Per LOLRifu's Request

Please take these numbers as general estimates of what to expect. It's noted that the formulas are wrong and haven't been rediscovered since the 2H update. Also note that I am only relatively sure that melee max pDIF caps at 3. It was understood before the update that the cap for a crit hit was at 3, so it stands to reason that the normal melee hit doesn't actually cap at 3, but for the purposes of this post, we will assume it does.

Rifuburade has taken an interest in my blog. For those of you that don't know Rifu, aside from having a ridiculously long name to spell for being an Einherjar tank in Obsidian, he's got several melee jobs leveled. He sent me a tell a few days ago wanting me to apply the FFXI formulas I've been using to his gear to see how he stacks up.

Here are his gear sets:

TP Set (I modified this one with food, his original can be found here.)

Weapon Skill gear set (I modified this one with food, his original can be found here.)

For the purposes of this post, all of the numbers (unless I say otherwise) will be calculated assuming Hasso, Berserk, Warcry and Aggressor are active. I do realize that this isn't always the case, but the main thing I want to look at is his maximum potential.

Just as a refresher:

Berserk: +25% Attack
Hasso: +5 STR, +5 ACC
Warcry: +9% Attack (It's a long ass 8.####### according to wiki)
Aggressor: Accuracy +25

TP Set numbers (against our Level 82 Colibri):

STR: 103
DEX: 93
Acc+: 27 (Gear)
Att+: 47 (Gear)
Total Acc: 410
Total Att: 657

This brings his calculated values to:

fSTR: 9.5
cRatio: 1.64
pDIF Min: 1.92
pDIF Max: 3 (3.23, but leaving at 3 since I'm relatively sure it caps at that)
Hit Rate: 95%
fMIN: 199
fMAX: 310

Those would be some rather eye popping numbers. I need to find out the exact numbers for his total attack as that looks a little high according to Wiki and FFXIGear.com(I could be wrong). Regardless of that number though, it's clear that Rifu's TP set is at the ACC cap against Greater Colibri when Aggressor is active. Without Aggressor, his Hit Rate is actually down around 80-85%.

Weapon Skill Gear numbers

STR: 136
DEX: 78
Acc+: 20 (Gear)
Att+: 20 (Gear)
Total Acc: 385
Total Att: 655

Raging Rush Calculated values (STR 35%, 3 Hit):

fSTR: 17.75
cRatio: 1.64
pDIF Min: 1.92
pDIF Max: 3 (3.23, again capping at 3)
fMIN: 214
fMAX: 335
Hit Rate: 80%
WSC: 39
WD: 151
Raging Rush damage range: 868-1359

Steel Cyclone Calculated Values (STR 50%, VIT 50%, 1 Hit)

100TP (x1.5)

VIT: 72
WSC: 86
Base WD: 198
WD: 297
Damage Range: 570-891

200TP (x1.75)

WSC: 86
Base WD: 198
WD: 341
Damage Range: 655-1023

300TP (x2)

WSC: 86
Base WD: 198
WD: 384
Damage Range: 737-1152

King's Justice Calculated Values (STR 50%, 3 hit):

100TP (x1)

WSC: 56
WD: 168
Damage range: 965-1512

200TP (x1.25)

WSC: 56
WD: 210
Damage Range: 1209-1890

300TP (x1.5)

WSC: 56
WD: 252
Damage Range: 1451-2268

Rifu's accuracy here took a huge hit in his set up. If he isn't anywhere close to the accuracy cap here on Greater Colibri, he's certainly going to have issues with it on larger, more difficult monsters. He had a near 25% drop in his DEX (thanks mostly to the pants and gloves change), but a near double increase of his fSTR w/o sacrificing too much of his overall attack. Accuracy should always be the priority. I generally agree with Ring that you shouldn't build a TP and a WS gear set around XP mobs, but I will add the caveat that if you're nowhere near caps on those, you're going to be hurting when it's crunch time.

Please note that his Hit Rate includes Aggressor being active. Without it, he's going to miss at least 1/4 of his weapon skills if the forumlas are correct.

General Observations

Rifu's gear set is relatively common among the Warriors I've been around. While I'm not going to profess to knowing everything there is to know about Warrior gear, I will say that Warrior shares a lot of gear with Dragoon. In his case, an E.Body and a Fortitude torque would do wonders (which he's working on), but he can definitely make his standing TP set better by picking up some Aurum Sabatons or some Unicorn Leggings (as funds allow for the latter...).

The other observation is that Rifu may be better off using his Haub for his Weapon Skills instead of his N.Body. Especially on those multihit weapon skills. He'll lose about 1.5 fSTR, but he'll negate the effects of his selected hand piece. Just for giggles, what if he continued to use his Dusk Gloves and Haub for his WS?

Numbers end up looking like this:

STR: 118
DEX: 89
Acc+: 20 (Gear)
Att+: 35 (Gear)
Total Acc: 395
Total Att: 655
fSTR: 13.25
cRatio: 1.65
pDIF Min: 1.96
pDIF Max: 3 (3.28, again capping at 3)
fMIN: 210
fMAX: 322
Hit Rate: 85%
WSC: 34
WD: 141
Raging Rush damage range: 829-1269

The damage range for Raging Rush drops a bit (about 5%), but he also gained a lot of accuracy just by changing two pieces of gear out that he already had. Most will look at that lower damage range and scoff, but in a long parse, nine times out of ten, the guy with the higher accuracy is parsing better than everyone else. It's also noteworthy to mention that while I did these numbers with carbonara used as the food, Pizza offers a lot of ACC and ATT and could easily cover up some of the Acc issues displayed here.

Last note, sometimes loading up on attack and increasing those pDIF values will have more of an impact than loading up on STR for a WS. Keep in mind that adding STR to anything effects a lot of different things in these equations since adding STR adds Attack as well, but if you're comparing say a STR+5 piece against an Attack +15, you should probably go with the Attack+15...especially if you're at or near the fSTR cap of 18.

Hope this helps Rifu. :)