Battle Balance Adjustment: Resistance to Enfeebling Magic

[saevel]

stuff

I've repeated that barailments are a bit of a mystery. They do not produce Resist! messages we know that.

What you stated is that bar-ailments reduce duration.

I said no, duration is a component of resistance. And that if bar-ailments are reducing duration then their actually adding magic evasion, the exact amount we don't know.

What we do know is how magic accuracy / magic evasion works and how it effects duration. I linked the page, which itself has references to BG and other tests that were done. This has been done to death already.

Components of MA / ME are known, effects are known, exact formulas and resist rates are known. It's known that Barpetrify will not give you Resist-Petrify job trait, Barsilence will not give you Resist-Silence job trait, and Barparalyze will not give you Resist-Paralyze job trait. Barsilence, Barpetrify, as Barparalyze results in less average duration then not having them. It is not a static percentage duration, go get silenced with barsilence up a bunch of times if you doubt that.

With all that above, which is known for years now, we can conclude that Barsilence / Barpetrify / Barparalyze / ect.. are adding to Magic Evasion vs those effects.

It's like your saying the sun isn't hot because someone didn't stick a thermometer into it. We know it's hot due to the effects of the light it creates, just as we can know that Bar-ailment gives ME based on the reduced average duration.

In any case, I've explained my point and given supporting evidence in the form of MA/ME testing. Good luck finding a controlled situation where you can directly test the MA of a monster casting paralyze on you. Could probably find a DC goblin somewhere and spend a few days (collecting the data) / weeks (verifying the data). I've demonstrated how MA / ME work and how the reduced average duration on status ailments (supported by your argument) means the Bar-ailment is giving ME. This thread isn't about me convincing you, this is the internet and you can't convince anyone of anything on it, its just a giant e-peen contest for you people on who can troll each other the most. Anyone reading this will have the information they need to come to their own conclusion regarding Bar-element + Bar-ailment.

To prove beyond all doubt,

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.

Shows you have absolutely zero idea how resists work. There is no such things as "outright resist the ailment" nor "reduces the duration of effect". It's a series of MA/ME checks with each one having reduced effect / duration and the final failure is resist. Resist-Traits are a chance that is checked once upon the effect first landing on you, and their a very low chance.

And now /ignore Aleste.

[Byrth]

So, I have thought about testing this in the past and come up with a method (though I am too lazy to do it myself) that might help you answer some of the questions you posed.
* Take your character with a low base damage weapon and find a monster that casts Ice Spikes whose paralyze additional effect you are generally susceptible to.
* Hit it with your weapon and count the number of hits it takes to get paralyzed.
* Do this quite a few times. Like, start with ~100.
* Cast Barparalyze and repeat the test (keep your stats the same and note the enhancing magic).
* Calculate your average number of hits to proc Paralyze without and with Barparalyra, and use the Magic Hit Rate equations to figure out how much M Eva the spell gave you.

Problems:
Ideally you would use monsters that are a constant level, which is not easily possible unless they are EM. Barring that, you could compensate by collecting the same number of samples of each type from each enemy. So you do 3 rounds without barparalyze, 3 rounds with, monster is dead and you go to the next monster.


Anyway, I wrote the bgwiki page so I will try to address some of your questions:

* Does it resist for a fixed amount irrespective of enhancing skills?
-- Very probably not. We know that both potency and duration depend on skill for bar-element spells, so it is probably the same for status spells.

* 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?
-- It likely scales to the cap of 500. If you look at the duration equation, it doesn't even take off from the floor until something like RDM's level 72 skill cap. As far as I know, the equation was added when they raised the cap to 80. If they were going to add a new duration equation, why would they not add a potency equation as well?

* Does say, bar-paralysis reduce the % chance of being paralyzed? Does it even effect the potency of the ailment?
-- It is almost certainly magic evasion and has no effect on potency. Barsleep does not reduce sleep duration or make you any less slept. Barbind and Barsilence are two other that can't even decrease potency. You could test this with Barblind the easiest. I assume it is magic evasion because Barstatus spells are incredibly useless in some places (think of casting Barsleepra when fighting mandies in Kazham) but very useful in other places (see below) which is what one would predict if it was Magic Evasion.

* 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) -- I use Barparalyra when fighting Reinforcement monsters in Salvage. Combined with Barblizzara, I can generally melee them to death with 1-2 Ice Spikes paralyze procs at most. Flooring ice spikes proc rate like this makes the frequency of paralyze from it worth Paralyna-ing, unlike when it is a near-100% proc rate before buffs.

* Do the bar-element spells have a greater chance of reducing or resisting elementally attuned ailments rather than the appropriate bar-ailment spell?
-- This would likely depend on their relative potencies, which there has been no testing (that I know of) on.

* Are bar-ailment effects multiplicative or additive to bar-element spells?
-- Additive probably, in the most direct sense (adding magic evasion) as far as their effects on resistance, it's going to be something more like the left graph on this page. When you add magic evasion, you are moving yourself from the right to the left, which means "no resist" situations are less likely to happen down to whatever the floor is. If you had a 50% resist rate on a 1-state (linear) debuff with the Bar-element spell and then you stack the bar-status spell on for another 50 MEvasion, you will reduce the land rate to 25%. If you look at the graph a little harder, you can see that for 2-state debuffs like Sleep (or 3~4 state ones) this would be an even more dramatic effect.

* Are bar-ailment effects multiplicative or additive to Resist {ailment} job abilities?
-- They are very likely separate. When Resist traits proc, they say "Resist!" in the log. This proc rate appears to be independent of monster level vs. yours and pretty much any other factor I can think of, which is very different from the Mandy example above. You also do not see any "Resist!" messages when you are resisting stuff with barstatus spells.

[Economizer]

this is the internet and you can't convince anyone of anything on it

I would really hope you don't become this callous of other people here. I know it can be hard to sort out which players post with good faith and which post with malice but I'd hope you have faith in the people who at least try.

Cold hard math or an official formula from the devs. That's all we want. I hope that you aren't upset that he's trying to test something that there is clearly not enough information about. I understand that you are trying to explain magic resists and I think that if we can get the original source of that testing it would help Aleste decide on the best way to finally test barstatus spells.

And now /ignore Aleste.

I'm going to address this, and hopefully you will listen to someone when they tell you this if not to me.

You can't just ignore everyone on the forums because you don't occasionally like what they are saying. Despite the bullheadedness of most posters here (me, you, and several others I know you've stated you've ignored) the majority of us aren't trying to troll or piss off other players, we're just trying to get the fact straight so we can enjoy the game more. The more credible people you ignore the less credibility you have, and honestly you've gone from being a very credible poster in my eyes (something you earned) to being a less and less credible poster over time. To be absolutely blunt, it sounds childish, and I think and I would hope that you are beyond that.

If I'm wrong and you don't care about this being a positive discussion, feel free to ignore me too. I would be quite disappointed if that were to happen however as I feel that there is more to gain from your unfettered contribution to this forum.

[cidbahamut]

And now you're on his ignore list too. Welcome to the party bro, we've got chips and drinks in the kitchen and sandwiches in the fridge.

[saevel]

I would really hope you don't become this callous of other people here. I know it can be hard to sort out which players post with good faith and which post with malice but I'd hope you have faith in the people who at least try.

Cold hard math or an official formula from the devs. That's all we want. I hope that you aren't upset that he's trying to test something that there is clearly not enough information about. I understand that you are trying to explain magic resists and I think that if we can get the original source of that testing it would help Aleste decide on the best way to finally test barstatus spells.



I'm going to address this, and hopefully you will listen to someone when they tell you this if not to me.

You can't just ignore everyone on the forums because you don't occasionally like what they are saying. Despite the bullheadedness of most posters here (me, you, and several others I know you've stated you've ignored) the majority of us aren't trying to troll or piss off other players, we're just trying to get the fact straight so we can enjoy the game more. The more credible people you ignore the less credibility you have, and honestly you've gone from being a very credible poster in my eyes (something you earned) to being a less and less credible poster over time. To be absolutely blunt, it sounds childish, and I think and I would hope that you are beyond that.

If I'm wrong and you don't care about this being a positive discussion, feel free to ignore me too. I would be quite disappointed if that were to happen however as I feel that there is more to gain from your unfettered contribution to this forum.

He was not interested in learning how MA / ME work. That has been determined a long time ago. How do you think we know that HQ ele staves give +30 magic accuracy? That number isn't printed on the stave anywhere, SE never told us, and there is no NPC in the game that will tell it to you, yet somehow we know that it's +30. How do you think we know that INT adds magic accuracy to elemental and enfeebling black magic but not to dark black magic (Stun / Drain / ect..)? It's not mentioned in the game nor did SE tell us.

Kanican did a bunch of work which itself was based on a JP called lodeguy. Kanican is the person who figured out and tested how the enmity system works, VE and CE. They and their friends determined that provoke is +1800 VE and that VE decays at rate of 60/second.

Magic Acc description
http://kanican.livejournal.com/34049.html

Her mag.acc work was based on a JP's work. If you can read japanese
http://lodeguy.blog69.fc2.com/blog-category-17.html

This is all available on the wiki article I posted a link to, it takes minimal amounts of effort to pull the links out and go see for yourselves.

I myself have tested enspell magic accuracy and determined that neither INT nor MND do anything for enspell accuracy. I also knew LONG before SE posted their "SCH enspell update" that enspell accuracy was determined upon strike not cast and that Enhancing Magic was the base skill used for it with no dSTAT modifier. SE has since changed it so that accuracy is now determined upon cast.

MA/ME is now a known value just like Melee Accuracy / Melee Evasion and Melee Attack / Melee Defense are known values.

The exact formula for magic hit rate is laid out here
http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Magic_Hit_Rate

Unfortunately the original English testing data behind the links is no longer active, the only thing I can find now is the Japanese testing from lodeguy. In any case, it should be rather easy to see exactly how magic accuracy works.

Aleste was not interested in any of this, only arguing. He never visited the links nor checked the supporting data from Kanican / Lodeguy. He didn't even understand the basic relationship of magic accuracy to magic evasion and how resists actually work. This is why I added him to my ignore list, when someone demonstrated that their not interested in actually learning and that their whole point is to stat sh!t for their friends on another unnamed internet location to make threads about, that is when they get added to my ignore list. Even though we've had our differences you've never demonstrated that kind of ignorance.

[Aleste]

that their whole point is to stat sh!t for their friends on another unnamed internet location to make threads about, that is when they get added to my ignore list.

First and foremost, I find that rather rude.

I have 26 posts on BG. 5 in the neo-nyzul (covering the 4 runs I did on release date and 1 complaining about the 30 minute wait), and the rest in the random question thread asking random questions most of which relating to whitemage stats, formula and testing :

WHM curaga V emnity generation (of which i decided to test)
WHM AF3+2 set bonus procrate (which my testing can be seen on the bottom of bgwiki)
Cursna and its relationship to healing magic (tested and came back inconclusive)
WHM Barspell sets and whether it'd be better to cast in relic pantaloons at the time rather than full set bonus (4/5 set + relic)
WHM hexastrike pants
Enfeebling/dark magic builds for whm

On this forum I've looked at and tested :

500 enhancing magic cap
Maximum possible barspell cap
If there was a 500 healing magic skill cap in the power formula for calculating curative magic
How cure potency received maths out


Quite frankly the most insightful thing I've got out of this thread was this line by Byrth:

"It likely scales to the cap of 500. If you look at the duration equation, it doesn't even take off from the floor until something like RDM's level 72 skill cap. As far as I know, the equation was added when they raised the cap to 80. If they were going to add a new duration equation, why would they not add a potency equation as well?"

and he even went so far as to help throw in ideas to test it.

But I digress, asking for relevant testing is clearly rude on the internet. All I repeatably asked for was the links on ANY testing on bar-ailment spells so that I can provide a firm basis towards the testing that I intend to be doing.

[Economizer]

WHM curaga V emnity generation (of which i decided to test)

I can't seem to find the results on BGwiki, can I get a link?

Cursna and its relationship to healing magic (tested and came back inconclusive)

This one is an absolute pain, we can't get a conclusive result of any effect but SE is wishy-washy about telling us the effect of healing magic on it... the WHM Q&A gave us an answer that seemed to indicate it had no effect, but a recent answer says that it does... so confusing.

Enfeebling/dark magic builds for whm

Care to share your itemsets? I don't think I'm going to be building for either anytime soon but I suppose it can't hurt to have them... plus this actually fits this thread a bit like the whole barstatus spell thing.

[Byrth]

I think I failed to put the Curaga V enmity testing on bgwiki. The result was that it (and Curaga IV) have static Enmities like Cure V/VI instead of variable enmities like Cure 1~4.

I think the most recent Dev post kinda unambiguously stated that Healing Magic skill does affect Cursna success rate when removing doom.

[Economizer]

I think I failed to put the Curaga V enmity testing on bgwiki. The result was that it (and Curaga IV) have static Enmities like Cure V/VI instead of variable enmities like Cure 1~4

Curaga IV has a static enmity as well? I'm more confused now.

[Aleste]

Quick post before I go to bed~

On the quick test I did it didn't appear to be static, which to me would imply it following the usual curagaX emnity generation. Relevant curagaX testing can be found on kanican's blog if anyone wishes to do in-depth testing on the matter.
http://kanican.livejournal.com/17795.html http://kanican.livejournal.com/30340.html
Not that I've ever found an efficient use for it (other than perhaps a post-unweak penury'd quick recovery)~

(Un?)Luckily the shell I'm in has recently finished a metric tonne of Buhkis's and I've never noticed a significant increase in removal chance :S I'm almost tempted to cast it in full haste and save inventory slots on healing magic skill gear.

EDIT:// Referring to this one perhaps?

"we are planning to make it a type of magic that has a set chance of recovery similar to Doom."

"we’d like to monitor the current rate. Though it depends on luck and repeated attempts, but the recovery rate was set rather high so it can be cured before the countdown timer reaches zero."

All in all, enfeebling builds vary depending on target and I'm too lazy (read: lack of inventory spaces) to gear for it properly. In the meantime I'm aiming for a generic all round set, something like:

Hqstaves / Macero Grip / empty / Sturm Report
Laurel wreath / Enf. Torque / INT|MND Earrings
Nares Saio / Avesta Bangles / Balrahns / Strendu
INT|MND back / INT|MND Waist / Portent Pants / Nares Clogs

I've been having some inventory woes recently, so I'd probably condense inventory by using some current inventory stuffs for grip/ammo/torque/INT, and use +2 (or higher) on the relevant nyzul gears and change avesta bangles to relic +2.

and I've almost no inventory to properly gear for drain/aspirs unfortunately =/