Preliminary Dragoon Stat-Weights

Now that I have two “models” which are both updated to represent accurate Determination scaling, I’ve decided to test them and calculate some updated weights for the Dragoon. In all honesty, this is very impressive… One thing to note with Crafted Gear: The lower your Strength, the lower the relative value Determination has. At i130, your Determination Weighting will be pushed up to 0.43. But, you have a set-up similar to what I have, where you have 646 Strength due to crafted gear, the weighting of Determination falls down to around 0.41

Now now lads and gals, don’t be thinking that this is set in-stone. There’s still more work to ensure we even greater accuracy, but these weights are a rough estimation for what is to come.

Also, Weapon Damage’s relative value is lower with my calculation. Previously, we just used Weapon Damage to calculate Auto-Attacks, as AA_DMG/AA_Delay provides “roughly” 100 Potency like standard Ability skills (It’s closer to 98.22 I believe). But now that Weapon Damage is no longer factored into my Auto-Attack damage calculations (the final damage is AD+AA), an increase in Weapon Damage doesn’t affect the Weights as much as they used to. I might just revert it back to how it originally was, for simplicities sake.

Damn you, Auto-Attacks!!

Valky had a Theory back in Beta Phase 3. His assumption, if he was correct, was that the only stat that scales differently between Auto-Attacks and Ability Attacks was Determination. Our original formula which was made by EasyModeX, as well as the Japanese Formula, were both constructed with this in mind. But, this rule does not fit my data samples what so ever.

Let’s look at the solver I’m using, and yes EMX, this is your original solver, albeit modified slightly.

Determination Update v2

If you managed to make it through my previous Determination Update post, you would of seen that I posted an updated Ability Damage Formula for the Dragoon.

((WD*0.0402502+0.9209679)*(AP*0.0447422+2.6089895)*(DET*0.0011331+1.8536433))

I wanted to streamline it a tad bit more. I was messing around with a few more data sets, and I realised that that the +X parts of Weapon Damage and Determination were fairly static. They were always accurate to the thousandth decimal place. I also noticed how close these numbers actually were to 1… And I thought to myself… “are they just multipliers and nothing more?”

Oddly, my assumption was accurate.

((WD*0.0437052+1)*(AP*0.0763653+4.4581293)*(DET*0.0006116+1))

Or, a rounded version of:

((WD*0.044+1)*(AP*0.076+4.46)*(DET*0.00061+1))

This formula above streamlines all of the excessive numbers I used and also provides me with a damage variation exactly similar to my previous formula.

I still need to gather low AP/High DET data samples and run it by this formula, but it’s looking like this is the expression I’ll be sticking with.

Now that I’ve established the final Expression will be (WD*A+1)*(STR*B+C)*(DET*D+1), the next thing I’ll be doing is continuing my work on Job Coefficients. As we all know, each job affects damage differently and what I’d like to do next is find out whether jobs affect the value of stats individually, or if it’s just another external coefficient.

#Rekt kekeke

UPDATE: My ban has now been lifted, but I will still continue posting on this blog as I do not wish to clog up the official forums as much. Plus, it’s easier to reference all the up to date work if it’s on this blog, rather than being scattered all around the DPS forums.

I’ll continue my work here as usual, but also include all of my Dragoon related work in 3.0 if I do not get my ban lifted… That also includes the Machinist which will be my Alt Job!

I may also have one or two more things planned in the future, as I believe there needs to be a platform in place for real hardcore FFXIV enthusiasts and theorycrafters to discuss together in peace and harmony, away from the evil Square Enix Moderation Team.

Determination Updates – Half Way there

It’s been a while since I did my last update. I thought I’d share some of my work thus far. I’ve spent the last couple of weeks gathering additional armour pieces so I can eventually have a massive spread of data for Determination information. I’m also working on obtaining more Bard, Ninja and Warrior FCOB armour pieces, so I can assess Job Coefficients more carefully and whether Jobs add an additional Coefficient to your Main Stat, Weapon Damage, or both (as a multiplier at the end).

Anyway, here’s what I’ve got so far.

Influence of Weapon Damage and Strength on Damage

The first stage reworking the Damage Formula is to go over and validate all previous Theorycrafting work, which, will decide how I approach data collection. One of the most important things is understanding the influence of Strength on the Damage Formula. Why? Well, according to Valks work, we can still continue to deal damage even with 0 Weapon Damage, meaning Strength on it’s own, directly influences our damage. This also means regardless of our stats, we will always have a base value of damage.

If there is no “0” Weapon Damage value in the game, then we do not have a base damage value. If we do not have a base damage value, then Strength is not, or doesn’t hold any independent properties which can alter the damage formula. This is a very important mechanic, as it absolutely influences how the Damage Formula is shaped.

If Strength doesn’t have its own damage value, then the Damage Formula would simply be something like:

• WD*STR*DTR

If Strength operates how we currently assume it does, then we’ll have a formula which resembles:

• WD+(STR*WD)*DTR.
• or, ((WD*STR)+STR)*DTR

Both formulas allow Strength to be influenced by Weapon Damage, but one makes it so Strength has a base value, whereas the former doesn’t.

Reconsidering Determination

Before we begin, I’d like to give a special thanks to Arisue Neetsha for making me reconsider how Determination works, Sunny Hirose with supporting evidence, as well as an active poster who goes by the name Kaesebrezen.

Determination is a stat that has largely been misunderstood for the most part. No one actually knows, even to this day, how it works, or how it’s implemented into the Damage Formula.

Originally, Valk who created “Version 1” of our damage formula, used these correction factors for our damage formula:

• Auto-Attacks: + (DTR-202)*0.11
• Weaponskills: + (DTR-202)*0.035.

Yes, this was incorrect. The main thing that Valky never managed to understand is how other stats impacted the effect of Determination. Has he used a “+DTR”, he basically stated that Determination was an independent value which was added on top of the remainder of the damage formula… which is incorrect.