Saboteur and Dia III

[Neisan_Quetz]

Figured it would be better to make a new thread than necropost.
In response to this:

And now for some education to those who think their really "mage" RDMs and doubt me in the slightest.

If your going to Saboteur an enfeeble, your wasting your time with Slow I/II / Para I/II. Instead use Dia III and I'll show you why I went 5/5 on it.

Dia III is -15% defense, defense like haste is the denominator of the formula. Thus a 15% reduce it 100/(100-15) = 17.6% attack boost. With body its 18% for 100/(100-18) = 21.9% attack boost. And on something ITG its 50% effect (60% with +2 gloves), some of them are 25% effect (30% with +2 gloves).

So Dia III could be 18.75 ~ 22.5 or 22.5 ~ 27 reduction in defense. 27% is a 36.9% boost to everyone's attack. A WAR with 650 attack would be hitting as though he had 889 attack.

Now for the kicker, it stacks with other forms of defense down. Namely a DRG's angon which is -20%. Combined with our Dia III you get 35% def down or 53.8% attack boost. And finially Angon + Sab Dia III (assuming NM is only 50%) ends up with 47% def down or 88.6% attack boost. A 650 attack WAR would be hitting as though he had 1225 attack. Basically every single DD auto-caps or nearly does the attack ratio on whatever NM your fighting, even the super high def turtle ones. Even the lowly RDM @527 attack would be hitting as though he had 993 attack.

Heck on regular monsters with a non-sab Dia III (18%) I'm looking at 527 * 1.219 = 642 effective attack.

Ahh the wonders of math.

Our single greatest debuff is Dia III, and its power is unresistable and completely unaffected by gear (except emp body). Thus a RDM/NIN with gear swap macros can "enfeeble" just as much as a RDM/WHM / RDM/SCH pink-mage can. We can refresh / haste the same as a backliner. The only thing that is worse is we lose the 10~22 from staff. EXCEPT they just made a Cure +10% sword that has really nice DPS. SE's giving us a hint.

Late reply I know, but using the Molting burst method of testing of having the enfeebles reflected back on you, I was unable to note any increased reduction of defense down from Saboteur'd Dia 3 with Emp+2 body/hands on. While /war and fighting Vetehenin in Aby-Tahrongi I melee'd it down to >25% HP then Sabo'd Dia3 and let itself beat on me until it used Molting Burst, reflecting the Dia III back at me. My defense after the dia was +25% -15% or approx +10% total, meaning either reflecting enfeebles are not perfectly reflected (odd), or Foldypaws' testing over a year ago here was always correct. Can anyone confirm/deny this?

EDIT: Percentages were slightly off for not accounting for Dia III being applied to base defense, in which case the total reduction with Defender up came to -13%, applying to base defense is consistent with -15% defense from Dia III.

[saevel]

That method won't work, you need to do the /check method again. FP did his testing back when Sabo was first released before SE altered it (when it worked with Bio and was broke on grav). SE has since tinkered with it so we need to check again, I've noticed an increase in damage dealt but in all honestly nobody's gone out and did the /check's you'd need to do to nail it.

But yes, there is no such thing as "reflect" in FFXI.

[Neisan_Quetz]

If you put Penance effect on and it uses Motling Burst, you get the Penance effect transferred to you, I used 'reflect' out of pure laziness. In my case, I only used Dia 3, and after molting I obtained Dia effect and Vetehnin was no longer affected by it. I'll do more testing later using another sabo'd debuff (ended up dying from afking).

[saevel]

If you put Penance effect on and it uses Motling Burst, you get the Penance effect transferred to you so as far I'm concerned it's as close as you'll get for this game's system. In my case, I only used Dia 3, and after molting I obtained Dia effect and Vetehnin was no longer affected by it. I'll do more testing later using another sabo'd debuff (ended up dying from afking).

It will transfer all debuffs onto you, but whether special status's (Sab / MV) will effect them is the question. FP found out that sab originally effected the DoT on Dia which was pretty bad, but it also effected Bio and messed up Grav. SE then reworked it, including the NM resistance and all that annoyance. Since then I've noticed a jump in effectiveness vs annoying difficult NMs. But in all honestly the only way to find out would be to find a monster that /check are neutral or high defense then put on gear until it's low defense and calculate it's defense from there. Monster's don't have high defense (other then Kindred in Xarc) from what I've seen so chances are your going to be over their defense naturally.

Once you can get their exact defense number you can calculate what it should be under a 15%, 30% and inbetween. Then you have to hit it with Dia III and check to ensure it's that number, then hit it with sab Dia III and check to see if it went lower. Logically Sab should boost Dia the same way that Light shot boosts it.

[Neisan_Quetz]

If it's similar to L Shot affecting it I can probably wait for Byrth and Proth on that then. Actually, poison 2 should work just fine if it's just sabo affecting the transferred buff. I initially didn't have the Emp body working for it in Ballista, but ballista has weird rules so I discounted it.

[Crimson_Slasher]

Well what about a more favorable situation? Dunno if it would work but i was thinking, Player A (Pld, full buffs), Target B (Mob with charm at 5% hp) and Player C (RDM +2 body/hands.) Pld charmed, rdm sab dia III's pld, and either then kills (or a Player D does it) the nm/mob and pld checks def vs natural def with said buffs. Dunno since its still a player but may work different than ballista.

[saevel]

If it's similar to L Shot affecting it I can probably wait for Byrth and Proth on that then. Actually, poison 2 should work just fine if it's just sabo affecting the transferred buff. I initially didn't have the Emp body working for it in Ballista, but ballista has weird rules so I discounted it.

Sab makes Poison II into 20hp/tick so it does effect DoT spells. Thing is Dia has both a DoT and a -Def component, L.Shot effects the -Def so Sab should also. But this is SE, originally they had Banish coded to use INT, they could of screwed up anything.

[Hayward]

Just out of curiosity, how does Bio III play out with Saboteur as far as knocking down Attack and DoT?

[Daniel_Hatcher]

Just out of curiosity, how does Bio III play out with Saboteur as far as knocking down Attack and DoT?

It doesn't. Saboteur only enhances Enfeebling Magic, Bio III isn't included as it isn't Enfeebling Magic.

[ManaKing]

Saevel, I will ask you point blank. You believe Saboteur actually works with Dia 3 and that you get more out of it by 5/5 because it makes the duration long enough on the spell to last until you need to Saboteur again?

I go with 5/5 Phallanx; 1/5 Slow, Blind, Par 2; and 2/5 Bio 3. I use Bio 3 in Dynamis to pull TEs. That is honestly why I have it instead of Dia 3.

I can pull them and throw Poison 2 at the same time. If I have to run away to get clear of surrounding mobs, the TEs are 1/2 dead by the time they waddle over to me.