Parry sticks - good, bad, or just for show?

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InsaneEvan
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Parry sticks - good, bad, or just for show?

Post by InsaneEvan »

Ok, so my main is a 110 MA, and I'm thinking about throwing on a level 100 parry stick. I've worked out I don't actually need to add any IP to 1HB, as I can meet the requirement with buffs, and just about keep myself out of OE with expertise.

Does anyone have any idea whether this is a good idea? I've read the other thread that deals with MA weapons, and it's actually given me the idea to start with.

I've been using a low level West Wind Katana that I had lying around in my bank just as a tester, and my damage per minute has actually gone up by a fair bit, so I'm feeling fairly optimistic about moving to a parry stick (as well as having the extra Clsc evade).
I haven't run any numbers yet (which is almost blasphemy to AO players :D ) but simplistically 40 attacks per minute > 30 attacks per minute.

Of course it goes without saying this is just for PvM. For PvP I'd go back to using just fists.

Any ideas?
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Re: Parry sticks - good, bad, or just for show?

Post by Grind42 »

Im not an MA pro but Parry Stick is proably a good option or maybe a "Torture Tool" think thats what they called.

Will check my bank when im online.
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Re: Parry sticks - good, bad, or just for show?

Post by Mrfreeman »

as a MA your fists are your best weapons really untill you hit the lvls able to equip BoBs or Shen Sticks. The reason behind it is that even though you now have 40 attacks (10 more than your normal 30) 20 (or whatever it is) of those will be with your weapon, which will not have the same attack rating or damage as your fists. Usually for any levels other than 210+ the added weapon hits (with lower damage especially on crits which MAs rely on) will not add up to the damage your fists alone will do. Unfortunately with MAs, the amount you would lose for NOT hitting with your firsts is not enough to equal out for the use of a weapon. But as a MA your IP is also very very tight while lvling (atleast i remember it being) and getting a AR high enough for that weapon to be effective would be just yet another IP sink. Bear in mind though that you may find it better suited for your own leveling needs to be well worth equipping as it increases the chance of your procs firing off (33% - if you have LE).

Crits are your bestest friend and fists > any weapon out there for criting
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Re: Parry sticks - good, bad, or just for show?

Post by noobas »

I don't agree with freeman.

I'm a firm believer that with the proper setup an MA using weapons can seriously out damage an MA using only fist.

Reasons:

1. fist is never 1-1.
2. 30 attacks/minute actually is closer to 22-25
3. MA's have tons of add dmg equipment and buffs.
4. all add damage buffs and equip adds multiply to a raised number of attacks.

For example: you have 500 add dmg (if you're wondering how to get this, see other posts in the MA forums),
500*25 attacks per minute=12500 extra dpm
500*40 attacks per minute= 20000 extra dpm.

5. with no add dmg, you'd need to only hit for just less than HALF of your hit with fist to maintain the same dpm. With add dmg, the ratio is less and less. In other words, the more add dmg items and buffs you run, the less you need to hit with your weps in order to keep your damage the same as with just fist.

Now, which item do you want to use? parry stick is good for evades/survival, not for damage.
2x hazangerine claw, on the other hand, is very good for damage, but not for evades.

my recommendation is to get 2x hazangerine bear claws. Try it out, vs RK mobs, aliens, you can't do more damage. In SL, take off the claws, and just use fist.
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Re: Parry sticks - good, bad, or just for show?

Post by InsaneEvan »

Thanks for the advice guys.
noobas, I won't have a problem facing SL mobs, as I'm only a little froob :) , which is why I was thinking about one.
I'm aiming more towards an evade/survival setup, never being hit always appealed to me more than killing a mob faster. DD is good and all, and if I was needed as a DD in a team then I'd switch, but still...

And freeman, I hadn't thought about the fact that the attacks would be divided between fists and weapon as much as that.

I'll run some more tests and see how things work out. Cheers guys.
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Re: Parry sticks - good, bad, or just for show?

Post by Mrfreeman »

this is how i see it, if you do a crit setup with evades and stuff then fists, and then as noobas put if you do add dmg then the weapons would be more effective.

The reason is the difference in a crit weapon hit vs a crit fist hit is more than halved (atleast on my 220 ma it is with shen sticks) so only have the 2 attacks wont be more effect from what I see. You only start to get more damage when the 3rd attack is kicking in (2 weapons and fists) and playing with the agg-def bar to get 1-1 on fists ( what, about 1/5-1/6 from full def will get you to 1-1) I still see jsut fists being more effective and beneficial than adding just a second attack. Now granted, the first weapon I ever used was a BoB (210ish i think it was) so i never tried or tested it out. but for leveling, I dont see the benefits from adding weapons when you get a 200 weapons on at 110 and that weapon will never go up in ql, i.e. you will out grow it too fast without a replacement available.

Attack skills: Martial Arts 67% 1h Blunt 33%
so not maxing your 1hb skills with decrease your damage by a very large ammount, so unless you max that, and equip as high a ql as you can, using a parry stick wont really help (in my opinion)

also 25 to 40 hits per min seems a little off, it doesnt almost double it with a second weapon(recharge).
also, dont forget about all the damage you would lose due to lower crits on the weapons.
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Re: Parry sticks - good, bad, or just for show?

Post by Mrfreeman »

at a 1/1 attack you get:
PvP

Fists only - 26 atks/min

Fists + 1 weap - 36 atks/min

Fists + 2 weaps - 40 atks/min

PvM

Fists only - 26 atks/min

Fists + 1 weap - 34 atks/min

Fists + 2 weaps - 37 atks/min
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Re: Parry sticks - good, bad, or just for show?

Post by Rulzern »

Mrfreeman wrote:at a 1/1 attack you get:
PvP

Fists only - 26 atks/min

Fists + 1 weap - 36 atks/min

Fists + 2 weaps - 40 atks/min

PvM

Fists only - 26 atks/min

Fists + 1 weap - 34 atks/min

Fists + 2 weaps - 37 atks/min
How you'd get PvM numbers lower than PvP numbers is beyond me. :o
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Re: Parry sticks - good, bad, or just for show?

Post by Mrfreeman »

i didnt, i pulled that off the forums ;P anyhow, its probly one or the other or inbetween em
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Re: Parry sticks - good, bad, or just for show?

Post by Rulzern »

This is all assuming 1/1 speed on weapons.

The ideal number is 30 for single-wielding (you'll get this), 1 sec attack, 1 sec recharge. (1 attack in 2 seconds)
The ideal number for dual-wielding is 40 (you won't get this), 1 sec attack, 1 sec attack, 1 sec recharge. (2 attacks in 3 seconds)
The ideal number for triple-wielding is 45 (nope, won't get this either), 1 sec attack, 1 sec attack, 1 sec attack, 1 sec recharge. (3 attacks in 4 seconds)

The reason you won't get the ideal numbers is that recharge interrupts attacking (attacks are paused while recharging) and vice versa, but recharge doesn't interrupt recharging. So the ideal numbers rely on all weapons attacking once, then all of them recharging at once, unfortunately, this doesn't happen very often. Most of the time you'll see maybe a/a/r/a/r/a/r/a/a/r/a/a/r/a/r etc. the exact number of attacks per minute with the different wielding options is not known, because the formula for when each weapon goes into recharge is not known, you can see this easily by attacking a mob while dual-wielding, and watching the attack/recharge bars.

There's also other factors that have an effect on this, nanocasting resets attack bars, but does not effect recharge, you'll have less optimal attack/recharge cycles at the beginning of fights than after a while (it would seem), and I'm not entirely sure if movement effects which weapon is "active".

Also, no other weapon will attack or recharge when one weapon is in attack mode, so if you have one weapon that is 10/1, and two that are 1/1 (weapons a,b and c, respectively, you might have an (ideal) 60-second attack/recharge cycle like this:

Code: Select all

|sec|wep|mod|
|000|  a|  a|
|010|  b|  a|
|011|  c|  a|
|012|abc|  r|
|013|  a|  a|
|023|  b|  a|
|024|  c|  a|
|025|abc|  r|
|026|  a|  a|
|036|  b|  a|
|037|  c|  a|
|038|abc|  r|
|039|  a|  a|
|049|  b|  a|
|050|  c|  a|
|051|abc|  r|
|052|  a|  a|
Leading to 12 attacks per minute (and that's ideally), versus using one of the 1/1 weapons for 30 attacks, the 10/1 weapon for 5 attacks or both 1/1 weapons for 40 attacks.

How much time is allocated for each weapon, and how that is calculated, is a very interesting calculation, if it is allocated in a specific order, and all weapons have the same amount of time allocated, weapons with long recharge become significantly more interesting than weapons with long recharge (even more so than otherwise), since that weapon would end up recharging the other two weapons (ideally), giving you x extra attacks per minute without having any penalty.

So, to get back to the issue of how many attacks you get per minute, it depends, the numbers freeman posted are... strange, to say the least, and to get proper (ideal) numbers, you have to run tests yourself (freeman's numbers do not use 1/1 fist speed, and still gets ridiculously high numbers for PvP, and more normal numbers for PvM, smells fishy to me!)
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Re: Parry sticks - good, bad, or just for show?

Post by Elrojo »

are they adding in attacks in PvP like SA/BS etc that may not be possible in PvM? Otherwise not sure.

I have heard lots of talk in reagards to Free's advice that your extra attacks < Dmg on better attacks.

Only way to know for sure is to whack them on and pew pew pew. Run your own numbers and see.
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