So why do we have the worst Espells?

[Vicious]

Thesis : When single-wielding, Enspell II damage > Enspell I damage.

-Obviously, if you are dual-wielding, Enspell I damage is going to win every time, no contest.
-If you are dual-wielding, you are using /NIN or maybe /DNC.
-If you are using /NIN, you are either solo, or using DW3 to maximize your melee DoT.
-If you are attempting to maximize your melee DoT, you are minimizing your casting to the absolute bare essentials.
-If you are minimizing your casting as such, there's really no reason you shouldn't be on another job for better results.
-Even if you insist on playing RDM in this role, one must admit that a RDM that is attempting to cast the fewest spells possible really isn't contributing anything to the party beyond damage, which is better facilitated by other jobs, and therefore it is silly to be upset with other players for not choosing said RDM over another melee job.
-Therefore, the only time RDM is truly useful in today's metagame is when playing a true combat-caster role; meleeing when possible, but providing support to the party via Healing, Enhancing, and Enfeebling magic.
-In order to facilitate this role, /SCH and /WHM tend to be the best choices, which prevent the use of Dual-Wield.
-So, logic concludes that maximizing one's damage while single-wielding should be the RDM's goal in today's game.

On to gear:

xxx/Colossus's/Augmenting/xxx
Duelist+2/Duelist+2/xxx/xxx
Estoqueur/Olympus/Portent/Estoqueur+2

Enhancing 404 + 16 = 420 base skill, 26 base damage on both enspell tiers; casting Enspell I with +84 in gear gives you 30 damage per strike.

Melee gear:

Brisk or Brego/Portus/Suppa/Brutal
Shedir/Dusk+1/Rajas/Ambuscade
Atheling/Phasmida/Calmecac/Eurus

26% Haste, 17% DA, 2% TA ; add Temper @ 500 skill for 37% DA, 2% TA, which gives you 1.37 attacks per round.

Let's assume Almace for our purposes: delay 224. Let's say 58 delay ~ 1 second for this weapon.

Both Enspells are cast with Composure and Enhancing duration + gear, giving a duration of 702 seconds.

And now, math!

-Delay 224 weapon with 40% haste becomes 134, which works out to 2.3 seconds per attack round, which gives you about 305 attack rounds for the duration of either spell.

-Enspell II will require 26 rounds to reach full potential of 52 damage per round. Enspell II will deal 1053 damage over those 26 rounds, while Enspell I will deal... 1068 damage over this period as well (30 damage * 26 rounds * 1.37 attacks per round).

-279 attack rounds remain for the duration, so simple math shows us that Enspell I will deal 11,466 damage (30 damage * 279 rounds * 1.37 attacks per round), while Enspell II will deal 14,508 damage (52 damage * 279 rounds).

-This brings our grand total to 12,534 damage for Enspell I, and 15,561 damage for Enspell II. Enspell II will result in 24% more damage.

Now, let's discuss the other variables involved and how they would influence these numbers:

-As is clearly obvious by the above arithmetic, you need 1.73 hits per round for Enspell I to overtake Enspell II for damage; guaranteed while dual-wielding, essentially impossible while single-wielding.

-Casting load is going to be the same regardless, so it is not a variable in this case.

-We are assuming that Enspell I and II have the same accuracy in this case; there is no evidence to suggest magic accuracy for Enspell II varies beyond initial casting, but even if it does, the difference in skill is too small to make more than a negligible difference vs. anything RDM should be meleeing.

-Sambas do proc on double/triple attacks, even with Enspell II active, giving Enspell II an even larger advantage if a DNC or /DNC is present.

~~~~~

There, mathematical proof of my thesis. Anyone care to attempt an intelligent rebuttal, or are we going to stick to the usual "You're stupid, you don't play RDM, I melee'd Aura Statues in 2005" retorts?

[Sunrider]

Sooo what about multi-hit weapons?

And Temper?

And Double/Triple Attack traits? I didn't see any of those mentioned.

[Vicious]

-Multi-hit weapons are universally garbage.

-Temper is factored into the above numbers.

-10 DA from /WAR is not going to increase your attacks per round from 1.37 to 1.73.

[Doombringer]

Thesis : When single-wielding, Enspell II damage > Enspell I damage.

-Obviously, if you are dual-wielding, Enspell I damage is going to win every time, no contest.
-If you are dual-wielding, you are using /NIN or maybe /DNC.
-If you are using /NIN, you are either solo, or using DW3 to maximize your melee DoT.
-If you are attempting to maximize your melee DoT, you are minimizing your casting to the absolute bare essentials.
-If you are minimizing your casting as such, there's really no reason you shouldn't be on another job for better results.
-Even if you insist on playing RDM in this role, one must admit that a RDM that is attempting to cast the fewest spells possible really isn't contributing anything to the party beyond damage, which is better facilitated by other jobs, and therefore it is silly to be upset with other players for not choosing said RDM over another melee job.
-Therefore, the only time RDM is truly useful in today's metagame is when playing a true combat-caster role; meleeing when possible, but providing support to the party via Healing, Enhancing, and Enfeebling magic.
-In order to facilitate this role, /SCH and /WHM tend to be the best choices, which prevent the use of Dual-Wield.
-So, logic concludes that maximizing one's damage while single-wielding should be the RDM's goal in today's game.

I tackled this 2 pages ago. And I feel like it's the REAL point of this discussion. I wish I had more to add but I already said my piece on it... 2 pages ago.

-We are assuming that Enspell I and II have the same accuracy in this case; there is no evidence to suggest magic accuracy for Enspell II varies beyond initial casting.

Except for observation, and the fact that we know it calculates damage on strike, and that enspells use enhancing skill for accuracy as well. So when you KNOW for a fact that the damage is calculated on strike, and you can SEE it getting resisted more often, it's not a huge leap to also assume it's recalculating accuracy on strike as well. leaving you with about -80 skill worth of acc. Ignore that at your own risk.

There, mathematical proof of my thesis. Anyone care to attempt an intelligent rebuttal, or are we going to stick to the usual "You're stupid, you don't play RDM, I melee'd Aura Statues in 2005" retorts?

Happy now? Because I think I've been having a respectful discussion here this whole time, (at least as respectful as you're gonna get on the internet) or is it just more fun to play the martyr?

[Vicious]

-I also tackled it '2 pages ago,' I simply felt it was worth restating my entire line of thought for context.

-Whose observation are we basing this on, the RDMs on this forum who've been screaming that Enspell IIs are total garbage, worthless, worse than Enspell I? I'm going to stick with my parser, thanks. However, for the sake of argument, lets factor in resists and do some calculations, shall we? I'm going to stick to 1/2 resists only for the sake of napkin math:

Enspell I damage : 12,534 damage
Enspell I damage at capped magic accuracy (95%) : 12,221 damage

Now, let's solve for Enspell II magic accuracy to equal Enspell I damage:

Enspell II damage : 14,508 damage

Solve for x = magic accuracy

(305*52x)+[305*26(1-x)] = 12,221
15860x + [7930(1-x)] = 12,221
x= .54

Given that 1/4 resists and lower are going to drive the results slightly lower, I'm comfortable bumping this result up a few notches to 56%

Highest magic accuracy possible on Enspell II for Enspell I to break even = ~56%

Granted, there hasn't been any conclusive testing on the subject, but the notion that 80 Enhancing skill is going to make a 39% difference in magic accuracy is pretty ridiculous. I can tell you that in every event I've brought RDM to be useful and melee(read: not Legion, NNI), I've never parsed less then ~80% magic accuracy on my Enspell IIs. Then again, I'm sure you guys are gonna believe whatever you want to believe regardless of math or facts.

Also, how can you posit that "if damage is determined upon strike, then so must accuracy" when half this thread has been spent bitching how ridiculous it is that Enspell 2 are (seemingly) worse than Enspell I, on account of there being a 'II' in the name of the spell? I've gotta say, that's some Romney-tier flip-flopping, bravo.

~~~~~

Happy now? Because I think I've been having a respectful discussion here this whole time, (at least as respectful as you're gonna get on the internet) or is it just more fun to play the martyr?

That was largely directed at Carth, not you, so you tell me; is it fun playing the martyr? /eyeroll

[Carth]

I have to say this is hilarious.

I looked over the math myself and calculated the delay, as well as TA/DA added on together. There's some nitpick mistakes such as there's 312 attacks total instead of 305, attack average is 1.40 instead of 1.37, Delay is 2.25 seconds instead of 2.3 seconds. However, I call that nitpicking because I came very close to the same number Vicious got (1.238; ~24% rounded up). I have not decided to go into resist rates as it's beyond me at the moment, and it doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things.

So bravo, Vicious, you proved that Enspell II is better for Single Wielding.

[ManaKing]

So....Dual Wield with /NIN and Enspell 1s is still better and you're still not contributing to a discussion about why we have the worst Enspells in the game.

Stay on task. No one is interested in discussing why a RDM should be

second-classing yourself before you even leave your MH.

If you really don't want to contribute to that discussion, then you don't have to post. Any logic that dictates the use of Enspell 2s over Enspell 1s because it's improper for a RDM to dual wield has absolutely no bearing. Plenty of RDMs can and do use Dual Wield because it contributes a meaningful increase to their total damage. RDMs have received such poorly planned buffs to their native job that the best way to increase their power is to look outside of their native job for the best possible damage solution. Until you can find legitimate damage calculations for how Enspell 2s single wield > Enspell 1s dual wield, there is no reason for you to waste your breath on that subject, since it would be off topic.

I'm sure the notion is not lost on you that we are all playing a video game. And in that video game, we are given the decision of which jobs we play. You point out that a dual wield RDM is a second-class job, but the rest of us are aware that RDM is a second-class job in its entirety. There is no proper way to play RDM that is mathematically more significant than any other job in the game that is designed to do what a RDM is doing. For those of us that continue to play a broken and outdated job that has no perceivable future, we like to ask questions, like 'Why do we have the worst Enspells in the game?' because we would honestly like someone that can contribute to that subject either as a forum poster or game dev representative that is good enough to satisfy us.

Why is it acceptable for RDM, much less any job, to be weaker than other jobs? People that play those jobs pay just as much money for their monthly services and it's not unrealistic for us to want to have just as many nice things as other people. Video games are about escapism and having fun in a world that was designed to be fun. Why would you want to intentionally make people not have fun by neglecting the things they enjoy about your game? The best answer I have is that devs just don't understand what makes some of their jobs fun and meaningful. RDM is pretty fun, even though it is sub par, but it would be significantly more fun if it were up to snuff. The game has, in many ways, devolved into a damage race between DDs with very little else valued because of a broken hate system and foolish NMs that lack intelligent design. Why not give jobs the ability to survive in harsher conditions instead of making a handful of jobs good and the rest of them barely hobbies?

'Why can't RDM be played seriously and significantly?' is at the back of every forum post in the RDM forums and it's getting rather old that devs don't seem to understand why we are so adamant that we need to be buffed into something that actually looks like a job in a Final Fantasy game.

[Mageoholic]

Enspell II are designed to be used in situations where you are meleeing and casting in roughly equal amounts. The damage increases with each swing to encourage you to keep swinging; the maximum damage is set higher to compensate for lost damage while casting; it only applies to the first swing to prevent them from being used purely for the damage; the magic evasion reduction is there to increase the accuracy of your spells since you're not using a staff; the damage is calculated each swing instead of at cast because... nope, I got nothing.

In other words, the reason you don't like Enspell II is because it does not fit your playstyle, not because they are terrible; they could use some work though, I'll be the first to admit.

The only use Enspell IIs possibly have is DNC or /DNC being present and gaining access to Haste Samba, or in situations where Genbus shield is nice to have to reduce AoE physical or direct physical in solo situations. That is it.

Otherwise the spells are garbage. Even in periods of casting. Losing an attack round is not made up by the damage in the next attack round, it is gone regardless. If I cast with an EN2 and the cast haste on someone, I miss an attack round, for sake of argument lets say I lose 50DMG from my sword, and 50DMG from my enspell. My next attack after the Haste is 50 damage for my sword, 51 damage for my enspell.

1 damage gained from casting a spell. 1/100 = 1%. 1% of my damage returned from my missed attack round.

They need to be fixed in some way. Personally id rather see debuffs attached to them that slowly increase in value the more you hit. Something like the Elemental Debuffs that target mobs stats. Instead of decreasing though they increase until at max level.

EnfireII INT
EnBlizzard AGI
Enaero VIT
Enthunder MND
Enwater STR
enStone DEX

Progress from 1-25 and remain capped until the spell is recast, or falls off.


But focusing on increasing the damage, please. No one is going to bring a RDM for damage, unless we start swinging Blizzard 4's at the enemy for 7.5 minutes.

[Mageoholic]

So any option your not taking here your failing for. I can not think of any slot you could ever put Enhancing Magic in without losing out on something, and most of the time from relatively easy gear to get.

Hollow Earring is about it, and outside of Abyssea (where enspells represent a larger portion of damage done) it actually competes very well with Brutal Earring. At 75 It was slightly ahead overall in total damage done. I would imagine the same holds true today, with the diminishing value of DA as a % of total damage.

[Vicious]

So....Dual Wield with /NIN and Enspell 1s is still better and you're still not contributing to a discussion about why we have the worst Enspells in the game.

Stay on task. No one is interested in discussing why a RDM should be


If you really don't want to contribute to that discussion, then you don't have to post. Any logic that dictates the use of Enspell 2s over Enspell 1s because it's improper for a RDM to dual wield has absolutely no bearing. Plenty of RDMs can and do use Dual Wield because it contributes a meaningful increase to their total damage. RDMs have received such poorly planned buffs to their native job that the best way to increase their power is to look outside of their native job for the best possible damage solution. Until you can find legitimate damage calculations for how Enspell 2s single wield > Enspell 1s dual wield, there is no reason for you to waste your breath on that subject, since it would be off topic.

I'm sorry, where was the discussion about RDM having the worst enspells in the game? I was under the impression that this was simply yet another thread where the usual suspects congregate and moan about how horrible RDM is, mostly due to their collective cluelessness about such things as game mechanics and balance and confusing the shining ideal of the Red Mage in their minds with what is actually possible in the confines of a MMORPG.

But hey, I don't wanna be that guy that rambles off topic, so here you go: RDM does not have the worst enspells in the game; that honor belongs to DRK and Endark, by a loooooooong mile.

Before anyone makes the mistake of refuting this, I implore you to do a little research as to why I might say such a thing, or at the very least, ask a DRK that doesn't TP in full Bale+2, as to avoid further embarrassment.

Now that that's out of the way, there will be no further need to post here. Requesting a moderator to lock to prevent further off-topic posting.