MND & INT vs. Magic Accuracy

[Digitai]

Re: MND & INT vs. Magic Accuracy

i completely agree, thus i feel macc is far more important than the int, just like 'skill'. from many mobs i have found. Skill>Macc>Int. i am rdm all i care about is my enfeebling magic being impossible to gauge. i want to cast it 1 time, stick, and have max duration. having tons of int i have found to not improve this, raising my macc and skill and its so obviously better, 1 party and you can see the difference. when i started as a 75 rdm i had something like +40+ some odd int, now all i care about is mp, skill and acc. my int is something like +15 now and my enfeebling magic is stronger than it has ever been. if a spell is resisted i am really shocked, happenes next to never. (enm's the exception)

[tdh]

Re: MND & INT vs. Magic Accuracy

I'm an Elvaan RDM so if I do anything of note as RDM, I eat Glace for the MP. (Trying to hit that 1k MP!) So I have no help from my food in landing my spells, but I do have a MND & INT build that gives me +44~48. Depending on what I'm doing, I follow what W3k outlined. Load up on MND for White Magic enfeebles for strenght of spell, load up on INT for Black Magic nukes for damage, but I go with Skill for Silence, Sleep, and Gravity. I want those spells to land, and stay there as long as possible.

I think the Wise set is about as ugly as it gets, and looks even worse on Elvaans, so I don't have a single piece of it. With no HNM activities and all the MND & INT I have, I have no need to even test them out. My resists come with Elemental nukes, and those aren't the norm with INT+48 and Elemental Skill +17~27 depending on the spell. So I just don't find it useful, and honestly doubt I'd find the M.Acc+7 to out perform MND+44 & INT+48.

[Mhurron]

Re: MND & INT vs. Magic Accuracy

Well I chose to wear (EXP) Errent body and Wise legs using a Goblin Mushpot for +MND and some MACC. I suppose that I could get more MND and I might try to but I'll probably try to do so without giving up the Wise hands, legs and feet. And as I said, I like the look of the Wise, I was happy to see it go down in price

http://img143.imageshack.us/img143/5...1034236my2.jpg
http://img230.imageshack.us/img230/5...1110619os6.jpg

[Karinya]

Re: MND & INT vs. Magic Accuracy

Digitai, what are you talking about with errants and mahatmas giving .5 or 1 int and mnd? Mahatmas give +8 int and mnd, which would equal +4 magic accuracy under our assumption, in addition to enhanced potency of nukes and slow, stronger stoneskin, etc.

Nitpick: If you wanted stronger stoneskin you should have swapped in AF1 pants. +15 enhancing will beat 7-8 mnd easily. For that matter, if you want better nukes on anything other than too weaks, use AF2 pants (if you have them); resists are always a major issue for the nuking RDM and +10 skill is great.

On the other hand, if you don't want to swap pants all the time (either because your macros are full or because your inventory is full), wise are a good one-size-fits-all choice. They have magic acc that helps all spells (well, all spells cast on enemies) and some MP for convert. -Enmity is pretty much a dead stat for RDMs IMO, but if you disagree, they've got that too.

More to the point, though, 2 INT/MND = 1 skill = 1 MACC is an *assumption*, not a confirmed fact. I think that magic accuracy is significantly more effective than some people's theories give it credit for. Why does an (element) magic accuracy merit have so much more effect than an enfeebling magic merit? Why do wise cap and chasuble have only +5 macc compared to the 10-15 skill available in the same slots? Heck, if that theory is correct there'd be no point to chasuble at all; you might as well just use errant body and get +5 macc to all int and mnd based spells (which is all of them). I don't think SE would be stupid enough to make the wise set that useless, and I think actual observations of macc show it to be more effective than 1 skill or 2 int/mnd.

From a standpoint of spell accuracy and effectiveness, Mahatmas are clearly better. I suppose you could argue preference for the 20 extra mp and 1 additional point of -enmity, but personally I would never make that trade and I can't imagine anyone happily paying 2-4x the price of mahatmas to buy the wise+1.

Fair enough; I can't imagine anyone happily paying the price of mahatmas (currently about half a mil I think) in the first place for an extra 1 int and mnd. I'd consider the real choice between wise and errant, unless you have tremendous amounts of money that you just don't know what to do with.

And "clearly better" depends a lot on how much macc *really* does relative to int/mnd, which I have yet to see any solid data on.

As Icemage said, wise set is really situational to spells that you can't help with any other stat.

If the unconfirmed theories that macc is that weak are correct, yeah. Otherwise it's good for spells that you don't want to have resisted, which is most of them really. Stacking int/mnd is (IMO) only good for fights where you aren't going to get a significant resist rate anyway, in which case it usually doesn't matter what you are wearing.

Personally the only piece I use is the hat, which is really still an arguable choice over elite beret. I stick with it because the beret doesn't help my dark magic accuracy. In the body slot I'd obviously rather have the tabard for enfeebles, and the stats from errant are nice for anything else. I've already expressed my preference for mahatmas in the leg slot.

I use the chasuble for nukes, drain and aspir (because I think resist rate is a bigger issue than INT for RDM nuking), and I use the legs to enfeeble in endgame situations (because I disagree with your theory about the relative power of macc vs. stats). I also use the legs in some Assaults because they allow you to cast pretty well without giving up a ton of melee ability (there are quite a few assaults where meleeing as a RDM is useful), but I probably wouldn't have gotten them for that reason alone if I wasn't already keeping them for other reasons.

I don't use wise hat, but that's because I have duelist. Otherwise I'd probably use it about the same way you do.

I don't merit much but you could practically merit with nothing but staves and AF body and nobody would really notice unless they looked at your character or checked you; merit is so ridiculously easy it really doesn't matter what you wear. (Which is a big part of why I don't merit much, it's boring as hell.) Which is why I would never waste inventory space or gil on gear that I was only going to use for meriting.

If you have Nashira Gages I'd say stick with them. Making our assumption about the relation betweens stats and accuracy, there are very few gloves that outclass Nashiras for offensive spellcasting. Yigits like Jei said might be slightly better for having almost enough int and mnd to match Nashira's acc plus some magic attack bonus. Genie Gages might be better for nuking things where resists are a major concern. The new Morrigan gloves pretty much beat other options hands down, with both +5 magic acc and +5 magic attack bonus.

Well, there's also master caster's bracelets, which have +7 elemental and enfeebling skill, but they only work in a non-TAU area not under your nation's control with Signet on, so you still need an alternative for other situations. I'd also say stick with the Nashira though, at least until/unless you can get Morrigan's. Nothing else is likely to be a significant enough improvement to be worthwhile, if it's an improvement at all.

Since I don't have Nashira myself, I'm working towards Yigit, but assault points take a long time to accumulate, so currently I mostly just use Duelist when MC Bracelets aren't usable. (Fortunately that isn't very often when it matters; they always work in Dynamis, Limbus and sea IIRC, and most of the time in sky.) Wise would provide slightly more MND but most of my macros are full without swapping hands, so it would probably have to displace something else that would end up costing me more MND.

[Icemage]

Re: MND & INT vs. Magic Accuracy

Nitpick: If you wanted stronger stoneskin you should have swapped in AF1 pants. +15 enhancing will beat 7-8 mnd easily.

Not true. I tested this a while back, and for Enhancing Magic > 250, you get only 1 damage absorbed per point, whereas MND always gives 3 damage absorbed per point.

For level 75 RDMs, that means the +15 Enhancing Magic of AF1 pants gives only 15 damage absorbed, while Errant will give 21 damage absorbed, and Mahatma 24 damage absorbed.

More to the point, though, 2 INT/MND = 1 skill = 1 MACC is an *assumption*, not a confirmed fact. I think that magic accuracy is significantly more effective than some people's theories give it credit for. Why does an (element) magic accuracy merit have so much more effect than an enfeebling magic merit? Why do wise cap and chasuble have only +5 macc compared to the 10-15 skill available in the same slots? Heck, if that theory is correct there'd be no point to chasuble at all; you might as well just use errant body and get +5 macc to all int and mnd based spells (which is all of them). I don't think SE would be stupid enough to make the wise set that useless, and I think actual observations of macc show it to be more effective than 1 skill or 2 int/mnd.

I agree that MAcc is a lot more potent than people give it credit for, in those instances where it matters. Sadly for RDM75s, those circumstances aren't that common. Either you've already got enough skill/stats to land spells reliably, or what you're casting on is so resistant that it hardly matters. There's not too much middle ground at RDM75 where you actually see something that only "occasionally" resists your enfeebles.

Now, nuke-wise, I absolutely agree that magic accuracy is very useful for RDMs due to much weaker Elemental Magic skill.

Fair enough; I can't imagine anyone happily paying the price of mahatmas (currently about half a mil I think) in the first place for an extra 1 int and mnd. I'd consider the real choice between wise and errant, unless you have tremendous amounts of money that you just don't know what to do with.

If you're at end-game with RDM, Mahatmas aren't really that much of a splurge.

And "clearly better" depends a lot on how much macc *really* does relative to int/mnd, which I have yet to see any solid data on.

If the unconfirmed theories that macc is that weak are correct, yeah. Otherwise it's good for spells that you don't want to have resisted, which is most of them really. Stacking int/mnd is (IMO) only good for fights where you aren't going to get a significant resist rate anyway, in which case it usually doesn't matter what you are wearing.

That's the thing though - there's so few things that resist a decently geared RDM75 that it hardly matters (except when nuking as I stated above). The stuff that resists is going to pretty much resist you regardless of how much accuracy you stack.

I use the chasuble for nukes, drain and aspir (because I think resist rate is a bigger issue than INT for RDM nuking), and I use the legs to enfeeble in endgame situations (because I disagree with your theory about the relative power of macc vs. stats). I also use the legs in some Assaults because they allow you to cast pretty well without giving up a ton of melee ability (there are quite a few assaults where meleeing as a RDM is useful), but I probably wouldn't have gotten them for that reason alone if I wasn't already keeping them for other reasons.

I agree with your analysis and usage of these gears. Wise set is a nice addition and definitely has its place - it's just not as dominant as a set than, say, Blessed JSE for WHM, or Shi'ar JSE for BRD.

Nothing else is likely to be a significant enough improvement to be worthwhile, if it's an improvement at all.

I think this is pretty much a good blanket statement for almost all RDM gears, to be completely honest. There's only a few rare items that really REALLY help you as RDM - HQ elemental staves, Crimson Leggings, Duelist's Chapeau, Warlock's Tabard, etc. Since RDMs perform so well at their primary duties with just these basics, the added effect of even otherwise great things like the MAcc from Wise gear is greatly diminished.


Icemage

[Lambeaus]

Re: MND & INT vs. Magic Accuracy

Wow, there is a ton of great info in this thread.

Without derailing it too bad, I assume everything applies to BLM as well? I always read to lean heavily toward INT gear. Just a yes or no would suffice for now, I'll make a new thread next week in the BLM forum if need be.

[Icemage]

Re: MND & INT vs. Magic Accuracy

Without derailing it too bad, I assume everything applies to BLM as well? I always read to lean heavily toward INT gear. Just a yes or no would suffice for now, I'll make a new thread next week in the BLM forum if need be.

Not exactly.

BLM skill levels are very different than RDM. In general for BLMs, to maximize damage per spell:

Against things that are higher level than you:
Elemental Skill > Magic Accuracy > Magic Attack Bonus > INT

Against things that don't resist you much (near your level, or below):
Magic Attack Bonus > INT > Elemental Skill > Magic Accuracy

This isn't to say you should neglect any of these categories, but you hit a point of diminishing returns with Elemental Magic just the same way Red Mages do with Enfeebling Magic.

For BLMs, Enfeebling Magic is much less reliable, so for spells like Sleep II you'd want:
Enfeebling Skill > Magic Accuracy > INT/MND


Icemage

[WishMaster3K]

Re: MND & INT vs. Magic Accuracy

Both IM and Karinya are missing the point with AF Pants vs. Errant/Mahatma:

The AF pants are better because they have the Enhancing Magic AND the +MND.

Grendal pointed that out to me when I asked him the same thing a year ago.

Edit(1):
It goes like this:

Each point of MND adds +3 to Stoneskin, while each point of Enhancing Magic adds 1.

So from the Errant, you'd get 21
Mahatma gets you 24
The AF has 15 Enhancing +3 MND, so you'd get 24, same as Mahatma.

However, if you're soloing, the AF pants are better, simply because higher skill means less of a chance of getting interrupted when you're getting wailed on.

Edit(2):
And I think the Chasuble looks fine on Taru. Oh, and I love shorts, I hate the way "Tights" look on any job in general. It's a shame I have those +3 Accuracy +25 MP pants that I forgot the name off: My Wise Braconi are almost useless.

But I can't stand the damn boots. What are we, Dutch?

[Icemage]

Re: MND & INT vs. Magic Accuracy

Hmm.. forgot about the +3 MND. OK, so they're the same as Mahatmas for Stoneskin. No great shakes either way though - it's really easy to max out Stoneskin as RDM once you have capped your Enhancing Magic skill at 75 (prior to that, of course, AF pants are huge for Stoneskin, particularly in the late 50s to 60s when your Enhancing Magic isn't even within shouting distance of 250, which makes the AF pants give 54 points of damage absorbed).


Icemage

[Raydeus]

Re: MND & INT vs. Magic Accuracy

However, if you're soloing, the AF pants are better, simply because higher skill means less of a chance of getting interrupted when you're getting wailed on.

Not to mention Mahatma's -STR, -VIT, -DEX and -AGI would negate any posible benefit to Stoneskin if you are the one doing the damage and taking the hits.

[Taskmage]

Re: MND & INT vs. Magic Accuracy

If you're taking that much in the way of hits, macro the mahatmas out for some melee pants. If you're kiting, likely the mob hits hard enough that -7 agi and -7 vit aren't going to make a difference in the number of hits you take.

The thing about 2 stat = 1 acc is an untested assumption; just a hypothesis somebody threw out. Since we have a clear understanding of how melee accuracy works, it makes sense to use that as a starting point for our model of magic accuracy. INT and MND definately do have an effect on spell accuracy, but since the magic accuracy value can't be easily checked like physical accuracy, who is to say exactly how the ratios work out. I just know there's a night and day difference in the stick rate of my Silence on Mamool Ja Philosophers and Blusterers in Bhaflau when I'm using a goblin mushpot vs when I'm not.

It may be that like INT's effect on elemental damage, INT and MND may have a strong effect on magic accuracy until they reach an inflection point where they experience diminishing returns, or a hard cap at which additional points no longer increase acc. That might explain why I noticed a stark difference in my white magic performance after switching to mushpots whereas I didn't notice that much effect from adding Wise Cap to my wardrobe. My lower taru MND might have put me below the inflection point for stats having a strong impact on accuracy.

At any rate, the entire discussion is academic unless someone takes the time to come up with hard data regarding the effectiveness of m.acc vs casting stats. So far all we're dealing with is a collection of fuzzy recollections about how we feel our performance was affected and references to what other red mages have done, neither of which are good sources for objective comparison.

Personally, I passed on the wise set because the price tags were way out of proportion with what I expected the benefit to be. Errant Hpl and Mahatma Slops were much more reasonably priced to me and, imo, more flexible in their functionality. When I get my Duelist pants and hat, my perspective might change. Wise Cap will stop being useful on enfeebles, and Mahatmas will stop being as appealing for nuking, so at that point I might consider trading in those pieces and investing in some Wise Braconi +1. It would really have to be the +1 for me to consider it, since the +1 m.acc from my Gramary Cape is practically invisible in effect, so I'd want as large a number on that mod as I could get. In the distant future where I have Morrigan body, pants and gloves, both Errant and Wise will be obsolete. Admittedly you could argue this assessment of pants, but I don't really care to pursue it.

[WishMaster3K]

Re: MND & INT vs. Magic Accuracy

At what point do we get diminished returns on Enfeebling?

RDMs can now have up to 354 Enfeebling Magic.















How much is too much?

[Karinya]

Re: MND & INT vs. Magic Accuracy

Depends on what you're casting on. I think Icemage's claim that it's hopeless to try to stack skill/macc on gods, jailers etc. because they'll just resist you anyway is wrong. You *can* materially affect your stick rate on those things and to the extent that your gear matters at all (aside from the absolute basics like staves and AF body), that's what you should be focusing on IMO.

Unless you're meriting just to merit some more, which personally I couldn't stand to do; merit is so frigging boring, especially for RDM.

I didn't realize there was a cap on Enhancing Magic's effect on Stoneskin - disappointing. Maybe I'll start leaving my warlock's tights in my mog locker then, it hardly seems worth it to carry them just for bar spells (which I usually don't have macroed anyway). Heck, those probably have a skill cap too.

Of course, that just makes me more likely to eliminate pants swapping from my macros altogether and go with one set for all situations (well, most situations - I'll still keep my galliards for really melee heavy stuff like soloing) - and since I don't have nashira or morrigan's and don't feel like dropping half a mil on mahatmas, that leaves it up to wise or errant.


P.S. I don't know what expectations you have for endgame, but not every LS is getting a couple behemoth hides a week. Especially with the current mess at Ulli. Endgame activities are a net *drain* on my gil, so saying that I should be able to afford more expensive gear because of it just doesn't make sense.

[Icemage]

Re: MND & INT vs. Magic Accuracy

Depends on what you're casting on. I think Icemage's claim that it's hopeless to try to stack skill/macc on gods, jailers etc. because they'll just resist you anyway is wrong. You *can* materially affect your stick rate on those things and to the extent that your gear matters at all (aside from the absolute basics like staves and AF body), that's what you should be focusing on IMO.

Are you participating in end-game? Or are you hypothesizing? Because I play end-game with some of the best RDMs on my server, with access to all of the best gear. Most of them have tried overstocking on skill/accuracy, and every last one of them came to the conclusion that it's just not possible to budge the resistances on the majority of the tougher HNMs that have natural resistances to certain spells (Kirin vs. Silence, for example). Hell, our Summoners have a better track record of casting Silence on Kirin with a /WHM subjob than our fully decked out Red Mages...

Red Mage enfeebling at end-game is feast or famine. After you go over around 300 skill, you're either landing spells consistently or not at all.

Unless you're meriting just to merit some more, which personally I couldn't stand to do; merit is so frigging boring, especially for RDM.

I actually enjoy a good merit party even as RDM. It's my preferred job for meriting, since I'm not on autopilot the whole time. Maybe you don't like it, but I much prefer it to, say, Bard.

I didn't realize there was a cap on Enhancing Magic's effect on Stoneskin - disappointing. Maybe I'll start leaving my warlock's tights in my mog locker then, it hardly seems worth it to carry them just for bar spells (which I usually don't have macroed anyway). Heck, those probably have a skill cap too.

Well, I don't know about barstatus spells since it's impossible to tell what is really happening with those, but I haven't hit a cap on Barelement spells yet. I guess if you're expecting to cast Barspells then it's worth using them, but it's rare to see RDMs casting Barspells except when solo. I recall the conversion is something like 2 skill = +1 resistance, so it's still a pretty hefty boost.

Of course, that just makes me more likely to eliminate pants swapping from my macros altogether and go with one set for all situations (well, most situations - I'll still keep my galliards for really melee heavy stuff like soloing) - and since I don't have nashira or morrigan's and don't feel like dropping half a mil on mahatmas, that leaves it up to wise or errant.

Nothing wrong with mahatma, wise or errant. Not many have access to nashira, and I guarantee no one has morrigan yet.

P.S. I don't know what expectations you have for endgame, but not every LS is getting a couple behemoth hides a week. Especially with the current mess at Ulli. Endgame activities are a net *drain* on my gil, so saying that I should be able to afford more expensive gear because of it just doesn't make sense.

I get no income from my HNMLS - it's just that your average level 75 player has any number of ways to accumulate income. I'm merely pointing out that half a million gil is pretty cheap for a piece of gear at end-game. My WHM gear slots are all either EX gear or stuff that cost me around 500K+ for the most part.

Are there other things you could buy with 500K? Absolutely. But in the grand scheme of things, it's not too much to invest at 75, especially considering you can always get your money back by selling it if you decide you don't like it.


Icemage

[Digitai]

Re: MND & INT vs. Magic Accuracy

hmm maybe i'm missing something, why oh why do you need enhancing + gear or mnd to help your SS. are you really soloing with /blm or /whm and if you are why? soloing /blu or /nin is the only only way to solo, you do not need enhancing or mnd for 700 def with /blu and /nin needs eva and agi. whats going... if you are in a party /whm or /blm with 0 armor, blink, SS, and phlanx is more than enough to get you to safely control the mob until the party is ready for em'. if you are kiting the enhancing and mnd is the last of your worries, it comes down to your playing skill and your players enfeebing skill and macc. 2 to even 10 points in damage is basicaly the same, if this was the pld fourm then 2- 10 is not the same, and if you are getting hit so hard that your spells are getting interupted then it comes down to your skill and timing in casting the spell, not your enhancing and mnd, well Your mind yes^^. if a spell gets intrupted do to a weak hit, well that will happen every once in awhile, even if you had an unlilmited amout of mnd. just like a miss happens with melee no matter who you are.
again to awnser the main topic. skill> macc> int/mnd