Clonk DPS: Quarterstaff THF vs. Unarmed TWF

[Arlathen]

This is a repost of a reply I made in the Multi-class forum and thought it was worth posting here for the rest of the Cleric forum to view separately and comment on.

A numeric comparison of Quarterstaff vs. Unarmed for the Average Clonk Build

Ok, Here's what I've found by looking into the numbers side of Quarterstaff vs. Unarmed Attacks.

Spreadsheet Link Here

Assumptions (Theres a lot!)

Unarmed Clonk: Str, Dex, Con and Wis based character
Quarterstaff: Str, Con, Wis and Cha based character

Strength: Strength is assumed as 26 for both characters. A Moderate amount in hindsight, but one that shows a more average players likely ending strength score.

Criticals: It is assumed that neither character has improved critical for there respective weapon or chosen fighting style. A case could be made for Rahls Might, but at thus stage I've left absolute weapons out. This allows for a better direct comparison of the fighting styles.

Magical Effects 1: Base Weapons: In the initial Case Scenarios, a +5 Weapon / +5 Holy Burst weapon of Pure Good is assumed.

Magical Effects 2: ToD Rings: To be fair to unarmed fighting potential, I have included a late game scenario where dual ToD rings with Holy Burst and Shocking Burst has been crafted to improve damage output. A Quarterstaff based monk would spend the same time farming and crafting, but possibly for other Clonk related effects (Greater Devotion 8, Exc. Str +2 or Exc. Wis +2 are all possibilities).

Divine Might: Due to the high base attribute required, the Unarmed fighter is assumed to only achieve at best Divine Might rank 1 for +2 Damage. The Quarterstaff fighter is assumed to achieve Divine Might rank 3 for +6 damage.

Greensteel: I have not included a Greensteel weapon for Quarterstaff fighting, in this first round. Again, this is to leave out explicit weapon case scenarions to give a better feel for unarmed style vs. quarterstaff style.

Speed: Speed of Attack is ignored. These damage calculations work over amount of damage generated from a set number of swings. Although there is an argument for the speed improvement of unarmed attacks versus weaponed two weapon fighting, Quarterstaff swings faster than other equivalent THF weapons. For the purposes of calculating damage over set number swings, this is ignored.

Glancing Blows: The initial set of calculations assumes Glancing Blows generated against main target only. Later calculations may include case scenarions where more than one target is within range.


Formula Discussions

No. of Attacks: The Case scenarions are worked out over a series of 20 attack. The first attack is assumed an automatic miss, while the 20th attack is assumed a confirmed critical attack as both unarmed and quarterstaff fighting share the same 20/x2 critical hit profile.

Offhand Hand Attacks: Offhand attacks are assumed the Unarmed fighter has the full Two Weapon Fighting chain, and thus strikes at 80% efficiency (16 attack out of 20).

Glancing Blows: Glancing Blows are calculated on the 1st, 3rd and 4th attacks, ie 75% efficiency (15 attacks out of 20).

Chance to Hit: Chance to hit is taken as hitting enemy mob on 2+, and thus the first main attack is calculated as an automatic miss. Offhand and Glancing Blow attacks are all calculated as hitting but not causing any critical hits.



Calculation Obversations

Strength: Strength applies at 1x on a main hand attack and at 1.0x on the offhand attack. Combined, this is a total 2.0x modifier to strength when both a Main Hand attack and Offhand attack is delivered. For THF, Strenght counts at 1.5x on the main attack. As strength is factored into the base damage amount, this means that strength is applied at 0.75x on the Glancing Blow. Thus Strenght is actually applied at 2.25x when both a main hand attack and glancing blow attack are delivered.

Power Attack: Despite the gain of 2x PA Damage for THF, The same amount of damage applies to an offhand attack for unarmed fighting. However, PA Damage also applies to the base damage amount, and thus GTHF Glancing Blow receives 50% of this applied damage. Thus, PA counts 2x for TWF and 2.5x for THF when both an Offhand or Glancing Blow are delivered.

Divine Might: Again, Divine Might applies to the base damage roll of both the Mainhand and Offhand attacks when TWF. THF also count Divine Might into the base main hand damage, and thus TWF counts Divine Might 2x and and THF counts Divine Might 1.5x when both an Offhand or Glancing Blow is rolled.

Divine Favour: DF counts at base +3 to damage for both a Mainhand attack and for an offhand attack in the TWF style, and thus counts at 2x when both attacks are delivered. For THF, the Divine Favour bonus is counted as a base damage modifier, and thus 0.5x damage of DF is applied to Glancing Blows. DF thus counts at 1.5x for THF when both a main hand attack and a glancing blow is delivered.


Case Scenarios

1) +5 Weapon, Power Attack, Strength 26

Unarmed DPS: 744 total
Quarterstaff DPS: 854 Total
Percentage Difference: Quarterstaff leads by 15% over unarmed

The initial scenario pits justs the basics against each other here: a normal +5 Weapon, Strength, Power Attack and base weapon damage itself. Averaged out with offhand attacks and Glancing Blows vs. a single target the Quarterstaff wins out. This is due to the hidden influence of Strength and Power Attack on the Glancing Blow damage.

2) As Case Scenario 1 - Weapon upgraded to +5 Holy Burst of Pure Good

Unarmed DPS: 1152
Quarterstaff: 1084
Percentage Difference: Unarmed leads by 6%

Static linear factors such as average damage from magical effects work in significant favour of unarmed attacks. Glancing Blows work well with increases to base damage - additional effects will benefit unarmed TWF much more. As a simple mathematical multiplier, each magical effect improves TWF by 2x while it only improves THF at 1.09x (counted as 1.1x in the spreadsheet for ease of representation).

3) As Case Scenario 2 - Divine Favour and Divine Might integrated

Unarmed DPS: 1323
Quarterstaff: 1336
Percentage Difference: Negligible


This scenario again highlights the increasing fact base damage increases really influence the Quarterstaff numbers. This is perhaps the most 'optimal' scenario a Clonk will experience, outside of Raid loot and ToD rings. And its a dead heat, pretty much.

One significant factor in the calculation cannot be overlooked however - this situations are calculated using with only a single main target and thus only 1 Glancing Blow being produced per swing. With more targets in Range, Glancing Blows produce significantly more DPS (will look into actual numbers later).

4) As Case Scenario 3 - ToD Rings with Holy Burst and Shocking Burst

Unarmed DPS: 1667
Quarterstaff DPS: 1336.5 (Unchanged from Case 3).
Percentage Difference: Unarmed leads by around ~24%

So once your all geared up with ToD rings, Unarmed strips ahead by 24% give or take. The only way in this situation for Quarterstaff fighting to keep up is to produce more glancing blows, which means standing in bigger packs of mobs - doable, depending on your Clonk build.


Overall Conclusion

In all in all, if you are fully raid equipped and willing to sacrifice your ToD Rings slots to melee magical effect damage, then Unarmed is the choice in single target DPS situations. This also assumes you are fighting mobs fully susceptible to your magical effects attacks.

If you want better base damage numbers with the potential of larger damage versus greater enemy mobs, or if you want to spend your ToD Ring Slots on exceptional stats or Greater Devotion VIII, then Quarterstaff is your choice.

I think I'll go away and look at specific weapon situations. It's obvious to me now that a Rahls Might isn't the greatest weapon of choice when comparing with the possibilities of unarmed fighting. Despite its D10 base damage and x3 Critical multiplier, there isnt enough critical action in a Clonk build to warrant this as a weapon choice outside of Epic trash beating. That said, I think this is one of the better staff I would want for beating down an Epic Trash mob, and glancing blows would be stellar in a pack of Held Mobs as well. An Unspressed Dreamspitter also make this list here, but more for the level draining aspect on auto crits.

Glancing Blow analysis is warranted. It fairly easy to farm a group of Mobs together to better utilise Glancing Blows.

[t0r012]

"Speed: Speed of Attack is ignored." = Fail

[Arlathen]

"Speed: Speed of Attack is ignored." = Fail

Speed of Attack = Equal, therefore ignored. This is explained. Go troll elsewhere unless you have something to constructive to offer.

[richieelias27]

Speed of Attack = Equal, therefore ignored. This is explained. Go troll elsewhere unless you have something to constructive to offer.

Uhh... speed of attacks are not equal between unarmed and Quarterstaff. You would have to calculate exactly what the difference is between Quarterstaff vs other TH weapons. If that is equal to the improvement of unarmed vs other twf weapons, only then would they be an equal comparison.

[dkyle]

Glancing blows don't crit.

No Divine Favor, or Bard songs?

Calculating offhand attakcs by assuming they roll 5-20 is not accurate. This inflates the numbers by ignoring that offhand attacks can roll 1s. Same for glancing blows, they can roll ones if they proc.

[silverskylance]

Strength: Strength applies at 1x on a main hand attack and at 0.5x on the offhand attack. Combined, this is a total 1.5x modifier to strength when both a Main Hand attack and Offhand attack is delivered. For THF, Strenght counts at 1.5x on the main attack. As strength is factored into the base damage amount, this means that strength is applied at 0.75x on the Glancing Blow. Thus Strenght is actually applied at 2.25x when both a main hand attack and glancing blow attack are delivered.

I didn't read the whole post yet, but...
Don't unarmed offhand attack receive FULL strength bonus unlike the normal TWF?

[Talltale-Storyteller]

Great Post but a few other sources of damages you did not include:

1. You listed STR being applied at 0.5 on offhand attacks for handwraps - you get full STR mod on offhand strikes for handwraps, not 0.5 like most weapons, this should have a fairly significant impact on your calculations. (EDIT: I looked at the spreadsheet, and I think you did calculate it as full but your post says 0.5, can you clarify?)

2. You mentioned TOD rings, but did not do a calculation for them, and yet this is one of the larger sources of unarmed damage.

3. Sneak attack, if any - but many people roll halfling clonks, is applied on a per hit basis, not suggesting you do a calculation on this, but it deserves to be mentioned.

4. Ki strikes, can also proc on offhand attacks. Earth ki strike is +4 damage.

5. You can fight in wind stance for an additional 10% offhand rate.

6. if you are a 17/3 and you have fol you heal more, and gen more ki for finishers with more attacks - meaning more ki strikes, like the earth finisher for a x4 crit. (This would also be a huge pain to calculate - not asking you to, but again it deserves to be mentioned.)

So that said, I agree that the glancing blows thing is huge - especially if you are standing in your blade barrier fighting 10+ mobs getting those glancing blows.

I know that on my character though, things die faster when I use handwraps. The attack speed was not calculated, and I understand why - it would be a bit of a pain, but the fact of the matter is that it is important and to not do it invalidates the entire spreadsheet, because I would be willing to hazard that handwraps attack speed are at least 10-15% faster than a quarterstaff's.

Again though solid effort, if you can find a way to incorporate attack speed into it, i think it would be an awesome tool to reference in future discussions.

My response to the same post in the other thread.

Not calculating the attack speed is a huge lack of data that invalidates all the rest of the work you have done.

[Talltale-Storyteller]

I didn't read the whole post yet, but...
Don't unarmed offhand attack receive FULL strength bonus unlike the normal TWF?

I noticed this as well, but in his spreadsheet it appears (to me, but I may be missing something) as though he listed the full value.

[MrCow]

A minor thing that no one else touched on yet is that damage values tend to round down in DDO where applicable. This has an impact on the Quarterstaff and its glancing blows. If, for instance, you have a base damage spread of 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, and 33 (1d6 + 27) the glancing blow's damage spread with Greater Two Handed Fighting would be 14, 14, 15, 15, 16, 16. Due to this, there is some overestimation of the Quarterstaff's damage capabilities.

[Raoull]

Here is some detailed analysis of attack speed.
http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?p=3275611

Of particular note:

Attacks Per Minute Haste Table

Haste %	TWF/1HF	FastTHF	SlowTHF	Unarmed		
0%      87.59    88.89   85.71   96.00	
5%      91.95	 92.31	 88.89	100.00	
10%     96.77	 96.00	 92.31	104.35

10% is trivial to do, either with Haste, or air stance. Using it Unarmed is 8.5% faster than the faster THF sequence. (There seems to be some disagreement as to where Staffs line up.)

Other random error in your calculations.... with unarmed fighting, unlike normal TWF, offhand attacks use full str.


Without glancing blows, unarmed will easily beat staff. Glancing blows confuse it greatly... but one thing of note is glancing blows are at a significant minus to hit. That may matter little for a 40+ STR barbarian, but is rather significant for a clonk.

And while that leaves the true picture of combating a single target fuzzy.... I don't think the many target scenario (where THF easily beats TWF) matters for clonks as much as it does for true melees. If the pack of mobs is too thick, BB is the answer for clonks.

[t0r012]

Speed of Attack = Equal, therefore ignored. This is explained. Go troll elsewhere unless you have something to constructive to offer.

Sorry but not having attack speed means you calculation are completely invalid.

no matter how many time you say "this is explained" won't help because it isn't. Speed of attack is not equal.

yes in your formula they are equal since you calculated per attack but that means nothing in real terms.
Your post references DPS yet you calculate with a set number of swings, not swings per set time frame.

what you were trying to accomplish a comparison between unarmed and quarterstaff for a clonk was not achieved. to me not achieving the goal you set out to accomplish = fail.
-------------

Look I understand you put a lot of time and effort into this I'm not knocking that , just your results. Take a little more time to figure the attack speed in your calcs (and double strikes) and you have a winner.

or you could just use the tools that are already around such as
http://www.afterlifeguild.org/Thott/ddo/

and just plug your numbers in.

[Raoull]

Look I understand you put a lot of time and effort into this I'm not knocking that , just your results. Take a little more time to figure the attack speed in your calcs (and double strikes) and you have a winner.

or you could just use the tools that are already around such as
http://www.afterlifeguild.org/Thott/ddo/

and just plug your numbers in.

As much as I like an use that tool.... it doesn't determine attack speed at all. You need to know that number to input it into the tool.

Also... I think its using an old system for TWF, it seems that GTWF gives a 75% boost to damage instead of the 80% it should be giving. That... and it doesn't deal with glancing blows at all.

A useful tool... but not so much for this discussion.

[Steveohio]

As the others have pointed out, calculating DPS vs wraps and staves that doesn't take into a account attack speed is fail.
Also, having DM1 on wraps vs dm3 on staves is another fail.

1/2 Str bonus on offhand for wraps, again fail.

Whats even more fail, is the fact that your "final end game" calculations do not take into effect the mabar wraps or bursting, greater X bane + icy burst + pure good/Bleed + ToD rings.

Calculate those numbers, adding in attack speed, and throw in any staff in the game you want, WRAPS will decided own the bejesus out of quarterstaves. I mean, its not even a close comparision anymore.

Anyone else find it funny, that even with a lower attack speed, 1/2 str bonus, and no good weapons, ie greensteel, Rahl's, etc, Epic Soul Eater, Endless night wraps, Bursting - Greater banes of pure good, etc..

...that handwraps are still beating out staves by 25%, with bad math favoring the staves?

I have had an Acrobat 2 kensai 1 monk1, staff user, the damage is not even to be compared to a fully hasted, ToD ringed out wrap user.

MAYBE a case can be made for Half Orc staff users with 32pt or lower builds, but honestly, I know that +4 dmg isn't going to take them that much higher now, with the loss of DM3, and maybe even dm2.