Some Melee Weapon PA Statistics (revamped 1/3/2015)
Basically finding paper DPS and other statistics, mainly for Fighter and some Tech Arts JA Bonus searching.
The disclaimers, explanations, and what-have-you. To sum it up, this is mostly on-paper super simple data and whatnot.
Spoiler!
PAs that have potential usage for Tech Arts JA Bonus usage
Difference between Just Attacking at the earliest opportunity and the latest opportunity
Some semblance of weapon comparison. Mostly Fighter main-oriented comparisons, though.
See if some PAs or charge animations actually follow the visual recordings or they come out faster on some instances.
The problem is that I can't have a stable recording of 60FPS, so doing accurate frame data measurements is hard. Also doesn't help if frames aren't exact.
Current process is:
Use gaming mouse to click perfectly on intervals
set the click down time for a small frame of time. I have it at 50ms, which would be 4-5 frames on 60FPS.
Find the lowest delay between clicks that a Just Attack will perform (consistently JAs at this delay, and lowering by 10ms causes inconsistent or no JAs)
Find the highest delay between clicks that still JAs (where adding 10ms causes inconsistent or no JAs)
For charged PAs, try varying the time holding down the button to see when the charged version pops up.
Obviously, somebody's already done frame data testing, but as far as I know it's either not compiled consistently on the swiki, so while waiting on random events or people to hop on I've done some timing on and off for this.
What I've compiled:
Minimum JA intervals
Maximum JA intervals
Difference between the two as a percentage
On-Paper DpS; literally Power notation divided by Minimum JA intervals. Keep in mind this may not actually apply for a certain PA, and that this is essentially relying on stationary mobs for these simple comparisons.
On-Paper DpPP; Power notation divided by PP spent.
For weapon/PA specific modifiers I try to add those back on.
For (light) cross-weapon comparisons I standardized said power. I'm just using Bio weapons for easy standardization on this.
Again, most of this is from me wanting to see potentially useful TAJAB combos and maybe find some insight on potentially useful PAs on Fighter. So basically I have nothing outside of Orange weapons right now, since those are the ones most relevant to Fighter.
Some notes:
Hitstop (delay on attack animation on hitting an enemy) generally isn't factored in.
If it is, it's on the notes section on the far right of specific weapon PAs.
Most travelling PAs I have pointed at a wall to simulate point-blank usage.
Generally all the testing was done in the campship whenever possible. I'm lazy.
There are some times where legitimately weird shit happens. There was a time a few months back where Quake Howling had a JA interval of like a third of what would be expected from standard usage, and I had a hard time finding when it stopped JAing because particles and sound effects were going crazy. It changed back to reasonable levels like a week afterwards. So sometimes weird shit happens. If something seems off, post it and I can try redoing it.
Obviously, since it's not frame data, it won't be perfect. And I'm incrementing by units of 10ms, and working with what seems to consistently JA. If that's not enough for you, you're welcome to do the frame data recordings yourself.
However it seems to to be fairly consistent. Mixing up mouse delay and delay between clicks/holds doesn't seem to affect the JA intervals.
I have it on Drive here. Still a ton of work to go on it, but at this point I think it's at least partially useful for Hunter and Fighter weapons at this point.
Metrics Currently Displayed:
JA Interval (ms) - Lowest JA timing found
Perfect Timing Improvement (%) - Percent DPS improvement from Just Attacking at the START of the window, rather than the END
Power per Second (%/s) - Photon Art's actual Power dealt over time without consideration of overall attack
Power per PP (%/PP) - PA Power notation per PP spent without consideration of overall attack
Pseudo-DPS (Damage/s) - Includes the (net) attack of the weapons in determining DPS
Pseudo-DpPP (Damage/PP) - Includes the (net) attack of the weapons when calculating PP efficiency
Reference Table:
* - PA deals more or less damage than power notation implies. This is independent from gear usage. Some of these are significant, a lot are something silly like a three hit PA dealing 34% of it's notation per hit, leading to 102% overall damage.
(G) - Gear is at max level on a heat system (e.g. Sword)
(g) - Gear is consumption based and a single gear is used (e.g. Wired Lance)
(3g) - Gear is consumption based and all 3 gears are used (e.g. Double Saber)
† - PA in question fires hitboxes out in several directions, making it extremely questionable whether all hits can actually land remotely reliably.
Hunter Weapons:
Spoiler!
Sword:
Ignite Parrying has the first four slashes get more powerful with Just Guarding during their slashes, and the last two hits are apparently affected by gear. Apparently in ideal blocking conditions, and at max gear, Ignite Parrying could do twice the power notation in damage.
Sacrifice Bite gives a 20% modifier to all Sword PAs while it's active.
Charge times vary a bit depending on the PA, but for this chart they're all assumed to be at maxed-gear charge rates. Later on I could add in segments depending on the charge time. Or using uncharged. Hitstop on Sword is huge, so take this with a grain of salt.
Cruel Throw might be off, since I don't think I did testing with max gear. Ohwell.
Partisan:
Slide End and Assault Buster actually have a .5s charge time.
Wired Lance:
Fighter Weapons:
Spoiler!
Twin Dagger:
Outside of Wild Rhapsody and Orchestra, all of the good damaging PAs are also height-gaining PAs. Mixed blessing, since they'll gain gear, but also drift towards eventually missing the weakspot or hitting the vertical attack ceiling.
Might add in the shift spin for funsies sometime.
Double Saber:
Fake Capture might be cool with the new grab changes.
Knuckles:
Once again going to note that BHS has a 1.25x modifier for having max gear that was not included in the power notation post Ep3 for some reason. Hasn't been directly nerfed.
Straight Charge is also weird and is fully charged at .5s, even though the animation implies it's much longer. No, it doesn't change with gear either. It's also been that way as long as I can remember.
Meteor Fist may or may not have the same deal, but that'd be difficult to find and it'd be awful on paper and in practice even with half the charge time.
Hybrid Weapons:
Spoiler!
Gunslash:
Keep in mind that for pseduo-DPS I am considering that this weapon deals all striking damage, or at least that ranged damage is equal to striking damage.
Katana:
Here's a TAJAB-utilizing idea; try alternating between Tsukimi-Sazanka and Gekka-Zakuro, since Tsukimi is a jump and Gekka is faster when used from midair. It'd be an alternative to Hatou, albeit with more PP burn.
For the first charging interval, the holding window is between 400-800ms (.4-.8s).
Thanks! That confirms a few suspicions I had, like how Kestrel Rampage seems to come up very short (lower power on top of low Bouncer multipliers compared to Hunter) next to Holding Current in a chain finish, and how Heavenly Kite in a chain finish felt like it'd be more DPS if only there was a hitbox big enough for two Heavenly Kites to hit while moving vertically upwards. The DB timings also look pretty consistent with what I've been able to get in a chain finish window.
Yet you'll kill a target with high HP faster with Kestrel Rampage than any other dual blade PA. On paper DPS is rarely relevant for action games, there are too many variables.
I'm not saying this is useless information, though, I'm particularly interested in the interval stats, that's really good to know.
Sacred Skewer and Volg Raptor are not the only partisan PAs to receive a damage bonus from the gear.
The difference in DPS between Ignite Parrying with guarding and Ignite Parrying without guarding is immense >_>
Yet you'll kill a target with high HP faster with Kestrel Rampage than any other dual blade PA. On paper DPS is rarely relevant for action games, there are too many variables.
Yes, one of the many variables I was referring to :P I have not tried BO/GU (or GU/BO), but I can totally see why a long PA would be bad with Chain Trigger.
Yet you'll kill a target with high HP faster with Kestrel Rampage than any other dual blade PA. On paper DPS is rarely relevant for action games, there are too many variables.
That's why I have disclaimers and have equal amounts of info about PP usage as well.
Sacred Skewer and Volg Raptor are not the only partisan PAs to receive a damage bonus from the gear.
Looks like Trick Rave does too, since it gets another hit or something. Can add that in after this falz. Otherwise I haven't really noticed it nor do I see it on swiki, so point out an example and I can check it out sometime.
Could you do wands too? They seem to be the only melee weapon missing from the list, and I'd find it interesting to be able to compare the power/time of wand strikes against single enemies to the power/time of Hunter PAs.
Originally Posted by Walkure
Looks like Trick Rave does too, since it gets another hit or something. Can add that in after this falz. Otherwise I haven't really noticed it nor do I see it on swiki, so point out an example and I can check it out sometime.
When using Photon Arts through Gear, it grants an additional effect for +10% power. (Excluding Sacred Skewer and Volg Raptor)
It seems to just be talking generally, so I always thought it meant that it applies to all the PAs now. It says it excludes Sacred Skewer and Vol Graptor because they already had a bonus from the gear before the change.
I'm confused about why Pick Up Throw has such a low power/time rating on the chart. It's the highest power partizan PA, and it seems to execute quickly. Isn't this a good DPS PA to use with the new grab mechanics now?
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