I was always so confused about how physical damage was calculated in retail. And when I got on Nas I was hoping to understand it better, but there was so much misinformation about it and that Nas messed it all up. So far from all the testing I've done it seems like he is very very close to retail. I am trying to lay it all out slowly in my other post "Weaponskill Modifier Validation" to just help people as I couldn't find much concrete math on the subject, just a bunch of opinions. In general this is what I have found so far that seems the same/different.
Basic Melee equation is: (Base damage on weapon + fSTR)*pDIF
Basic weaponskill equation: (Base damage on weapon + fSTR + WSC*alphamodifier)*pDIF*fTP
Correct compared to retail (post2007-pre2014):
1. Base damage on weapons seem accurate
2. pDIF seems accurate to Pchan/Montenten Model here(
https://www.bluegartr.com/threads/10816 ... ost5007405 ). You can test by eating attack food to cap your cratio with a 2 handed weapon and swinging on mobs rabbits in valkurm or weaker mobs. Just divide the damage by your (base damage+fSTR) and you should find a max close to 2.76. You can also view my other post "weaponskill modifier validation" where i did a whole bunch of attack ranges and plotted it on the pDIF chart.
3. Cratio is what feeds into the pDIF equation and is (your attack / monsters defense). This looks like it is post 2007 - pre-2014 as it caps at 2 for 1 handers and 2.25 for 2-handers. I validated but haven't gotten around to sharing the info yet but you can just do the same as above with a 1 hand weapon and should land around 2.52pDIF. It's also correctly affected by lvl difference: c-Ratio - (your level - enemy level)*0.05
4. fSTR seems accurate (you can test by swinging on a lesser colibri with a 1 dmg weapon. Equation is: ((ur STR - mob VIT)+4)/4, when you are > 11 STR over its VIT. Colibri VIT is 52-55 depending on the lvl of the mob). The cap on fSTR contribution is (base damage of weapon / 9) + 8.
5. Weaponskills like spinning slash and tachi: gekko also get an attack multiplier like retail before being fed into cRatio equation. I also verified this in that other post for spinning slash/ground strike.
6. fTP seems to calculate correctly as the avg. of 20+ weaponskills usually ends up close to the calculated damage when getting the other values right (if using (pdifmax-pdifmin)/2 in the equation).
7. Mob weaknesses appear to work correctly: Ex: colibri take +25% more damage to piercing.
8. Weaponskills follow the post2007-pre2014 modifiers. You can read more in my other post: "Weaponskill Modifier Validation" on how I tested this with the Scythe weaponskills Slice and Catastrophe.
Incorrect compared to retail:
1. WSC I almost correct except that it doesn't seem to take the lv 75 alpha modifier or 0.83 into account and instead uses 1. You can read more about this in the other post I mentioned "Weaponskill Modifier Validation".
2. Most non-colibri Aht-Urghan mobs get a +0.25-0.35 cRatio bonus prior to level correction. You can see this by testing on flies and bomb in mt Z or Imps in Caedarva using a slashing weapon. It's strange but may explain why people thought VT-IT Aht Urghan mobs were weaker than the previous expansion counterparts in retail.
3. Offhand weapons contribute to mainhand crit rate although I haven't verified this 100% yet. Ex: Offhand fudo adds +3% overall to crit rate.
4. TP calculations are off by 1 sometimes compared to online equations when dual weilding or using store TP. Delay reduction like ninja chainmail doesn’t affect TP gain. You can check here: (
https://ffxiclopedia.fandom.com/wiki/Ta ... id=1367041) or on the BG-wiki page if you go to a 2007-2014 revision history page... neither equations seem to work for everything.
5. Theres no delay at all when pulling out your weapon.
6. Any weaponskill can crit on Nasomi, this explains the strange spike damage you see in weaponskills without the double attack extra TP gain you should get. I also verify this in "Weaponskill Modifier Validation" as some damage is unexplainable otherwise and this only occurs very rarely on high lvl mobs but more commonly on lower lvl in line with dDEX affecting crit rate.