I took a weapon of non grade with the highest P atk used some numbers to represent speed and came up with some interesting results. The highest P atk doesn't necessary mean the most damage.
The weapons i used for this test was a
<ul type="square"> Composition Bow Speed: Slow P atk 64
<ul type="square"> Zweihander Speed: Normal P atk 38
<ul type="square"> Falchion Speed: fast P atk 31
<ul type="square"> Sword Breaker Speed: Very fast P atk 27
Now the numbers i used to represent speed is
<ul type="square"> Very slow 100 Slow 150 Normal 200 Fast 250 Very fast 300
The reason i used these numbers was the higher the faster the weapon more the damage.
If i took the composition bow of 64 P atk dividing it by the speed 150 it gives me a rating of 2.3... If i use the sword breaker with a P atk of 27 and speed of 300 i get a rating of 11.1.
I'm not sure that we would ever be able to put an accurate number for the weapon speed, but I learned quite some time ago that regardless of what race/class I choose for a new char, melee will ALWAYS lvl faster with a swordbreaker(dagger) than with any other weapon. obviously mages need the highest M.Atk weapon (voodoo doll, etc..)
I also found this to be true for 20-40. Based on my experiences, even if you are a tank class and should be using a sword, you will have a much higher DPS using a dagger instead of a sword.
After 40, I think you really have to use the correct weapon for your class because that is when you get your special weapon masteries, here's my gear for fast lowbie levelling:
No-Grade Melee:
Wood set w/random gloves and boots
Swordbreaker
No-Grade Caster:
Devotion set with random gloves and boots
Voodoo Doll
For D-Grade, I have 4 sets...
D-Grade Melee:
Brig set with random gloves and boots
Mithril Dagger
D-Grade 'Scout/Rogue' classes:
Manti set with random helmet and gloves
Mithril Dagger
D-Grade Nuker classes:
Same Devotion set with D grade gloves/boots
Staff of Life
D-Grade Healer/Buffer classes:
Mithril Robes and random helmet and boots
Staff of Life
Basically, I have a Mithril Dagger that I use for all melees and a Staff of Life that I use for all casters. I have the Brig set and a Manti set and a Mithril set. I don't wear jewels until lvl 20 and then it's plain Elven jewels till 40+. (I avoid magic mobs pre-20).
Disclaimer for new players: You will not have the luxury of having so much to choose from until you have rolled several toons and figured out how to maximize your adena hoarding techniques.
I agree with most things that were said here except for one thing; never give a dwarf a dagger, even pre-20. I used a swordbreaker with my alt when I was leveling her, and then switched to a 2-handed. Dwarves miss enough times so that it doesn't balance with how many times they crit.
Lets compare the two handed Zweihander and the one handed Falchion.
The Zweihander has a P atk of 38 with a speed rating of 200 which comes out to a rating of 5.2
The Falchion has a P atk of 31 with a speed rating of 250 which comes out to a rating of 8.0
The zweihander doesn't appear to be the best weapon around.
@ Splatter: But you are using figurative numbers that may not be accurate. To simply guess at them does not give enough validity to your calculations. The differences between Very Slow --> Slow --> Normal --> Fast --> Very Fast may not be linear. The way I did mine (albeit not thoroughly enough to call it scientific) was to time myself for 5 minute intervals. I always get more XP% using a dagger than using any other weapon. Regardless of class. Since NCSoft will not likely release any definitive numbers as far as atk.spd values, our best indicator has to be damage over time. Obviously, we can't count every hit of dmg to see what the total is, so we are relegated to using our XP rate over time. Hence my 5 min intervals for testing. Over the course of the 2 accounts and many rerolls that I have deleted. Time and again, I made more XP using the dagger than any other way.
I fear that I am sounding confrontational and if so, I apologize. It is certainly not my intent. I enjoy intelligent discussion as I believe that you do after reading at least 3,000 or more of your posts :) I don't post a whole lot, but I read forums. A lot.
@ Box_Of_Fox: I have 3 dwarves. All 3 of them used a swordbreaker. All 3 of them were lvl 20 in about 2.5-3 hours. they may miss a bit, but the dmg from crits more than makes up for it from what I saw. Then again, crit rate is random and dmg is somewhat random. It is in fact possible for my dwarf to lvl faster than your dwarf with identical gear and using the same mobs/areas to lvl. Dare I say that it might even be possible for one char to lvl faster with lesser gear just because they crit a LOT and someone else doesn't.
Where did you get your speed ratings? They're the key to your entire analysis, and you don't mention where they came from. If you just made them up, your entire theory goes out the window--speculation masquerading as fact. If they did come from something, that's the central point of your argument, and it's missing.
Also, remember to not use bows in your calculations...at all. They have a cooldown timer that is unrelated to the weapon's speed rating. The total is the same, it's just the ratio that changes (you can kite during cooldown but not firing).
In other words, the cooldown on a "slow" bow is longer than a "very slow" bow so that they actually fire at the same rate, but the "slow" bow gives you more mobility.
Funny thing is I've found that I can level my toons quicker using Viper Fangs (top No grade claws) and they work quite well across all classes that are sub level 40.
Ok...you get the odd look but if it aint broke why fix it.
There is also something else to take into account - bows and daggers both gain signifcantly in strength once you have buffs available, while blunt types and swords straggle behind a bit.
Even having permanent focus 1 makes a dagger/bow leave everything else in the dust, nevermind having full level 52+ prophet/SE buffs.
Lets compare the two handed Zweihander and the one handed Falchion.
The Zweihander has a P atk of 38 with a speed rating of 200 which comes out to a rating of 5.2
The Falchion has a P atk of 31 with a speed rating of 250 which comes out to a rating of 8.0
The zweihander doesn't appear to be the best weapon around.
Your calculations are very weird anyway.
According to your evaluation technique, a weapon with 10 patk and a speed of 300 would have a "score" of 30, while a weapon with 100 patk and speed 300 would have a "score" of 3. Since the score you give weapons seems to mean "higher=better", the weapon with lower patk but the same speed would be better. Does that make sense?
There is also something else to take into account - bows and daggers both gain signifcantly in strength once you have buffs available, while blunt types and swords straggle behind a bit.
Even having permanent focus 1 makes a dagger/bow leave everything else in the dust, nevermind having full level 52+ prophet/SE buffs.
I disagree, Swords are EXTREMELY good weapons. They have the benefits of criticals along with good accuracy and respectable strength as well as decent attack speed. Swords are very balanced out whereas daggers are all critical and attack speed, 2 handed swords are all strength, blunts are accuracy and strength, and bows are all range, strength and critical. But the thing is I can swing my sword 3 times in the time it takes an archer to shoot once (this is NOT with Tallum Heavy set). Archers have 3 times the patk as me on average and awesome critical. But with sword you basically have the same base damage output per second only bows have range and higher critical (so in the long run have better DPS) BUT with sword you can use a shield. Fists and duals are class specific so their strengths lie basically in specials and passives.
Bows seems to have a delay time as well. This causes them to halve their attack speed.
Depends on the bow. Some bows attack fast but have slow recovery, some bows shoot slow but have fast recovery. I believe its the long bows that have slow recovery but I'm not positive
Bows seems to have a delay time as well. This causes them to halve their attack speed.
Depends on the bow. Some bows attack fast but have slow recovery, some bows shoot slow but have fast recovery. I believe its the long bows that have slow recovery but I'm not positive
The problem with my guide is that it was C1 only and things change now and then. There is no number given for very slow for example. But I think that the base values and methods of calculating speed is still accurate.
Well first of I need to fill you in on something such as bow, Bow have a different attack speed rating, The atk speed showing on the char stat page is the atk speed for the initial attack, then they have something called recharg time for the next arrow.
This vary thoght, Very slow bow iave slower shot but faster recharg, Slow bow have faster shot but slower recharg and this make both bows 100% identical, Only difference very slow bow is hard to kite with but thats about it.
About the other weapons, there where some numers on them befor, ut that have long passed away. I think the numbers at the first post is far from the truth in any event.
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And as alredy stated in this thread, whatever you have masteries or not you always going to lv faster with a weapon with more crit specialy if you have an buffer, and we talk 20-30% faster even up to 50-100% faster to eg for a dwarf to switch to a bow or an sword with crit sa or something, it's an insane much beter speed.
As I said earlier, all this info is from prima guide (which is not updated since C1, notice that the prima guide does not have a very slow attack rate. Nor do i know of the delay rate is as long as they claim anymore.
So I would take the numbers of the bow I calculated with a bit of suspicion.
After taking a look back i feel Dps isn't an accurate term, so we will come up with a new term Wdr "Weapon damage rating". This will show that just because a weapon has a high P atk it doesn't necessarily do the most damage. I'm going to work out a table of it and see how it pans out.
@Gortag
You took into account to many varying factors that would taint the results. A person cann't use a time test to determine the results. I am using just the stats of the weapon and no other varying factors.
@bekkar
It would stand to reason that a weapon with a rating of normal is faster then a weapon of a slow rating and that a weapon of fast is faster of a weapon of a normal rating. With using that form of reasoning i came up with "Very Slow 100 --> Slow 150--> Normal 200--> Fast 250--> Very Fast 300". Even though the numbers maybe not accurate they do represent an increase from Very slow to Very fast. We can use other numbers to represent it if you want, Warper posted some numbers he got from the C1 guide.
I would classify the above as
<ul type="square"> Daggers = Very fast 433 1-handed weapon = Fast 379 2-handed weapons = Normal 325 Bows = Slow 271 Bows = Very slow 217
Now the above numbers held to a spreading of 54 untill it got to the bows so i held that number in mind and adjusted it accordingly. Even using these numbers a person still has the same results.
ive lvled alot of characters to 20+ and even my dwarfs do REALLY good with a dagger, where as i never even bother with blunts or swords pre 20. daggers bows or fists is what ive used, and i like the dagger the most
patk is meaningless... it is all about the cast speed baby!
intresting thouht though... however crit rate and accracy are huge factors as well... nothing will win it all solo... it is a combination of acc/crit/patk/atk speed/... you need to factor all of those in.
DPS is a good way to rate the weapons, but it's tough to do in L2 because there are so many factors that come into play on it.
The best is the XP over time method that was talked about.
It is also worht noting that some weapons are better suited for certain races, because of racial bonuses. ie.. High Dex races will get quite a bit more out of that dagger than the low Dex classes.
At the lower levels, the mobs aren't as important, but at higher levels, my blunt on my high str/low dex dwarf against a mob with high evasion will definitely win out.
Patk is important, but there are so many other factors that come into play that it's definitely not the only thing that should be taken into consideration.
intresting thouht though... however crit rate and accracy are huge factors as well... nothing will win it all solo... it is a combination of acc/crit/patk/atk speed/... you need to factor all of those in.
The issue i have with those are they are factors that vary so much that they taint any results. That a person has to strip down the weapon to it's most basic core components of Patk and Speed to come up with a rating.
I think the results would be more interesting, and change alot of peoples views on which weapon is the best.
While the spread of 50 wasn't far off, the numbers you invented were 125 short...considering the low number you used was 100, that's an error rate bigger than the number you were using, which pretty much puts your findings down the tubes, even for the bigger numbers. For example, you had a "fast" of 250 and an "average" of 200, when apparently it's 375 and 325...25% or 15%...it changes things.
Try your "Zweihander vs Falchion" thing again with actual numbers and see what happens.
intresting thouht though... however crit rate and accracy are huge factors as well... nothing will win it all solo... it is a combination of acc/crit/patk/atk speed/... you need to factor all of those in.
The issue i have with those are they are factors that vary so much that they taint any results. That a person has to strip down the weapon to it's most basic core components of Patk and Speed to come up with a rating.
I think the results would be more interesting, and change alot of peoples views on which weapon is the best.
Your desire to determine which weapon class is best is a nice idea but to label all factors other then attack speed and p.attk as extraneous is synonymous with saying you can determine which car is best through horsepower and chassis weight.
Perhaps all of those different factors aren't really tainting any results and that the score system you're suggesting is far too simple to provide an accurate picture.
What you really need to test this is 2 level 1 characters with no weapon masteries standing in an arena. Have 1 character hit the other 30 times (for a statistically viable sample size, you can do more but you need at least 30) and then write down the result of each swing. You also need to time how long it takes to complete each sample run (all 30 swings using autoattack).
You can then determine the comparable accuracy, crit rate, average damage and swing speed (based on swings per second).
Well from the earlier calculations it is obvious that all melee weapons do roughly the same amount of damage in the same time. It does not matter if you choose a blunt, sword, twohander or a dagger.
But there are also the following factors:
Blunts hit better then swords and dagger (4.75%) according to prima guide
The crit rate of a dagger = higher then the sword (dexmodifier*120 vs dexmod*80)
The crit rate of the sword is higher then the blunt. (dexmod*80 vs dexmod*40)
To me it looks like the dagger is the best choice of weapon here IF you have no problem with hitting the enemy.
However if you have trouble hitting your target you are better of with a blunt.
Another good thing to consider is your cashflow. If you hate spending lots of soulshots, the best choice is the twohanded sword. It is slower but deals the same amount of damage over time as a sword while costing less soulshots.
I'm unsure about the speed ratings. I'd think damage over time is a better estimate. P.atk does mean something though. Dorf swingin c grade duals kills much faster thand dorf swing no grade anything, even with the grade penalty. I quit keeping around multiple grade weapons for leveling 1-20 a long time ago cuz of this fact. C grade duals, c ss, one or two shot most mobs under level 20. (though it's a friggin expensive way to level to 20)