Need help understanding Parse and delay

[Isoloki]

Ahoy Fellow Swashbucklers: I have a lvl 76 swashy which I love, and until recently only grouped with very little soloing involved.So I never worried about how much damage I was doing, All I knew is I put out a lot of numbers fast.But now that I am mostly solo with him, I have been coming to the forums to see how to improve what I am doing.I see phrases such as I parse this or you should be parsing that, etc. And yes I went and looked at the graphs etc. But I'm looking for laymen  terms on this, ie. Parse equals the damage done per fight or the damage done in a single swing of the weapon. So first question what is a parse?Second, I read in here that longer delays help in how many times your crits work and how often your poisons go off.So I have been testing weapons with various delays to see the difference. and Personnly I find with my 1.6 delay weapons, My poisons seem to go off faster than with my 5 sec weapons.I have tried with one weapon and duel welding. Even the procs on the weapons seem to cast faster with lower delay weapons.So what is the real deal? and is most of the info more towards raiding than solo?Now this is my perception, and might be wrong with everything I read, However, I find my kills go faster with lower delays also so, To me that is a better bet, yeah?Anyways thanks for your info.And yes I don't post often, only when I feel the need to state my opinion.So thanks again

[AegisCrown]

<cite>isotime wrote:</cite><blockquote>Ahoy Fellow Swashbucklers: I have a lvl 76 swashy which I love, and until recently only grouped with very little soloing involved.So I never worried about how much damage I was doing, All I knew is I put out a lot of numbers fast.But now that I am mostly solo with him, I have been coming to the forums to see how to improve what I am doing.I see phrases such as I parse this or you should be parsing that, etc. And yes I went and looked at the graphs etc. But I'm looking for laymen  terms on this, ie. Parse equals the damage done per fight or the damage done in a single swing of the weapon. So first question what is a parse?<span style="color: #990000;">A parse is the graph or chart of damage per second, usually in terms of a single fight or a zone.</span>Second, I read in here that longer delays help in how many times your crits work and how often your poisons go off.So I have been testing weapons with various delays to see the difference. and Personnly I find with my 1.6 delay weapons, My poisons seem to go off faster than with my 5 sec weapons.I have tried with one weapon and duel welding. Even the procs on the weapons seem to cast faster with lower delay weapons.So what is the real deal? and is most of the info more towards raiding than solo?<span style="color: #990000;">longer delays should not have any impact on your crit rate, how ever poisons are normalized on a 3.0 delay.   so if it will proc 6.0 ppm w/ no haste and your primary weapon is a 3.0 it will proc 6 times from autoattack,  now if you have 1.5 delay weapons it should still proc6.0 times per minute but your chance for poison to hit per swing is lower.   this being said the higher your base weapon delay is the higher chance per swing poison will have to proc.   haste modifiers do not have an impact on this base delay thus if you have 100% haste your poison ppm is essentially double for autoattack.</span>Now this is my perception, and might be wrong with everything I read, However, I find my kills go faster with lower delays also so, To me that is a better bet, yeah?Anyways thanks for your info.And yes I don't post often, only when I feel the need to state my opinion.So thanks again</blockquote>

[Isoloki]

Thanks for the fast response. I appreciate the info, and will put it to good use.

[Foolsfolly]

Never heard that about poisons before...I'm fairly certain that haste is considered for poison, just like all other proc regulations.However I can explain why larger delays are preferable for crits.First of all, crits are regulated just like all other procs. So if you're critting twice per minute, it will not matter if you have a 1.0 delay or 6.0 delay, you'll still crit twice per minute.Second, the way crits work is that when they trigger, you hit for exactly 130% of your maximum possible damage.Now let me give you an example..you have 2 weapons, one of them is 1.0 delay and hits for 10 damage, the other is 2.0 delay and hits for 20 damage. They both have the exact same damage rating; the second one hits twice as hard, but only half as often, so it averages out to the same dps from autoattacks. However the 10dmg crits for 13dmg, and the 20dmg crits for 26dmg. With each of them critting twice per minute, the 10dmg would gain an extra 6dmg every minute, while the 20dmg weapon would gain 12dmg from crits every minute. Now if you throw in a third weapon with 6.0 delay and 60dmg, it would gain an extra 36dmg from crits every minute, 6 times more than what the fastest weapon gains!Now that doesn't sound like much extra damage..but real weapons actually have a damage spread, so that their maximum damage can be much higher than their average; this is especially true on slower weapons. And crit rates can get much higher than my example; at lvl 80 on a raid you could easily be critting 50 times per minute! That can add up to a lot of bonus damage from crits.

[Prrasha]

The "long delay for crits" thing is bogus.What people mean when they say "long delay is good for crits" is really "a wide damage spread is good for crits".  Unfortunately, most of the wide-spread weapons in the game also have a long delay, so approximately 74% of EQ2 players think that the delay is what makes crits work better.*Autoattack crits are at least "max damage + 1".DR is "(min + max) / delay".So for a given DR, you get the most benefit from crits if "max" is as big as possible... because of the DR formula, that means you also have a smaller "min" and thus a wider damage spread (or damage ratio, if you prefer.)But it has <i>nothing</i> to do with delay, other than "the first high-ratio/wide-spread weapons were also long-delay weapons". (i.e. Vrak Club, Blackscale Maul, etc... priest weapons get talked about a lot here since 4 priest types can AA themselves to 100% melee crits, and one can get to 75%.)<span style="font-size: xx-small;">* 63.27% of all statistics on the internet are made up on the spot.</span>

[Untruth]

What about the pirates stab proc for the agility line? Is that normalized to PPM as well or does it just proc at a flat 16% chance at rank 8? Considering Inspired daring works on maximizing the amount of hits you get in 13 seconds, shouldn't fast weapons theoretically be better? Or why isn't this the case?

[Faenril]

<cite>Untruth wrote:</cite><blockquote>What about the pirates stab proc for the agility line? Is that normalized to PPM as well or does it just proc at a flat 16% chance at rank 8? Considering Inspired daring works on maximizing the amount of hits you get in 13 seconds, shouldn't fast weapons theoretically be better? Or why isn't this the case?</blockquote>Regarding insight, on paper you are right. It used to work this way at tier 7: ppl would equip super fast weapons to get as many hits as possible for 13 seconds.But at tier 8 insight does not deal enough damage to compensate for the loss from equiping low delay weapons.So basically you pop insight and try to spam as many damaging CAs as you can for 13 secs, while keeping auto attack undisturbed.

[Trojenn]

<p>So to sum up this thread for the OP, </p><p>For max Poison PPM (procs per minute) go with a 3-4 sec delay weapon.</p><p>For max Crit Chance go with the widest Damage Spread. IE: Segemented Serrator 60 - 343 ( Hits like a Mac Truck )</p><p>And Whoever said that Crit can only crit up to 130% of Max damage is wrong. Crits can  only crit a minimum of 130% with chances for much higher crits.</p><p>Disclaimer: I am not using our Mythical cause IMO, our mythical sucks and will not use it for an example.</p>

[Rippitt]

It could have no stats and effects and still be the best available weapon for us. Don't be ridiculous.

[Karlen]

I'm not a swashbuckler, but I believe crits work the same way for everyone.  I am pretty sure that autoattack crits work by adding 30% to the damage roll, and if the result is less than the max damage of the weapon the damage is "upped" to "max damage +1".   High variance (difference between min and max damage) will result in more rolls getting upped.

[Trojenn]

<p>Then pray tell me how if Crits can only be 130% of Max Damage, I can crit for 5k pierce Damage. I use Fabled Charms Way and Betrayals Song ( they say I have aggro issues pfft.)  I am not sure if my math is faulty but the logic just does not add up. ???</p><p>I do not have weapon stats from /weapon in game but I know that the max damage reads somewhere around 600- 2500 ( not exact numbers ) on primary weapon. So if the logic is correct on 130% of Max damge it would be 130% of 2500 wich equals.. 3250. So tell me how that would work to give me a crit of 5K.. Doesn't make since if you ask me. Using the 130% rule that would have to make the Actual Damage Max of my primary to be 3846 give or take a damage. None of the weapons I use have those kind of Actual Max Damage so again I say its a Minumum of 130% of Max damage with a chance to crit for much higher damage</p>

[Karlen]

Might there be other things affecting your damage?  Perhaps a +DPS effect?  [edit: is +dps reflected in /weapon?]Or maybe there is a small chance of a "super crit"?

[Trojenn]

If you do a /Weapon in game either in the middle of the fight or directly after ( if you still have temp buffs up ) the game automaticaly factors in ratios for DPS mods. However you can also sit out of combat and cast Ruthless Cunning and Perfect Finesse and see the change also. Now with that being said, I still have never seen my Actual max damage to be high enough to give me a 5K Crit from the Fabled Charms way.  Now like I have been saying and you just said ( Super Crit ) , you can only hit for a minumum of 130% of max damage with a <b>CHANCE</b> of critting for much higher amounts.. Notice the bold, it is a chance. Now yes out of every 20 crits you may only get one that crits for an insane amount but it does happen.. that was the point I was making.