Asetoni FFXV I think it's not actually about your level, but the level difference between you and the enemies you fight. Can't confirm 100% tho

Serj Angelo It might be that since higher level enemies tend to be harder to stagger. However, I don't think the game directly checks level differences. Based on hoe other known formulas of FFXV work, I'd imagine that "stagger defence" also scales with enemy level. In practice it's almost the same tho.

I think the amount of damage you do at level 1 with Equalizer food actually makes up the difference as far as stagger potential. I don't really have a problem stunning enemies and as far as "locking" them it's not really needed since the damage is so ridiculous at level 1 that they die fast anyways. The Royal Arms are so good that it's a shame most players don't use them because of the HP drain. Once I started actually using the royal arms I went from struggling to kill Red Giants to killing them with ease.

Thanks :D I have actually more than doubled my sub count since Royal Edition, and I'm happy where I am (but obviously more would never hurt ;) ). You probably wont like my thoughts on Sword of the Tall. It is, in my opinion, the worst weapon in the entire game and by a substantial margin. All of its attacks take extreme commitment, yet the weapon's damage does not justify its ridiculously slow speed at all. It has almost no moveset to speak of, lacking both, directional attacks and charge attacks. Still, credit where it's due, its phase counter is one of the highest damaging ones in the game and also the fastest attack the weapon has, but even still Swords of the Wanderer, Star of the Rogue and Trident all have equally good if not better phase counters and are also excellent weapons on top of that. Sword of the Tall's warp strike also isn't awful. It's not good, but serviceable. It suffers from the same damage:speed ratio as the rest of the weapon and being an AoE warp strike on a Royal Arm means it's extremely costly to use effectively, even if its health loss for hitting a single target is one of the lowest. To add insult to injury, the weapon also has horrible stat penalties and is the hardest Royal Arm to get. I do not know what they were thinking with this weapon at all. What makes me even more sad is how badass the weapon is. I mean for fuck's sake, it's *chainsaw greatsword that saps the life out of its user.*

Asetoni FFXV Its a coolio weapon indeed. Not a fan of the weaknesses either.

MemoriesLP Well, since you always play on level 1, you probably aren't stunlocking anything. Weirdly enough, your level has dramatic effects on your stun potential.

It has nothing to do with episode Prompto. All techniques have stronger variants and technique level increases the likelihood of them happening. Also eating the character's favorite food takes this chance up to 100%. kzfaq.info/get/bejne/i5yZeNucrLzMiGQ.html (not my video)

Asetoni FFXV It wasn't a technique. It was a combat skill like Analyse or Ballistic.

@@yakuzashibe it is a technique

@@theowodepot7992 The skill itself is. Prompto used it himself without me triggering the skill. Like I said, he used it like a teamwork ability.

Superbro64 Hope you're prepared for the not-so-quick answer. No, the Trident scales with just strength. The other magic scaling RA besides the Scepter is the Bow of the Clever. Weapon scaling is surprisingly easy to test. Hit something with no accessories on, then equip three magic scaling accessories and hit them again with the same attack. As long as you take into account the 6% random variation in damage, it's very easy to tell whether the numbers are bigger or not. That being said, tests like that aren't even necessary. The official guid has given us all the information on "scaling". This is the base damage formula of FFXV: (Str + Weapon Power + Level*3) * ADM * 2 Right off the bat you see that Str affects melee damage regardless of weapon. And this is true, even Bow and Scepter gain damage from it (so you could say they "scale" with it). Weapon power (WP) on the other is where you get more "scaling". If the weapon is a normal weapon: WP = Attack If the weapon is a Royal Arm: WP = Attack + Str Except for Scepter and Bow: WP = Attack + Mag What this tells us is that normal weapons only "scale" with the inherent Str in the base damage formula. Most RAs gain "double scaling" since Str is counted once for their WP and then counted again in the base damage formula. And Bow/Scepter scale with both equally, but not as well as other RAs with either stat individually. The reason why Mag "scaling" is still better on the Scepter despite Trident scaling doubly from Str is because Noct's Mag is noticeably higher than his Str and Mag boosting accessories are much stronger than Str boosting accessories.

Asetoni FFXV Thanks for answering Do you have to buy the official guide to get this kinda hard fact info, or is there a set of videos, or wiki or something that has this stuff? I personally have been having some troubles getting the concrete numbers to help out my build decisions in my royal edition playthru This is my fist time playing FFXV (hopped on the boy band road trip this year), so I want to be well informed for.. The Optimal No-Mistakes Headache-Free RPG Experience *adjusts monocle*

Superbro64 The r/FFXV wiki is a fantastic resource for information about this game. I'd link it, but I can't on mobile. Just go to the subreddit, click the wiki tab and scroll down to "Guides an extras". It includes a post with full trascript of the damage formula portion of the guide. (I've also contibuted some combat guides there.)

Asetoni FFXV Cools beans and thanks again Looking forward to your future analyses man

I have noticed that the sword forward attack does seem to have more stun, but can't confirm if it's just placebo. I wouldn't say it's thrust attacks tho, the game doesn't seem to have any special classification like that for attacks, and the greatsword weird thrust attack seems to have the least stagger out of all of its attacks (the one where Noct uses it like a shovel and hits twice).

Asetoni FFXV Yeah that's the part that gets me. Maybe they just tossed good modifiers on those attacks, I dunno. Greatsword forward attaxk os garbage and will always be garbage. I hate it so much

Alfredo Belloni Star is at the bottom of the barrel when it comes to HP efficiency, but it does habe the highest raw damage. I'm not sure, but I'd bet on Blade of the Mystic for having the best efficiency. The beams don't cost any HP at all, only the final hit and even that isn't much. Scepter and Sword of the Father are also pretty good candidates.

Blade of the Mystic is probably the best Royal Arm, just saying.

RekiWylls What did you say? I can't hear you over the little man inside my head who keeps screaming "EFFICIENCY!"

Alfredo Belloni Shield of the Just is good aswell. Takes out multiple enemies at once. Uses alot of health though.

Father is unfortunately one of the worse Royal Arms. I'd say the top 3 are Trident of the Oracle, Scepter of the Pious and Swords of the Wanderer. The Ring isn't technically considered to be a Royal Arm, but it's pretty much the most powerful item in the game.

Asetoni FFXV Is it a balanced build tho, oracle,pious,wanderers/ring ? Cause im trying ur triple black choker with 3 megaphones (just need 2 more phones tho) royal arms build. But it seems underwhelming , or am i missing something?

@Caliann Owens It's not *the worst* one, that honor goes to Sword of the Tall. Father is merely *one of* the worst ones. It really just comes down to the fact that Father has absolutely nothing going for it. Oracle, Pious, Wanderer, Wise and (to a lesser extent) Warrior deal good damage and tend outperform most normal weapons in that regard. Rogue and Clever are also vastly superior to all other ranged weapons. Mystic, Just, Conqueror and Fierce don't deal good damage, but have other amazing properties to them such as an outstanding warp strike, block, stagger potential and break potential. That just leaves us with Father, which deals less damage than normal swords, doesn't have any moveset, cannot airstep like normal swords and drains your HP. For all other Royal Arms (besides Tall) there is a clear answer to "why would I want to use this?", but Father is obsolete the moment you get it. All it's good for is +100 str at the cost of a weapon slot you'll never use.

@@asetoniffxv22 well combo finish is its best thing about with str boost but mystic can do it anytime during combo

@@asetoniffxv22 Sword of the Father is one of the worst ones? Not at level 1 it's not if you use the Shield of the Just. I like to run the shield with the Trident of the Oracle and Sword of the Father and both these weapons negate the negative effects of the shield. In the fourth slot I run the Ragnarok for warp/link striking and it's a pretty ridiculous combination that shreds pretty much everything that doesn't have an innately high defense while at the same time being a good defensive setup because of course at level 1 vitality and HP are naturally low. Seems like a pretty decent weapon to me and definitely not bottom tier at all. There's a reason you get it around the same time you get the trident and the ring. All are pretty overpowered...

The Katana of the Warrior is a good but unfortunately very one dimensional weapon. In terms of raw damage output it beats most endgame normal weapons on the right build, but since it's lacking link strikes, it can still get outperformed by those against certain enemy types that are easy to parry/blindside. Sadly, the katana is lacking any notable traits in its base moveset. No directional attacks, no charge attacks and no airstep to make use of the aerial attacks. All you have left is the basic combo, which is great, but this is what I meant with it being one dimensional. The one notable trait it has is the warp strike, which is all round really good, but suffers from a horrible HP-cost:damage ratio. It's one of the strongest sources of burst damage in the game and makes you invincible, making it ideal for taking down critical targets like bombs in an overcrowded area.

@@asetoniffxv22 hai, sorry for bumping such old post. but I really haven't done playing this game (my laptop suddenly broke down due to stupidly faulty bios update, which was completely my mistake for updating bios in the first place), I still want to play more. I like using Royal Arms (because, well, they sound cool! "Royal" and all) and Katana of the Warrior is my favorite. I see that Katana's warp strike has somewhat lackluster damage per button press, compared to normal sword's warp strike (I use Ultimate Blade as comparison), or other Royal Arms (e.g Sword of Wanderer / Trident of Oracle) so what were the factors that made you stated [In terms of raw damage output it beats most endgame normal weapons on the right build]? should I mostly use it's normal attack or warp strike? do you usually warp strike until Noctis MP almost out or at least half his MP? I even tried buying the Point-Black Warp Strike ascension just to see how much damage Katana could do with point-blank critical warp strikes, but it was kind of below my expectation of how strong it's warp strike should.

@@ddaarrkknneezz So it's been two years since I made that comment so I can't say I 100% remember what I was trying to get across at the time, but what I *think* I meant with "raw damage output" was the damage output of a weapon when ignoring passive effects like Zwill Crossblades' full HP buff or Wyvern Lance's bonus aerial damage. Most really good endgame weapons are good because of these passive buffs, so maybe I gave a more positive impression of the Katana than I intended to. That said, Ultima Blade is the perfect comparison since it's also a weapon with no noteworthy passives. The Katana deals more damage per hit with 3 stat boosting accessories (basic Magitek Suits for example, don't even need the V2 kind), has a comparable if not slightly faster attack speed and a really strong combo finisher that you also get to use more often due the Katana's combo being much shorter than swords'. Of course, since Ultima has a varied moveset, airstep and especially link strikes, it's a far better weapon, but on just basic combo damage it does lose to Katana of the Warrior. Though the Katana's damage is still definitely no match for Swords of the Wanderer and especially not for Trident of the Oracle. When it comes to the warp strike, like I said in that post, it's more of a burst damage tool than something to use for general dps since it costs so much HP to use. In constant use, it'll do more damage to you than the enemies ever could. It's only really good for taking down problematic enemies that are a nuisance if left alive for too long like Magitek Assassins, Bombs that spawn more bombs and flying bugs if you manage to break their wings and knock them down. Though even in these cases a case could be made that the Trident's warp strike is even better for that, but if I discard all weapons that aren't as good as the Trident, there'll only be like 6 weapons left in the game... Overall, I agree that the Katana's warp is disappointingly weak, especially considering that it takes 10% of your HP per swing, but it still has its use. So in summary, it's got a good basic combo with above average endgame damage, but still not a match for other dps-oriented Royal Arms and basic weapons with strong passives like Sarah's Shortword, Zwills or Hyperion. The warp is great in hyper-specific circumstances, but not a source of overall damage. And the moveset is very, very lacking. Overall, it's a C+ in my books. Totally useable if you like it, but probably not as good as I made it look in that old comment (or maybe I was just more ignorant at the time, I dunno...)

Ken Pacheco It's pretty amazing like most postgame weapons are. Best spear for sure.

GreatAbyssWalker Awful comment. Have a heart.