Virus and improved virus

I hesitate to ask this here...but why not?

So there are two forms of virus: one that can be improved via arcanist traits and the other that can be cross classed. One of these works on four stats and the other only on two.

As a BLM main, I have tested quite a few of my abilities in certain situations to determine if they are magic-based or physical-based. Manawall tells you if it's physically based and manaward tells you if it's magic-based.

With the 'nerf' to virus via antibody and no distinction between either, this has been bugging me for quite a while:

Which mob attacks are modified by strength? By dexterity? By intelligent? By mind?

Let's use a simple case: Titan HM.

Landslide, for instance, is considered physical damage. Mountain buster is also considered physical damage. Both are negated by manawall.

Does this mean that landslide and mountain buster are modified by the strength attribute of the mob?

Next, bombs and tumult are magic-based damage. Manaward negates a fraction of both.

What, then, is the primary stat of the mob (Titan, in this case) that modifies his tumults? Is it intelligence? Is it still strength?

I ask this because it is a common thing to throw up virus on Titan before he uses his MB > tumult combo. However, if, say, a BLM were to throw up virus over a SCH or SMN's virus, this would only work on the MB damage (assuming it is STR-based) and do nothing for the tumult damage, correct?

Or is my understanding of this nerf different. If a non-SMN/SCH uses virus and the mob receives the STR and DEX down debuff, will he also receive an INT and MND debuff if a SCH or SMN casts it after? Or will it have no effect at all?

On things like Twintania where you are worried about warding against death sentence damage, it really isn't an issue because it appears that STR modifies death sentence. However, on things like aetheric profusion, it would appear people prefer the SCH or SMN to virus Twintania for a perceived decrease in damage due to aetheric profusion possibly being modified by INT.

If it turns out that it's more efficient to let SMNs and SCHs handle virus because of four stat debuffs, I would like to know. While I do main BLM, SCH is my secondary so it'd be beneficial to know whether to tell others to let myself/the SMN handle virus or not.

From what I can tell, there are three types of damage that's affected by BLM's Manaward/Manawall. One is physical, which is blocked by Manawall, as you've mentioned. A second is magical, blocked by Manaward. And there's a 3rd type that isn't blocked by anything (Earthen Fury, Hellfire, Aerial Blast). However, you seem to think that the damage type is linked to whether the damage is physical or magical, but I would disagree.

Most physical attacks can be blocked/parried/dodged, but magical attacks cannot be, or maybe it's a property of the attack. So, you know that Twintania's fireball is a magical attack based on it being fully absorbed by Manaward, but I know you can definitely parry it. So it doesn't really make sense that it can be parried as a magical attack. Likewise, in PvP, I can't expect a tank to block or parry Fire I nukes from a BLM. So there might be some other factors in determining if a skill is affected by STR/DEX or INT. I don't believe Manaward/Manawall is a good litmus test.

At least if you're doing Titan Extreme, it's pretty easy to test the early tumult damage, since not much is going on during that phase. Lastly, don't forget that Paladins automatically have a -10% STR debuff.

Few things that need correcting...

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Originally Posted by Celaeris

And there's a 3rd type that isn't blocked by anything (Earthen Fury, Hellfire, Aerial Blast)

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Both hellfire and aerial blast damage is reduced by manaward. I'm surprised you never watched me pop it on both HM and Ex. :P The odd man out is Earthen fury which cannot be reduced by anything that I'm aware of (maybe hallowed).

Manaward can never fully absorb fireball using standard mechanics (4 spread).

Tumult damage is too variable and erratic to be a good test and, as you mentioned, introduces more variables than needed from outside sources. A single-target attack would be more preferable. The ideal test would be something like Garuda Ex on the third aerial blast. Manaward negates the damage, partially, and it's one-hit with no other factors influencing it. The only problem is you'd have to get virus off right before she teleports because of invulnerability on landing.

Can't think of a better way to test this than to use Twin's aetheric. Even that can be extremely variable but at least she is not subjected to any other debuffs prior to using it.

SE was always rather sneaky in XI when it came to WS modifiers and mob ability modifiers until BLU was released.

doushio, Celくん( ﾟдﾟ )

Edit: By the way..as far as fireball is concerned, I think it also might be an outlier. If you cast apocatastasis on the person targeted with fireball, if the resist kicks in on apoc, the rest of the party takes reduced damage overall meaning it is a front loaded attack. It would not surprise me if you were able to parry fireball splash damage.

Whether it can be parried or not is actually out of the scope of this thread.

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Defense determines the amount of damage you take from physical attacks. Higher defense means less damage taken from physical attacks.

Parry is the probability of blocking or parrying an enemy attack. Higher parry corresponds to higher rate of block and parry.

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There is no distinction between what type of attack that can be parried: be it magical or physical. I would view parry as an exception. It makes perfect sense in this context. Able to parry physical and very selective magic-based attacks.

It's very vague isn't it =(

I've noticed when habitually virusing Twin's atheric that it didn't feel like it made a difference (although it at least softens that following plummet and the occasional insta death sentence). On sch it's massively noticeable. I also virus for MB/Tumult on Titan HM regardless of my job, and unlike Twin, it feels like it makes a difference for both either way although it could also be a placebo effect and I can't say I've got any parser data to back that up, it's a shame we don't still sell runs as that'd be a great environment to test this.

Yes I feel the same way: when I virus on Titan's MB > tumult combo on BLM, I feel that I take way less damage from the tumult as well.

Then again, this could be because the healers are freed up from having to use emergency measures on tanks so that the mitigation-based healers can lay down all the possible mitigation (like soil and succor).

If I might ask: where would be the perfect place that you'd test this? I guess ideally you could get a bunch of people together and just do Titan Ex's phase 1 over and over again like Cel suggested. You'd need a decent sample size, though.

I think if it's elemental, it's blocked by manawall. So while landslide is physical, it's also elemental so manaward blocks it. idk

Manawall strictly blocks 2 physical attacks...

http://ffxiv.gamerescape.com/wiki/Manawall

Manaward does not block landslide.