shamayaasura

There are some weeks that are better than others. Lately I've resigned to just do my best at work and study Japanese, and enjoy FF and life at a casual pace. It's been pretty much SSDD lately (same shit, different day), only without the connotation of shit being unenjoyable. I find that it's rare when you're at a point in life where you can just enjoy every day, and not have to worry too much about the past nor the future.

I've been meaning to throw up some pics from a recent trip to Tokyo, but technical complications led that being impossible until this week. So this week I'll post some junk from that trip, as well as some stuff that's been going on this week.

School Festival
I don't watch as much anime as some of my friends, but they told me that they've seen the traditional JP school festival portrayed in many an anime.  I never saw it in one, but I got to experience it, at least.  There are two main festivals during the year.  In the fall, there is the sports festival.  That's where all the major (mainly athletic) clubs compete with other schools.  My school doesn't do baseball and soccer.  But in the Spring it competed in basketball, kendo, judo, table tennis, volleyball, badminton, and probably some others that I can't remember.

The Fall festival is called  a "cultural festival."  I mentioned to my JP friend that I felt it wasn't so "cultural"--at least not in a multicultural sense.  She agreed.  It's strictly a Japanese culture kind of thing.  The only exception at my school this year would be the presence of a single Chinese food booth.  



( Tonnns and Tons of pics - School Fest, Tokyo Trip, Travel Secrets, etc! )


School Dress Style
Most junior and high schools still do uniforms.  I went out to a new shopping mall today and I came across a store that should have looked all too familiar to me.  This is precisely how my kids dress,





Real California surfin', nig.

Overview
So, I posted this on Allakhazam, but I decided I'll add it here as well.  This is basically my strategy for how Thief should fight Ixion: what subs, WS's, and foods to use.., thief's general role for the fight.., a guide on Dark Ixion's TP moves and other particularities.., and strategies on how to best build TP and maximize (a safe) WS rate.

So.. I think this fight is a lot more involved than most others. This is possibly the best designed NM in the game. For a lot of jobs, fighting Dark Ixion is more complex than other fights. I don't think thief is any exception.


Illustration 2
24/7, the "NASA" shell on my server, wiping to Ixion

( Thief's Role in the Fight )

( WS's, Subs, and Food )

( TP-Move Guide )

( About Ixion's 'Aura' ; & about Trick Attack )

( Guide to Building TP )

( Guide to WS'ing )

No. Check out this ongoing thread for current data and theorycrafting.

( My Exponential Model )

edit: October 23rd
What more is needed to solve the crit rate model?
So far it looks like the correct model is going to be a "piecewise" one, with the cap of crit being at dDex (your dex - mob's agi) of ~48-51.  We're not sure what the floor is yet.  It could be dDex 0, dDex 10, dDex 12, or something else.

Right now testing is needed.  Some ideal mobs would be greater colibri, lesser colibri, EM steelshells, goldfish in sea (if you can figure out how to hit them for 0 and can find their AGI).

Testing is needed at critical points of 40dDex, 12dDex, and lower.  After getting a working model on mobs that are above level 60, it might be nice to try a test on much lower level mobs.

If anyone would like to contribute, just PM me.

September 18th

A work in progress

Overview
Comparing Warrior Builds -- Why?
I normally look into the mechanics of my jobs if I commit to them.  Or otherwise I browse the forums to find out the consensus on topics related to the job, and the reasons behind said consensus vs other opinions. (To anyone that's ever gotten into a "what's better" or "what's the case" argument in FFXI, consulting a reliable forum, if not a wiki article, is by far the best thing you can do unless you're already 100% certain).

Recently, I grinded my war from 38-75 in about 9 days.  East Ronafure [S] w/ a PL is entirely killer.  It was my first time going there and now I know that at 38+ I'm pretty much not going to ever exp anywhere else.  Now that I've got war 75, geared it well, and have started to skill up, it's time for me to make sure I know the facts before I start DPS'ing.  Namely, what are my best weapon choices?

( I looked various forums for the answers to these questions, but did not have any luck. )

So I'm frustrated.  This kind of thing would never fly on the thief forums -.-.  Well, I guess it would, there's still an X's vs Blau debate, as well as Fane vs Sirocco and all that.  But X's vs Blau is harder to solve.  I would think that there would be a clear backed up consensus on this by now, but there is not so... My goal is,

To explore the math behind a few builds.  Namely I'm interested in Man/Ridill vs Ridill/Joy.  But also I'd like to do Perdu and Organics/Rid.  That's right, war's!--I'm in yer base, doin your math.  Of course it's always good to back up w/ parses, but I'm sure I'll enjoy exping after this is all done, so that'll come about naturally anyway.

Dk how long this will take to finish but it shouldn't be anywhere near as complicated as this.

---

( How is this math breakdown different [or more accurate] than others? )

( The Formula: Calculating Real Damage/Time )

( Data Overview: Settings, Problems, etc )
( Data: Maneater/Ridill )
( Data: Ridill/Joyeuse )
( Data: Ga/Nin )

( Parsing Swordchucks vs Ga/Nin at MMJs )

---

Conclusions
Perdu Voulge: (178.9 * 5 + 842.4) / (20.37 + 3) = 1736.9 / 23.37 = 74.32
Ridill/Joyeuse ("Swordchucks"): (168.2 * 5 + 565.9) / (14.49 + 3) = 1406.9/17.49 = 80.4
Maneater/Ridill: (179.1 * 5 + 747.8) / (16.15 + 3) = 1643.3/19.15 = 85.8

The comparison uses yellow curry bun for voulge, pizza for others.  Voulge had 8GA merits. Ridill/Joy had 8sword.  For Man/Ridill, I put in 8sword but only 4axe, so with 8axe this would have been higher.  GA had berserk/double-attack for merits.  The DW builds had bergressor merits.  Most of the equip was the same, but for example for GA I put in fort torque merman's earring and brutal and cerb+1 for meleeing.  For Man/Rid I used PCC, cuchulain's mantle, and brutal/suppa.  For Swordchucks, I replaced brutal with hollow earring.  Not perfect but I tried.

For mob, I averaged up the stats of every type of mamool found at merit locations. 

Buffs were Double March, Haste, and unbuffed chaos roll (avg of rolls 4, &6-11 = 17.71%).

I didn't account for piercing damage, but this can easily taken from the data.  If Joytoy took advantage of a piercing bonus 100% of the time, the difference would bring Swordchucks to 85.4.  At colibri, it's probably feather tickle that creates a disparity between WS & DoT, allowing swordchucks to pull ahead.  But there's also polearm.  

Speaking of polearm, I did choose to neglect it.  Similarly I neglected other builds that some people advocate like Fort Axe, Organics/Ridill, etc.  The reason I left them out was simply time.  Time and that I don't think they're tempting enough to touch on.

Below is a copypasta from my messy wordpad.  If anyone is very bored, the math is there for the checking.  Should be good though.  I don't blame anyone for being confused looking at it though, and I don't really feel like formatting it to look any clearer -.-;;

This is where I'll dump Japan/Japanese related stuff that might be mildly interesting or humorous.

( May '09, Kirin :: キリン, )

( June 7th, Japanese Words )

( July 14th, Final Fantasy on your ケイタイ (cell) )
 
( September 8th, eating raw red horse meat and cow tongues )

( September 13th, Eel Tempura? )

( September 17th, The Strange World of Creepy Japanese Bugs )
( October 19th, Japanese pizza is trash )( October 22nd, Popular Sitcoms )

( October 28th, Porno Stores: the lighthouses of urban life )

( November 1st, Manju and Baozi )

( November 2nd, Japan has just now begun using a jury system? )

I don't have work for the next month. My non-dinosaur of a computer died a few days ago and is currently in for repairs and the one I'm currently using doesn't even meet the specs to play FF. Nothing is really happening IRL for another week. So I'm going to try to think of this as an opportunity and finish yet another task on my checklist of things I'd like to contribute or figure out.

To get an idea of how lazy I am, I basically finished this a long time ago--like over 6 months ago. I just never got around to doing some final tweaks before posting it.

Looking over it, I'd made a few small errors and inconsistencies (now fixed). Some things have also changed since then. For example, it's now commonly believed that Homam Corazza gives +1% triple attack rather than +2.5% (a disappointment, if it is indeed true). Also, Mirke Wardecors (with 10acc and 3% D.W.) are thusly believed to be superior to Corazza for Thf tp-gain. In the thief portion of this, I used Homam under the 2.5% assumption, but rest assured that the values shown are actually very close to what they would be if I'd used the Mirke Wardecors ACP body for the calculations instead. If you're going to be using Corazza (/war or otherwise), the tp fed will be lower than shown.

---

( How does this comparison work? (Formula, etc) )
Notes
-StoreTP irrelevant; only BaseTP used for enemy's TP-Gain.
-w/ TestDelayPeriod of 3600, this gives ->
TpGiven/Hit * #Hits/Minute = TpGiven/Minute

Settings
-Haste Spell + Victory March = +26% haste
-TestDelayPeriod (this # is arbitrary) = 1 real minute = 3600
-Significant Figures taken for each calc (arbitrary-ish) = 5
-TpGiven/Hit Truncated to 1st decimal after SubtleBlow. I think this is correct.</div>


Cross-Comparison
Thief/Nin
( Read more... )
TpGiven/Minute: (4.5 + 3)*(1 - 0.15) * (3600 / 73)*1.3 = 7.5*0.85 * 49.315*1.3 = 6.3*64.110 = 403.89

Thief/War
( Read more... )
TpGiven/Minute: (4.9 + 3)*(1 - 0.05) * (3600 / 99)*1.4 = 7.9 * 36.364*1.4 = 7.9*50.909 = 382.07

Monk/Nin
( Read more... )
TpGiven/Minute: (4.5 + 3)*(1 - 0.3) * (3600 / 90)*1.2 = 7.5*0.75 * 40*1.2 = 5.6*48 = 252.00

Ninja/War
( Read more... )
TpGiven/Minute: (4.6 + 3)*(1 - 0.35) * (3600 / 72)*1.15 = 7.6*0.7 * 50*1.15 = 5.3*57.5 = 284.05

Samurai/War
( Read more... )
TpGiven/Minute: (11.5 + 3)*(1 - 0.05) * (3600 / 247)*1.17 = 14.5*0.95 * 14.575*1.17 = 13.7*17.053 = 233.62

Thief/Nin (Corazza -> DH, etc)
( Read more... )
TpGiven/Minute(NQ): 7.5*(1 - 0.4) * (3600 / 82)*1.25 = 7.5*0.6 * 43.902*1.25 = 4.5*54.878 = 246.95
TpGiven/Minute(HQ): 7.5*(1 - 0.43) * (3600 / 82)*1.25 = 7.5*0.57 * 43.902*1.25 = 4.2*54.878 = 230.49
*Estimated*50%SB Build: less than 7.5*(1 - 0.5) * (3600 / 82)*1.25 = less than 205.79

Conclusions and Marginal Differences
Using standard melee sets, we can make some comparisons.  Of course, the comparisons are not so valid if the melee sets aren't these exact sets, or if the haste gained from spells is different.  Using these sets and these settings, though, we get the following ratios for comparing these three melee classes and the tp they give to mobs:

Those Bloody Eastern Melee Jobs
-Mnk/Nin gives a base of 252.00 tp/minute to the mob
-Nin/War gives ~12.7% more tp/time than the mnk
-Sam/War gives ~7.3% less tp/time than the mnk

Thief in a Traditional DD Build
-Thf/Nin gives ~60.3% more tp/time than the mnk (lolololol)
-Thf/Nin gives about ~5.7% more tp/time than Thf/War

Thief, in Subtle Blow Builds
-Thf/Nin in DH gives ~37.0% more tp/time (big difference)
-Thf/Nin in a heavy, but inexpensive(NQ) 3-piece-extra Subtle Blow set gives ~2.0% less tp/time
-Thf/Nin in an even heavier SB build (and still 7 SB away from the cap) gives ~8.5% less than the Mnk, and 1.3% less than the Sam
-Thf/Nin in a capped SB build would give over 18.3% less tp/time than the Mnk and 11.9% less than the Sam

I started this particular project simply because I was interested in knowing just how much TP I was giving mobs in comparison to other melee.  Also I wanted to know how much of an effect subtle blow builds were having on my Thf, as knowledge to help me as both a soloer and as a tank.

I wasn't particularly concerned about showing this to anyone else, but I do know that this information may be of interest as some and can certainly be of use to thieves in particular.  It's good to know that the stigma that thieves are tp-feeding machines is true and to avoid stubornness and quantify the difference.  2 Thieves will feed a little more TP to a mob than 3 Mnks, in standard gear.  Fair enough.

But it also helps to see just how much of an effect the subtle blow has.  It is easily possible for us to feed less TP/time than other melee by using the wide variety of equipment we have available.  Our dragon JSE is a godsend for this.  Also, unlike Mnks, we can equip Peiste Belt +1, which is a godsend and I would highly recommend it to anyone who takes their Thf seriously.  Of course, other melee can stack up on subtle blow as well, and this is encouraged if they so desire it.

I'd recommend at least making two new equipment sets if you don't have them already: 
(1) DD Set - Subtle Blow


(2) Solo/Tanking Set - Subtle Blow


The DD set should simply be your traditional TP set, with the only differences being pieces that have heavy SB on them.  A good example of swaps to change are: dragon harness, peiste belt +1, rajas (should already be on), dragon/enkidu's subligar.  The same goes for your solo or tanking set(s).  Keep it just as is (evasion or whatever else you use), but use the previous equips as well.  If you want to stack up closer to the subtle blow cap (50%), adding dragon cap or dragon mittens is just fine.  The more HQ the better on these, for sure, as the NQ's are pretty terrible to melee in otherwise.  Failnaught is also an (expensive) option.  The new Fane Baselard is also a very interesting option as well.  We've been seeing some very interesting things on the forums with this new dagger (Allah', KI).

The difference in the TP you give to mobs is huge.  With a dedicated build, you'll notice the difference immediately.  And you'll be that much better of a DD and a, if pimp enough, tank.