Two common misconceptions about Elemental Magic.

[locus]

Re: Two common misconceptions about Elemental Magic.

I believe what you meant to say was INT has a minor effect on elemental resists (which i will respectfully disagree) and MND has a minor effect on enfeebling resists.

Nope. Gravity, Bind and Sleep are Black magic enfeebling spells and MND will not affect them one bit. INT will affect your resist rate on these spells.

What I meant to say is: INT will affect your resist rates on black magic for all spells, and MND will affect your resist rate on white magic for all white magic spells.

You may disagree though, but this is simple enough to test. Find an IT monster (but not one more that's TOO hard) and cast a few spells on it with all the negative int gear you can get. Note the number of unresisted spells you get. Now put on your INT gear and cast burn on the monster and repeat. You should see fewer resists. There's a very good reason why galka and elvaan black mages tend to get resisted on black magic much more often than tarutarus.

Edit: Karinya is not quite correct, by the way. Magic attack bonus may not give equal returns to int on some spells depending on your current stats and on the spell that you are using. It is true that Magic attack bonus will increase your damage the most significantly for level 4 spells, but it might interest you to know that a black mage in a houppelande (INT +10) can actually do slightly more damage on level 3 spells than one in an igquira weskit (mab+5).

Also it's really very very easy to test the fact that int and mind have an effect on resist rates. I suggest you try it in your next experience party. Try to land silence with and without mind equipment on - there's a world of difference. (In some cases, it seems that stats might even make more of a difference than 10 skill. I've parsed and found that I land sleep on uleguerand ahriman more often with a houppelande on than with +10 to enfeebling from the rdm Af body)

[Taskmage]

Re: Two common misconceptions about Elemental Magic.

I'm given to believe INT and MND must have some effect on resistances, otherwise stats are useless on debuffs other than Slow, which goes against common wisdom.

As long as we're on the subject, it might be worthwhile to go over how elemental debuffs react with eachother, since a lot of people don't seem to know. If an elemental DoT is on a mob, it will prevent the elemental debuff of the element it's strong to from sticking, and will be canceled out if the debuff of the element it is weak to is cast. For example, if you stick Burn on a mob, casting Frost will have no effect, since ice is weak to fire the Burn precludes the Frost. On the other hand, if you were to cast Drown, the Burn would disappear, because water is strong to fire. The water puts out the fire.

So you can stick these combinations of three elemental debuffs at the same time:

Frost + Drown + Rasp
Burn + Shock + Choke

because those triplets have no interactions with eachother. You can stick two DoTs that aren't in the same trine, Burn and Rasp for example, but any third DoT you cast will either cancel out or be canceled by those two spells.

Do you really think Frost is unnecessary in the current environment with sushi? I don't parse much, so I don't have numbers to show either way. I do still run into one or two skillchains per party that fail because of a missed WS, and I think anything to cut down on that is a good thing. What are your thoughts on Gravity?

[neighbortaru]

Re: Two common misconceptions about Elemental Magic.

You may disagree though, but this is simple enough to test. Find an IT monster (but not one more that's TOO hard) and cast a few spells on it with all the negative int gear you can get. Note the number of unresisted spells you get. Now put on your INT gear and cast burn on the monster and repeat. You should see fewer resists. There's a very good reason why galka and elvaan black mages tend to get resisted on black magic much more often than tarutarus.

I've done this test in the past and I didn't see conclusive evidence. Sometimes it seems like it helped, while other times it didn't. I've always been meanning to try a more controlled test with a BST charming and releasing the same mob, but never got around to it.

There's a very good reason why galka and elvaan black mages tend to get resisted on black magic much more often than tarutarus.

Umm, not true... i see about the same with my old elvaan as with my new taru.

[Taskmage]

Re: Two common misconceptions about Elemental Magic.

I believe what you meant to say was INT has a minor effect on elemental resists (which i will respectfully disagree) and MND has a minor effect on enfeebling resists.

It's not a matter of elemental vs enfeebling, it's black magic vs white magic.

Double Post Edited:
What an active thread. I can't read/post fast enough to stay current.

[neighbortaru]

Re: Two common misconceptions about Elemental Magic.

It's not a matter of elemental vs enfeebling, it's black magic vs white magic.

yes, my bad I should choose my words carefully as well. while INT does seem to have an effect on black magic enfeebles being resisted, I don't believe it does anything for elemental spells. Thus the blanket statement of all black magic doesn't work for me. Then again, the blanket statement of all enfeebling spells isn't quite true either so

[locus]

Re: Two common misconceptions about Elemental Magic.

> Taskmage

Frost is pretty unnecessary. There's a certain limit to which accuracy caps out based on level difference and no amount of +acc gear can help you hit 100% of the time. If your melees are REALLY poor and eat meat, or can't hit worth nuts, obviously you will need frost. Luckily, sushi is actually very strong and just by using it with a decent amount of acc gear, people will usually hit that magic 90%ish accuracy rate.

Gravity's -evade effect is marginal, but it helps. I always cast it if I have the MP, but the bigger advantage to gravity is that if the whm or black mage pulls hate, the monster takes longer to run to the mage and hit him, giving the melees more time to get back hate. It's hard to get back hate when you're chasing after a monster. Obviously, Gravity is pretty useless as a basic debuff in merit parties.

>Neighbourtaru
Try parsing your resist results. I run a parser every time I do a merit party, it helps pass the time.　I'll update this post with a few links to some parser results with MND differences.

[neighbortaru]

Re: Two common misconceptions about Elemental Magic.

I tallied my results by hand back in the day
but will the new parsers break down for you each spell casted in battle instead of an aggregated result?

[locus]

Re: Two common misconceptions about Elemental Magic.

Actually, they can count the number of times "XXX resisted the spell" happens as opposed to "received the effect of XXX".

Here's a simple japanese link that explains how stats affect magic accuracy.

http://www.pomum.org/?%CB%E2%CB%A1%CC%BF%C3%E6%CE%A8

[neighbortaru]

Re: Two common misconceptions about Elemental Magic.

Actually, they can count the number of times "XXX resisted the spell" happens as opposed to "received the effect of XXX".

Hmm, that's handy for enfeebles (black or white), but that's not what I am in disagreement over.
I'll need to track each damage of an elemental spell over the course of the battle to count the number of times it was resisted.

will check out the link with a translator when I have the time though

Edit:
Ideally, my test to prove if INT affects elemental resists would be:
1. grab a high level BST friend
2. find a charmable, but IT to you mob that is neutral to the nuke you will be using to test
3. equip no INT+ gear
4. nuke several times and record your damage
5. have the BST friend charm the mob before you get killed and release so it can regain full health
6. equip all your INT+ gear (no staves though)
7. repeat 4-5
8. repeat 3-7 as many times as you see fit (to get a large enough sample size)

[locus]

Re: Two common misconceptions about Elemental Magic.

http://whitem.hp.infoseek.co.jp/archive/tactics/mnd.htm

Here's an example of typical parse results with MND gear and without. Tell me that that 51 MND isn't doing anything for his resists.

[neighbortaru]

Re: Two common misconceptions about Elemental Magic.

i'm sorry i can't read the JP to understand what spell he is casting. however, my disagreement is not over MND, it is whether INT affects elemental resists or not.

Double Post Edited:
nm, looks like paralyze.

again, this is not what i am disagreeing about.

[Rodin]

Re: Two common misconceptions about Elemental Magic.

MND doesn't do anything for resists. It doesn't do anything for Magic Def. Bonus either. I've tried EVERYTHING you can think of to try and allieviate my resist problem (pre-staves). Nothing worked. I've tested Mag. Def. Bonus with MND+, INT+, CHR+, nothing did it. INT = More Magic Damage. Elemental Skill = Less resist. Magic Atk. Bonus = More Magic Damage, more than INT will add.

I had a friend try to prove me wrong.

Him>> WHMs have more MND, that's why they can survive a 2hr from Kirin, when everyone else usually gets killed.
>>Me Well, go parse that. It's either cause we have more MND, or if you look under your Traits tab, you'll see a little job ability we get called Magic Defense Bonus.
Him>> Oh :x

[locus]

Re: Two common misconceptions about Elemental Magic.

Edit: Update, this is EVEN better.

http://www.playonline.com/comnews/200211261911.html

「フレア」などの攻撃é”法の命ä¸åˆ¤å®šã‚’INTのパラメータに依å˜ã™ã‚‹ã‚ˆã†ã«ã—ました。
Translation: The accuracy of attack magic spells like Flare is now dependant on your INT parameter.

Wanna admit you're wrong already? =D

[neighbortaru]

Re: Two common misconceptions about Elemental Magic.

AH! official source information! ok I admit defeat :

[Taskmage]

Re: Two common misconceptions about Elemental Magic.

XD *raises locus's arm* The winner and champion!