A question about Dia and Bio, and how they relate to monsters using TP skills

[Trisscar]

So here I am camping Khimeria to learn Tourbillion when a link shell member suggested that I should have used Red Mage as a support job for access to Dia and Bio, which encourages mobs to use TP moves. In all honesty it's not the first time I've heard this particular tactic.

I tried pulling up information on it and the various wiki had a lot to say about what over rides what and an approximate value (which I don't take at face value) how much defense down Dia has, and so on.

Nothing about it causing monsters to use the TP moves being an actual thing instead of a myth like the belief that the moon phases have a measurable effect on drop rates.

So is this an actual thing?

[Arcon]

Every time you hit a mob, it gains TP, similar to when a mob hits you. The same thing applies to magic, if you get hit with a magical attack, you gain TP, and the same thing goes for mobs. Since Dia and Bio deal very little damage but feed the mob TP, they're often used to give it more TP to make it use TP moves more quickly. The same would work with Stone or Water for example, so it's not a special property of Dia or Bio, they're just used because of their low cast/recast/MP.

[Trisscar]

Oh cool, thanks. I always thought it was hitting the mob with physical damage that feeds TP.

[Babekeke]

Personally, I use a rounsey wand, but low level spells, as long as they do 1+ damage feed TP.

Another tip, is not to wear any subtle blow gear, and if you can get away with it, don't sub nin or dnc either (or mnk, but I can't see a reason for that).

[Arcon]

Personally, I use a rounsey wand, but low level spells, as long as they do 1+ damage feed TP.

Sometimes physical damage in particular is an issue, for example during the Amphitrite fight.

[Dragonlord]

To give more detail on the dia/bio tactic, any direct magic damage hit gives 10 tp before being applied to subtle blow. When dia has an initial hit of 0, it won't give any tp, which is why you'll want low nukes/bio on tougher targets. Also, blu spells give 10 tp per hit of the spell before subtle blow is applied.

In short, if you cast 10 hits on a mob without any subtle blow (i'm not sure if the dAGI tp decrease applies to nukes tbh) the mob will have enough TP to use a move.

Also mobs use tp in tiers above 50% hp they use tp whenever they want to over 100%. Can be at 100%, or they can sit on it at 300%. 25%-50% they use tp more frequently between 100-300%. And <25%, they'll spam tp moves when they are able to.

[Trisscar]

So things like Dia, bio, and poison give the mob a meditate effect?

[Dragonlord]

So things like Dia, bio, and poison give the mob a meditate effect?

No, only initial damage does it, so poison won't give tp. But dia/bio will upon the initial cast doing >0 damage.

[Mayoyama]

No, only initial damage does it, so poison won't give tp. But dia/bio will upon the initial cast doing >0 damage.

What dragon is trying to say is that any spell needs to deal at least 1 dmg in order to it to give the enemy TP, as in
"X casts Dia on Monster" -> "Monster takes 1 damage"

In the situation where dia/bio/etc does 0 dmg, it wont give tp (but the mob will still be affected by the DoT damage); and since posion does not do any initial damage (only DoT) it also will not feed TP to the enemy.

As for the order in which bio and dia override each other...

Dia<Bio<Dia 2<Bio 2<Dia 3<Bio 3

So dia 2 can override bio, but cannot override bio 2 (as bio 2 is higher on the chain).

All too often I see (mainly new) BLUs stand and spam dia over and over with the spell dealing 0 dmg and getting angry the mob isnt reacting ):