Now, don't get me wrong. I am a Haste-fearing, Forumgoer just like you. Haste is awesome. It makes an otherwise painfully slow game move faster--what's not to like? However, in the last update, Square-Enix decided to unleash upon the player base two... unusual items:
and 
The first is the acubens helm, which provides -10 accuracy in exchange for 6% Haste. The second would be tiercel necklace, dropped by the Shadow Lord himself, as an answer to blitz ring for "lighter" damage dealers.
Now, you may immediately dismiss both these objects as situational pieces of junk. But hark! 2% Haste! That translates into roughly a 5% DPS increase. Sounds awesome. Question is, can you afford -15-20 Accuracy to use them?
Hit Rate = 75% + (Your Accuracy - Target's Evasion)*0.5% + (Your level - Target's level)*2%
There's a few things to note here. First of all, the Level Correction factor can be negative; it will penalize you with -2% hit rate per level difference between you and your target. At a 10 level difference (the Incredibly Tough, "ideal" EXP camp mob), you have a -20% hit rate before any calculations.
Secondly, accuracy foods such as Sushi or Pizza will provide you with 10-15% accuracy, which, at ~375 Accuracy (fairly standard for a well-geared, one-hander, Trait accounted for) is 37-50 bonus Accuracy. Plug 'n' chug and you'll see that's a 20-25% Hit Rate increase, which is mostly nomnomnom'd by the Level Correction factor.
What does this mean? Effectively, Sushi or Pizza will put you right "on tare" against IT enemies, that is, will put you right at 75-80% standard Hit Rate before the Accuracy to Evasion check. This isn't exactly what I would call "superfluous accuracy," especially against enemies with notoriously high Evasion, say... THFs or just about anything with wings. You effectively have to rely on your native base accuracy to keep a high hit rate, unless you happen to have Accuracy buffs, which, oh right, two-handers don't need. And since they put out the numbers, they call the shots, and the one-handers continue to get screwed.
Back to the subject of this post: Acubens + Tiercel fulltime?! Well... Tiercel is replacing a handful of options for the neckslot: chivalrous chain, spectacles, peacock charm/amulet, ancient torque, or a Sea torque. Starting with chivalrous chain, you're looking at a reduction of 2.5% Hit Rate in exchange for 1% Haste. The rest fall in between that and ancient torque, which is a 5.5% Hit Rate reduction. It's really up to you whether to replace it, but replacing a Chiv Chain with this seems like a no-brainer. 1% Haste will easily outdo the STR, sTP and Acc combined of Chiv Chain.
OK, BREAK TIME.
Back. Ok, Acubens... Is trickier. Here we're not only talking 0 Accuracy, we're talking negative Accuracy. This was the only way to keep the holy Trinity of ace's helm-Walahra turban-acubens helm intact, since fully replacing Walahra would obviously be heresy. Using Acubens is a flat-out 5% reduction in hit rate, regardless of what you had on your head before; whereas Tiercel depended on your other options, Acubens is a reduction even compared to not wearing anything at all, except for maybe spelunker's hat!
Additionally, upgrading any other slot before this will be superior to this option:- OHat v Walahra, 5% Hit for 5% Haste;
- Potent v Swift; 4% for 4%
- Swift v Velocious, 2% for 2%;
- Homam v Dusk +1, 2% for 1%;
- any +10 Acc Body v Nashira, 5% for 3%
I know. I get the joke. -10% Hit Rate is worth a +5% DPS increase and faster TP gain. What I don't understand is why Square-Enix likes to see one-handers whiff. Forcing one-handers to use accuracy food and buffs is only hurting them against higher level targets with DEF. We already get shit for feeding mobs TP. Every job on these items except for MNK has A- or less in its best Combat Skill rating. Finally, most of these jobs' best weaponskills are multi-hit, which are heavily influenced by ATK... Subbing NIN and using Accuracy food is great for pushing those numbers, right!?
Oh! I know! Let's give the high-delay, overly-accurate two-handers a +Acc/-Haste Helm and give low-delay, less-accurate one-handers a -Acc/+Haste Helm to keep them eating expensive accuracy-and-conspicuously-attack-less food forever.
Oh, but there's no -Evasion on it. PHEW. THANK HASTE... They're playing to our strengths!
And don't even go down the "It's good for EP" path. These jobs don't need to be pigeonholed ANY further into THAT role, because FFXI Endgame isn't about how quickly you can take out Decent Challenges or how well you can solo.
Last I checked, every job listed on both these items is hardly... "overpowered." Would it have ruined the game to just give us a 6% Haste helm with less/no accuracy decrease? Would it really have put THF, DNC, PUP, COR and BLU back on the map as "DD"? Does MNK even need this helm?
It's like they want one-handers to simply embrace failure--enjoy missing with the secret knowledge that their DPS has actually increased and yet still get outparsed by everyone else. Far be it from SE to simply play to player intuition, letting us hit hard like other DDs, and shooting for the Holy Grail of Capped Accuracy.
Even if you're hitting like lightning, hitting for 1-5 damage on IT++ and feeding any amount of TP with every hit isn't fixing anything.
It's actually only widening the existing chasm between the damage dealers.
P.s. Thanks for not making it match with Homam.
3 comments:
Ere, I like your writing style
I learned a new idiom today 8D
You really gotta wonder what SE was smoking with some of that stuff. You COULD offset the -10 accuracy, but it seems pointless.
Well, what I find even more annoying is that no matter how much you offset the -Acc, you're making it that much harder to hit the Accuracy Cap. Everyone says, "You have Accuracy Bonus Trait" or "You eat Sushi all the time anyway," but I say, "Only because I'm not there yet."
One day, I will be able to eat meats and buff attack. I don't care if SE doesn't want me to.
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