Blu spells and critical damage

[Torano]

Well I was trying to decide between certain pieces of gear, and I started wondering how much importance I should put on dex. That's when I realized that I wasn't sure if Blu spells can crit naturally or not. Now I know they work with Sneak Attack and that some of the spells "Deals Critical Damage", but is a spell such a Frenetic Rip able to land crits when casted on its own?

I tried casting sprout smack over and over on some beetles in Garlaige and I didn't really see any increases that I would consider to be a critical hit, but at the same time it's really kinda hard to tell.

So anyways, I had a few questions. Has SE said anything about Blu mage spells criting? Is it commonly believed that they can crit? If you do believe they can, why?. Thank you.

[ItazuraNhomango]

Re: Blu spells and critical damage

Some physical Blue Magic can critical hit (e.g. Screwdriver), most cannot--at least not without Sneak Attack. That's my understanding of it.

[Kyrial Arthian]

Re: Blu spells and critical damage

I'm not too sure, but I think they can. Sometimes it seems like my Frenetic Rips and Disseverments spike a bit higher than normal, so it could be that they I'm getting a crit or two in there. Hard to tell really, though.

[Armando]

Re: Blu spells and critical damage

Itazura is correct.

I'm not too sure, but I think they can. Sometimes it seems like my Frenetic Rips and Disseverments spike a bit higher than normal, so it could be that they I'm getting a crit or two in there. Hard to tell really, though.

If it could crit, you'd see more than just spikes that are a bit higher than normal.

In 99% of the cases, if a WS or Blue spell doesn't say it can crit, it can't. There might be some random exception out there with inaccurate description or that's just simply weird. But that's how it is for practically every spell.

Multi hit attacks have a huge damage variance and what you think might be crits is most likely just getting lucky and having most of the hits land for near-max damage, as opposed to having some hit on the low end, some hits in the middle end and some in the high end of the range for possible damage per hit.

The one exception I've seen is Feather Storm. That one can crit. But it could be that ranged Blue spells or ranged WS play by slightly different rules.

[VZX]

Re: Blu spells and critical damage

I've also seen Pinecone bomb crit without CA

The rule of those physical melee crit is "There is probability it'll crit it if CA is active".
Outside that circumstance, Spell just won't crit unless forced by SA

[Torano]

Re: Blu spells and critical damage

Thank you for the responses, they should make my equipment decisions alot easier.

[Kyrial Arthian]

Re: Blu spells and critical damage

Itazura is correct.If it could crit, you'd see more than just spikes that are a bit higher than normal.

I mean a lot more than just "a bit higher." I mean like, Frenetic Rip doing 900 instead of 500-550. Or Disseverment doing 1450-1500 instead of 1100-1150.

[Khidir]

Re: Blu spells and critical damage

it most likely has to do with whether you are using the spell under CA or not
Some spells have the description of chances of crit vary with tp, it'd be easiest to find out by just doing CA with amounts of 100, 200, or 300 tp back to back and see if there's a difference.

If you are talking outside CA then most of the ones i've found, no they havent Jet Stream is an odd one with acc and crit. If I CA>RLB>JS=Fusion the results are roughly on it JS=220ish-240ish
now if i add sneak attack the damage remains the same only it seems i've lost it a hit because of the crit(first hit) because they end up at 220-240s.

just doing SA>JS alone gives me those results most of the time. My dex setup is around +19 and my agi is +12...JS being an agi based ws it's hard to tell for spells like that what affects what because it's the opposite for a dex spell vs agi. i assume that the damage and acc. works in reverse
Pinecone bomb can definitely crit, when i first crit a few times with it i thought it was because of sneak attack, but it doesn't stack with it.

I would generally say get a bit of dex and str starting out your main damage spells bludgeon(30%chr but modified by str-hidden), Jet Stream(agi 30%odd ball one), Mandibular bite(str20% and int20%)

hope that helps sorry I can't be more specific >_>;

[VZX]

Re: Blu spells and critical damage

Pinecone bomb is ranged attack physical spell, of course, it shares property with ranged attack: It can't be SA'd

[ItazuraNhomango]

Re: Blu spells and critical damage

Off topic, but has anyone noticed that ranged attacks like Wild Oats can stripe multiple images from Blink/Utsusemi?

Does anyone have solid data on how much TP they give to monsters?

[Armando]

Re: Blu spells and critical damage

I mean a lot more than just "a bit higher." I mean like, Frenetic Rip doing 900 instead of 500-550. Or Disseverment doing 1450-1500 instead of 1100-1150.

Don't underestimate the damage variance of a multi-hit attack. Bear in mind a single hit already has a pretty wide damage variance, and on top of that you'll frequently miss at least one hit no matter how high your hit rate is. You can easily get lucky, land all hits, and hit on the high end of your damage on most of the hits, and you'd get much higher than average numbers without any crits involved.

Does anyone have solid data on how much TP they give to monsters?

Don't know about shadows, but they give the same 10 TP as any other spell/hit.

[Kyrial Arthian]

Re: Blu spells and critical damage

Pinecone bomb is ranged attack physical spell, of course, it shares property with ranged attack: It can't be SA'd

Seriously? I mean, I know normal ranged attacks don't stack with Sneak Attack, but isn't Cannonball ranged? And that stacks with Sneak Attack...

[Armando]

Re: Blu spells and critical damage

Not every attack that has range is a ranged attack. Wild Oats is a melee attack but can be used from a distance, similar to Mistral Axe.

[VZX]

Re: Blu spells and critical damage

Seriously? I mean, I know normal ranged attacks don't stack with Sneak Attack, but isn't Cannonball ranged? And that stacks with Sneak Attack...

Canonball is not Physical ranged spells

If you look at my translation of Studio Gobli spell categorization here
http://www.freewebs.com/vzx-01/blumag.htm

The only ranged spells are
Queasyshroom
Feather Storm and
Pinecone Bomb

The other physical spells that can be used outside normal melee range are just considered melee spells because:
- They use fSTR
- They have the same pDIF as melee pDIF (1 handed)
- They can be SA'd


And ranged spells are categorized ranged because:
- They use fSTR2
- They have the same pDIF as ranged pDIF. Once the 'attack'/def is capped, this value is exactly 3.0 with multiplier 1.25 when it crits.
- They can't be SA'd

[Mouser]

Re: Blu spells and critical damage

In regards to Wild Oats and shadows. It completely strips Blink type effects. It is absorbed by one shadow from Utsusemi. This is from soloing/duoing at the Mamool Staging Point. Against Sea Puks, Wild Oats will strip all the shadows generated by Zephyr Mantle. Againt Mamool Ninjas, it just knocks down one shadow.