Enfeebling Magic Acc And Proc Rate

Ksoliek, basically what i am not confident that i understand is: 1) Does INT have an effect on landing the so called "MND enfeebles"? 2) Does MND? or is MND just a modifier for the proc on para and the amount slow .... slows? lol 3) Does enfeebling magic skill level factor more into proc rate on para and whats a good balance?

Also what i think would be helpful is if anyone had links to testing that shows a bottle-neck point on how much MND is good etc. What point becomes the drastic diminishing returns? (im speaking mainly for Slow II and Para II for RDM personally)

Thank you guys :D

1) No
2) Yes (MND effects land rate and proc rate)
3) No (only MND effect proc rate)

As for balance, that's down to the mob you are fighting etc.

I like those simple answers seeing as I've seen the exact opposite on the first 2. Anyone have real testing on it?

hmm this is a stupid question then but how much does mind affect 'landing'? i always thought you wanted to focus on enfeebling skill if you're having trouble landing an enfeebling spell whereas you focus on mind or int once you have the gearset necessary to land the spell because mind or int affects potency of the enfeeble.

Yeah, generally you want to stick to Skill for the spell type and Magic Accuracy to successfully cast a spell w/o a resist.

The only time you'd want to eq a mnd/int piece over a skill/acc piece is when the amount of mnd/int is significantly greater than the amount of skill/acc.
I don't have exact numbers, but I'd say stick to the skill/acc unless the mnd/int is at least 4x greater. But, that's just the way that I do it. And I have pretty good success with enfeebles.

Also... Ya definitely want to use the elemental staves of course due to their vast magic accuracy.

Or this staff...http://www.ffxiah.com/item.php?id=18593
Also would completely depend on what your fighting. If its a mob you could land spells on easily nekkid well dont really need enfeebling gear...
But none of this lets max potency as long as we can land 1/4 the spells BS. All your doing is bringing the mobs resistance up that much faster by having to spam it. Sure 30% slow is better then 25% but 25% is alot better then alot of 0 later on.

so HQ staves arent better then that? hmm....

HQ Staves > Alka accuracy wise.

Tbh, it depends on how gimp the person is to begin with for Alk. +20 M.Acc. and 10 int/mnd is better than the 10-15% that the elemental staves give if your level of skill/accuracy combined is lower than 134-200 (depending on HQ/NQ).

Lower than 200 duh :< Who the *** try to enfeeble something with skill < 200 ? Simply don't lol. Better sell that alka and get decent gear :]

Just sayin.... You never know in the generation of Level Sync. lol

Depending on gear, Alkalurops can be a great way to increase your potency for Para/Slow for example w/o sacrificing m.acc by using clubs.

When your chance of landing the spell is over 50% and your INT (or MND) is more than 10 higher than that of the mob you are casting on then:
1 skill has the same effect on landing rate as 2 stat (INT or MND depending on the spell)

When your chance of landing the spell is over 50% and your INT (or MND) is less than 10 higher than that of the mob you are casting on then:
1 skill has the same effect on landing rate as 1 stat (INT or MND depending on the spell)

The above 2 cover 99% of the situations you will find in the game.

Source (and he explains it better than me). Admitedly they tested this for INT based spells, but its is accepted by most people that the same rules apply to MND based spells (why would SE code the 2 spells differently?).

As for HQ vs Alkalurops, that depends a lot on the set it is used in and the target you are casting on. It is very good for potent slows and paras without losing much acc. In certain situations the Alkalurops can match the HQ stave (roughly as no one knows the exact figure for the staves yet) and in other situations it lags behind the HQ staves in terms of acc.

A post I wrote on effeebling a while back.. it's not perfect but may help

Good links are also :

http://robonosto.blogspot.com/search/label/magic%20accuracy (basically use lodeguy results)
http://lodeguy.blog69.fc2.com/ (in JP)



Anything starting by "why would SE..." is not a valid argument I think :P SE did so many random stuff in the past... And we still have some stupid exceptions in this game. Why hydra~fomor aren't sleepable in beaucedine glacier, but sleepable everywhere else (including dynamis Tav) ? Etc...

thankies :D

this is a post that an ex-ls leader made on our forums 6-18-2008. this is while my rdm was still low level and its what i based most of my knowledge about rdm enfeebles on. lemme know what you guys think:

RDM and YOU: Merit skills

I made this post over at BG earlier in, but I thought I'd share it with everyone else even if you're not a red mage, perhaps you can learn something. I was replying to someone who was inquiring about RDM merit builds.

------------------------
To each their own on their RDM builds, one person's merit category should not serve as the guideline for all others, but I'm quite sure you already had that in mind.

Personally I think from your setup of having
-3 Paralyze II
-3 Phalanx II
-4 Slow II
is very well rounded. You have 3 of the spells to work with and it completely relies on the teams and setups that your LS has for what they do (IE Fafnir, etc).

But [going off tangent for a second here on the topic of RDM MERIT LAYOUT] the way from what I see about RDM merits, most spells have a certain flaw or downside to it one way or the other.

Examples:
-Bio III - Highly useful for soloing, otherwise "OK" for PT situations. Requires capped out and 211+ Dark Magic skill to make the best use of it solo. Source

-Dia III - Temporary defense down, last same duration as Bio3 merits + 30 seconds each merit. The potency of it seems rather redundant to build full merits into it though, unless you are a pure "Zerg Preparation" RDM. Little is discussed about the topic of Dia III in terms of potency.

-Phalanx II - Very nice spell, as each additional merit you have, the damage reduced goes higher.
[Full section devoted to Phalanx]
The maximum enhancing magic RDM can get that I know of is:
Base 256 (non merited)
Warlock's Tights/+1 - Skill +15
Duelist's Gloves/+1 - Skill +15
Enhancing Torque - Skill + 7
Merciful Cape - Skill +5
Glamor Jupon - Skill +3
Enhancing Earring (skipping out on spelling the name) - Skill +3
Yinyang neckpiece - Skill +1
Total for: +49 skill

[305 Non-merited] [321 Merited]
So applying Phalanx II calculation:
Quote:
Dmg reduced = (Enhancing Magic Skill/25) + 1 + (3 * merit level)

[-28.2 Non-merited] [-28.84 Merited] Rounds out to -28 DMG reduced either way, unless you can get 4 more skill to a max of 325 MERITED for -29 damage reduced.
Let's assume a Vanilla RDM with just 1 Merit in Phalanx II, and the only Enhancing item they have is Tights. This would make their damage reduction @ [-14.84 non-merited]

Now with the new frenzy of Ascencion SCH going around, they can simply do Aoe Phalanx for:
Base 210 (non merited)
Enhancing Torque - Skill + 7
Merciful Cape - Skill +5
Glamor Jupon - Skill +3
Enhancing Earring (skipping out on spelling the name) - Skill +3
Yinyang neckpiece - Skill +1
Total for : +19 Skill

Phalanx I math:
Quote:
Dmg reduce = (Enhancing Magic Skill/10) - 2

Say it's a vanilla SCH with no +Enhance gear
[-19 Non-merited vanilla]

+19 Enh. Skill SCH
[-20.9 Non-merited]

+19 Enh. Skill + 16 merits
[-22.5 Fully merited, fully geared]

Note that I may have left out any new gear added by the later updates. But basically what I'm trying to say is a vanilla SCH will have a stronger Phalanx if the RDM cannot get 3 merits or higher. And last thing I want to add, is Phalanx IMO (my own opinion) works the best with Aegis PLD.

[End Phalanx hijack]

- Slow II -
Quote:
From Kirschy:
-Slow I caps at 29%ish
-Slow II /w 1 merit caps at 35%ish (including +MND build, otherwise 29% without reaching dMND)
-Slow II /w 2 merits caps at 35%ish (dMND)
-Slow II /w 3 merits caps at 37%ish (dMND)
-Carnage Elegy caps at 50%ish
-Battlefield Elegy is 25%ish /w +0 Instrument
-Battlefield Elegy is 31%ish /w +2 Instrument

Following are my additions from kirschy's math:
- Slow II w/ 4 merits caps out at ~37-39% (Unknown)
- Slow II w/ 5 merits caps out at 39%

Downside: After 3 merits, it may seem like a waste for some to go for 5 merits if they weren't striving to have the perfect RDM Slow.

- Paralyze II - much is still unknown about this topic, due to the test format is still under debate on how to do it. Source

- Blind II <> Kurayami: Ni = -30 accuracy Source (Fairly useless in my opinion vs the other spells available for merit)

And that pretty much sums up the full RDM Merit discussion, to each their own.

Ok yes SE are mad and could do anything. But people have done small scale testing to check that MND spells behave the same, and they seem to.

No. Any SCH that is Accessioning Phalanx will be in Light Arts, giving them 256 Enhancing skill, if they aren't stupid they will also be using AF legs giving them a further 15. So that's 271 "base".

I get lost in the mathsy bits, but doesn't that further prove the point that phalanx II isn't that great for all the merits when a good SCH without merits can get so close?

Phalanx is Enhancing Skill / 10 - 2.
Phalanx II is Enhancing Skill / 25 + 1 + 3xMeritLevel

Assuming both the SCH and RDM have 100 MND, a SCH with just AF legs and Light Arts' Phalanx will absorb 25 and the RDM, if they have full Phalanx II merits will absorb 26. (If my calculations are correct) This of course doesn't take into account additional Enhancing magic skill gear or merits.

So again, if you're a rdm and you know that there'll always be a SCH available for most of what you do, don't bother meriting Phalanx II?

Phalanx II is incredibly situational at best.

14-28 reduction in damage taken is negligible when taking 150+ from HNMs (don't get me wrong, it helps but not enough to be worth the merits that could be spent on Slow II etc).

You can use it with fire resist build so that fire balls hit for 0 rather than a single digit.

Salvage is one of the only places it can be useful. Casting it on your tanks (read: MNK) will allow him to counterstance tank the first floor mobs while still taking nearly no damage.

Now that SCH can cast phalanx on the whole party it has made phalanx II even more situational. And the only real place you wouldn't be able to take a SCH is salvage as they need too many cells.

So since SCH, phalanx II (imo) has become a salvage/low-man only spell.

Phalanx II really is just situational. Granted, it's the only RDM merit that actually lets us do anything new, since the other spells are simply better versions of something we already have.

Beyond the "SCH can do that too" aspect (technically, so can SMN, just not as well), there's also the factor of it only really being that useful if the person you're casting it on is blood tanking - not the most common of things endgame.

Nearly all of the RDM category IIs are somewhat like that though. Depending on what you do on RDM, you'll find different spells to be more useful than others. Slow II probably being the one obvious "everyone should have to some degree" upgrade.

Personally, I have 5/5 Phalanx II, a 301 skill set, and so on. Mostly it's useful to me for Salvage, Dynamis if I'm in the tank party, and so on.