An interesting and amazing breakdown of Bartz and his 6* capabilities. He's one of the few units i don't have. Maybe I'll get him during the banner, surely don't need him at all but he can be turned into a power house.
https://www.reddit.com/r/FFBraveExvius/comments/5e9tit/analysis_of_bartzs_旋風斬_work_in_progress/
This is a work in progress. I'll finish the rest tomorrow. Need to rest! Still to be done: F2P gear/analysis Remove buffs & stat pots to calculations (important!) Make things look prettier
So, I'm sick of seeing people asking the same questions and people answering either in a stupid manner or without really thinking about it. Bartz's 旋風斬 (referred to as Cyclone Slash or CS from here on, but called Wind Shear on Exviuswiki) is a truly misunderstood skill, and I'm going to rant on here until people finally open or blow their minds.
Ask the right questions!
There are a lot of discussion threads about Bartz and CS, but really they boil down to a few questions:
1) What's Bartz's best equipment set if trying to maximise CS?
2) How does Bartz's damage compared to XXXX's superskill?
3) Is CS worth gearing for?
The main problem in trying to answer all these questions is that they're the wrong questions to ask about Bartz. This is because all of these are based on an assumption that there exists some theoretical "generic setup" which will always maximize damage on opponents in a way that can be abstractly compared with others. In a way, this is because we haven't had to deal with Bartz before. When we had Lightning and Luneth, they were both physical attackers. We could just use (ATK)², and assume that the opponent retained the same DEF when we fought them. Or we had to compare Kefka and Exdeath, who were both mages, and therefore we could simplify the calculations to look at (MAG)² and ignore the SPR.
The problem with this is of course Bartz will need both opponent DEF and SPR for calculations, but when you compare against Luneth, for example, there is no basis to assume the opponents' DEF will be the same as SPR. So if we arbitrarily make that assumption in our calculations, we will be wrong as soon as the opponent's DEF is higher than their SPR, or vice versa. Saying Luneth theoretically deals 35% more damage with Cut Through will make no actual difference unless we know that the boss (Antenora, let's say) doesn't have 100 DEF and 2 SPR. If you don't understand why this is, try comparing Cut Through and Thundaga Blade on a Bas Relief.
So, because we need 2 variables instead of 1 to compare Bartz to pure physical or pure magical attackers, it is easy to see that as opponent DEF and SPR change, Bartz' "optimum gear" changes.
Rule no. 1. Bartz's CS doesn't have a single best equipment set.
Now, if I told you at the beginning hybrid skills were best because of their flexibility, you would have nodded and ignored me. But it is true, and Rule no. 1 means we have to rephrase our questions:
1a) What are some of Bartz's best equipment sets if trying to maximise CS for ATK, MAG, or a combination?
2a) How does Bartz's damage compared to XXXX's superskill, if we assume certain values or ratios for DEF and SPR?
Question 3 stays the same, but the answer is now much more complex than first intended.
In an ideal TMR world of raw numbers, 3 "simple" overpriced builds
First, before we delve into the numbers, some important principles:
The hybrid formula uses both (ATK)² / DEF and (MAG)² / SPR in equal measure. This might cause some to think ATK = MAG, but the quadratic components mean that if the total amount of ATK and MAG combined is fixed, the best method is actually to go either all ATK or all MAG.
This means that when we compare equipment and materia, we have to look at the incremental benefit of adding a small ATK to an already massive ATK, or of adding a big MAG for a small decrease to that massive ATK. If an item gives both ATK and MAG in large quantities, great! But Omnirod will probably be meaningless in an ATK build, and Enhancer might be crap for a MAG build.
This is all about trade-offs, and theoretically, if opponent DEF is 30 and SPR is 10, then there exists an "optimum build" for that particular ratio that maximises damage. The build might be similar to one where DEF = 50 and SPR = 5, but will be drastically different from the build for DEF = 5 and SPR = 50. So it's helpful to think of equipping for ATK and MAG as a see-saw...and see what each end looks like, before we look at what lies between.
Full ATK Whale Build:
Base ATK with stat pots: 149
Base MAG with stat pots: 148
Innate passives: (with a sword), 50% ATK/30% MAG
Best Sword: Moonblade, 118 ATK
Best DW: Sakurafubuki 98 ATK when used with Blade Mastery
Armor: Brave Suit, 15% ATK/15% MAG
Headgear: Black Cowl, 28 ATK
Accessories: Celestial Gloves x 2, 60 ATK/60 MAG
Abilities: Power of Creation + Seal of Destruction + Dual Wield + Blade Mastery, 100% ATK/50% MAG
Total Passives: 165% ATK/95% MAG Total Add-ons excluding weapons: 88 ATK/60 MAG
(normal) (squared) (with 40% buff) (squared)
Total ATK with stat pots (listed) 698.85 758.45
(sword hand) 600.85 361,020 660.45 436,194
(other hand) 580.85 337,386 640.45 410,176
--- --- --- --- --- --- ---
Total MAG with stat pots (listed) 348.6 407.8
(sword hand) 348.6 121,521 407.8 166,300
(other hand) 348.6 121,521 407.8 166,300
2 hits are dealt with weapon ATK/MAG applying to that hit only. This gives a "raw damage" of 3,183,219 over 2 hits. The ATK to MAG ratio is 2.54. This will be important later.
Full MAG Whales Build:
Innate passives: (with a sword), 50% ATK/30% MAG (sword is better because of Letters and Arms, see below)
Best Sword: Enhancer, 82 ATK/23 MAG
Best DW: Omnirod, 20 ATK/91 MAG
Armor: Lordly Robe, 35 MAG
Headgear: Creepy Mask, 30 MAG
Accessories: Celestial Gloves x 2, 60 ATK/60 MAG
Abilities: Letters and Arms x3 (requires sword) + Dual Wield, 150% MAG
Total Passives: 50% ATK/180% MAG Total Add-ons excluding weapons: 60 ATK/125 MAG
(normal) (squared) (with 40% buff) (squared)
Total ATK with stat pots (listed) 413.5 473.1
(sword hand) 393.5 154,842 453.1 205,299
(other hand) 331.5 109,892 391.1 152,959
--- --- --- --- --- --- ---
Total MAG with stat pots (listed) 588.4 647.6
(sword hand) 497.4 247,406 556.6 309,803
(other hand) 565.4 319,677 624.6 390,125
Final "raw damage" = 2,857,102 over 2 hits. ATK to MAG ratio = 0.51
Let's do one more step and consider what happens if we do a Whalest of Whalest build that looks to maximize both.
Full Hybrid Whale Build
Innate passives: (with a sword), 50% ATK/30% MAG
Best Sword: Moonblade, 118 ATK
Best DW: Deathbringer, 120 ATK
Armor: Brave Suit, 15% ATK/15% MAG
Headgear: Creepy Mask, 30 MAG
Accessories: Celestial Gloves x 2, 60 ATK/60 MAG
Abilities: Power of Creation + Letters and Arms x2 + Dual Wield, 30% ATK/100% MAG
Total Passives: 95% ATK/145% MAG Total Add-ons excluding weapons: 60 ATK/95 MAG
(normal) (squared) (with 40% buff) (squared)
Total ATK with stat pots (listed) 588.55 648.1
(sword hand) 468.55 219539 528.15 278942
(other hand) 470.55 221417 530.15 281059
--- --- --- --- --- --- ---
Total MAG with stat pots (listed) 588.4 647.6
(sword hand) 457.6 209397 516.8 267082
(other hand) 457.6 209397 516.8 267082
Final "raw damage" = 2,954,245 over 2 hits. ATK to MAG ratio = 1.05
(Swap Deathbringer for Omnirod = 2,971,281 at ratio = 0.73) (Swap 2x Letters and Arms for 2x Seal of Destruction = 2,860,982 at ratio = 1.89)
Whaling Conclusions
ATK Build Hybrid Build MAG Build
"Raw damage" (assumes DEF = SPR = 1) 3183224 2954247 2857106
% of max 100% 92.8% 89.8%
ATK to MAG ratio 2.54 1.05 0.51
% MAG damage 28.2% 48.8% 66.2%
So after all that reading and calculations, we have some useful information at last. Several things worth nothing:
ATK whale build comes up in front damagewise. This isn't a huge surprise given that weapons give a lot more ATK than MAG, and the restriction for Letters and Arms and Bartz's passive buff for him to use at least one sword. Enhancer is nice, but doesn't compare to the TM weapons.
To reach the extra benefit, though, they have to use Moonblade. Hello, Dark element! This could work both ways, allowing chaining with other Dark attackers (like Duane!!!! haha), but also limiting elemental exploitation. If you swap out the Moonblade for an Enhancer, the damage drops by 2.3% (data not shown).
There's less than 10% difference between a full ATK build, and a full MAG build. Or to look at it another way, if for a given boss, DEF turned out to be 10% higher than SPR, the momentum would shift the other way. 10% difference in final output is not very noticeable, particularly since the innate variation in damage calculation is 15%......which leads me to conclude:
Rule no. 2: For whales looking at Cyclone Slash, it doesn't matter whether you build for ATK or for MAG (if you had all the TMRs in the world). So stick to ATK.
Of course, this is because you will use Wind Barrage, but perhaps surprisingly less than you might expect. With the same full ATK build, Wind Barrage comes out at 3,385,481, or just 6.4% higher (data not shown). Not only is this less than normal variation, but if your Wind Barrage even swings 1 hit out onto a trash mob, you've actually done less damage to your target. (Need actual data confirmation, with current gear).
Disclaimer: This is assuming you're under both Cheer and Focus, have maxed both MAG and ATK on Bartz using stat pots, as well as applied the same breaks to both DEF and SPR of the opposing boss. In arena, it's a different story because damage per "attack" is capped.
Now this obviously doesn't apply to everyone, but let me look at a final point:
In contrast to the overall damage, as you'd expect, the ATK to MAG ratio varies greatly between builds, from 2.5 to 0.5. I've translated this into % MAG damage, which tells you how much of the "raw damage" comes from the MAG component. What this actually means is that if you had everything available to you, you could actually switch gear depending on the boss's preference for DEF or SPR, and target the weaker one.
Rule no. 3: For Bartz's Cyclone Slash, flexibility and broad gearing options is the key.
Be prepared to switch gear depending on what you face, if you for some reason really like using Bartz. Or kill everyone with Elza. What do I care?!
Meanwhile, in F2P land....
(Coming Soon!~ because F2P stuff always comes late....)