how do YOU evaluate a weapon?

[PakMonyet]

<p>....so from reading the miasma of opinions on which is the best/better weapon, I realized that the problem really comes down to:  "What criteria do you use to evaluate and compare weapons?"</p><p>So with that issue in mind, I like to hear opinions as to which characteristics of a weapon are most desirable.  I realize that it will also depend upon the set-up that individual Swashies have (ie AA build, raid vs. solo, etc. etc. etc.), but lets call "everything else equal" and just look at the characteristics of the weapon:</p><p>-Damage rating</p><p>-Damage range</p><p>-Max damage</p><p>-Ratio of Max to Min damage</p><p>-Delay</p><p>-Proc (if any)</p><p>-The Onscreen Look of the weapon (hehe....very important to a real Swashbuckler)</p><p>From what I can surmise from various posts, it seems that the Ratio of Max to Min damage is a major characteristic.....agree/disagree?</p><p>......<b><u>so chime in everyone,</u></b> which characteristic is <b>THE</b> characteristic to look for that defines it as <b>THE</b> weapon to have.</p>

[RaunII]

<p>i dont care about DPS rating, therefore i dont care about minimum damage. if it has a 1.6+ second delay (idealy 2 second to 3 second), what i pay attention to is the max damage number...the gear i am getting is based to crit chance, so i care about longer delays and higher maximum hit... and for evaluation i use /weapon and compare stats that way...as far as looks, swords and rapiers for me...i dont care for daggers or axes...</p><p>and procs really effect weapons usability, i prefer +str procs,+haste or dps procs, or damage procs of course <img src="/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p><p>now, i will settle for just about any weapon thats decent i can get my hands on, so i am the wrong person to ask about it...but thats what i use to compare personally.</p>

[PakMonyet]

Thanks RaunII....you share the opinion of most of the Swashies I've talked to (and myself btw)....though the Max/Min damage ratio seems to be a favorite of many as well!

[Zygwen]

Damage Rating, delay, Min/max Ratio, procs, plus your own haste, dps mod and crit chance all play a factor in determining which weapon will out parse which. I wrote a program to help me compare weapons and makes pretty graphs like this. It is not perfect but it does help me figure out which weapon is better than which. <img src="http://i205.photobucket.com/albums/bb182/Zygwen/eq2%20graphs/SvsSCritSwash.png" border="0">

[Awlis]

<p>I love those charts Zygwen.</p><p>any chance of posting one that compares the top weapons... I am thinking especially of... shard, gladius, aono, clearcutter and folded blade. I think these are the top weapons available to a swashy, but I always have a problem working out which will push out the highest dps.</p><p> I am normally MT group with 125 plus dps and haste. 78 double attack, and hum about 16% crits</p>

[Cocytus]

<p>I tend to go</p><p>Max damage</p><p> Look (OF COURSE)</p><p>Delay</p><p>damage range</p><p>proc</p>

[Ookami-san]

We're swashys... is there really another determination other than how you look with it?!

[Zygwen]

<cite>Awlis wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>I love those charts Zygwen.</p><p>any chance of posting one that compares the top weapons... I am thinking especially of... shard, gladius, aono, clearcutter and folded blade. I think these are the top weapons available to a swashy, but I always have a problem working out which will push out the highest dps.</p><p> I am normally MT group with 125 plus dps and haste. 78 double attack, and hum about 16% crits</p></blockquote> I compare the top weapons myself all the time. You can see all the graphs I've uploaded here <a href="http://s205.photobucket.com/albums/bb182/Zygwen/eq2%20graphs" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://s205.photobucket.com/albums/...en/eq2%20graphs</a> I'll try to add one with the Folded Scale Blade when I get back from work but for the time being check this one out. <img src="http://i205.photobucket.com/albums/bb182/Zygwen/eq2%20graphs/GDoHvsShardCrit-1.png" border="0"> At 16% melee crit chance Clearcutter has the highest damage potential but AoNO and Gladius over take it at higher Melee Crit Chances.

[Zygwen]

<cite>Ookami-san wrote:</cite><blockquote>We're swashys... is there really another determination other than how you look with it?!</blockquote>That is what I tell the other Swashy in guild. <img src="/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

[Zygwen]

Folded Scale Blade Comparisons. <img src="http://i205.photobucket.com/albums/bb182/Zygwen/eq2%20graphs/FoldedScaleCrit.png" border="0"> <img src="http://i205.photobucket.com/albums/bb182/Zygwen/eq2%20graphs/FoldedScaleHaste.png" border="0">

[Gandelff]

zygwen where did you get the program to graph these?

[Zygwen]

<cite>Gandelff wrote:</cite><blockquote>zygwen where did you get the program to graph these? </blockquote> I wrote my own program. I use the php graphics package to draw the images.

[Krontak]

Evalin is some sort of graphical genious.  As always, good work man.  Between your tools and those on this thread <a href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?start=30&topic_id=353709" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/...topic_id=353709</a> that was unstickied for whatever BS reason that guy gave, are pretty much the bibles on weapon selection.  Hopefully the crit charts could be reproduced by you Evalin and stickied in the swashy forum.  <img src="/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />  Thanks in advance!

[Awlis]

<p>thanks for those graphs they are great.</p><p>whilst we are on subject of crits etc.. I can see what extra crits would give me.. esp with a 5/1 weap, however I can't seem to find info on what approximately dps mode does.. so thinking would I be better with planar orb of wanderer or tunares earing. Wanderer gives me maybe 0.01 % of my dps, this seems small and whilst I love the idea of a free proc I am not sure that it is worth equiping when I have tunares and vamp set to chose from as well</p><p>Now I know its got alot to do with wether or not you are over 100 and then over 200 dps, I guess I sit most raids at over 100.</p>

[Zygwen]

<cite>Krontak wrote:</cite><blockquote>Evalin is some sort of graphical genious.  As always, good work man.  Between your tools and those on this thread <a href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?start=30&topic_id=353709" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/...topic_id=353709</a> that was unstickied for whatever BS reason that guy gave, are pretty much the bibles on weapon selection.  Hopefully the crit charts could be reproduced by you Evalin and stickied in the swashy forum.  <img src="/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />  Thanks in advance!</blockquote> My graphs are partly based on Leanan's formulas. I must say his graphs look a lot nicer than mine. If you are worried about losing those graphs you might want to save them for your own personal use. Since I do have the formulas, I can reproduce the graphs in the event that we lose his. Soulfire Sabre was recently changed on test to be a 87.7 rating weapon just like the Gladius. I will have to redo my graphs comparing those two weapons when LU 38 comes out but if things remain unchanged, Soulfire Sabre will become the better choice. +dps mod increases your auto attack damage by up to 125%. The scale for dps mod goes from 0 to 200 but the actual value goes from 0 to 125. So an earring that gives you +6 dps can give you anywhere from ~1 to 8% boost in auto attack. To figure it out as part of your over all you need to know what % of  your overall dps is auto attack damage then add that small percentage to it. For Example if your auto attack does 40% of your total dps and the dps mod adds 5% the increase is 5% of 40% or 2%. Proc gear will give you between 0 and 3% of your total dps depending on proc mods. If in your case that piece of proc gear only gives you 1% then the +dps mod may be better. The basic auto attack dps formula goes something like this. (Base Damage * %haste * %dpsmod * strmod * missrate * debuff damage multiplier *(1 + %doubleattack + %hurricane * number of targets hit by hurricane)) / delay Then you have to factor in the %crit and crit bonus. When comparing weapons you also have to factor in their innate weapon procs, spell crit chance, intmod etc. There are so many variables that it become difficult to compare weapons correctly just by looking at them which is partly why I wrote my program. It helps me take a closer look at how weapons compare in different situations because DA and Hurricane makes a big difference to how we compare weapons versus how other classes do, mainly in that innate procs are less important to us.