Wind accuracy?

[SharMarali]

I'm a 75 RDM, but I consider it my secondary job. I raised it first, then sort of fell "out of love" with it, so to speak. I consider myself a summoner first and foremost. However, I recognize that I will never be able to TRULY retire my RDM as long as it's 75 and as long as I have workable equipment for it. So I'm kicking around the idea of getting a couple of merits on it, though I haven't decided, especially since I'm not done meriting SMN yet.

All the RDMs merit ice magic accuracy. While I understand the logic behind this, since paralyze is such an important enfeeble and is ice-based... The fact is, I never have any problems landing paralyze on the monsters I fight. I don't do a lot of endgame HNM stuff, though I do participate in Dynamis and Limbus quite a bit. What I *do* have problems landing is gravity. I attribute that in large part to my being an elvaan and having much higher MND than INT.

So my question is... Given the circumstances I've just explained, it seems to me that it would make more sense for me to merit wind accuracy than ice accuracy. Am I missing something that would make me change my mind and want to go for ice instead though?

[Raydeus]

Re: Wind accuracy?

It's a matter of personal choice really, if you feel you'll get more benefit from Wind acc. for Gravity then go for it.

[BurningPanther]

Re: Wind accuracy?

Wind accuracy can be useful for not only Gravity, but Silence as well. I plan on meriting both Wind and Ice magic accuracy.

[Jei]

Re: Wind accuracy?

wind accuracy for gravity is really good for HNM where you'll do a lot of kiting. Silence is another very good reason.

I don't know about ice accuracy. I haven't considered meritting that skill, nor do any of my close friends that I know : /

[Icemage]

Re: Wind accuracy?

Ice magic accuracy has its perks. Aside from the largely ignorable effect on Paralyze (in most cases), it increases the accuracy of Bind (very useful when solo), and makes your most reliable elemental nuke even more reliable (Blizzard III).

Wind accuracy is still a good choice though, for the above-mentioned reasons of Gravity and Silence.


Icemage

[Karinya]

Re: Wind accuracy?

I found ice accuracy noticeably improved the stick rate of Paralyze II, too. A point or two of ice accuracy is cheaper than Para2 level 2, and gives you more m.acc. for it in addition to its effect on other spells.

Too bad we can't merit darkness accuracy. Sleep, Dispel, Blind, Aspir, Drain...

The other one that (it seems to me) might be worth looking at is earth acc for Slow (especially if you have, or are planning to get, Slow2).

[Aeni]

Re: Wind accuracy?

I haven't decided myself on what I will merit in when I do get up to that point. However, I think a lot of it revolves around what you actually spend your time doing the most in this game.

The problem is, SE spread out the spells in different elemental categories to include both "group" friendly and "solo" friendly spells.

In a large group, you will find yourself not being the only RDM. There might be one other. In some large LS, there might be 10 others. It all depends on the circumstances.

With that said, I'm still not sure how to tailor my RDM as I raise her. The soloing aspect was always what attracted me to the job in the first place, but not that I have any difficulty in group situations (I work well with others)

All I can say is, to decide on where to spend your points, you should do an introspection of your play style first. Figure out what you spend a large amount of time doing when you actually do log on as a RDM as opposed to your SMN.

[WishMaster3K]

Re: Wind accuracy?

I've settled on raising Convert and Ice. At the moment I have 4 levels of Ice and 2 levels of Convert. To me, Paralyze is a spell that is underrated, but insanely powerful being as how crippling it is.

Pretty much, I wanted to be the Toramaesque RDM in Ballista

But Ice is fantastic. The only "enfeebles" I see myself consistently using are Paralyze and Slow. And even for merit parties, I only throw out Dia II now, because fights are too short.

But keep in mind you'll have 10 merits to allot to 7 different categories, with them maxing out at level 5. So it's all in how you feel you like to play.

(For instance, Getting Phalanx II would make me LS love me, but I would never use it, and I don't feel like meriting something I'd never use on my own time. So I'm going to maximize my personal favorite spells and contribute that way.)

Also, I intend to take Paralyze II to level 3

Anyone here know what it's like to have Max Ice and Max Paralyze II?

[Taskmage]

Re: Wind accuracy?

I think of wind accuracy as a given. Gravity and silence are important spells in just about every context imaginable and moreso than other enfeebles you really notice when they get resisted even once.

Ice accuracy seems less beneficial of the two. I'll probably end up meriting it over convert recast anyway, since I'm already happy with the amount of mp I get to spend before hp and mp merits and consider myself very good at pacing my spellcasting. The spells that benefit just aren't as crucial as the wind ones though.

I could care less about the accuracy of Paralyze I. It costs less mp than you get back from refresh while casting it, and the recast time is short enough that it's probably ready again by the time you see the resist message.

Bind, I dunno ... unlike gravity it's practically useless in exp and, I assume, HNM. When solo kiting this is alternated with gravity, but I always prefer to melee solo unless kiting is the only possible way, so the accuracy of this spell is only really important to me if I want to try emulating some of Avesta's solos, which I'm mildly interested in doing.

Blizzard III, I imagine, is probably the reason most red mages merit ice accuracy. Our elemental accuracy pretty much sucks, so we need to stack that on any way we can to get consistently worthwhile damage. Blizzard III already gets the nod over Thunder III because of the +10 elemental skill on ice staff. Even if we were to consider meriting lighting accuracy for nukes instead, we get almost no benefit to our other spells from that merit. Only stun would be affected.

Group 2 merits ... /sigh. I have no idea. The only thing I'm absolutely sure about is dia III gets one merit. I was initially most interested in paralyze II for two reasons: it has synergy with the already attractive ice accuracy merit and, unlike slow and blind, we're the only job that gets a tier 2 version of the spell. I've heard since then that slow II far outperforms para II in terms of reduction of enemy attacks, and that it overwrites both haste and hojo: ni. Between the two I'm just not sure anymore.

[Jei]

Re: Wind accuracy?

hopefully SE will allow us more points to play with in our merit 2. I'm set with 1 diaIII, 3 paraII right now. The other 2, is between slowII or phalanxII...

It's weird... for HNM I hardly ever get to use Rdm, my LS always want my BLM. But for dynamis, my LS always want my Rdm...

[Icemage]

Re: Wind accuracy?

I'm pretty sure Slow II is the same tier as Hojo: Ni (i.e. they won't overwrite each other). Can someone confirm?

As for Ice Accuracy, the general gist seems to be that Paralyze and Paralyze II often get partially resisted and therefore don't "stick" for very long. Landing them isn't a problem, but making them stay once they land is hard.

With Silence, precious few things can be Silenced or Gravitied that wouldn't succumb without merits. Just try Silencing Kirin sometime, for instance - you have at most 5% chance of success no matter how much Enfeebling / Wind Accuracy you tack on. Most other spellcasting enemies are along a similar vein - you can either land Silence without merits or even much in terms of gear, or they're virtually immune.

Gravity is another iffy one. With NMs, virtually all NMs build resistance to Gravity over time, so no matter how much accuracy you add, you eventually reach a point where it simply doesn't work, and no amount of extra accuracy or enfeebling skill will help you.

I don't really feel that any of the magic accuracy merits do anything useful for RDM at end-game, whether you're solo or doing group activities.


Icemage

[Raydeus]

Re: Wind accuracy?

With the way RDM merits are right now I'll probably get something like this:

Convert Recast +5
Ice Acc +2
Wind Acc +2
Earth Acc +1

Bio III
Dia III
Para II +2
Slow II
and Either Blind II or another Slow II


I'd rather merit Ice Spikes if I could though.

[Taskmage]

Re: Wind accuracy?

The information on slow II overwriting hojo: ni was pulled off the wiki, so it's about as reliable as any other standalone assertion you'll find on the internet. That is to say, not entirely reliable.

Well I can't speak from experience as a level 75 yet, but everything I've had to silence so far has seemed to be be more resistant to silence than any other debuff. Currently my stick rate on imps is maybe 50-60% in my estimation (NQ wind staff, tabard and torque, +30ish to my taru mnd), which still gives it as many as 5 opportunities a fight if I'm unlucky to pull out Firaga III or some other nasty thing while I'm waiting on recast. Maybe in three levels that area between mobs that virtually never resist and mobs that virtually always resist no matter what you do will disappear, but if the resist rate of silence is still significant at all I'd like to reduce it.

Concerning gravity, you'd know far better than I, but especially because of the slow buildup of gravity resistance over time, you'd want to reduce the number of 1/2 and 1/4 resists as much as possible so that the resistance will build up more slowly, right?

[Raydeus]

Re: Wind accuracy?

Well I can't speak from experience as a level 75 yet, but everything I've had to silence so far has seemed to be be more resistant to silence than any other debuff. Currently my stick rate on imps is maybe 50-60% in my estimation (NQ wind staff, tabard and torque, +30ish to my taru mnd), which still gives it as many as 5 opportunities a fight if I'm unlucky to pull out Firaga III or some other nasty thing while I'm waiting on recast. Maybe in three levels that area between mobs that virtually never resist and mobs that virtually always resist no matter what you do will disappear, but if the resist rate of silence is still significant at all I'd like to reduce it.

I guess those 10 lvls of skill you are missing compared to lvl 75 are hurting you.

I got lvl 75 before ToAU and all that so I don't know about lvl 73 but with MND +43 or something I almost never get resisted by Imps (maybe a 90%+ stick rate?). I only use the Tabard for +skill and all the other pieces of gear are +MND.

Many RDMs say +skill is better (for Neck gear) but the +5 MND from my Promise Badge have worked better for me so I dunno.



*Takes cover before Icemage tries to mpk him*

[Icemage]

Re: Wind accuracy?

The information on slow II overwriting hojo: ni was pulled off the wiki, so it's about as reliable as any other standalone assertion you'll find on the internet. That is to say, not entirely reliable.
Well I can't speak from experience as a level 75 yet, but everything I've had to silence so far has seemed to be be more resistant to silence than any other debuff. Currently my stick rate on imps is maybe 50-60% in my estimation (NQ wind staff, tabard and torque, +30ish to my taru mnd), which still gives it as many as 5 opportunities a fight if I'm unlucky to pull out Firaga III or some other nasty thing while I'm waiting on recast. Maybe in three levels that area between mobs that virtually never resist and mobs that virtually always resist no matter what you do will disappear, but if the resist rate of silence is still significant at all I'd like to reduce it.

I don't get much, if any resists on Heraldic Imps any more at RDM74 with 7 Enfeebling Merits, AF tabard, Elite Beret, and torque (+40 Enfeebling). I fully expect this to drop to 5% resist once I hit 75. Wind Magic Accuracy on top of this would just be overkill for them (it might increase the average duration a bit more, but Silence is such a finicky spell to begin with that I doubt it would make much difference even if maxed).

Concerning gravity, you'd know far better than I, but especially because of the slow buildup of gravity resistance over time, you'd want to reduce the number of 1/2 and 1/4 resists as much as possible so that the resistance will build up more slowly, right?

Not really, no. With Gravity, most HNMLS use it sparingly if it all - the trick is to make your tanks faster, not the monsters slower. Thus, NIN AF boots and Crimson Leggings are far more important than whether Gravity lands or not - due to the resistance effect and the lack of reliability of Gravity overall, no one depends on it if they have any other choice available to them. It's nice when it's there, but no strategy revolves around it unless you're maybe a solo RDM trying to kite/sleep/nuke a NM.


Icemage