New BLM Igqira/Genie Armor - An Analyzation

[Lokinn]

HNM Questions

Hi Faluzure, what i am asking for may be a little out of topic. But i would greatly appreciate it if you can answer my queries.

As a member of a HNM shell, what kind of damage do you deal against the Gods in Tulia? For example, Genbu and Seiryu are really easy to nuke, with Thunder IV and Blizzard IV respectively. But Byakko and Suzuka tend to give me trouble as i get tons of resists. What kind of spells do you use against them and do you think bards threnody and skillchains would help to lessen resists to a useful extent? Kirin is another pain in the neck, as i get heavily resisted often. The best way to deal damage against it, i found was ES + Aeroga III but i can only do it once per 10min which is not so good.





Lokinn
75BLM/37WHM

[Faluzure]

Re: HNM Questions

Lokinn wrote:
Hi Faluzure, what i am asking for may be a little out of topic. But i would greatly appreciate it if you can answer my queries.

As a member of a HNM shell, what kind of damage do you deal against the Gods in Tulia? For example, Genbu and Seiryu are really easy to nuke, with Thunder IV and Blizzard IV respectively. But Byakko and Suzuka tend to give me trouble as i get tons of resists. What kind of spells do you use against them and do you think bards threnody and skillchains would help to lessen resists to a useful extent? Kirin is another pain in the neck, as i get heavily resisted often. The best way to deal damage against it, i found was ES + Aeroga III but i can only do it once per 10min which is not so good.
To Lokinn: Hey Lokinn. Hmm.. it has been a while since I've done actual Gods. The only one I recall lately was Kirin. These are the spells I used because these are the spells they are weak to (but being weak to it doesn't mean you'll necessarily always do good damage orz):
Genbu: Thunder
Byakko: Blizzard
Seiryu: Blizzard
Suzaku: Water
Kirin: Aero

Skillchains: I don't think that this would help much. That is just my speculation. My LS straight tanks all the Gods...even Genbu (but not Kirin) with Paladins. I don't know if that seems strange to you, but that's what we (JP Linkshells on my server) do. I'm not quite sure about the other gods, but I know that on my server for some reason, none of the NA HNMLShells straight tank Genbu. The last time I was sorta "coaching" a certain HNM LS on my server, we got wiped. They came up with the "Kiting Genbu" strat that seems to be used by all the NAs now. I just think it's weird.

In any case... As I said, we straight tank all the Gods except Kirin. Thus it is very easy for us to perform skillchains if we have to (because we don't have to wait for the God to stand still). Regardless though, I rarely recall my LS doing skillchains on any God. I do know that we have as many players use Spirits Within at the start vs all Gods. That seems to do the best damage overall. Silverblood was a guest in my LS one day, but I'm not sure if he would remember it. Everyone used Spirits Within and dropped Genbu to 2/3rds HP. That's a LOT of damage, more than any group of BLMs could do at the start. As the battle progresses, I do recall that people will just do a weaponskill solo (most of them to SATA on a backup PLD). Skillchains may help, but I'm just telling you how I've experienced/seen things done by my LS (which is a pretty popular JP HNM LS).

Threnodies: It is possible that this could help quite a bit, but I don't expect a lot of damage unless I do ES + <Spellname>. You could try it, but wouldn't the song possibly be resisted as well? I mean our spells are resisted as are most enfeebles from RDMs. My memory is a bit cloudy...so I don't remember if any of our Bards have tried it. You should try it and let me (as well as other members on this forum) know how it goes.

Conclusion: Now... I think any respective high level player NA, JP, etc. will tell you they get resisted a lot when fighting these Gods. There is nothing I've seen (or heard of) that will allow you to do unresisted damage 100% of the time. I've looked through all my Ru'Aun HNM screenshots and I don't seem to have many actual damage stats. The stats that I have seen are very low damage output. I think it is like that for a reason though. A lot of the Gods don't take very much melee damage, so doing more damage against them as a BLM may be detrimental to your life. I remember in one incident that this one Taru BLM got lucky and started successfully damaging a God HNM. Sadly to say, he ate the dirt because his damage output was more hate than the Paladin could get back at the time.

As with most HNMs, BLMs as well as Rangers can make up a lot of the damage. What I recall most from Kirin is that all spells, whether Aeroga III or Aero IV or Tornado, would do no more than 100 damage from all our BLMs (all races, various equipment). Rangers really shine versus Kirin, as they can unload their ammo at will for decent damage and kite him around if they have to. As for the BLMs, I think it is just important to go in, dump your mana regardless of damage, then disband from PT and go rest. If you have ES available, use it with an Aeroga III and run for your life if Kirin happens to notice you. I did that once and I paid for it with my life (thanks Deadly Hold!) :spin:

Of course, these are just my 2 cents. My opinion is based on my experiences and observations of other players. Your LS may not have *tons* of BLMs where you can swap out with another BLM full of mana (we had about 18 BLMs for the Kirin Battles). Also, you may not have tons of Rangers, etc. I've seen BLMs just use all Elemental Magic Skill+ gear and their damage wasn't that much better than mine. So this leads me to believe the Gods have mega high resistance...period. It's just my belief that you either do crap damage or you do awesome damage. There is no "in-between". Of course, any of you other high level BLMs can argue with me. Afterall, I'm biased to the workings of my LS and no other.

[astraycat]

Losing the -3 enmity from the errant coat shouldn't be an issue because, in reality, most BLMs use Black cloak to fight anything of substance. Black cloak has absolutely no -enmity, so you lose the -4 from the AF hat as well. Especially when you're kiting mobs around, the Black cloak's auto-refresh is great, and the +8 elemental skill is a good boost too.

I've been using the weskit for a week or so now, and I have to say I love it. It's really, really nice. Died a lot, but hey, I died a lot with the black cloak too. Unless I've thrown up elemental seal, I generally go with this set of gear:

Elite Beret
Igqira Weskit
Wizard's Gloves
Zenith Pumps

If I'd just finished resting or if I have elemental seal up I would instead be wearing the Wizard's Petasos and Zenith Mitts.

A lot of people said that the +15 elemental skill of the gloves doesn't make up for the +5 Magic Attack on the zenith mitts because the resists are bad regardless of elemental skill. Lately, I've been messing with this and it may just be the placebo effect but it does seem that I get less resists with +15 elemental skill, and the +4 of beret over the petasos.

I look at this way: If I get 1 more nuke in with the +15 elemental skill, that's another 500-600 damage, depending on the nuke. I would have to do 100,000 damage to get that much extra damage with the Zenith Mitts. Fafnir has less health that.

But back to the weskit: I feel that it's entirely worth it to pick one up. The conserve mp makes up for the loss of the auto-regen of the Black Cloak(or at least, I feel that it does), the +elemental skill helps with resists, and the +magic attack makes up for the loss of the 10 int on the errant coat. The only major thing its lacking is -enmity, but then it would be too good. If you're really worried about the loss of enmity, get an errant cape. +3 int is a small price to pay for -5 enmity(if you don't have that kinda cash floating around, you may want to see if you can get your HNMLS to hunt CC for a bit, it's (relatively) cheap to upgrade the anmity cape to errant, granted that you have someone with clothcraft skill).

[Crowzukin]

So if you had to choose two body pieces to keep with you, would you go with Igqira & Errant, or Igqira & Black Cloak?

[astraycat]

I keep all 3 with me, JIC.

But Errant + either is a good choice(errant is needed for the +5mp while healing)

[AtraposBLM]

Originally posted by astraycat
I keep all 3 with me, JIC.

But Errant + either is a good choice(errant is needed for the +5mp while healing)

Black Cloak's Auto-Refresh (and all auto-refreshes for that matter) work out to be +7 mp on the first tick, and +4 mp recovered on all subsequent ticks. Considering you cannot rest for extended periods of time for the most part while HNMing, the difference between resting with an Errant Houppelande and a Black Cloak are fairly slim. The only time you'd be resting to full (the only time +1 mp recovered might make some sort of difference) is if you're on the sidelines, at which point time isn't much of an issue...so for all intents and purposes, Black Cloak and Errant Houppelande are equivalent for resting. Also, considering that most people use other +mp recovery, +1 is meaningless when:
24 base mp recovered at lv70 (this may go up at 75, I'm not sure)
10 extra for Dark Staff
2 extra for food (Apple or Melon Pie +1 most commonly used for BLM)
9 extra for refresh (15 on first tick)
9 extra again if you have double ballads
That makes it 54+1 mp recovered on your second tick (its more on first tick due to refresh and ballad, because your first tick takes longer than subsequent ticks). So your second tick with Black Cloak will be 59 mp, while your second tick with Errant will be 60 mp. The difference is negligible.


Therefore, the only reason to wear Errant Houppelande was for the +10 int when you were casting on something that was lower than you for extra damage. Now that we have the Weskit, we have a much more effective tool for simply dealing damage. We also have the Black Cloak for times when resting is difficult and the added refresh is helpful (and while resting). Errant Houppelande is no longer particularly useful for BLM's. Wahoo.

Personally, I would no longer carry the houppelande around, and instead would only use Black Cloak, Weskit, and AF Body (Sleeps). Seeing as I have not been able to get to that level yet, I'd imagine I have some testing to do. However...I'm fairly confident in my assessment so far.

[Faluzure]

Well. I did it. I've stared at the Auction House everyday, several times a day, ever since the Weskit was released. Well, the price has been dropping (due to overstock of the Weskit). The last price for the last 2 days were 650,000. I vowed never to buy it unless it drops to 600,000. I even talked to my JP friend who is also a BLM. He said he wants it, but he wasn't going to buy it until it drops to around 200,000 to 300,000. He explained to me that there can be only so many BLMs at that level. The reason it started out high is because all (most) the BLMs wanted it. Sure there will be others who will get to that level, but it won't happen overnight. Thus, as less and less BLMs have a reason to buy it, the longer the same ones will be on sale. The longer the same ones are on sale, the more likely the crafter will drop the price just to get rid of them. That was his explanation and it makes sense, but I personally think it won't drop lower than 500K. Anyway... so I keep checking it all day yesterday and one finally sold for 640K. Without even thinking, I punched in the price of 630K. I have purchased a Weskit. I'm finally glad I have this item but I'm also upset that I didn't have any self-control whatsoever. Damn me...

As to the performance... As of right now, I keep the Black Cloak, Errant H., and the Igqira Weskit as my choices. As for AtraposBLM's statement on the Black Cloak's Auto-Refresh... I don't know how you are getting different #s on ticks with the Black Cloak (Auto-refresh in general). Autorefresh is just like popping a permanent Pineapple Juice. It is 1 MP every 3 seconds period, whether resting or standing. It never goes up, it never goes down. With the Errant H., you will always recharge more mana (even though it is just a few points difference) than with the Black Cloak on. I keep all three for certain reasons.

Errant H., this used to be used for my BLM for Damage/Resting purposes. No other piece of armor can give you the value of +8 Healing MP. This is a godsend for all mages. Now that I have the Igqira Weskit, this no longer serves its purpose for damage. It is purely a healing MP device (when I am allowed to heal) and it heals more when resting than a Black Cloak does.

Black Cloak, this used to have its purpose for elemental skill as well as Auto-Refresh. Now that I have the Weskit, it no longer functions as a damage dealing device. The only times I have used this is when I cannot do a sitting heal with the Errant H. Being able to heal MP without resting is very important at times but if you can rest, swap to the Errant.

Igqira Weskit, I now use this for all damage-related spells. The -3 less Elemental Magic skill doesn't seem like much of a loss. The Conserve MP and the Magic Attack makes it much more worthwhile than anything I've had previously. The first spell I cast with it was Teleport-Mea (I was going to XP with friends) and Teleport-Mea only cost me 50 MP. The Conserve MP seems to kick in quite a bit.

I love the Black Cloak, as I said before, healing MP while not having to rest is very beneficial. However, if there are times when you are able to rest, it is best to switch to the Errant H. because every MP regained is valuable. I fight HNMs constantly, its part of my daily routine. That is what my JP LS is, a pure HNM LS. With a LS like that, you are expected to nuke and blow your mana over the course of the battle. Now, everyone has their opinions on what to wear, how much elemental magic skill you need, INT, whatever. That's fine and dandy but when it comes down to healing, everyone in my LS (we have about 12 BLMs) as well as all my friends who are BLMs, will swap to the Errant Houppelande for that few extra MP because every bit of MP helps when fighting a nasty HNM or even in XP.

If you want to get down to technicality, the best MP gained while resting is doing the following: Wear the Black Cloak, allow it to restore +2 MP over 6 seconds, then swap to the Houppelande so it can restore 8 MP just right before the end of the tick. After you gain that tick, put the Black Cloak back on and repeat. This is the max MP regain you can get with just the 2 pieces alone. Again, I do not deny that the differences between the 2 in terms of MP Healing is small, but a difference is a difference and I opt for the Errant and I'll always keep it just for healing MP.

[AtraposBLM]

I was under the impression that E. Houppelande only added +5 mp while healing?

The way I got the numbers I did was as follows:
First tick takes between 17 and 21 seconds to occur. Subsequent ticks take 12 seconds. This is from 5 months memory...so I could possibly be wrong (I'll be checking again shortly, so if I'm wrong I will correct myself). Auto-refresh gives 1 mp every 3 seconds. Therefore, on the first tick of resting time, Auto-refresh gives you between 6 and 7 mp (rounded up). On Subsequent ticks, auto-refresh will restore 4 mp during that time.

Again, perhaps my memory is faulty, but I was under the impression that E. Houppelande only added 5 MP per tick recovery. As you can see from above, this means that before the 3rd tick, E. Houppelande is actually *behind* a Black Cloak in terms of restoring MP, and after that is only slightly ahead.


lv70 BLM Resting with Apple Pie +1, Dark Staff, and Black cloak:
Tick 1:
24+10+2+7 = 43 mp restored
Tick 2:
24+10+2+4+1 = 41 mp restored
Total Restored: 84 mp
Tick 3:
24+10+2+4+2 = 42 mp restored
Total Restored: 126 mp restored
Tick 4:
24+10+2+4+3 = 43 mp restored
Total Restored: 169 mp restored


lv70 BLM resting with Apple Pie +1, Dark Staff, and E. Houppelande:
Tick 1:
24+10+2+5 = 41 mp restored
Tick 2:
24+10+2+5+1 = 42 mp restored
Total Restored: 83 mp
Tick 3:
24+10+2+5+2 = 43 mp restored
Total Restored: 126 mp
Tick 4:
24+10+2+5+3 = 44 mp restored
Total Restored: 170 mp restored

From there it's simply a 1 mp difference. That 1 mp makes a *smaller and smaller* difference as time goes on. At tick 4, that 1 mp represents 0.5% difference (yes, 1/2 of 1 percent) in total mp restored. This difference will get *smaller* as the mp restored quantity gets larger. As you can see, I find little reason to spend 180,000 gil to gain such a small amount of difference.




If, however, I'm wrong, and E. Houppelande is indeed +8 mp recovered while healing...well then I eat my words and I'll have to buy it to switch to while resting. Curse BLM and the amount of gear we have to switch. Doesn't help that my next job is RDM ; ;


EDIT:: According to Allakhazam, I'm right:
http://ffxi.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?fitem=3125
But we all know how accurate they are. I'll check once again when in game.

[Faluzure]

You're right. The Errant H. is +5 MP per tick. However, are the ticks actually variable? I am fairly sure that each tick (resting MP/HP recharge) was a fixed amount no matter if it was first, or 2nd or 50th tick. I've never paid attention, so I don't know. Even if the ticks were fixed, as you said before, the difference between the two are minimal (1-2 point difference per tick).

However, I still am going to keep both, as both have their immediate uses for me since i have multiple jobs. In addition, as i said in the previous post, there are times when I cannot rest when I am in a rush to get from point A to B or if I rest, I'll draw aggro, etc. There are also times when, Elemental Magic Skill is not important, thus the Black Cloak is useless (such as fighting a lower level mob, a weak NM, etc.) You would be better off with the Errant H. and your AF hat, Demon Helm, etc. for the INT+. It would be like a Dark Knight in all ACC+ gear fighting a level 60 mob or such. All that ACC+ gets to a point where you don't really need it anymore as long as that mob isn't an HNM, etc.

I'll keep the Black Cloak until I pick up AF2.

[astraycat]

From my experience each tick is 10 seconds, and not 12, the first tick occurs at 20 seconds.

Thus, on the first tick black cloak will have added 6 mp. Second tick it actually sqeezes 4mp worth of autorefresh, and then every 3 subsequent ticks it sqeezes in 10 more mp.

So for the first 5 ticks(1 minute) it adds 20mp. Now this is about ~200mp worth of resting, which is enough for one nuke. For most HNMs I usually just expell all my mp then take a seat, and another BLM goes to play "Who can steal aggro from the tanks"(The ranger usually wins). But really, I would like to say that most HNMs require you to get a full rest at least one time. Many require to you get a full rest over and over and over again.

For the first 2 ticks the black cloak adds 10mp. For the first two ticks the Errant H. adds 10mp. For every 3 ticks after that, the Black cloak adds 10mp, and the Errant H. adds 15mp. That's quite a differnce IMO, and it only takes 30 seconds for the Errant H. to catch up and overtake the Black cloak in terms of MP healed while resting.

The point of wearing a Black cloak during EXP for me really wasn't for the +10 elemental skill, but it was mainly for the autorefresh.

And I still keep it for the autorefresh, simply because I'm not always casting. It's nice to have a little extra MP regen if you're just standing around and not resting.

But um the Igqira weskit looks hawt on hume male. Yup. Still talking about that >.>

[Yoshime]

I've been trying to complete my set now since prices have dropped. (Got my weskit for 351k) What puzzles me is that I have seen every piece in the AH except for the feet which doenst even have an entry description.

As of now, no one has the gloves for sale which i really want and I dont think I'm paying 350k for the pants.

[Tetsura]

On Pandemonium Weskit is now 900k, Lappas are 1.4mil, Hands are 30k, head is roughly 20k, and feet still arent on AH (though my friend has had them since the first week they were released so they can be crafted, but she has since moved to Hades).

If you buy a Weskit now, the crafters make 200k a pop off it after material costs, and i'm sure they make a bundle on Lappas. But then again Pandemonium's economy sucks anyway with all the gil sellers

[SephirothYuyX]

Originally posted by Tetsura
On Pandemonium Weskit is now 900k, Lappas are 1.4mil, Hands are 30k, head is roughly 20k, and feet still arent on AH (though my friend has had them since the first week they were released so they can be crafted, but she has since moved to Hades).

If you buy a Weskit now, the crafters make 200k a pop off it after material costs, and i'm sure they make a bundle on Lappas. But then again Pandemonium's economy sucks anyway with all the gil sellers

On Rag:

Weskit was originally 1.7m then went to 700k and now is at 1.1k and will most likly stay there.

Legs are worthless and are slowly going down, @500 now, since no one buys them.

Feet were once sold at AH for 3m.

Rest are under 20k.

[Yoshime]

Wow, I never knew prices from the other servers were that different. Anyway, here's a few questions to those who have this set or some of the pieces:

What is the built in Curse effect from the pieces? Is it the one like those curse machines in Beadeux or something else? I have only tried to fight a few things like 50 mobs or so while wearing the weskit and I have yet to see the effect on screen or log message.

I guess the effect has higher probability if you have most if not all the pieces.

[Reolen]

To me its all about more damage and less eminty since I'm a taru I don't have any problems with MP. Refresh is nice but I'm pretty good at conserving MP as it is so its not a MUST for me. Thats why I love being a taru don't have to worry about +MP things.