Another half-year in parses

While others hoard screenshots, I hoard parser files. Another six months, another excuse for a filler post based on parser "output." The point of this exercise is to show that parsing can be a useful summary of your activities and, in some cases, help to assess how well you are doing in aspects of the game other than mindless merit damage.

Edit (July 4): updated

An Affable Adamantking? (June 26)

Damage Summary
Player               Total Dmg   Damage %   Melee Dmg  WSkill Dmg   Spell Dmg
BLM (me)                     5     0.04 %           0           0           5
BLM                       1078     8.12 %           0           0        1078
DRK/DNC                   2109    15.88 %        1287         526         296
DRK/NIN                  10090    75.97 %        9756           0         334
Total                    13282   100.00 %       11043         526        1713

Melee Damage
Player            Melee Dmg   Melee %   Hit/Miss   M.Acc %  M.Low/Hi    M.Avg
DRK/DNC                1287   61.02 %       12/2   85.71 %    86/134   107.25
DRK/NIN                9756   96.69 %       83/6   93.26 %     5/187   120.43

Comments: I responded to a Whitegate shout for one of the "beastmen helm" quests that hardly anyone cares about. I had done this previously with NIN/WAR and the assistance of a RDM/WHM by zoning Diamond Quadav until it was isolated from its stooges, and I was interested if they would take a different tack. Actually, their approach called for a DRK-zerg of Diamond Quadav, leaving the BLMs to preoccupy (sleep) the others, which isn't a bad idea yet they still ran out of steam. As you can see, the damage output seemed to be decent enough to pull this off. (The DRK/DNC didn't 2-hour for some reason.) Diamond Quadav being a WHM, of course Benediction ruined this attempt, especially with no attempt to separate the boss from its minions.

Damage Summary
Player               Total Dmg   Damage %   Melee Dmg  WSkill Dmg   Spell Dmg
BLM (me)                  3347    19.23 %           0           0        3347
BLM                       5610    32.23 %           0           0        5583
DRK/DNC                    906     5.20 %         439           0         467
DRK/NIN                   7544    43.34 %        2843        2659        2042
Total                    17407   100.00 %        3282        2659       11439

Melee Damage
Player            Melee Dmg   Melee %   Hit/Miss   M.Acc %  M.Low/Hi    M.Avg
DRK/NIN                2843   37.69 %     198/74   72.79 %     0/167    13.44

Weaponskill Damage
Player                 WSkill Dmg   WSkill %  Hit/Miss   WS.Acc %   WS.Low/Hi   WS.Avg
DRK/NIN                      2659    35.25 %      12/0   100.00 %      38/525   221.58
- Vorpal Blade               2659   100.00 %      12/0   100.00 %      38/525   221.58

With Blood Weapon now unavailable, the only realistic tactic was to isolate Diamond Quadav and proceed to plink away at it with nukes and letting the DRK/NIN "tank." Unfortunately, the guy who wanted to "upgrade" the quadav barbut died without reraise and, in fact, Diamond Quadav is rather accurate for an easily-enfeebled NM, giving the DRK/NIN some trouble with shadows, so I just kited it with gravity and bind until the guy returned along with someone else on bard, making blink-tanking realistic. Meleeing was just terrible (not sure why there was a switch to 1-handed sword), but whatever gets the job done...

Farming Royal Jelly (May 7)

Experience Rates
Number of Fights : 234
Date             : 5/7/2009
Party Duration   : 14:14:40
Total Fight Time : 2:11:13
Avg Time/Fight   : 219.15 seconds
Avg Fight Length : 33.65 seconds

Item Drops
89 beehive chip
13 serving of royal jelly
22 insect wing
6 giant stinger

Comments: For those aspiring to level cooking to 100, it's either Red Curry or Cursed Soup, the latter requiring Royal Jelly, which was inexplicably flagged "exclusive" by some asshole on the "dev team." With a glut of 20 red curries languishing on a mule and sitting somewhere above 99 skill, I tried my hand at farming this shit.

Where do you farm Royal Jelly? You can risk dying to Final Sting while farming pephredos in Wajaom Woodlands (if you melee) or mow down all the Death Jackets, all on a 14-minute respawn timer in Crawler's Nest. 234 bees later, I got a 13th Royal Jelly and I still didn't get to 100 cooking.

More Aura Statues x58 (Jan 21)

Debuff     # Times   # Successful   # No Effect   % Successful
Aspir            2              2             0       100.00 %
Bind            60             43             0        71.67 %
Gravity        117            106             2        90.60 %
Sleep            5              4             0        80.00 %
Sleep II        17             17             0       100.00 %
Stun            37             37             0       100.00 %

Comments: Aura Statues are bothersome with relatively poor enfeebling skill as I showed last time. But at this point, I am pretty sure I had all the key enfeebling pieces, including Oracle's Gloves and Enfeebling Torque, but no Witch Sash, Enfeebling Earring, or corresponding elemental grip. Even so, Gravity outright resisted 9 of 115 times. I would imagine scholar with dark arts and the appropriate equipment and merits would have little trouble enfeebling statues.

Damage mitigation on WAR/SAM with Greater Colibri

Damage Taken Summary
Player         Total Dmg   Damage %   Melee Dmg   Abil. Dmg
WAR/SAM (me)        7727    50.27 %        5660        2067
WAR/NIN             3687    23.99 %        1885        1802
DRG/SAM             1944    12.65 %        1304         640
RDM/WHM              145     0.94 %         145           0
BRD/NIN             1432     9.32 %        1432           0
BRD/WHM              437     2.84 %         437           0
Total              15372   100.00 %       10863        4509

Passive Defenses
Player   Evasion  Evasion %   Parry  Parry %   Counter  Counter %
WAR/SAM        4     3.13 %       7   5.65 %        17    15.18 %
WAR/NIN        3     3.41 %       7   8.24 %         0     0.00 %

Active Defenses
Player   Shadow  Shadow %   Anticipate  Anticipate %
WAR/SAM       0    0.00 %           62       52.99 %
WAR/NIN      56   71.79 %            0        0.00 %
DRG/SAM       0    0.00 %            3       23.08 %
BRD/NIN      54   85.71 %            0        0.00 %

Comments: Where Utsusemi is involved, in KParser the "blink" rate is the number of absorbed attacks over the total number of attacks that weren't evaded or parried. The total number includes TP moves (but not their individual hits). From experience with Greater Colibri, my rate has ranged from 82% to 90%, which seems acceptable if not a sign of hyper-vigilance in recasting Utsusemi.

Similarly, a "Seigan rate" can be calculated by substituting the sum of counters and anticipates for the number of blinked attacks. To the extent that the Seigan rate, as a measure of "active" defensive efficiency, can be maximized with judicious use of Third Eye, it could help identify room for improvement. I have yet to see any discussion about what an optimal Seigan rate might be, though.

Unfortunately, my personal insight on WAR/SAM damage mitigation consists solely of two pickup parties. The parser output above is a partial record of a short (approximately 30 minutes) March 13 merit party where I was actually allowed to sub /SAM. My Seigan rate was 79/128 = .617.

Damage Taken Summary
Player        Total Dmg   Damage %   Melee Dmg   Range Dmg   Abil. Dmg
WAR/SAM (me)      16069    45.15 %       13888           0        2181
BRD/NIN            4669    13.12 %        4669           0           0
DRG/NIN            2780     7.81 %        1576           0        1204
BRD/WHM             176     0.49 %         176           0           0
WAR/SAM           11527    32.39 %        9227           0        2300
WHM/SCH             372     1.05 %         372           0           0
Total             35593   100.00 %       29908           0        5685

Passive Defenses
Player        Evasion  Evasion %   Parry  Parry %   Counter  Counter %
WAR/SAM (me)       10     3.02 %      10   3.12 %        40    13.11 %
BRD/NIN             9     4.39 %       0   0.00 %         0     0.00 %
DRG/NIN             4     2.37 %      10   6.06 %         0     0.00 %
WAR/SAM             9     4.84 %       9   5.08 %        16     9.94 %

Active Defenses
Player        Shadow  Shadow %   Anticipate  Anticipate %
WAR/SAM (me)       0    0.00 %          166       53.38 %
BRD/NIN          164   83.67 %            0        0.00 %
DRG/NIN          134   86.45 %            0        0.00 %
BRD/WHM            3   60.00 %            0        0.00 %
WAR/SAM            0    0.00 %           85       50.60 %

This parser output summarizes defensive efficiency from a June 17 polearm-only (hey, I was curious) merit party (82 minutes) where I was also allowed to sub /SAM. My Seigan rate was 206/311 = .662, a sign of personal improvement but also an indication that I could be more efficient as I was being rather lazy with Seigan renewal. The other WAR/SAM had a Seigan rate of 101/168 = .601. In contrast, the DRG/NIN actually outparsed both of us (draw your own conclusions) and was much more efficient defensively.

Innin could've come in handy here (April 16)

Damage Summary
Player    Total Dmg   Damage %   Melee Dmg   WSkill Dmg
NIN/WAR        4454   100.00 %        2854         1600

Melee Damage
Player    Melee Dmg   Melee %   Hit/Miss   M.Acc %  M.Low/Hi    M.Avg
NIN/WAR        2854   64.08 %      87/62   58.39 %     11/43    30.64

Comments: The reaction to the upcoming (July 2009) Ninja job adjustments, particularly Innin, a new ninja ability that "lowers enmity in exchange for reduced evasion" while conferring bonuses to accuracy, critical hit rate, and ninjutsu damage "when striking your target from behind," has been mixed to put it charitably.

This combination of lower enmity (sounds like this will have the effect of lower rate of enmity increase with Innin active) and increased damage-dealing capability seems peculiar, especially since these new abilities are subject to decay per "development" team fetish. I can imagine the enmity change doesn't "decay" while the damage-dealing part does. But it could be of use in low-number activities where ninjas can still melee, provide enfeebling support, and don't have to worry about positioning, but basically concede "tanking" to a far superior DD (like monk), possibly in conjunction with thieves being unaccountable for the damage they inflict. (Oh, you call that hate control?)

The above output from an "arena-style" fight from the quest "Bonds That Never Die," is a partial picture of how feeble (my) ninja was even with sushi. Being totally outclassed by 2-handers (samurai) who ended up tanking the latter half of the fight, Innin could've helped to speed up the fight.

Okay, this is a really weak argument for Innin, but at least it's something.

An example of NW Apollyon soloing failure (May 10)

Fight #   Enemy               Start Time   End Time   Fight Length
1         Bardha                11:55 AM   11:57 AM       00:02:27
3         Mountain Buffalo      12:00 PM   12:05 PM       00:05:03
4         Mountain Buffalo      12:05 PM   12:13 PM       00:07:32
5         Apollyon Scavenger    12:15 PM   12:17 PM       00:01:40
7         Gorynich              12:20 PM   12:22 PM       00:02:14
8         Gorynich              12:22 PM   12:24 PM       00:01:32
9         Gorynich              12:26 PM   12:28 PM       00:01:42
10        Gorynich              12:31 PM   12:33 PM       00:01:54
11        Gorynich              12:36 PM   12:37 PM       00:01:38
12        Kronprinz Behemoth    12:43 PM   12:47 PM       00:04:16
13        Kronprinz Behemoth    12:50 PM   12:52 PM       00:02:26
14        Kronprinz Behemoth    12:55 PM   12:58 PM       00:02:46
15        Kaiser Behemoth        1:01 PM    1:32 PM       00:31:11

Player          Spell Dmg   Spell %  #Spells  S.Low/Hi     S.Avg
- Aero IV             629    7.47 %        1   629/629    629.00
- Bio                   5    0.06 %        1       5/5      5.00
- Bio II              434    5.15 %        8     16/69     54.25
- Blizzard IV        6345   75.33 %        8   770/853    793.13
- Drain              1010   11.99 %        9    35/165    112.22

Comments: This output represents a wasted opportunity to clear NW Apollyon with ease on my first legitimate attempt. You can see where I wasted a lot of time even with only two buffaloes to kill. Also, I lost valuable time by dying to Kaiser Behemoth somehow. Aspir accuracy is indeed a rate-limiting step (NW Apollyon motivated my earlier posts on Aspir), so to speak, and for some reason I managed to cast Aspir only three times in a half-hour (47, 91, 81). It seems Kaiser Behemoth can be killed in 20 minutes solo (unless the video from some jackoff hume BLM I saw was subtly sped up), so this was very disappointing to me. It's one thing to know what to do, and another to execute actually.

In later attempts, I also decided to cast three times in a "lap" around the fifth floor (Blizzard IV, Aspir, and Bio II or Drain where applicable) as opposed to the two times that others do, but this seemed counterproductive since I wasn't really inflicting damage at a faster rate with a "three-point" approach and I was exposing myself to higher risk.

Ninja, Marinara Pizza, and Temenos - Western Tower

Damage Summary
Player        Total Dmg   Damage %   Melee Dmg  WSkill Dmg   Spell Dmg  Other Dmg
PLD/NIN           32083    14.21 %       25625        5980           0        371
NIN/WAR (me)      79879    35.37 %       53089       26707           0         83
DRK/NIN           53584    23.73 %       28735       21994        1960        895
RDM/WHM            7327     3.24 %           0           0        7327          0
THF/NIN           51155    22.65 %       30764       19718           0        134
SC: Detonation      833     0.37 %           0           0           0          0
SC: Scission        965     0.43 %           0           0           0          0
Total            225826   100.00 %      138213       74399        9287       1483

Melee Damage
Player        Melee Dmg   Melee %   Hit/Miss   M.Acc %  M.Low/Hi    M.Avg  #Crit  C.Low/Hi   C.Avg     Crit%
PLD/NIN           25625   79.87 %    672/121   84.74 %      0/77    35.50     56    32/112   67.11    8.33 %
NIN/WAR (me)      53089   66.46 %   1069/145   88.06 %      0/90    43.69    181    32/139   78.98   16.93 %
DRK/NIN           28735   53.63 %     252/57   81.55 %     0/222   104.41     29   138/287  187.97   11.51 %
THF/NIN           30764   60.14 %     797/72   91.71 %      0/68    28.57    140    29/381   85.67   17.57 %

Weaponskill Damage
Player         WSkill Dmg   WSkill %  Hit/Miss   WS.Acc %   WS.Low/Hi   WS.Avg
NIN/WAR (me)        26707    33.43 %      46/0   100.00 %     159/901   580.59
- Blade: Jin        26078    97.64 %      44/0   100.00 %     268/901   592.68
- Blade: Kamu         629     2.36 %       2/0   100.00 %     159/470   314.50

Passive Defenses
Player             Evasion  Evasion %   Parry  Parry %
BRD/WHM                  1    11.11 %       0   0.00 %
PLD/NIN                 13     8.28 %       3   2.08 %
NIN/WAR (me)            25    11.26 %       6   3.05 %
THF/NIN                  3    15.00 %       0   0.00 %

Active Defenses
Player             Shadow  Shadow %
PLD/NIN                76   53.90 %
NIN/WAR (me)          152   79.58 %
DRK/NIN                 3   27.27 %
THF/NIN                 5   29.41 %

Comments: I had a chance to do Temenos West as NIN/WAR, so I took this opportunity to see how well I could do with Marinara Pizza (+1), which is kind of a boon for 1-handed melee since it overcomes the accuracy deficit that 1-handers face compared to 2-handers and also provides an attack bonus.

Even 44+ accuracy (estimated) wasn't enough to achieve maximum hit rate, though.

Damage Summary
Player               Total Dmg   Damage %   Melee Dmg  WSkill Dmg
RDM/WHM                   4133     1.07 %           0           0
WHM/SCH                   1395     0.36 %           0           0
THF/NIN                  62995    16.29 %       35352       26928
NIN/WAR                 110655    28.61 %       78434       32156
WAR/NIN (me)            113930    29.45 %       72330       41287
PLD/NIN                  49607    12.82 %       29385       19984
Diabolos                   231     0.06 %         231           0
Garuda                   34906     9.02 %        5926           0
Leviathan                   72     0.02 %          72           0
Shiva                     1615     0.42 %         166           0
SC: Detonation            2272     0.59 %           0           0
SC: Impaction              307     0.08 %           0           0
SC: Light                 2034     0.53 %           0           0
SC: Reverberation         1676     0.43 %           0           0
SC: Scission               978     0.25 %           0           0
Total                   386806   100.00 %      221896      120355

Melee Damage
Player         Melee Dmg   Melee %   Hit/Miss   M.Acc %  M.Low/Hi    M.Avg  #Crit  C.Low/Hi   C.Avg     Crit%
THF/NIN            35352   56.12 %    897/104   89.61 %     10/65    30.99    178    28/290   73.42   19.84 %
NIN/WAR            78434   70.88 %    1510/99   93.85 %     0/103    45.94    231    27/150   85.17   15.30 %
WAR/NIN (me)       72330   63.49 %     458/25   94.82 %    50/247   143.30     67   135/306  243.28   14.63 %
PLD/NIN            29385   59.24 %    797/204   79.62 %      0/88    35.23     32    42/128   76.13    4.02 %

Weaponskill Damage
Player             WSkill Dmg   WSkill %  Hit/Miss   WS.Acc %   WS.Low/Hi   WS.Avg
NIN/WAR                 32156    29.06 %      55/0   100.00 %    220/1023   584.65
- Blade: Jin            30307    94.25 %      50/0   100.00 %    220/1023   606.14
- Blade: Kamu            1849     5.75 %       5/0   100.00 %     259/490   369.80
WAR/NIN (me)            41287    36.24 %      56/0   100.00 %    161/1615   737.27
- King's Justice        35740    86.56 %      50/0   100.00 %    161/1291   714.80

Passive Defenses
Player             Evasion  Evasion %   Parry  Parry %
RDM/WHM                  1     7.14 %       0   0.00 %
THF/NIN                  4    50.00 %       0   0.00 %
NIN/WAR                 42    17.00 %       4   1.95 %
WAR/NIN (me)             4     5.13 %       2   2.70 %
PLD/NIN                 16    11.76 %       5   4.17 %

Active Defenses
Player             Shadow  Shadow %
THF/NIN                 3   75.00 %
NIN/WAR               165   82.09 %
WAR/NIN (me)           56   77.78 %
PLD/NIN                77   66.96 %

This other (successful) attempt to clear Temenos West involved a different NIN/WAR using Dorado Sushi. It was really annoying to see average melee and WS damage similar to mine when using Marinara +1, but this could be explained by other factors (birds have low defense, Usukane, more katana merits, more consistent application of Dia II, etc.).

Number of quests

It's not uncommon when visiting FFXIclopedia to see in the "Latest Activity" box some asshole updating a personal checklist of maps or quests. (I myself maintain a list of incomplete quests, but not for public display.) FFXIclopedia does not distinguish between real quests that appear in the quest logs and those that could be considered quests but do not appear in the logs. In case you have some interest in knowing the number of quests available for each region, I've tallied the number of quests that appear in the quest log. (This excludes garbage like "beastman treasure" and chocobo riding.) Please correct me if my totals are wrong.

As of the Sept 2008 version update:

Jeuno:       119
Other:        62
Outlands:     48
Aht Urhgan:   64
Crystal War:  41
San d'Oria:   79
Bastok:       87
Windurst:     89

Total:       589

I will be updating these totals when new version updates come out. Not really useful, but if you ever feel like rebutting some player's claims about doing 500+ quests, you can see if he's (is it ever a she?) BS'ing by asking how many quests he's completed for each region. It doesn't take too long to count accurately, eight at a time, by scrolling with shift + right key.

Nonsense

Since the June update, I've been eagerly awaiting more than one "casual," cutscene-heavy quest to do for the past three months since the fare offered in June was almost non-existent. (Mythic Weapon quests and complete garbage like "The Miraculous Dale" don't even count, but Babban Ny Mheillea was amusing.) Yet the "developers" apparently forgot that key quest-related NPCs disappear during Campaign battle in Bastok Markets (S) and Windurst Waters (S) (and probably San d'Oria, too, depending on your server population's collective ineptitude at Campaign), a ridiculous oversight on their part given that they now allow campaign arbiters (providing teleportation services) and Sigil NPCs to remain during battle (not to mention some Campaign Ops NPCs whom no one cares about). Don't you bootlickers forget that back when "Wings of the Goddess" was released that SE promptly issued an update/fix allowing some quest-related NPCs (for maps) to remain even during Campaign battles. Fuck, even Diordinne sticks around during Campaign.

Obviously, disappearing NPCs in the "hometowns" wasn't a problem before Campaign was fucked with (fixing something that wasn't broken) in favor of the beastmen confederates, and maybe they think this will be moot once loser nations finally get their acts together or the initial surge of interest in the new quests dies down, but it's still puzzling they won't fix something that seems so basic given the fact that they've done it before.

Less time butchering once-orphaned "content" like adventuring fellows, where the "devs" saw fit to reinvent the wheel--same grinding shit just to make entirely cosmetic changes to our fellow's appearance--yet no ToAU availability (who cares if losers "solo" on greater colibri with their fellow?) and no free fourth armor lock. More time on quality-of-life issues, thanks.