A comparison of 5-hit Rindomaru with Hagun

The great katana Rindomaru is one of those new "fey" weapons that can be augmented through the quest "Succor to the Sidhe," and with the possibility that Rindomaru can be augmented with a heap of Store TP, a "5-hit Rindomaru" setup could theoretically rival the boilerplate "6-hit Hagun."

The main comparison here is whether the increased WS frequency from a 5-hit Rindomaru overcomes the Hagun's TP bonus, or whether a hypothetical 25% increase in weapon skill frequency overcomes the 20% increase in weapon skill damage with the TP bonus for the Yukikaze/Gekko/Kasha triumvirate.

A crude calculation of efficency with "most things being equal" could be something like [(88*4+700)/30/(86*5+800)*37.5 - 1]*100 = 6.91%, that is, Rindomaru is more efficient with really crude simplifications. But surely we can be more sophisticated than that.

To start, here is a description of a pretty good augmented Rindomaru (15 Store TP, +4% weapon skill damage, etc.) as well as some specific, full-Usukane equipment setups for both 5-hit Rindomaru and 6-hit Hagun with minor differences, such as Sword Strap for Hagun and White Tathlum for Rindomaru. I will be basing my calculations based on these setups... and the canonical Greater Colibri.

Calculating average time to 100 TP

Weapon	Average no. of rounds	Average no. of hits		Average time (s)
Rindomaru	3.774	4.123		28.310
Hagun	4.690	5.123		34.159

Here, I am assuming 15% double attack rate and 95% hit rate. For Hagun, the reduction of delay is from 450 to 437. Under these conditions, the increase in WS frequency is about 21%.

Calculating average damage to 100 TP (including weapon skill damage)

Weapon	AA "base" damage	WS "base" damage	Average AA damage	Average WS damage	Total damage
Rindomaru	88	167	580.640	709.992	1290.632
Hagun	86	169	705.051	818.463	1523.515

The assumption of using a weapon skill immediately upon getting 100 TP is not all that realistic, but then again all comparisons like this are based on "ideality" and the excuse that this is all supposed to be the case "in the long run." Take the comparison with a brick of salt as you consider the conditions under which it's made.

As another "ideal" assumption, I suppose that pDIF is maxed out for weapon skill damage, and is 1.6 on average in the auto-attack phase. The average number of hits per weapon skill is 1.0925.

How do I account for the "+4% weapon skill damage" on that hypothetical Rindomaru? It sounds like it could be incorporated into the fTP factor. Thus, the fTP factor for the first weapon-skill hit is 1.975 for Hagun and 1.7025 for Rindomaru. For this case, Hagun's average WS damage is about 15% higher.

I also accounted for Meditate but no Overwhelm, mainly because I don't know if Overwhelm affects all hits of a weapon skill.

Damage per second

Weapon	AA proportion of total damage	DPS	Relative efficiency
Rindomaru	.450	45.588	+2.21%
Hagun	.462	44.600	---

Here, you would want to compare the theoretical AA proportion of total damage to what you actually experience.

On paper, this idealized Rindomaru is actually better than Hagun on paper. At this point, you may wonder if using a weapon skill immediately at 100 TP is realistic, so consider also the fairly extreme case of waiting an additional round past 100 TP before WSing (equivalent to starting from 0 TP).

Another comparison of damage per second by "wasting" an attack round beyond 100 TP

Weapon	AA proportion of total damage	DPS	Relative efficiency
Rindomaru	.496	41.286	---
Hagun	.495	41.631	+0.83%

You can think of the last two tables as representing the ideal lower and upper bounds of how fast you WS after attaining 100 TP... in the long run. So if you hold TP, the additional TP will "benefit" Hagun more than Rindomaru and the relative benefit of having a 5-hit setup with Rindomaru is eroded.

Finally, note that this hypothetical Rindomaru has +4% weapon skill damage, which I assumed is an fTP bonus. I consider this the key attribute that allows Rindomaru to eke out a slight edge.

Of course, as far as Greater Colibri are concerned, polearm with attack buffs would be more "fun" as far as cranking out Penta Thrusts with an average easily exceeding 1k. I did manage to find a forum thread with a parse of a 5-hit Tomoe where the AA proportion was about .38.