One or Two Hand WPNS?Follow

I also await the replies to your questions since response to my own thread (These kids today) brought me more additional questions than it did answers!

I'd also like to know how to set up the logging feature that lets you study detailed info after the session. This was mentioned in my thread but the method was not described.

Seemingly this topic is not only complex but also carries with it a broad variety of opine. Buckle up, Blacktharne, it's gonna be a bumpy ride!

Yep it is a big question, but in general, always go for duel wield if you're going to be main tank, and put the lowest delay weapon in Primary regardless of whether it procs or not. So of your 4 weapons, Lammie and Defiance would always go in Primary.

However you should keep all weapons skills trained up because as you get higher up there are so many different options that come along, depending on whether you're raiding or exping. It really sux to get a super weapon at a higher level and not have the skill to use it.

2H weapons are mainly for when you are assisting, and some can do mega damage. However Rangers seem to use mainly duel wield and have ways to avoid getting agro.

I think damage caps increase every 10 levels.

Sorry I answered your questions all out of order hehe.

For your bard, you don't have much of a choice but to dual weild (bards do not gain skill in 2h weapons, and can actually equip very few), so that solves that :p (I'm not sure if rogues can use 2handers either, never did get mine beyond 24 and didn't think much to check, I also do believe that backstab is only off of the primary hand, disregarding AAs and such (if there even is any?)).

The damage caps that I can tell are level 10 and 20, possibly 30 as well. There may be higher ones also, but can't remember significant gains at the levels. Below level 10, you will notice that your max hit will be around 20. At this level, it is much better to have a lower damage weapon with a faster delay. (Base damage of around 7 or 8 will have you hitting for max). Not sure on the exact number of the level 20 cap as it does shift per stats and character a bit (seems to at least) but I would say it's around 30-35.

For your warrior, DW is the best bet for aggro reasons. Number of attacks is a better giver of aggro than damage delt. However, it is a *very* good idea to keep 2h weapon skills up as you level for those times when you are not tanking. (Generally, a good 2hander will outdps an equivalent 1hander especially in the higher levels as you get the damage bonuses, also, you will acquire much less aggro with 2handers, which is good for when you are not tanking.)

This leads to damage bonuses. For 1handers, this is set by level. Starting at 1 at lvl 28 (I think..) and scaling to 13 at 65 (should be an increase about once every 3 levels). 2handers get a damage bonus starting at the same level, that rises as you gain levels, however the actual number is set by the delay (see OldBlue's thread for more description). The damage bonus number will *only* apply to mainhanded weapons. This number gets added after all calculations for damage are done, thus your minimum hit with said dmg bonus weapon will be the damage bonus + 1 (never seen a 0 damage hit).

Procs are great, *sometimes*. Again, for the warrior, acquiring weapons with procs (best are stun procs, snares are good too) will help hugely with aggro (though, relying on procs for aggro is a bad idea, use them to help). Of course, when not Main Tanking, this isn't a good idea. Other classes have to be a bit more careful with procing weapons, as gaining aggro can cause big issues to them (though, in the low-mid 20s, pretty much any melee class can tank, so not as big a deal). The true answer to 3 is situational. I primary hand the Copper Hammer of Striking on my warrior (13/20 +stats 179point stun proc) and offhand the sword of the bloodsworn (12/19 +stats 75point stun proc). This gives me a bigger amount of hate per main hand proc (off hand does proc less on average). This may seem backward to most, but the aggro generation is better than having them reversed (and with the delays so close, it doesn't matter too too much). For hard data on weapon proc rates, check out www.thesteelwarrior.org (in the forums there is a whole post that explains it nicely). Questions regarding ranger set up I will defer to some of the other posters, as they are much more skilled rangers than I'll ever be. (Remember one thing...a ranger should be pure DPS while a warrior in MT mode needs aggro generation more than DPS...this can (and will) effect the setups of the 2 classes)



Yep, that is a must for any class. You never know when something may come along, or you may have to swap out for situational use (specific proc, lower aggro, higher aggro, bane/elemental damage, etc.). This will be fairly easy with the bard and rogue, just DW different combinations of 1handers (unless rogues get 2hand abilities too?), will be tougher for the ranger and warrior, as you have to do all 3 types 1handed, and 2hs and 2hb. (Keep to 1hand piercing for skill raising, normally faster delays on 1hand, and you can have a weapon you are better with in primary to keep your dps up and out of the toilet.)

As a side note: It can get difficult for a warrior to skill up in 2handers, if he is most often the MT of a group. DWing 2 1handers will out aggro a 2handed (assuming relative equality between the weapons), so your 2hand skills may lag behind.

(I use too many damn parenthesis...)

Yes, I'm in the same boat as Old Blue, I like to be informed, but I have no idea what the "log" is or how I access it...

OK.

To begin with just type /log (After logging in game of course).

This will turn on a text file in the EQ folder that records all the data that flows to your chat window. Hits, misses, taken/given, spells, group messages etc etc. Just try one and read through it, you will see what gets recorded (pretty much everything).

But it is one big jumbled file, and to analyse it as it stands in a monumental task. You can drop bits of it into a spread sheet, but even that takes for ever to get anywhere.

Thankfully there are some enterprising analytical programming types out there who have written some very nice little routines that will index and colate and analyse the log files for you.

Go here for some examples. These are what are known as log parsers.

Peronally I now use one called Yalp most of the time, don't have the URL handy but just do a Google search and you will find it.

The log file in the EQ folder is accumulative, that is, each time to play and type /log you begin adding new data to the data all ready recorded. So it can grow to be enormous and unwieldy.

The process I use is to break the file up into date or session files and save them in a seperate folder (named EQ logs ).

To save your self a lot of aggravation down the track, you should devise a naming/library system right from the start. One of my frustrations is that I only ever named my early log files by date. Now when I go back to look at them, I do not really know things like the character level, skill level, armour equipped and even actual weapons being used, (some 2 years later mind you). And as you will see, this type of info is important to make sense of the data you are trying to analyse.

Next important point;

As with any statistical analysis the value of the comcluions you can draw is only as good as the quality of the raw data you input. In other words, garbage in = garbage out.

For example, if a 61 Ranger goes to Butcheblock Mountains and logs a whole heap of fights with dwarf skeletons, pretty obviously parsing the logs to analyse DPS (damage per second) is a nonsense. The difference in level and skill would nmean that the skellies probably would never land a hit and the Ranger would one hit kill most of them, the resulting damage per second calculations would be of no value.

Most people who are interested in these matters and spend time working on them, would assume and expect that if you were quoting DPS numbers you would have gathered the data fighting high blue cons, if not you would be expected to state how you collected the data. Most serious log parsers will set out the conditions under which the data was collected in any case. (Hence my suggestion to name and archive the files in a meaningful way).

It is also important to gather enough data to make it meaningful.

Logging one fight and trying to analyse it also tells you little of value. There are a large number of variables at work in the various parts of the game engine many/most of which we can't predict. So even among mobs of the same class and race you can strike big variations in avoidance, mitigation, and damage output. You need to log quite a large number of encounters to begin to see consistent patterns and for charts and histograms to start to be instructive.

The more particular you are about setting up the paramaters of your "experiment" the more value your results will be. There was a fellow who was studying the relationship between AC, mitigation and avoidance. He and his friend spent more than a month fighting and logging the encounters with just one single mob to eliminate as much of the variables as possible. His is still probably the definitive work on the subject over on the Steel Warrior's board.

Thats probably enough to get you started.

Here's a little help on the damage bonus question....

http://lucy.allakhazam.com/dmgbonus.html
That has the table for all damage bonus for 1 hand weapons (top line) and all 2 hand weapons for each delay (all the others).

The cap was supposed to exist for those under lvl 20, and I think a recent fix made it so again.

http://www.monkly-business.com/articles2.asp?ArticleNum=66

Is a good explanation for how to compute max damage on weapons, written by a monk so take that into account (there are different damage tables for different classes, but it still generally holds true for comparisons).

Dual wielding, your off hand weapon will never have a damage bonus, main hand only. The chance of attacking with your off hand weapon at max skill is about 75-80%. I think somewhere in Xaas's guide he goes over it, there's a calc to figure out what the odds are based on skill though.

For general purposes (if you hate the min/max side of the game like I do) a pair of 12/20 weapons will outdo a 30/30 weapon (no particulars attached) at almost all levels of the game. Half due to damage being close enough, half due to having twice the stats in most cases (two items compared to one). Try to keep your skills all close to the max as you level along, as when you hit the 50+ game is when you'll care a little more about this all.

Procs aren't that heavy in weighing between weapon choices. Procs at dex around 150 or more will go off 2 times a minute. That's not very often to be considered... there are exceptions of course. If you want to be picky, use this to find an item...

http://eqemulator.net/search.php

Find the item with a proc on it, and check out the unknown 70 field. A value of 0 means it will behave on the average (2 procs per minute). Any other value changes the percentage by that amount. For examle, Cleric's summoned hammer of judgement (lvl 56 spell, the proc happy hammer) has a value of 250 there. Which means it procs 250% more than normal (2 per minute is 100%, so 100+250=350%*2= 7 procs per minute average).

Since most things have a value of 0, 2 procs per minute, compared to the damge you're doing every second, has almost no weight in your decision.

Anyways, that's probably a lot of info to digest for now, just grab the weapons that are 8/20 or better one handers or 25/30 or better 2 handers, and you'll be just fine until you hit the 40s or 50s...

Edited, Wed Apr 28 17:17:32 2004 by ZhaoVizier