Effectiveness of Shell(ra)

[locus]

You guys and your "concrete evidence"... here you go.

I don't have webspace right now, so I apologize in advance for multiple posting.

Target: Battalia Orcish Cursemaker.

[locus]

This is before Shell. Typical damage from Aeroga = 110-120 damage, Stone II = 100-120 damage.

[locus]

This is after Shellra 3.

(unsubstantiated opinion)
Taken from my experience, with special attacks, Shell oes not seem to work. However, against spells, Shell>Bar spells (Judging from a fight against Waraxe Beak where he used Dispelga and Stonega IV)

Frankly, if you consider them a waste of money, go ahead. Just please don't complain when the goblin alchemist hits your party with Aeroga III and suddenly everyone has orange HP. And PLEASE avoid ever fighting Anticans in the Quicksand caves. Ancient magic (Burst, Tornado) is bad enough already with Shell on.

[VB-Shiva]

Thank you locus for your input, this is exactly the kind of data that I wanted to see. However, the data is not conclusive. On one set of data, you are hit mostly with stonega, one the other, mostly with stone2, two spells of different magnitudes. The only useful data I got was Aeroga for 42 vs Aeroga for 8, which is normal for range of damage based on basic resistance.

Thanks for the data, it is much appreciated.

[Icemage]

Umm... Locus is right. Magic damage is not as simple as a 1:1 ratio of Magic Defense vs. Magic Damage.

I can tell you that Shellra spells DO tend to reduce damage from magical enemy attacks. Not just spells, but also special attacks. Like player Weapon Skills, monsters also have either Physical or Elemental attacks.

Magic Defense isn't like Evasion or Physical Defense. Magical attacks deal random damage within a certain range, and are then adjusted for "accuracy" based on the target's elemental and magical resistance.

Examples of physical attacks:

Triple Bats - Jet Stream
Worm - Full Force Blow
Crab - Big Scissors
Quadav - Head Butt

Examples of magical attacks:

Spells
Fly - Cursed Sphere (Dark element)
Skeleton - Black Cloud (Dark element)
Crawler - Poison Breath (Poison attack/maybe water?)
Octopus - Maelstrom (Water element)
Fungaur - Silence Gas (Wind element)

While you have Shell effects active, attacks of Magical types will "tend" to deal less damage, and will be resisted more often. It is not guaranteed, but it definitely helps.

Against Robber Crabs in Kuftal Tunnel (~level 60 enemies), I notice a huge difference when I have Barwater + Shellra II active on the party vs. having neither active. If both are not active, damage can be as high as 300. If Shellra II is active, it drops to about 180 max. If I have Barwatera and Shellra II active, max damage drops to around 120.


Icemage

[locus]

As I said, I can't tell you what to think.

You can be a skeptic ifl you want, in which case you might even start to doubt that Protectra III has any effect on damage taken whatsoever - it's "ONLY" 40 def? how much of a difference is that when I already have 232 def?

I can however tell you that I've never let shell drop for very long in a party and my party members have never ever complained "You're wasting mp!". Imagine this situation - I decide to go fight sapphire quadrav for the Beadeaux coffer key (White mage AF gloves).

Fighter: "Shellra III please"
Me: "I don't have Shellra III"
Fighter: "... Shellra 2 then"
Me: "I don't have any Shellra spells - I don't think they're worth the money"
Fighter: "... are you really a white mage?"
Sapphire Quadrav casts Aeroga III (PAIN) (Up to 300 damage WITH shell on, FYI)

At this point, you can curaga III and die, or you can benediction and die - your choice.

Then again, I've seen an Elvaan white mage play all the way up to level 59 without bothering to buy Cure IV (no money) - so hey, anything goes (and even HE bothered to get Shellra III).

Icemage brings up a fantastic point: Crabs. If you want to see how much of a difference Shell makes, ask the red mage NOT to dispel Bubble shield (Shell effect) and the black mage to continue casting attack spells. Aspir from crab with Shell on = 9 mp. Aspir from crab without shell on = anywhere up to 80 mp.

[Calianeri]

Unlike VB-Shiva, I'm no skeptic about Shell. It's always up when fighting magic casters. But hearing the belief that Shell affects elemental special attacks too is mighty interesting. The description specifically says "magical defense" -- but those attacks do not come from magic-caster types and don't appear to be "magical" because they are not casted like spells. So perhaps it's better to say that Shell is really generic "elemental" defense, and anything elemental is therefore affected by Shell?

Which, if true, means that "magical" is equivalent to "elemental". That would give us casted magic (all spells have an element) and special attack magic (elemental attacks). I was thinking of casted magic and elemental attacks as different things, but perhaps that's not true.

And, last followup if all of the above is correct: Based on what Locus and Icemage have said, it sounds like a monster with a Shell effect up would be more resistant to players' elemental weapon skills and skillchain effects. Is that the case? Fighting crabs so far I've never noticed any difference before or after a Bubble Curtain.

Or is that taking the elemental = magical thing too far?

Also, Icemage, how did you come to your conclusions about the elemental types for the special attacks? Or determine that, for instance, Jet Stream is physical and not air elemental?

[Icemage]

If an enemy is using a Shell-type effect (Bubble Shield for instance), even elemental WS are affected. I won't swear to it, but I also believe enfeebling magic is somewhat harder to land when such effects are up.

My conclusions about damage types of various special attacks is all based on experience. You can usually tell which attacks are physical and which are Elemental by looking at how much damage different characters take from them:

If the tanks take less damage overall, it's physical. Another sign of a physical attack is if you can block, guard or parry the attack (if you see a block, guard or parry gain when a special attack hits you I guarantee it is a physical attack). Good example of this would be a Weapon's Whirl of Rage attack.

If the mages take less damage overall, or the damage is even for all players with an occasional lower damage resistance value, it's magical. A Hecteyes special attack Fluid Toss comes to mind here. All players take roughly the same amount of damage, based on their resistance vs. Water in this case.


Icemage

[VB-Shiva]

locus, I can see Protect working, because it's obvious, you can see a number(Defense) go up. With shell, it isn't so obvious. I dont have access to shell 3, so my data is limited. I am here to find out when it is useful, and when it is not. If I'm fighting in Crawlers and Beetles, I will not throw up Shell just because it's part of a buffing routine. If I'm fighting casters, I'll throw Shell up because the group will be more susceptible to magical attacks. How often do I fight casters? Not often at all. If I do fight the occasional caster, I find Silence to be a more useful tool. I will change tactics and adopt as I move to different areas, but as of now, shellra = useless.

Unlike Calianeri, I dont take what others say as gospel. I like to apply the knowledge to the field and see for myself.

[Archh]

Barfira never reduced damage from Bomb tosses for me.. it could have been a very small reduction that i didn't notice though.

[Icemage]

At lower levels, Barfira has a relatively weak effect against Goblin Bombs. Where you see the huge difference is when you get to 25+. Barfira is a life-saver against Tier 5 Goblins (Reaper, etc.) because they can deal 400 or more damage to an unprotected player with their Bomb Toss. It's also useful against Bomb type enemies like Explosure and Forger when they use Self-Destruct.


Icemage

[SonikU4ia]

Anyone know if there was a Mania book published out over in Japan for Final Fantasy 11?

In the past, Square has released this line of Mania books for games that Square has made, detailing alot of easter eggs, hidden features, and mathematical equations for stats, damange, and any kind of number you can think of.

If anyone were to have access to the Mania book for FF11 or had been to a JP site... we could end this little discussion right here and now.

However, I am a "firm" believe in the Bar-line of spells. I have seen them at work, from experience. The first time was in Kazham, when we fought the Mandragora. I knew that they used the area sleep, so just out of curiousity, I would throw up Barsleepra. I noticed a signifcant reduction in the amount of sleep time that my party members got when they were put to sleep. They would wake up in less that 10 seconds.

The next time I noticed the Bar spells wonderfulability was when I first started fighting crawler's at the Crawler's Nest, I noticed, after a time, my party's tank, which was a lv 34 Paladin, was taking a HUGE amount of damage from the poison breath that crawler's have. It even insta-killed him once when he was down to around 232 HP and he had pulled a monster before I really had time to regen. (He was taking a ton of damage from the crawler's physical attacks anyway, and I wasn't going to berate him on that or anything; not the type.) I didn't throw up Barpoisonra simply because I just didn't think about it at the time. He was taking damage on a range of like 190-230 from the poison. Well, after he got insta-killed, I figured throwing up barpoisonra couldn't hurt. So I rezzed, waited for rezz effects to wear off, then buffed him again, putting up barpoisonra. (Protect II and Shell were on also.) I noticed a whopping 100-125 damage drop from the buff and I was quite shocked. From that moment on, I was a devout believer.

Since then, I throw up the BAR spells anytime I fight a monster with an element that seems obvious. I figure, it couldn't hurt and the mp cost is quite minimal. I seriuosly don't mind having to rebuff with the elemental Bar-spells either. It gives me a chance to move around and not have to just stand in one place constantly. Besides its a White Mage's job to protect. I wouldn't be doing my job if someone was taking damage where I could obviously limit said damage. In addition, if I am in doubt about anything pertaining to defense of my party members, I might as well use all the buffs I have at my disposal, or risk the simple idea of me not doing my job.

This is why I don't agree with Shiva's statement about "Shell." I think its ridiculous to label shell as a "useless" spell without providing any cold, hard facts and data to substantiate and prove otherwise. As far as I am concerned about such an opinion, its really at this point neither here nor there. If a person thinks that Shell provides no "significant" defense either, that arguement is destoryed as well, because any reduction in damage, no matter how small, "is still a reduction." If a fox steals apples from your apple tree daily, eventually you are going to wind up with no apples. The same thing with damage over time. Its just going to cause you to heal more and healing more requires a loss of mp which always equates to more down time to rest and get it.

[Issaac]

The Bar<element> spells like Barpoisona are castable on others but the effect radius is always based on you. So you have to run to the group and buff.

Thats something i realy dislike. I wished the target of the spell would be the center. I cant count how often i runnned right into a bomb, poison breath, sleep or whatever

[Calianeri]

Unlike Calianeri, I dont take what others say as gospel. I like to apply the knowledge to the field and see for myself.

Heh, go back and actually read my previous post. See all those question marks? Phrases like "if all of the above is correct"? That's called discussing an interesting possibility and asking for clarification. Very different from accepting as gospel. I'm here to learn more, not jump to conclusions.

I don't know how you can just write off Shellra. If it reduces any damage from casted magic, it's useful, and I'll cast it when fighting mage types. If it reduces damage from any elemental attack (casted magic or not) as Icemage suggests, then it's even more useful, and I'll cast it all the time. But which is it? I'd like more observations, especially from the really experienced importers who also post on these forums. I've started looking at my logs while playing to see for myself, but of course that's inherently imprecise.

Change of topic: Issaac, for the bar-elements try timing your cast so you run up to the front line right before as puller arrives with the monster. Stand still for 1 second, cast, and run back to the other mages. I've never been hit with AOE doing that, and if there's a bard I can usually time it so I don't get the front-line songs either. Obviously this won't always work (if you need to rest longer for MP, or something is blocking your path), but it's a good start. For the bar-status, you only need to recast every 2-3 fights, so that should be a bit easier to gather everyone together.

[Meriadoc]

shell... I just cast it along with protect.. it's a standard buff.. *shrug*
One thing I've learned about this game, is that every little bit, no matter HOW little, helps.

Bar-status spells. personaly I find them useless. >.>
Bar-element.. barfira vs gobbie bombs. :>