Nightfyre's DW and Delay discussion:
Capped gear haste is 256/1024 (25%).
Capped magic haste is 448/1024 (43.75%).
Erratic Flutter is 307/1024 (29.98%).
Capped gear+magic haste is 704/1024 (68.75%).
Capped gear haste + Erratic Flutter is 563/1024 (54.98%).
Total delay reduction = (1-haste)*(1-DW)
You can rearrange this equation to isolate DW: 1-(total/(1-haste))
Plug in 0.2 as your total delay reduction, use whatever quantity of haste you have, and solve.
Capped gear+magic: 1-(0.2/(1-0.6875))=0.36
Capped gear+EF: 1-(0.2/(1-0.5498))=0.5558
DW3 is 25% DW, so assuming 1200 JP you're looking at 11 DW to cap with capped magic haste and ~30 DW with just Erratic Flutter. Best to err slightly low, rather than high, in order to avoid losing too much TP/hit.
Floppyseconds' DW and Delay discussion:
Dat Delay 'N ***
My DW and Delay discussion:
Let's talk about Dual Wield for a little bit. When it comes to Dual Wield, a lot of people believe that the more the merrier and you should shove it into everywhere it can fit. In some situations, that's actually quite true, but in many, it's completely wrong. Keep in mind that Dual Wield lowers your TP/hit. We are only able to hit 80% delay reduction, and Dual Wield plays a factor in calculating delay. However, as soon as you hit that delay reduction cap, you can't attack any faster. Yet, if you have more DW than is necessary to hit that cap, you continue to lose TP/hit without gaining any attack speed. That's why it is incredibly important to understand Dual Wield calculations.
So, let's actually calculate our delay.
In order to properly calculate delay, you'll need to know the values of your outside haste sources.
Magic Haste - Caps at 43.75%
Types of Magic Haste - Victory March (~9-17%), Advancing March (~7-14%), Refueling (10%), Haste 1 (15%), Haste 2(30%), Embrava (up to 25%), Indi/Geo Haste(28%+), Mighty Guard (15%)
Job Ability Haste - Caps at 25%
Types of Job Ability Haste - Haste Samba (5% from sub, 10% from merited Haste Samba from a main DNC), Hasso (10%), Desperate Blows (25% with 5/5 merits)
Gear Haste - Caps at 25% (256/1024 to be precise)
Delay Calculation Formula
So, now that we know the types and values of haste in the game, let's figure out our delay.
Let's look at a situation in which we have zero magical haste, capped gear haste, and Dual Wield 5 trait without any DW on gear.
256/1024 + 35% Dual Wield. Those are our values right now.
With our Dual Wield value, we subtract the % of dual wield from 1. This looks like (1-.35), which leaves us with .65.
For our gear haste, we take the value we have and subtract it from 1024. This looks like 1024-256, which gives us 768.
We then take those two values and multiply them together. This looks like 768 x .65, which gives us 499.2. However, because of SE's flooring during calculations, this is floored to 499.
Then divide this new value by 1024. So, 499/1024 = 0.487, or 48.7% delay remaining, with a delay reduction of 51.3%. This means that, in order to cap delay reduction, we need to reduce an additional 28.7%.
Let’s try a new example. This time, we have Erratic Flutter (Haste 2, or 30% magical haste), capped gear haste, Dual Wield 5 and 10% additional DW from gear.
Now we have 256/1024 + 300/1024 +45% DW.
(1-.45) = .55
1024 – 256 – 300 = 468
468 x .55 = 257.4 (Floors to 257)
257/1024 = .251, or 25.1% delay remaining, with 74.9% delay reduction.
When it comes to delay reduction, you want to get as close to capping as you can without going over and without sacrificing large amounts of beneficial stats.
Use literally any of these, or the in-depth discussions on BGwiki, to determine your current haste values and corresponding amount of DW necessary to hit delay reduction cap.