Magic Attack to a RDM

[almighty_boof]

I'll just get straight to the point without wasting time.

Does Magic Attack Bonus help with enfeeble spells? I mean sticking and duration.

[Jei]

Re: Magic Attack to a RDM

don't think so. It helps with the damage you deal with your nukes as far as I know

[BurningPanther]

Re: Magic Attack to a RDM

Yeah, I fiddled with this for a while, equipping my Moldavite earring in my enfeebling macros to see if there was any noticeable enhancement or degradation in efficacy. Without a log parser and more controlled situations(I never bothered to isolate my Moldavite from my other equipped enfeebling gear), I couldn't come to a conclusion, and thusly didn't notice any real enhancement with a M.Atk bonus.

[Icemage]

Re: Magic Attack to a RDM

Magic Attack does not affect enfeebling magic at all. Otherwise end-game BLMs would be sticking their enfeebles left and right at level 75.


Icemage

[Karinya]

Re: Magic Attack to a RDM

Magic *accuracy* (chasuble set and a few other pieces) is believed to have some effect, but AFAIK the exact size of the effect is not well established (I have seen claims of anywhere from 1 M.acc = 1 skill to 1 M.acc = 3 skill).

I recently "inherited" some of the set from a friend who is leaving FFXI (I hope only for a while...), so I may do some testing of it; if so, I'll post results on this board.

[Aeni]

Re: Magic Attack to a RDM

Magic *accuracy* (chasuble set and a few other pieces) is believed to have some effect, but AFAIK the exact size of the effect is not well established (I have seen claims of anywhere from 1 M.acc = 1 skill to 1 M.acc = 3 skill).

I recently "inherited" some of the set from a friend who is leaving FFXI (I hope only for a while...), so I may do some testing of it; if so, I'll post results on this board.

Full Chasuble set is now at about 3.5 million. What about your server? I'm thinking these will go the way of Healer's set for WHMs, namely being 3x more expensive than the second month they were available ... I'm still miffed that the glove is 800K when it was only 300K a few weeks back >.>

[kman]

Re: Magic Attack to a RDM

Magic attack does have an effect on your fire spikes : )

[Aeni]

Re: Magic Attack to a RDM

Just about how strong is each point of magic attack bonus on nuking? For example, what does 1 point of Magic Attack equates to? I should also ask about Magic Accuracy as well.

Only reason I ask is that when I nuke on MB ... I don't seem to notice anything substantial with or without my moldavite earring. Of course, the only thing that's making me look bad are the resists on my nuking (Which probably means I need to get Magic Accuracy from someplace) I think I get resisted on my nuking on IT++ about 70% of the time (1/2, 1/4, etc.) I mean, when my Fire II lands on a Robber Crab, 198 dmg is a full non-resist. I can tell because I see 1/2 and 1/4 that for resists (All they way to 1/32 I think ... LOL)

Anywho, I have no idea if how one thing works on one main job works the same way for another. It's all confusing.

[Icemage]

Re: Magic Attack to a RDM

Simplistic non-math-based answer: +1 Magic Attack = +1% multiplier on your damage. At your level, most nukes will show less than a handful of damage difference with or without Moldavite Earring.


Icemage

[WishMaster3K]

Re: Magic Attack to a RDM

I'm still miffed that the glove is 800K when it was only 300K a few weeks back >.>

Wise Gloves give +5 MND, so maybe that's a reason. Well, that was my reason in any case.

I used to know the MAB relation inside and out, now I'm a bit rusty. But as far as I can see (nice job on making an acronym, Karinya >.>), MAB, like it does for BLM affect our spell damage.

However, I think that RDM and BLM nuke fundamentally different, because while my spell damage is low, I never get resisted. 400-500 is normal nukage for me while 600-700 is normal MBing.

BLMs can shoot all over the place, especially when they stack MAB and don't pay attention to things like INT, Elemental Skill and Magic Accuracy. . .

I'll post a screenshot of me casting Fire 3 for more than the BLMs Fire 4.

RDM Nuking seems to thrive on the fact that we can do consistent damage. AS MP heavy as Nukes are, it's good that we don't do uber damage, influencing us to nuke all the time. Conversely, it's good that we don't do pitiful damage, making our efforts seem worthless.

For the record, to put it in laymans terms, Magic Accuracy is the potential for us to land a spell. For nukes, this means the difference between a half resisted nuke and an unresisted nuke. For Enfeebles, this means landing it or not. However, I'm of the opinion that MAgic Accuracy doesn't "Strengthen" spells.

INT and MND are the "Strengthening" aspects of spells. For enfeebles, this means potency, for nukes (INT) this means how strong the spell is.

For Example, on DC Steelshells, I do more damage when I stack INT, since because of my skill, I do not need magic accuracy. But for exp, I have in excess of 120INT, more than Hume BLMs, but because of MAB gear and their latent Elemental skill, they nuke harder than me. That's not to say I nuke weak though. 600+ from RDMs, consistently, is pretty much unheard of.

The best thing is to stack skill. Skill is both potency and accuracy. I had a post a while back where a lvl 50RDM with insanely gimped gear compared to mine was enfeebling better than me at 48. That +6 Enfeebling was more than enough to make up for the 12 or so I had over him in INT and MND.

Skill > Bonuses (MAB or MagicAcc) > INT/MND

INT is an old-school way of boosting buffs, but is the bottom line. I, however, prefer consistency, and I'd rather have spells that work over spells that are strong but don't work all the time.

[Armando]

Re: Magic Attack to a RDM

Regarding Magic Accuracy: There's no way we'll ever know for sure, but it's highly likely that Magic Skills and Magic Accuracy follow the same relationship as Weapon Skills and melee Accuracy. 1 Magic skill most likely gives 1 Magic Accuracy for that kind of magic. It'd also be safe to assume that 1 Magic Skill -> 0.9 Magic Accuracy once you get to 200 skill.

As for Magic Attack Bonus: Like Icemage said, +1 MAB adds 1% of the spell's base damage. Basically, Magic Attack Bonus traits give you a fixed multiplier, with equipment adding straight to that. The traits are:

Magic Attack Bonus I: 1.20
Magic Attack Bonus II: 1.24
Magic Attack Bonus III: 1.28
Magic Attack Bonus IV: 1.32

When autotranslated, the information on Studio Gobli suggests that Magic Defense Bonus traits have values of 1.10, 1.12, 1.14, and 1.16, and that MAB is divided by MDB. I've done some experiments, and while I've never gotten the numbers to match perfectly, the data is close to the expected numbers. Also, when doing the math with the numbers given above, dividing by MDB gives closer numbers to the data than subtracting the MDB values from MAB.

[WishMaster3K]

Re: Magic Attack to a RDM

Not sure, because Mages can't stack Magic Accuracy the way Melee stack their accuracy. However, Melee are more reliant, and a WAR that hits 50% of the time will get you killed faster than a BLM that resists 50% of their nukes.

So ok, I'll see if I can have a control experiment on those numbers. ^^ I love Crabs, they're the jokes of the game. They give consistent numbers.

[Aeni]

Re: Magic Attack to a RDM

Wise Gloves give +5 MND, so maybe that's a reason. Well, that was my reason in any case.

Maybe. It's not like I saw any real reason why the gloves would be popular *now* as it should've been all this time. Something is fishy here (Maybe the supply for the materials are starting to dry up or someone is controlling the flow of supplies of materials)

However, I think that RDM and BLM nuke fundamentally different, because while my spell damage is low, I never get resisted. 400-500 is normal nukage for me while 600-700 is normal MBing.

I think BLMs mentality derives on the fact that they have the least amount of responsibilities compared with the (usually) other two mage slots. They're not there for main healing (obviously) and they're not really great in a support role either (no party benefit spells) This enables them to concentrate on the one aspect they do well -- nuke and nuke.

RDM Nuking seems to thrive on the fact that we can do consistent damage. AS MP heavy as Nukes are, it's good that we don't do uber damage, influencing us to nuke all the time. Conversely, it's good that we don't do pitiful damage, making our efforts seem worthless.

And that is where I am having problems at. I get resists so much that I shy away from ever trying to cast a spell. Although I've been better now. What I do is choose the lowest (strong) spell I can for my level that is effective against the monster (meaning if it has weakness to it) and cast that instead. I seem to have less resists this way while not emptying out my precious MP pool for a wasted 1/32 resist (which blows btw)

For the record, to put it in laymans terms, Magic Accuracy is the potential for us to land a spell. For nukes, this means the difference between a half resisted nuke and an unresisted nuke. For Enfeebles, this means landing it or not. However, I'm of the opinion that MAgic Accuracy doesn't "Strengthen" spells.

I know that it doesn't strengthen spells and hence my asking about magic attack as well (using Mold. Earring example)

Skill > Bonuses (MAB or MagicAcc) > INT/MND

INT is an old-school way of boosting buffs, but is the bottom line. I, however, prefer consistency, and I'd rather have spells that work over spells that are strong but don't work all the time.

I do notice that as long as my enfeebling skill is capped, then I do get less resists. With strong MND and INT bonuses (For each respective enfeebling spell) the duration lasts longer. However, on IT monsters and when just newly leveled, this can be an obstacle to overcome. Really difficult especially when melees in the PT complain about that fact.

[DakkoN]

Re: Magic Attack to a RDM

Certain pieces of the JSE set are cheap because the material to make them is a common drop in ENM.

Wise Gloves are the most useless piece of all simply because Devotee's Mitts and Devotee's +1 exist.

[WishMaster3K]

Re: Magic Attack to a RDM

The gloves are dual purpose, assisting RDM in end-game front line actions. So you have one less thing to worry bout Macroing in. Also, there is no -INT bonus.

Aeni, honestly, life sucked for me before I got to 72. End-game stat boosting is ridiculously easy and cheap (look at my low funds *_*) so it's all a matter of plugging along. In the first screen I attached, check out what my INT is at. And this is with gear that is, largely, common.

Just for the sake of reference, I'll log back into my character next month and show the gear I'm using as a 75.

Since getting to 75, I've been able to shy away from pure INT more, but that's a different concept.

But just like I noticed a change when I got to 51 and had staves, I noticed a difference when I got to 72 and was able to utilize Errant and JSE. The make a HUGE difference.