Soothsayer Staff -- Working as intended?

[RushLynx]

So earlier today I got a Soothsayer Staff and upgraded it to rank 9, for a total of +62 MAB and +17 INT... To my disappointment, however, it doesn't beat my magian staves... somehow...

I've looked around a bunch and there are lots of people that seem to have made similar discoveries, mentioning that the multipliers between the two are different and having a specific amount of MAB in gear will be multiplied by the magic affinity on the magian staff, and create a situation where magian wins... I could understand that, but I don't have as much MAB in gear as they're saying it would require... I chose to focus on Conserve MP, m.acc., and INT for my BLM's gear...

I went to abyssea and played around for an hour or so, thinking maybe there's some sort of MAB cap that no one has recognized before (ignoring the supposition that primeval brews add 900 MAB, many have supposed that using a brew allows certain caps to be surpassed anyway...)... I used different combinations of Ultimate (+50MAB), Beyond (+60MAB), and Hells Guardian (+50MAB) atmas, only casting ice spells and using shore spiders the whole time (supposedly they have low ice resistance) and found that the numbers just don't add up...
With no gear swaps (using soothsayer) and +100 MAB from atmas i was doing ~4400 dmg... with +110 MAB that went to ~5500 dmg... with +160 MAB it only went to ~6000 dmg...
Keeping atmas constant (at +160 MAB) and switching between the two staves, magian staff always won very slightly... (usually by about 100 dmg...)

Before anyone suggests it: No, there were no day/weather conflicts with any of these trials... yes, I did several trails to make sure there were no set procs or resists happening...

There's something very odd going on with Soothsayer Staff, and I'm wondering if anyone knows what that is exactly...

Can someone official confirm that this staff is working properly?

[Zagen]

This isn't an official response but it should help you out.

Magic Attack Bonus and Magic Affinity are 2 separate values and they are applied at different stages of calculating magic damage. Atma of the Beyond gives Magic Attack Bonus +30 and Ice Magic Affinity +30 (equivalent to Damage affinity +5 on TotM staves).

Because they are separate as well as the fact a BLM has no Magic Affinity damage bonus naturally adding Magic Affinity has a greater impact on damage.

Hopefully that helps if you'd like a more detailed break down one can be found here: http://wiki.bluegartr.com/bg/Magic_Damage

[Chimerawizard]

Not an official response either, but I made a spreadsheet on google drive that calculates magic dmg.
It doesn't include ebulliance or magic burst but I think I got everything else in there to work.
easy mob (70 int) (normal mob 100 int) (tough mob 130 int). on the 2nd tab there's a method for approximating enemy int & mdb (really mdb&mdt combined).

If you look at Kaustra or Meteor on the right side, they will get better dmg w/ soothsayer easily. Helix's and many low tier nukes will too.

Oh, right. My calculator doesn't change the formula for extreme dINT terms. Only the formula used when dINT has not hit the inflection point is used, so if you enter say, stone & a dINT is 60, the dmg listed and actual dmg will be greatly off since I didn't get that far into writing it yet.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/...FE&usp=sharing

I'll try to collaborate with some friends who know programing to make a live webpage when the new magic dmg formula has been determined & include everything.

EDIT: added Magic Burst & Magic Burst Bonus to the calculator.

[RushLynx]

Not an official response either, but I made a spreadsheet on google drive that calculates magic dmg.
It doesn't include ebulliance or magic burst but I think I got everything else in there to work.
easy mob (70 int) (normal mob 100 int) (tough mob 130 int). on the 2nd tab there's a method for approximating enemy int & mdb (really mdb&mdt combined).

If you look at Kaustra or Meteor on the right side, they will get better dmg w/ soothsayer easily. Helix's and many low tier nukes will too.

Oh, right. My calculator doesn't change the formula for extreme dINT terms. Only the formula used when dINT has not hit the inflection point is used, so if you enter say, stone & a dINT is 60, the dmg listed and actual dmg will be greatly off since I didn't get that far into writing it yet.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/...FE&usp=sharing

I'll try to collaborate with some friends who know programing to make a live webpage when the new magic dmg formula has been determined & include everything.

I was actually looking for something like this the other day when I was getting puzzling results from my experimentation... no one really has a functioning program or spreadsheet for calculating these sorts of things...

As you've noticed, it's pretty much impossible to account for everything server-side... mob stats, including MND, INT, MDB, etc. are difficult to know... and as far as I know, no one has determined all of these factors for a specific mob, otherwise it would be nice to have a standardized go-to mob to do tests on.

I was planning on doing a more formalized test of my findings between magian and soothsayer staves this weekend, but I'm overburdened with other work at the moment and won't be able to... at least not this weekend. The other thing is, with the elemental magic updates on the horizon, all of the data will be obsolete to some extent...

I didn't mention it in the original post, but I just wanted to note that it's really bizare how (if the staff is working properly) they decided to make Soothsayer Staff the only delve weapon that didn't blow all previous weapons (magian included) out of the water... I realize that there are benefits to Soothsayer even if magians beat it slightly damage wise... (TP gained from nukes, Comet and Meteor damage, etc.) but magian staves should still be the favored staves for the casting reductions if nothing else... When the new elemental magic updates hit, cumulative magic effects are going to be crazy powerful for NMs what with the casting time and recast reductions, and BLMs are going to find a great deal of value in pumping as much cast/recast reductions into their equipment...

[Raksha]

Which job were you? BLM? Using any of those atmas along with the native 40 MAB that BLM has, would put you close to the amount of MAB that would make magians win over soothsayer.

A better test would be to nuke things outside of abyssea.

[RushLynx]

Which job were you? BLM? Using any of those atmas along with the native 40 MAB that BLM has, would put you close to the amount of MAB that would make magians win over soothsayer.

A better test would be to nuke things outside of abyssea.

I used it against mobs outside of abyssea first... like crabs in valkurm... magian still won by a few damage every time...

I was gonna try mobs in adoulin today but I haven't had a chance to... I'm guessing it doesn't really make a difference unless, maybe, the mob has a considerable MDB modifier... To that end it would probably be worth the time to go find something that can put shell on itself...

[Zagen]

I used it against mobs outside of abyssea first... like crabs in valkurm... magian still won by a few damage every time...

I was gonna try mobs in adoulin today but I haven't had a chance to... I'm guessing it doesn't really make a difference unless, maybe, the mob has a considerable MDB modifier... To that end it would probably be worth the time to go find something that can put shell on itself...

If you're testing on BLM you're likely never going to see Soothsayer pull ahead without skewing the tests in it's favor. Magic Pots or PLDs who cast Shell IV for example will likely have Soothsayer pulling ahead.

It even at Rank 15 doesn't have enough MAB to beat TotM staves. It depends on the target but you'd need in the ball park of 100-110 MAB to beat TotM staves. As I said Magic Affinity is it's own step in the formula and because a BLM gets 0 Affinity traits it will usually make a much larger impact. Once the formula gets it's final changes this might change.

[Demon6324236]

Yeah, with INT having more of an impact(if it does, I honestly do not understand all that they mean with those updates as I have never looked into and focused on nuking formulas) then it would have a better chance with the 20INT on it in the end as well.

[Jerbob]

To be honest I think this is just one of the many indications that SE really doesn't have a clue how spellcasting jobs work. Even when they actively try to make a useful weapon (eg Laevateinn) they fail spectacularly.

[Demon6324236]

I would not say spell casting, but rather nuking. They seem to have problems understanding their own equations make it so that a % increase from affinity will almost always beat out a single large boost in MAB no matter how large it really is. Right now we have a potentially 65MAB staff with 20INT on it and we are still talking about how Magian Trial Staffs beat it in some cases, that, is in and of itself, messed up. At the same time, they seem to refuse any ideas of adding simple affinity enhancements to these as well. I assure you, if instead of 10MND at level 75 it had 5 Affinity to all elements, it would top every BLM's to do list in an instant, and would instantly be the best possible staff ever for nuking. It would be broken to all hell too, but that's standard for Delve weapons anyways. Without something like affinity, weapons will always have a hard time really overcoming the high % bonus we get from magian weapons.