Retaliation

The warrior job ability Retaliation (level 60) is something I rarely use outside Nyzul (for bosses), so I was curious about how frequently it activates. This is something I would probably have a good idea about just from doing Campaign... if I actually did Campaign. Of course, FFXIclopedia's article is not much help as to what actually affects this frequency (there seems to be variability based on something else other than neglecting to reactivate Retaliation), so I went looking for any sort of data elsewhere.

From wiki.ffo.jp, apparently it is thought that Retaliation rate is based on weapon delay, from 20% at 999 delay to 50% at 200 delay, subject to further verification. (At least this is what I gleaned from Google Translate.)

As for data to support that kind of trend, so far I found one source that describes the results of dual wielding Brass Jadagna +1 (334 delay) and Caduceus (216 delay). Indeed, it is not immediately obvious whether Retaliation, in a dual wield context, is dependent only on the main weapon or based on total delay. The results indicate that Retaliation rate depends only on the main weapon:

Brass Jadagna +1 (main)/Cauduceus (sub): 71/244 (.291) with 95% confidence interval (0.2347960, 0.3523304)

Caduceus (main)/Brass Jadagna +1 (sub): 110/241 (.456) with 95% confidence interval (0.3923515, 0.5215964)

I would assume the experiment was done with Retaliation constantly active, at maximum hit rate (95%), and the Retaliation rate is not dependent on mob's melee attack speed and level (to account for the possibility that there were different mobs involved). Even more important, I would assume the rates were estimated by taking the ratio of Retaliation procs over the number of times being hit.

If these assumptions actually hold, then Retaliation frequency does appear to depend on the main weapon delay only, not the total delay from both weapons. The higher delay weapon, Brass Jadagna +1, had a significantly lower rate than the lower delay weapon, Caduceus. It is not clear whether dual wielding would be any different from using a 2-handed weapon, but I don't see why there would be a difference.

Chocobo update: winning streak ended at 10; have won 12 of the last 13 (7 uncontested). Record is 111-79-24-15.