> I don't know if any of you have seen the chart of weapons that Lulen has had published at http://everquest.gamestats.com
>
> If you haven't seen these charts, I would suggest you do so. They are a comprehensive list of many of >the weapons in everquest (There are currently over 200 weapons on this list). The chart sorts the >weaponary by it's damage to delay ratio (Actually it uses the formula {[Damage*2]+1}/Delay This is >the damage that a weapon generates up until about level 20 or so, when Level and Strength bonuses >start to show.)

Ok, I still don't understand why I seem to be the only one that is
noticing what is wrong with the damned formula for weapon
efficiency used just about everywhere. That max damage / delay.
You don't do max damage with a weapon.. you do _average_
damage. Yes dex and str and skill will make it closer to max
more often, but on those battles where damage efficiency
really counts as anything (meaning a tough foe, if its a real wimp
who cares what you wield, you sing back more health probably
than what it can do to you) you are doing really rarely max damage.
Now change the formula to damage+1 / delay and it represents
the average damage. And better yet to ease it out, do the reverse
calculation of delay/dmg+1 and it is way easier to check efficiencies
in your head without a calculator ;)

And also, I don't get it why the staff at Verant themselves
(JM Cap-whatitwas posted that nice weapon damage evaluation)
have not tried to use any other than damage/delay formula to
evaluate weapon efficiency. I mean they have had proof from those
simulations they ran and all that faster weapons are more efficient
if they have same dmg/delay ratio. And why the bigger weapons
seem to outdo faster ones at real short under 30 second battles,
well I doubt they do if you calculate the damage they do using
a time frame of 0.1seconds less than x number of strikes from
the slow weapon. So 19.9seconds with 5/20 weapon will do
9 hits compared to the 4 a 10/40 weapon gets. Further analysis
would show that big weapons are better if the time used is short,
and somewhat longer than x times delay. But then when it gets
maybe about x times delay + delay/2 the faster will pick up again
when it gets its hits in that it needs to have used the same overall
time. And any longer period of time as proven by the simulations, the faster
will be better and the slower won't gain any big jumps anymore
in damage when it gets it chance to hit.

Ok I rambled. But this is somewhat on topic, because bards and
dual wield and the speed songs are all in favor of fast weapons
in my opinion. And there is nothing more fun than seeing you hit
4 times between the monsters hits =)

- Ilkka Salmenkaita, isalmen@...