Heavy Windriders Lance  

 

I got a Planar Lance of Torment on my Ranger, got it really cheap like couple hundred plat, you can go check it out if you want, hope this helps.

Lets looks at how damage should work from a logical computation process....

We have the following stats to determine damage:
Weapon Damage
Weapon Delay
Weapon Bonus Damage
Haste
Attack Rating (made up of):
- Weapon Skill
- Offense Skill
- Strength
- Attack or STR buffs
AA ablilties to enhance damage

And stats to offset damage on the target:
Target AC
Target Defense skills (dodge, riposte, etc)
Target AA abilities (im sure uber mobs have some)

Throw out factors such as primary/secondary hand, number of hits per swing and you come up with a basic weapon rating, usually D=(dmg/dly)*10 which tells us that given no bonus and a single hit for the value of the weapon damange we do D damage every second. Adding the bonus afterwards means you are adding a factor directly related to your level and nothing else so we will ignore it for now.

Given we have D, which is the base damage of the weapon in 1 period (second in this case) of time we figure in a haste value to enchane the number (D*(1+(%haste))), for example (D*1.41). Remember, haste is an increase in attack speed, not decrease in delay (which could be figured if needed). This gives us a new D which we'll call D'. D' can be viewed as a hasted value for base damage per second or can be adjusted relative to the actual delay (since weapons don't have a 1 second delay) by multiplying by delay/10.

The "secret formula" is the multiplier used to adjust D' based on your attack and aa skills with some randomness applied. This is the formula we can only guess at but we do know that the multipler is based primarily on the attack skill. The higher the skill, the higher of a multiplier we can potentially get. We can just call the multiplier R and consider it a value that is multiplied by D'.

Now we have (D'*R) which is our given hit, again assuming 1 hit per swing, and no misses. The average hit over time will be based on the average value of R since D' is a constant. Once the value is computed you add on the bonus of the weapon to get the value number.

Next we figure in our chance to miss. This is where (one would assume) the targets stats come into play. The miss% will factor in the target's AC and avoidance skills as well as your own chance to miss. Damage could be mitigated or you miss completely. The end result is that you either miss, or you end up with reduced damage. My guess is both are possible. The most important thing to note here is that your target plays an important role on how much your average hit is as well as how often you miss or hit them.

Once your mitigated damage is determined you have your end result for that swing. The final step is to determine how many swings you got in that one round. This is where your chance to double (or better) hit comes into play. Most likely if it is determined that your landed a 2nd hit the above process is repeated to determine if you hit or missed on your 2nd swing and how much damage is done. Next round its all repeated again.

Now there can be (and most likely is) other factors that determine weapon efficiency. For example, a 1hs that is 25/25 seems (in my experience) to do less damage than a 35/35 2hs weapon when the ratio (D) is still the same. This might be because for certain classes at least, a 1hs might be penalized over a 2hs weapon (like for a pally) whereas a 1hs on a ranger might do better than an equivalent 2hs. Again its hard to say but those are "unknowns" we have to take into account.

Part of the good economy system of EQ and its zillions of weapons is that what sucks for one class rocks for another and that no one knows the true formulas or else half the weapons we though were awesome would become useless.

What i've been looking at as a pally are the lower delay weapons. We (SK's and Pallies) have a high miss %, lets face it. keeping this in mind, the lance would be a better choice. If i'm going to miss 30% of my hits, I would rather have a 40 delay weapon, and get one extra hit in every 5 seconds then you would using a 50 delay weapon.

(assuming im correct in every 10 delay = 1 second)

Yeah right dude this thing OWNS Windblade. Look at the stat comparison. This thing has way better stats and to top it off it looks pretty cool. On the other hand Windblade looks like a piece of crap. And Windblade's ratio is barely even better...and it wouldn't be noticeable at all when fighting...just that it would hit harder cuz it's damage/delay is slightly higher.

no it doesnt work like that.

Ok I hate to flame (SORRY) but why the hell do people say pwn? That just makes you look dumb. Yeah...it may be the "cool" thing to do but can anyone agree with me on this? It makes you look dumb.