spell damage help taruVSmithra

[Aphrasia]

I'm just straight up copying and pasting my post from the blm forum about spell damage, to lazy to retype it all differently.. but its on the page about 'verified spell damage' and all those calculations and waht not.. but i figured maybe someone who doesnt read there will see it here.. seeing as it is a rdm issue :\

okay, i gotta ask this here as well, hoping ill get better responses to my real question than the incident in question.

A few nights ago vs toramas in onzozo, i happened to join a dual rdm party. I had just finished updating all my of armor save for my wizards earring. In paticular, i had just obtained my glamour jupon to replace my warlock's tabard, only on nukes, enhances, and dark spells mind you, tabard is still superior for enfebeles.

Now, after much discusssion later on, i found out the other rdm's stats, and i compared them to mine. here goes.

TARU INT (LVL61): 70 base
MITHRA INT (LVL62): 60 base
TARU +'s: +19
MITHRA +'s: +22
TARU SKILL +'s: +10 hat +10 staff
MITHRA SKILL +'s: +10 hat, +10 staff, +3 jupon

(added info not on blm forum: her skill, approx 210, mine 218 due to lvl and gear)

under the given statements about Magic Attack Bonuses we had
TARU: 1.24 modifier
MITHRA: 1.29 modifier
as i had the moldavite earring and she did not

now im curious, as i watched our perforamce on nukes during the corse of the party, i was resisted on 40% or so of my attacks, cutting their damage down (of course i was put into the 'nuker' role and was spam casting, so i saw more resists of course), however my counterpart taru saw 0 resists. Finally, the low point of the night was when she nuked at the same time as me, both using blizzard II, ice staves, warlocks chappeau.. i had +3 more int (due to race she still had 7 more int) i also had the MAB bonus from moldavite, and also the +3 skill from jupon... the opint that killed me was i was resisted and landed for what half of my normal damage had been (250 normal, hit for 125) and she landed for MORE than what my 'normal' was (landed for 265).

Im just curious, because ive played with the formulas on the first page, im no math genius of course, but i came up with she shouldnt have outdamged me at all, but of course i just played with them and didnt really know what iw as doing (ie: i put the mobs int at 1, and didnt add in elemental bonuses for day and staves cause we used the same stuff at hte same time, so it didnt really matter)... any insight into this would be MOST helpful if im to even continue to play this game another day, cause at the moment, i dont see a reason to play my character further if im always gonna be outdone in this area of play, might as well change to a taru mage if thats hte case.

ADDED INFO FOR RMD'S:
i know my job, i know its not damage, but damage is something i CAN do, its why my macros change gear on me for nukes and what not, so that i get hte best performance outta them.. but still it didnt help.. i mean, 7 int in her favor, and 3 skill in mine as well as the moldavite earring... i should have at least kept on par with her, and thats all i really wanted.. but i was getting resisted 40% or more of the time.. and she wasnt, and on mb's shed use water2 and hit for 310area while id have to use bliz2 to break 340.. i still dont get why?

[Gman]

Tarus have naturally high INT. Nothing that can be done about it except get more gear to increase yours. Same thing if a Taru tries to be a THF. Mithra THF will always outdamage Taru unless the taru gets uber gear to make up for it.

As a Taru RDM, I can outnuke (dmg wise) other races even if they have moldavite and i dont. (most of the time)

As for resist rate, it goes by elemental skill and INT, not magic attack, so getting items to increase your elemental skill is best. Wizards earring is a great place to start. I've seen far fewer resists since I got one.

You must be mistaken about the Water 2 MB. 310 highly unlikely on a water 2 burst (dare I say, impossible), even from a BLM. Water 2 usually does around 210-230 on a MB, and 150-170 regular damage. I'm level 65 and these are the numbers I achieve.

[Rawls]

several answers are here, at least the first few posts.

Weather etc can change up how much dmg you were doing compared to the other RDM (if i'm not mistaken it can have wet weather in onzozo thus boosting water damage).

It can also be plain luck with resists. Either way you shouldn't have been using Blizzard/Water as your main nukes vs Torama if you want to be efficient. They are weak to Earth spells after all.

[Aphrasia]

well :\ the best i got is bliz2 with ice staff ATM, glad someoen cared to link to that horrid m ess of a thread.. had hoped to avoid a repeat of that.. seeing as id like actual answers instead of random people telling me "your a mithra deal with it"..

as i said before, i made sure i shoulda been on par with her, again, she had 8 less skill, and 7 more int, and no moldavite on her.. it shoulda been pretty even when we nuked.. and the water2 burst is just what she told me it was, i had filters up, but 310~ish compared to my 341 on that paticular nuke, just doesnt make alota sense

im hoping maybe someone knows if like theres a hidden taru trait that gives them more magic attacking power forever.. or something, hell i dunno.. thats why im asking here.. we shoulda been fairly even, but we werent.. and ive GOT to figure out why, or i cant make myself level this job another kill, unless i do it solo cuase 'omg, your a mithra, you do solo better than taru rdm..'.. if i cant be the most useful to a party all around, then theres no sense in being IN a party.. might as well sell off all this gear and solo to 75

[Prefect]

I'd just say its an unfortunate run of luck for you. The Taru getting lucky with no resists and you being somewhat unlucky with a decent percentage of resists. Or maybe the Taru was partly being smart about which spells to nuke with, taking day, weather, and enemy into account.

For the big difference is magic burst damage, I think there is a MB sweet spot. You get the timing just right on the burst and you get a bit more of a damage boost than if you hit the fringes of the timing window. At least, it feels like something like that exists to me.

If will get better as you go up in levels to a degree. The higher level spells base a higher percentage of their damage on the base damage the spell does so the INT difference isn't as big of a deal.

But really, most of the time you will not be asked to be a party nuker so I wouldn't worry about this too much anyways.

[Aphrasia]

i know :\ it sjust something that irks me... im beginign to think taru's have a hidden ability when being mage jobs that gives them even more magic attack power, it seems like that anyways

as for day, i believe the day was light or dark actually, but i cant clearly remember.. i do remember seeing water weather earlier though now that it hink about it, had an elemental spawn >.< but i cant remember if it wa sup during the MB time.. probably was :\

[Gman]

My advice is not to worry about it. If you nuke for 5 dmg less than a taru, oh well its not the end of the world. You are not there to nuke (in most parties) so any damage you can contribute is good.

Resists are just bad luck/ mob resistance to magic. Try fighting the Hobgoblin Facsinators in Bibiki bay. Even with Elemental Seal on a MB I got resisted most of the time.

As for if theres anything you can do to be equal to the taru, there is... get more INT gear. Thats the only thing seperating Taru from Mithra (and MP, but that doesnt factor into nuking dmg).

Again, the races were made differently so each has strengths and weaknesses. Taru has insanely high INT and MP, while Mithra has great AGI and DEX. All gear being equal, the damage will always be Taru > Hume/Mithra > Elvaan/Galka.

I know this really isnt what youre looking for, but I cant really explain it any better. Get yourself on par INT wise with the Taru, and if he/she still outdamages you, then complain.

[Sepukku]

15 damage on his blizzard vs your blizzard doesnt make a big difference. The mob has thousands of HP, so 15 isnt a BIG deal.

But on the race vs race, which will do better. Negating the idea that its the player, if one player played both races, or if two people played the two at the same time but played them completely identical style, then the Taru will always win despite armor. Why? Well almost everyone is a clone in armor. Galkas use Astral Rings to make up the MP difference on taru's? Well Taru's use them too! No gain! All non-Taru's use Ice Staff for +INT on Taru's? Hey, us Taru's use it too! No gain! The only exception would be to buy the beyond-uber armor (Serket's Ring, Vivian Ring, HQ Staves, Phantom Earring +1's etc.). But then youre looking at almost 10 million just to imitate a Taru's stats.

My Point is, that mostly everyone, despite race will wear the same armor, even if their race already gives them bonuses to that armor's stats, therefore making it almost impossible to catch them, even with armor. BUT, Mithra do have advantages over Taru. +AGI and +HP on us make you live longer than us when the going gets tough.

[pdac]

At rdm 75 in my set party, versus our taru blm, on the same nukes I will be on par with him for damage, with maybe a swing of around 8-19 dmg per cast on tier III nukes between us. It may not be the same situation as your own, but with a good evening of gear and stats, you'll be on par for the same nukes. Just remember as rdm's, our lower elemental skill means we get resisted more often, so our overall damage is lower.

Sounds like a run of bad resist luck to me, you'll not have that problem as much later on I'd say ^^/

[Casval]

concerning the damage values themselves, Int is still the primary factor in determining unresisted damage, so those numbers don't look that far off, one test I did using various levels of +Int and an Ice Staff (this was against Too Weak mobs) went like this:

+10 Int: 122 Damage
+10 Int, Ice Staff: 133 Damage
+14 Int, Ice Staff: 140 Damage

as you can see by adding the Ice Staff the test spell's damage increased by around 9% (Blizzard was the spell) but adding a mere 4 Int also caused an additional 5% boost to damage (this was all done against the same monster, in case you were wondering)

these numbers should not be extrapolated to other situations because they probably will not be accurate

Elemental Magic skill should only play a roll in overall resists, and of course in magic burst situations resists will be much less common in addition to the increased damage output, variances in Resist % can generally be attributed to luck, both in the resists themselves and in the gaining of the effects of the day of the week and the current weather pattern

[Rawls]

Originally posted by Prefect
I'd just say its an unfortunate run of luck for you. The Taru getting lucky with no resists and you being somewhat unlucky with a decent percentage of resists. Or maybe the Taru was partly being smart about which spells to nuke with, taking day, weather, and enemy into account.

The reason why I linked that is that despite the later responses the first few did offer answers.