifically to your first hit (if it's a multi-hit skill). This is going to be different based on the various weapon skills we use. Breaking this down to the commonly used Dragoon weapon skills:

• Penta Thrust: fTP is 1 across the board.
• Drakesbane: fTP is 1 across the board.
• Wheeling Thrust: fTP is 1.5 across the board.

If you're noticing a pattern here, then notice your fTP never changes unless the TP anchors change. What's a "TP anchor"? It's the modifier that's present at 100TP, 200TP and 300TP. What happens if you have different anchor values? Well the formula looks like this:

fTP = (Previous Anchor) + (dTP * ((Next Anchor) - (Previous Anchor)))

Guh...STOP IT Q!

dTP: is simple to figure out here. It's basically the percentage difference between your current TP and the previous TP anchor. In other words, if you have 187TP, your dTP would be 8% or .87 for our equation's purpose. Now to put it in proper perspective:

Impulse Drive has TP modifiers of 1.0, 1.5 and 2.5. If you have 187TP, the formula looks like this:

fTP = 1 + (.87 * (1.5 - 1))

This gives us an fTP of 1.44.

Only use this equation if the amount of TP you have actually changes your TP Modifier.

WD: This number is the base damage of your weapon skill. It's calculated by using the following formula:

WD = (D + fSTR + WSC) * fTP

So how we see just how much that STR rating effects everything. We also see we have to learn another equation to figure out wtf WSC is..

WSC is where all those Attribute modifiers come into play. The equation itself can change based on how many of your attributes are taken into account for modification. If you're just calculating Drakesbane for example, then we know 50% of our STR goes into the WSC equation. The WSC equation would look like this:

WSC = floor(floor(A * A%) * α)

We know my STR is 133 and we know Drakesbane has a modifier of 50%. Our equation looks like this now:

WSC = floor(floor(133 * 50%) * α)

Ok, what's "α"?

And what's "floor"?

"α" represents a value that scales down your WSC value as you level up. A level 75 character's "α" value would be .83.

"Floor" means take the value inside the parenthesis set it's in front of and drop everything after the decimal point.

WSC = floor(floor(133 * .50) * .83)
WSC = floor(66 * .83)
WSC = 54

OK GODDAMN STOP IT!

Not yet, back to our WD value for Drakesbane...

WD = (D + fSTR + WSC) * fTP
WD = (100 + 17 + 54) * 1.0
WD = 171

And now back to our main equation...

We last left it here using our max pDIF value:

Damage = WD * 1.86

Maximum damage/hit:

Damage = 171 * 1.86
maxDamage/hit = 318

Minimum damage/hit (using our bottom pDIF value):

Damage = 171 * 1.25
minDamage/hit = 213.

So Drakesbane for me, w/o any crit, double attacks, or buffs and landing all 4 hits, will do anywhere from 852 - 1272 points of damage.

For Penta Thrust? It's WSC value with my set up ends up being 35 compared to Drakesbane's 54. This makes it's WD value 152 as opposed to Drakesbane's 171. There is an extra hit in Penta Thrust though, so don't take those values as Penta Thrust being a lot weaker. If conditions are the same as above and all 5 hits land, my damage range will end up being 950 - 1413.

There's the caveat though. Do you try to reach the 95% acc ceiling with gear and maximize your chances of landing all 5 Penta Thrust hits or do you load up on a little more DEX and try to cap out your chance of landing critical hits with Drakesbane. Penta Thrust's TP modifier is accuracy and Drakesbane's is chance of landing critical hits. From personal experience, my highest WS on Greater Colibri was done with Drakesbane, but end up all over the map from a damage standpoint and Penta Thrust ends up being a lot more consistent.

What about Wheeling Thrust? How the hell does that work? This is yet another Dragoon weapon skill with a constant fTP and a TP modifier that's almost impossible to measure in the form of "Amount of defense ignored varies by TP". Pretty much all of our numbers will change when trying to figure this out, so I'll spare you the details of the math and just give you the essentials:

100TP: 20% ignored defense (Colibri defense = 264).

fSTR: 17
cRatio: 1.65
pDIF Minimum: 2.44
pDIF Maximum: 3.28
fMIN: 356
fMAX: 478
Accuracy %: 89.5%
WSC: 54
WD: 299

Minimum damage no buffs: 729
Maximum damage no buffs: 980.

This assumes my defense ignored amount is correct. I strongly suspect it's not, but it was just an easier number to plug in. It could take some testing, but regardless, you can easily see what Wheeling Thrust is capable of on Greater Colibri if this is true.

Conclusion

So what's better for weapon skills? Loading up on STR? Loading up on Attack? Loading up on Acc? I think a lot of that depends on your race for starters. There are caps to things such as fSTR and Acc, so being aware of where you're at in relation to those caps will help make those decisions better, but there are not caps on values effecting things like WSC.

Generally speaking, if you're comfortable being around the 80-85% mark for your accuracy, you can load up on some attribute heavy gear and go to town. In Dragoon's case, it's all about the STR as it effects damn near everything we do. Loading up on attack+ gear has the potential to outdo a piece of gear that has +STR as it's only stat, but do not forget that adding STR adds attack as well and at that point, it becomes a trade off based on what weapon skill you're using or if you're looking to try to up your DoT average.

Again, I've probably f***ed up some things here trying to put all the math in together in one place so please do not take these posts as anything other than a very general framework with which to work in while playing Dragoon.