Materia Question

This is probably a pretty noob question, but this is my first time getting to end game in ffxiv. I play AST/SCH (soon to add WHM as well) ilvl 220 (yay for shared gear!). Now that I'm getting some pieces of gear that I will be keeping longer than a couple of weeks I'm willing to spend the money to meld materia. I just assumed the best thing to meld would be Mind, come to find out when I went to meld it that all of my gear is capped on Mind, didn't realize this was possible. What should I be melding instead? Also, as an unrelated question, is there an ilvl recommended for beginning to run Midas Savage? I believe I read that it doesn't have an ilvl requirement to enter, but what is realistically necessary to be successful?

Thanks guys!

SCH/Nocturnal AST will want accuracy if doing midas savage. Their roll in raid groups is dps+heals so you always want to get to accuracy cap. Crit is also the other main stat these two meld. Spellspeed is useless on SCH, and Det has been nerfed making it not that worthwhile. Neither of these two really need piety melds at all, as in the offhealer slot these two rarely have major mana issues.

WHM/Diurnal AST, well this kind of come down more to personal preference. Piety if you want a big saftey blanket in your mp pool. Spellspeed is popular, letting you cast faster and powering up your HoTs slightly. Det is all round + to healing. Crit is devisive for the main healer, some swear by it, some swear at people who have melded it for WHM especially.

This sounds like I'm going to have to actually make decisions on what class I'm playing lol. I don't have a static just yet so I pop in and out of Diurnal/Nocturnal, switch to my SCH, just kind of whatever is needed or whatever I feel like at the moment. I've been a bit of a chameleon healer through all the normal mode stuff.

Darkmoon as much as i love you a lot ! (I mean hello sexy hyur !)
I will disagree a bit !

Accuracy if you want but not a force stat, i mean it is frustrating to miss but our DPS is secondary
Crit is a go to since it boost shield.
And the hell is this holy nerf on deter, there is no such thing (except on auto attack but it's not the 80 dmg we do that will change a lot)
The deter did not change for skill.

Piety is good for a whm because they are mana burner, but running out of MP as diurnal AST ? Never XD
Spellspeed is good on whm but again on diurnal it's less and less powerful (except HoT)
I agree for deter and crit
Deter might be the best for a constant high heal, while crit help sometime to save up mana

...

While I choose not to take the accuracy path
It's a legit way
Because wiping at 1% because you missed some spell could be frustrating (and i did)

If you're looking for "largest contribution to party dynamic" Accuracy Materia wins hands down in terms of melds regardless of the job you're playing. Being able to increase your hit rate is a substantial gain on your DPS and thus increases one's marketability immensely even though DPS isn't suppose to be under the healer umbrella. If you're looking at healer DPS primarily from a raid perspective, you're pretty much going to need to meld every single slot you get with Accuracy with some concessions made to overmelds in i220 crafted (if you went that route). You're goal for this raid tier is 605 Accuracy to hit A8S cap if you're going to be pushing content that hard. Make sure you include food in your final calculation for Accuracy too.

For the less DPS minded and more healing minded, I find it doesn't matter which secondaries you pick as long as it suitable for you and your playstyle. Get enough PIE melded to give yourself a comfortable MP pool then go nuts in any other secondary to desire (I'm personally partial to Crit regardless of the Job). Due note that SCHs tend to favour Crit due to the immense bonus Adlo gets on a Crit. Overall the secondaries won't have an immense impact on your healing. It'll be a bit noticeable, but not "game breaking powerful" noticeable.

To answer the other part of the OP, there is no recommended ilvl listed but it's safe to say that A5S is tuned for i220 and you'll probably want to boost that ilvl by 5 for each tier you travel down (A6S = i225, A7S = i230, A8S = i235). Of course the more ilvl past that, the better, and if you're in a skilled enough group you'll be able to clear the content under these ilvl recommendations.

Thisnis the kind of argument that sometime make me wonder if I shouldn't make a new set of accessories acc oriented...
And belt too...

Ghislain i doooo haaate you ! <3

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Originally Posted by Nekotee

Thisnis the kind of argument that sometime make me wonder if I shouldn't make a new set of accessories acc oriented...
And belt too...

Ghislain i doooo haaate you ! <3

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xD Well, do also take into account that a healer's DPS uptime is also dependent on both (1) the comfort level of their healing partner and (2) which healing strategies and/or responsibilities the two want.

While the common strategy at this time is one healer primarily focus on healing and the other focus on DPS and add back up healing, you can also have the two healers split the DPS and healing responsibilities evenly. If you're running AST + SCH composition, this means SCH applies all their 100% accurate DoTs then take over healing duties for a bit while the AST does the same for their 100% accurate DoTs. This in turn can potentially reduce the amount of accuracy both healers need as they'll be focusing on their more reliable DPS spells (though the AST will probably need some accuracy due to using more Malefic II versus Broil if you're planning to swap DPS <-> Healer roles every 6-8 GCDs using a strategy like this).

Just some food for thought. I still encourage 100% hit rate but there are things groups can try to do to help ease that requirement if they feel its necessary to their success (such as having BRDs use Rain of Death, pop better Accuracy food on healers, etc)

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Originally Posted by Nekotee

Darkmoon as much as i love you a lot ! (I mean hello sexy hyur !)
I will disagree a bit !

Accuracy if you want but not a force stat, i mean it is frustrating to miss but our DPS is secondary
Crit is a go to since it boost shield.
And the hell is this holy nerf on deter, there is no such thing (except on auto attack but it's not the 80 dmg we do that will change a lot)
The deter did not change for skill.

Piety is good for a whm because they are mana burner, but running out of MP as diurnal AST ? Never XD
Spellspeed is good on whm but again on diurnal it's less and less powerful (except HoT)
I agree for deter and crit
Deter might be the best for a constant high heal, while crit help sometime to save up mana

...

While I choose not to take the accuracy path
It's a legit way
Because wiping at 1% because you missed some spell could be frustrating (and i did)

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Strange you should call me sexy hyur whilst i seem to be sporting a picture of Lady Ysayle (brb off to fight ravana one on one then blow up the garleans). (This is going to be the april fools thing isnt it?).

Anyway as for Det i am under the impression that it got nerfed on 2 fronts: direct nerf on auto attacks, and scaling made worse for spells and abilities? Maybe....

As for SCH and accuracy, yep i am dogmatic when it comes to this and raiding. Its accuracy accuracy accuracy. My SCH and N.AST set is currently at A8S accuracy cap. Also i put ACC=CRIT>>>>>>>>>>>>anything else on SCH.

Piety on WHM also scales with assize which make it an attractive stat to go for. But, with Diurnal AST, as main healer in raids, the MP recovery is enough, but it is no where near SCH levels of comfort. You can find yourself lower than you want to be in MP on D.AST in savage whilst learning. A6S can be taxing on the main healers MP pool. Bit this also depends on wether you combine LA with CO to extend it by 5 secs.

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Originally Posted by DarkmoonVael

Strange you should call me sexy hyur whilst i seem to be sporting a picture of Lady Ysayle (brb off to fight ravana one on one then blow up the garleans). (This is going to be the april fools thing isnt it?).

Anyway as for Det i am under the impression that it got nerfed on 2 fronts: direct nerf on auto attacks, and scaling made worse for spells and abilities? Maybe....

As for SCH and accuracy, yep i am dogmatic when it comes to this and raiding. Its accuracy accuracy accuracy. My SCH and N.AST set is currently at A8S accuracy cap. Also i put ACC=CRIT>>>>>>>>>>>>anything else on SCH.

Piety on WHM also scales with assize which make it an attractive stat to go for. But, with Diurnal AST, as main healer in raids, the MP recovery is enough, but it is no where near SCH levels of comfort. You can find yourself lower than you want to be in MP on D.AST in savage whilst learning. A6S can be taxing on the main healers MP pool. Bit this also depends on wether you combine LA with CO to extend it by 5 secs.

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They did nerf DET scaling but to compensate for that they made the Determination T5 have a higher number than if they did the scale from T3 to T4 to T5 based on AAR.

T1 DET = +1
T2 DET = +3
T3 DET = +4
T4 DET = +6
T5 DET = +12 (which matches Crit, Accuracy, SkS, and SpS)

To put that into perspective:

T1 Crit = +2
T2 Crit = +4
T3 Crit = +6
T4 Crit = +9
T5 DET = +12

You can verify this one Ariyala's gear calculator if you're curious :)

P.S.

Need more Crit to crush Garlean battleships faster.

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Originally Posted by Ghishlain

They did nerf DET scaling but to compensate for that they made the Determination T5 have a higher number than if they did the scale from T3 to T4 to T5 based on AAR.

T1 DET = +1
T2 DET = +3
T3 DET = +4
T4 DET = +6
T5 DET = +12 (which matches Crit, Accuracy, SkS, and SpS)

To put that into perspective:

T1 Crit = +2
T2 Crit = +4
T3 Crit = +6
T4 Crit = +9
T5 DET = +12

You can verify this one Ariyala's gear calculator if you're curious :)

P.S.

Need more Crit to crush Garlean battleships faster.

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I get the impression that it means you really need to meld Det V, as any other would really have sub optimal returns :(.

They could have at least fixed the tier I-IV materia to reflect the current usage. Sigh.

I've just been doing Crit and Determination.

I entered Midas Savage yesterday for the first time as SCH. I hear that my accuracy was 97% without any melds, so I've decided to meld crit to everything I can (that isn't capped on crit yet, that means) and then accuracy for every other slot.

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Originally Posted by Taika

I entered Midas Savage yesterday for the first time as SCH. I hear that my accuracy was 97% without any melds, so I've decided to meld crit to everything I can (that isn't capped on crit yet, that means) and then accuracy for every other slot.

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You need around 605 accuracy on midas 4 savage. Even midas 1 savage is around 540. Either you were very lucky or just casting the spells that have no accuracy requirement.

About the deter
It only got nerf on auto attack
But never change for skill
The only thing is that... Due to the 10 more level of HW WE need a lot more determination to make it worth it.

Trying out A5S tonight (finally because my static was adamant about doing sephirot first then midas...)
We will see...

Right now as AST either diurnal or nocturnal i never had issue with my mana and the super powered LA
(With AST or SCH you can do sephirot without mana song XD)

Let's see how it turn out on midas XP
Can't wait !

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Originally Posted by DarkmoonVael

You need around 605 accuracy on midas 4 savage. Even midas 1 savage is around 540. Either you were very lucky or just casting the spells that have no accuracy requirement.

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@Taika - I concur with this comment from DakmoonVael. Since you don't have any accuracy melds in your gear according to your Lodestone, I imagine your main source of DPS was primarily from DoTs, where 3/5 of them can't miss (assuming you CC'd Aero).

Remember, as a SCH or AST, when checking for accuracy you can't include DoTs that don't miss (Bio, Bio II, Shadowflare, Combust, Combust II) because they'll skew your results.

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Originally Posted by Ghishlain

@Taika - I concur with this comment from DakmoonVael. Since you don't have any accuracy melds in your gear according to your Lodestone, I imagine your main source of DPS was primarily from DoTs, where 3/5 of them can't miss (assuming you CC'd Aero).

Remember, as a SCH or AST, when checking for accuracy you can't include DoTs that don't miss (Bio, Bio II, Shadowflare, Combust, Combust II) because they'll skew your results.

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I'm well aware of this. I'm also aware that I could reach 100% accuracy if I would do full accuracy melds. However, since my total miss percentage from running A5S for 2,5 hours was that low without any melds, I decided to go for crit melds instead of accuracy, since I think removing that low-ish miss % is not worth all the crit I'd lose from for full accuracy melds instead of as much crit as possible.

I like that view of thing (ok maybe on M4S it will be impossible but nevermind)

I wish I could overmeld piety on 4th and 5th slot...
No one consider this stat as a primary...
It's our secondary stat...

Unlock it SE purrrlease ! *miqote eyes*

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Originally Posted by Taika

I'm well aware of this. I'm also aware that I could reach 100% accuracy if I would do full accuracy melds. However, since my total miss percentage from running A5S for 2,5 hours was that low without any melds, I decided to go for crit melds instead of accuracy, since I think removing that low-ish miss % is not worth all the crit I'd lose from for full accuracy melds instead of as much crit as possible.

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I only bring it up because I'm not sure if the person who's parsing for you understands the nuances of SCH DPS. If s/he is telling you "you have 97% accuracy" but only checking the All Attack Rows, that's obviously going to skew your results. There are differing levels of player knowledge and the person who's giving you this information may not be giving you the correct information and the red flag for me in this instance was the "97% accuracy" statement.

Just to be clear, I can respect your decision and I'm not arguing against your decision. However, I do feel its very important to base your decision on accurate data. For example, if your Broils are doing 50 DPS worth of damage in a fight but hitting at 33% accuracy that means you're losing an additional 100 DPS on top of that (effectively tripling your Broil DPS). But you wouldn't know this if the person examining you looked the overarching attack hit % without realizing you have 100% accurate DoTs and thus skewing your end result.

Just some food for thought for you.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Nekotee

I like that view of thing (ok maybe on M4S it will be impossible but nevermind)

I wish I could overmeld piety on 4th and 5th slot...
No one consider this stat as a primary...
It's our secondary stat...

Unlock it SE purrrlease ! *miqote eyes*

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I DON'T SEE A MIQO'TE HERE! =p

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Originally Posted by Ghishlain

I only bring it up because I'm not sure if the person who's parsing for you understands the nuances of SCH DPS. If s/he is telling you "you have 97% accuracy" but only checking the All Attack Rows, that's obviously going to skew your results. There are differing levels of player knowledge and the person who's giving you this information may not be giving you the correct information and the red flag for me in this instance was the "97% accuracy" statement.

Just to be clear, I can respect your decision and I'm not arguing against your decision. However, I do feel its very important to base your decision on accurate data. For example, if your Broils are doing 50 DPS worth of damage in a fight but hitting at 33% accuracy that means you're losing an additional 100 DPS on top of that (effectively tripling your Broil DPS). But you wouldn't know this if the person examining you looked the overarching attack hit % without realizing you have 100% accurate DoTs and thus skewing your end result.

Just some food for thought for you.

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I see your point, but on the other hand what counts in an actual fight is your total accuracy, including all spells used in the fight, even those that can't miss. So if I'm using the spells I'd normally use in specific fight, and someone tells me my total accuracy in that fight, that number is valid and the most important number to base my melding decision on. Now if I were to go in A5S and only use Broil, and I would ask someone to parse my accuracy from there, I would get my accuracy % for the spells that can miss in that instance, but since that's not how I would ever play that instance on SCH, the number wouldn't be useful to me.

Speaking about food... Using some high accuracy food may help to reduce the melding... I should look at that if I eventually go for possible accuracy track...

Oh wait until my ugly actualités pic change back to my Cute little deadly Kitty !
(This pic... I can't even... Just whyyyyy ?!)

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Originally Posted by Taika

I see your point, but on the other hand what counts in an actual fight is your total accuracy, including all spells used in the fight, even those that can't miss. So if I'm using the spells I'd normally use in specific fight, and someone tells me my total accuracy in that fight, that number is valid and the most important number to base my melding decision on. Now if I were to go in A5S and only use Broil, and I would ask someone to parse my accuracy from there, I would get my accuracy % for the spells that can miss in that instance, but since that's not how I would ever play that instance on SCH, the number wouldn't be useful to me.

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I disagree partially and I do feel it is important to at least split out the 100% hit spells from the not-100% hit spells so you can at least determine the "important of accuracy" in your mind and then isolate for that contribution to base your final decision on.

Just to expand on my previous example, let's say this is an example parse

SCH total DPS - 600
Broil accounts for 50 DPS @ 33% accuracy

If you meld / eat to accuracy cap, your broil DPS will increase to 150 DPS and your total DPS goes up from 600 to 700 DPS (net 16.67% gain - with some loss due to not having Crit melds anymore).

I don't think there's much more I can add ATM but I do hope you do find the information useful.

I'm just going to point out that the accuracy "measurement" is horribly skewed when DoTs are involved on a certain tool. For example: Casting 3 DoTs and a broil, miss the broil and for some reason you're still at 97% accuracy.

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Originally Posted by Lyrica_Ashtine

I'm just going to point out that the accuracy "measurement" is horribly skewed when DoTs are involved on a certain tool. For example: Casting 3 DoTs and a broil, miss the broil and for some reason you're still at 97% accuracy.

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*Coughs*

Yep, depends on how the player is reading the data. It can measure DoT ticks too so Shadowflare (10 ticks) + Bio (6 ticks) + Bio II (10 ticks) + Broil (1 data point)

Miss Broil, your hit rate in total is 26/27 = 96%

I don't know if other people are doing it, but I've always been a fan of melding Vit into accessories. You can only meld Vit into the guaranteed slot on accessories. I've put Vit Vs on my first slot of my accessories and overmelding accuracy (using crafted 220). I haven't been doing the latest Savage stuff, but back in the day I had vit melds doing T5-8. When stuff went wrong, I'd often still be alive and the other healer (who was the more serious raider) would be dead.

As far as accuracy... just doing freaking ex roulette dungeons, all of my accuracy based attacks were missing between 10-20% of the time with base accuracy. It was super annoying. I imagine Midas Savage ought to be worse.

Vit was almost require in the final coil of bahamut because the attack hit hard back then even under scholar shield...
Now it's not that hard to survive if you got i220 stuff (i'm mostly crafted stuff and I can take most attack without problem as long as i heal XD)

Well after 2 day shitting on A5S... I might want to take one or two accuracy crafted acc -,-
Missing Malefic 2 is painful... Missing 3 in a row is more frustrating than not being able to touch Cid... *grml*

But... The fight is so much fun...
I was one of thre only one that read the strat...
And laught my Ass off seeing my team eating spikey bomb and gob-hook...
I'm not a sadist, i'm a healer. That's worse !