Battle Balance Adjustment: Resistance to Enfeebling Magic

[Kristal]

Barstatus spells do give resist potential. All they do is increase the 'resist <status>' traits, effectively. The chance to fully resist is small but it is there. You have really never seen "Resist!" messages when enfeebles are cast on you before?

Never seen a barstatus spell give a Resist! message, unless player had the relevant trait/gear for it. I think those traits give a small % chance for an absolute Resist! as well as the more mundane magic resistance vs. a particular status effect also given by barstatus spells.


Which reminds me...
I think it would be a good idea to show special immunities in the chat log. If a monster is immune to a particular status effect or element, it should use the 'Resist!' or 'xxx has no effect' messages instead of the default resistance message. Even if absolute immunities are limited in the future.
Some kind of resistance gauge, like with fishing, would also be helpfull, although only if the target is particularly resistant to it.

[saevel]

Never seen a barstatus spell give a Resist! message, unless player had the relevant trait/gear for it. I think those traits give a small % chance for an absolute Resist! as well as the more mundane magic resistance vs. a particular status effect also given by barstatus spells.


Which reminds me...
I think it would be a good idea to show special immunities in the chat log. If a monster is immune to a particular status effect or element, it should use the 'Resist!' or 'xxx has no effect' messages instead of the default resistance message. Even if absolute immunities are limited in the future.
Some kind of resistance gauge, like with fishing, would also be helpfull, although only if the target is particularly resistant to it.

I have. 99 RDM/NIN vs Tunga with 500 enhancing magic for 150 Barstone + Barpetrify. He chainspelled Break / Breakga / Slowga / Stone IV onto me and I resisted every single spell. Every break was resisted, every slowga was resisted and Stone / Stonega did floored damage (crit resist).

Every character has a hidden "Magic Resist" skill that is capped whenever you level up, its "C" rank. It's used as the base for your magic evasion. Base Magic Resist + Elemental Resist is what determines a monsters resistance, not sure how the enfeeble resistances are calculated after that. We know they do a basic magic acc vs element check, but not sure if the enfeeble resistance is added onto it or not.

Also remember, "Duration" is a component of magic resistance. Magic res isn't like melee, its not a hit/miss calculation but instead is a series of sequential checks with each failure reducing the potency or duration by 1/2.

Ex:
Spell with 60s duration,
Check 1: Hit = 60s Duration (100% damage), miss = check again
Check 2: Hit = 30s Duration (50% damage), miss = check again
Check 3: Hit = 15s Duration (25% damage), Miss = check again
Check 4: Hit = 7.5s Duration (16% damage), Miss = Critical Failure (Resist Message, or floored damage)

Some spells are two checks, some three and theoretically some could be four.

So if barresist spells are lowering duration, then their really just forcing the monster to miss it's first few checks. This system also ensures that even at 50% magic accuracy, your rarely going to get a "resist!" message.

[Neisan_Quetz]

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What?

[cidbahamut]

Links to testing please.

[Aleste]

Since there seems to be a distinct lack of testing on the matter, I guess I know what I'll be testing on my next day off >.>;

2 identical WHMs getting ailment-ga'd over and over,
where one will have bar-ailment up.
Then again but with appropriate bar-element..
and again with bar-element and bar-ailment...

Trouble is, finding a mob that is easy to hold that favours such a spell.

Bar-ailment stuff

I have always been under the impression that the bar-element helps the chance to outright resist the ailment, and the bar-ailment reduces the duration of effect.

[Creelo]

I have always been under the impression that the bar-element helps the chance to outright resist the ailment, and the bar-ailment reduces the duration of effect.

I've always felt that both could increase the chances of outright resisting and partially resisting.

[saevel]

Since there seems to be a distinct lack of testing on the matter, I guess I know what I'll be testing on my next day off >.>;

2 identical WHMs getting ailment-ga'd over and over,
where one will have bar-ailment up.
Then again but with appropriate bar-element..
and again with bar-element and bar-ailment...

Trouble is, finding a mob that is easy to hold that favours such a spell.



I have always been under the impression that the bar-element helps the chance to outright resist the ailment, and the bar-ailment reduces the duration of effect.

Look at what I wrote above, resistance = duration.

There is no such thing as "out right resist" when it comes to elements. Magic accuracy vs Magic evasion determines the percentage rate, that rate is then checked multiple times with each subsequent time being for 1/2 the previous times effect duration until you hit the last check. The "Resist" traits are the only things that get a hit / miss effect and barresist spells don't boost those.

There are two messages to look for

Tunga casts Breakga

Saevel resists the effect
ZZZ is petrified
YYY is petrified

and

Tunga casts Breakga
Resist! Saevel resists the effect
ZZZ is petrified
YYY is petrified

The first is a resistance resulting from the monster missing all it's accuracy checks. If you want to see it then go pick on low level goblin WHM somewhere and watch it cast paralyze / slow on your 99 character (make sure no -elemental resist items). It'll proc the first message which indicates that your resistance is overwhelming it's accuracy so that it's missing all three / four checks in a row.

The second message is the "Resist" trait's effect procing and throwing the entire calculation out the window, the monster doesn't get a 2nd, 3rd or 4th chance at reduced duration.

Now I have no doubt that Resist Traits also add magic evasion to the appropriate status ailment, but we have no way of knowing how much right now.

[Aleste]

This spell does not prevent players from being {status}. This spell only decreases the time that the negative status effect stays on the player. This spell's effectiveness, like any other barspell, is wholly dependent on your Enhancing Magic skill. Low enhancing magic will produce little to no results in increasing your resistances.

also wrote

Casting a Bar Spell based on a status effect (i.e. Barpoison) will reduce how long it sticks and the effects that inflict that status effect.

Barspells increase Magic Evasion against specific elements or statues.

Bar-status Spells : These increase Magic Evasion against a specific status effect.

Status effects also often have an element, so pairing a Barspell of the appropriate element with the Barspell for the status effect you are trying to avoid will increase your Magic Evasion against that status even further. If you increase it enough, you should consistently Resist it.

Very little is known about Status Barspells, because their potency is not easily viewable like Elemental Barspells. Their potency likely depends on Enhancing magic, though the specific equation is unknown, and they use a different equation for duration:

Note that there are NO tests or links to testing available on either webpage, comments, discussions or as far as my half-assed googling attempts lead me to believe.




Which brings me back to my original point. The majority of people are under the impression that that is how it works and any 'evidence' is purely anecdotal, it seems like the best thing to do is to test it.

• Does it resist for a fixed amount irrespective of enhancing skills?
• Does it scale (linearly or otherwise) with enhancing magic to the previous enhancing cap of 300? Does it scale to the new cap of 500?
• Does say, bar-paralysis reduce the % chance of being paralyzed? Does it even effect the potency of the ailment?
• Is there an efficient reason to even use them in the first place? (with the exception of bar-amnesia; as it seems more efficient to cast the appropriate -na)
• Do the bar-element spells have a greater chance of reducing or resisting elementally attuned ailments rather than the appropriate bar-ailment spell?
• Are bar-ailment effects multiplicative or additive to bar-element spells?
• Are bar-ailment effects multiplicative or additive to Resist {ailment} job abilities?

I had considered finding a low level* elemental (probably ice?) and magic aggro-ing on a low level job, and having my WHM99 buffing the low level character whilst parsing the appropriate thing I'm testing.

*Lower quantity of spells capable of being cast ~ higher chance of it casting the appropriate debuff?

[saevel]

Stuff

It's wiki, if you want I can go in there and edit it myself and change it. It's also very outdated and mostly wrong. Drain / Aspir / Stun are all "Black Magic Spells" but do not have a dSTAT component thus INT does nothing for magic acc / resistance. Enspells are enhancing white magic yet they do elemental damage, they only use the casters enhancing magic skill vs the monsters base resistance + elemental resistance.

Testing has been done for elemental magic, we know ~exactly~ how magic acc / evasion works. We know how the Resist! traits work. The only thing we're murky on is how the bar-status spells stack with the resist traits and magic evasion.

We know they don't give you the "Resist!" trait and there is no evidence that resist traits proc more with the bar-status spell. There is evidence that stacking bar-status spells and bar-element spells results in more resists / lower duration. Again resist = duration. This is something RDM's have known for years now, it was tested to death back in 05/06. If an enfeeble is lasting a short duration, then it got resisted at least once if not twice.

Magic Accuracy is a known formula, Skill + fStat (INT/MND/CHR/AGI) + Magic Accuracy gear vs Monster Magic Evasion (Base Resistance + Elemental Resistance). If your Stat is within 10 of the targets then each value is 1 magic acc, if it's greater then 10 then it's +0.5 magic acc each.

Much better description of magic accuracy.
http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Magic_Hit_Rate

The only thing we don't know is how much ME that a barparalyze would add. Barstone @500 enhancing skill is +150 ice resist which is the same as +150 magic evasion. @99 my RDM would have 373 base resistance. Thus with barstone up I'll have 523 magic evasion. In order for me to get that many crit resists, I would of had to beat Tunga's magic accuracy at least three times per cast. The MA floor is 5% meaning there is a 85.73% chance of me beating all three MA/ME checks in a row on each cast. This is exactly what was happening when he was CSing me.

[Aleste]

You only touched on 3 out of the 8 points I intended to test, and failed to post or link to any relevant testing on the matter.

no evidence that resist traits proc more with the bar-status spell.

Are bar-ailment effects multiplicative or additive to Resist {ailment} job abilities?

There is evidence that stacking bar-status spells and bar-element spells results in more resists / lower duration.

Are bar-ailment effects multiplicative or additive to bar-element spells?

The only thing we don't know is how much ME that a barparalyze would add.

Does it resist for a fixed amount irrespective of enhancing skills? ...
Does it scale (linearly or otherwise) with enhancing magic to the previous enhancing cap of 300? Does it scale to the new cap of 500?

This is something RDM'splayers have known for years now, it was tested to death back in 05/06.

Then it shouldn't be hard to find the testing on bar-ailment spells then. I bolded it so you don't get confused and give me links to magic evasion testing.

Links to testing please.

This. Less anecdotes and more links to repeatable testing methods.