Balrahn's Ring or Ulthalam's Ring?

[Vyuru]

This is a bit out there, but I was curious about what everyone thought about it.

I don't know if this matters, but once I finish CoP I plan on getting a Rajas Ring, best darn melee ring out there hands down and I feel that I can get the bonuses from the other rings through other methods (gear swapping and whatever)

I should say that while I enjoy melee jobs, and have Drg at 75 which I am working on gear for, I also enjoy mage jobs and am in the process of lvling Sch and obtaining gear for it.

The ToAU rings though, are not quite such an easy choice.

Ulthalam's Ring has some nice static bonuses for melee, +4att/acc and while you are doing an Assault also gives +4Str/Dex and a Regen effect.

Balrahn's Ring offers a static +4 Magic Accuracy, and while you are doing an Assault gives +4Int/Mnd/Chr and a Refresh effect.

Part of my difficulty is also due to my limited understanding of how Magic Accuracy works as well.

It seems to me though, that the Ulthalam's Ring would be the better choice. There are many other ways to enhance the accuracy of spells. I may or may not be playing a nuking Scholar, I think most likely it will be more party support, but it highly depends on what I'm doing and what the party needs.

So right now, Balrahn's Ring to me, looks like something whose benefit that I can get elsewhere, and I may or may not be using it. Seems rather pointless if I'm in cure/buff mode.

The buffs while under Assault on the Balrahn's Ring appeal to me far more than the buffs while under Assault for the Ulthalam's Ring. However I have to ask myself how often will I be doing Assaults? It'll be fairly often I suspect since I want to do Nyzul Isle and possibly Salvage/Einherjar. But again, that is a long way off, and again, it seems like other gear would most likely cover for the Balrahn's Ring even with those buffs.

It's a moot point if I ever get an Ixion Cloak though

I think that I am leaning more towards the Ulthalam's Ring at the moment.

Thoughts, comments, suggestions?

[Sabaron]

Re: Balrahn's Ring or Ulthalam's Ring?

Ulthalam's Ring offers less Accuracy than "standard" equipment, and +4 Attack is virtually insignificant. The other bonuses only apply while you're in Assault and are weaker or similar to bonuses offered by other rings although, like Raja's, you get both STR and DEX on 1 ring.

Balrahn's Ring increases your magic accuracy by 4 all the time. For a Mage job this is a pretty good as you can't get MAcc in a ring slot from any piece of gear other than a new ring that i can't remember the name of. The clincher for me was that:

1. Balrahn's ring is different than any other ring. I can't get it's primary bonus of +MAcc anywhere else and Ulthalam's is inferior to existing equipment with it's Acc/Attack bonuses.

2. Balrahn's ring offers Refresh during Assault, Ulthalam's only gives Regen.

I vote for Balrahn's like I vote for Raja's--always better for a person considering multiple party positions.

If you're a die-hard DD, I would go for Ulthalam's though.

[TheGrandMom]

Re: Balrahn's Ring or Ulthalam's Ring?

Well a point you might want to post is what jobs you have leveled. I take it drg and sch from your sig and what you mentioned in your post.

From what you've said though, it seems you've made up your mind already. Both rings seem quite nice and if I were going to be playing mage in assualts the majority of the time, I'd go with Balrahn's. But its a grey area when you are 50% of the time melee and 50% of the time mage. For me, I would choose by what job I have the absolute most fun on and want the majority of gear for.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Balrahn's Ring or Ulthalam's Ring?

As a rule of thumb for both my characters, I generally side with the rings/earrings/etc. that the most jobs would share. Since Kitten is primarily a melee-oriented character, all the rewards I've collected have been based on her being a melee/ranged attacker, so I have Rajas, Jalzhan's, Suppanomimi and Hollow Earring to reflect this.

Foobar gets Tamas, Balrhan's and so on, since he's SCH main and also RDM and BRD.

You're a DRG, but I don't know what other melee jobs you have, but if melee jobs ended up being the majority. I would go with that. However, the stat's Utalaham's Ring are somewhat replaceable for things outside of Assault/Salvage, while you can't really get anything like Balrhan's anywhere else and Jalzhan's Ring is the next best ranged ring you can find to Bellona's.

Magic Accuracy is something I think most people prefer to use toward enfeebles on mobs in general and then perhaps for high end mobs on nukes. Being able to stack on more refresh in Assault or Salvage is extremely nice, while getting more STR or regen isn't terribly impressive.

I'd say go with the melee ring if you have melees in the majority, but if SCH really interests you, go for the mage option. I'm working toward my Balrhan's

[LyonheartLakshmi]

Re: Balrahn's Ring or Ulthalam's Ring?

Ulthalam's Ring offers less Accuracy than "standard" equipment, and +4 Attack is virtually insignificant.

You could also make the case that the extra +1 Acc that "standard" accuracy rings give over Ulthalam's is "virtually insignificant". I would consider the benefits of Ulthalam's on par with Snipers +1 and Toreador's Ring.

Balrahn's Ring increases your magic accuracy by 4 all the time. For a Mage job this is a pretty good as you can't get MAcc in a ring slot from any piece of gear other than a new ring that i can't remember the name of.

That's assuming that +INT doesn't provide a boost to magic accuracy. We really don't know how magic accuracy works, so it's hard to say whether +4 magic accuracy from Balrahn's is any better than +5 INT from Snow Ring.

1. Balrahn's ring is different than any other ring. I can't get it's primary bonus of +MAcc anywhere else and Ulthalam's is inferior to existing equipment with it's Acc/Attack bonuses.

Ulthalam's is only inferior to Raja's, which you can't wear on both fingers at the same time anyway.

[Karinya]

Re: Balrahn's Ring or Ulthalam's Ring?

You could also make the case that the extra +1 Acc that "standard" accuracy rings give over Ulthalam's is "virtually insignificant". I would consider the benefits of Ulthalam's on par with Snipers +1 and Toreador's Ring.

Neither of which is worth getting unless you have 99999999 gil burning a hole in your pocket.

If the difference between Ulthalam's and Sniper/Flame (assuming a strength based WS, otherwise some other stat) swapping is insignificant, why get the Ulthalam's?

That's assuming that +INT doesn't provide a boost to magic accuracy. We really don't know how magic accuracy works, so it's hard to say whether +4 magic accuracy from Balrahn's is any better than +5 INT from Snow Ring.

True, but if there is an effect of stats, it is probably no better than 1 macc per 2 int/mnd (depending on the spell), like the original formulas for melee atk, acc, and def. And even that much effect isn't certain. Plus, macc probably affects all resistable spells - int, mnd, possibly even chr (songs).

Macc (probably) works on everything except healing/enhancing, where it doesn't really matter what rings you have on anyway. It's especially nice if you don't use 3rd party programs and have only 6 swap lines in your macros - I use hale/balrahn's on RDM now, and my macro lines go toward higher-value slots. An item that you can put in a particular slot and just *leave* there is really, really good for mages, even if it's only slightly better than swapping buyable stuff and not drastically better.

I think it's a great choice for RDM, SCH, probably BLM, and (if macc affects songs) BRD, and potentially useful for other jobs too.

And if you're going for Omega Ring, then you're doing Einherjar, so you *really* want Balrahn's. If you do any significant amount of Assault/Salvage/Einherjar, the job(s) you usually use for that content should determine your ToAU ring choice, because that's the only setting where they *really* stand out above the alternatives.

Ulthalam's is only inferior to Raja's, which you can't wear on both fingers at the same time anyway.

You're omitting Mars's ring, which is greatly superior to both (outside assault). A Mars/Rajas setup would have no use for Ulthalam whatsoever.

That's an AV drop, though, so let's set it aside. Then you have Rajas/Sniper (probably swapped with Rajas/Flame for WS) vs. Rajas/Ulthalam - you're really not going to notice a difference (even with a parser it would probably take a really long parse). Even if you don't have Rajas, the next tier of options aren't Rare, so the Ulthalam is still replacing things that are basically about as good as it is.

None of the ToAU rings is going to give a dramatic performance boost outside of Assault, compared to other gear you could have equipped. They're good, but not *that* good. (Actually, you probably wouldn't even notice Mars's Ring without a parser, if it was the only thing you changed from your previous gear setup; and that *is* a big stat difference, on paper.)

[LyonheartLakshmi]

Re: Balrahn's Ring or Ulthalam's Ring?

If the difference between Ulthalam's and Sniper/Flame (assuming a strength based WS, otherwise some other stat) swapping is insignificant, why get the Ulthalam's?

I wouldn't consider the difference to be insignificant. I wouldn't consider it earth shattering either. The difference between Ulthalam's and Sniper/Flame is probably similar to the difference between, oh, say, Balrahn's and Snow Ring.

True, but if there is an effect of stats, it is probably no better than 1 macc per 2 int/mnd (depending on the spell), like the original formulas for melee atk, acc, and def. And even that much effect isn't certain. Plus, macc probably affects all resistable spells - int, mnd, possibly even chr (songs).

That would be my guess too. In which case, I would probably use Balrahn's for non-nukes, and Snow Ring for nukes -- similar to using Ulthalam's for TP and Flame Ring for WS.

That's an AV drop, though, so let's set it aside. Then you have Rajas/Sniper (probably swapped with Rajas/Flame for WS) vs. Rajas/Ulthalam - you're really not going to notice a difference (even with a parser it would probably take a really long parse). Even if you don't have Rajas, the next tier of options aren't Rare, so the Ulthalam is still replacing things that are basically about as good as it is.

You could probably put "Balrahn's" in place of "Ulthalam" and "Snow Ring" in place of "Sniper/Flame", and the paragraph would hold true. You'd have to take copious notes on resists for a long time and do a whole bunch of math to notice a difference between Balrahn's and Snow Ring.

I'm not necessarily advocating either ring over the other. But I don't think it's a slam dunk decision that it was made out to be.

[Vyuru]

Re: Balrahn's Ring or Ulthalam's Ring?

Well, lvl 75 Drg and lvl 45 (46?) Rdm are my highest jobs. I think perhaps more importantly are the jobs I'm planning on leveling.

I think of the various jobs, the jobs that I am most interested in would be:

Sch, Smn, Blu, Pld, Drk

With Smn being on the low scale of things until I get enough time to get Fenrir and other summons.

Actually, I'd have to say that now I'm more inclined towards the Balrhan's Ring now that 'Kitten mentioned that bit about enfeebles, and if it works with enfeebles, then I think it's safe to assume that it would work with spells such as sleep. For whatever reason, I had assumed that magic accuracy only affected damaging spells like Fire I/II/III.

Another thing that was bouncing around in my head is that an additional source of Refresh outside of Sigil Refresh is always nice for the Drg/mage combo.

We really don't know how magic accuracy works, so it's hard to say whether +4 magic accuracy from Balrahn's is any better than +5 INT from Snow Ring.

The Wiki was saying that roughly +2 Int = +1 magic accuracy, is that incorrect or unconfirmed?

I'm not necessarily advocating either ring over the other. But I don't think it's a slam dunk decision that it was made out to be.

Very much agreed with here, but as I said, I didn't think I fully understood how magic accuracy worked.

[Karinya]

Re: Balrahn's Ring or Ulthalam's Ring?

You could probably put "Balrahn's" in place of "Ulthalam" and "Snow Ring" in place of "Sniper/Flame", and the paragraph would hold true. You'd have to take copious notes on resists for a long time and do a whole bunch of math to notice a difference between Balrahn's and Snow Ring.

You're assuming that all spells are INT based again. I see from your sig that you're a BLM, which explains that; but some jobs use more than one type of spell.

And while resists on a nuke are annoying, resists on a sleep, bind, etc. can kill you or someone in your party/alliance.

I think that's probably the most important reason I'd go with Balrahn's: a little better DD never saved anyone's life, but some resistable spells are life and death.

[Sabaron]

Re: Balrahn's Ring or Ulthalam's Ring?

I'm not necessarily advocating either ring over the other. But I don't think it's a slam dunk decision that it was made out to be.

I never said anything about a "Slam Dunk"--a "Slam Dunk" is Flame versus Courage. If I posted something like:

"They're both good!"

I might as well not post at all, and I really think that Balrahn's is better for mages than Ulthalam's is for melees. Balrahn's is my favorite of the set because of the reasons I posted earlier, but remember....


We're sort of comparing apples to oranges if you catch the analogy above. We're comparing Magic Accuracy to Accuracy/Attack and STR/DEX/Regen to INT/MND/Refresh.

Obviously, a WAR has no use for MAcc or INT/MND/Refresh, and a BLM isn't going to want Acc/Attack or STR/DEX/Regen. Therefore you can base the preference solely on the frequency with which you use various jobs.

Do you or do you plan to spend more time on melee or more time on mage?

If your answer is melee: Ulthalam's
If your answer is mage: Balrahn's

Obviously this doesn't extend into comparisons of the other ToAU rings.

If you answer "idk" or "both": Balrahn's

You keep neglecting the Refresh factor during ToAU activities. Refresh for a mage is significantly better than Regen for a melee. If you equate everything else:

Refresh > Regen

[Lmnop]

Re: Balrahn's Ring or Ulthalam's Ring?

My SCH friend complained (before SCH got uberbuffed) that they couldn't get magic acc anywhere near as high as BLM.

SCH have a much better fighting chance, now, but I see that +m.acc as something to augment your B rank skills (or whatever it is now with AF) for the times that you need it. Resisted nukes will get you killed in a manaburn setting (which is a realistic setting for a SCH).