Yes I know cycling through different tier IV and III spells can help you conserve mp, but my post was not about that. I just took only Ice and Thunder IV as an example that if you casted each of those spells 5 times at level 99 with the new MP cost adjustment, how much MP we are using?

Which my concern is Tier IV spells are not the highest Tier spells in game yet the cost of these spells are being adjusted to use more MP than now in the future update..
I used Tier IV because you used Tier IV. For MP efficiency, Tier V is very close to Tier IV. With a high-end gear set, damage per MP looks like:

Stone IV: 26.2
Stone V: 26.5

Thunder IV: 14.8
Thunder V: 14.0

Your issue of how much damage is done with a given MP pool will look pretty much the same whether you use T4 or T5 nukes. The real efficiency difference, though, is choosing Thunder/Ice vs Stone/Water, which was part of the entire point of these changes to magic damage -- making it so that there's a -reason- to use any given element of nuke.

Dealing more damage to a monster with a spell in a party situation will only give you more enmity, which could put the entire party at risk right? therefore BLM and other nukers will have absolutely no choice but to use lower tier spells regardless right?
Question 1: Yes. Question 2: No. There are lots of variables which affect whether the blm will pull hate, so there is no absolute answer, there. Personally, I'd use lower tier spells for tactical reasons -- primarily MP efficiency, but also to conserve MP while building up higher tiers of Cumulative Damage effects so that I can use higher damage nukes with the higher cumulative bonus.

But when you are soloing, and you need to kill a monster fast, and Tier 4 spell is not exactly the best spell we have but one of the higher decent spells we have that we use on a daily basis gets an mp raise. Whether you deal 1k or 10k damage, it doesnt change the fact that you still have to sit the same amount of time to recover mp.
You're conflating two different arguments, there. It's difficult to respond to because there's no logical connection between the two points. The time you have to rest is dependent only on the MP spent, not the damage done, yes. However if you deal 1k or 10k damage, presumably there must also be a difference in the amount of MP spent. Therefore your conclusion has no relation to the antecedant.

You're also indicating a vast gulf in difference in damage done vs MP spent, which does not appear to be the case at all. Between tiers 4 and 5, there is almost no difference. Between Thunder and Stone, there's generally a 2:1 difference, not a 10:1 difference.

But when you are playing in Adoulin, we dont have time to be casting these lower tier spells on monsters when dealing with something that can kill you in 3-4 hits.....
Only applicable when soloing.



As far as damage output over time and MP recovery, we can look at that a bit more carefully.

For melee, you generally have 4 tiers of damage output (this is using standard Delve weapons, and in the ideal environment, not counting time between mobs): 250 DPS when unbuffed, 350 DPS when buffed and supported by a mage, 600 DPS when supported by brd+mage, and 900 DPS when supported by multiple brds (or Daur brd), cor and mage. Those are -very- rough numbers, and vary a great deal depending on target, gear, etc.

Using my spreadsheet, a blm with top-end gear could cycle through all the T5 spells (to avoid recast, so as to maximize DPS) for about 700 DPS over the course of 30 seconds (assuming no resists, since I don't have that calculated in yet). That would consume about 1200 MP, or roughly their entire MP pool.

If you continuously cast T2 nukes (ie: pick a single element and cast as often as recast allows), or T2 ga nukes (single mob target), you could do 280-300 DPS. MP efficiency for the Stone line would be 22 for ga2, 33 for T2, or 44 for ga1 (250 DPS). MP cost per cast would be 21 (ga1), 32 (T2), or 83 (ga2) for the Stone line. Reuse time would be 4 seconds for T2 and ga1, and 7 seconds for ga2.

Assuming self-supplied refresh and 6/tick in idle gear refresh, that's a recovery of 12 MP per spell for ga1 and T2, and 21 for ga2. With an MP pool of 1000, that would allow continuous casting for roughly 9 minutes (ga1), 4 minutes (T2), or 1.5 minutes (ga2). Given a 10 minute Convert timer, Stonega spam for ~250 DPS is maintainable nearly perpetually, and corresponds to what an unbuffed melee can manage.

If you can get an outside rdm and brd (GHorn lvl 95) buffing you (ie: party/alliance situation), that's 26/tick refresh. Stone III + Water III (total avg MP cost of 125, reuse cycle time for both spells together is 9.5 seconds) would be 3,442 damage for 360 DPS (melee tier 2). 1.5 seconds is used for casting them, leaving 8 seconds idle time, recovering 69 MP per cast cycle. That could be maintained for a little under 3 minutes (or 6 minutes if you burned Convert).

Note that this also ignores being able to use Mana Wall for your most powerful nuke every 10 minutes, which would raise net DPS a fair bit for scenarios where you're otherwise MP-limited.

Top-end hMP set is somewhere around +80. Base Clear Mind for blm is 30, with +3 per additional tick. Along with the 21/tick outside refreshes, it would take 60 seconds to recover ~1050 MP. That reduces effective long-term DPS by 12-25% (depending on the scenario you're working towards).

Still, at best you're looking at tier 2 DD capability for moderate-length fights (5-8 minute range), or a quick burst of ~700 DPS that you can do for 30 seconds every 100 (MP pool of 1200, which would take 70+ seconds to recover, giving an average DPS of 210).

With a slight variation, if you're well-prepared (and assuming you're the only blm, for the purposes of cumulative damage effect), you can do something like:

Stoneja (gain cumulative effect 1)
Stone III
Stone II
Stonega
Stonega II
Stone III
Stone II
Stonega
Stonega II
@ 30 seconds:
Stoneja (gain cumulative effect 2)
Stone V
Quake II
Stone IV
Stonega III

Total damage: 33,412.3
Total time: ~48 seconds
MP spent: 1200, 200 of which is assumed recovered from refresh sources
DPS: 696 (average with recovery time: 310)

This can also be continued using Convert, along with the AF3+2 pants enhancement on Cumulative Effect durations, allowing a third tier of CE bonus and another entire MP pool. An additional blm further increases both of their damage through additional cumulative damage tiers. Allowing for the outside refreshes, total damage output can be quite good.


The main problem is that you can't maintain it for very long. You need 6 DDs all putting out 450 DPS over 8 minutes to kill Tojil. Two blms could conceivably keep pace with them, but only for a minute or two. As you say, if 40%-60% of your time is spent resting, you're not very effective as a DD.


Further, Cor buffs are horribly anemic for nukers. Wizard's Roll, the equivalent of melees' Chaos Roll, maxes out at 16 MAB with a blm in party, which is maybe 8% damage. Chaos Roll maxes out at +40% attack with a drk in party, which is +32% damage if also using Berserk (and not capping attack).

An 11 cor roll should give far more than could be gained with a single piece of gear. Chaos Roll gives 31% attack, which no piece of gear can even come close to comparing to. Wizard's Roll gives 12 MAB, which is beaten by numerous pieces of gear. Same with Warlock's Roll, and probably Scholar's Roll. The Geo buffs and debuffs for magic accuracy/evasion are massive. Cor mage rolls should be adjusted to be comparable.

+50 MAB and +50% Conserve MP would still only be a 15%-20% increase in damage, with a bit more viability for long-term sustainability.

I'd also suggest a -2 seconds per tier of Clear Mind applied to the time until the first healing tick hits. Having to wait 20 seconds for the first healing tick is just obnoxious.