Holy II gear

[Dekar]

I know it's not exactly something most PLDs are going to worry about, but I was wondering what would be the ideal set up for Divine Emblem Holy II? Assume that the PLD is locked to whatever shield and sword they already have. I'm wondering how much Divine Skill does one need to out weigh magic attack bonus? An example would be the Corselet (7 MAB/MACC) vs the Gallant Body +1 (8 Divine skill).

Thanks in advance!

[Neisan_Quetz]

Unless I'm missing something Skill only affects resists for White Magic Nukes and there is virtually no difference between magic accuracy and skill of the same amount, so the corselet would be better.

[Dekar]

I'm pretty sure that Divine magic skill increases the damage of divine nukes while Divine Emblem is in effect. And since I didn't say it enough in the last sentence: divine! I doubt it's going to outdo it but I'm not sure!

[Greatguardian]

Takes about 10 minutes to check if anyone wants to. Divine Emblem banish 2 some level 0 bunny, wait for cooldown, add Divine Magic Skill, repeat and look for damage difference.

[Arcon]

Takes about 10 minutes to check if anyone wants to. Divine Emblem banish 2 some level 0 bunny, wait for cooldown, add Divine Magic Skill, repeat and look for damage difference.

Without, Holy for 288, with Holy for 1252. Just in case anyone wants numbers.

[Economizer]

I'll answer someone's question by taking them horribly and deliberately out of context.

I'm missing something

Of course, the Magic Attack Bonus still might be better... but you'd have to math it out and see. The core to this is the fact that he is going to be using Divine Emblem which throws all of our base assumptions out of the window.

Before we go onward to what the best gear would be, we'll want to understand what Divine Emblem does. Shamelessly ripped from one of the community websites:

• Increases the Enmity of the next Divine Magic cast by 50%.
  This does not contribute to the 100 Enmity gear cap and stacks with it.
• Gives a damage bonus (multiplier) to Holy and Banish spells.
  This is equal to: Damage = floor(Normal Damage×Divine Magic Skill÷100)
• Additionally, gives Holy II a 20~25 second Amnesia additional effect when cast on Undead monsters.

So something to keep in mind is that Divine Emblem is also an Enmity tool. So depending on how much damage and how much enmity you want you may find that wearing enmity gear instead will be more preferable, especially if you've popped job abilities that also boost enmity.

But the other thing we get is that Divine Magic Skill becomes insanely good, functioning like a super affinity bonus. However magic damage calculation includes a ton of numbers so you'll still want to be mindful of stuff like MND and MAB.

I'm not really feeling the math for magic damage calculations, however looking at the formula we have you can tell that every point of Divine Magic is roughly 1% more damage. For example, if you merited out Divine Magic that would mean you'd get about 16% more damage for your Divine Emblem nuke.

• Base
  B+ - 404 Divine Magic
• Merits
  +16 Divine Magic
• Support Job
  Red Mage - Magic Attack Bonus II (+24 MAB)
• Main
  Honorbound - +7 Divine Magic
  Hauteclaire - +8 Divine Magic
  Shikargar - MAB +11
  Apollo's Staff - +15% Light Elemental Damage
• Sub
  Shield - X
  Divinus Grip - +3 Divine Magic
• Head
  Ree's Headgear - MAB +2
• Neck
  Divine Torque - +7 Divine Magic
  Genesis Locket - MAB +5 Increases magic critical hit damage
  Stoicheion Medal - mACC +2 MAB +8
• Ear
  Divine Earring - +3 Divine Magic
  Knight's Earring - +5 Divine Magic
  Hecate's Earring MAB +6 Magic critical hit rate +3%
  Novio Earring - MAB +7
• Body
  Gallant Surcoat +1 - +8 Divine Magic
  Corselet +1 - mACC +9 MAB +9
• Hands
  Paragon Moufles - Augment: Divine Magic +1~5
  Toad Mittens - MAB +3
• Back
  Altruistic Cape - +5 Divine Magic
• Waist
  Bishop's Sash - +5 Divine Magic
  Korin Obi - 10% bonus during Lightsday/Weather (25% double weather, 35% double weather and day)
• Legs
  Nimue's Tights - MAB +4
• Feet
  Creed Sabatons +2 - Enhances "Divine Emblem" effect (reported to be magic accuracy, duration and enmity gain).
  Templar Sabatons - Divine Magic +5 MAB +2

Note that this list can be incomplete due to the addition of augmented gear. There may be a piece of gear I missed due to it being an augmented item, particularly abjuration armors.

[Arcon]

I'm not really feeling the math for magic damage calculations, however looking at the formula we have you can tell that every point of Divine Magic is roughly 1% more damage. For example, if you merited out Divine Magic that would mean you'd get about 16% more damage for your Divine Emblem nuke.

While that statement is technically true, it is a bit misleading. One skill will not add 1% to their current DE nuke damage, but 1% of their normal (non-DE) nuke damage. So if you have 400 Divine Magic skill on PLD, 16 more will only increase the total damage by 4% compared to an unmerited nuke.

Each MAB, on the other hand, will add roughly add 1% of your current DE damage to your nuke (assuming a MDB neutral mob and 0 native MAB). It's a simple matter of diminishing returns, which are quite high if you consider that your base is already at 400 (PLD's Divine skill caps at 404). So the approximation of 1% damage per 4 Skill is accurate enough for these calculations, or to dumb it down further: 4 Skill = 1 MAB.

[Economizer]

While that statement is technically true, it is a bit misleading.

Yeah, I think I probably should have explained a bit better, considering Divine Emblem nukes do like 400% damage, which isn't really out of 100. On top of that I didn't consider that the Magic Attack Bonus is being multiplied which would lead to your numbers. Of course it is still a rule of thumb type observation so mileage will still vary, but I think that would be correct in most situations.

[Martel]

A few thoughts.

First, PLD can't wear twilight cape, sadly.

Second, I'm quite surprised to see pretty much no MND gear on that list. MND has a decent effect on Holy/II. For Holy one, MND to DMG was one for one. Holy II gets 2 base DMG per 1 MND. Now, that's not huge or anything, but this is BASE dmg. So those gains get modified by your 400+ divine skill with divine emblem. Not to mention whatever MAB you have.

This is Not to say MND > all, or anything. But in most cases it will beat out similar amounts of Divine skill. And at times MAB, when the MND value is significantly higher.

As a general rule, I'd go MAB>MND>SKILL. With some exceptions.

A few suggestions for gear.

Twilight helm. I'm quite certain the 10 MND will beat 2 MAB under DE, and really, you'd carry Twilight anyway. Great ws gear.

Twilight mail. I know from testing it myself that Twilight will beat Gallant +1. I dunno about the corselet+1. 9 MAB would probably win, but, well.. I don't wanna buy one, much less carry it when I already carry Twilight.

Valor Gauntlets +2. I'm quite certain the 8 MND is better than 5 skill or 3 MAB. And they're good enmity/Requiescat hands.

Korin(when applicable)>Cascade>Bishop's.

[Dekar]

What wonderful replies! Thank you all for your answers and help! I hope this thread can be equally helpful for other PLDs hoping to push their damage just a little higher!