So a lot of you new pages are wondering if you should get final attack or not, due to the fact that it is now common knowledge that it lowers DoT with slash blast, and increases it with Power Strike. So what should you pick? Well this section should be able to clarify what you should pick.
Short Answer: If you want to train faster but be less proficient at bosses, do not get final attack. If you want to be as good as you can at 1 on 1 targets, but sacrifice training speed, get final attack.
It is still suggested you read this whole section.
So final attack takes a grand total of 0.57 seconds to finish when it is activated with a normal speed weapon with booster, while regular attacks take 0.73 seconds to finish when activated. This only makes the final attack animation 28% faster than its normal attack. Granting a little bit more than 1 extra attack every 4 times it is activated. But why wouldn’t we get final attack if that was the case? Well its simple, because final attack deteriorates slash blasts’ DoT due to the way MapleStory was created.
The following will show how much damage is done to up to 6 monsters when using final attack.
1st monster: 167% damage
2nd monster: 55% damage
3rd monster: 19% damage
4th monster: 6% damage
5th monster: 2% damage
6th monster: 0.6% damage
As you can see here, the 1st and 2nd monster receive over 80% of the initial damage of final attack, making monsters 3-6 receive virtually no damage at all. Now let us use this in an example where it can be shown through monsters.
A Page with Final attack vs. a Page without Final attack
Damage range of the level 70 Page: 1200 – 1900 (Please note this is just an easily workable range, your range may be higher or lower at this level)
Minimum damage with slash blast: 1560
Maximum damage with slash blast: 2470
Average damage with slash blast: 2015
Now statistically, slash blast would speed up killing, because of its speed and the fact that it does 250% damage. However, this is not the case due to the fact that monsters 3-6 barely take any damage whatsoever. In the next stage of calculations, I will show everyone how this is true.
So we’ll take monster that many will train on, Windraiders. Windraiders have 12,000 hp and yield 800 exp. So we’ll take a mob of 6 Windraiders and see who kills the mob fastest, the page with final attack, or the page without.
Page without final attack
1st – 6th monster: 5-8 hits, or 3.65 – 5.84 seconds (Average 4.745 seconds)
Page with final attack (Final attack activating each time)
1st monster: 4-7 hits, or 2.6 – 4.63 seconds (Average 3.615 seconds)
2nd monster: 6-9 hits, or 3.9 – 5.93 seconds (Average 4.915 seconds)
As you can see here, by the time the Page with Final attack kills the 2nd monster, the Page without Final attack has already killed the entire mob. However, let’s see how long it would take to kill the whole mob.
3rd monster: 7-9 hits, or 4.63 – 5.93 seconds (Average 5.28 seconds)
4th monster: 8-9 hits, or 5.2 seconds – 5.93 seconds (Average 5.565 seconds)
5th monster: 9 hits, or 5.93 seconds
6th monster: 9 hits, or 5.93 seconds
Average speed without final attack… 4.745 seconds
Fastest speed with final attack…….. 5.93 seconds
As you can see by these calculations, which were done by taking the amount of damage they would do with regular slash blast, then with final attack slash blast, the page without final attack kills the mob faster than the page with final attack. Yes, I did alternate the final attack calculation once one monster was killed, I am 100% confident in these calculations. The page with final attack only kills the first monster quicker, while monsters 2-6 haven’t been killed while the page without final attack has killed his entire mob.
CONCLUSION:
Final attack decreases your killing speed in this instance for slash blast by 25%, a number which grows greater the more hp the monster has.
That means your main mobbing skill, which you use to get experience 90% of the time, is decreased by 25%. An example would be a page getting 50% an hour, and the other page 62.5% an hour.
Power Strike and Final Attack
This section won’t be as hard to prove, but I can tell you that it does increase your DoT with power strike.
Level 70 page. 1200 ~ 1900 damage range
Minimum Damage With Power Strike: 3,120
Maximum Damage With Power Strike: 4,940
Minimum Damage With Power Strike with final attack: 3,000
Maximum Damage With Power Strike with final attack: 4,750
Page without final attack (On a Windraider): 3-4 hits, or 2.19 – 2.92 seconds. (Average 2.555 seconds)
Page with final attack (On a Windraider): 3-4 hits, or or 2.03 – 2.6 seconds. (Average 2.315 seconds)
Conclusion:
Final attack increases DoT for Power strike by about 10.4%. Although this is a higher percent than slash blast, slash blast is your main training skill, which is why I suggest the FAless build rather than the build that includes FA.
Conclusion about Final attack with slash blast and power strike:
Do not get final attack. It WILL decrease your training speed, although it increases your damage on 1v1 targets such as bosses, which most likely, you won’t be going to any bosses worth mentioning besides pianus until 4th job, where you replace both slash blast and power strike. The choice is up to you, I got final attack, but nobody knew these calculations that I am aware of at the time. So if you want to increase your training speed, don’t get final attack, if you want to increase your damage on 1v1 targets, get final attack. It is up to you.