A few questions for the Veterans.

[Seijurohiko]

Re: A few questions for the Veterans.

Cure III costs 46 MP. Cure IV, which we get at level 48, costs 88 mp. Most RDM will cast at least one of these spells on themselves immediately following a Convert. Here's a hypothetical, but very common situtation: You are mid-chain and sitting on 30/460 MP (without Electrum Rings equiped), getting ready to use Convert. Let's say your HP is someting like 590/600.

If you equip your Electrum Rings just before Converting, your MP is at 30/500. Use Convert, now you're at 30/560 HP and 500/500 MP. A quick Cure III puts you at about 210/560 HP, 454/500 MP. If you were to remove your rings at this point, your MP would go from 454/500 to 454/460 - which is exactly the same amount. Once you've finished casting your post-convert cure spell, those MP rings are doing exactly nothing for you, or your party. They are as good as having nothing equiped in that slot.

So, if you have the inventory space, there's no reason not to carry a set of +MND rings, and a set of +INT rings along with those MP rings. Macro'ing them in (along with any other relevant +stat gear) will only serve to make your magic stronger, and more effective.

[nazlfrag]

Re: A few questions for the Veterans.

Excellent explanation Seijurohiko. I reccomend putting +MND or +INT ring swaps before all your buff/debuff and nuke spells. With NQ rings, its the equivalent of having another solid wand, and HQ a rose wand+1. NQ rings (saintlys, eremite's) should be cheap, and they are very effective for the price. Electrums are great for convert, you should also swap them in when resting mp.

As far as refresh goes, the /clock on method works best. With our woefully low mp pool, it's best to optimize it to cast when it wears so you get the full 150mp back. While a bard would overwrite them, he doesn't have a tiny MP pool to stretch out either.

On food, I'm addicted to goblin mushpot. With the +10 mnd on top of our already high mnd it makes our white enfeebles just awesome. I rarely have to recast paralyze or slow because of resists. The lack of +MP, and the fact it does nothing for our weak int don't make it the best choice, though.

Here melon pies shine through, covering our weaknesses of low int and mp. The +1 version lasts twice as long, has an extra +1int and importantly, +2hMP. Those 2 extra mp/tick of healing can make all the difference to an elvaan.

I also like witch kabobs or mushroom stew when in a healing role, and reccomend them over mushpots (even though I'm hooked on them). The combo of +MP, +Mnd and +hMP is very useful.

I'm only level 50, but I've been using ring swaps since around level 20 and haven't looked back.

[Meth]

Re: A few questions for the Veterans.

Put in the ring swap macros and they work like a charm. Also, the one game hour refresf timer is dead on. I strated with myself at the top of each hour, and it would wear off as I was recasting. Thanks again for the tips!

[Aeni]

Re: A few questions for the Veterans.

2. My refresh cycle goes me > PLD > WHM > SMN > BLM > DRK (only when they need it). BLU, however, is a special case. Put BLU wherever in the cycle they are covering for. Like today I had a party and our BLU was the healer. In the beginning I went me > PLD > BLU, but I noticed he was wearing a vermy cloak. I asked him if I could just not refresh him and he said it was ok.

That's wrong to ask. LOL ... of course, not sure why BLU is healer, but oh well. If anything, they should be upfront beating down on the mobs like any DD and you guys should've picked up a real healer (Or you should've subbed WHM and main healed for that PT)

Anyway, in one party I was in before:

BLU/NIN BLU/WAR COR/NIN DRG/NIN BLM/WHM RDM/WHM

I refreshed both BLUs even when I would see them swap in Dark Staves and VC. Generally, you won't get more than 20-30 MP back resting if your puller is pulling correctly, which is pulling while making sure you have enough MP to get through to the next fight, counting COR's rolls and RDM's refresh. If anyone is slacking, then you're going to have tremendous downtime.

I generally see it a waste for pullers to wait for mages to get back even 60% of their MP pool, unless they're blowing 100% of it on every fight (Which means that the party has no business fighting whatever it is they're fighting)

[Taskmage]

Re: A few questions for the Veterans.

blu/whm is a decent main heal after Magic Fruit, I hear. I don't know why you would ever cut the main healer out of a refresh cycle though, vermy or not. Their mp is your exp and your well being. If you're getting decent and safe exp with them just getting 1 mp/tick with vermy, you'll get better, safer exp from them getting 4 mp/tick from vermy+refresh.

[Icemage]

Re: A few questions for the Veterans.

Always, always, always keep Refresh on BLU. They burn through MP faster than any other type of mage other than RDM - even with Auto-Refresh and Vermillion Cloak and Sanction Refresh, it's still not enough to keep them topped up.

One thing I've learned about MP and Refresh - give good players Refresh even when close to their limit, and they'll find a use for it.


Icemage

[massaranger]

Re: A few questions for the Veterans.

2. As for refresh, currently I cast refresh on me, then mages (haven't partied with a PLD yet). Some RDM friends have told me to wait until mine wears off, then restart the cycle; others have told me to try and overwrite refresh before it wears (like I would as a bard). Which method is more realistic as I grow in level?

Thanks in advance! [/QUOTE]

best is to wait till ursw wears as a elf you have low mp and you need as much as you can specialy if your gonna be parts of MB's