Purpose of Wands Post 50

[Mystician]

Hey guys.. I think it's been confirmed that staves do help with enfeebling more than wands in this old thread:
http://www.ffxionline.com/forums/sho...w&pagenumber=3

I just wanted to see if there any RDMs that had the whole line of staves who felt there was good improvement than using a wand. Since the only enfeebles to be resisted (that we cast) are Paralyze, Slow, Gravity, and Sleep, we would need the Ice, Earth, Wind, and Dark staves.

If gil was not the issue, what would be the point of using the wands then? The Light staff handles cures very well. I believe more INT/MND increases spell duration, but no point in that if an enfeeble doesn't stick on IT mobs.

I just always felt it was necessary to hold some kind of wand.. but now I'm guessing it could be replaced by the line of staves? (especially since mythic wand+1 is 300k)

[Ashn]

I'm interested in the answer to this as well. Is it time to hang up my Rose Wand +1 and start buying the line of elemental staves?

[Ruic]

All of the formulas for enfeebles are based on stats (INT for black magic, MND for white), and I've heard more that the staves do little to increases their effectiveness, whereas until you reach capped effectiveness, every point of a stat increases the debuff's potency linearly. Or so I've gathered from my reading, though if anyone has empirical evidence please do correct me.

I don't have any of the formulas off hand, but I do know that Apple Pie has formulas which prove that at least slow is based on MND, and caps at 81.

Even if the elemental staves improved debuffs by 10%, odds are a wand would be just as effective in terms of debuffing. If a debuff starts at even 5-10%, IE a low level slow, and caps at 30% effectiveness, slow at 81 MND (I think), you'd be at most trading out evenly. If your slow was worth 20%, and you had a staff, you'd land for 22% (+10% potency from staff.) If you had +6 MND, that's roughly 1.5% (minimum, since the formula starts with a constant and works up.) In my case, I use two wands which act as a +12 MND, adding 3%(again, a minimum), to try and approach the maximum efficiency, and decrease resist rate.

But I don't have access to the exact formulas, so if anyone can bring those out, that'd be cool. But if the staves do act to improve debuffs on a 10% basis, you'd have to decide whether or not the 10% potency was worthwhile -after- you'd reached the stat cap for effectiveness, and then balance that with an increased resistance rate by mobs it seems to me.

Resist rate is based on stats in my experience. I don't think the elemental staves have any effect on resist rates, at least I've never seen a BLM have any change in resist rate when using anything but an ice staff. However, MND and INT do play a role in resistance. I can vary my MND by 40 points, and have tested. (My White magic mode with everything +MND taken off and a spike necklace.) My resist rate for debuffs just skyrockets. I can also drastically improve my magic defense by increasing my INT or MND, depending on the nature of the magic attack coming at me.

Finally, the only other major resist rate adjustment I've noted is that New Moon = Magic is very easy for mobs and players to resist magic. Full Moon = Magic is very hard for mobs and players to resist magic. Anyone else notice this, or am I totally crazy?

[Apple Pie]

We know elemental staves help corresponding elemental magic spells to be less resisted (= more chances to do their full damage) while they increase (+10% with NQ and +15% with HQ) their firepower. That's why I bought all staves except for Earth.

There's a guy here who casted Fire 80 - 81 times on AA Tarutaru with various gear configurations.
http://pamama.hp.infoseek.co.jp/FF11...-04-01-26.html (Japanese website)

To summerize,

Fire Staff
Full: 75 times (93.8%)
Half: 5 times (6.2%)
Quarter: 0 times
Completely Resisted: 0 times

Mystic Wand
Full: 63 times (77.8%)
Half: 16 times (19.8%)
Quarter: 2 times (2.5%)
Completely Resisted: 0 times

No Weapon
Full: 59 times (72.8%)
Half: 15 times (18.5%)
Quarter: 6 times (7.4%)
Completely Resisted 1 time (1.2%)

What is more, many people feel both Aspir and Drain do better with Dark Staff. I haven't done any experiment yet but I agree with them and I always use it when casting these spells.

So, what is the relationship between elemental staves and enfeebling spells then? Well, I don't have the firm answer but it seems that they help the spells to land better. That's why many LV69 - 70 red mages use Dark Staff when casting Sleep and Sleep II on Ma'at at Genkai 5 quest.

Although my enfeebling skill is capped and I have enfeebling torque, Blind, Paralyze, and Slow are sometimes resisted by XP mobs. They perfectly land on up to VT mobs but they don't always on ITs. That's the reason I equip Wind Staff when I cast Silence on Spartoi Sorcerers. If Silence is often resisted, our PT may be ruined.

As for the relationship between enfeebling spells and INT/MND, what Ruic states is what we found so far. I have to make some correction about the one between Slow and MND. Actually, the effectiveness is determined by "caster's MND vs mob's MND". I stated the former was capped at 81 but it is when we cast it on Tiny Mandras who seem to have 0 MND. Sorry about my correction, anyway.

Therefore, if they are hardly resisted, have as much MND as possible with INT/MND+ wands. if they are often resisted, try arming corresponding elemental staves (e.g., Ice Staff for Paralyze, Earth Staff for Slow, Wind Staff for Glavity and Silence).

Also, if we sub BLM or we have BLM in our PT, cast or ask her/him to cast Shock before we cast Paralyze and Slow. This should improve their effectiveness.

[Ruic]

Thanks for the correction Apple Pie. Helps a lot.

Heck, I even had no idea that the HQ staves added 15% damage. O_O

Still. Gives even more reason to pump MND and INT.

[Mystician]

Thanks for the responses guys.. I didn't realize the staves helped against elemental resist so much. I've been using the Ice staff for MB's (except fire) thinking the +10 elemental skill would be better for MBs.

Time to buy some staves.. it's been nice dishing out 500 dmg on Distortion skillchains using the Ice staff on double MBs, but my Thunder MB tends to miss on Fragmentation.

[Patchinko]

Originally posted by Mystician
Thanks for the responses guys.. I didn't realize the staves helped against elemental resist so much. I've been using the Ice staff for MB's (except fire) thinking the +10 elemental skill would be better for MBs.

Actually, Ice Staff causes reduction in Aero accuracy, not Fire. Given that you can't afford the proper elemental staff, Ice Staff's +elemental will help you avoid elemental spell resists more than a wand on all except Aero spells.^^

[Mystician]

whoops, thanks for the correction. Had my elements mixed up.. one too many shrooms in my Roasted Mushroom.

[Rones]

Applepie, just curious but how much difference do you see in your resist rate when using staffs for enfeebles? Is it as noticiable as the change for nukes or more subtle? I get stuck with a brd and no rdm rather often as of late and just looking at what to buy to help my enfeebles. Was going for +7 enfeebling torque, but might go for the 2 staffs instead.

[Apple Pie]

It is a little hard to answer this because to verify this, we have to have two configurations with the same status (INT or MND) and cast each enfeebling spell on one mob hundreds of times.

As a matter of fact, I recently (LV67+) started to use elemental staves when casting enfeebling spells. Especially after my PT was ruined by two Doom Warlocks in Gustav Tunnel.

This is what happened. I (RDM67/WHM33) went there with NIN/WAR, MNK/THF, WAR/NIN, BLM/WHM, WHM/BLM, and myself. My Silence was sometimes resisted and I wasn't able to stop one of Warlocks casting Sleepga II. All of us fell asleep and our NIN tank was dueling with it. Unfortunately, another Warlock showed up near our camp but we couldn't move back. Then, the Worlock we were facing casted Aeroga III and we all took 600 - 700 damage. All of us woke up but the another one was added because of our low HP. I saw it start casting Thunderga II or III (can't remember) and I casted Silence but again it was resisted. BLM casted Stun but it was too late and all of us were wiped out. (ノ∀`)

After we broke up at Jeuno, I checked FFrep but success rate of Silence was something like 72%. I started to use Enfeebling Torque after LV65 and most of my enfeebling used to land. The success rate was always like 85+%. I was very disappointed.

One day, I was browsing JPN RDM forum and found the guy reported that Wind Staff seemed to help Silence to land better. Because I planned to buy it for Genkai 5 quest, I bought it. I went Gustav again. It landed much better. The success rate was 87.7%. This is what made me believe Elemental Staves affects enfeebling spells.

It's not related to Silence but there's (although not accurate) a comparison of Glavity. Please see the attachment. Another RDM was, I believe, LV70 (enough LV for Dartar and Bark Tarantula) and I was LV71. He only had Dark Staff while I always equip Wind Staff when casting Glavity. Its success rate is always close to 100% or 100%. Although his gears looked a little poor, 30.6% differece is huge.

Sorry about my long post but anyway, if I am in your shoes, I'll buy the torque first. +17 enfeebling skill bonus from WHM's AF and the toqrue improves the skill from C to B+ at LV67. I know it's expensive and worth for two staves but it's worth buying.

[Rubicon Scarlet]

With that being said, can someone post what staves would go with what enfeebles?

My current lineup is Slow, Paralyze, Blind, Gravity, Dia 2.

Right now I'm lvl 63 and I'm now wondering if I need to buy a few staves and throw away my wand. I will be getting the Enfeeble Torque at 65.

[Apple Pie]

You can check what attributes do enfeebling spells have from the spell list but anyway, here they are.

Bind: Ice
Blind: Dark
Gravity: Wind
Any Poison: Water
Paralyze: Ice
Silence: Wind
Any Sleep: Dark
Slow: Earth

Aspir: Dark
Drain: Dark

Cure (at MB): Light

I use elemental staves except for Slow since MND is important for its effectiveness. As for Dia and Bio, I guess we don't need them because these spells are never resisted unless certain mobs like Magic Pot use Magic Barrier.

By the way, has anyone tried Stun with Thunder Staff? I saw someone posted they were stunned a little longer with Thunder Staff. I haven't been able to have /DRK37 yet and cannot try it but just curious.

[Sindinista]

Would you recommend buying the wind staff (which will be my next elemental staff I get, I have Ice, Light, and Dark now.) before lvl 68-70? I'll get an enfeebling torque (420k+ - -) but I know that wind staff will drop in price from now till like the 2 months it'll take me to get lv68 . Is it worth it before then?

[Drynavere]

Interesting question, going along with the original posters, as I didn't quite understand the overall decision in whether wands or staves were better for PTing....

If I were to have a, say, +7 mnd/int wand that I could use to cast my 4 main debuffs, and silence if the mob is magic user (4 debuffs I use most often are para, slow, grav, blind), or a staff of my choice, which would have a higher success rate on the debuffs landing/lasting longer... the wand or the staff?

I currently have a Dark Staff, and more than enough to get 1-2 more staves, and am looking at the Ice staff right now, as it's only 60k on my server... So would I land debuffs better with 7 int, or +10 elemental skill?... =/ Im thinking the wand right?... Lemme know.

[DM337]

Originally posted by Drynavere
I currently have a Dark Staff, and more than enough to get 1-2 more staves, and am looking at the Ice staff right now, as it's only 60k on my server... So would I land debuffs better with 7 int, or +10 elemental skill?... =/ Im thinking the wand right?... Lemme know.

Elemental Skill has nothing to do with Enfeebling Magic. TRhe elemental staves have a hidden effect of boosting the effectiveness of spells of their respective element. Red Mages would buy an Ice Staff in order to help their ice-type spells, namely Paralyze.

From my experience, the elemental staves are very effective. So far, I've got dark, ice, earth, and wind, and am hoping to get a light staff. I atleast feel as though my enfeebling is a lot better than when I had a wand.