Polearm Ranking

I'll be honest, I don't know. I'm only recently dedicating a lot of effort to DRG. But I know 1 WS with Gae hit for somewhere in the mid to high teens, and the second hit for low 50s. I assumed it was a crit. Are multi-hits applicable to Impulse?

Any WS can multi-attack, but WS which are frontloaded (have most of their damage on the first hit) like Savage Blade, Rudra's, etc. don't see much of a spike when you proc a multi-attack during the WS, since the second hit doesn't get the FTP.

FTP-Replicating WS benefit much more from having multi-attack since the mutli-attacks proc'd during the WS will also get full FTP for calculating their damage. This doesn't include Impulse Drive, so I don't think it was a multi-attack. Could've been a difference in debuffs on the mob, different level chosen for that mob, or some other factor, not sure I wasn't there watching your testing. This is why I would recommend much larger sample sizes if you want to compare two sets or different weapons. This is true for anything, but especially true for anything related to Shining One (since it can cause any weapon skill to crit).

Thanks for simplifying for me. I will definitely gather a larger test pool before adding ID set to guide.

A few notes and a question:
Note 1: I use Sel's LUA, so I WS mob at 100% without engaging.
Note 2: Trusts are Cornelia, Arcelia, Yoran, the Acc trust, and Qutalda for rolls. So same buffs on me, no debuffs on mob.
Note 3: Same mob in the same grouping.

Question: Can crit. hit in gear be applied to the WS, or only WSs that say "Chance for critical hit varies with TP?"

Couple more things to consider:
Mob might've died after the first hit, before your second could land (on some WS attempts) if you 1shot the mob. You could've missed some hits also, which could affect the results.

Mobs within the same group can still vary in level, usually only 1-3 levels per mob, but they spawn at a random rate within a certain range.

I'm not sure if "crit hit rate varies with TP" is written on every WS that can crit (Shining One aside), but anything that has that written will be affected by crit hit gear and, of course, crit damage gear. Most, maybe all other WS cannot crit at all, so critical hit rate will not help at all.

Thank you.

I feel I can confidently say that Shining is best for Impulse Drive. It was still a small~ish sample...but the results were pretty consistent in terms of the better weapon for the WS. I'll continue to test since I need to rebuild Merits anyway, but below was the test and the results:

Mob: Apex Bats in Dho Gates
Trusts: Cornelia, Arcelia, Yoran, Qultada, Kuyin
Rolls: Fighter's, Chaos

Gae Buide - Impulse Drive at 3K TP with AM up
36.7K
33.7K
28.9K
29.7K
27.3K
34.6K
26.3K

Shining One - Impulse Drive at 3K TP
51K
62.1K
73.9K
42.9K
41.6K
50K

Apex Bats in Dho Gates have, for example, a level range from 128-130. This is randomly chosen for each bat that spawns (AFAIK) so you will see some variance in their stats. I think this is true for all non-NMs in the game...but don't quote me on that.

Not going to make a swing of 20k WS average or anything, just something to consider when looking at test results.

Glad you expanded the sample size a bit and as I said earlier, definitely agree with your assessment that for Impulse Drive specifically, you want to go with Shining One.

Goes to show the other point I was trying to make: the polearm you want to use depends on a multitude of factors and is never as one-note as you might think. Prime is excellent and if your goal is only physical damage and you have buffs and the enemy has debuffs, it will be the best. If you're restricted by some other condition, don't have the buffs, have a different goal, or something else going on, you very well may be better off changing weapons.

If, for example, you couldn't use a WS other than Impulse Drive (to avoid making bad SCs on a Sortie boss, or something like that) then you would want to use Shining One, clearly.

Theres zero chance you're anywhere near attack cap under the conditions you proposed, so AM being up is irrelevant.

I was curios if Gae Buide's AM in an attack capped situation might change the calculation at all so I did just a few to see. . . I went to Locus Imps.
Honor March, 3x Minuet, Chaos+SAM, Indi-Fury, Geo-Frailty, Entrust-STR and Dia III. All fired at 3k TP. Looks like Shining One still slaps.

Gae Buide w/o AM

73,036
73,220
80,006
73,078
77,702

Gae Buide w/ AM3

86,134
99,999
87,454
87,122
87,130

Shining One

99,999
93,264
99,999
99,999
99,999

Honestly I was afraid of that. Part of me really despises ambuscade weapons for being so damn good/reliably boring. Thems the brakes though.

Yea, but it's just using Impulse Drive. If I'm not on the Impulse Drive, I'm firing those Diarmuids like there's no tomorrow!

I wish I had multiple accounts (or reliable friends...or any friends) so I can test with all the great buffs. Trusts are...limiting.

I do wonder why the sets I built differ from the standard sets, but after trying both, I get higher numbers using mine. I wonder if it has to do with the fact that my Nyame gear is only R25, or that my Gleti's gear is mostly R0. Talking about for stuff like Stardiver, Camlann's etc.

https://www.bg-wiki.com/ffxi/Community_Dragoon_Guide#Weaponskill_Sets

r0 Gleti's will do it, you are missing a lot of stats.

You can always use shell crusher to defense down to get a better idea of how PDL/Gleti's might affect your numbers.