Hey guys,

i thought i have to clear up sume false information, which was spread by some guys in this forum. Here are the basics of Leftaxe penalty and SB specs in general:

The most important point is the LA penalty. The argument of this certain user is: "Don't spec LA because CS style are unaffected from LA spec and speccing into LA only raises offhand dmg. Thats false.

As soon, as you equip your LA, your mainhand and offhand basedmg goes down to 66% each. For every point, you spec/sc/rr into LA, you will gain 0,3% dmg. CS/Weapon speclines stylebonus are unnaffected by la spec, but because stylebonus/growthrates on styles are multipliers that scale on your basedmg, they are in a way affected by LA spec as long as you equip an offhand.

He also argues, that CS styles have such a high stylebonus, that you can ignore speccing into LA. He might have a point here. You have to make the math on it:

1. How high is the growthrate on the CS styles, compared to the 4 main styles of LA(Double frost, after evade combo and backstyle)?
2. If CS styles have a higher growthrate then LA, are they high enough to compensate the penalty of a low LA spec?
3. Can you value the pro and con of having the LA stuncombo into the math?
4. How much does low vs high envenom count in value?

Here are thePerforate artery, Backstab I & II caps, they don't have growthrates and work a little diferent:

Perforate Artery Cap = 75 + Critical Strike Spec * 9 + Nonstyle Cap
Backstab II Cap = 45 + Critical Strike Spec * 6 + Nonstyle Cap
Backstab I Cap = ~5 + Critical Strike Spec * 14 / 3 + Nonstyle Cap

Here are the growthrates of the most important LA and CS styles besides the PA or backstab chain:

Critical Strike:
Pincer - 0.92 - Sidestyle
Hamstring - 1.15 - Evade
Garrote - 0.78 - Anytime
Achilles Heel - 1.07 - Garotte follow up
Leaper - 1.31 - Harmstring follow up
Rib Seperation 1.29 - Leaper follow up

Left Axe:
Comeback - 0.93 - Evade
Snowsquall - 0.89 - Backstyle
Doublefrost - 0.72 - Anytime
Frosty Gaze - 0.99 - Comeback follow up


Here are three RR2/3 full autotrain specs for comparison:

44CS/15LA/38Weapon/38Envenom/38Stealth = 74,1 % basedmg (total 27LA)
39CS/12LA/44Weapon/38Envenom/38Stealth = 73,2 % basedmg (total 24LA)
34CS/39LA/38Weapon/30Envenom/38Stealth = 81,3 % basedmg (total 51LA)

Remember that more base dmg means a higher value of every stylemultiplier.

Add in some "Dualist reflexes", which increase the basedmg of main and offhand for 3% per level for even better results.

So, these numbers are proven facts, based on patch 1.65.

But wait there is more!

There are some more things you have to consider. Do you spec CS only to get the styles, or in detail, what is the difference on PA, compared with 34 and 50 in CS? How much value do you get from speccing over 51 composite on sword/axe? These are numbers i can not provide yet, but i will try to find some more data about it, or test it myself with alot of respec stones, as soon as i hit 50 again


The temporary verdict:

Every spec of these 3 can work well. It just depends in what playstyle you want to excel with. None of these are gimped or impossible to play with. 39LA might win you alot duels because of the 7 second stun. High CS might give you good numbers on the PA and evade chain. High weapon will give you more weapon skill and therefore more hits on shield and evade targets.

I hope i could give you some clarity on this debate.

Finally someone wrote this down.

Good job.

Exercia Devoras wrote:I hope i could give you some clarity on this debate.

Can this help?

http://classic-web.archive.org/web/2012 ... trike.html

fast quote from this:

Perforate artery, Backstab I & II caps

Perforate Artery Cap = 75 + Critical Strike Spec * 9 + Nonstyle Cap

Backstab II Cap = 45 + Critical Strike Spec * 6 + Nonstyle Cap

Backstab I Cap = ~5 + Critical Strike Spec * 14 / 3 + Nonstyle Cap

PA cap @ 50spec = 75 + 450 + weaponbasedamage (which for low LA spec might be hurting, but for 2h composite50 is plentyful)

- - -

As for confirming LA again:
http://classic-web.archive.org/web/2011 ... anics.html

another quick quote:

Based on testing, it appears that CD/DW and Left Axe are tweaked to have exactly the same unstyled DPS. The formulas for each are as follows:

Left Axe (note that this applies to both mainhand and offhand weapons):

modified damage = base damage * (.625 + .0034 * LA spec)


Celtic Dual / Dual Wield:

chance to swing offhand weapon = 25% + .68 * CD/DW spec

Please do note what i quoted in a bigger char size. Leftaxe (meaning the exact moment when wielding TWO weapon) starts at .625 (or 62,5% if you prefer) modified damage.
Base main weapon unstyled multiplied 62,5%. - - - > NOT 100% damage. Less than that.

And it gets a plus 0.034 (or 3,4% if you prefer) per EACH POINT SPENT into Leftaxe skill.

Going 50 leftaxe means your BASE MAINWEAPON DAMAGE becomes 62% + (50 * 3%) = 77%
Hey ! But that's not 100% !
Right. The leftover 23% comes from your offhand which swings every turn.

Actually, the higher you spec in LA, the higher the offhand damage. And this is what evens the field out, balancing leftaxe mechanics with DualWield / CelticDual.
One could argue that LA swings everytime while CD/DW do it randomly, But the lesser basedamage of LA compensates the rng of CD/DW. It all evens out with a bigger sample pool of swings.

Mind that the above is considering raw unstyled damage, without haste or celerity. That's another story, and it has to be told another time.

But thess are the basics. I too am not trusting the theory that high CS spec will even out the damage while using a low LA spec.
As for everything else, feel free to fully read those links and any other document found in it.

Fiordiluna wrote:

Exercia Devoras wrote:I hope i could give you some clarity on this debate.

Can this help?

http://classic-web.archive.org/web/2012 ... trike.html

fast quote from this:

Perforate artery, Backstab I & II caps

Perforate Artery Cap = 75 + Critical Strike Spec * 9 + Nonstyle Cap

Backstab II Cap = 45 + Critical Strike Spec * 6 + Nonstyle Cap

Backstab I Cap = ~5 + Critical Strike Spec * 14 / 3 + Nonstyle Cap

PA cap @ 50spec = 75 + 450 + weaponbasedamage (which for low LA spec might be hurting, but for 2h composite50 is plentyful)

- - -

As for confirming LA again:
http://classic-web.archive.org/web/2011 ... anics.html

another quick quote:

Based on testing, it appears that CD/DW and Left Axe are tweaked to have exactly the same unstyled DPS. The formulas for each are as follows:

Left Axe (note that this applies to both mainhand and offhand weapons):

modified damage = base damage * (.625 + .0034 * LA spec)


Celtic Dual / Dual Wield:

chance to swing offhand weapon = 25% + .68 * CD/DW spec

Please do note what i quoted in a bigger char size. Leftaxe (meaning the exact moment when wielding TWO weapon) starts at .625 (or 62,5% if you prefer) modified damage.
Base main weapon unstyled multiplied 62,5%. - - - > NOT 100% damage. Less than that.

And it gets a plus 0.034 (or 3,4% if you prefer) per EACH POINT SPENT into Leftaxe skill.

Going 50 leftaxe means your BASE MAINWEAPON DAMAGE becomes 62% + (50 * 3%) = 77%
Hey ! But that's not 100% !
Right. The leftover 23% comes from your offhand which swings every turn.

Actually, the higher you spec in LA, the higher the offhand damage. And this is what evens the field out, balancing leftaxe mechanics with DualWield / CelticDual.
One could argue that LA swings everytime while CD/DW do it randomly, But the lesser basedamage of LA compensates the rng of CD/DW. It all evens out with a bigger sample pool of swings.

Mind that the above is considering raw unstyled damage, without haste or celerity. That's another story, and it has to be told another time.

But thess are the basics. I too am not trusting the theory that high CS spec will even out the damage while using a low LA spec.
As for everything else, feel free to fully read those links and any other document found in it.

I'm gonna hijack some data if you don't mind

Exercia

Thanks for sharing these informations but mostly thanks for the awesome video you made years and years ago !
I'm a big fan of the unforgiving blade :')

Exercia Devoras wrote:
As soon, as you equip your LA, your mainhand and offhand basedmg goes down to 66% each. For every point, you spec/sc/rr into LA, you will gain 0,3% dmg. CS/Weapon speclines stylebonus are unnaffected by la spec, but because stylebonus/growthrates on styles are multipliers that scale on your basedmg, they are in a way affected by LA spec as long as you equip an offhand.

The argument however is, that this here is not implemented at this patch level. Which according to my test is true, since my basedamage with my mainweapon definitely did not decrease with 1 LA as opposed to 39 LA. It should have been an obvious drop in damage, but in fact my mainhand damage was even higher, even though I was dual wielding.

Mayuki wrote:

Exercia Devoras wrote:
As soon, as you equip your LA, your mainhand and offhand basedmg goes down to 66% each. For every point, you spec/sc/rr into LA, you will gain 0,3% dmg. CS/Weapon speclines stylebonus are unnaffected by la spec, but because stylebonus/growthrates on styles are multipliers that scale on your basedmg, they are in a way affected by LA spec as long as you equip an offhand.

The argument however is, that this here is not implemented at this patch level. Which according to my test is true, since my basedamage with my mainweapon definitely did not decrease with 1 LA as opposed to 39 LA. It should have been an obvious drop in damage, but in fact my mainhand damage was even higher, even though I was dual wielding.

I just tested this on grey mobs, because on them you have no variance and do always cap dmg. my unstyled cap with my mainhand, while i have both weapon equipped is 108dmg. When i swap out my 3 LA gloves it goes down to 107. So no you are wrong here. LA spec affects maindhanddmg, like it always did on live from the start until today.

Ichindar wrote:Exercia

Thanks for sharing these informations but mostly thanks for the awesome video you made years and years ago !
I'm a big fan of the unforgiving blade :')

Glad to still hear positive comments after so many years your welcome buddy.

Exercia Devoras wrote:

Mayuki wrote:

Exercia Devoras wrote:
As soon, as you equip your LA, your mainhand and offhand basedmg goes down to 66% each. For every point, you spec/sc/rr into LA, you will gain 0,3% dmg. CS/Weapon speclines stylebonus are unnaffected by la spec, but because stylebonus/growthrates on styles are multipliers that scale on your basedmg, they are in a way affected by LA spec as long as you equip an offhand.

The argument however is, that this here is not implemented at this patch level. Which according to my test is true, since my basedamage with my mainweapon definitely did not decrease with 1 LA as opposed to 39 LA. It should have been an obvious drop in damage, but in fact my mainhand damage was even higher, even though I was dual wielding.

I just tested this on grey mobs, because on them you have no variance and do always cap dmg. my unstyled cap with my mainhand, while i have both weapon equipped is 108dmg. When i swap out my 3 LA gloves it goes down to 107. So no you are wrong here. LA spec affects maindhanddmg, like it always did on live from the start until today.

Ichindar wrote:Exercia

Thanks for sharing these informations but mostly thanks for the awesome video you made years and years ago !
I'm a big fan of the unforgiving blade :')

Glad to still hear positive comments after so many years your welcome buddy.

On the other thread, i posted my test.

100 swings with doublefrost at 39 WS/LA
100 swings with garotte at 39 WS/CS

Both with dual wield equipped. You just tested on grey mobs, with the same mobs, with the same skillset. I switched my skills between these 2 testruns. And the result was, that my mainhand did more damage with the CS skillset, than with the LA skillset.

Mayuki wrote:On the other thread, i posted my test.

100 swings with doublefrost at 39 WS/LA
100 swings with garotte at 39 WS/CS

Both with dual wield equipped. You just tested on grey mobs, with the same mobs, with the same skillset. I switched my skills between these 2 testruns. And the result was, that my mainhand did more damage with the CS skillset, than with the LA skillset.

Any expert on statistics would tell you that 100 swings are not a viable source for any data, when there is a chance that there is variance involved. But anyway, you are comparing two different things here. You claim on the one hand, that there is no mainhand penalty on LA kills, which can only be proven correctly on grey mobs like i did. You have to test your unstyled maindhand dmg, while wielding both weapons. Then you look at your dm,g while taking away no other then LA Specpoints, or LA from equipment. Both kinds are equal in value. You have to make sure, that you don't change your weaponskill or qui.

On the other hand, you claim, that CS styles styledmg are unaffected by LA skill. That is true on a direct way, but is not the whole truth. Just as i stated in my opening post, styles have multiplicators, which are based on your weapon dmg and weapon dmg is indeed affected by LA skill.

Now you hopefully see that my statements are correct.

Also you are comparing two different styles with 2 different growthrates (Garotte has a higher growthrate than Doublefrost). There are so many factors you did not take into account, that your tests shows absolutly nothing besides that both specs are viable.

Exercia Devoras wrote:

Mayuki wrote:On the other thread, i posted my test.

100 swings with doublefrost at 39 WS/LA
100 swings with garotte at 39 WS/CS

Both with dual wield equipped. You just tested on grey mobs, with the same mobs, with the same skillset. I switched my skills between these 2 testruns. And the result was, that my mainhand did more damage with the CS skillset, than with the LA skillset.

Any expert on statistics would tell you that 100 swings are not a viable source for any data, when there is a chance that there is variance involved. But anyway, you are comparing two different things here. You claim on the one hand, that there is no mainhand penalty on LA kills, which can only be proven correctly on grey mobs like i did. You have to test your unstyled maindhand dmg, while wielding both weapons. Then you look at your dm,g while taking away no other then LA Specpoints, or LA from equipment. Both kinds are equal in value. You have to make sure, that you don't change your weaponskill or qui.

On the other hand, you claim, that CS styles styledmg are unaffected by LA skill. That is true on a direct way, but is not the whole truth. Just as i stated in my opening post, styles have multiplicators, which are based on your weapon dmg and weapon dmg is indeed affected by LA skill.

Now you hopefully see that my statements are correct.

Also you are comparing two different styles with 2 different growthrates (Garotte has a higher growthrate than Doublefrost). There are so many factors you did not take into account, that your tests shows absolutly nothing besides that both specs are viable.

Samplesize, alright. Only change LA speccpoints, I did. Unstyled? nope. Unstyled is unrealistic for most 1:1 fights. Ofc if we talk statistics only, great ofc the zerkerspecc will always win and you are definitely correct. But that is not what the overall discussion is about. It is about if Critblade or Zerker speccs are advantageous in terms of overall damage. I took the anytimers of both speccs, and compared, which should be the logical thing to do. And while doing this, my mainhand damage was higher on the Crit specc, with only 1 in LA.

Mayuki wrote:

Exercia Devoras wrote:

Mayuki wrote:On the other thread, i posted my test.

100 swings with doublefrost at 39 WS/LA
100 swings with garotte at 39 WS/CS

Both with dual wield equipped. You just tested on grey mobs, with the same mobs, with the same skillset. I switched my skills between these 2 testruns. And the result was, that my mainhand did more damage with the CS skillset, than with the LA skillset.

Any expert on statistics would tell you that 100 swings are not a viable source for any data, when there is a chance that there is variance involved. But anyway, you are comparing two different things here. You claim on the one hand, that there is no mainhand penalty on LA kills, which can only be proven correctly on grey mobs like i did. You have to test your unstyled maindhand dmg, while wielding both weapons. Then you look at your dm,g while taking away no other then LA Specpoints, or LA from equipment. Both kinds are equal in value. You have to make sure, that you don't change your weaponskill or qui.

On the other hand, you claim, that CS styles styledmg are unaffected by LA skill. That is true on a direct way, but is not the whole truth. Just as i stated in my opening post, styles have multiplicators, which are based on your weapon dmg and weapon dmg is indeed affected by LA skill.

Now you hopefully see that my statements are correct.

Also you are comparing two different styles with 2 different growthrates (Garotte has a higher growthrate than Doublefrost). There are so many factors you did not take into account, that your tests shows absolutly nothing besides that both specs are viable.

Samplesize, alright. Only change LA speccpoints, I did. Unstyled? nope. Unstyled is unrealistic for most 1:1 fights. Ofc if we talk statistics only, great ofc the zerkerspecc will always win and you are definitely correct. But that is not what the overall discussion is about. It is about if Critblade or Zerker speccs are advantageous in terms of overall damage. I took the anytimers of both speccs, and compared, which should be the logical thing to do. And while doing this, my mainhand damage was higher on the Crit specc, with only 1 in LA.

To get a samplesize that is done by correct testing, you have to hit Garotte to the same target with the following 2 example specs:

39CS 39LA 39 Sword
39CS 1 LA 39 Sword

Only then, you see the the impact LA has on your CS styles. All the things you said about how one spec is better than another is not the point here. All i say and you cant deny is: Garotte does lower dmg with your mainhand if you dont spec LA. Just test this 2 specs and you will see what i mean.

Tkis thread is not about arguing which spec is the best, because there is more than just damage that makes a spec good or bad.
This thread is about Left Axe penalty and how it does affect your specs and dmg. If you like to play cirtblade without LA its absolutly ok, no one takes it away from you, but pls don't seed false information about LA mechanics.

Exercia Devoras wrote:
To get a samplesize that is done by correct testing, you have to hit Garotte to the same target with the following 2 example specs:

39CS 39LA 39 Sword
39CS 1 LA 39 Sword

Only then, you see the the impact LA has on your CS styles. All the things you said about how one spec is better than another is not the point here. All i say and you cant deny is: Garotte does lower dmg with your mainhand if you dont spec LA. Just test this 2 specs and you will see what i mean.

Guess we been talking past each other. Your sample speccs will definitely prove the difference here. I thought your reason for opening this thread was to make the point of the other thread, discussing different specs. If it is just a general info, I must have misunderstood. Thanks for the info tho.

Moreover Mayuki, if you don't mind, i would like you to note what you wrote yourself, which was:

I took the anytimers of both speccs, and compared, which should be the logical thing to do. And while doing this, my mainhand damage was higher on the Crit specc, with only 1 in LA.

Forgive me, but this was written with hibernia or albion in mind. Like if we were talking about dualwield / celtic dual.
In these two cases, the offhand swing is some sort of a bonus damage, while in midgard you have to consider the offhand damage as the other half of your total damage output.

You say that you can do higher damage on mainhand while using garrote.
Let me throw down some 'invented' numbers.

You may hit for 150 mainhand garrote with 34CS + 1 LA spec, but your offhand in this same case would hit for .. dunno. 15. Total damage in this case would be 165.
BUT In the case of 34LA + 1 CS you would hit with doublefrost (lower growthrate) for 120 mainhand PLUS 60 offhand. Total damage in this case would be 180.
Again, invented numbers, but with the data above you should be able to calculate hypotetical numbers and prove yourself that even if CS styles have higher growth rates, neglecting the LA spec will lower the TOTAL damage output. Mainhand hits for higher damage, yes, but offhand hits for ridiculously low damage. And THIS IS THE DRAWBACK of midgard's LeftAxe.
This is NOT AlbDualwield, nor HibCelticDual. We mids cannot think of offhand as a 'damage bonus'.

Or, if you prefer, you could go 1h + small shield with NO leftaxe (or 2h), and you will deal 100% mainhand damage (if it's composite 50), taking every bit of advantage from CS styles growth rate (but then again you'd lose the offhand envenom chance AND inflicting the 50% evade penalty to the enemy thanks to your dual wielding).

To get a samplesize that is done by correct testing, you have to hit Garotte to the same target with the following 2 example specs:

39CS 39LA 39 Sword
39CS 1 LA 39 Sword

Btw, i did a "test" similar to this.

I was :
50 CS, 37 weapon, 10 LA then switched for
34 CS, 37 weapon, 39 LA

I did only 30 swings with Garrot before, and 30 garrot after the respec (tested in decent conditions). But the average damage was only -4 on main hand, where my left hand got +15 average damage. So can we consider that i lost a bunch of damages by taking off 16 CS points which have been raised to something close to my initial main hand damage by getting 29 LA points ?

Ichindar wrote:

To get a samplesize that is done by correct testing, you have to hit Garotte to the same target with the following 2 example specs:

39CS 39LA 39 Sword
39CS 1 LA 39 Sword

Btw, i did a "test" similar to this.

I was :
50 CS, 37 weapon, 10 LA then switched for
34 CS, 37 weapon, 39 LA

I did only 30 swings with Garrot before, and 30 garrot after the respec (tested in decent conditions). But the average damage was only -4 on main hand, where my left hand got +15 average damage. So can we consider that i lost a bunch of damages by taking off 16 CS points which have been raised to something close to my initial main hand damage by getting 29 LA points ?

Exactly, but now you have a stun.

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