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Written by Aldotsk (Anelia Sadowyn) Relic weapons! Zodiac weapons! As far as prestige among your peers is concerned, only shiny weapons from SPOILER REDACTED can compare to showing off how hard you've worked. With that in mind, let's review what it takes to get the shiniest weapon Eorzea has to currently offer! Relic - First Level Getting Started, ilvl 80 So there it is. You've hit level 50, you've done all of your class quests and you're thirsting for something else to make you stand out amongst the rest of your peers. You get clued in to going to seek out an old weapon maker, and what does he have in store for you? Why, a million tasks! http://xivdb.com/?quest/66655/A-Relic-Reborn-(Bravura) So what does Gerolt want? Easy! You just have to deliver a couple of items as directed via quest, culminating in a double-melded i55 weapon. These weapons are crafted from items found in the earliest level 50 dungeons (Wanderer's Palace and I think Ampador Keep?) and take two class-relevant melds, always two of the same. The specific melds required change depending on your class, so make sure you read your quest details in your journal! Gerolt then sends you to kill the fearsome Chimera. This is a level 50 fight with no item level sync and is generally curb stomped by currency-hungry over geared folks. The next step to forging your relic weapon is obtaining an Ampador Glyph. This is awarded upon exiting Ampador Keep (NOT Ampador City!) and is generally a formality at this stage in the game. Next, Gerolt will task you will slaying a series of enemies. They are not difficult, though it might take some time depending on your class. Gerolt's next task is to slay the formiddable Hydra. You MUST be wielding your unfinished relic at this point, so make sure you equip it! This is another level 50 non-synced fight and is routinely smashed in Duty Finder. The next stage requires you to defeat each Hard Mode primal in sequence: Ifrit, then Garuda, and finally Titan. These are again all level 50 unsynced battles and, despite having some learning curve, are routinely defeated easily in Duty Finder. It helps to admit if it's your first run upon entrance, as many experienced players are happy for the currency bonus provided by new players. After turning in the three key items obtained from the Primals, Gerolt will finally ask you for a Radz-at-Han oil. This is purchased in Revenant's Toll for a relatively cheap sum of currency, so take advantage of the pile you've obtained doing dungeons and primal fights! Once you turn the item in to Gerolt, he returns to his force and finally grants you a new weapon and an achievement! Your relic is item level 80, but there's an easy upgrade available right away! Relic - Zenith Level Continuing, ilvl 90 No one is satisfied with an ilvl 80 weapon. Let's make it better! Purchasing three Thavnarian Mist items will allow you to improve your relic; Just "talk" to the forge next to Gerolt with the item in hand and trade it in! For you aspiring paladins out there, you still require 3 items to upgrade your sword and shield, but it's split 2:1 for your items. Yes, you can upgrade your shield before your sword for one Mist, but you're going to want to do both! This is the easiest upgrade stage of your relic process. Breathe easy, it's about to get serious. Relic - Atma Level Atma! Item Level "100" Progressing your relic is a "simple" matter of beginning this quest right near Gerolt. It will task you with obtaining a dozen Atma, crystallized essences of enemies obtained by completing FATEs with your relic weapon equipped in specific zones. Atma and Zones Central Shroud: Atma of the MaidenSouthern Thanalan: Atma of the ScorpionUpper La Noscea: Atma of the Water-bearerEast Shroud: Atma of the GoatEastern Thanalan: Atma of the BullMiddle La Noscea: Atma of the RamWestern Thanalan: Atma of the TwinsOuter La Noscea: Atma of the LionLower La Noscea: Atma of the FishNorth Shroud: Atma of the ArcherCentral Thanalan: Atma of the ScalesWestern La Noscea: Atma of the CrabAll you need to do is complete a FATE with your Relic Zenith equipped to have a chance at the item dropping. It isn't guaranteed, nor do you need to "win" the FATE. You don't need Gold medals or anything besides participating in a completing FATE to have a chance at your Atma! Yes, you can farm multiple sets of Atma at one time! As long as you have ANY Zenith weapon equipped, you can obtain an Atma from a FATE. Once you obtain your twelve unique atma and turn them in back at Jalzahn, he will turn your weapon from Relic Zenith to Relic Atma! The item level will jump from 90 to 100 and it will get a nice new paint job, but hey, what gives? These stats are the same exact as they used to be! What's the big idea?!

Needless to say, if you haven't looked at this spreadsheet you really need to. It gives lots of details on the weapons of all factions in a much more useful format that just glowing bars. However, aside from the fact that there is some imbalance, unless you understand the raw numbers the spreadsheet won't do you much good. I will focus on explaining the "Gun Stuff" tab here. You are on your own for the rocket stuff, although I will say all the standard launchers are the same. Let the thread begin! First, a quick note about player health: All infantry classes have 500 Health. Every class but Infiltrator has 500 Shields. Infiltrators have 400 Shields. The "Nano Weave Armor" cert increases the health by the percent listed in the cert's given level(10%, 12.5%, 15%, 20%, 25% Respectively). Secondly, acronyms and terms: ADS means "Aiming Down Sight". COF means "Cone of Fire". ROF means "Rate of Fire" "Hip" means firing when not aiming down your sights (so you are using the big ol' crosshairs). Thirdly, all of the columns can be specified by field using the drop-down menus (so for example, for faction you can select TR) and then sorted by clicking their name. You can toggle between ascending or descending. Some columns don't like to sort well, such as the damages when the shotguns are around, but most sort just fine. The first three columns should be self explanatory. If you need help understanding "Name", "Faction", and "Type" you have bigger issues to worry about, so lets look at damage. Max Damage / Min Damage These two columns go hand in hand with how damage works in Planetside 2. With the exception of shotguns, sniper rifles, MAX weapons, and for some reason the TR MCG, weapon damage is a function of distance. You have the maximum damage that persists up to a given distance, then a minimum damage which occurs at another distance. For explanation lets look at the three default Assault Rifles (what the medic's use). T1 Cycler: 143@10m -> 125@65m NC1 Gauss: 167@10m -> 143@75m Pulsar VS1: 143@10m -> 112@115m What this means is that from 0m-10m the weapons do their maximum damage. Then the damage tapers off in a linear manner until the minimum damage distance, at which point they level out and just do the minimum damage from there on. To give a better visual depiction, I have made a nifty chart. These three rifles also start to hint at the characteristics of the rifles. The NC rifle always will win if all other things are helt the same (ROF and all shots hitting the same location). Its lowest damage occurs later than the TR's distance wise and is the same as the other faction's maximum damage. The VS rifle does the same initial damage as the TR rifle, but its minimum damage is lower. However, the minimum damage doesn't happen until almost twice the distance. Within 70m if the ROF was the same and all rounds hit the target, the VS rifle would beat out the TR. Beyond 70m, the damage dealt by the VS rifle continues to decline further, so the TR rifle would win. Most importantly this should explain what the "@XXm" portion of the stat means. Fire Mode A simple one. This lists the fastest fire mode that can be selected on the weapon. If a weapon has semi, burst, and auto, it will be listed here as "Auto" Short Reload The best term for this is a "Tactical Reload". This refers to reloading before your weapon is completely empty. As such, the only action that is require is to change magazines. It is in units of seconds. Pump action shotguns are not listed as they allow for shell-by-shell reloads. Shell-by-shell reloads have the benefit of being interrupt-able; you can fire while doing them. Long Reload A "Full Reload". This refers to reloading after you have fired off all of the rounds in your weapon and your chamber is empty. This is longer as you have to swap out magazines and then either work the charging handle / bolt or hit a bolt release. Magazine Size How many rounds each magazine can hold. Extended Magazine cert increases this. Ammo Pool How many rounds are carried on your person. Ammunition Belt cert increases this. Vertical Recoil This is how much the muzzle of the weapon will climb per shot. I stress the per shot part because while a given weapon may have a lower recoil value, if it fires much faster than the other weapon you are comparing it too you will be off target much faster. I have no idea what the units on this are so unless we can figure it out, use these numbers as comparative values only. Lower is better. *Update* I think the units are degrees/shot *Vertical Recoil is not always vertical. See "Recoil Angle"* Horizontal Recoil Min/Max This is the range that your weapon can move from side to side per shot. As with vertical recoil, I don't know the unit on this but it does seem to be the same as with vertical recoil. It may be degrees/shot. Recoil Angle Min/Max This is the angle between which the "Vertical"l recoil will occur. If you picture an upside down T, the vertical line is 0 degrees, the left point is -90 and the right point is +90. If a weapon has a distinct horizontal pull it will occur between these angles. The majority of TR weapons do not pull and have "0/0" listed in this spot. They recoil, but it is more random bucking than a distinct drift. I find this to be a good thing as a upwards recoil is easier to compensate for while trying to stay on target. Recoil Horizontal Bias Angles too confusing? This is a simple symbol that shows a weapons tenancy to drift in a given direction. ← = → is balanced horizontal, ← is always left horizontal, → is always right horizontal, and ← > → or ← < → is unbalanced horizontal that will shake left and right, with an overall bias in one direction. The majority of TR weapons are "← = →". Recoil Decrease Recoil Decrease is the amount of recoil countered in units of Degrees/Second. Recoil decrease takes place after a short delay (generally equal to a weapons time between shots) when you have stopped firing. Basically think of this as "catching your breath". When you stop firing, even for a brief period, this is how fast your weapon will get back to its point of aim. First Shot Recoil Multiplier Very simple. This is how much your recoil values are increased for your first shot. ADS Move Speed Multiplier Also very simple. This is how much your move speed is multiplied by when you are aiming down your sights. It is always less than one, which means you are always moving slower than normal. Typical values are 0.75 and 0.5, which correspond to 3/4 and 1/2 movement speed respectively. Cone of Fire (CoF) This is one that spans 11 columns and 4 sections of the spread sheet. There is a reason for it though! It is very important to gun performance. But first, what the hell is a "cone of fire"? Well it isn't a volcano or waffle cone flambe. It refers to the area your bullets can occupy at a given distance. For those of you who were in our SL faction: Remember when i would go on about "conical spread" and say "the spread is Xm in radius at 200m"? That is CoF. Basically, picture a cone with the pointy part glued to the muzzle of your gun. When your bullets fly outward, they can occupy an ever increasing area, a circular slice of the cone, at a given distance. This picture, although from Planetside, should help with understanding. While massively exaggerated, it gets the point across. So the numbers in these columns have to do with what your CoF looks like when you are in a given stance, moving at a given rate, and whether you are aiming down your sights (ADS) or not. Now the Numbers! The listings are divided into 4 categories: Stand ADS, Crouch ADS, Stand Hip, Crouch Hip. Knowing what ADS stands for, this should be pretty self explanatory: Stand ADS: You are standing and aiming down your sights. Crouch ADS: You are crouching and aiming down your sights Stand Hip: You are standing and aiming from the hip Crouch Hip: you are crouching and aiming from the hip. Then there are the movement modifiers: Still, Move, Sprint, Jump. You don't see them in all categories because they don't exist for all situations. FOr example, you can't sprint while crouching or aiming down your sights. Still: You are not moving. Duh. Moving: You are moving at the normal pace. This speed is reduced when crouching or aiming down sights. Sprinting: You are sprinting. Duh Jumping: You are jumping. Duh. Now you might be saying "But wait! I can't shoot while sprinting!". That is correct. You come to a stop and shoulder your rifle first. However, when you sprint your CoF expands. Think of it as the effect from breathing heavily. After you stop sprinting, your CoF will slowly contract to the level that corresponds to your level of movement and stance. Jumping is the same way. Note that some weapons, such as the SMG's and pistols have the same values for moving and still when aiming down your sights. Ok, so no you know what the columns mean, but what do those numbers really mean. Well that is the angle of your base CoF in degrees. They look small, but remember that a cone gets bigger as it extends out. For example a CoF of 0.3 degrees means your bullets can be anywhere withing a circle that is just over 1m in diameter if your target is 200m away. That is a big circle! Curious how I found that number? Basic Trigonometry! If you look at a cone from the side, it looks like a triangle. Cut that triangle in half at the tip and you get a right triangle. Now since you have cut the cone in half, your angle is half as well. You can now use this to find out how big of a circle your bullets can occupy at a given target distance TargetDistance x tan(CoF/2) = Radius of Bullet Circle for the Given Target Distance Yay Trigonometry! Just remember that this gives you the radius, not the diameter. Multiply the radius by two to get the diameter! I left it out of the formula to keep the equation as simple as possible. CoF Bloom/Shot: Just like a flower gets larger when it blooms, so does your CoF when you shoot. This is how much your CoF will expand with each shot. To my knowledge it is also in degrees, which knowing that the other things are in units of degrees would make the most sense. This section is divided into ADS and Hip columns and if you notice the bloom while hip firing is usually twice as much as the ADS value. SMG's are an example of an exception, as they have the same value for both. Lets look at how this effects your CoF. Using the CoF example from earlier (which matches the NC and TR SMG's, hence why it was horrific at 200m). They have a bloom value of So if your target is at 100m, your bullet circle is 0.52m in diameter. Now you fire a burst of 5 shots. Lets see how the circle changes. Here is the diameter of circle your round can end up in, approximately: 1st Round: 0.52m Diameter 2nd Round: 0.61m Diameter 3rd Round: 0.69m Diameter 4th Round: 0.78m Diameter 5th Round: 0.87m Diameter Well, That Escalated Quickly. To put that in perspective, imagine a person as a rectangle. A person who is 5' 9" tall and 15" across at the torso is a 1.75m x 0.38m box. After just 5 shots the circle that your bullets can land in is over twice as wide as their center mass. Assume the center mass is 0.55m (22") tall and your bullets are going above and below center mass as well, if they even hit horizontally. Keep in mind that the values used were for standing still and aiming down sights with an SMG. They also assume that the gun can magically stay right on target. To put it in perspective I made a little target based on these measurements. Assuming your gun was aimed exactly at the red dot, which is centered on the center mass of the target, and did not move, the rings represent the circle your shots could fall within for the target at 100m. Rate of Fire (ROF) This is an easy one. This number is how many rounds your weapon can fire in units of Rounds Per Minute (RPM) based on the cyclic speed of the weapon. In other words, if you never had to reload, this is how many rounds you could spit out in one minute. Bullet Speed Exactly what it sounds like, this is the speed of your projectile in meters per second (m/s). While this directly means how fast your bullet can reach the target, it is an important factor in how much your bullet will appear to drop. A slower projectile will seem to drop faster than a faster projectile that has the same drop rate. In reality they drop just as fast so it is when they drop, but read on for that part. Bullet Drop This is the rate your bullet will drop. At first it was thought these numbers are in m/s, but then you have bullets making it maybe 85m. If you assume these are accelerations, things make much more sense, so I will assume the units are m/s2. For small arms there seem to be three drop rates: 11.25m/s2 for all NC & TR non-sniper rifles 7.5m/s2 for all sniper rifles except the VS Spectre and Phantom 0m/s2 for all VS weapons except the four bolt-action sniper rifles. This basically tells you the maximum range your projectile can go if everything else is held constant: fired perfectly level from flat ground. Using the person measurements from before as an example, if I fire a shouldered rifle from 1.5m off the ground (shoulder height) you could combine this with the weapon's bullet velocity to determine when it will hit the ground. 1.5m at 11.25m/s is 0.133 seconds (2/15ths of a second). So if my rifle has a projectile speed of 640m/s it can make it 85m before hitting the dirt. Actually doing the math on that, there is no way these values are in m/s of drop. Assuming these values are in m/s2 you can use simplified kinematic equations for the time it takes for the projectile to reach the ground from shoulder height and then use the projectile speed to calculate how far they can optimally go. 0m = 1.5m + 0.5(DropRate)(DropTime)2 So from this height: 11.25m/s2 Drop Rate: 0.5163 Seconds 7.5m/s2 Drop Rate: 0.6324 Seconds So the distance before these rounds will hit the ground can be found by multiplying the projectile speed by the time. For the sake oc comparison lets use the same projectile speed for the two different drop rates (the Gauss Rifle for some reason has the same projectile speed as the three top-end bolt action rifles...) Using 650m/s as a projectile speed: 11.25m/s2 Drop Rate: 335m 7.5m/s2 Drop Rate: 411m This is why you need to compensate for distance by aiming above your target for long shots. The slower your projectile the more you need to compensate! Ok. That is the end! I hope you all found this informative enough to be worth your reading time. Remember that stats alone do not make the weapon "good" and that rate of fire has a large effect on things. This spreadsheet can make finding a weapon that fits you easier. Find a weapon you are good with and enjoy the fight! (Also Vanu put some damn pants on.)