Casual use of Over End is bad...

[Arcanas]

Which is why when I found the Photon Drop dealing selling X elements, I jumped on those and have been stuck on those ever since. At least until I hit 100. Then I'll probably move on to Celeb

[The_Pup]

I use a RAmarl and do play SH. I can hit enemies without problem. For HUs, taking out POW for HIT on a mag for normal attacks isn't such a big hit to their damage output (and shifta only affects base stats+mats, so POW on a mag isn't so important).

As for some information: I use Attacks Per Second as my measure instead of Damage Per Second. It shares some similarity to DPS, but it's a different measure (one is in steps, the other is continual).

- Person A with 100 damage minimum and can do 3 attacks per second (300 damage per second) attacks a monster with 110 HP, he will take it down in 2 attacks or .66 seconds.
- Person B with 150 damage minimum and can do 3 attacks per second (450 damage per second) attacks a monster with 110 HP, he will take it down in 1 attack or .33 seconds.
- Person C with 55 damage minimum will be as efficient as Person A.
- Throwaway Person D with 54 damage minimum will need 3 attacks on occasion.

- Person A attacks a monster with 2000 HP. He will take it down in 20 attacks in 6.66 seconds.
- Person B attacks a monster with 2000 HP. He will take it down in 14 attacks 4.62 seconds.
- Person C will take 37 attacks and will take the monster down in 12.32 seconds.

- Person A Over Ends (7.5 attacks) a monster on spawn with 900 HP (9 hits). He will take it down with (being inefficient) 2 Over Ends or (being efficient) 1 Over End on spawn and 2 attacks. This is where the formulas apply.
- Person B Over Ends a monster 900 HP (6 hits). He kills it. This is where the formula doesn't apply.
- Person C Over Ends monster with 900 HP (17 hits). 3 Over Ends or 1 Over End on spawn and 10 attacks. Also where the formulas apply.

This is also seen in weapon balancing in FPSs. The best example I remember is the railgun, which in vanilla Q3A killed unarmoured opponents with 100 HP, 2 if they had a little armour or 101-200 HP (which caused rage on certain maps because a person could railgun a person and then railgun them on spawn). The railgun in Q3 Live was reduced to 80 damage (IIRC).

vQ3A railgun: 2 hits versus high HP (101-200) or light armour, 1 versus 100 or lower HP (no armour). 3 hits in case of high HP and light armour (enough for 1 hit).
Q3 live railgun: 4 hits versus extreme-max HP (181-200), 3 hits versus high HP (161-180), 2 hits to lighly damaged through above average HP (81-160). 1 hit versus anything at or below 80. With armour it would be 2 hits to something with 80 damage.

[rhubarbot]

I use a RAmarl and do play SH. I can hit enemies without problem. For HUs, taking out POW for HIT on a mag for normal attacks isn't such a big hit to their damage output (and shifta only affects base stats+mats, so POW on a mag isn't so important).

As for some information: I use Attacks Per Second as my measure instead of Damage Per Second. It shares some similarity to DPS, but it's a different measure (one is in steps, the other is continual).

- Person A with 100 damage minimum and can do 3 attacks per second (300 damage per second) attacks a monster with 110 HP, he will take it down in 2 attacks or .66 seconds.
- Person B with 150 damage minimum and can do 3 attacks per second (450 damage per second) attacks a monster with 110 HP, he will take it down in 1 attack or .33 seconds.
- Person C with 55 damage minimum will be as efficient as Person A.
- Throwaway Person D with 54 damage minimum will need 3 attacks on occasion.

- Person A attacks a monster with 2000 HP. He will take it down in 20 attacks in 6.66 seconds.
- Person B attacks a monster with 2000 HP. He will take it down in 14 attacks 4.62 seconds.
- Person C will take 37 attacks and will take the monster down in 12.32 seconds.

- Person A Over Ends (7.5 attacks) a monster on spawn with 900 HP (9 hits). He will take it down with (being inefficient) 2 Over Ends or (being efficient) 1 Over End on spawn and 2 attacks. This is where the formulas apply.
- Person B Over Ends a monster 900 HP (6 hits). He kills it. This is where the formula doesn't apply.
- Person C Over Ends monster with 900 HP (17 hits). 3 Over Ends or 1 Over End on spawn and 10 attacks. Also where the formulas apply.

This is also seen in weapon balancing in FPSs. The best example I remember is the railgun, which in vanilla Q3A killed unarmoured opponents with 100 HP, 2 if they had a little armour or 101-200 HP (which caused rage on certain maps because a person could railgun a person and then railgun them on spawn). The railgun in Q3 Live was reduced to 80 damage (IIRC).

vQ3A railgun: 2 hits versus high HP (101-200) or light armour, 1 versus 100 or lower HP (no armour). 3 hits in case of high HP and light armour (enough for 1 hit).
Q3 live railgun: 4 hits versus extreme-max HP (181-200), 3 hits versus high HP (161-180), 2 hits to lighly damaged through above average HP (81-160). 1 hit versus anything at or below 80. With armour it would be 2 hits to something with 80 damage.

Whoa, again with the math. Brain..... hurting.

How bout this instead:

Person A plays a level 100 HUcaseal with 80 pow mats. Person A equips a 100 pow mag, a noble cloak, a compress pa, two divine/powers, and an element boost, as well as a Celeb 3 Ainsraiffe with 44% Native and 25 hit. Person A then teleports to valley, and commences trying to kill stuff.

First, person A tries just swinging the sword at the things that spawn. Person A kills these things at a certain rate.

Then, person A tries just spamming Over End at the things that spawn. Person A notices that, although there are some minor targeting annoyances here and there and the Difulids seem to be disappearing a tad quickly, overall person A has killed the things that spawned at a much faster rate than before. Person A surmises that this might be because there's a lot of spare time that you have in this game where you're just not really able to hit things, because you're walking toward the things you want to hit, or because you're walking around the things you want to hit so that they don't hit you back. Person A has figured out that he can charge Over End while doing these other things, and it's free—except, of course, for those Difluids. Gee, they sure are running out quick!

Then, person A tries a mixture of using Over End on things and attacking them with normal and heavy attacks. Person A pays attention to the enemies' movement and attack patterns, and notes things like whether he's playing online or offline, and whether or not he has friends with him who are also hitting the enemies, and for how much. Person A has learned, roughly, how much HP the enemies have online or offline and knows, roughly, which combinations of Over End and normal/heavy attacks will be enough to kill the enemies, so as to avoid charging Over End when he doesn't really need to. Person A has also learned, roughly, how to combine moving, charging, and swinging so as to usually be doing something useful at all times, whether that be charging Over End, releasing Over End, or just swinging the sword in the regular old way. Person A notices that this method kills even faster than the second one and seems to not use Difluids as quickly.

See? No math at all. AND it's actually accurate!

[The_Pup]

Whoa, again with the math. Brain..... hurting.

How bout this instead:

See? No math at all. AND it's actually accurate!

But it's... it's... hard-to-read long paragraphs and... don't got... no bullets ;_;

j/k

[FoMarlBorough]

Well, Shields have 25% proc rate, 20% for Saber and Laser cannons, 15%: Daggers, Spear, Claw, Handgun, Gunblade, Bazooka, Rod, Wand, 10%: Sword, Double Saber, Rifle, Mech Gun, Slicer.

Although, considering that swords can strike multiple targets, that 10% I believe is per hit, so let's say you've got 5 bats all swarming. Swing once, and you could probably get one or two hit with Zalure.

I know using the X element, and similar situations, since enemies like to do that, I get and exp steal every other attack. But that's just in my experience, no way does that apply to anyone else.

in my experience, zalure on weapon with 15% proc or lower are really only worth it when fighting a boss. maybe even solo. the time it takes to proc on average is greater than it takes the party to kill the hostile. specially online with decent players.

using x weapons: here is my advice.
lvl1 use grow shower+99, the element will provide far more exp then the killing of said hostile. then switch to a blaze roar switched to x element. procs a lot and will 'make up the difference' from the low proc rate of grow shower. then a good saber with lvl4-5 x and a nice pa. currently my lvl 41 ramarl uses an x anfinsen. with the pa, it procs a lot and the damage is nice. i jell the hostiles to prolong hp.

just my experience.

[Arcanas]

in my experience, zalure on weapon with 15% proc or lower are really only worth it when fighting a boss. maybe even solo. the time it takes to proc on average is greater than it takes the party to kill the hostile. specially online with decent players.

using x weapons: here is my advice.
lvl1 use grow shower+99, the element will provide far more exp then the killing of said hostile. then switch to a blaze roar switched to x element. procs a lot and will 'make up the difference' from the low proc rate of grow shower. then a good saber with lvl4-5 x and a nice pa. currently my lvl 41 ramarl uses an x anfinsen. with the pa, it procs a lot and the damage is nice. i jell the hostiles to prolong hp.

just my experience.

I've got this thing for swords, so I've been using those exclusively. Main reason I also stick to swords, low proc rate aside, is the fact that multiple enemies can be struck in one swing, so usually, after a combo, X will have proc'd at least once for me. I'm level 91 atm, using an XAinsraffe with X lvl 3 and an element boost. One thing I loved about X, when I was playing on normal, was I would steal more exp then the mobs would drop.

[RRyuugu]

Here's where Element effectiveness kicks in.

If you're using Zalure to lower enemy EVP then it means you MUST have Zalure kick in. It is a requirement to be efficient. If Zalure keeps on failing or triggers only on the last hit then the time it took to kill the enemy is significantly longer than the time it took had Zalure triggered during the first hit.

X on the other hand is simply a bonus. If X kicks in you still kill the enemy at the same rate as you would if X does not kick in.

You can't simply take your what you've seen with X and think it'll apply to Zalure. Why you need Zalure is not the same reason why you're using X.

Also PA->Normal Combo is in no way similar to Normal Combo only.

And I quote

[b]so Over End by itself,[b] against a single enemy, is actually less efficient than normally attacking with the sword

There was no mention of the PA->Normal Combo in the first post anywhere, it only mentioned two situations Over End only and Normal Attack only. In terms of actual effectiveness the order would go as far as Swords and Over End are concerned.

PA->Normal
PA Only
Normal Only

Everyone knows that. Everyone who's bothered optimizing their gameplay strategy anyway.