magical or physical?

i play for a while now and while its not too important for me since i dont play tank in savage there is a question which bothers me from time to time. especially when i play DRK now and then.
how can i determine the nature of the dmg? is it physical? magical? can i use magical mitigation for auto attacks? just for skills? only for some bosses? for all bosses? for trashmobs?

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Originally Posted by Asari5

i play for a while now and while its not too important for me since i dont play tank in savage there is a question which bothers me from time to time. especially when i play DRK now and then.
how can i determine the nature of the dmg? is it physical? magical? can i use magical mitigation for auto attacks? just for skills? only for some bosses? for all bosses? for trashmobs?

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Changes from attack to attack, enemy to enemy. Generally you can go off what they attack looks like to tell if its magic or physical but sometimes magic looking attacks are actually physical. You just need to learn whats what, you can't parry magical attacks so if you've seen yourself parry a move its certainly physical.

If you look at the battle log you can see it there, if a boss "readies X attack" then is physical, if it's says "casting X attack" then is magical, it's really boring to do that and look at the big amount of data there for such specific thing but there is no other way to be 100% sure what thing is magical or physical.

Yep, unfortunately SE designs mitigation for a specific damage type but doesn't actually want players to be easily able to determine what type of damage an enemy is doing /shrug

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Originally Posted by Absurdity

Yep, unfortunately SE designs mitigation for a specific damage type but doesn't actually want players to be easily able to determine what type of damage an enemy is doing /shrug

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This is false, and was specifically addressed at a Q and A not too long ago as to why there is no "easy" means to determine damage type, specifically, damage numbers don't reflect magic or physical via different colour float text.
It would add extra time onto development of patches, specifically a lot of back and forth between QA team and battle and UI teams.

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Originally Posted by aodhan_ofinnegain

This is false, and was specifically addressed at a Q and A not too long ago as to why there is no "easy" means to determine damage type, specifically, damage numbers don't reflect magic or physical via different colour float text.
It would add extra time onto development of patches, specifically a lot of back and forth between QA team and battle and UI teams.

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I saw that Q & A as well. Sure, they may not be able to easily add it now, seeing as how "temperamental" the ARR engine is it doesn't just seem plausible but very likely.

But I simply raise the question, why didn't they think of that when they were making ARR? It had two specific types of damage and mitigation for specific types from the get-go.
Someone in the room should've gone "so this ability we're adding reduces intelligence and therefore magic damage? But how will players know when to use it?" or "So these stats we have, block and parry, only work on physical attacks...how do players even know which attacks are physical?"


It doesn't just end there, the game is simply severely lacking in clear information. How much % crit is for example 3000 critical hit? What is the critical damage modifier? How much % damage increase does 3200 Determination give? What's the proc chance on 2760 Direct Hit? It's all information that players have to visit 3rd party sites for when the game itself should already tell them.

The same applies to stat intervals to a lesser extend, you often can't do anything about excess amounts of a substat that doesn't really do anything. Nowhere does the game tell you that a secondary stat actually only provides a benefit when it reaches the next interval.

Let's take Tenacity as an example. Does the game ever tell you that if you have 2063 Tenacity (which translates to 5.1% passive mitigation) then every single point in Tenacity above this is completely useless until you reach the next interval, which is 2096 (5.2%)? So any amount of Tenacity between 2063 and 2096 is completely wasted because it does not actually increase anything, I highly doubt most players even know this is a thing.

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Originally Posted by Absurdity

I saw that Q & A as well. Sure, they may not be able to easily add it now, seeing as how "temperamental" the ARR engine is it doesn't just seem plausible but very likely.

But I simply raise the question, why didn't they think of that when they were making ARR? It had two specific types of damage and mitigation for specific types from the get-go.
Someone in the room should've gone "so this ability we're adding reduces intelligence and therefore magic damage? But how will players know when to use it?" or "So these stats we have, block and parry, only work on physical attacks...how do players even know which attacks are physical?"


It doesn't just end there, the game is simply severely lacking in clear information. How much % crit is for example 3000 critical hit? What is the critical damage modifier? How much % damage increase does 3200 Determination give? What's the proc chance on 2760 Direct Hit? It's all information that players have to visit 3rd party sites for when the game itself should already tell them.

The same applies to stat intervals to a lesser extend, you often can't do anything about excess amounts of a substat that doesn't really do anything. Nowhere does the game tell you that a secondary stat actually only provides a benefit when it reaches the next interval.

Let's take Tenacity as an example. Does the game ever tell you that if you have 2063 Tenacity (which translates to 5.1% passive mitigation) then every single point in Tenacity above this is completely useless until you reach the next interval, which is 2096 (5.2%)? So any amount of Tenacity between 2063 and 2096 is completely wasted because it does not actually increase anything, I highly doubt most players even know this is a thing.

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I mean it was more than likely an oversight among the absolute s**t storm Tanaka left them. It's an easily forgettable addition, when you look at everything they manage to overhaul on a larger scale, but it's not even a matter of can't of restriction, but they don't want to, out of preventing delays to patch releases due to last minute changes. IIrc, an example was given in the Q&A also.

While yes they could spend more resources adding a stats table display, but as you have pointed out we do have resources you can check for yourself, like balance discord or akhmorning website for the stat tables in mere seconds. Could they add it? sure, do they need to? not really when we already have the means to check ourselves.

wasn't there a type of damage that was neither physical or magical in midas?

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Originally Posted by Jukebox12

wasn't there a type of damage that was neither physical or magical in midas?

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There is, sometimes referred to as darkness damage, essentially hp %age based damage, or damage that is set for an exact amount every time. Eden Prime is a recent example of the former, Ede's Gravity, in savage dealing 75% of party members HP. The only means to mitigate is HP shields such as Adloquim, Nocturnal shields, Divine Veil, Shake it Off, TBN, and Divine Benison.

Following this, I believe J-Kick is darkness damage in TEA, which happens after Limit Cut transitioning into Phase 2 iirc, so may be the case for Midas' version of Brute Justice.

Other example is WoL, where your HP is dropped to 1HP, this usually is followed by a requirement for healers to heal everyone to full hp.

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Originally Posted by aodhan_ofinnegain

There is, sometimes referred to as darkness damage, essentially hp %age based damage, or damage that is set for an exact amount every time. Eden Prime is a recent example of the former, Ede's Gravity, in savage dealing 75% of party members HP. The only means to mitigate is HP shields such as Adloquim, Nocturnal shields, Divine Veil, Shake it Off, TBN, and Divine Benison.

Following this, I believe J-Kick is darkness damage in TEA, which happens after Limit Cut transitioning into Phase 2 iirc, so may be the case for Midas' version of Brute Justice.

Other example is WoL, where your HP is dropped to 1HP, this usually is followed by a requirement for healers to heal everyone to full hp.

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you forgot the old storm's path

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Originally Posted by Jukebox12

you forgot the old storm's path

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Hmm? If you're referring to the 10% damage reduction from maintaining the debuff on the boss, no like Reprisal, Feint, and Addle, they do not affect %age based damage or damage that hits for an exact amount every time.

Aside from combing through the battle log, a tool you're not supposed to use will also tell you whether damage is magical or physical. Also if a third party tool can determine if something is magic or not I feel like it wouldn't be hard for there to be some sort of condition they could set to determine whether to display the damage as purple or not.

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Originally Posted by DaulBan

Aside from combing through the battle log, a tool you're not supposed to use will also tell you whether damage is magical or physical. Also if a third party tool can determine if something is magic or not I feel like it wouldn't be hard for there to be some sort of condition they could set to determine whether to display the damage as purple or not.

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there is a way to tell it's dark mind

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Originally Posted by Jukebox12

there is a way to tell it's dark mind

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If my only way to tell if the stovetop is still hot is by putting my hand on the element it's a bad way to test for damage.

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Originally Posted by DaulBan

Aside from combing through the battle log, a tool you're not supposed to use will also tell you whether damage is magical or physical. Also if a third party tool can determine if something is magic or not I feel like it wouldn't be hard for there to be some sort of condition they could set to determine whether to display the damage as purple or not.

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That tool doesn't actually figure out if the damage is magical or physical. It declares whether damage was magic, physical or shadow based on action name. That is determined by educated guesses from the tool's programmers after analyzing average damage inflicted while various buffs and debuffs are up and if certain things proc. All damage information is stored and handled server side and the only info sent to the clients are action name, amount inflicted/healed, if it was a crit, direct hit, direct crit, parried or blocked and what status effects in applied.

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Originally Posted by Ultimatecalibur

That tool doesn't actually figure out if the damage is magical or physical.

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It's not like I can elaborate on what I'm saying here without getting into trouble, but my understanding is that, even if that is how the tool determines it, the information containing the damage type is indeed transferred to the client. The person who wrote that might have been wrong, but they were part of a group of people not working on ACT but a different project where network packets were being looked at. But I could be misinterpreting what they said. :p

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Originally Posted by DaulBan

If my only way to tell if the stovetop is still hot is by putting my hand on the element it's a bad way to test for damage.

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ok wtf did you comment on a good idea to use magical damage reduction abilities to see if a raid wide aoe or tank buster is magical or physical. the fact you respond with this makes me think you didn't thought of this

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Originally Posted by Jukebox12

ok wtf did you comment on a good idea to use magical damage reduction abilities to see if a raid wide aoe or tank buster is magical or physical. the fact you respond with this makes me think you didn't thought of this

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They're not wrong, having to use Dark Mind on a bunch of different mechanics and then comparing the damage taken between Dark Mind and no Dark Mind to see if it's magical damage is not exactly great design.

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Originally Posted by Absurdity

They're not wrong, having to use Dark Mind on a bunch of different mechanics and then comparing the damage taken between Dark Mind and no Dark Mind to see if it's magical damage is not exactly great design.

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so you want something that tells you what the damage is from the start. yeah that is never going to happen in this game

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Originally Posted by Jukebox12

so you want something that tells you what the damage is from the start. yeah that is never going to happen in this game

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I don't need an annotated list mailed to me three business days before the raid drops, I'd just like it if the numbers were purple or something if it's magic. I'm not saying they will, or want to, they just choose not to. I just find it weird that the dev team that removed single-button DoTs because people didn't like pressing a button every thirty seconds still wants us to trial and error whether or not an instance of damage is magic or not. Or just cheat :cool:

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Originally Posted by DaulBan

I don't need an annotated list mailed to me three business days before the raid drops, I'd just like it if the numbers were purple or something if it's magic. I'm not saying they will, or want to, they just choose not to. I just find it weird that the dev team that removed single-button DoTs because people didn't like pressing a button every thirty seconds still wants us to trial and error whether or not an instance of damage is magic or not. Or just cheat :cool:

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I mean if you rather patch releases delayed a week or so for the back and forth between QA, UI and Combat teams due to last minute changes, because you're too lazy to check the battle log for casting = magical or readies = physical who are we to argue amirite.

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Originally Posted by aodhan_ofinnegain

I mean if you rather patch releases delayed a week or so for the back and forth between QA, UI and Combat teams due to last minute changes, because you're too lazy to check the battle log for casting = magical or readies = physical who are we to argue amirite.

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I'm trying to think of a simple way of explaining this but I'm drawing a blank. Essentially either you're half-right in that the information in the combat log is correct, and there's some confusion on the server side about the damage being one type or another, or you're half-right in that the information is right but there's no problem using the information in our client to change the color name.

What I mean is this: If the combat and QA team cannot reliably decide on a damage type until right before deploying the update, then we might get the wrong information. When you get a packet from the server with an action then your client reads from a list what the action is. This includes damage type. In the first scenario, this table is wrong because the UI team can't use this table to just... check a variable in one of at least three columns? (check name versus a list, the action category, the, aspect, what have you) If they can't reliably use the information on the client to determine what damage type it is, then the client's information is indeed wrong, and looking at the combat log is useless. If the log contains the wrong information (because they're using something to display the 'readying' or 'casting' and it isn't writing it each and every time because that's the same problem lmao) then you can't use it to check damage type.

If the information in the log is correct, then the table is right, and any of those metrics could be used to determine the damage is magical. And if it is, it should be as simple as using that correct data to change the color of the information on the screen (if attack.casttype = 2) or whatever. I don't know what their UI code looks like, but if they can make a number green or purple they can do it for magic too. And if this information is correct, that means that the QA and Combat teams indeed agreed and pushed something to the clients that's correct, in which case the UI team can use it. The UI team doesn't need to change it every time the combat team changes something, they just need the info in their table to be right... which goes back to the previous paragraph.

What I'm saying is, I think that if they wanted to do this they probably could, given that as you pointed out there's a contradiction here. They probably either don't care or it really is the first point in which case it's the worst of all worlds.

The funniest thing is I know of a third party tool that does exactly what OP is asking: recolors the number you based on whether the damage is magic or physical, based on reading the log as it's printed. I've seen my friend use it and it's neato as all get out, you can even customize the colors to your preference.

Mods do what SE don't :shrug:

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Originally Posted by DaulBan

I'm trying to think of a simple way of explaining this but I'm drawing a blank. Essentially either you're half-right in that the information in the combat log is correct, and there's some confusion on the server side about the damage being one type or another, or you're half-right in that the information is right but there's no problem using the information in our client to change the color name.

What I mean is this: If the combat and QA team cannot reliably decide on a damage type until right before deploying the update, then we might get the wrong information.

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Think you're failing to comprehend what is said, there is no confusion on what type of damage is which as far as server side or otherwise, it just means combat devs don't need to go through two other departments if they, the Combat team decide they need to change the type of damage of a particular attack(s) for whatever reason just before a patch release. The only "confusion" is on the player, to check back logs afterwards to see if an attack is physical or magical or otherwise. For the most part, most attacks not all, are braindead obvious as to whether they are magical or physical. It can be a safe assumption every raidwide AoE in current content is magical, with the exception of darkness damage in E1 with Eden's Gravity, and J- Kick in TEA, and the birds in E7 are physical, but let's face it ofc getting smacked in the face by a bird is gonna be physical.

If you actually bother to read the LL Q&A with Yoshida in regards the UI changing colour depending on physical or magical, you would probably answer some of your own questions.
Link to Digest including Q&A, 4th Question: https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/threads/427354
Basically if it was as simple as you have made it out to be I'm sure the devs would have done it already and Yoshida would have given the go ahead but the fact that he hasn't and given his reasoning then you're pretty much wasting your breath trying to argue the point. Also worth noting, once a no has been given it has never been reversed on previous matters acknowledged by Yoshida.

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Originally Posted by aodhan_ofinnegain

snip

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I think yoship wasn't entirely honest or accurate. That's it. I have faith the team that implemented mahjong in a seven year old MMORPG can figure out how to change the hue of some text based on incoming damage. I think that if they did that it'd be neat. I even think it wouldn't necessarily be that hard. I think that in a game that makes a specific distinction between magic and physical damage it probably isn't a bad idea. But man, if me saying that puts a downer on your day, I'm sorry.

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Originally Posted by DaulBan

I think yoship wasn't entirely honest or accurate. That's it. I have faith the team that implemented mahjong in a seven year old MMORPG can figure out how to change the hue of some text based on incoming damage. I think that if they did that it'd be neat. I even think it wouldn't necessarily be that hard. I think that in a game that makes a specific distinction between magic and physical damage it probably isn't a bad idea. But man, if me saying that puts a downer on your day, I'm sorry.

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I mean if you're straight dismissing the statement out of hand from Yoshida himself along side the head of the UI team during the Q&A just because because you think you know better, then you're a waste of time to respond to any further, enjoy living in you're delusions where facts are pointless if contrary to your beliefs, have a nice day.