Stat modifiers

[yavimaya]

So this may be a silly question, but I have a question about stat modifiers. I think I have been doing things properly when I am casting blu magic spells, in that I macro in rings and equipment that boost the stat modifiers according to wiki. IE with bludgeon, I macro in CHR rings, a lucent cape etc. I am not sure if I am doing any more damage, but I figure it helps somewhat. With Head butt, I macro in both STR and INT gear, as they are both equal modifiers. I try to do this with most the spells I cast.

What does it mean when it says Primary modifier STR, second modifier STR. How come both modifiers would be STR? I don't know if I fully understand the percentages, and what they mean. I figure if there are 2 primary modifiers, say STR 20%, INT 10%, it would be better to swap the STR in, and swap in INT gear if I don't have STR gear for that particular spot. Am I wasting my time swapping equipment in? Do the modifiers only work for skillchains? I guess I am not sure if I am doing more damage or increasing acc.

[Armando]

Re: Stat modifiers

Physical Blue Magic spells follow the same formula as physical Weapon Skills, using your Blue Magic Skill to determine your Attack and "weapon DMG." That formula is (DMG + STR Bonus + Stat Mods) * fTP * pDIF. I'm not going to bore you with all the details but the STR bonus is equal to (Your STR - Enemy VIT + 4)/4 if your STR isn't abysmally low, which it shouldn't be as a BLU with proper gear. In other words, every 4 points in STR raises the spell's DMG by 1. This improvement applies to all physical spells, so you can think of all spells having an extra 25% STR mod implied (as you can see, stat mods add to your DMG as well.) E.g. You can think of a spell with 20% STR and 10% INT for mods as actually having 45% STR and 10% INT when it comes to comparing stats.

Unless the spell has a mod that exceeds the STR mod + 25%, you want to stick with STR. And if the difference is only a few %, you might as well save yourself the inventory and equip STR anyways unless you can find a lot more +<Other stat> than +STR.

[yavimaya]

Re: Stat modifiers

That being said, what is the meaning of primary and secondary mods.

Example: Sandspin
"Primarily modified by INT; Secondary modifier INT: 20%."

Would the secondary modifier be for the additional effect?


I assume that with ALL the physical spells, STR will always be the primary modifier? I am guessing this is why wiki will only mention secondary modifiers for these spells?

[Armando]

Re: Stat modifiers

Magic Blue spells are calculated similar to magic WS.

Base damage = (Your Level + 2 + Stat Mods) * Spell Multiplier + (Your INT - Enemy INT) * INT Multiplier
Apply Magic Attack Bonus, Magic Defense Bonus, Magic Burst, Staff bonus, etc to the base damage.

Basically each INT point (or in the case of some spells, CHR) increases your damage by the INT Multiplier, which is 1 for all spells below level 60 (Eyes on Me and Mind Blast have a multiplier of 1.5, not sure about level 76+ spells.)

Stat mods are calculated in the usual way, and are multiplied by the spell's multiplier. As an example, Fire Spit has a 20% MND mod, 20% INT mod and a spell multiplier of x3. So It takes 5 MND to increase your damage by 3 (since 5 MND * 20% * 3 = 1 * 3 = 3.) On the other hand, Firespit's damage goes up by 1.5 for each INT point you add, so 5 INT gets you 7.5 more damage + the same 3 damage from the 20% mod.

I assume that with ALL the physical spells, STR will always be the primary modifier? I am guessing this is why wiki will only mention secondary modifiers for these spells?

Primary, secondary, it's all semantics. What they call "secondary modifiers" are the stat mods, but that doesn't always make them less important for physical WS. A spell with a 60% DEX mod is going to get more damage from DEX than STR.

For magic spells, though, you're pretty much always going to get more benefit from INT (or CHR if the spell is CHR-based.)