Purpose of Wands Post 50

[amastacia]

I own Pluto's, Ice, Wind, and Earth staves, and I'm highly considering selling my Ebony +1 because I just plain and simple never use it.

They make a noticeable difference, so long as you pair the staff and spell elements correctly.

The duration the spells stick doesn't seem to change that much, but the staves do good things to your resist rates.

They certainly are expensive, but I'm glad I spent every gil I did on them.

Even the listed qualities of the staves are pretty useful: sleep an add with your dark staff, then pop on your earth staff so if it wakes up and hits you, you get extra leeway to re-sleep it. +10 Elemental skill is nice for nukes and elemental debuffs, if you don't have the staff corresponding to the spell's element.

[Grrn]

I'm a level 72 RDM on Titan and I have all 8 elemental staves. I can verify that elemental staves do make a difference in the rate at which enfeebles land. Killing Weapons in Tu'lia I was having problems landing Slow as a 71 so I borrowed an earth staff. I missed at least once every mob before I borrowed the staff. After using staff I landed every single slow to the end of the PT. I'm not talking 5-10 mobs, Im talking 3 more hours of constant pulls. It was THAT significant. I however am still very curious as to these formulas for the enfeebles. I agree with the theory that Slow and Para are tied to MND and Blind/Grav tied to INT, but what exactly does this mean? Is it a landing rate that it affects? Is it a duration or severity rate that it affects (by severity I mean that on low level mobs I have landed para that keeps the mob from attacking 6 and 7 rounds in a row)? If anyone has any info on this I would sincerely like to see it. I can verify with Astral Aspis + Mythic Wand +1 vs Ele staves, the rate of landing spells dramatically increases. The choice is clear if you have the cash, Ele staves are the way to go.

[cnick]

I agree that elemental staves improve enfeeble success rate. I've been leveling off Darters for a few levels, and gravity would be resisted a lot! At least 1 out of 2 tries would be resisted. I bought a wind staff, and it's now near a 90% success rate. However, I've noticed that when I use Ice + paralyze on teh same mob, I can get resisted multiple times in a row. This only happens with paralyze. Does ice staff have no effect on paralyze?

[Ashn]

I have recently had the chance to try out the effectiveness of staves vs wand and I agree with the above posters that the staves actually do help a lot more than a wand.

Between level 55-60, my static pt (consisting of pld, mnk, thf, blm, whm, rdm-me) the best skillchain my pt could do was a Detonation/Aero burst. (mnk/thf don't really have a whole lot to work with as far as skillchains go). I was using an ice staff to MB aero II with, for the +10 elemental skill, and was getting heavily resisted at least 50% of the time. I bought a Wind Staff for our next exp session and my resist rate dropped to maybe 10%.

I then started using the ice and wind staves to cast paralyze and gravity and I noticed Gravity get resisted MUCH less than it was with a Rose Wand +1. I don't recall any significant drop in the strength of gravity either.. i don't think it wore off any faster. I recently bought an Earth staff for casting Slow.. I'm curious about what Apple Pie said about using a wand for Slow's effectiveness vs an Earth staff. Care to elaborate Apple Pie?

Anyways, I'm now a firm believer in the effectiveness of elemental staves. I plan on getting the Fire/Thunder/Water/Light staves in the near future for MB's.

[Prefect]

Originally posted by Ashn
I recently bought an Earth staff for casting Slow.. I'm curious about what Apple Pie said about using a wand for Slow's effectiveness vs an Earth staff. Care to elaborate Apple Pie?

The strength of Slow varies based on your MND score. At 80 MND, it caps out at a 30% slow effect. I think the minimum at 0 MND is 10% slow. If using the staff instead of the wand puts you less than 80 MND, you may be better served with the staff.

[Apple Pie]

Let me follow this up.

The strength of Slow varies based on your MND score. At 80 MND, it caps out at a 30% slow effect. I think the minimum at 0 MND is 10% slow. If using the staff instead of the wand puts you less than 80 MND, you may be better served with the staff.

Yes, this is correct. Against Tiny Mandras that appears to have 0 MND, 80 MND is the cap and the spell adds 30% extra delay.

However, after we did some experiments, we found 80 MND wasn't enough against stronger mobs. This makes me wonder if the effectiveness of the spell is determined by "[Caster's MND] - [Mob's MND]" and this seems to be correct.

If you're interested, find mobs that don't have DA (like crabs) and check how many times they can hit you in a minute between MND +25 and MND +0 after Slow lands.

Here's what we've found so far.

[Caster's MND] - [Mob's MND] = 0: 15% delay
[Caster's MND] - [Mob's MND] = 80 (could be 75): 30% delay
+5 MND = adds 1% delay

As a result, if Slow is hardly resisted, using MND+ wands is recommended to maximize the effect. If it is often resisted, use Earth Staff. Especially, it doesn't always land on creatures that have strong resist against Stone like Cockatrice.

[bonovoxpsu]

very good thread here.

so, in conclusion, people seem to say that the staves are more effective in landing enfeebles?

damnit.

what about gravity? do you find its resist rate is lower using a wind staff?

basically i want to know if i should buy an earth staff or wind staff first.

as if buying an enfeebling torque AND elemental torque wasn't expensive enough...

[Darkedge]

It was my understanding that the corresponding staves increased the ability to land, where as additional MND would determine how effective it was if it landed (Apple Pies post for MND)

[Raineer]

I have used elemental staves to cast enfeebles every since I got them (I have 6, Pluto's being my only +1.) I do carry the current +1 wand at all times, but I almost never use it due to resistance issues.

If I swap to full MND gear and use the wand I'm casting at 91 MND (+31 iirc), and the resists are still too high for my liking. So I have been using staves.

I may revisit this after reading Apple Pie's post on Slow effectiveness. I just dinged 64 last night and am going to pickup Spider Torque tonight, it may be entirely possible to cast with the wand, thereby benefitting from the extra +7 MND.

[Apple Pie]

what about gravity? do you find its resist rate is lower using a wind staff?

I've used Wind Staff for a long time and haven't used wands.

Well, in XP PT, Gravity is hardly resisted with Wind Staff unless mobs are too strong (+12 LV or higher). Most of the time, land-rate is over 95% and often 100% although there are some half-resist (= the effect wears off faster).

However, if I'm asked to answer which one, Enfeebling Torque or Elemental staves, we should buy first, I'll advise them to buy the former because we all know the skill has the greatest impact on land-rate.

Most of us here including myself feel staves help enfeebling spells land better but the relationship between enfeebling spells and elemental staves are still unknown. It takes us very long time to do experiments on this one...

[bonovoxpsu]

ok then. thank you once again apple pie.

time to drop 200k a piece on earth staff and wind staff >_<

and to figure out what i should buy first... wind or earth. hmm.

[Raineer]

Wind will benefit Gravity, Silence, and Aero Nukes. Earth will benefit Slow and Stone Nukes.

The order I purchased them in was Dark, Ice, Wind, Earth, then went Dark->Plutos, Thunder, Light

I wish I had purchased the light earlier but I got a much better deal on it by waiting.

[bonovoxpsu]

Raineer:

why do you wish you got the light staff earlier?

[Raineer]

Well, I rarely play main healer so I always figured "I don't really need that..." So I focused on becoming the debuff master and get most of the others first.

But, once I got it and used it properly the 10% is REALLY nice when it comes to backup cures. It's not like we have unlimited MP (I'm Hume) and curing for 402-405 on a Cure4 is alot better than 360.

The time recently I had to /WHM and main heal in a Torama party I GREATLY appreciated it. Trying to keep up with Paralyna/Silena plus debuffs and a couple refreshes while main healing is NOT fun, and the "free" 40hp added to each Cure4 or "free" 20hp on each Cure3 was just a welcome surprise.

If I chose my order again, it would probably be Dark,Ice,Wind,Earth,Light.. Then worry about thunder and +1's later. That being said, Pluto's is just priceless for sleeping mobs. I could sleep level 75's at lvl 61 without worry. That's a nice feeling.

I can make a very good case that RDM's main job in life is to land Paralyze and Slow at all times on the mob and make it stick. You just gotta have the Ice and Earth staves if you're going to start a staff collection at all. They make such a huge difference. I wish I could just buy them all at once and not worry about establishing an order of importance.

[bonovoxpsu]

i have the ice and dark already.

i will take your advice and get an earth stick. then i will get the wind stick.

then i will create a whole new slew of macros to equip those sticks.

then i will kill stuff many times over to get those things called "experience points". this is where i use my new sticks.

repeat ad nauseaum.

:spin: