Revamp Elemental Spells to Be More Logical and Realistic

[Windblade]

There has always been a problem with elemental spells.

If you're casting an elemental spell on a monster that has no weaknesses to elements, then Thunder does more damage than Stone.

If you're casting Thunder on a monster that is weak to Water, but has no weakness nor special defense against Thunder, Thunder will still do more damage than Water, even if it's in the same tier. This makes no sense.

So I suggest simplifying and revamping the elemental spells by having ELEVEN tiers.

At Lv.1, a black mage would get all six elemental spells of the first tier, and against monsters with no weaknesses, all six spells would the same amount of damage. Then, if a monster is weak to Water, Water will do more damage than any other spell. I think this is how it works in offline FF games, but not in FFXI.

Then, for BLM:


Lv.II Tier Spells - Lv.11
Lv.III Tier Spells - Lv.21
Lv.IV Tier Spells - Lv.31
Lv.V Tier Spells - Lv.41
Lv.VI Tier Spells - Lv.51
Lv.VII Tier Spells - Lv.61
Lv.VIII Tier Spells - Lv.71
Lv.IX Tier Spells - Lv.81
Lv.X Tier Spells - Lv.91
Lv.XI Tier Spells - Lv.99


Sorry, I don't know how to make the spaces stick in a message board. It didn't save my formatting and " " doesn't work.

IMHO,
Windblade

[Zyeriis]

This is something I don't believe they can "fix" even if it's never made sense. Why? How would they accomodate every Black Mage that already has all of their spells? How will this be fair to the money and time they put into obtaining said spells only to have them massively downgraded and then need 6 extra tier sets to fix their black mages?

They could make these spells automatically learned upon leveling up but that wouldn't fix the "slap in the face" level 90 black mages would get after having to buy or farm their spells all these years. It would also piss off other jobs that would still have to. Especially Blue Mages. On top of this, they would need to rework how spells are obtained (i don't know how little or vastly time consuming this would be as I don't know how they have things coded).

I don't knock the common sense idea that it should've been this way from the start, I am merely pointing out that because it wasn't, it is highly unlikely that it can be now after all these years. You would think they would've fixed this major oversight years ago if they could have. They tried with potency merits but in the end, whatever your highest level spell is, thats where you put the potency, so it didn't work.

The only thing they can (and aren't) do now is to make the 90-99 spell tiers obtained at one specific level but that would break the chain. Though, I wouldn't personally care if they did.

[Seriha]

Damage multipliers correlating to a mob's resistance stat would help with this damage offset (+1% for every -1). I'm also of the mind that it is too late to completely retrofit the nuke system. Either way, a good thunder on a thunder weak mob would still totally decimate a stone a similarly weak resist rate, but without knowing how SE truly handles resist mechanics for mobs, the above may very well be way too much.

[Arcon]

This is something that bugged me from the start. I would love to see it adjusted in some way. However, Zyeriis concern about the current state of things is valid, and a complete revamp of the spell system may not work at all, or be in any way viable. It does work this way in XIV, so I'm guessing they learned from that mistake.

However, there are still a few things they could do, for example simply adjust the potency of the current spells. Reduce the difference in potency of same-tier spells significantly, or even make them the same, but adjust the level correction for calculating magic damage. That way, obtaining Stone at a lower level won't do nearly as much damage as obtaining Thunder at 21 (or using Stone at 21).

Personally I'm not a mage, so I don't really care much one way or another, but it makes a big aspect of the game (elemental weakness) almost useless. Would be nice to see SE address this, one way or another.


[..] How would they accomodate every Black Mage that already has all of their spells? How will this be fair to the money and time they put into obtaining said spells only to have them massively downgraded and then need 6 extra tier sets to fix their black mages?

They could make these spells automatically learned upon leveling up but that wouldn't fix the "slap in the face" level 90 black mages would get after having to buy or farm their spells all these years. [..]

Sounds like a solid argument (or rather, it should be), but tell that relic owners. Or really owners of any notable gear pre-Abyssea. Literally years of effort down the drain. So I don't know if that would stop them.

[Karinya_of_Carbuncle]

If you're casting an elemental spell on a monster that has no weaknesses to elements, then Thunder does more damage than Stone.

This is only true at a few levels. For most levels, you have a higher tier Stone spell than your highest tier Thunder, so the reverse is actually true.

The tradeoff between casting your highest level (highest base damage, but also highest MP cost) nuke and the one least likely to be resisted works pretty well, IMO, for pre-abyssea exp. (The lower max damage spell can easily become a higher average damage spell when taking resists into account, and becomes even more attractive when you look at damage per MP.) It's when you become so geared up that resists are practically inconceivable that the system starts to break down.

At least with TotM staves we've (theoretically, for those who have done them) moved away from the point where ice spells have +int and skill compared to all other spells, so they're better even on mobs with no weakness to ice.

...I would support a move to increase the difference between resist rates for different elements at high levels, if SE was inclined to do that, but I don't think the OP's proposal is necessary, or possibly even desirable. There are enough different nukes already and the fact that the tiers are really more like steps on a continuous scale is fine with me.

[thefinalrune]

I wouldn't much care for even more tiers of magics nearly as much as just a general balancing of the potency and accuracy of all the elements in each tier along with a unified casting cost across all spells in the same tier.

[Rambus]

Elemental weakness is a joke, and I really do not care if they add more spells to get around this problem.


This is something I don't believe they can "fix" even if it's never made sense. Why? How would they accomodate every Black Mage that already has all of their spells? How will this be fair to the money and time they put into obtaining said spells only to have them massively downgraded and then need 6 extra tier sets to fix their black mages?

who cares about past spell cost? it is like QQing over 10 mil salavge gear.

anyways they do have different system in ffxiv so i think they see the mistake in FFXI system so it is likey they feel they cannot change it.

the AM II seemed to address this a bit but many stuck to freeze and thunder due to merit potencies and the fact of if you cannot ice something you can thunder it and vice versa. there is VERY SMALL amount of excpetions like bombs take damage off spells all but fire. Last time I did tav though and nuked those bombs, aero as SCH or BV from BLM or the highest JA would outdo past fire spells hands down.

when you go stone V > water V for example the jump of damage is a lot bigger then people realize. the jump is so big is that water V is able to compete with AM II where stone V is less able.

then you have aero V+ that mops the floor over AM II

the biggest jump is next line of spells, like thunder IV > stone V is HUGE, the base increase with the new TIM is the reason for it.

there is mobs with hard core damage off spells, like ice on ghosts/ dogs/ formers is my BIGGEST pet peave. (note i did not say "undead". skeles take full ice damage and i can't remember if undead blobs do)

Also there is pup nuking not able to read those defenses, I remember auguring with someone telling him formers 1/2 ice damage so can you get the pup thing to cast something else, he said there is no such thing because the pup scanner would not allow it to cast spells that a mob is strong to.

wonder if that bug still exists...

in the past when people did that it useally killed me because i would be double the damage output over anyone else so there was no hate bouncing.

[Eeek]

...I would support a move to increase the difference between resist rates for different elements at high levels, if SE was inclined to do that, but I don't think the OP's proposal is necessary, or possibly even desirable. There are enough different nukes already and the fact that the tiers are really more like steps on a continuous scale is fine with me.

SE did do something along these lines in the spring of 2009. SE changed magic accuracy and potency so that it was no longer possible to overpower a mob's natural elemental resistances.

All hell broke loose.

SE eventually rolled back the unannounced nerf to magic and went so far as to apologize for the 'mistake.'

SE got burned once by messing too much with the magic system, and I hope they don't do it again. Aside from certain mages wanting access to certain spells (for example, RDMs and SCHs seem to want Cure5), the magic system works fairly well.

[Rambus]

SE did do something along these lines in the spring of 2009. SE changed magic accuracy and potency so that it was no longer possible to overpower a mob's natural elemental resistances.

All hell broke loose.

SE eventually rolled back the unannounced nerf to magic and went so far as to apologize for the 'mistake.'

SE got burned once by messing too much with the magic system, and I hope they don't do it again. Aside from certain mages wanting access to certain spells (for example, RDMs and SCHs seem to want Cure5), the magic system works fairly well.

I do not think so, I think you are talking about the NM damage change crap like if you nuke NM with ice over and over again damage gets less.

it was a stupid concept.

this is why, say you have a rdm chainspell nukes ( happened on a CoP NM) and each time I would get a cast off my damage was so pethic vs the last one i did was a lot less.

I think that change was not even elemental specific, if you did too much magic damage everything was hurt. I think people assumed it was element specific.

that is why it was so retarded. then you had issues of like sprits within effecting it too.

No the system does not work well, people dealing with a poor system is different

[Eeek]

I do not think so, I think you are talking about the NM damage change crap like if you nuke NM with ice over and over again damage gets less.

it was a stupid concept.

this is why, say you have a rdm chainspell nukes ( happened on a CoP NM) and each time I would get a cast off my damage was so pethic vs the last one i did was a lot less.

I think that change was not even elemental specific, if you did too much magic damage everything was hurt. I think people assumed it was element specific.

that is why it was so retarded. then you had issues of like sprits within effecting it too.

No the system does not work well, people dealing with a poor system is different

No Rambus, you're not talking about the adjustment I mentioned. Here's a post I found that adequately described the problem: {Click here to read the thread} (http://www.ffxiah.com/forum/topic/2403/sleep-duration-halved-on-some-monstersares-have-fu/3/#55159).

If you want, I can find and link the BG thread that described the same problems and documented SE's response to the player outcry.

[Rambus]

No Rambus, you're not talking about the adjustment I mentioned. Here's a post I found that adequately described the problem: {Click here to read the thread} (http://www.ffxiah.com/forum/topic/2403/sleep-duration-halved-on-some-monstersares-have-fu/3/#55159).

If you want, I can find and link the BG thread that described the same problems and documented SE's response to the player outcry.

I do not take those boards seriously, i think you are full of it, i never herd any of this

where is the official comments made by SE? I am not going to play a game of dig the information from misinformation and troll attacking.

wait wtf what you linked is a bug -.-

[Eeek]

Nah, it was "working as intended" until there were too many outraged mages to ignore. And multi-page threads angrily discussing the problem on every FFXI forum.

Back then, it was unprecedented for the Devs to apologize for any adjustments to game mechanics, and I still think they only called it a bug as a way to save face.

Rambus, I'm stunned that you never noticed this adjustment. At the time, my only 'mage' was BRD, and even I noticed the adjustment immediately.

[Rambus]

Nah, it was "working as intended" until there were too many outraged mages to ignore. And multi-page threads angrily discussing the problem on every FFXI forum.

Back then, it was unprecedented for the Devs to apologize for any adjustments to game mechanics, and I still think they only called it a bug as a way to save face.

Rambus, I'm stunned that you never noticed this adjustment. At the time, my only 'mage' was BRD, and even I noticed the adjustment immediately.

GMs always say that, if SE posted something on official site i like to see it because dyna mobs most of them have no affiliation with darkness, if they did you would not be able to aspir them. (baring formers/dogs/ heca pets off top of my head)

so i think your viewpoint in "SE tried potency changes vs element def" is false.

[Byrth]

It was the update that made it so we couldn't land Sleep on anything anymore. You've gotta remember it. <_< It was pretty much every mage's nightmare. Iirc, I tried a Dynamis - Tav and got royally raped by Hydra that could no longer be slept.

[Rambus]

...I would support a move to increase the difference between resist rates for different elements at high levels, if SE was inclined to do that, but I don't think the OP's proposal is necessary, or possibly even desirable. There are enough different nukes already and the fact that the tiers are really more like steps on a continuous scale is fine with me.

SE did do something along these lines in the spring of 2009. SE changed magic accuracy and potency so that it was no longer possible to overpower a mob's natural elemental resistances.

All hell broke loose.

SE eventually rolled back the unannounced nerf to magic and went so far as to apologize for the 'mistake.'

SE got burned once by messing too much with the magic system, and I hope they don't do it again. Aside from certain mages wanting access to certain spells (for example, RDMs and SCHs seem to want Cure5), the magic system works fairly well.

byrth...I am not refuting that bug never happened, i am refuting this point of view, GMS ALWAYS say working as intended even if something is a bug.

I am refuting:
"SE tried potency changes vs element def already"

[Eeek]

GMs always say that, if SE posted something on official site i like to see it because dyna mobs most of them have no affiliation with darkness, if they did you would not be able to aspir them. (baring formers/dogs/ heca pets off top of my head)

so i think your viewpoint in "SE tried potency changes vs element def" is false.

Your memory is a little foggy. I found something that will help, though.

Here's a link to a forum discussion that you started on the subject: {Killing Ifrit BLM Forum}is se tryign to gimp blm/ [sic] (http://killingifrit.com/forums/topic/177232-is-se-tryign-to-gimp-blm/).

[Byrth]

Well, the definitive proof is a link to the update notes where they broke it. After they "fixed it," it went back to being how it was before the update. So if there was something in the update notes about adjusting magic, then it was intentional and later dubbed a bug.

[Arcon]

It was the update that made it so we couldn't land Sleep on anything anymore. You've gotta remember it. <_< It was pretty much every mage's nightmare. Iirc, I tried a Dynamis - Tav and got royally raped by Hydra that could no longer be slept.

I didn't have any mage at the time and I still noticed it.

"Everyone starts casting Sleepga."
"The Vanguard Army still defeats Arcon."

[Sotek]

All the elemental nukes should have a base damage around Fire~Blizzard and elemental weakness should work exactly like day/weather bonuses. Weak to Earth? Stone has a 33% chance at +10% damage, with whatever gear making it 100%. Cast Thunder, -10% damage (or whatever it is). Having the base damage around Fire~Blizzard would hopefully mean we're doing the same damage, I'm not working this out so I highly doubt it is balanced, but ideally Stone V on a monster weak to Earth would deal the same as Thunder V would deal currently (ignore the fact we don't have Thunder V yet) and Thunder V on a monster weak to Lightning would deal the exact same amount of damage. Along with this I'd expect MP cost and cast time to all be equal, overall that would be a reduction on Thunder Vs cost obviously, but a significant increase on Stone Vs, etc.
I don't see a reason to give all elemental nukes for a single tier at the same time. That's a massive change to the system that is likely out right impossible. I highly doubt my suggestion is viable either though, but it would be far easier to implement if FFXI didn't have spaghetti code. Balancing the new base damage, MP cost and cast time would be the only issues and they're fairly simple to work out, SE isn't paying me though so I'm not about to number crunch how to make the magic system superficially the same but fundamentally better. If it is considered though, please please please give Black Mage a level 45 job trait that makes the damage bonus for weakness proc 100% of the time and similarly give Scholar a level 45 job trait that makes weather/day bonuses proc 100%.

[Rambus]

I am refuting:
"SE tried potency changes vs element def already"

that does not show SE had potency changes vs element def.

If it effected damage AT ALL it was barly noticalbe

dyna mobs, for the most of them are not dark element, even if it takes place in dark weather place that does not prove it was 1/2 because they had a dark def.

I am not refuting the bug I am refuting your view on that change.

back to this:



...I would support a move to increase the difference between resist rates for different elements at high levels, if SE was inclined to do that, but I don't think the OP's proposal is necessary, or possibly even desirable. There are enough different nukes already and the fact that the tiers are really more like steps on a continuous scale is fine with me.

SE did do something along these lines in the spring of 2009. SE changed magic accuracy and potency so that it was no longer possible to overpower a mob's natural elemental resistances.

All hell broke loose.

SE eventually rolled back the unannounced nerf to magic and went so far as to apologize for the 'mistake.'

SE got burned once by messing too much with the magic system, and I hope they don't do it again. Aside from certain mages wanting access to certain spells (for example, RDMs and SCHs seem to want Cure5), the magic system works fairly well.

[Eeek]

Well, the definitive proof is a link to the update notes where they broke it. After they "fixed it," it went back to being how it was before the update. So if there was something in the update notes about adjusting magic, then it was intentional and later dubbed a bug.

I did find the update notes for 4/9/2009 on the official site and BG, but it did not mention an adjustment to elemental resistances.

It's early and I can't think of any examples at the moment, but under the old Dev Team, it was not uncommon for them to sneak in unannounced nerfs. I still believe the adjustment to elemental resistances was intentional, and if you think about it, that adjustment did make sense in terms of how the game 'should' work. It just came 6 years too late.

[Rambus]

I did find the update notes for 4/9/2009 on the official site and BG, but it did not mention an adjustment to elemental resistances.

It's early and I can't think of any examples at the moment, but under the old Dev Team, it was not uncommon for them to sneak in unannounced nerfs. I still believe the adjustment to elemental resistances was intentional, and if you think about it, that adjustment did make sense in terms of how the game 'should' work. It just came 6 years too late.

1. dyna mobs are not dark! they are too easy to aspier if they had any dark base to them ( baring some mobs)

the old dev team made lots of mistakes, being a thf mean i am sure you remember sneak attack from the front, what makes you think this is any different?

that bug was not an experiment to potency changes vs elemental def. If it was there be varying rates ( not just 50% durations on everything that is "NM")

there is even mobs now that take hard damage off (hard def, i do not know how to word this)

water on leech (50% water damage)
wind on ATU bird (50% wind damage)
water on pugal (50% water damage)
ice on former (50% ice damage)
ice on ghost (50% ice damage)
elemetal mob ( immune to it's element (cap 1/8 damage) and what it is strong to)
prime avatar ( immune to all element, (cap 1/8 damage) heals its element, only takes damage to what it is weak to)
etcetc

I think 1/8 is cap, people made a thread before on Ki talking about if anyone seen 1/16

[Arcon]

This is only true at a few levels. For most levels, you have a higher tier Stone spell than your highest tier Thunder, so the reverse is actually true.

Most levels? Maybe. Most of the time? No. For eight years a thunder spell was always the strongest to cast. Ice wasn't natively stronger, but people used the INT and Elemental Magic Skill on the Ice/Aquilo's Staff to their advantage. So when magic accuracy still mattered, ice was the way to go, otherwise thunder had a consistent reign over the elements for almost a decade. MP and casting time all matter, but they can be adjusted as well. Right now (especially now with Abyssea) there's really no point in using any element other than your highest nuke (except for staggering the mob of course, but don't really think that should count).


SE got burned once by messing too much with the magic system, and I hope they don't do it again. Aside from certain mages wanting access to certain spells (for example, RDMs and SCHs seem to want Cure5), the magic system works fairly well.

Of course it works, the question is what happened to the other elements? Why would anyone use any of them again, unless there's a mob that completely resists/absorbs one element? It's not the same as with outdated weapon skills (that would be lower tier weapon skills, comparable to lower tier spells). It's a game element that is mostly ignored, which, I think, is sad.

[Eeek]

THFs only enjoyed the broken Sneak Attack for a day. It was fixed very quickly.

I'm still very surprised that a self-proclaimed serious mage completely missed such a a fundamental change as the unannounced magic resistances adjustment. It was in place for several weeks.

That's not a random bug like the Sneak Attack example. No, the magic resistance adjustment was intentional and only rolled back since it pissed off so many people.

[Eeek]

...the question is what happened to the other elements? Why would anyone use any of them again, unless there's a mob that completely resists/absorbs one element? It's not the same as with outdated weapon skills (that would be lower tier weapon skills, comparable to lower tier spells). It's a game element that is mostly ignored, which, I think, is sad.

I think that's exactly the issue SE wanted to address with that ninja adjustment to magic resistances. And to be fair, I think you (and SE) have a good point. The adjustment just came 6 years too late, and that's not a good time to make such a fundamental change to the entire magic system. Players were simply too accustomed to overpowering a mob's elemental affinities, especially in regards to enfeebling spells and songs.

[Rambus]

Most levels? Maybe. Most of the time? No. For eight years a thunder spell was always the strongest to cast. Ice wasn't natively stronger, but people used the INT and Elemental Magic Skill on the Ice/Aquilo's Staff to their advantage. So when magic accuracy still mattered, ice was the way to go, otherwise thunder had a consistent reign over the elements for almost a decade. MP and casting time all matter, but they can be adjusted as well. Right now (especially now with Abyssea) there's really no point in using any element other than your highest nuke (except for staggering the mob of course, but don't really think that should count)


I had good INT gear back in the day so when i leveled when i got stone II i spamed that, when I got aero II i spamed that, mob element def is mostly a joke, unless it is one of those hard core DEF

level off pug and mb flood? bad idea, crab that is ok.

very rarely i use such knowlage the best exmaple I can think of where I actally changed element because of mob is vally of sorrow. I used AM mbs back then and i would call flood on crabs when i got it but on pugal i would call for something else ( depend on ws people had i would combine best ws for best potional damage)

Back then I was leveling with drg friend so say with rng we could do double thrust > sidewinder for reverb to mb flood, on pug i would have them do sidewinder> raiden thrust ( or something i do not remember, sometimes i had to recomnd gimp ws but ws back then was not that damaging past sidewinder and good rampage back then)


THFs only enjoyed the broken Sneak Attack for a day. It was fixed very quickly.

I'm still very surprised that a self-proclaimed serious mage completely missed such a a fundamental change as the unannounced magic resistances adjustment. It was in place for several weeks.

That's not a random bug like the Sneak Attack example. No, the magic resistance adjustment was intentional and only rolled back since it pissed off so many people.
why are you not understanding? I said I did not miss "bug" i said i am REFUTING YOUR VIEW on that bug.

SE did NOT make that change in the respect of change potency vs element def because what I said earlier:


1. dyna mobs are not dark! they are too easy to aspier if they had any dark base to them ( baring some mobs)

the old dev team made lots of mistakes, being a thf mean i am sure you remember sneak attack from the front, what makes you think this is any different?

that bug was not an experiment to potency changes vs elemental def. If it was there be varying rates ( not just 50% durations on everything that is "NM")

there is even mobs now that take hard damage off (hard def, i do not know how to word this)

water on leech (50% water damage)
wind on ATU bird (50% wind damage)
water on pugal (50% water damage)
ice on former (50% ice damage)
ice on ghost (50% ice damage)
elemetal mob ( immune to it's element (cap 1/8 damage) and what it is strong to)
prime avatar ( immune to all element, (cap 1/8 damage) heals its element, only takes damage to what it is weak to)
etcetc

I think 1/8 is cap, people made a thread before on Ki talking about if anyone seen 1/16

if you are right it was done very very poorly, you can't just 50% durations everything NM and call it potency change vs element def.

[Kjara]

I think SE could even out the potency of the different elemental spells, and make it just look like any old FF style game. I don't think it is necessary to have the BLM learn every spell at the same level though. Older FFs rarely allowed you to do that. Simply keep the learning levels to what they are now, and even out the potency of elemental nukes just like Ancient Magic is. Having elemental weaknesses play a major role would surely give this game some of the fun it lost lately, and give mage a reason to get all spells. Not to mention, it would allow BLMs to personalize their merits at will, instead of being forced to pick ice and thunder for the party's sake. For example, I like the picture of a tides sorcerer more than the one of an ice witch.

[Rambus]

in regards of enfeebling vs element def issue, this is anther reason why it is hard in the game to make a mob immune to stone but can be slowed.

take FFVIII for example, when you try to slow a mob the mob will not slow because it is immune to slow, not earth.

same apples for you, you can 100% element def but get silence and such because you have to set enfeebling defense too.

I guess you can say this game is too element dependent, everything in this game is tied to element in some way.

[Eeek]

why are you not understanding? I said I did not miss "bug" i said i am REFUTING YOUR VIEW on that bug.

SE did NOT make that change in the respect of change potency vs element def because what I said earlier:



if you are right it was done very very poorly, you can't just 50% durations everything NM and call it potency change vs element def.

Are you really the only mage that didn't notice this adjustment?

And SE absolutely did make the change regardless of anything you said. You're incorrect and your words do not magically change the past.

Most mages immediately noticed something was changed, and the smarter ones pinned down the change. You claim that "SE did NOT make that change in the respect of change potency vs element def ..." but this runs contrary to everyone's anecdotal experiences and actual test data. Kaeko (one of FFXI's best mages, prolific tester, theorycrafter, and strategist) pinned down the adjustment after reading through posted experiences and running his own tests.

His position? "Early conclusion for this is simply that SE has FINALLY made magic users take into account elemental strengths and weaknesses. You still don't get a damage bonus for using an element the mob is weak to, but you will get the penalty for nuking/enfeebling against the mob's element."

{Click Here to View the BG Thread on the Adjustment: "Elegy nerf or HNM Buff"} (http://www.bluegartr.com/threads/72988-Elegy-nerf-or-HNM-Buff)

{Click Here to View Kaeko's Post and His Preliminary Conclusions} (http://www.bluegartr.com/threads/72988-Elegy-nerf-or-HNM-Buff?p=2637074&viewfull=1#post2637074)

[Seriha]

Calling the bug intentional is a bit of a stretch. I'm more inclined to believe it was a side-effect of introducing the augmenting system to the game where we can see things like "Resist Paralyze"+1 and such. Sloppy code and player/mob relations/function mirroring probably had a weird default value or other calculation error that basically lead to either nigh-immunity or severe potency reductions.

[Byrth]

That era of dev team was notorious for bugs and slow fixes. Remember when they broke frogs? Discoid? For a while control-right would go down 9 spots while left would still go up 10 spots, etc.

That said, I don't think you're alone in suspecting it was an intentional thing that they decided to play off as a bug. More than a few people felt that way at the time.

[Rambus]

Are you really the only mage that didn't notice this adjustment?

And SE absolutely did make the change regardless of anything you said. You're incorrect and your words do not magically change the past.

Most mages immediately noticed something was changed, and the smarter ones pinned down the change. You claim that "SE did NOT make that change in the respect of change potency vs element def ..." but this runs contrary to everyone's anecdotal experiences and actual test data. Kaeko (one of FFXI's best mages, prolific tester, theorycrafter, and strategist) pinned down the adjustment after reading through posted experiences and running his own tests.

His position? "Early conclusion for this is simply that SE has FINALLY made magic users take into account elemental strengths and weaknesses. You still don't get a damage bonus for using an element the mob is weak to, but you will get the penalty for nuking/enfeebling against the mob's element."

{Click Here to View the BG Thread on the Adjustment: "Elegy nerf or HNM Buff"} (http://www.bluegartr.com/threads/72988-Elegy-nerf-or-HNM-Buff)

{Click Here to View Kaeko's Post and His Preliminary Conclusions} (http://www.bluegartr.com/threads/72988-Elegy-nerf-or-HNM-Buff?p=2637074&viewfull=1#post2637074)

where is your proof that is was not a bug, lolbg and ffxiah threads does not cut it.

and i explained IN DETAL why it cannot be what you described.

dyna mobs are NOT dark element ( most of them)

where is damage change in potency? not just 50% durations on enfeebling magic on anything called NM?

again :

1. dyna mobs are not dark! they are too easy to aspier if they had any dark base to them ( baring some mobs)

the old dev team made lots of mistakes, being a thf mean i am sure you remember sneak attack from the front, what makes you think this is any different?

that bug was not an experiment to potency changes vs elemental def. If it was there be varying rates ( not just 50% durations on everything that is "NM") *ok after reading it was just a bug on enfeebling magic and people thought it had to do with ele def, it didn't

there is even mobs now that take hard damage off (hard def, i do not know how to word this)

water on leech (50% water damage)
wind on ATU bird (50% wind damage)
water on pugal (50% water damage)
ice on former (50% ice damage)
ice on ghost (50% ice damage)
elemetal mob ( immune to it's element (cap 1/8 damage) and what it is strong to)
prime avatar ( immune to all element, (cap 1/8 damage) heals its element, only takes damage to what it is weak to)
etcetc

I think 1/8 is cap, people made a thread before on Ki talking about if anyone seen 1/16

how you not understand this?



Posted by Thorny View Post
My current theory is that any mob over X total resistance(level correction/mnd if applicable, inherent resistances, anything that would effect resist rate) is getting an automatic half resist at best, similar to how you can't get a full resist when nuking an elemental with it's weak element no matter how low your skills are. The distribution of mobs I have seen this take effect on makes specific elemental resistance, traits, and just plain m.acc all seem like they are not viable reasons.
Did a very easy, yet extremely eye opening test that completely backs up this idea of automatic half resist on elemental strengths.

I took my 75 RDM mule out to Qufim and Chainspell Water I'd an Acropolis (Leech Family, resistance to water).

20 water Is, ALL 29 damage (1/2 resist).

Prior to the patch, you could 'overwhelm' the innate elemental resistance of the mob if you were just that much higher level than it. For instance, I could get lucky and nuke a crab with water, and it would still do full damage. Given that 230 Ele. Skill can't land a single non-resist on a lvl30 mob now, I would say this is no longer the case!

Early conclusion for this is simply that SE has FINALLY made magic users take into account elemental strengths and weaknesses. You still don't get a damage bonus for using an element the mob is weak to, but you will get the penalty for nuking/enfeebling against the mob's element.

This would explain why you can't full duration Elegy Cerb. (strong to earth), why you get 1/2 resists on ES Sleep on bombs and bats, and why brothers ENM gives you the same 1/2 resist (taurus dark strength).

(To back this up, if someone wants to take a BRD/BLM and ES lullaby a bat, I can bank on that duration being full due to the fact bats have no light resist)



to think that happened only after the patch is WONG! i leveled blm back in 2004-2005 and that 50% damage to leeches and so on existed.

and STILL EXISTS

the thing in 2009 was ONLY ON enfeebling magic ! it was a bug where everything was 50% on NM as far as i understand.

kk after reading some of it was just a huge enfeebling magic bug, there is NO proof yet about damage being effected so that kills your view on "SE already tried to change potencies based on element def"

[Eeek]

You missed something:

"I took my 75 RDM mule out to Qufim and Chainspell Water I'd an Acropolis (Leech Family, resistance to water).

20 water Is, ALL 29 damage (1/2 resist).

Prior to the patch, you could 'overwhelm' the innate elemental resistance of the mob if you were just that much higher level than it. For instance, I could get lucky and nuke a crab with water, and it would still do full damage. Given that 230 Ele. Skill can't land a single non-resist on a lvl30 mob now, I would say this is no longer the case!"

75RDM versus a low level leech. Chainspell Water I. 1/2 resist on every single Water I.

So yes, that change most certainly affected nukes as well as enfeebling magic. I don't know why you keep talking about Dynamis mobs (most of them aren't resistant to dark anyways!), and I don't know why you keep citing yourself. If I were you, I'd pick a more reliable source.

And no, I can't 'prove' that this adjustment was intentional. I can only suspect that it was intentional. Unlike obvious bugs like the aforementioned Sneak Attack bug, this 'bug' was not immediately corrected or even acknowledged until SE received a mountain of complains via emails and GM calls as well as likely saw an outburst of anger on several FFXI forums. This is why I suspect that the adjustment was intentional and was only rolled back after an overwhelmingly negative player response.

Now, why is this important? Well, several posters in this thread have suggested similar adjustments, and it's only fair to cite a previous bug/intentional adjustment along the same lines as these suggestions that actually made it into the game and met an overwhelmingly negative response.

Everyone has a right to make suggestions, but any suggestions can and should be met with opposing arguments and viewpoints. It's not rude. It's not trolling. It's legitimate discourse - especially considering that discussions on this forum can have massive ramifications in FFXI.

Bad ideas and information can and will be challenged.

[Rambus]

You did not read my post so I will try again to present it so you do not miss it

found my own documtation of those element defense in place before 2009:

http://ffxi.allakhazam.com/forum.html?fjob=3&mid=1106807244198554657&page=2&howmany=50#msg1107204924694605069


Posted: 2005-01-31 16:55:50 | Edited: Jan 31 2005 5:58pm | Quote | Reply to Post | Edit Post
RambustheRDMtaru
***
1,019 posts
Score: Default
By: danieljai

Is this still being test on mobs only in Qufim Island? The common knowledge of resistance (as far as i kno) always underlies on specific mob families' own elemental resistance, and the INT difference between the mob and the caster (hence high lvl players have better chance not getting fully resisted).

Unless no one had spotted this for the entire time, or this case only happens in Qufim... i don't recall seeing a constant half resistance of mobs, on most of the other places i'd been for the past month regardless of lvl.

Maybe during some patch, SE had add a Job Trait for specific mobs or mob-families... (something like Resist Water; Resist Thunder... etc..)?
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
about the ressit thunder etc, those treats will be random right? like any other trait that i know of it is kind of random how much this happenes. these defenses are 100%, it happenes even to east sarutabarua on pugs there ES + water III 260 ish dammge. in qufin iland they are storng enough where they live though my sc's. I can test mb tests as well they are 1/2ed.I got fraps pictures of the logs to prove this. though i am not shure how to go about showing them.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
some of my mb data

SC axe kick --> dark harvest MB thunderga
Giant
MB 279
crab
MB 505


SC slice --> barracuda dive MB water III
subject giant
MB 715
subject pug
MB 353 did this one 2 times same outcome both times

next 3 tests where on ice day
SC starbust --> axe kick MB blizzaga II
subject Giant
954
subject crab
953
subject pug
864
Now same sc but no ice day
subject crab
868 x2
subject giant
873
subject worm
839
subject pug
861
It may shudest the negitvie defense that ginats and crabs seem to have kick in the day effect more. i seen on meny accions of my 170 day play time that the weather impacts spells more then the day does. i never seen the day kick in 2 times in a row.and it does seem pugs and giants take mroe dammge tehn anything else i tested on.
my stats int 74+28, +33 on the ice ones each test was done with the apporate HQ staff
i did not do meny repeated casts only beacuse i done this meny times before just dont remember the exact numbers. the day theory is new and needs to be tested more

eeek that 50% damage on leech was in the game for a long long time, and still exists.

you are not reading my posts since i adressed that already

[Removed by Moderator according to the FINAL FANTASY XI FORUM Guidelines (http://support.na.square-enix.com/rule.php?id=20&la=1).]

need to reread this:

Are you really the only mage that didn't notice this adjustment?

And SE absolutely did make the change regardless of anything you said. You're incorrect and your words do not magically change the past.

Most mages immediately noticed something was changed, and the smarter ones pinned down the change. You claim that "SE did NOT make that change in the respect of change potency vs element def ..." but this runs contrary to everyone's anecdotal experiences and actual test data. Kaeko (one of FFXI's best mages, prolific tester, theorycrafter, and strategist) pinned down the adjustment after reading through posted experiences and running his own tests.

His position? "Early conclusion for this is simply that SE has FINALLY made magic users take into account elemental strengths and weaknesses. You still don't get a damage bonus for using an element the mob is weak to, but you will get the penalty for nuking/enfeebling against the mob's element."

{Click Here to View the BG Thread on the Adjustment: "Elegy nerf or HNM Buff"} (http://www.bluegartr.com/threads/72988-Elegy-nerf-or-HNM-Buff)

{Click Here to View Kaeko's Post and His Preliminary Conclusions} (http://www.bluegartr.com/threads/72988-Elegy-nerf-or-HNM-Buff?p=2637074&viewfull=1#post2637074)

where is your proof that is was not a bug, lolbg and ffxiah threads does not cut it.

and i explained IN DETAL why it cannot be what you described.

dyna mobs are NOT dark element ( most of them)

where is damage change in potency? not just 50% durations on enfeebling magic on anything called NM?

again :

1. dyna mobs are not dark! they are too easy to aspier if they had any dark base to them ( baring some mobs)

the old dev team made lots of mistakes, being a thf mean i am sure you remember sneak attack from the front, what makes you think this is any different?

that bug was not an experiment to potency changes vs elemental def. If it was there be varying rates ( not just 50% durations on everything that is "NM") *ok after reading it was just a bug on enfeebling magic and people thought it had to do with ele def, it didn't

there is even mobs now that take hard damage off (hard def, i do not know how to word this)

water on leech (50% water damage)
wind on ATU bird (50% wind damage)
water on pugal (50% water damage)
ice on former (50% ice damage)
ice on ghost (50% ice damage)
elemetal mob ( immune to it's element (cap 1/8 damage) and what it is strong to)
prime avatar ( immune to all element, (cap 1/8 damage) heals its element, only takes damage to what it is weak to)
etcetc

I think 1/8 is cap, people made a thread before on Ki talking about if anyone seen 1/16

how you not understand this?



Posted by Thorny View Post
My current theory is that any mob over X total resistance(level correction/mnd if applicable, inherent resistances, anything that would effect resist rate) is getting an automatic half resist at best, similar to how you can't get a full resist when nuking an elemental with it's weak element no matter how low your skills are. The distribution of mobs I have seen this take effect on makes specific elemental resistance, traits, and just plain m.acc all seem like they are not viable reasons.
Did a very easy, yet extremely eye opening test that completely backs up this idea of automatic half resist on elemental strengths.

I took my 75 RDM mule out to Qufim and Chainspell Water I'd an Acropolis (Leech Family, resistance to water).

20 water Is, ALL 29 damage (1/2 resist).

Prior to the patch, you could 'overwhelm' the innate elemental resistance of the mob if you were just that much higher level than it. For instance, I could get lucky and nuke a crab with water, and it would still do full damage. Given that 230 Ele. Skill can't land a single non-resist on a lvl30 mob now, I would say this is no longer the case!

Early conclusion for this is simply that SE has FINALLY made magic users take into account elemental strengths and weaknesses. You still don't get a damage bonus for using an element the mob is weak to, but you will get the penalty for nuking/enfeebling against the mob's element.

This would explain why you can't full duration Elegy Cerb. (strong to earth), why you get 1/2 resists on ES Sleep on bombs and bats, and why brothers ENM gives you the same 1/2 resist (taurus dark strength).

(To back this up, if someone wants to take a BRD/BLM and ES lullaby a bat, I can bank on that duration being full due to the fact bats have no light resist)



to think that happened only after the patch is WONG! i leveled blm back in 2004-2005 and that 50% damage to leeches and so on existed.

and STILL EXISTS

the thing in 2009 was ONLY ON enfeebling magic ! it was a bug where everything was 50% on NM as far as i understand.

kk after reading some of it was just a huge enfeebling magic bug, there is NO proof yet about damage being effected so that kills your view on "SE already tried to change potencies based on element def"

and:

1. dyna mobs are not dark! they are too easy to aspier if they had any dark base to them ( baring some mobs)

the old dev team made lots of mistakes, being a thf mean i am sure you remember sneak attack from the front, what makes you think this is any different?

that bug was not an experiment to potency changes vs elemental def. If it was there be varying rates ( not just 50% durations on everything that is "NM")

there is even mobs now that take hard damage off (hard def, i do not know how to word this)

water on leech (50% water damage)
wind on ATU bird (50% wind damage)
water on pugal (50% water damage)
ice on former (50% ice damage)
ice on ghost (50% ice damage)
elemetal mob ( immune to it's element (cap 1/8 damage) and what it is strong to)
prime avatar ( immune to all element, (cap 1/8 damage) heals its element, only takes damage to what it is weak to)
etcetc

I think 1/8 is cap, people made a thread before on Ki talking about if anyone seen 1/16

and:
http://killingifrit.com/forums/topic/178978-spehcal-target-elemental-damage-reduction/
and:
http://killingifrit.com/forums/topic/173101-116-resist/

why are you ignoring what I said? if you didn't you would not of made the last post you did.

that damage reduction was in the game way before 2009 and i even have proof of me documented it in 2005, and still exists today.

It was an enfeebling magic bug, nothing more.

[Rambus]

for those that do not want to click the thread there is this too:



Posted: 2005-01-31 14:19:37 | Edited: Jan 31 2005 4:02pm | Quote | Reply to Post
RambustheRDMtaru

1,019 posts
Score: Default here is my thory for weakness
just like there seems to be 2 types of defense there should be 2 types of weaknesses.

For defence that i reached i found the 2 defences act like this. One that gives you a less of a chance for landing for full like a sort of magic evade for an element since elemental seal can get pass this. or this just might be a lv factor.In any case this statment is basted on the water on crabs and stone on worm situation. second is an absule defense like thunder on giants where elemntal seal DOES NOT help here or mbs still 1/2ed every time. lv 1 sc's to thier strong element seems to be less
so here is what i thory for weaknesses
1. like the magic evade statment for the first type of defense the first type of weakness is just landing casts for full more
2. second type would be a netivage defense like the light negitave defense giants seem to have with ice spells cabs are said to have this too.

I did not know i was 4-7 years ahead of my time (Kaeko 2009-2005 is where 4 years comes from), I say this because that is the evidence of the documentation on forum, i was aware of it's existence way before that.

[Eeek]

... you are not reading my posts since i adressed that already

...

[Removed by Moderator according to the FINAL FANTASY XI FORUM Guidelines (http://support.na.square-enix.com/rule.php?id=20&la=1).]...

where is your proof that is was not a bug, lolbg and ffxiah threads does not cut it.

I'm not reading most of your links for two reasons:

1) You're fixated on unrelated tangents.

2) [Removed by Moderator according to the FINAL FANTASY XI FORUM Guidelines (http://support.na.square-enix.com/rule.php?id=20&la=1).]

I stated several times that I have no proof that SE's adjustment to magic resistances was intentional. I've stated several times that I suspect it was intentional. There's a big difference between proof and suspicion, which I have already acknowledged on several occasions.

[Removed by Moderator according to the FINAL FANTASY XI FORUM Guidelines (http://support.na.square-enix.com/rule.php?id=20&la=1).]

Due to my personal experience with you as well as reading many of your KI posts over the years, I apologize, but all of your claims will be met by me as highly dubious until a respected member of the community agrees with you or I believe you made a sensible, well-founded argument.

That's just the way it is, and I'm sorry if it upsets you.

[Byrth]

He's right that some monsters take reduced damage from certain elements. It's entirely possible that leeches take 50% damage from water all the time. The difference was that the damage reduction like that suddenly started applying to enfeebling magic duration.

[Rambus]

I'm not reading most of your links for two reasons:

1) You're fixated on unrelated tangents.



"I do not want to read in why i am wrong"

that is the traslation of this, it is very rude and i presented proof countless times on how magic damage down (the static 50% or 1/2 damage existed way before your Kaeko quote.

it is not an option to say "SE's adjustment to magic resistances was intentional" it is wrong information. you where using an enbeeling magic bug to try make such a claim. then you said magic damage was invoulded but i properly counted that.

[Removed by Moderator according to the FINAL FANTASY XI FORUM Guidelines (http://support.na.square-enix.com/rule.php?id=20&la=1).]

[blowfin]

He's right that some monsters take reduced damage from certain elements. It's entirely possible that leeches take 50% damage from water all the time.

As a BST who`s used Yuly enough to know. I can tell you that the resist rate isn`t static on ladybugs. It`s elemental resist the same way we can stack it. Sometimes you`ll get tier V`s hitting for 30 damage, sometimes they`ll hit for 500. I don`t use the leech frequently enough to be able to say either way, but I suspect it works the same as Yuly. You`ll see the same kind of resistance on Funguars, just it`s dark instead.

[SNK]

GMs always say that, if SE posted something on official site i like to see it because dyna mobs most of them have no affiliation with darkness, if they did you would not be able to aspir them. (baring formers/dogs/ heca pets off top of my head)

so i think your viewpoint in "SE tried potency changes vs element def" is false.

He's not lying Rambus. He has no reason to either. There was a ninja-adjustment done & yes SE did ignore it until a huge mess of players called GMs and spammed them telling them it was fucked up. It wasn't until a little later that SE did ninja-fix it pretty quietly.

[Eeek]

As a BST who`s used Yuly enough to know. I can tell you that the resist rate isn`t static on ladybugs. It`s elemental resist the same way we can stack it. Sometimes you`ll get tier V`s hitting for 30 damage, sometimes they`ll hit for 500. I don`t use the leech frequently enough to be able to say either way, but I suspect it works the same as Yuly. You`ll see the same kind of resistance on Funguars, just it`s dark instead.

This is similar to my experience.

When nuking normal, low~ish level mobs against their strong element, resists do happen more often than usual. I don't recall the resist rates against low-to-normal level mobs, albeit a bit higher, even approaching the high resist rates experienced when nuking high-level NMs against their strong element (for example, thunder nukes against Dragua).

That's what happened though in Spring 2009. It wasn't limited to just enfeebling magic.

I've said before that the adjustment to magic resistances really does make sense, but I've also opined that this sort of common-sense adjustment came too late considering that FFXI was a matured MMO in 2009. By that point, players had invested too much time in their character and equipment for SE to make such a drastic chance to the magic system's mechanics and expect players to happily accept and adjust to such a change.

If SE had made such a change in 2003 (even into 2004), I think everything would have worked out alright.

[Eeek]

He's not lying Rambus. He has no reason to either. There was a ninja-adjustment done & yes SE did ignore it until a huge mess of players called GMs and spammed them telling them it was fucked up. It wasn't until a little later that SE did ninja-fix it pretty quietly.

To their credit, SE did publicly apologize for "the delay in both notifying players and correcting the [elemental resistance issue]." The glitch/adjustment entered the game on April 9th, and SE corrected the problem and apologized on April 23rd.

Has SE tried to ninja adjust anything major since the elemental resistance thing? I can't recall any big ninja adjustments since that one.

Oh, and I found the 4/23/2009 Update Notes:

Apr. 23, 2009 12:20 [PDT] From: FINAL FANTASY XI
FINAL FANTASY XI Update (Apr. 23)

A version update of FINAL FANTASY XI was performed at the following time.

[Date & Time]
Apr. 23, 2009 at 12:00 (PDT)

[Affected Services]
FINAL FANTASY XI

[Important Update Details]
The following issues have been addressed:

- There were cases where the elemental resistance of some monsters was not working properly.

- There were times when it was possible to use the Corsair job ability "Quick Draw" multiple times in a row regardless of the Charge number.

- The MP cost for a Summoner to keep an avatar available was less than intended with use of a certain item.

* Regarding the elemental resistance issue, we would like to take a moment and apologize for the delay in both notifying players and correcting the issue.

Source: {BG Thread - FINAL FANTASY XI Update (Apr. 23)} (http://www.bluegartr.com/threads/73761-FINAL-FANTASY-XI-Update-%28Apr.-23%29)

[SNK]

He'll still not believe you even if posted proof like this. Rambus multiple people are telling you that this did happen and all of a sudden you're saying it's not?

brb Salvage bans never happened and everyone who got banned just magically decided to quit the game on the same day at the same excat time.

[Byrth]

Well, I just nuked Gigas Leeches in Qufim and they all took ~half damage from Water from a 75 RDM.

Stone 1 did 52 damage, Water did 32 damage, Day bonus pushed it up to 34 for some reason (probably a floor effect)

Maybe not -50%, but close.

[Byrth]

Okay, but why was day bonus for a 32 damage nuke only +2 damage?

Water II was 88 damage, for the record.

Edit: By the way, I knew stone was weaker. I was proving that water was reduced damage by comparing it to Stone instead of finding Gigas leech's INT and calculating both their damages.

[blowfin]

ladybugs are 50% wind.

Lord Varney would like a word with you.

Hell I might even go and test this tonight just to prove it either way.

Wiki has the wind resist listed as 95%, which doesn't seem right either.

[Ravenmore]

Just because you hard bad time with BG posters does not mean that the data and test ran by every poster that bother to to test is thrown out the window. By SE coming out out and saying sorry we goofed is more reason to suspect a nin-nerf. BG is full of a**hats and alla is full of retards but that does not mean that every single poster is wrong or a a**hat for posting there. Love to see what happens when the first dat minning threads show up here.

[Limecat]

What I'd like to see is a BLM two-hour duration JA that increases all your nukes in-tier to equal the base power/MP cost/casting time and cooldown of the current strongest one available at your level(separating the single-targets and -gas, of course).

[Rambus]

Just because you hard bad time with BG posters does not mean that the data and test ran by every poster that bother to to test is thrown out the window. By SE coming out out and saying sorry we goofed is more reason to suspect a nin-nerf. BG is full of a**hats and alla is full of retards but that does not mean that every single poster is wrong or a a**hat for posting there. Love to see what happens when the first dat minning threads show up here.

what are you talking about? Kaeko who i know is very smart, did the emitiy thing. He publicly documented something that I have done 4 years ago. I hate posting theories because usually people dismiss them or rude to me. people may list good info on bg sometimes but it is hard to talk there a lot because of the elitism there. some people there are not immune to wrong information ether, I had a bit of time talking to someone on why helix base is 25 (same as aero I) but kept dismissing me because helix would always outdo aero I. they kept dismissing the fact that D-int caps a lot sooner on aero I vs helix.

I am not dismissing anything from BG put on here, if you read the past posts I was refuting eek's take on the Enfeebling Magic bug and refuting how she was using BG data wrongly to try to prove her point.

like now, I do not get why I am having such a hard time trying to proof something that should be seen as basic to people.

[Ravenmore]

The way you post came off on BG may not be how you intended it then.

[Rambus]

The way you post came off on BG may not be how you intended it then.

well I have to say according to that post, that Kaeko disovered something about the game from the Enfeebling Magic bug. the update it self did not cause it (the only thing i would call "wrong" from the BG links preseneted to me), he just discovered something because of the bug.

maybe he started to play after i did, i do not know but ya i knew about it before he posted that, way before and was not caused by the bug. I even have past documentation to show I did, and that it did exist before the update. (in fact it happened so long ago with me being new to the itnerent I did not even know how to post pics back then, I stated so in that post)

I might even have the pics still from back then and ill try to dig them up if people are THAT interested.

[blowfin]

maybe that is someone's take of a chance of less then 50% ( i/e resist rates of getting 1/4 or 1/8 i am not sure)

It's probably somebodies take after using Yuly as a pet, the two of us here stating that its not static arent the only ones thinking that way. Further information from wiki...


I was fighting Lorelei earlier and Aero V hits Yuly for roughly 526 damage so unless Aero V from this NM can hit for 10k+ damage, I think Yuly wind resist is closer to 75%. --Kenki 17:28, March 1, 2011 (UTC)


It can have 95% resists as I've seen it personally (spells doing 95% less), on a non resist Wind deals half damage/ 526 sounds like a half resist. --Sakuraryong 11:54, April 11, 2011 (UTC)

So Yuly does really look like it has an extra layer of elemental resist on top of whatever native wind resistance it has.

I mean, for arguments sake, how often would you expect to see an elemental resist set kicking in as a level 40 when youre being nuked by a level 90 BLM (or a 75 RDM for that matter)? Not that I know a bunch about resist sets but Im guessing the answer is slim to none.

Really though, this isnt terribly important to the topic, this is just the curiosity as a BST coming out.

[Rambus]

forgot ES too.

http://img146.imageshack.us/img146/7128/elementdef.jpg

but ya pets have their rules for taking damage like how i hear bst pets have PDT above player cap and such.

I was really only talking about us vs mobs and max potential damage output on them

[Byrth]

It's actually +0 for 1-9, +1 for 10-19, +2 for 20-29, and +3 for 30-39, etc.

So why is it 34 for day bonus off a halved 32 instead of 35?

64*1.1 = 70.4 (70)

70/2 = 35

So it must be 63 damage at least (less than a 50% reduction)

63*1.1 = 69.3 (69)
69/2 = 34.5 (34)

So I don't know. It's either not 50%, rounds up at some point, or there's some funniness about it.

[Byrth]

I was naked on a 75 Hume RDM/BLM. No staff. Water II did 88 damage.

[Henihhi]

Ok im going to say it. The OP says make them more "realistic". This is a game. Do you go outside and rain fire and brimstone upon that field bunny you see in your backyard? Nope, didn't think so. But either way trying to revamp it this late in the game would be nigh near impossible for SE to undertake. They would have to revamp not only spells, but gear merits etc. and that is probably not going to happen at this stage in the game.

[Duelle]

Erm...*ahem*

Well, I agree with the premise of the OP. The system for elemental spells is a bit odd because of the potency differences within the tiers. Adjusting that would be interesting, not to mention it would really play well with those merits that involve leaning towards one particular element. Would make it workable instead of this thing that was kinda tossed in for lolRP.

[Yugl]

Ok im going to say it. The OP says make them more "realistic". This is a game. Do you go outside and rain fire and brimstone upon that field bunny you see in your backyard? Nope, didn't think so. But either way trying to revamp it this late in the game would be nigh near impossible for SE to undertake. They would have to revamp not only spells, but gear merits etc. and that is probably not going to happen at this stage in the game.

I have Mandys in my back yard and I do throw stones at them. I think they're called children in RL though.

On Topic: Elemental WS are fine as they are. We'll want them somewhat buffed if the abyssea craze ever ends though.

[Henihhi]

LMAO! stone them to death! Nah but seriously, It just cracks me up when people say "make it realistic" cuz hell if i could shoot fire from my hands, i sure as hell wouldn't be playing a computer game.

[blowfin]

Here are some figures for Yuly Vs. Varney. Keep in mind i'm operating with anything from 5% to 17% DT on top of the resists.

Aero V
735
688
90
73

Aeroga IV
710
100
87

The larger numbers are probably the "half" resist which appears to be built into Ladybugs, but we know about that. How do we explain the "95%" resists though? Would we see that kind of thing with a higher level ladybug? Should I go out and test it myself? Probably.

[Byrth]

I'm going to have to wait to do these tests until the weekend, but I don't think I was at the dINT cap if we were both fighting Gigas Leeches (1.24*44/1.36 = 40, not 32). The RDM's INT should have been about 71.

That said, it doesn't matter that I wasn't at the dINT cap because weather bonus is applied after spell base damage is calculated.

1) FLOOR(Number / 2) has no decimal dropped if Number ends in an even number.
2) FLOOR(Number*1.1), where Number is 2 digits, is dependent entirely upon the first digit

So we have two operations, one of which depends on the first, and one of which depends on the second number. If the order of operations is 2 -> 1, then the first digit can indirectly affect the second digit, as long as the first digit is odd.

32 -> 34 couldn't result from that, though.

[Byrth]

Okay, well after looking at it a bit more, I think we can approximate where specific monster resistance falls in that order.

We have three variables/floor steps from that equation and one starting value that's assumed to be a whole integer (the spell base damage):
MAB/MDB - 1.24, unknown if leeches have MDB
Day Bonus - 1.1 or 1.0
Monster Resistance modifier - Assumed to be 50%

There are 6 different orders that we can apply those in, and only one results in the 32 -> 34 trend.

The order is at least:
Monster specific Resist -> Day -> MAB

It's important to note that it's a separate step from "Resist" though, because you can obviously get 1/8 resists on monsters that take reduced damage from the element (as shown by nukes on Yuly.) So it's a term that doesn't exist on the wiki equation.

[Byrth]

Well, read my last post again. The term is applied before Day/Weather Bonus. Do the math for yourself if you want:
Spell base damage: 52 or 53 (doesn't matter in any cases)
MAB: 1.24
Day Bonus: 1.1 or 1
Target Resistance: 50%

Every case except applying Resistance -> MAB -> Day bonus results in 32 without weather and 35 with.

Some monsters may also get a generic "Magic Damage Taken -%" trait, which could be applied last as the wiki page says. For instance, Wyrm all have Magic Damage -50%

[Eadieni]

I agree it would be nice for them to adjust this.
It works fine in FFXIV - where all spells are learned at the same time for that tier.
You don't have to change it like that, but perhaps they could add a new Trait to balance it out.
Like you start out at level 1 with all Tier 1 spells, but adjust the modifiers, then when you would have learned thunder give a new MAB trait putting them all on par with where Thunder is now.

Or heck just add a new trait where spells get stronger as you level on the same scale as so that your level 1 Stone spell does the same damage as Thunder when you learn it. Then elemental weaknesses will mean something.

Right now AM2s are the only spells that are even as they are all the same level and modifiers.

I did want to point out that Final Fantasy always had spells learned differently.
Look at FF3 for example, Thunder is Tier 3, Aero is Tier 2 (White Magic even), and Fire/Blizzard are Tier 1.

[Windblade]

This is something I don't believe they can "fix" even if it's never made sense. Why? How would they accomodate every Black Mage that already has all of their spells? How will this be fair to the money and time they put into obtaining said spells only to have them massively downgraded and then need 6 extra tier sets to fix their black mages?

They could make these spells automatically learned upon leveling up but that wouldn't fix the "slap in the face" level 90 black mages would get after having to buy or farm their spells all these years. It would also piss off other jobs that would still have to. Especially Blue Mages. On top of this, they would need to rework how spells are obtained (i don't know how little or vastly time consuming this would be as I don't know how they have things coded).

I don't knock the common sense idea that it should've been this way from the start, I am merely pointing out that because it wasn't, it is highly unlikely that it can be now after all these years. You would think they would've fixed this major oversight years ago if they could have. They tried with potency merits but in the end, whatever your highest level spell is, thats where you put the potency, so it didn't work.

The only thing they can (and aren't) do now is to make the 90-99 spell tiers obtained at one specific level but that would break the chain. Though, I wouldn't personally care if they did.

They wouldn't have to be downgraded. They'd just become available at lower levels and become stronger as you level up. So Water IV cast at Lv.90 will not lose any power. You'll just have stronger and stronger water spells. They'll just have to remove the cap on the damage those spells can do so they can grow beyond their relative weakness at the level earned. So it means that with Water XI, it might use a lot of MP, but it would be like having a nice 2-hour ability every time you have enough MP to pull it off. Water XI would be like for emergencies, and the price paid is having to spend time resting MP, but that's how real mages operate, anyway... Use the power you need and use what the necessity calls for, and when you're scared out of your mind. You know how in Lord of the Rings, a wizard can only use so much power, and then he has to rest. That would become the case with mages now under the vision I have of it.

[Windblade]

Damage multipliers correlating to a mob's resistance stat would help with this damage offset (+1% for every -1). I'm also of the mind that it is too late to completely retrofit the nuke system. Either way, a good thunder on a thunder weak mob would still totally decimate a stone a similarly weak resist rate, but without knowing how SE truly handles resist mechanics for mobs, the above may very well be way too much.

They should really set it up so that if you cast Thunder on a Lightning Elemental, it will RESTORE its hit points. If you cast POISON on a mob that thrives on poison, it will cause him to REGEN. That's also how it works in offline FF games. And imagine how easy it would be to skill up on a crab if Water spells cured it. Instead of always fishing a new crab (or whatever is skilled up on now), just keep restoring the HP of the one you have with a water spell.

[Windblade]

...I would support a move to increase the difference between resist rates for different elements at high levels, if SE was inclined to do that, but I don't think the OP's proposal is necessary, or possibly even desirable. There are enough different nukes already and the fact that the tiers are really more like steps on a continuous scale is fine with me.

Well, my way would make spells more predictable and you'd get a more noticeable and satisfying difference when using spells and skillchains you know your monster is weak to.

[Windblade]

GMs always say that, if SE posted something on official site i like to see it because dyna mobs most of them have no affiliation with darkness, if they did you would not be able to aspir them.

Oh yes, aspir is another problem. Aspir rocks in offline Final Fantasy games. You can pull out a significant amount of MP from the monster, but it's relatively weak in FFXI. It would be fun to use a more powerful aspir to really get a good MP refill on your character, and it could be like a game with the monster, too, who might aspir it out of you again. I think it would be fun to see my MP rise and fall like the Babylon Empire.

[Byrth]

Skillchain damage always appears to use the most magically accurate element these days, so you can approximate how much resistance they have relative to Ice (which we assume they don't resist) using Distortion skillchains and a water Obi with water day/weather.

If it always chooses Ice (you never see the day bonus) -> use Water Threnody and repeat
If you still always see Ice (no day bonus) -> Use Katon and Threnody and repeat

By giving yourself bonuses like that, you can determine approximately how much resistance to an element a monster has, or so the theory goes. Wyvern breaths from a 90 Dragoon also work, but it will choose the weakest element overall.

[Byrth]

I'm only talking about magic evasion.

Level two skillchain = two elements of damage

If your target is neutral to one element and resists or absorbs the other element, the skillchain will do the neutral element 100% of the time.

If you use abilities or spells that reduce magic evasion of the "resistant" element, you can potentially overcome the extra magical evasion difference, and switch from one of the elements of a level two skillchain to the other.

You can test this using day bonuses and an appropriate Obi, because Obis force a day bonus onto skillchains 100% of the time of the damage is the appropriate element.

Here is the thread where we used these rules to approximate the priority order for skillchains:
http://www.bluegartr.com/threads/103734-Skillchain-Elemental-Affinity

So wearing Hyorin Obi when closing Darkness skillchains isn't such a bad idea as long as your target isn't resistant to ice or weak to another of the darkness elements. You get an extra +10% damage to your skillchain.

[Rezeak]

I loled when he said ELEVEN tiers

[Byrth]

I was pretty sure people knew this a while ago. I was confused when you quoted ffxiclopedia and it wasn't a part of their formulas, but ffxiclopedia lost the support of many of the testers in the community when they sold out to wikia.

Point is, -%MDT and the 50% elemental resistances shown in this thread and elsewhere are applied in different steps, meaning the wiki formula is likely missing a step between 1 and 5. I think I can limit it down to "between 1 and 4" if I buy a water staff and go nuke a gigas leech on non-day again with 71 INT on a 75 Hume RDM/BLM.

Similarly, Staff bonus and the new "Affinity" terms are separate and not shown in the wiki page. It's just incomplete.

[Byrth]

I honestly can't understand what you post.

The thread I linked was about the elemental order skillchains default to, and we developed a technique in it that can be used to roughly approximate target elemental resistance (elemental Magic Evasion). I linked it because you were complaining (I think) about not having a way to calculate target elemental resistance (elemental Magic Evasion) and decouple it from elemental damage resistance (like Water Damage-50%).

[Byrth]

I don't know if your fire staff started working again. I mostly focused on the Dark skillchain side of things, because that's the easiest for me to make as Dancer and I had a lot of the Obis already.

There was a patch many moons ago where SE patched skillchain damage to be "more accurate" without giving any description as to how. My theory is that they made it default to the lowest resistance element. It obviously doesn't just default to the highest damage element, as wearing an Anrin Obi on Darksday and making Darkness on a neutral monster doesn't result in 110% damage every time.

If you cast Dark Threnody on the same neutral monster on Darksday and make Dark skillchain with Anrin Obi on, you get the day bonus 100% of the time. This indicates to me that it's dependent on some elemental magic evasion check.

I've attempted to understand what you're typing, but it isn't coherent and I don't sense that the information content is high enough that I should bother to sort out what you're saying. There are plenty of smart people around that can write coherently, so I'd prefer to talk to them about the same issues. If you want to be understood, write in a way that's understandable. I'd like to include you in debates on magic stuff, because you seem to be perfectly willing to do testing and have some grasp of the equations, but if you can't communicate with your peers then it isn't worth the effort.

[Rambus]

I really wished there was a PM feture, but if i am only going to be used as a joke target on BG I am not giving information anymore, this is why I hate doing it in the first place, like I said what you are talking about on there i knew 4-7 years ago, I just did not know how to get it out there without being attacked.

SC threads > no one cares
damage threads> you are wrong sorcs mitts are 7 mab , etc etc

I am not understood if people are not lazy. it is numbers it is not hard.

still though it looks like the stuff we talked about is pushing them into a direction that i am sure i will not get credit for so w/e, dont care anymore.

[SNK]

I really wished there was a PM feture, but if i am only going to be used as a joke target on BG I am not giving information anymore, this is why I hate doing it in the first place, like I said what you are talking about on there i knew 4-7 years ago, I just did not know how to get it out there without being attacked.

Have you ever thought that's it's strange that a lot of people seem to be targetting you so much? The only reason people on BG, Alla, and FFXIAH attack you so much is because you've asked for it.

No really you do keep asking for it. >_>

A lot of the time people target you is because you're either spreading misinformation or you're completely wrong about something a lot of the time. Even when you're proven wrong you still hold to your guns and won't back down and give anyone credit for telling you how it is.

If you'd just relax and stop crying about stuff *I.e. hitting the Report Post Button*, you might realize that maybe, just maybe you might not be right all the time like you feel you are.

This is about as harsh as I can be about this but a huge majority of drama stirred up here is either because of posts by you, Starcade or a few others that just end up making all of you easy targets when you can't back down when you've been proven wrong. :(

[TybudX]

Not that I want to defend Rambus, but there was a lot of stuff he posted on KI years ago that I thought would be common sense by now, but has only become accepted lately. His meddling and attempts at social engineering make him hard to deal with, but for the most part his math is spot on. He's like the anti-pchan... one is completely left, the other completely right.

[Rambus]

Not that I want to defend Rambus, but there was a lot of stuff he posted on KI years ago that I thought would be common sense by now, but has only become accepted lately. His meddling and attempts at social engineering make him hard to deal with, but for the most part his math is spot on. He's like the anti-pchan... one is completely left, the other completely right.

I had orders wrong but I have no one to bounce ideas from. Because of that i never perused them due to lack of caring. I knew it was possible to find the orders for them due to the drop decimals. you can say i had the foundations built for a lot of things but never got to finish.

I have discovered how MB bonus of AM II work, other MB bonuses like sorcs hands, AM II base, V spells (stone V, and Tim for them), helix, the 50% def in mobs, and sc theories before anyone else though. (to my knowledge, and the postings on BG seem to reinforce this, i made V spell threads before it was put on wiki). I even went on BG myself once to correct how helix worked. (though i was wrong about some aspects in how DoT works of helix after update)

I even tried to state such things on alla/ ki after I discovered them ( like the 50% damage in mobs on 2005 on alla, to see someone link me been first documented in 2009 in bg)

[Byrth]

I even tried to state such things on alla/ ki after I discovered them ( like the 50% damage in mobs on 2005 on alla, to see someone link me been first documented in 2009 in bg)

This wasn't the first documentation. This was someone's mage mule showing that 50% resists on damage were now a 50% decrease in duration, and then a bunch of people going, "Holy shit, damage is reduced by 50% all the time!" because they didn't know how nuking works.

Any serious mage knew about the 50% species damage reduction a long time before 2009, just as you did.

[Rambus]

This wasn't the first documentation. This was someone's mage mule showing that 50% resists on damage were now a 50% decrease in duration, and then a bunch of people going, "Holy shit, damage is reduced by 50% all the time!" because they didn't know how nuking works.

Any serious mage knew about the 50% species damage reduction a long time before 2009, just as you did.

eeek linked me one of the most serous mags i know of. Eeek would not of been auguring with me if it was that well known. in fact Kaeko was the person that corrected me on the helix dot after update.

what about you? "i do not think it is 50% exactly because i get 32 and 34 on a mob"

I told you it was from order of operation situation, hence wiki quote, then you started on skillchains.

I do not know if you where trying to "test" me or what...

[Byrth]

I knew it was an order of operations issue and worked out the order that was necessary, assuming the 50% resistance, based on my 32->34 example. You kept posting stuff about the order though, so I posted something else I thought you were talking about.

I basically don't understand what you're saying much of the time, and I suspect that you don't understand what I'm saying much of the time, so I don't know what to do.

[HFX7686]

I think this is a bad idea. I like how SE has more or less followed the Final Fantasy spell pattern from the first FF game to this game. The elemental spells work just fine. There's no reason to change them. It seems to me that changing them would be a waste of SE's resources and cost time and money. I'd much rather have the brilliant minds at SE working on new and interesting content rather than changing things that do not need to be changed.

[Zyeriis]

Aside from the fact that I agree that this idea simply wouldn't work. "Cost time and money" makes little sense, it's not like they get paid per update/enhancement to the game. They get paid hourly or are on a salary (cannot confirm which), they don't get paid per job. Which, frankly, they seem reluctant to do some times.

[Windblade]

I think this is a bad idea. I like how SE has more or less followed the Final Fantasy spell pattern from the first FF game to this game. The elemental spells work just fine. There's no reason to change them. It seems to me that changing them would be a waste of SE's resources and cost time and money. I'd much rather have the brilliant minds at SE working on new and interesting content rather than changing things that do not need to be changed.

No, FFXI breaks the pattern. In the offline games, Fire 1, Lightning 1 and Ice 1 were all on the same level, as I recall.