Charge Time, Animation Speed, & Combo Rates

[itzRiceKrispies]

Is there a list or page out there on the web that sums up each characters CT and animation reset speed with each weapon? Also is there any lists about which of the guys have a higher combo rate or what exactly effects that?

Every list I have found talks mostly about the former and doesn't mention the latter & in one case it was wrong. I know that CT is mostly irrelevant, but was just wondering if one existed and if combo rates for them are displayed. I know the weapons themselves have known combo rates, but was wondering exactly how they interact with each character, since Penelo & Fran for examples are quite bad with Crossbows, but are very good with Ninja Swords and Poles respectively.

[Hinnyuu]

Combo RATE is purely contingent on the weapon - each weapon that can combo has its own inherent combo rate. That rate is then multiplied by 0.7 if you're not wearing Genji Gloves; and multiplied by 1.8 if you are wearing them. And that's your chance for a combo to happen. Combo rate does NOT change between characters, it's based on the equipped weapon only.

Combo LENGTH meanwhile depends on the character's current HP level. The lower your current HP, the longer combos tend to be. If your HP is >25% you can get a maximum of 6 hits (0.8% chance) and will do ~2.9 hits on average when you combo. If your HP is <6.25%, you can get a maximum of 12 hits (5.3% chance) and will do ~9 hits on average when you combo (this is the maximum possible, further lowering HP has no effect). This, again, does not vary between characters and is purely based on current HP%.

Charge Time is contingent on a number of things, including equipped weapon, Swiftness licenses, the kind of action you're taking, your combat speed settings, and even a small random number. These also do not vary between characters, however they are influenced by a character's Speed stat which is slightly different between characters - however the differences are so small (within 3 points even at max level) as to be effectively irrelevant and borderline immeasurable, because the random variance matters more and the overall effect of Speed on charge time is very small to begin with.

Animation speeds are the main thing that DOES vary between characters. It's the reason behind statements like "Fran is bad with bows" and so on, however those statements often exaggerate the actual magnitude of the differences. Most are in the 10-15% range between slowest and fastest - what this means in practice is that for every 10 hits a slow character does, a fast character will have done 11 (or thereabouts). Note that because you can't do "fractional hits" this effectively means that for anything where you don't even get to 10 hits (i.e. 99% of fights in the game, which are against random small fry enemies) there is NO DIFFERENCE in the number of attacks both get in. It's only once you're fighting very long battles that these differences slowly pull ahead.

There is a reference sheet for animation speeds (as well as other useful stats) that's floating on Google Docs somewhere however I currently only have a hard copy of it saved and can't find the old link. Some Googling will probably let you find it rather quickly; I know I myself have linked it to people in old posts, maybe you can dig them up.

However note that the ACTUAL differences are much smaller than people think. Not irrelevant, definitely real, but not anywhere close to as big a deal as people sometimes make them out to be. They should be way down on your list of things to optimize - worry about so many other things first.

[ikegami178]

I dont bellieve anybody ever cared about compiling a frame data of the animations, i know Balthier is the worst gun user because a marginally longer animation, but i think everyone agreed its small enough it dont matter. Your penelo and fran are also product of attack animation, not CT

As for CT, it depends on the weapon and charcter is irrelevant. I dont think a list exists with the exact time for every game speed, but its very noticeable that guns are very slow and daggers are super fast. I think the wiki only roughly tells wich weapons are fast or slow. General rule is weapon speed is about what you expect: small weaps>one handed>two handed
Axes are slower than swords, bombs are slower than bows, not as slow as guns. Poles are faster than spears and both are faster than 2h swords

Combo rates are also a weapon property, character is not relevant

I know what you are prob thinking: It is a common comaint that characters are too generic gameplay-wise. This was especially the case on the original version where the global licence board made them basically indistinguishable from one another

[Casurin]

CT and animation-speed are two different things:
CT is entirely on the exact Equipment (and then the actual charge-time formula applies)
Animation-speed is a combination of character + weapon-type (Balthier is fast with all Katana, Fran is slow with all bows)
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1rBpOmegCizn3KOPwrKvC5yipu9Yfh0IZ6YE-mh_e59g/edit?gid=1818536104#gid=1818536104

Combo-rate is also not affected by the character (but their current HP has an impact on the combo-length).

In general calculating exact values for DPS is rather hard cause there are too many factors .
There is a calculator on github somewhere that does a decent job - i think it takes basically everything into account.

[itzRiceKrispies]

Thank u for the responses guys. I clearly had a misunderstanding about combo rates. I could have sworn I read somewhere that the males had a higher rate. I knew that the weapons had their own base rates, but I thought there was more to it.

Thanks for the spreadsheet Casurin. Something like that was exactly what I was looking for. I had no idea Balthier was good with Katana's.

[Hinnyuu]

Originally posted by itzRiceKrispies:

Thanks for the spreadsheet Casurin. Something like that was exactly what I was looking for. I had no idea Balthier was good with Katana's.

That's the sheet I was referring to, yep! Glad someone was able to link it, I really should save that link, too ;)

However let me reiterate just how small those animation differences are. The sheet gives you frame counts, which are fractions of seconds; so while e.g. 15 vs. 25 might look like a huge difference (and this is the actual spread between the very fastest and very slowest katana attack) it's still way less than ONE SECOND of difference. On top of that, this only applies to the animation itself - not to the rest of the combat action, which includes many more components such as charge time etc. all of which are not affected at all by animation speed. So while the animation may be 0.5 seconds (on average) for the fastest katana user and 0.717 seconds for the slowest katana user - a difference of ~44% - this applies to the animation only. If you add 2 seconds of charge time, you end up with 2.5 seconds vs. 2.717 seconds which is... ~9% difference only. Of course this varies with a number of things, shifts favor based on charge time, combo rate, etc. but it gives you an idea about the range of the ACTUAL difference, which generally speaking is around 10-15% on average and overall for most cases.

That's not nothing, but it may well not be enough to optimize around given various other factors. For example, based on the level brackets that you're moving in, a character's inherent stat differences may in fact be more relevant than the animation speed differences. It's difficult to math out precisely because there are SO MANY factors playing into it that vary so much between players (where you go when, how quickly you level, etc.) but it's important to keep in mind when optimizing just how big the respective factors of optimization are likely to be in practice.

And of course as I mentioned earlier, the numbers are misleading also because of the discrete nature of attacks. Unlike something that deals 10% more damage, say, something that gives you 10% more attacks works very differently, because you don't actually get that bonus UNTIL it adds up to 1 whole attack. So in a fight where two characters with 10% animation difference attack, they'll do THE SAME DAMAGE for the first 10 attacks - and it's only once you get to 11 attacks that one will be at 10 attacks and the other will be at 11 attacks. But you can't be at, say, 5 attacks and 5.5 attacks, because a 0.5 attack doesn't exist. As the vast majority of fights in the game tend to be quite short, you're unlikely to even get to the point of difference for a lot of enemies. You also can't "roll over" the advantage because your charge time resets whenever you switch enemies - so each time something dies, you start fresh.

On very long fights like superbosses, this is different. There small differences add up over time, and saving seconds becomes more relevant if the fight is minutes long. Especially if you actively push for combo, such as intentionally keeping allies at low HP for longer combos. This can translate into quite measurable gains, however as with all optimization in this game it's mostly an academic difference done for its own sake than a strategic advantage - it's unlikely to ever mean the difference between victory and defeat, considering how much you already need to know about the game to properly optimize at this level (which means you're likely to also know how to wtfslap the superbosses anyway).

[ikegami178]

Realistically, the only place the animations makes any real difference is on yazmat only because that is the mother of all sponges. And hell wyrm, the other ridiculous sponge

An attack that lets you score an extra hit every 10th attack is already overselling it: it only adds that much if you start the animation asap, read: you are in hit range the milissecond the character is ready to hit, and evem then if the character comboes, the math gets trown out of the window, its noticeable the animation takes less frames on combos

On even deep late game marks life fanfnir, its hard to measure, let alone notice any difference. 10% may sound significant, but if you have a single turn you spend half a second outside hit range when youre ready to attack, that trows the number to the air. If at any point you interrupt the attacking to do sonething like heal in the middle of the CT filling, that is vastly more impactful, and its something that happens all the time

[Hinnyuu]

Originally posted by ikegami178:

Realistically, the only place the animations makes any real difference is on yazmat only because that is the mother of all sponges. And hell wyrm, the other ridiculous sponge

An attack that lets you score an extra hit every 10th attack is already overselling it: it only adds that much if you start the animation asap, read: you are in hit range the milissecond the character is ready to hit, and evem then if the character comboes, the math gets trown out of the window, its noticeable the animation takes less frames on combos

On even deep late game marks life fanfnir, its hard to measure, let alone notice any difference. 10% may sound significant, but if you have a single turn you spend half a second outside hit range when youre ready to attack, that trows the number to the air. If at any point you interrupt the attacking to do sonething like heal in the middle of the CT filling, that is vastly more impactful, and its something that happens all the time

Very good points.

So yeah, animation difference = real, but FAR less relevant or impactful than people think. Especially if you don't go out of your way to min/max around them in both choices and behavior, which almost no one ever does - why would you, for such a small gain.

[Casurin]

I wanted to write how it could give you like 20% increase in effective DPS buuuut - that would be true only if you are not going for the best DPS anyways cause .... yeah Seitengrat. but it is kinda unrealistic to get that for every character.

[ikegami178]

Going for even one seitengrat is extremely hard. Getting more than one is SERIOUSLY pushing it

Even if you know the exploit of using reks to ensure the bow, it still takes an unholy amount of patience to keep using heal in an extremely boring process, the grind is almost on the level it took to get danjuros and great helms on the orignal games, maybe even more because the grind takes place in a non-combat context with no gambits, anyone that went for it know how mind-numbing tiresome it is. Its the kind of stuff even a harcore player will only suffer once to complete the item collection and stay far away from after getting one bow. Given how completely unecessary the bow is, it takes an insane level of commitment to get even one

And i dont bellieve the animation difference is more than 12% anyway, and as i said before, its 12% if you keep attacking with no stop to buff, heal or attack being delayed for enemy actions